Innate Intuition: An Intellectual History of Sahaja-jñāna and Sahaja Samādhi in Brahmoism and Modern Vaiṣṇavism

This article is about <i>sahaja-j&#241;āna</i>, or &#8216;innate intuition&#8217;, as a form of Brahmo and Vaiṣṇava epistemology&#8212;a foundational invention within the development of modern Hinduism. I examine its nineteenth-century intellectual history in Bengal in the works of the Vaiṣṇava theologian Kedarnath Datta Bhaktivinoda (1838&#8722;1914) and trace it back to two of his contemporaries, Keshub Chandra Sen (1838&#8722;1884) and a senior leader of the Brahmo Samaj whom they both knew, Debendranath Tagore (1817&#8722;1905). This relatively understudied yet epistemologically significant term within modern Hinduism has its roots in the pre-colonial <i>sahajiyā</i> movements and bears a conceptual resemblance to the idea of <i>pratibhā</i> in ancient Indian aesthetics, philosophy, and grammar. The idea of sahaja is key among the sahajiyā Vaiṣṇavas, a so-called heterodox group that Western-educated, middle-class Bengali <i>bhadralok</i>s, including Bhaktivinoda, vehemently disassociated themselves from due to the social stigma attached to its sexo-yogic practices. Furthermore, I argue that Bhaktivinoda&#8217;s concept of sahaja-j&#241;āna departs significantly from both sahajiyā and Brahmo versions of sahaja-j&#241;āna and represents an innovation within the ambit of Vaiṣṇava Vedanta, which accepts verbal testimony (<i>śabda</i> or <i>śāstra</i>) as the only valid form of epistemology. In documenting the intellectual history of a significant idea, I contend that the bhadralok Bengali Vaiṣṇava leaders arrogate, desexualize, and Vedānticize a term as a form of experimentation during the construction of modern Hinduism.

Abstract licence: CC BY

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