A Comparative Study of the Cántico Espiritual and the Rasa Lila with Gloria Maité Hernández

Kristian Petersen:

Welcome to Religious Studies News. I’m your host, Kristian Petersen, and today I’m here with Gloria Maité Hernández, associate professor of languages at West Chester University and co-winner of the 2022 AAR Book Award in Textual Studies. She’s here to speak to us about her book, Savoring God: Comparative Theopoetics, published with Oxford University Press. Congratulations Gloria, and thanks for joining me.

Gloria Maité Hernández:

Thank you, Kristian, and thanks for having me.

Kristian Petersen:

Yeah. This is a really interesting book and terrain that I personally wasn’t familiar with, but it’s very easy to get hooked, both with the content and then the approach of your book. So thank you for writing such an engaging piece. I’m wondering if you can start by just talking a little bit about how this project emerged for you, this kind of comparative reading of Christian and Hindu poetic traditions. What are the first seeds of this project and what are these kind of two main texts you’re looking at?

Gloria Maité Hernández:

That is actually a great question. At the beginning of each chapter of the book, I have a bit of an autobiographical reference. At the beginning of the intro actually, I write about how this project came to be. I come from creative writing. My undergrad is in playwriting, actually. I graduated from playwriting in Cuba at the University of the Arts. And then I came to Brown University actually from Cuba as a writer in residence. And while I was there, I happened to attend a conference, a talk, about the book that then became the Sanskrit part of this, the second part of this comparison, the Bhagavata Purana.

In Cuba as an undergrad and as a playwright, I was very much attracted by the poetry of Saint John of the Cross, who was a mystical poet from Spain. He died in 1591, at the end of the 16th century. And actually because Cuba is communist, although his poetry is some of the most important poetry ever written in the Spanish language, it was not taught at the university in Cuba. But I came across this book, which was sort of a forbidden book, and I just became fascinated by his poetry. And then started reading about his life, his writings, his own way of creative writing. And that happened when I was 17, 18 in Havana. Then I came to the states, as I told you, many years after, almost 10 years after, to Brown University. And I attended this lecture where the theme was the Rasa Lila, which is very small fragment of a large collection of books that come from the other tradition, written in Sanskrit, called the Bhagavata Purana. And the Rasa Lila, or it’s also called Rasa in past times, or the Dance of Divine Love, just reminded me so much of the poetry of John of the Cross that I adored as a teenager. And I was like, “What’s here?” It was a very naive, a very first approach question. What’s here? Why is this poetry so similar in their effect, and in their affection, and in what they are narrating?

And that was the seed of this book. It was also the seed of my entire PhD career. After that, I went to Emory University and I was lucky enough that we had Sanskrit classes and I could attend Sanskrit classes. I could go to India for extended periods of time to study Sanskrit and to read this book, the Rasa Lila, in its original language. And I worked on a comparative project for my PhD dissertation between John of the Cross’s poem, the Spiritual Canticle, and the Rasa Lila, each in their original language. But of course I worked with them in my own English translation. Then that became, as I said, my PhD dissertation, and 10 years after in a very different format, it became this book, Savoring God.

Kristian Petersen:

Yeah. A long life to the project, as often is with these labors of love. The title tells us a lot too, for those maybe that aren’t familiar with some of these terms. So this idea of a “comparative theopoetics,” that method, and those kind of sources might not be familiar to some listeners. And then also, it’s a direct pairing with this idea of “savoring.” Can you talk a little bit about how the term “savoring” was deployed by your authors? And then what this comparative methodology allowed you to learn about each text, that maybe a singular reading wouldn’t have?

Gloria Maité Hernández:

Great question, Kristian. Savoring is the methodological and the dialectical essence of this book, but also of the theologies that Saint John of the Cross promotes, and also that the commentators that I chose of Rasa Lila promote. So I would tell you a bit about the term itself. John of the Cross wrote this poem, the Spiritual Cantico or in Spanish, Cántico Espiritual, and he dedicated it to one of his disciples who was a nun, with whom he worked, in a foundation of a convent. And in the prologue to his commentaries on his own poetry, he said that this book is dedicated to this woman, because she knows how to read poetry, not with the mind, but with the heart. And he says, he uses in Spanish, the term gustar á dios, which I translate like “savoring God.” Gustar, like you may know in Spanish, is to taste with the tongue, but it’s also to light. In this case, he’s talking about the tasting part of the meaning.

So he developed this theology of savoring, which means his reader, his ideal reader, the reader of the poems and the reader of the theological commentaries, knows how to read these verses as a way of savoring, not as a way of scholastic theology, let’s say. But as a way of mystical theology. They know how to read the poetry in a very active way of reading that would lead them to an experience similar to that which the poetry claims, the experience of an encounter with the divine. Now on the Sanskrit side, I chose to work with a commentary. There are many commentaries on the Rasa Lila, but I chose to work with a commentary written by Jiva Goswami, who lived in the16th century, like John of the Cross. They were actually living and writing at the same time. One in the south of Spain, the other one in the north of India. Jiva Goswami is a theologian from the Gaudiya Vaishnava School and the Gaudiya Vaishnavas is a group of theologians that promote the notion of rasa or bhatti rasa. Bhatti means devotion, rasa in Sanskrit and in Hindi too, means taste, the same as gustar. It’s that taste that savors with the tongue, but it also savors with the spirit. And Jiva Goswami writes in his commentary of madhura bhatti rasa, which is sort of literally translated as the sweet taste of love, the sweet taste of devotion, of bhatti. So both of them, as you can see, use that term of tasting. That is a tasting with the spirit, with the emotions. But the best way to exemplify is the tasting, the sensorial tasting, to speak of an engagement with the poetry, with the text, but also with the divine. So through tasting the poetry, the divine that is described in the poetry is also tasted or experienced. They also both choose a way of writing commentaries that is not very frigid, it’s not very scholastic, it’s very open. It sort of respects the abundance of the verses, so that each reader can interpret according to its own experience and make their own, taste, let’s say. Taste the text, the text according to their own nature, their own approaches to the divine.

And they also envision an idea of reader. As I told you, John of the Cross wrote his commentaries for this nun, who was his spiritual disciple. And Jiva Goswami, the commentator of Rasa Lila, speaks of a reader who is in Sanskrit, a sahrodaya, which means, the sa means with, and hridaya means heart. So it’s the reader that reads with the heart, that can savor that Rasa, that juice, that essence of the text, with the heart, not so much with the mind. So that is where Savoring God comes from.

I, in the book, try to approach the act of comparison as a savoring of the poetry as well. And as a savoring of the commentaries, I know that my readers are not religious, or I don’t envision a specific religious reader, but I do envision a reader that now in the 21st century can savor this text as well, according to their own disposition, their own, depending on what they are searching for in the poetry, but can read with their emotions, not so much with their intellect, although they are not mutually exclusive.

Kristian Petersen:

Yeah.

Gloria Maité Hernández:

Now I can talk a bit about the theopoetics part of things.

Kristian Petersen:

Yeah, sure. That’d be great.

Gloria Maité Hernández:

What John of the Cross and Jiva Goswami do in their commentaries, John of the Cross, commenting on his own poetry, Jiva Goswami commenting on the Rasa Lila, is a way of theology that is theopoetic. And this term, theopoetic, is a 20th century term mainly developed in the United States, that comes in the ’50s, ’60s, when after the Nietzschean death of God, theologians were asking, what do we do now that God is dead? And the answer was now, we can make poetry about God. We can still have a perception of the divine that is metaphorically established somehow. So I sort of transposed that term of theopoetics to what these two theologians do in the 16th century. One in Spain, the other in India, they use a theology that goes hand in hand with poetry.

They read these texts that are mystical texts in ways that do not deny that they are texts, that they are written with words, that they have rhyme and artificial poetics, but also don’t deny the experience of the divine that the text explains. And that I call a way of doing theology that’s theopoetic.

Now, the way I do it in the book, as a comparison, is also trying to respect that. It’s like a third layer, this commentary they are writing about the poetry, and I’m writing about the commentaries and about the poetry. So we as scholars are like three times removed from the original claim of the divine that the poetry makes. But I try to lay out a comparison that is also respectful of the theological claims of the poems and of the poetic claims. So in a way, my comparison is both theological and literary.

I also look at language. I look at how language tries to reproduce that experience of the divine, the encounter with the divine that is unsaid, indescribable. And therefore language can never completely get to it, but it keeps pushing and pushing and pushing, trying to somehow model it somehow, mimic that encounter with the divine. And that happens beautifully in this poetry in Spanish and in Sanskrit. And I also look at how, in doing that, the poetry makes theological claims about who the divine is. What is the relationship of the person and the divine? What are the frameworks, what are the frames, what are the limits of this relationship? And what is the nature of the human search for the divine?

Kristian Petersen:

Yeah, there’s so much at the heart of the book in these kind of three central chapters that you’ve started to gesture towards. In one, you’re looking at the dynamics of the rhetoric of absence and presence in relation to God. In the middle chapter, you look at the rhetoric of the kind of sensorial imagery of sights and sounds. And then in the last chapter, it’s this discussion of this encounter between God and humans, particularly through this notion of merging of the divine lover and the beloved. There’s way too much to tackle each of those, but maybe you can give us an idea of why did those three thematic portraits come to the surface for you? And what are some of the flavors, so to speak, that you can let us savor in thinking about it?

Gloria Maité Hernández:

In each of these three main chapters?

Kristian Petersen:

Just as a kind of overview to give us a taste, so to speak.

Gloria Maité Hernández:

Okay. Okay. Well, first it took me a while to decide what were going to be the topics of the main chapters, because the Spiritual Canticle and the Rasa Lila dialogue in many, many, many different ways. So I found myself, and this would be a good comment for those listeners of this interview who are working on their own comparative projects, I found myself writing, and writing, and writing, and then giving shape to the writing afterwards. I didn’t start writing thinking of these three themes. Somehow the three themes revealed themselves after much writing and reading, the poems and the commentaries.

In chapter one, I talked about how in both points, the Sanskrit and the Spanish, talk about the divine absence as the foundation of the search for God. In both points, God is mostly absent, the divine with the lover, in the Sanskrit example, is Krishna, and in the Spanish example is just called el Amado, literally the lover, the male lover.

In most of the points, in most of the texts, that divine is absent. It’s searched for in the absence, not in the presence. But somehow his presence is invoked through words, through the very act of searching. And then when he comes, and in both points, he comes briefly and then leaves again, of course, because he’s the divine lover and is never totally present. When he comes, even when he’s there, his presence is not fully satisfying for the lovers who are looking for him. And in the Spiritual Cantico, the searcher character, the voice of the poem most of the time, is one single female lover. And she looks for her lover, she looks for her lover, her lover comes. And then there is this beautiful birth where they share, they drink together a divine wine in this secret wine cellar. But the reader doesn’t quite know what goes on in there, and the commentary doesn’t really reveal much of what’s going on there, and then he leaves again.

In the Rasa Lila, Krishna comes for one chapter, of the five of the Rasa Lila. He dances with the gopis and then he leaves again. So it’s this dynamic of being there and not being there, but never being totally there that motivates the search of the divine and the construction of the divine in language.

Now, that language that constructs the divine, that builds the divine, or imitates the encounter with him, is always grounded in the senses. The divine is felt like if he was a human lover. He is felt with desire, with passion, in the hands, in the feet, in the face, in the lips, in the tongue, everywhere. And that is chapter three, what it centers on, and I specifically talk about the eye, the vision of the divine, with a sense of seeing and the sense of touching.

But it’s all the senses that are involved in the poem, in both poems. In the last chapter, I talk about those rare moments of encounter that are always in secret. And as I said, they are never totally satisfied, because the beloved who are searching for the divine lover can never a hundred percent unite with him. The total identification, the total, let’s say, if we put it in theological terms, is never non-dualist, it’s always dualist. There is always a person that searches, a person that tastes, a person that enjoys, and the other person, the divine, who is searched for, and tasted, and enjoyed. And they say in Hinduism, in Chaitanya Vaishnavism, if you become sugar, you cannot taste sugar. So the beloveds never, what they decide is the total merging is never possible, because it would stop the very language. If you are totally merging with what you desire, there is nothing for you left to desire and so there is nothing to say. And that dynamic is what I looked at in the last chapter, in the fourth chapter.

Kristian Petersen:

Yeah, that’s really a great preview, I think for listeners to get an of idea of what’s going on in the book. It does, just because of the kind of poetic nature of the original text and then your own interpretive analysis, I feel like people really do have to sit and read through this book carefully. But I think this gives people a good idea what’s at play here. I think you’re also, if I could just ask one more question, you’re certainly positioned, compared to many, to think about this comparative study of religion. And I wonder if you have maybe just any final thoughts for others in the study of religion, about maybe both the rewards and the possible challenges of doing a kind of project like the one you’ve done?

Gloria Maité Hernández:

Yes, I’ve had that question asked before in many instances in conferences, and especially with graduate students that are looking to take on comparative paths. The work of comparison is immense. Because in a way, you are writing two books in one. Or more than two books in one, you’re writing actually three books in one, because you’re writing about one text, about the other text, and then about how they dialogue. And if you want to do it seriously and to do it respectfully, you have to do it right. And that implies doing it in the original language whenever possible, making sure that you know what you’re talking about basically. That you know the context, that you know the religion, that you know the theological part of this discussion.

The reward is immense, at least for me. Doing comparison changes you as a scholar, changes you as a person. We all talk about being interdisciplinary, and multidisciplinary, and dialogue, and this, and that. But in our academic context is very hard because we are limited by getting a job, getting tenure, getting promotion, and so on. And that doesn’t really give you the time. You have to be productive, and this kind of comparison is not really productive. I barely published a couple of articles on this book in 10 years. So it’s not for everybody, and it’s not for every situation. And I don’t think, I’m not sure if I have the resources to do another project like this, honestly, in the 20 or whatever years I still have of academic life. I wish I had, but I’m not sure what I do.

But would I do it again if I could? Yes. Do I regret having done it? No. It took my entire life for many, many years. Yes. That’s my advice. It’s a wonderful work. It takes your life. And you have to be open to it, to how it changes you, to how it makes you really become a different person as a human being, and as a scholar, and as a teacher. It is not for everybody, and it’s not for every situation.

Kristian Petersen:

I think, yeah. That sounds like wise words for people. The fruits of your labor are certainly well rewarded though. Congrats on winning the book award and congrats on writing a wonderful book.

Gloria Maité Hernández:

Thank you, Kristian. Thanks for having me.