Wittgensteinian Language-Games in an Indo-Persian Dialogue on the World Religions

Abstract

Mirza Husayn ‘Ali Nuri (d. 1892), founder of the Baha’i religion in Iran and known to his followers as Baha’u’llah, responded in the late 1870s to questions about Hinduism (and Zoroastrianism) put to him by the Zoroastrian agent in Iran, Manakji Limji Hataria (1813-1890). Manakji’s questions about Hinduism are posed as a general problem of how to understand the varying doctrines and truth-claims of the great world religions, and this, too, is a question Nuri addresses here. I see a strong resemblance between Nuri’s way of speaking about the diverse theologies of previous religions and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s conception of “language games.