The Allure of the “Master”. Critical Assessments of a Term and Narrative

Abstract

In many cultures and religions around the world, past and present, a relationship with a so-called “master†has been a model for the transfer of, and initiation into, particular forms of knowledge. Even among scholars, explorations of this theme have not infrequently been marked by an idealising use of the noun “master†and derivatives, most strikingly in Joachim Wach’s pioneering study “Master and Discipleâ€, but also in more recent works in other scholarly disciplines. This tendency greatly hampers work with the terminology as a metalinguistic apparatus for analysing what is meant and described by it. Accordingly, the present article explores the relational character of the “master†terminology, and introduces a number of stages in the history of its employment. Examples of its idealisation in scholarship show why it has so far proved untenable as a general heuristic category in the academic field of the study of religions.

 

Keywords:

“masterâ€, master-disciple relationship, knowledge transfer, (self-)exaltation, idealisation, “master narrativeâ€