CULTURAL BUDDHISM responses: set-4

CULTURAL BUDDHISM responses: set-4

For theme-note, and responses: sets 1, 2, and 3

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45. Argo Spier:

Exploring the fringes of the cultural influence of Buddhism in contemporary society … in India, one unavoidably, at one stage or the other, will have to stumble upon the ambiguity whether Buddhism is a religion or not? And, when one approaches the cultural significance of Buddhism in present day society, whether one won't have to consider that it is a myth in its entirety? It may also be that Buddhism as such, based on myths, is merely the expression of the mythical consciousness of 'man through the ages'.

The idea of p k Sasidharan to have the discourse been associated with 'the taking of a voyage' is a super find. It evokes enthusiasm – ref. the enthusiastic participation of the commentaries – and it provides the needed relaxed atmosphere in which ALL ideas and research are welcome, appreciated and have less of a chance to force a priories that may hamper honest open research. Dr. A. Kanthamani's suggestion that the subtitle of the discourse be changed to incorporate the religious aspects of Buddhism may be an example of a hampering a priori. It suggests that Buddhism is a religion.

But to return to the suggestion that Buddhism may, in its entirety, be the result of myth working, such a consideration may alter perspectives as to the cultural heritage left behind by Buddhism.

In theology 'the time of myths' is past. This has been the case since the De-mystification by Bultmann (Germany) and Vergote (The Netherlands), in the 80ties, of the Christian New Testament, which contains the revelation of Jesus Christ. The De-mystification of the New Testament 'message' didn't devaluate the 'truth value' of the Christian gospel, on the contrary, it brought forth valuable insight and a 'new' understanding of the 2000 year old texts. What the myths used to say (in the past) can and must since their work be expressed differently in all religions or in the thought-of religions. Mythical consciousness needs the interpreting intervention of critical reason, for myths can run wild. And mythical stories – Siddhārtha Gautama, having the thirty-two major and eighty minor marks or signs of a mahāpuruṣa, 'superman' and leaving the elderly palace to become enlightened under a specific kind of tree – can only be accepted as 'pointers' and with reservation. The French philosopher, Gusdorf, conceives mythical consciousness as the implicit, 'enlarged reason' spoken of by phenomenology. Explicit, critical reason is here not the enemy of mythical consciousness. On the contrary, it helps us.

Having said this, I am well aware of the complexity of tracing the mythical mind and its development through time. Moreover, the complexity to, say, with the traces found, make an evaluation of the cultural heritage in contemporary times.

One of the most valuable input into the itinerary of the 'voyage' now under way, is the remark of E. P. Rajagopalan concerning the archaeological potentiality of remnant contemporary words used in everyday contexts. Language archeology is a valuable tool. In this regard I can give the example of a recent history study that was done concerning the Medieval history of the Northern part of France, Normandy. The study dealt with the influence of the Viking influx to that part of the country around 1000 A.C. Before the study the Normand Vikings (from Norway) was seen as 'plundering colonialists'. After the study, and with the discovery of how many names of cities as well as words for cultural festivals contain Normand roots, and the use of language archeology, the understanding of the Vikings was fundamentally changed. Now (by many historians) they are conceived as 'well educated immigrants' having had a 'high cultural level of development'. It also became clear that their threat to the indigenous peoples living in 1000 A.D. in this geographic part of France, the present Normandy (even the name of the region refers to the Norman Vikings) was NOT one of De-civilization but in fact just the opposite. It was their ability to integrate into the higher political layers of the then social organization that was the problem. The violent ones were the indigenous population.

Is it not possible that the now positive evaluation of the cultural heritage of Buddhism may reshape itself into a negative one when exploring deeper into the psyche? An open and non a priori approach towards Buddhism and the incorporation of the possible influence by the mythical conscience of man – and the incorporation of the language archeology tool - may provide a totally new light on the cultural heritage and influence of Buddhism in India.

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46. A.  Kanthamani:

I am glad that Sasi no longer uses 'cultural' as an adjective which was the thing I put to question. My question was what is cultural about it. The onus is to explain. Now he can escape my criticism. He is entitled to use the 'heritage’ or the ‘legacy where he is no longer bound by the Buddhism as we know it, which is inclusive of religion with an attendant credo (rites, rituals, doctrines, mysticism etc). It is open to re-read but not exactly the way Prof. Argo suggests: that would just be mimicking the west but he can 'contextualise'. He can raise a question what is relevant in the legacy for the contemporary world. He can liberate from the a priori imagery to go a posteriori (let me endorse Argo again). He cautions however about the 'complexity' . This is a good advice and he can proceed to unloosen the complexity in whatever way he likes. One interesting domain of this 'complexity' lies in its having been a religion in the past, but it needs re-evaluation of the particularity. Before this: is it not proper to assess the legacy in its generality: what relevance religion has to play in the contemporary world?  If this is too comprehensive, we shall consider each one particular imagery. Let me endorse Argo again: 'cultural heritage may reshape itself' may be, devolving itself into a 'negative imagery'. I hope he will agree with me to have a scientific evaluation over and above the linguistic. Hopefully a new 'baby' is born! I read all criticisms and open-ended remarks with interest: I learnt a great deal! 

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47. P. Madhu:

Buddha is a wonderful thinker who wanted to liberate us from our assumptions of ‘self’, past, future & culture. Culture for him is samsara! We reify it as samskara! Historians & many brands of social scientists even now got stuck with ‘time’ as past (history) or future (futurity- development-progress...) Historians have a bias towards past & locate present in the past & developmentalists, investors,... locate the present in the future... the ontology of present—historians seek in the past... but the world of investment escaping the academic dexterity of historians give the destiny of making present to the future by their investments and dreams...

Taken seriously Buddha had ideas that may absolve us from the identity disease and its consequences.

Below I give a methodological criticism – inspired by Buddha’s thinking (as i understood them!):

 The present, it is said, is historical. However, what we cannot be sure what history is.  Those which are projected before us as histories are nothing beyond the artworks historians produce. The present, it is said, is futuristic. Similarly, we cannot be sure what the future is. The projected futures are the aspirations of the current.

History is a futurization project irrespective of the historians’ interests or aims.  History happens as historians interpret past or present and lay a trajectory towards the futures influenced by the singularities of their academic system.  For some contingent reasons, most projects of history writings happened to be projects trim the pasts into limited ideal types of tapered future, a contribution towards a ‘global history’ of humanity.  The global history projected is as vicious as the ecology deprived of its diversity by the projections of power elites. An awareness of futures and pasts as multiple temporalities breaking out always from the presents would avert historians from sedating their subscribers towards a tapered future.

The ontology of present is not merely historical but also futuristic. However, it will be simplistic to say the ontology of our present existence is both futuristic and historical because neither there exist a factual history lying out there to be described in all its details nor a factual future whose trajectory is already laid. History and future are both discovered and invented.  The multiple presents hold multiple pathways of the pasts and futures which can be modified by presents as they come forth.  There are infinite histories and futures to be discovered or invented. The greater we understand the creative power of the multiple presents the lesser we would dare to limit the ontology of the present in terms of past or future.

Neither the pasts nor the futures are finished products. They are as unfinished as the presents are. Both futures and pasts are live temporalities as the presents are. In other words, pasts and futures are the extensions of the multiple-presents rather than determiners of the ontology of any monolith of the present. There exists no finished ontology of time to be described or to look ahead.  However, it appears to me, presents always have the power to enliven pasts and futures.

Time as history or future is the unbecoming temporized and presented as linear chunks of periods trajectories from past to future. The periodized chunks of temporalities adulterated with ideologies of convenience, histories and futures are projected.  The ontology of present is sought within the projected trajectories. The ontology of present to exist, there should be an ontology of the trajectory moving from the past to the future through present. The unbecoming is moment to moment disbandment of time rather than a trajectory being constructed from past to future. To be more specific, the disbandment is experienced by us as time. However, history is produced disregarding that history is imagined only through ideological constructs of temporalities and trajectories. The endeavour of history itself thus can be understood as projects essentializing time while time per se has no such order, trajectory or uniformity. Temporalities are understood by many thinkers as hetero-temporal, pluri-temporal manifold experienced through ideologies of mindscapes that are subjected to layers of ideological presuppositions.

The presentation and projections of history and future, seen from this perspective, is entangled within the ideological presuppositions almost in its entirety. Hence, seeking guidance either from history or future will be nothing better than getting entangled within the ideological muddle. Such a history or futurity has nothing liberative in them. Merely, they immerse their subjects into one or another bad faith. This poses a major problem to social thinkers and theorists. Social Scientists, I suggest, instead of producing history or future, could de-ontologize the history, future and the present. De-ontologizing history would require, de-essentialzing and de-ideologizing time.

How to go about de-ontologizing time could be a question arising now. One way to de-ontologize time as history or future is to expose the ideological syntagm within which the histories and futures are produced. Also we could expose the hetero-temporal, pluri-temporal and assemblage effects of time constructions. Yet another way is to examine the events and counter events torpedoing sets of constructed times and trajectories. The other way is to expose the unfinished character of time that never allows any finitude of past or future. Exposing the non-linearity, co-presents co-opting temporalities, anti-presents repelling temporal trajectories, exploring the processes of othering, demystifying continuities and many such research endeavors may let historians to make sense of time in its ever unbecoming nowness. The virtue of such orientations of history and future will be reminding its students of the ever unbecoming present. The virtue of scientific understanding of history or future is, I would say, to release time from the ideological clutches produced them.   

If we want to be fair to Buddha’s thinking we may have to de-ontologize  “culture” or “history” & “cultural history”! That will be a taking the discussion to a different level that getting clogged into identitarian reifications and freezing history and future into identity claims and counter claims!

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48. K. Satchidanandan

It will be interesting to connect / contrast these observations with Antonio Negri's ideas of the constitution of time and his constructions like Collective Time, Productive Time and Constitutive Time and what he calls Jetzt-Zeit or 'Now-Time'.

It will also be interesting to look at Buddha's ideas of self as flux, of the decentred, ever discontinuous subject  and his insistence on the absence of an originary as reflected by Subhuti in the Vagrakkhedika  (Diamond Sutra) which in conclusion says " Honoured of the Worlds! The Lord Buddha  did not formulate a precise system of Law or doctrine." This urges us to go beyond the idea of Buddh"ism" and of the Buddh"ist" religion that emanates from a misreading of the the Buddha who would not permit any precise systematization of what he had said  in negative terms: perfection as an empty name, not numbers of worlds but no numbers of worlds, not selfhood but no selfhood : also his looking at the body  as continually changing so that man is never the same for two consecutive moments. These ideas- that might appear Lacanian/Foucauldian to a post-Structuralist- may have profound implications for our understanding of the constitution and reconstitution of time as well as of identities.
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49. P. Madhu:

I enjoyed Dr. Satchidanandan’s observation. I also appreciate Devika’s acknowledgement of “apparent shading between Buddhism and
the post structuralist critique of time” that  is , she says “quite well-noticed by now”. I wonder at the wisdom of a great vagabond monk- to have acquired a great wisdom that could only partially be achieved by the most respected academics after 2000+ years! I appreciate Prof. Sasi for bringing up the much needed thinking on Buddha. I found Dr. Satchidanandan’s caution that we need to appreciate ‘buddh’ist’ & not merely Buddhism!

To advance the argument & possible discussion further he brought Negri to focus. I hope that would let the argument further. Negri shows us the way to understand Marx in a matured way & proceed ahead. If contrasted, our scholars hardly show the mettle to be matured! In this context this paper available open may be relevant: http://projectlamar.com/media/Grosz-Bergson-Deleuze-and-the-Becoming-of-Unbecoming.pdf The paper is closer to what Dr. Satchidanandan wrote and what I observed in my earlier comments.

Buddhist thinking is deeply ‘anti-narcissist’. That gives a solid direction to thinking philosophy and social sciences. It appears to be social science may not be validated in future is it hesitates to take non-narcissist dimension. The degree of non-narcissism will be one of the criteria to assess the quality & methodological rigour of social science or philosophy! I would like that standard would gradually apply to all fields of expertise! This ‘essence’ of Buddhist  thinking lets it to come up again and again despite all historical efforts to suppress it in the past!

I doubt history- not because it is somebody else’s field- or I have some competition with some historian... History as it is problematized is a suspect within the field of historiography and it is too much outdated with the understanding of time, especially many of the new kinds of post-structuralist understandings. There exists no one-autheticated-post-structuralist-historiography. Many new means of historiographies are coming up. Some of them I mentioned in my earlier observations. If relevant to this discussions, we should discuss them ... as post structuralist methods are not totally alien to Buddhist thinking...

This discussion can branch out into many topics... of that one could be methodological discussion... that may help us to excavate the methodological biases that buried quite a lot of thinking by prematurely labelling them as non-scientific!...

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  50. J. Devika:

I think we need to acknowledge that essentialising and de-essentialising time both have their politics. The apparent shading between Buddhism and the post structuralist critique of time is quite well-noticed by now and need not be necessarily pitted against attempts to essentialize time. I am sure we can gain enough self-distance from ongoing attempts that seek to
employ Buddhism as a tool for the latter -- just as we can use it as a tool to de-essentialise time. I don't think there is any true essence of Buddhism that we need to be faithful to. Also don't see why one of these projects has to be necessarily pitted against another. I am not convinced that these projects have necessarily good or bad effects either; without expanding
the field of analysis to examine the conditions under which such projects take shape and the effects they produce, no substantial insight that goes beyond fixities and binaries is bound to arise. The same applies to historical projects too -- as far as I know, post structuralist historiography is far more sophisticated and indeed demanding of painstaking inquiry than Madhu's account would have us believe!

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51. P. Madhu:

The Buddhist epistemology has to offer something significant to the social scientific methodology. Especially, its idea of annicca or impermanence is worthy to be considered. That frees us from essentialist ideals of time and identity often cherished in social thinking- (even by the claimants of 'post-structural' understanding). Instead of essentializing time and identities, this helps us to understand them as 'live unbecomings'- even at odds with the pressures of facticities and 'immanence'! A milieu of culture, from this understanding is the melieu of that culture unbecoming- even over coming all pressures that may tend to retain it. So time happens! How things/ cultures/genders unbecomes ... over come stereotypes,...at a given conjecture.. would be the locale of study if the approach is taken seriously. This is an alternative because otherwise - what we see as history is identities, cultures & times reified...generating needless anger, hatred and deceive oneself as if such an anger were 'revolutionary' or 'progressive'! ... unbecoming is liveliness... unbecoming is over coming stereotypes, unbecoming is mindfulness.. unbecoming has hope in the methodology...this aspect has not there in most of the current constructions of 'post-structuralism'. They still have elements of narcissism, essentialisms, ideologies, premature labeling...I agree with Devika, of-course it has to be verified at field conditions

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52. K. Satchidanandan:

I agree that we need not confine ourselves to a single approach or method in the seminar. The 'real' 'historical' Buddha is hard to reconstruct, except from the hagiographical accounts and mediated dialogues  and unauthenticated texts including Dhammapada. Ultimately the Buddhas who work in history and society are   constructs with their own socio-political implications, like the Brahmin Buddha and the Dalit Buddha , the meditating Buddha and the acting Buddha, the egalitarian Buddha and the transcendental Buddha, the philosopher's Buddha and the poet's Buddha ,not to speak of all those Zen constructs where Buddha intervenes in every human act, all of which , as Devika points out, need not necessarily be pitted against one another as there are several strands running parallely  among them. Perhaps we need to look at: 1. the links between the available texts and  practices (impositions too)2. the social role that the imagined ways of Buddhism have played in different historical(ideological- epistemological-ontological) contexts.3. The relevance of some of these constructs to our own time and our struggle for another world, call it Walter Benjamin's Messianic world if you will. 

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53. S. Raju:

There are different tenors in the analysis of the past that counties to the present. The most general way to classify them is the following: 1. one can move from past to present; 2. one can move from the present to the past (history of present). It appears from the title of your write up that you are more proximate to the second one. The suggestion seems to be that you start from the present day cultural location of Kalady and trace back its relationship with Buddhist culture, Buddhist path, Buddhist thoughts …………… through Sankaracharya. Though both ways 1&2 deal with time, transmission, transformation, continuitty & discontinuity etc they have different political imperatives. Your attempt, I feel, is not so much to contemplate on Buddhism per se, but to recognize how ‘it’ is pervasive and prevail across the taken for granted social categories/distinctions such as caste-class hierarchies. You are thinking about ways in which the icon of Buddha (especially in Kalady) got erased over time. You are alluding to the point that the place name “Kalady” refers to ‘foot prints of a guru or master’ or preacher. This in turn suggests that it is a reminiscence of relic worship. Perhaps, the question that crops up is the following: can one overlook the metaphorical reduction of Kalady to the Sankaracharya icon? More than this question there is yet another one; how such a metaphorical reduction erased the land marks of Buddhist traces/……. ? When one embark on the voyager from the banks of Periyar to ‘Buddha’/ Buddhism/ Buddhist culture, (path, thought…) one has to anticipate the roaring waves of conceptual and category slippages. I am sure that you have in your mind not so much the ‘historical Buddha’ but the Buddha in action and the Budddha dis-activated. And the Kalady overshadowed or over-lit to the extent of blissful blindness. 

The multiple usages such as Budhist path, Buddhist thought, Buddha vada (Buddhist argument), Buddhist religion, Buddhist culture etc. reveal that you are not taking any deterministic or stoic stand. This is intellectually quite comforting for there is no whip; moreover, such multiple usage gives room for capturing the heterogeneity and multiplicity.     

I understand from your Note that Sankaracharya is a veda-anthi(vedanti) and resonate well with the idea that Sankaracharya is a cypto-Buddhist. If this is so, the philosophical/theoretical voyage from Kalady to non-historic/non-transcendental Buddha through Sankara opens up fresh routes for contemplation.  

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54. P. Madhu:

Within spiritual traditions of India that which revered through relics are symbolic representation of realized atman or dhammakaya of any or all of the buddhas, shankaras, jainas- beyond name form and characters. The identities and historicities matter only for the non-spiritual realms of religiosities within the ‘inauthentic’ realms of historicity.

Spiritual realm is timeless- if we take the native field to which these relics belong. Hence, for a spiritually oriented reaching past from present or coming to present from past is immaterial.

Further, there exists no neat path either from past to present or from present to past because these routes always take various directions always from the present of various periodicity. I can imagine two forms of temporalities: 1. Timeless time 2. Timing time (nowness). Past (and sometimes future) represented by conceptualized by some forms of historicities are truth games– irrespective of their utility in the current.

 Histories as they are written are various permutations and combinations of assemblages- all of them are possible from the present! Histories, as they mature and become more authentic- they do not get stuck with identities rather they show us the genealogies and ‘truth games’ played out of identities.

 Thus, surprisingly, both history and spirituality cares least for the identity games and lets the pursuer beyond them! The histories and spiritualities are greatly resourceful in this respect! They are more of self-learning than something to do with incidents out there happened at some point of time- neither they are attempts to ‘straighten’ bent history! Neither an authentic historian nor a spiritualist would attempt straightening the time thus assumed to have bent!

 However, or those who are yet to be stuck with the cords of spirituality or authentic history identities matter! They play the game actively! – Many may not accept this statement!

Such attempts of time travels from present to past (or even travelling from past to present) do not actually straighten the ‘bent’ history or vouch for to which religion relics belong rather it lets us to the plane where we recognize the futility of such attempts. However, such an exercise is always excellent- as it lets us to strike with authentic history and spirituality, as if actually such authenticities exist!

… Any serious student of varieties of spiritual discourses of India for ages would identify them as argumentative traditions and schools rather than religions as it is today. At the level of masters like Buddha, Sankara, mahavir, etc... they are different argumentative traditions which agree upon a lot and disagree upon a few other percept. In some cases the differences are merely linguistic or emphasis given to one aspect than to the other. Many of them agree ideas: 1. Samatva is their recommendation (samatva as internal equanimity) 2. They all agree upon Dharma 3. They all agree materiality has nonmaterial subtlety as their source- all matter & everything is from that common source- that is called ‘sunya’ or ‘siva’ or ‘brahman’- all are very closely synonymous- if one closely follows the discussions. They have differences, but those differences are not so significant to distinguish one totally different from the other. They differ at higher levels of their argumentations. All these argumentations had very contradictory social expression- because , social was taking its own dimension- responding to the life-politics.. . So that one cannot say one religion is rogue and other is an angel if we are truthful to the social interpretation of the past... However, we have the tendency to compartmentalize- watertight the past- & identities people having then extending from the politics of identity as it gets thickened in the current. A time that never was is frequently invented by all power centres.

Almost all  പൊതുധാരണ (public perceptions) are suspicious. That is a known fact! പൊതുധാരണ - it seems will be always like that. Academic ധാരണ (perception) I do not think is much different. As I have commented elsewhere- historiography is still hugely problematic as we have yet to come in terms with time and identities. Social Science academics is still naïve. Its discursive richness has not reached anywhere near the argumentative richness that was prevalent through various local thinking traditions. The problem is that our academics hardly knows the treasure of local thinking available. We just label them by one or another identity- and claim ourselves being ‘politically right’ for not having sufficient knowledge in them! We reinvent wheels- again and again, often, the new wheels reinvented are incomparably of poor quality. We are merely smart- any one points out this will be attacked with one or another label- often camouflaged as ‘politically right’! Knowledge production has become more of lobbied stuff than truthful or sincere enquires! Now we have some people lobby for Sankara some others lobby for something else! We may have to escape from obsessive compulsions of monumentalizations... As you point out every word, word combinations of “ബുദ്ധസംസ്ക്കാരത്തെ തുടച്ചുനീക്കി ഹിന്ദുമതമെന്ന് ഇന്ന് വിളിക്കപ്പെടുണ വൈദിക സംസ്ക്കാരത്തെ പുനസ്ഥാപിച്ച ഒരു യുഗപുരുഷനായ ആദിശങ്കരയുടെ ജന്മഭൂമിയാണ് കാലടി”  (Kaldi is the birth-place of Shankara, who has replaced Hinduism as it is currently existing  removing the erstwhile Buddhism) are suspects... as the stories of St. Thomas & that of Cheran Chenguttuvan are suspects. Enlivening these suspicions I think will be a great process that may help us to ‘unbecome’ & de-narcissize.  Many of the ‘established’ ‘is’es are ‘is’nots! That lets our identities and consequent commitment to identity-fascisms questioned.

The misrecognition of  വാതം (argument) as  മതം (religion) I think has to be better understood. I think- people already know that- however, socially, മതം has become so deep routed- intrigued with everyday life politics മതം (religion) may not go. For identity intellectuals-  മതംm (religion)  is an inevitable fodder to be chewed forever!

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WORKSHOP PRESENTATION by Fr. George Joseph

TRIBAL COSMOLOGY – A Dissident Stream in Spirituality

Fr. Dr. George Joseph Thenadikulam SJ


The tribal societies of India have a proud possession of a great and unique tradition and culture. As the carriers of the early civilization there is a very close similarity in the ways and visions of their life. The remarkable relation of Human being with God, Fellow being and Nature and the mutual interdependence prevailing among them can be considered as the basic foundation their philosophical vision of Universe. ‘Nothing alone exits but only as a sequence of the other and we the humans are one and all creatures is one’. This vision paves for the basis of tribal life.

Tribals believe that this universe/cosmos is the creation of God and all are part of the divine force. Since the universe is divine and holy. This belief leads them to be generous and fraternal people. A close examination of myths, festivals and folklore, one can really fathom the depth of their awareness of ad insight into the Cosmos.

The origin myth of Oraons

Oraons live in the Chotanagapur region in Jharkand , Orissa, Chatisgrah. Oraons origin myth has three parts: 1) the origin of the Universe 2) the fall and punishment 3) the deliverance from the fall.

God, ‘Dharmes’ created earth from water. He took the assistance of silly creatures like earth-worm, crab, tortoise and kingfisher. It was earth – worm that brought soil from beneath the ocean. From the soil he created the flora and fauna, the animal kingdom and humans. He provided for them and cared them lavishly. All were equal in front of God.

Slowly the evil-doers popped up. It grew to un assumable quantity and God had no other choice than to shower the rain of fire on earth, resulting the destruction of all living beings. One pair of human being (boy and girl) saved from the wrath of God by taking shelter in a crab’s burrow. As a result of the loss of life on earth the offering to God came to an end and God became hungry. On his way to hunt for food his hounds found the hiding pair in the burrow. God took care of them, taught them the lessons of agriculture. He also taught them the ‘danda kata’ pooja which would serve as a defense from enemies and famine. From this pair originated the Oraons tribe.
From this myth we could comprehend some of the cosmic vision of this tribe.
1. God’s creation of earth could be fulfilled only with the assistance of silly creatures like earth-worm and crab. This gives us a message that every one is important in the creation work and they all do have a role to play.
2. There exist good and evil in the universe. Good deeds lead to welfare and evil one to destruction. The tribe believes in and expects divine intervention when ever necessary.
3. The Oraon community intend to eliminate the evil forces through the ‘danda katta’ pooja . This point to the need of religious rituals in life.
4. All the tribal festivals are connected with agriculture and nature. They celebrate life. On each occasion the ‘pahan’ (poojari) reminds the people of the myth of origin.
5. Each festival is a community celebration. They give importance to society than individuals. The fraternal attitude and feeling remains in them.

Tribal spirituality

Spirituality is a way of seeing, a way of feeling and a way of relating to the reality: the Nature, the Human and the Divine. It is an attitude and a relationship between these three principles. According to Indian tradition there are two inner faculties of perception: manh (mind) and budhi (intellect). Manh objectifies everything and analyze reality. Budhi enters into reality becoming one with the perceiving subject. Manah operates with subject-object polarity (I-THOU). Budhi transcends this polarity. Tribal spirituality comes in the second category. There is no subject-object polarity; no sacred-secular division. All are one and life is a continuum. For tribal culture is a web of relationship: A vision of cosmotheandirc unity. It is the core aspect of tribal spirituality.

In 1854 the Seattle tribal Chief wrote a letter to the president of USA. It is an eye-opener to the so called civilized society on the matters of tribal world view and spirituality. “How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us. If we do no own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how ca you buy them? Every part of the earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. … .We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the body heat of the pony and man- all belong to the same family.

This we know. The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know; all things are connected like the blood which unites one family. …” (J Mattam,ed. 1998) . It is the tribal vision of life and spirituality; A spirituality which upholds cosmic family spirit. We can name it as Earth spirituality.

Features of tribal spirituality

1. Nature friendly
2. Community centered
3. Celebration of life and love
4. Absence of sacred-secular division
5. It is a spirituality of struggle and resistance; a struggle for survival, a struggle for identity. Eg. Plachimada, Muthanga, Chengara,…
6. It is the spirituality of the masses; people on the periphery


The main stream society holds a negative notion about tribal religion and spirituality. They consider it as one of animistic, pantheistic and superstitious in nature. It is a wrong understanding of tribal religion and spirituality. The researcher’s experience, observations and understanding of tribal spirituality proves the contrary. It is a dissident stream in spirituality which is very much holistic, biological and humane. The main stream society needs a new vision and openness to understand the rationality of tribal spirituality.

THE CONCEPT OF SPIRITUAL DISSENT:a critical note

A.V.G.Warrier:

The theme note started with the phrase “spiritual dissent”, but somewhere downstream we find ourselves drifting to the idea “dissident spirituality”. For me the superposition of the two is what, I feel, is the source of confusion.

When spirituality is the cause of dissent we have spiritual dissent. Spirituality is the cause and dissent is the effect. This dissent is the discarding of the several hypotheses we come across while searching for the universals. The spirit of this dissent is embedded in the neti neti approach where one keeps dissociating from the imminent things while searching for perfect immanence.

Dissident spirituality could mean something quite different. Here dissident is someone who has decided to strike out a path that differs from the mainstream. The dissent could be for any reason. It may or may not be on account of spirituality. When dissent is not on account of spirituality, the spirituality of a dissident could vary widely from each other and from those sticking to the mainstream. Anybody who flouts the norms could get himself branded as a dissident. A dissident could also very well be a very non-spiritual person. Ali Baba who decided to live in the caves with his band of forty thieves could also qualify himself to be dissident. So where is the common thread in the variety of spiritualities of the innumerable dissidents that is worthy of serious exploration!? Even though the small band pursuing spiritual dissent also is a subset of the domain of dissidents, it is unproductive to club them with the rest for any analysis.

A classical example of spiritual dissent is Prahlada. By all worldly standards his dad Hiranyakashipu was a fantastic man. People burn midnight oil and write entrance examinations to emulate him. But his standards were not good enough for his son. Prahlada felt, and advocated, that the recipe for true prosperity and happiness is something that transcends material wealth. For Hiranyakashipu his son was a horrendous fundamentalist. He tried his best to suppress Prahlada by all means available to him. But the grace of the higher spirit made Prahlada immune to all attempts to destroy him.

In the final encounter Prahlada imparts to his father the wisdom of looking for the higher spirit in all mundane phenomena that appears to be grossly different from each other. The energy released by this revelation was so great that it consumed the ego of Hiranyakashipu and liberated him from his shell.

The lore of Hindu religion is full of such examples of spiritual dissent. It is quite possible that it is so in the case of other religions too. The picture of Christ driving away the potbellied priests is not very different from that of a serene Buddha revolting against gross ritual practices. And was Muhammad very different? Or for that matter Moses? Perhaps the spirit of Nachiketas lived through all of them.

In all these cases the dissent was from the corruptions of established practices. We run into problems when we focus on the dissent of the follower of a particular path from the followers of other paths or from the mainstream and arbitrarily assign spirituality with every instance of dissent. It is quite possible that in many cases the inability to conform to mainstream could be the result of inadequate development of spirituality. Focusing on avenues of dissidence and trying to look for the spirituality associated with them may not yield any useful results. When that exercise is used for making comparisons between them it could even be harmful. And when all differences start being equated with dissidence it could become totally absurd. Take for instance the possibility of male chauvinists and feminists arguing with each other over male spirituality and female spirituality. This possibility exists not only for men and women but for all complementary pairs. Playing on dissents generally yield to vertical divisions that compartmentalize the thinking process.

Spiritual dissent is a vehicle for the descent of spirituality. Kathopanishad talked about the descent of spirituality. “Rain that falls on a peak of subtleness flows down the slopes of the mountain. Like this the different paths of dharma are to be seen. Each person may follow a different stream. Pure water, when it is poured into a clean vessel, remains pure without contamination. Likewise a muni who knows the unity of the source of all dharmas becomes the seat of effulgence”. In recent past Aurobindo talked about the imminence of the descent of spirituality. More recently a team of German engineers brought down the spirit of enterprise exploiting the explosive developments in Information Technology to create paradigm shifts in the field of business management.

The relevant thing for society is spiritual dissent and the accompanying descent of spirituality. When Budhdha, Mohammed or Christ made a departure from the corruptions of their respective mainstreams they were operating in domains not affected by others. The question of how he can accommodate the followers of Mohammed or Christ never pestered Buddha. And same was the case with the others. The remaining together of many streams of spiritual practices in close proximity is a recent phenomenon brought into being by the growth of technology that closed distances and speeded up events. What ought to be the parameters for descent of spirituality or spiritual dissent in the modern scenario? How can a Hindu, Muslim, Christian or a follower of any other stream of spirituality be made to feel enriched and enhanced by the others in the neighborhood instead of being threatened by their presence?

This is not an easy question. The divisive powers are very strong and keep dictating what is progressive, what is retrogressive, what is just, what is unjust and so on and so forth. They even hijack the paths created by well-intentioned social reformers and palm off their agendas disguised in the respectability of the old departed souls. The collective intellect is chained to such an extent that one can predict the responses of most of the acknowledged cultural leaders to events. And when we can predict so easily, it means that nothing creative is actually happening. The voices are noises that keep eroding what ever little spirituality is there left in society.

I feel the relevant thing for present day world is to devise means to keep the divisive powers at bay. Just as the management scientists had caused the descent of spirituality to the field of management, perhaps, it is the role of philosophers to be instrumental in spiritual evolution of society. And I believe they can effectively perform in this role only when they keep the word ‘spiritual’ always in front of the word ‘dissent’. May be they should now be the vanguards of spiritual dissent in a world dominated by the politics of being.

FURTHER COMMENTS-3

C Radhakrishnan:

The summary provided interesting reading.Dissent should lead to learning as in the Upanishads where the disciple represents dissent. Dissent as an ex-pression of inviolable personal belief is not creative....
The difference between deprecating dissent and discerning dissent is very obvious, I suppose. The former operates on the principle of himsa and the latter on ahimsa. The former leads to moha or ajnana and the latter to enlightenment. Most dissent in the world today belongs to the former kind. Inter-religious, intra-religious, international or internal-national, it is the same. It leads only to friction, hatred and violence.

FURTHER COMMENTS-2

Dr. Partha Sarathy Mondel:

The responses are encouraging. Why not organize another in-situ Workshop after the rainy season?....We can think of a traveling workshop. We can ask a few interested people if they can host the workshop at their respective places for two days and if each of them can help organize a visit to a site of dissident spirituality. One of the sites of course you can arrange. Let us try this way and then we can think of other ways.

FURTHER COMMENTS-1

Dr.Giorgio De Martino:

My real preoccupations, concerning "dissident spirituality" and technology, are about manipulations and the marketing of spiritual insight - and human relations, obviously. When I suggested, to the group of people that met at Shancaracharia University end of april, about reading the article by Leeb ("Walking by thoughts") I had a specific purpose: going deeply in understanding how much we'll be affected by neurosciences tech, in our researches. I suggested to read the article because, in few years, it will be possible to connect millions of brains throught the Internet (in a trance-like state: ASC - altered states of consciousness), probably even in a "wi-fi" style, not so different from how mobile phones work. Shortly: and if all this will happen, like William Gibson ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Gibson ) wrote, in the mid of the 80s, in his best-seller "Neuromancer", what will happen to our dissident spirituality? What kind of reactions will cause this cyberspace revolution? And our consciousness?

NOTE FOR THE WORKSHOP DISCUSSION- Dr. M. Gangadharan

A Note on Religion and Dissident Spirituality- Dr. M. Gangadharan

Religions are cultural systems which decide in a general way the life-style of the believers. They are mostly institutionalised and provide support to the individuals of the religious community by inculcating self-confidence in them. Religious spirituality is generally expressed in prayers, pilgrimages and rituals sanctioned by religious texts and priests, or those well versed in the texts and traditions of the religion. Occasionally there will be some new philosophical interpretation of the basic texts of the religion which will expand its intellectual dimentions or re-form its ethical and moral precepts. But the religious orthodoxy built up by almost all religions are able to absorb the new ideas resulting from new interpretations of basic texts and re-formation of ethical and moral precepts. And they soon become part of the religious orthodoxy. The interpretation of vedic texts by Sankaracharya and the incorporation Neo Platonist ideas into Christian theology by Saint Augustine (354 - 430) may be taken as examples of new philosophical views on religious texts becoming part of religious orthodoxy in course of time.

Dissident spirituality is generally an expression of discontent with the orthodoxy of religions. Such discontent has been in India caused by social problems which the orthodoxy of religions failed to confront and solve. I can point out three cases in which dissidence was expressed spiritually and creatively in times of social change:

1. Thunchath Ezhuthachan, the poet of Kerala popularly considered the 'father of Malayalam language', though not literally true, is undoutedly the greatst poet in the language. His time has been variously reckoned by scholars and historians, as there is no clear indication of his time in his works. However, it may be safely assumed on the basis some literary evidence that he lived and wrote in the 16th century. Recent studies on the oceanic trade on the Malabar (Kerala) coast has found this period to be one of vigorous trade in spices. The arrival of the Portuguese on the Malabar coast did disrupt the trade for a short period due the ambition of the Portuguese to establish their monopoly in the trade in spices. But the trade revived soon and by the middle of 16th century the Portuguese had become part of the ongoing trade in spices. This in fact increased the volume of trade and made Malabar, especially regions near important harbours, prosperous. Ponnani, an harbour town to the south of Calicut, was one of the most important harbours in the Kingdom of the Zamorin. Nila (Bharata Puzha), one of the two longest rivers in Kerala, originates from the Western Ghats in the east and joins the Arabian Sea at Ponnani. This increased the value of Ponnani as a centre of oceanic trade in spices, as the spices were mostly grown in the high ranges and the long river provided a means of transporting them to the coast for export by maritime traders. Poonthanam Nambuthiri, a gifted poet of the second half of the 16th century, describes how "They earn lots of money/ Trading in jewels and gold/ In elephants and horses/ And by onstructing ships" . He also laments the moral decadence that accompanied the competition to make more and more money. But Ezhuthachan do not mention the condition of life of his time. Instead he translated the two great epics , 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata', into Malayalam poems of exceptional aesthetic quality with stress on sincere devotion to a God who knows everything and who is just and kind to everyone irrespective of caste and gender,.and who forgives anyone who repents sin committed in ignorance. These translations soon became very popular and began to be read ritually by all literate non-Brahmin communities. Ezhuthachn's works may be considered the creative expression of a kind of dissident spirituality as they did not conform to the dominant Brahmanic ethos which were totally influenced by the ideology of very rigid caste system. The great creative works of 17th and 18th century in Malayalam (by Unnayi Warriar, Kunchan Nambiar and Ramapurath Warriar) by non Brahmins as well as the emergence of art forms like Krishnanattom, Kathakali, Chavittu Natakam, etc., may be considered the consequence of Ezhuthachan's dissidence which opened up learning, literature and arts to non- Brahmins..

2. Mahatma Gandhi who dared to be different in his approach to religion may be considered to have opened up Hiduism through his dissident spirituality.
He declared himself to be a 'Sanathana Hindu'. But he never visited any temple and never cared to perform any of the rituals of orthodox Hinduism in his mature years. He always organised prayer meetings in which he discussed various social, political and spiritual problems. There were also songs at the prayer meetings in which the ideas of all religions were respectfully mentioned. Gandhi also insisted on eradication of untouchability among Hindus and worked for temple entry of all castes which was not allowed by the traditional Hinduism. His dissident practise of Hinduism may be considered as sanctioned by his spirituality. And this had impact on large number of Indians. In fact Hindu orthodoxy was effectively challenged by the transparent humanist position taken by Gandhi. The good relations between various religious and caste communities in India was made possible mainly through the break up of Hindu orthodoxy by Gandhi's spiritual dissidence.

3. Narayana Guru of Kerala (1856 - 1928), born in a family, considered to be of low caste at the time, in the southern part of the Princely State of Travancore received good education in Sanskrit and also training in Yoga from his early years. Though he was a devotee of a local temple for some time later he became an avadhootha and wandered in the hills and forests of southern Travancore. Finally he settled down at Aruvippuram, an hamlet on the banks of Neyyar river. Local people found him to be a wise guru in both religious and temporal matters. As the people who came to visit him increased he consecrated in February 1888 a Siva temple there without any of the traditional rituals related to such cosecration. When Brahmins questioned his authority to consecrate a diety he said it was only the Siva of Ezhavas thereby asserting that even those of the low caste has the right to worship Siva in their own way. He also built an ashrama near the temple and wrote on its wall the following verse:

'This is the model place where everyone
Shall live as brothers
without distinctions of caste or religion'.

This was an announcement in total contradiction of the norms and practices of the caste ridden Hindu society of those times. While living as an avadhuta Narayana Guru had composed a number of poems which explained the essence of advaita philosophy. He maintained that as all creation is the manifestation of the supreme being in various forms there is no fixed identity for anything in the world. His Atmopadesa Satakam' says: 'That which appears as oneself and the other are but the same Spirit that burns from the beginning'. This understanding of advaita was used to establish that there cannot be distinctions of caste or religion between human beings. His spirituality, clearly distinct from the Hindu orthodoxy of the times, was accepted by a large number of ordinary people and he began to be accepted as a Guru of great wisdom. This led to the formation of a society for the maintenance of the temple consecrated by him. This society was later (in 1903) constituted as Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Sanghom (S.N.D.P. Sanghom). Guru was assisted by the Sanghom to travel to all parts of Kerala to speak against meaningless and costly rituals of orthodoxy and to give more attention to learning and productive employment. He vehemently propagated against use of intoxicants which was draining the people of their energy. He advocated simple life dedicated to uplift of the poor and the downtrodden. The Sree Narayana Movement in course of time became very popular and brought about thorough change in life-styles of large number of people. Guru was accepted as the incarnation of a new spirit of humanism. This was the result of the recognition of Guru's dissident spirituality as genuine and humane.

Unfortunately in course of time Guru's teachings were used by some influential persons to create a separate identity for the Ezhava community. This was noticed by Guru in his later years and he even declared that he will have nothing to do with the S.N.D.P. Sanghom's attempts to consider one community to be better than other communities. However, it is a fact that Sree Narayana Movement started the process of community formation in Kerala. The sub-castes in different caste groups collapsed to form one community.