Divine Passions: The Social Construction of Emotion in India

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Divine Passions : The Social Construction of Emotion in India Lynch, Owen M. University of California Press 9780520066472 9780585131085 English Ethnology--India--Congresses, Emotions--Congresses, India--Social life and customs--Congresses, Love-Religious aspects--Hinduism--Congresses. 1990 GN635.I4D58 1990eb 152.4 Ethnology--India--Congresses, Emotions--Congresses, India--Social life and customs--Congresses, Love-Religious aspects--Hinduism--Congresses.

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Divine Passions The Social Construction of Emotion in India Edited by Owen M. Lynch

 



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Disclaimer: This book contains characters with diacritics. When the characters can be represented using the ISO 8859-1 character set (http://www.w3.org/TR/images/latin1.gif), netLibrary will represent them as they appear in the original text, and most computers will be able to show the full characters correctly. In order to keep the text searchable and readable on most computers, characters with diacritics that are not part of the ISO 8859-1 list will be represented without their diacritical marks. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. Oxford, England © 1990 by The Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dam 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. EthnologyIndiaCongresses. 2. EmotionsCongresses. 3. IndiaSocial life and customsCongresses. 4. LoveReligious aspects HinduismCongresses. 1. Lynch, Owen M., 1931II. Bennett, Peter. GN635.I4D58 1990 1524dc20 89-4975 CIP Printed in the United States of America 123456789 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39-48-1984.  



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



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CONTENTS Preface

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I Introductions: Emotions in Theoretical Contexts 1. The Social Construction of Emotion in India Owen M. Lynch

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II Love and Anxiety in Intimate Familial Contexts 2. The Ideology of Love in a Tamil Family Margaret Trawick

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

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III Joy and Humor in Public Caste Contexts 4. The Mastram: Emotion and Person Among Mathura's Chaubes Owen M. Lynch

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5. Untouchable Chuhras Through Their Humor: "Equalizing" Marital Kin Through Teasing, Pretencc, and Farce Pauline Kolenda

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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

 



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

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8. Refining the Body: Transformative Emotion in Ritual Dance Frédérique Apffel Marglin

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V Conflicting Emotions in Cross-Cultural Contexts 9. On the Moral Sensitivities of Sikhs in North America Verne A. Dusenbery

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

262

Contributors

287

Glossary

289

Index

295

 



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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 1-14 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.  



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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 Clalifornia 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.  



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PART ONE INTRODUCTION: EMOTIONS IN THEORETICAL CONTEXTS  



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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, white-bearded 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 devotionthese 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.  



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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 anthropo1ogists, 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, 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. James 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  



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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. The 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 1938: 104). 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 functional-ism. 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. "The interpretation of emotions ... [was] quite distinct from the emotion itself, thus leaving the emotion proper outside the realm of anthropology" (Solomon 1984: 239). To the extent that Max 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.  



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Finally, fieldwork itself was permeated by naive Western ideas concerning emotion as natural and universal; paradoxically fieldwork confirmed what it should have questioned. That 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 Raj-puts. They 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 [sic] they have been about projecting particular cognitive abilities to all humans" (Lutz 1986a: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 "human" 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. The 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: "Men 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 activitya  



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belief, a thought, or a judgmentessential to emotion in general and to identifying separate emotions in particular. Aristotle says: Take for instance, the emotion of anger: here we must discover (1) 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 amuse anger in anyone. The same is true of the other emotions. (Aristotle 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 1980:33-35). 5 Artistotle's thought is particularly modern because he places emotion not merely in the mind but also in a sociocultural context. The 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 The 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 fickle 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 erects of the emotion stand for the emotion (Lakoff and Kovecses 1987:196). Idiots may laugh, but a certain intelligence and a native's grasp of a culture are necessary to understand a joke and  



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experience humor. The joke is not a stimulus to a universal emotion; rather, getting the joke's pointthat is, appraising it correctlyconstitutes 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 meaningful. The 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, Jane's secretary, John, 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 John's situation and how she evaluates it. Likewise, at a marriage sisters-inlaw mercilessly tease Indian Chuhra grooms (Kolenda, this volume). The 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 Jane feels pity for John 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 Jane 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" (Armon-Jones 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. "The 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. "Thus, 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 of selves and the demands of situations" (M. Rosaldo 1984:149). Finally, social constructionism raises the problem of "feeling" in a way different from physicalist theories and common sense. Indeed, "feeling" has been a major stumbling block in the way of Westerners' understanding the role of emotion in their own lives and the Other'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 1985:73) In the English language the verb "to feel" is so intimately linked to understanding of emotion that one can scarcely imagine the Other without it. Yet 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. The kinds of feelings or sensations one has, say, for anger, may 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 of emotions with feeling of sensations as though they were the same. Yet 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. The 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 1980: 115-129; Solomon 1976:150-170; Armon-Jones 1986; Averill 1980:327-329). Although the methods of Schacter and Singer's study "have been challenged incisively..., its conclusions are consistent with a large number of subsequent studies" (Gordon 1981:573). 10 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, James hit Anne because he felt angry with her, or again Mary refused to come to the party because she felt insuited. Yet the reference to feeling in such statements does little or nothing to explain behavior. Rather one expects James 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.11. "If 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 1984:11). 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 you" or "I feel angry with you." 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 common-sense 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 judgements" (Solomon 1976: 158, 187; 1984:249). Just how evaluative judgments, matters of cognition, can be relatively intense is not clear. On 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 Rosaldo (1984: 138) 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 'me'as thoughts embodied." What 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. Yet the self is not merely a mind; it is a totality of mind and body. Emotions affirm what they assert. They assert an appraisal, and they affirm this by grounding it in the reality of the bodily self. In this way they arc simultaneously body-mind as well as individual-social, thus giving them their great importance to the social scientist. They 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 Robertson-Smith, 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, "with...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 body-emotion upon which it depends so that cognition itself can be present. Like physicalism, cognitivismpure, self-sufficient, and referring to an identifiable conceptis 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 many, if not most, cultures locate emotions somewhere in the body. Among the Ifaluk of Micronesia emotion words are identified as being ''about our insides'' even though emotion words are identified and sorted as statements about situations of relationship rather than as internal states (Lutz 1986a:268). Among the Pintupi aborigines of Australia emotions function primarily as moral displays of, or appeals to, one's relatedness to others, but they also "take place in the stomach where the spirit is located" (Myers 1986:107). Among 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 "the heart 'thinks' as well as 'feels' and the liver is the seat of the passions" (Parkin 1985:145). The 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. Mr. 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. Total self-involvement, I think, is part of the meaning of Wittgenstein's remarks concerning emotion: the gasp of joy, laughter, jubilation, the thoughts of happinessis 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 jubilationor 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 of joy. (Wittgenstein 1980:151) The 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? One 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. 14 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. As I have already noted, we sometimes use emotion terms with an exculpatory function: when we say "he did it because he loved her," his love operates to excuse his foolish action. Among the Pintupi aborigines of Australia compassion (ngaltu) presupposes an idea of relatedness and "can be best understood as the possibility of being moved by another's wishes or  



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condition" (Myers 1986:115). 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. "On 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 mcan 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 arc purported to be more emotional than men. Or again, emphasis on feeling, rather than on social appraisal, as essential to emotions is heavily involved with American stress on privacy (emotions arc within the individual's intimate self) as well as on the individual as a central value orientation and basic unit of society (Lutz 1988, 1985:80-81). 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 "to have" love for the child. The 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 involvementas 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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The 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." "The 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 being'" (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. The 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. The 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. They 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. The 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 (sthayi 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 rasa. 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. santa bhavarepose, calmness, peace 2. dasya bhavahumility and obedience of a servant toward his master 3. sakhya bhavafriendship between friends 4. vatsalya bhavathe love of a mother for her child 5. madhurya or srngara * bhavathe 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 sarira) that is one with the interior subtle body (linga* 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 1980: 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 différance which undermines the referential theory of signs (Derrida 1973; 1976). Différance 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 threeword, concept, and referentare not identical; each can itself be a sign. 17 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.18 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 textas something stable with an authoritative interpretation, a unique origin, and a particular authorchanges. 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 différance, 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. The 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 spotlights 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 masti 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 mash (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 (srngara * rasa) is experienced, understood, and evoked by means of the temple dancer's dress. She wears a silver belt (benga* patia), which is also worn by female fertility figures and which calls to mind frogs (benga*) evoking the fertilizing power of the rainy season. The dancer, too, strikes a particularly erotic pose known as tribhangi*. The 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... establish[es] 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. The 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 1982:110) 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 arc 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 synaesthctic 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 (Harré and Finlay-Jones 1986:220-233; see also Jackson 1985). Brooks's, Maglin'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 open-ended and dialogical. Dialogue, an exchange of signs, creates all the characteristics of différance. 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. The 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 Madame 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 warm-bodied 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 Jat 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. This corpus is as vast and diverse as the literature of Western psychology. Yet much of it has been subject to Western scholarly readings, techniques, apparatus, and interpretations. One can gain new and different understandings by reading this literature in light of everyday understandings from the field. The task is mighty and requires a command of written sources unnecessary for many cross-cultural studies of 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. Most 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) who understand emotions in terms of social situations than like Americans who understand emotions in terms of an individual's feelings. What, 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 and 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, Plan 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 (1982), 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. Harré (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 emotionsfear, anger, depression, and satisfactionare 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 to 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 Harré (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), Harré (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 karna or mahsus hona. 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), AbuLughod (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" (Derrids 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 1941 Rhetoric. In The Basic Works of Aristotle. R. McKeon, ed. New York: Random House. Armon-Jones, Claire 1986 The Thesis of Constructionism. In The Social Construction of Emotions. Rom Harré, ed. Pp. 32-56. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Averill, James 1980 A Constructivist View of Emotion. In Emotion: Theory, Research, and Experience. Vol. 1, Theories of Emotion. Robert Plutchick and Henry Keller-man, 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. 110-126. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall. 1986 Emotions and Statements about Them. In The Social Construction of Emotions. Rom Harré, ed. Pp. 1531. 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. 97-114. 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. file:///C|/Social%20Construction%20of%20Emotions%20in%20India/files/page_30.html[21.03.2011 19:01:29]

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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 Différance. In Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs. David B. Allison, trans. Pp. 129-160. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. 1976 Of Grammatology. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, trans. Baltimore: Johns 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 The Rules of Sociological Method. Glencoe, Ill.: 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. 1-46. London: Tavistock. Gordon, Steven L. 1981 The Sociology of Sentiments and Emotions. In Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives. Morris Rosenberg and Ralph Turner, eds. Pp. 562-592. New York: Basic Books. Greenberg, Joseph 1957 Essays in Linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gusfield, Joseph R. 1981 The Culture of Public Problems: Drinking-Driving and the Symbolic Order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Harré, Rom, ed. 1986 The Social Construction of Emotions. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Harré, Rom, and Robert Finlay-Jones 1986 Emotion Talk Across Times. In The Social Construction of Emotions. Rom Harré, ed. Pp. 220-233. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Heelas, Paul 1986 Emotion Talk Across Cultures. In The Social Construction of Emotions. Rom Harré, ed. Pp. 234-266. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Hochschild, Arlie R. 1983 The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human 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. 43-62. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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James, 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 1:153-176.



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1983 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. 195-221. 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 11(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. 63-100. 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):286309. 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 15:405-436.

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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. Medick, 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 Schieffelin 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. 135-151. 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. 178-195. 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 Harré, ed. Pp. 83-

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97. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Schacter, Stanley, and Jerome Singer

 

1962 Cognitive, Social, and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State. Psychological Review 69(5): 379399.



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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 11(5):181-191. Schneider, David 1968 American Kinship: A Cultural Account. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 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, Max 1963 Basic Concepts in Sociology. H. P. Secher, trans. New York: Citadel Press. White, Geoffrey, and John 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 Padavali Kirtan. Paper given at conference on Emotion, Feeling, and Experience in India, University of Houston, Houston, Texas.



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PART TWO LOVE AND ANXIETY IN INTIMATE FAMILIAL CONTEXTS  



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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,  



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the next interaction. Let us say that culture is in the interaction. After all, where else would it be? Then, 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. We can study the rocks later. Now let us consider the turbulence in which we together with others are swept up. In 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 uswhat 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 Tamil 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 ''attempted to demonstrate'' in order to stress the intentionality of their performances before me. One 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 of terms for my sakeexplanations of and comments upon behavior, one's own and others', to me as an ignorant stranger wanting to knowwere 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 otherin 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 My 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 "in their minds" in some way) was to them. They had the word anpu, which seemed to mean something very like English "love," and various related words, pacam ("attachment"), acai ("desire"), pattu* ("devotion").  



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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 human 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? Ill offer a woman ten rupees for an interview and she says to me, "Money is not important, people are important," to me that statement conveys more than a message about the relative value, in objective terms, of people and 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. The 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 Nadu my own, deeply ingrained, culturally developed feelings about what love is and should be. These feelings ran headlong into the enactments of anpu that my Tamil 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, "But this isn't love.'' Now, after years, I can answer myself with detached amusement, "Of 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 an 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 little bit mixed in me. To 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 dose 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 Ayya 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 Ayya's village, the better to receive daily lessons from him. At first I stayed in a separate house, but members of Ayya'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 Ayya's family. They 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 Ayya'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 Ayya and Ayya's sister-inlaw 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. The members of this household were not Ayya'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. The head of the family was a man whom Ayya 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 Ayya'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 dose. 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. The cost of rice was fixed, laborers demanded higher wages, crops often failed, and they faced litigation on all sides. Many 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 Ayya'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 Ayya 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 Ayya's family lived. But in this village I was not able to establish with anyone the degree of intimacy I had achieved with Ayya'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. The interviews were open-ended. The content of these interviews supplements at some points in this essay what I learned from Ayya's family. Of the 150 interviewees, 100 were from the one village; the rest were from the cities of Madras and Madurai. The preponderance of interviewees were from the Paraiyar, Kallar, and Kavundar 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 Ayya'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. The assertions I make here about anpu would be considered by most Tamils to be banalitiestoo 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 Tamil 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 adanki* peruki ninrum*" [sic], which could be translated "Love grows in hiding"; adanku* means "be 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 just this dangerous way. When I told her it was an America custom to let people lead their own lives, she said simply, "Tappu" (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 many 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." Then 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. Other kinds of love had to be concealed in other ways. There 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 human 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 meant 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. The custom of a woman avoiding mention of her husband's name was only part of a much larger set of conventions for hiding love. Not only was the personal name of the husband never used, but if possible he was never referred to at all. Only a very Westernized woman would refer to her husband 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 "the 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 "my Reddiar." I asked Anni the reason for this convention, and she gave her usual enigmatic answer to questions of this sort: "habit" (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 The 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). Ayya referred to his younger sister, with whom he had been especially dose 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. The 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. If 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.10 The 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, "Arc 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 low-caste, 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. "Don'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 (menmaiyana manacu). A heart that was not moved by the feelings of others was like a stone ("Make your heart like a stone," a village man told me, when a drunkard came asking me for money). Food metaphors for the tenderness of love were many. Of all the different kinds of food, sweet ripe fruit (param*), whose coming into existence was a gentle and gradual process, was probably most symbolic of love. A mango (mamparam*) was like a breast. You kneaded it between the palms of your hands until the pulp was a creamy juice, then you cut a small hole at the tip and sucked out the juice. In our village, it was a sin to cut down a fruitbearing mango tree, just as it was a sin to kill a pregnant cow. I cannot help but think it significant that the mango tree was called ma. Love, or attachment, 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 important and complex part of people's thinking and day-to-day theorizing about human behavior. Any addictive habit, such as coffee drinking or cigarette smoking, was a parakkam. Ayya was fond of saying that he had "no habits of any kind" (enta vitamana parakkame* illai), a statement meaning that he had no physical addictions; but this statement also expressed for himself and for others in the family what they saw as a more general aspect of his personality, his lack of attachment (pacam) to any human being. He stood apart (otunki* nitkiren*) he said, and he selfdeprecatingly claimed that he had no love (anpu) in his heart either. According to popular theory, a person could become habituated to virtually any state of affairs, and 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. The idea of parakkam explained and justified the differences between people. There 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. Once Anni and I were walking down a road in Madras when we saw a hovel built under a bridge. "Even here people live their lives," she said. "Like us, a man and a woman and children. They have a good life. They don't have to answer to anyone [yarukkum patil colla vendam*]. We who are in the middle, neither rich nor poor, must suffer many burdens. But as for them, if one day 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 day." "But isn't it hard to go hungry?" I asked. "It is just parakkam," said Anni. "If I eat at a certain time today, I will want to eat at that same time tomorrow. For them, going hungry is a habit." 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 Madras was regarded as a dangerous place because its people were violent. "Why are they that way?" I asked Anni. "Because fighting is a habit they have practiced and practiced and that quality has grown in them" (ate paraki * paraki* anta kunam* valarum*), she answered. Through 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. That a child was born possessing certain knowledge (e.g., how to suckle) and, more importantly, that children of the same womb 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 up 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 and 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. To 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, just 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 sixyear-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. Many 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 parakuvarkal *). 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 cruelest 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, "He 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. ''At 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 Ayya 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. "You 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 Ayya had said. She answered, "In 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 * murunkavum* 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 [manacadci*], 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. Or 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. Our 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 (munnettam*). 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 unitseach pair of spouses with their respective children. Love, which naturally (iyatkaiyaka*) was given to one's own, had to be redirected across those lines. The stronger the love, the stronger the force that had to bc 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. One 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. Or punishment would fall long after a child had made a mistake and thought it forgotten. Or 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 because 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 (uyarnta) than one who did not. A loving heart was a pure (tuymaiyana) 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 of bhakti, 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. The 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. The calf who was sick and unable to walk, the man who had no affection for others, these were not as they should be. The 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 acai, 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, "It 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 two-year-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 (kappu), 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 bhakti-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, "as though you're being punished," she said. Such behavior fit into the ethos that Padmini and her sister and cousin had worked out for themselvesthey were simple (elimai *) by choice; and they were protectors, not in need of protection. The 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 cottonone a waistcloth that hung to his feet, the other wrapped around his shoulders. His friends and followers all wore shirts, trousers, watchessigns 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. Their quasi-ascetic behavior might be dismissed as an attempt to make a virtue of 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, "Our family is the poorest [among the landowning families in the village] because we give the most to others, and all the people know it." The 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, "Whatever Ayya does not need, we do not need." Because Ayya did not drink coffee, she would not drink coffee. If Ayya refused to go to the cinema, she would also stay home. If Ayya brought her nothing to wear, she would be content with her old clothes. There 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, "This pitiful woman has no jewelry." But Anni was not perturbed. To her luxuries and sins were both tevai illai, ''not 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* manappanmaiatermsaid 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*). Butthetransformation 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. If 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. He would keep his lips tightly shut until the last second, when he would open his mouth and in went the food. Then he would chew and swallow it. In this way, Anni became his mother, servant, and controller. 13 Mixture and Confusion (kalattal, mayakkam) Love, as defined and enacted by our family, brought about reversals of all kinds. The 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 (amma), 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. One's own mother, or someone in the category of mother, such as mother's sister. The children of the family called Anni "Annimma*," and Padmini, "Pappimma." 2.Asuperior 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. So 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 Tamil 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, "Love does not know head or tail." This struck me as plausible, given other aspects of the ideology of love in Tamil culture that I had learned. To show affection for  



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someone, you demonstrated in a conventionalized way that you had forgotten what category they belonged to. Love, then, mixed you up (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. The same 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. Then one could not be blamed for acting strangely. And one could easily be misused by others. The intoxication of love was notoriously dangerous for just this reason. A servant in a Brahman household jokingly said that a Brahman girl learns to sing so that, when a potential suitor comes to visit and hears her voice in the other room, "he will become confused" (mayankuvan *) and marry her. Love, through mayakkam, could make a person see exactly the opposite of what was there. The story was told in our household of a Shaiva guru to whom an admirer, out of great love, offered a piece of raw meat. The guru saw only the love and ate the meat as though it were a ripe piece of fruit, much to his followers' disgust. In a play shown in our village, the goddess Adiparasakti was created to destroy a demon. This goddess was huge and green; she bit her bright red tongue angrily and stomped about the stage wielding a sharp trident. The demon in the play took one look at her and was smitten with desire. He went home to tell his sidekick of the beauty of his new heartthrob. The sidekick at first was baffled. Then sudden comprehension lit up his face, and he nodded and smiled like an eager puppy. "Aha, ampu, ampu!" he said, "Love, love!" (Ampu, the sidekick's dopey rendering of anpu, also means "arrow." In this play, the pun was certainly intentional). Love, as understood by our family, not only reversed opposites but also erased distinctions completely. There will be nothing novel to Westerners in this idea; it is important only that we realize that, for the Tamil family also, mixture (kalattal) was a consciously recognized attribute of what for them also was the overarching ideal of love. This was what Anni meant by "we are all one," both here, "within these four walls," and now, "in these advanced times." People's presence with each other made them mix with each other, become used to each other, and become one. It was impolite because unloving to treat oneself and one's own with more favor than one allowed others, at least within the four walls, in places where love should prevail. To discriminate was ora vañcakam (the deceitfulness of boundaries, that is, drawing lines). The politest, most loving pronoun was the first person plural inclusive nam, meaning "we (including you)." One used it, within the very innermost walls, when talking in one's mind to oneself. One used it when referring either to "my house" or to "your house"?; both were called, politely, ''our house." Anni elevated me to the status of her equal by often referring to women of our age (nam vayacu) and laying out the rules that we both should follow. It caused members of our family distress  



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when I said "your children." All of them, including my own, were "our children," 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 againmine were called yours, and yours mine. So when I wrote to Ayya's sister Porutcelvi that my second child had been born, she wrote back, "I can't wait to see my new son." This kind of total mixingthe sharing and trading of homes, of children, of selveswas necessary for the existence of love. So Ayya explained the Kannappan * 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. Then the second eye of the image started to bleed, and Kannappan reached for his own second eye to tear it out like the first, when Shiva stopped him. Ayya said, "This story proves that God has no love. Otherwise he would have recognized Kannappan's love from the first and saved both his eyes, not only one. It was only after Kannappan placed one of his eyes on the image that God, seeing through Kannappan's eye, understood Kannappan's pain. "In 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 yours." 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, 1989). 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. To 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 modem 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 Cankar* 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 1972:148-245). 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 outlets 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 he 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. Kantirusdi * 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. Ayya had replied, "Is 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." Ayya 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 (ninkal*, 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-to-face 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 cumankali *, 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 1972:52-55); perfect love, perhaps, is most deadly of all. 11. 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 The Category of the Person: A Reading of Mauss' Last Essay. In The Category of the Person. Michael Carrithers, Steven Collins, and Steven Lukes, eds. Pp. 26-45. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.



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Appadurai, Arjun 1981 Gastropolitics in Hindu South Asia. American Ethnologist 8(3):494-511. Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1981 The Dialoglc 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):387-401. Boon, James 1982 Other Tribes, Other Scribes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clifford, James 1983 Power and Dialogue in Ethnography: Marcel Griaule's Initiation. In Observers Observed. George Stocking, ed. Pp. 121-156. 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. James Clifford and George Marcus, eds. Pp. 51-76. Berkeley: University of California Press. Daniel, E. Valentine 1984 Fluid Signs. Berkeley: University of California 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. 1-34. 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 18:24-45. 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 of California Press. Kakar, Sudhir 1978 The Inner World. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kristeva, Julia 1984 Revolution in Poetic Language. Margaret Waller, trans. New York: Columbia University Press. Kapferer, Bruce 1983 A Celebration of Demons. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. file:///C|/Social%20Construction%20of%20Emotions%20in%20India/files/page_62.html[21.03.2011 19:01:39]

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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 Baby" Lest You Zap It with the Evil EyeThe 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.



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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 researcherspsychologists and sociologists as well as anthropologistshave 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 socialstructural 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  



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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 perjorative connotations of dependency in American culture. She provides quotations from informantsin 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 selfesteem. 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 1967:177-178) 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 life 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 . . . not . . . as a fatal attack on their self-esteem. (Davis-Friedmann 1983:13; 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 childrenof any agehow great the personal sacrifice associated with raising them was. It is not uncommon to hear a parent suggest to a childor to another within the child's hearingthat 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 mother of three adult sons who, to all appearances, fulfilled their filial obligations to her and to their father, expressed her concerns in words echoed many times in the utterances of other informants: 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? One 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, ''Oh, let him babble! That's just the way he is!" No one really listens to him. That's why I say, "Don'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." An elderly Chamar (member of the leatherworker caste), in much less comfortable economic and family circumstances, expressed an even more dismal 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. You 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 phrase repeated in both these quotations, and in countless others as well, refers to the importance of having "working hands and feet" (hath pair calte hue) if one expects to receive respect and care from the younger generation. 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, "If 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 vigorous, well-to-do, and evidently contented man of seventy years reported that, rather than risk experiencing this, he prays daily for death: Every day I say a prayer to God: "Oh Lord, lift me up! Everything is finemy hands and feet are both working. Now lift me up, because otherwise I am going to have to become dependent upon others!" Informants most often used the words asrit and adhin to speak of the consequences of physical incapacitation. A standard Hindi-English dictionary glosses asrit as "resorting (to), dependent (on)," or, as a noun, "one who has recourse to or relies on another; . . . dependent, follower, subject, servant, retainer, hanger-on, parasite" (Platts 1960:51). The same dictionary translates adhin as "subject, under the authority (of), subservient, dependent, subordinate, submissive, obedient," and in verbal constructions as "to 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 1960:1129). 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. They 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 recognized 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. The idea that parent-child reciprocity involves a life-span calculus was prominent in these people's thoughts about old age. To 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. On 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. Yet, 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 declineor, more accurately, of its consequences for the way in which the family treats the helpless personoften 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 (javani), and old age (burhappa). The 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 do 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 that." The 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. On the other hand, when a son marries, the presence of the new daughter-in-law in one's house is a daily reminderto others, as well as to oneself of the life transition one has experienced. The significance of the son's marriage for the age-grade status of the parents is reflected in the phrase, "her daughters-in-law are arriving" (bahu a rahi); this commonly characterizes, in terms of her life stage, a woman in early old age. The 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 dharma 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 thesethat of the mature, married, economically active adult male, the Householderis 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 of life. In fact, they prescribe individual self-reliance as the central goal of this period. The 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-in-law, 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. The 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 and 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 of life, 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. When 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 The 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 juniors. 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 laundered, mended, and replaced with new ones when necessary; and bedding laid out for them each night. Men often cite sons filling their water-pipe (hukka) with tobacco whenever they wish to smoke, and women tell how their legs are massaged each night, their backs scrubbed during the morning bath, and their hair combed and braided by their daughters-in-law. Certain kinds of deference behavior are also included under the rubric of seva. Old people expect food to be offered and graciously served before it is given to other family members. They expect the young to display "fear" (dar *) and to "respect" them (izzat karna) by, for example, standing and refraining from unnecessary speech in their presence. Particularly important is that the young not talk back to their elders (javab dena) by contradicting or arguing with them. They wish the young to heed (sunna) and obey (manna) their words and to consult them (puchna) when making any important decision or taking action that might affect the whole family or any individual member. All these behaviors manifest seva, and 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. The extent to which an older person is able to experience the desired state of comfort, ease, and contentmentaramin this time of life is said to be directly linked to the kind of seva provided by his children and to the spirit in which they provide it. Aram, like seva, has both a bodily (saririk) and a mental (mansik) component. Ifs person's children give shelter, food, and clothing but deny peace of mind (santi), the person cannot fully experience aram. Instead, that person will be distressed and anxious (paresan) and experience sadness (udas) and pain (dukh), even though physically lacking nothing. Thus, an atmosphere of harmony within the household and a regular display of respect, deference, and loving concern for the older person is crucial to attaining the fortunate state of one who is carefree (befikr), without any worry (cinta) 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 seav received from younger family members. For example, an elderly man had the following to say when asked about his home 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 hack to me [javab kabhi nahim* dete].



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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 karnevali] daughter-in-law. She gives me my meals, washes my clothes, prepares my bed at night. In all things she serves me well. On 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 age, when the children become capable, then an old man should hand over all the work to them and not interfere in what they do. He should let them do as they please .... [In my house], even if they do something that causes the loss of 10,000 rupees, and it could be avoided by my stepping in, I won't do so. 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 Chamar 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 labelsor their Hindi vernacular equivalentsfor 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 (sannyasi), 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 sannyasa." 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, "From 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 dean 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) sails 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 stylesfor example, the polyester bush-shirt and trouserspopular 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 jamai) 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-inlaw. 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 (thik 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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Or, 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 laik], the "bastard" [susuraliterally 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 workthey 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. One must bring a strange woman into the house, and, then, simply wait and see what happens. If she is "that sort of woman," 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 nowher 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 youup 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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One does not often hear "good for nothing" applied to daughters. Concern about how daughters turn out (nikalna) centers upon neither their earning potential nor their filial devotion but rather upon their sexual purity. In most cases, this can be preserved effectively by strict restraints on their freedom of movement and by close supervision of their associations and activities. Once given in marriage, a daughter's chastity becomes the responsibility of her husband and in-laws. Although any subsequent misadventures may cause considerable personal pain and distress and some loss of honor (izzat), they do not normally impinge directly upon the older people's domestic security or well-being. The situation may be different, of course, when a couple has only daughters: Baijit'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. Partly 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. In such an instance the son-in-law's character plays a role as well. Daughters are generally thought more reliable than sonsand certainly more so than daughters-in-lawif called upon to provide loving care for their parents. But the situation is complicated because reliance upon a daughter married out of the family (the normal arrangement) is considered shameful and demeaning. Unlike a son, the out-married daughter has no reciprocal obligations to her own parents; her duty is to serve her parents-in-law. For her parents to ask assistance from her means, in effect, relying upon the resources and good will of the family to which they gave her in marriage. On the other hand, when a son-in-law has been brought into one's own family, for the express purpose of providing seva, it is quite acceptable to rely upon him and upon one's daughter for one's material and other needs. But an in-marrying son-inlaw comes, almost by definition, with a motive of material gain and with the risk that he may take advantage of the situation. The risk is also great in the case of an adopted son, unless he has been raised since infancy as one's own. In this community, however, most adoptions take place rather late in the life of the adopter, when he or she is finally reconciled to childlessness or when an only surviving adult son suffers an untimely death. Most adoptees, too, are young men or adolescent boys. To forestall the inheritance claims of collaterals, adopting parents often make over legal title of some or all of their property to the adoptee, against the latter's promise to live with and serve them 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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Although the above speaker rather casually dismissed the risks of such adoptions, in fact in this community ''true" stories of adoptees failing blatantly to fulfill their contract for life-long service to the uncle or aunt who had adopted them were enough to give considerable pause to anyone contemplating such a step. Intergenerational Relations and the Role of Property To be alone in old age, "to 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. The rich are anyway more likely to be de-mographically 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. One 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 "lonely," 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 1975: 148-150). 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 takeunwittingly or notthe 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. This syndrome is, according to Goldstein, a recent development in urban 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. The 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 agenot 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. The expression dhan ka seva, service of wealthreminiscent of the Nepali notion, "money is love" was often used in this connection: Nowadays people do 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 off 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 do seva, out of greed for that knot. That is my opinion: if a man has money, he won't have any problems. A poor manual laborer, not surprisingly, also agreed: "The man 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 expensessuch as rent, utilities, and staple foodswhile 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. To 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 manage]I am just living out my days. Cautionary 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. The 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 "to 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. He 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 of stories 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. On the one hand, the old people in these tales arc described as victims of their caregiversunworthy, selfseeking, lazy, or malicious younger people. On 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, and doesn't have to suffer much pain. He who does bad deeds, who commits sins, gives pain to others, God gives the fruits 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 Brahman woman who had died in great pain several years previously after a prolonged bout with cancer, was described as  



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a woman "of bad character" [in ki adat kharab thi]. She died a horrible death because of her bad karma in this life. She used to take things from the house and sell them in order to cat delicacies. She pawned the jewelry of her daughter-in-law [the wife of her nephew, adopted as a young man]. When she was close to the time of death, her daughter-in-law told the old man [her father-in-law] about it, lest she herself be accused of having taken the jewelry back to her natal home. 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 upon them. They died in such a condition that their bodies were infested with maggots. One of these was Bullan, the priest in Gangapur. It was all the fruit of his bad karma that he had to suffer. They say that you 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. He 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. The 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. The 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. The 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. To 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 dose 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 time 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-wayand wrong-wayflow of exchange, to retain self-respect. These feelings are, of course, aggravated in oldold age (see Neugarten 1974), when physical and/or mental incapacitation may make impossible the elderly person's contributing anything at alleven nonmateriallyto 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 understandingswhich they share with other members of their culture, including, of course, their adult childrenthey have legitimate and hard-earned rights to support and care in old age. To 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 notand there is reason to believe that when the old person begins  



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to represent a severe burden upon the finances, labor, and emotional resources of the household, they may notthe Indian old person is distressed, unhappy, in physical and mental pain. But he or she is so because of feeling unfairly and cruelly dealt with by those who by all rights should continue to respect and love him or her, even in misery. The elderly's own sense of self-respect is not under threat or attack. Rather, this is an anxiety born of realistic, experientially based concerns, that others may not come through with what is legitimately expected of them and that they may leave him, a helpless aged person, without succor in extreme need. Although the old person knows that these others will eventually reap the fruits of their neglect through the workings of karma, the immediate pain and suffering must still be endured. I have tried here to evoke through the words of my elderly Indian informants some notion of the kinds of emotions they experience when anticipating their further aging and the prospect of physical decline and incapacitation. The foregoing has been based almost entirely upon discussions with older people about aging and family relations, upon my observations, and upon the content of spontaneous conversations, among both the elderly and people of all ages, in which issues related to aging were discussed. What these individuals expressed verbally about their feelings concerning this time of life shows evidence of being highly culturally patterned; much of it is highly generalized as well, in that people spoke of the situation of "the elderly," or about "old age," without always directly describing their own inner states, as Americans do. Yet in what they chose to say, whether in the form of anecdotes and stories about others or in general pronouncements about the difficulties of enforcing intergenerational reciprocity when hands and feet no longer work, they revealed much about some key emotions evidently prevalent among aging men and women in this society, namely anxiety and fear about the future, and in particular about the possible consequences of becoming physically unable to function. Although, as I have shown, American old people express what appear superficially to be similar fears of becoming helpless and dependent, a closer examination of the way these two very different cultures conceive of the aging process and handle intergenerational relationships and interdependencies demonstrates that not only the sources of these emotions but also the constitution of 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 McKim 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), Myerhoff and 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. ROI 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. Of 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, Ill.: 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 James 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 38:716-724. Harlan, William H. 1964 Social Status of the Aged in Three Indian Villages. Vita Humana 7:239-252. 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. James 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. 3-12. 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 9:95-121. 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 CareerAging. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage.

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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 415:187-199. Pandey, Raj Bali 1969 Hindu Samskaras: Socio-Religious Study of the Hindu Sacraments. 2nd ed. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Platts, John 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 Journal of Social Work 32:155-162. Simmons, Leo W. 1945 The Role of the Aged in Primitive Society. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sokolovsky, Jay, ed. 1983 Growing Old in Different Societies. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth. Soodan, K. S. 1975 Aging in India. Calcutta: Minerva. Vatuk, Sylvia 1975 The Aging Woman in India: Self-Perceptions and Changing Roles. In Women 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 Old Age in India. In Old Age in Preindustrial Society. Peter N. Stearns, ed. Pp. 70-103. New York: Holmes and Meier. 1982b The 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. Jay Sokolovsky and Joan Sokolovsky, eds, Pp. 57-82. 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. Judith K. Brown and Virginia Kerns, eds. Pp. 137-154. South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin and Garvey.

 

1987 Authority, Power and Autonomy in the Life Cycle of North Indian Woman. In Dimensions of Social Life: Essays in Honor of David G. Mandelbaum. Paul Hockings, ed. Pp. 23-44. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.



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PART THREE JOY AND HUMOR IN PUBLIC CASTE CONTEXTS  



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Four The Mastram Emotion and Person Among Mathura's Chaubes Owen M. Lynch Introduction Western and some scholarly Indian thought offers models of Indian ideal behavior, thought, and feeling that stress self-abnegation and devotion to duty. Such models include Sits who dedicated her life to her husband Rams, Rams himself who assiduously cultivated devotion to duty and righteousness, and the ascetic who leaves house, home, and caste in search of emotional balance, nonattachment, and insight into the true nature of reality. Yet Indian popular folk tradition offers models of behavior, emotion, and feeling that, although not ultimately contradictory of such classical models, at first glance seem quite at variance with them. If one reads those texts least afflicted by moraliststhe poetry, especially lyrical poetry, and the vast literature of tales and romancesone 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 Tamralipti. Yet if one comes down to essentials, the ideals and aspirationsthe ''daydreams''which find expression in the stories and romances, remain, in spite of vast difference in temper and spirit, dose to those that have guided higher Indian thought. Or 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) One such folk modelthe ideal of the mastramis found in northwestern India, particularly in the area of Braj. A mastram is one who either is mast (intoxicated, drunk, proud, wanton, lustful, happy, overjoyed, careless) or  



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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 man" 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. The 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 phonemcs (Giddens 1979:38-48). 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. Geerez 1983:55-70) or  



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to the analysis of discourse concerning emotion (see Lutz 1986). The implicit assumption of such approaches, however, is that "real" 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; Harré 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 1984:221; Lyons 1980; Myers 1985:96-102; Rosaldo 1984:143; 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 "my 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 différance (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 Mathuts in the preChristian and early post-Christian era was the home of flourishing and vigorous Buddhist and Jain 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 1703 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 Caurasi 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 Jamuna (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. Caturvedi 1968:25). As the Chaubcs 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 (yajnas *) 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 fair-skinned 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 ka 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 arc dressed as Krishna and his brother Balaram. Then, they arc 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 arc a dominant presence in the city and arc 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 Jamuna. 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 (jajmani) 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 Marg 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 Chaube 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 Dart, 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 Dart and Kulli Dart 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 mastram; they arc ever outgoing, often boisterous, sometimes pushy, occasionally quarrelsome, and always delighted by an in-suiting 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 Jamuna 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 (dharmsala). 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 (sankalp*) 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 Brai 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 Mathuts 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 kangal * (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 joy" (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 Matburs 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 (laparvah) for how others may see them. In short, they are mast. Chaubes, like most people of Braj (Brajbasi), are a rustic, rough crew. The open, artless, even crass behavior of Brajbasis provides the standard [of this rusticity]. Krishna came here because he knew he would not be inundated with etiquette, and Brajbasis 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 1981:48) Unusually active, open, assertive, playful children are indulgently said to be mast, as are mischievous young boys who are laughed at and have their cars 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 cats, 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: Kaga basi Bhog vilasi Satyanasi 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 arc 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. Just before the drinking vessel is passed around from hand to hand, the first drink is offered to Shiva, when a few drops arc 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 Balinest, "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 Chaube 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 The 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.11 The Dravidian languages also "do not so fastidiously separate 'knowing' and 'feeling' in the way SAE [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. The 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. 12 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 (Thakurji*); 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 (prema). God does not need food; he does not cat 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 up in a saying, "Eat sweets, stay mast (mal 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 cat 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. 13 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, "We are takers; we don't give." A Chaube can most easily feel and be mast when he is not poor. One 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. One 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 Gaurasi Kos pilgrimage or out on tour to visit their clients, Chaube 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 Brahmans 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 marijuana 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. One 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 Chaube 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 Chaube 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. On most mornings one can see in the porticoes around Vishram Ghat in Mathura 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 bhajana 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 Lord." Mast, she said, means "to forget oneself and become unconscious in love" and to become absorbed (lin jata 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 (ananda) 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. Just 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 (bagica) owned and managed by groups of Chaubes. A garden has associated with it trees, a small temple, a meeting hall, and, for some, an akhara * (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 dean, 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, "We are mast." In the gardens bachelors ideally led a happy, carefree life, without family responsibilities and worries. The ideal of the mast bachelor was the wrestler, and many Chaubes were famous wrestlers often sponsored by rajas or maharajas 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. Today 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 One Chaube 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 sasana) goes to the head according to yogic belief, leads to insight. Wrestling and exercise have close relationships to Hatha Yoga. In Hindu 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. Today the gardens, as social institutions, are vestigial and functioning gyms are few. What 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 Chaube looking like a wrestler is still said to be mast. Mast wrestlers were also reputed to have been courageous warriors when occasion required. The Hindu science of using weapons (sastra vidya) was also taught in the gardens and gyms. In some of them one can still find some old weapons. The Chaubes, or Chaturvedis, are divided into two divisions, the Karua* (bitter, astringent) and the Mitha* (sweet). A true mastram is a Karua Chaube.16 Chaubes resident in Mathura say that when the Moghul emperor Aurangzeb began his persecution of Hindus, Mitha Chaubes fled to villages in neighboring districts and Rajasthan. The truly brave ones, the Karua, remained in Mathura 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. They 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 practicesdrinking marijuana, eating good food, singing hymns, and doing physical exercisesengenders masti. Each practice, when fore-grounded 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 mastdespite pretensions that the ideal mastram is totally unconcerned about his source of food, clothing, and shelterrequires 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 mangna *). 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). Rojgari 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, "In 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 upsometimes even to themselvestheir 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 différance. 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 sannyasi, 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 of niti, 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. To 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 1971:282). 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 Joan 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, Mathur Pradip and Mathur Hitaisi *, 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 pointing 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 daini 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 karil 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 (1971:275) notes, ''The Hindu has never divorced the physical from the spiritual; these 'ancient physiologists' ascribed an ethical significance to physiological sensitivity.'' 9. Carstairs (1954, 1967:117-119) 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). 11. 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 (usse prem karna, usse irsa karna). 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. "The 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 Lal Caturvedi (1967) gives a historical list of many famous Chaube wrestlers. 16. For an interesting discussion of the cross-cultural use of hitter 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 Karua 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 Kellerman, 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. 99105. 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 On 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 Of 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):41-56.



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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 Brindavan. 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, D.C. 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. 214-237. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. file:///C|/Social%20Construction%20of%20Emotions%20in%20India/files/page_113.html[21.03.2011 19:02:05]

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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):171-194. 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 yon 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. 135151. 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. 137-157. 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,

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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 Cutler, 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. 19(2):303-321. 1987 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 Caturvedi, Jivan Lal 1967 Mall-Vidya aur Mathura ke Caube. Mathur Pradip 2(1-2):34-46. Caturvedi, Vasudev Krsna * n.d. Mathura evam Mathur Caturvedi: Sanksipt* Paricay. Mathura: Sri Mathur Caturvedi Sabha. Caturvedi, Yugal Kisor 1968 Mathur Caturvedi Brahman* Paricay. Jaipur: Agarval Printing Press. Ranjan, Sri Rajendra  

1967 Hamare Bagici Akhare*. Mathur Pradip 2(7-8):1-2.



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Five Untouchable Chuhras Through Their Humor "Equalizing" Marital Kin Through Teasing, Pretence, and Farce Pauline Kolenda What is at issue, briefty, is the over-all "discursive fact," the way in which sex is "put into discourse." Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume I Remember, people joke about only what is most serious. Alan Dundes, Cracking 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 "get" the joke), if appreciated, they bring pleasure to their audience. There is a belief in the United States that the English cannot quite "get" American jokes; there is even a series of jokes about that (Dundes 1987:150-158). 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 upsidedown 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. To 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  



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high and low are all-too-human (or all-too-animal). If anthropologists look more closely, they may see that one set of masks has been replaced in joking or farce by another and that the disguises of propriety shape the disguises of humor. Habermas (1988:310) has suggested that when people laugh at the humor of wit they temporarily regress to an infantile prelinguistic stage of life. But I would say that it is not back to a prelinguistic stage but back to the early years of childhood, when they had to learn the most basic social and cultural rules, that jokesthat themselves permit the ready breaking of these rulescarry them. Certainly, joking and farce arc forms of play during which raconteur or actors and the audience may behave like kids. Perhaps that aspect of humor is universal, but the content of jokes is very much culturally constructed. In this chapter, I am concerned with some aspects of humor among Hindu peasants in North India, specificially with culturally prescribed uses of humor, derision, and insult in the relations between equals, between men who are "brothers," and between married women of the same generation, on the one hand, and between unequal affinal relatives, the wife's kin and the husband's kin, on the other. These latter are what anthropologists have called ritual joking relationships. Although ritual joking relationships are found widely throughout the world, including India, the content of the institutionalized joking between affines (people related as brothers-in-law or sisters-in-law or brother-in-law/ sister-in-law or co-parents-in-law) is seldom recorded. Apte makes the point forcefully that the ethnographic record is lacking in descriptions of actual joking behavior. He defines a joking 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) Later 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 essay, I shall describe "what actually happens" in culturally prescribed joking relationships, as I found them among North Indian untouch 



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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 affines 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 in-married woman and her affinal kin, the word repeatedly spoken is kayda, a rule of etiquette manifesting an attitude of deference. There is sasu ka kayda, the etiquette for the motherin-law, and jeth* ka kayda, the etiquette for the husband's elder brother, nanand ka 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 kayde (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 herfood, 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-inlaw 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 devranis [husband's younger brothers' wives] and jethanis * [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 mother-in-law would come along, crying, for half a kos [one mile] after me. She missed me so, she'd say, "Oh, 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 kayda-practicing bahu] covers her face if her husband comes in, and if the sasu sits on a cot the bahu sits on a pirha* [stool], so she is lower than her mother-in-law. She keeps a ghumghat* [covers her face with the end of her sari] from the taisera [husband's father's elder brother's wife] and pittisera [husband's father's younger brother's wife], too. The Chuhris indicated the specific acts by which a subordinate displayed respect, reverence, or deference to a superordinate. In return, the super-ordinate should show affection.2 Suffice to say, in-marrying women should be silent and cover their heads and often their faces when in the presence of father-in-law, elder brother-in-law, and husband's other kin older than the husband, both male and female. Similarly, in-marrying men are respectful toward a wife's older kin, just as they are respectful toward their own older kin. Male respect etiquette is not as dramatic as female. A man does not smoke, joke, or talk about sexual matters in the presence or hearing of older men. Between people of the same generation, close in age, joking may be allowed and even prescribed among North Indian peasants. Balancing or opposed to deference between seniors and juniors is derision (ganda majak banana, to make a dirty joke), insult (gali dena, to give an insult), and joking (hamsi-makhaul* karna, to make a laughjoke), expressed in asymmetrical relations between affinal kin of the same generation and close in age. A recognition that heavy purdah regulations are balanced by the gaiety and fun involved in this all-too-often risqué discourse may modify an impression that a culture so addicted to hierarchy as is North Indian, expressed in caste ranking and age-and-generation ranking, is unrelievedly obsequious. My essay is divided into three partsfirst, North Indian hypergamy; second, Chuhra marriage customs; third, joking relationships, which are  



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subdivided into four parts: everyday joking, teasing the bridegroom, brothers-in-law, and co-parents-in-law. The North Indian Hypergamous Milieu Hypergamy was first conceptualized as a label for certain marriage patterns in the Punjab by a Mr. Coldstream, according to British census ethnographer Ibbetson (1881:356), cited in Dumont (1964:87-88), and it means a preference for the bride to marry "up." Although seemingly only a few castes have grades of families (Dumont 1970:109-129), between which hypergamous marriages take place, the bride at marriage moving from a family of lower grade into a family of higher grade, in many more castes, the bride, her natal family members, and the members of her khandan (minimal patrilineage), basti (colony), or village caste-chapter are considered inferior to the groom, his natal family, khandan, basti, or caste-chapter; the differential ranking is instituted with the establishment of the marital alliance at the time of the arrangement of the marriage. In fact, some ethnographers report that marriages usually are established between families of about equal wealth and community standing. A number of scholars (Dumont 1964, 1966, 1975; Vatuk 1969, 1975; van der Veen 1972; Pocock 1972; Khare 1975; Madan 1975; Das 1976; Hershman 1981; Bennett 1983) have recognized that a central feature of the North Indian marriage system is the inequality between the groom's kin (the wifetakers) and the bride's kin (the wifegivers); indeed, Dumont has spoken of Hindu North India as a "hypergamous milieu" (Dumont 1966:94, 110), referring to the bridetaker-bridegriver ranking. The original inspiration for such analysis is Lévi-Strauss (1969:240, 245, 261). The inequality between the bride and groom's sides is expressed in unilateral "perpetual gift giving" (Vatuk 1975:174) and various ritual gestures showing reverence and respect to the bridegroom (Dumont 1966:94) and his kinsmen. Dumont (1966, 1975), Vatuk (1969, 1975), Khare (1975), Madan (1975), Fruzzetti and Ostör (1976), and Inden and Nicholas (1977) have debated the issue of whether the inequality between the bridegivers and bridetakers is also expressed in North Indian kinship terminology, an issue addressed to some extent later in this chapter. Although all the scholars listed have studied almost entirely Brahmans or higher castes, in one of the earliest village descriptions of the asymmetrical systemfor Kishan Garhi, Aligarh District, Uttar Pradesh (Marriott 1955:101)it appears to be shared by all twenty-four castes. 3 For the "Cornell" village, Khalapur, Minturn and Hitchcock (1966:58) found that among the Rajputs, the high dominant landed caste, "the status of a wife's family is always subordinate to the status of the groom's." The Rajputs, Hitchcock found (1956:56-60), practice a kind of "directional hypergamy," resting on strict rules of arranged marriage, village exogamy (a marriage  



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partner must reside in another village), and patrilocal residence; brides come from Rajput villages to the south and east, and daughters are given in marriage to the north and west. As far as I am aware, all twenty-five Hindu castes of Khalapur have marriage systems in which bridetakers are superior to bridegivers. 4 In this essay, I am primarily concerned with culturally expected humor concerning sexuality and marriage alliances in North India, as illustrated by the untouchable Chuhras of Khalapur. Marrying Among the Chuhras of Khalapur Khalapur, in western Uttar Pradesh, just to the east of Haryana and Punjab, is ninety miles north of Delhi, capital of Muslim empires for more than eight hundred years. So, although the population is over 90 percent Hindu, some Muslim-inspired customs endure. There were more than thirty different caste-communities among the five thousand people of Khalapur in 1955. The population was about fifteen thousand in 1984 when I returned there to do fieldwork.5 It is a Rajput village; the Rajputs are the dominant land-owning group, making up two-fifths of the population, with around twenty-four hundred people in 1955. The second largest caste, the untouchable Chamars, numbers about six hundred; they drag away other people's dead cattle to tan the hides, their traditional caste work, and labor in the Rajputs' wheat and sugarcane fields. The Chuhras are the fourth largest caste (after the Brahman priests), divided into two colonies (bastis). "Our" community, the Chuhras of the western basti, numbers about one hundred. Their work is cleaning cattleyards and ladies' latrines in the high-caste women's quarters. Most people in Khalapur would agree, even if the Chuhras would not, that the Chuhras are the bottom of the local caste ranking system. Between the high-caste Brahmans, Rajputs, and Merchants, and the unclean Chamars and Chuhras are clean serving and artisan castesGoldsmiths, Barbers, Washermen, Potters, Weavers, Shepherds, Carpenters, and Blacksmiths, among others. The 10 percent of the population who are Muslim include Muslim Rajputs, Oilpressers, and Tailors. Caste-communities live in their own neighborhoods, especially untouchables like the Chuhras who live in an isolated, detached colony (basti) on the outskirts of the village. There are two wedding ceremonies in North Indian marriages. In Khalapur, the first, the sadi, takes place when the bride is between the ages of ten and sixteen, and the groom is twelve to eighteen years old; the cala takes place one to five years later. The purpose of marriage is the reproduction of offspring, especially males, to continue the patrilineage. The first wedding ceremonies (sadi) bind together the two families, minimal lineages, and castecolonies of the bride and groom. After each set of rituals at the bride's home and village, she goes with the groom and his all-male wedding party to his village where she stays with the women of his joint-family in the women's  



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quarters. After the sadi, she may not see her bridegroom at all. Only after the second set of ceremonies (cala) is the couple's marital relationship consummated. Because women are hardly allowed to travel except between their natal and marital villages, male elders arrange marriages. The bride's elderly males propose marriage to the groom's. Mates must be found outside the child's own village (village exogamy) but within her or his jati (endogamous set of caste-chapters in a set of nearby villages). Unlike South Indians and some Indian Muslims, North Indian Hindus prohibit marriage with cousins or second cousins through a prohibition on marriage in three or four gotras or patri-sibs. A child cannot marry anyone belonging to his or her own, the mother's, the father's mother's, and the mother's mother's gotra. Because marriages are arranged between unrelated lineages, in Khalapur, and in much of northern India, motherin-law and daughter-in-law are always unrelated strangers, as are the two fathers-in-law (father of the groom and father of the bride, both samdhi) or the two brothers-in-law (the bride's brother [sala] and her husband [jija, bahanoi, i.e., sister's husband]). Because women cannot travel about, the two mothers-in-law or sisters-in-law (bride's sister and groom's sister) are unlikely ever to meet. The bride's family usually tries to find a bridegroom whose family's resources are better than their own. The bride's family, however, bear most expenses of the wedding entertainment, as well as the expenses of the bride's trousseau, gifts for the new affinal relatives, and gifts of money and clothing for the bridegroom. Gift giving is heavily one-sided; the bride's side gives the gifts, and the groom's side receives. Furthermore, a married woman's brother should bring her gifts three times a year at the festivals of Tij (in August), Diwali (in October or November) and Holi (in March or April). 6 Whenever a daughter visits her parental home, she must take back with her gifts for her affinal kin, as well as clothing for herself. Exchange marriage between two lineages is prohibited. The two parties to a wedding are permanently bridegivers and bridetakers to each other; the former gives gifts to the latter throughout the life of the marriage binding them together, and beyond, because a child's mother's brother (mama) must bring gifts for the child's marriage, even if the linking woman, the child's mother, is dead. Basic to North Indian kinship is the strong positive relationship between brother and sister (Dumont 1966:99-100; Vatuk 1969:101; Pocock 1972:100-103). Both Das (1976:21-22) and Hershman (1981:133) emphasize the importance in the Punjab of the brother's caring for and protecting his sister; he may even protect her against her husband. Minturn and Hitchcock (1968:36) write about the dominant caste Rajputs of Khalapur: "The relationship between a brother and his sister or female cousins also seems warmer and less restrained than the marital one and is considered sacred" (see also Dorschner 1983:128-129).  



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Chuhras frequently state their own belief in the strength and priority of this relationship over others. NQ 2 One Chuhri married into another village who feels much affection for her younger brother said, "As far as affection goes, it is greater for one's brother, because you can always get another husband if he dies. One's affection is always greatest for a brother. You can't get a new brother. Gyarsi, a female informant in her thirties, also believed in the priority in a woman's affections for her brother. NQ 3 A woman loves her brother above her son, and her son above her husband. Because a woman marries into another village, into a household of strangers, potential support from her father and brothers in her natal village can be crucial for her welfare. The assumed bond of strong affection and obligation between brother and sister has much to do with the initially hostile relationship assumed to exist between a woman's bridegroom and her brother, which I discuss below. High-caste Hindus, like the Brahmans and Rajputs of Khalapur, prohibit the remarriage of widows, but the Chuhras, and other untouchables, as well as the middle castes, allow widow remarriage, often practicing the levirate (Kolenda 1982). Marriages across generations are prohibited; thus, a widow could not take her dead husband's father's brother as her second husband. Strongly influenced by Muslim culture, Khalapur has the insitutions of seclusion and veiling of women, purdah, and villagers largely accept the Islamic ideology concerning sexuality. According to this ideology, people have very strong sexual impulses that must be controlled to prevent social anarchy, and sexual interest distracts the devout believer from concentrating upon Allah and spiritual goals (Sabbah 1984:63-78; Jeffery 1979: 17-22). This Muslim ideology is similar to the belief in mystical Hinduism that sexual interest distracts the holy man from his spiritual goal (Carstairs 1957:98-99). Thus, in both religious traditions, there is a denigration of sexuality. Among the Chuhras and other North Indians, a young virgin is referred to and addressed as a devi, a goddess; auspicious, she is given offerings in some religious ceremonies, just as Brahmans and cows are; however, a married woman is a suhagin, a woman who is auspicious because her husband is alive, but she herself is not considered divine in any way. Degrading a devi by making her partake of sexual activity makes her brother who gives her into marriage curse-worthy. 7 The reason for both the hierarchical relationship and the lowness of the bride's brother relates to religious traditions that devalue sexuality. Because the Muslims in Pakistan scorn the sala (a wife's brother), one may suspect this northern custom is both Muslim and Hindu.  



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There is a segregation not only of castes but also of the sexes in Khalapur. A set of patrilineally related women, the wives of brothers, fathers, and sons lives in its own quarters; compounds of rooms are built about inner open courtyards. Men of a minimal patrilineage sleep in their clubhouse (caupal), a room at the back of a platform built above the narrow village path. Men sit or sleep on cots on the platform. Women are forbidden to set foot on the men's caupal. In other words, husband and wife do not share a sleeping room: a woman sleeps with her daughters and small sons in a room in the women's quarters; her husband sleeps with other men and boys of his joint-family and minimal patrilineage at the clubhouse or cattleshed. Sleeping arrangements seem to deny that sexual relations occur, consistent with the negative sexual ideology briefly described. The subjects of my essay are untouchable Chuhras who work as servants of higher caste people. How many of the rules of purdah apply to the Chuhris, the Chuhra women? Adult Chuhris leave their homes daily to go out to work in homes and cattle yards of others. They always go in pairs, never alone, however, and they are always veiled as they move through the village, even when they are carrying baskets of waste on their heads to compost heaps. They are not fair game for strange men, and any illicit sexual relationship is strongly disapproved of. Except for the outings required by their work, Chuhri women remain at home; they do not work in the fields. Like higher caste women, they do not travel out of the village unescorted by a man. Women have their own quarters; men have their caupals. Everyday Joking and Derision The rule among the Chuhras against talking about sex before elders is matched by a rule against unmarried girls' listening to their brothers' wives' and the basti-brothers' wives' talk about sex. Both rules, however, are balanced by permission for married people of the same sex, close in age, to talk about sex quite freely, usually in a jocular vein. Married women often talk about another's sex life. Here are two examples from my field notes on the Chuhras:

 

NQ 4 Surti, a girl of fifteen, had just returned from her cala. A basti bhavaj [brother's wife] told a group of other married women, "Here, let me tell you something about this girl. She says that when she went to her in-laws and her husband came to visit her at night, she said, 'Wait, let me spread my orhna * [long headcovering] on the cot, so that the cot will not get spoiled.' At this, her husband said, 'No, take some old cloth or old orhna. Don't spoil the new one.'" The women listening to the story looked incredulous, put their fingers on their mouths,



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laughed, and shook their heads in disapproval. Another bhavaj said, "What an unwise thing to say! Her husband might have thought she was well up in such things, must have had practice before. He must have been a simple man. Otherwise, he might easily have become suspicious and caused trouble. Girls should try to show more innocence and not make such suggestions." The first bhavaj said further that Surti had told her that she had pushed her husband away twice when he advanced toward her, before she let him touch her. At this, the women again laughed disapprovingly. In the above passage, Surti's seemingly knowledgeable behavior, the bhavajs seemed to think, might have raised doubts in her new husband's mind about her total innocence. The second example is usual daily fare. NQ 5 A group of women were sitting together. One said something about having sore eyes. Tarkhi said in a low tone that her genitals also were sore, and Anandi remarked, "How can that happen? That person who can make them sore [her husband] is far away, not here!" 8 How are we to understand such a joke? As Bhati mentioned above in NQ 1, there is considerable rivalry between daughters-in-law for a mother-in-law's approval, and there is likely to be tension, even quarreling, between women over shares of work. Gossiping and joking together is at least an amiable pause in the day's occupations. Relations between the women are not hierarchically structured at such times, although rivalries and put-downs may manifest themselves in these exchanges between equals. Her brothers' wives in NQ 4 are certainly criticizing and putting down Surti, and a married daughter of the basti, Anandi, in NQ 5 may be questioning her sister-in-law's (Tarkhi's) virtue. Mutual put-downs in a sexual discourse may become a kind of contest between equals among the Chuhras as in NQ 6. Conversations like NQ 6 take place on the men's sitting platform of the caupal where men spend their leisure hours. In the following passage, Kharu, a young man in his twenties, matches wits with Sadhu, a man in his late thirties; Sadhu and Kharu are third cousins. NQ 6 Kharu told us that the night before last, he had been sitting on the caupal and he said to Sadhu's tenyear-old son, "Your mother will soon be here [Sadhu's wife had been in her natal village for some weeks], and your father will have a good time!"

 

Sadhu started abusing Kharu. Referring to Kharu's wife, Ramkali, Sadhu said, "She's your tai [father's elder brother's wife]; she's your caci [father's younger brother's wife]." [Thus, Kharu's "mothers," so



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suggesting that Kharu was having an incestuous cross-generational sexual relationship with his leviratic wife, Ramkali. The latter is probably fifteen years older than Kharu.] Then Kharu kidded Sadhu about still sleeping in his house rather than on the caupal. Sadhu said he slept in the house because his wife was alone there. "There is no one to keep her company." Kharu twitted, "You have grown old. You have no more children. You should lend your wife out for six months or a year. Then see if she doesn't have children." [Here Kharu is teasing about a human female as though she were a cow. People in Khalapur often give a cow out "half-and-half" to someone who will feed and care for the animal; then as calves are born, the lender and the borrower alternate in ownership of them.] Kharu said that one day he told Sadhu to give his wife out "half-and-half" to M.'s father, a "fat, dark Chamar" [an untouchable who the Chuhras like to pretend is of lower caste rank than themselves]. Sadhu retorted, "All right, I'll give her away. In case she doesn't have a child, though, you'll have to give the one-eyed bad one [he is referring here to Kharu's wife] to me!" Note the various metaphors used in this discourse of mutual abasement, which Kharu considered to have been hilarious. First, Kharu breaks the rule of the silence between father and son on matters of sex by calling to Sadhu's sows attention the sexual relation between his parents. Then Sadhu accuses Kharu of incest by making Kharu's leviratic wife into a "mother." Kharu then accuses Sadhu of first liking sex too much (staying with his wife in her house) and then of impotence (indicated by her having no more children). He also "makes" Sadhu's wife into a cow who should be loaned out and impregnated. The offspring of such a mating would then be split between genitor and pater half and half. On some occasions, Kharu has suggested that the genitor in this half-and-half arrangement should be an untouchable Chamar. The men run the gamut of sexually outrageous behaviorexcessive sexual appetite, incest, prostituting one's wife, prostituting her to a low-caste man and then accepting (presumably as legitimate children) the offspring (or half the offspring), and finally agreeing to give one's wife out to a "brother" for adultery. 9 They use various idioms of hierarchy, those of caste, humans versus animals, wife versus prostitute/concubine, primary wife versus secondary wife, demeaning the other by putting him on the down side of each. This joking discourse between Kharu and Sadhu appears to be based upon a number of cultural suppositions. First, women's purpose is primarily to bear children and, while still of child-bearing age, to continue to bear children; men's duty is to make them pregnant. Sadhu is already the father of four, but he does not protest that he and his wife already have enough chil 



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dren. If his eldest son, at this time a youth of fifteen, had already been married, Sadhu could have used, as his excuse for seeming impotence, the cultural proscription on parents' having sexual relations after their eldest child is married. North Indian villagers believe it wrong for both mother and daughter to be producing babies at the same time, but Sadhu could not yet use that excuse. In their sallies, both men take advantage of their intimate knowledge of each other's sexual vulnerabilities. Sadhu may well be feeling his age and feeling less virile than formerly. It was well-known that Kharu, who had inherited his older brother's widow in the Chuhras' prescribed levirate, was less than enchanted by his wife, well into her forties while he was still in his early twenties. She was already the mother of four children, the eldest aged nineteen, and she was hardly a beautiful woman; her face was marred especially by a heavy cataract over one eye. Kharu, on one occasion, asked us for some medicine to stimulate some sexual desire in him for this wife. She sometimes taunted him that when she died, she would haunt him, causing trouble (severe illness) to him and the new wife she expected he would immediately take after her death. Sadhu knew all this and used it to advantage in replying to Kharu's jibes. Kharu does not hesitate to explain Sadhu's wife's infertility as due to Sadhu's failure, not to hers. She would surely bear a child if she were given out to a Chamar who would impregnate her successfully. So a lowly Chamar has power that Sadhu lacks. This taps, no doubt, into the chronic anxiety men in a caste system have about men of lower caste (or higher caste) taking their women. Note that this joking is reciprocal; both men insult and tease each other, and both men, in effect, make the other into a pimp. Kharu suggests that Sadhu arrange a profitable relationship for himself by giving his wife to a Chamar, and Sadhu suggests that Kharu give his wife to him. Such casual suggestion of prostituting one's wife or forcing her to commit adultery, of course, reverses the seclusion of women that the purdah system in Khalapur provides and its protection of women so that they remain always chaste and faithful to their husbands. The anxieties about women's chastity and fidelity, that the purdah system seems to bespeak, are indeed spoken of indirectly in such joking between brothers as equals. Lila Abu-Lughod (1986) has spoken of different discourses going on about and among women in purdah elsewhere. Among the Chuhras and other North Indians, hierarchical behavior with strict deference and respect forbids mention of the topic of sex and takes places between relatives and non-relatives of different generations; this is the more public, unmarked discourse. But in private, among equals, another discourse speaks frankly of prohibited sexual activities. Other anthropologists (Burkhart 1974; Parry 1974; David 1974, 1977;  



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Carter 1975) have also written about non-unequal relations in South Asian caste or egalitarian contexts in India, both economic and religious. 10 I may add these joking relations between brothers close in age and sisters-in-law close in age to that list of egalitarian relationships in South Asia. The discourse between "brothers" who are good friends, as Kharu and Sadhu are, is in a "language of intimacy" rather than a "language of social distance" (Douglas 1975:106). In NQ 6, that language is one in which wives and sexual difficulties are talked about openly and laughingly; neither man takes offence. All the evils that purdah is erected to prevent are taken for granted as truthsincest, adultery, pimpingin the joking mode. Although the discourse of deference and respect supports the social structure, the discourse of joking between both female and male equals turns it upside down. The Bridegroom and the Bride's "Sisters" A young Chuhra bridegroom described himself to us as shy (saram lagna) as he anticipated his visit after his cala to his wife's parents and relatives, as much strangers to him as his relatives were strangers to his new wife. Why should the bridegroom feel shy? He would not have to stay at the bride's village and home very long. He would take her and leave her there. But probably he remembered his previous experiences among her relatives, when at both the sadi and the cala his bride's sisters and brothers' wives, as well as her brothers, teased him. Sukhar, a man in his thirties, reminisced about his wedding day. Among the Chuhras, it is the custom to take the new bridegroom around to the various farmers who retain the Chuhras to work for them. In the village where Sukhar was married, the dominant caste was probably Tyagi, but it also had some untouchable Chamars as well, and the women of these castes pinched and needled the young Chuhra bridegroom. He said, NQ 7 "When I went to get married, all the Tyagi girls and Chamaris came. They pinched me and put needles in me, and they gave me the same treatment when I went for my cala."

 

(Were you taken around, or was this in the basti?) He explained that "salam mangna*" [greeting with a salam and begging] is done. The groom takes a thali [metal tray] and asks for things from the farmers [the landed families who employ the sweepers]. Wherever the groom goes, the girls laugh, joke, and are naughty. Sukhar said, "One Tyagi girl gave me a small bottle of oil and a comb. She said, 'Ey, let's see you comb your hair in the Angrezi* [English] style.' Another gave me a piece of soap. She said, 'Ey, jija [sister's husband], go and bathe with this.'"



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The fiction that the village is all one family is sustained in this example. All the girls of the village, though of higher caste-rank than the Chuhras, are, nevertheless, the bride's fictive sisters, and the in-married young wives are her fictive brothers' wives. And both sisters and brothers' wives of the bride can have a fling at teasing the new bridegroom. They give him hair oil, comb, and soap to help the bridegroom improve his appearance, presumably helping him to prepare for his meeting with the bride's womenfolk and, eventually, the bride. Their mothers are, of course, fictive mothers-in-law to the groom, and, as upper generation women to the groom, women to whom he must show avoidance-respect and who show respect for him, they do not enter into the fun. The day after the main wedding ceremonial at the time of the sadi, the groom is brought into the women's quarters to be fed. While he tries to eat, the bride's sisters (full sisters, female cousins, and basti-sisters; i.e., his salis) and her bhabhis and bhavajs (brothers' wives, cousin-brothers' wives, and basti-brothers' wives; i.e., his salhajs) tease him, saying he is the lover of his own mother (ma ke yar) and the son of a lewd woman (lucci ka), suggesting that he commits incest with his mother and that his mother was or is a prostitute. They have not seen him before because women other than the bride do not attend the main wedding ceremony, but they assess his appearance saying that he looks like a runt and probably lacks sexual prowess. During these tauntings, the bridegroom must maintain his dignity as best he can. Above all, he must not break down by either becoming angry or weeping. It is a brave bridegroom who can make clever retorts. Most sit stiffly with head down, trying to concentrate on the food and be deaf to these strange harpies. In the joking over the meal in the women's quarters, the women are rejecting the bridegroom as an acceptable mate for their bride: he is the son of a prostitute; he commits incest with his mother; he is impotent. He has to put up with whatever they deal out to him and to the members of his male party until they and he finally get the bride. On the night before the barat (all-male marriage party) departs with the bride at either the sadi or the cala, the bahanoi, his brother, and members of his barat who are his age are serenaded by the salis (wife's sisters) and the salhajis (wife's brothers' wives) with sithani *, obscene songs which question the groom's virility, the virtue of his mother, and so on.11 Remembrance of such ordeals is enough to make any young bridegroom shy in anticipation of more encounters with his affinal kin. There is a female solidarity among the women of the bride's village, especially among the unmarried girls and brothers' wives of her own generation, a common voice of protest at the coming of this stranger to take away one of  



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their own. Their resentment and hostility cannot become actual resistance, so teasing the interloper is indulged in with delight. The cross-sex relations between affines of the same generation allow an older bahanoi [sister's husband] to tease his younger salis [wife's sisters] and for them to tease him. In this culturally prescribed teasing, both the bahanoi and sali speak of the desirability of her going home with him along with her sister. The salis may often, probably usually, initiate such joking conversations. The couple may be seen to be playing out a kind of mock marriage, parallel to the real marriage between the bahanoi and the sails' sister. The joking may also anticipate a sororate marriage later on. The Chuhras and other middle- and low-caste people of this region do not go in for sororal polygyny, but a sororate marriage does occasionally occur. 12 Relationships Between Brothers-in-Law: Respectful, Abusive, or Joking? In Social Structure, his multicultural study of kinship practices, Murdock (1949:279) states: Although the author unfortunately did not gather data on social behavior between male relatives, he has a distinct impression from general reading that the relations between brothers-in-law are commonly characterized by respect or reserve, especially by a marked tendency to avoid mentioning matters of sexual import. This is not unnatural in view of the fact that, with respect to the same woman one of the two men enjoys unrestrained sexual freedom whereas the other must observe one of the strictest of incest taboos. Any allusion to sex by the former is likely to amuse unconscious anxieties in the latter, whereas an allusion by the latter might imply to the former a lack of respect for the woman who unites them or even suggest the possibility of of an unpardonable incestuous connection with her. Much of the writing on the North Indian relationship between wife's brother and her husband, brothers-in-law, has suggested that it is a relationship of distance or respect. The inequality between the brothers-in-law is expressed in respect rituals; Hershman writes (1981:197) about villagers in Jullundur District, Punjab: ''Just as a younger brother touches the feet of an elder sister, so he also touches the feet of an elder sister's husband.'' At several places Hershman speaks of the great honor and respect the bridegroom and his brother receive at the bride's natal home (1981:194, 196, 199, 203, 206); he also speaks of avoidance between brothers-in-law (1981:203). Hershman never talks, however, about a joking relationship between sala and bahanoi, although he mentions the fact that sala is a curse word when used as an appellation in address. Similarly, Nicholas (1965:33) says that "in Bengali the most common term of abuse is sala." He notes, however, that "the relation between a man and his wife's brother is formally distant and frequently hostile."  



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The consciousness or awareness of sexuality and the need for respect between affines is expressed by prohibiting use of the descriptively correct kinship terms in either reference or address between them. The Hindi terms for husband (pati) and wife (pativrata, patni) are never used; a woman might refer to her husband as "that one" or "someone"; a man similarly refers to his wife. Sometimes a man refers to his wife as the "lady of the house" (gharvali) or by his child's namefor example, Bharat's mother (Bharat ki ma)or the woman refers to her husband as the "master" (malik) or Bharat's father (Bharat ka caca). 13 In reference, a woman is so-and-so's wifeBharat's wife is Bharat ki bahu. If a woman finds herself in a position of being asked to give someone's name that is the same as her husband's, she becomes flustered, and other women laugh embarrassedly. Ira woman by chance lets her husband's name slip out, other women think it is breathtakingly shocking and very funny, embarrassing indeed. These prohibitions on the use of either names or kinship terms by husband and wife for each other is not so much a matter of deference as of sexual embarrassment. One hints at the sexual relationship between husband and wife by saying ''that one,'' but one never openly admits to the relationship by using a name or even more explicitly using the kin term. Other affinal kin terms are never used in address. A man never addresses his wife's mother; he can address his wife's father, but he would never address him as sasur (father-in-law); a woman never addresses her husband's father; she can address her husband's mother, but she would never address her husband's mother as sasu (motherin-law). She would call her ma or mataji (mother). The affinal kin terms used for the wife's immediate relatives, her parents, and siblings, all seem suffused with the connotation of embarrassing sexual relationship connecting the two families of bride and groom. Some affinal terms do not share this stigma, such as bahanoi (sister's husband), and nandoi (husband's sister's husband). These arc males who actually have sexual relations with one's sister or one's husband's sister, but they are not considered demeaned or despicable because of this; the men who have given their daughters or sisters into this plight arc demeaned. The term daughter-in-law, bahu, the woman who is used sexually, is similarly not demeaned, and the Chhuhras say that one should neither joke about bahus nor ever treat them disrespectfully. The women being given and presumably being used sexually are not looked down upon, nor are the men who so use them; only the men who have given them as sexual partners for other men's pleasure are demeaned. Curse words in Hindi are sala (wife's brother) and sasur (wife's father); their connotation approaches that of pimp in English. The sala and sasur are men who have given their sister or daughter in marriage; they have given her to be used by other men sexually, and the connotation is that they are low, curse-worthy because of this.  



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Hershman writes (1981:191, 197): A brother gives his sister in marriage to another man and in so doing not only makes a gift of that which he most jealously guarded but also exposes himself to the possibility of personal dishonour. In Punjabi culture the most taunting abuse is for one man to inquire of another: tun * mera sala lagda which literally means "are you my wife's brother?" but which carried with it the emotive power of "are you the man who gave me his sister to violate?" To give a woman in marriage is to place oneself in a position of inferiority to the taker .... ... The relationship which is most inegalitarian in nature is that between brothers-in-law. The word for sister's husband, sala, is never used as a form of address and some men even avoid using it as a term of reference by employing a circumlocution such as saying, "my child's mother's brother." Sala may be used as a term of abuse, and a choice use of insult is to call a man sale ka kutta "the dog of a wife's brother." The reverse of this is the term for sister, which is generally bhanoia and an honorific. Brahmans employ the highly honorific Hindi word jija in address and reference to an elder sister's husband, while other castes use the bhaia which is also a term carrying a great deal of respect and may be employed for any senior male such as the father's father. (Notice that the above paragraph from Hershman is actually muddled. Sala is first translated as sister's husband instead of wife's brother, and later in the same paragraph bhanoia is translated as sister rather than sister's husband.) Although Nicholas and Hershman suggest that the relationship between brothers-in-law is abusive in their absence (i.e., behind their backs) but distant in their presence, others do recognize the existence of an institutionalized joking relationship between brothers-in-law. Dumont (1966:102) states that there is a joking relationship, but he does not describe it, saying only that "outside its proper denotation, the word sala is a term of abuse." Madan (1975:226) also does not suggest that joking exists between the brothers-in-law among the Pandits of Kashmir; rather they are allies; he does, however, say that brothers-in-law in Uttar Pradesh use the term sala in banter rather than hostility; again, he does not label it a joking relationship. T. B. Naik's (1947) description of joking relationships shows considerable diversity in the content of the relationship, as he found it in the literature on Indian tribals, among whom the sister's husband sometimes bullies the wife's younger brother and sometimes the wife's brother bullies the sister's husband. Apte also recognizes and treats the joking relationship between brothersin-law in India:

 

In societies with patrilineal kinship and strong male dominance, an asymmetrical joking relationship may exist between a Person and his wife's brothers. Wife givers are generally inferior to wife takers in such societies, so that a man can make fun of his wife's brother with impunity, knowing full well that his



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brother-in-law cannot and will not respond in kind. Among the Hindus in North India, a wife's brother is always regarded as someone to be made the butt of joking. (1985:42) This description does not fit the joking relationship between a man and his wife's brother among the Chuhras. In the instances of the relationship that I collected in the mid-1950s, the sala makes a butt of his bahanoi. 14 My own review of the ethnographic literature for North India and tribal India, some of which I cited above, confirms Apte's observation that the ethnographic descriptions necessary for comparison have not been published, so the variations in the joking relationship between a man and his wife's brother for North India cannot be analyzed. Now I will consider the joking between brothers-in-law as I found it among the Chuhras. NQ 8 Kharu explained to us that there arc clean jokes (hamsi-makhaul*), ridicule in fun; or hamsi-majak*, funny jokes. This is the type Kharu might have with Gyarsi [devar (husband's younger brother)bhavaj (older brother's wife) joking]. We asked if the type of joking one did with a samdhi [one's son or daughter's father-in-law] or a sala [wife's brother] was hamsi-majak. Kharu said it was all the same thing. But one can abuse his sala through his sister and abuse his samdhi through his wife. You can't joke with a brother in this way. Abuses of that sort are ganda majak [dirty jokes] or gali [abuse]. One can't beat and throw a brother around as one can a samdhi. Among the Chuhras, the ritual of insult (a joking relationship) between the sala and bahanoi involves a reversal in roles. The sala pretends that he has married the bahanoi's sister rather than the reverse, and he greets the bahanoi by hugging him and kissing or biting him on the cheek. The bahanoi must put up with this, remaining passive, saying little in response.

 

NQ 9 (We asked Kharu what kind of behavior was shown in joking relationships.) He said that there was much laughing, joking, and kidding, and they might start quarreling and slapping each other with their hands. "For example," he said, "if I and my sister's husband [bahanoi] are sitting, and someone asks, 'What arc you to each other?' I would say that he was my sala [wife's brother], the opposite from what is the truth. Then he might start abusing my sisters. We might even come to blows. When my sister Kraceni's husband comes, I will 'say that I am married in this fellow's house. Then we might come to blows. I might spit in his face or make him impure by kissing him. Then we would have a big fight. At the time of Anandi's wedding, I bit Kraceni's husband so hard that the mark on his face could be seen for days. He had two guests with him. They had a plan. They called



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me over asking me to fill the hukka for them. When I went they caught hold of me and took big bites, and we slapped each other, and I ran away. Note the variety of ways of insulting the bahanoi that Kharu used: first, making him impure by spitting in his face, biting, and kissing him; 15 second, physically attacking him; third, mocking foreplay to sexual relations with him as the sex object; and in so doing, fourth, treating him as though he were a female. All this suggests the sexual nature of the relationship between the two parties. Kraceni's husband and his friends get back at Kharu. Passivity on their part is no longer as necessary as it was during Kraceni's wedding when the groom and his party did not yet have the bride. Once they do have her, after the wedding, they do not have to take a salas attack stoically. Kharu, of course, reported all this as great fun. Another example of reversal in roles occurs between Bhartu, a basti-sala (bride's brother by membership in the same Chuhra colony) to Chandni's (Kharu's brother's daughter's) bridegroom, Paltu. NQ 10 Bhartu sat in front of his bahanoi, Paltu, and the latter's brother, Pannu. Bhartu lit a cigarette and then gave it to Pannu to smoke. He knocked off the burning tip and almost burned his clothes with it. Bhartu said, "Why have you broken my cigarette? Now either give me my cigarette back or one of your sisters. Look, I am spreading my pala [bottom of shirt] before him and asking him to give me one of his sisters. And see, I'm saying the same thing to Paltu." Pannu said, "Let me make a suggestion. You have given us a girl already. Give us each another one, and then we'll try to think of making some arrangement for you, too." Here Bhartu proposes an exchange marriage, an impossibility to the Chuhras and to most North Indian Hindus.16 The groom's brother, not the groom himself, has the courage to reply; in his reply he suggests polygyny, not so abhorrent because it is sometimes practiced but rather unusual. The reversal in roles I interpret as a culturally prescribed "reaction formation" on the part of the sala, who by joking denies his own shameful role in having given his sister for sexual use. The reversal, given the sala is the joker and the bahanoi the jokee, saves the sala from teasing about the bahanoi's sexual relationship with the sala's own sister. He also does not reverse the relationship so that he is married to the bahanoi's wife, who, of course, is his own sister; he does not joke about an incestuous relationship. He reverses it in the way least likely to anger the bahanoi or entrap himself. This Chuhra move modifies Murdock's speculation, quoted above, that brothers-in-law do not joke because the idea of brother-sister incest might be invoked. They joke through role reversal and suggesting an exchange mar 



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riage. As I have shown in the joking both between Kharu and Sadhu (NQ 6) and between the salis and the bridegroom, the Chuhras do not quake at the notion of accusing a jokee (victim of the joke) of incest (between son and mother). Nevertheless, the Chuhras' ingenious pretence of a role reversal in joking between brothers-in-law makes possible sexual joking without bringing in incest, rather than their being limited to a respect or reserve relationship that Murdock and others might have led us to expect. The reversal in relationship between sala and bahanoi (and, as I shall show below, samdhi and samdhi, the two fathers-in-law) is motivated by the bridegivers' resistance to accepting their subordinate status; Minturn and Hitchcock state that the practice of female infanticide by Rajputs of Khalapur in the past was partly due to the "heavy financial burden which dowry represented" and partly due to the reluctance of the male members of the bride's family to assume a subordinate status in relation to the members of the groom's family .... ...Furthermore, since a girl must marry into a family of higher status than her own, her male relatives are always subservient to the men of her husband's family. Many of the men do not take kindly to this inferior position. (Minturn and Hitchcock 1966: 58, 96) Sensitivity to the abuse one was subject to as a sala was carried to the extreme by at least one Muslim nobleman, the Nawab of Bahawalpur state (on the border between the Punjab, Sind and Baluchistan, now in Pakistan). Prakash Tandon wrote about this treatment for the sisters of the Nawab of Bahawalpur in the 1920s: The sisters of a Nawab, according to custom, were not permitted to marry. In the north the word for wife's brother, sala, has somehow become a term of abuse. The Nawabs therefore considered it an unbearable insult to become a sala to someone; they would rather not marry their sisters. But it was a risk to keep them in the palaces for fear of some scandal arising, and they were therefore banished to an old inaccessible fort in the desert. There, under a heavy guard, they lived their long lonely lives like prisoners, lost to the world and looking back to their childhood, the only short spell of happiness they had ever tasted. Relations rarely came to see them, and thus condemned they could only have received scant attention from the fort authorities. (Tandon 1961:174-175) That being a sala is experienced as a scourge and a disgrace at least by some North Indians and Pakistanis is suggested by this extreme custom. Go-Parents-in-Law The joking between the bride's and groom's male elders, father, father's brothers, and so on, both of whom are samdhi to each other, similarly involves a reversal. The elderly male of the bride's family accosts, hugs, and kisses the  



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elderly male of the groom's family and teases him, again a role reversal and a kind of defense against admitting one's own role in giving a daughter into a sexual relationship. NQ 11 Kharu had told us that last night Soma had whipped the samdhi, Hari. At the caupal, we asked about this. Soma got up and took one of the boys' cadars [small blanket], wound it and doubled it over to make a kind of whip. Ram said that last night when the girls were singing, and the men were preparing a bundle to put on the samdhi's head, and the "girls" [Kharu and Soma] were preparing the whip, the samdhi had come to Ram's bed and said, "Oh, please save me." "And,'' said Ram, "I said, 'All right, I'll save you.' Then when they came to hit him, I sat in front and protected him." Soma contradicted him, saying that the samdhi had been hit twice. The samdhi denied that he had been hit. Ram said he had been pushed around a great deal in the process of trying to save Hari. We asked who had hit him. Ram said it was Pal ki bahu Chamari. It seemed Kharu and Soma had dressed up like girls and were Pal ki bahus. Multiple insults are heaped on Hari, the samdhi. He is made into a menial carrying rocks on his head, while he is whipped by Chamar women. We did not know Pal, but we may suspect that Pal's wife or wives were not the most appealing women as prospective sexual partners. NQ 11 (continued) The samdhi, Hari, said, "When you come to our place, our 'women' will also come and give you the same treatment." Soma said, "Oh, if your women come, then we'll hug them." Here the men arc debating the virtue of Hari's women. He is saying that they will also command and force their samdhis to carry rocks on their head. But the latter are saying that no, these women will be amenable to being hugged by their samdhis. In other words, they will not resist the sexual overtures of these strange men, never mind beat them and drive them about. NQ 11 (continued) The men said the samdhi jumped from cot to cot last night when they tried to put a bundle of rocks on his head. Also they made him worship the wellclasp his hands and bow to it while Mukanda beat the drum. Ram said that this was the custom, to tell the samdhi that it was customary to worship the well in their basti. Here the samdhi is insulted by making him behave like a woman; only women worship the well. It is as though the giving of a bride makes her male relatives (here Kharu, her father's younger brother, her leviratic "father"; and Soma, a basti-father's younger brother) also female, and humor may involve the attempt to make the male relatives of the groom play at being female, too.  



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NQ 11 (continued) The samdhi was alone. He was the only barati who could be joked with. The brothers, bahanoi [sister's husband], and so on are samletas [affines of a junior generation] to Kharu and Soma, so they could not joke with them. It seems that the samdhis can initiate joking with the opposite samdhis in their own [the formers'] village. When Kharu and Soma go to the samdhi's village, they will be kidded, too. Shyam and Soma sat up very straight to show how staunchly they would take it all. The samdhi said, "We'll beat you, beat you." Kharu said, "Memsahib, tell them that they can't beat your boy." Pauline said, "We'll protect you." Kharu explained that Pauline was Chandni's dadi [father's mother]. Pauline asked if dadis were beaten, too. 17 When they go to the samdhis, the men said they would take Mian (old Govardhan) with them. Mian said, "If you beat us, we'll put our samdhan in the car and bring her away.'' Here joking between samdhi (son's "father-in-law") and samdhan (daughter's mother-in-law) is brought in. A samdhan is either one's married daughter's mother-in-law or one's married son's mother-in-law. Similarly, a samdhi is either one's married daughter's father-in-law or one's married son's father-in-law. Both pairs of samesex terms are reciprocal: samdhan-samdhan and samdhi-samdhi. The joking in NQ 11 is between samdhi (Kharu, Hari's brother's son's father-in-law) and samdhi (Hari, Kharu's step-daughter, Chandni's father-in-law's brother). Joking involving the samdhan will be discussed below, after NQ 11. NQ 11 (continued) Kharu asked Pauline if she saw any resemblance between Hari, the samdhi, and his son, Laki. Kharu joked that the reason there was so little resemblance was because Laki's mother had gone to live with a Grainparcher, and then Laki was born. Then she came back to live with Hari.

 

Naga said, "Look at the samdhi; he looks like a bear. Look at Kharu; he's a lion." Somehow, Laki was referred to. Kharu said, "Oh, don't say anything to poor Laki. He's only got one father." There was some discussion among the men of the caupal as to whether a person could have more than one father. Someone said, "Ask his father how many fathers Laki has." Someone else said, "But even Laki's father wouldn't know that. Ask Laki's mother where all she's been. She'll tell you how many fathers he has." Hari said, ''Such a thing couldn't happen." Jumlal, an cider in his seven-tics, said, "Why, do you keep locks on them?" The samdhi retorted, "Do you keep locks on yours?" Jumlal replied, "No, we go with them."



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Here the samdhi is insulted by the accusation that his wife was adulterous; even worse, her adultery was with a man of another caste (Grainparcher), and the samdhi had so little pride that he accepted the illegitimate child of the adultery as his own. Although the Chuhras value virginity and expect it in brides (see NQ 4 above), they seldom talk about honor, izzat. But much of this joking discourse is concerned with izzat. Because a man's honor is especially closely tied to the virtue of his unmarried sisters and daughters and to his wife's chastity and fidelity, these seemingly endless jokes about seduction and abduction of the women of the opposing party attack the opponents' honor. In the above passage, the suggestion that Laki might have more than one father is such an attack. Laki's mother was supposedly so promiscuous that she was having several affairs at once; thus, Laki could have been sired by any one of several men. When Hari has a chance to assert the resistance and virtue of his women, he passes up the chance, either purposely or not, allowing the bride's elder to assert the virtue of the bride's side's women who are always chaperoned by their men: "We go with them." NQ 11 (continued) Kharu said that theirs was a good samdhi, because he did not get angry at all, but agreed with whatever they said. Mostly the samdhi sat quietly, with a half-smile on his face. The men on the caupal said they would talk and kid until midnight, but the samdhi would not sleep at all tonight. He didn't sleep at all last night, we were told, "out of fear." Kharu said that such kidding went on all through the time the calavalas were here. NQ 12 Some of the men had put eggs under the samdhi. Then when the eggs broke, they said, "Oh, see, our guest has laid an egg." The samdhi here is an animalin this case, a chicken who can lay eggs. In this insult, the samdhi is not only an animal but also a female animal. The essentially sexual reproductive nature of the relationship between the two wedding parties is perhaps suggested by the fertility symbolthe egg. Both the bahanoi and the samdhi (daughter's father-in-law) are victims of rites of degradation at the hands of the sala and opposite samdhi (one's son's father-in-law). In multiple ways, each is "put down," by being likened to an animal, by being hugged, tackled, chased, shoved and beaten, and by being touched by supposed untouchable Chamar women and treated as though he were a woman. The relationship between samdhi and samdhan is more imaginary than real, but the content is one of flirtation.

 

NQ 13 At the time of Chandni's cala, we asked if the samdhan didn't joke with the samdhi. Chatu, a guest samdhi [bride's father-in-law in relationship], said that last night when no one was looking, he had de-



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cided to go to visit his samdhian [son's mother-in-law]. Kharu said, "We saw him slipping away, but we didn't stop him because we knew our women were brave. We thought, 'Let him taste a bit from our women, too.' Just when he walked in, the samdhan caught hold of him and started beating him. And he said, 'Please let me go.' Then we went and got him free." At this, one of the Chuhra men, a samdhi [groom's father-in-law] pulled Chatu back and shook his fist at Chatu as though he were threatening to beat him. Here again the virtue of the local bride's women is attested to. Chatu, a guest samdhi, probably was trying here to insult the hosts by indicating that he had gone to have sex with the bride's mother, but again Kharu asserts that the women accosted the invader and beat him. Evidently one of the groom's men was displeased that Chatu's salvo had boomeranged. Another example of a fantasy flirtation between samdhan and samdhi comes from Kanti's life history. NQ 14 At the time Kanti was to have her sadi and go to her bridegroom's village, Kanti's mother's jija [sister's husband] teased her, saying, "Why don't you go with Kanti? Go with your samdhi. Go as his wife!" Here Kanti's mother's sister's husband suggests that his wife's sister, Kanti's mother, go along with Kanti when Kanti marries, in order to have "a good time" with Kanti's father-in-law, Kanti's mother's samdhi. In this example, a sister's husband teases his wife's sister, a culturally prescribed joking relationship, and in his joke he refers to a largely imaginary joking relationship between samdhan and samdhi. Not all flirtations are just imaginary, however. Sometimes samdhans, faces covered with headclothes, go up to the edge of the caupal and say, "We'll throw color on our samdhis." But their own men threaten the women. Sometimes, however, the women succeed in throwing colored powder on the samdhis. Colored powder is thrown during the spring festival, Holi, and seems to be a symbol of fertility (see note 11 for accounts of samdhans singing to samdhis). The joking relationship between a samdhi and his samdhan is a cross-sex joking relationship that, contrary to what Brant's (1948: 160-162) hypothesis might have led us to expect, is not one between potential spouses. 18 Because samdhan (groom's mother-in-law) never meets samdhan (bride's mother-in-law), the joking takes place by means of messages with hidden sexual insults sent by way of their husbands or son or daughter to each other. One will send a message telling the other to take hold of a thorn bush (penis?). It is said that if they were to meet, both samdhans would have faces covered but would joke through their headclothes.  



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Devar (Husband's Younger Brother)Bhavaj (Elder Brother's Wife) It might seem that the new bride suffers nothing but shyness and embarrassment in her new role in the household of her mother-in-law. Many scholars of the North Indian family and kinship point to the relief that the young newly in-married daughter-in-law may enjoy in the culturally prescribed hamsimakhaul * ka rista (joking relationship) between herself and her husband's younger brother. It is also commonly pointed out that this is a relationship between a couple who might eventually marry, especially if a caste, such as the Chuhras, practice the levirate. Because the right to joke with the husband's younger brother (devar) extends to the male cousins of the husband and to gamv-basti* devars (village-colony husband's younger brothers), a woman like Gyarsi who delights in this sexy flirtatious joking may have many partners with whom to joke. Although the ethnographic literature on northern India is bereft of examples of joking between devar (husband's younger brother) and bhavaj (elder brother's wife), mention of its existence is frequent.19 Space precludes explorations of that relationship here. In all three types of cross-sex jokingthat between bahanoi (sister's husband) and sail (wife's sister), samdhi (bride's father-in-law) and samdhan (groom's mother-in-law), bhavaj (older brother's wife) and devar (husband's younger brother)there is a pretence that the two should have or arc already having a sexual relationship or that the two are already married. Women usually initate the horseplay and wise-cracking in which some women revel. A man can joke only with his wife's younger sisters, not her older sisters; a married woman can joke only with her husband's younger brothers, not his older brothers. A husband's older brother cannot joke with his younger brother's wife; this is an avoidance relationship, and a woman should be veiled and should not speak to her jeth* (her husband's cider brother), who is like a small father-in-law. Among the lower castes of Khalapur and much of northern India in which levirate and sororate arc practiced, a bhavaj may indeed be married in a secondary marriage to her devar after her husband's death; thus, a sali could, indeed, become wife to her dead sister's husband. Conclusion As Radcliffe-Brown (1952a) perceived, the two parties, that of the bride and that of the groom, are two separate groups, now attached through their marriage. Clear in the joking relationships between affinal relatives close in age is that sexuality is spoken about or expressed in gestures. Some cross-sex joking, like that between bhavaj and devar and jija and sail, seems to anticipate a  



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future sexual relationship. Some cross-sex joking like that between samdhan and samdhi is a flirtation that, if not entirely fantasized, suggests a replay of the relationship between their children, with each other. That relationship, as well as the singing of sithanis to the groom and his "brothers," and the same-sex joking between samdhi and samdhi and between sala and bahanoi, is fraught with sexual content and innuendo and seems to direct the wedding parties' attention to the sexual nature of their relationship. The joking reiterates the fact: "We two groups are joined by a marriage." All the mock sexual relationsthose between sali and bahanoi, samdhan and samdhi, samdhi and samdhi, sala and bahanoiact out in anticipation the sexual relationship between bride and groom. Sideplay statements during the wedding rest serve as a counterpoint to the religious ceremonies that also go on during the sadi, the profane opposes the sacred. Both profane and sacred rites unite bride and groom: the one carnally (at least in anticipation), the other spiritually, religiously, and legally (wrought by the mantras themselves). Radcliffe-Brown (1952a) also suggested that the joking relationship mixes both hostility and affection. His observation holds for the sala-bahanoi and samdhi-samdhi relationships among the Chuhras. The two parties are initially strangers. Because elders usually arrange marriages, it is likely that the sala's father or grandfather actually went to the bahanoi's village to give the rupee and engage the bahanoi as a bridegroom for the daughter/granddaughter, so it may well be that at the time of the sadi neither young man has met the other before. The negotiation between the two wedding parties (the groom's are to be guests at the bride's, the bride's are to be the hosts) is often fraught with misunderstanding, even anger. The hosts try tactfully to hint that the groom's party should not be too large, for the hosts must feed them all for three or four days; the groom's party is touchy and can use their ultimate sanction of breaking off the engagement because the hosts are so penurious. So the feeling between sala and bahanoi upon first meeting and between samdhi and samdhi at the time of the wedding ceremonies is likely to be one of mild hostility. Of course, the fundamental fact to be understood in this joking is the sala's and samdhi's (groom's father-in-law's) resentment in having to give sister/ daughter away in marriage to the bahanoi/jamai (sister's husband/daughter's husband). The reversal in relationship between sala and bahanoi and between samdhi and samdhi, possible when the groom's party is on the bride's home ground, is one way to quash the bride's father and brother's feelings of guilt and resentment. They thus resist the situation in which they find themselves. The joking relationship in which the sala plays that he is the bahanoi seesaws him from the low subordinate position to the high superordinate one in this limited hypergamous system. He plays this game while the wifetakers are still dependent; they have not yet received the bride. The joking takes  



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place at the sadi and the cala before the bride has been transferred to the groom and the other men of his party who have come to take her back to the groom's father's village and before the sexual relations between the groom and bride have commenced. The groom and his brothers must bear up with joking both from his new wife's sisters and from his wife's brothers, not only to win their respect, but also presumably so that they will not falter in their transfer of the bride. His father and his brothers must do the same. The reversal in the relationships is the key trope in this play, and this can be seen as a kind of ritual of rebellion (Gluckman 1963), a statement that the sala or samdhi (groom's father-in-law) wishes that the relationship were the reverse of what it is. Such an analysis, however, does not account for the content of the humorous insults that the bride's men dole out to the groom's men, much to the enjoyment of the others in the bride's party. As detailed above, these dirty jokes (ganda majak) and insults (gali) repeatedly attack the honor (izzat) of the guests in a situation in which the guests are helpless. The effect of this use of the discourse of forbidden sexualityaccusations of incest, exchange marriage, adultery, bastardry, and cuckoldryis that the hierarchical relations between the bridetakers and the bridegivers are leveled. They also use the discourse of caste and pollution and override the usual vast gulf between humanity and animality, between male and female. The Chuhra jokers frequently demean a man by "making" him into either an animal or a woman. Seen against a background of caste and arranged marriage the primary purpose of which is to ensure that bride and groom are of the same caste and from good families (ones in which incest and adultery presumably would not take place), such joking says that the groom's party is not worthy of taking the bride because the groom and his father and their brothers have broken the most basic rules of caste and family purity (Yalman 1963; Kolenda 1985: 6285). The logic of such joking would seem to be: because you are of bad family and impure caste, you cannot take our daughter/sister. Through such insult, the groom's party is discredited and proven unworthy of being given the bride, who is presumably from a good family and a pure caste. I began this chapter with a quotation from Foucault suggesting that the research scholar must see how sexuality is used in discourse. Between bride's people and groom's people during wedding ceremonial visits in the bride's people's village, the joking and farce express rebellion on the part of the subordinated, and they attempt w discredit the bridetakers to deprive them of their superior status. The content of the joking, thus, is not accidental but closely related to the intergroup situation. Such analysis suggests that there is considerable value in ethnographers' reporting the contents of joking and not just covering it with a single adjective like obscene, which is a common practice.  



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Mary Douglas has suggested that jokes are antistructural; this is true in the reversal of roles between the sala and the bahanoi. Douglas also claims that joking may well foster communitas, "unhierarchised, undifferentiated social relations" between the parties (Douglas 1975: 104). During the sadi and cala, not only does the bride's party resist the new relationship, but it also resists giving the bride. However, they do come to accept the relationship, and the bride is eventually given over. Given the rules of patrilineage and village exogamy as well as caste endogamy and the asymmetrical ranking of bridetakers and bridegivers, plus the North Indian ideology of sexuality, one can see that the North Indian wedding is fraught with tension between the bride's and the groom's wedding parties. This tension could be dealt with in various ways, including avoidance, aloofness, and great formality in their interactions. Indeed, these interpersonal strategies are culturally coded, creating avoidance relationships between daughter-in-law and men older than her husband in her husband's party; the groom is silent before his mothers-in-law and fathers-in-law, those women and men in the bride's party of the parental generation. The ambivalence in the encounter of the strange men brought together by a wedding presumably could teeter in one direction rather than another. Those anthropolgists who characterize the relationship between sala and bahanoi as hostile or distant suggest that in some North Indian localities and groups the ambivalence has tipped that way. Among the Chuhras, the groom, knowing that he will be teased, feels shy; he anticipates the humiliation that the sala is likely to deal out to him. However, in the Chuhra scheme of things, sala and bahanoi should become good friends. It is said that they should love each other far more than the bahanoi loves his wife, who is, of course, the sala's sister. Humor relaxes tension, and this strategy is used between members of the two parties of the same generation. The relaxation of tension through farce and humor makes possible more friendly relations between the two opposed parties. This seems to be what the Chuhras expect; out of the joking in which the sala attacks the bahanoi a relationship of affection will develop. 20 Obviously, the bride, as well as her brothers and parents, benefit if there is a friendly relationship between her father and her husband's father and father's brothers and a friendly relationship between her husband and her brother and their age-mates. That this, in fact, takes place is indicated at the end of the story about Chandni's wedding. As the bullock-cart departs, taking Chandni, Kharu's step-daughter, away at her cala, her younger brothers walk with the young men of her husband's barat (all-male wedding party), their arms around each other; her father and her husband's father bid each other fond farewell; her husband's brother says that the relationship is now forever in reply to her brother's  



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regret that his bahanoi must leave. Out of the tomfoolery comes prema or pyara, affection and love. Out of the barrage of abuse, insult, and jokes emerges and triumphs intimacy (Douglas 1975:98). In conclusion, I make three points about the insult-joking relationships at the Chuhra wedding. First, the mock flirtations and pretend sexual relations between certain assigned pairs of affines reiterate the purpose of the contact between the two groupsto establish a sexual relationship between a male member of one group and a female of the other. Second, much of the farce and joking is a pretense of diminishing the superior status of the groom and the bridetakers by discrediting their claims to purity either from regular endogamous relations or obedience to incest tabus; all this "in-play," jolly rituals of rebellion that can last for only a few hours or days, occurs before the jokers must succumb to the real superiority of the wifetakers and give them the bride. Third, the ritualized joking is a transformative process, the middle phase in a rite of passage (Gennep 1960:10-13) as the brothers-in-law pass from the statuses of strangers to those of * friends. The joking, both between equal brothers and equal sisters-in-law and between unequal affinal relatives, makes a travesty of the purdah system and the concept of izzat, the local versions of shame and honor. In fact, Mary Douglas suggests: The joke merely affords opportunity for realising that an accepted pattern has no necessity. Its excitement lies in the suggestion that any particular ordering of experience may be arbitrary and subjective. It is frivolous in that it produces no real alternative, only an exhilerating sense of freedom from form in general. (1975:96) Notes To Chapter Five Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the Asian Studies Colloquium of Michigan State University on April 8, 1987, and at a panel on Joking in India at the meetings of the Association for Asian Studies in San Francisco on March 26, 1988. I owe thanks to the audiences including Judith Pugh, Rita Gallin, and Bernard Gallin, and to discussants of the latter panel, Mahadev Apte and Alan Dundes, who raised provocative questions and made telling points. I also thank Owen Lynch, editor of this volume, who offered me much sound advice and suggested leads that I might follow, and to Paul Toomey, a contributor to this volume, for stimulating comments. 1. My research assistant, Usha Bhagat (now Mrs. Mahendra Dave), and I were members of a Cornell University interdisciplinary research group studying Khalapur from 1953 to 1956, and financed by the Ford Foundation. I owe special thanks to Usha Bhagat Dave, our Chuhra friends, Director Morris Opler, Field Directors John Hitchcock and the late Edward LeClair, and the Ford Foundation. With financial support from the Smithsonian Institution, I returned to do fieldwork in Khalapur from January to June 1984.  



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The native Hindi terms for the two divisions within the category of servant and artisan castes is suddh and asuddh, clean and unclean. The unclean castes tan leather, make shoes, sweep streets', and clean latrines, work Hindus consider unclean. The term untouchable was first used by the Maharaja of Baroda before the Depressed Classes Mission of Bombay in 1909 (Galanter 1972:298) and became much more widely used than unclean. Discrimination against citizens considered unclean or untouchable is against Indian law and its Constitution (see Kolenda 1985, chap. 4). Old customary practices and beliefs persist, however. 2. The psychoanalyst, Alan Roland (1982), has characterized the Hindu family as thoroughly hierarchical, one in which deference and obedience from children is rewarded by affection from elders. Here in NQ1 Bhati has presented the same analysis: Kayda-keeping (deferential and solicitious) daughters-in-law win their mothers'-inlaw affection, she asserts, presumably on the basis of her own experience. 3. Although Marriott's may well be the earliest account of the North Indian superiority of the bridetaker's side over the bridegiver's as a form of hypergamy (as distinct from hypergamy between grades of families), anthropologists' recent focus upon the phenomenon stems from Dumont's ( 1957, 1961, 1966, 1970) concern with marriage alliance; his inspiration came from Lévi-Strauss (1969:269) who found that "generalized exchange" (unilateral asymmetrical giving of brides) "extends over a vast area of Southern Asia." If North India is a hypergamous milieu, there is, of course, a problem in the definition of the boundaries and territory of North India. Hierarchical relations between bridetakers and bridegivers have been found in studies done in the Indian states of Kashmir (Madan 1975), Uttar Pradesh (Marriott 1955; Dumont 1966; Khare 1975; Vatuk 1975), Delhi (Vatuk 1975), and the Punjab (Hershman 1981), and in the country bordering northern India, Nepal (Bennett 1983). But there are exceptions in the north. Fruzzetti and Ostör (1976: 109) state "that hypergamy as status difference between wife-giving and wife-taking groups on-the-ground is a distortion of the Bengali evidence." Sirkanda villagers (Berreman 1963), in the foothills in northern Dehra Dun District, Uttar Pradesh, also fall to follow this North Indian system of inequality as do the mostly brideprice-giving middle and lower Hindu castes of Rajasthan (Kolenda 1989). It is, thus, doubtful whether some parts of Bengal, the sub-Himalayas or Rajasthan, can be included in a North Indian hypergamons region. 4. Dumont (1966:108-110) addressed the question of the kinship systems of lower castes in localities in Gorakhpur District in eastern Uttar Pradesh; he concluded that, in contrast to high castes like the Sarjupari Brahmans, they lack coherent kinship systems. I did not find this to be the case (Kolenda 1982). All Hindu castes in Khalapur seem to have essentially the same system. The main difference between the Rajput and Brahman kinship systems and those of the Merchants and the middle and lower Hindu castes in Khalapur is the practice of widow remarriage, prohibited by the former two and prescribed by the latter three social categories. The Rajputs are one large caste-complex in northern and central India famous for its ranked clans (sets of families). For a discussion of such ranking by the Rajputs of village Khalapur, see Hitchcock (1956:51:-54). 5. Throughout this essay, I use the present tense for Chuhra and Khalapur doings and conditions as they were in 1954-56. There have been major changes in  



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Khalapur in the intervening thirty years, but the general conditions as I describe them here have not changed. 6. Describing or mentioning similar celebrations of the brother-sister relationship are Minturn and Hitchcock (1966:36), Dumont (1966:98), Pocock (1972:97), and Bennett (1983:247-252). 7. That even marital sexual activity demeans a woman is asserted by Salman Rushdie in Sham, his novel about Pakistani Muslim Punjabis. "It was believed that the mere fact of being married did not absolve a woman of the shame and dishonour that results from the knowledge that she sleeps regularly with a man" (Rushdie 1983: 76). 8. Das (I976:6) speaks of a Punjabi sister-in-law (brother's wife) bantering with her sister-in-law (husband's sister) about sexual matters. Bennett (1983:177), writing about eastern Nepali village women, says: There is a great deal of vigorous sexual joking carried on among the womensometimes even within earshot of the men. Unmarried girls were told that first intercourse would burn the vagina just as chili-peppers burn the tongue. The suggestive nature of keys being fitted into locks or of the shapes or bananas and cucumbers (and which of their neighbors was thought to relish these foods the most) was a source of endless joking among the women. Jeffery (1979:75) also implies that in conversations between Muslim women friends in Nizamuddin, Delhi, intimate sexual topics are discussed. 9. That Rajput men when among equals also discuss sex is reported by Dorschner (1983:119). 10. See my discussion of these studies and egalitarian relations within the caste system (Kolenda 1977:181-182, 1981:313-314). 11. Owen Lynch brought to my attention Briggs's (1920:75, 86) mentions of Chamar women related to the bride singing obscene songs to the men of the groom's party during weddings. Jacobson (1982:96) also mentions obscene songs sung to the bridegroom at weddings, to which samdhis (bride's fathers-in-lawthat is, the father-in-law and men in his generation including his brothers, cousins, and so on) are expected to take no offence; she writes: In these songs (gari git), the women name the samdhis and accuse them and their womenfolk of engaging in immoral and indecent acts. At some of these gatherings, the bride's womenfolk throw colored water on the visiting affines, tie cowbells around their necks, rub their face with wet flour, and even dress them ridiculously in women's blouses and forehead spangles. Throughout these raucous performances, the women keep their faces properly veiled. The samdhis are expected to take no offense at these songs and insults. Hershman (1981:164-165, 187, 196-197, 206) makes much of joking between bridegroom and his sails and bride's women: "The songs sung cruelly satirise the paucity, poverty and ill looks of the members of the marriage party" (165). 12. In her treatment of cross-sex affinal joking relationships between brother's wife's brother and sister's husband's sister, husband's younger brother-older brother's wife, and sister's husband-wife's sister, Vatuk (1969:107-109) sees the applicability of Brant's (1948:160-162) generalization that cross-sex joking relationships occur between persons who are potentially marriageable, but she points out that there is no likelihood of such marriages among the high-caste populations she studied (Vatuk 1969: 109).  



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Widow remarriage is common among the Chuhras and other middle and lower castes in Khalapur; a woman might marry her husband's younger brother or her sister's widower-husband. These men are definitely considered as possible mates in secondary marriages for a widow (see Kolenda 1982), and joking relations do occur between these potential mates. 13. Caca is a father's younger brother. A child never calls the father bap or pita, correct terms, while his or her father is of child-bearing age; instead, the child avoids suggesting procreative activities of the parent by calling him caca, a person who may well not yet be married. 14. After his description of the relationship between Hindu brothers-in-law, Apte cites a proverb about making a maternal uncle the butt of a joke ''among the Marathi speakers on the west coast of India.'' Because Apte himself is aware of the paucity of descriptions of the relationship between wife's brother and sister's husband, he would probably be quite willing to admit that his own description of the relationship is probably not accurate for all Hindus of North India. 15. Hindus believe any bodily exuviae or product is polluting, including saliva; hence, they find biting, kissing, or licking someone polluting. 16. In discussing a joking relationship between a brother's wife and a husband's sister, Vatuk says (1969:109) that "one aspect of the humour is the suggestion that an exchange of women has or will take place." Among many North Indians, exchange marriage is unthinkable (Karve 1965:125; Dumont 1966:104-107; Kolenda 1978: 266, 1987: 2o2-2o3). 17. Kharu's making of the author, Pauline in these notes, into a father's mother (dadi) was probably a way of showing respect, but perhaps it was also a way of recognizing that she moved about the village freely the way only a dadi, an elderly woman among them, would do. 18. Apte (1985:43) states, "The existing ethnographic literature also indicates that institutionalized joking rarely occurs between females of the same generation." He then mentions only three instances he found in the literature. This institutionalized joking between samdhan and samdhan, the two mothers-in-law of a married couple, among the Chuhras would make a fourth instance. Relatively few recent ethnographers mention the relationship between parents-in-law. Bennett ( 1983:160) says that the relationship between the two sets of parents-in-law is particularly "strained." She goes on to say that "all affinal relations are marked by distance-respect behavior." Jacobson (1982:95) says that a Bhopal Hindu woman veils her face in the presence of her samdhi but that, if two samdhans meet, they both should be veiled although able to speak to each other. Hershman also makes no mention of joking between samdhi-samdhan but speaks of respect between them (Hershman 1981:203). Vatuk (1969:107-109) does not discuss joking relationships between male affinal relatives, such as that between samdhis. In fact, Vatuk (1975:183) characterizes the latter relationship as an avoidance relationship, as are relationships between co-parents-in-law involving the opposing mothers-in-law and the opposing mother-in-law and father-in-law. Such respect relationships are the opposite of the joking relationships between the co-parents-in-law among the Chuhras. 19. Jacobson (1982:92) speaks of the elder brother's wife teasing her husband's younger brother "about his love for his wife." Hershman (1981:175) says that "when  



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she first enters her husband's household [she] jokingly demands payment in order not to veil her face from him [the husband's younger brother]," and a joking relationship between them thus begins (1981:195). Others speak of the relationship as one in which the woman does not have to veil her face (Mehta 1982:142) or like the relationships the daughter-in-law is used to in her natal home (Bennett 1983:213). The most thorough treatment of the devar-bhavaj relationship is by Hivale (1943) who describes it among two tribal groups, the Gonds and the Pardhans of east Mandla, Madhya Pradesh. There are many aspects to the relationship, partly depending upon the difference in age between the devar and bhavaj. The joking he transcribes (Hivale 1943: 162-164) in which devar suggests that the bhavaj's brother has come in order to have sex with her (thus brother-sister incest); then the bhavaj replies that her nanand (husband's sister) is nearby to accommodate her brother's sexual impulse (thus an exchange marriage or sexual liaison). This indicates that joking about incest is not tabu, contrary to what Murdock and others might have supposed, nor is joking about exchange marriage. Another good treatment concerning mostly tribals is by Naik (1947). 20. That relations between male affinal kin are commonly friendly is also suggested by Minturn and Hitchcock (1966:33): Easy, friendly relations are also common between a man and his wife's father and brothers. The husband usually accompanies his wife when she goes to visit her parents and returns to pick her up. On both occasions he often stays for a day or more, and most men look forward m these visits. Although the husband is treated with some deference by his wife's people, for they are culturally defined as somewhat lower than he in statusa fact which may account for some of his pleasurethe general tone of the relationship is comradely and without strain. Jacobson (1980: 100) notes for her Bhopal Hindus: But the ridicule and insults, offered as they are within the limits of the prescribed joking relationship, virtually never cause ill-will and instead contribute to ostensibly friendly relations between the two affinally-linked groups. Hershman (1981:196) also suggests that friendly relations develop between affinal male kinsmen. Lévi-Strauss (1969:302-303) was the first to suggest that groups involved in a one-directional cycle of bridegiving were likely to develop hierarchical relations that they might or might not equalize through affection. References Cited Abu-Lughod, Lila 1986 Veiled Sentiments. Berkeley: University of California Press. Apte, Mahadev L. 1985 Joking Relationships. In Humor and Laughter: An Anthropological Approach. Pp. 29-66. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Bateson, Gregory 1936 Naven. London: Oxford University Press. Beech, Mary Higdon  

1982 The Domestic Realm in the Lives of Hindu Women in Calcutta. In Separate



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Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia. Hanna Papanek and Gail Minault, eds. Pp. 110-138. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books. Bennett, Lynn 1983 Dangerous Wives and Sacred Sisters: Social and Symbolic Roles of High-caste Women in Nepal. New York: Columbia University Press. Berreman, Gerald D. 1963 Hindus of the Himalayas. Berkeley: University of California Press. Brant, Charles 1948 On Joking Relationships. American Anthropologist 50: 16o-162. Briggs, George W. 1920 The Chamars. Calcutta: Association Press. Burkhart, Geoffrey 1974 Equal in the Eyes of God: A South Indian Devotional Group in Its Hierarchical Setting. Contributions to Asian Studies 5:1-14. Carstairs, G. Morris 1957 The Twice-Born. London: Hogarth Press. Carter, Anthony T. 1975 Caste "Boundaries" and the Principle of Amity: A Maratha Caste Purana. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 9: 123-139. Das, Veena 1976 Masks and Faces: An Essay on Punjabi Kinship. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 10: 1-30. David, Kenneth 1974 And Never the Twain Shall Meet? Mediating the Structural Approaches to Caste Ranking. In Structural Approaches to South Indian Studies. Harry Buck and Glenn Yocum, eds. Pp. 43-80. Chambersburg, Pa.: Wilson Books. 1977 Hierarchy and Equivalence in Jaffna, North Sri Lanka: Normative Codes as Mediator. In The New Wind: Changing Identities in South Asia. Kenneth David, ed. Pp. 179-226. The Hague: Mouton. Dorschner, Jon Peter 1983 Alcohol Consumption in a Village in North India. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. Douglas, Mary 1975 Jokes. In Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology. Pp. 90-114. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Dumont, Louis 1957 Hierarchy and Marriage Alliance in South Indian Kinship. Occasional Papers of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, no. l2. London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great file:///C|/Social%20Construction%20of%20Emotions%20in%20India/files/page_149.html[21.03.2011 19:02:15]

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1966 Marriage in India: The Present State of the Question. Part Three: North



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India in Relation to South India. Contributions to Indian Sociology 9:90-114. 1970 Homo Hierarchicus: An Essay on the Caste System. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1975 Terminology and Prestations Revisited. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 9: 197-215. Dundes, Alan 1987 Cracking Jokes: Studies of Sick Humor Cycles and Stereotypes. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press. Foucault, Michel 1980 The History of Sexuality. Volume 1: An Introduction. Robert Hurley, trans. New York: Vintage Books. Fruzzetti, Lina, and Akos Ostör 1976 Is There a Structure to North Indian Kinship Terminology? Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 10:6396. Galanter, Marc 1972 The Abolition of DisabilityUntouchability and the Law. In The Untouchables in Contemporary India. J. M. Mahar, ed. Pp. 227-314. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Geertz, Clifford 1973 Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight. In The Interpretation of Cultures. Pp. 412-452. New York: Basic Books. Gennep, Arnold van 1960 Rites of Passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gluckman, Max 1963 Rituals of Rebellion in South-East Africa. In Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa. Pp. 110-136. New York: Free Press of Glencoe. Habermas, Jürgen 1988 [1970] On Hermeneutics' Claim to Universality. In The Hermeneutics Reader. Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, ed. Pp. 295-319. New York: Continuum. Hershman, Paul 1981 Punjabi Kinship and Marriage. Delhi: Hindustan Publishing House. Hitchcock, John T. 1956 The Rajputs of Khaalaapur: A Study of Kinship, Social Stratification, and Politics. Ph.D. dissertation, Sociology and Anthropology Department, Cornell University. Hivale, Shamrao 1943 The Dewar-Bhauji Relationship. Man in India 23:157-167. Ibbetson, Sir Denzil 1881 Report on the Census of the Panjab. Lahore: Governnment Press. file:///C|/Social%20Construction%20of%20Emotions%20in%20India/files/page_150.html[21.03.2011 19:02:16]

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Inden, Ronald B., and Ralph W. Nicholas 1977 Kinship in Bengali Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Jacobson, Doranne 1970 Hidden Faces: Hindu and Muslim Purdah in a Central Indian Village. Ph.D. dissertation, Anthropology Department, Columbia University.  

1977 Flexibility in Central Indian Kinship and Residence. In The New Wind:



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Changing Identifies in South Asia. Kenneth David, ed. Pp. 263-283. The Hague: Mouton. 1982 Purdah and the Hindu Family in Central India. In Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia. Hanna Papanek and Gail Minault, eds. Pp. 81-109. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books. Jeffery, Patricia 1979 Frogs in a Well: Indian Women in Purdah. London: Zed Press. Karve, Irawati 1965 Kinship Organization in India. 2nd ed. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Khare, R. S. 1975 "Embedded" Affinity and Consanguineal "Ethos": Two Properties of the Northern Kinship System. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 9:245-261. Kolenda, Pauline 1977 The Hierarchical Renouncer and the Dutiful Person: Insights from the Meeting of Themal and Structural Analyses of Indian Culture. Papers in Anthropology (University of Oklahoma) 18(2): 167-200. 1978 Sibling-set Marriage, Collateral-set Marriage, and Deflected Alliance Among Annana Jars of Jaipur District, Rajasthan. In American Studies in the Anthropology of India. Sylvia Vatuk, ed. Pp. 242-277. Delhi: Manohar. 1981 Caste, Cult, and Hierarchy. Delhi: Manohar. 1982 Widowhood Among "Untouchable" Chuhras. In Concepts of Person: Kinship, Caste, and Marriage in India. Akos Ostör, Lina Fruzzetti, and Steve Barnett, eds. Pp. 172-220. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1985 Caste in Contemporary India: Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press. 1987 Regional Differences in Family Structure. Jaipur: Rawat Publications. 1989 The "Joint-Family" Household in Rural Rajasthan. In Society from the Inside Out. John N. Gray and David J. Mearns, eds. Pp. 55-106. New Delhi: Sage. Lévi-Straus, Claude 1969 The Elementary Structures of Kinship. James Harle Bell, John Richard yon Sturmer, and Rodney Needham, trans. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. Luschinsky, Mildred Stroop 1962 The Life of Women in a Village of North India. Ph.D. dissertation, Sociology and Anthropology Department, Cornell University. Madan, T. N. 1965 Family and Kinship: A Study of Pandits of Rural Kashmir. New York: Asia Publishing House. 1975 Structural Implications of Marriage in North India: Wife-givers and Wife-takers among the Pandits of Kashmir. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 9:217-243. Marriott, McKim

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1955 Social Structure and Change in a U.P. Village. In India's Villages. M. N. Srinivas, ed. Pp. 96-109. Calcutta: West Bengal Government Press. Mehta, Rama  

1982 Purdah Among the Oswals of Mewar. In Separate Worlds: Studies of Pur-



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dah in South Asia. Hanna Papanek and Gall Minault, eds. Pp. 139-163. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books. Minturn, Leigh, and John T. Hitchcock 1966 The Rajputs of Khalapur, India. New York: John Wiley. Murdock, George Peter 1949 Social Structure. New York: Macmillan. Naik, T. B. 1947 Joking Relationships. Man in India 27:250-266. Nicholas, Ralph W. 1965 Factions: A Comparative Analysis. In Political Systems and the Distribution of Power. Michael Banton, ed. Pp. 21-92. London: Tavistock. Papanek, Hanna 1982 Purdah: Separate Worlds and Symbolic Shelters. In Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia. Hanna Papanek and Gail Minault, eds. PP- 3-53. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books. Papanek, Hanna, and Gail Minault, eds. 1982 Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books. Parry, Jonathan 1974 Egalitarian Values in a Hierarchical Society. South Asian Review 7:95-121. Pocock, David F. 1972 Kanbi and Patidar. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1952a On Joking Relationships. In Structure and Function in Primitive Society. Pp. 90-104. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. 1952b A Further Note on Joking Relationships. In Structure and Function in Primitive Society. Pp. 105-116. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press. Roland, Alan 1982 Toward a Psychoanalytical Psychology of Hierarchical Relationships in Hindu India. Ethos 10(3): 232253. Rushdie, Salman 1983 Shame. New York: Knopf. Sabbah, Fatna A. 1984 Woman in the Muslim Unconscious. New York: Pergamon Press. Sharma, Ursula

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1978 Women and Their Affines: The Veil as a Symbol of Separation. Man, n.s. 13:218-244. Tandon, Prakash 1961 Punjabi Century. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World. Veen, Klaas W. van der 1972 I Give Thee My Daughter. Assen: van Gorcum. Vatuk, Sylvia J. 1969 A Structural Analysis of the Hindi Kinship Terminology. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 3: 94115.  

1975 Gifts and Affines in North India. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 9: 155-196.



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1982 Purdah Revisited: A Comparison of Hindu and Muslim Interpretations of the Cultural Meaning of Purdah in South Asia. In Separate Worlds: Studies of Purdah in South Asia. Hanna Papanek and Gall Minault, eds. Pp. 54-78. Columbia, Mo.: South Asia Books. Vreede-de Stuers, Cora 1968 Parda: A Study of Muslim Women's Life in Northern India. Assen: Van Gorcum. Yalman, Nur

 

1963 On the Purity of Women in the Castes of Ceylon and Malabar. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3(1): 25-58.



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PART FOUR EROTIC AND MATERNAL LOVE IN RELIGIOUS CONTEXTS  



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Six Krishna's Consuming Passions Food as Metaphor and Metonym for Emotion at Mount Govardhan Paul M. Toomey Here we have a representation of highest an. This beautiful image shows us the principle of nourishment, on which the entire world relies and which penetrates all nature. Goethe, "Concerning Myron's Cow" South Asianists have recently begun to look more closely at categories of emotion and emotional experience in general in Indian bhakti traditions (Lynch, this volume; Hardy 1983). In this chapter I will examine similarities and differences in the way emotions are culturally constructed in three such traditions at Mount Govardhan. Govardhan is a major pilgrimage center in Mathura District, Uttar Pradesh, that area of North India renowned as the birthplace and earthly pastureland of Lord Krishna (hence the name Braj, or "pastureland," which Hindus give to this region). The traditions are the Vallabhite and Chaitanyaite sectarian traditions and the nonsectarian Braj folk tradition. 1 I This discussion will follow in part directions of other anthropologists who have used a cultural constructionist approach to study emotional life in settings outside India (Abu-Lughod 1986; Lutz 1985, 1988; Potter 1988; Rasaldo 1980; Schieffelin 1976). Bhakti devotionalism presupposes a culturally specific ideology of emotion, one adapted by medieval theologians from the rasa theory of emotion (see Raghavan 1970; Lynch, introduction to this volume; Bennett, Marglin, and Brooks, this volume). Bhakti selects out of rasa emotional theory only those emotions that are patterned after identifiable human relationships (e.g., mother-child, lover-beloved, fraternal love, etc.). Devotees' experience of Krishna is therefore conceived in terms of one or another of several possible dyadic human relationships; each expresses love and reciprocity. Much has been written about the function of these emotions as aesthetic structures in Braj drama and poetry (Bryant 1978), but there are far fewer explanations of their meaning and significance in the everyday lives and social experience of Krishna worshipers (Bennett 1983). Efforts of South Asianists to account for the historical significance of bhakti emotionalism rely heavily on the motivational explanations of Freud and  



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other psychoanalytic theorists (Entwistle 1987:96-103; Hein 1982, 1986; O'Connell 1976). In their view emotionalism represented a response by Hindusa retreat into either collective fantasy or subjective mysticismto Muslim control of more rational forms of social and political power in North India. This sort of social psychoanalysis overlooks entirely the problem of how the indigenous system of emotions operates in this cultural context. This analysis not only focuses on the latter as a problem for discussion, but also accepts the constructionist view, put forth by Rasaldo (1984) and others (Lutz 1986), that emotions are culturally constituted, shared, generalized in a social network, and reflective of a cultural knowledge system through which actors in a particular cultural milieu interpret experience. Of particular interest in the following discussion is devotees' use of food as signifier for emotion. In this culture food is closely tied to sociability within religious communities and to devotees' relationship with the deity. Many vocabulary words for emotion are gastronomic terms. Food metaphors and images, which proceed logically from these key words, also conceptualize emotion. These meanings are then produced and reproduced in cultural practices such as the ritual act of offering food to Krishna. This connection between food and emotion is undoubtedly subject to a greater degree of elaboration at Govardhan than at other Braj pilgrimage places because food and food symbolism play central roles in the myth associated with the hill and the practices of pilgrims who visit the site. The first section of the chapter explores this link between food and emotion in key words for emotion and in metaphors and images common to Krishna stories and legends. Analysis turns to food rituals in the second half of the chapter, most specifically, to the manner in which the emotion favored for worship in each tradition shapes the pragmatic codes and aesthetic parameters of its food rituals. Data presented should indicate that food beliefs and practices objectify emotion and, as such, constitute emotional experience for members of this culture. This premise follows Bruner's (1986) remark that experience structures expression and expressions in turn structure experience. Applying this insight to the present case, I may further conclude that just as culturally constructed emotions act as sensibilities that inform ritual expressions, so, in the final estimate, they cannot be experienced without these same sensorial expressions. The Setting Mount Govardhan, whose name literally translated is "increaser of cattle," is a small hillock some five miles long and only one hundred feet high. The hillock is located in the southwest corner of Braj, the pilgrimage region just south of Delhi celebrated as the birthplace of Lord Krishna and the location of his childhood play on earth (lila). The hill is worshiped by pilgrims as  



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Krishna's natural form (svarupa) and is a central attraction in the 168-mile pilgrimage route (Caurasi Kos Parikrama) that encircles the region. A large number of towns, shrines, and natural sites, arranged along this route, commemorate the deity's miraculous exploits (Lynch 1988; Mital 1966). This proliferation of sites and the active and colorful pilgrimage culture that continues in the 1980s have their beginnings in the devotional resurgence that swept North India in the sixteenth century. As a result of this resurgence, local Braj culture was profoundly influenced by the languages and cultures of distant regions whose saintly representatives came and settled here in the late medieval period. Because the hill was one of the few identifiable markers of Krishna's divine play on earth, as it was described in textual accounts, it attracted numerous philosopher saints who sought to establish and strengthen Vaishnava sects (sampradaya) by visiting the region. In the sixteenth century, Vallabha from South India and Chaitanya from Bengal came to Govardhan, where they established sectarian enclaves at either end of the hill. The Vallabhite sect, which continues to maintain an active center at Jatipura to the south of the hill, is a householder sect, with no ascetic subbranches. Gosvamis, the sect's preceptors, arc lineal descendants of Vallabha, the founder saint; with few exceptions, most are Tailang Brahmans from Andhra Pradesh. Initiates in the sect arc also householders, many of whom belong to the predominantly mercantile castes of Gujarat and adjacent areas of western India and whose families have had connections with the sect for several generations. The sect has evolved a highly ceremonial style of devotional worship that focuses on iconic images of Krishna housed in special temples (haveli). Haveli are also believed to be the homes of gosvami preceptors, with whose persons temple images arc closely linked in sectarian ideology. Because the sect's preeminent icon, Sri Nathji, appeared to Vallabha at Jatipura, this town is especially sacred in the sect. Even after the icon was removed to Nathdwara in Rajasthan, following the emperor Aurangzeb's sack of Braj in A.D. 1670, Jatipura remained an important center of pilgrimage for members of this sect. A lengthy stop at Jatipura and the presentation of resplendent offerings of food at the side of Mount Govardhan is one highlight of the sect's pilgrimage through the region each year. By contrast, the Chaitanyaite sect in Braj, and elsewhere in India, exhibits tension in its internal social organization between householder and ascetic ritual specialists in the sect, both of whom can be found at various places around Braj. Although the sect's householder Brahmans, also known as gosvamis, preside over the lavish ceremonial temples in nearby Brindaban, Radhakund, to the north of the hill, had historically been the provenance of the sect's many ascetics and monks, who have lived there in retreat since Chaitanya discovered the town beneath paddy fields. Addressing the issue of structural tensions in a sect with a comparable social organization to  



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Chaitanyaites, the Swaminarayan sect of Gujarat, Williams (1984:25-57) concludes that it is not uncommon for sects that have both householder and ascetic ritual specialists in their folds to develop different, often competitive, factions over time. Added to this, the presence of an international movement such as ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), with links to the Chaitanyaite sect and a large modern temple in Brindaban (Brooks, this volume), makes the Chaitanyaites considerably more heterogeneous than the Vallabhites. The town of Radhakund clusters on the banks of two holy ponds (kunda *) believed to have hosted an aquatic tryst by Krishna and his principal consort, Radha, whose love relationship is the focus of worship in the sect. Pilgrims come to Radhakund for extended periods of time to chant, to listen to textual accounts of Radha and Krishna's love play, and to meditate with the large number of monks and widows who live there. Icon worship and large temples are not noticeable features in the style of worship practiced in this Chaitanyaite center. Popular, that is nonsectarian, worship of Krishna is carried on by local Brahman priests (panda*) and pilgrims in Govardhan town, at the hill's midpoint. This, the largest of the hill's three main towns, with a population of twelve thousand, is conveniently located on the major bus route running from Mathura to Dig. The popular tradition cuts across the sectarian traditions in many respects; thus, neither pilgrims nor local priests formally belong to any sect. According to local tradition, ritual worship of the hill is the exclusive domain of resident Brahmans, and pilgrims who belong to sects, much like other pilgrims, have their own priests in the town for this purpose. The only exception to this are Vallabhites; they prefer to worship the hill down the road at Jatipura where local Brahmans are initiates of their sect. Food as Metaphor and Metonym for Emotion On a linguistic analogy, A. K. Ramanujan (1981) describes bhakti as a series of religious shifts that ultimately dominated, crossed, and transformed older linguistic and cultural forms. There were shifts from noniconic to iconic worship; from rituals, in which a plot of ground was cordoned off and made into sacred space by Vedic experts in a consecration rite, to worship in temples localized, named, and open to almost the entire range of Hindu society; from belief in a nonpersonal absolute to the gods of mythology with faces, complexions, families, and feelings; and from passive modes like hearing and watching to active modes like speaking, dancing, touching, singing, and eating. Prema, ''other serving love,'' the final goal of which is rasa, a bliss-filled union with the divine, replaced the earlier maryada, concerned with int llectual knowledge and ritual propriety. In Vaishnava thought and practice, Krishna became the integrative center of an aesthetic world view that called  



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for devotees' emotional involvement in Krishna's eternal pastimes (lila) recounted in sacred texts. As the focus of worship, Krishna is a personal, absolute being who manifests himself in mythic exploits with other playershis foster parents, friends (gopa), and female consorts (gopi)in temple images (murti), in the many pilgrimage places that dot the Braj landscape, and in the human heart. The Vaishnavite theory of emotional religious experience is based on an ingenious adaptation by Rupa Goswami and others (De 1961), of the rasa theory of Sanskrit poetics (Raghavan 1976). Rasa theory, as put forth by Bharata and Abhinavagupta, is a poesis aimed at "emotion recollected": according to this notion, the poetic word has a suggestive power capable of transforming bhava, basic human moods or sentiments, into rasa, emotions evoked in a listener or spectator that are aesthetically distanced and more pristine and rarefied than any feeling derived from direct sensual perception or experience (Masson and Pathwardhan 1969). In Krishna bhakti, bhava, and rasa are reinterpreted, shorn of their aesthetic distance; emphasis is placed, instead, on emotional experience of Krishna and its spontaneous expression (raganugabhakti) in the devotee's life. Bhava then becomes the devotee's worshipful attitude; rasa is the joyful experience of the love relationship between a human being and Krishna. Krishna is conceived of as the fount of rasa: he is the object that is relished (rasa), the subject who relishes, (rasika), the embodiment of all moods, and the giver of the experience of moods to others (Redington 1983:11). The nine emotions of classical aesthetic theory (Raghavan 1970, 1976) are collapsed into five: where the devotee views Krishna with awe and humility in santa bhava, he is the supreme being; in dasya bhava, a lord and master to be served; in sakhya bhava, cowherder friend and equal; in vatsalya bhava, a child to be adored and cared for by its mother; and, in madhurya bhava (also referred to as srngara * bhava, the sweet emotion), a female cowmaiden enraptured by Krishna's seductive beauty. The devotee chooses, in accordance with his emotional capacities and the help of a guru (Haberman 1985), to emulate the emotions of one or another of the characters who participate in Krishna's mythic play. Most worshipers at Govardhan identify with the maternal and erotic sentiments; sentiments of reverential awe and slavish love are more characteristic of Shrivaishnavas and Ramanandis, relatively small sects in Braj. It is difficult to convey through simple and misleading English terms the complex meanings assigned to both the identities of mother, female lover, slave, and so on in this culture and the manner in which each form of person-hood is conceived, constituted, and experienced emotionally. Moreover, a systematic play of differences (or différance, to borrow Derrida's phrase) works in the various interpretations folk and sectarian traditions give to the same set of emotions. To cite but one example of this, in the case of the erotic emotion, the Radhavallabha sect, based primarily in Brindaban, believes  



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that Radha is Krishna's own wife (svakiya); whereas, for Chaitanyaites, a fundamental aspect of Radha's love stems from the fact that she is married to someone else (parakiya) but is irresistably drawn, against all social conventions, into an amorous liaison with Krishna. Metaphors and metonyms that allude to food and the sense of taste play an important role in conceptualizing emotion and emotional experience. 2 Many key terms in classical aesthetic theory and medieval devotional theory patterned after it are derived from gastronomy. Lakoff and Johnson's (1980) experientialist theory of metaphor takes the position that many abstract concepts such as time or emotion are grasped by other concepts understood in clearer, more palpable terms, by means of spatial orientations, objects, or, in this case, food.3 Metaphors, these authors conclude, enable speakers of a linguistic culture to understand one domain in terms of another. Although most of the authors' illustrations are drawn from English and other Western languages, their explanation may nevertheless help us to understand better the use of culinary metaphors and ritual food practices in bhakti to generate emotional experience.4 Let me review briefly some culinary metaphors implicit in Krishna ideology and the entailments that follow from them. First, the term rasa itself means juice, sap, or liquid. In the broad semantic sense, rasa refers to the flavor, taste, or essence of something that can be extracted and experienced in various ways. Devotees consistently make statements of the sort, "I hunger after the sweet nectar of devotion." Here a simile likens devotional experience to a fruit filled with nectar (rasa) that is drunk by those connoisseurs (rasika) who have acquired a taste for the beautiful (bhavuka); Krishna himself is often said to be raso vai saha, the consummate experiencer of his own essence, which is rasa. Here, as in gastronomy, whence the terms rasa, ruci (taste or liking, used in this context to refer to a person's spiritual inclination) and rasika (meaning both gourmet and a sensitive person, a connoisseur) derive, experience is in the experiencer. Vaishnavas also believe that just as hunger is a necessary condition for the enjoyment of delicious food, so is the desire for rasa a necessary condition for its enjoyment. Krishna's ever-growing desire for relishing new forms of rasawhich is believed to set the devotional drama in motionis not symptomatic of imperfection but flows spontaneously from his full, generous nature. The notion that love is of necessity spontaneousand cannot be achieved solely through the traditional paths of knowledge or ritual disciplineis expressed through culinary metaphors and images in a number of places in Krishna mythology and folklore. In stories of famous saints, for example, Krishna usually makes initial contact by appearing to the saint in a dream, sharing food, and leaving behind an image or icon. Saints are usually simple people (more often than not of the lower castes), but Krishna prefers their victualsgiven in a sincere, straightforward mannerto the offerings  



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of sanctimonious Brahman priests serving in his temples. Strains of this same antiritualism come through in episodes of Hariray's (1905) Vallabhite chronicle Sri Govardhannathji ke Prakatya * ki Varta, where Krishna runs away from the majestic splendor of his temple/palace to eat with cowherders and saints living alone in the wilds of Braj.5 In stories surrounding the miraculous appearance of Krishna's icons, the whereabouts of images are often signaled to locals by the strange behavior of cows who shed streams of milk on the ground beneath which the images lay hiding.6 Finally, in Krishna myths and legends the spontaneous outpouring of love between Krishna and his devotees is frequently symbolized by milk, a signifier for rase. However angry Yashoda might be with her foster son, Krishna, she cannot stop her breasts from overflowing with milk at the sight of him; this poignant image is found in much Braj poetry. The entailments of these and similar metaphors are too numerous to explore here, but I will mention a few salient examples. For example, theologians explain the manner in which Krishna's divine energy is refracted in different basic human emotions, by comparing it to the different tastes rainwater produces when mixed with different substances: "rainwater mixed with milk tastes sweet, with amalaki (a fruit of the tree Emblic Myrobolam) sour, in some vegetables salty, in pepper pungent, with other substances bitter and astringent, and so on" (Kapoor 1977:45). Another more common metaphor likens the devotional path to a churning process, wherein the devotee's constant faith is transformed into sattva (defined as essential spiritual purity), in much the same way that butter and curds are churned from milk.7 Following along in the same symbolic line, a cluster of metaphors surrounds Krishna in his identity as butter thief (makhancor). This image is a mainstay of popular iconography in Braj, represented in sculpture, painting, music, and poetry. This image makes a metaphor of Krishna stealing butter with his thievery of the human heart in religious devotion. In these terms then, Krishna's pilfering is a metaphoric guise for the unlimited creativity by which he takes back in devotion what is his to begin with: rase, signified in this iconic instance by milk, butter, and curds.8 Hawley's (1983) study of the butter thief theme in Braj poetry traces this cluster of metaphors back to a basic correspondence in the mythology itself, a correspondence between the milkbased economy of Braj and the "economy of love" that circulates freely between Krishna and his playmates in the Braj lila. These culinary metaphors have an interpretive function insofar as they provide worshipers with understandings of some complex notions involved in devotion. Key transformations in food ritual, however, have a metonymic rather than metaphoric structure. The same is true of the Govardhan myth, which recounts in distinctly Braj terms how food first came to be offered to Krishna. Thus, both food ritual and the associated food myth establish a metonymy between love, a girl given to devotees through Krishna's grace,  



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and food, a concrete means of experiencing and reexperiencing this gift, thereby keeping it in circulation (Hyde 1979). Food offerings are present in nearly all Vaishnavite worshiping, from the intimacy of the household shrine to the more public setting of the temple. The central transformation in food ritual occurs when food, called bhoga (literally, pleasure or sensual enjoyment, anything that can be enjoyed by the senses), is set before Krishna's image and Krishna himself is believed to consume it, usually through the image's eyes. 9 In this act of consumption bhoga is metonymously transformed into more love-laden prasada or consecrated food.10 Bennett (this volume) draws a homology between this culinary transformation and an equivalent transformation on the emotional level: in his analysis bhoga (food offerings) is to bhava (the devotee's worshipful emotion) as prasada (consecrated food offerings) is to rasa (Krishna's blissful nature). In light of the data presented here, one might go one step further and say that these are metonymic correspondences, not merely homologous ones as Bennett suggests. In the Govardhan myth Krishna persuades the Braj cowherds to make their annual harvest offering to Govardhan hill instead of to the god, Indra. Once the offerings are mountainously piled in front of the hill, Krishna jumps into the hill, saying, "I am Govardhan; Govardhan is me." He then sucks in the food through a crack in the hill (known locally as mukharavinda, lotus mouth), metonymically linking himself, the hill, and the mountainous pile of food (Annakuta*).11 Pictographs of this mythic event, sold throughout Braj, show this metonym clearly. Krishna appears in two places at once in the illustration: standing within a square niche inside the hill, and outside, kneeling to the left of the hill with hands folded in prayer beside his brother, Balarama, and other cowherds. This iconography represents the processual structure of food ritual and the love relationship it signifies: the gift of foodlove moves in a circle, from the cowherds to the hill Krishna-Govardhan, and back to Krishna and the cowherds once more. Thus, the food-love metonymy substantiates the circular process underlying devotional experience: Krishna, it is believed, creates devotees through his grace, in order that he might reflexively experience through their loving feelings his own blissful and loving nature (ananda).12 This metonymy is objectively inscribed in ceremonies that mark Govardhan Puja in the Hindu calendar. This festival takes place on the day following Diwali, the "Festival of Lights," associated with the goddess Lakshmi and the start of the new business year for Hindus. On this day, the first day of the second fortnight of Kartika (OctoberNovember), at Govardhan and throughout this region of North India, two food rituals take place. The twin rituals arc grounded in contrasting social settingsone public and community oriented, the other private and domesticand draw on different sorts of experiences in the participants' emotional lives. The first rite, per 



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formed in the afternoon in Vaishnavite temples by members of the same sect or, in the cases of the folk tradition, by residents of the Brahman neighborhood, expresses solidarity in these communities; the second, celebrated at twilight in each household courtyard, expresses emotional relationships in the joint or extended family. In the temple ritual known as Annakuta * (the Mountain of Food), a large mound of rice, sometimes numbering thousands of kilos, is constructed in the temple courtyard, facing the sanctum where the deity resides. Sweets and tarts, made from flour and stuffed with raisins and other condiments, and other vegetable and grain dishes are artistically arranged around this central pile. Pilgrims come specially to Govardhan to view these displays. The proceedings often end on a raucous note. In one temple at Jatipura, a Brahman dressed in a cowherd's costume jumps into the rice pile from a balcony above the courtyard; in other temples, pilgrims are permitted to dismantle the display by rushing in and, like the mischievous butter thief, grabbing as much food as they can take away with them. Informants explain that Annakuta departs from normal temple etiquette in several important respects. First, in daily worship boiled rice is usually handled according to strict pollution rules and shielded from public view when offered to the deity; here it is openly displayed, even played with by pilgrims, in the temple's most public area, the courtyard. When asked what they were feeling at the time of the ritual, those present said that the mountainous food offering was Krishna's loving body, free to be enjoyed by all in the spirit of lila. In their words: After a time temple ritual gets stale, bogged down in repetition and priestly details. Going through the routine of daily worship we sometimes forget the spirit (bhava) behind the offering. In Annakuta we relive the Govardhan lila. Priestly rules are put to one side, and pilgrims play a key role in the joyous festivities. On this day pilgrims arc just like Krishna's friends, able to fool and play with him without the restraint normally called for in the temple. We offer mountains of food to remind ourselves that Krishna is king of Braj (Braj Raja), that he gives us everything we have, and that his love is as vast and never-ending as a mountain. There is plenty of food to go around in Annakuta, and in sharing this food everybody present gets to share all of this love. We never sell food in our temple on this festival. This loving food is free for all who come here. We try to make certain that there is plenty of food and love to go around.13 The domestic ritual, celebrated later in the day, contrasts with the boisterousness and spectacle of the temple rite. This rite expresses the family's wishes for prosperity in the year to follow and stirs up feelings of dependency and intimacy within the household. One must remember, as Trawick and Vatuk also point out in this volume, that feelings of dependency and intimacy associated with family relationships, especially those between parents and children, have different meanings in the Indian family, and, thus, make the  



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emotions categorized by these words quite different in the Indian context. This background cultural meaning itself partly constitutes what participants experience emotionally in the rite. Therefore, sensations or feelings of dependency and intimacy do not dictate these experiences, but rather the culturally constructed emotional categories themselves do (Solomon 1984). At the time of the ritual a small anthropomorphic figure of Krishna-Govardhan, made of cowdung, is built in each house. The figure, with a concave naval at its midriff, is enclosed in rectangular walls, said to represent mountains. Within these walls are placed cowdung figurines of cattle, ploughs, and butter churners. Assisted by women and older children in the family, small youngsters place sweets, sugarcane, and other harvest goodies into the naval of the figure. All circle the figure, joining hands and singing folksongs in praise of Krishna in his form as the holy hill. Folksongs recall the ancient myth and beseech Govardhan, as "King of Hills" (Giriraja Maharaja), to bring good fortune in the year to come. Children delight in the ritual and listen with rapt attention to instructions on correctly sculpting the image and making the offering. After the ritual is completed, the family enjoys a meal of harvest grains. Older family members then entertain the children with local legends of Govardhan's might. Stories tell of treasures and good fortune that befall staunch devotees of Krishna-Govardhan. Even adult males, who usually frequent the bazaars at night, stay at home this evening to enjoy the quiet intimacy of the occasion and the tender bonds it celebrates. According to local tradition, crops harvested in this season cannot be eaten until this ritual is first perfomed. The rite, then, is an act of thanksgiving to Krishna for providing the ecological conditions, symbolized here in the harvest bounty, on which family life depends. Emotion Objectified in Food Ritual I turn now to consider sources of variation between traditions. Sects have a different view of emotion than does the popular tradition. In sectarian traditions the five basic emotions of bhakti are sorted out and codified, and one emotion is generally chosen above others for worship in the sect; in the popular view, emotions are fickle and change, depending on where one is in Braj and what the festive occasion might be. Food rituals in each tradition provide a setting that must be culturally comprehended or appraised; that is, comprehension is the experience that constitutes the emotion in question. As I will show in greater detail below, emotion is constructed in food ritual through certain performance codes, which vary from tradition to tradition. Examples of performance codes include foods themselves (their variety and amounts), whether these foods are visually displayed in the temple, the nature of the culinary art in the sect, and the degree of culinary change and elaboration across the festive cycle. Additional factors to be considered are the  



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identity of cooks (Brahmans or ascetics), the attention given to purity rules in cooking, the presence or absence of food categories based on a scale of purity, and the importance given to food vis-à-vis other forms of sensory expression in the sect. The Vallabhite Sect and Maternal Emotion The maternal love (vatsalya bhava) of Krishna's foster mother, Yashoda, is the favored emotion for Vallabhites. 14 Worship centers on icons of two- or four-armed Krishna or of Krishna as a crawling toddler with one arm upraised, butterball in hand. Icons are housed in temples (haveli) whose interiors and ritual artifacts theatrically recreate the Braj of Krishna's childhood down to the most minute detail (see Bennett, this volume). Considerable attention is lavished on cuisine in the sect, and Vallabhites are the undisputed gourmets of Hinduism (Toomey 1986). Sumptuous offerings play oil against other sensory media in worship (e.g., painting, flower arrangement, music, and poetry). This array of ritual and ceremonial forms is thought to manifest outwardly an inner emotion, namely maternal love, and offer an incentive (bhavana) to developing this inner emotion in all who practice devotion. Conceptions of motherhood and the experience of motherly love in the sect arc modeled on cultural definitions of motherhood in the Indian kinship system. In their analysis of the latter, Vatuk (1982) and Das (1976) explain that biological ties between a mother and her child are backstaged, that is, not given public expression, in the conduct of Indian family life. So as not to seem too possessive of her child, and hence perceived as self-centered by other members of her husband's family, a woman is expected to deindividualize her relationship with her child to the extent that any member of the family can be entrusted with its care.15 Thus, everyday behavior in Indian families self-consciously recognizes the fact that the process of mothering, unlike the process of childbearing, can involve any number of surrogates in addition to, or instead of, the real mother. In Vatuk's words (1982:95), "In family life the tasks of mothering should be shared, as food and space and intimacy are shared, among all of its members according to their needs and inclinations." What it means to be a mother in India and to experience motherly love arc clearly constituted by a quite different set of cultural criteria than they arc in the West. What is more, Vallabhites transpose this familial model, in a number of interesting ways, to social and affective relations in the sect. For example, the sect refers to itself as Vallabha's family, Vallabha-kula. Caste and lineage ties are strongly emphasized in the sect's leadership; cooks, for example, must belong to specified Gujarati Brahman castes (jati). Devotees' identification with Yashoda (who is, after all, Krishna's adoptive mother rather than his natural one) metaphorically extends the notion, put forth in  



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the kinship system, that maternal love is something anyone, male or female, in the family-sect can experience. Lastly, ritual, so central to the sect's ideology, is conceived in terms of a culinary metonym: pusti *, or nourishing grace (Bennett 1983); another name of the sect is Pusti* Marga, the Way of Grace. Pusti refers to a grace that nourishes, supports, and strengthens the souls of devotees. As the transactional focus of Vallabhite ritual practice, food is perhaps the chief means by which emotion is experienced in the sect. In devotees' minds the devotional process consists in nourishing the infant icon in the temple (or in one's personal possession, as the case may be) and being nourished by him in return. Thus, icons, it is believed, return the maternal affection stored up in food offerings, by showering these same offerings with pusti and keeping the ritual process in motion. Similar attitudes are reflected in the sect's food practices. Food offerings are prepared in vast amounts and with such attention to ritual detail that they are said to reflect a mother's watchful eye for her child. "Attention means care," priests remarked, "a mother's care." And the purity rules observed by cooks and priests in this sect are far stricter than those in the other two traditions at Govardhan. Temple cuisinean amalgam of Gujarati, Rajasthani, South Indian, and Braj cuisinesis sweet or bland, for the most part; salt and spices are kept to a minimum because these are believed injurious to Krishna's sensitive child's palate. Krishna is fed eight times daily in the temple, from the time he is awakened in the morning until he is serenaded to sleep at night. Large food festivals are another specialty in the sect. Best known of these is Ghappan Bhoga (the "Fifty-Six Delicacies''), one showpiece of the festive year at Jatipura (Mital 1975; Sivaji 1936). Fifty-six recipes, prepared five or six ways from items such as chick-pea gram, flour, milk, dry fruits, and other grains, are called for in this offering. Fifty-six baskets of each dish are, in turn, offered, bringing the potential number of offerings to 21,952 (7 × 56 × 56). The sizable offering is displayed in a temporary enclosure at the side of the hill. A theatrical backdrop is set up on the hill, and one Govardhan stone, decorated with enamel eyes and made up to resemble Krishna's face, peers out from a hole in the painted scenery. Symbolism of the number fifty-six directly relates to maternal love, for devotees say that, like Yashoda, they show their untiring love by providing Krishna with round-the-clock nourishment: eight times a day, seven days a week.16 In the Vallabhite system, Krishna's experience of his own rasa crystallizes in temple ritual. In this highly metaphoric system material acts of worship are metonyms for the love-filled emotions they express. The central metonym, pusti, makes nourishment a critical quality of the love or grace that flows between devotees and Krishna. In this way, maternal affection is conceived and experienced as a grace-filled emotion that nourishes devotees' hearts in much the same way that food nourishes their bodies. In this sect food offerings objectify the closely welded domains of heart and body, spirit  



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and matter. To conclude, many features of the Vallabhite systemits ethos of maternal love and the metonymically related realms of the physical-material and the spiritual-emotional, distinctive to the sect's ritual practicesare nicely summarized in the following remarks by a member of this sect. (To savor some implications made in this section, I suggest that the reader go over the statement several times, substituting at appropriate places the word love for the words "wealth," "money," or "food" in the original statement.) Whenever we visit a place of lila in Braj, we offer Krishna what his cowherd friends (gopa) and cowmaiden consorts (gopi) offered him. In our sampradaya we are admonished not to hoard wealth. Money needs to be in constant circulation, to be shared with as many others as possible. Unfortunately, we can hold on to money, but food cannot be hoarded. It will spoil if it is not shared. A single person can only cat so much food, the rest needs to be shared or it will spoil. Food, then, is the most shareable form of wealth. Food is the best thing that we can offer to god. Whatever we think is best, we offer to Krishna as bhoga. Money is not a form of bhoga. Krishna is a child. If you give him sweets, milk, or other such things, he will be pleased. Bhoga is defined as those things that give pleasure to the lord. Our sect's wealth is concentrated in food. In the Shastras it states that whatever god gives us, we must give back in return, as an offering. Food should never be prepared for its own sake; to do so is a sin. Why? Because everything we see belongs to godit cannot be enjoyed by us unless it is first offered to him. Prasada or food is the grace by which Krishna helps us to live our lives. Next to air and water, food is the most essential thing in life. All our necessities, luxuries, everything in short, must first be offered to Krishna, as they rightfully belong to him. We use Krishna's things through his grace. 17 The Chaitanyaite Sect and the Amorous Emotion If Vallabhites frame the human/divine relationship in familial terms, then Chaitanyaite ascetics at Radhakund can be said to frame devotees' experience of this same relationship in terms of an emotion that violates domestic order: madhurya bhava, the illicit love between Krishna and his consort Radha (Kakar 1986). Icons of Krishna as a comely adolescent flute player, symbolically if not visually linked in some way to Radha, replace icons of the mischievous child in this sect.18 Radha and Krishna's passionate love disrupts the ordered relations normally expected of men and women in Hindu society. Madhurya bhava is characterized by eroticism and ambiguity, both of which are delineated for devotees in ways specific to this cultural group. Equally critical to our understanding of the love experience in this sect is the notion of viraha (love-in-separation). For devotees the purest form of love is incomplete or frustrated lovethe same love experienced in myths by suffering and forlorn gopis who have been separated from Krishna after partnering him in one of his many amorous exploits. Thus, for Chaitanyaites, the frustration of the emotions' desire for immediate union with Krishna (a condition theoreti 



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cally impossible in this philosophical system) becomes the closest possible encounter with the divine. This complex emotion is open to a wide range of interpretations in different sects and/or regions of India where it appears (see Marglin, this volume, for a discussion of this emotion in the context of Puri), even, in this case, between householder Brahman priests and ascetics in the same sect. 19 Chaitanyaite worship practices at Radhakund reflect a decidedly ascetic view of the erotic emotion (cf. Lynch, this volume). Each asrama (monastic dwelling) in the town has an image of Radha-Krishna in its shrineroom; beside the images are placed bits of Govardhan stone (whose natural coloration is said to represent the divine pair) and votive pictures of Chaitanya and his disciples, Nityanand and the Six Goswamis of Brindaban. But ascetics emphatically state that the amount of attention given to icon worship relative to chanting and other more aural forms of worship such as listening to readings of sacred textsis a matter of personal choice. In other words, icon worship is not as central a focus in the worship style followed by ascetics as it is in the householder branch of this sect. Something of this ambivalence toward icons comes across in the following anecdote, told by a sadhu at Radhakund: If a family is involved in worship, it becomes more elaborate, takes more pleasure in display and other worldly things. As a rule, we sadhus are not interested in the outward show of worship, such as one might find in temples at Brindaban, Mathura, and other places in Braj. A classic case of this involves Sanatana Goswami, himself a renouncer (virakta) and one of the six acarya of our sect, who founded the temple of Madan Mohan in Brindaban. One of his disciples, an elderly lady from Mathura, asked him to take on the worship of her family deity, a splendid image of Madan Mohan, after her death. Sanatana Goswami agreed hesitantly, saying: ''I am a sadhu and do not have time to look after this little tyke's every wish. Whatever I beg in the way of food, I will share with Madan Mohan. If he is pleased with this meager amount, then I will take him into my charge." Hearing this, the deity agreed, but after several weeks of dry, stale bread, Madan Mohan called to Sanatana: "You bring roti without so much as salt. Please bring back some salt from your begging rounds, or maybe even a few sweets which I also crave." Sanatana went to his disciples and complained"This naughty fellow is trying to kill by bhajana. Today he asks for salt and sweets. Next time he will ask for chattisa vyanjana* (a large feast calling for thirty-six different dishes, elaborately prepared and offered before the deity)." When Sanatana left Brindaban and retired to Govardhan later in his life, he handed over Madan Mohan to one of his lay followers, in whose family it remains to this day.20 According to ascetics, icon worship is a personal, private act conducive to an idiom of purity stressing intimacy and closeness with the deity. These same ascetics define purity as an inner state where intention precedes the  



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manipulation of physical substances in a controlled ritual environment. Absent entirely are large food displays and the separation of foods into ranked categories during cooking and offering, both characteristic of Brahmanical temple cuisine. 21 Offerings are fairly simple, consisting mostly of rice, spiced pulses and other grains, and stewed vegetables. Sweets, the mainstay of other traditions around the hill, are seldom offered. Lastly, food offerings are not parceled out to devotees, common practice with most temple prasada; rather, they are shared by devotees as a feast or common meal (vaisnava* seva, after participating in long hours of group chanting and other strenuous devotional activities. In short, more sensual and visual forms of ritual expression (i.e., changing the image's clothing or food offerings on a seasonal basis) are left unstressed in this tradition, and the food offering itself takes on aspects of a feast, rather than a sweet or other culinary souvenir to be taken away from the temple by pilgrims. Attitudes toward food offerings at Radhakund are similar in several respects to those described by Audrey Hayley (1980) for Vaishnavas in Assam. First, rice (called anna, life's breath, that on which life depends), which is given high moral evaluation in the eastern states of India, is the food offering par excellence in both religious communities. Second, they share the view that the collective religious experience itself is the living body of Krishna, superior not only to his iconic representation but even to the god himself. This collective experience is embodied in food offerings which have been transformed by sound into the four constituent parts of worship: god, name, guru, and devotee. In this view, the food offering reconstitutes the central importance of the devotional act itself and the devotees who perform it. Food offerings therefore make substantial the spiritual intentions behind devotional acts; concomitantly, consumption of these offerings is believed to sustain devotees in further acts of community worship. Emotion in the Folk Tradition at Mount Govardhan In the Braj folk tradition I find not one or two emotions, emphasized over the others, but an amalgam, a medley of emotions playing harmoniously off against one another as one moves across the sacred landscape. Moodiness and sentimentality permeate Braj culture, giving the region an ambience of sweetness and solitude in some places, of boisterousness and prankish good humor in others. Entire towns are said to be saturated with one emotion or another, depending on the emotional tones of the lila that took place there. Residents of certain towns are accorded masculine or feminine qualities by virtue of their association with gopas or gopis who lived there before them. As a key or dominant symbol in Braj cosmology, Mount Govardhan is thought to preside over and enfold within itself the many teeming emotions of Brai lila.22 Govardhan hill means many things to many people. To members of the  



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Vallabhite sect, the hill is especially sacred because their principal icon, Sri Nathji, sprang from one of its cracks at Jatipura; to Chaitanyaites, the hill still resounds with the echo of Krishna's flute and the memories of his afternoon love play with Radha and the other cowmaidens. In the folk conception, shared by sectarian groups as well, the hill connects a wide array of referents: it is alternately Krishna's natural body, a mountain of food (Annakuta), a bestower of boons, and the source of the region's agricultural growth and renewal. The hill is semantically open, capable of exegesis at various levels, from that of sectarian literati to the views of simple peasants who come on pilgrimage here every full moon (purnamasi *) to pledge their devotion to the mountain in return for good fortune and prosperity. Devotees of all persuasions agree that Krishna-Govardhan condenses into one ritual object both Krishna's many visual images, referred to by hundreds of thousands of melodious-sounding names or epithets, and the welter of emotions stored up in these images. Depending upon one's perspective, Krishna is seen in the stones in different ways. In just one example, peasants who come to Govardhan regularly see the hill as a folk deity: the "king of hills," the protector of cows, and the provider of boons and Bounty (daniraya). Food ritual in the folk tradition is relatively fluid and unsystematic when compared to sectarian practices. In Govardhan's main templethe place where locals say the hill's mouth (mukharavinda) is locatedthe temple image is comprised of two Govardhan stones, treated half like a temple icon and half not.23 For most of the day the stones are left unadorned so that pilgrims can enter the temple and feed them directly with their own hands. Local Brahmans act as guides in this process, in contrast to the way officiants might be expected to act in temples that house consecrated icons. Foods offered are simple sweets and milknot the products of a sophisticated temple cuisine, but foods bought in the marketplace and associated with feelings of pleasure, well-being, and auspiciousness (subha), in the festive and ceremonial cycle of North India (Madan 1987:48-71).24 Folksongs and pilgrimage ditties, like the Govardhan Calisa (a forty-line prayer sung by pilgrims), mention foods by name and express the idea that Krishna is a simple peasant who shares pilgrims' food in a spirit of joyous, easy reciprocity. This same flexibility is demonstrated in numerous other local food practices. Priests and pilgrims generally admit to a relaxed view of ritual: "Ritual implies a distance of some sort between man and god. This distance has no place at Govardhan, where both man and god are part of nature. Images in this temple are svayam* prakat*, that is, spontaneously manifested in nature, without need of priestly intervention to establish them in the temple or to maintain their sanctity in the future."25 Practices in the local temple attenuate the daily format followed in iconic worship. Unlike icons, which are dressed first thing in the morning and served eight or so daily meals, the mukharavinda temple's stones are dressed only after four o'clock, when the  



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heaviest hours of pilgrimage traffic are over. Only then do the stones appear as anthropomorphic likenesses, with enamel eyes and artificial limbs attached, wearing brightly colored clothes, crowns, and silver jewelry. Similarly, the eight meals of standard temple worship are abbreviated to three: sweets in the morning, a noontime meal of grains and pulses, and warm milk and more sweets at night. The temple does not have kitchen facilities per se; meals are purchased from vendors in the market and offered by pandas without any provisions to shield the images from public view. Pilgrims are allowed considerable latitude in how they choose to worship in the temple. Those, who can afford it, bring clothes and jewelry for the temple images and worship them with large amounts of rich and varied foods, pails full of milk, incense, fresh flowers, and so on. Others, with less means at their disposal, offer small clay thimbles of milk and popcorn-sized bits of pulled sugar with cardamom seed centers. Finally, as I mentioned earlier in connection with the Annakuta celebration, the aesthetic environment in local temples is particularly charged on festival days. For commercial reasons, temples are draped in strings of colored bulbs on these occasions. With their varied and extravagent food displays and the many songs and performances all around, these festivals create, through a pleasant blend of music, food, and pageantry, a savory experience of Lord Krishna for pilgrims. Conclusion My approach in this essay accepts the constructionist view that affects correspond with the societies within which actors live and that they can best be explained with reference to cultural scenarios and associations. The foregoing analysis described the overlapping cultural meaning systems through which emotions are constituted in three devotional groups at Mount Govardhan. Such an approach differs, in several important respects, from standard assumptions about emotion in Western academic psychologythat it is possible to identify the essence of emotion, that emotions are universal and hence easily translatable across cultures, and that they are separable from their personal and social contexts (Lutz 1986; Lynch, introduction to this volume). In contrast, here one faces a complex system of symbols, values, and definitions, which are culturally specific, and in terms of which emotions are conceptualized and interpreted by Krishna worshipers. My point is that the culturally appropriate categorization of emotion within a whole context of implicit meaning allows members of each tradition to know what their experience of emotion is and even how to feel it and to know what they ought to experience in it. The task has been to examine what devotees say and do in everyday life to express, enact, and interpret emotions. Findings indicate that emotions such as maternal and erotic love are clearly constituted within a  



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different framework of social relationships and cultural knowledge than emotions referred to by the same name would be in contemporary American society. If one accepts, then, that there is no single universal mode of appraisal for such cultural features as emotion, one might want to conclude by making some general remarks about the system of appraisal described in this chapter and how this system differs from certain preconceived Western notions. First, in bhakti, emotion is constituted through interactions and transactions of various sorts: between man and god, between members of the same sect, and so on. At times human/divine relationships are conceived in idioms borrowed from family and social life; at other times, they are conceived in opposition to these same idioms, as in the case of the illicit love of RadhaKrishna. Second, this interactive focus also presupposes an enduring cultural concern with reciprocity as a process that animates life. Love, in these terms, has nothing static about it, nor is it based on fixed bonds; rather, it is effective in the experiential sense only when constantly circulating. Perhaps the most notable aspect of this cultural system is the way these properties of emotion are objectified or substantialized for devotees through food symbols and practices (Geertz 1983:94-120). In the Western cultural formulation emotion is conceived as an inherently irrational aspect of life and talked about in metaphors that center on ideas of chaos. In contrast, Hindu metaphors for emotion center on food and semantic similarities between emotion as an experience and the bodily experiences of eating and nurturing. Actors' understandings of emotion in Braj are not shaped, as they are in the West, by dichotomies between the head and the heart, between conscious and unconscious mind, or between the psychology of individuals and the shared psychological experience of social groups. And lastly, can one identify the essence of an emotion: Is there, for example, some identifiable aspect of biological motherhood that can be said to inform the experience of motherly love in all cultures? The data presented here indicates that cultural definitions of emotion are highly variable, even within the confines of a single location or homogeneous religious setting like Govardhan. What makes comparison of these three traditions so excitingbut difficult, alas, to describe with complete coherenceis the quality of distance that underlies the system as a whole. First, the traditions have contrasting social contexts (attitudes toward caste, asceticism, and so on), historical backgrounds, and ties to different regions of India. Second, their views on many finer points of emotional theory, even in regard to emotions bearing the same name, are not parallel in many instances. And finally, though one discerns the same set of culinary metaphors and metonyms (themes derived from rasa theory, for example, and the Govardhan myth) weaving through all three traditions, each tradition is nevertheless equally distinguishable by the model of emotional experience it favors and the stories and rituals it employs  



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to shape this experience for devotees. In my opinion, anthropologists will better understand the complex phenomenon of emotion, not by searching for universal features as many earlier studies do, but by documenting the diverse means by which emotion is culturally constructed and symbolically mediated to actors in specific social and cultural contexts. Notes to Chapter Six Data on which this chapter is based were gathered at Mount Govardhan, in 1979-80, under the auspices of an American Institute of Indian Studies Junior Research Fellowship. I have benefited from comments made by Peter Bennett, Veena Das, Alan Entwistle, Jack Hawley, R. S. Khare, Pauline Kolenda, and Arvind Shah on earlier versions of this essay. I am especially grateful to Owen Lynch for the tremendous amount of time he has given in helping me edit and refocus arguments in this chapter. 1. These sects (sampradaya) are known by a variety of names in Western sources. Vallabhites, or Vallabacaryis, as they have been called by Weber, refer to their sect as Pushti Mart. Chaitanyaites, referred to as Bengali Vaishnavas in a now familiar work in English by De (1961), refer to themselves as Madhva-Gauriya-Vaisnava *. This title refers to the fact that these Vaishnavas are most commonly found in Gauda country (Bengal) and follow the philosophy of the South Indian saint, Madhva. Given the complex comparative framework of this chapter, for the sake of convenience, I go back to an earlier scholarly convention of referring to the sects by the names of their founder-saints, Vallabha and Chaitanya. 2. Sapir (1977) explains that the contrast between metaphor and metonym represents, at the level of figurative language, a contrast between paradigmatic replacement (for metaphor) and syntagmatic continuity or combination (for metonymy). The same author also says that, with respect to the notion of a shared domain or a common ground, metonymy can be taken as the logical inverse of metaphor. Metaphor is the relationship of two terms from separate domains that share overlapping features; metonymy is the relationship of two terms that share a common ground but do not share common features. Metonymies are usually identified by their substitution of one cause for another: agent for act, cause for effect, container for contained. 3. Fabian (1983) incisively attacks the use of visual metaphor in anthropological discourse. He contends that persistent recourse to visualization has denied ethnographers understanding of more temporal aspects of the cultural Other, such as might come about through increased sensitivity to language. 4. Tyler (1984) provides examples of gustatory tropes in Standard Average European thought and language. For instance, we "ruminate," "digest thoughts," "chew the cud," and even find some thoughts "hard to swallow." Tyler also alerts us to the fact that one major verb for knowing in the Romance languages is sapere, "to savor, or taste.'' This he attributes to the well-known Latin and Gallic preference for gustatory sensation. 5. See Vaudeville (1980) for more examples of these episodes. This author hints at the deconstructionist possibilities inherent in sectarian literature, where, through a number of insertions and deletions, the sectarian view of Sri Nathji as a pampered and  



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worldly prince is undermined by folk conceptions of him as a local ruffian. Thus, Krishna's princely and knavish sides often appear incongruously juxtaposed in the same episode of a sectarian text. 6. The Govinda Deva icon of the Chaitanyaite and the Sri Nathji icon of the Vallabhite sects were both manifest in this way. In Braj folklore, streams of milk are said to miraculously appear in Govardhan's main bathing pond, Manasi Gangs, during full moon. Folk beliefs in the auspicious qualities of milk are reflected in the pilgrimage practice of walking fourteen miles around the hill, dripping a continuous stream of milk from a hole bored in the bottom of a vessel. The vessel needs to be constantly refilled by one's priest who ambles alongside for the entire journey. 7. There is a compelling illustration of this in Govardhan lore. Govardhan hill, it is recounted, was so devoted to Krishna during his lifetime in Braj that it turned into a lump of butter. This is why imprints of his footprints, crown, mouth, and so on can still be seen today as geomorphic impressions in the hill's stones. 8. In his childhood Krishna steals milk and curds from his mother and other women in the neighborhood of Braj. Later, the comely adolescent taunts the milkmaids for their dairy products in the familiar episode known as the danghati-lila *. In this lila Krishna masquerades as a toll collector in order to trick the unwitting maidens as they take their wares to market. At the height of the fun, he unmasks himself, smashing all the pots and drenching the revellers in milk, butter, and curds. This festive event is reenacted from time to time at Barsans, another popular pilgrimage town in Brai reputed to be Radha's birthplace. 9. Seeing is an extrusive process for Hindus, an outward reaching process that in one way actually engages (in a flowlike manner) the object seen (Babb 1981). See Lynch (1988) on further aspects of darsana as seeing and its relationship to bhava, bhavana, and rasa in Braj pilgrimage. 10. Informants say that prasada is actually heavier than bhoga because it has added to it the weight of the lord's sweet love. Pious devotees are reputed to be able to tell the difference between potential offerings and those that have already been offered to and consumed by Krishna, through "feeling tones" in the food itself. 11. These metonymies take the form of synecdoches: the trope formed when a part is substituted for the whole. In speech, the names Krishna and Govardhan are used interchangeably to refer to both Krishna and the sacred hill. In ritual, a single stone from the hill often substitutes for the whole. Synecdoche is also characteristic of other sorts of ritual practices. For example, only a portion of food cooked each day in temples is actually offered in front of the temple image. After it is offered, prasada is then mixed with the remaining cooked food, transforming it, by contact, into prasada. 12. Ramanujan (1981) maintains that this circular motif is common in Hindu myth and ritual. He refers to it as an act of "mutual cannibalism," wherein the eater is eaten and the container contained, in a repeated metonymy. 13. Babu Lal Sharma, Das Bisa Mohalla, Govardhan, interview, October 22, 1979. 14. 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 substancesbeverages, foods that do not require chewing, foods that are chewed, and those that are licked. 17. Goswami Krishnajivanji, interview at Jatipura, September 14, 1979. 18. In some representations (e.g., jugal Kisor, Syama-Syam, and Larili-Lal *) Radha and Krishna are conjoined in a single icon; in others, a small icon of Radha is placed at the side of Krishna who stands in the classic tribhangi* 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 Radharaman Temple, the largest food offering is the "Thirty-Six 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 Krishna a unique and different amorous experience, here ex- pressed in gastronomic terms. 20. Narayana Maharaj, interview at Radhakund, January 12, 1980. 21. Compare Singer's (1984) data on food categories and the semiotic structure of meals in an ISKCON temple in metropolitan Philadelphia. 22. This point is rather nicely illustrated in the popular image of Krishna as "mountain holder" (Govardhannath or Giridhari), one of the first images to appear in Krishna iconography. This 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. To protect the locals, Krishna held the mountain aloft on his fingertip, umbrella-style, above the entire region. The notion that the Will 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. The 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. The 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 (1979:179-189) discuss the symbolic importance of sweets in the social and ritual life of North India: "The 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, 1979. 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 Vallabhacarya. 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. 1-16. 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. Entwiatle, A. W. 1987 Bral: 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

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1985 Entering the Cosmic Drama: Lila-Smarana* Meditation and the Perfected Body. South Asia Research 5(1):49-53.



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Hardy, Friedhelm 1983 Viraha-Bhakti: The Early History of Krsna * Devotion in South India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Hawley, John Stratton 1983 Krishna, The Butter Thief. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hayley, Audrey 1980 A Commensal Relationship with God: The Nature of the Offering in Assamese Vaishnavism. In Sacrifice. M. F. C. Bourdillon and Meyer Fortes, eds. Pp. 40-62. London: Academic Press. Hein, Norvin 1982 Comments: Radha and Erotic Community. In The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India. John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff, eds. Pp. 116-124. Berkeley: Berkeley Religious Studies Series. 1986 A Revolution in Krsnaism*: The Cult of Gopala. History of Religions 25(4):296-317. Hyde, Lewis 1979 The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property. New York: Vintage Books. Kakar, Sudhir 1986 Erotic Fantasy: The Secret Passion of Radha and Krishna. In The Word and the World. Veena Das, ed. Pp. 75-94. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Kapoor, O. B. L. 1977 The Philosophy and Life of Sri Caitanya. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson 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 John Kirkpatrick, eds. Pp. 35-79. Berkeley: University of California Press. 1986 Emotion, Thought, and Estrangement: Emotion as a Cultural Category. Cultural Anthropology 1(3): 287309. 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):171194. Madan, T. N. 1987 Non-Renunciation: Themes and Interpretations in Hindu Culture. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Masson, James L., and M. V. Pathwardhan file:///C|/Social%20Construction%20of%20Emotions%20in%20India/files/page_179.html[21.03.2011 19:02:23]

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1969 Aesthetic Rapture. Poona: Deccan College Post Graduate 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. 33-52. 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. 137-157. 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

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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-Iranian Journai 18:195-213. 1980 The 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 Hariray (Gosvami Hariray) 1905 Srigovardhannathji ke Prakatya * ki Varta. Mohanlal Visnulal* Pandya*, ed. Bombay: Srivenkatesvar* Yantralaya. Mital, Prabhudayal 1966 Braj ka Samskrtik* Itihasa. Delhi: Rajkamal Prakasan. 1975 Braj ki Kalaom* ka Itihasa. Mathura: Sahitya Samsthan*. Sivaji, Raghunath, ed.  

1936 Vallabha Pusti* Prakasa. Bombay: Laksmivenkatesvar* Steam Press.



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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 Marg 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 achievedhow devotion as an emotional-cumaesthetic orientation to divinity is experienced, rendered, and evoked in the ritual life of the templeis my primary concern in this chapter. Pushti Marg, the path (marga) of Grace (pusti *), otherwise known as Vallabhacarya Sampradaya, or the tradition (sampradaya) that gave lasting expression to the teachings of the medieval preceptor Vallabha (A.D. 1479-1531), is a species of Bhakti Marg 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. The 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. The 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  



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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 ''way 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 Marg 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. The 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 (prema) and joy (ananda) 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. My 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 arc 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 arc 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. Their origins, meanings, and functions are not hidden away in the physique or the psyche but are visible and accessible, hence amenable to anthropological study. Returning to the maternal theme in Pushti Marg, the emotional states identified and translated into English as loving tenderness, anxiety, and sorrow may 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 own concepts of emotions, thereby short-circuiting the questioning of emotional life itself (Lynch, this volume). Rather emotional experiences exist and are bound up in culturally specific contexts of meanings, beliefs, values, judgments, and relationships. To extricate an emotion from its distinctive context, to label it, and to seek to explain it as a variant of Western experiencethese are fraught with all the pitfalls of ethnocentrism. This is not to deny the efficacy of 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 Other. Motherly love for Krishna is bound up in a complex of beliefs, attitudes, relationships, and aesthetics, as well as in a conceptual sequence of increasing emotional intensity. This emotional state is defined in terms of its peculiar domain, 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). As 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 dynamic 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. Yashoda's anxiety during separation is intelligible in the light of the child's helplessness, tendency to make mischief, and susceptibility to the eye of envy, and her sorrow recreates a dominant mood of Krishna's sport of manifestation and concealment whereby love for the god is intensified through experiencing the alternating states of sorrow in separation (viraha) and joy in union (samyoga *). I shall explain how sorrow and joy 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. My 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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An understanding of indigenous concepts should help to shed light on the devotional experience and its contextualization in ritual performance. The focus is not on the objective form of ritual but on ritual interpreted through the medium of the experiencing subject. The 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 Marg 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 Krishna, and ultimately as a means of tasting the divine bliss normally unrealized within the soul. The symbolic acts, ornaments, and procedures of devotion arc meaningful and efficacious as vehicles for expressing, and thereby shaping, enhancing, and transforming inner experience. The goal of devotional striving is a state of consciousness construed as an emotional absorption in Krishna. The 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. Of 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 Krishna's divine play (lila). This process of "actualization by representation," to borrow Huizinga's phrase (1955:14), or the imitative and symbolic means by which the celestial realm of Krishna's play is made present in the temple, is meticulously elaborate in practice. The temple is the stage for enacting an eternal drama, 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. Thus 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 The 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 The 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, invailably 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 When 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 Bhagavata 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 of Govardhan, Sri Govardhannathji (usually abbreviated to Sri Nathji), that had miraculously emerged from the summit of Mount Govardhan in Braj. The 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. The 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 (anugrabs, pusti *), begins thereafter to realize the true nature of its identity as a fragment (amsa) 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 The 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 1976:18). Particularly significant, the mantra embraces all those qualities considered to make up the "self" (atma), that is, everything the devotee can call "mine," 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 classificationbody, 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 "fruit" (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 Krishna; as such, they are distinguished from other forms of Hindu worship (puja) allegedly bound by formal rules inhibiting spontaneity and performed primarily for selfish ends. One Maharaja explained: In puja method [vidhi] and self-happiness [svasukha] are considered to be the most important, but in seva love [Sneha] 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 reputation for those efforts, or who is not wholly engrossed in Krishna, is not a true sevaka; those efforts are no more than sham. Sevakas should not seek to draw attention to themselves by extravagant displays of piety, particularly those prosperous members of the business community who make cash donations for temple services. One 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 Thakurji. If something is needed in the temple, he gives quietly and expects nothing in return. 9 The mental states accompanying seva are further elaborated. The sevaka can choose to cultivate a particular emotional orientation (bhava) to Krishna. The 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 Krishna. Thus, in the early stages of devotional awakening the devotee might cultivate dasya bhava by assuming an attitude of loyalty, humility, and 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 (samba) and playmate of Krishna and imagines accompanying him to the pastures. In madhurya bhava or gopi bhava the devotee emulates the feelings of the cowherdesses (gopi) who cavorted with the handsome flutist of Brindaban. And in vatsalya bhava or Yasoda bhava the devotee experiences the tender loving concern felt by Krishna's foster-parents, particularly Yashoda. For most Pushti Marg temple goers all four bhava are invoked to a greater or lesser degree in worship. Yet many regard Yashoda's feelings as the most poignant. Vatsalya bhava would appear to represent the  



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quintessence of disinterested loving devotion. The 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 drama that only those souls favored by Lord Krishna have the capacity to enjoy. In the Presence of Lord Krishna: Darsana Many devotees worship small metal images or framed pictures of Lord Krishna in their homes. But they also value regular attendance at sect-affiliated 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. The 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). The courtyard also symbolizes the sacred Jamuna 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 triple-arched galleries (tivari), 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 Holi 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.10 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 1976:10ff.) 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 arc 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 of" (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. The 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.12 The daily routine is normally organized around eight darsanas, beginning early in the morning at Mangala* 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 Srngara* the child is bathed, applied with sweet smelling perfumes, dressed, and given another snack before being presented to his admirers.13 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 10:00 and 11:00 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). The 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 arc 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. The 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 compari 



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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 Mars 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 Mars 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 lilas. 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 darsana 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.'' 15 At Sayana he does arati one last time while ringing a hand-bell 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 (sitala bhoga) are prepared: Lord Krishna is very fond of the sweetened juice of ripe mangos (pana). 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 (janghiya*, 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 (sehara) and cap (tipara*); 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 (bhavana), 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 (kachani) 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 attitudedevotionoffered 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 bhava).  



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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. 19 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 physical-organic 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 warmth 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.21 Moreover, a pragmatic interpretation of the offering as a ''payment" for past or future favors fails to account for the disinterested spirit of worship. The offering is ideally conceived as expressing pure love made entirely for its own sake and with no thought of reward. The 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.22 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. To 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.23 Clearly, there is a need for a more comprehensive understanding of the  



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ritual connotations of purity and impurity. The 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. Thus the virtuous Vaishnava must endeavor by all means to keep his conduct (acar) 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. On the one hand, purity of the body is conducive to purity of mind: thoughts become pure by following strict rules of conduct. On 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 Maharaja 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. Just 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. 24 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 Sampradaya 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 mundane 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 well-known 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. 26 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. One devotee obligingly explained in English: "There 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. The 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 (prasannala), 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.27 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. The 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. The 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. The 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). The 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 The 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. One'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 and 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. The entire feast, having been financed, organized, and prepared by numerous volunteers, becomes an accumulation of their combined loving devotion. When devotees assemble to take darsana of the splendid feast, they contemplate their combined bhava made lavishly and materially manifest. The large mound piled high with choice foods forms a vigorous impression of love in abundance. The bathing of the mountain and its cowdung effigies in liberal quantities of milk likewise expresses overflowing love. The mountainous feast betokens mountainous devotion. The 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. To love Krishna is to love one's fellow worshipers. One 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. The 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. 29 On 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. 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). The 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. The 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, "The 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 erected 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 image such that, in the words of Purusottama (seventh in descent from Vallabha), it is infused with grace as fire penetrates an iron ball (Shah 1969:184). The divine identities of the soul and the image are both realized by a process of invigoration through grace. Once the image has been consecrated it becomes a living being and therefore requires constant care and attention. Worship should never lapse even if the image is broken by accident. But, as devotees are quick to point out, if a nonsectarian image suffers the same fate it becomes useless for worship; the deity departs from the image. For this reason those intending to install a personal image in their own homes should consider the move very seriously. The deity becomes a new member of the family and should be nursed continuously as a young child; otherwise he should be returned to the guru who will ensure that another disciple takes care of him. Of all the sectarian images, the nine that Vitthalnatha passed on to his seven sons are accorded a preeminent status in the sampradaya. Their distinctive characteristics are apparent in the terms used to describe them. First, they are self-manifested (svayambhu); second, they are generally known as the sevya-svarupa of Vallabha and Vitthalnatha, meaning they were personally worshiped by them; and third, they are known as nidhi-svarupa, a term that has interesting implications. Monier-Williams (1899) translates nidhi as "a place for deposits or storing up, a receptacle;...a store, hoard, treasure." Although these terms are used to indicate the exceptional status of the nine svarupa, they are also frequently applied to other temple deities. Indeed, the prestige of many images is often enhanced in the estimation of worshipers if their biographies reveal that they were at some time in the past worshiped by the great preceptors or their eminent disciples, or if they appeared in miraculous circumstances, or if they are subsidiary manifestations of one of the original nine. It is often said that deities, having been discovered on river banks, in wells or while excavating foundations, are self-manifested rather than man-made. One version of the discovery of Sri Nathji in Ujjain, a duplicate of the more famous Nathdwara 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 overjoyed and installed it in a temple. In this way they received Sri Nathji's grace. Another svarupa in Ujjain, Sri Madan Mohanji, was originally worshiped by the daughter of one of Akbar's chief ministers. One devotee recalled the story:  



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Thakurji 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 Thakurji. Eventually she was married to a Muslim boy in Ujjain. She brought her Thakurji with her, and her husband built this temple for them. Sri Madan Mohanji was her Thakurji. It is a nidhi 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. When Alikhan's daughter was a child, the deity was her playmate; later she became his paramour. The Brahman couple loved and treated Sri Nathji as their own son. The svarupa is perceived through the emotions. Svarupa seva is a means of cultivating bhava, of exulting in the experience of loving and caring for Krishna. For the devotee to question the svarupa's apparent frailtiessuch as, How can Thakurji catch a cold?is contrary to pure devotional feeling, for, although it is understood that Lord Krishna is above worldly discomforts, it is also important that the worshiper experiences concern for his wellbeing, a concern intensified by regarding Krishna 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. The capacity to feel perfect bhava and to experience rasa is seldom acquired suddenly. Most devotees say that it gradually increases in intensity. And 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. The devotee can talk and play games with it. In this way 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: "Shri Vallabhacarya says, 'Those very sentiments and feelings which arc present in the devotee himself are established in the Deity in worship'" (Bhatt 1979:90). Devotion is externalized in acts of worship and established in the image as the object of worship. The 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. One kirtaniya remarked that every time he took darsana of the Sri Nathji image in Ujjain the deity seemed to reflect his own mood. When he felt happy Thakurji would smile back at him; when he felt sad Thakurji would appear very downhearted.  



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But why are some images described as preeminent (mukhya)? What of the nine nidhis? I mentioned above that the word nidhi means a depository, store, hoard, or treasure. The nidhis are valued inasmuch as, like Mount Govardhan, they are rich repositories of devotion, replete with Krishna's grace and bliss. Generally, it would appear that svarupa are attributed with more or less spiritual eminence according to the spiritual accomplishments of their former worshipers. The nine nidhis were the personal deities of Vallabhacarya and Vitthalnatha and have since been worshiped continuously by their descendants. It is as if devotees who approach them with pure bhava are able to reexperience the divine passions stirred up 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. The influential notions of institutionalization and the routinization of charisma generally reinforce this view. Rituals that originate as genuine expressions of emotion gradually degenerate into sheer formalism; thus, participation loses much of its pristine spontaneity and sincerity. The dutiful observance of rules becomes divorced from the real attitudes and 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 among Pushti Marg temple goers, the reverse would appear to hold true. By dutifully following the rules and customs laid down by tradition, the devotee gradually begins to identify with the personalities of Krishna's eternal play, experiencing what he believes to be the spontaneous and universal emotions of love and bliss. Participation in temple ritual is not simply a matter of learning lines and following directions, for there is supposed to come a point when the divine drama 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 Marg is based on cultivating particular emotional relationships between the devotee and Krishna. At the outset I explained that the emotions identified by devotees are not to be seen as representative of an innate and finite range of physiological states existing in all societies, albeit variously expressed, elaborated, stimulated, or constrained, but as culturally defined phenomena; hence, they are intelligible within the specific cultural contexts of meaning that define them and of which they are constitutive. I have attempted to interpret the constructs that define  



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emotional experience in Pushti Marg in order to ascertain what devotion means 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 many devotees would suggest that a full appreciation of its nature remains an exclusive privilege of pusti 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), and Toothi (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 (Agnisvarupa). 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 Rasapancadhyayi*, 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 "The Account of the Manifestation of Sri Nathji" (Harirayji 1968), the first part of which has recently 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 Balkrsnaji* (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 sampradaya. 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-sambandha initiation formula. 8. There are two rites. The 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 "Lord Krishna is My Refuge," after which he or she wears a necklace of wooden beads cut from thin stems of the holy basil (tulasi). The second rite is normally performed before marriage. The 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 adhikari, or one entitled to follow the Path of Grace. English translations of the initiation formula can be found in Mulji (1865:121), Growse (1883:287), and Barz (1976:85). 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 (1981). 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. The svarupa stands on a shelf in his room, and devotees approach it by performing an obeisance (caranasparsa*). 11. It is significant that the word darsana implies the subject, the "seer" (drsta*), rather than the object, that which is seen (Bhatt 1979:18). 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: Audicha, Sanchora, or Girinara. 13. Srngara, meaning "adornment," also denotes the rasa of erotic love which is a principal sentiment of bhakti. The beautiful adornment of the deity is both an expression of the devotee's passionate love for Krishna and a spectacle that is capable of amusing 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 lilas as the eight intimate female companions (Astasakhi*) of Krishna (Barz 1976:12-13). 15. Arati is the waving of one or more burning cotton wicks (batti) dipped in a pot (divara*) of thee in a circular motion before the image. In this context atati is performed to remove the harmful effects of the evil eye (nazar 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 Bhavana (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 (bahari) 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 khasa 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). Sakhari 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 (puri) 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 w 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-à-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 bindi 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 1983:227234). It is interesting that certain foods are prohibited or discouraged in seva "because they are redlike 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 (1970:181). 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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1975 The Divine Hierarchy: Popular Hinduism in Central India. New York: Columbia University Press. Barz, Richard 1976 The Bhakti Sect of Vallabhacarya. Delhi: Thomson 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. Bhatt, R. Kaladhar 1979 The Vedanta of Pure Non-Dualism: The Heritage of the Philosophical Tradition of Shri Vallabhacharya. Ishwar C. Sharma, trans. Virginia Beach, Va.: Donning. Burghart, Richard 1978 The Founding of the Ramanandi Sect. Ethnohistory 25:121-139. 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 23:151-197. 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.

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1976 Culture of a Sacred Town: A Sociological Study of Nathdwara. Bombay: Popular Prakashan.



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Kapferer, Bruce I979 Emotion and Feeling in Sinhalese Healing Rites. Social Analysis 1(1):153-176. 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 Harré, ed. Pp. 267-288. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Mackichan, D. 1908-1921 Vallabha, Vallabhacharya. 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 Vallabhacarya. 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 yon Furer Haimendorf. A. C. Mayer, ed. Pp. 153-173. 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 Vallabhacharyans in Western India. London: Trubner and Co. Parekh, Bhai Manilal C. 1943 Sri Vallabhacharya: Life, Teachings, and Movement. Rajkot: 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. file:///C|/Social%20Construction%20of%20Emotions%20in%20India/files/page_210.html[21.03.2011 19:02:32]

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1969 Shrimad Vallabhacharya: His Philosophy and Religion. Gujarat: Pushtimargiya Pustakalaya. 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. 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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Tambiah, Stanley J. 1973 The Form and Meaning of Magical Acts. In Modes of Thought. R. Horton and R. Finnegan, eds. Pp. 199229. London: Faber and Faber. 1979 A Performative Approach to Ritual. In Proceedings of the British Academy 65: 113-169. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tillich, Paul 1968 Systematic Theology. London: James Nisbet and Co. Toothi, N. A. 1935 Vaishnavas of Gujarat. Calcutta: Longmans. Turner, Victor 1974 Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1982 The Human Seriousness of Play. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publication. Vaudeville, Charlotte 1980 The Govardhan Myth in Northern India. Indo-Iranian Journal 22:1-45. Wach, Joachim 1948 The Sociology of Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Works in Brai Bhasa * Harirayji, Sri Mahanubhava 1968 Sri Nathji ki Prakatya* Varta. Nathdvara: Vidyavibhag. 1970 Caurasi Vaisnavan* ki Varta. Dvarkadasa* Parikha, ed. Mathura: Sri Govardhan Granthmala Karyalaya. Prabhu, Sri Gokulesh

 

1968 Rahasya BhavanaNikunja Bhavana. Niranjandeva Sarma, ed. Mathura: Sri Govardhan Granthmala Karyalaya.



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Eight Refining the Body Transformative Emotion in Ritual Dance Frédérique 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-cognitive-spiritual 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 srngara* 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 physicslist nor cognitivist understanding of emotion. The experience' of tasting srngara rasa is an "embodied thought" to use Rosaldo's (1984:138) felicitous expression. This essay is devoted to understanding the radically culturally constituted nature of srngara 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 srngara rasa," an experience at once physical, emotional, and cognitive.  



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I am also theoretically inspired by Tambiah's (1981) 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 (1981:119). 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 valuesI derive this concept from Peircebeing 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 The 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" (1981:119), 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 transformativc efficacy, is precisely the result of this integration of form and content. My 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 Jain, 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 Purl, Sri Puma Chandra Mishra, who carefully observed the details. A few words concerning Jagannatha temple are necessary to situate the female temple dancers (devadasi) 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 Purl 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. To 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 (Rösel 1980:99). Food, the root of all living beings and the fount of all human activities (Zimmermann 1982:221, 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 mahaprasada. 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 (Rösel 1980:4-7, 71). 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 mahari but as devadasi among themselves, are female temple servants (sevika) dedicated to temple service in the same way as male temple servants (sevaka). The ceremony of dedication for all temple servants, both male and female, is called "the tying of the sari" (sari* bandhana).4 After dedication to temple service devadasis consider themselves, and are considered by others, married to the deity Jagannatha. 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 Jagannatha, 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 Laksmi*, 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 well-being, 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 arc 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, does not speak of status ranking, but of a nonhierarchical state of general wellbeing. 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 m 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 deifies. 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 devi), 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'snamely 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. The 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. The public at large first witnesses the dance; then they pick up 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. The 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. The contents of the conch shell are sprinkled on the other four m food offerings which the participants then consume. The 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 fails on the ground. According to his interpretation when the devotees roll themselves on the dancing floor they pick up dust and 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 and, 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. The devadasi's active sexuality, her status as a "courtesan," was presumably known to everyone and taken for granted. Her appearance, her costume, signifies active sexuality. She is a decorated or dressed woman (vesya from vesadress, 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 benga* patia), well known by art historians as the jeweled multistranded fertility hip belt worn by female figures, yaksi*. Frogs (benga*), as aquatic animals, evoke the rainy  



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season and its fertilizing power; her brow is adorned with a creeper design made of sandalwood. She wears a silk sari as a skirt and a tight fitting blouse. Her 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). The dominant mood of the dance is erotic, srngara *. The word srngara, like the word vesya, can also mcan decoration in the sense of clothes, jewels, hairdo, and so on. The 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* vesa (great decorative or erotic dress). The 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. One basic position is the tribhangi*, 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. The tight-fitting blouse molds and emphasizes the breasts; the tight-fitting shawl around the hips similarly molds them. The 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 gravityfrom pointed toe to lifted limbsstarkly 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. The dance is the only Tantric offering taking place outside the inner sanctum and directed at not the deities but the participants. The dancer is the goddess and her leavingsthe result of her dancingare said to make the food nourishing (a likely gloss for bara* purna*). The rajaguru in an interview told me: "It is through  



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the dance that the sacramental food is given fullness (bara purna). That 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 trans-formative 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 The 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. That 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. To answer that question one must look closely at the form of the dance performance itself. The 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-emotional-cognitive 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. The dancer uses her feet percussively in dialogue with the drum and accompanies herself while dancing with the recitation of rhythmic nonsensical syllables; these can be called the speech of the drum and of the dancer's feet. The 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 The rhythmic pattern played by the drummer and by the dancer's feet, which is accentuated by wearing ankle bells, is echoed by the speech of the rhythm, namely the drum 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-emotions-thoughts. 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-cure-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, 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 elaboratedalthough in nonsemantic manneras 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" (Rénaud 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 (sthayi bhava) and thirty-three transitory ones (sancari bhava). The 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). One 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. The 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 stereo-typification 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. The 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 non-attachment 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. The 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 feeling-thinking body is a vocabulary of highly stereotyped and formarlied 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 Indic (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 templepurifying herself (see Marglin 1985:89-90), dressing and decorating herself in a particular wayall 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 Efficacy: The Transformation in the Audience The divinizing of the devadasi's body, her transformation, is the starting point for transformations in the spectators. The spectators picking up on their bodies the dust-sexual fluid of the dancer, namely the leftovers of Sakti, index the downward return path. The act of picking up the leftovers of Sakti is the spectators' partaking in the goddess's srgnara rasa; a physical-emotional-cognitive experience. The transformation, spoken of in Hindu 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. The language for this transformative experience is ancient in India, first written down in Bharata's treatise on dance, music, and drama (the Natyasastra, the second century B.C. to the second century A.D.). The concept of rasa has for centuries been extensively commented upon in texts (Sanskrit, vernacular, and English) as well as in oral transmission of the teaching of the dance. My 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 Jena, and by the devadasis.15 The source of tasting of an emotional essence is the divinized dancer. The bhava of erotic love (srngara) 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. The 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. The dance is a divine sexual intercourse (the fifth m, maithuna, in the Sakta exegesis). The bhava of the dancer arouses in the spectators traces of their own erotic sensations that are constituted emotionally as srngara 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 srngara 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 mind-body experience of srngara rasa. The audience should not lust for the dancer but rather should participate in the divine erotic play.16 This participation is a refined emotional experience described as the tasting of an essence, of srngara rasa. The 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 series of refining processes that start concretely in earth, sun, and water. The 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 Indic 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). 17 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. This 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 smgara rasa, is achieved without Brahman priests as intermediaries. Caste ranking in terms of pure and 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. The exchange between the divinized devadasi and devotees is direct and unmediated by caste considerations. This is to be expected in a Tantric context because Saktaism 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 The 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. The 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" (sayana thakura*).18 The 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. The songs sung by the devadasi are part of a Vaishnava bhakti tradition;19 all describe episodes in the life of Krishna, and they are gesturally brought to life by the devadasi. The theme of the songs is the love between Krishna and Radha, one milkmaid of the village of Brindaban. The 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. 20 The 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. The 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. They give out flowers from the flower offering and pass the still lighted lamp among the visitors who place both palms over the heat and smoke of the flame and then place their palms to their eyelids. The image is then taken back to the storeroom; everyone leaves the temple, and its doors are sealed for the night. One 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 m 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: "Oh 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 m 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: "Oh 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) The dust of the gopis' feet had revitalizing and health-giving powers that restored Krishna to well-being. The 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. The bhava of the unmarried gopi is the parakiya bhava, which is contrasted to the svakiya bhava of the married woman. The 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 husband,'" a statement that bespeaks ego feelings (ahankara). When 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. . .. Take the example of the apsaras [heavenly courtesan] Menaka who loved Vishvamitra and gave birth to Shakuntala. But Menaka left Shakuntala in the jungle and went away. There was no attachment." On a different occasion, Sasi, another devadasi, told me: "We don't marry. We don't have children; we don't have a household; devotion is the one important thing for us.'' The 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. This selfless and nonattached devotion of the nonmarried gopi-devadasi should not be taken to mean that the love for Krishna is chaste. The 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. 21 As in the midday dance ritual, the mood of erotic love dominates evening songs. The 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 gopis revitalizes and vivifies Krishna. It is significant that in Purl 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 band gestures. Drumming and full-fledged dancing no longer take place, although in both inscriptions and reminiscences of the devadasis the interpretative full-fledged 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 (raga) chosen corresponds to the mood of the poem. The Gita Govinda has at the beginning of each song the name of the rags and tala in which it is to be sung. 22 Rags, 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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The 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. The 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, ifs 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 "make 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 (à 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. The 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 Efficacy: 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 Radha (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. The dtvadasi, 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. The 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. The deity comes dose 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. The essence of her devotion is srngara rasa which is aroused in her audience who, unlike that of the midday ritual, is the deity, not the visitors. The 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. The 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 The ritual dances I have discussed in this chapter transform the participants; the participants taste srngara 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. The 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. The 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. The 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, humans and deities, are all interrelated. The ritual day in a major temple, such as that of Jagannatha in Purl, exemplifies this great chain of life particularly in the food offerings. The two rituals examined in this essay share in this general cosmology but give it specific sectarian inflections. The 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 canin the context of the midday ritualbe a female divinity who shares srnsara 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. The 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. That approach used Tambiah'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. The 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 Indic India. The 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. The 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. The 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 fragrance of the food offered to the deities, spiritual experience. Emotions, therefore, are not discontinuous: physical experiences on one side and cognitive and spiritual experience on the other. The basic or gross level is not despised or repressed in order for the most refined level to emerge. On the contrary, in the case of the emotion of love, for example, it is refined out of the concrete physical experience of sexual love. Emotions and cognitions are both experienced and discussed as unified activity. This most obvious meaning of the word bhava refers at once to emotional and mental states. Thus the refining process has essentially three main phases: the physical, the emotional-mental, and the spiritual; the physical body corresponds to the earth, the emotions-cognitions to the fruits of the earth, and the spiritual to the fruits' taste and/or smell. Notes to Chapter Eight To 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 chum 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. This injunction against having children is not found among the devadasis of Tamilnadu studied by Amrit Srinivasan (1985). 6. The Sakta sectarian tradition is a form of tantrism whose followers worship the goddes Sakti. 7. The 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 apparently I deduced the wrong direction from their verbal explanations. Thereafter, Puma 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. The 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 islike other eliminations from the bodyboth 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 Oriya is also used to mean the colorless female sexual fluid a woman is believed to secrete during sexual intercourse. The devadasis did not perform during their menses when they were impure and did not enter the temple. I am grateful to Owen Lynch for pointing out to me the double meaning of the word raja. 9. Ron Hess in collaboration with Indian film makers has made a film largely based on my study of the rituals of the devadasis. Entitled "Given to Dance: India's Odissi Tradition," it is available through the Madison, Wisconsin, South Asia Program. 10. The devadasis, but not the stage performers, recite the drum syllables. On 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 (tala). 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. One treatise in English is in a special issue of the magazine Marg (1960); the other is in Oriya by Dhirendranath Patnaik (1958). 13. This 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. The 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 dislogical 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 tenthcentury 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-factly 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], This man, by order of the king should be heavily fined, Such a man would be a criminal in front of the great Lord. 17. The following passage from Hegel is a good example of what I refer to: These earliest and still most uncontrolled attempts of imagination and art we meet most signally among the ancient races of India... These people... through their confused intermingling of the Finite and the 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 [1977:213]) 18. In fact, this is an image of Shiva, half-man and half-woman (ardhanarisvara). 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 Mukherjee (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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If you like this book, buy it!

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References Cited Texts in Western Languages Appadurai, Arjun 1981 Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bharata-Muni 1961 The Natyasastra: The Treatise on Hindu Dramaturgy and Histrionic. 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 Mookerjee Silver Jubilee Volume. Vol. 3, Orientalia, Part 2. Calcutta: Calcutta University Press. Egnor, Margaret 1978 The Sacred Spell and Other Conceptions of Life in Tamil Culture. Ph.D. dissertation, Anthropology Department, University of Chicago. Hawley, John, and Donna Wulff, eds. 1982 The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India. Berkeley: Graduate Theological Union. MARG 1960 Special Issue on Odissi Dance. Marg 13 (2 March). Bombay: Marg. Marglin, Frédérique Apffel 1981 Kings and Wives: The Separation of Status and Royal Power. Contributions to Indian Sociology, n.s. 15 (1 and 2):155-182. 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. a vols. Poona: Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute. Miller, Barbara Stoler 1977 Love Song of the Dark Lord: Jayadeva's Gita Govinda. New York: Columbia University Press. Mitter, Partha 1977 Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Art. Oxford: Clarendon. Mukherjee, Prabhat 1940 The History of Medieval Vaishnavism in Orissa. Calcutta: R. Chatterjee.

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1884 La Rhétorique Sanskrite Exposée dans ~n Développement Historique et ses Rapports avec la Rhétorique Classique. Suivie des Textes Inédits du Bharatiya-natya-sastra, 6iéme et 7ième Chapitres et de la Rasatarangini de Bhanudatta. 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. LeVine, eds. Pp. 137-157. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rösel, Jacob 1980 Der Palast des Herrn der Welt: Entstehungsgeschichte und Organisation des Indischen Tempel und Pilgerstadt Puff. München: Weltforum Verlag. Siegel, Lee 1977 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. Tambiab, Stanley Jeyaraja 1981 A Performative Approach to Ritual. Proceedings of the British Academy 65. Pp. 113-169. London: Oxford University Press. Tripathi, G. C. 1978 The Daily Puja Ceremony of the Jagannatha Temple and Its Special Features. In The Cult of Jagnnatha and the Regional Transition of Orissa. A. Eschmann, H. Kulke, G. C. Tripathi, eds. Pp. 285-308. New Delhi: Manohar. Vatsyayana, Kapila 1968 Classical Indian Dance in Literature and the Arts. New Delhi: Sangeet Natak Akademi. Zimmermann, Francis 1982 La Jungle et le Fumet des Viandes: Un Thème Ecologique dans la Méde-cine Hindoue. Paris: GallinardLe Seuil, Hautes Etudes. Text in Oriya Patnaik, Dhirendranath  

1958 Odisi * nrtya*, Santi Nibasa Bani Mandira. Cuttack.



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PART FIVE CONFLICTING EMOTIONS IN CROSS-CULTURAL CONTEXTS  



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Nine On 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 Lyall Darling, Wisdom and Waste In the Punjab Village The 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 CBS 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 CBS Morning News were presented the comments of Harbhajan Singh Purl (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 CBS broadcast I was outraged that the media should once again have constituted "Yogi Bhajan" (as Purl 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 CBS considered itself obliged to find a "moderate" Sikh to condemn the murder, I felt it could have found a more representative Punjabi Sikh than Harbhajan Singh Purl, a former Indian customs official who founded the Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization in 1969 shortly after his arrival in the United States; and CBS 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 Sikha North American Sikh "convert"should 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. The different moral sensitivities displayed  



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by the Punjabi Sikh celebrants outside the Indian consulate in New York and by the Gora Sikh spokesman in the CBS 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 Vancouveroverwhelmingly Punjabi and Sikhwas 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. To 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 To 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 self-defense. 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 Sahib], 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 "ask[ed] 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 was the group of a dozen or so Gora Sikhs at the local Guru Ram Das Ashram. My distinct impression was that these new North American Sikh converts preferred to celebrate the more socially and temporally distant and morally unequivocal heroic martyrdoms of the Sikh Gurus, 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 Cora Sikh informants repeatedly emphasized that they were a "religious" group and, therefore, did not involve themselves in Indian "politics." As later would be the case in their response to Mrs. Gandhi's assassination, their actions indicated that, despite affirming Guru Gobind Singh's teachings that "when all else fails, it is right to draw the sword,'' they were not totally comfortable resorting to murder to avenge the "insult to the Panth" suffered as a consequence of Hopkinson's perjured testimony or Mrs. Gandhi's desecration of the Akal Takht. In this essay I want to draw out the implications of these two morality playsand others involving actions considerably less extreme (from the Western Judeo-Christian point of view) than murderto suggest that the moral sensitivities of Gora Sikhs and Punjabi Sikhs (and, in this regard, particularly those of the dominant Jat Sikhs) not only differ but also differ in culturally specific ways. In particular, I want to suggest that the notion of izzat (honor), apparently so central to Jar Sikh "moral affect," is not shared by Gora Sikhs. 6 As a consequence, as I will show, Gora Sikhs are largely insensitive to the role of izzat in the lives of Jat Sikhs, that is, as it informs both Jat Sikh actions and Jat Sikh reactions to the actions of Gora Sikhs. And this difference in moral affect, I argue, enters into the active estrangement of Gora Sikhs and Jat Sikhs and their (mis)apprehension of one another. Following Michelle Rosaldo, I use the term "moral affect" to indicate "emotions that involve dear conscious, social, and cultural components (and attendant questions of judgment and morality)" (1983:136, n. 4). A Western focus upon, and valorization of, rationalized, readily codified systems of knowledgewas apparent in the anthropologist's search for the norms or rules of an alien culture as in the convert's search for orthodoxy in an adopted religionhas for too long led to inattention to the affective dimensions of other peoples' experience. Yet, ironically, it is precisely in the area of "emotions," less amenable to direct personal articulation and formal codification than are "beliefs,'' that culture shock and cross-cultural tensions are most likely to be experienced and least likely to be reconciled. Yet, because the language of the emotions so often partakes of what Pierre Bourdieu (1976:118, n. 1) has called "the discourse of familiarity," outsiders, whether anthropologists or converts, find it difficult to experience and represent the affective world of others. Moral 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 crosscultural 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" (1983:136, 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," "shame" 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 "self" (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 landholding Jats of Punjab, for whom izzat is a particular concern, have come to predominate within the Sikh Panth.10 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: "izzat means 'honor thy father and mother.'" Or "izzat 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 Jat 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. Joyce Pettigrew has written in some detail of the role that izzat plays in rural Jat 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 izzatthe complex of values regarding what was honourable. If ajar 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. The last lines of her account even suggest the way in which outsiders, such as Mrs. Gandhi or Hopkinson, may become parties implicated in the pursuit or defense of izzat. In a footnote Pettigrew notes other crucial aspects of izzat: for example, that for Jat 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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versa" (1975:240). 11 Although these aspects are perhaps less directly relevant to her concern with political factions, they are crucial to understanding izzat in the migrant situation. As Pettigrew notes, one aspect common to all these concerns is freedom from the constraints and demands of others and a concomitant ability to put others in one's debt or under one's dominion. Pettigrew's own 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 butinsofar as personal prestige is subordinate to the collective evaluation of the groupof 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.12 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 way through which Jat Sikh families have sought the means to maintain or raise family izzat. By sending away "excess" or "wayward" 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, Jar Sikh villagers have sought to further or maintain izzat in the ancestral village.13 Foreign migration, especially to countries in the West, is, however, thought particularly risky. On the one hand, it has been seen as presenting unparalleled opportunities through which a Jar Sikh family might (im)prove its izzat. Thus, 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. At the same time, however, foreign migration presents considerable temptations to individuals to pursue actions with negative effects on family or group izzat. Thus, 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 of sending family members abroad. Most Jar Sikhs are not, however, averse to taking risks. Moreover, in most situations of foreign migration, izzat is an important concern for Jat Sikhs in both the migrant setting and the home village. That 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. Jat 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 entailedand becomes relationally indexedin 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 Jar 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 1979:11) This Jat Sikh projection of sensitivity to izzat onto Western society is also an important factor in understanding Jat 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 Jat 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 Jat occupation of farming. After long and arduous struggle, the early immigrants were finally permitted to sponsor for immigration their Jar 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 Jats meant that Doabi Jat Sikh practices largely defined the Sikh identity as it developed in North America. 15 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 areas where Sikh professionals have found employment, but it has also had significant repercussions in the long-established communities of British Columbia and rural California.16 Nevertheless, within most Punjabi communities in North America, as within the Panth in India, Jat Sikhs continue to (pre)dominate. If Jat 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 Purl, 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," Purl proved a compelling teacher. Having found a receptive core of students (initially middle-age, female, "spiritual seekers"; subsequently young, white, middleclass 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 3HO) 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 way" (Khalsa and Khalsa 1979:119). Puri had, however, slowly begun to disclose his own Sikh background and to introduce Sikh teachings to his closest followers. In 1971, he took eighty-four of them to India where they visited the Golden Temple and surrounding shrines. At the Akal Takht, the highest scat 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, Purl began to supplement and supplant his primarily yogic explanation of "the healthy, happy, holy way of life" with a more explicitly Sikh account. Purl also began to use the title "Siri Singh Sahib," 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 * pahul.18 Puri's own transformation from "Yogi Bhajan" to the "Siri Singh Sahib" corresponded roughly to a change from a yogic to a Sikh identity on the part of 3HO 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 3HO members did not hesitate to make a formal commitment to their new religion. And Purl provided unprecedented opportunities for 3HO 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.19 Today, 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 Jat 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 Jat 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 Jat Sikhs and of the Jat Sikh projection of izzat concerns onto the actions of Gora Sikhs. One Gora Sikh complaint about Punjabi Sikhs in Vancouver is their factionalismor, 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. 1972-73), 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 Cora 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 The incident included a reported threat in Vancouver on the life of Purl, who was accompanying visiting Punjabi Sikh dignitaries on a North American tour. The Gora Sikhs' despair and incredulity (and, ultimately, their incomprehension) over the whole situation is well summed up in the title of a letter"What are the Sikhs doing in Vancouver?"that the head of the local 3HO ashram wrote to the English-language section of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak 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.23 Instead, they chose to continue to spread their version of proper Sikh practices by urging Punjabi Sikh participation in the Sikh Youth Federation of Canada (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 "New Age 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 Jar 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, Jar Sikhs misinterpreted their estrangement. For Jar Sikhs, izzat rather than ideology provided the explanatory framework. The Jar Sikh feeling of moral superiority over a potential challenger was reinforced soon thereafter. In attempting to fund their "Siri Singh Sadan" as an alternative place of worship, the Gora Sikhs twice went before the sangat* (congregation) at the Akali Singh Society gurdwara to ask for donations. Jar Sikhs were surprised that the Gora Sikhs would so shamelessly solicit and accept charityin 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, Cora 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 judge the situation morally, using the familiar emotion term of izzat, whether or not the converts shared their moral sensitivities. From the Gora Sikhs' perspective, in attempting to establish the Siri Guru Sadan, they were simply offering to create another public setting for the reading of the Guru Granth Sahib; and by collecting from the congregation, they were offering other Sikhs the chance to contribute toward this religiously meritorious cause. 24 Because they neither consciously related to those at the Akali Singh gurdwara 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 Gora Sikhs. They were disappointed that in the end they did not have the financial wherewithal to keep open this place of worship; but, without a Jat Sikh sensitivity to izzat, they never felt humiliated by receipt of 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. Very briefly, let me add two other examples of public actions that provoked very different reactions from Gora Sikhs and Jat Sikhs. Although the first incident predated my arrival in Vancouver in 1978, it was still actively discussed. In a nearby community a Jat Sikh man had murdered his wayward daughter, who had apparently run off with a gora (white man) and was living openly with him. Rather than continue to suffer this humiliation of his family, her father had killed her in a reportedly brutal manner. Gora Sikhs, like Canadians generally, condemned unconditionally the killing and evinced horror at the very thought of filicide. My Jat Sikh informants, though by no means condoning to me the man's actions, nevertheless evinced sympathy with his predicament and recounted other similar stories. In fact, such situations of unapproved, mixed relationships have increasingly arisen in the migrant setting. Other parents have handled the dilemma of wayward children in ways that sought to remove the source of their humiliation by social rather than physical death. Thus, ostracization and outright denial of the wayward family member's existence are common responses to izzat-threatening deviance. The second case, arising subsequent to my departure in 1979, involved the defection of the local 3HO ashram's head and his wife's decision to stay on without him in Vancouver. When the publically recognized leader of the local Gora Sikhs quit the group, took off his bana* (the Khalsa uniform), left behind his divorced wife, child, and "students," Gora Sikh detractors widely represented this as proof of the superficial nature of Gora Sikh "conversions." Even among those generally sympathetic to the Gora Sikhs, the defection dealt a severe blow to the Gora Sikhs' reputation. Even more illuminating were responses to his wife's decision to stay. No doubt the Gora Sikhs considered the defection of their local leader an unfortunate event, one that their detractors in the Punjabi Sikh community would  



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probably use against them. The leader's wifewhose marriage had been arranged by Puri who had sent them to Vancouver in 1972 to found an ashramfelt 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 Jat 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 Jar 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 Jar 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 Jar 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 Jat  



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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 3HO), also spoke of the "martyrdom of Akal Takhat" but argued for a "negotiate-for-solution and do not be revengeful" posture.28 If most Jat Sikhs felt that the "martyrdom of the Akal Takht" 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 Owen 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 To 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, Jar Sikhsraised sensitive to the variable reputations of the collectivities of which they are a partand Gora Sikhsraised sensitive to their personal integrity as individualswill 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. As 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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thus to make familiar moral appraisals in new settings and to project a similar moral sensitivity onto others. But clearly izzat is not a universal emotion; rather, it is a socially learned moral appraisal with attendant affective dimensions. The same situation, as I have shown, will elicit very different emotional responses from different persons, depending upon their prior socialization. 31 Moreover, situations as such do not elicit certain kinds of emotions; rather, it is the appraisal of them that is different, and this is identified by an emotional term. We must necessarily be alert, therefore, to the ways in which people of different cultures are socialized into different universes of moral affect. However, because we live in a world of interacting cultureswhere, for example, young North Americans are being asked to present the Sikh reaction to major Indian sociopolitical eventsit no longer makes sense to content ourselves with drawing out contrasts between, for example, Ilongot "shame" and American "shame" or Jat Sikh ''honor" and American "honor" as if they were analytic specimens of emotions existing only in separate social universes. Instead, we must also recognize and interpret those instances where cultural differences in moral affect express themselves in mutual (mis)apprehensions of social actors in shared interaction. With Gora Sikhs and Jat Sikhs attempting to incorporate each other in a common moral universe, we can thereby investigate "moral affect" in the breach. And, because these situations of cross-cultural estrangement will be patterned, knowing the particulars about how, say, izzat is entailed and indexed in social life will help make public eventssuch as the differing Punjabi Sikh and Gora Sikh reactions to Mrs. Gandhi's assassinationintelligible. That has been the intent of 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, McKim 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 l, 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, Jars 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 Jat Sikh concern. The fact that Purl is a Khatri, not a Jat, 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 Purl (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 auto-intoxication of disgrace" (Purl 1983:119). 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 self-described 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 Committeean 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 Mews 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 Mews 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 Jat 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 muff 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 (1975:58-59). 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 Jar 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 Jar practices as Jats 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 Jar models. Concern with izzat is not normally the intense concern for Khatris that it is for Jats, and this may partially account for the Jar stereotype that Khatris are, by nature, cowardly and spineless. It appears that Jars 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" extendingwith some regional, caste, class, and religious variationfrom Pakistan, throughout most of northern India, to Bangladesh. 12. 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 Jar 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 Jar 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 Jar Sikh and detrimental to family reputation. 15. Most of my informants estimated the percentage of Jats among the Sikh old-timers 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 castethe Jat. Perhaps not more than one-fifth represent other castes" (1959: 13). 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), Chadney (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 * pahul or amrt* samskara* ceremony effects the incorporation of one into the Khalsa Panth, the socalled "Brotherhood of the Pure" (see Dusenbery in press). By tradition, any five worthy Khalsa Sikhs can be constituted as the panj pyare (literally, live 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 3HO 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 Cora Sikh involvement with Punjabi Sikh gurdwaras in Los Angeles, see Fleuret (1974). For accounts of early Cora 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 1975:39-44), 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 Cora 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, Gora 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 moral 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 Gora Sikhs call their religious body, Sikh Dharma, but also that their claims to orthodoxy rest on strict adherence to the "moral duty" 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. The fact that most Punjabi Sikhs are ignorant of and indifferent to the exact contents of this documentand, especially in the case of Jat Sikhs, would not feel their identity as Sikhs dependent on strict adherence to its rules of conductmerely confirms the Cora 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: "We have suffered and suffered terribly in every respect during the last 2 years. Our prestige has gone down. Our honour has been compromised and the very source of our spiritual sustence [sic] 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. . .. The 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). "The 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: Sardarni Premka Kaur Khalsa (1984), Shakti Parwha Kaur Khalsa (1984), Harbhajan Singh Khalsa (1984), Sikh Dharma Secretariat (1984a, 1984b). Takhat is an alternative spelling of Takht. 29. The 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 Cora 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 Cora Sikhs and Punjabi Sikhs. 31. 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 crosscultural 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. 245-265. 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 Annales Economies, Societies *, Givilisations. Robert Foster and Orest Rannum, eds. Elborg Forster and Patricia M. Rannum, trans. Pp. 117-144. 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: AMS Press. Chowdhury, Neerja, and Shahnaz Anklesaria  

1984 How the Sikhs Have Taken It. The Sikh Review 32 (368): 143-144.

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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 : 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):101-119. 1986 On Punjabi Sikh-Gora Sikh Relations. In Aspects of Modern 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(1):27-33. 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

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1984 In Memorium. Beads of Truth 2(14):4-10.



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Khalsa, Shakti Parwha Kaur, and Gurubanda Singh Khalsa 1979 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. 1979 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): 287309. 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.

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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):427443. Rosaldo, Michelle Z. 1983 The Shame of Headhunters and the Autonomy of Self. Ethos 11(3):135-151. 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. Scanlon, Joseph 1977 The 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, Ganada, and Ireland. Pp. 193-261. 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 Sikhs Smarting Under Healing Touch [editorial]. Sikh Review 32(368):1-5. Singh, 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): 5-6. Singh, Khushwant, and Kuldip Nayar 1984 In the Aftermath of Operation Bluestar. Sikh Review 32(371): 37-43. Singh, Waryam  

1985 Retrieving the Honour of the Sikhs. Sikh Review 33(382):40-43.



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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 (Krsnabhakti*), 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: Bhakti says that she was born in the Dravid country and came to maturity in Karnataka. Later she was respected in Maharashtra and grew to a ripe old age in Gujarat, but there she became weak and sluggish, and was hated by the heretics due to the arrival of the Kali age. This is an account found in the scriptures of the actual history of bhakti religion. But then she says that when she came to Brindaban . . .. Brindaban made her fresh and beautiful again.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 (Jamuna) 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 (lila, sports, playful activities).3 For the Krishna devotee (bhakta), the phenomenal earthly Brindaban and the spiritual Brindaban are identical. The 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 1979:112-121; Hardy 1983:567).4 While emphasizing the significance of Brindaban for the medieval renais 



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sance of a Krishna-centered devotional religion, the ascetic continues the story of Bhakti by pointing 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 dear 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 bhakti's spread outside India. 5 In 1965, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, a sannyasi (monk) of the Bengal Vaishnava sect (gauriya* 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 (ISKCON), 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 Mahaprabhu), an ecstatic saint who lived from 1486 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 Ghaitanya'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 1975,10 and since that time an entourage of ISKCON devotees has lived in the town.11 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 ISKCON 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 ISKCON devotees are considered legitimate Vaishnavas in the Bengal tradition, some Brindaban residents perceive that ISKCON Vaishnavism is somehow different from their own. This perception is not a simple recognition of obvious ethnic differences, now largely overcome by ISKCON'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 completethey are only beginning along the path of deep mysteries of Krishna in the madhurya-rasa [erotic emotion] of Braj."13 In this chapter I explore the dimension of contrast to which these statements allude. By examining the emotional components of Krishna-bhakti in the Brindaban context, two areas are highlighted that aid in understanding mystical devotion in action: (1) the empirical range of variation existing in the practice of Krishna-bhakti by a committed Indian population; and (2) the symbolic importance of mystical emotions in everyday interactions between foreign and Indian bhaktas in Brindaban. Devotees of ISKCON and Indian residents of Brindaban interpret and practice devotional mysticism differently. These distinctions are subtle and complex, yet they can be understood by considering the interrelationships between Bhaktivedanta's transmission of Krishna-bhakti ideals to his disciples and the processual dynamics that have taken ISKCON from a liminal phenomenon of revitalization to the highly bureaucratic institution that it is today. This historical context helps to explain why ISKCON has developed emotional attitudes that contrast with the attitudes of the local population attitudes that ultimately function as contrasting ideologies to help define the separate groups operating within a common cultural domain. At the same time, however, enough symbolic agreement exists for the interactive situations between foreign and Indian actors to be integrative events. Practically, this results in the cultural construction of an essentially new emotional reality in Brindaban that recognizes and incorporates the differences. Emotional Components of Krishna-Bhakti: The Ideal Perhaps in no other religious system have human emotional potentials been so considered, categorized, and sacralized than in the codification accomplished by the Bengal Vaishnavas. Although many Brindaban residents are  



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not Bengal Vaishnavas, this sect has been a dominant force in patterning the town's culture; the vocabulary and attitudes of Bengal Vaishnavism infuse every sphere of Brindaban's sociocultural environment. This is not surprising because those disciples of Chaitanya who produced the sect's literary classics while living there in the late fifteenth century also simultaneously and overtly initiated Brindaban's development from wilderness retreat to pilgrimage town. Moreover, the same pervading concern for an individual's emotional relationship with Krishna exists in a majority of Brindaban's other Vaishnava sects, though not in such a systematic, Sanskritized form. The full content and development of the tradition's "science" of devotional emotion (bhakti-rasa-sastra) are beyond the scope of this essay but a simplified depiction of its ideals will still frame the situations where mystical emotions are employed in the everyday life of Brindaban, especially in the interactions between Western devotees of ISKCON and native residents and pilgrims. 14 The person of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu symbolizes for many devotees of Krishna the perfection of spiritual love. His own followers consider Chaitanya to be an avatara (incarnation) of Krishna himself who descended to earth in order to experience first-hand the perfection of love that a person may have with the deity.15 Although sectarian accounts posit that Chaitanya personally expounded the tradition's complex philosophy and theology, he left little writing.16 Through his inspiration, instruction, and delegation of responsibilities, however, Chaitanya's immediate disciples produced a monumental literary corpus that the devout consider to be revealed scripture. The specific task of defining and elaborating upon religious emotions was given to Rupa Goswami, one of the "Six Goswamis" (Gosvamis) Chaitanya sent to Brindaban to codify the religion and establish its organizational headquarters.17 In two systematic Sanskrit works, Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu* and Ujjvala-nilamani*, Rupa outlines the ideals and potentials concerning man's emotional relationships with the divine. The terms most commonly associated with mystical emotion by the Indian laity, bhava and rasa, are often used interchangeably, although Rupa explains them in such complex categorical detail that only the adept religious specialist or scholar of Sanskrit poetics can appreciate his precision. As De points out, "the terms Rasa and Bhava are difficult to translate, but they have been rendered respectively by the terms 'sentiment' and 'emotion.' . . . The question whether Bhakti is Rasa or Bhava is more or less academic" (1961:168 n.). It becomes clear, however, from the works of Rupa Goswami and his commentators, that in the religious context bhava indicates a predisposing emotion that one has toward Krishna which becomes rasa only when it is highly refined and integrated into the devotee's entire being through experience.  



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Rasa (literally juice, sap), which can be glossed as the full appreciation of an involvement in an emotional state, is derived from Sanskrit drama and poetics. In the poetic sense rasa refers to "the supreme relish of literary enjoyment" (De 1961:166). The combination of Rupa's knowledge of rhetoric and his sincere devotion to Krishna made him uniquely qualified to transform the poetic rosa into a mystical one. The rasas, elevated for the first time to the realm of sublime mystical sentiments by Rupa, are patterned primarily upon the emotions that result from various dyadic relationships common to all humans, and these serve as paradigms for the mystical variety. They are specifically based, however, upon Krishna's relationships with the inhabitants of Brindaban during his descent to earth, who are believed to eternally exist in the heavenly Brindaban. Five rasassanta, dasya, sakya, vatsalya, and madhuryadevelop out of corresponding bhava of the same name. These bhava are dominant feelings or root emotions that the bhakta recognizes in his own personality which propel him toward a particular type of relationship with Krishna. One can summarize the rasa: Santa-rasa is a quiet, peaceful devotion between man and Krishna who is conceived as an omnipotent, benevolent god. The next, dasya-rasa, occurs when Krishna is viewed as master and the devotee as his servant. Sakya-rasa considerably escalates the bhakta's intimacy with Krishna because it results from treating him as a friend or companion. This is followed by vatsalya-rasa, the consequence of adopting a parental affection for him. The highest rasa, and the one most elaborated by the Vaishnava writers, is madhurya-rasa, the passionate, all-consuming pleasure that comes only when Krishna is taken as one's lover. Krishna and members of his celestial entourage that incarnated some five thousand years ago, according to his devotees' firm belief, enacted each of these relationships, and each actor in this sacred drama is worshiped as an emanation of Krishna's own sakti (energy). His relationships with gopis (gopi, cowherd girl of Brindaban) and especially Radha (Radha), his eternal consort and the personification of his pleasure-giving energy (hladini-sakti), however, symbolize the religion's summum bonum. In the forests of Brindaban and nowhere else, the village girls steal away under the light of the full moon to be with Krishna, their beloved. Disregarding their husbands and familial responsibilities, they cannot resist his powerful charms, and together they take part in the mystical circle dance, rasa-lila. In this dance, Krishna expands himself so that each maidenand there are thousandsexperiences Krishna as her own. Still, he is at the center of the circle with Radha as the others dance around him, absorbed in the absolute bliss of divine love. For the Brndabanbasis * (residents of Brindaban), all other emotions pale in comparison, and they are reminded of it in every aspect of their daily lives. As they greet each other on the street salutations of "Jaya Shri Radhe".(Jaya Sri Radhe), "Radhe Radhe" (Radhe Radhe ), or "Radhe Shyam" ( Radhe-Syama )  



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are exchanged, each directing the mind to Radha and the ultimate relationship that she shares with Krishna. In shops, tea stalls, and homes, lithographs depicting the circle dance are prominently displayed and attended with devotion. The image of Krishna rarely appears without Radha by his side in the temples of Brindaban. It is not Krishna who is worshiped, but Radha and Krishna together. Local residents often say that ''Brindaban calls''; if a person is in Brindaban for any reason it is because he or she has heard the music of Krishna's flute, although no one may be consciously aware of it. Some will say that anyone who walks upon the dust of Brindaban is an eternal actor in Krishna's cosmic play. But other permanent residents of Brindaban possess an attitude narrower than this. Although they speak of themselves as bhakta, they see no need for the effort of ritual; they claim to experience constantly and spontaneously the emotion of mystical, passionate love with Krishna, the most sublime emotional state that can be humanly achieved. Some are merchants, some are priests, and some mendicant widows, but regardless of social position they see other devotees as inferior. They possess the unique inheritance of Brindaban's madhurya-rasa, and herein lies a principal clue to understanding the difference between the Vaishnavas of Brindaban and the Vaishnavas of ISKCON. Iskcon and Madhurya-Rasa For a full week in March of 1982, loudspeakers atop the temple of Radha-Shyamsundar (Radha-syamasundara) blared in all directions day and night, broadcasting the great chant (mahamantra). 18 The amplified singing, however, did little to suggest what was actually going on in the temple below. Inside, in the large courtyard before the deities' inner sanctum, hundreds of pilgrims and Brindaban residents sat tightly packed around a square clearing where the performers sang, danced, and played various musical instruments. More than one hundred young men, members of a professional troop from Bengal, alternated in small groups to keep the mantra from dying. Quite apart from their musical abilities, these men were skilled actors, capable of invoking intense emotions from their audience, and many worshipers wept unashamedly. During one session I attended, two other Westerners were among the worshipers. One, standing near the entrance barely inside the temple, was recognizably an ISKCON devotee; the other's clothing distinguished him from ISKCON, and he had slightly different forehead markings (tilaka).19 But most noticeable about this second foreign Vaishnava was that he was the center of attention, rolling on the floor in a tight embrace with one performer, tears streaming from his eyes. Members of the crowd jostled to touch his feet and rub onto their forehead the dust in which he rolled.  



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The Hare Krishna devotee expressed to me the disgust with which he viewed the entire event: "These are sahajiyas, members of a heterodox Chaitanyaite sect which uses ritualized sexual intercourse as a primary practice, and Prabhupad [the name by which ISKCON devotees call Bhaktivedanta Swami] warned us that in Brindaban they arc the most dangerous to our spiritual progress. I shouldn't be here at all, even if they are chanting 'Hare Krishna' constantly." Later I spoke with the other Westerner, a thirty-two-year-old Dutchman, and discovered that he had once been in ISKCON himself, having left over a year earlier to pursue aspects of bhakti that were, according to him, not permissible in ISKCON. He explained: I came to Brindaban in ISKCON, and I owe it a lot, but ISKCON cannot give you Brindaban. In ISKCON Brindaban is actually a bother, but now Brindaban is my salvation. Prabhupad was my diksa-guru * [giver of the mantra], but now my siksa-guru* [teacher] is Tripuri Baba. I was filled with desire for the madhuryarasa and now I can practice the proper sadhana [spiritual practices]. In ISKCON there is no madhuryarasa, no rasa at all. These two individuals personify the struggle that ISKCON has had in understanding and codifying its doctrine concerning the practice of bhakti, especially the dimensions of mystical emotion. The Hare Krishna devotee was expressing his organization's official attitude that for the vast majority of people the proper practice should be disciplined ritual activity, vaidhi bhakti; his former "god-brother" was happy that he could now indulge in an unrestrained, spontaneous emotional relationship with Krishna, raganuga bhakti. Dimock notes, Vaishnavas of all sorts consider that there are two general types of bhakti. The first is an external, ritual activity based on the injunctions of the sastras (vidhi) and is called vaidhi-bhakti. The second is the internal, passionate relationship of the released jiva [soul] to Krsna* and is called raganuga-bhakti. Vaidhibhakti is for that great majority of persons who are neither by nature in direct relationship to Krsna* nor yet released from maya [illusion] by completion of the disciplines. (Dimock 1966:183).20 Reflection upon Bhaktivedanta Swami's career and his interactions with American devotees, makes apparent his possession of both theoretical and practical understanding of the details of bhakti in all its variety. Yet as ISKCON was institutionalized, a trend developed toward ritual practice and away from spontaneous emotionalism, especially in interpreting passionate love with Krishna. In his early writings in the United States, Bhaktivedanta Swami shows a professional understanding of the emotional theory's complexities ex-pounded by Rupa Goswami. In the first book published by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Teachings of Lord Ghaitanya, he repeatedly  



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refers to both the title and content of Rupa's Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu * and Ujjvala-nilamani*. The introduction of that book is a transcript of lectures given in New York on April 10-17, 1967, and in it Bhaktivedanta refers to all the potential relationships between Krishna and his devotee, concluding that "above all you can treat Krishna as your lover" (1968:6). In the same lecture series, however, he admonishes his disciples that this stage can be obtained only after much study and practice: "Unfortunately, people of less intelligence turn at once to the pleasure potency sports of Krishna." This ''is not understood by ordinary men, because they do not understand Krishna. . .. These people. . . think that this is a kind of religion where we can indulge in sex and become religionists. This is called Prakriti Sahajiamaterialistic lust" (Bhaktivedanta 1968:8). Already at this early stage, Bhaktivedanta has introduced the basic distinction between vaidhi and raganuga bhakti, though not by name, and he specifically warns about sahajiya. In the following chapters, however, he becomes specific and precise, detailing the types of emotions by their Sanskrit nomenclature. In the concluding pages he summarizes: There are sixty-four kinds of devotional service, and by performing these regulative principles one can rise up to the stage of this unconditional devotion of the Gopis. Affection for Krishna exactly on the level of the Copis is called Raganuga, spontaneous love. In the spontaneous loving affair with Krishna, there is no necessity of following the Vedic rules and regulations. (Bhaktivedanta 1968:279) One can only wonder what his new disciples were thinking as Bhaktivedanta discoursed upon a strict system of rules they were expected to adopt on the one hand and the erotically-tinged, rule-free model of the advanced bhakta's relationship with God on the other. Many had been recruited from the counterculture, and their joining with "swamiji" was a symbolic rejection of their own culture, complementing their spontaneous spiritual adventurism; few had any idea of the radical transformation that their guru had in mind for them. But whatever starts out as a revitalization movement must become routine and institutional if it is to survive the excitement of the formative period, and this was no less the case for the Hare Krishna Movement.21 From devotee accounts, from the thorough biography of Bhaktivedanta Swami by one of his early disciples (Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami), and from the writings of Bhaktivedanta after his arrival in the United States, a picture emerges of the difficulties and conflicts to be confronted and resolved if the movement were to survive. Always in the background was a sense of urgency prompted by the tacit understanding that at any time the elderly founder 



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guru could leave the scene. Two cases in particular are revealing. One illustrates how the bureaucratization of ISKCON was initiated; the other provides insight into the institutional emphasis of vaidhi over raganuga bhakti. In the Indian context, the practice of bhakti is highly individualized, structured primarily by an intimate personal relationship between devotee and guru. Subsequently, standardization is minimal; each individual develops his own style of practice over time. As the number of Bhaktivedanta's Western disciples increased, however, he realized that the intimate style of devotee-guru interaction was impractical. Instead he decided to "be present" in his books and in the developing organization. As ISKCON grew, he eventually wearied of the demands of personally managing increasing assets and making every decision, no matter how trivial. This resulted in the formation of the "Governing Body Commission" (GBC) in 1970 and a decision to allow more disciples to become sannyasis, two critical steps toward generally decentralizing power in preparation for his inevitable demise. The first gave decision-making authority to a larger group; the second provided a mechanism for promoting "advanced" devotees to a higher status. The sannyasis in effect became a body of renounced teachers not bound to a single temple but charged with traveling throughout the ISKCON world to insure standard doctrines and practices. Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami (1982:79-116) details a series of events during the first half of 1970 that Bhaktivedanta perceived as a threat to ISKCON, culminating in these two decisions. As the guru and his disciples established the new Los Angeles temple, the plan was not only to develop the Los Angeles center as the movement's world headquarters but also to turn it into an ISKCON showplace, and Bhaktivedanta personally supervised the details. Furthermore, he stayed there and himself instructed devotees in the proprieties of ritual worship and spiritual practice, asking individuals from other centers to visit and observe the standard expected in every temple. As the center developed, however, Bhaktivedanta became angry over mistakes in ritual practice and a general laxness in the daily practices that he had prescribed, especially in the requirement of chanting daily sixteen "rounds" of the mantra (one round equals a completed rosary of 108 beads, the mantra said on each bead). He was displeased with the devotees' retention of details from his lectures and their apparent failure to read the books already published. But more than that, he was seriously troubled over incidents that indicated his disciples' misinterpretations and reinterpretations concerning his own status as guru. Seeing the need to take matters in hand before they got out of control, and before internal politics resulted in competition for power among the managers of various temples, he called a meeting of his senior disciples in order to legally institute the Governing Body Commission. By doing this he felt that it would free him from management and allow him to concentrate personally  



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on expanding the movement in India. On July 28, 1970, the GBC became a fact, composed of twelve members, each responsible for a different "zone" into which the world had been divided. They would make all decisions except the most major ones, and, after Bhaktivedanta's death, as a body, they would be the last word on matters of doctrine and practice. In effect, forming the GBC determined the organizational structure of ISKCON for the movement's future. This ecumenical body would share the power of the guru, institutionalizing Bhaktivedanta's unmistakably clear order that no one person should be appointed to a supreme position of power after his death. By forming the GBC, he assured decentralized power, standardized doctrine and ritual, and prevented anyone who maintained allegiance to ISKCON from practicing bhakti that deviated from specifications. Clear by this point was that the style of bhakti upon which Bhaktivedanta insistedand the style that ISKCON would institutionalizewas vaidhi, not raganuga. The GBC would have to insure that devotees understood it was their duty to observe the rules and regulations rather than attempt prematurely to imbibe the madhurya-rasa. Those scholars who have studied Rupa Goswami's works agree that he elevated the topic of madhurya-rasa to a supreme importance, and that ragsnuga bhakti of madhurya-rasa was the principle path leading to realization. Madburys also was a dominant theme for Bhaktivedanta during his early lectures, but, as ISKCON developed, it was definitely deemphasized in favor of the techniques of vaidhi bhakti. Initial support for this conclusion comes from Bhaktivedanta's book, Nectar of Devotion: The Complete Science of Bhakti Yoga (A Summary Study of Srila Rupa Gosvami's "Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu *"), first published in 1970. Although this work is structured according to Rupa's original text, the topic of vaidhi bhakti receives the most detailed treatment. The title itself is revealing because he uses the "nectar of devotion" rather than the precisely complete translation, ''the sea of the nectar of devotional emotion." Perhaps this was not an intentional omission of the word "emotion" (rasa), but several of his early disciples have indicated that this very well could be the case. More telling, however, is the scant treatment of madhurya in the book. Although passing references are made throughout, two chapters treat the subject directly: Chapter 33, "Conjugal Love," consists of only three pages; Chapter 44, "Devotional Service in Conjugal Love," contains five. In practically every chapter Bhaktivedanta admonishes the reader that this type of bhakti is very esoteric and achievable by only the most advanced devotees. Introducing the chapter on conjugal love, for example, he states:

 

Although such conjugal feelings are not at all material, there is some similarity between this spiritual love and material activities. Therefore, persons who are interested only in material activities are unable to understand this



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spiritual conjugal love, and these devotional reciprocations appear very mysterious to them. Rupa Gosvami therefore describes conjugal love very briefly. (Bhaktivedanta 1970: 360) Similarly in Chapter 34, "The Nectar of Devotion," the author writes: Such loving exchanges should never be considered to be material.... Actually the transactions of the spiritual world are inconceivable to us in our present state of life. Great liberated souls like Rupa Gosvami and others have tried to give some hints of transcendental activities in the spiritual world, but on the whole these transactions will remain inconceivable to us at the present moment. (Bhaktivedanta 1970: 286) Informants who were near Bhaktivedanta during the first five or six years also note a shift of emphasis in his lectures and writings· One female disciple still active in the movement explains: At first I think Prabhupad thought the disciples who came to him would be already advanced due to many past lifetimes of devotional service. But then he saw that we were not.... I think he had to reevaluate his opinion. Then he knew he had to emphasize the basics, drill us with the regulations, and if ISKCON was to survive, it had to be based on the fundamentals. It became considered a great offense to suggest we had any spontaneous love for Krishna. Another ISKCON devotee writes in response to my inquiry on the subject: Prabhupada... frequently warned against what he viewed as the deception of illicitly bypassing the basic rules of purification and putting on pretentious displays of madhurya-type sentiment while indulging in sex. It is genuine disgust for this sort of fakery (which apparently is quite widespread), coupled with his realization of the neophyte (and thus vulnerable) status of his western disciples, that led Prabhupada to strongly emphasize the basics. The point wasn't to confine his disciples to the lower rungs of the ladder of bhakti, but to carefully and systematically prepare them for a genuine and secure ascent. Sahajiyaism ...is the result both of impatience and of pride: an impatience with the usually gradual nature of spiritual progress (resulting in premature adoption of the external behavioral characteristics of advanced bhaktas), and the desire to be regarded and reverenced as a saint. 22 If there were any question among devotees concerning the path Bhaktivedanta wished them to pursue, it was unequivocably resolved in 1976. At the Los Angeles temple a group, known within ISKCON now as the "gopibhava clique," began meeting to specifically research Bhaktivedanta's teachings concerning madhurya-rasa. Bhaktivedanta became furious when he learned about the group's activities. As a result, he directed GBC representatives to send a letter to all temples in an effort to provide a conclusive statement regarding the matter. An excerpt of that letter is revealing:23  



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Srila Prabhupada was disturbed to find that a group of devotees in Iskcon were misreading his books, and making a special attempt to fix their minds on Krsna's confidential pastimes with the gopis, so that they can be elevated to the position of gopis after they quit their present bodies. This unauthorized hearing attempt greatly angered His Divine Grace..'.. So we feel it necessary, in order to please Srila Prabhupada, to make available some of Prabhupada's recent statements. Enclosed in the same letter were questions posed by devotees concerning the "sahajiya tendencies in ISKCON," with Bhaktivedanta's responses. His adamant position that ISKCON devotees were not ready to partricipate in the madhurya-rasa via raganuga bhakti had been exhibited before and would continue to be until his death in Brindaban the following year, but these answers left little room for interpretation: Q: The gopis are pleasing Krsna the most. A: Gopi is the highest stage, but you are on lowest, beginner, rascal stage, so how can you understand. Don't become monkeys, jumping over to the gopi's rasa lila. There are already enough monkeys in Vrindaban, we don't need any more. Q: If this is not to be discussed, why is it in the books, and why are we selling these books? A: Everything, all subjects, must be in the books. That is another thing. But different sections are meant for different stages .... You have introduced some new thing, studying so much about the gopis, without taking permission from your spiritual masterwhere is the evidence that you have come to the fool stage! Follow Lord Chaitanya's example firstdon't jump over like monkeys to rasa ilia. Do you think you're better than Lord Chaitanya?... Why did Vyasadeva place Krsna's confidential pastimes in the loth Canto [of Bhagavata Purana *]? You must approach Krsna by going through the first nine cantos, step by step. Q: To develop our ideal spiritual body in the next life, we should have a strong desire for thinking of the gopis. A: First there must be no lust or sex desire, otherwise you go to hell. To think of Krsna while lusting for sex is sahajiya life. This contamination comes from the babajis in Vrindaban. No devotee should wander around Vrindaban apart from our organized program. If this sahajiya nonsense continues, then all preaching will stop. Mystical Emotions in Interaction: The Brindaban Context When ISKCON devotees come to Brindaban on pilgrimage, they may try to heed Bhaktivedanta's advice, but to isolate themselves totally from encounters with the Indian population is impossible. Even if a visiting devotee  



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never left the Krishna-Balaram temple, he could not escape interaction, for thousands of Indian pilgrims visit there daily. And for the nucleus of devotees who live in and around the temple, some for as long as nine years, involvement in the community is considerable. As Shibutani has pointed out, "those who occupy the same habitat... sooner or later become involved in a common web of life" (1967: 572). All that I have said in the previous sections has been necessary to frame the interactions that I now consider. I hope at this point that both the similarities and contrasts between the Vaishnavas of Brindaban and the Vaishnavas of ISKCON arc dear. Brindaban residents see themselves as purer, or more advanced than their Western counterparts. They either perceive themselves as raganuga bhaktas, or more ethnocentrically, believe their human bodies arc identical with their spiritual bodies (siddha-deha), making them transcendental lovers of Krishna by birth. They are always "in the bhava," in a constant state of the mystical emotional rapture of madhura-rasa. Although ISKCON devotees will admit that this is possible, especially in Brindaban, they see the vast majority as not true bhaktas at all. Rather, they evaluate many Brindaban residents as poseurs who present themselves as advanced devotees without the credentials to do so. Furthermore, they interpret, as the most perverted, those whose claim to the madhurya-rasa rests in a sexually oriented ritual practicejustified as an enactment of Krishna's erotic behavior with the cowherd girls. These, of coursc, are the sahajiyas, and they represent a threat to all sincere, orthodox bhaktas. The path of vaidhi bhakti is visible in the public behavior of all ISKCON members in Brindaban. Wherever the devotees go, their right hand is constantly fingering beads, and their mantra is constantly being uttered. They initiate and conclude encounters with exclamations of "Hare Krishna" rather than "Radhe Shyam" (Radhe Syama) as the local residents and pilgrims do. Although Brindaban is the place of Radha, they generally avoid mention of her name in greeting. Shouts of "Radhe Radhe" (Radhe Radhe) go on all around them, but few will join in lest they be seen as violating their organization's ritual policy. The ISKCON temple itself symbolizes this contrast with its central deities of Krishna and his brother Balaram instead of Radha and Krishna whose images occupy a side altar. This is not the case in most ISKCON temples, for they too are usually Radha-Krishna temples. But as if to say that madhura-rasa is too dangerous in Brindaban, Bhaktivedanta deemphasized Radha in the movement's ritual worship there. In the majority of Brindaban's indigenous temples Radha and Krishna are central; worship of Krishna without Radha is unthinkable. For ISKCON, worship of Krishna in a manner not prescribed by Bhaktivedanta Swami is unthinkable. Such symbolic contrasts lead some Brindaban residents to conclude that  



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the Western devotees are of a different "type," and in these ways they are. Yet each side is justified and sanctioned by different aspects of the same tradition. Through the practical activities that occur in the everyday life of Brindaban, these differences are confronted, the vocabulary of mystical emotion is used, meanings are altered, and new levels of understanding concerning each side's interpretation and legitimacy are achieved. In short, interaction implies change. Denzin (1984:54, 58) writes that "emotionality is a circular process that begins and ends with the transactions and actions of the self in the social situation interacting with self and others." Although Denzin is not speaking of mystical emotions, his analysis still applies; the perception and evaluation of any emotion is ultimately the result of an individual's self-reflection. Whether or not the object of stimulation is real or imagined, human or divine, the emotional experience is similar. Although social interaction in any context has the power to transform, Brindaban especially is a place where norms of social structure and established meanings of symbols and objects are open to change. It is a place existing outside or between the usual states of time and space, a place that is indeed "liminal," to use Victor Turner's term (1974:166). Brindaban is not just a sacred place; for Brndabanbasis, pilgrims, and Hare Krishna devotees alike, it is a celestial place. Even by more mundane criteria, Brindaban must be seen as a place apart from other social arenas. Here the egalitarian ideals of bhakti religion predominate, assigning a person's status more by his or her level of devotion than by social position. As a place of pilgrimage, it exhibits a spirit of "communitas" wherein a "direct, immediate, and total confrontation of human identities tends to make those experiencing it think of mankind as a homogenous, unstructured free community" (Turner 1974:169). And Brindaban hosts a large population of sadbus (mendicant ascetics, holy men), individuals who have accepted the renounced order of life, sannyasa. Divested of all social restrictions, they are free to pursue their personal goals of spiritual perfection, no matter how idiosyncratic, without concern for norms of the dominant society. These attributes combine to create an environment with great transformative potential for the daily encounters between Western and Indian devotees. Here exists a cross-cultural "conjuncture," to use Sahlins's (1982) term, which can also be informative concerning the dynamics of social life in general. Sahlins comments that at such conjunctures

 

the relationships generated in practical action, although motivated by the traditional self-conceptions of the actors, may in fact functionally revalue those conceptions.... Entailing unprecedented relations between acting subjects, mutually and by relation to objects, practice entails unprecedented objectification of categories. (Sahlins 1982:35)



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Only individual inclination and imagination limit the types of bhakti practiced in Brindaban. One sadhu Keeps his image of the infant Krishna (Gopala), in a birdlike cage so that he will not crawl away and get into trouble. A teacher worships a similar image with parental affection (vatsalyarasa) by bathing and powdering her image before she gently rocks him to sleep with a lullaby. The emotions of friendship (sakya-rasa) are cultivated by a cloth merchant who imagines both he and Krishna are cowherd boys, and he sometimes accompanies his image into the fields to find fresh pasture for their cows. But the emotions associated with intimate, conjugal love (madhurya-rasa) predominate. In one temple a young priest confided that his guru was teaching him the most esoteric practice, and he reluctantly showed me the sari he would sometimes wear in order to more fully experience the love that Radha has for Krishna. Another ascetic residing along the banks of the Jamuna River rarely speaks, but when he does it is with a gentle feminine voice, the result some say of his constantly imagining himself as a gopi sporting with her lover, Krishna. These practices, though not necessarily prescribed by sectarian traditions, are part of Brindaban's everyday reality. This reality confronts devotees of ISKCON full force as they venture into the social world there; their only alternative is to retreat behind Krishna-Balaram's high walls, a choice that few make. The three following examples illustrate how their confronting this reality ultimately leads to its transformation. In these situations of interaction focusing upon mystical emotion, both Indian and foreign actors alter their conceptions of each other, and in the process they create a new reality that includes ISKCON as a significant clement in Brindaban. Ratin, a British devotee, has lived in Brindaban for nine years. During 1982 he was revising a manuscript about the sacred sites of Brindaban which he hoped to publish. Some local residents even considered him an authority on the indigenous dance-dramas about Krishna, rasa-lila; 24 he knew when and where the most obscure troops would perform and was often a guest in homes of some of their leaders (rasadhari). Ratin had documented the best known pilgrimage locations, and he was now searching for lesser-known places by spending time with some of the town's sadhus. Throughout his research he strictly followed the rules and regulations prescribed by ISKCON and would regularly participate in the ritual at Krishna-Balaram temple. Other devotees, however, considered some of his activities "unauthorized" and suggested that he was putting himself in spiritual danger. One hot afternoon Ratin invited me to accompany him and a sadhu he had met to a site called Radharani, and it required a trek of four kilometers across the river in the blazing sun. As we walked, the sadhu explained that the significance of Radharani was in its transformative power. The place was a deep pond surrounded by desert, and many varieties of waterfowl came there  



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from the nearby Bharatpur bird sanctuary. There we would also find, the sadhu informed us, other renunciates who would welcome us. ''They arc there for one special reason," he said. "A bath in the Radharani pond [kunda *] will give you the body of a gopi so you can love Krishna like Radha. Even Lord Shiva came here so he could take part in rasa-lila [Krishna's circle dance with the goals]."25 At this point Ratin stopped and announced that he could not go through with the visit to Radharani, feeling that he was in danger of violating ISKCON doctrine. As he put it, his "delicate creeper of bhakti would be wilted by the fire of unauthorized madhurya-rasa." The sadh, insisted, nevertheless, that Ratin must go. It was a holy place and very good one for chanting (japa), even if Ratin did not desire the body of a gopi, and our guide said that he would be personally offended if we turned back now. "Babaji, you arc a devotee of Krishna and I cannot commit an offense toward you, so let's continue," was Ratin's reply. Arriving at Radharani wc found an oasis. Palm trees surrounded the large, cool pond, and giant cranes walked lazily about. Naked sadbus stood neck deep in the dark green water, motionless, oblivious to our arrival. Our guide also walked immediately into the water, but Ratin sat down upon the steps leading into the pond and refused to enter. "What is this?" the ascetic yelled. "You are afraid of seeing Krishna? You are a devotee and will not see Krishna?" For half an hour the taunting continued until Ratin finally relented but only to please the sadhu. After an hour of listening to the legends about Radharani and songs the mendicant sang about its wonders, we returned to Brindaban as the sun was beginning to set and the temple bells beckoned the faithful to evening worship. The next day I met Ratin with a group of ISKCON devotees, headed again for Radharani. Later he told me that he had been overcome with mystical emotion there, and he would not deny the experience. "I cannot tell many people about this or I will be ostracized," he explained, "but I cannot feel threatened by this babaji; I cannot see him as dangerous. I had a true experience of madhurya-rasa at Radharani, and this can only help my practice. I can't be obsessed with paranoia about these sacred places around here. I have to take advantage while I have the chance." The sadhu also experienced a change in attitude about ISKCON: "When the videsi [foreigner] comes with me it is a good thing. Before I thought these videsis were all bad, but not now. Ratin had the hardest heart and Radha has softened it. So she can soften all videsi hearts. Ratin is now a Brajbasi because he can feel. Now I know they are not all bad." It may not be surprising for a sadhu to accept the legitimacy of an individual from ISKCON because he himself makes a statement concerning the importance of his own individuality by virtue of the life he has chosen. A more striking example, however, is the case of a Loi Bazaar merchant, a  



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dealer in general goods who dramatically altered his opinion of ISKCON. This merchant initially told me that foreigners could never become devotees because they felt no rasa: "Only Indians can be bhaktas. ISKCON people are just salesmen. They come to sell cameras and videos to us poor people, and then they buy cloth and silver here and there. It is the decline of Brindaban. They should all go back." 26 Perhaps these comments reflected to some degree the merchant's anger over his not sharing in the profits from ISKCON's presence in Brindaban, and others had obviously become wealthy because of it. A year later, however, this same merchant displayed in his shop photographs of the Krishna-Balaram deities, Bhaktivedanta Swami, and Kirtanananda Swami, one of the present ISKCON gurus who comes to Brindaban regularly; the merchant's attitude had apparently changed. I asked the merchant why he displayed these pictures if he felt ISKCON signaled dark days for Brindaban, as he had said previously. He replied, "No, no, they arc gopis." Sensing my astonishment, he called me into the shop to discuss his change of mind, or rather, as he put it, his change of heart. Several months before, by the force of karma, he suggested, a new devotee family had moved into town, and they were buying all their supplies from him. Soon other devotees began to patronize his store, improving his financial situation dramatically. "They buy big things: stoves, lanterns, pots, so many things. And every day they come for soap and biscuits." The merchant insisted that his new appreciation for ISKCON was not simply economic. Through a series of encounters, he had begun to notice the sincerity and perseverance of his new ISKCON patrons, especially their perpetual chanting. Moreover, he was impressed with their dedication to Bhaktivedanta, whom he had known slightly as a "sadhu baba" years before his success in the West. "Prabhupad was a mahatma [great soul], but I felt his disciples were just hippy fools. Now my friends [the devotees] worship him and the new guru Bhaktipad [Kirtanananda]." The merchant continued to explain that his own guru, an old man whom had not seen for many years, was also a mahatma. As his attitude toward the devotees began to change, he learned that Kirtanananda was coming to Brindaban, and a meeting was arranged. Kirtanananda finally arrived and spent one full day in a cloth shop across from the merchant's general store, purchasing a year's supply of cloth to outfit the entire population of New Brindaban, ISKCON's West Virginia farm community which he heads. The merchant explained:

 

He spent lakhs (one lakh equals one hundred thousand) of rupees just sitting there, and all the time he spoke only of Krishna. Then he came to my store and told me that my friends were his disciples, and that they gave him a good report about me. He made some small purchases and then asked me about Krishna, and I told him my guru also had instructed me since I was a small boy, and that always I think of Radha. He told me that was very good, but sometimes I should also chant Hare Ram, Hare Krishna. Then he gave me a tulasi mala



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[rosary made from wood of the sacred basil plant], a very old one from Radhakund. Since he was very nice to me, I started to think about my guru who is in Kosi now, and I started to feel that this ISKCON guru has love for Krishna like a Brajbasi. He was so soft in his heart, and then I thought about seeing my own gum maharaja [great king]. My guruji read my thoughts about ISKGON people being demons [asura], and told me this was not good. He told me they are not demons; they are gopis reborn as videsis which is why they always chant "Krishna, Krishna." Now I have some dreams also that these people are really gopis. So of coure they must stay. ISKCON devotees are not just Brajbasis, they are gopis. An ascetic holy man who discovered that foreign devotees were capable of experiencing mystical emotions and a merchant who changed his opinion of them from materialistic "demons" to reincarnated gopis represent two examples of attitude transformations by Indian residents toward ISKCON members. On the ISKGON side, Ratin demonstrates a trend of lessening antagonism toward the local population, especially the ascetics who are often stereotyped as sahajiya. Both cases show that group boundaries created by differences in interpretation of similar dogma are weakening, leading to a greater potential for further incorporation of ISKCON into the town's sociocultural system. Another change in ISKCON's attitude is shown by the devotees' willingness to seek information concerning details of ritual from local temple priests. A particularly revealing case involves a priest from the temple of RadhaVallabha (Radha-vallabha) whose theology emphasizes the worship of Radha. 27 This priest, recognized as one of his sect's "experts," had always considered the ISKCON phenomenon as part of Krishna's plan and had been anxious to help when some devotees began to inquire from him about details of deity ' worship. Although ISKCON devotees considered the deity worship at Radha-Vallabha to be of a high standard and were prompted to seek information from the priests there for that reason, they still felt that the sect's emphasis of Radha over Krishna was dangerous and unauthorized, and therefore devotees were warned to avoid being influenced by the priests. One ISKCON temple priest in charge of deity worship (pujari) explained that he now considered the movement's official attitude toward Brindaban priests to be unwarranted; instead of viewing them with disgust, they should be treated with respect, and he cited a personal example:

 

I used to think Jai Goswami represented everything dangerous about service in Brindaban. He would talk about himself as gopi and would tell me about the secret meetings he planned with Krishna where Krishna wouldn't show, and how he would hurt so badly about being stood up by Krishna. I thought he was really crazy, but sometimes as he talked about missing Krishna, tears would pour down his face and he couldn't talk, and I would find myself choking up too.



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I watched gosvamiji in the temple also and saw his affection for thakurji * (deity's image), and the painstaking, loving care he would give to him. I eventually began to see this man is really a saint, not someone to avoid, but someone to desire the association of.... He never tried to make me change, but just showed me how to feel the rasa by his own example. He would tell me to keep doing my own sadhana faithfully because it would lead me directly to the ocean of Krishna's love, and he would always glorify Prabhupad for his success and praise him for making us such good devotees. Maybe Jai Goswami is not typical, but he shows me that ISKCON must take the Braibasis one by one, not just say they are all dangerous, and be arrogant and aloof with the other people of Braj. We must mature in the way we treat people outside the movement, and especially in Brindaban cooperate with the Brajbasis to form a solid foundation for the future of Krishna Consciousness in the world. Conclusion In this chapter I have discussed the ideals of Krishna-bhakti as they relate to the individual's experience and expression of mystical emotions; and as they are embodied in the dual paths of Krishna devotionalism, represented by the practices of vaidhi bhakti on the one hand and raganuga bhakti on the other. Although these two complementary components of the same religious system idealize the achievement of mystical emotional states, they have practically functioned as divisive ideologies between ISKCON and Indian devotees of Krishna in Brindaban. Neither side fully embodies the emotional ideals as explicated in the religion's texts. Brndabanbasis claim a natural inheritance of spontaneous love for Krishna, and ISKCON officially does not admit to a range of possibilities outside the boundaries of Bhaktivedanta's instructions, which are extensive but by no means exhaustive. However, in actual situations of interaction between devotees from both groups, an approbation is being achieved through the processes of conflict resolution and meaning negotiation that occur in the practical enactment of their cultural ideals; a new cultural reality, particularly in the domain of mystical emotions, is being constructed. Social boundaries, no matter how inflexibly conceived, are never impenetrable. The traditional Indian concerns for status by birth and for an individual's inherent state of purity or pollution, although not absent in Brindaban, are considerably deemphasized. The Vaishnava ideal that a person's status should be determined not by birth, but by qualifications as evidenced in daily behavior, is being approached more closely due to the dynamics of interaction between the Western and Indian residents there. In these situations changes in meaning and attitude are accomplished, affecting the entire range of social and cultural forms; at the same time the cultural importance of emotional experience is reaffirmed. As ISKCON continues its tenure in Brindaban, and as both Indian and  



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Western actors learn more about themselves and each other through interaction, conflicts continue to be resolved, subtle differences in interpretation of doctrine are deemphasized, and the social ideal of equality based upon love for Krishna, regardless of how it is achieved, becomes more and more the norm. For many residents of Brindaban, the phenomenon of ISKCON confirms a belief that their culture offers a solution to problems confronting modern man. The baba quoted at the beginning of this essay may again serve as their spokesman: All men can experience rasa. Intimate love for Godhead is the secret for peacepersonal peace, world peace. It is the message all poets and saints of Brindaban have given through the ages. This is the message of our culture which must be preserved, then sent out to all places: Everyone can experience the rasa and it automatically brings peace. ISKCON is helping with this message. In their society even former hippies find peace. This should give us all some hope. Notes to Chapter Ten 1. The Bhagavata Mahatmya is found in the Uttara Khand of the Padma Purana * and is also included in some Indian editions of the Bhagavata Purana*. A glorification of the Bhagavata Purana*, it is generally regarded as being later in date than the Padma Purana* itself, representing an addendum by Vaishnava commentators. It is probably a fifteenth-century work (Gelberg 1983:212). 2. From a conversation with Sripad Baba in Brindaban, February 22, 1982 (direct quotation in English). Baba (baba) and sadhu (sadhu) are terms used in Brindaban to refer to mendicant ascetic holy men. 3. Dimock (1966: 165) comments on the word dhama: In Vaisnava* thought, Krsna's* surroundings, both objects and persons, are considered extensions of Krsna's* self, and are collectively called Krsna's* dhaman. The dhaman, then, makes a simultaneous appearance on the earth with Krsna*; like him, it participates simultaneously in both phenomenal and non-phenomenal worlds. The earthly Vrndavana*, the Vrndavana* described in the Bhagavata, is identical with the heavenly Vrndavana*. 4. This interpretation of Brindaban is held especially by the Bengal Vaishnavas, followers of the medieval saint Chaitanya, although it is also shared by many Brindaban residents and pilgrims regardless of sect. The word Brai (Vraja) refers to the cultural and linguistic area generally associated with Krishna that includes Mathura, the place of Krishna's earthly ''birth," and other sites of his youth such as Gokul and Govardhan. Brindaban, however, is often cited as the center of Braj because the most esoteric of Krishna's sports, the circle dance with the cowherd girls, rasa-lila, occurred there. In popular speech and religious thought, Brindaban and Braj are practically synonymous, Brindaban representing the "essence" of Braj, that is, the place where the circle dance, an event that is eternally transpiring in the spiritual Brindaban, took place. See Hardy (1983) for an analysis of the development of Krishna-bhakti, including the evolution of Brindaban's theological importance.  



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5. The word videsam does not necessarily indicate another country but can refer to other places within India. According to Rama Nath Sharma, Sanskritist and Panini scholar at the University of Hawaii, however, the interpretation given here by the ascetic is a common Indian interpretation and logical for the context in which it occurs. 6. Vaishnavas ( Vaisnava *) are worshipers of Vishnu (Visnu*). Krishna is considered an incarnation of Vishnu by the general Hindu population; therefore, his devotees are also Vaishnavas. For the Bengal Vaishnavas, Krishna is the supreme God, and Vishnu is an expansion of Krishna. Sampradaya means sect or tradition. 7. Bhaktivedanta was initiated by Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, founder of the Bengal Vaishnava monastic institution, Gaudiy a math (Gauriya* matha), in November 1932 (Satsvarupa Goswami 1980:297). 8. "New religious movements" is a sociological term used to describe religious phenomena that do not easily fit into traditional categories such as sect, cult, or church. Wilson (1982:17-20) has suggested that although the religions they incorporate may not actually be new, they emerge in a social context where other religious traditions already exist. He suggests that they generally fulfill the following requirements: They offer "a surer, shorter, swifter, or clearer way to salvation"; conduct an "implicit assault on spiritual elifism"; are available to a wider public than traditional paths of salvation; offer techniques that are accessible to the average man; facilitate spiritual mobility; and are therapeutic and generally life enhancing for the ordinary individual. 9. As early as 1957, Bhaktivedanta Swami had formulated the idea that if Americans and other Westerners accepted the ideas of "Vedic" culture, there would be a subsequent revitalization in India because Indians were highly motivated to emulate the West. He reasoned that if he could travel to the West and then return with devoted converts, this would initiate a revival of spiritual culture in India (see Satsvarupa Goswami 1980:212, 1983:121). 10. In most Brindaban temples the main deities are of Krishna and his divine consort Radha, but the central images in the ISKCON temple are Krishna and his brother Balaram. According to Satsvarupa Goswami, Bhaktivedanta chose these images for four reason: (1) because in most Brindaban temples Radha and Krishna were the primary images, ISKCON's temple would be unique; (2) the ISKCON land was located in an area called Raman-reti, which Bhakivedanta said was where Krishna and Balaram had played together as children; (3) the Chaitanyaites consider Balaram to be the first expansion of Krishna, Sankarsana*, who upholds all the universes, and Vaishnavas should therefore worship Balaram for spiritual strength; (4) Chaitanya is considered to be Krishna Himself, and Chaitanya's associate Nityananda is seen as an incarnation of Balaram, a fact that the "Krsna-Balarama* temple would proclaim to the world" (Satsvarupa Goswami 1983:178-179). The Krishna-Balaram deities, therefore, are worshiped on the central altar. To their right are the images of Chaitanya and Nityananda, and on their left stand the more familiar forms of Radha and Krishna. 11. During my fieldwork in Brindaban, there were 101 ISKCON devotees living in Brindaban: 39 adult members lived at the temple house, 45 students were enrolled in the ISKCON-run school (gurukula), and 18 devotees lived at other places in town.  



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12. The term "sacred complex" as originally used by Vidyarthi (1978), refers to an interrelated set of objects that together compose a sacred space, in India usually a place of pilgrimage. The sacred complex includes sacred objects and their physical locations, the performances that take place at these locations, and the people who participate in these performances. My survey data from Brindaban indicate that 98 percent of all one-day pilgrims visit the Krishna-Balaram temple. For pilgrims that stay two days or more, 94 percent visit the ISKCON complex. 13. Direct informant quotations in English. 14. See De (1961, 1963); Kane (1971); Gerow (1977); Kapoor (1977); Shrivatsa Goswami (1982) for a more complete discussion of mystical emotions in Bengal Vaishnava theology. 15. More than being an incarnation of Krishna alone, Chaitanya is accepted as the dual incarnation of both Krishna and Radha, his consort and energy of supreme pleasure (hladini-sakti). This perception of Chaitanya is usually traced by scholars to the Caitanya-caritamrta * of Krishnadas Kaviraj (De 1961:52) who wrote slightly later than the original Goswamis. Though this may be the first textual reference to Chaitanya's duality, Dimock explains that the idea existed even during Chaitanya's lifetime, and that Krishnadas in all likelihood received it from his teachers, the Goswamis (Dimock 1966:32, 150). 16. .Chaitanya is credited with writing only eight verses, called Siksastaka*, and these can be found in Krishnadas's Caitanya-caritamrta* and in Rupa Goswami's Padavali (De 1961:113). 17. The "Six Goswamis" of Brindaban were intimate disciples of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who were sent there by him to establish the new sect's headquarters, develop the location as a pilgrimage center, and codify the religion's theology, philosophy, and ritual. By name they are: Rupa, Sanatan, Jiva, Raghunath Das, Raghunath Bhatt, and Gopal Bhatt. Goswami (gosvami) is interpreted to mean one who is master of his senses. The term also is a title taken by the priestly lineages of Brindaban who trace their ancestry back to the sixteenth-century founders of the town and whose duty it is to tend the temples there. 18. Chaitanya taught that this chant was especially beneficial for the present epoch (Kali-yuga), and chanting this mantra forms the core practice for devotees of ISKCON. Its thirty-two syllables are: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare; Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. 19. He wore a waistcloth, rather than a dhoti as ISKCON members do. The dhoti is a long cloth wrapped around the waist and drawn between the legs, forming a loose pantlike garment. 20. Indian scriptures are called sastra. The specific texts included in the sastra category vary from sect to sect, but Dimock points out that for the Bengal Vaishnavas "the term shastra means the Bhagavata-purana*" (Dimock 1966:183). Vaidhi bhakti is ritual activity based on scriptural injunction. 21. According to Anthony Wallace (1956:265), a revitalization movement is any "deliberate, organized, conscious effort by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture." Taking his cue from general stress theory, Wallace suggests the period of revitalization, in which the movement emerges, is preceded by phases of individual stress and cultural distortion; these upset the system's homeostasis, or  



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steady-state. The paradox is that if a revitalization movement is to be successful, it must eventually reach a steady-state condition itself, thereby setting up the conditions where the cycle may be repeated. 22. Letter from Shubananda Das, September 4, 1985. Parentheses appear in the text. 23. Letter to all ISKCON temples from Hridayananda Dasa Gosvami and Ramesvara Dasa Swami, both GBC representatives, dated June 17, 1976. 24. See Hein (1972) and Hawley (1981) for descriptions of the rasa lila (rasa-lila) dramatic form. 25. Quotations of sadhu translated from a combination of Hindi and English. 26. Quotations of merchant translated from a combination of Hindi and English. 27. The Radha-Vallabha sect was founded by Hit Harivamsha (Hits Harivamsa *) who based its theology on the primary importance of Radha. Although in ritual and spiritual practice Krishna becomes secondary, the RadhaVallabha temple's main image is Krishna. There is no anthropomorphic image of Radha, but rather a silver tablet with her name inscribed upon it is placed beside the Krishna image. References Gited Bhaktivedanta, A. C. 1968 Teachings of Lord Chaitanya. New York: ISKCON. 1970 The Nectar of Devotion: The Complete Science of Bhakti Yoga. New York: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. Brooks, Charles R. 1985 A Unique Conjuncture: The Incorporation of ISKCON in Vrindaban. Paper presented at Conference on Krishna Consciousness in the West: A Multidisciplinary Critique. Moundsville, West Virginia, July 23-25, 1985. De, S. K. 1961 Early History of the Vaishnava Faith and Movement in Beogal. Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay. 1963 Sanskrit Poetics as a Study of Aesthetic. Berkeley: University of California Press. Denzin, Norman K. 1984 On Understanding Emotion. San Francisco: Josey-Bass. Dimock, Edward C. 1966 The Place of the Hidden Moon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gelberg, Steven J., ed. 1983 Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna. New York: Grove Press. Gerow, Edwin 1977 Indian Poetics. A History of Indian Literature Series, Volume 5. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. Goswami, Satsvarupa Dasa 1980 A Lifetime in Preparation. Srila Prabhupad-lilamrta*, Volume 1. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.

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1982 In Every Town and Village. Srila Prabhupad-lilamrta*, Volume 4. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.



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1983 Uniting Two Worlds. Srila Prabhupad-lilamrta *, Volume 6. Los Angeles: Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. Goswami, Shrivatsa 1982 Radha: The Play and Perfection of Rasa. In The Divine Consort: Radha and the Goddesses of India. John Stratton Hawley and Donna Marie Wulff, eds. Pp. 72-88. Berkeley: Berkeley Religious Studies Series. Hardy, Friedhelm 1983 Viraha Bhakti: The Early History of Krsna* Devotion in South India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Hawley, John Stratton 1981 At Play with Krishna: Pilgrimage Drama from Brindavan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Hein, Norvin 1972 The Miracle Plays of Mathura. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kane, P. V. 1971 History of Sanskrit Poetics. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Kapoor, O. B. L. 1977 The Philosophy and Religion of Sri Caitanya. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Kinsley, David R. 1979 The Divine Player: A Study of Krsna* Lila. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Sahlins, Marshall David 1982 Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early History of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Shibutani, Tamotsu 1965 Ethnic Stratification: A Comparative Approach. London: Macmillan. Turner, Victor 1974 Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Vidyarthi, L. P. 1978 The Sacred Complex in Hindu Gaya. Delhi: Concept Publishing Co. Wallace, A. F. C. 1956 Revitalization Movements. American Anthropologist 58:264-281. Wilson, Bryan R.

 

1982 The New Religions: Some Preliminary Considerations. In New Religious Movements: A Perspective for Understanding Society. Eileen Barker, ed. Pp. 16-31. New York: Edwin Mellen Press.

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CONTRIBUTORS Peter Bennett (Ph.D., 1983, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) is a governor in H. M. Prison Service. His doctoral research focused on temple organization and worship in the Pushti Marg sect in Ujjain, India. He has published a number of articles on aspects of sectarian worship in India. His current research is on Indian devotional traditions. Charles R. Brooks (Ph.D., 1986, University of Hawaii) is anthropological research associate at Memorial SloanKettering Cancer Center in New York City and adjunct assistant professor at New York University and John Jay College. He is the author of The Hart Krishnas in India (Princeton University Press) and numerous articles on Hare Krishnas in India and cross-cultural interactions. His current research is on sociological aspects of AIDS. Verne A. Dusenbery (Ph.D., 1989, University of Chicago) is assistant professor of anthropology at Carleton College. He is the author of several articles on Sikhs in North America and is coeditor of The Sikh Diaspora (Chanakya Publications). His current research includes a comparative ethnosociology and ethnopsychology of the Sikh person. Pauline Kolenda (Ph.D., 1955, Cornell University) is professor of anthropology at the University of Houston. She is the author of Caste in Contemporary India (Waveland Press), Caste, Cult and Hierarchy (Manohar Publications), Regional Differences in Family Structure in India (Rawat Publishers), and coeditor of Studies of South India: An Anthology of Recent Restarch and Scholarship (A.I.I.S. and New Era Publications). Currently she is analyzing a large-scale marriage network of South India. Frédérique Apffel Marglin (Ph.D., 1980, Brandeis University) is associate professor of anthropology at Smith College. She is the author of Wives of the God-King: The Rituals of the Devadasis of Puri (Oxford University Press), coedi 



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tor of Purity and Auspiciousness in Indian Society (Brill), and coeditor of Knowledge and Power in Development (Clarendon), as well as author of many articles on women, kingship, and healing cults in India. Her current research is on menstruation in the West and India. Owen M. Lynch (Ph.D., 1966, Columbia University) is Charles F. Noyes Professor of Anthropology at New York University. He is author of The Politics of Untouchability (Columbia University Press) and editor of Culture and Community in Europe (Hindustan Press), as well as author of numerous articles on untouchability, urbanism, and pilgrimage in India. His current research is on emotion and sectarian organization in India. Paul Toomey (Ph.D., 1984, University of Virginia) is a research analyst for the U.S. government. He has taught at Cornell and Tufts universities and at the University of Virginia. He is the author of the forthcoming Food from the Mouth of Krishna (Hindustan) as well as of several articles on pilgrimage, women's rituals, and aesthetics in India. Margaret Trawick (Ph.D., 1978, University of Chicago) is assistant professor of anthropology at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. She is the author of the forthcoming Notes on Love in a Tamil Family (University of California Press, 1990) and of numerous articles on Tamil poetry, spirit possession, and Ayurvedic medicine. Sylvia Vatuk (Ph.D., 1970, Harvard University) is professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author of Kinship and Urbanization: White Collar Migrants in North India (University of California Press) and editor of American Studies in the Anthropology of India (Manohar Publications). She is also author of numerous articles on Indian kinship and family, aging and the elderly, and gender roles. Currently she is engaged in a study of family history among South Indian Muslims.  



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GLOSSARY This glossary is a selection of the most important and frequently used words in the book. The glosses of Indian words cover only those meanings used in the essays. acai desire, love as desire adakkam * containment, control of self and others, having something to hold on to, reciprocal of adimai* adanku* to be contained adhin subject, under the authority of, subservient, dependent, subordinate, submissive, obedient; to submit to, to obey, to be humble adimai* servitude, state of being controlled by another, being bound, having nothing of one's own akhara* wrestling hall, gym, congregation or abode of ascetics alaukika unworldly, divine amma mother amrt* pahul ceremony incorporating one into Sikh Khalsa Panth ananda joy, divine bliss Annakuta* Mountain (kuta*) of Food (anna) Festival annan* elder brother anni* eider brother's wife anpu love, lustful infatuation, generosity of spirit, clinging possessiveness aram comfort, ease, contentment ardas petition (lit.) communal prayers including remembrance of Sikh martyrs arukku* dirtiness asrama classical stage of life, monastic dwelling  



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asrit resorting to, dependent on; one who has recourse to or relies on another, dependent, follower, subject, servant, retainer, hanger-on, parasite atma soul, self avatara incarnation of diety bacpan childhood bagica garden bahu daughter-in-law ban forest bahanoi sister's husband barat all male marriage party of groom basti colony, village caste chapter benga * patia three-stranded silver belt, fertility hip belt worn by yaksi* bhabhi elder brother's wife bhajana prayer, hymn, chant bhakta devotee bhakti devotion, worship, love of God bhaktirasa devotional or spiritual sentiment (rasa) as opposed to purely aesthetic sentiment (rasa) bhamg* marijuana bhava emotion, sentiment, thought bhavana imaginative thoughts, feelings stimulated by something; emotion, thought bhavaj brother's wife bhoga food offered to divinity, meal, pleasure, sexual passion bhojana food, meal brahmacari* stage of life of celibate student, celibate way of life Brajbasi inhabitant of land of Braj burhappa old age caca father's younger brother caci father's younger brother's wife cakacak bhamg* to have a heavy dose of marljuana, to have a close relationship with cala second marriage rite when cohabitation may begin caupal men's sitting platform file:///C|/Social%20Construction%20of%20Emotions%20in%20India/files/page_290.html[21.03.2011 19:02:55]

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dadi father's mother dana-daksina* gift, religious donation to a priest for his services dana gift, offering  



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darsana act of observing the deity and of being seen by him dasya bhava emotion of humility, obedience of a servant to master devadasi female temple dancer devar husband's younger brother devrani husband's younger brother's wife dhan wealth dharma religion, faith, observation of one's duties in life, moral duty gali insult, abuse ganda majak dirty joke ghar jamai in-married son-in-law ghumghat * covering face and head with end of sari by a woman gopa male cowherd, friend of Krishna gopi female cowherd, milkmaid companion of Krishna gora white, white man gosvami preceptor granthi one who reads from and cares for Guru Granth Sahib guna* basic attribute or quality of all things in reality hamsi* majak funny joke hamsi* makhaul joke (laugh-joke, lit.), clean joke, ridicule in fun hath pair hands and feet inpam sweetness, sexual pleasure izzat honor jati endogamous set of caste chapters in a set of villages, a caste javani youth, young adulthood jeth* husband's elder brother jethani* husband's elder brother's wife jija sister's husband kalattal mixture kangal* destitute, penniless, poor kappu binding

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karma fate, destiny, results of deeds in past life determining this life karua* bitter, astringent kasrat physical exercise kayda rule of etiquette manifesting deference  



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khandan minimal patrilineage kodumai * cruelty, harshness kulin refined, noble, educated laukika worldly lila divine play or sport ma mother madhurya bhava erotic love, sweet emotion; see srngara* bhava mahari temple dancers and singers maithuna sexual union mama mother's brother man mind, heart, intellect, soul, disposition, purpose, desire manacadci* conscience marga path, way mast overjoyed, careless, happy, proud, intoxicated, drunk, wanton, lusty masti carefreeness, lust, intoxication, passion, joi de vivre mastram one who is mast mayakkam confusion mitha* sweet mukharavind lotus mouth nalaik good for nothing nam we, including you nanand husband's sister nandoi husband's sister's husband nidhi place for deposits or storing up, receptacle, hoard, treasure nirbhar resting upon, reliance, dependence, trust niti wise conduct of life, harmonious development of human powers pacam attachment, love as a bond panda* priest, pilgrimage priest parakiya lover married to another, pertaining to a woman not one's own pareakkam* habit, habituation, case or grace of an action

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paresan distress, anxiety pattu* devotion pittisera husband's father's younger brother's wife porfdumai* patience  



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prasada food left over from deity's meal and distributed to devotees prema love, divine love, other-serving love premabhava feelings of love puja Hindu worship pusti * grace, nourishing grace pyara affection, love raga musical mode, melody, emotion raganuga bhakti spontaneous emotional experience of Krishna raja female sexual fluid, menstrual blood, dust, dirt rajaguru king's preceptor and overseer of temple rituals rajas passion, energy, forcefulness, wrath, anger rasa juice, extract, flavor, quintessence, sentiment, transcendental emotion rasa lila circle dance of Krishna with milkmaids rasarupa embodiment of rasa rasika experiencer of rasa, aesthete, connoisseur, gourmet sadhana spiritual practice or exercise, means sadhu mendicant, ascetic, holyman sadi first marriage rite (see cala) sahajiya member of heterodox Chaitanyaite sect sakhya bhava friendship between friends, feeling of companionship Sakta Tantric sect worshiping the goddess Sakti sakti female life force, power, energy, life-giving power of the cosmos Sakti personification of sakti as a goddess sala bride's brother, an insulting word salhaj wife's brother's wife sali bride's sister samdhan mother of son's wife or daughter's husband samdhi father of son's wife or daughter's husband samleta affines of junior generation sampradaya tradition, sect

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samskara* refining process, life cycle ceremony samyoga* union, love in union sancari bhava transitory emotion (of which there are thirty-three) sangat* congregation  



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sannyasa state of renunciation sannyasi renouncer santa bhava emotion of repose, calmness, peace santi peace, peace of mind saram shyness, shame sasu mother-in-law sasur father-in-law sattva truth, honesty, peacefulness, goodness, sincerity, purity seva service (lacking any negative connotation), devotional worship sevaka person who offers disinterested service sevika female temple servant sithani * obscene song sung at marriage srngara* bhava or rasa erotic emotion sthayi bhava primary or permanent emotion in all humans, dominant emotion (of which there are eight) susura father-in-law, bastard svakiya wife svarupa temple image, essential form of deity tai father's elder brother's wife taisera husband's father's elder brother's wife tamas darkness, ignorance, dullness, distress, anxiety Thakurji* the Lord, image of the Lord, personal deity vaidhi bhakti devotion through practice of specific rules and regulations vaisnava* follower of Vishnu or Krishna, Vaishnavite renouncer vatsalya bhava love of mother for child, maternal love, disinterested loving devotion vesya courtesan, prostitute, temple dancer, dressed or ornamented woman videsi foreigner viraha separation, love in separation  



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INDEX A Abhinavagupta, 161, 234n14 Abu-Lughod, Lila, 27n1, 29n13, 127, 157 Acai, 38, 50-51 Acaris, 41 Accidie, 24, 26 Adakkam *, 21, 42-44, 52 Adhin, 67 Adoption, 77 Adultery, 126-128, 138, 142 Aesthetics, 24; and bhakti, 157; and drama, 193; and food, 158, 162; and masti, 110; and rasa, 17-19, 161; and religion, 18, 160-161, 173, 192-195, 207n18; and ritual, 185-187, 193, 195; Sanskrit, 193 Africa: Giriama of, 10, 15, 94; jokes in, 118; Kabyle of, 256n22 Aging: cultural context of, 64-65, 83-85; and gender, 86n4; and life course, 70; and social science, 64-65 Agra, 94 Agriculture, 41, 94, 121, 172, 253n2 file:///C|/Social%20Construction%20of%20Emotions%20in%20India/files/page_295.html[21.03.2011 19:02:56]

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Akbar, 96-97 Alaukika, 190, 192, 195 Alcohol, 100, 111n9 Aligarh district, 120 Allen, N.J., 58n1 Amma, 56 Amoss, Pamela, 86n1 Amritsar, 254n6 Ananda, 100-101, 110, 164, 183, 189, 194, 200 Andhra Pradesh, 159 Anger, 13, 242; Aristotelian theory of, 8; as primary emotion, 28nn3, 10; and rasa theory, 18; among Utku Eskimo, 7 Animals, expression of emotion in, 10 Anklesaria, Shahnaz, 257n27 Annadurai, C. N., 55 Anpu, 21, 25; ambiguity of, 39-40; as containment (adakkam*), 42-44; as cruelty (kodumai*), 47-50, 59-60n6; as desire (acai), 50-51; as gradual habituation (parakkam), 44-47; in lyric poetry, 59n4; and marriage relations, 61n9; opposed to purity, 50-51; and religion, 59n4; as research problem, 38-39; as ruling principle, 40; as servitude (adimai), 52-56, 61n12 Anthropology: of aging, 64;

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dialogical, 24-25; and discourse, 175n3; of emotion, 3-4, 6-8, 27n1, 28n6, 92-94, 175, 184; and fieldwork, 7, 25-27, 100, 183, 232n1, 240, 248, 263-264; hermeneutic, 92; of jokes, 116-117; and objectivity, 58-59n3; and psychology, 242; and rationalism, 241; structural, 92; and surface metaphor, 37; and visual metaphor, 175n3 Anthropomorphism, 10, 166, 284n27 Anxiety, 18; and incest taboo, 130; and old age, 65-66, 68-69, 78-79, 83-85; and sexuality, 127 Appadurai, Arjun, 61n13, 216 Apte, Mahadev L., 117, 132-133, 147nn14, 18 Aram, 72 Archaeology, 94  



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Ardas, 240 Aristotle, 7-8, 24 Annon-Jones, Claire, 10, 12-14 Arukku, 21, 50-52 Asceticism, 23, 91, 92, 94, 174, 177n19, 182; and Chaitanyaite sect, 159-160; and eroticism, 102-103, 170; and masti, 102-103, 109-110; and old age, 70, 74.; and physical exercise, 105-106 Asch, Solomon E., 112n16 Asrama, 86n3, 170 Asrit, 67 Assam, 171, 196 Astrology, 100 Atma, 189 Aurangzeb, 95, 97, 106, 159, 188 Austin, J.L., 213 Australia, Pintupi of, 15 Auvaiyar, 44 Avatara, 187, 265 Averill, James R., 12, 93 Avoidance behavior: among Chuhras, 118, 129; and family relations, 140, 143; and in-laws, 143, 147n18; and intergenerational relations, 143; among Tamils, 43-44, 60-61n9 Ayurveda, 18-19, 24, 111n10 B Babb, Lawrence A., 60n7, 196

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Bacpan, 69 Bahanoi, 130-135, 138, 140-142, 144 Bahawalpur, 135 Bahu, 131 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 58n1 Balabhadra, 214 Balaram, 100, 164, 274, 282n10 Balinese, 101 Baluchistan, 135 Banares, 95 Bangladesh, 255n11 Barbers, 76 Barnett, Steve, 29n19 Baroda, Maharaja of, 145n1 Barrier, N. Gerald, 256n16 Barz, Richard, 176n14, 189, 192, 205nn2,3, 206nn8, 14, 208n29 Basti, 120-121, 124-125, 136 Bateson, Gregory, 116 Beads of Truth (periodical), 252 Bedford, Errol, 9, 12-13, 29n12 Beech, Mary Higdon, 118 Behaviorism, 4-5 Bellah, Robert N., 16 Benedict, Ruth, 242 Bengal, 98, 145n3, 175n1, 234n19, 263-264 Benga patia, 22, 218 Bennett, Lynn, 118, 120, 145n3, 146nn6,8, 147n18, 148n19 Bennett, Peter, 10, 16, 20, 22-23, 157, 164, 167, 205nn2,4, 208n24 Berger, Peter L., 28n6 Berreman, Gerald D, 145n3 Bhajana, 100, 103, 105, 110, 170 Bhakti, 10, 18, 50, 53, 59n4, 110, 157, 160-162, 174, 277;

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codification of, 166; and dance, 225-226; empirical range of, 264-265; and Hare Krishna sect, 268-271; and Pushti Marg sect, 182-183, 193, 197 206nn13, 14; rejuvenation of, 262-263; and Vaishnavite sect, 234n19 Bhaktivedanta Swami, A. C., 263, 268-274, 278-280, 282nn7,9,10 Bhamg *, 100 Bhangis, 118 Bharata, 17, 161, 224, 234n14 Bhatt, R. Kaladhar, 203, 205n2, 206n11 Bhava, 18, 102, 161, 165, 176n14, 232, 265-266; and dance, 221-224, 226-227; and food, 103; and masti, 110; and Pushti Marg sect, 190-191, 193-194, 199-200, 202-204, 208nn23,27 Bhavaj, 124-125, 148n19 Bhavana, 27, 102-103, 176n9, 196, 207n18 Bhoga, 104, 164, 169, 176n10, 187, 193, 198-199, 208n27 Bhojana, 100 Bhopal, 148n20 Boas, Franz, 58nn1,2 Body: and bodily effluvia (eccil), 51-52, 147n15; and bodily feeling, 4, 11-15, 28n5, 28-29n10, 93; and mind-body relation, 4, 13-15, 19, 23, 92-94; and physical exercise, 105-106; and rasa theory, 18-19, refined by dance, 220-223, 231 Bombay, 182, 263 Boon, James, 58n2 Bourdieu, Pierre, 241, 256n22

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Brahmacari*, 74 Brahman, 189 Brahmans, 91, 121, 165, 170, 172; Chaubes as, 92, 95, 100, 104, 108; and family relations, 145n4;  

as food preparers, 167, 171, 197;



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and food ritual, 214-215; Gaurs as, 98; and intoxication, 111n9; and old age, 74, 80, 81; as priests, 159-160, 163, 170, 197, 201, 206n12, 217, 223, 225-226; and remarriage, 123; Sanadhyas as, 98; and svarupa, 202-203; Tamils as, 41, 57; and women, 105 Braj, 157, 161, 171, 177n22; Chaitanyaite sect at, 159; Chaubes at, 91, 95-99; food ritual at, 163, 164, 166; Vallabhite (Pushti Marg) sect at, 167-168, 176nn7,8, 183, 188, 191, 194, 199 Brant, Charles, 139, 146n12 Briggs, George W., 146n11 Briggs, Jean L., 7 Brindaban, 225, 226, 262; Chaitanyaite sect at, 159-160, 170, 177n19, 265, 268; Chaubes at, 95; Hare Krishna sect at, 263-268, 273-281, 282n10, 282-283n12; Pushti Marg sect at, 190, 192; Radhavallabha sect at, 161 Britain: and colonialism, 95, 214, 254n3; Sikhs in, 245 British Columbia, 246, 255n15 Brooks, Charles R., 10, 21, 24, 26, 157, 160, 264 Brown, Judith K., 86n1 Bruner, Edward M., 158

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Bryant, Kenneth E., 157 Buchignani, Indra, 255n16 Buddhism, 60, 94, 186 Buitenan, J. A. B. van, 91 Burghart, Richard, 205n3 Burhappa, 69 Burkhart, Geoffrey, 127 C Caca, 147n13 Cala, 121, 124, 128-129, 142-143 Calendar, Hindu, 164 California, 246, 256n20 Campbell, M. G., 256n21 Canada, Sikhs in, 26, 240, 245-246, 248-250, 254nn3,5, 255n15, 256nn21,23, 257n27 Cantlie, Audrey, 196 Carstairs, G. Morris, 7, 100, 111n9, 123 Carter, Anthony T., 128 Cartesian theory of emotion, 4-5, 7, 13, 24, 92 Caste system, 8-9, 41, 53, 57, 92, 119, 126; and devadasi, 225; and discourse, 142; and division of labor, 121, 145n1; and egalitarianism, 146n10; and family relations, 129, 145n4; and hypergamy, 120-121; and laws against discrimination, 145n1; and marriage, 128-129, 142-143, 145n4, 146-147n12; and purdah, 123-124; and religion, 159, 174, 225; and remarriage, 123; and ritual, 215-216; and segregation, 121, 124;

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and sexual anxiety, 127; and Sikhs, 255n15 Catalyst, art as emotional, 17-18 Catharsis, 17, 24 Caturvedi, V. K., 95, 96 Celibacy, 74 Chadney, James G., 256n16 Chaitanyaite sect, 103, 157, 175n1, 281n4, 283nn15, 16, 17; and asceticism, 24, 159-160, 169-171; and devotion to Krishna, 162, 169-172; factions in, 159-160; and food ritual, 170-171, 177n19; and icons, 170, 176n6; and Hare Krishna sect, 160, 263, 268, 282n10, 283n18 Chamars, 67, 74, 121, 126-128, 136, 138 Chaturvedi, Bal Mukund, 111n3 Chaubes, 21-22, 24, 26; and asceticism, 102; as beggars, 108; and Big Chaube, 97; as Brahmans, 92, 95, 100, 104, 108; culture of, 97, 107; demography of, 94, 111n6; and economic relations, 98, 107-109; educated, 108-109; and food, 103-104; and gardens, 105-106; history of 95-96, 111n3; and Holi festival, 101; and insults, 107; and Kans Mela festival, 96; Karua *, 106, 112n17;

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and life-cycle ceremonies, 107-108; and marijuana drinking, 100-103, 108; and masti, 95-110; men, 96; Mitha*, 106-107, 112n17; and Moghuls, 96-97; and morality, 100, 102; persecuted by Muslims, 105-106, 112n17; as pilgrimage priests, 95-98, 104, 107, 109, 112n17; and Pushti Marg sect, 97; and religion, 95-96, 98, 100-107, 112n17; and sexuality, 101; wealth of, 97, 107; women, 96; as wrestlers, 96, 98, 105-106 Chaubiya Para, 98 Chettiars, 41 Children: cruelty toward, 47-50, 59-60n6; and masti, 99; naming of, 44; and play, 99, 117; and ritual, 166 China, 16, 22, 66 Chowdhury, Neerja, 257n27 Christianity, and idolatry, 201  



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Chuhras, 8-9, 26; and avoidance behavior, 118, 129; and brother-sister bond, 123; and family relations, 118-119; and insults, 119, 125-126, 133-134, 136, 138-139, 142, 144; and izzat, 138, 142; and jokes, 119-120, 126, 131, 133-135, 141-143; and kayda, 118-119; and levirate, 123; and marriage, 121-123, 124, 128-144, 147n12; and purdah, 119, 123-124, 127; and respect, 118-119, 135, 147n18; and role reversal, 133-135, 142; and segregation of sexes, 124; and sexuality, 123-126, 131-139; and teasing, 128; as untouchables, 117-118, 121, 123-124 Cilippatikaram, 59n4 Clark, Margaret, 65 Classical tradition, 91, 110; and aesthetics, 193 Clifford, James, 58n1 Clothing: as indicator of status, 53-54; and old age, 75 Cognitive theory, 4, 7-8, 10, 14 28n5, 212 Consciousness: as activity, 37; Cartesian theory of, 92 Contraception, 216 Cooley, Charles H., 28n6 Cosmology, 171, 213, 231

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Crapanzano, Vincent, 58n1 Cross-cultural perspective, 3, 7, 17, 27, 28n1, 94; and aging, 84-85, 86n1; and Hare Krishna sect in Brindaban, 275; and Sikhs in Canada, 240-242, 253, 258n30; and taste metaphor, 112n16 Cruelty, 21; among Tamils, 47-50, 59-60n6 Culture: and asceticism, 103; and attitudes toward aging, 64-66, 68-69, 84-85; and attitudes toward death, 83; Balinese, 102; Braj, 157-159, 171; Buddhist, 94; Chaube, 97, 107; and ideology, 157; as interaction, 37-38; and intergenerational relations, 75; interpretation of, 20, 25; Jain, 94; and jokes, 116-117, 126-127, 140; and motherhood, 167; Nepali, 78-79; and political economy, 107; representation of, 58n2, 58-59n3, 60n6; and revitalization movement, 283n21; and self, 242, 253; and social construction of emotion, 6-11, 13, 15-17, 22, 64, 93-94, 109, 157-158, 166, 174-175, 183-185, 204, 212, 242, 252-253; and social identity, 161; and subjectivity, 17, 26, 99; as system of signs, 103; Tamil, 39, 60n6, 61n12;

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and textuality, 20-21; of United States, 16, 65, 68, 84 D Dadi, 137, 147 Dana, 96 Dance, 17-18, 22, 103, 193; and bhakti, 225-226; and bhava, 221-224, 226-227; as bodily refinement, 220-223, 231; as codification of emotion, 222; and costume, 218-219; as dialogue, 221-222, 234n13; and eroticism, 219, 224, 227, 229; esoteric, 217-218; and female divine sovereignty, 216, 218, 220, 222, 225; and film, 233n9; gestures in, 220-223, 228-229, 231; history of, 232n11, 233n11; and mime, 228-229; performative aspect of, 231; and poetry, 225-229, 232n2; and rasa, 224-225; and religion, 266; and rhythm, 220, 233n10; and ritual, 212-214, 216-218, 225-231; and sakti, 218, 224; as stage art, 212, 232n2; and subjectivity, 220, 222-223; in temples, 212-214, 217, 225, 230-231, 232nn1,2; and transformative experience, 214, 220, 224; and urban relations, 212 Daniel, E. Valentine, 29n20, 61n10, 215

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Darling, Malcolm, 254n8 Darsana, 176n9, 187, 192-196, 199-200, 202-203, 206nn11,13 Darwin, Charles, 10 Das, Veena, 118, 120, 122, 146n8, 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, 29n15 Decentered subject, 26 Deconstructionism, 8, 10 14, 19-21, 24, 26, 92-94, 175n5 Dehra Dun District, 145n3 Delhi, 94, 97, 121, 145n3, 146n8, 158, 246 Democracy, 109 Demography: of Chaubes, 94, 111n6; of Khalapur, 121 Denzin, Norman K., 28n6, 92, 110, 275 Depression, 28nn3, 10 Derrida, Jacques, 19-20, 29nn16, 17, 92-94, 161  



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Descartes, Reneé, 4-5, 7, 13, 24, 92 De, S. K., 161, 175n1, 194, 234n14, 262, 265-266, 283nn14,15,16 Devadasi, 214, 226; and caste system, 225; costume of, 218-219; and devotion to Krishna, 227, 230-231; and family relations, 215-216, 222-223, 227, 233n5; as gopi, 226-229; history of, 232n1; as metonym, 217-219; and sexuality, 215-216, 218-219, 222; as temple servant, 215-216, 223 Devar, 140, 148n19 Dhan, 189 Dharma, 70, 110, 251, 257nn25,26, 285n30 Diacritics, ix Dialogue, anthropological, 24-25 Différance, 19-20, 24, 94, 109, 161, 174 Dig, 160 Dimock, Edward C., 262-263, 268, 281n3, 283nn15,21 Discourse: and anthropology, 175n3; and caste system, 142; and deference, 128; of familiarity, 241; and sexuality, 124-128, 142, 146n9 Diwali festival, 122, 164 Doaba, 245, 254n6 Dorschner, Jon Peter, 122, 146n9 Douglas, Mary, 116, 128, 143-144 Drama, 17-18, 157, 186, 192-194, 224, 266

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Dravidian language, 102 Dumont, Louis, 29n19, 120, 122, 145nn3,4, 146n6, 147n16 Dundes, Alan, 116 Durkheim, Emile, 6, 20, 28n4, 111n8 Dusenbery, Verne A., 25, 26, 255n14, 256nn16,17,18,19, 257n26, 258n30 E Eccil, 51-52 Eck, Diana L., 60n7, 102 Economic relations: and Chaubes, 98, 107-l09; and emotional experience, 94; and family relations, 244; and Hare Krishna sect, 278; and intergenerational relations, 78-79; and migration, 244; and old age, 78-80; opposed to personal relations, 39, 59n5; and Tamils, 41, 53-54 Education: of Chaubes, 108-109; of women, 47 Egnor, Margaret, 44, 60n7, 215 Einstein, Alert, 29n18 Emotion: and aesthetic, 161; in animals, 10; anthropology of, 6-8, 27n1, 28n6, 92-94, 175, 184; as appraisal, 9-10, 11, 12, 13-17, 93, 109-110, 242, 253; Aristotelian theory of, 8; and asceticism, 102; and bhakti, 157, 166, 174; and bodily feeling, 11-14, 28-29nn5,10,93; 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, 15, 183;

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and culture, 6-11, 13, 15-17, 22, 64, 93-94, 109 157-158, 166, 175, 183-185, 204, 212, 241-242, 252-253; deconstructionist theory of, 19-21, 24, 92-93; epistemology of, 11; excusatory function of, 5, 15, 19; functional interpretation of, 9, 15; functionality of, 9, 29n14; and gender, 19; hermeneutic theory of, 92; and hidden self, 110; hierarchy of, 5, 16, 18-19; as historically embedded, 24, 93-94; and ideology, 157; internalization of, 6, 13, 16, 23; and language, 10-13, 17, 19-21, 27, 102, 111n11, 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, 11, 18, 28-29n10, 28n3; psychoanalytic theory of, 157-158; and public sphere, 184; rasa theory of, 17-19, 110, 111n11, 157, 161; and reason, 10, 19, 23, 102, 252; and religion, 18, 157, 161, 166, 174; and ritual, 183, 185, 196, 204-205; secondary, 11, 18, 29n10; social construction of, 6-27, 28n3, 64, 93-94, 109, 157-158, 166, 173-175, 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, 19, 23-24, 183 Empathy, 7, 11, 17, 184-185

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Endogamy, 122, 143, 245, 255n14 Entwhistle, A. W., 158 Eroticism, 22-23, 26; and asceticism, 102-103, 170; and culture, 212; and dance, 219, 224, 227, 229; and evil eye, 60n7; and food, 177n19; and marriage, 227; and religion, 161-162, 169-171, 219, 268-269. See also Love; Madhurya bhava; Madhurya rasa; Sexuality; Srngara * bhava; Srngara* rasa Eskimo, Utku, 7 Ethnocentrism, 17, 184, 254n8, 274 Ethnography, 25, 93-94, 254n8; and hypergamy, 120; and jokes, 116-117, 133, 140, 142, 147n18;  

and visual metaphor, 175n3



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Ethnopsychology, 27, 242, 252 Evil eye, 42, 60n7 61n10, 206n15 Exercise, physical, 22, 100, l03, l05, l07, 110 Exogamy, 122, 143 Exorcism, 26 F Fabian, Johannes, 175n3 Family relations: and adoption, 77; and avoidance behavior, 140, 143; and brother-sister bond, 122-123, 146n6; and caste system, 129, 145n4; and child rearing, 49; and Chuhras, 118-119; and devadasi, 215-216, 222-223, 227, 233n5; and economic relations, 79, 244; and hierarchy, 145n2; intergenerational, 65-66, 68, 75, 78-79, 84-85, 118-119; and life course, 69-70; and maternal love, 20; and motherhood, 24, 167; and naming, 43-44, 60-61n9, 131, 176-177n15; 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, 250-251; and subordination of women, 60n6; and Tamils, 38, 40-41, 54-56, 60n6. See also In-laws; Marriage

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Farce, 116-117, 142-143 Fear, 242, 258n30; as primary emotion, 28nn3.10 Feeling, bodily: and emotion, 11-14, 28n5, 28-29n10, 93; epistemology of, 11 Festivals, 24; Annakuta, 199-200, 208n28; Chappen Bhoga, 168; Diwali, 122, 164; and Hindu New Year, 106; Holi, 101, 122, 139, 192; Kans, Mela, 96; Nava Lila, 191; Tij, 122 Fieldwork, anthropological, 7, 25-27, 100, 183, 232n1, 240, 248, 263-264 Finlay-Jones, Robert, 24 Fisher, Michael M.J., 25 Flecuret, Anne K., 256n20 Flower arrangement, 167, 195 Folklore, 24, 91, 110, 162, 171-172, 176n6 Foner, Nancy, 86n1 Food, 174; and aesthetics, 162; and asceticism, 171; categories of, 177nn16,21, consumed by Chaubes, 103-104; consumed by elderly, 75, 82; and eroticism, 177n19; and family relations, 55-56, 61n13; and folklore, 172; and heart disease, l04; and idea of servitude (adimai *), 55-56;

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and importance of sweets, 177-178n24; and language, 175n4; and love, 16, 22, 43, 45, 162, 164-165, 167-168; and marriage relations, 55-56, 207-208n23; and masti, 100, 103-104, 107, 110; as metaphor, 45, 158, 162-163, 168, 174; as metonym, 22, 160-164, 168-169, 174, 176n12; and morality, 104; and physical exercise, 106; prepared by Brahmans, 167, 171, 197; prepared by men, 104; and purity, 167-168, 196-197, 199, 207nn20,22,23, 215; and rasa, 162, 164, 168, 174; and religion, 16, 22-23, 61n13, 103-104, 158-159, 162-165, 167-169, 171-173, 184, 187, 192-193, 195-200, 205, 207n20, 214-215; and ritual, 22, 158, 162-166, 168-69, 171-173, 176n11, 177n19, 187, 193, 195-200, 205, 208n24, 214-215, 217, 219, 231; and sattva, 103; and sexuality, 217-220, 231; and social identity, 104; as synecdoche, 176n11; Tantric, 217; in temples, 168, 171-173, 197, 207n20, 214-215, 217; and vegetarianism, 103, 217 Footwear, 53-54 Foucault, Michel, 116, 142 Freud, Sigmund, 5-6, 24, 157 Fruzzetti, Lina, 120, 145n3 Fry, Christine, 86n1 Fuller, C.J., 196, 207n22 Functionalism, 6, 8-9, 15, 29n14 G Galanter, Marc, 145n1

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Gandhi, Indira, 25, 239-241, 243, 251-252, 255n11 Gandhi, Rajiv, 251 Ganges river, 95, 189 Gardens, 105-106 Gauda country, 175n1 Gaur Brahmans, 98 Geertz, Clifford, 14, 58n1, 92, 99, 101-102, 116, 183, 185, 242 Gelberg, Steven J., 281n1 Gender: and aging, 86n4; and emotional hierarchy, 19 Gennep, Arnold van, 144 Gerow, Edwin, 283n14 Giddens, Anthony, 92, 94 Gift giving: and izzat, 243; and marriage, 122 Giriama, of Africa, 10, 15, 94 Gita Govinda, 255-229, 234n20 Gluckman, Max, 142  



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Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 157 Gokul, 95, 281n4 Gokulnathji, 206n7 Goldstein, Melvyn, 78-79 Gonds, 148n19 Gopa, 161, 169, 171 Gopal Bhatt, 283n17 Gopi, 161, 169, 171, 190, 194; and dance, 196, 226-229, 266; and food ritual, 177n19; and Hare Krishna sect, 269, 272-273, 276-279 Gorakhpur District, 145n4 Gordon, Steven L., 12, 28n10 Gosvami, 159, 177n19, 187, 265, 283n17 Goswami, Satsvarupa Dasa, 269-270, 282nn9,10 Goswami, Shrivatsa, 283n14 Govardhan, 16, 157-161, 163-166, 168, 170-171, 173-174, 199-201 Granthi, 240 Gravesend, England, 245 Greenberg, Joseph, 29n14 Griaule, Marcel, 58n1 Growse, Frederic S., 98, 206n8 Guilt, 141, 242; and old age, 65, 68 Gujarat, 159, 160, 167-168, 182 Guna, 100 Gurdwara Gazette (periodical), 249 Gusfield, Joseph R., 5 H Haberman, David, 161

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Habermas, Jürgen, 117 Hardy, Friedhelm, 157, 262, 281n4 Hare Krishna sect. See International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKON) Harijans, 46, 53, 145n1. See also Chamars; Chuhras; Paraiyars; Untouchable caste Hariray, 163 Harirayji, Sri Mahanubhava, 208nn25,26 Harlan, William, 86n6 Harper, E. B., 196, 207nn22,23 Harré, Rom, 24, 28nn1,6, 93 Harrell, Steven, 86n1 Haryana, 121 Hatha Yoga, 106 Hawley, John, 111n4, 234n23, 284n24 Hayley, Audrey, 171, 196 Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization (3HO), 239, 247-250, 252, 256nn19,21 Heelas, Paul, 27n1 Hegel, G. W. F., 234n17 Hein, Norvin, 158, 284n24 Helwag, Arthur W., 245 Hermeneutics, 92 Hershman, Paul, 118, 120, 122, 130, 132, 145n3, 146n11, 147nn18,19, 148n20 Hess, Ron, 233n8 Hierarchy: and caste system, 126; and clothing, 53-54; emotional, 5, 10, 16, 18-19; and family relations, 145n2; and food ritual, 196-197; and hypergamy, 145n3; and ideology of love, 54; intergenerational, 118-119; and intergenerational relations, 127; and jokes, 26, 116, 119, 126, 142-143;

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and marriage, 207n23; and purdah system, 127; and religion, 123, 196-197, 225; and ritual, 225; and women, 125 Hinduism. See Religion, Hindu History: of Chaubes, 95-97, 111n3; of dance, 232n1, 233n11; emotion embedded in, 23-24, 93-94; of Govardhan, 158-159; of Mathura, 94-95; of Pushti Marg sect, 187-188 Hitchcock, John T., 118, 120, 122, 135, 145n4, 146n6, 148n20 Hivale, Shamrao, 148n19 Hochschild, Arlie R., 26 Holi festival, 101, 122, 139, 192 Hooghly river, 214 Hopkinson, W. C., 240-241, 243, 254n3 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, 105 Hypergamy, 120-121, 145n3 I Ibbetson, Denzil, 120 Icons, 159-160, 162-163, 167-172, 176n6, 177n18, 184, 188, 200-205, 206-207nn15,16,17, 225 Ideology: as conscious formulation of intention, 38; and culture, 157;

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and emotion, 157; empathy as, 11; as expression of class interest, 59n3; 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



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Ilongots, 242, 253 Immigration, 240, 244-246, 255-256n16 Imperialism, 17 Impotence, 126-127, 129 Incest, 126, 128-130, 134-135, 142, 148n19 Inden, Ronald, 29n19, 120 Individualism, 16, 27, 174 Indo-Canadian Times, 257n27 Indra, 188, 199 Industrialization, 79 Infants: and female infanticide, 135; and transmigration of souls, 46 Inflation, 79 In-laws: and avoidance behavior, 143, 147n18; as caretakers of elderly, 73, 75-77, 81; hostility of, 123, 125, 129-130, 141, 143; and jokes, 128-144, 145n12, 147nn14,16,18, 147-148n19; and marriage, 122-123, 125, 129, 135-140; and respect, 130-132, 135, 147n18, 148n20; and social inferiority of bridegivers, 130-139, 141-142, 148n20 Inpam, 43 Instinct, 5-6, 183 Insults: among Chaubes, 107; among Chuhras, 119, 125-126, 133-134, 136, 138-139, 142, 144; as jokes, 125-127, 133, 136, 142, 144; and metaphor, 126; and sexuality, 125-127, 134, 136, 138-139, 146n11; among Tamils, 44 Intentionality: ideology as, 38; proof of, 39

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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 (ISKON), 10, 21, 26, 160, 177n21; and bhakti, 268-271, 277, 280; in Brindaban, 263-264, 267-268, 273-281, 282n11; bureaucratization of, 264, 269-271; and Chaitanyaite sect, 263, 265, 282n10; founding of, 263; and madhurya rasa, 264, 268, 271-274, 276; temples of, 263-264, 270, 272, 274, 282n10; 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, 110. See also Masti Introspection, 6, 13, 16, 23, 100 Irrationalism, 5, 10 Izzat, 25-26, 72, 108, 138, 142, 144; and Sikhs, 241-245, 248-251, 254nn2,6,8, 255n10, 256n21, 257nn26,29 J Jackson, Stanley W., 24 Jacobson, Doranne, 118, 146n11, 147n19, 148n20 Jagannatha, 213-217, 226, 231 Jain culture, 94 James, William, 4 Jamuna river, 94-96, 98, 191-192, 262, 276 Jandiali, 245

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Jati, 122 Jatipura, 159-160, 165, 168, 172 Javani, 69 Jayadeva, 226 Jeffery, Patricia, 118, 123, 146n8 Jeth *, 140 Jija, 139 Jindel, Rajendra, 205n2 Jiva Goswami, 283n17 Johnson, Mark, 162 Jokes, 8-9, 25-26; anthropology of, 116-117; and Chaubes, 107; among Chuhras, 119-120, 126, 131, 133-135, 141-143; content of, 117; and culture, 116-117, 126-127, 140; and ethnography, 116-117, 133, 140, 142, 147n18; and family relations, 117; between fathers-in-law, 135-139; and hierarchy, 26, 116, 119, 126, 142-143; and in-laws, 128-144, 146n12, 147nn14,16,18, 147-148n19; as insults, 125-127, 133, 136, 142, 144; and izzat, 138, 142, 144; and language of intimacy, 128, 144; and marriage, 128-144, 146nn11,12; 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;

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and role reversal, 133-139, 142; and sexuality, 125-127, 129, 131, 140-144, 146n8; as social critique, 116-117, 128, 142-144; in United States, 116 Joshi, Esha Basanti, 94 Jullundur District, 130 K Kabyle, 256n22 Kakar, Sudhir, 19, 48, 70, 111n10, 169  



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Kalattal, 56-58 Kalish, Robert A., 65 Kallars, 41 Kamparamayanam, 59n4 Kane, Pandurang Vaman, 70, 283n14 Kangal *, 99, 104 Kans Mela festival, 96 Kapferer, Brace, 26, 28n4, 61n11, 183 Kapoor, O. B. L., 163, 262, 283n14 Kappu, 52, 61 n9 Karma, 46, 81-82, 85, 278 Karve, Irawati, 147n16 Kashmir, 132, 1455n3, 234n14 Kasrat, 100 Kaur, S. P., 248 Kaveri, 214 Kavundars, 41 Kayda, 118-119, 145n2 Kemper, Theodore, 5, 28-29n10, 28n3, 92 Kerns, Virginia, 86n1 Khalapur, 118, 120-124, 127, 135, 140, 145n4, 145-146n5, 147n12 Khalsa, G. S., 247 Khalsa, H. S., 252, 257n28 Khalsa, S. P. K., 247 257n28 Khandan, 120 Khare, R. S., 120, 145n3 Kinship. See Family relations Kinsley, David R., 193, 262 Kirkpatrick, John, 27n1 Kishan Garhi, 120

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Kodumai*, 21 Kolenda, Pauline, 8-9, 25-26, 123, 142, 145nn3,4, 146n10, 147nn12,16 Kovecses, Zoltan, 5, 8 Krishna, 94-97, 176nn7,10,11, 177nn18,19,22,23, 205n4; as child, 98-99, 158, 163, 167-168, 183-184, 188, 191, 193-194, 203, 207n21, 275; and dance ritual, 225-230; devotion to, 157, 161-162, 164, 168-169, 172, 184-190, 192-205, 227, 230-231, 262-269; and eroticism, 160, 174; and food ritual, 22, 158, 163-166, 168-169, 172, 187, 196-200; at Govardhan, 157-159, 164, 166, 172, 188, 199-200, 208n28; and physical exercise, 110; as svarupa, 200-204 Kristeva, Julia, 58n1 Kuhn, Thomas, 29n18 Kulin, 108 Kundalini, 246-247 L Labor, division of, 86n3; and caste system, 121, 145n1; and women, 125 La Brack, Bruce, 256nn16,20 Lahore, 254n6 Lakoff, George, 5, 8, 162 Lakshmi, 164 Land ownership, 41, 78-80, 98, 121, 242-244 Language: ambiguity in, 40; deconstructionist theory of, 19-21, 92; Dravidian, 102; and emotion, 10-13, 17, 19-20, 93, 102, 111n11, 241; and fieldwork, 27; and food, 175n4; Hindi, ix, 28n9;

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and jokes, 128; and metaphor, 162, 175n2; and metonym, 175n2; and otherness, 175n3; and problem of feeling, 11; Punjabi, 254nn6,7; social nature of, 13; Wittgensteinian theory of, 28n6 Lannoy, Richard, 111n8 Laukika, 192, 195, 198 Law: and adoption, 77; and discrimination against untouchables, 145n1; and life course, 70 Leach, Edmund, 201 Leavitt, John, 28n5, 92-93 Leitch, Vincent B., 20, 29n16 LeVine, Robert A., 28n6, 93 Levirate, 123, 126-127, 140 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 7, 92, 120, 145n3, 148n20 Levy, Robert I., 93, 111n1 Life course: and family relations, 69-70; and religion, 70; and role reciprocity, 66, 68-69; stages of, 69-71, 74, 86n3 Lila, 19, 95, 165, 189, 199; Braj, 163, 169, 171, 188, 194, 281n4; and circle dance, 276, 277, 281n4; representation of, 186-187, 191, 192, 194 Lindholm, Charles, 26, 27n1, 254-255n9 Lingayat sect, 103 Literature: and bhakti, 157; Braj, 157;

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folk, 91; legal, 70; and modem novels, 102-103; Sanskrit, 161, 205n5; Shaiva, 40, 50; of Tamils, 40, 59n4 Logocentrism, 25 Longowal, S. H. S., 251 Los Angeles, 246, 256n20, 270, 272 Love: as anpu, 38-39; anpu as, 59n4; as confusion (mayakkam), 56-57; as containment (adakkam), 42-44; as cruelty (kodumai), 47-50; as desire (acai), 50-51; erotic, 18, 22, 24, 43, 161, 169-171, 173, 206n13, 222, 224., 227, 229, 232, 276;  

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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, 59n4, 161, 167-168, 173-174, 183-184; as metonym, 22; as mixture (kalattal), 56-58; as money, 79; opposed to purity, 50-51; and rasa, 18, 161; and reciprocity, 174; and religion, 59n4, 161-162, 164-165, 184, 197, 266-267, 271-272; romantic, 59n4; as secondary emotion, 29n10; 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; Srngara * bhava; Srngara* rase Luckmann, Thomas, 28n6 Luschinsky, Mildred Stroop, 118 Lutz, Catherine, 4, 7, 10-11, 15-16, 26, 27, 27n1, 28n8, 29nn10,13, 92-94, 157-158, 173, 183, 252, 258n31 Lynch, Owen M., 10, 16, 21-24, 26, 95, 98, 111n2, 146n11, 157, 170, 173, 176n9, 184, 233n8 Lyons, William, 8, 12, 14, 28n5, 28nn2,6, 29n12, 93 M Ma, 131 McGregor, R. S., ix Mackichan, D., 183 McLeod, W. H., 255n10

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Madan, T. N., 103, 109, 118, 120, 132, 145n3, 172 Madan Mohan, 170 Madhurya bhava, 18, 161, 169, 190, 194 Madhurya rasa, 264, 266-267, 274, 276-277 Madhva, 175n1 Madhya Pradesh, 148n19 Madras, 40, 41, 46 Madurai, 41 Maharajas, 187-188, 195, 198, 201 Mahari, 215 Mahmud of Ghazni, 94 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 58n1 Maloney, Clarence, 60n7 Malwa, 182, 254n6 Man, 102, 110, 111n10, 189 Manas, 19 Mandelbaum, David, 255n11 Mantra, 187, 189, 201 Manu, 70 Manusmrti, 70 Marcus, George E., 25 Marfatia, Mrdula I., 205n2 Marg (periodical), 233n12 Marga, 110 Marglin, Frédérique Apffel, 10, 16, 22-24, 103, 157, 170, 216-217, 223, 227, 232nn1,4, 234nn16,18,21 Marijuana, 22, 100, 108, 110, 111n12 Marriage: and anpu, 61n9; and cala, 121, 128-129, 142-143; and care of elderly, 76-77; and caste system, 128-129, 142-143. 145n4, 146-147n12; among Chuhras, 121-123, 124, 128-144, 147n12; compared to brother-sister bond, 122-123;

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and demeaning of male in-laws, 131-135; and en-dogamy, 122, 143, 245; and eroticism, 227; exchange, 122, 142, 147n16, 148n19; 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, 207n23; and hostility of in-laws, 123, 125, 129-30, 141, 143; hypergamous, 120-121, 145n3; and in-laws, 122, 129, 135-140; and in-tergenerational relations, 123, 129; and jokes, 128-144, 146nn11,12; and levirate, 123, 126-127, 140; and metaphor, 26; and obscene songs, 129, 141, 146n11; patrilineal, 121, 143; and polygyny, 130, 134; and religion, 141; and remarriage, 123, 145n4, 147n12; as rite of passage, 69; and sadi, 121-122, 128-129, 141-143; and segregation of sexes, 124; sentimentalization of, 12; and sexual love, 43; among Sikhs, 245, 250-251, 255n14; and social inferiority of bridegivers, 120-121, 130-139, 141-142, 145n3; sororate, 130, 140; among Tamils, 43-44, 60-61n9; and teasing, 128-129

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Marriott, McKim, 29n19, 101, 111n8, 145n3, 255n10 Marulasiddaiah, H. M., 86n6 Marxism, 59n3, 254n5 Maryada, 160 Masson, James L., 161, 234n14 Masti, 21-22, 24, 26, 91, 95-100; and aesthetics, 110; and asceticism, 102-103, 109-110; and food, 103-104, 107, 110;  

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and physical exercise, 105-107, 100; and religion, 100, 103-105, 107, 110; and social identity, 110; thick description of, 92 Mastram, 91, 97-100, 103, 106, 109 Mathura, 92, 94-96, 98-99, 104-107, 157, 160, 170, 205n1, 281n4 Mauss, Marcel, 58n1 Mayakkam, 56-57 Mayapur, 263 Mayer, Adrian C., 206n9, 255n15 Mead, G. H., 28n6 Medicine 24; and diet, 104; marijuana as, 100, 111n12; and rasa theory, 18-19 Medick, Hans, 12 Mediterranean culture, 257n29 Mehta, Rama, 118, 148n19 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, 233n8 Metaphor, 94, 112n16; food as, 45, 158, 162-163, 168, 174; hydraulic, 5, 27;

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and insults, 126; inverted by metonym, 175n2; and jokes, 126; and Krishna, 163; and language, 162, 175n2; 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, 176n12; as inverse of metaphor, 175n2; and language, 175n2; love as, 22; and sense perception, 23; and synecdoche, 176n11 Micronesia, Ifaluk of, 10, 15, 27, 94 Middle class, 82; Tamil, 41 Milk, 43, 163, 176nn6,8, 199-200, 208n28 Miller, Barbara Stoller, 234n20 Mimesis, 17 Minault, Gail, 118 Mind-body relation, 4, 13-15, 19, 23, 92-94 Mines, Mattison, 70, 86n1 Minturn, Leigh, 118, 120, 122, 135, 146n6, 148n20 Mitter, Partha, 234n17 Moghuls, 95-97, 106, 188 Money: exchange of', 39, 59n5; as love, 79; and religion, 169

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Monier-William, Monier, 202 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 sattva, 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, 60n7; and family relations, 24, 167; and maternal love, 18, 20, 22, 24, 42-43, 167-168, 174; and universalism, 183-184; and Vallabhite sect, 167 Mukherjee, Prabhat, 234n19 Mulji, Karshandas, 206n8 Murdock, George Peter, 130, 134-135, 148n19 Music, 14, 163, 167; and hymns, 22-23, 105; and rasa, 224; and religious song, 101, 103; and singing, 22; and sithani *, 129, 141 Muslims, 41, 94-95, 97, 112n17, 121-123, 135, 146nn7,8, 214, 242; and rationalism, 158

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Myerhoff, Barbara, 86n1 Myers, Fred, 15-17, 27n1, 29n13, 93, 111n1 Mysticism, 158, 185, 194, 264-266, 274-277, 279-280, 283n14 Mythology, 24, 94, 160, 162, 177n22; Buddhist, 60n7; Hindu, 95; Shaiva, 60n7, 61n12 N Naik, T. B., 132, 148n19 Naming: and family relations, 43-44, 60-61n9, 131, 176-177n15; and sexuality, 131; among Tamils, 43-44, 60-61n9 Nanak, 253n2 Nanand, 148n19 Nanda, 183, 191 Nandoi 131 Narada, 226-227 Narayan, R. K., 61n10 Nathdwara, 159, 183, 188, 202 Nayakars, 41 Nayar, Kuldip, 257n27 Nectar of Devotion (Bhaktivedanta), 271 Nepal, 78-79, 145n3, 146n8 Neugarten, Berenice, 84 New Delhi, 246 Nicholas, Ralph W., 120, 130, 132 Nidhi, 202, 204  



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Nirbhar, 68 Niti, 99, 109 Nityananda, 170, 282n10 Nizamuddin, 146n8 Novels, 102-103 O Obeyesekere, Gananath, 60n7 Objectivity, and anthill, 58-59n2 Objectivization, of emotion, 22 Oceania, jokes in, 118 Ochs, Elinor, 27 O'Connell, Joseph T., 158 O'Flaherty, Wendy, 60n7, 102 Old age, 21, 25; and anxiety, 65-66, 68-69, 78-79, 83-85; and caretaking by adopted children, 77, 80-81; and caretaking by daughers, 75-77; and caretaking by in-laws, 73, 75-77, 81; 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, 65-69, 84-85; and food consumption, 75, 82; and guilt, 65, 68; and hospitalization, 82-83; and illness, 78, 82-83; and karma, 81-82, 85; and property relations, 78-80; and renunciation of worldly ties, 70-71, 73-75;

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and role reciprocity, 65-66; and seva 71-73, 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, 71, 75 Orissa, 213-215, 217 Ostör, Akos, 120, 145n3 Otherness, 4, 6, 11, 13, 15-17, 26, 175n3, 184 Outline of Hindi Grammar (McGregor), ix P Pacam, 38, 45, 47, 50, 52 Painting, 163, 167 Pakistan, 123, 135, 146n7, 255nn9,11 Panda *, 95, 108, 173 Pandey, Raj Bali, 70 Pandits, 132 Panth, 241, 246, 251-252, 253n2, 255nn10,12 Papanek, Hanna, 118 Paraiyars, 41, 44 Parakiya, 162 Parakkam*, 44-47 Pardhans, 148n19 Parekh, Bhai, 205n2 Paresan, 72 Parkin, David, 10, 15, 94 Parry, Jonathan, 127 Pathwardhan, M. V., 161 Patnaik, D., 233n12 Patrilineality, 121, 124, 132, 143, 187 Pattu*, 38

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Patwardan, M. V., 234n14 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 213 Peristiany, J. G., 257n29 Perkins, Moreland, 14 Pettigrew, Joyce, 243-244, 254n8 Phenomenology, 13, 28n6 Physicalist theory, 4-5, 9-11, 14, 20, 28n3, 93, 183, 212 Physiology: and bodily feeling, 12, 28-29n10, 93, 109; and physicalist theory, 4-6, 28n3; and rasa theory, 18-19 Piers, Gerhart, 242 Pilgrimage, 95-97, 157-160, 165, 172-173, 176nn6,8,9, 183, 188, 205n1, 213, 262, 265, 273, 275, 283n12 Pintupi, of Australia, 15 Platts, John T., 67-68 Pocock, David F., 120, 122, 146n6 Poetry, 17; Braj, 157, 163, 167, 177n19; and dance, 225-229, 232n2; and Gita Govinda, 225-229, 234n20; lyric, 59n4, 91; and Oriya poets, 226; and rasa, 161, 266; and ritual, 225-299; and speech rhythm, 221 Political economy, 94, 107-109 Pollution, 26, 142, 147n15, 197-199, 207nn22,23, 218, 233n8 Polygyny, 130, 134 Ponnar Cankar Katai, 59n4 Population: of Chaubiya Para, 98; of Khalapur, 121 Porumai*, 53 Positivism, 8, 10

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Potter, Sulamith Heins, 16, 157 Poverty, 22, 41, 49, 54, 78, 107, 146n11 Prabhu, Sri Gokulesh, 207n18 Prasad, B. G., 86n6 Prasada, 103, 110, 164, 169, 171, 176nn10,11, 196, 199, 208n29 Prema, 103, 160, 183 Premabhava, 190 Primogeniture, 188 Private sphere, 6, 16, 127, 258n29; and language, 13; and religion, 170; and ritual, 164-166 Prosody, 220 Prostitution, 126-129, 198, 218  



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Psychoanalysis, 5-7, 24, 93, 145n2, 157-158 Psychology: and anthropology, 242; behaviorist, 4-5; and epistemology, 11; as ethnopsychology, 27; of fear, 258n30; of jokes, 117; of old age, 64-65, 78; physiological, 4-5, 11-12; and universalism, 173 Public sphere, 94, 127, 184; and izzat, 257-258n29; and language, 13; and religion, 171; and ritual, 164-166 Puja 190 Punjab, 120-121, 130, 135, 145n3, 242-243, 246-247, 255n2, 254nn2,6,8 Punjah Peasant in Prosperity and Debt (Darling), 254n8 Purdah, 118, 123-124, 127-128, 144, 255n11; among Chuhras, 119 Puri, 213-214, 228, 231 Puri, Harbhajan Singh, 239, 246-247, 249, 255-254n2, 256n18 Puri, H. K., 254n3 Purity, 26, 50-51, 142; and asceticism, 170-171; and food, 167-168, 196-197, 199, 207nn20,22,23, 215; and religion, 197-198, 207nn19,22; sexual, 77; and sexuality, 216, 233n8, 255n14, 272 Purusottama, 202

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Pushti Marg sect, 16, 22, 24, 97, 168, 175n1; and aesthetics, 194; and bhakti, 182-183, 193, 197; and devotion to Krishna, 182-205; history of, 187-188; and icons, 191-193, 201-204; and maternal love, 182, 184; and patrilineality, 187-188; and ritual, 185-186, 192-201, 206nn7,8; and sensualism, 182-183, 194, 208n29; and seva, 188-190, 194, 198-199; temples of, 182, 186-188, 191-192, 194-195, 201, 207nn19,20; and urban relations, 182; wealth of, 208n29. See also Vallabhite sect Pusti *, 189, 200-201, 205, 208n29 R Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., 6, 118, 140-141 Radha, 160, 162, 169-170, 172, 174, 177n18, 225, 229, 234n23, 266-267, 274, 276-277, 279, 282n10, 283n15, 284n27 Radhakund, 159-160, 169-171, 177n19 Radhavallabha sect, 161, 279, 284n27 Raga, 194, 228 Raganugabhakti, 161, 268-271, 273-274, 280 Raghavan, V., 157, 161, 194 Raghunath Bhatt, 283n17 Raghunath Das, 283n17 Raja, 225, 228, 233n8 Rajaguru, 216, 218-219, 233n7 Rajas, 100 Rajasthan, 100, 106, 145n3, 159, 182-183, 188 Raj, B., 86n6 Rajputs, 74, 111n9, 120-122, 135, 146n9; and family relations, 145n4; file:///C|/Social%20Construction%20of%20Emotions%20in%20India/files/page_307.html[21.03.2011 19:03:07]

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psychoanalytical study of, 7 Ramanandi sect, 103, 161 Ramanujan, A. K., 160, 176n12 Rame, 91 Rasa, 17-19, 24, 27, 29n15, 111n11, 176n9, 281; and bhakti, 157, 193; and dance, 224-225; 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 izzat, 243; and jokes, 127, 137; and love, 174; and ritual, 172 Redington, James, 161, 176n14 Régnaud, Paul, 221 Religion, Hindu: and aesthetics, 18, 160-161, 173, 185-187, 192-195, 207n18; and asceticism, 170, 174, 182; and bhakti, 157, 160-161, 166, 182-183; and Brahmans, 104; and caste system, 159, 174, 225;

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and Chaubes, 95-96, 98, l00-107, 112n17; and dance, 266; and drama, 192-194; and dualism, 201; and emotion, 18, 157, 161, 166, 174; and eroticism, 22, 161-162, 169-171, 219, 268-269; and food, 16, 22-23, 103-104, 158-159, 162-165, 167-169, 171-173, 184, 187, 192-193, 195-200, 205, 207n20, 214-215; and hierarchy, 123, 196-197, 225; and icons, 159-160, 162-163, 167-172, 176n6, 177n18, 184, 188, 200-205, 206-207nn15,16,17, 225; and life course, 70; and love, 59n4, 161-162, 164-165, 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, 20l; nonsectarian, 160; and physical exercise, 105;  

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Religion, Hindu (continued) 157-160, 165, 172-173, 176nn6,8,9, 183, 188, 205n1, 213, 262, 265, 273, 275, 283n12; and private sphere, 170; and public sphere, 171; and purity, 197-198, 207nn19,22; and rasa, 18, 162, 184, 194-195, 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, 177n22, 269, 282n9; and women, 105, 216. See also Mysticism; Mythology; names of deities; Ritual; Sects, religious; Temples Representation: actualization by, 186; crisis of 25; of culture, 58n2, 58-59n3, 60n6 Respect: among Chuhras 118-119, 135, 147n18; and food preparation, 207n23; and in-laws, 130-132, 135, 147n18, 148n20; and intergenerational relations, 118-119, 129; and izzat, 242 Rhetoric (Aristotle), 7 Ritual, 61n10; and aesthetics, 185-187, 193, 195; aura of factuality in, 14; and caste system, 215-216; and children, 166;

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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, 168-169, 171-173, 176n11, 177n19, 187, 193, 195-200, 205, 208n24, 214-215, 217, 219, 231; and hierarchy, 225; and icons, 200-202, 206-207nn15,16,17; and ideology, 213; and jokes, 117, 119-120, 144; marriage, 121-122; and metonymy, 22; and ornamentation, 195-196; performative aspect of, 166, 185-186; and poetry, 225-229; and private sphere, 164-166; and public sphere, 164-166; and purity, 197-198; and Pushti Marg sect, 185-186, 192-20l, 206nn7,8; and reciprocity, 172; as symbolic communication, 213, 231; and synecdoche 176n11; Tantric, 217, 219, 225, 233n6; in temples, 165, 185-187, 191-192, 20l, 204-205, 212-215, 230-231; and transformative experience, 185-187, 213, 220; Vaishnavite, 20; Vedic, 160 Robber Noblemen (Pettigrew), 244 Robertson Smith, W., 14, 111n8 Robinson, Vaughn, 255n14 Roland, Alan, 145n2

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Roles, social and reciprocity, 65-66 Rosaldo, Michelle Z, 7, 11, 14, 27n1, 29n13, 93, 99, 111n1, 157-158, 183, 212, 241-242, 253 Rosaldo, Renato, 27n1 Rösel, Jacob, 214-215 Rupa Goswami, 161, 265-266, 268-269, 271-272, 283nn16,17 Rushdie, Salman, 146n7 Rusticus Loquitur (Darling), 254n8 Ryan, Michael, 26, 29n16 Ryder, Arthur W., 99 S Sabbah, Fatna A., 123 Sabean, David Warren, 12 Sadhana, 189, 268 Sadhu, 170, 275-277, 281n2 Sadi, 12l-122, 128-129, 141, 143 Sahajiya, 268-269, 272-274, 279 Sahlins, Marshall, 275 Sakhya bhava, 18, 161, 190 Sakti, 218-219, 224, 228, 233n6, 266 Sakya rasa, 266, 276 Sala, 130-135, 141-143 Sali, 130, 140 Samdhan, 137-139, 141, 147n18 Samdhi, 133, 135-142, 146n11, 147n18 Sampradaya, 187-188, 202, 204, 205n3, 206n7, 208n29 Samskara *, 215, 231 Samyoga*, 184, 191 Sanadhya Brahmans, 98 Sanstana Goswami, 170, 283n17 Sannyasa, 74., 275 Sannyasi 109, 263, 270 Sanskrit, 74, 111n10, 161, 189, 193, 201, 205n5, 207n19, 208n29, 220, 224-225, 229, 257n25, 265-266, 269

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Santa bhava, 18, 161 Santa rasa, 266 Santi, 72 Sapir, J. David, 175n2 Saram, 128 Sarjuparis, 145n4 Sasu, 131 Satire, 116, 146n11 Sattva, 22, 100, 103, 109-110  



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Satya Yuga, 95 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 92 Scanlon, Joseph, 256n21 Schacter, Stanley, 11-12, 28-29n10 Scheff Thomas, 183 Schieffelin, Bambi, 27 Schieffelin, Edward L., 27n1, 157 Schneider, David, 29n19 Scholarship, Western, applied to India, 24, 27 Sculpture, 94, 163 Sects, religious: Chaitanyaite, 24, 103, 157, 159-160, 162, 169-172, 175n1, 176n6, 177n19, 268, 281n4, 282n10, 283nn15,16,17,18; Hare Krishna, 10, 21, 26, 160, 263-265, 267-281; Lingayat, 103; Radhavallabha, 161, 279, 284n27; Ramanandi, 103, 161; Shaivite, 234n18; Shri-vaishnava, 161; Swaminarayan, 160; Vaishnavite, 18, 20, 24, 160-162, 164-165, 171, 175n1, 187, 215, 234nn18,19,23, 263-265, 274, 282n6, 283n14; Vallabhite (Pushti Marg), 16, 22, 24, 97, 157, 159-160, 163, 167-169, 172, 175n1, 176n6, 182-205. See also Pushti Marg sect Segregation, 121, 124 Self: abnegation of, 91; and bodily feeling, 14-15; and classical tradition, 91-92; and culture, 242, 253; and devotion to Krishna, 189; and emotional appraisal, 93; hidden, 110; and rasa, 18

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Sensation, bodily, 4-5, 10-14, 28-29n10, 93 Sense perception, 23-24 Servitude, 52-56 Seva, 9, 71-73, 76-77, 79-80, 83, 188-190, 194, 198-199, 203, 206nn9,12, 207n21, 208n24 Sevaka, 215 Sevika, 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 devadasi, 215-216, 218-219, 222; and diet, 106; and discourse, 116, 124-128, 142, 146n9; and female obligation, 124-127; and female sexual fluid, 228, 233n8; and food, 217-220, 231; and Hinduism, 123; and Holi festival, 101; and ideology, 143; and impotence, 126-127, 129; and incest, 126, 129-130, 134-135, 142, 148n19; and insults, 125-127, 134, 136, 138-139, 146n11; and izzat, 138; and jokes, 125-127, 129, 131, 140-144, 146n8; and male obligation, 126; and marijuana drinking, 101; and Muslim culture, 123; and naming, 131; and physical exercise, 106;

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and purity 77, 216, 233n8, 255n14, 272; and religion, 123, 268-269, 272, 274; and shame, 146n7; and virginity, 123, 138. See also Eroticism; Love Shah, Jethalal G., 202, 205n2 Shaiva: literature, 40, 50; mythology, 60n7, 61n12 Shame, 11, 13, 22, 68, 144, 146n7, 242, 253, 257n29 Shame (Rushdie), 146n7 Shana, Rama Nath, 282n5 Sharma, Ursula, 118 Shibutani, Tamotsu, 274 Shiva, 40, 58, 100-102, 234n18, 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, 239-241, 251-253, 255n12; in Britain, 245; in Canada, 240, 245-246, 248-250, 254nn3,5, 255n15, 256nn21,23, 257n27; and factional politics, 239-241, 245, 248-249, 251-252, 256n21; and family relations, 244-245, 250-251; and Ghadarite revolutionaries, 240, 246, 254nn3,5; Gora, 26, 239-241, 245-253, 256nn20,21,23 256n21,23, 257n26, 258n30; and Guru Granth Sahib, 240; and Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization (3HO), 239, 247-250, 256nn19,21; and izzat, 241-245, 248-253, 254nn2,6,8, 255n10, 256n21, 257nn26,29; Jat, 26, 241-246, 248-251, 255nn10,13,14,15, 257n26; Khalsa, 255n10, 256n18;

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Khatri, 253-254n2, 255n10; and land ownership, 242-244; and marriage, 245, 250-251, 255n14; and martyrdom, 240-241, 252, 254n5, 255n12; migration of, 244-246, 255n13, 256n16; and morality, 240-241; Nanakpanthi, 255n10;  

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Sikhs (continued) 257nn26,27, 258n30; temples of, 240, 247; in United States, 245-246, 256n20 Simic, André, 86n1 Simmons, Leo W., 86n1 Sind, 135 Singer, Eliot, 177n21 Singer, Jerome, 11-12, 28-29n10 Singer, Milton B., 242 Singh, Beant, 255n12 Singh, Bhag, 257n27 Singh, Dave, 256n21 Singh, G. R., 256n21 Singh, Khushwant, 240, 257n27 Singh, Mewa, 240, 254n5 Singh, W., 257n27 Sirkandas, 145n3 Sita, 91 Sithani *, 129, 141 Social constructionism, 4, 183-184; basic propositions of, 8-11; and bodily feeling, 11-14; and Cartesian theory, 13; and cognitive theory, 7-8, 10, 13-14; and commonsense theory, 10-13, 15; and deconstructionism, 8, 19-21, 244, 26; and dialogical anthropology, 24-25; and emotional appraisal, 9-17; and functional interpretation, 9, 15;

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and humanism, 26; and phenomenology, 13, 28n6; and physicalist theory, 6-7, 9-11, 14, 28n3; and rationalism, 10 Social identity: and culture, 161; and food, 104; and masti, 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, 86n1 Solomon, Robert C., 4-6, 10, 12-14, 28n6, 29nn11,12, 93, 166, 183-184 Song: and dance ritual, 225-229; devotional, 187, 192, 194, 206n14; and folksong, 166, 172; obscene, 129, 141, 146n11; religious, 103; and singing, 22, 187 Soodan, K. S., 78, 86n6 Southwold, Martin, 186 Spinoza, Baruch, 28n5 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 29n16 Sri Lanka, 26

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Srinivasan, Amrit, 233n5 Srivastava, Ram, 256n16 Srngara* bhava, 18, 161 Srngara* rasa, 22, 206n13, 212, 218-219, 244-225, 229-231 Sthayi bhava, 18, 193 Stocking, George, 58n1 Structuralism, 92 Subhadra, 214 Subjectivity, 4, 6, 17; and culture, 99; and dance, 220, 222-223; and decentered subject, 26; and mysticism, 158 Surdas, 206n14 Susti, 22 Sutlej river, 254n6 Svakiya, 162 Svarupa, 187, 200-204, 206n10 Swaminarayan sect, 160 Swat Pukhtun, 255n9 Sweepers, Untouchable, 117-118 Synaesthesia, 23 Synecdoche, 176n11 T Tailangs, 159 Tamas, 100 Tambiah, Stanley, 185, 213, 231 Tamils, 21, 25; anpu displayed by, 38-39, 442, 60n6, 61nn9,12; cruelty among, 47-50, 59-60n6; culture of, 39; and economic relations, 41, 53-54;

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and family relations, 38, 40-41, 54-56, 60n6; and food as signifier, 43, 45, 55-56, 61n13; hiding of love by, 42-44, 61n10; 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, 60-61n9; and maternal love, 42-43; and middle class, 41; and name avoidance, 43-44, 60-61n9; and sexual love, 43 Tandon, Prakash, 135 Tantrism, 217, 219, 225, 233n6, 246 Teachings of Lord Chaitanya (Bhaktivedanta), 268  



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Teasing, 107, 128-130, 139, 147n19 Temples, 94, 105; of Chaitanyaite sect, 170; dance in, 212-214, 217, 225, 230-231, 232nn1,2; food in, 168, 171-173, 197, 207n20, 214-215, 217; of Hare Krishna sect, 160, 253-264, 270, 272, 274, 282n10; icons in, 159-161, 172-173, 191-192, 201, 225; inner sanctum of, 197, 207n19, 217, 225, 230; of Pushti Marg sect, 182, 186-188, 191-192, 194-195, 201, 207nn19,20; of Radhavallabha sect, 279, 284n7; 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, 20-21, 24 Tij festival, 122 Tillich, Paul, 201 Tirukkural *, 59n4 Tolkappiyam, 59n4 Toomey, Paul, 10, 16, 20, 22-24, 103, 167, 231 Toothi, N. A., 205n2 Toronto, 246 Transmigration of souls, 46 Trawick, Margaret, 16, 21-22, 24-25, 165 Treatise on Dramaturgy (Bharata), 17 Tribhangi, 22 Turner, Victor, 183, 275 Tyagis, 128 Tyler, Stephen, 102, 175n4

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U Ujjain, 183, 188, 191, 195, 202-203, 208n29 Unclean castes, 121, 145n1 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, 256n20; 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, 145n1. See also Harijans Urban relations, 54, 78-79; and dance, 212; and political economy, 107-108; and Pushti Marg sect, 182 Utku Eskimo, 7 Uttar Pradesh, 92, 94, 111n6, 118, 120-121, 132, 145nn3,4, 157, 182-183, 262 V Vaidhi bhakti, 21, 268-271, 274, 280, 283n20 Vail, Charlotte, 103 Vaishnavite sect, 18, 20, 24, 159-162, 164-165, 171,175n1, 187, 215, 234n18,19,23, 262, 264-265, 274, 282n6, 283n14 Vallabha, 159, 167, 182, 187-188, 194, 199, 202, 204 Vallabhacharya, 97 Vallabhite sect, 157, 159-160, 163, 167-169, 172, 175n1, 176n6. See also Pushti Marg Sect Vancouver, Canada, 240, 248-249, 254n5 Vatsalya bhava, 18, 161, 190 Vatsalya rasa, 266, 276 Vatsyayana, Kapila, 233n11 Vatuk, Sylvia, 9, 21, 25, 70, l03, 118, 120, 122, 145n3, 146n12, 147nn16,18, 165, 167, 176n15, 177n24 file:///C|/Social%20Construction%20of%20Emotions%20in%20India/files/page_311.html[21.03.2011 19:03:11]

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Vatuk, Ved, 177n24 Vaudeville, Charlotte, 175n5 Veda, 95, 160, 177n22, 269, 282n9 Veen, Klaas W. van der, 118, 120 Veer, Peter van der, 103 Vegetarianism, 103, 217 Vellalars, 41 Vesya, 215, 218-219 Videsi, 277 Vidyarthi, L. P., 282n12 Violence 46, 96, 133-134, 239-241, 243, 248-250, 256n21 Viraha, 169, 184, 191 Virginity, 123, 138 Vishnu, 18, 95, 214, 217 Vishram Ghat, 95-97, l04, l08 Vitthalnatha, 187-188, 194, 198, 202-204, 206nn7,14 Vreede-de Stuers, Cora, 118 W Wach, Joachim, 205n3 Wages, 79 Wallace, Anthony, 283n21 Wealth, 97, 107, 208n29 Weber, Max, 6, 175n1 White, Geoffrey, 27n1 Williams, Raymond B., 160 Wilson, Bryan R., 282n8 Wilson, J. R. S., 93, 111nn1,11  



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