The Cosmic Revelation: The Hindu Way to God
By Bede Griffiths
Templegate, 1983. 136 pages.

(A Review published in the National Catholic Reporter in 1983)

BEDE GRIFFITHS has been one of the guiding lights of a Christian ashram in India for about a quarter of a century. He writes not only as a theologically astute scholar, but more important, as one who has personally experienced the revelation of which he speaks.

Griffiths never attempts to formally define what he means by "revelation," but he appears to accept the Hindu assertion that the Vedas have been divinely inspired. He clearly appeals to the Pauline doctrine that God has revealed himself in and through creation from the very beginning and that this revelation continues.

Out of this experience, Griffiths would dispel the facile generalities that academic and religious Westerners tend to make about this oldest of the living, world religions. Hinduism, he insists, is neither essentially polytheistic nor monistic. The appearances of such stem from Western misunderstandings of Hindu thought patterns and language. The core teachings, beginning with the immanence of God (Brahman) in all creation or as discovered within the self (Atman), ultimately lead to the realization of God as transcendent person (Purusha), especially in the later Vedas and the Baghavad Gita.

Griffiths is convinced that Hinduism can lead the West back to a renewal of the cosmic roots of all religion, but he insists that the Western religious experience, most certainly that of Christianity, is needed as a counterbalance to Hinduism's underlying weaknesses -- its lack of historical consciousness and its inability to deal critically with myth (which in turn appear to lead to a certain moral ambiguity).

These weaknesses culminate (from the Christian point of view) in the ambiguity surrounding the Hindu concept of avatar -- which seems to bring it so close to the idea of the incarnation, but somewhat deceptively so. Astute Hindus may reinterpret the 10 avatars of Vishnu (more than 10 in modern Hindu thought), but a fundamental problem remains concerning the reality of these successive epiphanies of the divine. Griffiths correctly traces these ambiguities to the cyclical view of time, an ancient world-view understandable enough in light of primitive science but manifestly inadequate today. These deficiencies and their ramifications raise some questions about the basic thesis of the book. Should not this "revelation" be seen simply as a matter of mystical experience expressed in mythical language - and quite misleadingly at that? For can we really consider a "cosmic revelation" to be authentically revelation (or at least one of any value to us) if the basic structure of the cosmos itself is misconceived in terms of time and space -- the root of the same sort of clash between biblical revelation of God and the classical Greek philosophical ideas about God?

Perhaps a stronger distinction should been made between the experience of cosmic revelation (whatever that might be) and its expression. Mystical experience incorrectly interpreted, as the author warns, can be dangerous.

Griffiths shows how Hinduism has managed to profoundly intuit some of the deepest truths about God and to continue to do so despite the baggage of an outworn cosmology and the erosions of modern technological civilization. This fidelity to the vision of the divine has been India's greatest glory and remains ultimately its greatest challenge, not only to us but to itself.

R.W. Kropf

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