The institution of royalty appeared in the Tretâ Yugä, the second age of mankind. There are certain sciences and arts that are distinctively royal and warlike. The Râmâyanä describes the education of Râmä and his brothers, typical of pre-Aryan warrior princes. The anointing of kings and their power of healing are the remnants of the initiatory traditions of the Kshatriyä, the warriors' traditions as distinct from those of the priests. It was a legendary hero, Parashu-Râmä (Râmä the battle-ax wielder), later thought to be an Avatârä of Vishnu, who rooted out the order of the Kshatriyä (i.e., the warrior tribes of the Tretä Yugä) from India, to the benefit of the sedentary populations of the Dvâparä Yugä.
The lineages of farmers and merchants first appeared during this third age. They are the ones who produce and accumulate food and wealth, and who thereby provide the financial resources for cultural and religious institutions, and indeed the resources for the power of states. It was not only urban civilization and seaborne commerce that developed thanks to them, but also the organized urban religions, which, being ritualistic, moralistic, puritanical, and restrictive, will henceforth enter into conflict with the unfettered Dionysiac Shaivism.
Jainism, the atheistic religion of the commercial classes, first appeared in the Dvâparä Yugä, the Age of Doubt. Sentimental religiousness and puritanism would remain characteristic of the merchant caste, and these tendencies are for that matter clearly present in modern Vaishnavism.
The Popular Framework
THE popular and artisanal classes often formed a protective shell that allowed the occult tradition to be maintained. The common people remain attached to those external aspects of the tradition which are regarded as superstitions; they believe in spirits, magic, fate, and spells, in pilgrimages, idols, sacred places, and the seasonal festivals, thereby forming a defense against the intellectualism and tyranny of the urban religions.
A part of the occult tradition is transmitted within the framework of the ritual festivals and through the worship of objects, images, and holy places that never change no matter what name or justification is given them, and through the orgiastic, ecstatic, magical, and mystical practices which make up popular religion and which remain untouched by the ambitions of urban society.
It is in these popular arenas, those of the artisans and peasants, always in reaction against bourgeois civilization, that the traditions of sacred knowledge were able to find refuge in India in periods of crisis. These traditions are carried on by the wandering initiatory orders, the mysterious Sannyâsi, who, even in modern Hinduism, transmit the highest levels of initiation, closely connected to Shaivism, Tantrism, and Yogä. The word pagan (paganus) in fact means "peasant," for it was in the popular classes, Western as well as Indian, that these traditions, patterns of thought, and millennarian beliefs were sustained while the bourgeoisie lost touch with the ancient knowledge and rites.
Coexistence
EVERY society must make way for invaders and migrants. In this way, linguistic, religious, and professional groupings develop. These must be recognized and linked to the four principal groups, even while maintaining their separate identity, solidarity, and the means of defending their cultural uniqueness.
Besides a few exceptional individuals, who are mutants and therefore tend to associate together in a kind of parallel society, the problems of individual freedom in relation to social order are the concern of groups rather than of individuals. Every caste or ethnic, religious, or professional grouping tends to establish rules appropriate for itself, building up codes of behavior that cannot be generalized.
Rules of morality that imply codes of honor regulate the activities of each group. If these rules are not followed, the groups self-destruct. Immigrants belonging to a foreign culture will alter the social order if their autonomy is denied and they are forced to assimilate.
The hierarchy of the caste system allows for the coexistence and collaboration of human groups even though they belong to different levels of evolution. Attempts to bring about equality are destructive of the individuality of the person and of the group. Coexistence demands respect for all the differences and varieties in human beings. In this sense, traditional Hindu society is fundamentally antiracist. It rejects the colonialization through assimilation that the current Indian government, infected by Western ideas, is using to assassinate the primitive tribes left over from the Satyä Yugä and totally unable to adapt to the ways of life of the modern world. The government claims that these groups are the backward elements of a single population; but one cannot respect and protect the various human societies by refusing to acknowledge their very existence, autonomy, importance, rights, and uniqueness. Every group has its usefulness, a role to play in the balance of nature and society. The caste system tries to determine this role, stabilize it, and make it easier. The abilities, duties, virtues, and rules of each group are different: it is impossible to establish behavioral laws that would apply to all.
A division into castes, whatever may be its defects, is essential to the smooth running of every society. If, as a consequence of ill-considered intermingling, a society no longer has these distinct categories, they will tend to re-form, slowly but inevitably, just as a wound heals over: the social framework is its own healer. According to the Manu Smriti, the codified laws of Manu, abilities and talents should then be the basis on which to reestablish castes. There is a similar idea behind the modern I.Q. tests. However, we do not have the established corporate bodies that could make these abilities productive and provide a way of life, security, and a social family for those oriented toward a particular vocation. All this is crucial for the well-being of any society. The Western world's vanity (the implicit belief by which Westerners consider themselves a superior species) is revealed in its determination to impose upon all peoples its languages, beliefs, and social and moral concepts, in the belief that these represent progress.
Those attached to Indian culture liken themselves to the Aryan Brahmans, whose rites they pretend to practice and whose codes of behavior they claim to follow. This has cut them off from the other brands of Indian tradition.
The study of Shaiva tradition has been neglected to the point that most of the Westerners who claim to study India and its rites, customs, and knowledge have not even the slightest idea that there are other strands besides Vedic Brahmanism, even though it is these strands which are most suited to their own needs. Why does a Westerner who, at home, would study architecture, medicine, music, or perhaps astrology, alchemy, or magic, ignore the related fields which in India carryon similar traditions, with their particular initiations and rites, and which continue to teach the related religious and philosophic concepts?
The few Westerners who have really been able to enter the Hindu world are those who have taken an interest in the study of the crafts (music in particular) and have been accepted into an artisanal group. Others, in investigating religious or magical practices, have been able to find a place for themselves in the Tantric world that has opened before them. Such was the case of Sir John Woodroffe for Tantrism or Verrier Elwyn for the Munda tribes.
There are no exclusions in Shaivism and Tantrism concerning religious and ritual practices.
Tiruvallur, the author of the Kural, the most venerated work in Tamil literature, was of very humble origins. He wrote: "All men are equal. The differences between them come about through their occupations.... Even today, a pariah who has undergone the Shaiva initiation (Shivädikshâ) can transmit it to a Brahman and thus become his Guru" (Sakhare, History and Philosophy of Lingayat Religion, p. 175).
From the point of view of the social framework, the abilities and moral qualities of individuals are part of the genetic heritage of their lineage, and are generally related to the family's occupation. Just as there are game dogs and sheep dogs, each genetic code is adapted to particular functions.
Woman
THE division of the sexes implies separate functions as well as different natures. Since they have distinctl
y different abilities and roles, men and women form a double caste. They are closely interlinked and interdependent; they are different but complementary except where one or the other develops androgynous characteristics. It is only when they follow their separate behavioral patterns that these two halves of humanity achieve their purpose and are equal.
The masculine nature's principle is characterized by odd numbers; the female's is characterized by even numbers. This is why the nature and the function of woman is twofold: she is at the same time humble yet exalted, slave and goddess, submissive lover and all-powerful mother.
As lover she represents the creative power; without her the male principle is sterile. She is the image of Shakti, the power of the gods who without her have no reality.
It is in the mother's womb that the transition from nonexistence to existence takes place. It is the place where the Creator does his creative work; it is the point where divinity and humanity meet, and is therefore the most sacred of sanctuaries. The mother goddess is the source and principle of life itself. It is thus in her role as mother that woman gains divinity and is worshiped. The mother is without artifice, without makeup (nirañjanä). She is the comfort of man wandering in the deserts of the world. She is forgiveness, charity, and limitless compassion. As the image of Prakriti, woman is the incarnation of the nutritive principle, which is the basis of material reality.
She is the guardian of the hearth, the priestess of Agni, god of fire. It is she who maintains the home, the center of family life. She is the axis of society, the center of each of society's cells, and hence is at the center of the social unit's stability. The original Shaiva society was matriarchal: women ruled in the home, the interior and concealed social cell, the sanctuary, of which she was the goddess. The father may have performed the rites of initiation for his sons, but it was the mother's blessing which was needed before he could enter the secret path of Sannyâsä, or renunciation.
In India, as elsewhere, the nomadic, patriarchal invaders (Aryans, Parthians, Scythians, Mongols, Semites, and finally Europeans) tried to overturn these ancient social institutions. In the artisanal castes, which remained faithful to Shaivism, the female predominates in the realm of the esoteric. In the public corporative rites, however, in the dances, ceremonies, symbols and invocations, the male aspect of divinity is to the fore: the symbolism is phallic.
The Family (Kulä)
IN India, the family group is under normal circumstances an extended one, stretching out over several generations. The women and children form the central, closed, cell. The pubescent males join the external cell, open to the outside world.
Although the choice of sexual partners is in principle exclusive for genetic reasons, man and wife do not formally live as a couple. The idea that the couple is the basis of social stability is a pernicious concept bearing no connection with the nature of man, and makes of the family a kind of prison.
It is the familial grouping (kulä) that forms the family. It includes brothers, uncles and their wives. The sexes live apart.
Hindu marriage is arranged in childhood according to very precise genetic rules concerning caste (varnä), clan (jâti), and lineage (goträ), which are similar to those we use for breeding animals or flowers.
Infidelity within a clan is not regarded as serious: a certain tolerance exists in fact, if not in theory. A married woman who has sexual relations with other men of her husband's family, stepbrothers, or cousins is not necessarily turned out, for the genetic code is not affected.
The Servants of the Gods
A woman who has had relations with several men of varied origins is no longer a suitable channel for the perpetuation of a genetic code. She is removed from the family, to become part of a new social grouping called the "servants of the gods" (devä-dâsï[s]), whose task it is to perform the arts of love, music, and dance. These servants of the gods have an essential part to play in the transmission of part of the cultural heritage.
The prostitution of women allows men to have sensual fulfillment while preserving the family's integrity; it also allows those who have devoted themselves to study and spiritual concerns to maintain their balance without taking on the social obligations and limitations that are part and parcel of marriage. The woman who devotes herself to the arts, to pleasure, or to a spiritual quest finds herself in a similar position to the servant of the gods: her work is incompatible with the reproductive function and therefore with marriage itself. There is always a connection between the erotic pursuits and mystic ecstasy: the paths of love are no obstacle to intellectual or spiritual achievement. The Dharmä, the ethics of these women, is described in the Matsyä Purânä (see Alain Daniélou, La Sculpture erotique hindoue, pp. 71–33).
Her obligations include making herself available without payment to wandering ascetics and feeding them. Once the great temples housed these women, who devoted themselves to dance, music, and the erotic arts, often in connection with mystical experience. Even today, the greatest singers, musicians, and dancers belong to this much-honored group, now considerably reduced in numbers by Anglo-Saxon prudishness: the very institution of Devä-dâsï was prohibited as immoral, to the very great detriment of the arts. It is not only in India that the theatrical and dancing professions were closely connected to that of the courtesan.
Women who follow the ascetic path, or that of pleasures of the flesh, cannot achieve success unless they renounce procreation.
The quest for knowledge, the experience of Yogä, attracts many women; yet the path of detachment and personal fulfillment is compatible only with difficulty with the role of mother, wife, and manager of the home. Thus, women choose the solitary, monastic path, the path of the wanderer. Indian mystic history mentions many Yogini(s), female Yogi(s), who practiced unbelievable austerities, and holy women who wandered from temple to temple singing the praises of a god.
Mirâbaï, a great poetess of the Hindi language, was a Rajput princess who abandoned palace, honor, and wealth in order to lead the life of a mystic wanderer, singing her marvelous poems in the villages as she begged for her food.
nandä Maï, who recently died, was very well known. She had many disciples and had a most beneficial influence. Extremely beautiful, she abandoned while still young her profession (as a teacher), husband, family, and children, in order to follow her destiny.
There are also women who have been exceptional by their wisdom and their knowledge, while other have been great warriors: for example, the famous Rani of Jhansi was a great military chief.
The modern woman who wishes to be simultaneously an object of pleasure, a mother, and one who takes part in man's futile activities is a destructive anomaly in society. For men, the home ceases to be a welcoming refuge where the mother is the protective goddess. Delinquency, violence, and social disorder often result from the lack of this refuge, the protective hearth over which women reign supreme.
The Third Nature (Tritîya Prakriti)
THE three Gunä(s), the three fundamental tendencies of Prakriti, are to be found in all that exists. All aspects of the divine are reflected in creation. The primordial impulses are expressed in the masculine aspect (Purushä-Shivä), substance in the female aspect (Prakritti-Vishnu ). The resulting principle is neutral. It is represented by Brahma, the world's artisan, or by Shiva in the aspect of the primordial androgyne. Once a certain level of androgyneity develops in living beings, it is called the Third Nature (Tritîya Prakriti) or the nonmale (napunsakä).
Everything that lies between the poles of absolute masculinity and femininity derives from both. Everything is imbued to some extent with this double nature and is thus both male and female. The differentiation between things and beings arises from the degree of masculinity and femininity of their composing elements, with the result that in the complex relationships of the formal world, each aspect or being is male or female in relation to another aspect or state of being. When applied to human society, this principle means that each hierarchical level is masculine with
regard to the superior or inferior levels. Thus the king is feminine in relation to a priest and is therefore subservient to him; the merchant is feminine in relation to the king and owes him obedience; the artisan is feminine in relation to the merchant and serves him as a slave. All living beings, stemming from Prakriti, are basically feminine. The adolescent male is feminine in relation to an adult man and only achieves stability as a male when he realizes his identity with the mature man.
It is the degree of femininity or masculinity in each person in relation to others that determines his role and function. In order to achieve his potential, everyone must establish his position in relation to those with whom he comes into contact, and thus realize his nature (his Dharmä, a word that basically means "conformity with that which one is"). The task of the man eager to free himself from the slavery of existence is thus, first of all, to know himself and conform to his own nature in order eventually to liberate himself from it.
The ascetics and wise men who saw the god-hero Rama in the forest obtained from him as a reward for their sacrifices the right to be reborn as gopis (female cattle-herders) so that they could be his lovers when he returned to earth in the form of Krishnä, the incarnation of love.
Men and women who are marked by sexual ambivalence have a role other than the transmission of the genetic code, and also have special functions within society. It is largely from among this class of people that shamans, magicians, wandering monks, initiates, holy virgins, priestesses, and also creative artists are recruited. To turn this androgynous aspect to full account, the shaman will dress as a woman and will eventually take a husband. The priests of Cybele dressed as women; some underwent castration, the better to identify themselves with the goddess. Etruscan priestesses wore phalluses.
While the Gods Play Page 16
