Pandits/Wise Men

by

Brian Hatcher

• LAST REVIEWED: 23 August 2017
• LAST MODIFIED: 23 August 2017
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399318-0185

Introduction

Pandit, or more colloquially pundit, is one of those Indic words, like karma or mantra, that have found a home in the English language, in today’s parlance referring to someone who is either praised or mocked for delivering expert opinions on politics or current affairs. In some respects such usage remains true to the Sanskrit term, which is used adjectivally to describe a person who is learned or wise (paṇḍita, most likely derived from prajñā, “wisdom”), or in noun form to refer to a learned man (paṇḍita) or woman (paṇḍitā). And, like the media pundit, the Sanskrit pandit may be the object of either immense respect or mocking derision, in the latter case for being learned at the expense of common sense. However, the major difference between English usage and the Sanskrit term (with its cognate forms in South Asian vernacular languages) is that unlike today’s media pundits, the South Asian pandit represents a constellation of long-standing intellectual and cultural practices around the acquisition, embodiment, and transmission of specialized canons of knowledge. Pandits are especially distinguished by their skills in memorization, textual exegesis, and formal debate. Evidence for the antiquity of the concept can be found in the Upaniṣads (c. 500 BCE), where the term may refer to those who consider themselves wise but lack true mystic knowledge (see the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad). In a generic sense the term is cognate with vidvān, “one who is learned,” or jñānī, “one who knows,” but it often assumes a religious dimension, as in Śaṅkara’s commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, where a pandit is someone who knows the eternal self, or ātman. While a pandit need not be a religious authority, there is a quasi-religious dimension to the habits of body, speech, and mind associated with the acquisition of expertise within particular domains of authoritative knowledge (śāstra), whether in law, philosophy, poetics, astrology, music, or the plastic arts. And while pandits are typically associated with the Hindu tradition, the label and the cultural style are attested among Buddhists, Jains, and Muslims. As such, the category of the pandit directs our attention to modes and methods of intellectual preservation, contestation, and creativity that have shaped South Asian cultural production for over two millennia. Ironically, if it was European colonial rule that brought the word pandit into the English lexicon, it was also during the colonial era that profound challenges arose to the ongoing intellectual viability, cultural salience, and distinctive lifeworld of the pandit.

General Overviews

Filliozat 2000 provides a useful starting point for gaining a synoptic view of the Sanskrit intellectual tradition, while Michaels 2001 offers the most valuable single collection of essays dedicated to the pandit. Of note therein is Aklujkar 2001, an essay that places the term and its usage in historical context. To help understand the figure of the pandit in relation to Brahmanical ideology, consult Ingalls 1959 and van der Veer 1989. Cenkner 1982 is useful for appreciating distinctive elements of pandit identity, while Kane 1942, Hara 1980, and Welbon 1986 help distinguish the pandit from cognate figures such as the guru or ācārya. While more historically focused, O’Hanlon and Minkowski 2008 (cited under Modern Pandits in Context) traces the shaping of pandit identity across frontiers of space and time, and Cort 2001 allows us to consider the process of Sanskrit intellectual formation in the Jain case.

• Aklujkar, Ashok. “Paṇḍita and Pandits in History.” In The Pandit: Traditional Scholarship in India. Edited by Axel Michaels, 17–38. Delhi: Manohar, 2001.

  In short compass the author moves from etymology to an evocation of the traditional strengths of pandit learning (pāṇḍitya), while concluding with reflections on the state of such learning today.

• Cenkner, William. “The Paṇḍit: The Embodiment of Oral Tradition.” Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geisteswissenschaft 34.2 (1982): 118–129.

  DOI: 10.1163/157007382X00250

  Treats the pandit as a quintessential transmitter of Hinduism, linking hermeneutical reflection to explication of central categories such as language, scripture, teacher, and lineage.

• Cort, John E. “The Intellectual Formation of a Jain Monk: A Śvetāmbara Monastic Curriculum.” Journal of Indian Philosophy 29 (2001): 327–349.

  DOI: 10.1023/A:1017582523324

  While it may be customary to associate pandits with the Hindu tradition, this essay details the rigorous and multistage process of training and the varied Sanskrit curricula involved in becoming a Jain pandit.

• Filliozat, Pierre-Sylvan. The Sanskrit Language: An Overview. Varanasi, India: Indica, 2000.

  More than a study of the pandit, this work nonetheless helps situate the pandit within the broad traditions of Sanskrit intellectual life, defining the pandit as someone whose professional identity turns centrally on mastery of knowledge in Sanskrit.

• Hara, Minoru. “Hindu Concepts of Teacher: Sanskrit Guru and Acarya.” In Sanskrit and Indian Studies: Essays in Honour of Daniel H. H. Ingalls. Edited by M. Nagatomi, et al., 93–118. Boston: Reidel, 1980.

  A richly annotated attempt to delineate important distinctions in meaning between two terms commonly used to convey the concept of teacher.

• Ingalls, Daniel. “The Brahmin Tradition.” In Traditional India: Structure and Change. Edited by Milton Singer, 3–9. Philadelphia: American Folklore Society, 1959.

  A somewhat dated but nonetheless accessible essay that manages in short compass to address the dynamics of tradition and innovation in the realm of Brahmanical cultural practice.

• Kane, P. V. “The Meaning of Ācāryāḥ.” Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 23 (1942): 206–213.

  A short, but philologically authoritative, essay by one of the 20th century’s great Sanskrit scholars that takes up the range of meanings attaching to the figure of the “teacher” in classical Sanskrit texts.

• Michaels, Axel, ed. The Pandit: Traditional Scholarship in India. Delhi: Manohar, 2001.

  A recommended entry point that includes a helpful introductory chapter on Sanskrit learning in contemporary India and other essays by noted scholars that explore the role and function of the pandit, modes of intellectual transmission, and patterns of life history and biography.

• van der Veer, Peter. “The Concept of the Ideal Brahman as an Indological Construct.” In Hinduism Reconsidered. Edited by Günther D. Sontheimer and Hermann Kulke, 67–80. Delhi: Manohar, 1989.

  An important essay that shifts the understanding of religious leaders and ritualists away from Orientalist and text-based presuppositions to emphasize the ethnographic analysis of how Brahmins figure within the larger ritual economy of gift exchange.

• Welbon, Guy. “Person, Text, Tradition: India’s Ācārya.” History of Religions 25.4 (1986): 368–377.

  DOI: 10.1086/463055

  Interprets the figure of the ācārya as the embodiment or exemplification of tradition, providing an analytic for grounding questions of conservatism or innovation in the person of the teacher.