Part C: Chapter 11
The central role of the clown in archaic and so-called
�primitive� societies is that of transgression, both material and symbolic. The
Indians and Indologists who are over-familiar with the vid�Saka or at least with his counterparts elsewhere in the Hindu symbolic universe, like GaNeza, might find it useful to approach the problem of humor and its semblance through the unfamiliar eyes of a native American, before returning to take a fresh look at the �primitive� core of the vid�Saka�s laughter. For the question �to laugh or not to laugh� is posed to him explicitly and rather starkly in its original mythico-ritual setting without being overlaid and confused by being enveloped within a specifically aesthetic domain with its own constraints and independent rationality. In the process, we also explore the value of structuralism as a heuristic methodology in restoring a hidden order to the apparent �irrationality� of archaic thought-processes[1] even while firmly grounding this universal hermeneutic in the anthropology of taboo-violation.
In the myths narrated by L�vi-Strauss, the jaguar is often presented in a ludicrous light, as pouncing repeatedly and futilely at the shadow of the human would-be culture-hero perched in the tree above, until the latter finally chooses to reveal himself through an unobtrusive sign. �Numerous American myths attest to it: there is no situation more laughable, and more apt to cover someone with ridicule, than that of a personage releasing the prey for the shadow or exerting himself to seize the shadow instead of the prey� (Le Cru et le Cuit, p.117). Now, L�vi-Strauss accords this comic aspect of the jaguar a precise, though arbitrary, role in the encounter between human hero and wild jaguar between whom the normal relation is that of mutual hostility: �We are going to demonstrate that it is because the hero restrains himself , vis-�-vis the jaguar, from being a scoffer or a deceiver�more precisely because he restrains himself from laughing�that the jaguar does not eat him, but communicates to him the arts of civilization� (loc. cit., contrast with the ridiculing laughter at the deformed Angirasas, infra p.334).
Makarius however offers a different reason as to why the
jaguar adopts the boy� and interprets the
clownish antics of the former differently: �The jaguar comes to his aid not, as
L�vi-Strauss says, (�) because the boy did not laugh at his ridiculous behavior
(The jaguar made himself ridiculous by taking the shadow of the boy for a prey.
This episode�.recurs often in the burlesque narratives about violators of
taboo), or has given him a truthful reply (Cru
et le Cuit, 116-17), but for an organic
and non-circumstantial reason: because the boy identifies himself with the
jaguar, being like him a violator and a future cultural hero�. It is because of
this identification that the young man does not lie to the jaguar (�.). It is
because the birds-nester is as it were his alter ego, another himself, that the
jaguar approaches him with benevolence�� (Les Jaguars et les Hommes, p.228).
We are here in full agreement with Makarius, who has shown
the organic link between the boy�s contact with impurities (covered with birds�
excrement or eating his own excrement) and his characterization as a
taboo-violator, a relationship that is evident, for example, in the impure
birth of Ganesha or in epithets of Bhairava like ucchishta- or lalaj-jihva
(drooling-tongued). But in the light of the bisociative structure of h�sya proposed in this thesis, there is
also an organic relationship between the hero�s not laughing and his identifying himself completely
with the jaguar, because it is precisely
those who shrink at the thought of such violation who would laugh at the jaguar for they are unable to identify
themselves with him. As such, the non-laughter
could just as well serve the jaguar as confirmation of the qualification of the hero to future jaguar-status.
The myth in fact reveals the (as it
were �initiatic�) passage of a socialized human being into a fraternity of habitual and inveterate taboo-violators. His
impurity, incestuous tendency, etc.,
have already revealed his vocation, but the crucial passage is yet to occur. The jaguar at the time of the encounter
reveals only that ridiculous external
face of himself that the common man is able to approach. Thus the question��to laugh or not to laugh?��inserts
itself at that precise boundary where
jaguar meets man, and upon it depends the passage of the hero to the world of jaguars. Outside of this particular context,
the jaguar is not a comic but a terrifying
figure (like Bhairava, who is also sometimes depicted in a comic aspect, dancing with the deformed Pramathas).
The monkey is this very boundary where jaguar meets man: he is this boundary pure and simple. That is why the comic character, accidental and
peripheral to the jaguar, is central and essential to the monkey. In thsi triad of jaguar, monkey and man, it is
the jaguar (taboo-violator) and man (living in
conformity with the social order) that
are the most diametrically opposed. As for the �semantic position of the monkey,� L�vi-Strauss� analysis situates him
�between that of the jaguar and that
of man. Like man, the monkey is opposed to the jaguar; like the jaguar, he is the master of fire, which is unknown to men.
The jaguar is the contrary of man;
the monkey is rather his counterpart. The personage of the monkey comes in this way to be constituted with fragments borrowed
now from one term, now from the
other. Some myths permute him with the jaguar, others (...) permute him with man. Finally, one sometimes finds the triangular
system in its completion: the Tukunas
explain in a myth that the �lord of the monkeys� had a human form, although he belonged to a race of jaguars� (Le Cru et le Cuit, p.140). Of these three terms, it is the monkey, mediator between man and jaguar, that is between the strict
observance of taboos and their deliberate
violation, who like Ganesha, mediator between Brahm� and Bhairava, is an essentially comic figure. This is due primarily to his straddling the boundary between man and jaguar.
Whereas teh jaguar manifests his ridiculous
aspect only by virtue of a particular liminal situation, the monkey, being symbolic of the situation itself, is comic
wherever he is, whether wholly in the
world of human society or in the wilderness. Wherever he is, the monkey like the vid�shaka, carries in himself the demarcation and the transition, hence the
controlled communication, between the exoteric and the esoteric realms with their contradictory values. Those in
whom he provokes laughter are denied access to
the esoteric realm and those who see only a semblance of humor (h�sy�bh�sa)� in his antics, pass through easily. �The same motif is found in the cosmologu of the Guarayu of
Bolivia: on the route which leads
to the Great Grand-Father, the dead have to undergo various tests of which one consists of being tickled by a marimono monkey
with pointed nails. The victim
who laughs is devoured. For this reason perhaps, and like the Kayapo tribe, the Gurayu men disdain laughter, which they
consider to be a feminine behavior�
(Le Cru et le Cuit, p.130).
This mediating role of the monkey is clearly underlined in one
myth (no. 53, Le Cru et le Cuit, p.133), where the hunter strays into the lair of the jaguar, whose daughters explain to
him that the monkey he was chasing
is their domestic pet; he ends up being transformed into a jaguar himself. �Diverse mythical incidents refer to a
visit to the monkeys at whom one must
not laugh under the pain of death, and to the danger of laughing at supernatural spirits....(Le
Cru et le Cuit, p.129). Another
myth (no. 38) reveals that this
naturally comic aspect of the monkey is rooted in its violation of fundamental taboo. While the monkey tries to entertain the human son-in-law in all seriousness
with his quasi-human singing, the
latter can hardly restrain himself from laughter, for which he is abandoned on a tree. Finally, the latter kills all the
monkeys except his pregnanat wife who,
uniting incestuously with her son, gives birth to the whole tribe of guariba monkeys. Here, all this �monkey-business�
is intimately linked with incest,
and to laugh at the comic aspect of the monkey is to laugh at such incestuous and other violatory conduct. When the
comic aspect, due to the bisociative
aspect, of the transgressive conduct is amplified by a general behavior producing the same effect, and the
transgression itself is disguised, underplayed,
displaced or even completely eliminated, we have a generalization of the
comic aspect of transgression, best exemplified by the figure of the monkey. The monkey, who by his very resemblance to man
gives the spontaneous impression of
apeing him, best exemplifies this inherently comic figure who does not have to do anything in partcular to provoke laughter.
Often, this generalized incongruous
behavior is itself further exploited for aesthetic purposes. This is what happens with the monkey-like (the incestuous
notations of Vrsh�kapi who attempts
to molest his �mother� Indr�n� may be of relevance here) vid�shaka whose
transgressive behavior is extremely disguised and underplayed.
Unlike Hindu mythology, Amerindian mythology seems to have made
abundant use of tickling as a substitute for transgression at the point where it
encounters an exoteric perception
of itself (cf. Infra, note 4, pp.175-76, for Koestler�s bisociation theory of tickling). That this tickling indeed
symbolizes the inversion of exoteric
norms and values is clearly underlined in certain myths by coupling it with some other unmistakeable symbol of inversion.
It is the bat that is responsible for the
�origin of laughter� in the Kayapo-Gorotir� myth (myth 40, Le Cru et le
Cuit, p.130). At the moment the hero encounters the bat, the latter is hanging
suspended upside-down from a branch and descends to tickle him eliciting the first laughter. In fact, it is the inversionof values symbolized by the physical
inversion that, in the secret logic
of the myth, provokes the laughter. This inversion of values is further emphasized in the cavern of the bats (all again
suspended upside-down from the ceiling),
the floor of which is covered with excrements (impurity). Even when a baby bat is captured, the myth emphasizes that it
could not adjust to the ways of the
village and continued to sleep in reverse posture until its premature death.
L�vi-Strauss could hardly decline our interpretation of this
myth of �the origin of laughter,�
when he himself has written elsewhere: �Several myths of the Carriers (...)� speak of a maiden who laughed to death at the sight of a squirrel descending from a tree. According to the
Hohs and the Quileutes (...)� a woman prisoner at the top of a tree was
delivered sometimes by a squirrel, sometimes by a comic personage. This comicality is attributed to the
squirrel or to a creature assuming
its role, would it not stem from the fact that, like its South American congenerate, it descends head-down? A Quileute version affirms so (...), and
even attributes the deliverance of its prot�g�
to this behavior of the animal.... In the two hemispheres finally, these paallel beliefs are put into relation
with an ambulatory style proper to the Sciurides,
which descend head-down from the trees�
(L�Homme Nu, pp.497-98). It is within this context of inversion that the first laughter
breaks forth, and this reveals the intimate
connection between the two phenomena in the tribal mind. �Although their connotations are indubitably sinister, the
bats appear everywhere to be masters
of cultural goods, like the jaguar in other G� myths (Le
Cru et le Cuit, p.131). Yet,
it is by not laughing when tickled that one
becomes a jaguar: �The demiurge Nedamik submitted the first humans to a test by tickling them. Those who
laugh are changed into terrestrial
or acquatic animals; the former prey of the jaguar, the latter capable of escaping him by taking refuge in water.
Those men who know how to remain
imperturble become jaguars or human hunters (or vanquishers)� of jaguars�(Myth 36, Le Cru et le Cuit, p.128). In
other words, those who are able to completely identify themselves with the �jaguars� in their
violations and hence do not laugh,
become themselves �jaguars.� In myth 37 (Le
Cru et le Cuit, p.129),
the jaguars themselves impose the tickling test before accepting the candidate.
To restore to the vid�Saka
the full implications of his role as the brahmin violator of brahmanical
taboos, it�s necessary to mercilessly dissect him into his constituent
elements,[2] before
tracing them to related figures elsewhere in the Hindu symbolic universe and analyzing . Though several of the concepts and/or traits
below could have been discussed under more than one rubric�for this monograph
attempts to demonstrate how they are all interconnected�to minimize repetition,
I�ve dealt with each only or primarily in the most appropriate context.
The fact that post-N�Tya
Z�stra theorists take the trouble of prescribing
names (Parikh, pp.19-20) for the vid�Saka
and that the actual names already assigned by the earliest dramatists reveal
selective patterns, should already alert us that the clown is the vehicle of a
signifying function that goes beyond his apparent humor. For the proposed names
are not particularly funny in themselves. A tradition preserved by some
theorists shows a preference for names indicating the spring season or some
flower.[3] The
Buddhist playwright AzvaghoSa, to whom we owe our
earliest surviving fragments of Sanskrit theater, already
names his vid�Saka �off-spring
of the lotus-smelling� Kaumuda-gandha. The cycle of
plays centered on the exploits of king Udayana
starting with the early dramatist Bh�sa, and followed by subsequent playwrights
like
Names of high brahmanical pedigree are also prescribed
such as V�tsy�yana, Z�kalya,
Maudgalya and G�lava.[4] Likewise,
we see him appearing as
Though there is no evidence of the name K�pileya[5] (progeny of the sage Kapila) or �tawny fellow� having actually been used, the vid�Saka is indeed assimilated to �brown monkey� (kapi) in the plays, an allusion to the �Virile Monkey� of the Rig-Veda. Such deformity is also suggested by M�Navaka (�manikin�), the vid�Saka in K�lid�sa�s play Vikramorvaz�ya, perhaps referring also to his �dwarfish� (�little man�) aspects. The equivalent on the psychic level would be M�Dhavya in K�lid�sa�s Z�kuntalam, whose name seems to indicate an idiot.
Most of all, the term vid�Saka itself, by referring
to his �disfiguring� speech at the heart of the Sanskrit drama, would underline
how, by undermining the normal well-regulated communicative function of
language, the clown charges it with over-signification. After all, he is
presided over by the sacred syllable
The crooked staff (kuTilaka) carried by the vid�Saka in his left hand is his own patented version of the otherwise �straight� brahmanical staff (daNDa-k�STha) borne by other figures of orthodoxy, and as such stands in (dialectical) opposition to the latter in its various significations. As the present of the god Brahm� to the Sanskrit theater, it may be also opposed the banner �
The kuTilaka
represents evil, twisted speech, a snake and the (flaccid) phallus.
The vid�Saka
stands at the symbolic center of the
The P�zupata ascetic, who not
only courts ridicule like the vid�Saka
but is himself obliged to laugh explosively, is a real-life personage who can
immediately help us restore his profound ritual and metaphysical dimension to a
stunted stage-character whom we might otherwise be tempted to reduce to an
abortive birth of the Indian collective imagination. Presided over by the
sacred syllable
��Although 200 years
have passed since
[this concludes chapter 11 on The Vid�Saka's World: the Semiotics of Transgression]
[1]
This was originally an
extended endnote (#7) from the Introduction to my Ph.D. thesis, relegated to a
catch-all Appendix, and was also intended to expose the woolly pretensions of �structural
anthropology� as a philosophy.
[2] Some of these characteristic traits of the vid�Saka are conveniently summarized and pertinent questions are raised as to their oddity in J.T. Parikh, The Vid�Saka: Theory and Practice (???): companion of the hero (pp.), brahmin (pp.), age (pp.19-20), name (pp.), deformity (pp.), monkey-like appearance (pp.), hairdo (pp.), attire (pp.), crooked stick (pp. 31-33), abuse of the maid (pp.)
[3] S�hityadarpaNa III.4.2 [check!!!]: kusuma-vasant�dy-abhidhah, etc. See also other texts cited below.
[4] V�tsy�yanaz ca z�kalyo maudgalyaz ca vasantakah / g�lavaz cety evam-�di-n�m�nah syur vid�Sak�h / Bh�va-Prak�zana, p.94.
[5]
Vasantakah k�pileyaz ca ity-�khyo vid�Sakah
/