1.
This greatly
expanded revised version of my paper "Adepts of the god Bhairava in the Hindu
tradition," presented to the Assembly of the World's Religions, 15-21 November
1985 (New York), is also appearing with further revisions in Sunthar and
Elizabeth Visuvalingam, Transgressive Sacrality in the Hindu
Tradition, Transgressive
Sacrality Series vol.1 (Cambridge, Mass.: Rudra Press, 1989). The earlier
section on “Bhairavanāth and Vaishno Devī” has been replaced with its
theoretical equivalent in section 6 of this paper, and sections 5, 7 and 9 are
also new. I am grateful to Prof. Harvey Paul Alper for having presented this
full version to the pilot-conference on "Transgressive Sacrality in the Hindu
Tradition," 15th Annual Conference on South-Asia, Univ. of Wisconsin, 8 November
1986 (Madison) for discussion. I thank my husband, Dr. Sunthar Visuvalingam, for
having provided the basic interpretative framework for my materials on the
Bhairava-cult and for allowing me to use his unpublished materials on the
Vidūshaka. Thanks are also due to Dr. Hélčne Brunner-Lachaux and Prof. F.B.J.
Kuiper for detailed criticisms of this and earlier versions of the paper, and to
Alf Hiltebeitel for his patient editing.
2.
See
P.V. Kane, History of Dharmashāstra, 2nd ed., Govt. Oriental Series (Poona: Bhandarkar
Oriental Research Institute, 1973), IV.10-31; 87-96 (expiations); II (1974),
147-151. See note 18.
3.
See D.
Lorenzen, The Kāpālikas and Kālāmukhas: Two Lost Saivite Sects (Delhi: Thomson Press, 1972); J.P.
Parry, "Sacrificial Death and the Necrophagous Ascetic," in Death and the
Regeneration of Life, ed. M. Bloch and J. Parry (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982), pp. 74-110 and
"The Aghori Ascetics of Benares" in Indian Religion, ed. R. Burghart and A. Cantlie
(London: Curzon Press, & N. York: St. Martin's Press, 1985), pp.51-78; G.W.
Briggs, Gorakhnāth and the Kānphatā Yogīs (1938; rpt. Motilal Banarsidass, 1982), pp.218-27, 159-61; G.
Unbescheid, Kānphatā: Untersuchungen zu Kult, Mythologie und
Geschichte Sivaitischer Tantriker in Nepal, Beiträge zur Südasienforschung,
Südasien Institut, Heidelberg University, vol. 63 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner
Verlag, 1980).
4.
In the
Hindi film "Bhairavī of the Nether-world," (Pātāla-Bhairavī), which played all over Northern
India around 1985, the Tantric adept seeks magical powers through human
sacrifice to the Goddess. The manner in which the unwitting hero-apprentice
tricks the would-be Nepali executioner into himself becoming the victim
corresponds exactly to one of the founding legends of the Nava Durgā cult of
Bhaktapur, itself associated with human sacrifice, recorded by G. Toffin, Société et
Religion chez les Néwars du Népal (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique,
1984), pp.468-69. Though the message of the film is modern and recommends the
rejection of such dangerous powers, the scenario is the stereotyped traditional
one.
5.
Kubernāth Sukul, Vārānasī-Vaibhav (Patnā:
Bihār Rāstrabhāsā Parishad, 1977), pp.102-7 (in Hindi); D.L. Eck, Banaras: City of Light (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1983), pp.189-201; E. Visuvalingam, "Bhairava: Kotwāl of Vārānasī," in Vārānasī Through the Ages, ed. T.P. Verma et al., Bhāratīya Itihāsa Sankalan
Samiti Publ, no.4
(Vārānasī: BISS, 1986), pp.241-60.
6.
See N. Gutschow, Stadtraum und
Ritual der newarischen Städte im Kathmandu Tal: Eine architekturanthropologische
Untersuchung (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1982), pp.50-53; M. Slusser, Nepal Mandala: A Cultural
Study of the Katmandu Valley (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1982), vol. I, pp.328,345-6; Toffin, Société
et Religion, pp.441-2, 458-66; J.F. Vézies, Les Fźtes Magiques du Népal (Paris: Cesare Rancillo,
1981), pp.26-7. For
Maharashtra, see Sontheimer, Birobā, pp.97,192 (see note 101).
7.
For
Airlines emblem, see M. Anderson, Festivals of Nepal (London: Allen & Unwin, 1971),
p.151; Vézies, pp.70, 162; for Bhaktapur, see Gutschow, pp.63,96-102; Slusser,
pp.347-8; for Patan, see Anderson, p.145; Vézies, pp.65-66.
8.
J. K.
Locke, Karunamaya: The Cult of Avalokiteshvara/Matsyendranātha in the Valley of
Nepal (Katmandu:
Centre of Nepal and Asian Studies, Tribhuvan Univ., 1980), pp.427-36. See note
70.
9.
There
are Jaina tantric texts, like the Bhairavapadmāvatīkalpa (1047 A.D.) of Mallisena (Mysore),
dealing with transgressive Bhairava-type rituals of black magic, which need to
be reconciled with the exaggerated role of ascetic self-denial and non-violence
in Jaina orthodoxy. With Mahānātha for her Bhairava, the Hindu Pūrneshvarī also
received Jaina worship and the ritual founding of her pītha is described in the Srīpadmāvatīpūjana, a Shākta
treatise.
10.
"The
god of the great temple of pilgrimage is--whatever be his name and his myth--the
pure god, withdrawn into himself, the god of ultimate salvation. His most
‘terrible’ forms are besides considered at the limit to be not proper for the
cult, because dangerous even for the devotees. They are relegated to the most
inaccessible sites, surrounded with all kinds of taboos, pacified with
appropriate offerings. . . . In short, even though the god is the master of the
universe of which the temple is the centre, he does not have hic et nunc a direct function of protector. This is delegated to
an inferior god, Bhairava being the protector of territory--kshetrapāla--in his classic form. The principal sanctuary does not
pretend to represent the god in his supreme form--contradictio in terminis--but suggests to the maximum his
renunciate nature as the final reason of the world"; M. Biardeau, L'hindouisme:
Anthropologie d'une Civilization (Paris: Flammarion, 1981), p.149 (author's
translation).
11.
There
are three basic iconographic representations of Bhairava which derive from this
myth. As Brahma-shirash-chedaka he grasps by its hair the severed
head whose dripping blood is greedily lapped up by his dog. As Kankāla-mūrti he is shown spearing a man or already bearing
the latter's corpse (or skeleton) on his shoulder. In both cases, he is either
naked or wearing a tiger or elephant skin, a garland of human skulls, snakes
around his neck and arms, and is grotesque with dark-skin and monstrous fangs.
Third, as the milder Bhiksātana-mūrti he roams begging for alms (from the
wives of the Seven Sages in the Daru forest).
12.
G.S.
Ghurye, Indian Sādhus, 2nd ed. (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1964), p.103ff; Lorenzen, Kāpālikas, p.46; S. Sinha and B. Saraswati, Ascetics of
Kashi: An Anthropological Exploration (Varanasi: N.K. Bose Memorial Foundation, 1978), p.93;
Swami Sadānanda Giri, Society and Sannyāsin: A History of
the Dasanāmi Sannyāsins (Rishikesh: Sadānanda Giri, 1976), p.21 (for list of madhis). See Briggs, Gorakhnāth, pp.10-11, for Gūdara, "the Aughar
sect of Saivites founded by a Dasnāmi by the name of Brahmagiri, through the
favour of Gorakhnāth, who is said to have invested the ascetic with his
ear-rings" (cf. also Ghurye, p.107). The spear-emblem of the Mahānirvāni Akhādā
is known as Bhairavaprakāsa (Ghurye, p.105; Giri, p.27) and, according to
Briggs, the Dasanāmis, who were "special devotees of Bhairava" (p.12, note 4),
also wore the hāl matangā
cord of the Kānphatā Yogis. Bhairava is indicated by a black dot and line
(respectively between and below two curved red horizontal lines indicating
Hanumān), in the tīkā of a Dasanāmi (loc. cit.)
13.
Ghurye,
Indian Sadhus,
p.108. According to one of the informants of Sinha and Saraswati, Ascetics, pp.93-4, "there are 64 Madhis
among the Shaiva Sannyāsis of which the Dasanāmis have 52 Madhis and the
Nāthpanthis have 12, Bārahpanthi as they [the Nāths] call themselves. It is
interesting that on the samādhi of Bhartrhari, located in the fort
of Chunar, the Nāthpanthis and the ascetics of Joona Akhara officiate by turn as
priest and Mahanta. From the list of the Mahantas of the samādhi, it transpires that in the line of Munnanāth,
Kangalināth, Jakhanāth and Tulsīnāth--all Nāthpanthis--came Kamalānanda Bhārati
and Jagadānanda Giri--the Dasanāmi. At present, a disciple of Jagadānanda Giri
is acting as the priest of the samādhi while a disciple of Sandhyānāth
stays there and gets a share of the collections. All these point to a tradition
that brings the Nāgas closer to the Nāthpanthi Yogis."
14.
E.
Visuvalingam, "Kotwāl," p.247 (see note 5). Among the other Bhairavas of
Haridwar, the Kāla Bhairava temple just before the Bilvakesvara Mahādeva, though
still officiated by a (female) Nāth, has fallen into the possession of the
Ānanda Akhādā. The Kāla-Bhairava shrine (facing a Batuka Bhairava shrine),
within the Pashupatināth Mahādeva temple now belonging to the Nirańjanī Akhādā,
was (re-?)installed by a problematic Shravannāth, and the Nirańjanī Akhādā is
itself located further downstream on the Shravannāth Ghāt.
15.
Abhinavagupta and the Synthesis of Indian Culture, ed. S. Visuvalingam, Kashmir
Shaiva Series (Cambridge, Mass.: Rudra Press, 1989). For a preliminary
discussion, see especially his paper presented to the national seminar
(Shrinagar, 20-24 September 1986) on "The Significance and Future of Kashmir
Shaivism," appearing in the same volume.
16.
"O
Death (= Time)! do not cast thy gaze most terrible with anger on me; (for)
steadfast in the service of Shankara and ever meditating on him, I am the
terrifying power of Bhairava!" Bhairavāstaka, v.4. Cf. L. Silburn, Hymnes de
Abhinavagupta (Paris: Institut de Civilisation Indienne, 1970), pp.48,50,53. Also S. Kramrisch, Presence, pp.281-87; see note 18.
17.
See
Sunthar Visuvalingam, "The Transgressive Sacrality of the Dīkshita: Sacrifice, Criminality and Bhakti in the Hindu Tradition," the concluding paper to the
present volume. I thank the Government of India, first the Ministry of Education
and Culture, then the University Grants Commission, for having consistently
supported these researches, which I am presently continuing with the Romain
Rolland fellowship from the French Government.
18.
The
numerous versions of this
Brahmasiraschedaka myth from the Purānas can be found
assembled and partly analyzed in the following 5 works: H. von Stietencron,
"Bhairava," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft
(= ZDMG), Supplementa I, Part 3 (1969), 863-71; W.D. O'Flaherty, Asceticism and Eroticism
in the Mythology of Shiva (1973; rpt. Delhi: Oxford Univ.
Press, 1975), pp.123-7, and The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976),
pp.277-86; S. Kramrisch, The Presence of Siva (Delhi: Oxford University Press.
1981), pp.250-300; E. Meyer, Ankālaparamecuvarī: A Goddess of
Tamilnadu, Her Myths and Cult, Beiträge zur SÜdasienforschung, SÜdasien Institut, Heidelberg
University, vol. 107 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1986), esp. pp.36-8,
158-215 (kapparai = Brahmā's head). The variations
bear on a number of points like the father-son relationship between Brahmā and
Rudra, presence or absence of Vishnu, direct decapitation by Rudra or indirectly
through Bhairava, the ascetic or transgressive connotation of Brahmā's fifth
head, and so on. In one version, the beheading episode is preceded by that of
the emergence of the cosmic linga. I
give below only an abridged and simplified rerendering of the Kūrmapurāna version.
19.
Despite its general associations with ritual purity, the formless Omkāra, who
assumes (human) form to laughingly reconfirm the eternal sexual biunity (mithuna) or twin (yāmala) nature of Siva, is itself already
identified as a Mithuna (sexed couple) in Chāndogya Upanishad (I.1.6); cf. note 115 infra. For the transgressive significance of Omkāra's
laughter, see S. Visuvalingam, notes 6 and 7, in this volume.
20.
For
the oppositional identity of Yama and Kāla-Bhairava, expressing that between
(the ritualization of) natural and (the lived experience of) initiatic death,
see my "Kotwāl" (note 5), pp.253-56, and Stein, note 88 infra. Yamāntaka is likewise identical with Yama; Stein, Dictionnaires des
Mythologies (offprint; Paris:
Flammarion, 1981), p.5. In fact, originally Yama himself seems to have had an
initiatory function as in the Naciketas legend, which he would have retained in
his later role of Dharmarāja.
21.
J.
Deppert, Rudra's Geburt: Systematische Untersuchungen zum Inzest in der Mythologie
der Brāhmanas, Beiträge zur SÜdasien-Forschung, SÜdasien-Institut, Heidelberg University, vol. 28
(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1977),
p.129, note 1, rightly links the stuck-fast head of Brahmā to the ‘rolling head’
of the Vedic Namuci, decapitated by Indra, and underlines the parallelisms with
the Amerindian mythology treated by Lévi-Strauss, where the all-devouring,
polluting head is again sometimes transformed into the moon (Soma). It would be
interesting to attempt to reinterpret Lévi-Strauss' ‘transformation’ in the
light of this analysis of the (transgressive) significance of the
Brahmashiras (see note 117 below). For
Vishvaksena, see ibid., pp.283-84.
22.
The
incessant resounding of the dancing Bhairava's anklet-bells can still be heard
at a certain spot in Kāńci. See R. Dessigane, P.Z. Pattabiramin and J. Filliozat, Les Légendes Ēivaites
de Kāńcipuram: Analyse de textes et iconographie, Publications d'IFI no.27
(Pondicherry: Institut Franēais d'Indologie, 1964), items no.40 and no.49, p.44, no.65
(p.95).
23.
Lorenzen,
Kāpālikas, pp.74-81, 92-95; Stietencron,
"Bhairava," p.867; O'Flaherty, Origins of Evil, p.285; (see notes 3 and 18).
24.
Lorenzen,
Kāpālikas, pp.82-3, 90-2. See W.D. O'Flaherty, Sexual Metaphors and
Animal Symbols in Indian Mythology (1980, rpt. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981),
pp.17-61 on sexual fluids. See note 117.
25.
See S.
Visuvalingam's section in this volume on "The Royal Murder of the Brahman(ized)
Dīkshita." Also J. Parry, "Death and
Cosmogony in Kashi," Contributions to Indian Sociology, 15, Nos. 1 and 2 (1981), p.361;
"Sacrificial Death," pp.80 and 102, note 14; see note 3 supra.
26.
Lorenzen,
Kāpālikas, pp.17,76-87; cf., Briggs,pp.108-9;
see note 3.
27.
For
the mahāpātakas, see Kane, History of Dharmashāstra (see note 2) IV, pp.10-31, and II,
pp.757ff. for food-pollution.
28.
T. Goudriaan, Hindu Tantrism, Handbuch der Orientalistik, Zweite Ableitung, vol. 4, 2 (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1979), p.66.
29.
Biardeau, in M.
Biardeau and C. Malamoud, Le Sacrifice dans
l'Inde Ancienne, Bibliothčque de l'École des Hautes Études, Sciences Religieuse, vol. LXXIX
(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1976), pp.100-2.
30.
Cf. E.
Visuvalingam, "Kotwāl,", p.257; see note 5. For this equivocal logic of
polarized values proper to myth but which is necessarily reduced and fragmented
in their translation or development into sectarian and especially rationalizing
philosophical thought, see J.-P. Vernant, Myth and Society in
Ancient Greece
(Sussex: Harvester Press; New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1980), chaps. 7 and 9,
and especially pp.239-40.
31.
The
best analysis of the complex structural relation between Brahmā, Vishnu and
Rudra in terms of the Brahmanical sacrifice is found in Biardeau, Le Sacrifice, pp.89-106; L'hindouisme, pp.107-8 (see notes 29 and 10);
and
Dictionnaire des Mythologie
(Flammarion: offprint, no date) on "Vishnu/Siva: Dieux suprźmes de la bhakti hindoue" (pp.134-8).
32.
For
the universally fundamental character of the blood-taboo, see L. Makarius, Le Sacré et la Violation
des Interdits
(Paris: Payot, 1974), p.22 and passim.
33.
The
non-dualistic Saivism of Kashmir has borrowed and inherited many elements like
its cosmological schemas from earlier Pāńcarātra schools prevalent in that
region. Cf. A. Eschmann, "Varāha and Narasimha" and "Narasimha's Relation to
Shaivism and Tribal Cults" in Cult of Jagannātha, pp.101-6, also p.175 (see note 85
infra).
34.
Walter F. Otto, Dionysus: Le Mythe et le Culte (Paris: Mercure de France,
1969), pp.211-17; Marcel Detienne, Dionysus mis ą Mort (Paris: Gallimard, 1977), p.204, and Dionysus ą Ciel
Ouvert
(Paris: Hachette, 1986), pp.31-3,98. Cf. also the problem of the dionysiac Hyacinth, whose
tomb lay beneath the statue of Apollo at Amyklai; Agamemnon's sacrifice to
Dionysus in the sanctuary of Apollo; Delphos, eponyme of Delphi, born from the
union of Apollo with Thyia who first served Dionysus and gave her name to the
Thyiades who led their furious dances on Parnassus for both Dionysus and Apollo
(Otto, loc. cit.). See also W. Burkert, Homo Necans: The
Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth (Berkeley: Univ. of California
Press, 1983), pp.123ff. The extent to which Dionysus can be (re-)interpreted in
the light of the dialectic of transgressive sacrality and the symbolic
configuration it has assumed around the figure of Siva-Bhairava (see Detienne,
1986, p.7) may be judged from S. Visuvalingam's section on "Divine Purity and
Demoniac Power" in this volume.
35.
Otto, Dionysus, pp.217, 151. In
the
Bacchantes of Euripides, Tiresias, the hoary
Bacchant, belongs to Apollo, the other great god of Thebes, and alone among
those close to Pentheus, he will be spared the animosity of Dionysus: "without
outraging Phoibos, he honours Bromios, the Great God (Megas Theos)" (Detienne, 1986, p.46). "Finally theological
speculation even identified them" (Otto, p.212; cf. also Detienne, 1986, p.92).
36.
For
the two poles, pathological and divine, of the Greek mania and its Dionysiac character, see Vernant in J.-P.
Vernant and P. Vidal-Naquet, Mythe et Tragédie II [henceforth MT II], (Paris: La
Decouverte, 1986), pp. 18, 40 (wine), 241 (Rohde), 245, 260-7; criticized by
Detienne, 1986, p.108, note 79; cf. also Otto, Dionysus, pp.101, 132-6; and Burkert, Homo Necans, p.184, note 25. Like Dionysus,
Bhairava is even identified with the wine that flows freely in the Tantric
orgies; see Otto, pp.107-8, and ch.12; Detienne, 1986, pp.45-66. It is the
thread of transgressive sacrality that holds together the semantic fluctuations
of the term unmatta meaning "drunk", "mad", even
"foolish" and especially "ecstatically joyful." For the reductionist rationalism
underlying the procedures of exclusion that finally made possible the modern
endeavour to "capture" folly by clinically objectivizing its abnormal
manifestations, see Michel Foucault,
Madness and Civilization: a History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, 2nd ed. (London: Tavistock, 1971).
For the confrontation of psychoanalysis and "enigmatic folly," see
Transgressive Sacrality in the Hindu Tradition (see note 1).
37.
See
Otto,
Dionysus, chaps. 3 and 16, for the intimate
links of Semele (and Aphrodite) with the consort of Dionysus, Ariadne, who also
dies during pregnancy and lies at Argos in the underground sanctuary of the
"Cretan" Dionysus (pp.190-7; Detienne, 1986, p.105, note 45). Ariadne has also
affinities with the humid element and the ocean, from which Aphrodite was born.
38.
E.
Visuvalingam, "Kotwāl" (see note 5), p.254; and pp.255-6 for bhairavī-yātanā; pp.257-60 for "purification,"
which may be understood rather as the re-inscription of transgression in a
sacralizing symbolic order. See also Eck, Banaras, pp.324-44. Cf. O'Flaherty, Origins of Evil, p.167, on Indra; see note 18.
39.
These
secret traditions are being divulged only because the traditional pūjāris, who have recently been dispossessed of their rights
in the Visvanātha temple, now feel freer to speak about them, especially as they
also fear that these rites have been discontinued.
40.
For
the variations of this formula, but based on the same principle of ascending
interdictions and descending transgressions, see Kane, History of Dharmasāstra (see note 2) V, pt.2, p.1076, note
1744. For an informed discussion, see Abhinavagupta, Tantrāloka IV.24,247-53 (with commentary). The Kāpālika's
Brahmanhood is suggested by the legal exception that a Brahman (alone) may kill
a Brahman.
41.
Kramrisch p.264; O'Flaherty, Asceticism,
p.126; Meyer,
Ankālaparamecuvarī, pp. 166-7, 36 (on malicious
laughter); 37, 161-5 (on greed); see note 18.
42.
Makarius,
Le Sacré,
pp.282, 287 (see note 32). Cf. the various instances classified in Dayak under djeadjea "acts contrary to nature" in R.
Caillois, L'Homme et le Sacré, 2nd ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1950), pp.100-1, and in C.
Lévi-Strauss,
Les Structures Elementaires de la Parenté (1967; rpt. Paris: Mouton, 1971),
pp.567-8. For the
symbolic equivalence of noisemaking, eclipses, incest, unruliness and
polychromy, see Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked: Introduction to a
Science of Mythology I (1970; rpt. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1986), p.312 and passim.
43.
Lorenzen,
Kāpālikas, p.75; Deppert, pp.102-3; see
notes 3 and 21.
44.
See
G.K. Bhat,
The Vidūshaka
(Ahmedabad: The New Order Book Co., 1959), pp.51, 258, for the donkey-voiced
Vaikhānasa of the Kaumudīmahotsava; pp.127, 247, for Vasantaka's blasphemous lying in the Ratnāvalī. The most learned Shrotriyas of the
Veda were barred by the legal-codes from giving witness at trials. For Dionysus'
links with the ass, see Otto, Dionysus, p.179; see note 34.
45.
Information and photocopy of relevant pages of manuscript by courtesy of Dr.
G.J.S. (Alexis) Sanderson, Oxford.
46.
In
Rājasekhara's
Karpūramańjarī where Kapińjala, serving as
"court-jester" (Bhat, Vidūsaka, p.135), finally officiates as the priest in the
king's wedding brought about by the grace of Bhairavānanda.
47.
By
J.C. Heesterman, The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship and
Society
[henceforth IC] (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp.45-58, on the
central human head of the Agnicayana.
48.
Sunthar Visuvalingam, Abhinavagupta's Conception of Humour: Its Resonances in
Sanskrit Drama, Poetry, Hindu Mythology and Spiritual Praxis, Diss. Banaras
Hindu University (1983).
49.
See
G.U. Thite, "Significances of the Dīksā,"
Annals of the
Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute 51 (1971), pp.163-73, for the "Brahmanization"
(of even the ksatriya
Indra) through the dīksā (p.169) as "purification"
(pp.171-2). See esp. infra
note 127. In Deppert, Rudra's Geburt (see note 21), pp.lvi, 56, 82, 90, the contradiction between the
apparent purification and the (symbolic) incest has led to the false assumption
that the latter mahāpātaka represents the symbolic
exaggeration of Brahmanical ritual purity, unfortunately undermining the basic
argument of this otherwise most original and stimulating book.
50.
J.C.
Heesterman, "Vrātya and Sacrifice," Indo-Iranian Journal, 6 (1962), pp.1-37; and also his
paper on "The Notion of Anthropophagy in Vedic Ritual," presented to the
pilot-conference on "Transgressive Sacrality in the Hindu Tradition;" also IC,
pp.40, 86, 92, 227 note 46 (see notes 1 and 47). The problem of the
warrior-Brahman pointing to vrātya-circles
(ibid., pp.3,106) is retained in the aggressively militant (ātatāyin) Brahman who seems to point to Kāpālika-type circles,
and the Dharmasāstras are obsessed by the question
whether slaying such a Brahman, who has otherwise no place in their official
system of values, constitutes a Brahmanicide requiring expiation (p.162). Cf.
Kane, History
of Dharmasāstra
(see note 2) II, pp.148-151; III (1973), pp.517-8; IV, p.19, where the
possibility of the ātatāyin being full of tapas and expert in Vedic lore is raised.
51.
In
this case, it would have also been connected with Indra's pole (dhvaja) festival celebrated around the New Year; F.B.J.
Kuiper,
Varuna and Vidūsaka: On the Origin of the Sanskrit Drama [henceforth VV] (Amsterdam: North
Holland Publishing Co., 1979), pp.134-7, 30. Kramrisch, Presence, pp.250-1, 294-5; Deppert, Rudra's Geburt, pp.3-6, pp.81-93, pp.265-284
(myths 1-4, 10); see notes 2 and 21. The term "Astakā" indicates originally the eighth lunar day of the dark
half of the month, and later especially of the months of Mārgasīrsa, Pausa and
Māgha, as a time particularly appropriate for the performance of funerary rites
(srāddha). Because the year began in ancient
times on the full moon of Māgha, its eighth, considered even younger than the
beginning of the year and marked by the first and most important festival, was
called Ekāstaka, the wife of the Year, when those
undertaking the Samvatsarasattra should undergo the dīksā; Kane, History of Dharmasāstra (see note 2) IV, pp.353-6, note
805; V.1, p.660. In Atharvaveda III,10, Ekāstaka, the day of Indra's birth (v.12),
is sung not only as the mother of Indra and Soma but also as the daughter of
Prajāpati (v.13), apparently replacing the Usas of the Vedic New Year (Deppert,
Rudra's
Geburt, p.190).
52.
Lorenzen, Kāpālikas (see note 3), pp.2,13,27,41,54-5 Mattavilāsa, 60 Prabodhacandrodaya, esp.80-1.
53.
Kramrisch,
Presence, pp.257-9; Makarius, Le Sacré (for transgressive magic); see
notes 18 and 32.
54.
See G. Dumézil, Mythe et Epopée I: L'Idéologie des trois fonctions dans les épopées des
peuples indo-européens (Paris: Gallimard, 1968), pp.191-203, 213-20, 253
[henceforth ME I); M. Biardeau, "Etudes de Mythologie Hindoue [henceforth EMH]:
Bhakti et Avatāra," part IV, vol. LXIII (1976), p.124 note 1, p.212 note 2; and part V,
vol. LXV (1978), pp.121-5, 151-5 for its equivalence to the Pāsupatāstra obtained by Arjuna from Rudra, both parts in Bulletin de l'Ecole
Franēaise d'Extrźme Orient (Paris); Kramrisch, Presence, pp.257-9, see note 18.
55.
Though
it is Dhrstadyumna who actually decapitates Drona, the Kāńcī myth makes Arjuna
absolve himself of the Brahmanicide at its Kapālamocana-like Caruvatīrtha, just
as Asvatthāman does for his foeticide (Dessigane et al., Légendes Civaite, p.62; see note 22). It is through
Sukra's Brahmanicide, identified with his consumption of wine and "hair" (=
kaca), that Brhaspati's son Kaca wins
the secret of immortality in the stomach-womb of the demoniac purohita.
56.
Kramrisch,
Presence, p.262; O'Flaherty, Sexual Metaphors, pp.213-32; see notes 18 and 24.
57.
As
major transgressions (mahāpātaka), Brahmanicide and incest must be
equated rather than opposed as by Deppert (supra
note 51). Though from the orthodox psychoanalytic point of view, the parricide
is the means to incest, transgressive sacrality even goes to the point of
identifying the decapitation itself with incest as in the case of Parashurāma's
matricide replacing his Brahman mother Renukā's head with that of an untouchable
woman. In the sacrificial ideology, it is the Brahman officiant himself who
assumes the maternal role of giving (re-) birth to the sacrificer (Heesterman).
58.
Lorenzen, Kāpālikas, pp.28; 42,48 (Shankara); P. Jash, History of Saivism (Calcutta: Roy and Chaudhury,
1974), pp.65-6. For their links with Vedic Soma-sacrifice, see Lorenzen's "New
Data on the Kāpālikas," and especially its discussion by S. Visuvalingam, both
in this volume.
59.
Lorenzen,
Kāpālikas, pp.9,12,18-19,107,151,173; For Pāsupata-vow, see Kramrisch, Presence, pp.257-9, 290-1; see note 18.
60.
Lorenzen,
Kāpālikas, p.167; see pp.155-6, 158, 164, cf.
67; for Vedic affiliation of Pāsupatas, see pp.103,105,114,131,142-3,149,151
(Honnaya),156,161-4. Bhagwan Deshmukh's lecture on epigraphic evidence of
Kālāmukha activity in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra, cited in Times of India (13th Jan., 1985), mentions two such ascetics supervising the
construction of temples dedicated to Siva in the form of Vīrabhadra and
Kālabhairava. Daksa's beheading by the former is a multiform of Bhairava's
decapitation of Brahmā. Yamunācārya's and Rāmānuja's confusion of the two sects
in order to discredit the Kālāmukhas (Lorenzen, pp.4-6) probably also reflects
their perception of this continuity.
61.
Heesterman, IC, p.27; "Vrātya," p.15; see notes 47 and 50.
62.
Biardeau, EMH IV, pp.231-6 (Bhīma); EMH V,
pp.116,121-4 (Arjuna). For the "Brahmanization" of the ideal Kautilyan king
through his basic qualification of "victory over the senses" which would have no
doubt sublimated his petty self-interest into a dharmic imperialism (vijigīsā), see Heesterman, IC, pp.131-2. See
notes 54 and 47.
63.
Biardeau EMH IV, pp.237-8. For Yudhisthira, see Dumézil, ME I, pp.152-4; Biardeau, EMH IV, p.231
(birth from Dharma); EMH V, pp.88, 94-119, for a systematic contrast between
Yudhisthira's and Arjuna's respective claims to the status of ideal king, that
is nevertheless heavily weighted in favour of Arjuna's royal bhakti. Hence see note 126.
64.
David D. Shulman, The King and the Clown in
South Indian Myth and Poetry, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), p.226; see pp.218-235.
For the identification of dīksita and victim in the Asvamedha, see S. Visuvalingam's section in this volume on "The
Royal Murder of the Brahman(ized) Dīksita."
65.
Shulman, ibid., pp.256-75, where however only the "chastity" of Brhannadā has
been underlined. See esp. Biardeau, EMH IV, pp.207-8; V, pp.187-200 (see note
54); Hiltebeitel, "Siva, the Goddess, and the Disguises of the Pāndavas and
Draupadī," History of Religions 20 (1980), pp.147-74, where the androgynized Arjuna actually identifies
himself with the royalty of the impure "Brahman" Yudhisthira. See notes 86 and
109.
66.
Deppert, pp.80,153-5; see Heesterman IC,
p.126 (Vrātya); Biardeau, EMH V, pp.148-60 (Arjuna); see notes 21, 47 and 54.
For Arjuna's "suicidal Brahmanicide," see Hiltebeitel, "Two Krishnas," p.24; see
note 132.
67.
See
Eggeling,
Satapatha Brāhmana,
vol.5, pp.xviii-xxiv; and Dumézil, ME I (see note 54), pp.192, 213-20, 250, for
Asvatthāman. See Hiltebeitel's contribution to this volume, for a telling
example of the retention of sacrificial notations even in the magical
transgression of a deviant "Muslim" figure Muttāl Rāvuttan.
68.
O'Flaherty, Origins of Evil, pp.160-1; see note 18. Dr. Niels
Gutschow informs me that the only (ritual) clowns known to him in Bhaktapur are
the manhandled Mūpātras, apparently Newar for Mahāpātras (=
Mahābrāhmanas), who are normally farmers hired
to play the scapegoat role.
69.
J.
Parry, "Ghosts, Greed and Sin: The Occupational Identity of the Benares Funeral
Priests," Man
(N.S.) 15 (1980), 88-111. For the Vidūsaka being pampered with gifts, see Bhat,
Vidūsaka, pp.59-61; food and modakas even soaked in wine, pp.67-73; parody of Brahman, 223
and passim. For the theoretical inclusion of
the Dom, who is otherwise excluded from the empirical category of Mahābrāhmana, see Veena Das, Structure and Cognition: Aspects of Hindu Caste
and Ritual, 2nd
ed. (Delhi: Oxford
Univ. Press, 1982),
pp.148-9.
70.
Unbescheid,
Kānphatā, pp.139-41; pp.130-51, for the
problematic relation between the Kusles and the Nāths. Though patronized chiefly
by the farmer (Jyapu) caste, the regular officiants at the original Pachali
Bhairab at Pharping (my field-work in Sep-Oct 85) and the Bāgh Bhairab temple of
Kīrtipur are Kusles; Nepali, Newars, pp.301-2, links it to the Baghoba or Vaghdeo of
Maharashtra. See notes 3 and 93.
71.
Parry, "Ghosts," pp.91-6: "The Funeral
Priests as `ghosts'." Cārāyana, the Vidūsaka in the Viddhasālabhańjikā, actually dons the (left-over)
clothes and ornaments of the king himself; see Bhat, Vidūsaka (see note 44), p.265. Cf. Eck, Banaras, (see note 5) pp.24, 193, 325, 344;
and note 23 supra. For dīksā
as "mystical death," see Thite, "Significances of Dīksā," pp.170-1; for embryonic death, see Heesterman,
"Vrātya," pp.30-1, note 86; see notes 49 and 50.
72.
See
D.M. Coccari in this volume, and idem, "The Bīr Babas: An Analysis of a
Folk-Deity in North Indian Hinduism," Diss. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, 1986;
also Meyer, Ankālaparamźcuvarī (see note 18), for the Tuluva Brahmeru-bhūta (p.165) and other Brahms
(180-2) like the Jaina Brahmadeva and the Nāga-Brahma (see esp. p.182, note 4).
Though there is no Brahmā corresponding to the kapparai
in the cult of Ankālamman, the
Mahābrāhmana Vināyaka plays a greedy role at the
cremation-ground in the Brahmanicide myth (pp.36-7) and in the ritual. The
Vidūsaka in the Adbhutadarpana is a marrow, fat, and meat-devouring Brahmarāksasa called, like Ganesa,
Mahodara.
73.
Heesterman, "Vrātya," pp.10, 30; Thite, "Dīksā,"
p.171; Otto,
Dionysus, pp.121-4; see notes 50, 49 and 34.
74.
Kāpālikas,
p79,note 29; see note 3. The Mahābhārata myth not only serves as the missing
link between the earlier and later forms of the Brahmanicide penance, between Sarasvatī and
Gangā, but also reveals the executioner and victim to be only the two poles of
the single Mahābrāhmana.
75.
Dessigane et.al., Légendes Sivaites, p.63; see note 22. Though on the Gangā bank, the inlet is on the opposite
side of Manikarnikā tank and the incoming water tastes differently from Gangā
water, as I was able to confirm myself during Manikarnikā-Devī's festival on
12-13th May, 1986, for which the tank was emptied for cleaning.
76.
See
Lorenzen,
Kāpālikas, p.30; Eck, Banaras, pp.112-20; Sukul, Vārānasī-Vaibhav, p.50; see notes 3 and 5. J. Irwin,
"The Sacred Anthill and the Cult of the Primordial Mound," History of Religions 21 (1982), pp.339-60. It is
possible to identify the primordial mound not only with the bisexual embryo but
also with the world-egg (brahmānda) as the ovum before its fixation on
the uterine wall; see F.B.J. Kuiper, "Cosmogony and Conception: A Query,"
Ancient Indian Cosmogony
[henceforth AIC], ed J. Irwin (Delhi: Vikas, 1983), pp.90-137. Omkāra also
embodies the unstructured (anirukta) ritual speech imitated by the dīksita's stammering.
77.
Eck, Banaras, pp.238-51; J. Parry, "Death and
Cosmogony in Kashi," Contributions to Indian Sociology, 15 (1981), pp.337-9, 351, 357. For
Vishnu's foot, which invariably recurs at Hari-kī-Paurī (Haridwar) and other
tīrthas on the Gangā, see Kuiper, AIC,
pp.41-55: "The Three Strides of Vishnu."
78.
Parry, "Ghosts," p.94; see note 69. Also
idem, "Death and Digestion: the symbolism of food and eating in north Indian
mortuary rites," Man (NS), 20 (1985), p.612-30, for the pinda as fusion of male and female reproductive substances (kundagolaka), etc.
79.
See
Eliade, Rites and Symbols of Initiation: The Mysteries of Birth and Rebirth
(1958; rpt. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965); also his Myths, Dreams and
Mysteries: The Encounter Between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Reality (1960;
rpt. Glasgow: Collins, 1968), esp. chaps. 7-8. For the embryonic significance of
the Harappan urns, see D.D. Kosambi, Myth and Reality (Bombay: Popular
Prakashan, 1982), pp.67-81.
80.
Heesterman, IC (see note 47), pp.54-5, 218
note 61; David D. Shulman, Tamil Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in the South Indian
Saiva Tradition
(New Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press, 1980), pp.110-131, 243-67. For the
wilderness as the "womb of kingship" see Heesterman, IC, pp.6, 118, 126, 142,
144, and 233, note 61.
81.
Sukul, Vārānasī-Vaibhav, p.55; Eck, Banaras, pp.29-31, 182-8; Parry, "Death and
Cosmogony," p.341; E. Visuvalingam, "Kotwāl," pp.247-9 (see notes 5 and 77).
82.
Meyer,
Ankālaparamźcuvarī (see note 18), pp.191 (Gangammā);
82, 139, 189, 196 (Irulappan); 185, 196 (Kāsī-Vallālarājan); 83, 144
(Kāsī-Visvanātha as consort of Ankālamman). This (re-)interpretation of the
Goddess cult of the cremation-ground is based on S. Visuvalingam's review in Transgressive Sacrality (see note 1). For Vaisno-Devī, see
S. Visuvalingam on K. M. Erndl's contribution in this volume.
83.
Otto,
Dionysus, pp.60, 71-3, 78, 90-2, 108-24,
134-5, 138-44, 152, esp. 189, 200-3; Burkert, Homo Necans, pp.125, 213, 232f; Detienne, Dionysus ą Ciel Ouvert, pp.61-2; see note 34. For the
official and civic character of the Athenian integration of the transgressive
Dionysus, see J.-P. Vernant, Annuaire du Collčge de France (Paris, 1983-84), pp.476-7.
84.
Heesterman, IC, pp.26-44,91,94,102,104,etc.;see note 47.
85.
G.C.
Tripathi, "Navakalevara: The Unique Ceremony of the `birth' and `death' of the
`Lord of the World'," in The Cult of Jagannātha and the Regional
Tradition of Orissa, ed. A.
Eschmann, H. Kulke and G.C. Tripathi (Delhi: Manohar, 1978), p.260. See F.A. Marglin, Wives of the God-King: The
Rituals of the Devadāsīs of Puri (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985) p.265, where
the oldest Sabara, who transfers it, is expected to die within the year; and da
Silva,
Pouvoir; see notes 84 and 102.
86.
Meyer,
Ankālaparamźcuvarī, p.37; cf. p.165; pp.192-3, 179-80,
for the problematic relation between the "Saiva" king and the "Sākta"
Cempatavars. M.L. Reiniche, "Le temple dans la localité: Quatre
examples au Tamilnad," L'Espace du Temple: Espaces, Itinéraires,
Médiations,
Purusārtha no.8 (Paris: EHESS, 1985),
pp.107, 110 (Annāmalaiyār); 102 (Kumbhakonam); 106 (Lingodbhava at
Tiruvannāmalai). Brahmā
himself is the classic figure of the "pregnant male," comparable to the young
Greek who had to imitate labor-pains, with appropriate cries and gestures, of a
pregnant woman during certain sacrifices dedicated to Dionysus (Otto,
Dionysus, p.195). For Dionysus himself was
not only the "effeminate stranger" (Euripedes) whom Ino was asked to rear as a
girl, but was also sometimes called "androgyne" (Otto, p.185). His cousin-victim
Pentheus is travestied in the feminine attire of his Bacchant-devotee before
being torn apart and it is the same actor who plays the role of his
mother-devourer Agavé (Vernant, MT II, pp.251-2, 255-6); see notes 34 and 36.
Cf. Shulman, Tamil Temple Myths (see note 80), pp.294-316.
87.
E.
Visuvalingam,
"Bhairava's cudgel or Lāt-Bhairava," (1986), pp.250-3 (see note 5). For its
relation to the world-tree, the number 7, and tripartition, see M. Eliade,
Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy, Bollingen Series LXXVI (New Jersey: Princeton Univ. Press, 1964),
pp.259-287 ("Shamanism and Cosmology"); pp.403-6 ("Ancient India: Ascensional
Rites": yūpa as cosmic tree, Buddha's seven
strides).
88.
Rolf A.
Stein,
L'Annuaire du Collčge de France (Paris), 1971-72, pp.499-510; 1972-73, pp.463-70; 1973-74, pp.508-17;
1974-75, pp.488-95; 1975-76, pp.531-6; 1976-77, pp.607-15. According to him (1974-75, p.490),
the primitive form, alone retained in Sino-Japanese tantrism, of Bhairava's khatvānga "seems to have been a club formed of a skull fitted
onto a long bone. It resembles the yamadanda,
Yama's staff." I thank Prof. Stein for his off-prints.
89.
Vernant, MT II, pp.251-54; Detienne, Dionysus ą Ciel Ouvert, p.42; cf. Burkert, Homo Necans, pp.177, 198 note 14; see notes 36
and 34.
90.
Biardeau,
Dictionnaire, pp.89-90, 109-13; Stein, Annuaires, 1972-73, p.469; 1974-75, p.491;
see notes 31 and 88. Also S. Visuvalingam's section on "The Inner Conflict of
Man: The Royal Murder of the Brahman (-ized) Dīksita"
in this volume. Nevertheless, Hiltebeitel's paper in this volume suggests that
anthropomorphized posts like Potu Rāju, and even the Muslim Muttāl Rāvuttan,
still conserve not only the symbolic values but also the bloody function of the
Vedic yūpa.
91.
Stein, Annuaires, 1971-2, pp.504-7; 1972-3, p.470; 1974-5, p.489;
Briggs,
Gorakhnāth, p.308; Anderson, Festivals, pp.41-6; Vézies, Fźtes, pp.23-4; Gutschow, Stadtraum, pp.81-96, see notes 88,3,7 and 6.
Details of the funerary procession were supplied by courtesy of Dr. Niels
Gutschow who made a special study of it on 13th April 1987 after our personal
discussion of death symbolism in the Newar New Year festivals.
92.
Author's translation of Toffin, Les Néwars,
p.512; cf. pp.509, 516, 250 (see note 4).
93.
References to G.S. Nepali, The Newars: An Ethno-Sociological Study of a Himalayan Community (Bombay: United Asia Publ., 1959),
pp.359-69; Anderson, Festivals,
pp.127-37; Slusser, Nepal Mandala, pp.97, 264, 268-9; and Gutschow, Stadtraum, pp.138-46, 58-63, (see notes 7 and 6), M. Allen, The Cult of Kumari, pp.17-20, are completed below by
my own field-work at Kathmandu from 25th Sep. (beginning of Indra Jātrā)
till 28th Oct. 85, and from 22nd Sept till 7th Nov. 1988, facilitated by a
grants from the C.N.R.S. "équipes" 299 and . For its derivation from the New
Year festival of Vedic cosmogony, the role of Asura-Varuna, and the later role
of the jarjara (= dhvaja)
in the preliminaries of the Sanskrit drama, see Kuiper, VV, supra note 53. According to the Brhat Samhitā, the pole should preferably be from
an Arjuna tree, and another staff should also be raised as Indra's mother.
Another Grhya-Sūtra prescribes the Indrayajńa with oblations to Indrānī, Aja
Ekapāda, Ahirbudhnya, etc. to be performed on the full-moon day itself of
Bhādrapada (see Ekapāda-Bhairava, note 106 below). Kane, History of Dharmasāstra, II, pp.824-6, derives from the
Indramaha the annual raising of a bamboo staff in the Deccan and other places on
the first day of Caitra, which corresponds to the Bhaktapur Bisket Jātrā where
the pole is identified with Bhairava (= Kāsī-Visvanāth) instead. I thank Dr.
Niels Gutschow for details on the Indra Jātrā and the Mahāpātras at Bhaktapur.
94.
See
Allen, Cult
of Kumāri,
pp.48-60; Slusser, Nepal Mandala, pp.311-20; Shulman, Tamil Temple Myths, pp.138-92, 223-43 (see notes 93, 6
and 80); and esp. S. Visuvalingam's review-article "Are Tamil Temple Myths really Tamil?" presented to the
VIth World Tamil Conference, Kuala Lumpur, 15-19th November 1987. See Kane,
History of
Dharmasāstra
IV, pp.530-2 for Mahālayasrāddha; and Anderson, Festivals, pp.138-141, for the Sorah Srāddha.
95.
Anderson,
Festivals, pp.156-63; Slusser, Nepal Mandala, pp.47-8, 235,238-9; Gutschow, Stadtraum, pp.135-8 (see notes 7 and 6). I
was unable to study the exchange of swords in October 1977, as the grants to
study the festival-season have been released only in 1988, and with the rapid
erosion of traditional structures there is no guarantee that the ritual will
still wait to be studied after 12 years.
96.
E.
Visuvalingam, "Kotwāl," p.252; see note 5. For the equation of the fallen
Indra-pole with the victimized dīksita,
see S. Visuvalingam's treatment of the Brahman Cārudatta condemned as an
"untouchable" to be executed by cāndālas
as an offering to the goddess at the stake in Act 10 of the Mrcchakatikā in Transgressive Sacrality, see note 1.
97.
Sukul,
Vārānasī, pp.205-6 (on Kapāli-Bhairava),
103-5, 247-8;
Krtyakalpataru p.54 and Kāsīkhanda 33.114-5 cited by Sukul on
pp.260-1; 105, 121; see note 5. Sukul (p.121) had suggested a separate Kula
Stambha supposedly erected by Asoka only because he recognized the wholly Hindu
character of the Mahāsmasāna Stambha.
98.
Stein
Annuaires (see note 88), 1971-72, p.504;
1972-73, pp.464-5; 1973-74, pp.509-11; 1975-76, pp.535-6; 1976-77, p.609. For Rudrapisāca, see Eck, Banaras, p..339; Sukul, pp.37-8; see note 5. For Brahmanāla, see Sukul, pp.51-2; Parry, "Death and Cosmogony,"
p.343 and note 8; see note 25. Researchers into Near Death Experiences (NDE), especially those who have
undergone it themselves, should not have much difficulty, despite the Indian
cultural context, in recognizing the inner coherence of this mythico-ritual
universe,
99.
Sukul,
pp.71-2, 119, 121 (citing Kāsīkhanda
100.99), 150-2, 250, 347-8; E. Visuvalingam, "Kotwāl," pp.252, 255; see note 5.
100.
Anderson, Festivals, p.43; see note 7. Dr. Mary Searle Chatterjee kindly shared with us her
summary of the two versions, now included in her as yet unpublished paper on
"Religious Division and the Mythology of the Past." Dr. Chatterjee added that
she had seen a painting for sale in Britain of human-sacrifice being offered at
a "Somnāth temple" (label) in Benares. Ghāzī Miyā's annual wedding with Zohra
Bibi, celebrated on the first Sunday of Jyesthā (May-June) by the Muslims of
Adampura, also appears to have been an unconsummated tragic union. For the
victim as bridegroom, see esp. S. Visuvalingam on Mrcchakatikā Act X; see note 96.
101.
G.D. Sontheimer, Birobā, Mhaskobā und Khandobā: Ursprung, Geschichte und Umwelt von
Pastoralen Gottheiten in Mahārāstra, Schriftenreihe der SÜdasien-Institut
der Universitatät Heidelberg, vol 21 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1976),
pp.29-30, 200-2, 252 (Mhaskobā); pp.46, 48, 184, 196 (Birobā); 61-3, 240-1 (two
wives). See also his
"Some Incidents in the History of the God Khandobā," Asie du Sud: Traditions et
Changements,
Proceedings of the VIth European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies, 8-13
July 1978 (Paris: C.N.R.S., 1978); "The Mallāri/Khandobā Myth as Reflected in
Folk Art and Ritual," Anthropos 79 (1984), pp.155-170. See also Shulman, Tamil Temple Myths, pp.267-94 for Vedic antecedents.
102.
R.N.
Nandi,
Religious Institutions and Cults in the Deccan (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1973), pp.114ff. on "The
Beginnings of Tantric Cults," esp.121-2: "Stambhesvarī"; cf. Eschmann,
"Hinduization of Tribal Deities in Orissa: The Sākta and Saiva Typology," in
Eschmann et al. ed., The Cult of Jagannātha, pp.79-97; Goudriaan, Hindu Tantrism, p.37; and Nepali, The Newars, pp.298-305, for the "aboriginal
origin" of the Nepali Bhairavas; see notes 85, 28 and 93. For a cogent critique
of such genetic approaches seeking to explain Hindu divinities like Jagannātha
or Bhairava (purely) in terms of their evolution from non-Brahmanical, even
pre-Aryan, substratums, see J.C. Gomes da Silva, Pouvoir et Hierarchie (Bruxelles: Unversité Libre de
Bruxelles, in press).
103.
Sontheimer, Birobā, pp.29,31,95-7,243 (Gosavī); pp.176-9,284.
104.
Marglin,
Wives, p.273; 243-7: daitās' consanguinity with the king; their representing
Jagannātha, pp.256, 261, 276-9; king as sweeper: pp.241, 254, 258; obscenities
and dissolution of caste-boundaries including the Brahman/daitā opposition during the car-festival, p.275; Pati
Mahāpātra: pp.250-1, 264-75; Ganesa: pp.249, 271 (see note 84).
105.
Marglin,
Wives, p.197; see note 84. While
reporting on the secret Kaula (Bhairava-) cakrapūjā being performed in the Jagannātha temple, Marglin (p.218) refers to the
rumours of a secret underground chamber located beneath the inner sanctum,
pointing out parallels of cakrapūjās being performed below the sanctum
elsewhere (p.328, note 4); there is one, now in disuse, in the Benares Aghori
ashram. Cf. note
123 infra.
106.
Heinrich von Stietencron, "The Saiva
Component in the Early Evolution of Jagannātha," pp.119-23; and A. Eschmann, H.
Kulke, G.C. Tripathi, "The Formation of the Jagannātha Triad," pp.174-5, 189, Cult of Jagannātha (see note 85), also pp.104-5.
107.
Charles
Malamoud, "Village et forźt dans l'idéologie de l'Inde brāhmanique," in
Archives Européennes de Sociologie, XVII (1976), pp,3-20, esp. p.10, note 36.
108.
Tripathi,
"Navakalevara," pp.236-8. There is also the inexplicable procedure of drawing the inverted figure
of a man on the tree followed by the sacrifice of an "animal" in the form of a
white gourd, before the Jagannātha-tree is actually cut down (pp.247-9).
Interestingly, the lama explains the inverted khatvānga suspended just over the kapāla
recipient of the alchemical fire-place by the practice, unattested in the texts,
of the adept being (mystically) decapitated while upside-down (Stein, Annuaire, 1976, pp.534-6). See notes 85 and
88. But compare S. Visuvalingam's treatment of the motif of the "inverted tree"
in the Kāttavarāyan narrative in this volume.
109.
See
Biardeau, "L'arbre samī et le buffle sacrificiel," Autour de la Déesse Hindoue, ed. M. Biardeau, Collection Purusārtha no.5 (Paris: Ecole des Hautes
Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1981), pp.215-43. For the maternity of the androgynized dīksita, see notes 65 and 87.
110.
Sontheimer,
Birobā, pp.249, 252, 183-6, 204f.;
Marglin,
Wives, pp.327 note 1, 264 (for Jagannātha
as Kālī), see notes 101 and 84. The stone-pillars representing the goddesses
Pītabalī and Khambesvarī, along the Orissan trunk road, are dubbed lingas, and the rock-goddess is encircled by a "sakti" to become a svayambhū linga as at the Bhairavī-temple at Purānacuttack; Eschmann, Cult of Jagannātha, pp.95-6 (see note 85).
111.
For a similar explanation of the supposedly
"foreign" origin of the Greek Dionysus in terms of his transgressive otherness
institutionalized through the controlled trance, the officialized thiase, the
festive komos, the theatre, etc. at the very heart of Greek
civilization, see Vernant, in Vernant and Vidal-Naquet, MT II, pp.246, 251, 255,
257, 259, 269; the transgressive dimension is underlined especially at p.105 by
V-Naquet, and by Detienne, Dionysus mis ą Mort,
pp.7-8 (see notes 36 and 34).
112.
Author's trans. of Biardeau, L'Hindouisme, p.162, cf. p.164; cf. Goudriaan, Hindu Tantrism, pp.17, 32, 36-7; see notes 10 and
28.
113.
Lorenzen,
Kāpālikas, p.49; see note 3. For the Kaula "deradicalization" of
Kāpālika ideology, and the role of the esoteric Krama school, see Alexis
Sanderson, "Purity and power among the Brahmans of Kashmir," in The Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History, M. Carrithers, S. Collins and S.
Lukes, eds.
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986), pp.190-216; "Mandala and Agamic
Identity in the Trika of Kashmir," in Mantras et Diagrammes Rituels dans l'Hindouisme (Paris: Editions du CNRS,
1986), pp.169-214.
114.
Abhinavagupta,
Tantrāloka, Kashmir Series of Texts and
Studies no. LVII (Bombay: 1936), vol.11, chap.29.10 (transgression); 11-13
(wine); 83-9 (comm.), 142-9 (mantric power due to neutralization of opposing
vital airs in the median channel); 96ff (dūtīyāga); 97-8 (transgressive definition of
brahmacārin); 101-3 (transgression of caste,
incest); 104-15 (sexualization of consciousness); 115-28 (yāmala sāntodita state); 128-9 (kundagolaka); 129-142 (vīryaviksobha); 156-61 (bhairavāstakapadam); 162-3 (yoginībhū); 181-5 (internalized cremation through the
all-devouring Kāla-Fire of the universal dissolution); 138-9 (pisācāvesa, demoniac possession when a higher state of
consciousness is blocked at a lower level instead of vice-versa). This description of the Kulayāga has been "conflated" with the practices of the Puri
rājagurus (Marglin, Wives, pp.217-42; see note 84), and from
my manuscript of the Unmattākhyakramapaddhati, analyzed in my Ph.D. Diss. (Paris, 1981). See also
K.C. Pandey,
Abhinavagupta: An Historical and Philosophical Study, 2nd ed. (Varanasi: Chowkhamba, 1963), pp.607-23; and
Abhinavagupta, Parātrimsikāvivarana, KS no.
XVIII (Bombay: 1918), pp.45-51. The yāmala state can be usefully compared to
the sexually differentiated roles of Mitra and Varuna when this dual divinity
mythically unites with the divinized courtesan Urvasī in the Purānas.
115.
Parry,
"Sacrificial Death," p.81; Marglin, Wives, pp.224-5, 237; 224, 239-40 (kulāmrta); 218, 233-4 (cremation-ground); see notes 3 and 84.
116.
See notes 114 and 19. The conceptions
of mithuna and yāmala
are indissociable in Tantric doctrine and practice as attested to particularly
by the Yāmala group of Tantras, sub-divided into
Brahma-, Rudra-, Jayadratha- and other Yāmalas. "Internal evidence suggests that the Yāmalas were
produced by circles which developed a tendency towards Sāktism. P. Ch. Bagchi--perhaps
exaggeratedly--credits
the authors of the Yāmalas--by tradition they were the eight Bhairavas,
manifestations of Siva--with some important new developments, among which are the Sākta
orientation and the rendering accessible of their sādhanā
to non-Brahmans"; see Goudriaan, Hindu Tantrism, p.22; cf. p.11; see note 28.
117.
Eliade,
Shamanism, pp.411, 414; see also pp.421-7 for
"Shamanism among the Aboriginal Tribes of India" particularly the Savaras; see
note 87. For honey, see C. Lévi-Strauss, Mythologiques II: Du Miel
aux Cendres
(Paris: Plon 1967) and Introduction to a Science of Mythology III: The Origin of Table Manners (New York: Harper & Row, 1979),
pp.412-22; see notes 42, 21 and 24.
118.
See Heesterman, IC, p.35; Nepali, Newars, pp.298-305, even asserts the
"tribal origin" of Bhairava; see notes 47 and 93; cf. note 101-2.
119.
Kuiper, VV, pp.35-7, 75-6, 102-6, 166-8,
193; AIC, pp.48-9; see notes 51 and
76. For some of the fundamental issues involved in this problematic
transformation, see Biardeau's review of VV in Indo-Iranian Journal (1981), pp.293-300.
120.
W.E.
Hale, Asura
in Early Vedic Religion (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986), who is however unable to explain
Rgveda X.124 from his purely evolutionistic perspective (pp.86-92), whereas
Kuiper, VV, pp.13-42, has provided a coherent interpretation of this "transfer
of sovereignty" to Indra in terms of his mythical dialectic. It would be sound
methodological procedure to provisionally
separate the significance of Varuna from the evolution of the Asuras before
reintegrating the Asura Varuna of the Rgveda; contrast Kuiper, VV, pp.5-13.
121.
Deppert,
Rudra's
Geburt (see note
21), pp.85-6, 134-44 (sacral kingship of the pre-Aryan Middle-Eastern type),
233-5. Cf. Kuiper, VV, pp.24-6 for Varuna's ksatra.
122.
See G. Dumézil, Les dieux souverains des Indo-Européens, 2nd ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1977), pp.55-85,
and especially his Mitra-Varuna, 2nd ed. (Paris: Gallimard, 1948); Kuiper, AIC, pp.9-22; VV, pp.45-6,
59-60 (see notes 76 and 51). Dumézil's and Kuiper's positions had remained
irreconcilable because the former had come to perceive Mitra-Varuna primarily in
sociologizing terms as the priestly summit of the trifunctional hierarchy
whereas the latter continued to relegate Mitra to the underworld simply because
he shares the Asurahood of his twin Varuna, despite the recognized difficulties
of Mitra's partiality for the upperworld and the mythic interferences with
Indra; cf. Kuiper, "Remarks on the Avestan Hymn to Mithra," Indo-Iranian Journal (1961-2), pp.36-60; esp. 46-53,
57-9; "Some Observations on Dumézil's Theory," Numen, 8 (1961), pp.34-45. A
transgressively dialectical approach would equate Varuna, as the underworldly
pole of Dumézil's Mitraic first function, with the demoniac tribal Bhairava
intruding from the embryogonic chaos beyond the Vedic universe; cf. Gomes da
Silva's paper on "Hierarchy and Transgression" presented to the Transgressive
Sacrality Conference (see note 1). We thank Prof. F.B.J. Kuiper and the late
Prof. G. Dumézil for having so sympathetically encouraged our efforts to
synthesize their respective insights into the basic structures of Vedic
religion.
123.
Heesterman, IC, pp.95ff.,228 note 1; see note 47. For the socio-economic
transformations and the technological innovations that determined the emergence
and conditioned the growth of early Buddhism from its Magadhan cradle, see D.D.
Kosambi, The Culture and
Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline (Delhi: Vikas, 1970), where the
rise to prominence of the merchant-classes and the expansion of commercial
circuits should be especially emphasized.
124.
This
necessarily modifies L. Dumont's thesis of the total secularization of kingship
in Hindu India; cf. Biardeau, supra notes 33, 64 and 68; and esp.
Hiltebeitel, "Towards a Coherent Study of Hinduism," Religious Studies Review, 9 (1983), pp.206-11.
125.
For
the identification of the royal
kirītin Arjuna with the avatāra-Krishna in the rsi-couple
Nara/Nārāyana, see Biardeau, EMH V, pp.89-94, 177; for Arjuna's Rudraic
dimension, neglected by her, see Hiltebeitel, "Siva," pp.151-60; see notes 54
and 65. Born from the anger of Krishna-Nārāyana, it is Rudra himself who
precedes Arjuna into the battle-field and is really responsible for the carnage;
see J. Scheuer, Siva Dans le Mahābhārata, Bibliothčque de l'École des
Hautes Études, Science Religieuses, vol.
LXXXIV (Paris: PUF, 1982), pp.279-91 ("Siva et la Guerre-Sacrifice"); also
pp.222, 228, 241-2 and passim. During our pilgrimage (June 1985) to
Badrīnāth, the Rāwal himself confirmed that there was a "bhairavī-cakra" beneath the main image, and Dr.
J.C. Galey informs us (oral communication, Feb. 86) that formerly the king used
to ride to battle wearing the arm-band of Bhairava supposedly kept beneath the
image of Badrīnāth.
126.
For
Dharma forms as much a bi-unity with Arjuna as Krishna does, which also explains
the peculiar joking-relationship between Krishna and Yudhisthira as when they
flatter each other with the credit for Bhīsma's fall. Kuiper, "Some
Observations," pp.42-4, rightly deduced that Yudhisthira as the incarnation of
Dharma (= Rta) must represent Mitra-Varuna, but had difficulty reconciling the
underworldly Varuna with the passive sacral purity of the upperworldly Pāndava.
Biardeau, "Contributions ą l'étude du mythe-cadre du
Mahābhārata," Bulletin de l'Ecole
Franēaise d'Extrźme Orient, 55 (1969), pp.97-105, seeks to reconcile Dumézil's Mitra and Kuiper's
Varuna within a totalizing Hindu perspective by seeing in Dharma the
prolongation, profoundly transformed by the renunciation ideal, of the
socio-cosmic order of the Vedic Rta. Cf. supra
notes 65 and 67. Nevertheless, Kuiper had already suggested the typological
equation of the sūdra-Vidura with the epic Varuna and
ambivalent purohita-figures like Usanā Kāvya and
Visvarūpa (VV, pp.93-101), which would imply that Yudhisthira himself is a
(royal) Mahābrāhmana.
127.
Heesterman IC (see note 47), pp.27,92; cf.
pp.4, 43-4, 155, 200, 232 note 32, 154, 208 note 12; see esp. note 49 supra.
128.
See Kuiper, VV, pp.67-74: "Varuna as a
Demoniacal Figure and as the God of Death" for his links with his successor
Yama-Dharmarāja associated with the Fathers (pitr); pp.60-6: for the close association with Death and
the Fathers of the virūpa-Angirasas, who are later the
repository of the magical practices of the Atharvaveda. Instead of seeing in the
dog Dharma that accompanies Yudhisthira to heaven the transgressive dimension of
the Brahmanized Dharmarāja, Biardeau's Hindu bhakti is obliged to purify Yama's dog, and all the other
impure symbols invested in "The Royalty of Yudhishthira," of the pollution of
Death; EMH V, pp.109-10. See Manu X.51-6, cf. Deppert, Rudra's Geburt, pp.59-62 (on cāndāla), D. White's paper on "Dogs, Dice and Death," to the
Transgressive Sacrality conference (see notes 21 and 1), and Sontheimer's
contribution to this volume.
129.
Cf.
Gomes da Silva, Pouvoir et Hiérarchie (see note 102); we thank the author
for sending the typescript of his Lévi-Straussian critique of (the prolongations
of) Durkheimian sociologism (in Louis Dumont's anthropology of Indian
civilization). For Rāmānuja, see Lorenzen, Kāpālikas, p.6. See note 3.
130.
See
Biardeau, Le
Sacrifice, pp.99
note 2, 25 note 1; Shulman, The King and the Clown, pp.247-8; see notes 29 and 64.
131.
Anderson, Festivals, p.235. Bhīmasena's twelve-yearly visit to Lhasa in
the form of a Newar farmer is linked with their embryonic thirteenth year of
exile (p.238). The impure aspects of the menstruating Krishnā are very well
described in A. Hiltebeitel, "Draupadī's Hair," Autour de la Déesse
Hindoue,
pp.179-214. See notes 7 and 109.
132.
See A. Hiltebeitel, "The Two Krishnas
in One Chariot: Upanishadic Imagery and Epic Mythology," History of Religions, 24 (1984), pp.1-26, where he
points out that on occasion Arjuna/Krishna are compared to Indra/ Varuna or
Siva/Brahmā on the single chariot of Brahman. They are again identified as the
doubled Krishna while helping Agni in the sexualized sacrifice of consuming the
Khāndava forest. See Heesterman, IC, p.151, for the early function of the purohita as charioteer for the king and Krishna's role in this
context; pp.79, 151 (king as Brahman); pp.37-8, 42 for the polluting king/purohita relation (esp. contrast p.155); see note 47.
133.
See M.-C. Porcher, "La Princesse et le Royaume: sur la représentation de la
royauté dans le Dashakumāracarita de Dandin," Journal Asiatique 273 (1985),
pp.183-206. Like the
northern dombikā (dance), the southern ulā, could also be seen as an expression of this
universalizing dialectic rather than as a sexual contradiction, as in D.D.
Shulman, King and Clown, pp.312-24; see note 64. The brahmacarya of the "chaste"
Hanumān in the Rāmāyana is interpreted in folk-variants rather as an exaggerated
virility matching that of Vrsākapi.
134.
O'Flaherty, Asceticism (see note 18), pp.104-11, 146-64; see note 64.
For the deconstruction of (Tamil)
bhakti through the dialectic of
transgressive sacrality, see S. Visuvalingam's concluding section in this
volume.
135.
See G. Toffin, "Les Aspects Religieux de la Royauté au Népal," Archives de Sciences
Sociales des Religions 48/1 (1979), pp.53-82; "Dieux souverains et rois dévots
dans l'ancienne royauté de la vallée du Népal," L'Homme 26 (1986), pp.71-95, esp. p.84
note 19 raising the problem of Bhairava, and Sontheimer Birobā, pp.192, 250; see note 101. For Brahmā's inability to create,
see O'Flaherty, Origins of Evil, p.284 (see note 18). Cf. Shulman, Tamil Temple Myths (see note 80), p.90ff. and
especially S. Visuvalingam's section on "The Inner Conflict of Man" in this
volume.
136.
See S.
Visuvalingam's treatment of the contributions of D. Coccari, A. Hiltebeitel and
G.D. Sontheimer in this volume.
137.
G.J.
Held,
Mahābhārata: An Ethnological Study (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1953), pp.182-85. The link
with Kāla-Bhairava on the one hand and the angry Guru on the other, is perhaps
to be found in Siva, who emerged as the furious Mrtyuńjaya/Kālakāla from the
linga to slay Yama when the latter tries
to forcibly claim Mārkandeya destined for Death at the (perennial) age of
sixteen. All field-work in Banaras was carried out with the indispensable help
of Mr. Om Prakash Sharma. I also thank all the numerous devotees of Bhairava in
India and Nepal for allowing me to participate freely in their cult and aiding
me to understand it better.
138.
Vézies, Les Fźtes, pp.72-5. We had the good fortune to witness
this festival in April 1985, with a grant accorded by the C.N.R.S. "équipe" 249,
and to interview all the participants, above all the dhāmi himself. For Amsuvarman, see Slusser, Nepal Mandala, p.337. See note 6.
139.
Slusser, Nepal Mandala, pp.291-2, 237; p.239, note 101 for
Vajra-Bhairava; see note 6. During our fieldwork in July 85 in Ladakh, the lamas
often described terrifying figures like Yamāntaka in the gonpas as "Bhairava," who is already called "destroyer of
Yama" (= Yamāri) in his Purānic origin-myth.
140.
It was Asakāji Vajrācārya, the teacher
of the Astamātrkā dances to the Sākya boys at Pātan, who also gave me the
details of the eight cremation-grounds haunted by the astabhairava of the Valley. According to him, some Vajrācāryas
still worship Bhairava at these sites in order to obtain various siddhis.
141.
Rgveda V.62.1: rtena rtam apihitam dhruvam vām .... See Nepali, Newars, p.300; Slusser, Nepal Mandala, p.237; see notes 93 and 6. See S.
Visuvalingam's treatment of judicial terror in "Psychoanalysis, Criminal Law and
Sacrificial Dharma," in Transgressive Sacrality; see note 1.
142.
See S.
Visuvalingam's section, especially note 58, on "Criminal Gods and Demon
Devotees: Sacrifice, Bhakti and Terror," in this volume.