The Case of Hinduism: Ecstasy and Denial

Abstract

In this chapter, we examine a popular and current claim about religious ecstasy—that Eastern religions never valued religious experience and “exalted spiritual states.” We shall focus on India, analyzing the argument that religious experience was never valuable in their history until British colonialists came and imposed Western values on Indian religions. This chapter will briefly go over a history of religious ecstasy in Indian religions, showing that this generalization is false. The areas covered will be Vedic, Upanishadic, yogic, bhakti, tantric, and folk religions, examining their understandings of ecstatic states. The chapter also includes some responses of local informants to the idea that their valuing of religious ecstasy really came from Westerners.