Those within a particular community have had, and continue to have, a sense of the whole. Those studying from outside will progress toward greater understanding both by careful study of particular texts and rituals and by imaginative efforts to reconstruct the shape of the larger Vaiṣṇava community in particular periods. Imagination disciplined by data is necessary to see the larger picture, but our study involves much guess work that our successors may deem to be far off the track of either scholarly understanding or spiritual discernment. (Carman 2007, p. 73)

Independently of what you do, and of whether you specialise in formal logic or applied medicine, do you identify yourself with this definition of scholarly work?