Rudolf Otto's Das Heilige (The Idea of Holy; more appropriately The Holy2) is an epoch making study in the field of religion. The real significance and contribution of this volume can be understood and appreciated in the context of theological and philosophical tendencies and controversies prevelant in the nineteenth century, but still, it provides many profound insights into the nature of the religious experience which are as relevant to our times as they were in the begining of the century.3 Instead of focusing on the ideas of God and religion, the author attempts to analyse the structure of the religious experience,4 which is central to the understanding of religion. All other issues are inextricably entangled with this central issue.
The area where this analysis is made is primarily Christianity, and the Protestant, Lutheran Pietistic background of the author, which is evident from most of the quotations and categories used in the analysis and the substantial portion of the book devoted to it, however, the analysis promises to be universally applicable.
Such a claim is not altogether unjustified, for the author with his two-fold training as a systematic theologian and as a historian of religion was fully equipped to make such an analysis. Although the analysis is made primarily in terms of the Christian experience, yet it is in the context of Indian religions in particular and all other religions in general.5 It is only because of its claim to be universally applicable that we would attempt to relate briefly this analysis to the Sikh experience of encounter with the Divine ('numen').
Also mention may be made of the descriptive method of Otto. In our times, Otto is regarded as one of the most successful phenomenologists of religion.6 Otto himself writes:
Let us consider the deepest and most fundamental elememt in all strong and sincerely felt religious emotion. Faith unto salvation, trust, love - all these are there. But over and above there is an element which may also on occassion, quite apart from them profoundly affect us and occupy the mind with bewildering strength.
Let us follow it up with every effort of sympathy and imaginative intuition wherever it is to be found, in the lives of those around us, in sudden, strong ebullitions of personal piety and the frames of mind such ebullitions evince, in the fixed and ordered solemnities of rites and liturgies, and again in the atmosphere that clings to old religious monuments and buildings, to temples and to churches.7
In his attempt to describe the structure of the 'Holy' he very efficiently has employed some of the techniques of the phenomenological method.8 But it is also true that Otto means different things to different people, in different branches of learning. He was undoubtedly the most leading protestant theologian for the first three decades of our century. Also he was a great historian and philosopher of religion.
The psychologists in the field of religion place great reliance on his analysis of the religious feelings. In addition to the above, every scholar who has attempted to write anything about his scholarly contribution has also taken into consideration the factor of his unique personality. Joachim Wach has called him a great mystic and a saint. In his words:
neither before nor since my meeting Otto have I known a person who impressed one more genuinely as a true mystic.9
We have noted above that 'The Idea of the Holy', is primarily devoted to the analysis and understanding of the religious experience. To Otto, the clue to the essential nature of the religious experience is not to be found in that which is common with other types of human experiences but in that which is unique in it. Otto states:
It is always in terms of concepts and ideas that the subject is pursued, 'natural' one's, moreover, such as have a place in the general sphere of man's ideational life, and are not specifically 'religious'. And then with a resolution and cunning which one can hardly help admiring, men shut their eyes to that which is quite unique in the religious experience, even in its most primitive manifestations. But it is rather a matter for astonishment than for admiration! For if there be any single domain of human experience that presents us with something unmistakably specific and unique, peculiar to itself, assuredly it is that of the religious life.10
Passing over the rational side he concentrates on the unique non-rational side of the religious experience which need not necessarily be expressed in terms of ideas and concepts. He argues:
In this book I have ventured to write of that which may be called 'non-rational' or 'supra-rational' in the depths of the divine nature.....This book, recognizing the profound import of the non-rational metaphysics, makes a serious attempt to analyse all the more exactly the 'feeling' which remains where the concept fails and to introduce a terminology which is not any the more loose or indeterminate for having necessarily to make use of symbols.11
His enquiry is set against the overstressing of the rationalistic and moralistic elements in the religious experience. To the whole realm of meanings enshrined in the religious experience, Otto gives the name 'holy'. The holy for him is a unique category of interpretation and valuation in the sphere of religion.12 Otto says:
the holy has come to be employed in an entirely derivative sense i.e. 'completely good' as an absolute moral attribute denoting the consummation of moral goodness.13
Otto continues:
this common usage of the term is inaccurate. It is true that all this moral significance is contained in the word 'holy', but it includes in addition - as even we cannot but feel - a clear overplus of meaning, and this is now our task to isolate. Nor is this merely a later or acquired meaning; rather 'holy' or atleast the equivalent word in Latin and Greek, in Semitic and other ancient languages denoted first and foremost 'only' this overplus; and never constituted the whole meaning of the word.14
Otto focuses on this overplus meaning of the word 'holy' which is holy minus its ethical and also minus its rational meaning. To this overplus category of meanings he gives the new name 'numinous', which he coined from the Latin numen (meaning God). He says:
I shall speak, then, of a unique numinous category of value and of a definitely 'numinous' state of mind, which is always found wherever the category is applied. This mental state is perfectly sui generis and irreducible to any other's and therefore, like every absolute primary and elementary datum, while it admits of being discussed, it cannot be strictly defined.15
The numinous always evades conceptual apprehension but it can be evoked and awakened in the mind with the help of analogy and contrast with other known and felt experiences in the region of mind. Ideogram16 and not concept is more helpful in this realm of apprehension. It is in terms of the numinous that Otto attempts to interpret the whole religious phenomenon. Religion for Otto is 'numinal experience'.17
Otto was attracted to focus on this unique numinous feeling by at least two of his predecessors - Schleiermacher for his discovery of sensus numinus on the basis of which he arrived at his definition of religion as 'feeling of absolute dependence,'18 and Fries for his notion of 'ahndung'.19 In Otto's words:
Otto focuses on this overplus meaning of the word 'holy' which is holy minus its ethical and also minus its rational meaning. To this overplus category of meanings he gives the new name 'numinous', which he coined from the Latin numen (meaning God). He says:
Schleiermacher has the credit of isolating a very important element in such an experience. This is the feeling of dependence.20
However, Otto moved far beyond his predecessors in exploring more specifically the non-rational dimension of the holy for which he coined his own term - numinous. Otto begins his discussion by directing attention to that element or moment which is unique in the religious experience. This unique element, Otto maintains, is distinct from the ethical or moral elements.
To be rapt in worship is one thing; to be morally uplifted by the contemplation of a good deed is another..21
Again religious feelings such as 'gratitude, trust, love, reliance, humble submission and dedication' are the weaker forms of the same unique element.22 Otto appreciates Schleiermacher's effort to isolate this unique element in the religious experience in his definition of religion as 'feeling of absolute dependence'; but this too he says 'is no more than a very close analogy'.23 In order to illustrate further the unique character of the religious feeling, Otto cites the example of Abraham in the presence of numen (God):
Behold now I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am dust and ashes.24
And to this unique religious feeling which is explicit in the above quote Otto proposes to calle - creature consciousness or creature feeling.25 Thus Otto replaces Scheleimacher's 'feeling of absolute dependence' by 'creature feeling'. He describes it as follows:
It is the emotion of the creature, submerged and overwhelmed by its own nothingness in contrast to that which is supreme above all creatures.26
Otto as we have already seen has distinguished this feeling from the moral feeling. Here he emphasizes that it is not a 'conceptual' explanation of the matter. He clearly isolates his description of the creature feeling from the moral and rational formulations. He further clarifies that the creature-feeling is not just subjective feeling without any objective reference.
Rather, the creature-feeling is itself a first subjective concomitant and effect of another feeling element, which casts it like a shadow, but which in itself indubitably has immediate and primary reference to an object outside the self.27
To this object outside the self, Otto calls 'numinous'. The numinous thus is not purely subjective; it clearly has an objective reference. Now, if the numinous eludes conceptual analysis how can we discuss and describe it? Otto maintains that:
the nature of the numinous can only be suggested by means of the special way in which it is reflected in the mind in terms of feeling....by adducing feelings akin to them for the purpose of analogy or contrast, and by the use of metaphor and symbolic expression...28
It may be noted here that in his attempt to describe and discuss the incommensurable and inexpressible ineffable numinous, Otto resorts to analogical, metaphorical and symbolic methods of description by focusing on the feelings. To 'the deepest and most fundamental element in all strong and sincerely felt religious emotion' he gives the name 'mysterium tremendum'.29 He describes this element as:
The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrilling vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its 'profane', non-religious mood of everyday experience. It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strangest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy, to transport and to ecstasy.
It has its wide and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering. It has its crude, barbaric antecedents and early manifestations, and again pure and glorious. It may become the hushed, trembling, and speechless humility of the creature - in the presence of - whom or what? In the presence of that which is mystery inexpressible and above all creature.30
Conceptually, this 'mystery' or the 'mysterium' can be understood negatively as something hidden, esoteric, extraordinary, unfamiliar etc. But in the feeling content it reveals something absolutely and intensely positive. To the mysterium or to use the adjective 'mysterius' Otto gives the name "wholly-other" to which the immediate feeling response is that of blank wonder and astonsihment.31 He further explains it,
the truly 'mysterious' object is beyond our apprehension and comprehension, not only because our knowledge has certain irremovable limits, but because in it we come upon something inherently wholly-other, whose kind and character are incommensurable with our own, and before which we therefore recoil in a wonder that strikes us chill and numb.32
The mysterium for Otto represents the form of the numinous experience. The qualitative content of the numinous experience can only be experienced in feelings and it presents itself under two different aspects i.e. tremendum and fascinans.
The 'tremendum' aspect of the 'mysterium' or the wholly-other finds expression in three elements viz. awefulness, overpoweringness ("majestas") and energy or urgency. The element of awefulness has a very close analogy in the emotion of fear. But it is not fear proper in the natural sense of the term. The analogy of 'fear' can be employed only 'to denote a quite specific kind of emotional response wholly distinct from that of being afraid.'33 To illustrate his point Otto quotes Job IX.34; XIII.21
let not his fear terrify me; let not thy dread make me afraid.
He further says:
Here we have a terror fraught with an inward shuddering such as not even the most menacing and overpowering created thing can instil. It has something spectral in it.34
TThe second element of 'overpoweringness' (majestas) has a reference to the feeling of being overwhelmed in the presence of the greatest that renders opposition useless. Otto maintains that:
It is especially in relation to majesty or absolute overpoweringness that the creative consciousness,...comes upon the scene, as a sort of shadow or subjective reflection of it. Thus in contrast to the 'overpowering' of which we are conscious as an object over against the self, there is a feeling of one's own submergence, of being but dust and ashes and nothingness.35
The third element of 'energy' or 'urgency' according to Otto,
is particularly vividly perceptible in the 'wrath', and it everywhere clothes itself in symbolical expressions - vitality, passion, emotional temper, will, force, movement, excitement, activity, impetus.36
The numinous, not only reveals as 'tremendum' but also at the same time as uniquely attractive and fascinating. Otto states:
These two qualities, the daunting and fascination now combine in a strange harmony of contrasts, and the resultant dual character of the numinous consciousness, to which the entire religious development bears witness, at any rate from the level of the 'daemonic dread' onward, is at once the strongest and noteworthy phenomenon in the whole history of religion.38
The above mentioned two polar qualities of daunting and fascination sums up man's encounter with the numen.
From the former comes the sense of the uncanny, of divine wrath and judgement; from the latter, the reassuring and heightening experiences of grace and divine love.39
The harmonious nature of the numinous combining polar moments of awe and attraction has been compared by Otto with the experience of 'sublime' in aesthetic. Otto's contribution to the study of religion consists in isolating the unique element or moment in the religious experience and determining its content and specific characteristics by attending to uniquely religious feelings.
Now, finally we will turn to analyse whether or not Otto's analysis of the numinous can be related to the case of the experience of 'numen' in Sikhism. It has already been noticed that Otto's analysis of religious experience promises to be generic, hence universally applicable. Of all the religions of the world, beyond Christianity, Otto was particularly attracted by Indian religions. More than half of his works are devoted to the study of medieval theistic religions of India. It would not be an unjustified claim if we say that Otto's analysis of religious experience was much indebted to his interest and insight into Indian religions. His categories of analysis of the numinous experience therefore are not foreign to Indian religions and also to Sikhism.
Experience of numen in Sikhism
It may be mentioned here that we cannot take up the whole perspective of the encounter with 'numen' in Sikhism. It would be far beyond the limited scope of our present attempt. The Sikh religious experience is enshrined in the devotional hymns which form the corpus of the sacred Sikh writings. All that we can do here, is to quote a few hymns illustrative of the categories used in the analysis of numinous by Otto. It may also be stated in the begining that in the devotional hymns we cannot expect the categories to be as clearly isolated as they are found in a theoretical discussion.
It may be mentioned here that we cannot take up the whole perspective of the encounter with 'numen' in Sikhism. It would be far beyond the limited scope of our present attempt. The Sikh religious experience is enshrined in the devotional hymns which form the corpus of the sacred Sikh writings. All that we can do here, is to quote a few hymns illustrative of the categories used in the analysis of numinous by Otto. It may also be stated in the begining that in the devotional hymns we cannot expect the categories to be as clearly isolated as they are found in a theoretical discussion.
Wholly Other
Marks and symbols, caste and class,
Or lineage God hath none;
His form and hue, shape and garb
Cannot be described by anyone;
Immovable is His Being.
Self-Luminous, He shines in His splendour;
Limitless is His power.
He is the King of Kings, the lordly Indra
Of countless Indras; the Supreme Sovereign
Of the three worlds of gods, men and demons;
Nay, even the grass blades of the woodland
Say: "He is Infinite, He is Infinite."
O Lord, who can count Thy names?
Thy Names relating Thy deeds I will state,
Through Thy wisdom and grace.40
Creature Feeling
Great is my God, Unknowable, Unreachable, the Primal He,
Immaculate, the Absolute.
Of His State I cannot tell; He of Infinite Glory, my, God,
is Unfathomable and Infinite.
Yea, Govind is Infinite, Unfathomable, Transcendent, Knowing
Himself His Self.
What can one say of these creaturely beings?
Can ever they utter and describe Thee?41
Religious Fear
The Lord's Fear is overpowering and hard to bear
But the mind's instruction is far lighter and lighter weight
in its prattle.
But he, who suffers the weight (of the Lord's Fear) over his head,
On him is the Lord's Grace and he dwells on the (instruction of)
the Guru.
Without (the Lord's) Fear, not one has crossed (the sea of
existence).
(For), with this Fear is decked the Lord's Love.
The fire of fear that is within us burns brighter the more we fear
the Lord,
We feed this Fire with (the Love of) the Word.
Without the Lord's Fear, all that one casts is false;
False is the mould, and false the beating (on the anvil).
The play of intellect leads us to (sensual) pleasures:
Were we a thousand times cleverer, the fire of Fear will
mould us not (to true purpose).
Nanak: the self-willed speak (in vain) like the wind,
And, false is their word, for, it is nothing but sound.42
Fascinans
Great is Thy Glory, for Great is Thy Name.
Great is Thy Glory, for Thy Justice is upon Thy Truth.
Great is Thy Glory, for Eternal is Thy Seat.
Great is Thy Glory, for Thou Knowest our speech.
Great is Thy Glory, for Thou Divinest our inmost thoughts.
Great is Thy Glory, for Thou Givest unasked.
Great is Thy Glory, for Thou are All-in-all.
Nanak: All Thy Doings one cannot tell;
For what is and will be, is all in Thy Will.43
And
Wonderful ("vismad") is Sound, Wonderful is Wisdom.
Wonderful is life, Wonderful its distinctions.
Wonderful is form, Wonderful is colour.
Wonderful are the creatures who wander about naked.
Wonderful is air, Wonderful is water.
Wonderful the fire that works many wonders.
Wonderful is the earth, Wonderful the species,
Wonderful the tastes that lure away life.
Wonderful the Union, Wonderful the Experience.
Wonderful the Praise, Wonderful the Eulogy,
Wonderful the Path, Wonderful the straying-away
Wonderful the Nearness, Wonderful the Yond.
Wonderful the Presence one seeth in the Present.
O wonder-struck am I to see wonder upon wonder.
But it is through Perfect Destiny that one knows its answers.44
Harmony of Contrasts
Hail to Thee O Destroyer of all
Hail to Thee O Creator of all
Hail to Thee O Death of all
Hail to Thee O Sustainer of all.45
And
Salutations to the Unknown Darkness
Salutations to the Light of lights.46
And
Adoration to the Causer of turmoil
Adoration to the Embodiment of Peace.47
Looking at the above quotations it does not need much effort to see that over and above the realm of all other meanings, the numinous meaning is primary here. God is loving and graceful, glorious and wonderful but at the same time fearful and overpowering. These polar qualities have uniquely been synthesized in the nature of the numinous, by calling Him destroyer and creator, Unknown Darkness and Light of lights, Cause of turmoil and Embodiment of peace, etc. In brief we may say that otto's analysis of the numinous can easily be applied to the Sikh case and it can be helpful in understanding the nature and content of religious experience in Sikhism.
REFERENCES & NOTES
1 Rudolf Otto, 'Religion as Numinal Experience' in "Ways of Understanding Religion", by Walter H. Crapps, originally from Rudolf Otto's "Religious Essays" translated from Brian Lunn for Otto's view of sensus numinus.
2 "Otto's purpose is distorted by the title chosen by the English translator, namely "The Idea of the Holy". Otto is not so much interested in the concept of holiness as in the reality of the Holy i.e. of God", Malcolm L. Diamond, "Contemporary Philosophy and Religious Thought: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion."
3 The extraordinary interest aroused all over the world by Rudolf Otto's Das Hilige(The Sacred), published in 1917, still persists. It's success was certainly due to the author's new and original point of view." Ibid
4 Ibid. "Instead of studying ideas of God and religion, Otto undertook to analyse the modalities of the religious experience."
5 "Types of Religious Experience Christian and non-Christian", Joachim Wach.
6 Diamond, Malcolm L., op.cit., Chapter 5.
7 Ibid., p.12
8 "He brought to the interpretations of the religious practices and beliefs of many lands an imaginative sympathy that was receptive without ceasing to be critical", The Idea of the Holy, Translator's preface.
9 Joachim Wach, op.cit., p.211
10 Otto, op.cit., p.4
11 Ibid., foreword, p.XXI
12 Ibid., p.5
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Ibid., p.7
16 An ideogram like a myth is an illustrative and symbolic substitute for concepts. Otto employs the ideogram while speaking of the religious feelings which are incommensurable with other types of human feelings.
17 Rudolf Otto, "Religion as Numinal Experience", op.cit.p.16
18 Schleimacher not only rediscovered the sensus numinus in a vague and general way but he opened for his age a new door to old and forgotten ideas: to divine marvel instead of supernaturalistic miracle, to a new understanding and valuation of biblical history as divine revelation. Ibid., p.24
19 Ahndung: Literally, presentiment or intution. A yearning that yields the feeling of truth, opened up to him the way of dealing with religious phenomena, sensitively and appropriately. These "feelings of truth", Otto sought to schematize in his Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto in Encyclopaedia Britannica.
