Divine Passions: The Social Construction of Emotion in India 0520309758, 9780520309753

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Divine Passions The Social Construction of Emotion in India

EDITED BY

Owen M. Lynch

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley

Los Angeles

Oxford

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. Oxford, England C 1990 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Divine passions : the social construction of emotion in India / edited by Owen M. Lynch : contributors, Peter Bennett. . .[et al.]. p. cm. Papers presented at a conference held 12/1-14/85 at the University of Houston. Includes index. ISBN 0-520-06647-2 (alk. paper) 1. Ethnology—India—Congresses. 2. Emotions—Congresses. 3. India—Social life and customs—Congresses. 4. Love—Religious aspects— Hinduism—Congresses. I. Lynch, Owen M., 1931II. Bennett, Peter. GN635.I4D58 1990 152.4—dc2o 89-4975 CIP Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. © -

For M. N. Srinivas, anthropologist and guru, and David B. Kriser, philanthropist andfriend

CONTENTS

PREFACE

ix

I • INTRODUCTION:

EMOTIONS

IN THEORETICAL

CONTEXTS

1. The Social Construction of Emotion in India Owen M. Lynch 3 II-LOVE

AND ANXIETY

IN INTIMA

TE FAMILIAL

CONTEXTS

2. The Ideology of Love in a Tamil Family Margaret Trawick 37 3. "To Be a Burden on Others": Dependency Anxiety Among the Elderly in India Sylvia Vatuk 64 I I I • JOY AND HUMOR

IN PUBLIC

CASTE

CONTEXTS

4. The Mastram: Emotion and Person Among Mathura's Chaubes Owen M. Lynch 91 5. Untouchable Chuhras Through Their Humor: "Equalizing" Marital Kin Through Teasing, Pretence, and Farce Pauline Kolenda 116 IV-EROTIC

AND MATERNAL

LOVE IN RELIGIOUS

CONTEXTS

6. Krishna's Consuming Passions: Food as Metaphor and Metonym for Emotion at Mount Govardhan Paul M. Toomey 157 vii

Contents

piti

7. In Nanda Baba's House: The Devotional Experience in Pushti Marg Temples Peter Bennett 182 8. Refining the Body: Transformative Emotion in Ritual Dance Frtdhique Apffel Marglin 212

V • CONFLICTING EMOTIONS IN CROSS-CULTURAL

CONTEXTS

9. On the Moral Sensitivities of Sikhs in North America Venu A. Dusenbery 239 10. Hare Krishna, Radhe Shyam: The Cross-Cultural Dynamics of Mystical Emotions in Brindaban Charles R. Brooks

262

CONTRIBUTORS GLOSSARY INDEX

287 289

295

PREFACE

The papers in this volume were originally written for a conference on "The Anthropology of Feeling, Experience, and Emotion in India" held at the University of Houston on i —14 December 1985. The conference was part of the Festival of India held in the United States during 1985-86. Nineteen highly provocative papers were presented; the nine in this volume were selected because they most directly addressed the conference's theme. Generous support for the conference came from the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Ford Foundation, and the Government of India. The University of Houston was a gracious host. Pauline Kolenda deserves special thanks for creating a social and intellectual milieu crucial to the success of the conference in Houston and for working hard to see this volume in print. M. N. Srinivas was our honored senior participant and guru providing much pertinent, sage, and witty comment. The use of words in Indian languages always presents problems of transliteration. Hindi words appearing in English language dictionaries and standard English spellings for proper nouns have been used as much as possible. Otherwise with one exception the system of diacritical marks presented by R. S. McGregor in his Outline of Hindi Grammar (Oxford University Press, 1977) has been used. The exception is that for Tamil alveolar stops and nasals a subscript dash (e.g., n, _t, r) has been used. At the request of some authors, final silent a has been noted rather than dropped although in a few places local dialectical and spoken variants have been retained when appropriate. For easier reading, the terminal s indicating the English plural has been added to some Hindi words, although it does not so appear in Hindi. On first mention words in Indian languages have been written with diacritics and thereafter without. A glossary of the most important terms with diacritics is provided. ix

X

Preface

Two anonymous reviewers provided excellent suggestions for strengthening the book. Elvin Hatch offered an invaluable critique for improving its argument, and Barbara Metcalf first recommended it to the University of California Press. Thanks to them all and to our editors: Lynne Withey, whose interest, encouragement, and sponsorship made the book possible; Amy Klatzkin, who shepherded it through a complicated production process; and Lisa Nowak Jerry, who rescued the manuscript from mispellings, inconsistencies, and grammatical errors.

ONE

The Social Construction of Emotion in India Owen M. Lynch

Yogis lying on a bed of nails in search of detachment from all feeling, whitebearded gurus preaching meditation on the transcendental, close-knit families in which the aged and infirm live out their days happy and secure in the loving devotion of their children, and ritualists worshiping more by rote than by heartfelt devotion—these are some images through which the West perceives India and the emotional lives of its people. These, too, are the images that the essays in this book seek to replace with pictures of worship based upon deeply felt and deeply motivating ecstatic love, of elderly people anxious and afraid of impending physical deterioration and loss of independence, and of priests pursuing a carefree, lusty, and happy-go-lucky way of life. These new and different images are drawn from ordinary, everyday lives of next-door-neighbor Indians. They are painted by anthropologists who took the time to live with them, listen to them, and learn from them over many months of sharing and dialogue. Each essay in this book also portrays Indian emotional lives different in structure, meaning, and coloring from those of the West, yet all are so framed that they reveal, through dialogue, a common humanity. Because in India the conception of emotions and of the capacity to lead emotional lives differs from that in the West, these essays raise problems for the West's understanding of emotion, particularly when it is universalized into a theory and projected onto the Other. Cross-cultural encounters and problems of beliefs, theories, and presuppositions about the real, the natural, and the human are the questions upon which anthropologists thrive and through which they contribute to a critical knowledge of our Western selves. Recently some anthropologists have begun to pose those questions to the understanding of emotions.1 All the essays in this book, then, have been written by anthropologists with an eye on not only India but also the development of a critical theory and understanding of emotion in the West. 3

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If "the passions are precisely those structures which connect and bind us to other people" (Solomon 1976:19), then why until recently have anthropo-' logists, who claim to study the structures that connect and bind us into social and cultural systems, either considered them irrelevant or failed to question their assumed nature and operation? Reasons for the neglect or failure are many, and they lie buried in the intellectual history of Western culture and its influence on anthropology's founders and later theoreticians. To understand how the essays in this book till with the blade of a different plow the virgin soil of emotion in India, a brief answer to this question is necessary. We must also be clear about what we mean by and understand to be emotion, if we are to understand an Other, such as India. In addition to many academic theories of emotion, there is a Western commonsense understanding of it (see Lutz 1986b). The social constructionist view underlying the essays presented in this volume runs contrary both to some Western commonsense notions and to some academic theories about emotion. Thus, 1 it is advisable to give a somewhat extended, although by no means comprehensive and adequate, survey of some of these ideas and theories. Theories of emotion in the West as they have been developed into paradigms for research are of two types: physicalist and cognitive. Until recently the physicalist theory has dominated academic circles. 2 Physicalist Theory Despite the cognitive overtones of his theory, Descartes was the most influential originator of physicalist theories; he ultimately reduced emotion to a subjective awareness in the soul of activities in the body, of passively experienced feeling. Descartes left unclear the relationship between the soul and the radically different and separate body. Hume elaborated on Descartes and considered emotions to be the registrations in the soul of particular feelings caused by primary sensations associated with some idea or perception. Emotion remained, then, a passive awareness, but in Hume it became a sensation mediated by perception into a particular feeling. This Cartesian view of emotion took its most influential modern twist in the work of William James. For James, "bodily changes follow directly the perception of the exciting fact and. . . our feeling of the same changes as they occur is the emotion" (James 1890:449-450). He reverses the everyday notion that people cry because they feel hurt. Rather, they cry, and this physical change is the emotion they experience; emotion is a feeling of physiological changes. J a m e s tried to make psychology a science by turning from a method of introspective accounts of feelings in the soul to objective measurements of physiological changes in the body. And so, physiological psychology was born and with it a major modern paradigm of what emotions are. Behaviorism added little to this paradigm except to shift observation and

The Social Construction of Emotion

5

measurement to patterned responses or operant behavior created by physiological conditions elicited through specific stimuli. Yet emotion itself remained a physiological event. Freud's early theory, too, is Cartesian because he considers emotions to be cognitively felt responses to physiological instincts or drives blocked by some early traumatic but unconscious event in the individual's life. The source of anxiety and fear is in blocked drives, and the emotion itself is merely a safety valve to let off their energy or steam. Once again, emotions are passive experiences of ultimately physiological states. I shall deal with some of the many objections to physicalist theories later in this essay, but it is important to note here that all of them take emotions such as fear, anger, and anxiety as paradigmatic and deal less well with the more subtle emotions such as hope, ennui, indignation, envy, and the like. Almost all physicalist theories consequently separate primary or basic from secondary or derived emotions.3 Moreover, physicalist theories, based as they are in physiology or drives, assume that at least basic emotions are universal. From an anthropological point of view physicalist theories are interesting because they so well match the basic elements of Western common sense about emotion. For that reason they raise suspicions of Western bias and ethnocentrism. First, in Western common sense, emotions are passive: they are "things" that happen to us, we are "overwhelmed" by them, they "explode" in us, they "paralyze" us, we are "hurt" by them, and they "threaten to get out of control." Emotional action follows a hydraulic metaphor of forces welling up inside of us or of psychic energy about to explode (Solomon 1984; see also Lakoff and Kovecses 1987). Second, emotions are irrational rather than rational, natural rather than cultural, and located in the lower faculties of the body where they are completely separate from the higher faculty of the mind, their master controller. As such, emotions can perform an important excusatory function, among others, in Western society. Just as someone may be excused for a minor peccadillo because "she was upset," so, too, she may be treated more leniently for a major offense if it was a crime of passion or insanity. In the same way crimes committed under the influence of alcohol or drugs are treated as less culpable, particularly in American society (see Gusfield 1981). Third, in the commonsense theory of emotions the extension of the verb to feel from sensations to emotions essentializes them as things, as physiological states; just as one feels the heat of fire, so too one feels the heat of rage. Such a view fits in well with today's drug culture; emotions can be bought in a pill on a back alley or at the local drugstore. Paradoxically, many medical professionals and addicts agree with the view that emotions are the chemical effects of the pill in the body, just as for some social scientists of the physicalist persuasion primary emotions are the action of neurochemicals on the autonomic processes of the body (Kemper 1987). Fourth, com-

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monsense theory also assumes that at root people around the world are the same in their emotional dispositions; if people share nothing else, they at least share this aspect of humanity. One needs only empathy to understand the Other's emotions. Finally, according to common sense, emotions are subjectively felt; they are the individual's most intimate and private experiences. Although physiological, they are known by introspection into the hidden chambers of the self. T h e consequences of both scientific and commonsense theories for the development of anthropological interest in emotion were and are profound. Emile Durkheim considered social facts as things; he did not say they were things. Yet emotions were considered things of the individual and, therefore, worthy of study by psychology or other disciplines. Because emotions belonged in the realm of the infrasocial, any explanation of a social fact based on them was wrong (Durkheim 1 9 3 8 : 1 0 4 ) . In his theory of ritual, emotional displays were social, not individual; therefore, they gave no evidence of individual emotional states. Only ritual's symbolic and functional meaning could be understood. 4 Functionalism, especially British functionalism, was set on a radically nonpsychological path by Radcliffe-Brown's interpretation of Durkheim; emotions, therefore, were eliminated from consideration. Social sentiments were nothing more than structural principles determining the individual. When emotions did appear, as in some studies of witchcraft, some version of Freudian theory was used. American cultural anthropology did little better than British functionalism. In its openness to psychological interpretation, American cultural anthropology took inspiration from Freudian theory. Therefore, the assumed nature of emotions, as physiological and universal, went unquestioned. Cultures were seen as variously working on, channeling, and shaping universal emotions, and basic personality was the result of cultures working on an assumed universal emotional base. " T h e interpretation of emotions . . . [was] quite distinct from the emotion itself, thus leaving the emotion proper outside the realm of anthropology" (Solomon 1984:239). T o the extent that M a x Weber's influence has been felt in anthropology, it has maintained the separation of emotion from rational thought. His identification of one form of social conduct as emotional, resulting from immediate satisfaction of an impulse, left the nature of emotion in a realm similar to that of the drives or instinct. Yet he felt uneasy about this type of emotional social action and asserted that it often overlaps with value-related conduct, that is, conduct explainable by some cultural value (Weber 1963). Weber's uneasiness might precisely have led him to a social theory of emotion itself, but this was overshadowed by his task of showing the progressive rationalization of social action with its implication that emotion itself was impulsive, thus less meaningful and less worthy of study.

The Social Construction of Emotion

7

Finally, fieldwork itself was permeated by naive Western ideas concerning emotion as natural and universal; paradoxically fieldwork confirmed what it should have questioned. T h a t was the problem with both Briggs's (1970) study of anger as almost totally controlled among the Utku Eskimo and with Carstairs's (1967) psychoanalytically oriented study of Indian Rajputs. T h e y assumed that they could understand behavior as expressions of Western definitions of universal emotions, but that assumption was precisely the hypothesis to be verified (Solomon 1984:247). Anthropologists have been "less reticent about imputing universal emotional abilities to others then [xtc] they have been about projecting particular cognitive abilities to all humans" (Lutz 19863:297; see also M . Rosaldo 1984:137). In a world of strange customs, odd practices, different logics, and alien moralities, it was comforting to assume that others were familiarly " h u m a n " when they laughed, cried, loved, and raged. Especially was this so when loneliness threatened the expatriate field-worker. Empathy assumed that human emotions were universally the same. Therefore, one could understand the Other's emotions as reflections of one's own and use without question American English categories for emotion in descriptions of them (Lutz 1988:42). Empathy made fieldwork tolerable as well as "scientific," but, as rationalization for a method of cross-cultural understanding, it shortcircuited the questioning and problematizing of emotional life itself as well as the possibilities of investigating its cultural construction.

An Alternative Approach: Cognitive Theory Claude Lévi-Strauss signaled a different approach to emotion in anthropology when he said: Actually, impulses and emotions explain nothing: they are always results, either of the power of the body or of the impotence of the mind. In both cases they are consequences, never causes. T h e latter can be sought only in the organism, which is the exclusive concern of biology, or in the intellect, which is the sole way offered to psychology, and to anthropology as well. (Lévi-Strauss 1962:71)

Although he accepts a Cartesian absolute distinction between mind and body, Lévi-Strauss departs from the Cartesian heritage; he considers emotions, although in the body, to be products of the mind. He further explains: " M e n do not act, as members of a group, in accordance with what each feels as an individual; each man feels as a function of the way in which he is permitted or obliged to act. Customs are given as external norms before giving rise to internal sentiments" (Lévi-Strauss 1962:70). Lévi-Strauss was, perhaps unwittingly, adverting to an alternative theory of emotion in Western culture, cognitive theory, with roots tracing back to Aristotle's Rhetoric. A cognitive theory is one that makes some aspect of mental a c t i v i t y — a

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Owen M. Lynch

belief, a thought, or a judgment—essential to emotion in general and to identifying separate emotions in particular. Aristotle says: Take for instance, the emotion of anger: here we must discover (i) what the state of mind of angry people is, (2) who the people are with whom they usually get angry, and (3) on what grounds they get angry with them. It is not enough to know one or even two of these points; unless we know all three, we shall be unable to arouse anger in anyone. The same is true of the other emotions. (Aristode 1941:1380) Aristotle is saying that the cause of anger is primarily in a state of mind, in beliefs about others and the reasons that activate those beliefs. Such beliefs have grounds in evaluations concerning the angry person's relations with others. Clearly, a judgment implicates the feelings that are part of the emotion (Lyons 1 9 8 0 : 3 3 - 3 5 ) . 5 Artistotle's thought is particularly modern because he places emotion not merely in the mind but also in a sociocultural context. T h e demise of functionalism and the attack on positivism as a philosophical justification opened the way for the development in the social sciences of this alternative cognitive tradition concerning emotion. It has had particular appeal to anthropology because of its openness to the centrality of culture as constitutive of emotional life rather than as an overlay, an interpretation, or a reflex of an assumed biological or physiological universal base. Cognitivism, as an approach to the study of emotion, has developed into many variations, some of which retain a universalist perspective. One variation of cognitivism, social constructionism, is particularly influential in anthropology. Social constructionism modified by insights from deconstructionism is the theoretical perspective within which most essays in this volume must be understood. Social Constructionism T h e literature on social constructionism in the study of emotion is by now rich, open to further development, and varied in nuance, assumption, and method. 6 Nevertheless, I think most constructionists agree with certain basic propositions: 7 1. Emotions are essentially appraisals, that is, they are judgments of situations based on cultural beliefs and values. If you tickle an Indian, he will laugh. But, if Indians of the Chuhra caste joke with their sister's groom at a wedding, they, too, will laugh (Kolenda, this volume). Laughter is not the emotion of humor; it is a metonym whereby the physiological effects of the emotion stand for the emotion (Lakoff and Kovecses 1 9 8 7 : 1 9 6 ) . Idiots may laugh, but a certain intelligence and a native's grasp of a culture are necessary to understand a joke and

The Social Construction of Emotion

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experience humor. T h e joke is not a stimulus to a universal emotion; rather, getting the joke's point—that is, appraising it correctly— constitutes the emotion. 2. Emotional appraisals are constitutive for the individual and deeply involve, even move, the self in its relationships to social others, things, or events. We speak of our deepest emotions as meaning-ful. T h e feeling does not move us, rather, the emotional appraisal is so full of meaning that it constitutes a moving experience for us. 3. As cultural appraisals, emotions are learned or acquired in society rather than given naturally. They are, therefore, culturally relative, although theorists differ on the degree to which this is so. 4. As appraisals, different emotions are identified by their intentional object, that is, by the object as understood by a cultural interpreter, either self or other. Emotions, then, implicate in some way agent responsibility. For example, J a n e ' s secretary, J o h n , comes into her office and spills coffee on her new dress. She can either feel anger because his behavior is careless and clumsy or feel pity because he is distracted by his child's serious illness. Her reaction will depend upon what she knows of J o h n ' s situation and how she evaluates it. Likewise, at a marriage sisters-inlaw mercilessly tease Indian Chuhra grooms (Kolenda, this volume). T h e grooms, depending upon how they appraise the situation, respond with silent sullenness, tears of humiliation, or retaliatory good humor. There are probably no universal, objective situations that, without agent appraisal, automatically trigger in humans innate emotional responses such as humor or fear. 8 5. As appraisals, emotions also involve moral judgments about prescribed or expected responses to social situations. When J a n e feels pity for J o h n because of his worry about his child, she implies that his behavior is excusable. When Vatuk's (this volume) Indian elderly express anxiety about impending old-old age, they imply criticism of family members who may withhold the seva or service that Indian culture expects from them. 6. Finally, emotions, because of their moral content, have consequences for the way individuals relate and for how social systems are variously constructed and operate; they have functions. In short, emotions presuppose concepts of social relationships and institutions, and concepts belonging to systems of judgement, moral, aesthetic, and legal. In using emotion words we are able, therefore, to relate behaviour to the complex background in which it is enacted, and so to make human actions intelligible. (Bedford 1986:30)

Some ways in which the social constructionist approach differs from the physicalist approach throws further light upon its distinctiveness and, more

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important, upon its reorientation both of how we look at emotions and of how we can innovatively research them. First, emotions are not passions; they are not things that happen to us insofar as we are actively involved in making the appraisals essential to them. When J a n e feels either pity or anger at John's spilling the coffee on her, her feeling either of pity or of anger is an active appraisal of the situation. The physiological sensation that may come with the spilling of the coffee is not the emotion because that sensation could accompany either pity or anger. Pity or anger is Jane's appraisal of John's action; it is her self-conscious evaluative reaction to him. To claim that someone does something out of anger, love, grief, or the like is to maintain the myth of the passions, without satisfactorily accounting for human action (see Sarbin 1986:94). Second, from a constructionist point of view emotions are rational, not irrational, uncontrollable eruptions from within the "natural" self. Emotions are essentially cognitively based appraisals of situations, and "this allows that they can be subjected to rational persuasion and criticism" (ArmonJones 1986:44). If I am hurt at not being invited to Mary's wedding, I can reasonably be expected to change my feelings (that is my appraisal) when someone points out that only close relatives were invited because Mary's father had recently died and his long illness had exhausted the family's funds and put the family into debt. When Brooks's (this volume) American Hare Krishnas in India change their appraisal of the devotion (bhakti) experienced by non—Hare Krishna Indian holy men, they themselves begin to experience devotion to Krishna in a way different from that of their sect. In short, emotions are often socially negotiable experiences (Lutz 1988). Reason's distinction from, and elevation over, emotion is part of both Western intellectual and commonsense traditions. " T h e wisdom of reason against the treachery and temptation of the passions has been the central theme of Western philosophy" (Solomon 1976:10; see also Lutz 1986b). It is important to note that the Western hierarchical distinction of reason over emotion implies the further hierarchical distinctions of human over animal and culture over nature. Yet the separation of reason from emotion is not so easily made in other cultures as Lynch, Marglin, Toomey, and Bennett (this volume) note for India, Lutz (1988) notes for the Ifaluk of Micronesia, and Parkin (1985) notes for the Giriama of Africa. Indeed, deconstructionists would argue that reason requires emotion as a supplement, allowing the discourse about reason in the first place. Moreover, finding emotions in animals, as did Darwin, and in the behavior of decorticated cats, as do some psychologists, is reasoning by anthropomorphic metaphor rather than by any actual identity; emotion words, as signs, are assumed to have positivistic referential meaning and are "decorticated" from the free play of differences in which they are embedded. Third, because emotions are social constructions, they are as variable as

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any other cultural phenomena. Attempts to understand them through empathy are no more than projections of one's own ideological assumptions about emotional reactions onto the Other. Understanding emotions as social constructs, however, offers a much more refined, subtle, sociologically informative, and individually significant picture of emotions in the lives of others. From this point of view, all emotions are of equal value; there is no need for separation into primary and secondary emotions. Moreover, given differences in the social construction of emotion, the way in which those differences shape selves and the way in which they connect and involve selves in social systems are diverse, as are experiences of emotional life itself. " T h u s , whereas the affect 'shame' may everywhere concern investments of the individual in a particular image of the self, the way that this emotion works depends on socially dictated ways of reckoning the claims o f selves and the demands o f situations" ( M . Rosaldo 1984:149). Finally, social constructionism raises the problem of " f e e l i n g " in a w a y different from physicalist theories and common sense. Indeed, " f e e l i n g " has been a major stumbling block in the way of Westerners' understanding the role o f emotion in their own lives and the O t h e r ' s life. Westerners' question— "What are they really feeling?"—is based on the assumption that ultimate psychological reality is internal; what may be ignored in the process of focusing on that question are indigenous epistemological notions about what can be known, what is worth knowing, and where a problem "really" lies. (Lutz '985:73) In the English language the verb " t o feel" is so intimately linked to understanding of emotion that one can scarcely imagine the O t h e r without it. Y e t in Hindi and the Dravidian languages there is no such specific equivalent verb, and Indians get along quite well without it. 9 Emotions are not and cannot be accurately identified by specific feelings. Schacter and Singer (1962) in their review of the evidence for physiological indicators of various emotional states opined that the evidence is inconclusive. T h e kinds of feelings or sensations one has, say, for anger, m a y be the same as those for fear or rage. There is nothing specifically in feeling itself that distinguishes fear from either anger or rage; the seeming difference comes from using different emotion words to appraise the situation. In the English language much difficulty comes from eliding the feeling o f emotions with feeling of sensations as though they were the same. Y e t most everyone will agree that feeling the hurt of an insult is not the same as feeling the hurt of a cigarette burn. Emotions as feelings can be said to be unreasonable, unjustified, or inappropriate in a way that sensations as feelings cannot. Therefore, the use of the word feeling is homonymous; emotions are not essentially sensations.

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In their own experiments Schacter and Singer injected two groups of subjects with adrenaline, a substance known to create physiological sensations similar to those occurring in certain emotional states. One group was told of the physiological reactions they would have; the other was not. When the latter group began to feel the effects of the drug, they sought some explanation for their condition and found it in another person present in the room. This person was really an actor behaving in an either elated or angry way. T h e subjects, then, interpreted their physiological state according to their social context. Interestingly enough those in the group warned about what reactions to expect were unable to interpret their feelings emotionally; knowing that the cause was the drug, they could not use the label, emotional, for their feelings. In other words, the subjects had to have some belief or cognition about a socially defined event in order for them to interpret it as emotional (Schacter and Singer 1962; see also Lyons 1 9 8 0 : 1 1 5 - 1 2 9 ; Solomon 1 9 7 6 : 1 5 0 - 1 7 0 ; Armon-Jones 1986; Averill 1 9 8 0 : 3 2 7 - 3 2 9 ) . Although the methods of Schacter and Singer's study "have been challenged incisivel y . . . , its conclusions are consistent with a large number of subsequent studies" (Gordon 1 9 8 1 : 5 7 3 ) . 1 0 Again, the important point is that "feelings" do not tell us what our emotion is; rather our appraisal of the situation, our emotion, tells us what we may feel. There is no single unique feeling, essence, or thing that goes with and identifies each and every emotion. Part of the commonsense view of emotions explains behavior by reference to emotional "feelings." For example, J a m e s hit Anne because he felt angry with her, or again M a r y refused to come to the party because she felt insulted. Yet the reference to feeling in such statements does little or nothing to explain behavior. Rather one expects J a m e s to have a reason for his anger, just as one assumes that someone must have insulted Mary. In other words, the actions are explained by some unstated appraisals of situations in which they each found themselves." " I f emotion words merely named some inner experience that preceded or accompanied behaviour, to explain behaviour by using them would not give the insight that it does" (Bedford 1986:29). Medick and Sabean (1984) rightly criticize historical and anthropological studies of the family that treat emotions and interests as opposites; thus, traditional families marry for property, and modern couples marry for romantic love. Such studies assume a progressive sentimentalization of the family. Yet in romantic love and emotional relationships "material interest is hidden in the concern to communicate at the level of the individual and the emotional" (Medick and Sabean 1 9 8 4 : 1 1 ) . Sentimentalization, as explanatory, is a dead end barring further investigation into the cultural appraisals and evaluations made under the guise of marriage for romantic love. Some ways in which the verb "to feel" is used are of particular interest. One may say either " I am angry with y o u " or " I feel angry with y o u . " The former statement is emotionally stronger because it implies some censure of

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the other person; the latter, even though it contains the verb "to feel," is weaker because no such negative evaluation is implied. The so-called feeling of anger is not as important as the implied moral evaluation of the relationship (Armon-Jones 1986:51-54). Statements about emotions, then, communicate information not just about persons but also about the social context in which they are used. Just as feelings cannot identify particular emotions, so too behavior cannot be used as an adequate criterion to identify an emotion. Two people may look at the same behavior and interpret it in different emotional terms. For example, John walks into the classroom, sees Mary sitting in the first row, and immediately blushes. Jim interprets the blush as John's being in love with Mary. Nancy interprets it as embarrassment because he is about to jilt Mary for Nancy herself. John himself says that he feels ashamed, not embarrassed, because he knows he will be responsible for Mary's imminent "rejected feelings." Correct identification of the emotion requires culturally relevant information about its social context and the appraisal made in it. 12 Using commonsense theory we talk as though emotions were private, unique inner experiences, known truly only through introspection. Yet Wittgenstein (1958:243-264) has demonstrated how this is impossible. One would have to give an inner experience its own unique and private emotion word in which case it would have no meaning because meaning is essentially part of a public and social language. One cannot know what the private emotion word means because to know the meaning of a word is to know how to socially use it. But there is no criterion of correct use of a private word. Inner feelings make sense only because people already have words for them known to us by use in public language. Use of emotion words pivots essentially on the social evaluative aspect rather than on their identification of some inner essence. 13 Indeed, it is most likely that one comes to know what it is "to feel" angry after learning from others what it is "to be" angry (Bedford 1986:16-19). At least two problems arise from the discussion of emotions presented thus far. The first is whether a social constructionist perspective is committed to a purely cognitive interpretation of emotion, and, thus, to the mind side of the Cartesian mind/body dichotomy. The second problem concerns commonsense theories of emotion that, as I have tried to show, may be in error. What sense can an anthropologist committed to the Other's point of view make of such theories? Concerning the first problem, social constructionist theoreticians disagree about whether bodily feeling of some sort is an essential part of the meaning of emotion. Bedford (1962, 1986) and Armon-Jones (1986) argue that bodily feeling is only contingently related to the use of emotion terms and therefore is not essential to them. Solomon, too, despite his phenomenologically oriented study of emotion, considers feeling or experience nonessential to emotion when he says that "feeling is the ornamentation of emotion not its

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essence" and "emotions are self involved and relatively intense evaluative j u d g e m e n t s " (Solomon 1976:158, 187; 1984:249). Just how evaluative j u d g ments, matters of cognition, can be relatively intense is not clear. O n the other hand Perkins (1966) argues that emotions essentially involve nonspecific bodily states of feeling (cf. Armon-Jones 1986). Lyons confines the paradigmatic case of emotion to occurrent, not dispositional, states that include the person's beliefs about his or her persent situation, which may or may not be caused by a perception of some object or event, but which are the basis for an evaluation of the situation in relation to himself or herself. This evaluation in turn causes the wants or desires which lead to behaviour, while the evaluations and wants together cause abnormal physiological changes and their subjective registering, feelings. (Lyons 1980:57) By abnormal physiological states Lyons means nothing more than " a stretching or dampening down of our more usual physiological processes and states" (1980:60). In this theory the evaluation or appraisal causes the physiological state that is also essential to an occurrent emotion. Michelle Rosald o ( 1 9 8 4 : 1 3 8 ) in a more intuitive way argues that "it will make sense to see emotions not as things opposed to thought but as cognitions implicating the immediate, carnal ' m e ' — a s thoughts embodied." W h a t is at issue here, and why is it important? Almost all these authors agree that emotions in some way implicate and involve the self in some nonordinary way. Pure cognitivism, in its attempts to distinguish feeling from sensation and to show that feelings, as sensations, do not identify emotions, goes too far in making the self a bodyless, unfeeling, purely logical mind. Y e t the self is not merely a mind; it is a totality of mind and body. Emotions affirm what they assert. T h e y assert an appraisal, and they affirm this by grounding it in the reality of the bodily self. In this way they are simultaneously body-mind as well as individual-social, thus giving them their great importance to the social scientist. T h e y connect and bind us to other people in a most social way; at the same time they seem the most individual and personal reactions. Social constructionists, as far back as RobertsonSmith, have found some of the power of ritual and religion in its grounding cultural ideas in nature and its clothing them, as Clifford Geertz (1966:24) says, " w i t h . . . an aura of factuality." Emotions, as moral appraisals, are grounded in the nature of our bodily selves, securing for them their bedrock commonsense character. In Hinduism, as the essays in this volume point out, an added factuality is given to emotions by grounding them not merely in the self but also in nature in the form of food, music, and scent. From a deconstructionist point of view, cognition's supplement is bodyemotion upon which it depends so that cognition itself can be present. Like physicalism, cognitivism—pure, self-sufficient, and referring to an identifiable c o n c e p t — i s more an attempt to establish a bounded, authoritative,

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and controlling discourse than an attempt to understand human emotions as caught in a historical play of difference. By way of an anthropological aside, it is interesting to note that m a n y , if not most, cultures locate emotions somewhere in the body. A m o n g the Ifaluk of Micronesia emotion words are identified as being " a b o u t our insides" even though emotion words are identified and sorted as statements about situations of relationship rather than as internal states (Lutz 1986a: 268). A m o n g the Pintupi aborigines of Australia emotions function primarily as moral displays of, or appeals to, one's relatedness to others, but they also " t a k e place in the stomach where the spirit is located" (Myers 1986:107). A m o n g the Giriama of East Africa "the heart, liver, kidney and eye are the seat of conjoined reason and emotions in general" just as in Shakespearian England " t h e heart 'thinks' as well as 'feels' and the liver is the seat of the passions" (Parkin 1985:145). T h e widespread tendency to locate emotions in various parts of the body creates, it seems to me, metonyms, not metaphors, for the total mental-bodily self that is moved by moral involvement in the world, not in its private world. Such a movement of moral involvement is identified as an emotion. M r . Spock was not human, because, although he could make absolutely rational appraisals, his self was unmoved by them; he was a computer masquerading in a human body. T o t a l self-involvement, I think, is part of the meaning of Wittgenstein's remarks concerning emotion: 'the gasp of joy, laughter, jubilation, the thoughts of happiness—is not the experience of all this: joy? Do I know that he is joyful because he tells me he feels his laughter, feels and hears his jubilation—or because he laughs and is jubilant? Do I say 'I am happy' because I feel all that? . . . The words 'I am happy' are a bit of the behaviour ofjoy. (Wittgenstein 1980:151) T h e second problem raised by a social constructionist approach concerns how an anthropologist, committed to presenting the Other's socially constructed reality, is to deal with the erroneousness of folk beliefs concerning emotion. Are commonsense notions about emotion wrong, or are they right insofar as those beliefs constitute the reality in which people live? O n e solution to this problem has been to interpret emotions functionally in the sense of what they do, how they are used, and what they are saying in social situations and events. 1 4 Beliefs about what emotions are may be false from a scientific and a logical point of view, but that is not what emotions are about; rather, they are cultural appraisals of the social situations and events that they constitute. A s I have already noted, we sometimes use emotion terms with an exculpatory function: when we say " h e did it because he loved h e r , " his love operates to excuse his foolish action. A m o n g the Pintupi aborigines of Australia compassion (ngaltu) presupposes an idea of relatedness and " c a n be best understood as the possibility of being moved by another's wishes or

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condition" (Myers 1 9 8 6 : 1 1 5 ) . It functions, therefore, in situations where food and other things ought to be shared. In this volume Bennett, Marglin, Toomey, Trawick, and Lynch show in various ways that many Indians believe that food literally is a form of emotion, particularly love. Bennett shows how this belief functions in such a way that exchanges of food unite members of the Pushti Marg sect in love and are also the most fundamental form of their relationship to the deity. Food offerings, offerings of love, also symbolically convey and make visible important religious messages and beliefs to devotees. " O n the one hand, the mountain of food bears witness to the lofty devotion of those who nurture and care for the divine child. On the other hand, Mount Govardhan bears imposing witness to the role of Lord Krishna as the nourisher and protector of souls" (Bennett, this volume). We need, however, to go a step further and ask what kinds of social realities are built upon different cultural assumptions and ideas about emotions and how they operate. What do American beliefs that emotions are feelings, that they are natural forces, that they ought to come under the control of cultural reason, and that they can be known by introspection mean to them? Certainly there is a minimum hierarchy of value here in which things categorized as reasonable rank higher than those categorized as emotional. Such a hierarchy of value is deeply embedded in Western culture and invades other domains; for example, women are purported to be more emotional than men. O r again, emphasis on feeling, rather than on social appraisal, as essential to emotions is heavily involved with American stress on privacy (emotions are within the individual's intimate self) as well as on the individual as a central value orientation and basic unit of society (Lutz 1988, 1 9 8 5 : 8 0 - 8 1 ) . For Americans, the assertion of feelings is an important moral indicator. Regardless of how one actually feels, to say that one feels evidences the individual's sincerity and honesty, although this is not true of other societies such as China (Potter 1988). An American who does not feel the love he declares is a hypocrite. And yet, a mother who feels only exhaustion and annoyance with the care given to her sick child is said " t o have" love for the child. T h e culture of "expressive individualism" has become for Americans an ideology of feeling "that enables the individual to think of commitment— from marriage and work to political and religious involvement—as enhancements of the sense of individual well-being rather than as [communal] moral imperatives" (Bellah et al. 1985:47). When Americans probe deeper into their own culture of emotion they will be better able to understand and translate into their own language and culture the emotional lives of an Other. Paradoxically one way to do that is to look at the emotional lives of Others. All the essays in this volume take that extra step into both exploring the socially constructed emotional reality in which Indians live and describing what these beliefs mean for how they live emotionally significant lives.

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T h e theme, then, that unites the essays in this volume is their description and analysis of emotions as culturally constituted. These essays are written from the viewpoint of the "cultural subject." " T h e concept of cultural subjectivity derives from the view that human subjects know themselves not as they are in all their human potential, but in determined forms of 'social b e i n g ' " (Meyers 1986:104). In this sense they are concerned with neither psychological reality nor ideas of the self and the person, which are close to Western interests in the individual and his or her irreducible reality. Rather these essays present a sense of the cultural subject's experience of culturally constituted emotions in India. Although words for emotions in these essays are glossed with English translations, such as mother's love, anxiety, humor, and the like, it would be a mistake to assume that such glosses make emotional experience immediately intelligible. They do not. One must move beyond the glosses to the differently structured meanings and differently situated social practices within which these categories of emotions are located and constitutive in India. These essays, then, reject empathy as a naive and ethnocentric practice, a form of Western imperialism over the emotions of the Other. T h e essays begin, not with the assumption underlying empathy that emotions are sensations and, therefore, universally experienced in the same way, but with the unifying assumption that emotions are fundamentally culturally constructed appraisals telling people what they feel-experience. The Theory of Rasa India is a particularly interesting case for a cross-cultural study of emotion. It, too, has an explicit theory of emotion known as the rasa (juice, extract, flavor, quintessence) theory, 15 which differs in some ways from Western theories of emotion and has implications for the Indian creation of the social reality of emotional lives. T h e theory, which developed out of a poetic, dramatic, aesthetic tradition, is essential background to understanding some chapters in this volume. I, therefore, briefly summarize it here with the proviso that certain doctrinal differences and other fine points have been neglected. In search of answers to questions concerning the essence of enjoyment in drama and poetry, Indian critics developed the theory of rasa. T h e y asked how the experience of enjoyment in poetry and drama differed from enjoyment or emotion in everyday life, and how the reality of the play or poem differed from that of lived everyday reality. T h e theory was essentially laid out in the Treatise on Dramaturgy (Natyasastra), an early treatise (circa 200 B.C. to A.D. 200) by the sage Bharata. In this theory the major purpose of dance, drama, ritual, and poetry is not mimetic, cathartic, or didactic; rather it is catalytic. Aesthetic forms ought to activate an emotion already present in

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participating members of the audience who must cultivate their own aesthetic sensibility. The theory identifies eight primary emotions (sthajti bhava) inherent in all human beings: love, humor, courage, disgust, anger, astonishment, terror, and pity. There were also thirty-three transitory emotions (vyabhicari bhava), including envy, jealousy, anxiety, despair, which can "temporarily accompany and to a certain extent color the permanent emotions" (WulfF 1985:6). The play, the poem, the dance, the dancer, and the myriad elements composing them act as catalysts (vibhavas) to the various inherent emotions and create a sympathetic emotional response in the person (rasika) in the audience. The critic or cultivated member of the audience responds in such a way that his or her emotion is transformed into a purely aesthetic, transcendental, and universal one, a raja.The experience of the rasa is a glimpse of and, more important, an experience of the divine bliss inherent in all humans. Thus, participation of the audience in the dance, drama, and the like is a preparation for, a sensibility to, and a cultivation of the emotional taste for divinity and supreme self-realization. The theory aims at absolute identity and communication; what is portrayed is essentially in oneself and is the essential self. There is no emphasis on emotions being the lower part of the self or upon the search to know oneself through one's unique, individual feelings; rather, one's emotions are one's true self and "the" essence of true reality. The rasa theory was reinterpreted by the medieval devotional (bhakti) movements in which aesthetic experience became the mode of religious experience itself (Wulff 1985:6). Bhakti was conceived and meant to be experienced as an emotion in which the devotee experienced bliss. Various theologians in the Vaishnavite sects, those worshiping Vishnu as the supreme deity, reduced the original eight primary emotions (bhava) to five: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

sanla bhava—repose, calmness, peace dasya bhava—humility and obedience of a servant toward his master sakhya bhava—friendship between friends vdtsalya bhava—the love of a mother for her child madhujya or srhgara bhava—the erotic love of lovers.

It is important to realize that in the Vaishnavite religious sects these emotions, except the first, are both patterned after and based on actual human relationships. In part because religious emotions are based upon everyday human emotions, they in turn have important moral implications for how everyday life and actions are conceived and evaluated. The rasa theory also presupposes an Indian conception of the mind-body relationship as developed in traditional Indian medicine, Ayurveda. That theory identifies at least two bodies: the gross or physical body (sthula sarin) that is one with the interior subtle body (lihga sarira). The subtle body "is more than the psyche and in fact becomes the locus of identity of body and

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mind, the subject of both physiological and psychological predicates" (Kakar 1982:240). Thus, there is an identity of mind and body; one is part of and continuous with the other. Located in the subtle body is the manas (mind or heart) that resides, it is said, not in the head but in the heart. The manas is the center of reason and judgment as well as emotion; because it is one with the gross body it is disturbed by its imbalances and peturbations. No wonder, then, that this theory gives to Indian emotions, as moral appraisals, a different social reality in which to operate. For example, because the emotions are not separate from and lower than reason, it is probable that they do not carry the same excusatory function as some Western ones. And Western equation of female gender with nature and emotion and male gender with culture and reason would probably not be found in India in the same way, if at all. Such statements, however, remain hypotheses for research on emotions in India. Deconstructionism

The essays in this volume are concerned with how certain emotions are constituted, understood, discussed, elaborated, and lived in India. Although my discussion thus far has emphasized the social constructionist point of view, there is in these essays a judicious overtone of not incompatible deconstructionist insights. Here these essays not only contribute to a newer view and understanding of emotion in India, but they also push beyond theoretical borders and move into new territory. Their implications, therefore, are important for understanding and critiquing Western theories of emotion and for developing social scientific theory in general. Deconstructionism is of interest to Indianists because of its concept of "the play of difference" which I believe has substantial, not merely accidental, similarities with the Indian concept of lila (divine play, sport, spontaneity). It is also of interest to anthropologists because of its analysis of the nature of the sign or symbol and because of its understanding of a text that has been used as a model for understanding culture. As I have already noted, Wittgenstein considered that words for emotions were part of the emotions themselves and that the meanings of words were found in their use. Words from a semiotic point of view partake of the complex nature of signs. Insights into the nature of signs, then, should give insight into the nature and operation of emotions. The essence of the deconstructionist theory of signs 16 can be found in Jacques Derrida's purposely mispelled notion of differance which undermines the referential theory of signs (Derrida 1973; 1976). Differance has three aspects: difference, deferral, and dispersal. In a sign a space or difference exists between a signifier, a signified concept, and a referent; the relationship between the three is not one of identity.

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For example, the word love stands for neither one unique concept of love, nor is it, as a word, a love experience. For this reason the word love can signify different concepts, as well as different experiences, to a rhyming poet, to a woman about to be engaged for marriage, to a saint passionately in love with her god, and to a psychiatrist analyzing his patient. Considered in this way all three—word, concept, and referent—are not identical; each can itself be a sign. 1 7 Thus, says Derrida, there is a play of differences in signs. Because signifier and signified are not identical, each can go its own way, as it were, in the links it has or makes with other signs. Although the word love seems identical with the concept love and, for Westerners, some unique inner feeling, all three are embedded in a web of differences with other signs. This fact makes possible and inevitable multiple interpretations of what one feels and how one emotionally appraises a situation. The conclusion is that emotions are interpretations without any single authoritative meaning. Emotions, as like signs, are constituted in this way, even though physicalists consider only what seems to make them universally the same, while ignoring the play of differences in the very emotion words they use. 1 8 Second, there is a deferral or temporal space between the presence of a referent and the presence of its signifier. Americans may speak of sincere love without actually feeling it. Moreover, when Americans use the word love, they defer or put out of consciousness all those other different or contrasting words/concepts/experiences, such as hate, friendship, anger by which they understand love itself. In contrast, as Toomey and Bennett point out, motherly love in Vaishnavite ritual contexts defers to motherly love in Indian family contexts. Finally, signs disperse or disseminate. They come to mean new things in new situations and to lose old meanings or referents in a way similar to Durkheim's notion of the contagiousness of the sacred. Signs are creative and open ended. They are neither bound, nor do they always refer, to one definite meaning or thing. Thus, there is "neither substance nor presence in the sign, but only the play of differences" (Leitch 1983:44). Given such a theory of the sign, the whole nature of a text—as something stable with an authoritative interpretation, a unique origin, and a particular author—changes. A text once written takes on its own life independent of its author. Whence comes this life but from the play of differences in the signs that constitute it. A deconstructionist text, as a network of signs characterized by difference, has multiple but provisional interpretations and no set or final boundaries. Moreover, just as each sign in a text is caught in the play of differences, so, too, a text itself is caught in the play of its differences with other texts. Every text is an intertext. T h e model of the text in the study of culture, then, becomes an infinite play of differences, of which no one interpretation is authoritative and final. The world is a cultural text given in the signs of language. In such an aporetic, or unlimited and unbounded, context all is interpretation for which con-

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texts are constructed to lend control and meaning to social life. Signs emerge out of and fall back into a cultural context which for the deconstructionist is an intertext. Just as a text carries within it the sedimentations of previous models of writing, of tropes, of unstable signs, of other texts, so, too, an emotion, as a culturally constituted sign, is an unstable sedimentation of history, social life, styles, symbols, and the like. Emotions, too, are open to multiple interpretations and caught in the free play of differences of signs. Textuality Deconstructionism appears in some of these essays when they consider emotions as signifiers, which, rather than referring to a unique inner feeling or to a single defining concept or idea, exhibit a certain free play in relation to concepts, situations, feelings, and other signifiers. Emotions, as they occur in actual life, escape the presence of some unique and essential feeling; rather, they are characterized more by its absence. Instead of an expressive theory of emotions, there is in these essays a textual interpretive one. Yet unlike deconstructionism's one-sided emphasis on difference, all these essays remain firmly and judiciously embedded in the idea that, even when considered as signs, emotions are socially constructed, understood, and communicated. The feelings that accompany love may be different for different people, but in given situation they can agree on the signifier itself: that love is love. Brooks spodights the unity of the Hare Krishnas of Brindaban around vaidhi bhakti as an emotional attitude appropriate for them and as a moral appraisal of their superiority to others in Brindaban. Vatuk's old people all give different examples of what makes them feel anxious and afraid of impending old-old age, but all similarly appraise their situations as anxious and fearful. Lynch notes how the meanings, experiences, and practices constituting the emotion of mash, among Mathura's Chaubes have changed over time. Yet, as a sign, masti itself remains the same, such that the Chaubes remain united in, around, and through it. Deconstructionism places a one-sided emphasis on difference making possible sameness; but likewise sameness makes possible difference. Margaret Trawick's paper on anpu, translated in Tamil-English dictionaries as love, is an exemplary textual interpretation of the Tamil experience of that emotion. She inscribes or writes open-endedly of anpu, rather than reads in it a bounded, authoritative meaning. The meaning of anpu, considered as a free-floating signifier, is found in its use; it is what Tamils feel when children are cruelly teased, when they are frightened, when they are forcefully fed during an illness, and the like. Anpu, too, is not understood literally by a single definition or referent but in part through its relationships to many metaphors and lexemes in Tamil culture, such as to adakkam (containment), kodumai (cruelty, harshness), and arukku (dirtiness). It is also metonymically understood as mother's milk being mother's love.

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In Lynch's essay on the Chaubes of Mathura, the emotion of masti (carefreeness, lust, intoxication) considered as a signifier has multiple relationships to social practices involved with marijuana, food, singing hymns, and physical exercise; each of these is itself pregnant with cultural meaning and varied experience of masti. Masti is in part constituted by its other, the experience of susti (laziness, boredom) and the shame of poverty. Marglin finds that the devotional sentiment of love (srhgara rasa) is experienced, understood, and evoked by means of the temple dancer's dress. She wears a silver belt (behga patia), which is also worn by female fertility figures and which calls to mind frogs (behga) evoking the fertilizing power of the rainy season. T h e dancer, too, strikes a particularly erotic pose known as tribhahgi. T h e emotional experiences of devotional love and carefreeness are themselves constituted in part by other multiple signifiers. Bennett takes this a step farther when he says that all the articles used to adorn the icon in the Pushti Marg sect are themselves considered actual embodiments of particular emotions as well as stimuli for raising them in devotees. Here, then, is one of the most important contributions of the essays in this volume for understanding emotions in India: they are more likely to be objectivized or substantialized, 19 than somatized as in China, or internalized, as forces, drives, or instincts as in the West. Toomey's essay, as do others, underlines how in India "food ritual . . . establishes] a metonymy between love, a gift given to devotees through Krishna's grace, and food, a concrete means of experiencing and reexperiencing this gift." Both he and Bennett emphasize the feeling of Pushti Marg devotees that when they share in the offered food they get a share of the love put into it by its preparers and by Krishna's acceptance of it. Toomey says, "Just as culturally constructed emotions act as sensibilities that inform ritual expressions, so. . . they cannot be experienced without these same sensorial expressions." Trawick explains that a mother's milk transmits her feelings, particularly her feelings of love, to her child. Lynch writes that the Chaubes who eat the proper kind of food (sattva) believe that they consume and augment for themselves the morally good emotions in the food. Marglin deftly and discreetly reveals how the dancer leaves drops of her sexual fluid, as the embodiment of the erotic emotion, in the dust of the dance floor in which devotees ecstatically roll, thereby experiencing and becoming one with the dancer's emotion. The dancer's erotic emotion also suffuses the food offering to the god, and then the devotees consume it for emotional nourishment. Without these objectifications, in some circumstances, Indians would be unable to experience certain emotions in a culturally specific way. A devotee of the Pushti Marg sect would be unable to experience the love of the Mountain of Food ritual without the food offering and its consumed return. In this way, then, the Indian belief that food and emotion can be the same goes beyond function. The belief is not erroneous; it is constitutive. The belief makes possible a particular kind of emotional life. T h e constitutive beliefs of

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Marglin's devotees rolling in the dust of erotic emotions does the same for them. Without such beliefs Indians could not be Indian, nor could they in a real sense experience their own emotions as they do. A similar, although not identical, situation in the West is worth noting. Teresa of Avila wrote: I had so little ability to represent things in my mind, except for what I could see. I could profit nothing from my imagination, [unlike] other persons who can see things in their minds wherever they pray. . . . For this reason I was such a friend of images. Unhappy those who by their fault lose this good! It surely seems that they do not love the Lord, for if they loved him, they would delight in seeing his portrait, just as here one is still happy to see someone one loves dearly. (Libro de la vida, 9:6; quoted in Christian 1 9 8 2 : 1 1 0 )

Tastefully presented in Toomey's paper and given added flavor in others is the idea that Indian metaphors and metonyms for emotion are grounded in the sense of taste. In contrast, Western metaphors and metonyms are often grounded in the sense of sight; for example, an individual "introspects" one's own or "observes" another's emotional behavior. Thus, in India the understanding of emotions as foods is elaborated in terms of nourishment, cooking, ingestion, digestion, and the like. Food, moreover, is fragrant, and the sense of smell is also involved. Marglin says that the deity accepts the devotees offering of food-emotion through its fragrance. Elsewhere in India the food is accepted through its color and the sense of sight and in hymns through sound and the sense of hearing. All these modalities for understanding and expressing emotion create a synaesthetic sense of emotion whose experiences, nuances, and elaborations make those of the West seem impoverished. Contrary to Western stereotypes about India, and contrary to Western devaluation of emotion in the face of reason, India finds emotions, like food, necessary for a reasonable life, and, like taste, cultivatable for the fullest understanding of life's meaning and purpose. Finally, following on the grounding of emotion in the sense of taste and in food as nourishment, Marglin, Lynch, Bennett, and Toomey specifically note that in much of India there is no real distinction between mind and body, cognition and emotion, and asceticism and eroticism. In a deconstructionist way one term implies the other as its hidden supplement. This polyvalent understanding of emotions, then, opens a richer, more complex, and more comprehensive basis for a theory of emotion than does the Western understanding and search for a simple, identifiable essence. Intertextuality Deconstructionism also appears in the intertextuality of some of these essays; they conceive emotions as neither universal nor literal essences. History, language, and culture are woven into the experience and understanding of emo-

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tions. Thus, for the Westerner the experience of emotion is colored by the underlying prevalence of the sight metaphor whereby emotions can be introspected or observed; by the Cartesian and Aristotelian theories already outlined; by equating feeling an emotion with feeling a sensation; by academic and popular understanding of Freudian psychodynamics; by Western moral beliefs about good and bad ways, times, and places for expressing emotion; and by theories of dramatic catharsis and the like. Every emotion, considered as a textual sign, is, then, part of an intertext. An emotion, considered as a textual sign, has a set of relations with other texts; it is embedded in history and is related to it in many ways. As historically embedded, emotions that were central preoccupations at certain periods of time have died out and disappeared in later times precisely because, like other emotions, they were socially constituted. Such has been the fate of the medieval emotion of accidie, that is, sinful negligence, laziness, idleness (Harre and Finlay-Jones 1986:220—233; see also Jackson 1985). Brooks's, Marglin's, Trawick's, and Toomey's chapters all refer back to Vaishnavite texts and commentaries on rasa, and these texts are embedded in other texts on aesthetics and Ayurvedic medicine. Further texts are still being generated in both scholarly tomes and penny pamphlets, as well as transmitted orally in myths and songs for the less educated. All are important because they effect and become part of what Indians experience in rasa. The reader must remember that only with the arrival of the British and Western scholarly apparatus did the futile search for the most authoritative text and interpretation begin in India. Toomey in his chapter shows how the Vaishnavite forms of love, such as erotic and motherly love, are variously conceived, expressed, and experienced in the folk tradition and the traditions of the Pushti Marg and Chaitanyaite sects. Yet the emotions in all three constantly refer to and influence one another and take for granted Indian notions of the family and what mother's love in it means. Lynch notes how the emotion of masti for the Chaubes can be understood in part through the myths they tell about themselves and through their appropriation of myths in other texts to constitute for themselves what it means to experience and express masti. Such reference to other texts describing mast behavior partially constitutes for them the experience of masti in their actions and festivals today. Dialogue The essays in this volume also, in varying degrees, exhibit another insight of deconstructionism within a social constructionist perspective; they are openended and dialogical. Dialogue, an exchange of signs, creates all the characteristics of diff¿ranee. It results, therefore, in only one possible interpretation written out of the dialogue between an anthropologist and the vast sea of

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informants, myths, rituals, and the like in which she or he finds herself or himself afloat in a foreign culture. 20 Each is sensitive to the crisis of representation (Marcus and Fisher 1986) that has brought ethnographers themselves back into a more accurate account of how data is gathered, interpreted, and presented. Interpretations are made, but they are historical and provisional. In my opinion, however, this does not leave one without any criteria to judge their reliability as statements (texts) about emotions in India. First, these textual interpretations show great control of both oral and written sources in Indian languages. Second, one may find greater credence where informants have greater play to correct the anthropologist's mistakes or to answer his questions and doubts. True, informants' interpretations may not be uncontested, but at least they are their own. T h e search for the single authoritative interpretation is a Western logocentric concern; in the case of such morally embedded concepts of emotion it has as much, if not more, to do with power as it does with truth. Third, sensitivity to varied and contested interpretations within the culture itself dispels suspicion of trying to force a picture into a store-bought frame. Trawick's chapter is self-consciously dialogical and displays all three criteria of reliability. Her interpretation of Tamil anpu is presented as a doubled dialogue: that with herself as she reacted to what she saw and heard and that with the members of her Tamil family. This doubled dialogue leads her from what she understood about love to what Tamilians understand about and experience as anpu. Vatuk's essay is also clearly presented as a doubled dialogue: that with the theories and ideas in her mind when she came to the field and that with her informants who were telling her something quite different and unexpected. They told her that they felt pride, not shame, in dependency on children in old age. Yet in the face of old-old age, when physical dependency and loss of control over one's body sets in, her informants expressed anxiety about both their bodies and possible mistreatment from relatives. Dusenbery also reveals that his understanding of the Punjabi Sikh's feeling of izzat (honor) is a result of doubled dialogue: that with his own initial emotional incomprehension of it as a justified motive for the killing of M a d a m e Gandhi and that with the Sikhs who were telling him quite a different story. Kolenda presents the recorded texts of dialogues with her informants and of her informants among themselves when they tried to describe and explain to her why certain situations were humorous. Her own actions and words appear in the texts so that the reader gets a sense of how she was drawn into and became a part of the humor itself. In these chapters the canons of the fictional scientific objective observer have been transcended and replaced by the more realistic process of dialogue that fieldwork is. Where more appropriate is this than in the study of emotions, those nontangible, at least to the Westerner, but most important aspects of all social life?

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But these essays differ from deconstructionism in their humanism. They do not decenter the subject; indeed, they celebrate it, although to various degrees. Insofar as "the Other" for the anthropologist is really a warmbodied and open-hearted "other" with whom she lived in the field, and insofar as the essays in this volume variously attempt to understand with that other her emotional life, to that extent centering on the cultural subject is paramount. Social constructionist interpretations have often been criticized for lack of sensitivity to the larger social forces and contexts in which they are embedded. Yet this is inherent in neither social constructionism nor deconstructionism (see Ryan 1982; Hochschild 1983; Lindholm 1982). Emotions, as social constructs, are neither free of nor unaffected by the political economy in which they exist. Hochschild (1983) has insightfully shown how hostesses sell their emotions to airlines that teach them techniques of emotional management and reinterpretation so that the company will profit through greater customer satisfaction. In Sri Lanka the emotional illnesses of members of the lower class come to incorporate the social problems of others, and the humor in the exorcisms used to cure illness often derives "from contrasts between working-class life and the lives of those wielding authority and influence in the wider social world" (Kapferer 1983:35). Humor at the time of marriage among Kolenda's Chuhras grounds itself in sexuality; all affinals are related metaphorically, like the bride and groom. But the humor is also grounded in the peculiarly Indian structural fact of hierarchy and in ideas of purity and pollution. Emotions, then, flourish or die in an economy of sentiment. Both Brooks and Dusenbery frame their accounts in international encounters of emotions. Dusenbery's J a t Indian Sikhs and North American Gora Sikhs are under pressure to relate their own very different emotional reactions to new situations. Like medieval accidie, izzat may not survive as a viable, socially constructed emotional experience in Canada. Brooks tells us how the foreign Hare Krishnas and the local Indians in Brindaban originally defined their devotional experiences in opposition to one another; yet over time mutual accommodation and shared emotional understanding have begun to grow. In Brooks's account, when a Hare Krishna devotee enters a sacred pond at the urging of a local holy man, he experiences the erotic emotion he had previously been taught to shun. He then reevaluates both the emotion and the holy man as good. Likewise the holy man realizes that the hearts of foreigners can be softened. Lynch notes how the experience of masti, too, is changing as the Chaubes begin to experience it in new contexts and new occupations. In encountering different textual interpretations of emotions through actual practices, experience of them, as well the moral evaluations they imply, can change. Emotions are social emergents (Lutz 1988:5).

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Directions for Research In addition to those mentioned in this essay, the volume's chapters point in many directions for future research. I mention here only four. First, anthropological field studies need to consider the ethnopsychological literature existing in Indian philosophy. T h i s corpus is as vast and diverse as the literature of Western psychology. Y e t much of it has been subject to Western scholarly readings, techniques, apparatus, and interpretations. O n e can gain new and different understandings by reading this literature in light o f everyday understandings from the field. T h e task is mighty and requires a command of written sources unnecessary for many cross-cultural studies o f ethnopsychologies already conducted in simpler societies. Second, deriving from the rasa theory, it seems that Indians understand emotions in terms of vibhava or bhavana, that is, catalysts of internal experience. M o s t essays in this volume show Indians describing emotions in terms of social situations or practices rather than in terms of individual feelings. Apparently Indians are more like the Micronesian Ifaluk (Lutz 1988) w h o understand emotions in terms of social situations than like Americans w h o understand emotions in terms of an individual's feelings. W h a t , then, leads to such similarities in societies as different in complexity as Ifaluk and India and to such dissimilarities between those two and America? Third, we need many more culturally sensitive field studies of Indian emotional categories as they appear in actual situations or cases a n d as described by Indians themselves. Such studies can be considerably enriched by going beyond the semantics and pragmatics of words to those of discourse and grammatical structure as well (Ochs and Schieffelin 1989). Finally, much is to be gained by further studies on the implications of the highly developed Indian metaphor of taste and nourishment for understanding emotions rather than simply relying on the hydraulic metaphor. Science and understanding of the human condition often advance when they are able to see things from a new perspective.

Notes to Chapter One For insightful comments and important criticisms of this essay I am indebted to Charles Brooks, Doranne Jacobson, Pauline Kolenda, Alan Roland, and Paul Toomey. I am especially grateful to Joan Lehn's sharp editorial eye and penetrating questions. 1. For important recent ethnographic works of this type, see Abu-Lughod (1986), Lindholm (198a), Lutz (1988), Myers (1986), M. Rosaldo (1980, 1984), R. Rosaldo (1984), Schieffelin (1976, 1983), White and Kirkpatrick (1985). Lutz (1988) also contains an important theoretical critique. For an extensive recent review of anthropological work on emotion, see Lutz and White (1986). Heelas (1986) offers a

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survey of cross-cultural differences in emotion. Harre (1986) is a recent collection on the theory of the social construction of emotion. 2. The following paragraphs up to and including that on behaviorism rely heavily on Lyons (1980:1-32). 3. Kemper (1987; see also 1981) is a recent attempt to reconcile a physicalist with a social constructionist perspective on emotion. He says four primary emotions—fear, anger, depression, and satisfaction—are caused by the action of neurochemicals on the body's autonomic system. All other emotions, in his opinion, are derived from the primary four by processes of socialization and social construction. But see note 10 below. 4. For a recent critique of this aspect of Durkheim's theory of ritual, see Kapferer (1979)5. Spinoza's was also a cognitive theory of emotion, but he seems to have reduced it to a belief accompanied by a feeling. His theory is wanting in that it does not distinguish emotional feelings from sensations and in that it lacks an evaluative component such that emotions can be motives (cf. Lyons 1980:37-40; Leavitt 1985). 6. A basic introduction to the social construction of emotions may be found in Harre (1986). Some applications and some conflicting views on the approach in anthropology may be found in Shweder and LeVine (1984), and a lively, if somewhat idiosyncratic, discussion may be found in Solomon (1976). Lyons is a good introduction to the important work done by philosophers, but unjustly neglected by anthropologists, on emotions. Theoretical influences on social constructionism have been many. Berger and Luckmann (1966) drawing on phenomenology have provided an important general statement on social constructionism. Wittgenstein's (1958, 1980) later theories of language and his statements on emotions in particular have also been important, as has the work of his interpreter Winch (1967). Mead (1962), Cooley (1964), and their successors in the symbolic interactionist school provided important insights on emotional socialization and on emotions as social emergents. Denzin (1984) is a statement of the extremes to which that approach may go in trying to elaborate on the emotional experience of the intentional ego. 7. Although I have drawn from many sources in identifying these characteristics, I am particularly indebted to Armon-Jones (1986), Harre (1986), Averill (1980, 1986), and Solomon (1976). 8. "Academic psychologists have begun to accumulate evidence, however, suggesting that the number of danger response elicitors present from birth is much smaller than was once thought" (Lutz 1983:257). 9. There is a Hindi verbal construction mahsus kama or mahsus bona. But this means "it seems like" or " I feel" in general; it is not used with any specific nouns for emotion, such as anger, or the like. 10. For further references and studies on the Schacter and Singer study, see Gordon (1981:573) and Kemper (1987:272-274). Kemper (1987, 1981) rejects Schacter and Singer's conclusions in favor of four physiologically grounded primary emotions: fear, anger, depression, and satisfaction. Many arguments can be raised against Kemper's thesis. I mention three. First, he assumes that emotions by definition are physiological sensations. He thereby separates them from all those characteristics of emotion outlined in this essay. Second, one could as easily and as arbitrarily start

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with other emotions, such as humor and love which Kemper considers secondary, as paradigmatic and be led to a richer conception of emotion. Such a different beginning could include physiological correlates as well as all that is humanly important in the concept of emotion. Finally, implicit in his assumption is the idea that emotions must be measurable phenomena (cf. Lutz 1988:220). Because neurochemical correlates of some emotions are measurable, by a process of circular reasoning they are emotions. Kemper relegates to a footnote the following statement: "Autonomic differentiation of emotions does not imply that persons experiencing emotions are always aware of, or can report correctly, their underlying physiological processes" (Kemper 1987:271, n. 3). But, if the emotion is the physiological sensation, why does it not tell one what one's emotion is? Precisely because sensations are not emotions and need some social context in order to be interpreted as emotions, just as the Schacter and Singer thesis states. 11. "Intentions, unlike the behaviors they intend, are not behaviorally observable. Neither, therefore, are the emotions" (Solomon 1976:166). 12. See Bedford 1986; Solomon 1976:163-170; Lyons 1980:17-25. 13. For anthropological studies elaborating this point, see M. Rosaldo (1980), Myers (1986), Lutz (1988), Abu-Lughod (1986). 14. This is merely to interpret emotions in terms of their activity, not in terms of functional theory in which function means contribution to the maintenance and survival of the whole. See Greenberg (1957:75-85). 15. For further information on the rasa theory, its textual bases, and interpretive variations of it, see de Bary et al. (1958:258-275). 16. My understanding of Derrida in the following paragraphs is based upon Derrida (1973, 1976), Spivak (1976), Leitch (1983), and Ryan (1982). 17. The "same. . .is not the identical. The same is precisely differance (with an a), as the diverted and equivocal passage from one difference to another, from one term of the opposition to the other. . . the other as 'differed' within the systematic order of the same" (Derrida 1973:148). 18. This is true even for the natural sciences. According to Thomas Kuhn (1970), the continuity of scientific progress is illusionary. When a scientific revolution, such as that brought about by Einstein's theories, occurs, then many old formulas expressed in signs or symbols are carried over. But their basic meaning changes within the context of the new theoretical system and its very different underlying assumptions. 19. Barnett (1977) mentions Dumont (1970) as the source of this term, although Dumont gives it a different meaning than does Barnett. Marriott and Inden (1977) develop the idea of the identity of substance and value in India and mention Barnett's dissertation. All acknowledge, in regard to this term, the stimulation of David Schneider's (1968) ideas on American kinship. 20. For an enlightening discussion and application of this insight to an ethnography of south India, see Daniel (1984). References Cited Abu-Lughod, Lila 1986 Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Aristotle 194t Rhetoric. In The Basic Works of Aristotle. R. McKeon, ed. New York: Random House. Armon-Jones, Ciaire 1986 The Thesis of Constructionism. In The Social Construction of Emotions. Rom Harre, ed. Pp. 32-56. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Averill, James 1980 A Constructivist View of Emotion. In Emotion: Theory, Research, and Experience. Vol. i, Theories of Emotion. Robert Plutchick and Henry Kellerman, eds. Pp. 305-339. New York: Academic Press. 1986 The Acquisition of Emotions during Adulthood. In The Social Construction of Emotions. Rom Harré, ed. Pp. 98-118. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Barnett, Steve 1977 Identity Choice and Caste Ideology in Contemporary South India. In The New Wind: Changing Identities in South Asia. Kenneth David, ed. Pp. 393-414. The Hague: Mouton. Bedford, Errol 1962 Emotions. In The Philosophy of Mind. V. C. Chappell, ed. Pp. 1 1 0 - 1 2 6 . Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 1986 Emotions and Statements about Them. In The Social Construction of Emotions. Rom Harre, ed. Pp. 1 5 - 3 1 . Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Bellah, Robert N., et al. 1985 Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. New York: Harper and Row. Berger, Peter L., and Thomas Luckmann 1966 The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. Briggs, Jean L. 1970 Never in Anger: Portrait of an Eskimo Family. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Carstairs, G. Morris 1967 The Twice Born: A Study of a Community of High-Caste Hindus. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Christian, W. A. 1982 Provoked Religious Weeping in Early Modern Spain. In Religious Organization and Religious Experience. J . Davis, ed. Pp. 9 7 - 1 1 4 . New York: Academic Press. Cooley, Charles H. 1964 Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Schocken Books. Daniel, E. Valentine 1984 Fluid Signs: Being a Person in the Tamil Way. Berkeley: University of California Press. de Bary, William Theodore, et al. 1958 Sources of Indian Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press. Denzin, Norman K. 1984 On Understanding Emotion. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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Derrida, Jacques 1973 Difference. In Speech and Phenomena and O t h e r Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs. David B. Allison, trans. Pp. 1 2 9 - 1 6 0 . Evans ton, 111.: Northwestern University Press. 1976 O f Grammatology. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, trans. Baltimore: J o h n s Hopkins University Press. Dumont, Louis 1970 Homo Hierarchicus: The Caste System and Its Implications. Mark Sainsbury, trans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Durkheim, Emile 1938 T h e Rules of Sociological Method. Glencoe, 111.: Free Press. Geertz, Clifford 1966 Religion as a Cultural System. In Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion. A.S.A. Monograph No. 3. Michael Banton, ed. Pp. 1 - 4 6 . London: Tavistock. Gordon, Steven L. 1981 T h e Sociology of Sentiments and Emotions. In Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives. Morris Rosenberg and Ralph T u r n e r , eds. Pp. 562-592. New York: Basic Books. Green berg, Joseph 1957 Essays in Linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gusfield, Joseph R. 1981 T h e Culture of Public Problems: Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic O r d e r . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Harre, Rom, ed. 1986 T h e Social Construction of Emotions. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Harre, Rom, and Robert Finlay-Jones 1986 Emotion Talk Across Times. In T h e Social Construction of Emotions. Rom Harre, ed. Pp. 220-233. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Heelas, Paul 1986 Emotion Talk Across Cultures. In T h e Social Construction of Emotions. Rom Harre, ed. Pp. 234-266. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Hochschild, Arlie R. 1983 T h e Managed Heart: Commercialization of H u m a n Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press. Jackson, Stanley W. 1985 Acedia the Sin and Its Relationship to Sorrow and Melancholia. In Culture and Depression: Studies in the Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry of Affect and Disorder. Arthur Kleinman and Byron Good, eds. Pp. 4 3 - 6 2 . Berkeley: University of California Press. J a m e s , William 1890 Principles of Psychology. New York: Macmillan. Kakar, Sudhir 1982 Shamans, Mystics, and Doctors. Boston: Beacon Press. Kapferer, Bruce 1979 Emotion and Feeling in Sinhalese Healing Rites. Social Analysis 1 : 1 5 3 - 1 7 6 .

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A Celebration of Demons: Exorcism and the Aesthetics of Healing in Sri Lanka. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kemper, Theodore D. 1981 Social Constructionist and Positivist Approaches to the Sociology of Emotions. American Journal of Sociology 87(2) : 336-362. 1987 How Many Emotions Are There? Wedding the Social and Autonomic Components. American Journal of Sociology 93(2) : 263-289. Kuhn, Thomas 1970 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lakoff, George, and Zoltan Kovecses 1987 The Cognitive Model of Anger Inherent in American English. In Cultural Models in Language and Thought. Dorothy Holland and Naomi Quinn, eds. Pp. 1 9 5 - 2 2 1 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leavitt, John 1985 Strategies for the Interpretation of Affect. Paper given at the meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C. Leitch, Vincent B. 1983 Deconstructive Criticism: An Advanced Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press. Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1962 Totemism. Rodney Needham, trans. London: Merlin Press. Lindholm, Charles 1982 Generosity and Jealousy: The Swat Pukhtun of Northern Pakistan. New York: Columbia University Press. Lutz, Catherine 1983 Parental Goals, Ethnopsychology, and the Development of Emotional Meaning. Ethos 1 1 ( 4 ) : 246-261. 1985 Depression and the Translation of Emotional Worlds. In Culture and Depression: Studies in the Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry of Affect and Disorder. Arthur Kleinman and Byron Good, eds. Pp. 6 3 - 1 0 0 . Berkeley: University of California Press. 1986a The Domain of Emotion Words on Ifaluk. In The Social Construction of Emotions. Rom Harré, ed. Pp. 276-288. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1986b Emotion, Thought, and Estrangement: Emotion as a Cultural Category. Cultural Anthropology 1 (3) : 286-309. 1988 Unnatural Emotions: Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and Their Challenge to Western Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lutz, Catherine, and Geoffrey M. White 1986

The Anthropology of Emotions. Annual Review of Anthropology 1 5 : 4 0 5 - '

436 Lyons, William 1980 Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marcus, George E., and Michael M . J . Fisher 1986 Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Social Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Marriott, McKim, and Ronald Inden 1977 Toward an Ethnosociology of South Asian Caste Systems. In The New Wind: Changing Identities in South Asia. Kenneth David, ed. Pp. 227-238. The Hague: Mouton. Mead, G. H. 1962 Mind, Self, Society from the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist. Vol. 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mediclc, Hans, and David Warren Sabean 1984 Interest and Emotion in Family and Kinship Studies: A Critique of Social History and Anthropology. In Interest and Emotion: Essays on the Study of Family and Kinship. Hans Medick and David Warren Sabean, eds. Pp. 9-27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Myers, Fred 1986 Pintupi Country, Pintupi Self: Sentiment, Place, and Politics among Western Desert Aborigines. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi Schieflelin 1989 Language has a Heart. Text 9(1): 7-25. Parkin, David 1985 Reason, Emotion, and the Embodiment of Power. In Reason and Morality. A.S.A. Monograph No. 24. Joanna Overing, ed. Pp. 1 3 5 - 1 5 1 . London: Tavistock. Perkins, Moreland 1966 Emotion and Feeling. Philosophical Review 75:139-160. Potter, Sulamith Heins 1988 The Cultural Construction of Emotion in Rural Chinese Social Life. Ethos 16(2): 181-208. Rosaldo, Michelle Z. 1980 Knowledge and Passion: Ilongot Notions of Self and Social Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1984 Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 137-157. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosaldo, Renato 1984 Grief and a Headhunter's Rage: On the Cultural Force of Emotions. In Play, Text, and Story. Stuart Plattner and Edward Bruner, eds. Pp. 1 7 8 195. Washington, D.C.: American Ethnological Society. Ryan, Michael 1982 Marxism and Deconstruction: A Critical Evaluation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Sarbin, Theodore R. 1986 Emotion and Act: Roles and Rhetoric. In The Social Construction of Emotions. Rom Harre, ed. Pp. 83-97. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Schacter, Stanley, and Jerome Singer 1962 Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State. Psychological Review 69(5): 379-399.

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Schieffelin, Edward L. 1976 The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers. New York: St. Martin's Press. 1983 Anger and Shame in the Tropical Forest: On Affect as a Cultural System in Papua, New Guinea. Ethos 1 1 ( 5 ) : 1 8 1 - 1 9 1 . Schneider, David 1968 American Kinship: A Cultural Account. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall. Shweder, Richard A., and Robert A. LeVine, eds. 1984 Culture Theory: Essays in Mind, Self, and Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Solomon, Robert C. 1976 The Passions: The Myth and Nature of Human Emotion. Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press. 1984 Getting Angry: The Jamesian Theory of Emotion in Anthropology. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 238-254. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 1976 Translator's Preface. In Of Grammatology. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, trans. Pp. ix-xc. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Weber, M a x 1963 Basic Concepts in Sociology. H. P. Secher, trans. New York: Citadel Press. White, Geoffrey, and J o h n Kirkpatrick, eds. 1985 Person, Self, and Experience: Exploring Pacific Ethnopsychologies. Berkeley: University of California Press. Winch, Peter 1967 The Idea of a Social Science and Its Relation to Philosophy. New York: Humanities Press. Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1958 Philosophical Investigations. G. E. M. Anscombe, trans. 3rd ed. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1980 Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1. G. E. M. Anscombe, trans. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wulff, Donna M. 1985 The Evocation of Bhava in Performances of Bengali Vaisnava PadavalT Klrtan. Paper given at conference on Emotion, Feeling, and Experience in India, University of Houston, Houston, Texas.

TWO

The Ideology of Love in a Tamil Family Margaret Trawick

Preliminary Thoughts On the surface is consciousness. Underneath is the unconscious, the deep wellspring, the knower who is hard to know, who can never know himself. This is the way we think of it. The surface, having been crafted by the knower, is a face, a mask, an artifice, an obstacle, a lie. We have to get behind it, underneath it, to understand what is really going on. Because what is interesting is just what is hidden. If the surface interests us, it does so only because of its failures, because of the artfulness of its deception, which reveals the hand of the artist. As anthropologists we are therefore simultaneously fascinated by and suspicious of everything the native tells us. Everything is significant, everything is revealing, everything is a lie. Our job is to lay bare the structure of the lies. In ethnology we seek to reveal to the world the nakedness of our informant, in its dazzling beauty, or in its ugliness, or in both. Somehow we convince ourselves, often enough, anyway, that this act of violence is an act of respect that benefits the native. At least we have shown the world that his nakedness is comparable to ours. At least we have shown the world what he really is, divested the world of its myths about him, even as we divest him of his own. But of course, we keep our own vestments on. Let us try another metaphor. Let us not think of the person, the native, as a sphere, with a surface to be stripped off or gotten through to the real stuff, the contents. Let us think of consciousness, or better yet, culture (how do we distinguish between these two ethereal constructions of consciousness, or culture?) as an activity. Culture/consciousness as an activity not done by one person but done among people, leaving its traces in memory (which we shall admit is a mystery), which will be part of the matrix for the next cultural act, 37

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the next interaction. Let us say that culture is in the interaction. After all, where else would it be? T h e n , when we view things this way, we find that there is no surface or depth. Instead there is only the turbulence of confrontation, with ourselves as part of it, and this turbulence is the most interesting, because the most active, thing. It is where the rocks get carved. W e can study the rocks later. Now let us consider the turbulence in which we together with others are swept up. I n all this churning, surface and depth are commingled. Now our aim is not to get to the bottom of things, but to stay afloat. Now what is most important is not what we or others are, but what happens between us—what others present to us, and how we receive it, and what we present, and how that is received by them, and what comes out of it all, continuously, what is being formed, the eddies, the patterns of waves. 1

Aims In this chapter I wish to describe some ways in which members of one South Indian T a m i l family attempted to demonstrate to me some of the principles that they regarded as important in the living of their day-to-day lives. I say " a t t e m p t e d to demonstrate" in order to stress the intentionality of their performances before me. O n e of the various things that they did, and that I believe they intended to do, as they ate their meals, swept their floors, recited their prayers, conversed with each other in my presence and with me directly was to convey to me certain information about themselves, about their relationship with me, and about their relationships with others. 2 Sometimes these intentions were conveyed to me openly and explicitly, in so many words. Definitions o f terms for my sake—explanations of and comments upon behavior, one's own and others', to me as an ignorant stranger wanting to know—were common. More often, the intentions behind actions were conveyed to me much more subtly. I use the term "ideology" here to mean the articulable and at least sometimes articulated ideas people have about why they do what they do to each o t h e r — i n this case, why they express or act out particular feelings or relationships in particular ways, or conversely, what the feeling behind a particular act is supposed to be. Ideology, then, is conscious formulation of motives and intentions. It is not "underlying" but in a sense "overlaid." This does not necessarily mean, however, that it is false. 3 M y aim in living with this family had been to try to understand what love (as something that they thought about, or perhaps did not think about, but had " i n their minds" in some way) was to them. T h e y had the word anpu, which seemed to mean something very like English " l o v e , " and various related words, pacam ( " a t t a c h m e n t " ) , acai ( " d e s i r e " ) , patlu ( " d e v o t i o n " ) .

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They had been exposed to many teachings expounding as well as extolling love, and they were surrounded, filled, and made into h u m a n beings by a culture that said in a thousand ways that love was the highest good. 4 But how was I to grasp what love (as I called it, or anpu as they called it) meant to them, and how was I to put it down on paper in a believable way? If I offer a woman ten rupees for an interview and she says to me, " M o n e y is not important, people are important," to me that statement conveys more than a message about the relative value, in objective terms, of people a n d money. 5 It is also a statement conveying information about the speaker: that she values people over money, and therefore (perhaps) she is a loving person. But how do I know that the intention to convey the latter message was there "in her mind"? How do I prove it? Ultimately, I cannot, for no proof of another's intentions is possible. I can only assert that my interpretation of this woman's statement was one that would be accepted as a valid possibility by some Tamil speakers because those other speakers had explicitly linked such statements with feelings of love. It is important to recognize, however, that the indirectness of this woman's attribution of lovingness to herself, the nonexplicitness of it, was essential to conveying the message. In Tamil Nadu you cannot directly say, with any hope of credibility, " I am a loving person," for the loving are also humble. All you can do is show it. In this essay, I have deliberately avoided trying to sort out my informants' "sincere" expressions of feelings and intentions from their "insincere" ones. T h e topic of love/anpu is too delicate, complex, and riven with illusions for me to presume an objective analysis of it. But the reader should beware, for this is also not a straight description of Tamil feelings as Tamils enact and describe them among themselves. I brought with me to Tamil N a d u my own, deeply ingrained, culturally developed feelings about what love is a n d should be. These feelings ran headlong into the enactments of anpu that my T a m i l friends presented to me. My idea of love and their idea of anpu took deceptively similar forms. My Tamil friends and I were attracted to each other partly for that reason. I thought that they loved me; they thought that I felt anpu toward them. But just at those times when I thought that there was some fundamental something that all human beings shared and that I had found that something at last in Tamil Nadu, suddenly some small act would cast a deep shadow between us again, and once again they were strangers, whom I feared and mistrusted. I found myself thinking, time after time, " B u t this isn't love." Now, after years, I can answer myself with detached amusement, " O f course it isn't love, it's anpu." Somehow, back then, this relativistic answer never occurred to me. This essay is not a description of anpu as seen "from the native's point of view." Nor is it a description of love as expressed in the Tamil context. It is a n account of anpu as seen through the eyes of someone conditioned to look

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for love. It is shot through with my values, biases, mistaken impressions. But it is not a 100 percent American product, either. I was strongly attached to this Tamil family; I cared what they thought about me; they changed me; now they are a litde bit mixed in me. T o whatever extent I have incorporated them into myself, this essay speaks their feelings. About the Family and Others In 1975-1976, when I was in Madras doing my dissertation research, I became close friends with a Tamil scholar who made his living by lecturing to religious gatherings about Shaiva literature. In this chapter he is called Ayya. There was one long poem A y y a loved, that he often urged me to read. It was a devotional poem to Shiva, allegorically framed as a love story. I decided finally to study it with his help, and to do this in the context of a general study of forms of ambiguity in spoken and written Tamil. In 1980 I returned to Tamil Nadu for that purpose. This time I lived not in Madras but in A y y a ' s village, the better to receive daily lessons from him. A t first I stayed in a separate house, but members of A y y a ' s family cooked for me and looked after my five-year-old son and in other ways met all my needs. Ostensibly I was there to study the poem, but my attention was quickly drawn to A y y a ' s family. T h e y were relatively relaxed in my presence, and their household was the easiest context for me to observe ordinary conversation on a day-to-day basis. As I watched them and became personally involved with them, unconsciously (as it seems to me now) the focus of my attention shifted. I came to see that A y y a ' s exegesis of the love poem was hooked into the everyday affairs of this family; his life in the family gave the poem its meaning for him. I also saw that for the members of this household, and especially for A y y a and A y y a ' s sister-in-law who formed its emotional center, anpu was a ruling principle. Many of their acts were explained by them, or could be understood by me, only in terms of this principle. And as I was trying to understand the uses of ambiguity in the poem and in the household, it struck me more and more that the most ambiguous thing of all was this anpu. T h e members of this household were not A y y a ' s natal family. He had joined them when he married one of their members. Because he had run away in his childhood, he had no other home. T h e head of the family was a man whom A y y a called Annan (older brother). His wife was addressed by everyone as Anni (older brother's wife). Anni's father's sister, who was also Annan's mother, remained in the household but was old and crippled and no longer had any real power there. Anni's younger sister, Padmini, was A y y a ' s wife. Mohana, the cross-cousin of Anni and Padmini, also spent much time in this household; she was married to one of their brothers, who was rarely

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there. Mohana and Padmini were very close. Anni had an eighteen-year-old daughter, an eight-year-old daughter, and a six-year-old son. Padmini had an eight-year-old daughter, a six-year-old daughter, and a two-year-old-son. Mohana had a two-year-old son. Although they were landlords, this family was poor, having barely enough money to keep their children nourished. I bought them a cow and helped them build a rice mill, and perhaps it was for the sake of money that they tolerated me as they did, though they themselves would deny this vehemently. As poverty-stricken landlords, they were not at all uncommon. T h e cost of rice was fixed, laborers demanded higher wages, crops often failed, and they faced litigation on all sides. M a n y middle-class families were better off than this one; many more were worse off. There were tensions within this family, as there are in virtually any large family. 6 Disputes sometimes occurred over serious economic questions, but I never observed any quarrels over allocation of resources within the household, and I am inclined to think, as Anni did, that friction among people living together is inevitable. How representative of Tamil families in general was A y y a ' s family? This question haunted me. I could see that in the view of Tamils themselves, there was nothing especially surprising about this family's behavior, certainly nothing pathological. They were actively involved in a wide social network, and they had many friends from the city and from villages who came into the house and participated in household affairs. None of the kinds of behavior I describe here were kept hidden from view. All of them, including the quarrels, were accepted as natural by people who dropped in. Still, I myself wondered, and many colleagues back home asked, whether A y y a and his family were not more idiosyncratic than most, as many things they did contradicted what earlier ethnographic reports from South India had led me, for one, to expect. For this reason, in 1984 I went back to Tamil Nadu to observe other families as I had observed Ayya's. I worked this time in a village near Madurai, several hundred miles from where A y y a ' s family lived. But in this village I was not able to establish with anyone the degree of intimacy I had achieved with A y y a ' s family. So I contented myself with interviewing a relatively large number of people in the village and in the city for relatively brief periods (about one hour per person) on the topic of family relations. T h e interviews were open-ended. The content of these interviews supplements at some points in this essay what I learned from A y y a ' s family. Of the 150 interviewees, 100 were from the one village; the rest were from the cities of Madras and Madurai. T h e preponderance of interviewees were from the Paraiyar, Kallar, and K a v u n d a r castes. The remainder were from the Acari, Chettiar, Vellalar, Nayakar, and Brahman castes, together with some Muslims. Although there was considerable variation among these different interviewees, for the most part they confirmed what I saw in A y y a ' s household.

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Every basic expression of anpu that I saw in his family I also observed among many other families, and in those other families also these forms of behavior were called anpu. These kinds of behavior included the painful teasing of children, the deliberate sharing of bodily effluvia, the seeking after mixture and confusion, and the hiding of love. T h e assertions I make here about anpu would be considered by most Tamils to be banalities—too obvious to be worth writing an essay about. Only Americans seem to need convincing. Characteristics of Anpu Containment (adakkam) Discovering the meaning of love to Ayya's family was rendered difficult by their strongly held tenet that love was by nature and by right hidden. Ayya had much to say on this, as on many other topics. He was my richest source of T a m i l understandings, and I was often tempted to let him do all my cultural analysis for me. This temptation was curbed by my ingrained refusal to let anybody tell me what to think. As regards feelings, verbalizations of them all flowed so easily from Ayya that I have had to clap my hand over his enchanting mouth at many points in this chapter in order to give others a chance to speak. However, I have included observations of his which were particularly revealing of his role in the family or which were strongly borne out by actions and statements of other family members. Of the hiddenness of love, he said, "Anpu adahki pemki ninrum" [JIC], which could be translated "Love grows in hiding"; adahku means " b e contained." A mother's love for her child, tay pacam, the strongest of all loves and the most highly valued, had to be kept contained and hidden. Anni said that a mother should never gaze lovingly into her child's face, especially while the child was sleeping, because the loving gaze itself could harm the child. She told me this when she caught me gazing at my own sleeping child's face in j u s t this dangerous way. When I told her it was an America custom to let people lead their own lives, she said simply, " T a p p u " (That is a mistake). After some time I learned that if you cared about people, you would interfere. A mother would avoid looking with love at her sleeping child because her look could produce kan tirusdi, "the evil eye," although for Anni it was not an evil force so much as a merely harmful one. Anyone could gaze at anything with appreciation and without the slightest malice, and harm could come to that thing. But for a mother to gaze with love at her own child was the most dangerous gaze of all. "Tay kanne pullatatu" (The mother's gaze is the worst), said Anni and other mothers to me. Many women, like Anni, would show affection for others' children through affectionate words and looks, but they avoided such shows of love for their own children, especially in public. It was

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not the existence of mother love but its concentration displayed through the eyes that was dangerous. 7 Mother love had to be contained, not only in the sense of being hidden but also in the sense of being kept within limits. Thus, almost all the m a n y women with whom I spoke on this topic said that mother's milk should not be given to a child for more than ten months, just as a child should not stay in the womb for more than ten months. 8 Mother's milk was a special substance because it was mixed with the feelings of the mother and transmitted them to the child. In particular, mother's milk contained the mother's love. After a child passed the age of ten months, mother's milk would become very sweet (inippu) to him, and he would be all the more difficult to wean. If he kept on nursing, women told me, he would get "too much love." T h e n he would become fat and proud (timir) and beat on his own mother. Thus, letting love overflow its bounds could be harmful not only to the recipient but to the giver as well. O t h e r kinds of love had to be concealed in other ways. T h e r e was, for instance, the convention of mutual avoidance in public between spouses, a convention that Anni and Annan scrupulously honored, rarely even looking at or talking with each other, while Padmini and Ayya exhibited before others a relationship of total mutual abrasion. It was not that sexual display itself was considered dangerous, or the movie theatres would have been empty. Nor were physical expressions of love forbidden. In everyday life, adult males and females who were not spouses could show loving affection for one another with surprising freedom. But spouses, who were supposed to love each other most and to focus their sexual feelings entirely upon each other, were expected to keep both feelings hidden. No one ever said that the sentiments of sexual love should not exist. Sexual pleasure (inpam, sweetness) was not an evil force. It was one of the four goals of life; any normal h u m a n being desired it. Sexual pleasure was supposed to be attained only through marriage. When people talked about "being like husband and wife" (purucan pondaddiyaka irukka), it m e a n t specifically going to bed together. But any hint of the existence of such a relationship in public communications between husband and wife, or by one about the other, was avoided. T h e custom of a woman avoiding mention of her husband's n a m e was only part of a much larger set of conventions for hiding love. Not only was the personal n a m e of the husband never used, but if possible he was never referred to at all. Only a very Westernized woman would refer to her h u s b a n d as "my husband" (en kanavar, en purucan). If a woman had to refer to her husband, she would do so through a relationship he had with some other person, as " t h e father of so-and-so" or "the teacher of so-and-so." Some women

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would whisper and point when they wished to make reference to their husband. Others would refer to their husband by his caste name, as " m y Reddia r . " I asked Anni the reason for this convention, and she gave her usual enigmatic answer to questions of this sort: " h a b i t " (parakkam). Other women cited a belief that if a woman uttered her husband's name, harm would befall him. One function of name avoidance, then, was to wrap the husband in a protective silence, whose nature and intent were nevertheless known to all. 9 T h e husband was not the only one to whom reference was avoided. Some men, avoiding reference to their wife's name, referred to her simply as aval (she). A y y a referred to his younger sister, with whom he had been especially close in childhood, as "the teacher in the town of x , " where she lived, and it took me some time to realize that he was speaking about his own sister. Sometimes long-term friends claimed not even to know each other's names. T h e custom of avoiding direct reference to the loved one was fuzzy around the edges. Only in the case of reference to the husband was this custom more or less strictly adhered to by more or less all women. In other cases, the application of this custom appeared to be a matter of the speaker's own will. It was a tool, not a ritual. Another way of hiding love was to openly downgrade the loved one. Thus, if a woman bore a series of children who died very young, when another child was born it would be given an ugly name such as Baldy, or Nosey, or Beggar's Bead, to protect it. A beautiful child would have its cheek smudged with ink. I f a child was highly valued, to display directly one's high valuation of it brought it danger, and so one had to make a pretense, which everyone knew to be pretense, of not caring for it at all. 1 0 T h e same attitude could also receive less conventional forms of expression. So a mother who had borne and lost seven children (by her own reckoning) dandled the eighth, whom she had adopted by the roadside, playfully asking it, " A r e you going to die? Are you going to-die?" {cettuppoviya), tempting fate as though the child's life was of little concern to her. It is possible that the custom among Paraiyar and other, mainly lowcaste, women of singing and speaking of their husbands in the most critical, derogatory terms was motivated, at least for some women, by the desire to protect the mates to whom they were in reality strongly emotionally bonded or even, perhaps, by a desire to show that they loved their husbands and were protecting them (Egnor 1986). A similar motivation may have existed among the many men who made a habit of speaking harshly to their wives before others. " D o n ' t reveal your treasure," said the poetess Auvaiyar. So a rich man, to protect his wealth, might dress in rags. If one regarded one's spouse as a treasure, one might best display one's regard by hiding it, as one kept a treasured wife confined. Thus, although the exterior of the relationship among spouses was almost universally mute, where not harsh, the interior of this relationship sometimes had an exactly opposite quality.

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Gradual Habituation (parakkam) Love was often described as a force that was tender, gentle, and slow. A loving heart was a soft heart (matmaiyana manacu). A heart that was not moved by the feelings of others was like a stone ( " M a k e your heart like a stone," a village m a n told me, when a d r u n k a r d came asking me for money). Food metaphors for the tenderness of love were m a n y . O f all the different kinds of food, sweet ripe fruit (param), whose coming into existence was a gentle and g r a d u a l process, was probably most symbolic of love. A m a n g o (mamparam) was like a breast. You kneaded it between the palms of your h a n d s until the p u l p was a creamy juice, then you cut a small hole at the tip a n d sucked out the juice. In our village, it was a sin to cut down a fruitbearing m a n g o tree, j u s t as it was a sin to kill a pregnant cow. I cannot help b u t think it significant that the m a n g o tree was called ma. Love, or a t t a c h m e n t , or a sense of oneness with a person or thing or activity grew slowly, by habituation (parakkam). Unlike the term anpu, the term parakkam was used frequently in our household; it was an i m p o r t a n t a n d complex part of people's thinking and day-to-day theorizing a b o u t h u m a n behavior. Any addictive habit, such as coffee drinking or cigarette smoking, was a parakkam. Ayya was fond of saying that he h a d " n o habits of any k i n d " (enta vitamana parakkam/ illai), a statement m e a n i n g that he had no physical addictions; but this statement also expressed for himself a n d for others in the family what they saw as a more general aspect of his personality, his lack of a t t a c h m e n t (pacam) to any h u m a n being. H e stood a p a r t (otuhki nitkiren) he said, a n d he self-deprecatingly claimed that he had no love (anpu) in his heart either. According to p o p u l a r theory, a person could become habituated to virtually any state of affairs, a n d once a situation became parakkam to a person, that person would not only feel comfortable with it but would also seek it out if deprived of it. T h e idea of parakkam explained and justified the differences between people. T h e r e was no point in trying to create a better way of life for others because people liked and wanted whatever it was they were used to having. O n c e Anni and I were walking down a road in M a d r a s when we saw a hovel built under a bridge. " E v e n here people live their lives," she said. " L i k e us, a m a n a n d a w o m a n a n d children. T h e y have a good life. T h e y d o n ' t have to answer to anyone [yarukkum patil colla vendam]. W e who are in the middle, neither rich nor poor, must suffer m a n y burdens. But as for them, if one d a y they get two rupees, they live on two rupees. If they get one rupee, they live on one rupee. If they get nothing, they go hungry for a d a y . " " B u t isn't it hard to go h u n g r y ? " I asked. " I t is j u s t parakkam," said Anni. " I f I eat at a certain time today, I will w a n t to eat at that same time tomorrow. For them, going hungry is a h a b i t . " Most parakkams were acquired by exposure to and absorption of certain

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elements in the environment, but a parakkam was not a superficial overlay upon a personality. It went deep in and at a certain undefined point became that personality. For instance, northern M a d r a s was regarded as a dangerous place because its people were violent. " W h y are they that way?" I asked Anni. "Because fighting is a habit they have practiced and practiced and that quality has grown in t h e m " (ate paraki paraki anta kunam valarum), she answered. T h r o u g h repeated practice, through parakkam, an action would become a quality {kunam) of the person. So deeply embedded in the person was parakkam that it was not lost even at death. Babies brought certain parakkams with them into the world. T h a t a child was born possessing certain knowledge (e.g., how to suckle) and, more importantly, that children of the same w o m b could have such different parakkams provided strong evidence for the reality of transmigration, of there having been previous lives. If a baby had habits, parakkams, resembling those of a recently deceased kinsperson, then people would surmise that that baby had that kinsperson's soul (uyir). Most babies were not assigned an ancestral identity in this way, and there were no apparent rules regulating this particular kind of rebirth: the soul of a male ancestor could turn u p in a female baby, and vice versa, and it could be born to any woman in the kinship group. But this kind of rebirth was observed often enough for people to say that souls liked to be reborn among their previous kin if they had any choice in the matter. Hence the idea of parakkam was in some ways like the idea of karma (vinai, pavam-punniyam). It was, and was created by, action; it was embedded in the person, and it was hard to get rid of; it was carried from birth to birth a n d could be passed on from generation to generation. But it differed from the idea of karma in at least one crucial way: without parakkam, love was impossible. From one point of view, as I have tried to suggest, parakkam was love, or rather, it was the behavioral side of a reality that had also an emotional component, as weeping consists of both sorrow and tears. Parakkam was the reason for the growth of the feeling of love; love was the reason for the continuation of parakkam. T o know somebody, to spend time with them, to be familiar or intimate with them, was to have parakkam with them. When you had parakkam with a person, j u s t as when you had parakkam with a substance, that person became part of your system. This was why it was so important to avoid going near bad persons or Harijans, not even to talk to them, at least, not too much or in too friendly a way because they might become parakkam. And then, as one six-year-old child had told me, "you would become like them." Parakkam implied friendliness, easiness, and grace because an action to which one is habituated can be accomplished smoothly, and people to whom one is habituated are not feared. M a n y people told me that villages were

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easier than cities to live in because in a village people had parakkam with each other. As one agricultural worker put it, "in the villages they mingle lovingly" (anpaka parakuvdrkal). Cruelty and Harshness (kodumai, kadumai) Parakkam was gentle and easy because its action was slow. Gradually it built the powerful bonds of love. And love itself, powerful as it was, was gentle and tender. Tender feelings (menmaiyana unarccikal) flowed (payum) most easily between people. Only feelings of love could melt the heart (manacai urukkum). But equally as it was tender and slow, love was cruel and forceful. Cruelty was a characteristic of love acted out more often than spoken of. However, some people said outright, "Love is very cruel" (anpu mika kodumaiyanatu), or "Attachment is very cruel" (pacam mika kodumaiyanatu). I heard these two statements often enough to suspect that they, too, like the melting heart, were common formulas. We in the United States consider love to be cruel in the sense that April is the crudest month. Our highest flights are made in love, and we take our hardest falls there, too. Really, it is the disappointment of love that is cruel, but, because love is almost always disappointed, happy love songs are not the norm. All this is American common sense, I think. But the cruelty of love had quite a different meaning to my Tamil family. Pacam, the bond of affection, was cruel, like American love, because when the bond was broken, as always it had to be, the newly unbound person suffered pain. When you become habituated to something, it becomes part of you, and, when you lose it, part of yourself is severed. Hence the adage, Peyyinodum pirital kasdam (Even from a demon, parting is painful). Pacam was called cruel by a person observing a child weep as her mother went out the door. But anpu, in its meaning of a higher and unselfish form of love, could be cruel in its very enactment, in and of itself. Part of the reason for love's cruelty was that, because parakkam was hard to overcome, it was sometimes deemed necessary to violently force people to do what was in their own best interests. When times or situations changed, people had to change also. Hence Ayya's sister Porutcelvi, in describing how lovingly he had raised her after their father died, said, " H e beat me to make me study" (adittu padikkavaittarkal). Their father had not believed in female education, and Porutcelvi had become accustomed to avoiding books. Similarly, Anni, in attesting to the loving nature of an aunt who had helped raise her, said, "She beat me to make me eat" (adittu cappida vaittarkal), after she had become accustomed to denying herself food in another aunt's household. Beating children in the hope of getting them to study better was an everyday occurrence in this household, for small children's parakkam is to play; but as they grow, they have to change, and ripening (paruttal), as Ayya told me, is a

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painful process. Beating children to make them eat did not appear necessary, except when they were sick. When people were ill and their appetites were off, it was especially important to force food down their throats, even if they gagged and vomited it up again. " A t least the essence [cattu] of the food will be absorbed," said Anni. Sickness itself could too easily become parakkam. Acts embodying the cruelty of love could also and simultaneously be acts hiding its tenderness. Thus, physical affection for children was expressed not through caresses but roughly in the form of painful pinches, slaps, and tweaks, which left marks or drew blood. Frightening a beloved child, like deceiving it, was also a favorite pastime. After my young son was stung on the arm by a scorpion, Padmini suggested that we buy a rubber scorpion and put it on his arm, "to see what he would do." Yet my son had been pampered and, for the most part, treated like a little king. In 1982, Mohana bore a second child, who in 1984 when I revisited the home was a rugged, bold, and healthy toddler. But she was for some reason terrified of a toy lion that someone had bought for her. Mohana and Padmini enjoyed showing the toy lion to the little girl and watching her scream. Yet the little girl was a family favorite, not a scapegoat or a runt. Why were the household darlings singled out for such exquisite torments? "It's a kind of love" ( oru vakaiyana anpu), said A y y a in response to my puzzlement at such practices. Among adults, this "kind of love" took the form of heated noisy quarrels, which, however, blew over quickly and often terminated in laughter. " Y o u don't fight with those you don't love," said Ayya, and after some time it dawned upon me that, inasmuch as love was in large part a matter of mutual habituation, or, as we would say, interaction, then perhaps intense love required intense interaction (see also Kakar 1978). The true sign of love's absence might be the absence of any interaction at all. That my guess was not entirely wrong was suggested by my observation of an argument that occurred between Anni and Ayya while I looked on. A cousin had come to the house to discuss a land dispute with Annan. In Anni's presence, the cousin had said an obscene word, and Anni had turned her back and walked away. After the cousin was gone, Ayya chastised Anni. He told her, "When I say things that I should not say, you tell me, 'Don't speak that way in this house.' The meaning of those words is, 'This is my house and I make the rules in it,' whether or not that feeling is in your heart. In the same way, when Padmini or Vishvanathan speak wrongly, you say, 'Don't speak like that in front of me.' But today, when a person spoke wrong words on the front porch, you simply left. If you scold the people of the house for speaking wrongly, you should scold outsiders also." After Ayya's lecture, which was much longer than my paraphrase of it here, Anni left, angry and hurt. Later I asked Anni how she felt about what A y y a had said. She answered, " I n this world, money is everything. Those with money feel no need to respect those without it. When someone from

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such a world brings ugliness like that inside, you can't chew it, and you can't swallow it [mennavum mudiyatu muruhkavum mudiyatu]. You have to just walk away. But within the four walls of the house, we are all one [nalu cuvarile ellarum onru tan]. If someone does something wrong [tavaru], is it right or possible to hide it [maraikkalama]? We have a conscience [manacadct], and we must speak our minds." Thus to convey honestly one's disapproval of another's actions might be a sign of love for or closeness with that other, even though it could be misread by someone as close as Ayya was to Anni. However, when mothers made their children cry, not in anger but in playful affection, it seemed to me that some force other than a need for mutual openness was at work. O r perhaps I should say, set of forces because child rearing is one area of life in which cultural, social, psychological, and biological patterns converge and find simultaneous expression in single acts. We might count among biological forces acting upon the mothers in this family the omnipresent scarcity and hardship of their world. You had to be tough, you had to be able to endure a lot, you had to be able to absorb insults with equanimity, and you had to be able to bear without perturbation the sight of others getting what you knew you deserved, in order to survive with your mind intact in late twentieth-century India. O u r family was better off than most, but food was still less than enough to go around. Toys, books, and store-bought clothes were all luxury items. So mothers in our family saw themselves as training their children to be tough and showed themselves in this light. Luxuries and soft treatment should not become parakkam, they said. When a small child learned to deprive itself, to say no (vendam) to a tempting sweet, this development was reported with glee to others as a significant advance (munruttam). Related to scarcity was the necessity of sharing. The joint family was, in part, an adaptation to scarcity. One roof and one hearth were more economical than three roofs and three hearths. If you cooked for ten, as I was told, you would always have enough for eleven. But the great danger to a joint family was that it would fracture along the lines dividing nuclear units— each pair of spouses with their respective children. Love, which naturally (iyatkaiyaka) was given to one's own, had to be redirected across those lines. T h e stronger the love, the stronger the force that had to be exerted against it to drive it outward. Consequently, in our family, mothers deliberately spurned or mistreated their own children, forcing their own and their children's affection outward. A mother might do likewise with a grown daughter, Ayya said, harshly scolding her so that she would desire to marry and so that when she did her heart would go to her husband and she would be happy. O n e evening after dinner, Mohana, who was marginal to this family but dependent upon it, swept the two-year-old Sivamani, her only child, onto her lap. Sivamani took her face into his small hands and kissed her on both cheeks and on the chin. I told Mohana that I thought Sivamani was not

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looking very healthy. Mohana said that his belly had gotten very big, but his arms and legs were like matchsticks. She was smiling. When the children sat down to eat, Mohana fed all the other children while Sivamani, hungry, whimpered but said nothing. Finally Anuradha served Sivamani. After Sivamani had finished eating, he got up. Padmini affectionately thwacked him on the back. Sivamani lurched forward, before falling backward. Mohana laughed out loud. "He's like a little truck with a heavy load," she said, "a big heavy load up front." She laughed until tears came to her eyes. Such surprising events were daily affairs in the lives of the children. If a child did something wrong, the child could never know if or when or even upon whom the punishment would fall for the mistake. One person would err, and another would be punished. O r punishment would fall long after a child had made a mistake and thought it forgotten. O r one caretaker would punish and another comfort; always in these cases the punisher was the child's own mother and the comforter somebody else. Or, the same person would punish and comfort, punish and comfort, until the child completely lost its bearings and began to weep. People would often tease small children in this way: they would offer a plaything and then withdraw it, offer and then withdraw, offer and then withdraw. When the child broke down and wept, it would either be cuddled and comforted or else whisked away to enjoy some other amusement. Somehow, the tears of a child were entertaining; they brought forth laughter or at least smiles from onlookers. Children themselves, finally, learned to laugh when they were scolded, or at least some did. One mother (not of this family) told me that it was wrong to make a child laugh bccausc for every moment of laughter that the child enjoyed now he would have to suffer a moment of tears in the future. As in the case of mother's milk, sweet pleasures had to be limited, balanced by bitterness. If hardship was a habit and had come to seem sweet, so much the better. Dirtiness (arukku)

Without question, to the members of our family, anpu was a good and powerful force. One who had love was in a very real sense higher (uyamta) than one who did not. A loving heart was a pure (tuymaiydna) heart. But love was often at odds with the demands of physical cleanliness and purity (cuttam). It was not that love was intrinsically impure (acuttam) but rather that, in the presence of love, conventional purity did not matter. This was the ideal of the ancient Shaiva devotional texts, the ideal oibhakti, and the members of our family, especially the women, lived it to the fullest. On a supraworldly level, love as pacam was a bond, and therefore it was an obstacle in the quest for purity, which meant the breaking of all bonds. Love as desire (acai) was even worse because it provoked restlessness (alaiccal),

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which prevented the peacefulness necessary to maintaining a pure heart. Ayya had tried to teach me these principles in his lectures. But in regular life, things were viewed rather differently. A person could be praised for having much affection (rompa pacam). A calf taking its first steps would be described as causing desire (acaiyay irukkum), that is to say, being attractive. T h e trait in the calf, the feeling, the person who could feel it, none of these was wrong to be as it was. Indeed, something was wrong when the trait and the feeling were not there. T h e calf who was sick and unable to walk, the man who had no affection for others, these were not as they should be. T h e term anpu could mean lustful infatuation (as in the case of the smitten demon, described below); it could mean clinging possessiveness (an old woman who accused her octogenarian husband of having five women a day was said to have had too much anpu). But more often it referred to a certain generosity of spirit as well as of pocketbook. In this sense it was the opposite of ¿cat, though in its broader sense it encompassed the latter meaning also. What anpu never meant was extrication of oneself from others or from the processes of life. Indeed to our family, and most of all to its linchpin Anni, it meant just the opposite. It seemed that Anni was engaged in a constant campaign to combat the forces of purity and to promote the forces of love. She it was who allowed the lower-caste servants to help in cooking, defying the wishes of her mother-in-law. She herself engaged in food preparation even during her periods, mixing the tub of lemon rice with her bare hands. (Ayya had told me that if a woman during her period touched a growing plant, the plant would wither; if she touched a metal pot with her hand, the metal would corrode). When Anni served me dinner, she would set aside the serving spoon and ladle the rice onto my leaf with her hand. When we went to visit a great Shaiva temple and I carelessly forgot to remove my son's shoes from his feet before we went in, other people pointed and scowled, but Anni said, " I t doesn't matter. Let him be." One day, when I had finished eating and Anni as usual had rushed to pick up my leaf, I said to her, "You must like bodily effluvia (eccil)." Anni answered that picking up another's leaf was an act of merit (punniyam). I said that if that was the case, Modday the servant must have a lot of merit. Anni said that she did. More often, however, when I asked Anni to tell me why she broke the rules of purity that I had thought all good Hindus followed, she would say. "These are advanced times when all are one, and no one is alone." Ayya commented that eccil shared in love would not cause disease but would cure it. People who love each other will eat from each other's plates or leaves without thought of sickness. He said that he himself had never loved anyone that much.

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In this household, the sharing of eccil conveyed a message of love and was a way of teaching children and onlookers where love was. For instance, when Anuradha was eating rice with buttermilk, after she had eaten for a while and Jnana Oli (the two-year-old son of Padmini) and Sivamani (the twoyear-old son of Mohana) appeared, she called Sivamani to drink some buttermilk: she fed him some rice from her plate with her hand and then had him drink some buttermilk from her plate. Then she had Jnana Oli drink some buttermilk from her plate, then Siva, then Oli, until both said "enough." Then she herself drank down the rest. Anuradha's feeding of the two little boys in this fashion accorded with the many deliberate attempts on the part of older people in the household to twin these children and foster love between them. Annan would often seat the two boys opposite each other on his two knees with a single toy between them, that he tried to make them share. When the boys went out with their mothers, each woman would carry the other's son. The mothers themselves shared the kind of love that they hoped their sons would share. Padmini and Mohana, who had grown up together, went everywhere together, shared everything, and claimed to be "like husband and wife," had a ritual of eating together which expressed their oneness. 11 Ayya and I were watching this ritual when he made his comment about eccil. After everyone else had eaten, Padmini and Mohana would sit down facing each other, with the pot of remaining food between them. Padmini would mix all the leftovers together in the pot with her hand. Then she would put a ball of food, with her hand, into Mohana's mouth and a ball of food into her own; then Mohana would do the same. They would feed each other in this way, until the food in the pot was gone or until they had had enough; then each woman would lick the other's fingers and her own. Servitude (adimai) Adakkam meant containment. It also meant control, both of oneself and of others. One contained one's love and so controlled oneself. One also contained one's beloved. Containment and protection (patukappu) were both forms of binding (kdppu), which devolved from affection (pacam), itself a bond. The reciprocal of adakkam was adimai, servitude, the state of being controlled by another, of being bound. Becoming adimai, like exercising adakkam, could be a powerful expression of love. But if adakkam entailed pride, adimai entailed humility (panivu). If adakkam meant having something to hold on to, then adimai meant having nothing of one's own. Love was complexly implicated in expressions of pride and humility, servitude and domination, possession and renunciation. Through love, all these opposites were overturned. In acts of love, the humble became proud, the servant became master, and the renouncer became possessed. Just as

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through love, tenderness might be enacted as cruelty, so through love, hierarchy took ironic forms. In a typical bhakti-like reversal of the symbols of high and low, Ayya had said in a lecture, "God is like a sandal, he is the foundation of all of us. God is like a broom, he makes the world clean." But Anni had gone beyond him in the ¿fazA/t-inspired elaboration of broom symbolism. Ayya and Padmini had quarreled, and his anger with her had lingered. He had not spoken to her in days. The whole household was gloomy because of this. At the end of the third day, Anni came marching up to him, broom in hand. "I thought she was going to beat me with it," Ayya said later. But she had not. "What is this for?" Anni asked. "For sweeping," said Ayya. "How often do we use it?" asked Anni. "Every day," said Ayya. "What would happen if we didn't?" asked Anni. "Dirt would pile up in the house," said Ayya. "All right," said Anni, "Quarrels are like dirt. They come into the house every day. Every day we have to sweep them away and start over." Anni had used the broom, symbol of humility, as a symbol of patience (porumai, putting up with things, bearing things), purification, harmony in the household, and control. Like the broom, sandals were a symbol of hierarchy, but their meaning as a symbol was reversible. To wear sandals was a sign of high status, wealth, pride, and, in some circumstances, arrogance. To be without sandals, conversely, was a sign of humility. To be called a sandal, or to be beaten by a sandal, was a grave insult. Harijans could not wear sandals in the high-caste part of the village; people could not wear sandals in temples where the gods lived. People should not wear sandals in a field of growing rice; it would hurt the rice. People could not enter a person's home or go where people were eating with their sandals on; to do so would be to show great contempt for the home or the food. The arrogance of the British was shown by their custom of going everywhere in their shoes. Aside from such interactional considerations, there were attributional ones; in general people noticed whether you wore footgear and, if so, what kind. Yokels went without sandals; sophisticates did not. Laborers went without sandals; the educated did not. The poor went without sandals; the rich did not. Plastic or rubber sandals were much inferior to leather ones, but to go barefoot on the streets was lowest of all. Yet wherever they went, Anni, Padmini, and Mohana never wore sandals. I offered to buy them sandals, but they refused. I tried to go barefoot like them. They mocked me and said that my feet would not be able to bear the

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hot sand and gravel, and they were right. When Padmini waited for the bus, she sat down on the bare soil, as only village women would do, and she teased me for standing, " a s though you're being punished," she said. Such behavior fit into the ethos that Padmini and her sister and cousin had worked out for themselves—they were simple (elimai) by choice; and they were protectors, not in need of protection. T h e spurning of sandals proved that they needed nothing between themselves and the sun-baked soil. Ayya also often went barefoot. His clothing consisted of two rectangular strips of thin white cotton—one a waistcloth that hung to his feet, the other wrapped around his shoulders. His friends and followers all wore shirts, trousers, watches—signs of status, education, and urban ties. But on important religious holidays, their clothing imitated that of their guru, Ayya. When I lived with them, the family was poor. Extra clothing and jewelry would have burdened the household budget severely. T h e i r quasi-ascetic behavior might be dismissed as an attempt to make a virtue o f necessity, a concession to reality. But as it related to the ideology of love, their attitude toward poverty had more aggressive meanings. For by defining themselves as beyond the hierarchy established by wealth, they negated the values legitimizing that hierarchy and so (at least temporarily and to their own satisfaction) turned it on its head. Family members attributed their poverty to generosity, both public and private. Ayya said, " O u r family is the poorest [among the landowning families in the village] because we give the most to others, and all the people know i t . " T h e family as a unit displayed its poverty relative to others in the village as proof of its superior kindness. In the same way, individuals within the family established the superiority of their love through renunciation. Anni said, " W h a t e v e r Ayya does not need, we do not n e e d . " Because Ayya did not drink coffee, she would not drink coffee. I f Ayya refused to go to the cinema, she would also stay home. I f Ayya brought her nothing to wear, she would be content with her old clothes. T h e r e was something more than submission in her simplicity, for she undertook it in a spirit of hard-nosed boldness. Ayya called it nerve (tairiyam). It took some courage, he said, for Anni to maintain her practice of loving self-denial in public. When the women attended a wedding, barefoot and unadorned, Padmini escaped reproach. She was the wife of a man who had acquired the reputation of a renouncer, and it was only right (in the eyes of many) for her to become a renouncer also. But Anni was subject to scarcely concealed pity and scorn. A woman would glance at her, touch her own ears, nose, wrists, and throat, turn her palms upward, shrug, and project her lower lip, saying in the gesture language used for messages that should not be spoken aloud, " T h i s pitiful woman has no j e w e l r y . " But Anni was not perturbed. T o her luxuries and sins were both tevai illai, " n o t needed." Meanwhile, she indulged Ayya with yogurt and ghee, expenses he

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had tried to give up but could not resist, although she herself never consumed them. Milk and its products were only for children, she said. As love turned acts of humility into acts of pride, so it turned acts of servitude into acts of dominance. 12 This reversal was particularly dramatic given the generally low esteem in which the family held servants as a class. Anni spoke scornfully of what she called the servant mind (velaikkara putti). Ayya and others would also speak of the slave mentality (adimai manappanmai—a term said to have been coined by C. N. Annadurai), of Indians as a cause of their current inability to rejuvenate their nation. Slaves and servants were the lowest of human beings and the most severely shackled. But a slave of love was a different matter. A slave to the love of God possessed nearly unlimited power. In Tamil Nadu, and all over India, there are countless stories of devotees who, through their love of God, force God to do their bidding. And in human society, a servant of God was a recipient of the highest respect. Members of Shaiva sects in formal discourse would symbolically abase and elevate themselves by calling themselves not " I " (nan) but "this slave" (adiyen), and the guru who was nearly deified after his death would be called "the servant" (adikal). But the transformation of servant into master was not dependent upon reference to God or any sentiment of religious devotion. There was in our family a pronounced feeling that servants could easily gain the upper hand, a feeling exacerbated by the current shaky status of the family in village politics and the intercaste conflicts in which they were embroiled. There was an intuitive recognition of Sartre's dictum that in reality the master is the slave. Thus when I said to Anni that I felt she was treating me like a queen, she replied, "A queen has no freedom." However, the servitude of love, as it was practiced every day by Anni, was more than potentially dominating; it was actually so. Her absolute control as servant was epitomized in her role as family food dispenser. It was she who decided who ate what and when, and, if there were an order to eating, Anni ate last. There would sometimes be quantities of biscuits or fruit in the house, which Anni or one of the men would buy. No one would ever help themselves to them or ask for them; instead Anni would dole them out, one by one. The children of the family were absolutely under her governance with respect not only to what and when and how much they ate but also from whom they were allowed to accept food. Like Padmini and Mohana, Ayya and Anni had a feeding game that they often played, but theirs was asymmetrical and more complex than that of the two women. Ayya said it was Anni's job (velai) to feed him. He often complained to Anni, to his friends, and to me that she did her job poorly. She would fix him buttermilk, and he would say he was sick and wanted only rice water. So she would fix him rice water, and then he would tell her that she was too lazy to fix decent meals. She would complain about how exacting he

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was, but she always strove to cook to his taste. Daily she brought him his meals, and daily he refused them, saying that he didn't like that kind of food, that it was not good for him, that he had a stomach ache, or that he wasn't hungry. Anni would argue and coax for a while, insisting that the food was fine and good for him. I f he still refused to eat, then she would force feed him as though he were a recalcitrant child, holding the back of his head with her left hand and bringing a ball of food to his mouth with her right. H e would keep his lips tightly shut until the last second, when he would open his mouth and in went the food. T h e n he would chew and swallow it. In this way, Anni b e c a m e his mother, servant, and controller. 1 3 Mixture and Confusion (kalattal, mayakkam) Love, as defined and enacted by our family, brought about reversals o f all kinds. T h e closest bonds were concealed by denial of bonds, tenderness was transformed into cruelty, humility could express pride, and servitude was a means toward mastery. All these reversals had their reasons, some of which were by no means culture-bound. Apparently reasonless reversals also took place. Nowhere could this activity of love be seen more clearly than in people's use of the word mother (ammo), the one word in the Tamil language more imbued than any other with sentiments of love. As a term of address, amma could be applied to the following people: 1. O n e ' s own mother, or someone in the category of mother, such as mother's sister. T h e children of the family called Anni "Annimma," and Padmini, "Pappimmd." 2. A superior female. For such a person, amma was a term of respect and distance. Village adults wishing to show respect for me would call me amma, even when they were older than I was. 3. A female of approximately equal status to, or lower status than, the speaker. Often in this case the use of the term amma was part of hostile and sarcastic exchanges, as occurred between sisters-in-law or when a husband scolded his wife. 4. A male of equal or lower status than the speaker. When one addressed such a person as amma, one was showing affection for him. S o Annan often called Ayya amma, and Anni addressed the male servants in her mother's home as amma, in both cases with obvious affection. But this usage of amma occurred all over T a m i l Nadu. Conversely, father (appa) was used as a term of affection for a female of equal or lower status than the speaker. When I searched for an explanation for these customs, family members said they did not know. Ayya suggested that the reason was, " L o v e does not know head or tail." T h i s struck me as plausible, given other aspects of the ideology of love in Tamil culture that I had learned. T o show affection for

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someone, you d e m o n s t r a t e d in a conventionalized way that you h a d forgotten w h a t category they belonged to. Love, then, mixed you u p (mayakkum). A person who fell, as we would say, head-over-heels in love with another, was suffering, as it would be said in Tamil, from mayakkam, dizziness, confusion, intoxication, delusion. T h e s a m e word was used to describe all these states. In all of them, one lost one's ability either to think clearly or even to think at all. T h e n one could not be b l a m e d for acting strangely. A n d one could easily be misused by others. T h e intoxication of love was notoriously d a n g e r o u s for j u s t this reason. A servant in a B r a h m a n household jokingly said that a B r a h m a n girl learns to sing so that, when a potential suitor comes to visit and hears her voice in the o t h e r room, " h e will become c o n f u s e d " (mayahkuvan) and m a r r y her. Love, through mayakkam, could make a person see exactly the opposite of w h a t was there. T h e story was told in our household of a Shaiva g u r u to w h o m an a d m i r e r , out of great love, offered a piece of raw meat. T h e g u r u saw only the love a n d ate the meat as though it were a ripe piece of fruit, m u c h to his followers' disgust. I n a play shown in our village, the goddess Adiparasakti was created to destroy a d e m o n . T h i s goddess was huge a n d green; she bit her bright red tongue angrily and stomped a b o u t the stage wielding a s h a r p trident. T h e d e m o n in the play took one look at her a n d was smitten with desire. H e went h o m e to tell his sidekick of the beauty of his new h e a r t t h r o b . T h e sidekick at first was baffled. T h e n sudden comprehension lit u p his face, a n d he n o d d e d a n d smiled like a n eager p u p p y . "Aha, ampu, ampul" he said, " L o v e , love!" (Ampu, the sidekick's dopey rendering of anpu, also means " a r r o w . " I n this play, the p u n was certainly intentional). Love, as understood by o u r family, not only reversed opposites b u t also: erased distinctions completely. T h e r e will be nothing novel to Westerners in this idea; it is i m p o r t a n t only that we realize that, for the Tamil family also, mixture (kalattal) was a consciously recognized attribute of w h a t for t h e m also was the overarching ideal of love. T h i s was what Anni m e a n t by " w e are all o n e , " b o t h here, " w i t h i n these four walls," a n d now, " i n these a d v a n c e d t i m e s . " People's presence with each other m a d e them mix with each other, become used to each other, a n d become one. It was impolite because unloving to treat oneself and one's own with more favor t h a n one allowed others, at least within the four walls, in places where love should prevail. T o discriminate was ora vancakam (the deceitfulness of boundaries, that is, d r a w i n g lines). T h e politest, most loving p r o n o u n was the first person plural inclusive nam, meaning " w e (including y o u ) . " O n e used it, within the very innermost walls, when talking in one's m i n d to oneself. O n e used it w h e n referring either to " m y h o u s e " or to " y o u r h o u s e " ; b o t h were called, politely, " o u r house." Anni elevated me to the s t a t u s of her e q u a l by often referring to w o m e n of our age (nam vayacu) and laying out the rules that we both should follow. It caused m e m b e r s of our family distress

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when I said " y o u r children." All of them, including my own, were " o u r c h i l d r e n , " and, if I needed to distinguish between them, I should refer to them by name. In the extreme, this mixture of yours and mine into ours became reversal a g a i n — m i n e were called yours, and yours mine. S o when I wrote to A y y a ' s sister Porutcelvi that my second child had been born, she wrote back, " I can't wait to see my new s o n . " T h i s kind of total m i x i n g — t h e sharing and trading of homes, of children, of s e l v e s — w a s necessary for the existence of love. S o A y y a explained the K a n n a p p a n story, a story he returned to again and again, of a devotee so loving he tore out his eye to put as medicine on an image of Shiva when he saw that the eye of the image was bleeding. T h e n the second eye of the image started to bleed, and K a n n a p p a n reached for his own second eye to tear it out like the first, when Shiva stopped him. A y y a said, " T h i s story proves that G o d has no love. Otherwise he would have recognized K a n n a p p a n ' s love from the first and saved both his eyes, not only one. It was only after K a n n a p p a n placed one of his eyes on the image that G o d , seeing through K a n n a p p a n ' s eye, understood K a n n a p p a n ' s pain. " I n order for you to understand my heart, you must see through my eyes. In order for me to understand your heart, I must see through y o u r s . " Notes to Chapter Two I would like to thank McKim Marriott for his insightful comments on an earlier version of this essay. This essay also appears, with some additions and deletions, in my own book, Notes on Love in a Tamil Family (Berkeley: University of California Press, ig8g). I am grateful to the University of California Press for publishing it twice. 1. Thoughts put into my head by Clifford's (1983) account of Griaule, Stocking's (1968) account of Boas, Allen's (1985) account of Mauss, Crapanzano's (1986) account of Geertz, Malinowski's (1967) account of himself, and work by Kristeva (1984) and Bakhtin (1981). 2. T o them I was America, and they were India to me. They understood that I was observing them in order to learn about their way of life and write about it. It was important to them that they be represented well in the world, and so they offered a particular face to me. They would represent themselves in other ways to other people; the representation depended upon the audience or, more precisely, upon their assessment of the audience. In turn, their image of this audience would devolve partly from what face the audience presented to them. We constructed each other and ourselves with respect to each other, and, because we began as strangers with few rules in common, we were probably dancing a rather strange dance. " A 'culture' can materialize only in counterdistinction to another culture," writes James Boon (1982). Just as a person can only emerge in counterdistinction to another person. Often enough, perhaps always, these two confrontations are one. Perhaps what anthropologists call cultures are always only persons representing themselves as cultures. 3. I write this in response to the idea, first articulated by Boas and still widely

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subscribed to by many anthropologists, that conscious explanations of cultural practices on the part of the practitioners are secondary elaborations that only obscure the true nature of the practices in question. The Marxist definition of ideology as an expression of class interest contributes to this view. Certainly descriptions of a culture coming from actors within the culture cannot be disinterested. The questions are whether a disinterested description of human life is ever possible and whether an ethnographer can in any case truthfully represent herself as being outside the cultural system she describes. I find it most reasonable to assume that an indigenous analysis of a cultural system is no more likely to be erroneous and distorted than an outsider's analysis of that same system, and it will certainly have a larger store of information as its base. 4. Here I can scarcely begin to outline the history of the idea of anpu in Tamil culture. Tamil "poetry of the interior," a large body of lyric poetry among the earliest Tamil literature, voices sentiments that are uncannily similar in some ways to modern Western romantic love. The term anpu appears to have essentially the same set of meanings in this ancient poetry as it does in modern Tamil Nadu. Tirukkural and Tolkappiyam, early books of social and linguistic ideals, describe the delights that parents may find in the play and speech of their children, not as heirs, but merely as children. Modern and ancient Tamil literature idealizing mother love is extensive, as is the literature and mythology on love between siblings (e.g., Ponnar Cakkar Katai), love between lovers (e.g., Cilipatikaram), and love between spouses (e.g., Kamparamayanam). The religion of bhakti, which originated in Tamil Nadu and still is "the religion of the masses" there (though it is a sentiment, not a creed), is based upon the premise that natural human love is the most powerful force available to human beings; directed toward a deity, this love can easily free the human spirit. So one's chosen god is adored as a mother, or as a child, or as a lover, or as a friend. A Tamil individual's relationship to a deity, if the person has a deity, is always a relationship of love. The more powerful the relationship with the deity, the more intense the emotion, although the devotion may be founded upon deep anger just as one's love for one's parents may be. Very commonly, Tamil people will say that, in worshiping a deity, the particular materials offered or rituals performed are not important but the feeling one has for the god is important. So Shaiva religion is called anpu mikunta matam (the religion filled with love). Similarly, in their relationships with each other, human beings in Tamil Nadu will often affirm verbally that anpu is all that matters, and they will break social rules in order to make this point (for ethnographic accounts see, Daniel 1984:233-278; Singer 1 9 7 2 : 1 4 8 - 2 4 5 ) . 5. This is a statement I heard only once, in the context of a brief conversation. Some individuals regarded the expenditure of money as necessary to the enactment of love (anpu). Others saw the exchange of money as opposed to anpu. Because money exchanges often were a sign of market relationships devoid of personal commitments, some people that I interviewed refused offers of money in exchange for interview time; others accepted money as a gift in the expectation that more such gifts would follow. 6. One reader of an earlier version of this essay has suggested that the apparent unkindnesses that took place in this family under the name of anpu were no more than oudets for suppressed tensions; in particular, mothers who mistreated their children were perhaps taking out on the children their resentment at being subordinated to men. I think that this would be an incorrect interpretation of events, for, in this

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family, tensions even over such matters as money and sex were not suppressed but freely ventilated. Nor were women as a class subordinated to men as a class: if a woman was angry with a man, she took it out on him directly. For reasons that I have discussed above, I think it would be misleading for readers to imagine that Tamil people who enact anpu in ways that appear paradoxical are pasting an ideological veneer over their raw aggression. Culture is not just a set of labels for things, thoughts, or feelings. It shapes all three from the bottom up. For Westerners to assume both that they know how people of another culture feel and that the Tamil accounts of feelings are mere rationalizations for behavior whose underlying motivations Westerners know better than the Tamil would be counter to the spirit of anthropology. 7. Kaniirusdt would be most accurately glossed in English as light from the eyes. The Tamil term itself, unlike the English term "evil eye," suggests not malice but dangerous power. In both Indian mythology and everyday life, eyes are treated as receptacles of the most important life fluids and as emitters of powerful transformative emotional forces (Maloney 1976; Eck 1981). These forces are as substantial and material as water, fire, or blood (Babb 1981). The power in the eyes has a dangerous erotic component. A woman may lose her sakti either by looking with desire at a man or by being viewed with desire by one (Egnor 1980, 1983). Emission of light from the eyes is, in Shaiva and Buddhist mythology, parallel to emission of semen from the penis (Obeyesekere 1984; O'Flaherty 1973). For Indians, the emotional power of the mother in any form is dangerous: it is intense, and it can easily turn into rage. The child cannot protect himself against it, and there is no mediator between the child and his mother. The mother herself must keep it under control. Therefore she does not gaze too intently at the child she bore. 8. This was in contrast to Ayya's idea that a child should be nursed for "at least three years" (he himself was nursed for five). Anni, arguing with him, had said that a child would be a burden to nurse for so long. A y y a had replied, " I s the fruit a burden to the fruit tree?" Then Anni had said, "After the tree had dropped its fruit, if you tried to tie it back onto the branches again, yes, it would be a burden." A y y a was delighted with this response and recounted the story in his lectures. 9. The custom of a wife's avoiding her husband's name in India is interpreted by some observers as a sign of respect, even subordination. Yet in Tamil Nadu, name avoidance can occur even in the absence of any other signs of respect. Such signs include the use of respectful pronominal forms (nihkal, avar, avarkal), respectful bodily postures and facial expressions (crossed arms, smiling, standing, or squatting rather than sitting or lying down), an attitude of assent and willingness to serve. Such external forms, which are complex with many nuances, are in general supposed to indicate an internal feeling of respect for the person toward whom they are directed, though dissimulation is certainly part of the game. Expressions of respect occur in face-toface encounters between people of clearly unequal caste, economic, or political status, between people who are unequally educated, between people of widely separate ages, and between both the bride's and groom's kin at weddings. But these conventional expressions indicating acceptance of one's own subordination are noticeably absent in the behavior of many Tamil wives toward their husbands, and I have never heard of any Tamil woman explaining her avoidance of her husband's name in terms of his

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superiority to her or in terms of distance between them (distance and hierarchy being the two essential components of respect relationships as social scientists are prone to see them). Moreover, name avoidance between spouses in Tamil Nadu is often reciprocal, and sometimes an individual will avoid the name of a kinsperson whose rank is lower than his own. For all these reasons, I feel that a Tamil wife's avoidance of her husband's name cannot be adequately explained in terms of respect. Because Tamil women themselves explain this custom as a means of protection (kappu) of the husband, I have chosen to discuss it under the topic of containment. It appears related to the observance of nompu, a fast to protect the husband's life, after which the wife ties a string around her wrist to show that she has fasted for this purpose. Whether the husband is to be protected for the sake of anpu, or for some other reason (e.g., the guardianship of one's own status as a cumahkali, an auspicious married woman), is not such an easy question to answer. Certainly anpu is supposed to be what binds husband and wife to each other. One standard question I asked interviewees in 1984 was, Among what pair of persons in a family should there be the most anpu? The stock answer was that anpu should be strongest between husband and wife. 10. Sometimes such practices were explained in terms of protecting the child from the evil eye, kantirusdi. The power of kantirusdi was not simply a matter of malevolence or envy on the part of onlookers, as the danger of the mother's eye illustrates. Nor was it a matter of demonic forces, for demons are attracted to flaws and impurities and to people in isolation, not (in Tamil Nadu) to those who are well and surrounded by love. Rather, the hiding of a child's beauty and of one's love for it could be seen as a special case of the strong and pervasive sentiment in India that perfection in and of itself is deadly (see Daniel 1984; Narayan 1 9 7 2 : 5 2 - 5 5 ) ; perfect love, perhaps, is most deadly of all. 1 1 . Here I follow Kapferer's (1983) definition of ritual, as an intentional patterning of the act after the idea. 12. One colleague suggests that pride turned humility into public acts meant to be interpreted as love, and dominance turned acts of servitude into acts meant to be interpreted as love. A compromise between this reader's formulation of events and my own might say that the availability of anpu as an interpretive device enabled actors to transform potentially humiliating situations into vehicles for the expression of pride and so on, and to do so in a way credible within the Tamil cultural context. Tamil Shaiva mythology is replete with paradoxical expressions of love and antihierarchical messages (see note 6 above). Ayya was simply bringing the spirit of this mythology home. 13. See Appadurai (1981) for a detailed discussion of ways in which acts of feeding and eating in Tamil Nadu become messages with negotiable interpretations about kinship, religion, and emotion.

References Cited Allen, N . J . 1985 T h e Category of the Person: A Reading of Mauss' Last Essay. In T h e Category of the Person. Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, and Steven Lukes, eds. Pp. 26-45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Appadurai, Aijun 1981 Gastropolitics in Hindu South Asia. American Ethnologist 8(3): 4 9 4 - 5 1 1 . Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1981 The Dialogic Imagination. Michael Holquist and Caryl Emerson, trans, and eds. Austin: University of Texas Press. Babb, Lawrence 1981 Glancing: Visual Interaction in Hinduism. Journal of Anthropological Research 37(4): 3 8 7 - 4 0 1 . Boon, James 1982 Other Tribes, Other Scribes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clifford, J a m e s 1983 Power and Dialogue in Ethnography: Marcel Griaule's Initiation. In Observers Observed. George Stocking, ed. Pp. 1 2 1 - 1 5 6 . Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Crapanzano, Vincent 1986 Hermes Dilemma: The Masking of Subversion in Ethnographic Description. In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. J a m e s Clifford and George Marcus, eds. Pp. 5 1 - 7 6 . Berkeley: University of California Press. Daniel, E. Valentine 1984 Fluid Signs. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press. Eck, Diana L. 1981 Darsan, Seeing the Divine Image in India. Chambersburg, Pa.: Anima Books. Egnor, Margaret 1980 On the Meaning of Sakti to Women in Tamil Nadu. In The Powers of Tamil Women. Susan Wadley, ed. Pp. 1 - 3 4 . Syracuse, N.Y.: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University (Foreign and Comparative Studies/South Asia Series, No. 6). 1983 The Changed Mother, or What the Smallpox Goddess Did When There Was No More Smallpox. Contributions to Asian Studies 1 8 : 2 4 - 4 5 . 1986 Iconicity in Paraiyar Crying Songs. In Another Harmony: New Essays in the Folklore of India. Stuart Blackburn and A. K . Ramanujan, eds. Pp. 294-344. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press. Kakar, Sudhir 1978 The Inner World. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kristeva, J u l i a 1984 Revolution in Poetic Language. Margaret Waller, trans. New York: Columbia University Press. Kapferer, Bruce 1983 A Celebration of Demons. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Malinowski, Bronislaw 1967 A Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Maloney, Clarence 1976 Don't Say "Pretty B a b y " Lest You Zap It with the Evil E y e — T h e Evil Eye in South Asia. In The Evil Eye. Clarence Maloney, ed. Pp. 102-148. New York: Columbia University Press.

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Narayan, R. K. 1972 Malgudi Days. New York: Viking Press. Obeyesekere, Gananath 1984 The Cult of the Goddess Pattini. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. O'Flaherty, Wendy 1973 Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva. London and Delhi: Oxford University Press. Singer, Milton 1972 When a Great Tradition Modernizes. New York: Praeger. Stocking, George 1968 Race, Culture, and Evolution. New York: Free Press. Trawick, Margaret 1989 Notes on Love in a Tamil Family. Berkeley: University of California Press.

THREE

"To Be a Burden on Others" Dependency Anxiety Among the Elderly in India Sylvia Vatuk

The approach of old age must trigger in all men and women a realization of their own imminent mortality, and signals of the body inevitably join those of the mind to prompt concerns about what this rapidly shrinking span of time between now and then may hold in store. As aging individuals reflect upon the years remaining to them, the expectation of physical decline is likely to loom large in their thoughts. The question of how their basic physical, social, and emotional requirements will be met when they have been deprived of the capacity to care for themselves may become a central preoccupation. Their answers will draw inspiration both from what their culture has conditioned them to expect and from what they have observed in the past and the present in their family, community, and society, of other people in situations similar to their own. Their emotional responses likewise will be culturally constructed, falling within a framework defined and recognized by the culture into whose concepts and assumptions they have been socialized since childhood. As inexorable processes of the universal human condition, aging and physical deterioration have only fairly recently become appropriate and interesting subjects for anthropological inquiry. Increasing numbers of researchers—psychologists and sociologists as well as anthropologists—have begun to ask what difference culture makes in the way in which old people deal with and experience life's inevitable physical and social losses. It is now well documented that the problems older persons face as they age, their perceptions of and responses to these problems, and their subjective experiences in these later years, vary widely according to the particular social-structural and cultural parameters of their lives.1 It is clear that some societies provide a more congenial set of conditions for a physically comfortable and emotionally satisfying old age than do 64

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others. An important variable in this respect is the way in which dependence upon others for support, shelter, and physical care is culturally evaluated. For example, American social scientists, reflecting upon the influences on psychological well-being of older people in American society, have often noted the importance of its culturally patterned attitudes toward dependency. Kalish (1967) has identified in his elderly American patients pervasive feelings of guilt and anxiety aroused by the experience or anticipation of physical decline and by their perception of its inevitable consequence: the necessity of relying upon their children or other people for financial and other assistance. He found that such feelings were central to older persons' sense of self-worth and hence to their general outlook on life. Their origins, in his opinion, lie in American society's prevailing child socialization patterns, which emphasize the early attainment of self-reliance and punish the outward expression of dependency. Margaret Clark has taken up the same theme and elaborated upon the perforative connotations of dependency in American culture. She provides quotations from informants—in this case, elderly San Franciso residents— that contain "an almost frantic quality" (1972:272) stressing their authors' need for complete autonomy in order to retain self-esteem. The important thing in my life today is I don't want to get sick again. I want to be well, take care of myself. I don't want to be dependent on my children. (Clark and Anderson 1 9 6 7 : 1 7 7 - 1 7 8 ) It's very important that I do not become a burden on somebody. That's the most important thing in my life today. (Clark 1972:272)

Clark's analysis emphasizes the importance of the elderly person's real or perceived contribution to the family in which he or she lives, whether this contribution takes the form of labor, knowledge, or social linkages. She maintains that because Americans do not believe that old people have anything of real value to give to the young, and because the elderly themselves generally concur in this view, both parties define any situation in which an old person depends for support upon an adult child as involving a strictly one-way flow of benefits. An aged person's lengthy period of financial or physical dependency in our culture soon becomes intolerable because it is perceived as entailing a failure in role reciprocity. Clearly crucial here is not the actual ability of the aged person to contribute actively to the household of which he or she is a part but rather the nature of cultural perceptions about the value of those contributions (whatever form they may take) and the time-frame within which that culture's concept of intergenerational reciprocity is formulated. It may indeed be explicitly recognized and accepted that after a certain age or stage of debility the aged person can no longer return anything of substance to other family members for their support and care. But this situation need not be culturally

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interpreted as a breakdown of reciprocity, as long as the older individual's earlier contributions are remembered and taken into account. Certainly this is the case in societies that view intergenerational reciprocity within a lifecourse perspective, regarding an adult child's care of his parents as direct repayment for their care in infancy and childhood. Such is the case in China: Acceptance of dependency within a society that observes the norm of reciprocity creates the most decisive support for the favorable attitudes toward the elderly. The emphasis on mutual obligations throughout the lift cycle coupled with the necessity of repayment eliminate the need for the elderly to justify their need for care and respect on an individual basis. As a result, dependency in old age is viewed as unpleasant but inevitable, and. . . n o t . . . as a fatal attack on their self-esteem. (Davis-Friedmann 1 9 8 3 : 1 3 ; italics mine)

These scholars' work suggests that, in cultures that refrain from discouraging dependent behavior in young children and positively value the long-term reciprocal interdependence of family members, a period of parental dependency upon adult children might be accepted by all concerned with relative equanimity. In India the notion that children owe their parents a tremendous debt for giving them birth and for feeding and caring for them through infancy and childhood is axiomatic. The concept of long-term intergenerational reciprocity is communicated to children at an early age, in a very direct and explicit manner. Parents do not hesitate to make clear that they have definite expectations of their children. They do not consider it inappropriately guilt inducing to impress upon children—of any age—how great the personal sacrifice associated with raising them was. It is not uncommon to hear a parent suggest to a child—or to another within the child's hearing—that the care lavished upon the child has been motivated largely by the desire to ensure the parent's own security and well-being in old age. Parent-child reciprocity is, thus, conceptualized as a life-span relationship. When I began a study of aging and the elderly in India in 1974, one of my central research questions was the relationship between cultural values and conceptions about old age, on the one hand, and the manner in which individual women and men adjust to the various transitions and losses of later life. 2 In the course of that study I was initially surprised at the prevalence of expressions of anxiety and concern about the prospect of losing physical capacities, and with them the respect, care, and love of the younger family members upon whom they depend for support and intimate companionship. Although virtually all these older people were currently living with adult children or other close kin, and few were completely self-sufficient financially, the idea that someday they might become totally helpless and present a burden to their families was apparently very disturbing. A lively woman in her

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sixties, the m o t h e r o f three a d u l t sons w h o , to all a p p e a r a n c e s , fulfilled their filial o b l i g a t i o n s to h e r a n d to their father, e x p r e s s e d h e r c o n c e r n s in w o r d s e c h o e d m a n y times in the u t t e r a n c e s o f o t h e r i n f o r m a n t s : Old age is like a second childhood. In the first childhood, oh how lovable one seems to others! But do you think it is like that in old age? O n e can't walk properly, hands and feet don't do their work, eyes and ears become weak. An old person says something and others just say, " O h , let him babble! That's just the way he is!" No one really listens to him. That's why I say, " D o n ' t let me get to the point where I'm incapable of doing anything. Let me go while my body is still in good condition." A n elderly C h a m a r ( m e m b e r o f the l e a t h e r w o r k e r c a s t e ) , in m u c h less c o m fortable e c o n o m i c a n d f a m i l y c i r c u m s t a n c e s , e x p r e s s e d a n e v e n m o r e d i s m a l view: As for old age, as long as one's hands and feet are working, everyone gives one food. Otherwise, no one cares. They leave you, cursing you. . . . In old age one has to eat whatever the children have prepared and given to you, whether you like it or not. Y o u have to fill your stomach. If you complain, they say, "Even in old age he wants to be satiated! He just lies in bed all day and keeps giving orders! No work to do, no occupation, just lying there babbling about one thing or another all day long!" A p h r a s e repeated in b o t h these q u o t a t i o n s , a n d in c o u n t l e s s o t h e r s as w e l l , refers to the i m p o r t a n c e o f h a v i n g " w o r k i n g h a n d s a n d f e e t " (hath pair calte hue) if o n e e x p e c t s to receive respect a n d c a r e f r o m the y o u n g e r g e n e r a t i o n . It is good to die when one's hands and feet are still working: that is a good death. If a man gets sick and stays that way for a long time, then the members of his family get annoyed and start saying, " I f the old man would just die, it would be a good thing. He is giving us so much trouble, it would be best if he would just leave us." A v i g o r o u s , w e l l - t o - d o , a n d e v i d e n t l y c o n t e n t e d m a n o f s e v e n t y y e a r s reported t h a t , r a t h e r t h a n risk e x p e r i e n c i n g this, he p r a y s d a i l y for d e a t h : Every day I say a prayer to God: " O h Lord, lift me up! Everything is fine—my hands and feet are both working. Now lift me up, because otherwise I am going to have to become dependent upon others!" I n f o r m a n t s m o s t o f t e n used the w o r d s asrit a n d adhtn to s p e a k o f the consequences of physical incapacitation. A standard Hindi-English dictionary glosses asrit as " r e s o r t i n g (to), d e p e n d e n t ( o n ) , " o r , as a n o u n , " o n e w h o has r e c o u r s e to or relies o n a n o t h e r ; . . . d e p e n d e n t , f o l l o w e r , s u b j e c t , serv a n t , retainer, h a n g e r - o n , p a r a s i t e " ( P l a t t s 1 9 6 0 : 5 1 ) . T h e s a m e d i c t i o n a r y translates adhin as " s u b j e c t , u n d e r the a u t h o r i t y (of), s u b s e r v i e n t , d e p e n d e n t , s u b o r d i n a t e , s u b m i s s i v e , o b e d i e n t , " a n d in v e r b a l c o n s t r u c t i o n s a s " t o re-

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main subject or in allegiance (to), to be subject (to), to submit (to), to obey, to be humble" (Platts 1960:36). Both words imply a relationship of asymmetrical power and control, and both have a negative connotation insofar as they place the "dependent" individual in the lower, less powerful position. A third word frequently employed has a more neutral connotation: nirbhar, an adjective glossed as "resting (upon)," or a noun meaning "reliance, dependence, trust" (Platts i 9 6 0 : 1 1 2 9 ) . These terms were used to refer to the situation of the physically helpless old person who, having lost control of his faculties, is forced into the role of suppliant, at the mercy of resentful caregivers, who are impatient for his very death. They were never used to describe the situation where the able elderly man and woman live with their children and give themselves over willingly to their ministrations. In India such old persons do not consider themselves dependent at all. Although there were exceptions, most older people expressing anxiety about becoming dependent professed general satisfaction with their current lives; they lived with their families in households where relations between generations were reasonably harmonious and free from serious, overt conflict. They had no wish to live independently or self-sufficiently at this time of life. T h e y considered happiness in old age possible only if one lived surrounded by members of the younger generation, ideally supported, fed, and catered to by them, and freed from such mundane concerns as making a living or balancing a household budget. Even those younger members of their families who did not get along well with their parents or who found supporting and caring for them a difficult financial, physical, or emotional burden still rccognized and acknowledged their elders' legitimate claim to shelter. Only extremely rarely would an older person with living children or other close kin be left to maintain an independent household. T h e idea that parent-child reciprocity involves a life-span calculus was prominent in these people's thoughts about old age. T o make one's home with adult children was not associated with emotions like shame or guilt, such as have been reported for American elderly people unable to conform to our cultural ideal of self-reliance and independent living in the later years of life. O n the contrary, these Indian elders typically displayed pride in having offspring who could and did support them in comfort with grace and loving concern. There was no sense of a failure of reciprocity on their own part for what they were currently receiving; they felt fully entitled to whatever support and help their sons could give, as something rightfully earned through years of hard work, sacrifice, and devotion to these children's welfare. Y e t , evident in their thinking about the future was uncertainty about the extent to which their current treatment would continue, if they became physically incapacitated. They commonly expressed this uncertainty in terms of a fear of helplessness, a situation in which they would require intimate personal services to sustain their normal bodily functions. They clearly antici-

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pated that under these circumstances it was possible, and even likely, that the younger generation would begin to feel their presence a burden, no longer show them respect, and perhaps even neglect or mistreat them. Whatever the strength of the notion of entitlement through reciprocity over the life course, the ability to control one's body and have it work is of central importance for these people's sense of well-being and surety in intrafamilial relationships. Maintaining self-esteem is not the issue. Rather, the practical older person questions whether the younger family members will in fact continue to carry out their reciprocal obligations when these begin to be extremely onerous and unpleasant. Although cultural ideals maintain that they ought to do so, experience has demonstrated that they frequently do not. Hence, the prospect of physical decline—or, more accurately, of its consequences for the way in which the family treats the helpless person—often arouses anxiety and dread in these older persons. I wish to explore more fully here both the nature of and basis for such fears within the context of Indian cultural patterns and conceptions related to aging, old age, and the elderly. The Stages of the Life Course When in this Hindi-speaking area of northern India, people speak in the abstract about the life course, they usually divide it into three broad stages: childhood (bacpan), youth or young adulthood (javdni), and old age (burhappa). T h e usual markers for entrance into the last stage are physical and developmental, rather than chronological, although of course the passage of years is recognized as the essence of the aging process. But adults in this community use neither their own chronological age nor that of others as a prime index of identity, as Americans tend to do. Although older informants were usually able to estimate their own age in years, if pressed to d o so, more commonly they would give the year of their birth or relate their birth year to some well-known, datable event, suggesting that I "figure it out from t h a t . " T h e marriages of one's children, particularly one's eldest son, are the rites of passage that most clearly propel one into the beginnings of old age. Girls are usually married at an earlier age than boys. Therefore, even if one's daughters are younger than one's sons, they are likely to be married first. But a daughter almost always leaves her parental home to reside with husband and in-laws. O n the other hand, when a son marries, the presence of the new daughter-in-law in one's house is a daily reminder—to others, as well as to oneself—of the life transition one has experienced. T h e significance of the son's marriage for the age-grade status of the parents is reflected in the phrase, " h e r daughters-in-law are arriving" (bahu a rahi); this commonly characterizes, in terms of her life stage, a woman in early old age. T h e use of family-developmental criteria to mark an individual's passage from one stage of life to another is consistent with the explicit model for the

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ideal human life course provided in the classical Indian religious and legal texts. The most familiar version of this is found in the Manusmrti, but a long textual tradition of didactic treatises on Hindu iharma gives attention to the stages of the life course and the appropriate codes for conduct at each stage (see Kane 1968-75: II; Manu 1886; Pandey 1969). Basic to the view of one's spiritual and social responsibilities presented in this body of literature is the notion that the individual's particular station in life, together with the stage in the life cycle, determine the rules by which one ought to live. Normative standards of behavior are neither absolute nor universally applicable. All are relative, depending upon the composite social personhood of the individual concerned. The usual textual formulation posits four ideal life stages. The second of these—that of the mature, married, economically active adult male, the Householder—is generally considered at the center of the social order. All others in society depend upon him for sustenance. When, as Manu says, the Householder "sees his skin wrinkled and his hair white and the sons of his sons" (1886:198), he is exhorted to turn over the management of household affairs to his male heir and become a Hermit, retiring to a forest retreat, either taking his wife with him or leaving her to be cared for at home. In the forest he should devote himself to contemplation, performance of the sacred rites, and bodily self-mortification, all of which should help in the process of disentangling himself, physically and emotionally, from those relationships of personal and social interdependence developed during the previous life stage. If he succeeds in this, he will ultimately be ready to enter the last stage, that of the Renouncer, the wandering ascetic, attached to no man or place, caring nothing for the world or its concerns. In this manner, alone, fully absorbed in the quest for spiritual perfection, he should end his days. 3 Although such a model for the life course is rarely followed in literal detail, the notion that life is made up of distinct developmental stages, each with its own appropriate normative code for conduct, immediate and long-term goals, and suitable rewards, guides the thinking of Indians about how they ought to live and shapes their aspirations for later life in particular (see Kakar 1978, 1979; Mines 1981, 1988; Vatuk 1975, 1980, 1982b, 1985). The ideas that the old should withdraw from both active involvement in economic or productive activities and managerial roles within and without the household and that they should try to renounce sensual in favor of spiritual pleasures are quite prominent in the thinking of Indians at all social levels, whether or not they are directly familiar with the classical texts. The precise way in which informants express and interpret these ideas often differs in important respects from the textual formulations. Some themes are totally absent from, and others seem almost at direct odds with, the classical model for an ideal life course. For example, the texts stress the desirability of loosening and eventually severing all bonds of personal and social interdependence during the third and fourth

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stages oflife. In fact, they prescribe individual self-reliance as the central goal of this period. T h e Renouncer should avoid engaging in material or emotional transactions with members of his family and community. However, in the contemporary conception of the ideal old age, emphasis is placed upon achieving embeddedness of the old person in a close and loving family unit. A good old age tends to be defined largely by the individual's sons, daughters-inlaw, or others fulfilling their appropriate roles. Although the theme of disengagement and detachment from worldly concerns remains central to the ideas about appropriate behavior and attitudes in old age, the reference is almost always to the individual's mental state, rather than to social or familial interactions and involvements. In other words, the old person should remain in and of the family and should accept its members' ministrations. At the same time he or she should cultivate a state of mind in which the family members and their actions matter less and less. T h e concepts of the old person as both renouncer of the world and recipient of attentive care are not perceived as contradictory; instead, the two are seen as complementary. Only if one's sons take over full responsibility for the family's and one's own shelter, support, sustenance, and personal needs, is one then free to withdraw from active worldly involvement and concentrate on the spiritual quest. Informants often describe old age as properly " a time of rest," a period in which one can finally take one's ease and allow others to meet one's basic needs. Old men and women speak of the pleasures of being deferred to a n d catered to by the younger generation and of being provided with various personal services that, especially in the case of women, were never available in their younger years. They revel in the freedom to spend their time as they like, without either the demands of others or worry about or responsibility for household functions. Old age in the ideal sense is often defined as a period without work, when a person is free to while away his time as he pleases, "just eating, drinking, and sleeping," or, if so inclined, engaging in religious devotion, contemplation, and recitation of God's name. In the course of discussing this time oflife, many contrast it to earlier periods, when they could not pursue their own interests and desires because of pressing family responsibilities and, in some cases, the opposition or disapproval of other family members in positions of authority over them. This is particularly true of older women, who in this society exercise little autonomy prior to late middle age. W h e n they have finally reached that stage of life, they have no one else to whom they must answer for the use of their time, except perhaps a considerably weakened, or at least mellowed, husband. 4 Care and Comfort in Old Age T h e expression seva (literally service, but without its negative and demeaning English connotations) is regularly employed in talking about the perquisites of

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old age. Seva is a multivalent concept, one aspect of which is the personal care directed toward the body and its comfort, which old people expect from j u n i o r s . Describing the ways in which their adult children render seva, the old typically mention such things as meals served to them daily at regular times; clothes l a u n d e r e d , mended, a n d replaced with new ones when necessary; a n d b e d d i n g laid out for them each night. M e n often cite sons filling their waterpipe (hukka) with tobacco whenever they wish to smoke, and w o m e n tell how their legs are massaged each night, their backs scrubbed d u r i n g the morning b a t h , a n d their hair combed and braided by their daughters-in-law. C e r t a i n kinds of deference behavior are also included under the rubric of seva. O l d people expect food to be offered and graciously served before it is given to other family members. T h e y expect the young to display " f e a r " (dar) a n d to " r e s p e c t " them (izzat kama) by, for example, standing a n d refraining f r o m unnecessary speech in their presence. Particularly i m p o r t a n t is that the y o u n g not talk back to their elders (javab dena) by contradicting or arguing with t h e m . T h e y wish the young to heed (surma) and obey (manna) their words a n d to consult them (puchna) when making any i m p o r t a n t decision or taking action t h a t might affect the whole family or any individual m e m b e r . All these behaviors manifest seva, a n d in their absence an old person will perceive that he or she is not being well-served, even if basic material needs are being met. T h e extent to which an older person is able to experience the desired state of comfort, ease, and contentment—aram—in this time of life is said to be directly linked to the kind of seva provided by his children a n d to the spirit in which they provide it. Aram, like seva, has both a bodily (s'aririk) a n d a mental (tndnsik) component. If a person's children give shelter, food, a n d clothing but d e n y peace of mind (santi), the person cannot fully experience aram. Instead, that person will be distressed and anxious (paresan) a n d experience sadness (udds) a n d pain (dukh), even though physically lacking nothing. T h u s , an a t m o s p h e r e of h a r m o n y within the household a n d a regular display of respect, deference, and loving concern for the older person is crucial to attaining the f o r t u n a t e state of one who is carefree (befikr), without any worry (cinla) about one's own well-being or that of others. Rhetorically, happiness and contentment in old age are typically conveyed by reciting the various kinds of seva received from younger family members. For example, an elderly m a n had the following to say when asked about his h o m e situation: Up to now only my eldest son has married. His wife serves me very well. She feeds me before anyone else in the family. She says, "If Father has eaten, then all have eaten. If he has not, then none have eaten." The second thing is, if my clothes become soiled, she asks my sons to get them from me and sends clean, laundered clothes for me to put on. So how can I complain? And my sons are very good. When they come home from work, they never talk back to me [ javab kabhi nahim dele].

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A woman in her fifties, also living with a married son in a joint household, spoke in similar terms about her daughter-in-law: I have a very hard-working and serving [seva kamevali\ daughter-in-law. She gives me my meals, washes my clothes, prepares my bed at night. In all things she serves me well.

O n the other hand, older people unhappy with their lot tend to express discontent about continued gainful employment (or, in the case of women, cooking and heavy housework), responsibility for the support of adult children, and worry concerning family financial or other affairs. Although it is not always made verbally explicit, such complaints often reflect a perception that sons and/or daughters-in-law neglect their duty to provide seva in all its aspects. Most Indian elderly are understandably reluctant to reveal to outsiders overt dissatisfaction with their children's performance in this respect, unless the level of neglect is so extreme as to be public knowledge. For these old people to admit openly, or even to themselves, to being ill-served by their own children would be severely damaging to their self-esteem, inasmuch as in this society the individual's identity is hardly perceived as separate from the family's. It is, however, quite acceptable to ponder upon, and discuss at length, the failure of other people's children to serve their parents properly; such is a popular conversational topic within the usually sex-segregated peer groups of older people. The Importance of Detachment The more perceptive older person recognizes that the other side of the coin of seva is a willingness to withdraw gracefully from interference in the daily running of the household and to restrain the impulse to continue exerting close control in all matters over the younger generation. This may be a purely strategic realization that the young will not willingly remain attentive and caring to a parent insistent upon critically supervising everyone's activities. But often it is stated as a matter of principle, or policy, whose beneficial consequences for the spiritual advancement of the elderly person outweigh those of purely administrative wisdom: In my opinion, in old should hand over all should let them do as that causes the loss of won't do so.

age, when the children become capable, then an old man the work to them and not interfere in what they do. He they please. . . . [In my house], even if they do something 10,000 rupees, and it could be avoided by my stepping in, I

The key is not only to refrain from interfering but also to cultivate a frame of mind in which the desire to interfere has been overcome; one should no longer even care about the possibility that inexperienced young leadership may lead

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to family problems. As a fifty-five-year old Rajput woman explained, she has been striving to follow her guru's advice and to develop the attitude of detachment considered most helpful in dealing with this transitional period in her family life: He tells us to try for the salvation of the soul, and to detach ourselves from things and from people, from the idea that this is mine, that is yours.

With reference to the same issue, an elderly C h a m a r volunteered his opinion about why many people do not succeed in achieving a good old age: Some old people are too much involved with their family members. Even up to the time of their death they are not able to detach themselves from the family. They keep suffering from worry over the difficulties all of them are having. Therefore they remain continually troubled.

In this community old and young alike were heard to employ the Sanskrit labels—or their Hindi vernacular equivalents—for the classical four stages of life as they talked about either the life course or the aging process and adaptation to old age. Old men are particularly prone to characterize themselves as Renouncers (sannyast), though the context usually makes clear their reference to a state of mind rather than to their actual or intended physical departure from home: After turning everything over to my son, I said to myself, "Let me leave everything and take sannydsa." Yes, even while continuing to live at home, I am as if in the Renouncer stage of life.

Although taking sannyasa, in this sense of the term, is not considered incompatible with enjoying the comforts of home, a life of ease, and the services of one's offspring, it does imply following an ascetic regimen in which sexual celibacy plays a central role. If the individual still has a living spouse, the decision to become celibate should be made deliberately. As one Brahman woman related: When my eldest son was married, he [i.e., her husband] came to me and said, " F m m now on we will live together as brother and sister."

And an elderly man, probably about seventy years of age, spoke in similar, somewhat veiled terms about his deliberate cessation of sexual relations with his wife: For the past six years I have been following a celibate routine, because three years ago Harishcandra's mother [i.e., his late wife] died, and three years before that I had left the world completely.

Interestingly, in this case the term he used for celibate was brahmacari, the classical label for the first stage of a man's life, that of the celibate student. An older person should ideally refrain from not only sex but also the

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appearance of interest in sexuality. Beyond keeping clean and neatly groomed, an older woman should not display undue concern about her physical appearance. She should be happy to wear hand-me-down (or hand-me-up) saris given "in love" by a daughter-in-law. An old man, in turn, should be content to dress in simple cotton clothing of traditional cut; he risks certain ridicule if he assumes the fashionable styles—for example, the polyester bush-shirt and trousers—popular among younger men. These standards of dress for the old are, of course, directly related to the idea that sexual expression should be curtailed in old age. Wearing costly, stylish, or attractive clothing, or adorning the body in other ways, is considered a sign of sexual interest or provocation inappropriate in the elderly man or woman. The old also risk criticism or ridicule if they display undue concern over the amount, quality, or tastiness of the food offered to them because this suggests lingering attachment to another sensual enjoyment. A stereotypic way for an older person to describe his or her consumption needs is to say, As long as I get two pieces of bread a day, what more do I need? Those who consume large quantities of food or hanker for sweets or spicy snacks are felt not to be acting their age; they may become the objects of derogatory comments from family members and neighbors. Preparing for Old Age

Cultural conceptions about both ideal intergenerational relationships and the kinds of behaviors appropriate for the elderly strongly condition the Indian's aspirations for the later years and the preparations made to attain them. They provide, as well, a model against which to evaluate his or her own situation when old age arrives. Because the fundamental requirement for a good old age is a son, or sons, able and willing to shoulder the duty of serving parents, it is, thus, crucial to bear and raise male offspring to adulthood. Failing that, a surrogate may possibly be arranged: if one has a daughter, an in-marrying son-in-law (ghar jamat) may be acquired; otherwise, a young male relative may be adopted, or one can attach oneself to the household of a more fortunate sibling or sibling-in-law. However, even the individual with one or more living sons cannot be certain of spending his later years in comfort. Sometimes sons do not turn out well (thlk na nikalna), either proving incapable of providing for their parents or failing to do so. How sons will turn out seems essentially beyond one's control; that some turn out well and others good for nothing (nalaik) cannot easily be predicted. Yet the quality of treatment one receives in old age hinges almost entirely upon this: If one's offspring are not good, then it doesn't matter how rich one is: old age will be miserable.

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O r , in the words of another elderly man: The biggest problem in old age is when one's offspring turn out good for nothing. If they are not good, then one will have all kinds of problems.

Good-for-nothing sons do not earn, or, if they earn, they refuse to contribute to keeping the joint household. They press for partition shortly after their marriage and move out with their wives and children as soon as the financial advantanges of an independent household become evident. In the worst case, they drive out (bhaga dena, nikal dena) their parents from their own home, leaving them without shelter and material support. If one has a child who is "capable of earning" [kamane latk], the "bastard" \susura—literally father-in-law] separates [from the joint household]! So tell me, "What is easy in old age?"

Those no-good sons who leave the joint household give up any claim to their father's or other family members' support. Worse than these, perhaps, are sons who make no effort to find work and remain at home, continuing to financially burden their aging parents. A neighbor explained the situation of an aging Barber woman, whom she had called in to dress her hair: That woman has four sons; they've all turned out good for nothing. One is "crazy" [bavala]. One is sick all the time. The others don't work—they just hang around. She says. "I have four sons, but you might as well say that I have none."

Even if a son is good, the daughter-in-law is an unknown quantity. Ironically, the parents have selected her for their son, but in the selection process there are no means to ensure that she is not the sort of woman who will take the earliest opportunity to turn him against them. O n e must bring a strange woman into the house, and, then, simply wait and see what happens. If she is "that sort of w o m a n , " she will instruct him (sikhana) in the fine points of parental neglect and mistreatment. Because the main burden of the actual work involved in seva falls upon her, a lazy, thoughtless, selfish, or malicious daughter-in-law can easily undermine the best intentions of the most sincerely devoted and filial son. This is an especial danger when the son is weak and unable to control his wife or so blinded by infatuation and sexual desire that he does not perceive the reality of what is happening. Dharmvir's maternal grandmother, poor woman, gone to dust now—her daughter-in-law [actually her daughter's son's wife] was very "tricky" [calak]. The old woman took care of the boy, raised him [from infancy]. His father's family had nothing. She carried him around everywhere. Then he gets married and turns against her. . . . If your mother and father feed you, send you to school, do everything for you—up to the time of marriage you say they are good, and then as soon as you marry they become bad? How can that be?

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O n e does not often h e a r "good for n o t h i n g " applied to d a u g h t e r s . C o n cern a b o u t how d a u g h t e r s t u r n out (nikalna) centers u p o n neither their e a r n ing potential nor their filial devotion but r a t h e r u p o n their sexual purity. In most cases, this can be preserved effectively by strict restraints on their freed o m of m o v e m e n t a n d by close supervision of their associations a n d activities. O n c e given in marriage, a d a u g h t e r ' s chastity becomes the responsibility of her h u s b a n d a n d in-laws. Although any s u b s e q u e n t m i s a d v e n t u r e s m a y cause considerable personal pain a n d distress a n d some loss of h o n o r (izzat), they d o not normally impinge directly u p o n the older people's domestic security or well-being. T h e situation m a y be different, of course, w h e n a couple has only d a u g h t e r s : Baljit's widow was rich, but she had no sons. Her daughters and grandchildren took all her wealth away from her. On one occasion they took ten thousand [rupees] from her, right out of the bank. It drove her crazy. Pardy she went crazy on her own; partly they drove her crazy. She brought her daughter's [married] daughter here to do seva, but they didn't even feed her properly. They really mistreated that poor woman. I n such a n instance the son-in-law's c h a r a c t e r plays a role as well. D a u g h ters are generally t h o u g h t more reliable t h a n s o n s — a n d certainly m o r e so t h a n d a u g h t e r s - i n - l a w — i f called u p o n to provide loving care for their p a r ents. But the situation is complicated because reliance u p o n a d a u g h t e r m a r r i e d out of the family (the n o r m a l a r r a n g e m e n t ) is considered s h a m e f u l a n d d e m e a n i n g . Unlike a son, the o u t - m a r r i e d d a u g h t e r has n o reciprocal obligations to her own parents; her d u t y is to serve her parents-in-law. For her p a r e n t s to ask assistance from her m e a n s , in effect, relying u p o n the resources a n d good will of the family to which they gave her in m a r r i a g e . O n the other h a n d , w h e n a son-in-law has been b r o u g h t into one's o w n family, for the express p u r p o s e of providing seva, it is q u i t e acceptable to rely u p o n him a n d u p o n one's d a u g h t e r for one's material a n d other needs. But an i n - m a r r y i n g son-in-law comes, almost by definition, with a motive of m a t e rial gain a n d with the risk that he may take a d v a n t a g e of the situation. T h e risk is also g r e a t in the case of an a d o p t e d son, unless he has been raised since infancy as one's own. In this c o m m u n i t y , however, most a d o p tions take place r a t h e r late in the life of the a d o p t e r , w h e n he or she is finally reconciled to childlessness or when an only surviving a d u l t son suffers a n untimely d e a t h . M o s t adoptees, too, are y o u n g men or adolescent boys. T o forestall the inheritance claims of collaterals, a d o p t i n g p a r e n t s often m a k e over legal title of some or all of their p r o p e r t y to the adoptee, against the latter's promise to live with a n d serve t h e m until they die. Of course, sometimes it happens that they don't serve their adoptive parents after that. But after all, some real sons don't turn out well either.

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A l t h o u g h the above speaker rather casually dismissed the risks of such adoptions, in fact in this community " t r u e " stories of adoptees failing blatantly to fulfill their contract for life-long service to the uncle or aunt w h o had adopted them were enough to give considerable pause to anyone contemplating such a step. Intergenerational Relations and the Role of Property T o be alone in old age, " t o have no one," is felt to be the worst of all possible fates. It is, of course, a fate more likely to befall a poor than a well-to-do individual because those with financial resources are in the best position to make alternative arrangements. T h e rich are anyway more likely to be demographically favored with surviving offspring. A number of recent studies of living arrangements of elderly people in India show that only a very small proportion of the old live alone in an independent household. Furthermore, of those who do live independently, most reside close to adult children or other kin and/or receive financial assistance from them. 5 Yet, despite the overwhelming majority of Indian older people living in family settings, many sociologists investigating the subject have noted the prevalence of subjective feelings of dissatisfaction, unhappiness, and even despair among their elderly respondents. 6 It is not always clear, of course, to what extent the feelings reported are associated specifically with problems of aging or with the situation of being elderly or to what extent they reflect more general problems of poverty and ill health not necessarily age-related. O n e sociologist who studied a sample of retired government workers in a North Indian city in the late 1960s reports approximately 44 percent "distressed about their present life" and 34 percent " l o n e l y , " although 93 percent of the entire sample lived either with a spouse, children, other relatives or some combination of these. Almost 50 percent of the sample "showed some symptoms of anxiety," and 99 percent of these gave as the primary reason that "their life is a burden upon others" (Soodan 1 9 7 5 : 1 4 8 - 1 5 0 ) . I cite this study, not because I consider surveys of this kind a satisfactory methodology for uncovering evidence of emotional distress or for explicating its causes, but simply to illustrate the point that even such superficial inquiries suggest that the experience of an old person in an Indian joint family may be more problematic than usually assumed. Doubtless researchers in the past have given little attention to this issue because most analyses of the dynamics of extended family living in India take—unwittingly or n o t — t h e perspective of the younger generation. Goldstein and his colleagues (1983) have recently examined the quality of intergenerational relations in the families of older people in Nepal, a society culturally very similar to India and sharing similar conceptions of family and intergenerational reciprocity and interdependence. Their investigations show widespread feelings of insecurity and unhappiness among their elderly

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informants, who speak cynically of the so-called "money-is-love" syndrome that prevails, they claim, in the contemporary world. According to Goldstein's informants, only those elderly who have their own financial resources either to contribute to running their joint household or to use as leverage (by promising a future inheritance) can expect good treatment in old age. T h i s syndrome is, according to Goldstein, a recent development in u r b a n Nepal, arising out of deteriorating economic conditions, widespread unemployment, low wages, and rapid inflation. Such conditions make it impossible for young adults to earn enough for adequate housing and nourishment, to meet elevated aspirations for acquiring consumer goods, to provide for their children's education and occupational advancement, and to support at the same time aged, noncontributing parents. T h e result is tense intergenerational relations, as well as material and emotional insecurity for many older people, even for those living with adult, gainfully employed sons. Although Goldstein's argument is convincing, and although rapid industrialization, urbanization, and overall economic transformation in South Asia have doubtless exacerbated the potential for intergenerational discord, I suggest that the seeds of such discord were deeply rooted in the cultural system itself; the kinds of anxiety expressed by my elderly Indian interviewees in Delhi were probably present among the aged in India even before the recent social and economic developments to which those researchers draw our attention. Like Goldstein's interviewees, my informants also stressed repeatedly the importance of property for ensuring a comfortable old age—not only because it is always better to be well-off than to be poor but because control of economic resources enables the older person to command good treatment from those upon whom he or she is physically dependent. T h e expression dhan ka sevd, service of wealth—reminiscent of the Nepali notion, "money is love"— was often used in this connection: Nowadays people d o dhan ka seva. They want money, property. If there is nothing in it for them, they don't dedicate themselves to anyone. As for their old age, well, wait and see!

A woman whose only son is deceased made that remark, while discussing the possibility of adopting a young relative to care for her and her husband in old age. An elderly former landlord living with his two married sons and their wives similarly volunteered an assessment of the importance of wealth: It seems to me that if someone has something in the knot of his loincloth, then everyone will be prepared to d o seva, out of greed for that knot. T h a t is my opinion: if a man has money, he won't have any problems.

A poor manual laborer, not surprisingly, also agreed: " T h e m a n who has money is the only one who is served. Everyone will be ready to serve him."

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Property can be used to ensure seva from the younger generation. It can be handed over to one's sons, or to a surrogate son, during one's lifetime, in exchange for a promise that one will be cared for as long as necessary. One may keep it intact and in one's control, in the hope that the anticipated inheritance will induce the young to provide the necessary support and respect as long as one lives. But often a more effective strategy is to contribute to the support of the household during one's lifetime, whether or not one's children are earning. Sometimes to do so is not even a matter of choice; adult children not uncommonly expect a father with means or some source of income to continue paying for the common household expenses—such as rent, utilities, and staple foods—while the children retain most of their earnings for their own personal uses. Such an arrangement is usually quite agreeable to those older people with sufficient resources to afford it. In poor families, however, such expectations may mean that an elderly father or mother must continue strenuous and low-paying employment in order to meet the day-to-day expenses of an unemployed son with wife and children. An elderly Brahman tailor explained: It is somewhat painful when sons grow up and, in addition to providing their food, the old man has to take care of their pocket expenses. . . . My son is a lawyer, but I don't know what his financial situation is. T o this day, he has never given me one penny. He lives with us. I cover his expenses myself. He is married, has children. All their expenses are my responsibility. Don't ask [how I m a n a g e ] — I am just living out my days.

Cautionaiy Tales As I have mentioned earlier, my informants repeatedly stressed the importance of keeping one's health, being able to get around unaided, caring for one's own personal needs, and performing some useful tasks for others, if one hopes for good treatment in old age. I have quoted statements to this effect from men and women anticipating the possible consequences of their own future debility. Conversations about this matter very often called forth highly elaborated and intensely emotional descriptions of persons in advanced old age who, toward the end of their lives, had been observed to suffer miserably due to physical or mental incapacity. These tales, certain of which I heard several times from different individuals, precisely shape what in other contexts is expressed as a more formless fear of their own possible future. T h e central figures in these stories tend to be fellow villagers, either recently deceased or currently living in extreme physical debilitation and distress. One, for example, is the senile woman in her eighties, mentioned above, whose grandaughter, in collusion with her husband, reportedly robbed her of her wealth and then was unwilling or unable to keep her any longer (in her own house) and to provide the care and supervision required by her condition. Another is a childless man who had adopted a nephew " t o serve him in old

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age" but was ill-used by the young man; the elderly man subsequently died of a painful and debilitating illness, during which he received minimal nursing. A male fellow-villager provided the following description of the last days of still another elderly man; of those that I heard in this context, the typical theme describes neglectful and uncaring young relatives, who only reluctantly provide the bare minimum of the invalid's necessities and impatiently await the invalid's demise: He was quite miserable in his old age. H e just lay there outside the house on a dilapidated cot, all day long. No one paid any attention to him. Even to get a drink of water, he would have to call out with difficulty to his son to bring it. Actually, most of the time everyone said that if he died it would be best, it would be over.

When I began to examine more carefully the cases most often used to illustrate the dangers of incapacitation and physical dependency in old age, it became clear that, with only one exception, they involved men or women without living sons. These individuals depended upon an adopted child, an in-married son-in-law, or a nephew to whose household the old person had attached himself earlier in life. Empirically, it is not improbable that surrogate sons (and/or their wives) may be more likely than birth sons to neglect or mistreat an old person under their care. It may well be, however, that surrogate caregivers in these tales are receiving older people's projected fears that would be too threatening if expressed in the form ofstories about blatantly unfilial real (sage) sons.

The Role of Karma These tales also communicate a dual message in terms of causal explanations for the elderly invalids' extreme misery. O n the one hand, the old people in these tales are described as victims of their caregivers—unworthy, selfseeking, lazy, or malicious younger people. O n the other hand, their victimization is also explained as a consequence of karma: the storytellers blame the victims for having brought misery upon themselves through bad deeds committed in the past. It is significant, however, that these references to karma almost always point to events within the present lifetime of the individual, not to acts committed in previous lives: According to the deeds a man does, so is his death. If he does good deeds, he dies easily, a n d doesn't have to suffer much pain. He who does bad deeds, w h o commits sins, gives pain to others, God gives thefruits of that right here. And he has to suffer them right here and just remains lying and lying [in bed]. When the fruits of his bad karma are finished, then he dies.

A B r a h m a n woman who had died in great pain several years previously after a prolonged bout with cancer, was described as

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Note here the theme of sensual indulgence, in which the old woman commits theft in order to purchase special foods for her own consumption. In a story with a somewhat different twist, an elderly man, who died after a lengthy illness while I was in the community, was reported to have suffered at the hands of a spendthrift, alcoholic nephew. Allegedly, however, he had earned the maltreatment because he had been an extremely antisocial and stingy person before his illness. Here, as in other instances, the workings of karma were conceptualized as a short-term causal process: I have seen five or six men in such a state that no enemy would wish it u p o n them. T h e y died in such a condition that their bodies were infested with maggots. O n e of these was Bullan, the priest in Gangapur. It was all the fruit of his bad karma that he had to suffer. They say thatyou will suffer later, but that is not so. As you do, so you receive the fruits right here. According to that are the circumstances of your death determined. H e who does bad karma, his soul [atma] will experience great pain, and he who does good works, his soul will leave the body without difficulty.

T h e use of this version of the karma theory to explain why certain individuals suffer physical and emotional distress toward the end of life, while others die in comfort, also distances its proponents from anxieties about their own future. Those confident that their own record is reasonably clear can gain some reassurance from the knowledge that only those who have accumulated a great deal of bad karma will experience the most severe suffering in old age.

The Home as the Locus of Illness and Death In assessing the nature and significance of the emotions aroused in these Indian old people by anticipating possible incapacitation in later life, it is important to appreciate other physical and social features of their lives, which distinguish their experiences of aging quite sharply from those of middle-class, or even working-class, Americans. Old people in India do most of their physical suffering, and ultimately their dying, at home, rather than in the hospital or nursing home out of the sight of family, friends, and neighbors. Although hospitals exist, they are used mainly in cases of acute illness, and even then very little by the elderly, who find them unpleasant, threatening, depersonalizing, and alienating. Old people fear more than anything else that once admitted to a hospital, they may die there alone, away from family and

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loved ones. T h e care of the chronic invalid in India is unquestionably a family responsibility, and anyone bedridden for an extended period is bedridden in his own home. Consequently those older people who talked to me about their fears for the future had observed many times, at first hand, the suffering that an elderly invalid might have to endure. Most had themselves also participated in taking care of an aging parent, parent-in-law, or grandparent. Although in the retelling, these experiences of being a caretaker of the elderly typically illustrate the way seva in its ideal form should be practiced, it is likely that certain partially suppressed memories of their own irritation, exhaustion, resentment, and impatience fuel anxiety about how their children will react in a similar situation. Attitudes toward Death Another point to consider is the Indian attitude toward death. Whereas in American society great effort is expended to prolong life, even if the quality of that life is questionable, the Indian older person is taught to prepare positively for death and to prefer an early death to a long life of pain and suffering. When Indian old people think and speak about aging, they stress not only the requisites of a good life in the later years but also the requisites of a good death. T h e older individual recognizes the importance of emotional and spiritual readiness to die. Unlike the situation in American society, death is openly discussed among family members and between friends. An open and positive acceptance of both the inevitability of death and the need to prepare properly for it does not mean that attempts to hasten one's own death by direct means are culturally approved. T o pray for death, however, is an appropriate activity, even for those in good health and comfortable circumstances. Instead of avoiding the subject of death in their conversation, as Americans tend to do, my Indian informants spoke of it often. They typically referred to the speaker's willingness to embrace death at any time, now that his or her major tasks in life had been completed. Although I often heard old people admit to fears of suffering toward the end of life, I rarely heard one admit to a fear of death. This does not, of course, mean that such fears are absent. But it is true that such fears are considered inappropriate in the old; as a consequence, they are probably infrequently expressed. Furthermore, to strive to overcome such fears is an important task of later life, one in which most thoughtful people at this stage are actively engaged. A woman in her late fifties, of a well-to-do former landlord family, brought this home to me most graphically in a detailed description of the burning of a close relative's corpse, which she had forced herself to watch for several hours (from a hiding place because women in this community do not join the mourners at the cremation site), in order to try to come to terms with the prospect of her own death and the fiery destruction of her physical body.

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Conclusion Given my observations about the cultural context of growing old in India, the pleasures of this period of life, and the fear and anxiety that may cloud it, the differences between the Indian old person's situation and that of the American are quite striking. The American fear of dependency in old age is rooted in a deeply inculcated need for self-reliance and self-sufficiency, not only to retain the respect of others but, most important, to retain respect for oneself. The American old person rarely shares a household with a married child unless and until he or she has reached the point at which managing alone is no longer possible because of financial or physical incapacity. Americans typically find it discomforting to know that someone else is taking care of their needs, whether or not they are physically able to do so themselves. For this reason they hold out as long as possible before acknowledging that help is required. Americans are likely to feel that placing demands upon their adult children for financial or other support is wrong. Needy parents feel that even an adult child's lime is a precious commodity not to be infringed upon. In American culture the parent-child relationship ideally ought not contain any explicit calculation of reciprocity based on the parents' past efforts and expenditures on the child's behalf. If necessary, a parent should be prepared to give love and material assistance to a child throughout his life without expecting recompense. Therefore, if in later life parents do require aid from an adult child, it is difficult for them, as the recipients of what they perceive to be a one-way—and wrong-way—flow of exchange, to retain self-respect. These feelings are, of course, aggravated in old-old age (see Neugarten 1974), when physical and/or mental incapacitation may make impossible the elderly person's contributing anything at all—even nonmaterially—to either the caregiving child or the child's household and when the elderly's presence is perceived as an impossible drain upon the child's resources and energies. Then, the sense of being a useless burden, not simply being treated as one, intensifies. Indian elderly are in a different situation. In terms of their understandings—which they share with other members of their culture, including, of course, their adult children—they have legitimate and hard-earned rights to support and care in old age. T o accept such aid from adult sons and their wives is a pleasure and a source of pride. It certainly does not threaten their self-esteem, even if they must rely completely upon offspring for all physcial needs because they are secure in the knowledge that they have brought up these offspring and the time has come to reap the benefiits of those sacrifices. In the long-term reciprocity of intergenerational relations in India, at issue is whether the adult children will indeed live up to their part of the exchange. If they do not—and there is reason to believe that when the old person begins

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to represent a severe b u r d e n u p o n the finances, l a b o r , a n d e m o t i o n a l resources o f the h o u s e h o l d , they may n o t — t h e I n d i a n old person is d i s t r e s s e d , u n h a p p y , in physical a n d m e n t a l pain. B u t he o r she is so b e c a u s e o f feeling unfairly a n d cruelly d e a l t with by those w h o b y all rights should c o n t i n u e to respect a n d love h i m or her, even in misery. T h e elderly's o w n sense o f selfrespect is not u n d e r threat or attack. R a t h e r , this is an a n x i e t y b o r n o f realistic, experientially b a s e d concerns, that others m a y not c o m e t h r o u g h w i t h w h a t is legitimately e x p e c t e d o f t h e m a n d that they m a y l e a v e h i m , a h e l p l e s s a g e d p e r s o n , w i t h o u t s u c c o r in e x t r e m e need. A l t h o u g h the old p e r s o n k n o w s that these others will e v e n t u a l l y r e a p the fruits of their neglect t h r o u g h the w o r k i n g s o f karma, the i m m e d i a t e pain a n d suffering m u s t still be e n d u r e d . I h a v e tried here to e v o k e t h r o u g h the w o r d s o f m y elderly I n d i a n inform a n t s s o m e notion o f the kinds o f e m o t i o n s they e x p e r i e n c e w h e n a n t i c i p a t i n g their f u r t h e r a g i n g a n d the prospect o f p h y s i c a l decline a n d i n c a p a c i t a t i o n . T h e f o r e g o i n g has been b a s e d a l m o s t entirely upon discussions w i t h o l d e r p e o p l e a b o u t a g i n g a n d family relations, u p o n m y o b s e r v a t i o n s , a n d u p o n the c o n t e n t o f s p o n t a n e o u s conversations, a m o n g both the elderly a n d p e o p l e o f all ages, in w h i c h issues related to a g i n g w e r e discussed. W h a t these i n d i v i d u a l s expressed v e r b a l l y a b o u t their feelings c o n c e r n i n g this time o f life s h o w s e v i d e n c e o f b e i n g h i g h l y culturally patterned; m u c h of it is h i g h l y g e n e r a l i z e d as well, in that p e o p l e spoke o f the situation of " t h e e l d e r l y , " o r a b o u t " o l d a g e , " w i t h o u t a l w a y s directly d e s c r i b i n g their o w n inner states, as A m e r i c a n s d o . Y e t in w h a t they chose to s a y , w h e t h e r in the f o r m o f a n e c d o t e s a n d stories a b o u t o t h e r s or in general p r o n o u n c e m e n t s a b o u t the difficulties o f e n f o r c i n g intergenerational reciprocity w h e n h a n d s a n d feet no longer w o r k , they rev e a l e d m u c h a b o u t some key e m o t i o n s evidently p r e v a l e n t a m o n g a g i n g m e n a n d w o m e n in this society, n a m e l y anxiety a n d fear a b o u t the f u t u r e , a n d in p a r t i c u l a r a b o u t the possible c o n s e q u e n c e s o f b e c o m i n g p h y s i c a l l y u n a b l e to function. A l t h o u g h , as I h a v e s h o w n , A m e r i c a n old people express w h a t a p p e a r superficially to be similar fears o f b e c o m i n g helpless a n d d e p e n d e n t , a closer e x a m i n a t i o n of the w a y these t w o v e r y different cultures c o n c e i v e o f the a g i n g process a n d h a n d l e intergenerational relationships a n d

interdependencies

d e m o n s t r a t e s that not only the sources o f these e m o t i o n s b u t also the c o n s t i t u tion o f the emotions themselves are distinct.

Notes to Chapter Three Earlier versions of this paper were presented to the Workshop on the Person, at the University of Chicago in winter 1982, and at the Workshop on Psychoanalysis and Anthropology, also in Chicago in May 1982. I would like to acknowledge the helpfulness of the discussions and comments by the various participants in those sessions, particularly M c K i m Marriott, Gloria Raheja, and Waud Kracke. I am especially

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grateful for the constructive criticism of my fellow participants in the conference of which this volume is the direct outcome, and I would like to single out for special mention Margaret Trawick and Veena Das. The essay has also greatly benefited from Owen Lynch's careful and critical reading of several drafts, which has helped me to clarify my thoughts on many points discussed herein, although I have not been able to follow all his suggestions in this revision. 1. For a recent and theoretically fairly rigorous framework for understanding the significance of cross-societal differences in the position of the elderly, see Foner (1984). A classic older work on the subject is Simmons (1945). See also a number of recent collections of essays on aging in crosscultural perpsective, for example: Fry (1980), Amoss and Harrell (1981), Myerhoffand Simic (1978), Sokolovsky (1983), and Brown and Kerns (1985). 2. This research was carried out from September 1974 to February 1976 in an urbanized former village in the city of New Delhi. Fieldwork was supported by NIMH Grant No. R O l MH 24220 and by the American Institute of Indian Studies. Some other publications resulting from this research are Vatuk (1975, 1980, 1982a, 1982b, 1985, 1987). 3. The classical model of the life stages or asrama assumes a male protagonist with the marriage rite marking his entry into the Householder role. The woman enters the picture as a wife who shares with him through the sexual division of labor the duties, responsibilities, and pleasures of this period of his life. She may accompany him when he becomes a Hermit, and, if she does so, should follow a similar regimen. O f course, when he becomes a Renouncer, she is prime among those with whom he must sever his ties of attachment and interdependence. 4. Mines (1981, 1988) makes a similar point when he says that family and social controls over individuals loosen as they grow older; in middle age men and women may grasp opportunities to pursue personal predelictions of lifestyle or to engage in activities previously barred to them, either because of conflicting responsibilities or family opposition. Mines does not, however, explore the issue of gender differences, perhaps because he interviewed few women. 5. A survey of some of these data may be found in Vatuk (1982a). 6. See, for example, Harlan (1964), Raj and Prasad (1971), Soodan (1975), and Marulasiddaiah (1969).

References Cited Amoss, Pamela, and Stevan Harrell, eds. 1981 Other Ways of Growing Old. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Brown, Judith K., and Virginia Kerns, eds. 1985 In Her Prime. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin and Garvey. Clark, Margaret 1972 Cultural Values and Dependency in Later Life. In Aging and Modernization. Donald O. Cowgill and Lowell D. Holmes, eds. Pp. 263-274. New York: Appleton Century Crofts. Clark, Margaret, and Barbara Anderson 1967 Culture and Aging. Springfield, 111.: Thomas.

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Davis-Friedmann, Deborah 1983 Long Lives. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Foner, Nancy 1984 Ages in Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press. Fry, Christine, ed. 1980 Aging in Culture and Society. New York: Praeger. Goldstein, Melvyn, Sydney Schuler, and J a m e s Ross 1983 Social and Economic Forces Affecting Intergenerational Relations in Extended Families in a Third-World Country: A Cautionary Tale from South Asia. Journal of Gerontology 3 8 : 7 1 6 - 7 2 4 . Harlan, William H. 1964 Social Status of the Aged in Three Indian Villages. Vita Humana 7 : 2 3 9 - 2 5 2 . Kakar, Sudhir 1978 Images of the Life Cycle and Adulthood in Hindu India. In The Child and His Family: Children and Their Parents in a Changing World, Vol. 5. E. J a m e s Anthony and Colette Chiland, eds. Pp. 319—332. New York: John Wiley and Sons. 1979 Setting the Stage: The Traditional Hindu View and the Psychology of Erik H. Erikson. In Identity and Adulthood. Sudhir Kakar, ed. Pp. 3 - 1 2 . Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kalish, Robert A. 1967 Of Children and Grandfathers: A Speculative Essay on Dependency. The Gerontologist 7:65-69. Kane, Pandurang Vaman 1968-75 History of Dharmasastra (Ancient and Medieval Religious and Civil Law in India). 5 vols. 2nd ed. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute. Manu 1886 The Laws of Manu. Translated with Extracts from Seven Commentaries by G . Buhler. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Marulasiddaiah, H. M. 1969 Old People of Makunti. Dharwar: Karnatak University. Mines, Mattison 1981 Indian Transitions: A Comparative Analysis of Adult Stages of Development. Ethos 9 : 9 5 - 1 2 1 . 1988 Conceptualizing the Person: Hierarchical Society and Individual Autonomy in India. American Anthropologist 90:568—579. Myerhoff, Barbara, and Andre Simic, eds. 1978 Life's Career—Aging. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage. Neugarten, Berenice 1974 Age Groups in American Society and the Rise of the Young-Old. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 4 1 5 : 1 8 7 - 1 9 9 . Pandey, Raj Bali 1969 Hindu Sarhskaras: Socio-Religious Study of the Hindu Sacraments. 2nd ed. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Platts, J o h n T . 1960(1884] A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical Hindi, and English. London: Oxford University Press.

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Raj, B., and B. G. Prasad 1971 A Study of Rural Aged Persons in Social Profile. Indian J o u r n a l of Social Work 32:155-162. Simmons, Leo W. 1945 T h e Role of the Aged in Primitive Society. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sokolovsky, J a y , ed. 1983 Growing Old in Different Societies. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. Soodan, K . S. ' 9 7 5 Aging ' n India. Calcutta: Minerva. Vatuk, Sylvia 1975 T h e Aging W o m a n in India: Self-Perceptions and Changing Roles. In W o m e n in Contemporary India. Alfred DeSouza, ed. Pp. 142-163. New Delhi: Manohar. 1980 Withdrawal and Disengagement as a Cultural Response to Aging in India. In Aging in Culture and Society. Christine Fry, ed. Pp. 126-148. New York: Praeger. 1982a O l d Age in India. In Old Age in Preindustrial Society. Peter N. Stearns, ed. Pp. 70-103. New York: Holmes and Meier. 1982b T h e Family Life of Older People in a Changing Society: India. In Aging and the Aged in the Third World: Part II, Regional and Ethnographic Perspectives. J a y Sokolovsky and J o a n Sokolovsky, eds, Pp. 5 7 - 8 2 . Studies in Third World Societies, No. 23. Williamsburg, Va.: Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary. 1985 South Asian Cultural Conceptions of Sexuality. In In Her Prime. J u d i t h K . Brown and Virginia Kerns, eds. Pp. 137-154. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin a n d Garvey. 1987

Authority, Power and Autonomy in the Life Cycle of North Indian W o m a n . In Dimensions of Social Life: Essays in Honor of David G. M a n d e l b a u m . Paul Hockings, ed. Pp. 23-44. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

FOUR

The Mastram Emotion and Person Among Mathura's Chaubes Owen M.

Lynch

Introduction W e s t e r n a n d s o m e s c h o l a r l y I n d i a n t h o u g h t offers m o d e l s o f I n d i a n ideal b e h a v i o r , t h o u g h t , a n d feeling that stress self-abnegation a n d devotion to d u t y . S u c h m o d e l s i n c l u d e Sita w h o d e d i c a t e d her life to her h u s b a n d R a m a , R a m a h i m s e l f w h o a s s i d u o u s l y cultivated d e v o t i o n to d u t y a n d

righteous-

ness, a n d the ascetic w h o l e a v e s house, h o m e , a n d caste in search o f e m o t i o n al b a l a n c e , n o n a t t a c h m e n t , a n d insight into the true nature o f reality. Y e t I n d i a n p o p u l a r folk tradition offers m o d e l s of b e h a v i o r , emotion, a n d feeling that, a l t h o u g h not u l t i m a t e l y c o n t r a d i c t o r y o f such classical m o d e l s , at first g l a n c e s e e m q u i t e at v a r i a n c e w i t h them. If one reads those texts least afflicted by moralists—the poetry, especially lyrical poetry, and the vast literature of tales and romances—one gets a different picture of civilized Indian life. There was a delight in living, an artistic sensitiveness, a cool headed drive to make good in the world, and an air of cultured sophistication in the enjoyment of the rewards of prosperity, as far removed from the stern disenchantment of the sages as is the spirit of a rustic Brahman freehold from the urban wit of the ocean-port of Tamraliptl. Yet if one comes down to essentials, the ideals and aspirations—the " d a y d r e a m s " — w h i c h find expression in the stories and romances, remain, in spite of vast difference in temper and spirit, close to those that have guided higher Indian thought. O r perhaps we must change the order; for it is an enduring characteristic of Indian thinking, even of the highest order, that it never loses contact with popular conception and beliefs. (Buitenan 1959:99) O n e s u c h folk m o d e l — t h e ideal o f the mastram—is

f o u n d in n o r t h w e s t e r n

I n d i a , p a r t i c u l a r l y in the a r e a o f B r a j . A mastram is o n e w h o either is mast ( i n t o x i c a t e d , d r u n k , p r o u d , w a n t o n , lustful, h a p p y , o v e i j o y e d , careless) or 91

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experiences masti (intoxication, joi de vivre, carefreeness, passion, joyous radiance). But simply listing the dictionary meanings of the word mast gives little information about its meaning and use in India. This chapter, therefore, presents a "thick description" (C. Geertz 1973) of this ideal of emotional and material life as it exists among the Chaubes of Mathura city in Uttar Pradesh, India. I pose this first question in the essay: Is this ideal of an emotional, eat-drink-and-be-merry person congruent with Indian classical models of the ideal person, particularly that of the ascetic, and with the Brahmanical caste status of the Chaubes? Lévi-Strauss (1962:69) once said that "affectivity is the most obscure side of m a n " and that impulses and emotions explain nothing: they are always results, either of the power of the body or of the impotence of the mind. In both cases they are consequences, never causes. T h e latter can be sought only in the organism, which is the exclusive concern of biology, or in the intellect, which is the sole way offered to psychology, and to anthropology as well. (Lévi-Strauss 1962:71 )

Reviews of the various approaches to the study of emotions and their various classifications (see Denzin 1984; Kemper 1987:265-268) testify at least as much to the difficulty of understanding emotions as to their perennial interest. These approaches also evidence the schizophrenic understanding that Lévi-Strauss's acceptance of the Cartesian mind/body distinction creates when developing methods and theories to understand them. Lévi-Straussian structuralism tried to move beyond the Cartesian notion of consciousness as transparent to itself and replaced it with the idea of consciousness as awareness of itself through the internally heard presence of language, la langue (Derrida 1976). This move, however, had three consequences. First, it privileged reason, semantics, la langue, and society over body-emotion, pragmatics, la parole, and individual. Second, following the Saussurean model, it severed the meaning of words, as signs, from any pragmatic context; words were defined in opposition to other words, just as phonemes were defined in opposition to other phonemes (Giddens 1979:3848). As a result, the study of emotions has been reduced to the study of the meaning of words for emotion within a purely semantic context. Third, it relied on a referential theory of meaning in which the meaning of a word, as a signifier, was the concept that it signified. Words and language, then, were cut off from the play of differences (Derrida 1976), the multivocality and polyvalency that gives them their creative power and their use in human life and discourse. Hermeneutic anthropologists following a different path have arrived at much the same position (see Leavitt 1985). For them the study of emotion becomes primarily the understanding of cognized, semantic meaning. Emotion is reduced to the analysis of public symbols (C. Geertz 1983:55-70) or

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to the analysis of discourse concerning emotion (see Lutz 1986). T h e implicit assumption of such approaches, however, is that " r e a l " emotions, not words and concepts for them, are physiological or psychophysiological, natural not cultural, felt not semantic. Real emotions are assumed universal in nature and properly studied by naturalistic methods of psychophysiology or psychoanalysis. Recently some anthropologists, none more eloquently than Michelle Rosaldo (1984) or more forcefully than Catherine Lutz (1988), have expressed dissatisfaction with assuming the mind/body distinction when studying emotion. They assert that approaches based on that distinction are both Western in origin and inadequate to account for their ethnographic data (see also Shweder 1984; Leavitt 1985). In this essay I shall move ino the crack of a new approach opened by these anthropologists, and I shall try to enlarge it. This new approach considers emotions as culturally constituted appraisals experienced by an engaged self (see Shweder and LeVine 1984; Harre 1986; Averill 1980). Such an approach does not use the referential theory of meaning but instead draws on Wittgenstein (1980), finding the meaning of emotion words in their use. Deconstructionist insights that consider emotions as like signs embedded in a culturally constructed text, itself a historically situated intertext, can enrich my approach (Derrida 1976). Essentially emotions are appraisals or evaluations of situations. Such appraisals cannot be identified by any one specific feeling peculiar to each emotion because different feelings may occur with a single emotion and the same feelings may be present in different emotions. For example, a quick heartbeat may be felt as a sign of fear, rage, or love; likewise, the feeling of fear may be identified as a weak stomach, a rapid heartbeat, or trembling knees. As culturally constituted, emotions are not necessarily universal because they vary in their meaning to those experiencing them, in the situations in which they occur, and in the ways whereby they are learned, expressed, and experienced. As culturally constituted appraisals emotions are at once sentient and sensible. They are culturally categorized and conceptualized nonspecific feeling states concerned with appraisals by a self in relation to persons, things, or events (see Levy 1 9 8 4 : 2 2 1 ; Lyons 1980; Myers 1985:96—102; Rosaldo 1 9 8 4 : 1 4 3 ; Solomon 1984; Wilson 1972). 1 As sentient emotions are evaluative, they identify and describe what one or another does, should, or could feel in a culturally constituted, social, and therefore moral relationship. As sensible, they are not necessarily sensations; there is a difference between saying " m y foot hurts me," which refers to a sentient relation to one's body, and saying " I ' m angry because he stepped on my foot," which refers to a sensible appraisal of a relation to one's self. Emotional feelings may include changes of physiological state, as when one feels the adrenalin of fear, but this is not essential to them. Emotions

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may, on the contrary, be feeling states so difficult to describe that one must resort to metaphor or analogy to describe them, as when the thrill of hearing a Beethoven symphony is described as "like being in heaven." As culturally conceptualized, emotions are learned, publicly known, and expressed through signs (verbal and nonverbal) embedded in a larger web of different emotions, experiences, and meanings (a cultural text); they carry with them as much personal as cultural deferred experience of history, mythology, society, behavior, and language (cultural intertexts). In short, they are caught up in the play of difference of signs, or differance (Derrida 1973, 1976). Public and learned, emotions are produced and reproduced through historically situated and reflexively monitored cultural practices (Giddens 1979). Experience of emotions, then, may vary with changes in political economy. The study of such cultural practices offers the anthropologist a most productive entry point to the study of emotions as I have defined them; I shall use such an entry in this chapter. From a purely ethnographic point of view, such an approach leaves open the question of whether the mind/body distinction is necessary, or even useful, for understanding emotion in a cross-cultural perspective. Parkin's (1985) study of the African Giriama and Lutz's (1988) of the Micronesian Ifaluk make it evident that it is not. This leads to my second set of questions in this essay: How do the Chaubes of Mathura conceive of the relation of mind to emotion, if indeed they do so? And how does their understanding relate to Indian asceticism that Westerners so often see as an attempt to achieve pure thought divorced from sentient emotion? Mathura

Mathura city is on the right bank of the holy river Jamuna and lies about ninety miles south of Delhi and thirty miles north of Agra in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The name itself has been variously derived to mean either city of churns, after its fabled wealth of cows and dairy products, or forest of honey, after a legendary forest of bees that produced honey in lavish abundance (Joshi 1968:2). Mathura has a long and hallowed history. Painted gray ware found in various archeological sites indicates that it was inhabited at least as far back as early Aryan times, 1500 B.C. Later it was the capital of the legendary Shurasena empire of the Yadavas from whose line Krishna himself is said to have sprung. Various sites in and around the city, as well as textual evidence, show that Mathura in the pre-Christian and early post-Christian era was the home of flourishing and vigorous Buddhist and J a i n cultures. Buddhist artisans hewed the archetypical Asian Buddha in the Mathura style of stone sculpture. In A.D. 1018 Mathura was sacked by the Muslim invader Mahmud of Ghazni who saw its Hindu idols and opulent temples as an abomination.

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Mahmud's desecration was the first of many by Muslims and others, of which the most remembered today are those of the Moghul emperor Aurangzeb (1658-1707). In 1803 Mathura passed under British rule, and since that time it has been administrative headquarters of district Mathura. Mathura is well known and revered in India as one of the seven great pilgrimage cities. This fame is based on two venerable facts. First, Mathura, the acknowledged birthplace of Lord Krishna, is the symbolic center of Braj, the land of his childhood play and miraculous exploits. Second, it is the religious center for bathing in the river Jamuna, just as Banaras is the center for bathing in the river Ganges. A number of pilgrimage guidebooks depict Mathura as the center of a lotus flower whose petals are the twelve sacred forests (ban) within which are the hallowed bathing tanks and sacred mountains where Krishna grazed his cows, dallied with the milkmaids, and rescued his friends and devotees from wicked demons and angry gods. The sites of these exploits, or lilas (plays or sports), have for centuries inspired the religious imagination of devout pilgrims. Some pilgrims come to Mathura for only a day or two during which time they bathe in the Jamuna and visit a few other sacred centers, such as Brindaban and Gokul. Other pilgrims, however, come for the Braj Caurdst Kos Parikrama (160-mile circumambulation of Braj), a forty-day journey around Braj, to visit the sites of Krishna's various lilas.2 Both types of pilgrim need pilgrimage priests (panda.) to perform various religious obligations and, in the case of the Braj Caurasi Kos Parikrama, to act as guides over the 160 miles of unknown forest, field, and fen. Mathura is almost as well known for its traditional pilgrimage cicerones, the Chaubes, as it is for its sites of Krishna's sports and play. Chaubes The name Chaube is a dialectical variant of Chaturvedi (knower of the four Vedas), a name, it is claimed, Lord Krishna himself bestowed upon this Brahman community. Today one can most easily meet Chaubes at Vishram Ghat on the banks of the river Jamuna where they wait for and administer to pilgrims taking sin-cleansing baths in the river. Their association with this river is so intimate that they call themselves sons of goddess J a m u n a (Jamuna ke putra), the river itself being one form of the goddess (Lynch 1988). Chaubes trace their origins at least as far back as the first Hindu mythological age, the Satya Yuga, when, it is said, they were born from the sweat of the god, Lord Vishnu in his incarnation as a boar (Y. K . Caturvedl 1968:25). As the Chaubes tell it, their history is filled with incidents giving evidence of, as well as providing models of and for, their mast character. 3 For example, one day Krishna and his cowherd friends were out playing. Krishna felt hungry and sent his friends in quest of food from the Chaubes. The

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Chaube men, however, were busy in offering sacrifices (jiajitas) and were not to be disturbed even at Krishna's request. When the Chaube women noticed this, they rushed out with sweets, curd, and food for Krishna and his playmates (V. K. Caturvedi, n.d.). In gratitude, Krishna promised that from that time forward the Chaube women would be renowned for their fairskinned beauty, as indeed they are, and the Chaube men would control pilgrimage in the Braj area, as they do. 4 In telling the story Chaubes gleefully point out that none but a proud Chaube would have the cheeky mast to ignore Krishna's hunger and thirst. One of Mathura's great festivals is Kans Mela, or the Festival of Kans's Destruction (Kams Vadh kd Mela), in the fall of every year. 5 Kans was Krishna's wicked uncle who tried to slay him as a newborn child because it had been prophesied that Krishna would grow up to kill him. After miraculously escaping his uncle's sword, Krishna grew up to fulfill the prophecy by displaying amazing skills as a warrior, particularly a wrestler, and liberated the people of Mathura from his uncle's demonic rule. The public celebration of this event in Mathura remains a Chaube monopoly. Two young Chaube men are dressed as Krishna and his brother Balaram. Then, they are paraded on an elephant to Kans Tila to meet Kans, an elaborate effigy in paper on a wooden frame. After Kans's head is severed from his body, the head is mocked and paraded through the Chhata Bazaar area of the city. Just outside of Vishram Ghat at a place called Kans Khar, Chaube young men wielding heavy wooden staffs (saunta) beat the severed head until it is pulverized confetti. In this violent event Chaubes publicly and symbolically align themselves with Krishna as both the protectors, if not owners, of the city and its most ancient citizens. The agonistic display is not lost upon others; Chaubes are a dominant presence in the city and are dealt with cautiously. Like Krishna, they have a reputation for being tough fighters and skilled wrestlers. Other legends tell of how their masti, their carefree courage, helped them become the dominant pilgrimage priests in Mathura city and district. One day the Moghul emperor Akbar, it is said, sailed by Mathura on the river J a m u n a . He saw some strange people gathered at Vishram Ghat and wondered who they were, what they did, and why they gathered there. He summoned the people to him, but only one, Ujagar Chaube, had the courage to get in a boat and row out to meet the emperor. Ujagar Chaube told Akbar that Mathura was the birthplace of Krishna and that Vishram Ghat was a sacred bathing spot. Akbar put in the palm of Ujagar Chaube's hand a single cowry shell, as a dana (pious offering). When Ujagar Chaube arrived back at Vishram Ghat, the other Chaubes asked him to open his fist and, as was the custom, to share the emperor's gift with them. He refused. The other Chaubes started to fight with him, until Akbar again summoned Ujagar Chaube to return and explain the commotion and why he had not shown the cowry shell to the other Chaubes. Ujagar Chaube said that he would neither

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show nor share the cowry shell because it concerned the emperor's and his own honor. If the other Chaubes had seen the emperor's mite of an offering, then they both would have been ridiculed and dishonored. Akbar was so impressed that he gave Ujagar Chaube his wish to have, as his exclusive clients, all those from the surrounding fifty-two kingdoms and all members of the four Hindu sects. From that day, it is said, the system of individual clients (jajmant) was followed, rather than the system of all Chaubes pooling and sharing their earnings from one collection box. Ujagar Chaube also established the relationship of the Chaubes with the Pushti Marg (Pusti Marga) sect upon which they are still most dependent. Chaubes say that Vallabhacharya, the founder of Pushti Marg, went on a pilgrimage around Braj, but it was unsuccessful. In a dream he was told to go to Vishram Ghat and to take the niyam (observances, promises, vows) of the pilgrimage from a priest. He went to Vishram Ghat, took pilgrimage vows from Ujagar Chaube, and thereafter successfully completed three pilgrimage rounds of Braj. From that day onward, all followers of Pushti M a r g take one or another Chaube as their pilgrimage priest, and even today Vallabhacharya's descendants take pilgrimage vows from Big Chaube, Ujagar's descendant. This event was decisive for the history of the Chaubes because the wealth of Vallabhacharya's followers has been a major source of C h a u b e income and has supported many of them in a far from destitute lifestyle. Not all contacts with Moghul emperors were, however, so peaceful and so profitable. The emperor Aurangzeb, it is said, once summoned two Chaubes, Ali Datt and Kulli Datt, to dig a grave. Rather than dig one grave they started digging grave after grave, and soon they would have reached Delhi. Aurangzeb heard of this and ordered their appearance before him; he asked what they were doing. Ali Datt and Kulli Datt saucily replied that they were preparing graves for the time of the emperor's own death. Frightened by this bad omen, the emperor dismissed them and ordered them to dig no more graves. Chaubes today delight in this version of the story because it so defiantly portrays their witty but courageous impertinence. When recounting such stories, or better, when recounting their history as they see it, to themselves and others, Chaubes produce and reproduce among themselves masti, a culturally inherited emotional disposition that lends a constituent continuity, mythological depth, and historical anchoring to their behavior and belief about themselves, their emotional character, and their emotional experience. They were too busy to be concerned about Krishna's hunger; they were so saucy as to dig a grave for a living Muslim emperor; and they are so self-assertive, boisterous, and carefree as to be envied, if not feared, by other communities in Mathura. Chaubes epitomize the quintessence of Braj character, the maslram', they are ever outgoing, often boisterous, sometimes pushy, occasionally quarrelsome, and always delighted by an insulting joke or a playful tease.

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Chaubes are largely concentrated in one area of the city called Chaubiya Para whence they have spread toward and along the banks of the river J a m u na from Vishram Ghat to Bengali Ghat. In 1882 Growse (1979:3) noted their population was 6,000. My own rough estimate puts their number in 1978 at about 11,300. 6 Some have owned significant pieces of land in and around the city, and they control many of the city's religious guest houses (1dharmsala). From their territorial stronghold they dominate the Chhata Bazaar area of the city. Their unity against outsiders, their extroverted presentation of self, their often physically imposing wrestlers' bodies, and their public occupation as pilgrimage priests who constantly dun others for alms, cause locals to avoid, if not fear, them. As pilgrimage priests, the Chaubes' main occupation is to guide pilgrims to the main temples and sacred spots, especially the holy waters of the river Jamuna, in and around Mathura. At the most important sites they offer a necessary prayer of dedication (sahkalp) to sanctify a pilgrim's offering. More important, they are the guides for the Braj Caurasi Kos Parikrama. This annual forty-day pilgrimage stops at the spots of Lord Krishna's miraculous, childhood deeds (lila) (see Lynch 1988). It moves like an army of about six thousand people complete with mobile police, post office, and shopkeepers. The journey through inhospitable jungle and around ripening millet fields is difficult and often trying; a treacherous thorn may infect an unprotected foot, or tainted water may attack a sensitive stomach. Only a solicitous Chaube guide can ease the way. The relationship between a Chaube and his clients is most often traditional and passed down through families. Trust in them is great, and women unchaperoned by men from their own families may be entrusted into a Chaube's care. In return clients give donations to their Chaubes who make return visits to clients during the year. Pilgrimage priests outside of Mathura city in the rest of Braj are most often Gaur or Sanadhya Brahmans who, unlike the Chaubes, do not travel from station to station throughout the area. Thus, Chaubes compete for the donations of pilgrims, and their peripatetic rights in Braj have been resented to the point of occasional challenge in the courts. Sanadhyas resident in Mathura city seem particularly resentful because the Chaubes have edged them almost totally out of Vishram Ghat and other sacred centers in the city. The Mastram as an Ideal The mastram is a person who is mast (happy, lusty, proud, carefree, intoxicated); he enjoys a carefree lifestyle with a sense of physical and emotional well-being. A Chaube who knew some English said, "Eat drink and be merry; that is how we live, we have no worries here [in Mathura]." The opposite of feeling mast is feeling sust (slow, lazy, idle, bored, inactive, sad). Ideally a mast person and a true mastram is not entangled in moha (natural

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or habitual attachment to things and people). A mastram, thus, remains happy; neither the pangs of loss and separation from friends nor the pains of worry and anxiety about possessions touch him. This implies that he has the wherewithal to live well and that he is not despised as kahgal (destitute). The ideal of the mastram reflects and actualizes niti (the wise conduct of life), which "represents an admirable attempt to answer the insistent question how to win the utmost possible joy from life in the world of men" (Ryder 1956:5). Niti is "the harmonious development of the powers of man, a life in which security, prosperity, resolute action, friendship, and good learning are so combined to produce j o y " (Ryder 1956:10). As an ideal of personhood, the mastram is a symbolic template or control for experience (C. Geertz 1973) that identifies, interprets, creates, and often becomes the social experience of self and emotion that it is said to be. Chaubes are fond of quoting a saying: Where trees are thorny shrubs, 7 and wells harbor brackish water; Where locals shout boisterously, and greet guests with insults; Behold Krishna! such is your Mathura.

That was how Udhav, Krishna's beloved friend, experienced Mathura and its urbanites when Krishna sent him there on an errand. And that, too, is how Mathura's Chaubes see themselves: without cant or servility, straightforward, sharp-tongued, proud, independent, without care or concern (láparváh) for how others may see them. In short, they are mast. Chaubes, like most people of Braj (Brajbásí), are a rustic, rough crew. The open, artless, even crass behavior of Brajbasls provides the standard [of this rusticity], Krishna came here because he knew he would not be inundated with etiquette, and Brajbasls count themselves lucky that they have been included among the people with whom Krishna came to dwell. They don't have to impress anybody. (Hawley 1981:4.8)

Unusually active, open, assertive, playful children are indulgently said to be mast, as are mischievous young boys who are laughed at and have their ears playfully boxed for their teasing or puns with sexual innuendoes. Such children reflect, actualize, and recreate the paradigm of Braj's most beloved child, Krishna, himself a tease, a trickster, a carefree and ebullient child, a perfect mastram. Being mast and becoming a mastram, then, is not merely a reputation for Chaubes to live up to; rather, it is an ideal of personhood that tells them how to behave and how to feel when or if truly themselves (see H. Geertz 1974). Being mast is in the nature, soil, streets, air, atmosphere, blood, and culture of the Brajbasi and especially of the Chaube. As Rosaldo (1984:150) says, "Cultural idioms provide the images in terms of which . . . subjectivities are formed, and, furthermore, these idioms themselves are socially ordered and constrained." Few, if any, Chaubes become and live the ideal, but it is a state of life and

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personhood to which many aspire. Most, if not all, feel mast on many occasions of daily life. Four things, they say, are conducive to feeling mast and becoming a mastram: marijuana (bhamg), good food (bhojana), remembering the Lord through prayer (bhajana), and physical exercise (kasrat). Marijuana, as an intoxicating even narcosis-inducing substance that is drunk rather than smoked, occupies in India, and especially in Braj, a domain of meaning, experience, and moral evaluation that is wholly different from that which it occupies in the West. Chaubes say that it is a medicinal plant (buti) given by Lord Shiva who himself was greatly addicted to it. According to one informant, Shiva is the leader of all the nine planets which in astrological thinking influence one's life for good or ill. Thus, if one goes directly to the leader and appeals to him with the drink he enjoys, then one can hope that Shiva will influence his followers to give good fortune. Dauji, another name for Krishna's brother Balaram, was also an addict of marijuana, and he is daily offered the drink in his temple at Baldev some miles distant from Mathura. In Hindu understanding, the universe is characterized by three qualities or attributes (guna) that inhere in all things: sattva (truth, honesty, peacefulness, goodness, sincerity, purity), rajas (passion, energy, forcefulness, wrath, anger), and tamas (darkness, ignorance, dullness, distress, anxiety). One of these three qualities predominates in and characterizes all things in the universe. These three qualities are also categories of relative moral value, rather than of dichotomous good and evil. Although other castes do not necessarily share their point of view (Carstairs 1954, 1967), for the Chaubes, as Brahmans, marijuana is a substance endowed with the highly valued moral qualities of sattva; it gives a sattva intoxication. 8 Alcohol, they say, is a substance endowed with the base qualities of tamas and gives a degraded and degrading intoxication. Because Hindus, and Chaubes in particular, believe that one becomes what one eats, then by drinking marijuana one enhances good moral qualities and experiences the emotional states inherent in it; its moral and emotional benefits are many. Marijuana is, then, morally good, and the condition it induces is religiously valuable. Indeed, Chaubes are fond of contrasting marijuana with alchohol which, they say, only makes one agitated and quarrelsome. Marijuana, on the other hand, makes one feel peaceful, filled with bliss (ananda), friendly to all, mentally concentrated and resolute on one thing in a fuguelike state (ekagrata), and unattached, talking little to others while in solitude with the self (ekant).9 Carstairs (1954:225), a physician and anthropologist who did fieldwork in Rajasthan, India, says that his "own experience confirmed. . . clinical accounts, with emphasis on feelings of detachment, of extreme introspection, of the loss of volition coupled with a dreamlike impression of heightened reality."

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A heavy dose of marijuana (cakacak bhamg) induces a state of nondesire and peacefulness much like the deep sleep of yoga. Marijuana, it is said, is like religious songs (bhajana) that fill the heart with peace and center the mind on divinity. Thus, to drink a heavy dose is to actualize and experience an emotional at-oneness, peace, nonattachment, and true self-awareness approaching the blissful pleasure (ananda) that is union with divinity and self-integration. Small wonder is it that many Chaubes have a daily or nearly daily draught. Marijuana drinking also makes one lusty (mast), and sex is one legitimate pleasure and end of life (kama). It is the drink of choice on Holi, the Festival of Love (see Marriott 1966). This is a day of joyful revelry, much like Mardi Gras, in which traditional restraints and tabus are broken and trysts occur. People can be observed furtively coming out of dharmsala rooms not normally used at this time of year. Chaubes quote a saying: Kagd bast Bhog vilasi Satyandsi This can be very freely translated as: In the morning at first crow call, take leftovers. At the time of midmorning dinner, take amorous pleasure. In the evening after bhamg, be totally depraved.

Chaube use of marijuana is much more than an individual addiction, it is very often a compulsive social drama much like the deep play of the Balinese cockfight so well described by Clifford Geertz (1973). Cakacak bhamg means not only to have a strong dose of marijuana but also to have a deep relationship with someone. Among Chaubes the preparation of marijuana (often as a cold drink called thandai) can be an elaborate event of sharing and merrymaking. Along with the marijuana various ingredients, as befits the season, such as black pepper, almonds, pistachios, raisins, mangoes, and sugar are ground to a paste with mortar and pestle (symbols of Shiva), mixed with water or milk, and then strained into a pail. All this is done to the tune of jokes, banter, gossip, and pleasurable anticipation of the drink itself. J u s t before the drinking vessel is passed around from hand to hand, the first drink is offered to Shiva, when a few drops are poured over the mortar and pestle. Generally one person buys the ingredients, creating a bond of expected reciprocity. In 1982 a new system, called the "American system" in which all share in the purchase of ingredients, was often followed. The invitation to cakacak bhamg is often extended to passersby, even anthropologists, on especially happy occasions, such as the birth of a male child. Communal drinking of marijuana creates a moral pressure of mutual obligation and a public bond

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of social identity; a Chaube is one who can, ought, and does drink marijuana, as well as one who feels masti and himself through it, its effects, and its multiple meanings and associations. I freely translate a local saying: Take bhamg and open to yourself the treasure house of knowledge. Without drinking it, the tongue is tied in talk. Yogis and saints alike desire it, and Shiva among the gods craves it. In it are the fruits of many pilgrimages and the waters that flow in the Ganges. When the goddess Bhamg enters the body, she reveals countless wonders. For the Chaubes drinking marijuana with others is, as Geertz says of the Balinese, " a kind of sentimental education. What he learns there is what his culture's ethos and his private sensibility . . . look like when spelled out externally in a collective text" (C. Geertz 1973:449). Cakacak bhamg is itself a positive agent in creating and preserving such a sensibility. Through and in marijuana the Chaube actualizes in himself a coincidence of emotionalism (pleasure, merrymaking with friends, eroticism) and asceticism (peace, nonattachment, at-oneness, deep concentration) that is characteristic of the great mastram, Shiva, the erotic ascetic (O'Flaherty 1973). In summary, marijuana is a positive moral substance that creates in a C h a u b e highly valued religious thoughts, states, feelings, and emotions. Through it he experiences these states; he feels mast. At this point I must make a short detour to say something about the Chaubes' own understanding of the relation of thought and emotion, asceticism and emotionalism. Thus far, I have spoken of them as though they were separate entities. According to my informants the seat of thought and of feeling is the man, a word meaning mind, heart, intellect, soul, disposition, purpose, desire. One Chaube pandit soundly put me straight when he said that the English language locates emotions in the heart and thoughts in the head, but Hindi shows its superiority in finding both as aspects of the same thing in the man.10 T h e Hindi words bhava and bhavana mean emotion as well as idea and thought. There is a slight difference between them, however; bhava refers to the permanent emotional potentialities in everybody, and bhavana (see also Eck 1985) is the imaginative thoughts-feelings stimulated by some external thing. Bhavana transforms the latent bhava into an actual emotional-imaginative experience." The Dravidian languages also " d o not so fastidiously separate 'knowing' and 'feeling' in the way S A E [Standard Average European] terms do. In Dravidian, 'rationality' is not just a way of knowing/thinking but a way of feeling/knowing" (Tyler 1984:36). From such a point of view, then, asceticism, with its emphasis on thought and meditation, and emotionalism or eroticism, with its emphasis on feeling and emotion, are not logical contradictions: rather, they are logical contraries, two aspects of the same thing. T h e concern to discard neither asceticism nor eroticism but rather to bring them into unity is a theme of modern

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Indian novels that reveals the depth and topicality of this concern in everyday Indian life (Madan 1981). Marglin (this volume) notes that female temple dancers were likened to Vaishnava renouncers; yet at the same time they were specialists in the erotic emotion. Toomey (this volume) says that Chaitanyaite ascetics cultivate the erotic emotion, and Vatuk (this volume) writes that elderly people who see themselves as renouncers may be the recipients of ostentatious care, just as gurus in the Lingayat (Vail 1985) and Ramanandi (Veer 1985, 1987) sects, although renouncers, live in a luxurious life style provided by their devotees. What asceticism is also depends upon its cultural construction. Caught in a play of differences, Indian asceticism differs from and defers to a cultural system of signs other than that of the West. Marijuana consumption also provides a conceptual and experiential unity to the quartet of marijuana, food, religious song, and physical exercise, all conducive to becoming mast. Marijuana centers the mind on one thing, divinity. Those who sing bhajana take it so that they can sing focused well on divinity. Wrestlers and body builders take it because, they say, marijuana concentrates the mind on the physical activity and creates an appetite for the food necessary to build a healthy body Food is the second social and symbolic substance enabling one to feel mast and become a mastram. Marijuana, it is said, gives both the hunger to relish and the capacity to consume enormous mountains of food without ill effects; this is one explicit reason why Chaubes drink it. 1 2 Food is consumed to nourish both the physical body and the emotional self. Chaubes are strict vegetarians and consume mostly sattva type food which, they say, produces in a person the moral emotions of peacefulness, truthfulness, compassion, kindness, and sympathy to all creatures. As one informant said, "Food should be sattva; then it gives the proper emotions (bhava). Sattva food is food like sweets." Before consumption freshly cooked food is always put before and offered to an image of the Lord (Thakurjl)\ it thus becomes consecrated (prasada) and imbued with something of the Lord himself. In the offering of food to god, in its return to his devotee, and in its consumption as prasada, emotions are believed to be exchanged between humanity and divinity. One Chaube said: When we give food to god we give it with love (prima). God does not need food; he does not eat it. What he takes is our sentiment (bhavana). As you eat, so your thoughts will be. There is an important point here. Women cook food, but they cook it for love of god. In food there is a subtle (suksma) meaning. We make it with love, and god gives it back with love. We eat his love and thoughts. From this our own thoughts get better, (emphasis mine)

Food, then, not only brings with it the pleasure of taste and the satisfaction of a full stomach, but it also nourishes with a feeling of divine love and a

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strengthening of the purer thoughts-emotions in a person's character. Chaubes sometimes call food bhoga, a word meaning both food offered to god as well as the experience of pleasure, sexual passion, nourishment, wealth, and body. Food is at once a moral and a material substance that imbues persons with its own moral and material qualities. Chaubes sum it u p in a saying, " E a t sweets, stay mast (mil khao, mast raho)." For the Chaubes more than religious emotions and meanings lie in food. Mast also means to feel proud, and the Chaubes are proud of their justly renowned capacity to eat enormous portions of food, of their sweet tooth for Indian confections, and of their capacity, they say, to down and digest a liter of clarified butter (ghi) in one sitting. 1 3 It is meritorious for other Hindus to give Brahmans food, and certain religious ceremonies require their gustatory presence. Thus, pilgrims and clients often give feasts (Brahmana bhojana) to one or more of them. Indeed, as Brahmans, Chaubes expect to be feasted. Of themselves they say, " W e are takers; we don't give." A C h a u b e can most easily feel and be mast when he is not poor. O n e sign of not being poor and of being well taken care of by one's clients is being fed by those who have the duty to feed. O n e who eats well at home also knows, as do others, that he is not penniless (kangal). Being feasted and fed and engaging in gastronomic feats gives a feeling of satisfaction that one's status and identity are being confirmed and validated, that one can and does live mast. While on the Braj Caurasi Kos pilgrimage or out on tour to visit their clients, C h a u b e men do their own cooking. Many, then, are good cooks. Often during the year one of them will, for one reason or another, offer a Brahmana bhojana to his friends. It is an occasion much like a picnic where the men get together and have a party similar to, and often along with, the marij u a n a drinking sessions. Once again these are sessions in which all become and share masti with all the implications I have already noted. My own pilgrimage priest had suffered two heart attacks. O n e day while going over his medical records with him, I mentioned that clarified butter was not good for heart patients. He said that he knew that but he could not live and be a real C h a u b e without clarified butter on his daily food. His doctor, he said, had first told him to eliminate butter from his diet; but the doctor relented when he learned that the patient was a C h a u b e for whom butter was more a beneficient necessity for life itself to continue than a harmful luxury. I mention this not because it sounds like a rationalization but because it illustrates how much social identity is tied to food and, for a Chaube, to a particularly rich and religiously significant item of Indian culture and cuisine. Bhajana (prayers, hymns, saying the names of god) are the third means to become mast. O n most mornings one can see in the porticoes around Vishram G h a t in M a t h u r a city, Chaubes, usually older ones, saying prayers. Others

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will do so before the image of the Lord in their own homes. Women, it is said, say bkajana as their primary means of becoming mast. A Brahman woman devotee and professional singer of hymns, although not a Chaube, explained mast in a way with which they would agree: "Around here in masti one finds the L o r d . " Mast, she said, means "to forget oneself and become unconscious in love" and to become absorbed (/in jdta hai) in Krishna. In reciting prayers and singing hymns, Chaubes say, one's mind becomes concentrated on the Lord alone, and this touch of divine bliss (dnanda) is the very essence of divinity. One who has the time to say bhajana, and does so is happy, carefree, lost in the blissful pleasure of the Lord; he or she is mast. J u s t as good food is necessary for good health, so too is good exercise. Chaubes say that exercise makes the body healthy (svast), and this makes one mast. Wrestling is Hindu science (mall vidya), and, as a science, it is a means to self-realization and contact with divinity. It is, informants say, like yoga. Wrestling and exercise, no doubt, also create, particularly in Chaube young men, the same sense of emotional well-being and release from tension that young men of the West get from a good "workout." Scattered around Mathura city, especially to the south and west of Chaubiya Para, are gardens (bagtca) owned and managed by groups of Chaubes. A garden has associated with it trees, a small temple, a meeting hall, and, for some, an akhard (wrestling hall or ground, gym, congregation, abode of ascetics). Before Independence in 1947 the institution of gardens and wrestling halls was vibrant and essential to communal life, solidarity, social control, communication, and male socialization. 14 In the words of one informant, When I was a child before 1948, many people used to go to the gardens. In the morning many young men went to exercise. I would say forty or fifty people went [to my garden]. Today only eight or ten men go. At that time people did exercises there, and in the evening old men would come and read Ramayana for the young men to hear. We took marijuana there. The young men would keep the place clean, fetch water [for both trees and people], and obey the elders whom they feared. It was like the golden age. Today all this has gone. Gardens were and are places where the young men could work out and learn the science of wrestling. Masti and the sentiments of peace, obedience, and happiness were cultivated in the gardens, and all that I have said about marijuana was emphasized in them. This is not to say that conflict and tension were absent; they were certainly present. In the gyms, bachelors and young men apprenticed, and to a minor extent still do apprentice, themselves to a wrestling guru who taught the science of wrestling. In the past, much more so than in the present, some Chaubes remained lifelong bachelors, especially when they had married brothers. Gardens were hangouts for the bachelors who would say, according to one

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informant, " W e are mast." In the gardens bachelors ideally led a happy, carefree life, without family responsibilities and worries. T h e ideal of the mast bachelor was the wrestler, and many C h a u b e s were famous wrestlers often sponsored by rajas or m a h a r a j a s who kept them and, most important, fed them as part of their entourage. Wrestlers require a rich diet of clarified butter, milk, sweets, and nuts such as almonds, in addition to daily bread and curry. T o d a y many homes have pictures on the wall or in storage cabinets of recent ancestors who were wrestlers. Folklore about their fame, their brave deeds, their strength, and their matches with other wrestlers is abundant.15 O n e C h a u b e wrestler is reputed to have been so strong and to have so husbanded his strength that he could ejaculate a liter of semen at a time, a sample of which is said to be in a Bombay museum. Wrestling, exercise, and proper diet reduce the desire for sex; the conserving of semen, which through exercises like standing on the head (sir s'asana) goes to the head according to yogic belief, leads to insight. Wrestling and exercise have close relationships to H a t h a Yoga. In H i n d u belief control, development, and strengthening of the outer body through those disciplines correspondingly affects the development and strengthening of the inner body of mystical insight and religious experience. It is not accidental that the Hindi word for gymnasium (akhara) also means an abode of ascetics some of whom also engage in physical and yogic exercises. Dirt of the wrestling floor is said to be so beneficial to health that pimples and skin rashes fail to erupt. T o d a y the gardens, as social institutions, are vestigial and functioning gyms are few. W h a t remains are festive occasions; for example, on Hindu New Year gardens and gyms are elaborately decorated with flowers, and pictures of famous wrestlers are taken out, hung up, and honored. Yet the husky wrestler and the mast bachelor remain part of the ideal of the mastram. A big bellied C h a u b e looking like a wrestler is still said to be mast. Mast wrestlers were also reputed to have been courageous warriors when occasion required. T h e H i n d u science of using weapons (s'astra vidya) was also taught in the gardens and gyms. In some of them one can still find some old weapons. T h e Chaubes, or Chaturvedis, are divided into two divisions, the Karua (bitter, astringent) and the Mitha (sweet). A true mastram is a Kama C h a u b e . 1 6 Chaubes resident in M a t h u r a say that when the Moghul emperor Aurangzeb began his persecution of Hindus, Mitha C h a u b e s fled to villages in neighboring districts and Rajasthan. T h e truly brave ones, the Karua, remained in M a t h u r a to preserve the orthodox faith and its holy relics, for which behavior they tasted the bitterness of religious persecution. Mitha Chaubes, they say, took wives from other castes and diluted their pure blood; they also took up the impure habit of smoking cigarettes rather than chewing tobacco. T h e y are not to be trusted with their sweet talk, fawning ways, and Western educations, all of which indicate pusillanimity and unorthodoxy. In

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the eyes of many in Mathura this condemnation also applies to other Chaubes who left Mathura well after the Muslim persecutions even though they are not strictly in the Mitha division. The label is important, not the facts. 17 Ideally, then, mast Chaubes care not for their lives but for their religion, orthodoxy, and holy birthplace, Mathura; they have a carefree and happy spirit that expresses itself in jokes, teases, and insults; and they have a tongue whose words cut with the biting, bitter truth. As persons, they are not emotionally blocked with an excess of sophistication and refinement, but, on the contrary, they are direct, spontaneous, gay, carefree, proud, and courageous. One who engages in the cultural practices I have described ought to imbibe and become the qualities they contain, such that his behavior spontaneously derives from masti. Reality Masti is an emotion that adds significance to Chaube experience; experience in practices—drinking marijuana, eating good food, singing hymns, and doing physical exercises—engenders masti. Each practice, when foregrounded as a mast experience, resonates with the background experience and meanings of the others. All are part of a complex emotion, masti, that culturally constitutes for the Chaubes an ideal of personhood, the mastram. Because masti is produced and reproduced in cultural practices and because these practices are embedded in a historically contingent political economy, the experience of masti varies with changes in those practices and in political economy. There are realities of daily life that for many, if not most, make the ideal difficult to achieve and dilute the feelings of masti they may experience. First, being mast—despite pretensions that the ideal mastram is totally unconcerned about his source of food, clothing, and shelter—requires a certain style of life. Few Chaubes today, and probably few in the past, are truly satisfied with what they have, and money is a constant worry and desire. As one Chaube said to me, "There is little mast in being poor. If one is hit on the hand he can publicly cry; but if one is hit by poverty, he hides alone in shame." There are, moreover, constant pressures to spend one's wealth on dowries for daughters; on feasts at sacred thread ceremonies, marriages, and deaths; and on the many onerous gifts required for relatives at various times of the year. Reciprocity is as often a burden as a boon. Not all clients are wealthy, and lucky, pampered pilgrim priests are few. In recent years, with bus travel and modern guest houses and hotels, the link between client and pilgrim priest is wearing thin, and, it is said, clients are becoming less generous. More than this, the ambiguity of donations (danadaksina), the traditional source of Chaube livelihood, is becoming more appar-

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ent, more real, and more deeply felt. Gifts to Brahmans bring merit to the giver, and, although the Chaubes have the right to receive them, they also carry negative connotations of dependence on the whim and fancy of others and of beggary (bhikh mahgna). Indeed, some very few Chaubes will admit that their occupation is begging, a demeaning occupation, especially when begging turns into dunning for donations. Chaubes categorize themselves as vrttisvar (those who have enough hereditary clients to support them without begging) and rojgari (those who daily hunt for pilgrims and new clients). Rqjgari have a lower status than vrttisvar, this distinction makes explicit the implicit contradiction between receiving religious donations as a right and begging for them as a need. Chaubes also categorize themselves as kulin (refined, noble, educated) and panda (pilgrimage priest). As more and more young men become educated and take up other occupations (many interestingly enough in commerce, banking, and accounting) this distinction gains in significance with the kulins having more respect in society at large. The distinction is actually, as well as symbolically, present in the spatial separation of bazaar from bathing ghat. Pandas congregate in and around Vishram Ghat, but kulins sit in the shops of Chhata Bazaar where Chaubes dominate in the seconds and cut-piece cloth market. A young educated Chaube now in another occupation said to me, " I n the Arthashastra does it say there is any place for mendicant holy men? They get food by begging, but there is need for more things than that, such as medicine. If you have money, then you will always have food." In the context of the conversation the implication was clear: beggary was demeaning and insecure; only with a secure occupation could one live with the essentials of life. Another educated young man, echoing many like him, said, "I don't like this work of begging. Even now, if there is a family register (bahi) of clients, then on the death of its owner it is divided among his sons. Thus, over the generations almost nothing is left. Who can live from that?" His pessimism was in marked contrast to the optimism of young, educated, and well-employed white-collar and professional Chaubes whom I met in a modern hotel in Mathura and on a commuter train in Bombay; all were truly mast as they shared marijuana in the evening after work. The new generation is not foresaking masti', rather, it is transforming its meaning and actualization in the context of new practices and a new political economy. Those who are poor or who beg lack the means to be truly mast, and, more important, they have little honor (izzat) before peers and others. Just as there is little masti without money, so too there is little masti without honor. Much pressure to spend lavishly on life-cycle ceremonies comes from the desire not to show a poor face and suffer dishonor before others. Both the display of wealth and the ability to engage in competitive reciprocity mean that a man can preserve his honor and name before others. Without honor masti is di-

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luted, even destroyed, by feelings of shame, insecurity, jealousy, and inferiority. Such social pressures and values, as well as such consequent negative emotions, only add to the poignancy of the mastram ideal itself. It is known as much by absence as by presence. Conclusion Masti (and feeling mast) is a complex culturally specific emotion that neither measures of physiological responses, neurochemicals, and the like nor references to cognition and concepts alone make humanly understandable. The approach taken in this essay considers emotions as culturally constituted appraisals experienced by an engaged self. They are at once sentient and sensible, taking their charge of feeling and their depth of meaning from cultural practices, themselves heavily loaded with cultural experience, history, and significance. Informants do lie and cover up—sometimes even to themselves—their true feelings, but talk of masti among Chaubes is constant and perdures because experience of it for them is often real and never insignificant. It is historically produced in the cultural practices I have described; at the same time it both confirms and reproduces those practices that Chaubes appraise as sattva in moral quality. The meaningful experience of the emotion masti, and as well the ideal of the mastram, is not merely individual or even that of the Chaubes alone, for it has always been experienced within a larger political economy coloring meaningful emotion. As pilgrimage priests, the Chaubes were and are tied to the donations of their clients, some rich, others poor. As the fortunes of clients have waxed and waned so has the Chaubes' experience of masti. In recent times with the expanded market economy, as well as the new parliamentary democracy, many of the younger generation have taken to secular education and work in commerce, government, and industry. They have left behind many traditional social practices that produced and reproduced masti; in so doing its meaning and their experience of it have changed. The emotion, masti, considered as a sign, is characterized by differance. It differs from asceticism in the cultural practices involved. Yet masti cannot explicitly be understood without implicitly implying its deferred contrary, asceticism. The emotionalistic ideal of the mastram, the aesthete, in no way contradicts the ideal of the s'annydsi, the ascetic; both seek the same goal but use different means. Both seek not the denial of any of one's powers but their full development and refinement. In the Indian scheme, "Nothing is discarded or excluded in this process of refinement: everything is included, improved, and carried forward into one integrated experience. In this experience eroticism exists no more nor less than does asceticism" (Madan 1981:148). The mastram is a locally received exemplar oiniti, the ideal of the good life,

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that is in accord with dharma (duty, ethical conduct) and artha (material gain, polity). Yet it is also, and more important, in accord with moksa (salvation) and uses the concrete means of marijuana, food, physical exercise, and prayers to achieve it. Its way (marga), is in the Hindu devotional (bhakti) tradition that emphasizes identification with the Lord through emotion. Masti is an emotion (bhava) that intimates the taste (rasa) of divine pleasure or bliss (ananda). The mastram is also, in my opinion, a folk version of the rasika (a man of good taste who appreciates beauty and excellence). In classical theory a rasika is one who has cultivated his taste and emotions to the point that he can experience a rasa, the quintessence of a human, aesthetic emotion culturally transformed into an experience of divine emotion. Marijuana is imbibed in order to experience peaceful and blissful (sattva) intoxication; sanctified food (prasada) bears in it divine love; bhajana are sung to sympathetically tune into, and become unconscious in, the Lord's love; wrestling and exercise imitate ascetics and Krishna's own activities and bring the pleasure of good health. All these activities through constant practice are believed to refine and strengthen the higher, sattva emotions, just as the activities of the rasika cultivate, strengthen, and sensitize his taste for divine aesthetic emotions. The aesthete and the ascetic complement but do not contradict one another. T o find in Indian asceticism and emotionalism contradictory opposites is to distort them into a Western mode of thinking that distinguishes thought from emotion and mind from body. In the Chaube mode of thinking, thought and emotion are merely two aspects of the same thing, both having their seat in the faculty called man. "There is no absolute distinction in India between Matter and Spirit; both are equal aspects of one single principle— the two sides of the same coin" (Lannoy 19711282). Finally, emotions are not merely feelings of the true self lurking behind a social mask, as in some recent sociological theories (Denzin 1984). Rather they are moral and motivating cultural appraisals that constitute particular kinds of persons. A Chaube unable to feel mast would not be a true Chaube, nor would he be able to imagine-feel himself a Chaube without experiencing it. Masti is tied to his conception and experience of himself as a social person with a particular identity, Chaube. This is not to say that other Brajbasis do not also feel, value, and desire masti. Rather it is to say that in feeling mast in behavior, ritual, history, and belief which Chaubes consider unique to themselves, they confirm, create, and anchor in coherent emotional reality their identity, their personhood. Notes to Chapter Four This essay is a result of fieldwork carried out in Mathura city from September to December 1980, from August 1981 to August 1982, and from mid-June to mid-August

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1985. The research from 1980 to 1982 was generously supported by a Senior Faculty Research Grant from the American Institute of Indian Studies. I am grateful to John S. Hawley, Pauline Kolenda, and Paul Toomey for their critical comments and edits, and especially to J o a n Lehn whose critical mind and sharp editorial eye made me think twice. Responsibility for the chapter, it goes without saying, is fully my own. 1. My thinking in this paragraph has been much influenced by Wilson (1972), Rosaldo (1984), Levy (1984), and Myers (1979, 1985). 2. For a description and analysis of this pilgrimage, see Lynch (1988). 3. This essay gives only a truncated version of the Chaubes' history of themselves. This interpretation is not uncontested by non-Chaubes. Among themselves there is more than one version of their history, as a reading of their journals, Mdthur Pradip and Mdthur Hitaist, would confirm. Pandit Bal Mukund Chaturvedi has published extensively in the latter journal and is acknowledged by many in Mathura to be the most learned historian of the community. 4. This myth, which Chaubes tell about themselves, is a version of that given in Bhagavata Purana 10.32. In this way Chaubes seek to validate their position in Mathura and their relationship to Krishna. I am grateful to John Hawley for (Minting out this important correspondence to me. 5. This festival takes place on the bright half of the Hindu lunar month of Kartika. 6. This figure is based upon a register book for a distribution of food called daim which is given to all male Chaubes in Chaubiya Para. The distribution was done in 1978 in celebration of a young man's sacred thread ceremony. The register lists 1,165 families with 5,674 male members. I have simply doubled that figure for a total of approximately 11,300. My reason for doubling the figure is that in the state of Uttar Pradesh the sex ratio is biased in favor of males. Yet Chaubes say that in their community today there are more females than males, although in the past it was the opposite. Because I believe there is some truth to their assertion, I have split the difference by evening out the sex ratio. 7. The kanl shrub, Capparis aphylla. 8. The Chicago school under McKim Marriott has emphasized the notion of substance as both material and moral in Hinduism. It has not related this notion to the seminal ideas of Robertson Smith and Durkheim with which it has much in common. Lannoy ( 1 9 7 1 : 2 7 s ) notes, " T h e Hindu has never divorced the physical from the spiritual; these 'ancient physiologists' ascribed an ethical significance to physiological sensitivity." 9. Carstairs (1954, 1 9 6 7 : 1 1 7 - 1 1 9 ) notes that Brahmans in particular take these attitudes while Rajputs drink alcohol and praise its qualities. 10. In Sanskrit man is manas. For further explication concerning the man and its location in the Ayurvedic conception of the body see Kakar (1982). 1 1 . This way of conceptualizing emotion as externally stimulated conforms very much to the classical rasa theory and has parallels to Wilson's (1972) causal theory of emotion. Also, there is no verb in Hindi equivalent to the English verb to feel. Anger comes to one (gussa ana); one does love or envy with another (1useprem karna, usst irsa kama). Mahsus hona is not used with nouns for particular emotions. 12. For similar reasons marijuana mixed with brown sugar (gur) and salt is fed to cows and buffaloes when they are sick and off their fodder.

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13. " T h e Chaubes of the district [Mathura] are famous for being hearty eaters" (Joshi 1968:101). 14. See Ranjan (1967) for a Chaube's nostalgic description of gardens in Mathura. 15. Jivan Lai Caturvedi (1967) gives a historical list of many famous Chaube wrestlers. 16. For an interesting discussion of the cross-cultural use of bitter and sweet as metaphorical terms pairing physical and psychological properties see Asch (1958). 17. Those whom the Mathura Chaubes label as Mitha reverse the story and say that they are the true Karm Chaturvedis because by taking flight they preserved the true orthodox religion and did not become degraded through Muslim contact and work as pilgrimage priests.

References Cited Works in English

Asch, Solomon E. 1958 The Metaphor: A Psychological Inquiry. In Person Perception and Interpersonal Behavior. Renato Tagiuri and Luigi Petrullo, eds. Pp. 86-94. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Averill, James R. 1980 A Constructivist Theory of Emotion. In Emotion: Theory, Research, Experience. Volume 1: Theories of Emotion. Robert Plutchick and Henry Kelierman, eds. Pp. 305-339. New York: Academic Press. Buitenen, J . A. B. van 1959 The Indian Hero as Vidhyadhara. In Traditional India: Structure and Change. Milton Singer, ed. Pp. 99-105. Philadelphia: American Folklore Society. Carstairs, G. Morris 1954 Daru and Bhang: Cultural Factors in the Choice of Intoxicant. Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 15(2): 220-237. 1967 The Twice Born: A Study of a Community of High-Caste Hindus. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Denzin, Norman K . 1984 O n Understanding Emotion. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Derrida, Jacques 1973 Differance. In Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs. David B. Allison, trans. Pp. 129-160. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. 1976 O f Grammatology. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, trans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Eck, Diana L. 1985 Banaras: Cosmos and Paradise in Hindu Imagination. Contributions to Indian Sociology 19(1) :4i—56.

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Geertz, Clifford 1973 The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. 1983 Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books. Geertz, Hildred 1974 The Vocabulary of Emotions. In Culture and Personality. Robert LeVine, ed. Pp. 249-264. Chicago: Aldine Press. Giddens, Anthony 1979 Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradiction in Social Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. Growse, Frederic S. 1979(1882] Mathura: A District Memoir. Delhi: Asian Educational Services Reprint. Hawley, John S. 1981 At Play with Krishna: Pilgrimage Dramas from Brinda van. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Harré, Rom, ed. 1986 The Social Construction of Emotions. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Joshi, Esha Basanti 1968 Mathura (Uttar Pradesh District Gazeteers). Lucknow: Government of Uttar Pradesh Press. Kakar, Sudhir 1982 Shamans, Mystics, and Doctors: A Psychological Inquiry into India and Its Healing Traditions. Boston: Beacon Press. Kemper, Theodore E. 1987 How Many Emotions Are There? Wedding the Social and Autonomic Components. American Journal of Sociology 87(2) : 336—362. Lannoy, Richard 1971 The Speaking Tree: A Study of Indian Culture and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Leavitt, John 1985 Strategies for the Interpretation of Affect. Paper presented at the 84th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC. Lévi-Strauss, Claude 1962 Totemism. Rodney Needham, trans. London: Merlin Press. Levy, Robert I. 1984 Emotion, Knowing, and Culture. In Culture Theory: Essays in Mind, Self, and Emotion. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 2 1 4 237. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lutz, Catherine 1986 Emotion, Thought, and Estrangement: Emotions as a Cultural Category. Cultural Anthropology 1 (3) : 287-309. 1988 Unnatural Emotions: Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and Their Challenge to Western Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Lynch, Owen M. 1988 Pilgrimage with Krishna, Sovereign of the Emotions. Contributions to Indian Sociology 20(2): 1 7 1 - 1 9 4 . Lyons, William 1980 Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Madan, T . N. 1981 Moral Choices: An Essay on the Unity of Asceticism and Eroticism. In Culture and Morality: Essays in Honour of Christoph von Furer Haimendorf. Adrian C. Mayer, ed. Pp. 126-152. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Marriott, McKim 1966 The Feast of Love. In Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes. Milton Singer, ed. Pp. 200—212. Honolulu: East-West Center Press. Myers, Fred 1979 Emotions and the Self: A Theory of Personhood and Political Order among Pintupi Aborigines. Ethos 7:343-370. 1985 The Logic and Meaning of Anger among Pintupi Aborigines. Paper presented at the 84th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C. O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger 1973 Siva, the Erotic Ascetic. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parkin, David 1985 Reason, Emotion, and the Embodiment of Power. In Reason and Morality. Joanna Overing, ed. Pp. 1 3 5 - 1 5 1 . A.S.A. Monograph No. 24. London: Tavistock Publications. Rosaldo, Michelle 1984 Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling. In Culture Theory: Essays in Mind, Self, and Emotion. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 1 3 7 - 1 5 7 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ryder, Arther W., trans. 1956 The Panchatantra. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shweder, Richard A. 1984 Anthropology's Romantic Rebellion Against the Enlightenment, or There's More to Thinking than Reason and Evidence. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 27-66. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shweder, Richard A., and Robert A. LeVine, eds. 1984 Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, Emotion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Solomon, Robert C. 1984 Getting Angry: The Jamesian Theory of Emotion in Anthropology. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 238-254. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tyler, Stephen 1984 The Vision Quest in the West, or What the Mind's Eye Sees. Journal of Anthropological Research 4o( 1): 23-40.

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Vail, Charlotte 1985 Founders, Swamis, and Devotees: Becoming Divine in Northwestern Karnataka. In Gods of Flesh/Gods of Stone. Joanne Waghorne and Norman Cuder, eds. Pp. 123-140. Chambersburg, Pa.: Anima Publishers. Veer, Peter van der 1985 Brahmans: Their Purity and Their Poverty on the Changing Values of Brahman Priests in Ayodhya. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. ,

9( 2 ) : 3°3 _ 3 2 1 -

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Taming the Ascetic: Devotionalism in a Hindu Monastic Order. Man, n.s. 22:680-695. Wilson, J. R. S. 1972 Emotion and Object. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Wittgenstein, Ludwig 1980 Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1. G. E. M. Anscombe, trans. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Works in Hindi Caturvedl, Jlvan Lai 1967 Mall-Vidya aur Mathura ke Caube. Mathur Pradlp 2(1-2): 34-46. Caturvedl, Vasudev Krsna n.d. Mathura evam Mathur Caturvedl: Sariksipt Paricay. Mathura: Sri Mathur Caturvedl Sabha. Caturvedl, Yugal Kisor 1968 Mathur Caturvedl Brahman Paricay. Jaipur: Agarval Printing Press. Ranjan, Sri Rajendra 1967 Hamare BagicT Akhare. Mathur Pradlp 2(7-8): 1-2.

FIVE

Untouchable Chuhras Through Their Humor "Equalizing" Marital Kin Through Teasing, Pretence, and Farce Pauline Kolenda What is at issue, briefy, is the over-all "discursive fact," the way in which sex is "put into discourse." MICHEL F O U C A U L T , T H E HISTORY OF S E X U A L I T Y , VOLUME I

Remember, people joke about only what is most serious. — A L A N DUNDES, C R A C K I N G JOKES

The various genres of humor are for the purpose of entertainment. They relate to emotions because, although they require a cognitive prerequisite (one must " g e t " the joke), if appreciated, they bring pleasure to their audience. There is a belief in the United States that the English cannot quite " g e t " American jokes; there is even a series ofjokes about that (Dundes 1987:150158). That many ethnographers may sympathize with the English predicament is indicated by the scarcity of ethnographic treatments of humor. People construct jokes, farce, and satire out of cultural materials, and as a minimum, the ethnographer must, just as with a cockfight (Geertz 1973) or a ritual (Bateson 1936), know the other culture rather well to grasp its humor. Although jokes primarily entertain, they can also be seen as commentaries that people are making, consciously or unconsciously, on aspects of their own society and culture. Dundes above warned us that jokes are about serious matters, and Mary Douglas (1975:104) has suggested that jokes are usually against the social structure: "they attack classification and hierarchy." Jokes often seem to express a strain of defiance toward the official social structure and proper cultural values. Part of what makes some jokes funny is the casualness with which the sternest mores are broken in the often upside-down world fantasized in the joke. Perhaps it is the countercultural values expressed in the various genres of humor that contribute to making them difficult for an outsider to grasp. One must not only know much of the other culture but also appreciate its practitioners' discomfort and dissatisfaction with many of its parts, some of which they may imaginatively and even rebelliously play with in genres of humor. T o their audiences, jokes may be "truer" than propriety; they can have a kind of wisdom as they tear away the masks of propriety revealing that both 116

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h i g h and l o w are a l l - t o o - h u m a n (or all-too-animal). I f anthropologists look m o r e closely, they m a y see that o n e set o f m a s k s has been r e p l a c e d in j o k i n g or f a r c e by a n o t h e r a n d that the disguises o f propriety s h a p e the disguises o f humor. H a b e r m a s ( 1 9 8 8 : 3 m ) has suggested that w h e n p e o p l e l a u g h at the h u m o r of w i t they t e m p o r a r i l y regress to a n infantile prelinguistic stage o f life. B u t I w o u l d say that it is not b a c k to a prelinguistic stage b u t b a c k to the early years o f c h i l d h o o d , w h e n they h a d to learn the most basic social a n d cultural rules, that j o k e s — t h a t themselves p e r m i t the r e a d y b r e a k i n g o f these r u l e s — c a r r y them. C e r t a i n l y , j o k i n g a n d farce are forms oi p l a y d u r i n g w h i c h r a c o n t e u r or actors a n d the a u d i e n c e m a y b e h a v e like kids. P e r h a p s that aspect o f h u m o r is universal, b u t the content of j o k e s is v e r y m u c h culturally constructed. In this c h a p t e r , I a m c o n c e r n e d with s o m e aspects o f h u m o r a m o n g H i n d u p e a s a n t s in N o r t h I n d i a , specificially w i t h culturally p r e s c r i b e d uses o f h u m o r , derision, a n d insult in the relations b e t w e e n e q u a l s , b e t w e e n m e n w h o are " b r o t h e r s , " a n d b e t w e e n m a r r i e d w o m e n o f the s a m e g e n e r a t i o n , o n the o n e h a n d , a n d b e t w e e n u n e q u a l affinal relatives, the w i f e ' s kin a n d the h u s b a n d ' s kin, o n the other. T h e s e latter are w h a t a n t h r o p o l o g i s t s h a v e called ritual j o k i n g relationships. A l t h o u g h ritual j o k i n g relationships are found w i d e l y t h r o u g h o u t

the

w o r l d , i n c l u d i n g I n d i a , the content o f the institutionalized j o k i n g b e t w e e n affines (people related as brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law or b r o t h e r - i n - l a w / sister-in-law or co-parents-in-law) is seldom r e c o r d e d . A p t e m a k e s the point forcefully t h a t the e t h n o g r a p h i c record is l a c k i n g in d e s c r i p t i o n s of a c t u a l j o k i n g b e h a v i o r . H e defines a j o k i n g relationship as a patterned playful behavior that occurs between two individuals who recognize special kinship or other types of social bonds between them; it displays reciprocal or nonreciprocal verbal or action-based humor including joking, teasing, banter, ridicule, insult, horseplay, and other similar manifestations, usually in the presence of an audience. (Apte 1985:30-31) L a t e r he writes: A major weakness in the existing studies of the joking relationship from the viewpoint of the student of humor is that much emphasis has been put on the relational aspects of the joking relationship and not enough on the phenomenon of joking itself. Relatively few ethnographic accounts describe in detail what actually happens by way of joking, irrespective of how the term is understood by the investigator. Detailed information about the verbal, gestural, and action-based manifestations of joking is often lacking. (Apte 1985:34) In this e s s a y , I shall d e s c r i b e " w h a t a c t u a l l y h a p p e n s " in c u l t u r a l l y prescribed j o k i n g relationships, as I found t h e m a m o n g N o r t h I n d i a n u n t o u c h -

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able Sweepers, called Chuhras or Bhangis, in village Khalapur, western Uttar Pradesh, in the mid-1950s. 1 It is important to see that these joking relationships balance avoidance-respect relationships in the North Indian Hindu cultural context, a characteristic of joking relations noted by Radcliffe-Brown (1952a, 1952b) for some peoples in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and North America. In North India, avoidance and respect relationships between a Sines of different generations or between those with large differences in age in the same generation, follow an elaborate etiquette that has been described in considerable detail by scholars treating women, purdah (seclusion and veiling of women), and family life in northern India (Beech 1982; Bennett 1983; Das 1976; Hershman 1981; Jacobson 1970, 1977, 1982; Jeffery 1979; Luschinsky 1962; Madan 1965, 1975; Mehta 1982; Minturn and Hitchcock 1966; Papanek 1982; Papanek and Minault 1982; Sharma 1978; van der Veen 1972; Vatuk 1982; Vreede-de Stuers 1968). The following passage will give only a flavor of the Chuhras' extensive description of deference etiquette between affines. Among the Chuhris (feminine for Chuhras; the latter term is both generic and masculine), especially when discussing the relationships between an inmarried woman and her affinal kin, the word repeatedly spoken is kayda, a rule of etiquette manifesting an attitude of deference. There is sasu kd kayda, the etiquette for the mother-in-law, and jeth ka kayda, the etiquette for the husband's elder brother, nanand kd kayda, for the husband's sister, and so on. The combination is a code for hierarchical relationships between junior affines and senior affines, maritally related kin of different ages. The various kaydt (plural) involve respectfulness, graciousness, concern for the other, even hospitality. But I will let the Chuhris speak for themselves about kayde\ in quoting from my field notes I use NQ and a number. Bhati told us about the sasu (the mother-in-law) and in the course of her discussion, spoke of kayda (etiquette of deference): NQ 1 One should behave toward a sasu as toward one's own mother. (How should one show this?) Press her feet when she comes from outside, fill the hukka [water-pipe for smoking tobacco], rub her back in the morning, be affectionate toward her. (How should a sasu treat her bahu [daughter-in-law]?) She should be very affectionate, bring things for her—food, cosmetics, and toilet articles, keep her well-dressed. (Should the bahu obey the sasu?) If she doesn't obey her, it's very bad.... If the sasu and bahu are young, they might talk pleasantly to each other. I and my mother-in-law used to eat together. I kept one important kind of kayda [etiquette]. Unless she ate, I wouldn't eat. I wouldn't eat unless food was given me by my mother-in-law. There

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was great affection between us. Unless she is sleeping, a bahu serves her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law tells her to do everything. When the bahu has learned, she does it herself. . . . For those who do keep kayda, affection is great. . . . My mother-in-law had four or five bahus. I had five devràms [husband's younger brothers' wives] and jethànïs [husband's older brothers' wives]. She used to beat them if they didn't do their work, but I was never beaten. If she told me to do ten jobs, I would say, " I have so much to do. Please wait," and we both would laugh. She was very affectionate. If I ever came here [to parental village], my motherin-law would come along, crying, for half a kos [one mile] after me. She missed me so, she'd say, " O h , bahu, come back soon." The other bahus would sass back and be disobedient. If she said, "Ey, bahu, do this right away," the others would say, "I can't do it." [A A:97914. See Barz (1976) and Redington (1983) for differing opinions on bhava in this sect. 15. This process of deindividualization is rather strikingly reflected in Hindi kinship terminology, where the use of the mother term (ma) is reserved, not for the natural mother herself, but for a senior woman of the family, usually the mother-in-

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law. Vatuk (1982) notes that this strategic pattern of address mitigates against the possibility of a mother-child unit asserting its independence against the family as a whole. 16. Another interpretation has it that the number fifty-six symbolizes all possible food in the cosmos. By their reckoning there are fourteen worlds (lokas) in the universe and four basic substances—beverages, foods that do not require chewing, foods that are chewed, and those that are licked. 17. Goswami Krishnajivanji, interview at J a t i p u r a , September 14, 1979. 18. In some representations (e.g., Jugal Kisor, Syama-Syam, and Larifi-Lal) R a d h a and Krishna are conjoined in a single icon; in others, a small icon of R a d h a is placed at the side of Krishna who stands in the classic tribhahgi posture (his body bent in three places, with his head to one side, his upper body twisted, and his right calf crossed in front of his left with the ball of his right foot resting on the ground); in still further variants, Radha's presence is signified by her name or a coronet only, placed on a cushion beside Krishna's solo image (Entwistle 1987: 79). 19. A study of these two very different interpretations of the same emotion and their effect on ritual performances in each branch of the sect would make an interesting topic for future study. For example, large food offerings and displays are found in temples run by Chaitanyaite gosvamis in Brindaban, something one might never see among ascetics at Radhakund. In one such temple, Brindaban's R a d h a r a m a n T e m ple, the largest food offering is the " T h i r t y - S i x Delicacies" (Chattisa-Vyanjana), a feast described in Braj poetry inspired by the erotic sentiment. In this offering, a carved wooden figure of each gopi is displayed holding a dish in hand; thus each cowmaiden is believed to provide K r i s h n a a unique and different amorous experience, here expressed in gastronomic terms. 20. Narayana M a h a r a j , interview at Radhakund, J a n u a r y 12, 1980. 2 1 . Compare Singer's (1984) data on food categories and the semiotic structure of meals in an I S K C O N temple in metropolitan Philadelphia. 22. This point is rather nicely illustrated in the popular image of Krishna as "mountain holder" (Govardhannath or Giridhan), one of the first images to appear in Krishna iconography. T h i s image derives once again from an episode in the Govardhan myth. Briefly summarized, after Annakuta was offered, the Vedic god Indra, for whom the offering was originally intended, felt insulted and pelted Braj with rain for seven days and nights. T o protect the locals, Krishna held the mountain aloft on his fingertip, umbrella-style, above the entire region. T h e notion that the hill encompasses all emotional experience is visually reinforced in this important and widely revered image of Krishna. 23. Local pandas explain that one stone is standing Krishna, with impressions of Krishna's crown (mukut) in it; the second, a low-lying stone, is said to be Mount Govardhan, complete with the imprint of a mouth. Reflected in this ritual image is the same bifurcated image alluded to in the Govardhan myth. T h e two stones are seen as one, each a devotee of the other: standing Krishna as devotee of the lower stone, Govardhan hill, and vice versa. They are dressed as mirror images each afternoon, with identical faces, costumes, and jewelry. T h e fact that these twin images are located in a large pond at the center of the hill further enhances this mirror effect. 24. Vatuk and Vatuk ( 1 9 7 9 : 1 7 9 - 1 8 9 ) discuss the symbolic importance of sweets in the social and ritual life of North India: " T h e role of sweets in lubricating all types

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of social intercourse in this part of India, and the mental association created by this role, have been discussed here to demonstrate that frequent and heavy consumption of sweets is conceived of, in this culture, as an activity of very positive value and, in fact, as an obligatory activity in terms of the individual's successful participation in his community's social and ritual life." 25. Shrivatsa Goswami, interview at Jaisingh Ghera, Brindaban, January 30, '979-

References Cited Works in English Abu-Lughod, Lila 1986 Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Babb, Lawrence A. 1981 Glancing: Visual Interaction in Hinduism. Journal of Anthropological Research 37(4): 47-64. Barz, Richard 1976 The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhácárya. Delhi: Thompson Press. Bennett, Peter 1983 Temple Organization and Worship Among the Pustimargiya-Vaisnavas of Ujjain. Ph.D. dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Bryant, Kenneth E. 1978 Poems to the Child-God. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bruner, Edward M. 1986 Experience and Its Expressions. In The Anthropology of Experience. Victor W. Turner and Edward M. Bruner, eds. Pp. 1 - 1 6 . Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Das, Veena 1976 Masks and Faces: An Essay On Punjabi Kinship. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 10:1-30. De, Sushil Kumar 1961 Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Bengal. Calcutta: Firma Mukhopadyay. Entwistle, A. W. 1987 Braj: Centre of Krishna Pilgrimage. Groningen: Egbert Forsten. Fabian, Johannes 1983 Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia University Press. Geertz, Clifford 1983 Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books. Haberman, David 1985 Entering the Cosmic Drama: Lllá-Smarana Meditation and the Perfected Body. South Asia Research 5(1): 49—53.

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Viraha-Bhakti: T h e Early History of Krsna Devotion in South India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Hawley, J o h n Stratton 1983 Krishna, T h e Butter Thief. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hayley, Audrey 1980 A Commensal Relationship with God: T h e Nature of the Offering in Assamese Vaishnavism. In Sacrifice. M. F. C. Bourdillon and Meyer Fortes, eds. Pp. 4 2 - 6 2 . London: Academic Press. Hein, Norvin 1982 Comments: R a d h a and Erotic Community. In T h e Divine Consort: R a d h a and the Goddesses of India. J o h n Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff, eds. Pp. 1 1 6 - 1 2 4 . Berkeley: Berkeley Religious Studies Series. 1986 A Revolution in Krsnaism: T h e Cult of Gopala. History of Religions 25(4) : 2 9 6 - 3 ' 7 Hyde, Lewis ' 9 7 9 T h e Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. New York: Vintage Books. Kakar, Sudhir 1986 Erotic Fantasy: T h e Secret Passion of Radha and Krishna. In T h e Word and the World. Veena Das, ed. Pp. 75-94. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Kapoor, O. B. L. 1977 T h e Philosophy and Life of Sri Caitanya. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Lakoff, George, and Mark J o h n s o n 1980 Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lutz, Catherine 1985 Ethnopsychology Compared to What? Explaining Behavior and Consciousness Among the Ifaluk. In Person, Self, and Experience: Exploring Pacific Ethnopsychologies. Geoffrey M. White and J o h n Kirkpatrick, eds. Pp. 3 5 79. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1986 Emotion, Thought, and Estrangement: Emotion as a Cultural Category. Cultural Anthropology 1 (3): 287-309. 1988 Unnatural Emotions: Everyday Sentiments on a Micronesian Atoll and Their Challenge to Western Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lynch, Owen M. 1988 Pilgrimage with Krishna, Sovereign of the Emotions. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 22(2): 171-194. M a d a n , T . N. 1987 Non-Renunciation: Themes and Interpretations in Hindu Culture. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Masson, J a m e s L., and M. V. Pathwardhan 1969 Aesthetic Rapture. Poona: Deccan College Post G r a d u a t e and Research Institute. O'Connell, Joseph T . 1976 Caitanya's Followers and the Bhagavad Gita. In Hinduism: New Essays in the History of Religion. Bardwell L. Smith, ed. Pp. 3 3 - 5 2 . Leiden: E. J . Brill.

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Potter, Sulamith Heins 1988 The Cultural Construction of Emotion in Rural Chinese Social Life. Ethos 16(2): 181-208. Raghavan, V. 1970 An Introduction to Indian Poetics. Bombay: Macmillan. 1976 The Number of Rasa. Bombay: Macmillan. Ramanujan, A. K. 1981 Hymns for the Drowning: Poems for Vishnu by Nammalvar. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Redington, James 1983 Vallabhacarya on the Love Games of Krsna. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Rosaldo, Michelle 1980 Knowledge and Passion: Illongot Notions of Self and Social Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1984 Towards an Anthropology of Self and Feeling. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Society. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 1 3 7 - 1 5 7 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sapir, J . David 1977 An Anatomy of Metaphor. In The Social Use of Metaphor. J . David Sapir and J . Christopher Crocker, eds. Pp. 3-32. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Schieffelin, Edward L. 1976 The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers. New York: St. Martins. Singer, Eliot 1984 Conversion Through Foodways Enculturation: The Meaning of Eating in an American Hindu Sect. In Ethnic and Regional Foodways in the United States. Linda Keller Brown and Kay Mussell, eds. Pp. 37-52. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. Solomon, Richard C. 1984 Getting Angry: The Jamesian Theory of Emotion in Anthropology. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Society. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 238-254. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Toomey, Paul M. 1986 Food from the Mouth of Krishna: Socio-Religious Aspects of Food in Two Krishnaite Sects. In Food, Culture and Society: Aspects in South Asian Food Systems. R. S. Khare and M. S. A. Rao, eds. Pp. 55-83. Durham: Carolina Academic Press. Tyler, Stephen 1984 The Vision Quest, or What the Mind's Eye Sees. Journal of Anthropological Research 40(1): 23-40. Vatuk, Sylvia 1982 Forms of Address in the North Indian Family: An Explanation of the Cultural Meaning of Kin Terms. In Concepts of Person: Kinship, Caste, and Marriage in India. Akos Ostör, Lina Fruzzetti, and Steve Barnett, eds. Pp. 56-98. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

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Vatuk, Sylvia, and Ved Vatuk 1979 Chatorpan: A Culturally Defined Form of Addiction in North India. In Studies in North Indian Folk Traditions. Ved Vatuk, ed. Pp. 177-189. Delhi: Manohar. Vaudeville, Charlotte 1976 Braj Lost and Found. Indo-IranianJournal 18:195-213. 1980 T h e Govardhan Myth in North India. Indo-Iranian Journal 22:1-45. Williams, Raymond B. 1984 A New Face of Hinduism: The Swami Narayan Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Works in Hindi Harirây (Gosvâml Hariräy) 1905 &rïgovardhannâthjî ke Prâkatya kl Vârtâ. Mohanlàl Visnulâl Pandya, ed. Bombay: Srivenkatesvar Yantrâlaya. Mitai, Prabhudayâl 1966 Braj kâ Samskrtik Itihâsa. Delhi: Râjkamal Prakâsan. 1975 Braj kl Kalaom kâ Itihäsa. Mathura: Sâhitya Samsthàn. Sivajî, Raghunâth, ed. 1936 Vallabha Pusti Prakâsa. Bombay: Laksmivenkatesvar Steam Press.

SEVEN

In Nanda Baba's House The Devotional Experience in Pushti Marg Temples Peter Bennett

Introduction Western scholars have long been perplexed by the apparent contrasts in Indian religiosity, not least between those Hindus who attempt to subjugate feelings and emotions through the rigors of asceticism and those who follow paths to salvation that encourage exuberant emotional and sensuous experiences. Pushti M a r g is one such path that has preserved an elaborate tradition of worship as a vehicle for expressing and exciting the overwhelming passions felt by intimate companions of the cowherd god, Krishna. How this is a c h i e v e d — h o w devotion as an emotional-cum-aesthetic orientation to divinity is experienced, rendered, and evoked in the ritual life of the temple—is my primary concern in this chapter. Pushti Marg, the path (mdrga) of Grace (pusti), otherwise known as Vallabhacdrya Sampraddya, or the tradition (sampradaya) that gave lasting expression to the teachings of the medieval preceptor Vallabha (a.d. i 479-1531), is a species of Bhakti M a r g that continues to attract an enthusiastic following in western India, especially among urban business communities in parts of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Malwa, and Bombay. T h e worship performed in sect-affiliated temples is distinctive in several respects; most noticeable is its tendency to express palpably the bhakti ideal of selfless loving devotion, not by urging the renunciation of worldly goods and pleasures, but by utilizing all the things of this world considered precious or pleasing to the senses in the service of the deity. Accordingly, the worship tends to be conspicuously lavish. T h e sect is widely known for the choice variety of its food offerings; for the perseverance, skill, and sensitivity shown by devotees in caring for their deities; and for the highly decorative scenes that embellish the temple sanctuaries. It is unfortunate, though hardly surprising, that such 182

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flamboyant displays have in the past incurred the disapproval of Western scholars. Mackichan (1908—1921) typified the general attitude when he translated Pushti Marg as the " w a y of eating, drinking, and enjoyment" and dubbed its followers the "Epicureans of India." Also distinctive is that, unlike those Krishnaites who prefer to approach their god as a mistress approaches her lover, among them the followers of Chaitanya, devotees of Pushti M a r g have placed an equal if not greater emphasis on the worship of Krishna as an adorable, mischievous, and ostensibly helpless infant. In other words, devotees strive to emulate the feelings of Mother Yashoda as she tenderly cares for her beloved foster-child or suffers anxiety and even sorrow during brief periods of separation. T h e day-to-day treatment of the image reveals touching instances of motherly concern: toy rattles and spinning tops are provided for the god's amusement; in winter he is swathed in warm blankets to ensure he does not catch a cold; and his meals are left to cool prior to serving lest in a fit of childish impatience he should snatch a handful, burning his mouth and fingers in the process. By cultivating a highly distinctive, elaborate, and formalized attitude of devotion, devotees are supposed to share in the emotions of divine love (prima) and j o y (1ananda) felt by those accomplished souls able to perceive the temple image as the living Krishna and the temple as his celestial abode in the Braj home of Father Nanda. 1 This chapter, which explores the nature of this variant of the bhakti experience, reflects wider theoretical interests in the social construction of emotion, the cultural specificity and variability of emotional experience, and the role of emotion in ritual performance (see Geertz 1973, 1980; Kapferer 1979; Lutz 1986; Rosaldo 1980; Scheff 1977; Solomon 1984; Turner 1974, 1982). I aim to elucidate the nature of devotional experiences as construed by temple goers and as actualized in temple rituals. M y essay is based on information acquired during fieldwork among Pushti Marg temple goers in and near Ujjain city, central India, and to a lesser extent in the main centers of sectarian pilgrimage at Braj in Uttar Pradesh and Nathdwara in Rajasthan. I should clarify briefly the social constructionist approach informing my essay. In the physicalist theoretical tradition, as well as for that matter in Western commonsense understanding, emotions are feelings originating in physiological states of being; they are experienced passively, subjectively, and universally. Accordingly one could argue that the maternal affections Krishnaites articulate with reference to the infant god are readily comprehensible to Westerners for whom loving tenderness tinged with feelings of anxiety are considered normal maternal responses. Indeed, the notion of maternal instinct as an innate and spontaneous tendency for a mother to protect and care for her young, despite its preferred scientific application to the lower animals, remains influential in shaping Western assumptions about human behavior; "instinctive" maternal emotions are firmly located in

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the physiological realm. Alternatively, a social constructionist perspective starts from different premises about the nature of emotional experience by identifying emotions as cultural things, systems of "concepts, beliefs, attitudes, and desires, virtually all of which are context-bound, historically developed, and culture-specific" (Solomon 1984:249). Located, as emotions are, in a public context, emotions are social-cultural phenomena. T h e i r origins, meanings, and functions are not hidden a w a y in the physique or the psyche but are visible and accessible, hence amenable to anthropological study. Returning to the maternal theme in Pushti M a r g , the emotional states identified and translated into English as loving tenderness, anxiety, and sorrow m a y seem immediately recognizable, tempting us to asume that they can be understood as direct equivalents of experiences in our own lives. But there is a danger: reliance on empathy leads to imputing to others our o w n concepts o f emotions, thereby short-circuiting the questioning of emotional life itself ( L y n c h , this volume). Rather emotional experiences exist and are bound u p in culturally specific contexts of meanings, beliefs, values, j u d g ments, and relationships. T o extricate an emotion from its distinctive context, to label it, and to seek to explain it as a variant of Western e x p e r i e n c e — these are fraught with all the pitfalls of ethnocentrism. T h i s is not to deny the efficacy o f a comparative approach; rather, it is to say that cultural systems are the proper units for comparison, not displaced cultural constructs where one is forced to equate with the putative universal status of the O t h e r . M o t h e r l y love for K r i s h n a is bound up in a complex of beliefs, attitudes, relationships, and aesthetics, as well as in a conceptual sequence o f increasing emotional intensity. T h i s emotional state is defined in terms of its peculiar d o m a i n , as are all the emotions elucidated in this essay. It is cultivated, expressed, and stimulated with reference to an icon identified as the living god, itself a respository and objectification of sentiment (rasa). A s a manifestation of divine love, motherly love is embodied in the articles of worship, particularly the sacred food leavings, the distribution of which provides a d y n a m i c context for its communication, articulation, and sharing. Moreover, the emotions cultivated in devotion are defined in relation to the distinctive personality of a beautiful, prankish, and beguiling child. Y a s h o d a ' s anxiety during separation is intelligible in the light of the child's helplessness, tendency to make mischief, and susceptibility to the eye of e n v y , and her sorrow recreates a dominant mood of K r i s h n a ' s sport of manifestation and concealment whereby love for the god is intensified through experiencing the alternating states of sorrow in separation (viraha) and j o y in union (samyoga). I shall explain how sorrow and j o y are to be understood not as discrete emotional states but as complementary; only by anticipating one can the devotee relish fully the experience of the other. Sorrow in separation is not a negative

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emotion: for true devotees it is a sublime experience saturated with divine love and joy. Thus, to suggest that this is a representative sample from a gamut of universal emotions, elaborated and stimulated by a distinctive set of beliefs, is to miss the point that the affective states themselves are meaningful inasmuch as they constitute, rather than underlie or complement, the structure of beliefs, values, and relationships of Pushti Marg; as such they are of the same order as cultural phenomena. Emotions conveniently labeled in English are nevertheless foreign to American experiences and require contextual elucidation, if Americans hope to grasp what such experiences mean to devotees. M y further concern is to show how emotions associated with the devotional experience are articulated, actualized, and enhanced in the ritual context. Following Tambiah (1973:199, 1979:10), I understand ritual to be a culturally constructed system of symbolic communication comprising a structured sequence of words and acts directed toward a "telic" or "performative" outcome. Ritual has the capacity to shape and intensify experience by means of patterning, sequencing, repetition, and the controlled arrangement of multiple sensory media. Pushti Marg temple worship, with its elaborate combination of aesthetic forms enabling the creation of myth episodes from the life of Krishna, provides a rich field for investigating the underlying grammar and telic propensities of ritual. Yet concern for a structure whose constitutive features combine to alter experience should not lead one either to presume the passivity of performers or to ignore the relevance of their construals of an event in explaining its force and significance; they create the rite anew at each performance, indicate that they are absorbed, impressed, excited, overcome, or in some way moved by it, and thereby appreciate its distinctive aesthetic style. Understanding this dimension of ritual performance does not depend on achieving a perfect empathy with one's informants, if such a thing is possible. It relies on identifying and elucidating what Geertz (1984:126) refers to as "modes of expression" or "symbolic forms" in terms of which persons represent themselves to themselves and to one another, through "experience-near" as distinct from "experience-distant" concepts. This calls for interpreting concepts and symbols articulated by devotees with reference to their ritual activities; for them, the activities capture the essence of their most intimate mystical experiences, besides describing and lending purpose to their lives qua devotees. It is one thing to suggest that ritual induces intensified experience but quite another to determine the nature of the experience and its relevance to the ritual performed. In Pushti Marg, feelings and emotions are elaborately coded in the words, gestures, and ornaments of worship; they are crucial to understanding the semantic, communicative, and performative aspects of temple ritual.

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A n understanding of indigenous concepts should help to shed light on the devotional experience and its contextualization in ritual performance. T h e focus is not on the objective form of ritual but on ritual interpreted through the medium of the experiencing subject. T h e shift in focus is analytically useful, first, because it allows me to examine the nature of the experiential transformation facilitated by participation in ritual, and second, because it helps to show that the meanings informing ritual acts are not necessarily to be understood in simple instrumentalist terms. Southwold makes a similar point in a study of Sinhalese village Buddhism when he objects to the universal application of instrumentalist analysis and posits an alternative system of thought and action. It is not taken for granted that states of experience are determined by states of outer objective reality, and can be bettered only by changing them. On the contrary, it is posited that states of experience are shaped, and their quality as gratifying attributed, by the experiencing subject, the self. . . . Hence in this system the strategy for ameliorating experience is by changing the self, rather than by changing the states of outer objective reality. In Buddhism it is fundamental, and quite explicit, that one's fate is detemined by one's state of mind. (Southwold 1985:36) Similarly, in Pushti M a r g great value is placed on cultivating an appropriate mental state as a precondition for, and intensification as a result of, participation in devotional worship. By caring for the deity and treating it as if it had all the sensibilities of a living child, the worshiper insists that the fruits of devotion lie firmly in the means. Devotion is undertaken for its own sake, as a means of expressing and nurturing feelings of selfless and overwhelming love for K r i s h n a , and ultimately as a means of tasting the divine bliss normally unrealized within the soul. T h e symbolic acts, ornaments, and procedures of devotion are meaningful and efficacious as vehicles for expressing, and thereby shaping, enhancing, and transforming inner experience. T h e goal of devotional striving is a state of consciousness construed as an emotional absorption in K r i s h n a . T h e devotee attempts neither to change the world nor to enter an ethereal other world but begins to realize the world as it really is: a world to be enjoyed as a manifestation of bliss rather than to be endured miserably as a figment of ignorance. O f particular interest is the manner in which dramatic-aesthetic terms and techniques are utilized to intensify this exceptional experience of the world by creating an impression of the changing scenes and moods of K r i s h na's divine play (lila). This process of "actualization by representation," to borrow Huizinga's phrase ( 1 9 5 5 : 1 4 ) , or the imitative and symbolic means by which the celestial realm of K r i s h n a ' s play is made present in the temple, is meticulously elaborate in practice. T h e temple is the stage for enacting an eternal d r a m a , while the sumptuous decorations and measured gestures of

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worship are surface expressions enabling the performance of a deep play in which enlightened selves become absorbed in a round of emotional interaction and exchange. Although invisible to the spiritually ignorant, this subtle play on lila and the feelings it stirs infuses each and every act with purpose and meaning. T h u s the adornment of the image, the singing of devotional songs, and above all the preparation and distribution of food offerings provide the sensory (tangible, edible, etc.) media through which devotees convey, share, and savor the rarefied sentiments of lila. In this setting material abundance, sedulousness, and artistic elegance are physical expressions of devotional intensity. Unfortunately, I am unable to do full justice to this rich and picturesque form of worship without sacrificing interpretation entirely to ethnography. 2 I have selected principal elements of worship and examined them in accordance with the approach outlined above. They include (a) the act of observing the deity (darsana) in the inner sanctum as the culmination of the devotional experience, (b) the food offering (bhoga) as a means of establishing emotional contact with Krishna, and (c) the temple image (svarupa) as the object of devotion and repository of devotional sentiment. I begin appropriately by outlining the structure of the sect and its tradition of worship as joint preservers of a unique devotional experience. The Vallabha Tradition: Sampradaya T h e category sampradaya is conveniently rendered "sect" so long as one is mindful of the negative connotations of the occidental sect as a secessionist grouping and the positive connotations of the oriental sampradaya as a vehicle for transmitting and perpetuating a sacred tradition via a continuous succession of preceptors. 3 T h e life-blood of the sampradaya is the sacred formula (mantra) whispered in the disciple's ear by the guru at initiation; it can be traced back through an arterial lineage of gurus to a founder identified in some way with a particular divinity. Yet unlike those principal Vaishnava sects organized around a succession of ascetics, Pushti Marg has no renouncers; rather the preceptors, known as maharajas (maharaja) or gosvamis, invariably marry and raise families, while the succession is hereditary such that they owe their spiritual status entirely to their patrilineal descent from Vallabhacarya and as such partake of the divinity of one revered as an incarnation (avatara) of Lord Krishna. 4 W h e n questioned about current devotional practices, devotees usually referred me to the early years of the sect. In doing so they were neither merely relating a history of how things came to be as they are, nor were they simply justifying present devotional customs. There is no abrupt divide between the sect past and present. Worship now is an actualization, not a replication, of worship performed by Vallabha, his son Vitthalnatha, and their disciples,

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which is in turn an actualization of the Braj lila vividly evoked in the Bhdgavata Purana, sharing directly in the thrill and sanctity of the original. 5 Krishna continues to manifest his lila in the tradition perpetuated by the sampradaya. Thus of profound significance for latter-day disciples is Vallabhacarya's inauguration of the system of devotional worship (seva) in 1494 following his identification of an icon of Krishna as the Lord ofGovardhan, Sri Govardhanndthji (usually abbreviated to Sri Nathji), that had miraculously emerged from the summit of Mount Govardhan in Braj. T h e image, which depicts a standing figure of black stone with the left arm raised above the head, is well known to Vaishnavas as that of the child Krishna holding aloft the mountain in order to shelter the people of Braj from a violent rainstorm sent by the god Indra as a punishment for their neglect of his worship. By withholding Indra's tribute and seeking Krishna's refuge the cowherds and cowherdesses of Braj received Krishna's full protection, while the mighty Indra was subdued. At first Vallabha had a small shelter erected over the spot where Sri Nathji had appeared and instituted a simple procedure for bathing, adorning, and feeding the deity. By 1520 a more substantial structure had been erected. Vallabha's second son, Vitthalnatha, who assumed leadership of the sect in 1550, is chiefly responsible for the seva as it exists today. He devised a more beautiful and elaborate system of services by increasing the amount and variety of the food offerings and enhancing the magnificence of the deity's adornment. Following the accession of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb a century later, and fearful of his iconoclasm, devotees transported the image to Rajasthan and settled in a remote village in the mountains near Udaipur, since known as Nathdwara. The temple at Nathdwara is today the richest and most popular center of sectarian pilgrimage, whereas the original temple on Mount Govardhan has long since fallen into ruins. 6 Vitthalnatha also made arrangements that were to shape the future organization of the sect by handing full spiritual and secular authority to his seven sons. Each son received the exclusive right to initiate disciples, and each received a special icon of Krishna; the prestigious image of Sri Nathji went to the eldest, and other sons established their respective deities in temples in different areas of nothern India. T h e seven sons founded seven houses or seats (sat ghar, gaddi)\ the leadership of each house and the rights to the worship of its original image were inherited by a principle of primogeniture. 7 Over the centuries numerous temples have been dedicated to the dynastic houses and hence are under the jurisdiction of Maharajas who appoint priests and managers to maintain them in their absence. In Ujjain, for example, four temples are affiliated to sublineages of the first and second houses, while a fifth is privately managed by descendants of one of Vallabhacarya's closest disciples. Entry into the sampradaya and access to its esoteric tradition is acquired by a rite of initiation in the presence of a member of the Vallabha Dynasty

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(Vallabha-kula). Initiation is conceived as the commencement of a relationship of communion with Krishna effected when Krishna, through the intermediary of the guru, bestows grace on his devotee by means of the Brahma-sambandha mantra, meaning a state of union (sambandha) with the Supreme Lord, Brahman. In terms of Vallabha's pure nondualistic philosophy (suddhadvaita), the soul (jiva), having been infused with divine grace (anugraha, pusti), begins thereafter to realize the true nature of its identity as a fragment (ams'a) of Brahman and hence of its innate capacity to experience divine bliss (ananda), an essential prerequisite for participation in lila. The experience is conceived as a kind of spiritual awakening. Lord Krishna removes ignorance (avidya) by manifesting his own bliss which formerly lay dormant within the soul. The enlightened soul subsequently burns with an intense love for Krishna and fervently performs his seva.8 T h e essence of the initiation mantra is complete self-sacrifice (atmanivedana). By uttering its Sanskrit syllables the initiate dedicates himself or herself utterly and irrevocably to Lord Krishna and promises to dedicate all future actions and acquisitions before using them for self. In this way, wrote Vallabhacarya in his Siddhantarahasyam, everything dedicated to Krishna becomes divine in nature just as the pure and impure waters that enter the River Ganges share in its divine essence (see Barz 1 9 7 6 : 1 8 ) . Particularly significant, the mantra embraces all those qualities considered to make up the " s e l f " (alma), that is, everything the devotee can call " m i n e , " including body (deha) and physical actions, life-soul-mind (pran) and faculty of thought, organs of sense (indriya), together with house, material possessions, wife and children, or as abbreviated in a familiar threefold classification—body, mind, and wealth (tan, man, dhan). The devotee acknowledges that he or she has no independent identity apart from Brahman. But this does not lead to a negation of the idea of self: the devotee dedicates and thereafter retains the faculties of self, consecrated through the act of dedication, and uses them in devotional service. There is no merging or permanent union between the soul and Krishna; such a state is put off indefinitely so that the Supreme Lord and the soul can experience the indescribable joy of desiring union. Devotional Worship: Seva Having received initiation the devotee is considered fit to participate in the customary forms of devotional worship prescribed by the sect, all of which are regarded as expressions of self-dedication. Devotees stress that seva is disinterested service, while the person who offers disinterested service is a sevaka. He does seva not as a means to an end but as both a means (sadhana) and an end, or " f r u i t " (phala), in itself. Hence, seva is both an expression of selfless love for Krishna and the delightful experience of loving Krishna. Its real efficacy, however, lies not in performance but in the mental attitude of

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the performer. All acts of seva should reflect the sevaka's innermost feelings of selfless loving concern for K r i s h n a ; as such, they are distinguished f r o m o t h e r forms of H i n d u worship (puja) allegedly bound by formal rules inhibiting spontaneity and performed primarily for selfish ends. O n e M a h a r a j a explained: In puja method [vidhi] and self-happiness [svasukha] are considered to be the most important, but in seva love [stuha] and Bhagavan's happiness come first. Bhagavan's happiness is our happiness and this is divine [alaukika]. Moreover, seva should be accomplished entirely through one's own efforts: We should dedicate our entire lives to doing seva. The more seva we accomplish by our own efforts, the greater our happiness. We should never allow others to do seva in our place. But the devotee who follows the prescribed procedures of worship while harboring selfish intentions of acquiring rewards or a virtuous r e p u t a t i o n for those efforts, or who is not wholly engrossed in K r i s h n a , is not a t r u e sevaka\ those efforts are no more t h a n sham. Sevakas should not seek to d r a w attention to themselves by extravagant displays of piety, particularly those prosperous m e m b e r s of the business c o m m u n i t y w h o make cash d o n a t i o n s for temple services. O n e shopkeeper explained: A real Vaishnava is a man who does seva without showing others that he is doing so. He is a real Vaishnava because he has feelings of love [premabhava] for Thakuiji. If something is needed in the temple, he gives quietly and expects nothing in return. 9 T h e mental states accompanying seva are further elaborated. T h e sevaka can choose to cultivate a particular emotional orientation (bhava) to K r i s h n a . T h e bhava are culturally specified feeling-states lodged in certain intimate relationships believed to epitomize the true spirit of love and affection felt by the devotee for K r i s h n a . T h u s , in the early stages of devotional a w a k e n i n g the devotee might cultivate dasya bhava by assuming an attitude of loyalty, humility, a n d respect toward Krishna like that of a servant (dasa) toward a master. But sooner or later other more intimate devotional attitudes begin to take precedence. In sakhya bhava the devotee considers himself or herself to be a close cowherd companion (sakha) a n d playmate of K r i s h n a a n d imagines accompanying him to the pastures. In madhurya bhava or gopx bhava the devotee emulates the feelings of the cowherdesses (gopT) who cavorted with the h a n d s o m e flutist of B r i n d a b a n . And in vatsalya bhava or Yasoda bhava the devotee experiences the tender loving concern felt by K r i s h n a ' s foster-parents, particularly Yashoda. For most Pushti M a r g temple goers all four bhava are invoked to a greater or lesser degree in worship. Yet m a n y regard Y a s h o d a ' s feelings as the most poignant. Vatsalya bhava would a p p e a r to represent the

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quintessence of disinterested loving devotion. T h e Supreme Lord of the Universe, Sri Krsna Parabrahman, who inspires awe and fear in people's hearts, is thereby concealed in the form of a helpless child who inspires the tenderest care and affection. Bhava is a state of mind, an emotional orientation, a mode of feeling and perceiving divinity that is articulated and intensified in conventional acts of devotion. By cultivating one or another form of emotional attachment to Krishna the devotee is able to participate as a lover, parent, or playmate of the god in a materialization of lila and to witness first-hand the pervasive and very real presence of the object of devotion. Thus, through bhava the temple becomes the setting for a real-life d r a m a that only those souls favored by Lord Krishna have the capacity to enjoy. In the Presence of Lord Krishna: Darsana M a n y devotees worship small metal images or framed pictures of Lord Krishna in their homes. But they also value regular attendance at sectaffiliated temples in their belief that the lovesick soul cannot bear the heartache of prolonged separation from the deity. Nor for that matter does the deity readily endure being parted from his beloved admirers. Conceived in this way, temple attendance is caught up in a vital undercurrent of lila, for just as the soul, in its longing for Krishna, experiences the contrasting states of parting and reconciliation, so also the temple goer in coming and going is drawn into the cosmic process, succumbing to the alternating moods of sorrow in separation (viraha) and joy in union (samyoga). At this level of divine consciousness sorrow and joy are not discrete emotional states; rather each complements, anticipates, and arises as a consequence of the other. T h e temple is the realm of divine play. Devotees are keen to point out that strictly speaking the word mandir, normally used in northern India to denote a temple, is inappropriate when applied to their own places of worship. Instead the word haveli is preferred, meaning a large house or mansion. More specifically, the temple is Nandalaya, the abode of Nanda, foster-father to Krishna and chief of the cowherds of Braj. Temple rooms, kitchens, and courtyards are identified with Nanda's home. At the same time the temple is believed to contain within its precincts the celestial Braj (Braj-bhumi, Brajmandala) such that various rooms correspond to its sacred landmarks. In one temple in Ujjain, though most conform to a similar pattern, devotees observe the deity from an enclosed courtyard known as Kamala Cauka in the center of which is an inlaid design representing a twenty-four petaled lotus (kamala) symbolizing Braj and its twenty-four sacred groves (vana). T h e courtyard also symbolizes the sacred J a m u n a River. Every year during the festival of Nava Lila it is completely flooded and decorated with lotus blossoms and overhanging branches; a priest, wading knee-deep in water, pushes a model

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boat containing an image of Krishna. Kamala Cauka is surrounded by triplearched galleries (tivdri), at one side of which is Dol Tivari, so-called because here the deity is pushed in a swing (dol) on the day following the Holt festival. Beyond is the inner sanctum (nijmandir) identified with Brindaban, the scene of Krishna's carefree childhood, and adjoining it is a private sleeping compartment (Saiya Ghar) identified with Nikunja, the sacred grove in Brindaban where Krishna sported with his favorite gopi (Svaminiji). Another open courtyard is known as Govardhan Cauka, after the mountain where Sri Nathji was first discovered; and nearby a room contains a small shrine dedicated to Giriraja, King among Mountains, an essential form of Lord Krishna. 1 0 Even the temple well is said to contain the holy waters of the Jamuna. The temple marks a threshold between two contrasting worlds or two ways of perceiving the same world. The contrast is succinctly expressed in the opposition between the laukika and the alaukika, terms that have no precise equivalents in English (see Barz 1976: ioff.) but that are frequently used in conversation as well as in sectarian literature. They refer essentially to two contrasting states of mind, indicating the transformation experienced by the soul as it passes from a condition of ignorance, misery, and defilement (the laukika state) to one of knowledge, grace, bliss, and acceptance by Krishna in his eternal lila (the alaukika state). Thus, the consecrated food, the image, the devotional literature, the worship, the sect, the temple, and bhava itself are described as being alaukika. For enlightened souls capable of seeing through alaukika eyes, these things are sacred, supramundane, celestial, the furnishings of lila, as opposed to the profane, worldly, and mundane. In a laukika sense one enters the temple, observes a statue of the god, and eats a portion of the consecrated food. But in an alaukika sense one enters the heavenly Braj, meets Lord Krishna face-to-face, and tastes of his infinite bliss. Devotees visit the temple to have "sight o f " (darsana) Lord Krishna. At intervals during the morning and late afternoon an audience gathers in Kamala Cauka from which vantage point the darsana is eagerly awaited. Meanwhile, one, two, or even three devotional singers (kirtaniya) sit just outside the doors of the sanctum singing stanzas (pada) whose melodies and lyrics are specially selected to convey the mood of the scene to come. The darsana begins when the chief priest (mukhiya) or one of his assistants opens the doors from within to reveal the enthroned deity. The occasion is greeted with much excitement as individuals jostle for position in their efforts to gain a clear view into the chamber. Initial agitation soon gives way to an atmosphere of relatively calm contemplation. Devotees, seemingly enthralled by the scene within, simply stand with their attention fixed on the sanctum. Merely to observe the image does not amount to real darsana. Devotees stress that ideally the observer must feel that he or she is "in the deity's immediate presence" (saksat-darsana). This feeling was typically described as a sudden and brief change of consciousness: at some stage of the darsana the

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devotee momentarily forgets mundane surroundings, the mind becoming completely engrossed in Krishna. Darsana as such is a subjective experience implying a heightened sense of awareness. 11 For devotees blessed with the faculty of subtle sight the image is a sentient being, but for those with the limited faculty of gross sight it remains a lifeless statue. T h e darsanas follow a chronological sequence corresponding to episodes in the daily and festival life of the god. In this way they afford occasional views of a continuous drama in which temple priests are constantly occupied behind the scenes in ministering to the substantial needs of the deity. 1 2 T h e daily routine is normally organized around eight darsanas, beginning early in the morning at Mahgala when the priest assumes the identity of Yashoda, gently wakes the child and offers him a light snack consisting of milk, curds, butter, and dried fruits. At Srhgara the child is bathed, applied with sweet smelling perfumes, dressed, and given another snack before being presented to his admirers. 1 3 Gvala follows one or two hours later when Krishna as the cowherd Gopala is represented as taking the cows to the pastures with his cowherd companions {gvala). Between i o : o o and 11 :oo A.M., at Rajbhoga, he is offered a royal feast of pulses, curry, wheat-cakes, pickles, boiled rice, sweets, and fresh fruits, after which he takes a midday siesta. Between 3:30 and 4:30 P.M., at Utthapana, the deity is gently roused from sleep and offered light refreshments, followed about one hour later at Bhoga by another snack as the cows begin to gather in their readiness to leave the pastures. At Sandhya-arati the deity has returned home, and a lighted lamp is waved before him (arati). Finally, at Sayana, the second full meal of the day having been served, the deity is undressed and put to bed. In order to understand more fully the significance of this ritual cycle one must be aware of the principles of traditional Indian dramaturgy and aesthetics with which it has affinities and which in Pushti Marg, as in other North Indian bhakti cults, have provided a particularly congenial mode for expressing the relationship between the deity and Krishna (Kinsley 1979:153). T h e subtleties of Sanskrit aesthetics need not delay one unduly; suffice it to mention that according to classical theory a work of art, let me say a dance drama, should serve to arouse in each actor and member of the audience a certain "dominant emotion" (sthayi bhava), of which there are normally eight, and to raise it to the level of a corresponding sentiment (rasa, literally flavor, relish). Hence the bhava of love is complemented by the erotic rasa, mirth by the comic, sorrow by the pathetic, anger by the furious, and so on. T h e chief purpose of the drama is to excite a basic feeling in the minds of the actors and members of the audience and to refine it so that it becomes fully attuned to the universal sentiment conveyed by the performance. An enraptured state of self-forgetfulness results in which actors and audience relish the thrill of pure aesthetic appreciation. They taste rasa. This trancelike state has been likened to a spiritual experience, a com pari-

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son not unduly strained in the Indian context given the "imperceptible shading off from the spiritual to the aesthetic, and vice versa" (Raghavan 1967:258). Rasa is described as resembling the thrill of ananda and even ultimate release (De 1963:69). Followers of Pushti Marg have deliberately conceived the relationship with Krishna in aesthetic terms. Bhava and rasa are not part of an obscure vocabulary of aesthetic elitism; many temple goers use them freely when describing mystical experiences. As the very form of divine bliss (anandarupa) the Krishna image also embodies rasa (rasarupa). Rasa, the concept of aesthetic appreciation, is transformed into the spiritual bhaktirasa, and the dominant emotions are replaced by the principal devotional attitudes experienced by Krishna's parents, friends, and lovers. In Bengal Vaishnavism madhurya bhava or gopi-love is the dominant emotion with the devotional song (kirtan) its chief form of expression. But in Pushti Marg the kirtan is just one of a wide range of media utilized for enhancing bhaktibhava. Devotees are encouraged to employ everything pleasing to the mind and senses in the worship of the deity. Consistent with aesthetic theory the decorative, culinary, and musical techniques of worship are stimuli blended in ways conducive to exciting bhava, eventually elevating it to the experiential level of bhaktirasa. Hence, the ornaments, acts, and procedures of seva are arranged so as to be in perfect harmony with each other, with the time of day, the season, and the mood of the lila being enacted. Devotional lyrics are sung in melodies (ragas, "emotions") which match the moods visually portrayed in the sanctum. During their performance the kirtaniya and his audience are supposed to share in the rapturous emotions felt by the Eight Poet Disciples of Vallabha and Vitthalnatha, who sat and performed by the doors of Sri Nathji's temple and who were themselves privileged participants in the Braj /«/as.14 If the devotee is to experience the love felt by Yashoda or a gopi, then his or her involvement must be total and heartfelt. The element of realism that accompanies the service of the deity makes the drama more literal and the feelings more poignant. Experiences related by one temple priest give some idea of the scrupulous care taken for the deity's comfort and happiness. During the first iarsana of the morning he is careful to clap his hands softly as he approaches the sleeping child because, if he suddenly touched him, the child would be startled. In winter he always lights a stove and warms the deity's clothes before wrapping them round the body of the image. During the afternoon siesta he leaves some sweets and a board game nearby in case Krishna should wake and desire some refreshment or amusement. At Utthapana he always serves a snack in leaf cups because metal containers are not available in the jungle. He also makes sure that there is no delay in serving the snack because "when a baby rises after sleeping he is bound to feel very hungry." At Sandhya he does arati as soon as Krishna returns from the jungle because "Yashoda has been waiting since early in the morning and longs to embrace

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her little boy." 1 5 At Sayana he does arati one last time while ringing a handbell very softly so as not to disturb the drowsy child. Similarly, during the summer months every effort is made to see that the god does not suffer from the intense heat. A water fountain is placed just outside the doors of the nijmandir, screens are sprayed with water and fitted over the windows, and a large fan is hung above the throne. The image is clothed in light-colored, loose-fitting garments. Because they give rise to heat in the body, diamond and gold ornaments are unsuitable. Cooling pearls and silver are worn instead. Various kinds of cooling foods (s'itala bhoga) are prepared: Lord Krishna is very fond of the sweetened juice of ripe mangos (pond). Occasionally, special darsanas are arranged with the intention of alleviating any discomfort caused by the oppressive heat. At Candan Coli sandalwood paste, valued for its cooling properties, is deftly applied to the stone image in such a way that it appears to be wearing knee-length breeches {jahghiya, pardhani) or a loincloth (pichaura) matched with a short-sleeved bodice (coli).16 At Phulmandali the adornment consists of clothes, ornaments, and jewels exquisitely wrought from the buds of pale-colored summer flowers, while the image is seated in a bower of equally attractive floral construction. Devotees spend many hours threading flower buds onto strings according to precise patterns of size, shape, and color. One cannot but admire the consummate skill and patience displayed by the priests and lay devotees who practice such a transient art. Also consistent with aesthetic theory is the belief that nothing should disturb the blissful harmony of the scene lest it affect adversely the onlooker's mood. Hence anything likely either to strike discord in the performance or to induce an inappropriate emotional response is to be avoided. For example, in some temples it is customary to celebrate the birthdays of living Maharajas by dressing the image in a kind of head garland (sthara) and cap (tipard); but in one Ujjain temple the practice had been discontinued after a well-loved Maharaja had passed away on his birthday. I was told that if the tradition had continued, this particular form of headdress might have incited bad feelings in the minds of worshipers, thereby tainting their normal devotional response of sheer joy on celebrating the birth of an incarnation of Lord Krishna. Moreover, if during worship a priest or devotee allows the mind to wander from the task in hand, or becomes angry (krodha), or is bothered by mundane concerns (laukika klesa), then his or her efforts will be in vain, causing unnecessary distress (kasta) to a god who shares in the feelings of his worshipers. The priest or devotee should leave his devotions immediately, taking another ritual bath before returning; on entering the inner rooms of the temple the mind should be free of all worldly thoughts and feelings. The priest should only touch the image while experiencing feelings of pure alaukika bhava. Because the image embodies rasa, only on the highest spiritual plane can communion between the priest and the image be realized. 17

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Every article of adornment is consecrated as a result of its use in divine service; each article is also regarded as the embodiment of a particular emotion (bhavand), contributing in part to the overall mood conjured up by the darsana. Hence the ornaments of worship can in themselves stimulate one or another dominant emotion. Examples abound; some are conventional, and others are the inventions of fertile imaginations. The deity's throne (simhasana) might remind the devotee of Yashoda's lap. The buds in the flower garland worn by the image at Rajbhoga are the hearts of the gopis\ the betel chewed after meals is the lip-nectar (adharamrta) of Yashoda or of Krishna's favorite gopi, Svaminiji; the spout of the water pot (jhari) is Yashoda's nipple, and the red cloth covering it is her sari; his perfume (sugandha) is the sweet aroma of Svaminiji; his winter blanket is her warm embrace; his pyjamas (suthana) are her long-sleeved blouse (coli); and his shawl (uparna) is also her sari. One elaborate costume consisting of a bejeweled crown (mukuta) and flared skirt (kacham) is reminiscent of the full moon and its beams, putting devotees in mind of the Rasa Lila dance when Lord Krishna made himself many and partnered each gopi in the great round dance beneath the autumnal moon. 18 The Food Offering: Bhoga Perhaps the most effective way of establishing emotional contact with Krishna is through food lovingly prepared and subsequently relished as consecrated leavings (prasada). Anthropologists have not fully grasped the affective and spiritual significance of the food offering in Hinduism. Harper (1964) argued that relations among gods and between gods and people extend hierarchical relations between castes based on an idiom of relative impurity. Babb (1970, 1975) has elaborated on this theory by suggesting that the food offering expresses the superiority of gods over humans. By taking prasada, worshipers consume the leftovers (jutha) of the gods and thereby demonstrate their inferior hierarchical status while muting status differences among themselves. The offering itself is described as a form of payment to the gods for past or future favors acknowledged by the return of prasada, the counterprestation. The approach has not gone unquestioned (Fuller 1979; Hayley 1980; Cantlie 1984). With reference to devotional practice among Assamese Vaishnavas, Hayley explains how the offering is conceived as the embodiment of an emotional attitude—devotion—offered to Krishna and later consumed by the devotee who reexperiences the self transformed through the act of giving. Nor does the present material lend itself to interpretation within a rigid hierarchical-instrumental frame. An understanding of the nature of the offering in Pushti Marg lies in its cultural meaning as an expression of pure emotion (suddha bhdva).

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I am not suggesting here that the pure-impure idiom as it is normally understood in relation to food preparation and commensality is unimportant. Devotees and priests involved in processing offerings have a reputation for scrupulousness in their efforts to preserve purity. Only Brahman priests, having first assumed an enhanced state of ritual purity known as aparasa, may cross the boundary leading to the inner rooms of the temple. 1 9 Every temple has at least three separate kitchens for the preparation of foodstuffs differentiated according to their relative susceptibility to pollution. Movement between kitchens is subject to restrictions which, if overlooked, might lead to the irreparable defilement of meals. 20 I argue that an exclusive emphasis on the pure-impure idiom as it relates to social hierarchy or to physicalorganic processes would lead to seriously misrepresenting the significance of the offering. I have already shown that in Pushti Marg, as in many other bhakti cults, hierarchical distance becomes irrelevant when one considers the w a r m t h and intimacy characteristic of the man-divine relationship. Even though unequal status occasionally finds expression in dasya bhava, the cultivation of this servile feeling-state is primarily conceived in subjective, moral, and affective terms, that is, as a means of removing selfishness, overcoming pride, and demonstrating one's dependence on Krishna, rather than affirming the latter's hierarchical superiority. Although the menial approach is suitable in the early stages of the devotional career, it is much too inhibitory for most devotees who prefer to love Krishna as an adorable child or handsome cowherd. 2 1 Moreover, a pragmatic interpretation of the offering as a " p a y m e n t " for past or future favors fails to account for the disinterested spirit of worship. T h e offering is ideally conceived as expressing pure love m a d e entirely for its own sake and with no thought of reward. T h e problem of the meaning of the offering arises out of a limited understanding of the wider affective-spiritual implications of the pure-impure opposition. Because the preparation of food opens it in varying degrees to impurity, the offering must be insulated against polluting agents in order to preserve its purity. Should a devotee who is not in aparasa touch, see, or smell the offering, then it would be "touched" (chu gaya) and hence rendered unsuitable for the deity. 2 2 But more important, in a devotional context the offering is marginal because it is intended for Krishna but yet to be enjoyed by him. Should a devotee whose mind is not completely engrossed in Krishna touch, see, smell, or enjoy the offering-to-be, then he or she would savor its qualities prematurely and hence in contravention of the fundamental precept that everything should be offered to Krishna before enjoying it oneself. Krishna does not accept food that has already been partly enjoyed by his devotees. T o consume unoffered or rejected food is to partake of sin {pap): the eater digests his own selfish intentions. Purity in this sense refers to the offering prepared lovingly, selflessly, and solely for Krishna's enjoyment. 2 3 Clearly, there is a need for a more comprehensive understanding of the

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ritual connotations of purity and impurity. T h e notions do not relate exclusively to objective properties of the external world but are used in a much wider sense to describe subjective states of mind. T h u s the virtuous Vaishnava must endeavor by all means to keep his conduct (¿car) and thoughts (vicar) pure (suddha). Mental purity, expressed in pure thoughts and feelings, and physical purity, expressed in pure actions, are regarded as complementary merits. Both are required for the sincere performance of worship. O n the one hand, purity of the body is conducive to purity of mind: thoughts become pure by following strict rules of conduct. O n the other hand, devotees also insist that if a man is not pure in thought he will not be pure in body and hence unworthy of seva. We have already noted that the enhanced condition of purity assumed by priests not only purifies the physical body but also leads to a pure state of mind, devoid of all worldly concerns. A M a h a r a j a explained: "Whenever we approach Bhagavan it is not good for us to have contact with outside things. During seva we must remove all laukika thoughts from our minds so that we become completely absorbed in Bhagavan." Right actions help to induce the right mental state. Alternatively, the mental attitude of the priest is crucial. J u s t as it is believed that certain kinds of food affect the moral and emotional disposition of the eater, so food can be imbued with the moral and emotional qualities of those devotees involved in its preparation. 2 4 By preparing offerings the priest invests them with his own feelings. Indeed, purity of mind is essential if the offerings are to be acceptable to Krishna. As one informant said: In seva we must have feelings of love [premabhava], Without them seva cannot be performed. Bhoga is a thing of pure emotion [suddha bhava]. Bhagavan does not eat anything in a laukika form. In order to control the senses Vallabhacarya S a m p r a d a y a teaches that the purest eatables should be prepared and offered to God and only then may we take them. In this way physical and mental impurities are removed. We must not take food without first offering it to God. Purity of mind is the objective of Vallabha Sampradaya.

Purity of mind is fundamental. It is quite conceivable for Krishna to accept an offering that would normally be regarded as highly polluting but that remains pure inasmuch as it embodies the pure intentions of the giver. This point was explained to me with reference to several scriptural examples of which one is particularly explicit. It tells of a prostitute who had such profound love for her personal deity (thakurji) that she could not endure a moment's separation from him. She even performed seva during the four days of her menses. Vitthalnatha fully understood her spiritual needs and allowed her to continue, warning other Vaishnava women not to do likewise. 25 She cherished such intense feelings of love for her thakurji that m u n d a n e concerns for conventions of purity would have impeded her devotions. Moreover, although it is considered necessary for the devotee to take appropriate pre-

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cautions while preparing offerings, the devotee should not allow the mind to become obsessed with the finicking observance of ritual minutiae, for this would stall the effortless flow of love-filled devotion to Krishna. Another wellknown story describes one of Vallabha's disciples who was preoccupied with the idea that the deity's clothing might pollute the offerings by coming into contact with the plate. Because he entertained such profane thoughts, the deity showed his displeasure by kicking the plate to the floor and refusing the meal. 2 6 In seva, then, there is an idea that the offering is impregnated with the devotional feelings of those involved in its preparation, while the feeling that Krishna enjoys the offering is acknowledged in the consecrated leavings. O n e devotee obligingly explained in English: " T h e r e is bhava, that is feeling, that we offer food to God and we make it sacred. What is important is the feeling that God accepts our offering. T h e fact is that he graces and acknowledges our feelings." Bhoga, meaning literally "the experience of pleasure," is enjoyed by Krishna, and the remains are converted into prasada, a word which devotees variously equate with pleasure (prasannata), grace, and bliss. Bhoga, prepared with the utmost dedication and given in generous amounts is the medium by which the devotee conveys overflowing love to Krishna. 2 7 Prasada, a token of Krishna's pleasure and happiness on receiving the love of his devotee, is also an edible manifestation of his grace and bliss which the devotee tastes, digests, and inwardly experiences. T h e process of consecration would appear to parallel that of aesthetic appreciation: bhoga as an expression of bhava is complemented by prasada as an embodiment of rasa. T h e giving and receiving of food provides a medium for enhancing and transforming experience. Initially, the pleasure is in the giving. But this pleasure is fully realized when the devotee retrieves the sacred leftovers. Exceptional mystical powers are attributed to prasada. By taking prasada the devotee is nourished by Krishna's grace and made aware of his innate capacity to experience the ecstasy of lila. T h e implications of this spiritual chemistry can best be explained by refering briefly to the principal sectarian festival of Annakuta, the Mountain (kuta) of Food (anna), held on the second day of Divali in the month of Kartika (October/November). T h e festival celebrates the supposed historic episode when the people of Braj ceased making sacrifices to Indra and began worshiping Mount Govardhan instead. Offerings of food were duly piled one on top of another until they reached as high as the mountain's summit. Lord Krishna, delighted by this generous display of devotion assumed the form of the mountain and consumed all the offerings. 28 T h e festival celebrated in sect-affiliated temples begins in the morning when an image of Govardhan is made from cowdung and worshiped with libations of milk. Later in the day a large crowd gathers again for darsana of a magnificent feast set before the temple deity consisting of baskets and buckets piled high with many varieties

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of sweetmeats and savories. O n e ' s gaze is inevitably drawn to the center foreground where a large mound of boiled rice dominates the entire spread, an outstanding representation of the mountain of food offered to Krishna. Annakuta is a festival of abundance, lavish giving, and inordinate consumption. It is essentially a community-based festival celebrated by a n d on behalf of the Vaishnava collectivity. Ideally, and to a large extent in practice, all temple goers contribute toward the feast in cash, goods, or services, and all are entitled to shares in its sacred remains. T h e entire feast, having been financed, organized, and prepared by numerous volunteers, becomes an accumulation of their combined loving devotion. W h e n devotees assemble to take darsana of the splendid feast, they contemplate their combined bhava made lavishly and materially manifest. T h e large mound piled high with choice foods forms a vigorous impression of love in abundance. T h e bathing of the mountain and its cowdung effigies in liberal quantities of milk likewise expresses overflowing love. T h e mountainous feast betokens mountainous devotion. T h e mountain itself, an essential form (svarupa) of Lord Krishna, gives emphatic testimony to the god's benevolence in dispensing grace. By receiving shares of the feast devotees share in the joy of one another's devotion augmented by grace and made sacred with reference to Krishna, the focus and fount of love. T o love Krishna is to love one's fellow worshipers. O n e informant explained that Krishna is partial to those offerings prepared with the intention that other Vaishnavas will enjoy the consecrated remains. Thus, on a spiritual level, Annakuta involves the pooling and intensification of bhava and the subsequent dissemination of ananda. T h e deity is both receiver and redistributor, the repository of an overflowing store of devotion and the source of boundless grace. In this sense the festival is wholly consistent with the meaning of pusti as divine grace and spiritual nourishment. 2 9 O n the one h a n d , the mountain of food bears witness to the lofty devotion of those who n u r t u r e and care for the divine child. O n the other hand, Mount G o v a r d h a n bears imposing witness to the role of Lord Krishna as the nourisher and protector of souls. Krishna's Own Form: Svarupa It remains finally for me to make some observations on the nature of the divine image as the object of devotion. I mentioned earlier that darsana is a state of mind in which the worshiper feels himself or herself in the immediate presence of Krishna. For those able to experience darsana, the image is perceived as an actual manifestation of the god: Krishna's own (sva) form (rupa). T h e relationship between devotee and image is personalized and concretized to the extent that if there is a delay in preparing the offerings, Krishna goes hungry, or, if the food is too hot, he might burn his mouth. T h e exquisite care and tenderness displayed in worship are meaningful inasmuch as the image

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is regarded as a sentient being with whom devotees can establish a warm loving relationship. I will now explore this element of personality attributed to the image. Western notions concerning the conceptual status of God, gods, and holy objects have confused the understanding of image worship in India. Sacred images have been conceived as symbolic intermediaries providing a conceptual bridge between gods and humans and enabling communication between them, in which case they are "affected by the aura of sanctity which initially belongs to the metaphysical concept in the mind" (Leach 1976:38). Or, as Tillich puts it, " T h e symbol participates in the reality of that for which it stands" (1968:265). The ambiguity of images often makes them a focus for speculation and disputation, as evidenced by the controversies surrounding the worship of idols and the interpretation of the eucharist in the Christian traditions, controversies that for Tillich reflect an "inescapable inner tension" in the idea of gods and holy objects "from primitive prayer to the most elaborate theological system" with the result that holy objects are transformed into idols—"holiness provokes idolatry" (1968:234, 240). One should be extremely wary about transferring the principles of this debate to the Indian context. First, the problem of idolatry reflects a fundamental preoccupation of the Occidental religions, one that has encouraged the facile polarization of different elements in Hindu thought and practice: "higher Hinduism" with its abstract philosophical speculation and its so-called "monotheistic" character, and "popular Hinduism" with its "grotesque veneration" of images, stones, mountains, trees, and snakes. Second, the conceptualization of a fundamental duality comprising the human and the divine as two separate and mutually exclusive categories is inappropriate in the Indian context, particularly in Pushti Marg where an apparent dualism is ultimately reducible to a pure monism in which the soul, the material world, and inanimate entities living therein are all conceived as manifestations of Brahman and hence of the subtle essence of Brahman. Finally, I would argue that the svarupa, be it Mount Govardhan or a temple or domestic image, is intrinsically sacred; as such, it is a symbol that stands entirely for itself. The installation of an image in a Hindu temple is effected by a ritual whereby life (pran) is invoked into the image by a Brahman priest through reciting Sanskrit mantras and performing a complicated procedure of invocation, bathing, dressing, offering flowers and so on. Thereafter, the image becomes an object of veneration. In Pushti Marg an image is transformed into a svarupa by a Maharaja, who bathes it in the five sacred substances (pancamrta) and offers it consecrated food from an established image. In this way the Maharaja vitalizes the image by "making it pusti." The consecration of the image and the initiation of a disciple are conceptually similar. In the same way that the Maharaja as an incarnation of Krishna bestows grace on

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the individual soul at the time of initiation, so he also transfers grace to the i m a g e such t h a t , in the words of P u r u s o t t a m a (seventh in descent f r o m Vall a b h a ) , it is infused with grace as (ire p e n e t r a t e s an iron ball (Shah 1969:184). T h e divine identities of the soul a n d the i m a g e are both realized by a process of invigoration t h r o u g h grace. O n c e the image has been consecrated it becomes a living being a n d therefore requires constant care a n d attention. W o r s h i p should never lapse even if the i m a g e is broken by accid e n t . But, as devotees are quick to point out, if a n o n s e c t a r i a n image suffers the s a m e fate it becomes useless for worship; the deity d e p a r t s f r o m the image. For this reason those intending to install a personal image in their own h o m e s should consider the move very seriously. T h e deity becomes a new m e m b e r of the family a n d should be nursed continuously as a y o u n g child; otherwise he should be r e t u r n e d to the g u r u w h o will ensure t h a t a n o t h e r disciple takes care of h i m . O f all the sectarian images, the nine that V i t t h a l n a t h a passed on to his seven sons a r e accorded a p r e e m i n e n t status in the sampradaya. T h e i r distinctive characteristics a r e a p p a r e n t in the terms used to describe t h e m . First, they are self-manifested (svayambhu)\ second, they are generally k n o w n as the sevya-svarupa of V a l l a b h a a n d V i t t h a l n a t h a , m e a n i n g they were personally worshiped by t h e m ; a n d third, they are known as nidhi-svarupa, a term that h a s interesting implications. Monier-Williams (1899) translates nidhi as " a place for deposits or storing up, a r e c e p t a c l e ; . . . a store, h o a r d , t r e a s u r e . " Although these t e r m s are used to indicate the exceptional status of the nine svarupa, they are also frequently applied to other temple deities. Indeed, the prestige of m a n y images is often e n h a n c e d in the estimation of worshipers if their biographies reveal that they were at some time in the past worshiped by the g r e a t preceptors or their e m i n e n t disciples, or if they a p p e a r e d in m i r a c u l o u s circumstances, or if they are subsidiary manifestations of one of the original nine. It is often said that deities, having been discovered on river b a n k s , in wells or while excavating foundations, are self-manifested rather t h a n m a n - m a d e . O n e version of the discovery of Sri N a t h j i in Ujjain, a duplicate of the m o r e f a m o u s N a t h d w a r a image, satisfies several of these criteria. A devotee explained: A Brahman and his wife had so much bhava for Sri Nathji that they used to travel regularly from Ujjain to Nathdwara for darsana. One night the Brahman had a dream in which Sri Nathji said to him, "you have traveled all this way to visit me many times, so now I will come to live with you in Ujjain." A few days later the Brahman was digging a well when he discovered a svarupa. He and his wife were oveijoyed and installed it in a temple. In this way they received Sri Nathji's grace. A n o t h e r svarupa in U j j a i n , Sri Madan Mohanji, was originally worshiped by the d a u g h t e r of o n e of A k b a r ' s chief ministers. O n e devotee recalled the story:

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Thakuiji loved her very much and used to grant her the darsana of his physical presence. They often used to play chess together. When she had grown older they used to dance Rasa Lila. Later her father, Alikhan, also became a disciple of Vitthalnathji. Soon the time came for his daughter to be married. But she didn't want to be married because she only had time for her Thakuiji. Eventually she was married to a Muslim boy in Ujjain. She brought her Thakuiji with her, and her husband built this temple for them. Sri Madan Mohanji was her Thakuiji. It is a nidki svarupa because Vitthalnathji gave it to her. Both accounts reveal something of the intimate and personal nature of the relationship believed to exist between the accomplished devotee and the image. W h e n A l i k h a n ' s daughter was a child, the deity was her playmate; later she became his paramour. T h e Brahman couple loved and treated Sri Nathji as their own son. T h e svarupa is perceived through the emotions. Svarupa seva is a means of cultivating bhava, of exulting in the experience of loving and caring for K r i s h n a . For the devotee to question the svarupa's apparent f r a i l t i e s — s u c h as, H o w can Thakuiji catch a c o l d ? — i s contrary to pure devotional feeling, for, although it is understood that Lord K r i s h n a is above worldly discomforts, it is also important that the worshiper experiences concern for his wellbeing, a concern intensified by regarding K r i s h n a as a helpless child in need of constant loving care. Even if many temple goers are less than erudite in expounding theories on the abstract nature of Brahman, bhava as a simple emotional experience renders all such abstract contemplation superfluous. T h e capacity to feel perfect bhava and to experience rasa is seldom acquired suddenly. Most devotees say that it gradually increases in intensity. A n d as it grows, the image, being the object of bhava, also gradually assumes an independent personality in the eyes of the devotee until it eventually appears as a complete manifestation of Krishna. T h e devotee can talk and play games with it. In this w a y the image is consecrated through the combined efforts of guru and devotee, for although the guru is required to initiate the process, the full identity of the image is only revealed through the efforts of the devotee. Hence the devotee is also instrumental in vitalizing the image by nourishing and sustaining it with loving care and thereby investing it with loving devotion: " S h r i V a l l a b h a c a r y a says, ' T h o s e very sentiments and feelings which are present in the devotee himself are established in the Deity in w o r s h i p ' " (Bhatt 1979:90). Devotion is externalized in acts of worship and established in the image as the object of worship. T h e image responds to this nourishment by developing a lively personality. It is believed that in time a profound empathy evolves between the devotee and the personal deity. O n e kirtaniya remarked that every time he took darsana of the Sri Nathji image in U j j a i n the deity seemed to reflect his own mood. W h e n he felt h a p p y Thakuiji would smile back at him; when he felt sad Thakuiji would appear very downhearted.

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But why arc some images described as preeminent (mukhya)? W h a t of the nine nidhis? I mentioned above that the word nidhi means a depository, store, h o a r d , or treasure. T h e nidhis are valued inasmuch as, like M o u n t Gova r d h a n , they are rich repositories of devotion, replete with K r i s h n a ' s grace a n d bliss. Generally, it would a p p e a r that svarupa are attributed with more or less spiritual eminence according to the spiritual accomplishments of their former worshipers. T h e nine nidhis were the personal deities of V a l l a b h a carya a n d V i t t h a l n a t h a and have since been worshiped continuously by their descendants. It is as if devotees who a p p r o a c h them with pure bhava are able to reexperience the divine passions stirred u p by their eminent predecessors. In this sense the svarupa are depositories for preserving the precious devotional experiences of the sampradaya from generation to generation.

Conclusion Similarly the sampradaya by preserving a distinctive tradition of worship also perpetuates a unique religious experience. And yet one all too readily assumes that the survival of a longstanding tradition indicates an inevitable slide into ritualism. T h e influential notions of institutionalization a n d the routinization of charisma generally reinforce this view. Rituals that originate as genuine expressions of emotion gradually degenerate into sheer formalism; thus, participation loses m u c h of its pristine spontaneity and sincerity. T h e dutiful observance of rules becomes divorced from the real attitudes a n d feelings of participants. Conceived in this way, little that is positive about the relevance of emotion to ritual performance remains to discuss. But, having considered the devotional experience a m o n g Pushti M a r g temple goers, the reverse would a p p e a r to hold true. By dutifully following the rules a n d customs laid down by tradition, the devotee gradually begins to identify with the personalities of K r i s h n a ' s eternal play, experiencing what he believes to be the spontaneous a n d universal emotions of love a n d bliss. Participation in temple ritual is not simply a m a t t e r of learning lines and following directions, for there is supposed to come a point when the divine d r a m a is not rehearsed but lived, when emotions are not imitated but attuned to the sublime, when identities are not assumed but real. Devotional experience in Pushti M a r g is based on cultivating particular emotional relationships between the devotee a n d K r i s h n a . At the outset I explained that the emotions identified by devotees are not to be seen as representative of an innate a n d finite range of physiological states existing in all societies, albeit variously expressed, elaborated, stimulated, or constrained, b u t as culturally defined phenomena; hence, they are intelligible within the specific cultural contexts of meaning that define t h e m and of which they are constitutive. I have attempted to interpret the constructs that define

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emotional experience in Pushti M a r g in order to ascertain what devotion m e a n s to participants in temple ritual. I have shown how devotional experience is actualized in worship and how participation provides a means for shaping and enhancing experience. I have also explained how emotional experiences are made concrete in the articles of ritual, the food offering, and the icon, which are considered actual embodiments of divine love and bliss. Finally, I have tried to convey something of the flavor of this experience though m a n y devotees would suggest that a full appreciation of its nature remains an exclusive privilege ofpusti souls.

Notes to Chapter Seven This essay is based on fieldwork conducted in Ujjain city, central India, between April 1977 and August 1978 and a Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in March 1983. The research was supported throughout by the Social Science Research Council. Special thanks go to my supervisors, Adrian Mayer and Audrey Cantlie, and also to Owen Lynch for encouraging me to develop this particular theme. 1. Braj is the region around the city of Mathura in the modern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where Krishna is supposed to have spent his infancy and youth. It is a major center of pilgrimage for Vaishnavas. 2. My dissertation focuses on temple organization and worship in Pushti Marg (Bennett 1983). Barz (1976) is an excellent study of the sect. Other works in English include Bhatt (1979), Jindel (1976), Marfatia (1967), Parekh (1943), Shah (1969), andToothi (1935). 3. See Wach (1948:128) and Barz (1976:39-41) for definitions of the Hindu sampradaya and Burghart (1978) for an explanation of its structure. 4. Vallabhacarya is generally regarded as an incarnation of Lord Krishna, or more specifically as an Incarnation of the Mouth of Krishna (Mukhavatara) and an Essential Form of Agni (Agnisvarvpa). His male descendants are also revered as incarnations of Krishna, although their spiritual standing has been ambiguous and controversial (Bennett 1983:78-128). 5. The Bhagavata-Purana is a ninth-century South Indian Sanskrit epic that describes the earthly life of the cowherd god Krishna during his sojourn in Braj. The Rasapmcadkyayi, or the five chapters of the tenth book which cover the Rasa Lila, is a particular favorite of the Krishnaite sects and cults. 6. The appearance of the image of Sri Nathji and its early history are recorded in a popular sectarian chronicle written in the Braj language and translated as " T h e Account of the Manifestation of Sri Nathji" (Harirayji 1968), the first part of which has recendy been translated into English by Vaudeville (1980). 7. The original deities along with their present locations are as follows: Sri Nathji (Nathdwara), Sri Navanitpriyaji (Nathdwara), Sri Mathureshji (Kota), Sri Vitthalnathji (Nathdwara), Sri Dvarakanathji (Kankaroli), Sri Gokulnathji, (Gokul, Braj), Sri Gokulcandramaji (Kamavan), Sri Mukundrayji (Varanasi), Sri Baikrsnaji (Surat), and Sri Madanmohanji (Kamavan). It should be noted that, although temple worship is rel-

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atively standardized, there are nevertheless significant variations in ritual style affected partly by the different regions where temples have proliferated and partly by the segmentary structure of the samp todaya. For example, initiates of the fourth house assert a far greater degree of independence than their cosectaries in other houses by revering their own preceptors (descendants of Vitthalnatha's fourth son, Gokulnathji) as the only legitimate spiritual successors to Vallabhacarya. They reinforce this distinctiveness by slight variations in ritual practice, in the sectarian mark painted on the forehead, and in the wording of the Brahma-sambandka initiation formula. 8. There are two rites. T h e first, which normally takes place during the candidate's infancy as a prelude to full initiation, is popularly known as Taking the Name or Taking the Necklace (nam-lena, kanthi-lena). Positioning himself or herself crosslegged upon the floor with the guru to the right he or she repeats after the guru three times the eight-syllabled formula translated " L o r d K r i s h n a is M y R e f u g e , " after which he or she wears a necklace of wooden beads cut from thin stems of the holy basil ( tulasi ). T h e second rite is normally performed before marriage. T h e candidate fasts for a period of twenty-four hours at the end of which he or she takes a ritual bath. Then, standing before an image of Krishna and clutching a tulasi leaf in the right hand the candidate repeats after the guru the Brahma-sambandha mantra. Having uttered this dedication the initiate places the tulasi leaf at the foot of the image and assumes the status of an adhikan, or one entitled to follow the Path of Grace. English translations of the initiation formula can be found in Mulji ( 1 8 6 5 : 1 2 1 ) , Growse ( 1 8 8 3 : 2 8 7 ) , and Barz ( 1 9 7 6 : 8 5 ) . 9. There are interesting parallels between seva in the devotional context and in political life, particularly with regard to the ideals of humility, selfless service, and anonymity; see Mayer ( 1 9 8 1 ) . 10. Giriraja is worshiped in the form of a small stone from Govardhan hill dressed in a yellow smock and adorned with a tiny flower garland. T h e svarupa stands on a shelf in his room, and devotees approach it by performing an obeisance (caranaspars'a). 1 1 . It is significant that the word darsana implies the subject, the " s e e r " (drsta), rather than the object, that which is seen (Bhatt 1 9 7 9 : 1 8 ) . In a philosophical context it implies the realization of, or an insight into, the nature of reality. 12. Priests are known as bhitariyas because they perform seva in the inner ( bhitari) rooms of the temple. Traditionally, they belong to one of three Brahman jatis: Audkha, Sanchora, or Girinara. 13. Smgara, meaning "adornment," also denotes the rasa of erotic love which is a principal sentiment afbhakti. T h e beautiful adornment of the deity is both an expression of the devotee's passionate love for Krishna and a spectacle that is capable of arousing feelings of love in the hearts of those who attend this darsana. 14. Most pada sung in temples are attributed to four disciples of Vallabhacarya, including the great bhakti poet Surdas, and four disciples of Vitthalnatha. With reference to their literary skills they are known as the Eight Seals (Astachapa), but more significantly they are known by their divine identities as manifestations of the eight cowherd companions of Krishna Gopala (Astasakha). Moreover, by virtue of their pure devotion, these poets were able to participate in the secret nighttime /¿/as as the eight intimate female companions ( Astasakhi) of Krishna (Barz 1 9 7 6 : 1 2 - 1 3 ) .

15. A rati is the waving of one or more burning cotton wicks (batti) dipped in a pot (divara) of ghee in a circular motion before the image. In this context arati is performed to remove the harmful effects of the evil eye (naiar utarna) to which beautiful

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babies are particularly susceptible. Yashoda is concerned to dispel any envious feelings that might have been directed toward her beautiful child while he was tending the cows. 16. Devotees often point out that their deities are only smeared with sandalwood paste during the summer and never in winter because in cold weather the cooling properties of sandalwood would cause them considerable distress. They add that such care is seldom shown in other Hindu temples where priests blindly follow ritual procedure by using sandalwood throughout the year without a thought for the deity's comfort. 17. Those ritual acts that involve the touching of the image constitute the most intimate form of worship and hence are reserved for the chief priest and his immediate assistants. 18. The Rahasya Bhavana-Nikunja Bhaoand (Prabhu 1968) is an intriguing exposition of the bhavana associated with the articles of worship in which nothing is too trivial for the attribution of aesthetic significance. 19. The temple is divided into inner (bhitari) and outer (bahan) rooms; the former includes the deity's private apartments and the kitchens which only priests may enter, and the latter includes the various courtyards where devotees assemble. The word aparasa is probably derived from the Sanskrit asprsya, meaning "not to be touched." Priests enter khdsa or "strict" aparasa as distinct from a lesser state of purity known as sevaki aparasa, which enables lay devotees to prepare betel, milk-sweets, and flower garlands for the deity. 20. The three principal temple kitchens are Dudh Ghar (reserved for foods prepared from milk and excluding grains), Ansakhari Ghar or Balabhoga (for preparations derived from grains or vegetables which are cooked by frying in clarified butter, being less resistant to impurity than milk preparations), and Sakhari Ghar (for preparations derived from grains and vegetables, boiled in water, dry-roasted on a griddle, or fried in vegetable oil, being highly susceptible to impurity). Sakhan and ansakhari approximate to kacca and pakka, the terms popularly used in northern India to denote categories of prepared food. 21. Aspects of culinary style reinforce the maternal approach to seva. Many preparations are prepared as if for a young child and hence are known as "baby food" (balabhoga). Like all babies Krishna is particularly fond of milk, curd, butter, sweets, and rice pudding. Hot spicy foods are used sparingly. Savory wheatcakes (pun) are prepared with copious amounts of ghee so that they are soft and easy to chew. Betel nut is ground to an unusually fine consistency for the same reason. 22. Harper (1964) has argued that the priest, the offerings, and the deity's surroundings must be kept pure in order to prevent the deity sustaining impurity. But in Pushti Marg there is no sense in which it is conceived that the deity can be polluted, as I suspect is the case with Hindu deities in general; see Fuller (1979:469). 23. The sequence has an interesting secular parallel in pati-seva, the selfless devotion of a wife toward her husband, demonstrated by the wifely custom of taking meals after the husband has eaten. This is not a form of "respect pollution," serving to reinforce the inferior hierarchical status of a wife vis-a-vis her husband, as Harper (1964) understood it. Indeed, the food remains she consumes do not necessarily comprise food polluted by the husband's touch or saliva (jutha) because traditionally they remain within the ritually pure cooking area. Rather they are "leftovers" inasmuch as the meal is prepared for her husband so that any remains become a token of his

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replenishment. More important, the devoted wife cooks solely for the pleasure and well-being of her husband and not selfishly as a means of satisfying her own appetite. Some devotees describe their relationship with Krishna in terms of a wifely model. One interpretation of the bhava of the sectarian mark worn on the forehead is that it is like the biiuli worn by women as a sign of their happily married state (saubhagini). 24. Unfortunately, I do not have the space here to elucidate this area of sectarian food ritual (see Bennett 1983:227-234). It is interesting that certain foods are prohibited or discouraged in seva "because they are red—like blood." This category includes the seemingly innocuous watermelon. It was pointed out to me that the manner by which the watermelon is carved with a knife to reveal the red fleshy interior strongly suggests animal sacrifice. Thus, by disemboweling the melon it is likely that the devotee would compare his actions with the blood sacrificer. Such thoughts are repulsive and would render the watermelon unsuitable as an offering to Krishna. For the same reason, devotees engaged in the cutting of vegetables prior to cooking avoid the verb katna, "to cut," owing to its associations with the carving of meat; instead they prefer the verb samvarna which is free from such unpleasant associations. 25. See Harirayji (1970:93). 26. See Harirayji ( 1 9 7 0 : 1 8 1 ) . 27. Whenever the deity is offered bhoga the containers should be completely full, expressing the devotee's overflowing bhava. 28. Devotees of Vallabhacarya Sampradaya locate the "lotuslike mouth" (mukharavind) of Krishna at Jatipura; it is a simple cleft in the rock on the lower slopes of Govardhan hill. At Annakuta the village is packed with pilgrims who come to see the mouth soaked in libations of milk and presented with a grand feast. 29. The word pusti is derived from the Sanskrit verbal root pus which expresses the action of thriving, increasing, prospering, and of being nourished, well fed, and healthy (Barz 1976:86). Hence pusti is synonymous with divine grace which nourishes the soul. Pushti Marg is the path of spiritual nourishment through grace. Nevertheless, there have been critics of the sect for whom pusti has meant sensual nourishment, the condition of being well fed and prosperous. The reference to sectaries as the "Epicureans of India" cited at the outset of this essay typifies this view. I noted a similar play on the word among nondevotees in Ujjain when they referred derisively to devotee businessmen. For them, pusti implied the hoarding of wealth, or, with reference to shopkeepers of somewhat obese form, a condition of being sated with the sacred food. In fact I have shown that there appears to be a marked correspondence between physical and spiritual nourishment in the sampradaya's tradition with food serving as the chief mediator. Whereas food provides for the sustenance of the body, grace provides for the sustenance of the soul. Food and grace are subtly commingled in prasada. On tasting prasada the devotee is nourished by the grace of Krishna.

References Cited Works in English Babb, Lawrence A. 1970 The Food of the Gods in Chhattisgarh: Some Structural Features of Hindu Ritual. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 26:287-304.

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The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India. New York: Columbia University Press. Barz, Richard 1976 The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhäcärya. Delhi: Thomson Press. Bennett, Peter 1983 Temple Organization and Worship among the Pustimärgiya-Vaisnavas of Ujjain. Ph.D. dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Bhatt, R. Kaladhar 1979 The Vedanta of Pure Non-Dualism: The Heritage of the Philosophical Tradition of Shri Vallabhächärya. Ishwar C. Sharma, trans. Virginia Beach, Va.: Donning. Burghart, Richard 1978 The Founding of the Rämänandi Sect. Ethnohistory 2 5 : 1 2 1 - 1 3 9 . Cantlie, Audrey 1984 The Assamese: Religion, Caste and Sect in an Indian Village. London and Dublin: Curzon Press. De, S. K. 1963 Sanskrit Poetics as a Study of Aesthetic. Berkeley: University of California Press. Fuller, C . J . 1979 Gods, Priests, and Purity: On the Relation between Hinduism and the Caste System. Man 14:459-476. Geertz, Clifford 1973 The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books. 1980 Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1984 "From the Native's Point of View": On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 123-136. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Growse, F. S. 1883 Mathura: A District Memoir. Allahabad: Northwest Provinces and Oudh Government Press. Harper, E. B. 1964 Ritual Pollution as an Integrator of Caste and Religion. Journal of Asian Studies 2 3 : 1 5 1 - 1 9 7 . Hayley, Audrey 1980 A Commensal Relationship with God: The Naure of the Offering in Assamese Vaishnavism. In Sacrifice. M. F. C. Bourdillon and Meyer Fortes, eds. Pp. 107-125. London: Academic Press. Huizinga, J . 1955 Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press. Jindel, Rajendra 1976 Culture of a Sacred Town: A Sociological Study of Nathdwara. Bombay: Popular Prakashan.

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Kapfcrer, Bruce 197g Emotion and Feeling in Sinhalese Healing Rites. Social Analysis 1 (1): 1 5 3 .76. Kinsley, David R. 1979 The Divine Player: A Study of Krsna Lila. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Leach, Sir Edmund 1976 Culture and Communication: The Logic by Which Symbols are Connected. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lutz, Catherine 1986 The Domain of Emotion Words on Ifaluk. In The Social Construction of Emotion. Rom Harre, ed. Pp. 267-288. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Mackichan, D. 1908-1921 Vallabha, Vallabhächärya. In Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. James Hastings, ed. Vol. 12:580-583. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark. Marfatia, Mrdula I. 1967 The Philosophy of Vallabhäcärya. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Mayer, Adrian C. 1981 Public Service and Individual Merit in a Town of Central India. In Culture and Morality: Essays in Honour of Christoph von Furer Haimendorf. A. C. Mayer, ed. Pp. 1 5 3 - 1 7 3 . Delhi: Oxford University Press. Monier-Williams, Sir Monier 1899 A Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mulji, Karshandas 1865 History of the Sect of Maharajas or Vallabhächäryans in Western India. London: Trubner and Co. Parekh, Bhai Manilal C. 1943 Sri Vallabhacharya: Life, Teachings, and Movement. Rajkut: Sri Bhagavata Dharma Mission. Raghavan, V. 1967 Kama, the Third End of Man. In Sources of Indian Tradition. Theodore de Bary, et al., eds. 1:253-270. New York: Columbia University Press. Rosaldo, Michelle Z. 1980 Knowledge and Passion: Ilongot Notions of Self and Social Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scheff, Thomas 1977 The Distancing of Emotion in Ritual. Current Anthropology 18:483-505. Shah, Jethalal G. 1969 Shrimad Vallabhacharya: His Philosophy and Religion. Gujarat: Pushtimargiya Pustakalaya. Solomon, Robert C. 1984 Getting Angry: Thejamesian Theory of Emotion in Anthropology. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 238-254. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Southwold, Martin 1985 The Concept of Nirvana in Village Buddhism. In Indian Religion. Richard Burghart and Audrey Cantlie, eds. Pp. 15-50. London: Curzon Press.

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T a m b i a h , Stanley J . 1973 T h e Form and Meaning of Magical Acts. In Modes of T h o u g h t . R. Horton and R. Finnegan, eds. Pp. 199-229. London: Faber and Faber. 1979

A Performative Approach to Ritual. In Proceedings of the British Academy 6 5 : 1 1 3 - 1 6 9 . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tillich, Paul 1968 Systematic Theology. London: J a m e s Nisbet and C o . Toothi, N. A . 1935 Vaishnavas of Gujarat. Calcutta: Longmans. Turner, Victor 1974 1982

Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. T h e H u m a n Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publication. Vaudeville, Charlotte 1980 T h e Govardhan M y t h in Northern India. Indo-Iranian Journal 22:1—45. Wach, Joachim 1948

T h e Sociology of Religion. Chicago: University of C h i c a g o Press.

Works in Braj Bhäsä Hariräyjl, Sri M a h ä n u b h ä v a 1968 Sri Näthji kl Präkatya Värtä. Nathdvara: Vidyavibhäg. 1970 Cauräst Vaisnavan kl Värtä. Dvärkädäsa Parikha, ed. Mathura: Sri G o v ardhan Granthmälä K ä r y ä l a y a . Prabhu, Sri Gokulesh 1968

Rahasya B h ä v a n ä — N i k u n j a Bhävanä. Niranjandeva Sarmä, ed. Mathura: Sri Govardhan Granthmälä K ä r y ä l a y a .

EIGHT

Refining the Body Transformative Emotion in Ritual Dance Frederique Apffel Marglin

Introduction Ritual dance performed by women has virtually disappeared from Hindu temples; it now flourishes in a very different context, the urban stage. Dancers on urban stages are divorced from the ritual world of the temple and are trained in secular settings. The dance is no longer a ritual but an art form. 1 The difference between the staged event and the temple ritual resides in three elements: the radically different cultural content of the two events, the relationship between performer and audience, and the nature of the performer herself. These elements produce events having different experiential value for audience or participants. 2 This chapter will not be concerned with the dance as performed on the stage today. Rather, I propose to reconstruct the emotional-cognitivespiritual transformations wrought on the participants by the dance performed as part of the daily ritual in a great Hindu temple. The experience of the spectator-devotees is spoken of as tasting smgara rasa\ the English gloss "erotic emotion" simply begs the question of defining this emotion in this context. The words "erotic emotion" imply Western understandings of an emotion. The Indian experience corresponds to neither Western physicalist nor cognitivist understanding of emotion. T h e experience of tasting smgara rasa is an "embodied thought" to use Rosaldo's ( 1 9 8 4 : 1 3 8 ) felicitous expression. This essay is devoted to understanding the radically culturally constituted nature of smgara rasa. Because the experience of this emotion is induced by a ritual dance, the essay also examines the transformative power of this ritual. When successfully carried out, the ritual enables the participants-devotees (the spectators as well as the performers) to experience the "tasting of smgara rasa," an experience at once physical, emotional, and cognitive.

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I am also theoretically inspired by Tambiah's ( 1 9 8 1 ) performative approach to ritual. Rituals accomplish or perform something, a symbolic communication that, because of its manner of delivery, brings about a transformation in its participants. This transformation is the performative outcome of ritual. According to Tambiah ( 1 9 8 1 : 1 1 9 ) . Ritual is a culturally constructed system of symbolic communication. It is constituted of patterned and ordered sequences of words and acts, often expressed in multiple media, whose context and arrangements are characterized in varying degree by formality (conventionality), stereotypy (rigidity), condensation (fusion), and redundancy (repetition). Ritual action in its constitutive features is performative in these three senses: in the Austinian sense of performative wherein saying something is also doing something as a conventional act; in the quite different sense of a staged performance that uses multiple media by which the participants experience the event intensively; and in the third sense of indexical values—I derive this concept from Peirce—being attached to and inferred by actors during the performance.

In this essay I ignore the third sense of indexical values and concentrate on the first sense of saying as doing; some remarks imply the second sense of participatory experience. 3 T h e performative part of Tambiah's definition addresses the issue of a ritual's performative efficacy. The first or descriptive part of his definition tells what items comprise a ritual; he points to ritual as a culturally constructed system of symbolic communication whose "cultural content is grounded in particular cosmological or ideological constructs" ( 1 9 8 1 : 1 1 9 ) , having certain formal characteristics such as formality, stereotypy, condensation, and redundancy. Using specific examples, Tambiah shows that the cultural considerations are integrally implicated in a ritual's form. He also shows that the performative outcome of a ritual, its transformative efficacy, is precisely the result of this integration of form and content. M y analysis of two rituals illustrates the enormous power of approaching ritual in this way. These rituals take place in the temple of Lord Jagannatha (Lord of the World) in Puri, Orissa, a major pilgrimage center on the eastern seacoast of India. The description of these rituals is a reconstruction on two counts. First, there are two daily dance rituals in this temple, one during the midday meal offering and one at the end of the ritual day, just before the temple is closed. The midday dance ritual has not been performed since the late 1950s or early 1960s. When I first came to Puri in 1975, only nine temple dancers who had performed this ritual in their younger days remained. One of them taught me the dance in her house, and another one performed it for me in my house. The reconstruction of this dance ritual is based on my knowledge of the dance, on the description of it by the dancers and other temple officials who had witnessed it, and on reminiscences of a few persons who had seen it in their younger years. The reconstruction of the emotional

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transformations wrought by the dance on the participants is based on public actions that all my informants said had taken place, as well as on exegeses of the ritual by ritual specialists; it is not based on witnesses' statements about their subjective emotional state. The reconstruction is, therefore, semiotic not psychological. Second, the description of the dance is a reconstruction because it concerns the evening ritual, still performed by one temple dancer in her sixties in 1989. Because I am not Hindu, Buddhist, or J a i n , I had no access to Jagannatha temple. The reconstruction of the evening ritual, based on data similar to that of the midday ritual, is augmented by detailed eyewitness reports from my collaborator in Puri, Sri Purna Chandra Mishra, who carefully observed the details. A few words concerning Jagannatha temple are necessary to situate the female temple dancers (devadast) and the dance rituals in their broadest context. Lord Jagannatha, considered by many a form of Vishnu, is enshrined in his temple along with his elder brother, Balabhadra, and his sister, Subhadra. Jagannatha is and was the real sovereign of the Kingdom of Orissa, which at its height extended from the Hooghly River in the north to the Kaveri in the south. This kingdom was vanquished by Muslim forces in 1568 and after various vicissitudes by the British in 1803. A Hindu king was the head of the temple until the early 1960s when the state government of Orissa took over its management. The king of Puri is in the 1980s a member of the committee that administers the temple, and he participates annually in the ritual of the chariots (Ratha Jatra)\ the sovereignty of Lord Jagannatha has no earthly political equivalent at this time, except in the minds of most Oriyans. T o capture the concepts and values underlying the ritual dances, I must sketch an ideal-typical picture of the core ritual activities in the temple which center around the preparation of food offered to the deities. Three main meals and two minor meals are prepared and offered in the temple. After being offered to the deities, some of the food is distributed to temple servants and other persons regularly associated with the temple; the remaining food is sold to pilgrims and other inhabitants of the town. The deities are also cared for in other ways appropriate to their exalted status, including bathing, dressing, decorating, and entertaining. Food, however, remains the core of ritual activity. Food offerings require a vast social, political, and economic organization, which, according to Orissan inscriptions, requires in turn a king who conquers and takes possession of the territory. There he builds a temple and reservoirs to drain and irrigate the land. He then proceeds to donate these territories to the temple deity and to Brahmans (Rósel 1980:99). Food, the root of all living beings and the fount of all human activities (Zimmermann 1 9 8 2 : 2 2 1 , 224), must be first offered to deities who consume it through its fragrance. The deities in turn shower blessings on humans who partake of the deities' leftover food, called mahaprasáda. The kingdom maintains itself through a sacred food chain; through repeated refining and transforming

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processes food reaches the deities. From the cooking in the earth by the sun and by water, to the cooking in the temple kitchen fires, the fragrance of the food finally reaches the deities in the heavens. From the earth comes the sap rising in plants, which are harvested, processed, and refined by humans who offer them to the gods. At this endpoint of a continuously ascending and progressively refining (samskara) process from the earth to the heavens, the food begins a downward path as the leftovers of the gods. These leftovers are eaten by humans whose bodies drain themselves of the impure leftovers (feces, urine, sweat, menstrual blood) which return to the earth (Egnor 1978:50; Daniel 1984:85). The king gives lands to the temple to grow food for the gods. He also gives land to Brahmans who sustain themselves from its produce. These high sasana Brahmans know the powerful words that enable them to install (pratistha) the deities in the temple. They do not serve the deities; lower temple Brahmans do this, and leftovers of the food offered to the gods in the temple sustain them. Today about seventy-five hundred temple servants of all castes carry out some 108 different ritual duties in the temple (Rosel 1 9 8 0 : 4 - 7 , 7 1 ) . In the 1955 census of temple servants conducted by the state of Orissa, thirty women temple singers and dancers are mentioned. Inscriptions show that at certain periods of history the number of women temple servants, always singers and dancers, was in the hundreds. In the 1980s, only a few women remain, and none of their daughters continues the tradition. The temple dancers and singers, locally known as mahan but as devadasi among themselves, are female temple servants (sevika) dedicated to temple service in the same way as male temple servants (sevaka). T h e ceremony of dedication for all temple servants, both male and female, is called "the tying of the sari" (sari bandhana).* After dedication to temple service devadasis consider themselves, and are considered by others, married to the deity J a g a n natha. They should never marry a mortal man and raise a family, as other women do. They are likened to Vaishnavite renouncers (vaisnava) because they too renounce the worldly attachments of husbands, in-laws, and children, instead devoting their whole lives to the service of the deities. The devadasis are also known as courtesans or prostitutes (vesyas, ganikas), reflecting the fact that the devadasis are not chaste. They can and do enter into sexual relationships with men although they remain unattached to them. Like male temple servants, they were supported by land grants to the temple and lived in their own homes along with their mothers, sisters, brothers, brothers' wives, and children, and their own adopted daughters. In the past the temple supported them, and they did not need the help of the men with whom they had liaisons. They were supposed to have sexual relations with the king, if he so wished, because he is a partial incarnation of J a g a n n a t h a , their divine husband. They also were customarily expected to have sexual relations with male temple servants but not with pilgrims or men unattached

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to temple service. They also were not supposed to have children (effective indigenous methods of contraception were used), and they adopted their brothers' daughters, as well as girls from any clean caste whose parents wished to dedicate them to temple service. 5 The ceremony of tying the sari entitled a person to a share in the service of the deities; it also meant that this person thereafter possessed a share of divine sovereignty. The king is called the "first servant" (adya sebaka). He simply had a bigger share of sovereignty than most. Only the deities possess absolute sovereignty; they own the temple lands and are the ultimate source of authority (Appadurai 1981). The devadasis embodying the female aspect of divine sovereignty are considered in most contexts to be living embodiments of the goddess Laksni, the consort of Lord Jagannatha. As such, the devadasis can have sexual relations with all the men who share in the sovereignty of their divine husband, the ultimate sovereign. In these relations, the devadasis transfer to men the auspiciousness of Laksmi. Auspiciousness is not synonymous with purity; it bespeaks of wellbeing, abundance, pleasure, and fertility (Marglin 1985). The active sexuality of the devadasis enables the male temple servants to share in this female aspect of sovereignty and to receive the benefits of its auspiciousness, even though the act of sexual intercourse renders them temporarily impure. The active sexuality of the devadasis ensures the fertility of the land through timely and sufficient rain; therefore, it ensures the prosperity of the kingdom. The king's function of bringing good rains and good harvests depends on a specifically female life force concretely materialized in female sexual fluid. This life force can be conceptualized as the female aspect of sovereignty, and the devadasis represent it in this world. Among normal married women, this life force is carefully channeled toward the continuity of their husband's lineage as well as to the welfare and well-being of the entire family including the ancestors; thus, married women are enjoined to be faithful to their husbands. By renouncing family ties, the devadasis make their life force available for the welfare and well-being of the whole kingdom. The sharing of sovereignty among those who have a share in the ritual service of the deities crosscuts caste ranking (Appadurai 1981; Marglin 1985). Devadasis can be recruited from all (clean) castes as can other temple servants. Auspiciousness, unlike purity, docs not speak of status ranking, but of a nonhierarchical state of general well-being. The Midday Ritual The Cultural Content of the Spatiotemporal Context The midday dance ritual is not accompanied by sung poetry. The dancer performs a long, uninterrupted pure dance, accompanied by a drummer re-

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lated to her as brother. The midday ritual is an integral part of a Tantric (Sakta) offering. 6 The midday dance ritual is not addressed to the deities in the inner sanctum, nor does it consist of entertainment for the deities. The devadasi does not face west toward the deities but south where no deities are enshrined. She addresses her dance to the assembled pilgrims and visitors surrounding her. 7 In the temple, there are three main cooked meal offerings and two light, cold refreshments. Both the midday dance, which takes place during the main midday meal, and that meal are called "royal offering" (rajopacara). The food offering for the deities takes place behind closed doors in the inner sanctum where three Brahman temple priests (puja panda) sit on the dais facing north in front of each deity. After the food offering is completed, the food is distributed to the king and queen, the king's preceptor and overseer of temple rituals (rajaguru) and the officiating priests. While this offering is going on in the inner sanctum, the devadasi dances in the dance hall, in front of the Garuda pillar (the bird carrier of Vishnu) facing south. Standing by her is the rajaguru (King's guru or teacher). He holds a golden cane, symbol of royal authority (Marglin 1985:173). The participants-devotees crowd around the dancer, and at the end of her performance many of them roll in the dust on the ground where she has danced. Immediately following the food offering in the inner sanctum, a food offering for the public at large begins in the "hall of food" to the east of the dance hall. That food is later sold to pilgrims and other devotees in the market situated in the outer compound of the temple. The devadasi's dance takes place spatially between the two food offerings to the deity and to the public and temporally coincides with the food offering in the inner sanctum. One of the king's main functions is bringing good rains, hence general fertility and well-being (Marglin 1981). The king is a partial embodiment of Jagannatha, the divine sovereign of Orissa; he is mobile Vishnu (calanti visnu) rather than stationary Vishnu in the temple image. In the temple the divine sovereign feeds his earthly representative as well as the masses of his devotees. But the only time food is given to the public at large is right after the dance of the devadasi; this may be one reason why it is called a "royal offering." The devadasi during her ritual is referred to as the mobile goddess (calanti devt), an appellation parallel to that of mobile Vishnu (calanti visnu) for the king. The devadasi is a metonymic embodiment of the royal sovereign power of fertility and abundance, a female power (Marglin 1981). The midday meal is distinguished from the other two by including the tantric five m food offerings. The first three m's—namely meat (mamsa), fish (maca), and wine (madya)—are replaced by vegetarian and nonalcoholic preparations; the fourth m, black grain cakes (mudra), is the same in both the secret, esoteric version and in the midday meal offering. In the esoteric version the fifth m is both female sexual fluid obtained through sexual union

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(maithuna) and menstrual blood; in the exoteric temple version, the fifth m is the dance of the devadasi. T h e dance of the devadasi makes a sharp metonymic relation with food, dust, srngara rasa, and sovereignty. Because the devadasi dances only during the main midday royal food offering, the only one with food for the public at large, the dance, as transforming food into its own essence, srngara rasa, is identified with the sovereign's feeding his subjects. T h e public at large first witnesses the dance; then they pick u p the dust of the dancer's feet on their bodies and go outside to wait for the food offered in the hall of food to arrive in the temple bazaar. T h e dust from the devadasi's feet becomes her leavings, usually polluting substances, but in this context the dust contains positive, "sacralizing" powers. In rajaguru's exegesis of the ritual he refers to the dance as the leavings of sakti (sakti ucchista). Rajaguru told me that to really understand the meaning or truth (tattva) of the dance of the devadasi I had to know the esoteric ritual; he gave me a ritual text detailing it. In the secret version, drops of female sexual fluid and of menstrual blood are placed with water and other ingredients in a conch shell. T h e contents of the conch shell are sprinkled on the other four m food offerings which the participants then consume. T h e woman from whom the sexual fluid is obtained is called Sakti and, thus, in the esoteric ritual the leavings of Sakti are literally consumed. Rajaguru insisted that the sole purpose of the dance is the production by the dancer's movements of female sexual fluid (raja) which falls on the ground. According to his interpretation when the devotees roll themselves on the dancing floor they pick up dust a n d raja. Another meaning of the word raja is dust (or dirt), and this reinforces the link between the dust of the dancer's feet and her sexual fluid.8 This esoteric interpretation constitutes a cultural account of the dance, directly linking the sexuality of the devadasi with the nourishing power of the food and the power of sovereignty. Such a sectarian account presupposes specialized and even secret knowledge. Therefore, one could argue that these meanings are absent for the public, which is mostly not Sakta a n d , in any case, lacks esoteric knowledge. I argue, however, that certain characteristics of the ritual encode these very same meanings, and that they are present even for the uninitiated, nonsectarian spectator. T h e devadasi's active sexuality, her status as a "courtesan," was presumably known to everyone and taken for granted. H e r appearance, her costume, signifies active sexuality. She is a decorated or dressed woman (vesya from ves'a—dress, ornament; also courtesan or prostitute). She is dressed like a bride with lac (lakh, red resinous substance, shellac) on her feet and hands, red powder on her forehead and in the part of her hair, heavily bejeweled, wearing a three-stranded silver belt (the behga patio), well known by art historians as the jeweled multistranded fertility hip belt worn by female figures,yaksi. Frogs (behga), as aquatic animals, evoke the rainy

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season and its fertilizing power; her brow is adorned with a creeper design m a d e of sandalwood. She wears a silk sari as a skirt and a tight fitting blouse. H e r silk shawl, used to veil her head when walking from her house to the temple dance hall, is bound tightly around her hips just before the dance. Male dancers who perform outside the temple dressed as women (gotipua) wear a sari passed between their legs in the manner of a dhoti. It is significant that the style of wearing the sari differs between the devadasis and the gotipuas. It is essential for the devadasi to wear the sari as a skirt in order for the leavings of Sakti, that is, female sexual fluid, to fall on the ground. Everything in her costume bespeaks the bride, when dressed for her ritual she is considered the embodiment or incarnation of the bridal Laksmi (Vishnu's consort). T h e dominant mood of the dance is erotic, srngara. T h e word srngara, like the word vesya, can also mean decoration in the sense of clothes, jewels, hairdo, and so on. T h e class of priests in charge of decorating the deities are called srngari, and the elaborate dressing and ornamentation given to the deities toward the end of the day is called bara srngara ves'a (great decorative or erotic dress). T h e association between costume and sexuality is further elaborated in the form of the dance itself. Odissi dance is well known for its sensuous, erotic flavor. O n e basic position is the tribhahgi, or three-bended posture, in which the hip is deflected, the torso and thus the breasts are deflected in the opposite direction, and the natural curves of the female body are emphasized and highlighted. T h e tight-fitting blouse molds and emphasizes the breasts; the tight-fitting shawl around the hips similarly molds them. T h e ideal body image of the dance corresponds to that of the full breasted beauties on Hindu temples, a far cry from the anorexic litheness of the ballet dancer whose flight from the ground and gravity—from pointed toe to lifted limbs—starkly contrasts to the Indian dancer's firm, earthy, foot-stomping, and bent-kneed implantation on the ground. Everything in the dancer's appearance and movement bespeaks eroticism; rajaguru's exegesis is redundant in a sense and simply states in the specialized discourse of a particular sectarian tradition what is there for all to see, namely, that the devadasi's sexuality in the dance is metonymically linked to a royal food offering for the deities, the temple servants, and the people at large. In sum, the inclusion of the five Tantric offerings differentiates the midday meal offering from the two cooked food meal offerings during the ritual day. Because this is the only food offering called a "royal offering," as well as the only one including food for the people at large, one can deduce that sovereignty, the feeding of the people at large, and the five m's, including the dancer's sexual fluid dropped in the dust, are all related. T h e dance is the only T a n t r i c offering taking place outside the inner sanctum and directed at not the deities but the participants. T h e dancer is the goddess and her leavings—the result of her dancing—are said to make the food nourishing (a likely gloss for barapurna). T h e rajaguru in an interview told me: " I t is through

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the dance that the sacramental food is given fullness (barapuma). T h a t is why the dance is essential." 9 Because the people who have watched her dance are those who take her leavings on their bodies and consume them in the food, clearly the transformative power of the dance is directed at them. In other words, the traditional royal function of feeding the people was achieved through the sexual power or life force of women. A Formal Analysis of the Dance Ritual T h e foregoing account, based on the cultural meanings given to the dance, states that a transformation visibly signaled by people rolling in the dust on the dance floor has taken place in the audience. T h a t explains something about the transformation and implies that witnessing the dance caused it; it does not tell us anything about exactly how the dance brought about this tranformation. T o answer that question one must look closely at the form of the dance performance itself. T h e dance refines everyday communicative and expressive behavior. For the dancer to be an effective vehicle of refined body-emotions-thoughts, she must radically distance herself from her own subjective states. This radical distancing also enables her to arouse in the spectators traces left by real life physical-emotional-cognitive experiences and thereby enables them to experience in themselves the end-product or essence of this refining process. This last experience is transformative, for it has transported the spectators into a state not discontinuous with their everyday physical-emotionalcognitive experiences but sufficiently qualitatively different to merit the label "spiritual." Let me develop each of these points in turn. First, the dance refines everyday communicative and expressive behavior in its rhythmic pattern. T h e dancer uses her feet percussively in dialogue with the d r u m and accompanies herself while dancing with the recitation of rhythmic nonsensical syllables; these can be called the speech of the d r u m and of the dancer's feet. T h e rhythmic pattern is based on Sanskrit prosody which, like ancient Greek, is based not on accentuation but on the time value of the sounds, basically long and short syllables. 10 T h e rhythmic pattern played by the d r u m m e r and by the dancer's feet, which is accentuated by wearing ankle bells, is echoed by the speech of the rhythm, namely the d r u m language. This effectively reinforces the impression that rhythm in Indian dance and music is based on the natural rhythm of speech. Second, the dance refines everyday communicative and expressive behavior in its extensive use of hand gestures, head gestures, and facial expressions. In a natural speech act, Indian speakers extensively use their hands. Furthermore, Indians use head gestures unique to them, in particular a certain manner of tilting the head from side to side making it rotate on a neck

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vertebra in a manner unknown to Europeans. This gesture is used extensively to signify approval, appreciation, interest, or simply general, diffuse receptivity to spoken communication. This particular gesture is capable of many expressive variations along the lines of speed, intensity, and direction. Along with the expressivity of the hands and head goes a lively and varied facial expressivity. Facial expressions use the eyes, eyelids, eyebrows, the brow, the nostrils, and the mouth. The dance vocabulary is clearly based on the raw material of these spontaneously occurring expressive gestures. I have called the dance vocabulary a refining of the body-emotionsthoughts. My use of the term "refining" requires clarification as does my use of the cumbersome compound "body-emotions-thoughts." Let me start with the latter. In a natural speech situation a totality is formed of the body postures, hand and head gestures, and facial expressions accompanying utterances and modulating, as well as heightening, their cognitive and emotional content. This total communicative-cum-expressive behavior cannot be neatly divided into physical, emotional, and cognitive aspects; hence, I use the cumbersome compound to convey this totality. The dance vocabulary refines this raw material: body posture, hand postures, head gestures, and facial expressions are stylizations, stereotypifications, and variations on the basic raw material of spontaneous communicative and expressive behavior. This is similar to the manner in which the various rhythmic patterns are variations, elaborations, and stereotypifications of natural speech rhythms in a manner akin to the elaboration and stylization of speech rhythms in poetry. Furthermore, Indian dance has evolved, over the two millennia of its existence, 11 into a carefully codified and named repertory of body postures, single- and double-handed gestures, head gestures, positions of the eyes, and other facial expressions. 12 These postures form the basic vocabulary of the dance that is mastered during the period of the dancer's training. In a dance performance, this vocabulary is used in varied combinations and certain sequences of particular combinations; eyes typically follow the movements of the hands. Even though in "pure dance" there is no sung poetry, the facial expressions and hand gestures are as central and as elaborated—although in nonsemantic manner—as in interpretative dance with sung poetry. A central term used to refer to dance sequences and combinations is bhava. It comes from the causative form (bhavayati) of the root bhu- (to be) and can be glossed as "what manifests" (Regnaud 1884:317). The dancer manifests or causes to exist a particular physical-emotional-cognitive configuration in a communicative and expressive sense. By this I mean that the dance is rooted in a conception of a self engaged in a communicative act with both emotional and cognitive content. 13 The dialogical nature of the Indian dance vocabulary is reinforced by the lack of spatial separation between dancer and audience, and of stage and

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chairs in the temple dance hall. The participants stand in front and around the dancer within speaking distance, spatially related to the dancer as a group of conversing persons would be. In a more restricted sense, the world bhava is used technically in the dance repertory to refer to the total postural and gestural gestalt that accompanies a particular emotional-cum-mental state. These states have been codified into nine major ones (sthajn bhava) and thirty-three transitory ones (sancari bhava). T h e major states are usually glossed as emotions or moods such as anger, valor, (erotic) love, laughter, disgust, fear, wonder, sadness (or pathos), and peace (or repose). O n e must keep in mind, however, that the form of the dance vocabulary itself necessarily portrays these "emotions" in a communicative genre, embedded in some narrative either explicit as in a song or implicit as in pure dance; thus, emotions are never separated from thought. T h e codification of emotions into a set number goes with a codification of the gestural gestalt appropriate to each emotion, particularly of the facial expressions. This produces an elaboration, stylization, and stereotypification of the raw material of spontaneous expressions and gestures accompanying emotional and mental states in a communicative manner. It creates a basic dance vocabulary that allows both patterning of emotions in a manner similar to the patterning of sound, rhythm, mood, and thought in poetry and refining of the emotional-cum-mental states in the same manner discussed earlier in the context of postures, gestures, and facial expressions. In sum, I characterize Indian dance as a refining of the feeling-thinking body engaged in a communicative-expressive act. This refining of the thinkingfeeling body is enacted by the dancer, and it transforms her into an effective vehicle for female divine sovereignty. T h e dancer's own transformation necessitates the muting or even erasing of her own subjective feelings, thoughts, and accompanying gestures. Her own thoughts and emotions interfere with executing the refined bhavas in the dance, destroying their perfect, precise, and stylized rendering. She must be nonattached to her own subjectivity during the dance. Moreover, this nonattachment is both a subjective and an objective state. With the ceremony of dedication to temple service, the devadasi has renounced the normal attachments of married women to husband, children, and in-laws. Haripriya, one of the most senior devadasis, told me: "A devadasi should have no attachment. A young woman will fulfill her desire for sex, but she should have no attachment." This quite clearly shows that, even in their liaisons, the devadasis should not become attached. They always lived in their own houses and under normal conditions did not move to their lovers' houses; the devadasi is thus made into the effective vehicle of female divine sovereignty by her lifelong unmarried status as well as by her training in the dance. T h e dedication ceremony creates for her an objective social condition of nonworldly attachment, and her dance training and ability creates a subjective condition of

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detachment from her own emotional and mental states; both are necessary. When a well-known stage performer of Odissi came to the devadasis a few years ago and requested them to allow her to dance in the temple and to resume the discontinued midday dance ritual, they refused her request because she was both married and lacked a dedication ceremony to qualify her. The emotional-mental distancing required by the dancer is necessary because the dance movements (including bhavas) are based on neither her own notions of how to refine her spontaneous communicative gestures nor the notions of a dance master-choreographer. Her own ideas would produce a more realistic style of gesture. What I have called the refining of the feelingthinking body is a vocabulary of highly stereotyped and formalized gestures evolved over some two millennia. They are not directly related to the dancer's own spontaneous communicative gestures; instead, they are related to the collective and spontaneous style of South Asian gestures and nonverbal expressions for thoughts and emotions. This amounts to saying that what is specific to the individual dancer, her own "personality" or subjectivity, if used consciously, would simply intrude and disturb the hieratic clarity of the formalized gestures. I have chosen the term "refining" to bring out the continuity between the everyday, gross, or vernacular style of communicative gesturing and the dance style of gesturing. This continuity should not be taken to mean that it is consciously created by a dancer, a choreographer, or even a particular school of dance. Such continuty through refinement is found in other contexts in Indie (Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain) India. For example, as a preparation before offering food to the deities in the inner sanctum, Brahman priests transform their bodies into divine bodies through meditation, breathing, recitation of powerful words, and practice of body postures and hand gestures. These practices are refinements (samskara) that allow humans to contact divinity by divinizing themselves. Similarly, the devadasi's training and social position as temple servant as well as the more immediate preparations she undertakes before dancing in the temple—purifying herself (see Marglin 1985:89-90), dressing and decorating herself in a particular way—all amount to processes of refinement that transform her into "the mobile goddess" (calanti devi). Such a process of refinement transforms, but it does so without a discontinuity between humanity and divinity or, to put it differently, between nature and supernature. Refining the Brahman priest's body or the body of the devadasi is an important link in the chain of life that begins in the transformations and refinements that start in the earth where the sun and water germinate a seed and end in the heavens where the fragrance of the offerings reaches the divinities. But, this transformation by refining is only the end point of an ascending process. The chain of life is a cycle. At its zenith the refined offerings begin a downward return journey as the leftovers of the deities who bless

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and sustain humans. Finally, the human's own leftovers return to the earth, the receiver of all impurities as well as the crucible where transformations begin anew. Performative EJtcacy: The Transformation in the Audience T h e divinizing of the devadasi's body, her transformation, is the starting point for transformations in the spectators. T h e spectators picking u p on their bodies the dust-sexual fluid of the dancer, namely the leftovers ofSakti, index the downward return path. T h e act of picking up the leftovers of Sakti is the spectators' partaking in the goddess's srgnara rasa; a physicalemotional-cognitive experience. T h e transformation, spoken of in H i n d u India as an experience of tasting (rasana, asvada, bhoga) an essence or a juice (rasa), is rooted in the physical experience of food and eating. T h e language for this transformative experience is ancient in India, first written down in Bharata's treatise on dance, music, and d r a m a (the Natyasastra, the second century B.C. to the second century A.D.). T h e concept of rasa has for centuries been extensively commented upon in texts (Sanskrit, vernacular, a n d English) as well as in oral transmission of the teaching of the dance. M y own interpretation is based on a few texts 14 as well as on oral teachings and comments by my dance master in Delhi, Surendra Nath J e n a , a n d by the devadasis.15 T h e source of tasting of an emotional essence is the divinized dancer. T h e bhava of erotic love (smgara) dominated the midday dance ritual, which is erotic love in action; it is a way of relating and communicating with another person, an activity at once physical, emotional, and cognitive. T h e mobile goddess is married to the god, and in their cosmic intercourse they produce a sexual leftover that fertilizes the land and produces well-being in the people. T h e dance is a divine sexual intercourse (the fifth m, maithuna, in the Sakta exegesis). T h e bhava of the dancer arouses in the spectators traces of their own erotic sensations that are constituted emotionally as smgara rasa. Should a spectator directly lust for the dancer, the performative efficacy of the ritual would have failed, and the erotic sensation would not be experienced as smgara rasa but simply as lust. A highly hieratic and nonpersonalized representation of erotic love arouses and transforms the audience's erotic sensations into a refined mindbody experience of smgara rasa. T h e audience should not lust for the dancer but rather should participate in the divine erotic play. 1 6 This participation is a refined emotional experience described as the tasting of an essence, of smgara rasa. T h e word rasa also points toward the fact that this experience is refined, in the same way that the juice of a fruit is the extracted essence of that fruit. Rasa is the extract of the dance ritual. This concrete language of juices and tastes describes the refined, spiritual experience in the spectators as the result

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of a scries of refining processes that start concretely in earth, sun, and water. T h e language suggests to everyone this primal concrete connection at the same time that it speaks of an experience often described as spiritual in nature. There is here no dualism between spirit and matter or between concrete and abstract; the two poles are continuous, not mutually exclusive. This characteristic of Indie Indian art has often been remarked upon by Western observers but, given their own biases against relating these two poles in a mutually inclusive manner, it has more often than not generated misunderstanding (at best) or condemnation (at worst). 1 7 Western dualism makes the affirmation and sacralization of female physicality and female eroticism that take place during the dance ritual, in both performer and audience, problematic if not impossible. In the tasting of rasa the audience shares in female divine sovereignty. T h i s inner experience is indexed by the spectators rolling in the dust-sexual fluid at the dancer's feet. It is important to remark that the receiving of the leftovers of the divinity in the form of raja, as a concrete form of srngara rasa, is achieved without Brahman priests as intermediaries. Caste ranking in terms of pure a n d impure castes plays no central role in this exchange because the devadasis are casteless. Hierarchy between divinized dancer and devotee is almost totally muted. All castes, except untouchables, can enter the temple and join the audience. T h e exchange between the divinized devadasi and devotees is direct and unmediated by caste considerations. This is to be expected in a Tantric context because SaAfaism rejects the hierarchy of caste in principle and in ritual practice (and probably in many other contexts).

The Evening Ritual The Cultural Content of the Spatiotemporal Context T h e evening ritual, the last of the day, consists of the devadasi singing while facing the deities during the ceremony of putting the deities to sleep. T h e devadasi comes to the threshold of the inner sanctum and faces the small portable image of the deity taken out of the storeroom and placed on a wooden cot in front of the image. This image is called "sleeping lord" (sayona tkakura).la T h e devadasi is spatially separated from the spectators by a wooden pole placed horizontally at the gate of the dance hall to prevent visitors from nearing the inner sanctum. T h e songs sung by the devadasi are part of a Vaishnava bhakti tradition; 1 9 all describe episodes in the life of Krishna, and they are gesturally brought to life by the devadasi. T h e theme of the songs is the love between Krishna and Radha, one milkmaid of the village of Brindaban. T h e songs are those from either the twelfth-century Sanskrit poem Gita Govinda by Jayadeva or the post-fifteenth-century Oriya poets who followed

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the model of the Gita Govinda but wrote in the vernacular. 2 0 T h e deity wears the erotic and/or ornamented dress (srngara vesa). While the devadasi is singing, two Brahmans carry the image of the sleeping lord to the gate leading into the dance hall where the wooden pole separates the ritual specialists from the devotees. T h e devadasi walks along with the image and continues singing until the Brahmans place the image on a stand facing the visitors and offer flowers and wave lamps in front of it. During the whole ritual the lights in the temple are gradually extinguished. At the end of the waving of the lamps the devadasi ends her song, and at the end of the ritual the priests distribute the deity's leftovers to the visitors. T h e y give out flowers from the flower offering and pass the still lighted l a m p among the visitors who place both palms over the heat and smoke of the flame and then place their palms to their eyelids. T h e image is then taken back to the storeroom; everyone leaves the temple, and its doors are sealed for the night. O n e devadasi explained this ritual to me: "Just as the cowgirls (gopi) give pleasure to Krishna in Brindaban by singing and dancing, we here in the temple give pleasure to Lord Jagannatha by singing and dancing." In the Vaishnavite bhakti (devotional) tradition, Jagannatha is considered a form of Krishna. Another devadasi told me a story that sheds further light on aspects of this ritual and on gopi bhava, the emotional and mental state relating the devadasi embodying the cowgirl to the deity. The sage Narada not only did not understand this parakiya bhaba [pertaining to a woman not one's own] but he hated it as well. So Krishna decided to enlighten the sage. He caused himself to have a very high fever. Narada at the sight of Krishna's illness was exceedingly grieved and immediately wanted to call all the doctors. Krishna told him that that would be useless and the only cure for his fever would be for Narada to bring him back the dust from the feet of some women. Narada immediately embarked on a search for such a cure. He first went to the inner apartment of the eight wives of Krishna and said: " O h eight queens, my Lord and your husband is suffering from a high fever and the only cure for this ailment is the dust from your feet." The queens answered: "How can we possibly do such a thing? He is the master (pati), if we do this we will surely go to hell (naraka); it would be a sin (papa)." And so they refused. Narada then left and sought out many women, but none would agree to giving the dust from their feet. They all argued as follows: "Krishna is Brahman; he is the highest; it would be a sin to give dust from our feet." So Narada in sorrow returned empty handed. Krishna asked him if he had gone everywhere. Narada said he had gone everywhere except to Brundaban. Krishna sent him there. When the gopis saw Narada approaching they recognized him and realized he must be bringing news from Krishna. They playfully ran towards him asking him for news of Krishna. Narada said that Krishna was very sick and that he needed the dust from the feet of women. All the gopis immediately took the dust

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from their feet and put it in a cloth for Narada. Narada queried: " O h gopis, you know that Krishna is the highest; don't you feel it is a sin (papa) to do this?" The gopis answered: "Oh Narada, whatever he is we do not know; what we know is that he is one of our village, our playmate. If he is suffering, whatever is needed we will do. If it is a sin we will go to hell (naraka), we are ready for that. He is everything to us." On his way back to Dwarika where Krishna was, Narada understood. (Marglin 1985:199) T h e dust of the gopis' feet had revitalizing and health-giving powers that restored Krishna to well-being. T h e introduction of the story is crucial to the full understanding of gopi bhava, that is, what it means to be a devadasi in the context of the evening ritual. T h e bhava of the unmarried gopi is the parakiya bhava, which is contrasted to the svakiya bhava of the married woman. T h e devadasi is not married and therefore lacks a married woman's feeling of possession toward a husband. As Haripriya, a devadasi, said to me, " A wife says 'I have a h u s b a n d , ' " a statement that bespeaks ego feelings (ahankdra). W h e n Haripriya spoke to me of her own life, she told me about an important liaison she had had in which there was no feeling of attachment. She said, " A devadasi should have no attachment. . . . T a k e the example of the apsaras [heavenly courtesan] Menaka w h o loved Vishvamitra and gave birth to Shakuntala. But Menaka left Shakuntala in the jungle and went away. There was no attachment." O n a different occasion, Sasi, another devadasi, told me: " W e don't marry. W e don't have children; we don't have a household; devotion is the one important thing for us." T h e gopi bhava in Haripriya's story consists not only in the gopis' utter selfless love for Krishna and their disregard for the rules of hierarchy but also in their nonmarried relationship to Krishna; they are parakiya. In fact, the two are very much connected. Precisely because they have no socially recognized attachment to Krishna and therefore lack possessive feelings and ego, they can act so selflessly. T h i s selfless and nonattached devotion of the nonmarried gopi-devadasi should not be taken to mean that the love for Krishna is chaste. T h e Gita Govinda's poetic description of the passionate erotic love between the gopi, Radha, and Krishna leaves no room for doubt on this point. Haripriya herself explained to me at great length the nature of the erotic and passionate love of the gopi-devadasi for Krishna while all the time contrasting it to the attached eroticism of the married woman. Conjugal eroticism is never separated from procreative considerations, whereas the erotic love between the gopis and Krishna is completely separated from procreation. 2 1 As in the midday dance ritual, the mood of erotic love dominates evening songs. T h e story told by Haripriya also clarifies the nature of the deity toward whom selfless erotic love is addressed. Krishna, a responsive god, is powerfully attracted by gopis and by Radha in particular as the Gita Govinda poem so exquisitely illustrates. In Haripriya's story, his illness puts him in a posi-

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tion where he actively needs and seeks the dust from the gopis' feet. Given the role of dust and the discussion of the double meaning of raja in the context of the midday ritual, there are clear but implicit sexual references in the story. The implicit message is that the sexual love of the^o^ts revitalizes and vivifies Krishna. It is significant that in Puri one believes that during sexual intercourse the female sexual fluid, thought to be ejaculated in a manner similar to a man's, enters the man's sexual organ, positively affecting the man's health and vigor. This female sexual fluid (the word is the same as that for menstrual blood, but contextual use clearly differentiates the two) is the essence of female life force (sakti), the life-giving power that vivifies and nurtures the active cosmos. Krishna needs the gopis' dust-sexuality; he responds to their love by equally passionate love. A Formal Analysis of the Evening Song The devadasi's singing is accompanied by facial expressions and hand gestures. Drumming and full-fledged dancing no longer take place, although in both inscriptions and reminiscences of the devadasis the interpretative fullfledged type of dance took place. Kokila, the devadasi who still sings during the evening ritual, was in her mid-fifties when I first came to Puri in 1975; because of a bad knee, she could no longer dance. The poems are treated in song in a special way. The Gita Govinda is a very long poem of twelve cantos, and twenty-four songs. For the ritual, a particular song is chosen, and the singer may either sing the song in its entirety or omit certain stanzas. The devadasi repeats a given verse any number of times, each time offering a slightly different musical interpretation. Each musical interpretation is matched by a separate gestural interpretation. The number of repetitions of a line is not fixed in advance and depends on inspiration, the mood of the moment, and the skill of the devadasi. The musical mode (rdga) chosen corresponds to the mood of the poem. The Gita Govinda has at the beginning of each song the name of the raga and tola in which it is to be sung. 22 Raga, as is well known, are associated with particular moods and emotions, as well as particular times of day or night. The words of the song are "mimed" in hand gesture, facial expressions, and body movements. I place the word "mime" in quotation marks because it calls for some elaboration. This redundancy between word and gesture brings to the Western mind the notion of programmatic music and dance with their pejorative connotation of trite homology and loss of meaning. Mime poorly suggests the nature of the redundancy between word and gesture in Odissi (and other Indian regional styles of dance as well). A very large vocabulary of hand gestures, about sixty in Odissi, can be varied almost infinitely according to the relationship of the hands to other parts of the body and to facial expressions. Above all, the repertoire of hand gestures and the way they are used is not realistic in the manner of Western mime.

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T h e gestures are highly stylized or stereotyped; this very feature elevates the Indian mime above a literal representation of reality, onto a symbolically rich and subtle poetic level. Freedom from the literal allows the dancer to explore the evocative penumbra (dhvani) of the words. T h e Gita Govinda, and other poems modeled on it, often make their protagonists speak directly. Songs can be like mini-plays. In the ritual, as in stage performances, the devadasi gesturally brings to life different characters in the song. There is no match of performer or costume to character. Furthermore, if a line says, for example, "make the noble slayer of Keshin make love to me passionately," the devadasi, following the Sanskrit word order, will first take on the angry expression and make the gesture that identifies the demon Keshin, then she will adopt the expression of valor and gesture the slaying to go with "noble slayer," and finally she will show the erotic expression and one of the many hand gestures representing lovemaking for the words " m a k e love to me passionately." In the span of a few seconds the dancer is a demon, a heroic warrior, and a passionate woman. Even though the main emotion of the dance-poem from which this line is taken is erotic love, there is absolutely no attempt at a realistic portrait of a woman in love. It is not theater; it is not mime (a la Marcel Marceau) that relies for its effects on the illusion of realism; and it is not dance in the style of ballet where the dancer portrays a particular character such as a princess, a fairy, a prince charming, or whatever. There is in this form no possibility of studying a character by entering into the role and identifying with the character to be portrayed. T h e effectiveness of the performer in Odissi dance depends entirely on the mastery of the conventionalized gestures and on their clear and precise rendition. Because the face and the eyes in particular are absolutely central in this repertoire of gestures, and because shifts in the expression of the eyes and the face are instantaneous, requiring totally unspontaneous as well as unrealistic transitions in the span of a few seconds, the performance requires the dancer's total control over her own subjectivity. Performative Efficaty: The Transformation in the Audience From both the exegesis and the form it is clear that in the evening ritual the devadasi is not the mobile goddess but a gopi. Gopis, including R a d h a (at least in the Oriya tradition), are not divinities. 23 Rather, they represent the ideal form of devotion (bhakti) for which all devotees of Krishna strive, namely single-minded, passionate, and selfless love. The devadasi's song is addressed to the deity and expresses srngara rasa or gopi bhava. This emotion is the poetic, refined, and stylized form of the devotion felt by the audience. T h e devadasi, given her nonattachment and expertise in this refined expression, is initially closer to the deity than to the audience, but, as her song proceeds, the deity is moved closer to the audience. Even though no exegesis was given to me for the specific placements and movements taking place during this

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ritual, they are nevertheless significant. T h e deity is moved after the devadasi has begun her song. While being moved and then stationed closer to the audience and worshiped by two priests, the devadasi continues singing. I interpret this particular sequence of movements as the deity's response to the devadasi's singing. T h e deity comes close to his devotees; in other words, he responds to their devotion as expressed by the devadasi, the ideal devotee. Through her dance and song as well as her nonattached social status she is able to extract the essence of devotion, total absorption in Krishna and single-minded centering of emotion, thought, and physical love for him. T h e essence of her devotion is smgara rasa which is aroused in her audience who, unlike that of the midday ritual, is the deity, not the visitors. T h e deity in this temple is conceived to be a real person with authority, ownership of lands, needs, and desires. It should not be surprising to see that by listening to the devadasi's song he is moved in both senses of the term. His movement from the inner sanctum to where the visitors are watching at the gate of the dance hall outwardly manifests an inner transformation. As for the audience of visitors to the temple, the outward mainfestation of an inward transformation is their taking the leftovers of the deity: flower and flame. If, as for the midday ritual, one takes these as tangible signs of an inward emotional-mental transformation, one must conclude that the source of this transformation is the divinity, not the devadasi. T h e devadasi as the embodiment of refined and single-minded devotion is instrumental in bringing the deity closer to the devotees by arousing a response in him; she enables the deity to respond to his devotees. By coming close to them the deity arouses in his devotees renewed and intensified love and devotion, enabling them to respond to his responsiveness; this emotional response is made concrete and visible by their partaking of his leftover flowers and flames. Conclusion T h e ritual dances I have discussed in this chapter transform the participants; the participants taste smgara rasa, a culturally constituted emotion that is embodied thought. I have argued that the transformative power of the ritual resides in its marriage of form and content. T h e form of the ritual is its body, its sensuous dynamic presence; the contents of the ritual are the values and beliefs, or, in other words, the thought part. By joining form and content, body and thought, the dance has the power to create a culturally specific experience in the participants, an emotion that also unites body and thought, that is, an embodied thought. Bodily experiences are here unified with thought; they are not relegated to a separate realm, of physiology, sensation, or nature. T h e marriage of form and content can be summarized in the word "re-

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fining," and this word in turn points toward the nature of the participants' transformation. T h e word is, of course, an important meaning of the Sanskrit word samskara, often used to refer to life-cycle rites. Rites, such as initiation and marriage, transform the persons undergoing the rite by a process thought to be refining. This process at its most encompassing level characterizes the whole chain of life in which the cosmos with its flora and fauna, h u m a n s and deities, are all interrelated. T h e ritual day in a major temple, such as that o f j a g a n n a t h a in Puri, exemplifies this great chain of life particularly in the food offerings. T h e two rituals examined in this essay share in this general cosmology but give it specific sectarian inflections. T h e devadasi is a crucial link in this chain of life. Through the life-cycle ritual of temple dedication that transforms the devadasi into the wife of the god and a nonattached but sexually active mortal, the first leg of a series of transformations is achieved. This is the devadasi's first life-cycle rite (samskara) before her puberty ritual, a cycle that ends with her funeral. With her training she has acquired the specialized knowledge enabling her to refine her own body so that she can—in the context of the midday ritual—be a female divinity who shares srngara rasa, an emotion, as well as its forms of female sexual fluid transformed into dust and food. In the context of the evening ritual she is a model of the refined, or concentrated, devotion felt by the devotees toward Krishna. T h e approach followed in this essay enabled me to unravel how the audience was transformed and what that transformation was about, the experience of srngara rasa. T h a t approach used T a m b i a h ' s exhaustive definition of ritual and reflected its tripartite structure. Ritual as a symbolic system of communication is rooted in a particular cosmology. I have highlighted the great chain of life as central to this cosmology and the processes of refining as those that give it life. Ritual characterized by certain formal features such as stereotypy, conventionality, and redundancy has been the subject of the formal analysis of these rituals. There again I argued that this form could first be thought of as refining everyday communicative and expressive gesturing. T h e performative outcome of these rituals was the experience by the devotees of a refined physical-emotional-mental state, the extracted essence of the ritual. These processes shed light on the way emotions are viewed and experienced in Indie India. T h e process of refining implies that one starts with a concrete or physical or gross level and by successive processes of refinement extracts from these concrete emotions their essence. T h e basic processes of refining are cooking (see Toomey, this volume), and the most basic cooking is that which takes place in the earth when a seed germinates under the heat of the sun and the moisture of water. T h e grain or fruit that is eventually produced out of this cooking is the refined product. When the body is refined, out of its physicality several refined products emerge: emotions-thought and

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finally, the most refined product of all, corresponding to the f r a g r a n c e of the food offered to the deities, spiritual experience. E m o t i o n s , therefore, a r e not discontinuous: physical experiences on one side a n d cognitive a n d spiritual experience on the other. T h e basic or gross level is not despised or repressed in order for the most refined level to emerge. O n the contrary, in the case of the emotion of love, for e x a m p l e , it is refined out of the concrete p h y s i c a l experience of sexual love. E m o t i o n s a n d cognitions are both experienced a n d discussed as unified activity. T h i s most obvious m e a n i n g of the word bhava refers at once to emotional and mental states. T h u s the refining process has essentially three m a i n phases: the physical, the emotional-mental, a n d the spiritual; the p h y s i c a l body corresponds to the earth, the emotions-cognitions to the fruits of the earth, a n d the spiritual to the fruits' taste and/or smell.

Notes to Chapter Eight T o Stanley Tambiah I wish to express not only a great intellectual debt but also gratitude for his having originally motivated me to write on this topic for his Harvard seminar on " A Performative Approach to Ritual." However, this first product was rather unrefined. For the opportunity to churn the original paper into a better product I thank Owen Lynch and Pauline Kolenda who invited me to present a paper on this general topic at a conference on Emotions, Feeling, and Experience in India at the University of Houston in December 1985. For the motivation to churn an even more refined product all my thanks go to Owen Lynch whose detailed, incisive, sensitive, and illuminating pages of single-spaced comments on my Houston paper finally pushed me to see my way more clearly. 1. For a brief synopsis of the history of this transformation and its causes, see the introduction in my monograph on the devadasis of Puri (Marglin 1985). By studying and performing in the latter context in India and through conducting fieldwork among the women temple dancers of a major Hindu temple, as well as studying the dance from the temple women, I became aware of the great difference between the two types of events. 2. The dance form itself does not differ significantly from the temple to the stage. The greatest change is in the segmentation of a dance sequence which in the temple may last as long as an hour. One major adaptation of the dance form to the stage was the segmentation of dance sequences into much shorter items, ranging from about five minutes to about fifteen minutes, and the creation of a particular sequence of items. A typical stage recital follows a certain sequence of pure dance items not accompanied by sung poetry, nrtta, and of interpretative dance items accompained by sung poetry, nrtya. The choice is based on considerations of variety and contrast to elicit maximum interest from an audience that must be entertained. 3. Because I have not witnessed repeated instances of these rituals, their indexical values are not accessible to me. 4. The ceremony for the women differs only in some small detail from that for the men (Marglin 1985:67-72).

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5. T h i s injunction against having children is not found among the devadasis of T a m i l n a d u studied by Amrit Srinivasan (1985). 6. T h e Sakta sectarian tradition is a form of tantrism whose followers worship the goddes Sakti. 7. T h e information that the devadasis face north, which I had when writing my book, was based on asking two devadasis to describe their orientation while they danced. Because this questioning took place in their own houses, as well as in my own house, they were disoriented, and apparendy I deduced the wrong direction from their verbal explanations. Thereafter, P u m a Chandra Mishra and I made diagrams of the temple including positionings of the dancer north, west, and south and showed them to the rajagurus and the devadasis. T h e unambiguous result from this more precise method of enquiry was that the devadasi faces south. 8. Raja from the Sanskrit root raj-, to be red, to be colored, comes to mean menstrual blood and derivatively dirt or dust since menstrual blood i s — l i k e other eliminations from the b o d y — b o t h polluted and dirty. This however does not prevent it from being a powerful sexual fluid, the source of life because out of menstrual blood the mother forms and then feeds her fetus. Raja in O r i y a is also used to mean the colorless female sexual fluid a woman is believed to secrete during sexual intercourse. T h e devadasis did not perform during their menses when they were impure and did not enter the temple. I am grateful to O w e n Lynch for pointing out to me the double meaning of the word raja. g. Ron Hess in collaboration with Indian film makers has made a film largely based on my study of the rituals of the devadasis. Entitled " G i v e n to Dance: India's Odissi Tradition," it is available through the Madison, Wisconsin, South Asia Program. 10. T h e devadasis, but not the stage performers, recite the drum syllables. O n the stage the syllables are recited by the drum master, not the dancer herself (at least in an Odissi dance performance). Music elaborates this rhythmic pattern by giving the long beat variable lengths (measured in time units) and by creating a beat half the value of the short syllable. This elaboration and the various possible combinations of three beats (of long, short and half-short ones) have enabled the creation of more than forty different rhythmic patterns (tola). 11. For the historical antiquity of Indian classical dance as well as its treatment in various texts, I refer the reader to Kapila Vatsyayana's (1968) definitive study on Indian classical dance. 12. It is not necessary to go into a detailed description and recounting of these, and I refer the reader to two illustrated treatises on Odissi dance. Because I am concerned with the regional style in this paper, the reader must bear in mind that there are several other regional styles of Indian classical dance. O n e treatise in English is in a special issue of the magazine Marg (i960); the other is in Oriya by Dhirendranath Patnaik (1958). 13. T h i s use of the dancer, as person, contrasts rather markedly with the use of the body in ballet or even in modern dance in which limbs and extremities (as they are called in the Western dance discourse) are primarily subordinated to line and are most often used to conjure an aerial fluidity and lightness. T h e limbs and extremities such as hands, feet, head, and face are primarly used to continue or break a dynamic line originating more at the center of the body. Their use is, except for intentionally

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dramatic moments, not based on the raw material of spontaneous communicative behavior. Thus, a Western audience is not as directly engaged in the role of a d i a l o gical partner; instead, the dancers place the audience in the more passive position of appreciating the visual and dynamic forms created by the bodies of the dancers. 14. Besides the relevant passages in the Natyasastra, I have also used the relevant passages in the great tenth-century Kashmiri philosopher-saint Abhinavagupta's commentaries on Bharata's verses on rasa translated by Masson and Patwardhan (1970), Masson and Patwardhan's own interpretations of Abhinavagupta, as well as S. K . De's (1925) commentary on Abhinavagupta's understanding of rasa. 15. My own discussion of rasa in this essay should in no way be taken as an attempt to add to this extremely learned and scholarly literature. I am in no position to do this. Here I attempt only to use these exegeses for a semiotic interpretation of the inner transformations in the spectators which are signaled by outward visible acts and are matter-of-facdy said to have taken place. 16. The following verse of a palm leaf manuscript written by a devadasi in the nineteenth century (see Marglin 1985:90) addresses this issue: If a man desires the body of a dasi at the time of her seba [ritual service, i.e., the dance], T h i s man, by order of the king should be heavily fined, Such a man would be a criminal in front of the great Lord. 1 7 . T h e f o l l o w i n g p a s s a g e f r o m H e g e l is a g o o d e x a m p l e o f w h a t I r e f e r to: These earliest and still most uncontrolled atiempts of imagination and art we meet most signally among the ancient races of India. . . . T h e s e people. . .through their confused intermingling of the Finite and (he Absolute, . . . fall into a levity of fantastic mirage which is quite as remarkable, a flightiness which dances from the most spiritual and profoundest matters to the meanest trifle of present experience, in order that it may interchange and confuse immediately the one extreme with the other. (G. W. F . Hegel 1835; quoted in Mitter [ 1 9 7 7 : 2 1 3 ] )

18. In fact, this is an image of Shiva, half-man and half-woman (ardhanansvara). For a discussion of the significance of this Shaivite iconography in the midst of a Vaishnavite ritual, see Marglin (1985:chap. 7). 19. The Vaishnavite bhakti tradition has within it many sects and subtraditions, each with its own customs, favorite texts, and specific interpretations. As far as I was able to discern, the evening ritual represents a specifically local Oriyan variant of this religious movement with its own peculiar interpretations and theology. It is closely related to, but not identical with, the neighboring Gaudiya Vaishnavite tradition of Bengal. I think that the Oriya tradition has many more Sakta influences than other Vaishnavite traditions. On Oriya Vaishnavism, see Mukheijee (1940). 20. For translations of the Gita Govinda I refer the reader to Lee Siegel's (1977) literal translation accompanied by an exhaustive scholarly commentary on the text, its author, and the cultural, historical, and religious background from which they emerged. Barbara Stoler Miller's (1977) more poetic translation has a much shorter but also very incisive introduction to the text. 21. For a detailed discussion of this point, see Marglin (1985:200-203). 22. These names do not correspond to current musical classification. Because music and dance are transmitted orally, there is no way of knowing to what notes and to what beats these names corresponded. 23. For a fairly recent work discussing the special place of Radha in Vaishnavite ritual and theology, see John Hawley and Donna Wulff (1982).

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References Cited Texts in Western Languages Appadurai, Aijun 1981 Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bhàrata-Mûni 1961 The Nàtyasâstra: The Treatise on Hindu Dramaturgy and Histrionics. Manmohan Ghose, trans. Calcutta: Asiatic Society. Daniel, Valentine, E. 1984 Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way. Berkeley: University of California Press. De, S. K . 1925 The Theory of Rasa in Sanskrit Poetics. In Sir Asutosh Mookeijee Silver Jubilee Volume. Vol. 3, Orientalia, Part 2. Calcutta: Calcutta University Press. Egnor, Margaret 1978 T h e Sacred Spell and Other Conceptions of Life in Tamil Culture. Ph.D. dissertation, Anthropology Department, University of Chicago. Hawley, J o h n , and Donna Wulff, eds. 1982 The Divine Consort: Ràdhâ and the Goddesses of India. Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union. MARG i960 Special Issue on Odissi Dance. Marg 13 (2 March). Bombay: Marg. Marglin, Frédérique Apflel 1981 Kings and Wives: The Separation of Status and Royal Power. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 15 (1 and 2) : 1 5 5 - 1 8 2 . 1985 Wives of the God-King: The Rituals of the Devadasis of Puri. New York: Oxford University Press. Masson, J . L., and M . V. Patwardhan 1970 Aesthetic Rapture. 2 vols. Poona: Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute. Miller, Barbara Stoler 1977 Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva's Gîta Govinda. New York: Columbia University Press. Mitter, Partha 1977 Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Art. Oxford: Clarendon. Mukheijee, Prabhat 1940 The History of Medieval Vaishnavism in Orissa. Calcutta: R. Chatteijee. Régnaud, Paul 1884 L a Rhétorique Sanskrite Exposée dans son Développement Historique et ses Rapports avec la Rhétorique Classique. Suivie des Textes Inédits du Bhâratiya-nâtya-sàstra, 6ième et 7ième Chapitres et de la Rasataranginî de Bhânudatta. Paris: Ernest Leroux.

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Rosaldo, Michelle Z. 1984 Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. Le Vine, eds. Pp. 1 3 7 - 1 5 7 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rösel, Jacob 1980 Der Palast des Herrn der Welt: Entstehungsgeschichte und Organisation des Indischen Tempel und Pilgerstadt Puri. München: Weltforum Verlag. Siegel, Lee ig77 Sacred and Profane Dimensions of Love in Indian Traditions. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Srinivasan, Amrit 1985 Ascetic Passion: The Devadasi and Her Dance in a Comparative Context. Paper delivered at the Conference on Emotions, Feeling, and Experience in India, Houston, Texas. Tambiah, Stanley Jeyaraja 1981 A Performative Approach to Ritual. Proceedings of the British Academy 65. Pp. 1 1 3 - 1 6 9 . London: Oxford University Press. Tripathi, G. C . 1978 The Daily Puja Ceremony of the Jagannätha Temple and Its Special Features. In The Cult ofjagnnätha and the Regional Transition of Orissa. A. Eschmann, H. Kulke, G. C. Tripathi, eds. Pp. 285-308. New Delhi: Manohar. Vatsyayana, Kapita 1968 Classical Indian Dance in Literature and the Arts. New Delhi: Sangeet Natale Akademi. Zimmermann, Francis 1982 La Jungle et le Fumet des Viandes: Un Thème Ecologique dans la Médecine Hindoue. Paris: Gallinard-Le Seuil, Hautes Etudes. Text in Oriya Patnaik, Dhirendranath 1958 Odisi nrtya, Santi Nibâsâ Bânï Mandira. Cuttack.

NINE

O n the Moral Sensitivities of Sikhs in North America Verne A. Dusenbery This pride or izzat is one of the Punjabi's deepest feelings, and as such must be treated with great respect. Dearer to him than life, it helps to make him the good soldier that he is. But it binds him to the vendetta. MALCOLM L Y A L L D A R L I N G , WISDOM A N D W A S T E IN THE PUNJAB V I L L A G E

T h e assassination of Indira Gandhi on October 31, 1984, allegedly at the hands of her Sikh bodyguards, provoked mixed reactions from Sikhs in North America. News reports immediately following the assassination included pictures and accounts of Punjabi Sikhs celebrating her death in the streets of New York. 1 Nevertheless, the C B S Morning News, on the day following the assassination, was able to find Sikh representatives who, although upholding the legitimacy of Sikh grievances, were willing to condemn Mrs. Gandhi's murder. Thus, viewers of C B S Morning News were presented the comments of Harbhajan Singh Puri (the "Siri Singh Sahib" or self-styled Chief Religious and Administrative Authority for the Sikh Dharma in the Western Hemisphere) and one of his Gora (literally, "white," i.e., Western) Sikh followers. At the time of the C B S broadcast I was outraged that the media should once again have constituted " Y o g i B h a j a n " (as Puri is also known) and one of his few thousand Gora Sikh followers as representative of the tens or hundreds of thousands of Sikhs (overwhelmingly of Punjabi ancestry) residing in North America. If C B S considered itself obliged to find a "moderate" Sikh to condemn the murder, I felt it could have found a more representative Punj a b i Sikh than Harbhajan Singh Puri, a former Indian customs official who founded the Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization in 1969 shortly after his arrival in the United States; and C B S certainly need not have included one of his non-Punjabi followers as a spokesperson for the Sikhs of North America. 2 Subsequently, I have come to rethink my position. In fact, it now seems to me quite appropriate that a Gora S i k h — a North American Sikh "conv e r t " — s h o u l d have made the most unequivocal repudiation of the murder by a Sikh that I heard in those confused and emotionally charged moments following the assassination. T h e different moral sensitivities displayed 239

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by the Punjabi Sikh celebrants outside the Indian consulate in New York and by the Gora Sikh spokesman in the C B S studios provide the outlines of what I consider a cross-culturally illuminating morality play. But before exploring this morality play, let me recount another that came to mind often both in the prelude and aftermath of Mrs. Gandhi's assassination. This one concerns an earlier assassination of a public official by a Punjabi Sikh acting, as apparently were Mrs. Gandhi's assassins, "to preserve the honor" of the Sikh community. The scene is Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. In 1914, the South Asian community in Vancouver—overwhelmingly Punjabi and S i k h — w a s a mere ten years old. Nevertheless, it was already a community externally beseiged and internally factionalized. Canadian immigration regulations were being manipulated to keep South Asians out of the country and to deport as many immigrants as could be shown deportable. Activities of the Ghadar (Revolution) Party were particularly worrisome to British, Canadian, and Indian authorities. T o provide information on the immigrant community in Vancouver, the Canadian Immigration Department had employed W . C . Hopkinson, a Punjabi speaking Anglo-Indian and former Calcutta policeman. 3 T o further his investigations, Hopkinson recruited to his service members of one of the community's factions. One informer subsequently became involved in a shootout in which he killed two and wounded four other Sikhs within the precincts of the local gurdwara (temple). 4 Although most Vancouver Sikhs regarded the shooting as an unprovoked and inexcusable sacrilege, Hopkinson was prepared to testify that the man had acted in selfdefense. As Hopkinson waited in the courthouse to testify, Mewa Singh, a recent immigrant forest worker and sometime granthi (one who reads from and cares for the Guru Granth Sahib [Guru Granth Sáhib], the Sikh "holy book" regarded as the reigning Sikh Guru), shot him dead. Mewa Singh surrendered immediately, pleaded guilty, and was quickly sentenced to death. In a letter to Hopkinson's widow he "askfed] her forgiveness and stat[ed] that he had not acted out of hatred. . . but to wipe off the insults hurled at his countrymen and to preserve their unity" (K. Singh 1964:6). Mewa Singh was hanged on January 11, 1915. Nearly sixty-five years later, when I came to do fieldwork with the Vancouver Sikh community (a community not merely still extant after decades of isolation but much grown and diversified through recent immigration, natural increase, and even conversion), shahid (martyr) Mewa Singh was still an exemplar to the community. His death was commemorated annually; his name was attached to halls and rooms in the local gurdwaras and invoked in the congregation during the saying of ardas (literally, petition, the communal prayer that includes the remembrance of significant Sikh martyrs); his martyrdom was appropriated by various groups and attached to various causes. 5 One group that did not invoke Mewa Singh's example to the same degree

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as others w a s the group o f a dozen or so G o r a Sikhs at the local G u r u R a m D a s A s h r a m . M y distinct impression was that these new North A m e r i c a n Sikh converts preferred to celebrate the more socially and temporally distant and morally unequivocal heroic martyrdoms of the Sikh G u r u s , and other early exemplars, as these are recounted in the Sikh hagiographic tradition. Recent historical figures, whose political and personal motives were perhaps more transparent and, thus, morally more complex to North Americans, seemed to provoke ambivalence. In any case, my Gora Sikh informants repeatedly emphasized that they were a " r e l i g i o u s " group and, therefore, did not involve themselves in Indian " p o l i t i c s . " A s later would be the case in their response to M r s . G a n d h i ' s assassination, their actions indicated that, despite affirming G u r u G o b i n d Singh's teachings that " w h e n all else fails, it is right to d r a w the s w o r d , " they were not totally comfortable resorting to murder to a v e n g e the "insult to the P a n t h " suffered as a consequence of Hopkinson's p e i j u r e d testimony or Mrs. G a n d h i ' s desecration of the A k a l T a k h t . In this essay I want to d r a w out the implications o f these two morality p l a y s — a n d others involving actions considerably less extreme (from the W e s t e r n Judeo-Christian point of view) than m u r d e r — t o suggest that the moral sensitivities o f G o r a Sikhs and Punjabi Sikhs (and, in this regard, particularly those of the dominant J a t Sikhs) not only differ but also differ in culturally specific ways. In particular, I want to suggest that the notion o f izzat (honor), apparently so central to J a t Sikh " m o r a l affect," is not shared by G o r a Sikhs. 6 A s a consequence, as I will show, G o r a Sikhs are largely insensitive to the role of izzot in the lives of J a t Sikhs, that is, as it informs both J a t Sikh actions and J a t Sikh reactions to the actions of G o r a Sikhs. A n d this difference in moral affect, I argue, enters into the active estrangement of G o r a Sikhs and J a t Sikhs and their (mis)apprehension of one another. Following Michelle Rosaldo, I use the term " m o r a l affect" to indicate " e m o t i o n s that involve clear conscious, social, and cultural components (and attendant questions of j u d g m e n t and m o r a l i t y ) " ( 1 9 8 3 : 1 3 6 , n. 4). A Western focus upon, and valorization of, rationalized, readily codified systems of k n o w l e d g e — a s apparent in the anthropologist's search for the norms or rules o f an alien culture as in the convert's search for orthodoxy in an adopted r e l i g i o n — h a s for too long led to inattention to the affective dimensions o f other peoples' experience. Y e t , ironically, it is precisely in the area o f " e m o t i o n s , " less amenable to direct personal articulation and formal codification than are " b e l i e f s , " that culture shock and cross-cultural tensions are most likely to be experienced and least likely to be reconciled. Y e t , because the l a n g u a g e of the emotions so often partakes of w h a t Pierre Bourdieu ( 1 9 7 6 : 1 1 8 , n. 1) has called " t h e discourse of familiarity," outsiders, whether anthropologists or converts, find it difficult to experience and represent the affective world of others. M o r a l affects like izzat, because they "involve clear

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conscious, social and cultural components," are perhaps easier to gain access to with our everyday or conventional social scientific vocabularies than are emotions like fear, anger, or sadness (although these, too, involve moral appraisals of social situations). At the very least, the former are more likely to emerge as overt issues in cross-cultural interaction. This fact leads Rosaldo to argue that anthropologists interested in emotions "might do well to work from instances like these, where the relevance of culture is clear, towards cases where it is more problematic" ( 1 9 8 3 : 1 3 6 , n. 4; emphasis in the original). But what does this mean operationally? Recent criticism of the classical "cultures of shame" versus "cultures of guilt" analyses, such as Ruth Benedict's (1949), has gone beyond contesting the empirical generality of the opposition between the two (Piers and Singer 1953) to emphasizing not only the different kinds of shame and guilt encountered in different cultures (Geertz 1973) but also the different kinds of "selves" to which these terms can appropriately be applied (Rosaldo 1983, 1984). In the shift from "culture and personality" to "concepts of the person" and "ethnopsychology," " s h a m e " and "guilt" have gone from being explicans to being explicandum. Anthropological attention has correspondingly shifted from using (Western) psychological idioms to characterize cultural differences toward understanding the social and cultural construction of emotions themselves through various culturally constituted social "selves." Thus, for example, M. Rosaldo's (1983) insightful account of "shame" among Ilongot headhunters, with its exploration of the very different cultural conception of the self that "shame" presupposes among the Ilongot and among Americans, stands as an exemplary analysis of the social construction of " s e l f " (as moral agent) and "emotion" (as moral affect). As might be expected of a moral affect, izzat is a multivocalic term defying simple translation. 7 Conventionally it is glossed in English as "honor," but it is central to a whole complex of emotionally charged values including honor, respect, reputation, shame, prestige, and status. 8 The term derived from Arabic and Persian is tied to very similar concepts among Muslim groups of Southwest and South Asia; 9 but it has also gained wide currency in the languages of the non-Muslims of North India. It infuses Sikh culture to the extent that, since the seventeenth century, the landholdingjats of Punjab, for whom izzot is a particular concern, have come to predominate within the Sikh Panth. 1 0 It is also a deeply-rooted, affective concept that informants have a hard time defining and discussing, especially with an outsider. In attempting to make the concept intelligible and palatable to this Western researcher, informants often spoke in moral platitudes: "izzot means 'honor thy father and mother.'" Or "izzal means 'looking out for the good of the family.'" More revealing than direct discussions of it in the abstract, therefore, were after-

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the-fact discussions of events in which informants asserted that izzat had been involved. Retention, acquisition, or reacquisition of izzat is apparently a common motivating force in J a t Sikh social action. From undertaking migrations, employment, or marriages to seeking retribution (or, in less morally loaded terms, rebalance) for wrongs and injustices (or, in less morally loaded terms, defeats, slights, offenses) suffered at the hands of others, informants see izzat serving as both impetus and rationale for social action. J o y c e Pettigrew has written in some detail of the role that izzat plays in rural J a t Sikh sociopolitical life in the Punjab. I quote at length from her monograph: Relationships of extreme friendship and hostility between families were actively involved with the philosophy of life embodied in the conception of izzat—the complex of values regarding what was honourable. If a Jat achieved power for his family he automatically enhanced family honour. Power was honour and honour was power. In a situation where a family had no power it was inconceivable that it could have "honour," as it would not be able to defend the content of that honour from another family. The rise to power of a family into an "honourable" position was inevitably accompanied by threats and litigation, and sometimes also by violence and murder. That aspect of izzat according to which the relationships between families were supposed to be ordered emphasized the principle of equivalence in all things, i.e., not only equality in giving but also equality in vengeance. Izzat was in fact the principle of reciprocity of gifts, plus the rule of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Giving was an attempt to bring a man of another family into one's debt, and acceptance of the gift involved the recipient in making a return, not necessarily in kind or immediately, but at the moment appropriate to the donor. Not making the return could break the relationships and develop further hostility. Izzat enjoined aid to those who had helped one. It also enjoined that revenge be exacted for personal insults and damage to person or property. If a man was threatened he must at least threaten back, for not to do so would be weakness. The appropriate revenge for murder was likewise murder. Izzat was also associated with sanctioned resistance to another who trespassed into what was regarded as the sphere of influence of one's family. This "other" might be other Jats belonging to the opposing faction; in the past it also applied to the state and foreign powers. (Pettigrew 1975: 58-59) Pettigrew's account touches on a number of concerns central to izzat: power, reciprocity, protection of one's social domain. T h e last lines of her account even suggest the way in which outsiders, such as Mrs. G a n d h i or Hopkinson, m a y become parties implicated in the pursuit or defense of izzat. In a footnote Pettigrew notes other crucial aspects of izzat: for example, that for J a t Sikhs izzat is attached to landholding and to such occupations as military and administrative service and that it is tied to " a multitude of rules concerning the behaviour expected of men in relation to women, and vice

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v e r s a " ( 1 9 7 5 : 2 4 0 ) . " A l t h o u g h these aspects are perhaps less directly relevant to her concern with political factions, they are crucial to understanding izzat in the migrant situation. A s Pettigrew notes, one aspect common to all these concerns is freedom from the constraints and d e m a n d s of others and a concomitant ability to put others in one's debt or under one's dominion. Pettigrew's o w n study focuses upon political leadership, and she has therefore stressed aspects of the sociopolitical domination of individuals by other individuals; this is exemplified in the book's title, Robber Noblemen. But as a moral affect, izzat is preeminently a concern for the honor and reputation not of individuals per se b u t — i n s o f a r as personal prestige is subordinate to the collective evaluation o f the g r o u p — o f groups (the family, faction, lineage, village, caste brotherhood, religious community, etc.). Moreover, it is a fluid and relative rather than a fixed and absolute attribute of persons. By this I mean both that it is gained and lost in the give and take of social life and that one may act in the interest of any collective of which one is a part with the honor redounding to all the collectives. 1 2 Punjabis thus speak of izzat as a quality of certain persons that must be zealously guarded and continually expressed in agonistic pursuits. Migration has long been one w a y through which J a t Sikh families have sought the means to maintain or raise family izzat• By sending a w a y " e x c e s s " or " w a y w a r d " sons (that is, those whose inheritance would otherwise cause fragmentation of family landholdings or whose actions might undermine the family's reputation) and by using migrants' remittances and connections in military or administrative circles, J a t Sikh villagers have sought to further or maintain izzat in the ancestral village. 1 3 Foreign migration, especially to countries in the West, is, however, thought particularly risky. O n the one hand, it has been seen as presenting unparalleled opportunities through w h i c h a J a t Sikh family might (im)prove its izzat. T h u s , for example, by frugal living abroad, the migrant will ideally be able to remit large amounts of capital to the family back home for investment in land and farm implements, a pukka house, expensive doweries, maintenance of retainers and clients, and conspicuous philanthropy. A t the same time, however, foreign migration presents considerable temptations to individuals to pursue actions with negative effects on family or group izzat. T h u s , it is feared that the migrant may forget his responsibilities to his family by, for example, not saving and sending money home or by engaging in inappropriate sexual or marital relations abroad. A real ambivalence is felt about the risks and benefits o f sending family members abroad. M o s t J a t Sikhs are not, however, averse to taking risks. Moreover, in most situations of foreign migration, izzat is an important concern for J a t Sikhs in both the migrant setting and the home village. T h a t is, accounts of the migrants' actions abroad circulate both within the migrant

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community and back in the village at home and affect the family's izzat in both places. J a t Sikh children living in Western countries thus continue to be socialized in sensitivity to actions that might bring their family or community into disrepute. And, because izzat is crucially entailed—and becomes relationally indexed—in political contests and marital matches, much emotional energy in migrant communities continues to be put into intracommunity factional politics and in arranging proper marriages for family members. Consequences of this continuing concern for izzat include not only the high degree of Sikh endogamy among Punjabis settled in Western countries but also the apparent willingness to forgo status gains (in Western terms) to ensure the continued good reputation of the family. 14 Arthur W. Helweg, in his study of migrants from the Punjabi village of Jandiali living in the English town of Gravesend, not only notes the two communities of significant others, villagers at home and fellow-migrants, but also points to a presumed third audience. In his interesting chapter on the role of izzat in the lives of his informants (1979:10—19), he writes: In Gravesend the Punjabis are deeply concerned about their izzat or mann as evaluated by three different audiences: (1) villagers in Punjab, (2) Punjabis in England, and (3) the English host community. The first two categories have the strongest influence on their behaviour but it is interesting to note how the Punjabis have projected their own culture onto the host group. According to their self-assessment of izzat, esteem in the eyes of others is not dependent upon another group sharing a similar concept. Izzat is so entrenched in Sikh J a t culture that an appreciation of it can be projected onto outsiders. Both in England and India, Punjabis are concerned that they and their fellows exemplify honourable behaviour. In effect, this projection of their own values on the British serves primarily to rally their own sense of superiority over the host population. (Helweg 1 9 7 9 : 1 1 )

This J a t Sikh projection of sensitivity to izzat onto Western society is also an important factor in understanding J a t Sikh and Gora Sikh misunderstandings and conflicting moral sensitivities. I will return to this point shortly. First, however, I will discuss briefly the Sikh population in North America. Impelled by various push-pull factors (drought, epidemics, rural indebtedness in Punjab; the prospect of ready jobs and cheap passage to North America), Punjabi migrants first settled in Canada and the United States during the first decade of the twentieth century. From that point until the late 1960s, the overwhelming majority of Punjabis in North America were J a t Sikhs from Doaba (the plains area of Punjab between the Beas and Sutlej rivers). The original Sikh immigrants were predominantly male laborers and farmers who had served in the British Indian army. Most came to North America as sojourners, intent on making their fortune and returning home to the Punjab to retire in comfort and honor on the family farm. Although many

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of these early immigrants returned home within a few years, either through deportation or voluntary repatriation (in fact, a number returned as Ghadarite revolutionaries), the vast majority of those who stayed eventually settled in either British Columbia, where they became concentrated in lumber and lumber-related industries, or in California, where they pursued the traditional J a t occupation of farming. After long and arduous struggle, the early immigrants were finally permitted to sponsor for immigration their J a t Sikh wives, children, and relatives. Although the relatively few non-Jats among the early migrants apparently mixed freely with their fellow Punjabi Sikhs, the overwhelming preponderance of J a t s meant that Doabi J a t Sikh practices largely defined the Sikh identity as it developed in North America. 1 5 Only since the liberalization of Canadian and American immigration policies in the mid-1960s have significant numbers of non-Jats been a part of an extensive Sikh immigration coming not only from India but from the United Kingdom, East Africa, East and Southeast Asia, and Fiji as well. As I have discussed elsewhere (1981, 1988), this new influx not only has led to establishing new Punjabi Sikh communities, especially in the larger metropolitan area's where Sikh professionals have found employment, but it has also had significant repercussions in the long-established communities of British Columbia and rural California. 1 6 Nevertheless, within most Punjabi communities in North America, as within the Panth in India, J a t Sikhs continue to (pre)dominate. If J a t Sikhs in North America are increasingly confronted by other kinds of Punjabi Sikhs (i.e., Sikh migrants of other castes), these are at least kinds of Sikhs with whom they are familiar from Punjabi society. The unprecedented "conversion" of thousands of Westerners to Sikhism is quite another matter. Making sense of the heretofore anomalous category "Gora Sikh" has and is taking some effort. 17 In 1968, Harbhajan Singh Puri, whose refugee Khatri Sikh family had come to New Delhi from Pakistani Punjab at partition, quit his job as a customs official at Delhi's International Airport and left for Toronto to become a yoga instructor. However, the Canadian who had recruited him for the position had died in the interim. Puri was, thus, without job or sponsor. Fortunately for him, he soon secured sponsorship from a Punjabi Sikh in Los Angeles where he settled and began teaching yoga courses (at the East-West Cultural Center, at a local community college, and out of a storefront). Now calling himself "Yogi Bhajan," Puri proved a compelling teacher. Having found a receptive core of students (initially middle-age, female, "spiritual seekers"; subsequently young, white, middle-class refugees from the "counterculture"), he soon established for them an ashram, a "spiritual commune," as his students would have it. There he taught his "Kundalini Yoga: The Yoga of Awareness," offered occasional "Tantric Yoga Intensives," and imposed upon his followers the structure and disipline of what he called "the

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healthy, happy, holy way of life." In 1970, the Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization (or 3 H O ) was formally incorporated as a tax-exempt educational organization. By then, Puri was already sending his newly trained "student teachers" to other cities in North America to teach Kundalini Yoga and to establish additional ashrams. During the early 1970s, the organization primarily sought to recruit new members through yoga classes and establish new ashrams where, Puri now claims, members were being purified and prepared to accept their calling as Sikhs. At this point, however, Puri "continued to teach about Sikh Dharma in an indirect w a y " (Khalsa and Khalsa '979: " 9 ) Puri had, however, slowly begun to disclose his own Sikh background and to introduce Sikh teachings to his closest followers. In 1 9 7 1 , he took eightyfour of them to India where they visited the Golden Temple and surrounding shrines. At the Akal Takht, the highest seat of Sikh spiritual and temporal power, the group was cordially received, and Puri was honored for his missionary work. Returning home with what he represented as a mandate to spread the message of Sikhism in the West, Puri began to supplement and supplant his primarily yogic explanation of "the healthy, happy, holy way of life" with a more explicitly Sikh account. Puri also began to use the title "Siri Singh S a h i b , " a title which, he claimed, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (the organization legally empowered to control the historical Sikh gurdwaras in the Punjab) had given him and which he rendered, liberally, as the "Chief Religious and Administrative Authority for the Sikh Dharma in the Western Hemisphere." In 1973, Puri was successful in having the Sikh Dharma Brotherhood (later recast in nongender specific language as, simply, Sikh Dharma) officially registered as a tax-exempt religious organization legally empowered to ordain Sikh "ministers" who would have the authority to perform marriages, to provide the last rites, and to administer the amrt pdhul,18 Puri's own transformation from " Y o g i Bhajan" to the "Siri Singh S a h i b " corresponded roughly to a change from a yogic to a Sikh identity on the part of 3 H O members. The change did not take place overnight; but once convinced by Puri that his "healthy, happy, holy way of life" was an orthodox Sikh one, most 3 H O members did not hesitate to make a formal commitment to their new religion. And Puri provided unprecedented opportunities for 3 H O members to express their commitment, not merely holding the traditional amrt pahul ceremonies but introducing Sikh "initiations" and "minister ordinations" as well. Members' change from yogic to Sikh identity also corresponded to a change in emphases within the organization from recruiting new members and founding additional ashrams to maintaining the established group, raising a second generation, and gaining credibility as upholders of Sikh orthodoxy in North America. 1 9 T o d a y , three to five thousand Gora Sikhs live with their families in or near

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the approximately one hundred 3HO ashrams in North America (and in scattered cities abroad). Their visibility (e.g., their distinctive white uniforms and Indian-sounding names), their aggressive pursuit of "religious rights" (e.g., exemptions from dress codes and saftey rules that would require their giving up turbans and other external symbols), and their frequent critical commentary on the practices of Punjabi Sikhs in North America (see Kaur 1973, 1975) have made them known beyond what their numbers might otherwise warrant. Punjabi Sikhs in North America, in particular, are well aware of their existence. And this is particularly so in places, like Vancouver, where Gora Sikhs have attempted to become involved with the local Punjabi Sikh gurdwaras. 20 The contrast between J a t Sikh and Gora Sikh moral sensitivities has emerged at various points in their social interaction in North America. I focus first on two cases from my fieldwork in Vancouver; each suggests different J a t and Gora perspectives on the unfolding interaction. Each case is simultaneously an instance of the Gora Sikh failure to appreciate the considerations of izzat that underlie the actions of J a t Sikhs and of the J a t Sikh projection of izzat concerns onto the actions of Gora Sikhs. One Gora Sikh complaint about Punjabi Sikhs in Vancouver is their factionalism—or, as the Gora Sikhs put it, "East Indian politics." They express despair and frustration over the factionalism within the Punjabi Sikh community and regard the bitter and often violent struggles for control of the local gurdwaras (and other community institutions both in North America and in India) as incompatible with the practice of the Sikh religion. By the time of my fieldwork in 1978-79, most members of the local 3HO ashram had withdrawn from all but very limited involvement with the management committees of Vancouver's Punjabi-run gurdwaras. Such had not always been the case. Soon after the founding of a 3HO ashram in Vancouver (ca. >972-73), Gora Sikhs attempted to become actively involved with the two preexisting Vancouver Sikh gurdwaras, both dominated by Doabi Jats. Their motivation was largely ideological. Convinced by Puri that they were the true upholders of Sikh orthodoxy in North America, Gora Sikhs had become highly critical of certain changes that had crept into local gurdwara protocol in the years since the early migration. Especially egregious to them was the practice of appearing bareheaded in the presence of the Guru Granth Sahib. In pursuing efforts to ensure that this sacrilege not continue and that headcoverings be made mandatory in the main gurdwara, the Gora Sikhs became involved in an escalating conflict between local Sikh factions. 21 During previous research with 3HO, I had been present in Vancouver during the summer of 1974 when a pitched battle, provoked in part by the Gora Sikhs' attempt to force those entering the gurdwara to cover their heads,

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erupted at the Khalsa Diwan Society's gurdwara in south Vancouver. In the course of this encounter, both Gora Sikhs and Punjabi Sikhs were assaulted: turbans were pulled off, several people were roughed up, and police were ultimately called in to restore order. 22 T h e incident included a reported threat in Vancouver on the life of Puri, who was accompanying visiting Punjabi Sikh dignitaries on a North American tour. T h e Gora Sikhs' despair and incredulity (and, ultimately, their incomprehension) over the whole situation is well summed up in the title of a l e t t e r — " W h a t are the Sikhs doing in V a n c o u v e r ? " — t h a t the head of the local 3 H O ashram wrote to the English-language section of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parhandhak Committee's journal, Gurdwara Gazette (G. R. Singh 1975). Subsequently, the Gora Sikhs grew so frustrated with the factional politics surrounding the gurdwara management committees in Vancouver that they withdrew from the arena. 2 3 Instead, they chose to continue to spread their version of proper Sikh practices by urging Punjabi Sikh participation in the Sikh Youth Federation of C a n a d a (which they had established with sympathetic Punjabi Sikhs to proselytize among Punjabi Sikh youth and to provide legal support of Sikh "religious rights"), by attempting to establish an alternative place of worship at the short-lived Siri Guru Sadan (a gurdwaracum-community center, also known as " N e w A g e Community Centre," located in the "alternative lifestyles" section of town), and by inviting sympathetic Punjabi Sikhs (both local residents and visiting musicians and "preachers" brought from India) to services held in the gurdwara that they maintained at their own Guru Ram Das Ashram. Although local Gora Sikhs viewed their withdrawal as principled (i.e., eschewing divisive politics in favor of concentrating on practice of the Sikh religion), many Jat Sikhs interpreted the Gora Sikh withdrawal as retreat in the face of a public humiliation suffered in the arena of gurdwara politics. Misunderstanding the Gora Sikhs' motivations to enforce the practice of orthodox ideology, Jat Sikhs misinterpreted their estrangement. For J a t Sikhs, izzat rather than ideology provided the explanatory framework. T h e Jat Sikh feeling of moral superiority over a potential challenger was reinforced soon thereafter. In attempting to fund their "Siri Singh S a d a n " as an alternative place of worship, the Gora Sikhs twice went before the sahgat (congregation) at the Akali Singh Society gurdwara to ask for donations. Jat Sikhs were surprised that the Gora Sikhs would so shamelessly solicit and accept charity—in effect, "lowering themselves" by coming not simply once but twice to ask for assistance and then, in the end, failing in the endeavor anyway. Informants were even more incredulous that, having put themselves in debt to the congregation, Gora Sikhs would dare to continue to voice criticism of Punjabi Sikh practices. Several times informants cited this incident to suggest that the Gora Sikhs knew no shame (i.e., were lacking in izzat). Their reactions seemed to indicate clearly that Punjabi Sikhs were

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content to j u d g e the situation morally, using the familiar emotion term of izzat, whether or not the converts shared their moral sensitivities. From the G o r a Sikhs' perspective, in attempting to establish the Siri G u r u Sadan, they were simply offering to create another public setting for the reading of the G u r u G r a n t h Sahib; and by collecting from the congregation, they were offering other Sikhs the chance to contribute toward this religiously meritorious cause. 2 4 Because they neither consciously related to those at the A k a l i Singh g u r d w a r a along group lines nor saw this as a matter of collective prestige, they apparently did not feel that success or failure would redound to them as G o r a Sikhs. T h e y were disappointed that in the end they did not have the financial wherewithal to keep open this place of worship; but, without a J a t Sikh sensitivity to izzat, they never felt humiliated by receipt o f Punjabi Sikh largess and subsequent failure of their project. In fact, I think that they never appreciated the negative implications of this incident for their reputation in the local Punjabi Sikh community. V e r y briefly, let me add two other examples of public actions that provoked very different reactions from G o r a Sikhs and J a t Sikhs. A l t h o u g h the first incident predated my arrival in V a n c o u v e r in 1978, it was still actively discussed. In a nearby community a J a t Sikh man had murdered his w a y w a r d daughter, w h o had apparently run off with a gora (white man) and w a s living openly with him. Rather than continue to suffer this humiliation of his family, her father had killed her in a reportedly brutal manner. G o r a Sikhs, like C a n a d i a n s generally, condemned unconditionally the killing and evinced horror at the very thought of filicide. M y J a t Sikh informants, though by no means condoning to me the man's actions, nevertheless evinced s y m p a t h y with his predicament and recounted other similar stories. In fact, such situations of unapproved, mixed relationships have increasingly arisen in the migrant setting. O t h e r parents have handled the dilemma of w a y w a r d children in w a y s that sought to remove the source of their humiliation by social rather than physical death. T h u s , ostracization and outright denial o f the w a y w a r d family member's existence are c o m m o n responses to izzatthreatening deviance. T h e second case, arising subsequent to my departure in 1979, involved the defection of the local 3 H O ashram's head and his wife's decision to stay on without him in V a n c o u v e r . W h e n the publically recognized leader of the local G o r a Sikhs quit the group, took off his band (the K h a l s a uniform), left behind his divorced wife, child, and " s t u d e n t s , " G o r a Sikh detractors widely represented this as proof of the superficial nature of G o r a Sikh " c o n v e r sions." Even a m o n g those generally sympathetic to the G o r a Sikhs, the defection dealt a severe blow to the G o r a Sikhs' reputation. Even more illuminating were responses to his wife's decision to stay. N o d o u b t the G o r a Sikhs considered the defection of their local leader an unfortunate event, one that their detractors in the Punjabi Sikh community w o u l d

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probably use against them. The leader's wife—whose marriage had been arranged by Puri who had sent them to Vancouver in 1972 to found an ashram—felt torn between her desire to save her marriage and family and her responsibility to the ashram and its projects in the wider Vancouver Sikh community. She represented her ultimate decision to stay as a sign of her commitment to the Sikh dharma (moral duty). 25 In effect, she would sacrifice her marriage to remain a Sikh and provide service as well as leadership to her community. Fellow Gora Sikhs applauded her choice which, they hoped, would show the local Punjabi Sikhs that, even though one of their number was an apostate, the rest were steadfast. It is not clear that this was how Punjabi Sikhs responded. Although they told me that her commitment to Sikhism impressed them, even as they expressed shock at her husband's lack of commitment, it is doubtful that many J a t Sikh women would have acted the same. Because the family is a repository of izzat, izzat suffers when marital discord becomes public. Indeed, Punjabi Sikh families go to great lengths to keep others from learning about the family's intimate life. Women, in particular, have a responsibility to protect the integrity of the family's reputation, even where this might mean maintaining a public fiction. In this instance, informants suggested that a wife's duty would be to follow her husband and, if possible, to work quietly to bring him back into the fold. I hope by now that my point is clear. The difference between Jat Sikh and Gora Sikh moral sensitivities in North America might well be summed up by suggesting, as did one of my reflective Jat Sikh informants, that the Punjabi Sikh community in Vancouver is, in his terms, "pre-ideological" but highly sensitive to izzat in social relations. In contrast, the Gora Sikhs are highly ideological but operate entirely without recognition of or sensitivity to izzat as moral affect. 26 Let me return, at last, to the different responses of North American Sikhs to the news of Mrs. Gandhi's assassination. My point is, of course, not that no J a t Sikhs were willing and able to condemn the assassination or that no Gora Sikhs felt that she had, in some sense, brought her death upon herself. Rather, my point is that most J a t Sikhs (including such "moderates" as Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, the Akali Dal leader who was subsequently assassinated for negotiating an accord with Rajiv Gandhi) felt the destruction of the Akal Takht as a humiliation inflicted upon the Panth, a humilation demanding some counteraction to restore Sikh izzat. In contrast, the Gora Sikhs regarded the destruction of the Akal Takht as a desecration but the ultimate unfortunate consequence of "Indian politics." They responded by urging a cessation of the politics that threatened the religion and demanding a return of Sikhs to their dharma. If the dominant moral sentiments expressed in Gora Sikh pronouncements at the time were righteous indignation and exasperation, those of J a t

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Sikhs were humiliation and vengefulness. Thus, in the months between Operation Bluestar and the assassination of Mrs. Gandhi, Punjabi Sikhs spoke of the needs to remember those Sikhs martyred by government troops, to avenge the death and desecration that occurred in the assault on the Akal Takht, and to restore the honor of the Sikh Panth. 27 At the same time, Gora Sikhs (in such contexts as Beads of Truth, the semiannual organ of 3 H O ) , also spoke of the "martyrdom of Akal T a k h a t " but argued for a "negotiate-forsolution and do not be revengeful" posture. 28 If most Jat Sikhs felt that the "martyrdom of the Akal T a k h t " was occasion for a pledge of vengeance and retribution, the Gora Sikhs felt that it was occasion for a pledge "to improve any aspect of our individual performance as gursikhs" (H. S. Khalsa 1984:44). Reminded by Michelle Rosaldo (1983, 1984), Catherine Lutz (1983, 1986), and O w e n M . Lynch (this volume) that emotions are culturally constructed moral affects constitutive of the self, I am now in a position to pose two questions: What are the different moral affects experienced by Punjabi Sikhs and Gora Sikhs? Moreover, what within the different social selves makes izzat such a key moral affect for Punjabis but, in the same social situation, elicits no comparable emotional response from Westerners? 29 T o ask the latter question is not to suggest that Punjabis are somehow inherently more emotional and less rational than Westerners. Indeed, the benefit of looking at moral affect is that one need not oppose the emotional and the rational. As long as their socialization experiences continue to differ, Jat Sikhs—raised sensitive to the variable reputations of the collectivities of which they are a p a r t — a n d Gora Sikhs—raised sensitive to their personal integrity as individuals—will differ in their emotions as appraisals of common situations. But Gora Sikhs can be said to be as emotional as Jat Sikhs; however, the moral affect with which they appraise these contexts is not izzat but indignation and exasperation at failure to live up to one's religious duties. 30 Although the dominant Euroamerican ethnopsychology and ethnosociology may continue to regard emotion as antithetical to morality, moral judgments are clearly central to the sorts of appraisals of social situations crucial to a moral affect like izzat. This should lead us to rethinking further the classic analytical oppositions between emotion and moral code, sentiment and structure, individual and society, personal experience and cultural construct. A s I have suggested, concepts like izzat are particularly good candidates for analysis because they so clearly involve both moral and affective dimensions. Yet, the very centrality of izzat and related concepts in peoples' emotional lives commonly leads those who experience a particular moral affect to assume its universality (rather than to reflect upon its relativity) and

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t h u s to m a k e f a m i l i a r m o r a l a p p r a i s a l s in n e w settings a n d to project a similar m o r a l sensitivity o n t o others. B u t clearly izzat is not a universal emotion; rather, it is a socially learned m o r a l a p p r a i s a l w i t h a t t e n d a n t affective dimensions. T h e s a m e situation, as I h a v e s h o w n , will elicit v e r y different e m o t i o n a l responses from different persons, d e p e n d i n g u p o n their prior socialization. 3 1

M o r e o v e r , situations as

s u c h d o not elicit c e r t a i n kinds o f emotions; rather, it is the a p p r a i s a l o f them that is different, a n d this is identified by an e m o t i o n a l term. W e m u s t necessarily be alert, therefore, to the w a y s in w h i c h people o f different cultures are socialized into different universes o f m o r a l affect. H o w e v e r , b e c a u s e w e live in a w o r l d o f i n t e r a c t i n g c u l t u r e s — w h e r e , for e x a m p l e , y o u n g N o r t h A m e r i c a n s a r e b e i n g asked to present the S i k h reaction to m a j o r I n d i a n sociopolitical e v e n t s — i t n o l o n g e r m a k e s sense to content ourselves w i t h d r a w i n g o u t contrasts b e t w e e n , for e x a m p l e , I l o n g o t " s h a m e " a n d A m e r i c a n " s h a m e " or J a t S i k h " h o n o r " a n d A m e r i c a n " h o n o r " as if they were a n a l y t i c s p e c i m e n s o f e m o t i o n s existing o n l y in s e p a r a t e social universes. I n s t e a d , w e m u s t also r e c o g n i z e a n d i n t e r p r e t those instances w h e r e cultural differences in m o r a l affect e x p r e s s t h e m s e l v e s in m u t u a l ( m i s ) a p p r e h e n s i o n s o f social actors in s h a r e d interaction. W i t h G o r a S i k h s a n d J a t Sikhs a t t e m p t i n g to i n c o r p o r a t e e a c h o t h e r in a c o m m o n m o r a l universe, w e c a n thereby investigate " m o r a l affect"

in

the

breach.

And,

because

these

situations

of

cross-cultural

e s t r a n g e m e n t will b e p a t t e r n e d , k n o w i n g the p a r t i c u l a r s a b o u t h o w , s a y , izzat is entailed a n d i n d e x e d in social life will h e l p m a k e p u b l i c e v e n t s — s u c h as the differing P u n j a b i Sikh a n d G o r a S i k h reactions to M r s . G a n d h i ' s a s s a s s i n a t i o n — i n t e l l i g i b l e . T h a t has been the intent o f this analysis.

Notes to Chapter Nine This essay draws on fieldwork conducted in 1978-79 in Vancouver, British Columbia, with Punjabi Sikhs and Gora Sikhs and on fieldwork conducted in 1972 and 1974 in the western United States and Canada with the Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization. It benefits from continuing archival research and from ongoing conversations with Sikhs throughout North America. I would like to thank Elizabeth Coville, Owen M. Lynch, M c K i m Marriott, W. H. McLeod, the late Paul Riesman, and the participants in the conference on the Anthropology of Experience, Feeling, and Emotion in India for helpful comments on earlier versions of this essay. I absolve them of any responsibility for the essay's weaknesses. 1. See, for example, the New York Times, November 1, 1984, p. 13. 2. Puri is from the Khatri (mercantile) rather than Jat (agriculturalist) section of the Sikh Panth (community). Khatris claim elevated status within the Panth by virtue of the fact that Nanak, the first Sikh Guru (preceptor), and his successors were all Khatris. However, although Khatris remain an influential caste in the urban areas of Punjab, Jats have come to predominate within the Panth. This is true among the Sikh

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diaspora as well as in the Punjab. The concern with izzat (honor), the topic of this essay, is especially a J a t Sikh concern. The fact that Puri is a Khatri, not a J a t , may have something to do with his response to the assassination, but it cannot entirely account for the moral sensitivities of his gora followers. 3. The Ghadar Party was a revolutionary organization, centered in North America, which sought the overthrow of British rule in India. Although the leadership of the party came from the Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh immigrant intelligentsia, support of the immigrant Punjabi Sikh masses was crucial to its ability to raise funds and volunteers. Hopkinson had been used elsewhere along the Pacific Coast by Canadian and American agencies interested in gathering information on potentially revolutionary activities among South Asian immigrants. For a detailed analysis of the Ghadar Party, including discussion of Hopkinson's activities, see Puri (1983). Although he does not discuss the concept directly, Puri's analysis suggests that appeals to izzat were effective in generating support from the Sikh immigrants of peasant stock, as "heaped symbols of shame and oppression were used to generate a certain autointoxication of disgrace" (Puri 1 9 8 3 : 1 1 9 ) . 4. Gurduara (or gurudvara) comes from guru (preceptor) + dvara (door) = "the residence of the Guru." I employ the more commonly encountered anglicized spelling, gurdwara, throughout this essay. 5. I speak of a "Sikh community" in Vancouver to the extent that most selfdescribed Sikhs in Vancouver continue to seek to influence one another's lives in the name of common membership in the Sikh Panth. At its "Desh Bhagat Temple" the local East Indian Defence Committee—an offshoot of the Indian and Canadian Communist parties (Marxist-Leninist)—celebrates Mewa Singh as one of a line of local Sikhs (including Ghadar revolutionaries, Indian National Army soldiers, and recent Naxalite terrorists) martyred through their involvement in revolutionary antiimperialist and class struggle. The Khalsa Diwan Society and the Akali Singh Society, at their respective gurdwaras, represent Mewa Singh as a local martyr who, like earlier Sikh martyrs in India, gave his life for the perpetuation of his people and his religion in the face of hostility from the dominant society. The appropriation of Mewa Singh's martyrdom by such different groups suggests that he is a significant collective symbol of a "Vancouver Sikh community." 6. I employ the conventional transliteration, izzat, which reflects the pronunciation of the term in the Majhi dialect (of the Amritsar-Lahore area) on which literary Punjabi and most Punjabi dictionaries are based. The pronunciation in the dialects of Doaba and Malwa (the areas of the Punjab south of the Sutlej River from which most of my informants originate) is more accurately rendered as ijjat. 7. A near-synonym, commonly used in Doabi J a t Sikh conversation, is man (respect, prestige, pride, veneration, arrogance). 8. Malcolm Darling, the British Indian civil servant whose classic books on Punjabi village life (The Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt, Rusticus Loquitur, and Wisdom and Waste in the Punjab Village) constitute a regrettably ethnocentric but nonetheless valuable ethnographic record, recognized both the importance and difficulty of the concept. He notes of izzat that it is " a word for which there is no precise English equivalent, denoting objectively, social position, and subjectively, amour-propre" (1934:42, n.3). See also the discussion of the term in Pettigrew ( 1 9 7 5 : 5 8 - 5 9 ) . 9. See, for example, Charles Lindholm's (1982) illuminating discussion of

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personal honor as central to the social organization and emotional life of the Swat Pukhtun of Northern Pakistan. 10. W. H. McLeod (1976:37-58) discusses in some detail the way in which what people have come to regard as general Sikh characteristics (including the outward Khalsa form and the martial reputation) are largely J a t customs and attributes institutionalized within the Panth. McLeod argues convincingly that the living human Sikh Gurus, all of whom were Khatris, gradually came to adopt J a t practices as J a t s came to predominate among their followers. Nevertheless, even today the Panth continues to include those Nanakpanthis who emphasize the more quietistic teachings of the first Guru, as well as those "orthodox" Sikhs who emphasize the militarism of the Khalsa (whose creation is credited to Guru Gobind Singh, the last human Sikh Guru). If one can speak of emulating the "dominant caste" within the Sikh Panth, one would have to recognize the remnants of contending Khatri and J a t models. Concern with izzat is not normally the intense concern for Khatris that it is for Jats, and this may partially account for the Jat stereotype that Khatris are, by nature, cowardly and spineless. It appears that Jats and Khatris are socialized with different transactional strategies (see Marriott 1976; esp. 132-133) and, consequently, different moral sensitivities. 11. In his recent, posthumously published book, Women's Seclusion and Men's Honor (1988), David Mandelbaum identifies and analyzes what he terms a "purdah-izzat complex" extending—with some regional, caste, class, and religious variation—from Pakistan, throughout most of northern India, to Bangladesh. 13. Mrs. Gandhi's assassins will, by having acted to defend the honor of the Panth, also presumably ensure the honor of their families and descendants. In fact, Beant Singh, the Sikh bodyguard and a presumed assassin, slain during the incident, is already being honored as a martyr in his village; and his shrine will likely continue to be focal point of veneration by members of his lineage. 13. Sending individuals away from the village is, of course, something quite different than migrating together as a family unit. The preference for the former type of migration, which does not involve relinquishing landholdings in the ancestral village, may distinguish landowning J a t Sikhs from other Punjabi migrants. 14. I do not believe that izzat tells the whole story about Sikh endogamy (see Dusenbery 1988, in press), but it plays a significant role. Vaughn Robinson (1980) notes how concern for izzat works against the marriage opportunities of highly educated, British-raised Sikh girls whose sexual purity and ability to submit to the demands of life in her husband's family may be questioned by exposure to Western society. My own research suggests that J a t Sikhs in Vancouver have sought to avoid certain jobs (e.g., cleaning, service, sales) that, although they may bear no stigma to non-Punjabi Canadians, are deemed beneath the dignity of a J a t Sikh and detrimental to family reputation. 15. Most of my informants estimated the percentage of Jats among the Sikh oldtimers in British Columbia at 90 percent or more. The lowest estimate known to me is Adrian C. Mayer's, who writes that "the vast majority of Vancouver Sikhs are from the same caste—the J a t . Perhaps not more than one-fifth represent other castes" (1959: '3)16. For accounts that attempt to assay the effects of the recent immigration on particular North American Sikh communities, see Buchignani, Indra, and

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Srivast[a]va (1985), Chadncy (1985), Dusenbery (1981), La Brack (1983, 1988). For a general overview and specific case studies of Sikh migration and the experience beyond Punjab, see Barrier and Dusenbery (1989). 17. I have discussed this process in greater detail in, especially, Dusenbery (1986, 1988, in press); see also Dusenbery (1981). 18. The amrt poind or amrt samskara ceremony effects the incorporation of one into the Khalsa Panth, the so-called "Brotherhood of the Pure" (see Dusenbery in press). By tradition, any five worthy Khalsa Sikhs can be constituted as the panj pyare (literally, five beloved) to administer this ceremony. Puri's institutionalization of Sikh "ministers" is but one of his innovations in building an ecclesiastical hierarchy unprecedented among Sikhs. 19. I analyze the commitment mechanisms used in the early 3 H O recruitment process in Dusenbery (1973). I focus on the yogic to Sikh transformation of the organization in Dusenbery (1975). 20. For an account of early Gora Sikh involvement with Punjabi Sikh gurdwaras in Los Angeles, sec Fleuret (1974). For accounts of early Gora Sikh involvement with Punjabi Sikh gurdwaras in northern California, see La Brack (1974, 1979) and Bharati (1980). 21. Somewhat conflicting accounts of the factional dispute can be found in accounts commissioned by the British Columbia Police Commission (D. Singh '975 : 39~44)> reported in the Sikh press by the head of the local 3HO ashram (G. R. Singh 1975), produced by an outside UNESCO researcher (Scanlon 1977), and presented in a University of British Columbia master's thesis (Campbell 1977:74-102); see also Dusenbery (1981). The main factional disputants were a "businessmen" faction, so-called because it drew its strength from the successful, established immigrants who had seen to the building of the present gurdwara in the late 1960s, and a more "orthodox" faction, representing recent immigrants and numbering among its leaders some non-Jat professionals with whom the Gora Sikhs believed themselves to have some affinity. The source of most of the violence was a "communist" cadre of Naxalites affiliated with the East Indian Defence Committee and the CCP-ML, a group that each of the two major factions felt was working in league with its opponents. 22. For Punjabi Sikhs, pulling off a man's turban is a serious challenge to his izzat. Similarly, roughing up someone in public is as much an assault on his izzat as it is on his physical person. For comparative purposes, see the detailed discussion of "the dialectic of challenge and riposte" in "the competition of honour" among the Kabyle of North Africa in Bourdieu (1966). 23. Aside from occasionally attending gurdwara functions, the only semiofficial relationship that any Gora Sikh maintained with either of the two main Vancouver gurdwaras was through a "Sunday school" class taught by the wife of the ashram head at the Akali Singh gurdwara. After I left Vancouver, members of the local ashram ran a Montessori School on Khalsa Diwan Society property, but even that relationship soon dissolved with recriminations on both sides. 24. Contributions toward construction, improvement, or maintenance of a gurdwara are meritorious gifts to the Guru. Because the amount of a donation is public knowledge (amounts of gifts are read to the congregation and subsequently published), conspicuous philanthropy is both religiously meritorious and secularly good

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for one's reputation. As a consequence, gurdwaras tend to be quite lavishly endowed institutions in wealthy settings. During my fieldwork, several million dollars worth of property purchases, building projects, or expansions and remodelings were scheduled at some seven present or planned gurdwaras in the greater Vancouver area. 25. I have employed the Sanskritized form, dharma, rather than the Punjabi, dharam, because that is the form used by the Gora Sikhs. In everyday conversation, G o r a Sikhs use "Sikh dharma," "Sikh religion," and "Sikh way of life" interchangeably. 26. I would argue that, whereas they are insensitive to izzat as a mora] affect, the Gora Sikhs have a highly legalistic understanding of "the dharma" as a moral imperative underlying their ideology and actions. It seems telling not only that the G o r a Sikhs call their religious body, Sikh Dharma, but also that their claims to orthodoxy rest on strict adherence to the "moral d u t y " they identify with the Sikh rahit maryada (literally, prestigious code for conduct). A generally accepted version of the rahit was formally issued by the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Commitee in 1950. T h e fact that most Punjabi Sikhs are ignorant of and indifferent to the exact contents of this d o c u m e n t — a n d , especially in the case of Jat Sikhs, would not feel their identity as Sikhs dependent on strict adherence to its rules of conduct—merely confirms the Gora Sikhs in their conviction that they, rather than the body of Punjabi Sikhs, are the true upholders of "the dharma." For a further discussion of the Gora Sikhs' understanding of religion, see Dusenbery (1981, 1986, in press). For the text of and commentary on the Sikh rahit maryada, see McLeod (1984:79-86). 27. "Blood for Blood" ran the lead headline in Vancouver's Punjabi-language Indo-Canadian Times (vol. 7, no. 23) for the week ending June 15, 1984. Elsewhere, the intense emotions Punjabi Sikhs experienced at the time are partially reflected in the following accounts: " W e have suffered and suffered terribly in every respect during the last 2 years. O u r prestige has gone down. O u r honour has been compromised and the very source of our spiritual sustence [jic] has been cruelly hit" (W. Singh 1985:42). "Some of us outside Panjab had visualized the possibility of alienation which the entry of troops into gurdwaras would create among the Sikhs. But we had not reckoned with the intensity of the humiliation they have felt. Every Sikh we met was distressed by the Army action. They think that there has been an assault on their identity" (Chowdhury and Anklesaria 1984:143). "Virtually to a man, the 14 million strong [Sikh] community felt as if it had been slapped in the face. . . . T h e feeling of hurt and humiliation among Sikhs runs so deep that they seem to feel that they are a persecuted minority" ( K . Singh and K . Nayar 1984:37, 41). " T h e Sikhs feel totally alienated and isolated. Their pride and self-respect have been badly hit and the festering wound inflicted may take decades to heal, though the memory of the tragic happening will remain treasured in the Sikh psyche" (B. Singh 1984:4a). 28. See, for example, the following articles: Sardami Premka K a u r K h a l s a (1984), Shakti Parwha K a u r Khalsa (1984), Harbhajan Singh Khalsa (1984), Sikh D h a r m a Secretariat (1984a, 1984b). Takhat is an alternative spelling of Takht. 29. T h e articles in Peristiany (1966) on honor and shame in Mediterranean society, although not systematically focused on the contrast of the person in Mediterranean and modern Euroamerican societies, nevertheless contain valuable insights into the very different social selves presupposed. Peristiany and other contributors to the volume point out that honor in Mediterranean societies is the concern of equals or near equals interacting in public settings. In Punjabi society, izzat as a moral affect is

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similarly relevant to public relations between would-be elite persons, families, or castes. Within the private sphere of the family and in public interactions with inferiors or superiors, other moral appraisals apply. 30. Punjabi Sikhs and Gora Sikhs construe dharma in very different ways. For Gora Sikhs, Sikh dharma, as a "religious" code for conduct, constitutes a privileged source of ultimate morality applicable across all contexts. For Punjabi Sikhs, Sikh dharma, however privileged it may be, is but one of a number of moral codes for conduct impinging upon the person. See Dusenbery (1988, in press) for a more detailed discussion of the different concepts of the person presupposed by Gora Sikhs and Punjabi Sikhs. 3 1 . Even fear of dangerous things in children may be more culturally learned than innate. Catherine Lutz reports that "academic psychologists have begun to accumulate evidence. . . suggesting that the number of danger response elicitors present from birth is much smaller than was once thought" (1983:257). If this were considered in a cross-cultural context, it might be nil.

References Cited Barrier, N. Gerald, and Verne A. Dusenbery, eds. 1989 The Sikh Diaspora: Migration and the Experience Beyond Punjab. Delhi: Chanakya Publications; Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Publications. Benedict, Ruth 1949 The Chrysanthemum and the Sword. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. Bharati, Agehananda 1980 Indian Expatriates in North America and neo-Hindu Movements. In The Communication of Ideas. J . S. Yadava and V. Gautam, eds. Pp. '¿45-265. Delhi: Concept. Bourdieu, Pierre 1966 The Sentiment of Honour in Kabyle Society. In Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society. J . G. Peristiany, ed. Pp. 191—241. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1976 Marriage Strategies as Strategies of Social Reproduction. In Family and Society: Selections from the Annates Economies, Societies, Civilisations. Robert Foster and Orest Rannum, eds. Elborg Forster and Patricia M. Rannum, trans. Pp. 1 1 7 - 1 4 4 . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Buchignani, Norman, and Doreen M. Indra, with Ram Srivast[a]va 1985 Continuous Journey: A Social History of South Asians in Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Campbell, Michael Graeme 1977 The Sikhs of Vancouver: A Case Study in Minority-Host Relations. Master's thesis, Political Science Department, University of British Columbia. Chadney, James G. 1984 The Sikhs of Vancouver. New York: A M S Press. Chowdhury, Neeija, and Shahnaz Anklesaria 1984 How the Sikhs Have Taken It. The Sikh Review 32 (368): 1 4 3 - 1 4 4 .

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Darling, Malcolm Lyall 1934 Wisdom and Waste in the Punjab Village. New York: Oxford University Press. Dusenbery, Verne A. 1973 "Why would anybody join. . . ?": A Study of Recruitment and the Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization. Senior honor's essay, Anthropology Department, Stanford University. 1975 Straight—»Freak—» Yogi—»Sikh: A "Search for Meaning" in Contemporary American Culture. Master's thesis, Anthropology Department, University of Chicago. 1981 Canadian Ideology and Public Policy: The Impact on Vancouver Sikh Ethnic and Religious Adaptation. Canadian Ethnic Studies 13(3): 1 0 1 - 1 1 9 . 1986 On Punjabi Sikh-Gora Sikh Relations. In Aspects of Modem Sikhism. Michigan Papers in Sikh Studies, No. 1. Pp. 13-24. Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan. 1988 Punjabi Sikhs and Gora Sikhs: Conflicting Assertions of Sikh Identity in North America. In Sikh History and Religion in the Twentieth Century. Joseph T. O'Connell, Milton Israel, and Willard G. Oxtoby, with W. H. McLeod and J . S. Grewal, eds. Pp. 334-355- Toronto: Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Toronto. In press The Sikh Person, the Khalsa Panth, and Western Sikh Converts. In Religious Movements and Social Identity: Continuity and Change in India. Bardwell L. Smith, ed. Delhi: Chanakya Publications. Fleuret, Anne K. 1974 Incorporation into Networks Among Sikhs in Los Angeles. Urban Anthropology 3 ( 0 : 2 7 - 3 3 Geertz, Clifford 1973 Person, Time and Conduct in Bali. In The Interpretation of Cultures. Pp. 364-411. New York: Basic Books. Helweg, Arthur Wesley 1979 Sikhs in England: The Development of a Migrant Community. Delhi: Oxford. Howe, Marvine 1984 Among Indians Far From Home, Joyful Celebrations Contrast With Shock and Grief. In New York Times, November 1, p. 13. Kaur, Sardarni Premka 1973 Rejoinder. The Sikh Review 21(232): 52-56. 1975 Listen, O "Patit" and Learn. Gurdwara Gazette 46(4): 4— 13. Khalsa, Harbhajan Singh 1984 Message from Siri Singh Sahib Harbhajan Singh Khalsa Yogi. Sikh Review 32(369):44. Khalsa, Sardarni Premka Kaur 1984 Sikh Dharma Position on Crisis in Punjab. Beads of Truth 2(13): 27. Khalsa, Shakti Parwha Kaur 1984 In Memorium. Beads of Truth 2(14): 4-10.

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Khalsa, Shakti Parwha Kaur, and Gurubanda Singh Khalsa •979

The Siri Singh Sahib. In The Man Called the Siri Singh Sahib. S. P. K. Khalsa and S. K. K. Khalsa, eds. Pp. 117-131. Los Angeles: Sikh Dharma. La Brack, Bruce Wilfred 1974 Neo-Sikhism and East Indian Religious Identification. Paper presented at Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, Kansas City, Kansas, November. 197g Sikhs Ideal and Real: A Discussion of Text and Context in the Description of Overseas Sikh Communities. In Sikh Studies: Comparative Perspectives on a Changing Tradition. Mark Juergensmeyer and N. Gerald Barrier, eds. Pp. 127-142. Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union. 1983 The Reconstitution of Sikh Society in Rural California. In Overseas Indians: A Study in Adaptation. George Kurian and Ram P. Srivastava, eds. Pp. 215-240. Delhi: Vikas. 1988 The Sikhs of Northern California, 1904-1986. New York: AMS Press. Lindholm, Charles 1982 Generosity and Jealously: The Swat Pukhtun of Northern Pakistan. New York: Columbia University Press. Lutz, Catherine 1983 Parental Goals, Ethnopsychology, and the Development of Emotional Meaning. Ethos 11 (4): 246-262. 1986 Emotion, Thought, and Estrangement: Emotion as a Cultural Category. Cultural Anthropology 1 (3): 287-309. Mandelbaum, David G. 1988 Women's Seclusion and Men's Honor: Sex Roles in North India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Marriott, McKim 1976 Hindu Transactions: Diversity Without Dualism. In Transaction and Meaning: Directions in the Anthropology of Exchange and Symbolic Behavior. Bruce Kapferer, ed. Pp. 109-142. Philadelphia: ISHI Publications. Mayer, Adrian C. 1959 A Report on the East Indian Community in Vancouver. Working Paper, Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of British Columbia. McLeod, W. H. 1976 The Evolution of the Sikh Community. Oxford: Clarendon. 1984 Textual Sources for the Study of Sikhism. W. H. McLeod, ed. and trans. Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes and Noble Books. Peristiany, J . G., ed. 1966 Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Pettigrew, Joyce 1975 Robber Noblemen: A Study of the Political System of the Sikh Jats. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Piers, Gerhart, and Milton B. Singer 1953 Shame and Guilt. New York: Charles C. Thomas. Puri, Harish K. 1983 Ghadar Movement: Ideology, Organisation and Strategy. Amritsar, Punjab: Guru Nanak Dev University Press.

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Robinson, Vaughan 1980 Patterns of South Asian Ethnic Exogamy and Endogamy in Britain. Ethnic and Racial Studies 3(4)1427-443. Rosaldo, Michelle Z. 1983 The Shame of Headhunters and the Autonomy of Self. Ethos 1 1 ( 3 ) : 1 3 5 15»Toward an Anthropology of Self and Feeling. In Culture Theory: Essays on Mind, Self, and Emotion. Richard A. Shweder and Robert A. LeVine, eds. Pp. 1 3 7 - 1 5 7 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scanlon, Joseph 1977 T h e Sikhs of Vancouver: A Case Study of the Role of the Media in Ethnic Relations. In From Ethnicity and the Media: An Analysis of Media Reporting in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Ireland. Pp. 1 9 3 - 2 6 1 . Paris: UNESCO. Sikh Dharma Secretariat 1984a A Factual Report. Los Angeles: Sikh Dharma. 1984b Martyrdom of the Akal Takhat. Los Angeles: Sikh Dharma. Singh, Bhag 1984

1984

Sikhs Smarting Under Healing Touch [editorial]. Sikh Review 32(368): 1 -

5Singh, Dave 1975 Some Factors in the Relationship Between the Police and East Indians. Victoria: British Columbia Police Commission. Singh, Guru Raj 1975 What are the Sikhs Doing in Vancouver? Gurdwara Gazette 46(10): 30-34. Singh, Khushwant 1964

Mewa Singh Shahid: He Died for His Countrymen. Sikh Review 12(128):

5-6Singh, Khushwant, and Kuldip Nayar 1984 In the Aftermath of Operation Bluestar. Sikh Review 32(371) :37~43Singh, Waryam 1985 Retrieving the Honour of the Sikhs. Sikh Review 33(382): 40-43.

TEN

Hare Krishna, Radhe Shyam The Cross-Cultural Dynamics of Mystical Emotions in Brindaban Charles R. Brooks

Introduction In the North Indian pilgrimage town of Brindaban (Vrndavana), the epicenter of Krishna devotion (Krsna-bhakti), residents are familiar with the Bhagavata Mahatmya of the Padma Purana in which the personification of devotional Hinduism (bhakti) recounts her birth and development. 1 One informant, an ascetic holy man, summarizes part of the text: B h a k t i says that she w a s born in the D r a v i d country and c a m e to m a t u r i t y in K a r n a t a k a . L a t e r she w a s respected in M a h a r a s h t r a and g r e w to a ripe old a g e in G u j a r a t , but there she b e c a m e w e a k and sluggish, and w a s hated by the heretics d u e to the arrival o f the K a l i age. T h i s is an a c c o u n t f o u n d in the scriptures of the a c t u a l history of bhakti religion. But then she says that w h e n she c a m e to B r i n d a b a n . . . . B r i n d a b a n m a d e her fresh and beautiful a g a i n . 2

Indeed, Brindaban's importance to devotional Hinduism, especially for those sects that worship Krishna as the supreme god, exists on several levels. Not only does the name refer to the town located along the banks of the Jamuna (Jamund) River in the southwestern corner of present-day Uttar Pradesh, but it is also the name of the highest celestial realm, or dhama, where Krishna eternally conducts his lila (tila, sports, playful activities). 3 For the Krishna devotee (bhakta), the phenomenal earthly Brindaban and the spiritual Brindaban are identical. T h e terrestrial Brindaban, therefore, is considered more than just a sacred place of pilgrimage (tirtha) where the devout person can find a bridge to the spiritual world; it is fully the spiritual world already. Additionally, Brindaban names the ideal state of mind that is the goal of every Krishna devotee (De 1961:223, 249; Dimock 1966:165-170; Kapoor 1977:108-113; Kinsley 1 9 7 9 : 1 1 2 - 1 2 1 ; Hardy 1983:567). 4 While emphasizing the significance of Brindaban for the medieval renais262

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sance of a Krishna-centered devotional religion, the ascetic continues the story of Bhakti by {minting out that she is not content to reside only in India once her rejuvenation has taken place: Bhakti continues with an important prophecy, well-known by most Brajbasi [residents of Braj], by saying that she will leave this country and go abroad. It is clear that her use of the word videsam [foreign place] in the text indicates a country other than India. Within India she is careful to list by name all the places. So she is definitely making a prophecy about bhakli's spread outside India. 5

In 1965, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, a sannydsi (monk) of the Bengal Vaishnava sect (gaunya vaisnava sampradaya),6 journeyed from India to the United States to fulfill a mission that he perceived Krishna gave through his own guru: 7 to spread Krishna devotionalism to the West in the English language. For ten years prior to his journey, Bhaktivedanta Swami had lived, studied, written, and meditated in Brindaban, planning how this indigenous Indian religion might be spread outside India, especially to the United States. At the age of seventy he arrived in New York after a long voyage on a freight steamer, and within one year had formally incorporated the international Society for Krishna Consciousness ( I S K C O N ) , to become widely known as the Hare Krishna Movement, one of the many "new religions" spawned during the culturally productive period of the late 1960s. 8 Although in the American context this religion was new and mysterious, in India it represented a tradition dating back to the founder of Bengal Vaishnavism, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (Caitanya Mahdprabhu), an ecstatic saint who lived from i486 to 1533 (Dimock 1966:30). Over the next twelve years until his death in Brindaban in 1977, Bhaktivedanta gradually transformed his disciples into Vaishnavas according to the strict tradition of his sect. Eventually, as was his plan all along, he brought American disciples back to Brindaban where they were received with curiosity and tactful respect.9 Some local inhabitants also interpreted the swami's success in America as fulfilling the scriptural prophecy. The projects that Bhaktivedanta and his disciples undertook in India firmly established them there, and large temples built and staffed mainly by the foreign Vaishnavas now exist in Mayapur (near Chaitanya's birthplace in Bengal), Bombay, and Brindaban, with small centers spread throughout India. But undoubtedly for Bhaktivedanta, the Brindaban temple was symbolically most important. There the Krishna-Balaram (Krsna-Balarama) temple complex was opened in 1975, 1 0 and since that time an entourage of I S K C O N devotees has lived in the town." For sixteen months during 1982 and 1983 I conducted anthropological fieldwork in Brindaban to discover what types of interaction were occurring

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between the foreign devotees and Indian pilgrims and residents and to determine what impact these interactions were having. From this research it is clear that the effect has been significant. Not only is I S K C O N now considered a legitimate branch of Bengal Vaishnavism (Brooks 1985), but the temple of Krishna-Balaram has also become an integral part of Brindaban's sacred pilgrimage complex. 12 Nonetheless, although I S K C O N devotees are considered legitimate Vaishnavas in the Bengal tradition, some Brindaban residents perceive that I S K C O N Vaishnavism is somehow different from their own. This perception is not a simple recognition of obvious ethnic differences, now largely overcome by I S K C O N ' s behavioral presentation and arguments from traditional texts, but rather an intangible feeling revealed in various comments: for example, "indeed they are very good Vaishnavas, perhaps the best in Brindaban, but their mood is different from ours"; and "their understanding is not yet complete—they are only beginning along the path of deep mysteries of Krishna in the madkurya-rasa [erotic emotion] of B r a j . " 1 3 In this chapter I explore the dimension of contrast to which these statements allude. By examining the emotional components of Krishna-¿AaA 1 2 8 - 1 4 4 , 1 4 7 1 1 2 ; and purdah, 119, 1 2 3 - 1 2 4 , 127; and respect, 1 1 8 - 1 1 9 , 135, 1471118; and role reversal, 1 3 3 - 1 3 5 , 142; and segregation of sexes, 124; and sexuality, 1 2 3 - 1 2 6 , 1 3 1 139; and teasing, 128; as untouchables, 1 1 7 - 1 1 8 , 121, 123-124

CUippatiiaram, 59114 Clark, Margaret, 65 Classical tradition, 9 1 , 1 1 0 ; and aesthetics, >93 Clifford, J a m e s , 58m Clothing: as indicator of status, 5 3 - 5 4 ; and old age, 75 Cognitive theory, 4, 7 - 8 , 1 o, 14, 28n5, 2 1 2 Consciousness: as activity, 37; Cartesian theory of, 92 Contraception, 216 Cooley, Charles H., 28n6 Cosmology, 1 7 1 , 2 1 3 , 231 Crapanzano, Vincent, 58m Cross-cultural perspective, 3, 7, 17, 27, 2 8 m , 94; and aging, 84-85,86n 1; and Hare Krishna sect in Brindaban, 275; and Sikhs in Canada, 240-242, 253, 258130; and taste metaphor, 1 1 2 n 16 Cruelty, 2 1 ; among Tamils, 47-50, 5g-6on6 Culture: and asceticism, 103; and attitudes toward aging, 64-66, 68-69, 84-85; and attitudes toward death, 83; Balinese, 102; Braj, 1 5 7 - 1 5 9 , 1 7 1 ; Buddhist, 94; Chaube, 97, 107; and ideology, 157; as interaction, 3 7 - 3 8 ; and intergenerational relations, 75; interpretation of, 20, 25; J a i n , 94; and jokes, 116— 117, 1 2 6 - 1 2 7 , 140; and motherhood, 167; Nepali, 78-79; and political economy, 107; representation of, 58n2, 5 8 59n3, 6on6; and revitalization movement, a83n21; and self, 242, 253; and social construction of emotion, 6 - 1 1 , 13, 1 5 - 1 7 , 22, 6 4 . 9 3 - 9 4 . '»9. ' 5 7 - ' 5 8 . '66. • 7 4 - • 75. 1 8 3 - 1 8 5 , 204, 2 1 2 , 242, 2 5 2 - 2 5 3 ; and social identity, 161; and subjectivity, 17, 26,

99; as system of signs, 103; Tamil, 39, 6on6, 6 i n i 2 ; and textuality, 2 0 - 2 1 ; of United States, 16, 65, 68, 84

Dadi, 137, 147 Dana, 96

Dance, 1 7 - 1 8 , 22, 103, 193; and bhakti, 2 2 5 226; and bhiva, 2 2 1 - 2 2 4 , 226-227; as bodily refinement, 2 2 0 - 2 2 3 , 2 3 ' 1 a s codification of emotion, 222; and costume, 2 1 8 - 2 1 9 ; as dialogue, 2 2 1 - 2 2 2 , 234m 3; and eroticism, 219, 224, 227, 229; esoteric, 2 1 7 - 2 1 8 ; and female divine sovereignty, 216, 218, 220, 222, 225; and film, 233ng; gestures in, 2 2 0 - 2 2 3 , 228-229, 2 3 ' I history of, 2 3 2 m 1, 2 3 3 m 1; and mime, 2 2 8 229; performative aspect of, 2 3 1 ; and poetry, 2 2 5 - 2 2 9 , 232n2; and rasa, 2 2 4 225; and religion, 266; and rhythm, 220, 233nio; and ritual, 2 1 2 - 2 1 4 , 2 1 6 - 2 1 8 , 2 2 5 - 2 3 1 ; and sakti, 218, 224; as stage art, 2 1 2 , 232n2; and subjectivity, 220, 2 2 2 223; in temples, 2 1 2 - 2 1 4 , 2 I 7> 2 2 5> 2 3 ° 2 3 1 , 232nn 1,2; and transformative experience, 214, 220, 224; and urban relations, 212 Daniel, E. Valentine, 29n20, 6 i n i o , 2 1 5 Darling, Malcolm, 254n8 Dars'ana, I76ng, 187, 1 9 2 - 1 9 6 , 199-200, 2 0 2 203, 2o6nni 1 , 1 3 Darwin, Charles, 10 Das, Veena, 1 1 8 , 120, 122, 146118, 167

Dasya bhava, 18, 161, 190 Dasya rasa, 266 Dauji, 100

David, Kenneth, 127 Davis-Friedmann, Deborah, 66 Death, attitudes toward, 83 de Bary, William, 29m 5 Decentered subject, 26 Deconstructionism, 8, 10, 14, 1 9 - 2 1 , 24, 26, 9 2 _ 9 4 . >75 n 5 Dehra Dun District, i45n3 Delhi, 94, 97, 1 2 1 , 145113, 14608, 158, 246 Democracy, 109 Demography: ofChaubes, 94, 11 in6; of Khalapur, 121 Denzin, Norman K . , 28116, 92, 1 1 0 , 275 Depression, 28nn3, 10 Derrida, Jacques, 1 9 - 2 0 , 2gnni6, 17, 92-94, 161

Index Descartes, René, 4-5, 7, 13, 24, 92 De, S. K , 161, 175111, 194, 234014, 262, 265266, 283nni4,i5,i6 Devadasi, 214, 226; and caste system, 225; costume of, 218-219; a n d devotion to Krishna, 227, 230-231; and family relations, 215-216, 222-223, 2a7> 2 33 n 5i *&gop>i 226-229; history of, 232m; as metonym, 217-219; and sexuality, 215-216, 218219, 222; as temple servant, 215-216, 223 Devar, 140, 148019 Dhan, 189 Dkarma, 70, 110, 251, 257nn25,26, 2851130 Diacritics, ix Dialogue, anthropological, 24-25 Différance, 19-20, 24, 94, 109, 161, 174 Dig, 160 Dimock, Edward C., 262-263, 268, 28103, 283111115,21 Discourse: and anthropology, 17503; and caste system, 142; and deference, 128; of familiarity, 241; and sexuality, 124-128, 142,14609 Diwali festival, 122, 164 Doaba, 245, 25406 Dorschoer, Joo Peter, 122, 14609 Douglas, Mary, 116, 128, 143-144 Drama, 17-18, 157, 186, 192-194, 224, 266 Dravidian laoguage, 102 Dumont, Louis, 29019, 120, 122, 145003,4, 14606, 147m 6 Dundes, Alao, 116 Durkheim, Emile, 6, 20, 2804, 11 in8 Dusenbery, Verne A., 25, 26, 255014, 2560016,17,18,19, 257026, 258030 Eccil, 51-52 Eck, Diaoa L., 6007, 102 Ecooomic relations: and Chaubes, 98, 107109; and emotional experience, 94; and family relations, 244; and Hare Krishna sect, 278; and intergeneratiooal relatioos, 78-79; aod migration, 244; and old age, 78-80; opposed to personal relations, 39, 59ns; and Tamils, 41, 53-54 Educatioo: of Chaubes, 108-109; of women, 47 Egnor, Margaret, 44, 6007, 215 Einstein, Albert, 29018 Emotioo: and aesthetics, 161; io aoimals, 10; anthropology of, 6 - 8 , 27m, 28n6, 92-94,

299

175, 184; as appraisal, 9-10, 11, 12, 13'7. 93. 109-110, 242, 253; Aristotelian theory of, 8; and asceticism, 102; and bhakti, 157, 166, 174; and bodily feeling, 11-14, 28-29005,10, 93; Cartesian theory of, 4 5, 7, 13, 92; cognitive theory of, 4, 7-8, 13-14, 28n5, 212; commonsense theory of, 4-6, 10-13, '5. 183; aod culture, 6-11, 13, 15-17,22,64,93-94, 109, 157-158, 166, 175, 183-185, 204, 212, 241-242, 252253; deconstructionist theory of, 19-21, 24, 92-93; epistemology of, 11; excusatory function of, 5, 15, 19; functional ioterpretatioo of, 9, 15; functionality of, 9, 29m 4; and gender, 19; hermeneutic theory of, 92; and hidden self, 110; hierarchy of, 5, 16, 18-19; historically embedded, 24, 93-94; and ideology, 157; internalization of, 6, 13, 16, 23; and language, 10-13, '7> 19-21, 27, 102, 11 ini 1, 241; as metonymic expression, 8, 15; naturalness of, 5, 7, 10, 19; objectivization of, 22; and passion, 10; physicalist theory of, 4-5, 9-11, 14, 20, 28n3, 93, 183, 212; primary, 4, n , 18, 282gn 10, 28n3; psychoanalytic theory of, 157-158; and public sphere, 184; rasa theory of, 17-19, n o , m n i i , 157, 161; and reason, 10, 19, 23, 102, 252; and religion, 18, 157, 161, 166, 174; and ritual, 183, 185, 196, 204-205; secondary, n , 18, 29nio; social construction of, 6-27, 2803, 6 4 . 9 3 - 9 4 . I 0 9. '57->5». >66, i73->75. 183-184, 204, 242, 252-253; as social emergent, 26, 28n6; sociological theory of, 110; Western understanding of, 3-5, 7, 10-11, 16-17, '9. »3-24. '83 Empathy, 7, 11, 17, 184-185 Endogamy, 122, 143, 245, 255ni4 Entwhistle, A. W., 158 Eroticism, 22-23, and asceticism, 102103, 170; and culture, 212; and dance, 219, 224, 227, 229; aod evil eye, 6on7; and food, 177019; aod marriage, 227; aod religion, 161-162, 169-171, 219, 268-269. See also Love; Madhuya bhaea; Mddhurya rasa; Sexuality; Smgara bhiva; Smgara rasa Eskimo, Utku, 7 Ethnocentrism, 17, 184, 25408, 274 Ethnography, 25, 93-94, 254n8; and hypergamy, 120; and jokes, 116-117, '33. '4°. 142, 147018; and visual metaphor, 17503

300

Index

Ethnopsychology, 27, 242, 252 Evil eye, 42, 60117, 6 i n i o , 206m5 Exercise, physical, 22, 100, 103, 105, 107, 110 Exogamy, 122, 143 Exorcism, 26 Fabian, Johannes, >75n3 Family relations: and adoption, 77; and avoidance behavior, 140, 143; and brothersister bond, 1 2 2 - 1 2 3 , 14606; and caste system, 129, 14504; and child rearing, 49; and Chuhras, 1 1 8 - 1 1 9 ; and devadasi, 215216, 222-223, 227, 233ns; and economic relations, 79, 244; and hierarchy, I45n2; intergenerational, 65-66, 68, 75, 78-79, 84-85, 1 1 8 - 1 1 9 ; and life course, 69-70; and maternal love, 20; and motherhood, 24, 167; and naming, 4 3 - 4 4 , 6 0 - 6 ing, 131,176-1771115; and old age, 66-85; patrilineal, 124, 132; and reciprocity, 66, 68, 84-85; and ritual, 165-166; and segregation of sexes, 124; sentimentalization of, 12; and Sikhs, 244-245, 2 5 0 - 2 5 1 ; and subordination of women, 6on6; and Tamils, 38, 40-41, 54-56,6on6. See also In-laws; Marriage Farce, 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 , 1 4 2 - 1 4 3 Fear, 242, 2 5 8 ^ 0 ; as primary emotion, 28nn3,io Feeling, bodily: and emotion, 11 - 1 4 , 28115, a8-2gnio, 93; epistemology of, 11 Festivals, 24; Aruiakuta, 199-200, 2o8n28;

importance of sweets, 177-1781124; and language, 175114; and love, 16, 22, 43, 45, 162, 164-165, 167-168; and marriage relations, 55-56, 207-208023; and rruuti, 100, 1 0 3 - 1 0 4 , 107, 110; as metaphor, 45, 158, 1 6 2 - 1 6 3 , 168, 174; as metonym, 22, 162-164, 168-169, 174, 176m 2; and morality, 104; and physical exercise, 106; prepared by Brahmans, 167, 1 7 1 , 197; prepared by men, 104; and purity, 167-168, 1 9 6 - 1 9 7 , 199, 207nn20,22,23, 215; and

rasa, 162, 164, 168, 174; and religion, 16,

2 2 - 2 3 , 61 ni3, i o 3 - i o 4 > ' 5 8 - 1 5 9 , 1 6 2 165, 1 6 7 - 1 6 9 , 1 7 1 - 1 7 3 , 184, 187, 1 9 2 193, 195-200, 205, 207n20, 2 1 4 - 2 1 5 ; and ritual, 22, 158, 162-166, 168-69, ' 7 ' _ , 7 3 . 1 7 6 m l , I 7 7 " ' 9 . i 8 7 . '93. ' 9 5 - 2 0 ° . 205, 2o8n24, 2 1 4 - 2 1 5 , 217, 219, 231; and jattra, 103; and sexuality, 217-220, 231; and social identity, 104; as synecdoche, 176n 11; Tantric, 217; in temples, 168, 1 7 1 - 1 7 3 , 197, 207n20, 214-215, 217; and vegetarianism, 103,217 Footwear, 5 3 - 5 4 Foucault, Michel, 116, 142 Freud, Sigmund, 5 - 6 , 24, 157 Fruzzetti, Lina, 120, 14503 Fry, Christine, 86ni Fuller, C. J . , 196, 207022 Functionalism, 6, 8 - 9 , 15, 29m 4 Galanter, Marc, 145n 1

Chappen Bhoga, 168; Diwali, 122, 164; and Gandhi, Indira, 25, 239-241, 243, 2 5 1 - 2 5 2 ,

Hindu New Year, 106; Holi, 101, 122, 139, 192; Kans Mela, 96; Nava Lila, 191; Tij, 122 Fieldwork, anthropological, 7, 25-27, 100, 183, 2 3 2 m , 240, 248, 263-264 Finlay-Jones, Robert, 24 Fisher, Michael M. J . , 25 Fleuret, Anne K., 2561120 Flower arrangement, 167, 195 Folklore, 24, 91, 110, 162, 1 7 1 - 1 7 2 , i76n6 Foner, Nancy, 86n 1 Food, 174; and aesthetics, 162; and asceticism, 171; categories of, 177nn 16,21; consumed by Chaubes, 103-104; consumed by elderly, 75, 82; and eroticism, 177m 9; and family relations, 5 5 - 5 6 , 6 i n i 3 ; and folklore, 172; and heart disease, 104; and idea of servitude (adimai), 55-56; and

255ml Gandhi, Rajiv, 251 Ganges river, 95, 189 Gardens, 1 0 5 - 1 0 6 Gauda country, 175m Gaur Brahmans, 98 Geertz, Clifford, 14, 58m, 92, 99, 1 0 1 - 1 0 2 , 116, 183, 185, 242 Gelberg, Steven J . , 2 8 1 m Gender: and aging, 86n4; and emotional hierarchy, 19 Gennep, Arnold van, 144 Gerow, Edwin, 283n 14 Giddens, Anthony, 92, 94 Gift giving: and izzal, 243; and marriage, 122 Giriama, of Africa, 10, 15,94 Gita Grninda, 255-229, 234n2o Gluckman, Max, 142

Index Goethe, Johaoo Wolfgang von, 157 Gokul, 95, 28104 Gokulnathji, 20607 Goldstein, Melvyn, 78-79 Gonds, 148019

Gopa, 161, 169, 171 Gopal Bhatt, 283m 7 Gopi, 161, 169, 171, 190, 194; and dance, 196, 226-229, 266; and food ritual, 177019; and Hare Krishna sect, 269, 272-273, 276-279 Gorakhpur District, 145114 Gordon, Steven L., 12, 28nio Gosvamt, 159, I77ni9, 187, 265, 283m7 Goswami, Satsvarupa Dasa, 269-270, 282nn9,io Goswami, Shrivatsa, 283m 4 Govardhan, 16, 1 5 7 - 1 6 1 , 163-166, 168, 170' 7 ' . "73-'74. 199-2°'

Granthi, 240

Gravesend, England, 245 Greenberg, Joseph, 29m 4 Griaule, Marcel, 58n 1 Growse, Frederic S., 98, 2o6n8 Guilt, 141, 242; and old age, 65,68 Gujarat, 159, 160, 167-168, 182 Gum, 100 Gurdwara Gazette (periodical), 249 Gusfield, Joseph R., 5 Haberman, David, 161 Habermas,Jurgen, 117 Hardy, Friedhelm, 157, 262, 28in4 Hare Krishna sect. See International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKON) Harijans, 46, 53, I45n 1. See alio Chamars; Chuhras; Paraiyars; Untouchable caste Hariray, 163 Harirayji, Sri Mahanubhava, 2o8nn25,26 Harlan, William, 86n6 Harper, E. B., 196, 207111122,23 Harre, Rom, 24, 28nni,6,93 Harrell, Steven, 86ni Haryana, 121 Hatha Yoga, 106 Hawley.John, 11 104, 2341123, 284J124 Hayley, Audrey, 171, 196 Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization (3HO), 239. »47-25°. 252, 256ml 19,21 Heelas, Paul, 27m Hegel, G. W. F., 234017 Hein, Norvin, 158, 284n24

301

Helwag, Arthur W., 245 Hermeneutics, 92 Hershman, Paul, 118, 120, 122, 130, 132, 14503, 146ml, 1 4 7 ^ 1 8 , 1 9 , >48n2o Hess, Ron, 233ns Hierarchy: and caste system, 126; and clothing, 53-54; emotional, 5, 10, 16, 1 8 - 1 9 ; and family relations, 14502; and food ritual, 196-197; and hypergamy, I45n3; and ideology of love, 54; intergenerational, 1 1 8 - 1 1 9 ; and intergenerational relations, 127; and jokes, 26, 116, 119, 126, 1 4 2 - 1 4 3 ; and marriage, 207023; and purdah system, 127; and religion, 123, 196-197, 225; and ritual, 225; and women, 125 Hinduism. See Religion, Hindu History: ofChaubes, 95-97, 111113; of dance, 232n 1, 2331111; emotion embedded in, 2 3 24, 93-94; of Govardhan, 158-159; of Mathura, 94-95; of Pushti Marg sect, 187-188 Hitchcock,John T., 118, 120, 122, 135, I45n4, 146116, 148020 Hivale, Shamrao, 148019 Hochschild, Arlie R., 26 Holi festival, 101, 122, 139, 192 Hooghly river, 214 Hopkinson, W. C., 240-241, 243, 25403 Hospitals, 82-83 Huizinga,J., 186 Humanism, 26 Hume, David, 4 Humor. See Jokes Hyde, Lewis, 164 Hydraulic metaphor, in psychology, 5, 27 Hymns, 22-23, ' ° 5 Hypergamy, 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 , 145113 Ibbetson, Denzil, 120 Icons, 159-160, 162-163, ' 6 7 - ' 7 2 . '76n6, 177018, 184, 188, 200-205, 2062070015,16,17, 225 Ideology: as conscious formulation of intention, 38; and culture, 157; and emotion, 157; empathy as, 1 1 ; as expression of class interest, 5903; and Muslim views of sexuality, 123; and ritual, 213; and sexuality, 143; Sikh, 251 Idolatry, 191 —193, 201-204. See also Icons Ifaluk, of Micronesia, 10, 15, 27,94 Illness, 26, 48; and old age, 78, 82-83

302

Index

I longo ts, 24a, 253 Immigration, 240, 244-246, 255~256ni6 Imperialism, 17 Impotence, 126-127, I 3 9 Incest, 126, 128-130, 134-135, 142, 1481119 Inden, Ronald, 2gnig, 120 Individualism, 16, 27, 174 bulo-Canadian

Times, 2571127

Indra, 188, 199 Industrialization, 79 Infants: and female infanticide, 135; and transmigration of souls, 46 Inflation, 79 In-laws: and avoidance behavior, 143, 1471118; as caretakers of elderly, 73, 75-77, 81; hostility of, 123, 125, 129-130, 141, 143; and jokes, 128-144, 146m 2, 147nn 14,16,18, 147-1481119; and marriage, 122-123, 125, 129, 135-140; and respect, 130-132, 135, 1471118, i48n2o; and social inferiority of bridegivers, 130-139, 141-142,I48n20 Inpam, 4 3

Instinct, 5 - 6 , 183 Insults: among Chaubes, 107; among Chuhras, 119, 125-126, 133-134, 136, '38-'39> '42. '44; as jokes, 125-127, 133, 136, 142, 144; and metaphor, 126; and sexuality, 125-127, 134, 136, 138-139, 146m 1; among Tamils, 44 Intentionality: ideology as, 38; proof of, 39 Intergenerational relations, 65-66, 68, 78-79, 84—85, 118-119; and avoidance behavior, 143; and hierarchy, 127; and incest, 126; and marriage, 123, 129; and respect, 129 Internalization, of emotion, 6, 13, 16, 22 International Society for Krishna Consciousness ( I S K O N ) , 10, 21, 26, 160, I77n2i; and bhakti, 268-271, 277, 280; in Brindaban, 263-264, 267-268, 273-281, 282m 1; bureaucratization of, 264, 269-271; and Chaitanyaite sect, 263, 265, 2821110; founding of, 263; and mádhuiya rasa, 264, 268, 271-274, 276; temples of, 263-264, 270, 272, 274, 2821110; and Vaishnavite sect, 263-265, 274 Interpretation: and dialogical anthropology, 24-25; textual, 20-21, 25-26 Intertextuality, 20-21, 23-24,93-94 Intoxication, 22, 91, 100-103, n o . See also Mailt

Introspection, 6, 13, 16, 23, 100 Irrationalism, 5, 10 Iaal, 25-26, 72, 108, 138, 142, 144; and Sikhs, 241-245, 248-251, 254nn2,6,8, 255nio, 2561121, 257111126,29 Jackson, Stanley W., 24 Jacobson, Doranne, 118, 146ml, 147m9, i48n2o Jagannatha, 213-217, 226, 231 Jain culture, 94 James, William, 4 Jamuna river, 94-96, 98, 191-192, 262, 276 Jandiali, 245 Jati,

122

Jatipura, 159-160, 165, 168, 172 Janata, 6 9

Jayadeva, 226 Jeffery, Patricia, 118, 123, 146118 J'th, '4° J'j", 139 Jindel, Rajendra, 20502 Jiva Goswami, 2831117 Johnson, Mark, 162 Jokes, 8-9, 25-26; anthropology of, 116-117; and Chaubes, 107; among Chuhras, 119120, 126, 131, 133-135, 141-143; content of, 117; and culture, 116-117, 126-127, 140; and ethnography, 1 1 6 - 1 1 7 , '33. 140, 142, 147m 8; and family relations, 117; between fathers-in-law, 135-139; and hierarchy, 26, 116, 119, 126, 142-143; and inlaws, 128-144, 146m 2, I47nni4,i6,i8, 147-148019; as insults, 125-127, 133, 136, 142, 144; a n d iizal,

138, 142, 144; a n d lan-

guage of intimacy, 128, 144; and marriage, 128-144, 146nn 11,12; and metaphor, 126; psychology of, 117; and purdah system, 144; and rasa theory, 18; and reciprocity, 127, 137; as rite of passage, 144; and ritual, 117, 119-120, 144; and role reversal, 133139, 142; and sexuality, 125-127, i2g, 131,140-144, 146118; as social critique, : 16-117, 128, 142-144; in United States, 116 Joshi, Esha Basanti, 94 Jullundur District, 130 Kabyle, 256022 Kakar, Sudhir, 19, 48, 70, 11 inio, 169

Index Kalattal, 56-58 Kalish, Robert A., 65 Kalian, 41 KampaTÔmâyaxam, 59114 Kane, Pandurang Vaman, 70, 283014 Kakgii, 99, 104 Kans Mela festival, 96 Kapferer, Bruce, 26, 28114,61 ni 1, 183 Kapoor, O. B. L., 163, 262, 2831114 Kappu, 52, 61119 Karma, 46, 81-82, 85, 278 Karve, Irawati, 1471116 Kashmir, 132, 14503, 2341114 Kasral, 100 Kaur, S. P., 248 Kaveri, 214 Kavundars, 41 Kàydi, 1 1 8 - 1 1 9 , ' 4 5 n 2 Kemper, Theodore, 5, 28-291110, 28113, 9 2 Kerns, Virginia, 86n 1 Khalapur, 118, 120-124, 127, 135, 140, '45 n 4>145-'46ns, I 4 7 n ' 2 Khalsa, G. S., 247 Khalsa, H. S., 252, 257n28 Khalsa, S. P. K., 247, 257028 Khândân, 120 Khare, R. S., 120, 14503 Kinship. See Family relations Kinsley, David R., 193, 262 Kirkpatrick, John, 27m Kishan Garhi, 120 Kodumai, 21 Kolenda, Pauline, 8-9, 25-26, 123, 142, I45nn3,4, 146010, I47nni2,i6 Kovecses, Zoltan, 5 , 8 Krishna, 94-97, 176^17,10,11, 177nn 18,19,22,23, 20504; as child, 98-99, 158, 163, 167-168, 183-184, 188, 191, 193-194, 203, 2071121, 275; and dance ritual, 225-230; devotion to, 157, 161 — 162, 164, 168-169, 172, 184-190, 192205, 227, 230-231, 262-269; and eroticism, 160, 174; and food ritual, 22, 158, 163-166, 168-169, '72> «87. 196-200; at Govardhan, 157-159, 164, 166, 172, 188, 199-200, 2081128; and physical exercise, 11 o; as svaripa, 200-204 Kristeva, Julia, 58m Kuhn, Thomas, 29m 8 Kulin, 108 Kundalini, 246-247

303

Labor, division of, 86n3; and caste system, 121, 145n i ; and women, 125 La Brack, Bruce, 256nn 16,20 Lahore, 254n6 Lakoff, George, 5, 8, 162 Lakshmi, 164 Land ownership, 41, 78-80,98, 121,242-244 Laoguage: ambiguity in, 40; deconstructionist theory of, 19-21,92; Dravidian, 102; and emotion, 10-13, '7. >9-20,93, 102, 11 ini I, 241; and fieldwork, 27; aod food, 17504; Hindi, ix, 28119; and jokes, 128; and metaphor, 162, '75n2; and metooym, 17502; aod otherness, 17503; aod problem offeeliog, 11; Puojabi, 254006,7; social nature of, 13; Wittgensteinian theory of, 28n6 Lannoy, Richard, 11 in8 Laukika, 192, 195, 198 Law: and adoption, 77; and discrimination against untouchables, 145m; and life course, 70 Leach, Edmund, 201 Leavitt, John, 28n5, 92-93 Leitch, Vincent B., 20, 29m 6 Le Vine, Robert A., 28n6,93 Levirate, 123, 126-127, ' 4 ° Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 7,92, 120, 145113, I48n20 Levy, Robert I., 93, 11 ini Life course: and family relatioos, 69-70; and religioo, 70; and role reciprocity, 66,6869; stages of, 69-71, 74,8603 Uli, 19,95, 165, 189, 199; Braj, 163, 169, 171, 188, 194, 28104; a l , d circle dance, 276, 277, 28104; represeotatioo of, 186-187, 191, 192, 194 Lindholm, Charles, 26, 2701, 254-25509 Liogayat sect, 103 Literature: aod bhakti, 157; Braj, 157; folk, 91; legal, 70; aod modern oovels, 102-103; Saoskrit, 161, 20505; Shaiva, 40, 50; of Tamils, 40, 59n4 Logoceotrism, 25 Longowal, S. H. S., 251 Los Angeles, 246, 256020, 270, 272 Love: as anpu, 38-39; aufm as, 5904; as coofusioo (mayakkam), 56-57; as containment (adakkam), 42-44; as cruelty (kodumai), 4750; as desire (¿cai), 50-51; erotic, 18, 22, 24, 43, 161, 169-171, 173, 206m 3, 222, 224, 227, 229, 232, 276; and food, 16, 22,

304

Index

Love (continued) 43,45, 162, 164-165, 167-168; as gradual habituation (parakkam), 46; as interaction, 48; and lyric poetry, 59n4; maternal, 18, 20-22,24,42-43,56,5904, 161, 167-168, 173-174, 183-184; as metonym, 22; as mixture (kalallal), 56-58; as money, 79; opposed to purity, 50-51; antl rata, 18, 161; and reciprocity, 174; and religion, 5904, 1 6 1 - 1 6 2 , 164-165, 184, 197,266267, 271-272; romantic, 5904; as secondary emotion, 29n 1 o; semiotic analysis of, 20-21; as sentimentalization, 12; as servitude (adimai), 52-56; Vaishnavite forms of, 24. See also Eroticism; Madhurya bhava;

Madhurya rasa; Sexuality; Snigara bhava; Smgara rasa

Luckmann, Thomas, 28n6 Luschinsky, Mildred Stroop, 118 Lutz, Catherine, 4, 7, 1 0 - n , 15-16, 26,27, 27m, 28n8, 29nnio,i3, 92-94, 157-158, '73. 'S3. 25®.258n3i Lynch, Owen M., 10, 16, 21-24, 26, 95, 98, m n 2 , 146ml, 157, 170, 173, I76n9, 184, 233n8 Lyons, William, 8, 12, 14, 28n5, 28nn2,6, 29m 2, 93

Ma, 131 McGregor, R. S., ix Mackichan, D., 183 McLeod.W. H., 255nio Madan, T. N., 103, 109, 118, 120, 132, 145113, 172 Madan Mohan, 170

Madhurya bhava, 18, 161, 169, 190, 194 Madhurya rasa, 264, 266-267, 274, 276-277 Madhva, 175111 Madhya Pradesh, I48ni9 Madras, 40, 41, 46 Madurai, 41 Maharajas, 187-188, 195, 198, 201

Mohan, 215

Mahmud of Ghazni, 94 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 58111 Maloney, Clarence, 6on7 Malwa, 182, 25406 Man, 102, n o , m n i o , 189

Manas, 19

Mandelbaum, David, 255n 11

Mantra, 187, 189, 201

Manu, 70 Manusmrti, 70 Marcus, George E., 25 Marfatia, Mrdula I., 205112 Marg (periodical), 233m2

Marga, 11 o

Marglin, Frederique Apffel, 10, 16, 22-24, I0 3. '57. >7°. 216-217, 223, 227, 2321m 1,4, 234111116,18,21 Marijuana, 22, 100, 108, no, 1111112 Marriage: and anpu, 61 n9; and cala, 1 2 1 , 1 2 8 129, 142-143; and care of elderly, 76-77; and caste system, 128-129, 142-143, 14504, 146-147m 2; among Chuhras, 1 2 1 - 1 2 3 , ,24> 1 28-144, 147m 2; compared to brother-sister bond, 122-123; and demeaning of male in-laws, 131 - 1 3 5 ; and endogamy, 122, 143, 245; and eroticism, 227; exchange, 122, 142, 147016, 148019; and exogamy, 122, 143; and female solidarity, 129-130; and festivals, 122; and food preparation, 55-56, 207~208n23; and gift giving, 122; and hierarchy, 207^3; and hostility of in-laws, 123, 125, 129-30, 141, 143; hypergamous, 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 , I45n3; and in-laws, 122, 129, 135-140; and intergenerational relations, 123, 129; and jokes, 128-144, >46nni 1,12; and levirate, 123, 126-127, 140; and metaphor, 26; and obscene songs, 129, 141, 146n 11; patrilineal, 121, 143; and polygyny, 130, 134; and religion, 141; and remarriage, 123, I45n4, 1471112; as rite of passage, 69; and s'adi, 1 2 1 - 1 2 2 , 128-129, 141-143; and segregation of sexes, 124; sentimentalization of, 12; and sexual love, 43; among Sikhs, 245, 250-251, 255014; and social inferiority of bridegivers, 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 , 130-139, 1 4 1 142, 14503; sororate, 130, 140; among Tamils, 43-44, 60-61 n9; and teasing, 128-129 Marriott, McKim, 29019, 101, 11108, 14503, 2

55nI° Marulasiddaiah, H. M., 86n6 Marxism, 5903, 254ns

Maryada, 160

Masson, James L., 161,234014 Masti, 21-22, 24, 26, 91, 95-100; and aesthetics, 110; and asceticism, 102-103, io9~~ 110; and food, 103-104, 107, 110; and marijuana drinking, 100-103, '°7> 1 l o ;

Index and physical exercise, 105-107, 110; and religion, 100, 103-105, 107, 110; and social identity, 11 o; thick description of, 92 Mastram, 91, 97-100, 103, 106, 109 Mathura, 9a, 94-96, 98-99, 104-107, 157, 160, 170, 205m, 281114 Mauss, Marcel, 58m Majakkam, 56-57 Mayapur, 263 Mayer, Adrian C., 206119, 2 55 n 1 5 Mead, G. H , 3 8n6 Medicine, 24; and diet, 104; marijuana as, 100, 111 ni2; and rasa theory, 18-19 Medick, Hans, 12 Mediterranean culture, 2 5 7 ^ 9 Mehta, Rama, 118, 148m 9 Men: as food preparers, 104; identified with reason, 19; and life course, 70, 74,86n3; and respect etiquette, 118— 119; and sexual anxiety, 130; sexual obligation of, 126; and socialization, 105; as temple servants, 215-216 Menstrual blood, 215, 218, 228, 23308 Metaphor, 94, 112m 6; food as, 45, 158, 162163, 168, 174; hydraulic, 5, 27; and insults, 126; inverted by metonym, 17502; and jokes, 126; and Krishna, 163; and language, 162, 175112; and marriage, 26; and sense perception, 23-24; in Tamil culture, 21 Metonym, 8,15; anpu as, 21; devadasi as, 217-219; food as, 22, 162-164, 168-169, 174, 176m 2; as inverse of metaphor, 175n2; and language, 175112, love as, 22; and sense perception, 23; and synecdoche, 176m 1 Micronesia, Ifaluk of, 10, 15, 27, 94 Middle class, 82; Tamil, 41 Milk, 43, 163, I76nn6,8, 199-200, 2o8n28 Miller, Barbara Stoller, 2341120 Mimesis, 17 Minault, Gail, 118 Mind-body relation, 4, 13-15, 19, 23,92-94 Mines, Mattison, 70,86n 1 Minturn, Leigh, 118, 120, 122, 135, 14606, I48n20 Milter, Partha, 234m 7 Moghuls, 95-97, 106, 188 Money: exchange of, 39, 5905; as love, 79; and religion, 169 Monier-Williams, Monier, 202

305

Morality: and Chaubes, 100, 102; and emotional appraisal, 9, 14-15, 19,93, 110, 242, 253; and food, 104; and Hinduism, 100; and individualism, 16; and izzat, 241-242, 244, 251-253; and marijuana drinking, 102; and rasa theory, 18; and saliva, 109; and Sikhs, 240-241; and socialization, 253; and textual interpretation, 26 Motherhood: as amma, 56; and child rearing, 49; and culture, 167; dangerous power of, 42,6on7; and family relations, 24, 167; and maternal love, 18, 20, 22, 24, 42-43, «67-168, 174; and universalism, 183-184; and Vallabhite sect, 167 Mukheijee, Prabhat, 234019 Mulji, Kanhandas, 2o6n8 Murdock, George Peter, 130, 134-135, I48ni9 Music, 14, 163, 167; and hymns, 22-23, '°5i and rasa, 224; and religious song, 101, 103; and singing, 22; and sitham, 129, 141 Muslims, 41,94-95,97, U2ni7, 121-123, 135, I46nn7,8, 214, 242; and rationalism, •58 MyerholT, Barbara, 86n 1 Myers, Fred, 15-17, 27n 1, 2gn 13,93, 111 n 1 Mysticism, 158, 185, 194, 264-266, 274-277, 279-280, 283m 4 Mythology, 24,94, '6°> '62, 177022; Buddhist, 6on7; Hindu, 95; Shaiva, 6007, 61012 Naik, T. B., 132, 148019 Naming: and family relations, 43-44, 60— 6ing, 131, 176-177m 5; and sexuality, 131; among Tamils, 43-44, 60-61 ng Nanak, 253112 Nanand, 148m 9 Nanda, 183, 191 Nandoi, 131 Narada, 226-227 Narayan, R. K., 61010 Nathdwara, 159, 183, 188, 202 Nayakars, 41 Nayar, Kuldip, 257027 Nectar of Devotion (Bhaktivedanta), 271 Nepal, 78-79, I45n3, 14608 Neugarten, Berenice, 84 New Delhi, 246 Nicholas, Ralph W., 120, 130, 132 Nidki, 202, 204

306

Index

Nirihar, 68 M i l , 99, 109 Nityananda, 170, 2821110 Nizamuddin, 146ns Novels, 1 0 2 - 1 0 3 Obeyesekere, Gananath, 60117 Objectivity, and anthropology, 58~59n2 Objectivization, of emotion, 22 Oceania, jokes in, 1 1 8 Ochs, Elinor, 27 O'Connell, Joseph T . , 158 O'Flaherty, Wendy, 6on7, 102 Old age, 2 1 , 2 5 ; anxiety, 65-66, 68-69, 7 8 - 7 9 , 8 3 - 8 5 ; and caretaking by adopted children, 77, 8 0 - 8 1 ; and caretaking by daughers, 75-77; and caretaking by inlaws, 73, 7 5 - 7 7 , 8 1 ; and caretaking by sons, 75-76, 81; and clothing, 75; cultural context of, 64-65, 69, 84-85; and family relations, 66-85; and fear of dependency, 6 5 - 6 9 , 8 4 - 8 5 ; and food consumption, 75, 82; and guilt, 65, 68; and hospitalization, 82-83; a n d illness, 78, 8 2 - 8 3 ; and karma, 8 1 - 8 2 , 8 5 ; and property relations, 78-80; and renunciation of worldly ties, 7 0 - 7 1 , 7 3 - 7 5 ; and role reciprocity, 65-66; and seva, 7 1 - 7 3 , 76-77, 79-80, 83; and sexuality, 74-75; and shame, 68; and social science, 64-65, 78; in United States, 65, 68, 84; and women, 7 1 , 75 Orissa, 2 1 3 - 2 1 5 , 2 1 7 Ostor, Akos, 120, i45n3 Otherness, 4,6, i i , 13, 1 5 - 1 7 , 2 6 , I75n3, 184

Outline of Hindi Grammar (McGregor), ix

Parry, Jonathan, 127 Pathwardhan, M . V., 161 Patnaik, D., 2 3 3 0 1 2 Patrilineality, 1 2 1 , 124, 132, 143, 187

Pattu, 38 Patwardan, M . V . , 2341114 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 2 1 3 Peristiany.J. G., 257029 Perkins, Moreland, 14 PettigTew, Joyce, 243-244, 254n8 Phenomenology, 13, 28n6 Physicalist theory, 4 - 5 , 9 - 1 1 , 14, 20, 28n3, 93, 183, 2 1 2 Physiology: and bodily feeling, 12, 28-2gnio, 93, 109; and physicalist theory, 4 - 6 , 28113;

and rasa theory, 18-19 Piers, Gerhart, 242 Pilgrimage, 9 5 - 9 7 , 1 5 7 - 1 6 0 , 165, 1 7 2 - 1 7 3 , I76nn6,8,9, 183, 188, 2 0 5 m , 2 1 3 , 262, 265, 2 73> 275, 283m 2 Pintupi, of Australia, 15 Platts,John T . , 6 7 - 6 8 Pocock, David F., 120, 122, 14606 Poetry, 17; Braj, 157, 163, 167, ljjnig; and dance, 2 2 5 - 2 2 9 , 232n2; and Gita Govinda, 2 2 5 - 2 2 9 , 234n2o; lyric, 59n4, 91; and Oriya poets, 226; and rasa, 1 6 1 , 266; and ritual, 2 2 5 - 2 2 9 ; and speech rhythm, 221 Political economy, 94, 1 0 7 - 1 0 9 Pollution, 26, 142, 1471115, 1 9 7 - 1 9 9 , 207nn22,23, 218, 233ns Polygyny, 130, 134

Pomutr Cahkar Katai, 59n4 Population: ofChaubiya Para, 98; of Khalapur, 121

Porumai, 53 Pacam, 38, 45, 47, 50, 52 Painting, 163, 167 Pakistan, 123, 135, I46n7, 255nng,i 1

Panda, 95, 108, 173

Positivism, 8, 10 Potter, Sulamith Heins, 16, 157 Poverty, 22, 4 1 , 49, 54, 78, 107, 1 4 6 m l Prabhu, Sri Gokulesh, 207m 8 Prasad, B. G., 86n6

Pandey, Raj Bali, 70 Pandits, 132

Prasada, 103, 110, 164, 169, 171, 176111110,11,

Panth, 241, 246, 2 5 1 - 2 5 2 , 253n2, 255111110,12 Papanek, Hanna, 1 1 8 Paraiyars, 4 1 , 44

Prema, 103, 160, 183 Prtmathava, 190

Parakiya, 162 Parakkam, 44-47

196, 199, 2081129

Primogeniture, 188

Paresan, 72

Private sphere, 6, 16, 127, 258029; and language, 13; and religion, 170; and ritual, 164-166 Prosody, 220

Parkin, David, 10, 1 5 , 9 4

Prostitution, 1 2 6 - 1 2 9 , >98.218

Pardhans, 148m 9 Parekh, Bhai, 205112

Index Psychoanalysis, 5-7, 24,93, ' 4 5 n 2 . ' 5 7 - ' 5 8 Psychology: and anthropology, 242; behaviorist, 4-5; and epistemology, 11 ; as ethnopsychology, 27; of fear, 258n3o; of jokes, 117; of old age, 64-65, 78; physiological, 4-5, 11-12; and universalism, 173 Public sphere, 94, 127, 184; and itzat, 2572581129; and language, 13; and religion, 171; and ritual, 164-166 Fiji, 190 Punjab, 120-121, 130, 135, 145113, 242-243, 246-247, 253n2, 254nn2,6,8 Punjab Peasant in Prosperity and Debt (Darling), 254ns Purdah, 118, 123-124, 127-128, 144,255ml; among Chuhras, 119 Puri, 213-214, 228, 231 Puri, Harbhajan Singh, 239, 246-247, 249, 2 53 _2 54 n 2, 256m8 Puri, H. K., 254113 Purity, 26, 50-51, 142; and asceticism, 170171; and food, 167-168, 196-197, 199, 207nn20,22,23, 215; and religion, 197198, 207nni9,22; sexual, 77; and sexuality, 216, 233n8, 255m 4, 272 Purusottama, 202 Pushti Marg sect, 16, 22, 24,97, 168, 175n 1 ; and aesthetics, 194; and bhakti, 182-183, 193, 197; and devotion to Krishna, 182205; history of, 187-188; and icons, 191 — 193, 201-204; ar> d maternal love, 182, 184; and patrilineality, 187-188; and ritual, 185-186, 192-201, 2o6nn7,8; and sensualism, 182-183, '94> 2081129; aI> d seva, 188-190, 194, 198-199; temples of, 182, 186-188, 191 — 192, 194-195, 201, 207nn 19,20; and urban relations, 182; wealth of, 2o8n29. See also Vallabhite sect Pusti, 189, 200-201, 205, 2o8n29

RadcliSe-Brown, A. R., 6, 118, 140-141 Radha, 160, 162, 169-170, 172, 174, 177ms, 225, 229, 2341123, 266-267, 274, 276-277, 279, 282n10, 283015, 284027 Radhakund, 159-160, 169-171, I77nig Radhavallabha sect, 161, 279, 284027 Riga, 194, 228 Râgânugâbhakti, 161, 268-271, 273-274, 280 Raghavan, V., 157, 161, 194 Raghunath Bhatt, 283m 7 Raghunath Das, 283n 17

307

Raja, 225, 228, 233n8 Rajagun, 216, 218-219, 2 33 n 7 Rajai, 100 Rajasthan, 100, 106, 14503, 159, 182-183, 188 Raj, B., 8606 Rajputs, 74, 11109, 120-122, 135, 14609; and family relations, I45n4; psychoanalytical study of, 7 Ramanandi sect, 103, 161 Ramanujan, A. K., 160, 176012 Rame, 91 Rasa, 17-19, 24> 27> 29015, 11 ini 1, 17609, 281; and bhakti, 157, 193; and dance, 224225; and devotion to Krishna, 161-162, 164, 193-195, 203, 265-266; and food ritual, 162, 164, 174, 199; and mastram, 110; and maternal love, 184; and Vallabhite (Pushti Marg) sect, 168, 193-195 Rationality, 5-6, 10, 241, 252; and Dravidian language, 102; and Muslims, 158 Reason: and emotion, 10, 19, 23, 102, 252; and gender, 19; privileging of, 92 Reciprocity: and bhakti, 157; as burden, 107; intergenerational, 65-66,68,84-85; and iiiat, 243; and jokes, 127, 137; and love, 174; and ritual, 172 Redington, James, 161, 176014 Regnaud, Paul, 221 Religion, Hindu: and aesthetics, 18, 160-161, 173, 185-187, 192-195, 207ni8; and asceticism, 170, 174, 182; and bhakti, 157, 160-161, 166, 182-183; and Brahmans, 104; and caste system, 159, 174, 225; and Chaubes, 95-96,98, 100-107, n a n 17; and dance, 266; and drama, 192-194; and dualism, 201; and emotion, 18, 157, 161, 166, 174; and eroticism, 22, 161-162, 169171, 219, 268-269; a n d food, 16, 22-23, 103-104, 158-159, 162-165, '67-169, 171-173, 184, 187, 192-193, 195-200, 205, 207020, 214-215; and hierarchy, 123, 196-197, 225; and icons, 159-160, 162163, 167-172, 176n6, 177M8, 184, 188, 200-205, 206-207nni5,i6,i7, 225; and life course, 70; and love, 59n4, 161-162, 164165, 184, 197, 266-267, 271-272; and marijuana drinking, 100-101; and marriage, 141; and masti, 100, 103-105, 107, 110; and money, 169; and monotheism, 201; nonsectarian, 160; and physical exercise, 105; and pilgrimage, 95-97,98, 104,

308

Index

Religion, Hindu {continued) 157-160, 165, 172-173, I76nn6,8,9, 183, 188, 205m, 213, 262, 265, 273, 275, 2831112; and private sphere, 170; and public sphere, 171; and purity, 197-198, 207nni9,22; and rasa, 18, 162, 184, 194195, 203; and seva, 203; and sexuality, 123, 268-269, 272, 274; Shaiva, 59n4; and slave mentality, 55; and social identity, 161; and social structure, 159-160; and song, 101, 103; and transmigration of souls, 46; Vedic, 160, I77n22, 269, 28209; women, 105, 216. See also Mysticism; Mythology; names of deities; Ritual; Sects, religious; Temples Representation: actualization by, 186; crisis of

Robertson Smith, W., 14, 11 in8 Robinson, Vaughn, 255m 4 Roland, Alan, I45n2 Roles, social: and reciprocity, 65-66 Rosaldo, MichelleZ., 7, 11, 14, 27m, 291113, 93,99, m m , 157-158, 183,212,241242,253 Rosaldo, Renato, 27m Rosel, Jacob, 214-215

25; of culture, 58n2, 58-59n3,6on6 Respect: among Chuhras, 118-119, 135, 147m 8; and food preparation, 207^3; and in-laws, 130-132, 135, I47ni8, 148n2o; and intergenerational relations, 118-119, 129; and iizat, 242 Rhetoric (Aristotle), 7

Sabbah, Fatna A., 123 Sabean, David Warren, 12 Sadhana, 189, 268 Sadhi1, 170, 275-277, 28in2 Sadi, 121-122, 128-129, 141, 143 Sahajiya, 268-269, 272-274, 279 Sahlins, Marshall, 275 Sakhya bhava, 18, 161, 190 Sakti, 218-219, 2 2 4, 228, 233n6, 266 Sakya rasa, 266, 276 Sola, 130-135, 141-143 Salt, 130, 140 Samdhan, 137-139, 141, 147m 8 Samdht, 133, 135-142, 1 4 6 m l , 1 4 7 m s Samfnadaya, 187-188, 202, 204, 20503, 206117,

Ritual, 6 i n i o ; and aesthetics, 185-187, 193, 195; aura of factuality in, 14; and caste system, 215-216; and children, 166; and dance, 212-214, 216-218, 225-231; Durkheimian theory of, 6, 28n4; and emotion, 183, 185, 196, 204-205; esoteric, 217-218; and family relations, 165-166; and folklore, 172; and food, 22, 158, 162-166, 168169, 171-173, 176m 1, I77nig, 187, 193, 195-200, 205, 2081124, 214-215, 217, 219, 231; and hierarchy, 225; and icons, 200202, 206-207nni5,i6,i7; and ideology, 213; and jokes, 117, 119-120, ^ ¡ m a r riage, 121-122; and metonymy, 22; and ornamentation, 195-196; performative aspect of, 166, 185-186; and poetry, 225229; and private sphere, 164-166; and public sphere, 164-166; and purity, 197198; and Pushti Marg sect, 185-186, 192201, 2o6nn7,8; and reciprocity, 172; as symbolic communication, 213, 231; and synecdoche, 176n 11 ; Tantric, 217,219, 225, 233n6; in temples, 165, 185-187, 191-192, 201, 204-205, 212-215, 230231; and transformative experience, 185— 187, 213, 220; Vaishnavite, 20; Vedic, 160 Robber Noblemen (Pettigrew), 244

Rupa Goswami, 161,265-266,268-269, 271272, 283111116,17 Rushdie, Salman, I46n7 Rusticus Loquitur (Darling), 254n8 Ryan, Michael, 26, 29m 6 Ryder, Arthur W., 99

2o8n29 Samskara, 215, 231 Samyoga, 184, 191 Sanadhya Brahmans, 98 Sanatana Goswami, 170, 283m 7 Sannyasa, 74, 275 Sarmydsi, 109, 263, 270 Sanskrit, 74, m n 1 o, 161, 189, 193, 201, 205ns, 207m 9, 2081129, 220, 224-225, 229, 257n25, 265-266, 269 Santa bhava, 18, 161 Santa rasa, 266 Santi, 72 Sapir.J. David, I75n2 Saram, 128 Saijuparis, 14504 Sasu, 131 Satire, 116, 146m 1 Sattva, 22, 100, 103, 109-110

Index Satya Yuga, 95 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 92 Scanlon, Joseph, 256ns 1 Schacter, Stanley, 11-12, 28-29nio Scheff, Thomas, 183 SchielTelin, Bambi, 27 Schieffelin, Edward L., 27111, 157 Schneider, David, 29a 19 Scholarship, Western, applied to India, 24, 27 Sculpture, 94, 163 Sects, religious: Chaitanyaite, 24, 103, 157, 159-160, 162, 169-172, 175m, I76n6, I77ni9, 268, 281114, 2821110, 2831m 15,16,17,18; Hare Krishna, 10,21, 26, 160, 263-265, 267-281; Lingayat, 103; Radhavallabha, 161, 279, 2841127; Ramanandi, 103, 161; Shaivite, 2341118; Shrivaishnava, 161; Swaminarayan, 160; Vaishnavite, 18, 20, 24, 160-162, 164'65. ' 7 ' . • 75" 1 > '87. 234nni8,i9,23, 263-265, 274, 282n6, 283m 4; Vallabhite (Pushti Marg), 16, 22, 24, 97, 157, 159160, 163, 167-169, 172, 175m, 176116, 182-205. See also Pushti Marg sect Segregation, 121, 124 Self: abnegation of, 91 ; and bodily feeling, 1415; and classical tradition, 91-92; and culture, 242, 253; and devotion to Krishna, 189; and emotional appraisal, 93; hidden, 110; and rasa, 18 Sensation, bodily, 4-5, 10-14, 28-2gnio, 93 Sense perception, 23-24 Servitude, 52-56 S f i , 9. 7'~73> 76-77. 79-8°. 83, 188-190, 194, 198-199, 203, 2o6nng,i2, 2071121, 2o8n24 Sevaia, 215 Seviiâ, 215 Sexuality, 26, 74-75; and anxiety, 127; and Chaubes, 101; among Chuhras, 123-126, 131 -139; and contraception, 216; and costume, 218-219; and demeaning of male in-laws, 131-135; and devadâsi, 215-216, 218-219, 222; and diet, 106; and discourse, 116, 124-128, 142, I46n9; and female obligation, 124-127; and female sexual fluid, 228, 233n8; and food, 217220, 231; and Hinduism, 123; and Holi festival, 101; and ideology, 143; and impotence, 126-127, 129; and incest, 126, 129-

309

'3°. '34-'35. '42> '48119; and insults, 125-127, 134, 136, 138-139, 146ml; and inat, 138; and jokes, 125-127, 129, 131, 140-144, ¡46n8; and male obligation, 126; and marijuana drinking, 101; and Muslim culture, 123; and naming, 131; and physical exercise, 106; and purity, 77, 216, 233ns, 255m4, 272; and religion, 123, 268-269, 272> 274i 2nd shame, 146^; and virginity, 123, 138. See also Eroticism; Love Shah, Jethalal G., 202, 205n2 Shaiva: literature, 40, 50; mythology, 6on7, 6ini2 Shame, 11, 13, 22,68, 144, ¡46n7, 242, 253, 2 57 n 2 9 Shame (Rushdie), 146^ Sharma, Rama Nath, 282ns Sharma, Ursula, 118 Shibutani, Tamotsu, 274 Shiva, 40, 58, 100-102, 234ni8, 277 Shrivaishnava sect, 161 Shurasena empire, 94 Shweder, Richard A., 28n6, 93 Siegel, Lee, 234n20 Signs: deconstructionist theory of, 10, 19-21, 24,92; dialogue as exchange of, 24-25 Sikhs, 25; and assassination of Indira Gandhi, 2 39"" 2 4'i 2 5 I - 2 53> 2 5 5 " ' 2 ; Britain, 245; in Canada, 240, 245-246, 248-250, 2 54nn3>5> 2 55 nI 5> 2 56nn2i,23, 257n27; and factional politics, 239-241, 245, 24824g, 251-252, 256n2i; and family relations, 244-245, 250-251; and Ghadarite revolutionaries, 240, 246, 254^3,5; Gora, 26, 239-241, 245-253, 256nn20,2i,23, 256nn2i,23, 257n26, 258n3o; and Guri Graxth Sdlai, 240; and Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization (3HO), 239, 247250, 256nn 19,21; and iizat, 241-245, 248-253, 254nn2,6,8, 255nio, 256021, 257nn26,2g;Jat, 26, 241-246, 248-251, 255ml 10,13,14,15, 257026; Khalsa, 255nio, 256m8; Khatri, 253-254112, 255nio; and land ownership, 242-244; and marriage, 245, 250-251, 255ni4; and martyrdom, 240-241, 252, 25405, 255m 2; migration of, 244-246, 255m 3, 256m 6; and morality, 240-241 ; Nanakpanthi, 255nio; Punjabi, 239-241, 244246, 248-251, 253, 254n3, 256n22,

310

Index

Sikhs (continué) 25711(126,27, 358030; temples of, 240, 247; in United States, 245-246, 256n20 Simié, André, 86n 1 Simmons, Leo W., 86ni Sind, 135 Singer, Eliot, 1771121 Singer,Jerome, 11-12, 28-2gnio Singer, Milton B., 242 Singh, Béant, 255n 12 Singh, Bhag, 257n27 Singh, Dave, 256021 Singh, G. R., 2561121 Singh, Khushwant, 240, 257027 Singh, Mewa, 240, 25405 Singh, W., 257027 Sirkandas, 14503 Sita, 91 Sithatu, 129, 141 Social constructionism, 4, 183-184; basic propositions of, 8 - 1 1 ; and bodily feeling, 11 — 14; and Cartesian theory, 13; and cognitive theory, 7-8, io, 13-14; and commonsense theory, 10-13, '51 ant ^ deconstructionism, 8, 19-21, 24, 26; and dialogical anthropology, 24-25; aod emotional appraisal, 9 - 1 7 ; and functional interpretation, 9, 15; and humanism, 26; and phenomenology, 13, 28n6; and physicalist theory, 6 - 7 , 9 - 1 1 , 14, 28113; and rationalism, 10

Soodan, K . S., 78, 86n6 Southwold, Martin, 186 Spinoza, Baruch, 28115 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 29m 6 Sri Lanka, 26 Srinivasan, Amrit, 233ns Srivastava, Ram, 256m 6 Srngara bhava, 18, 161 irngara rasa, 22, 206m3, 212, 218-219, 224225,229-231 Sthajri bhava, 18, 193 Stocking, George, 58n 1 Structuralism, 92 Subhadra, 214 Subjectivity, 4, 6, 17; and culture, 99; and dance, 220, 222-223; a n d decentered subject, 26; and mysticism, 158 Surdas, 2061114 Susti, 22 Sutlej river, 254n6 Svaktya, 162 Svaripa, 187, 200-204, 2o6mo Swaminarayan sect, 160 Swat Pukhtun, 255119 Sweepers, Untouchable, 117-118 Synaesthesia, 23 Synecdoche, 176n 11

Social identity: and culture, 161; and food, 104; and maiti, 110; and religion, 161 Socialization, 28nn3,6, 253; male, 105; in United States, 65 Social structure: and age hierarchy, 119; and caste system, 8-9, 41, 53, 57,92, 119-121, 124; and division of labor, 121; and jokes, 116, 128, 143; and land ownership, 41, 98; and religion, 159-160; and segregation, 121, 124. See also Economic relations; Family relations Social Structure (Murdock), 130 Sokolovsky, Jay, 86ni Solomon, Robert C., 4-6, 10, 12-14, 28n6,

Tailaogs, 159 Tamos, 100 Tambiah, Stanley, 185, 213, 231 Tamils, 21, 25; anpu displayed by, 38-39, 42, 6on6,61 nng, 12; cruelty among, 47-50, 59-6on6; culture of, 39; and economic relations, 41, 53-54; and family relations, 38, 40-41, 54-56, 6on6; and food as signifies 43, 45, 55-56, 6ini3; hiding of love by, 42-44, 6inio; and idea of dirtiness (arukku), 50-52; and idea of habit (parakkam), 44-47; and idea of motherhood (amma), 56; and idea of servitude (adimai), 52-56; and insults, 44; literature of, 40, 59n4; and marriage relations, 43-44, 6061119; a n d maternal love, 42-43; and middle class, 41; and name avoidance, 43-44,

29nni 1,12, 93, 166, 183-184 Song: and dance ritual, 225-229; devotional, 187, 192, 194, 2o6ni4; and folksong, 166, 172; obscene, 129, 141, 1461111 ; religious, 103; and singing, 22, 187

60-61 ng; and sexual love, 43 Tandon, Prakash, 135 Tantrism, 217, 219, 225, 233n6, 246 Teachings of Lord Chaitanya (Bhaktivedanta), 268

Index Teasing, 107, 128-130, 139, 1471119 Temples, 94, 105; ofChaitanyaite sect, 170; dance in, 212-214, 217, 225, 230-231, 232nni,2; food in, 168, 171 — 173, 197, 207n20, 214-215, 217; of Hare Krishna sect, 160, 253-264, 270, 272, 274, 282010; icons in, 159-161, 172-173, 191-192, 201, 225; inner sanctum of, 197, 207mg, 217, 225, 230; ofPushti Margsect, 182, 186188, 191-192, 194-195, 201, 207nn 19,20; of Radhavallabha sect, 279, 28407; ritual in, 165, 185-187, 191-192, 201, 204-205, 212-215, 230-231; servants in, 215-216, 223; of Sikhs, 240, 247; of Vaishnavite sect, 263 Teresa of Avila, 23 Textuality, deconstructionist theory of, 2 0 21, 24 Tij festival, 122 Tillich, Paul, 201

Ttntkkvrai, 5904 Tolkäppiyam, 59114 Toomey, Paul, 10, 16, 20, 22-24, ,0 3> '67> 231 Toothi, N. A., 20jn2 Toronto, 246 Transmigration of souls, 46 Trawick, Margaret, 16, 21-22, 24-25, 165 Treatise on Dramaturgy (Bharata), 17

311

Uttar Pradesh, 92, 94, 11 in6, 118, 120-121, 132, I45nn3,4, 157, 182-183, Vaidhi bhaiti, 21, 268-271, 274, 280, 283020 Vail, Charlotte, 103 Vaishnavite sect, 18, 20, 24, 159-162, 164>65, 171, 175m, 187, 215, 2341118,19,23, 262, 264-265, 274, 282n6, 283m 4 Vallabha, 159, 167, 182, 187-188, 194, 199, 202,204 Vallabhacharya, 97 Vallabhite sect, 157, 159-160, 163, 167-169, 172, i75ni, 176n6. Set also Pushti Marg sect Vancouver, Canada, 240, 248-249, 254n5

Vätsalya bhiva, 18, 161, 190 Vätsalya raja, 266, 276 Vatsyayana, Kapila, 233m 1 Vatuk, Sylvia, 9, 21, 25, 70, 103, 118, 120, 122, 14503, 146m2, I47nni6,i8, 165, 167, 176m 5, 177024 Vatuk, Ved, I77n24 Vaudeville, Charlotte, 17505 Veda, 95, 160, I77n22, 269, 282ng Veen, Klaas W. van der, 118, 120 Veer, Peter van der, 103 Vegetarianism, 103, 217 Vellalars, 41

Tribhangi, 22

Vesya, 215, 218-219 Videsi, 277

Turner, Victor, 183, 275 Tyagis, 128 Tyler, Stephen, 102, i75n4

Vidyarthi, L. P., 2821112 Violence, 46, 96, 133-134, 239-241, 243, 248250, 256021

Ujjain, 183, 188, 191, 195, 202-203, 2o8n29 Unclean castes, 121, 145m Unconscious, 37, 174 Unemployment, 79 United States: attitudes toward death in, 83; culture of, 84; individualism in, 16; jokes in, 116; old age in, 65, 68, 84; Sikhs in, 245-246, 256n2o; socialization in, 65 Universalism, 5-7, 8, 17,64, 93, 173-174, 183-184, 253 Untouchable caste, 117-118, 121, 123-124, 126, 128, 138, 145m. See also Harijans Urban relations, 54, 78-79; and dance, 212; and political economy, 107-108; and Pushti Marg sect, 182 Utku Eskimo, 7

Virginity, 123, 138 Vishnu, 18, 95, 214, 217 Vishram Ghat, 95-97, 104, 108 Vitthalnatha, 187-188, 194, 198, 202-204, 2o6nn7,i4 Vreede-de Stuers, Cora, 118

Viraha, 169, 184, 191

Wach, Joachim, 205n3 Wa g e s . 79 Wallace, Anthony, 2 8 3 ^ 1 Wealth, 97, 107, 2o8n29 Weber, Max, 6, 175n 1 White, Geoffrey, 27m Williams, Raymond B., 160 Wilson, Bryan R., 28208 Wilson, J . R. S., 93, 111 nn 1,11

312

Index

Winch, Peter, 28116 Wisdom and Waste in the Punjab Village (Darling), 25408 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 13, 15, 19, 28116, 93 Women: as Brahmans, 105; Chaube, 96; child-bearing purpose of, 126; and division of labor, 86n3, 125; education of, 47; and female infanticide, 135; and gossip, 125; and hierarchy, 125; identified with emotion, 19; and Islamic ideology, 123; and life course, 86n3; and old age, 71, 75; and purdah, 118, 123-124, 127-128, 144, 255m 1; and purity, 77; and religion, 105, 216; and respect etiquette, 1 1 8 - 1 1 9 ; s e x * ual fluid of, 216-219; sexual obligation of, 124-127; solidarity among, 129; sub-

ordination of, 6on6; as temple servants 215-216; travel restricted for, 122, 124 Women's Seclusion and Men's Honor ( Mandelbaum), 255m 1 Working class, 26, 82 Wrestling, 96, 98, 105-106, n o Wulff, Donna, 18, 2341123 Yadavas, 94 Yalman, Nur, 142 Yashoda, 167, 183-184, 190, 193-194, 196, 207m 5 Yoga, 1 0 1 - 1 0 2 , 105-106, 246-247 Zimmermann, Francis, 214