Search:
Bhakti List Archives

Exegesis and eisegesis

From the Bhakti List Archives

Martin Gansten • April 11, 2002 


>Do "eisegesis" and "exegesis" described in the post below, possibly go
>by "upa-patti" and "an-upa-patti" in sanskRt respectively ?

No, I don't believe they are exactly parallel. Perhaps exegesis would
correspond more closely (though still not exactly) to mukhyartha, and
eisegesis to gaunartha.

>Could someone illustrate "eisegesis" and "exegesis" with examples?

Since I was the one to bring them up, I suppose I had better try... Looking
the words up at www.dictionary.com (an excellent site), we find that
exegesis means 'exposition; explanation; especially, a critical explanation
of a text or portion of Scripture'. The original meaning is 'to lead out
of', i.e., to derive a meaning *from* a text. By contrast, eisegesis means
'to lead into', i.e., 'personal interpretation of a text using your own
ideas'.

>From a sampradayic point of view, not everyone may be comfortable with the
idea that Ramanuja (or whichever acarya one happens to follow) reads his
own ideas into a text. From a critical/academic viewpoint, however, this
happens all the time, in every tradition. Some textual passages are simply
so obscure that one has to bring in ideas from outside to make any sense of
them -- for instance, BhG 4.24 (brahmaarpanam brahma havir...). But
sometimes the meaning is perfectly clear from the context (as in the famous
vakya 'tat tvam asi'), and to resort to secondary meanings of one's own
invention in such a context is less defensible. Some acaryas are more
notorious in this respect than others.

Ramanuja Dasa,
MG





--------------------------------------------------------------
           - SrImate rAmAnujAya namaH -
To Post a message, send it to:   bhakti-list@yahoogroups.com
Group Home: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bhakti-list
Archives: http://ramanuja.org/sv/bhakti/archives/
 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/