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The Theory of the Name
Prof J P S Uberoi
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The name
is a sign, symbol or symptom of the covenant between God, man
and nature, or between the Creator, creature and creation… In
the mystical view, prophets and saints are regarded as
individuations of the perfect man, the macrocosm, the totality
of the divine names |
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 In
the Jewish tradition, where the question of the theory of the Name
has been discussed, one would begin and end with a threefold
distinction. There is first the tetragrammaton, the personal
name (proper name) of God, YHWH, by which he is known and addressed,
written but not spoken, because it works best in the silence and
secrecy of time. Secondly, there are those few terms (generic
names), e.g. the Creator, the Ruler and the Judge, titles which
refer to his status and role, office and functions, which are not to
be copied or usurped by man. Third is the large class of God’s
names, words describing his attributes and qualities, as against his
essence and substance, which are precisely meant for emulation and
for man (and woman) to bear living witness to.
The theory of
the name of God had also played a central role in the earliest and
non-canonical heterodox writings of Christianity, where the
etymology of the name Jesus, for example, would be rendered, “He who
is saves.” In the thirteenth century, there were baptismal rites of
Gnostic sects, corresponding to Indian non-dualism, where the
neophyte “puts on” the mystical “name of Jesus” (Eleazar of Worms).
The name is a
sign, symbol or symptom of the covenant between God, man and nature,
or between the Creator, creature and creation. In the Jewish
tradition, a rite of initiation in the strictest sense is that
simply concerned with the transmission of the name of God from
master to pupil. For the Kabbalist Jew the great name of God in his
creative unfolding is Adam; and the role of Adam Kadmon, primal man,
corresponds to that of the perfect cosmic man, man as microcosm,
whom Ibn Arabi later named insane-i-kamil. God who can be
apprehended by man is thus himself the first man, Purusha.
 In the Islamic
tradition it was Ibn Arabi of
Spain
(1165-1240) who had influence in India, where his greatest exponent
was Sheikh Aman of Panipat (d. 1551). S.A.A. Rizvi, suggested in
1969, on the occasion of Gum Nanak’s birth quincentenary
celebration, that the object of the Janam-sakhis is to try and
present Guru Nanak as just such as insan-i-kamil in the precise
Sufic sense of Ibn Arabi.
In
this mystical view, prophets and saints and other spirituals are
regarded as individuations or particular examples of the “perfect
man,” the microcosm, while the universal category or the species
“perfect man” is the complete theophany, the macrocosm, the totality
of the divine names and attributes through which the divine essence
or the godhead reveals itself to itself, its virtualities in its
actuality, manifested in multiple names and forms vassals of love.
“The end or goal of love is the unification (ittihaad) which
consists in the beloved’s self becoming the lover’s self and vice
versa,” It is a variety of non-dualism in the sense of unity in the
duality, reciprocity and dialogue of the lord of the name (rabb)
and the servant of the name (abd): thus God through man
realizes his unity in plurality, and man through God reciprocally,
because the plurality of creation, flowing forth from God as the
world, returns to God as man.
 In fact, the
true agent of the religious act (bhagat), the subject of
worship, is none other than God himself in one or the other of his
aspects and names. The created universe is the theophany (tajalli)
of his names and attributes, which would not exist if the
creature, the subject, did not exist. The divine nature (lahut)
and the created nature (nasut), the exoteric aspect (zahir)
and the esoteric aspect (batin), find an exemplary
conjunction in the Prophet’s person, in which the name of God
becomes visible, so to say. To know onself is to know one’s lord,
because it is this lord who knows himself in you. The name of God is
the form under which God reveals himself to himself in that
particular man.
In her recent
writing on the subject (2002), Anuradha Veeravalli of Delhi
University, department of philosophy, has argued that to rightly
know the universe of name and form is to know it in relation to the
unity, which is to know it, not as an autonomous system of nature,
but as a sign, symptom or symbol (linga) of the relation
between unity and plurality, which is the real and the true covenant
between God, man and nature, and possibly also between religion,
politics and science.
According to the
philosophically presupposed/posited relation (or the lack thereof)
between the unity and the plurality, names may he of substance or of
attribute or of relation.
Non-dualist
mediation between Brahman and the universe, Purusha and Prakriti, is
the true issue; and our revaluation of name and form as signs of
this mediation forms the real basis of all three ways of knowledge
(jnana), of vocation (karma) and of invocation
(bhakti). It is no mere coincidence then, Dr. Anuradha
Veeravalli concludes, that the exemplars of the modern Bhakti and
Tantric traditions, the new religion of Sikhism and earlier
Lingaatism and later Mahatama Gandhi’s experiments with truth, all
have this in common that they recognize, celebrate and eulogize the
potency of the name. Bhakti does not have its bases only in
spiritual experience or simple faith, therefore, but in the
theoretical realization and revaluation of the theory of the name as
the essence of the classical Indian tradition, and therefore of Nim-marga
as the modern way of mediation of God, man and nature or in
other words of religion, politics and science.
 It is
significant that the etymology of the term bhakti means
“partaking,” referring to the creature’s share in God’s creation
through labour in production and reproduction, and the name that
designates the creature’s specific office then becomes his new name.
The name in Sikhism, then, as with the Sufi or the Sant, is not
meant merely, only or chiefly for reference or the designation of
entities: it is a definition of the relation between the part and
the whole, the subject and the object of worship, service and self
sacrifice.
Thus lay
Christian labour might be regarded as the worship of names and forms
related to one’s calling; in fact, therefore, labour is simply the
modern and vernacular name for (self)-sacrifice. Similarly, the
etymology of Sruti refers to “that which is herd,” and it is
taken as eternal, unchanging and impersonal. But, without denying
this aspect, one may point out that what is implied is a “hearer”
rather than a transcendent non-human speaker or author. Thus we
infer an eternal and universal revelation that will he “heard” by
one who has the capability to hear it or one who is chosen, the
exemplar who hears Sruti and then utters it in and with his
tongue (bani).
 From this point
of view, I may add that between one-third and one-half of the Quran
is about the names of God; and this method of approach to the
discourse of the word and the world is the largest single topic in
God’s revelation for the Muslim-as Guru Nanak and the Adi Granth
knew him. It has been further suggested by an heterodox Muslim
opinion (Qadiani, Ahmadi) that the Japuji, the chief
composition of the first Guru, is in some way his commentary on the
Quran, but we have no independent confirmation thus far, and I
cannot test this threshold but must leave that task to other more
capable hands.
(The author is a
Professor of Sociology at the
University
of Delhi
and is widely known for his grasp of Sikhism. This article has been
adapted from the souvenir released this month at a seminar organized
by Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College in Delhi, dedicated to the
300th year celebrations of Guru’ta Gaddi Diwas. The views
expressed are those of the author).
20
February 2008
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