Sannyasi

In a well-known article Dumont (1960) argues that Hinduism, among other Indian religions, is best understood not in terms of its historical diversity and seemingly infinite permutations, but rather in terms of some basic relational categories. The categories Dumont offers are, on the one hand, the asocial world-renouncing sannyasi whose religion is based on individuality, and, on the other hand, the eminently worldly grihastha whose religion is based on sociomoral duty. Dumont argues that Hinduism emerges, as it were, through the dialogue between these two categories. The opposition is never resolved, but the dialectical tension creates situations in which the values inherent in one category are accommodated in the other. Beneath the partly “substantialized” form of popular religious movements and sects, Dumont argues, one can recognize the dynamic tension between the opposed categories (ibid: 61).

Dumont’s argument has been acclaimed and criticized many times on many different levels, and my purpose is not to revive this old—and some might say tired—debate once again. Nevertheless, one point which Dumont makes must be emphasized if we are to understand the nature of the wrestler/sannyasi comparison. Although the dialogue between the sannyasi and the man-in-the-world persists as a leitmotif in Hindu development, Dumont is adamant that in terms of worldly Hinduism there is no such thing as the individual (ibid: 42). When recognized and understood as a conceptual and practical reality, individuality is strictly the province of otherworldly asceticism. To appreciate Dumont’s point, it must be remembered that for him the bottom line is always relational rather than substantive or empirical. In this regard he writes: “The man-in-the-world’s adoption of notions which are essentially those of the renouncer should not conceal from use the difference between the two conditions and the two kinds of thought” (ibid: 46).

The terms of world renunciation cannot be reconciled to the terms of caste society. The Brahman may affect the values of world renunciation, but his life of dharma is always couched in terms of the structuring principles of hierarchy, rather than in accordance with egalitarian principles. According to Dumont’s scheme, any instance where there appears to be a reconciliation of these two domains in social life is a substantialistic illusion: a superstructure of empirical form beneath which lies the truth of a primary oppositional relationship.

The problem with Dumont’s thesis, in my view, is that it defines caste, on its most basic and inclusive, holistic level, as a closed system, one able to subsume innovations, anomalies, rebellions, religious conversion, and so forth within the terms of its primary relational categories. Dumont’s scheme, like the structural typologies of Lévi-Strauss, is so inclusive as to be reductionist when applied to the narrower scope of everyday life. Dumont’s framework allows one to understand sectarian movements—bhakti, Tantrism, Buddhism, and so forth—in terms of caste holism. He does not, however, provide a corollary scheme for making sense of these various movements in their own terms.

While one may agree with Dumont and recognize the primacy of purity and pollution as the basic terms of caste society, one must also accept the fact that these are not the only terms in which social order is conceptualized (cf. Carman and Marglin 1985; Daniel 1984; Madan 1987; Marriott and Inden 1977; also see Appadurai 1986 and Berreman 1979 for a generalized critique of Dumont in this regard). Other categories which structure significant thought and action cannot, or need not, be conveniently reduced to Dumont’s first principles. However, as Das reminds us, though hierarchy is not an exhaustive conceptual framework for social order (1977: 51), it nevertheless defines the matrix of social power.

This said, we may now return to the issue of the sannyasi. In a recent book, Khare (1984) has taken a line of thinking similar to Das’s but with important modifications. Khare shows how low-caste Chamars in the Lucknow region of Uttar Pradesh have “repossessed” the basic terms of world renunciation in order to reconstruct an image of themselves outside of the framework of caste relations (ibid: 30). They have done this through a radical reinterpretation of the terms of world renunciation, and by forcing the sannyasi into a socially significant role (ibid: 67). The Chamars have essentially constructed an ideology wherein the individuality of the sannyasi—his spiritual, asocial virtue—is conceptually linked to a modern understanding of this-worldly asceticism. Where the Brahman mediates between world renunciation and householder status within a framework of caste hierarchy, the Chamars co-opt the terms of world renunciation in order to step outside of the hierarchical scheme altogether (cf. Juergensmeyer 1982 for a similar, though less explicit account, and Uberoi 1967 for an early theoretical formulation of this point in the context of Sikhism).

Khare clearly shows how certain groups have worked towards a redefinition of their identity in terms other than caste. In reading Khare’s account of a burgeoning Chamar ideology, however, one is struck by the fact that it is, to an extent, an ideology built on sand. However much it may mean to the Chamars, it is not particularly persuasive as a general, nonsectarian appeal to which other groups might subscribe. Similarly, Sikhs as well as Christians and other sectarian groups (including,significantly, even ascetic monastic communities; cf. Ghurye 1953) are conscripted into a hierarchical scheme despite advocacy to the contrary. The basic problem is that any group which claims a new place for itself—as within the framework of “sanskritization” (Srinivas 1968)—or even a group which tries to step outside of the whole scheme must ultimately come to terms with its relation to other groups within a larger hierarchically structured society. When couched in terms of group identity, ideological change is doomed because its appeal is artificially circumscribed. The Chamars can construct visions of themselves as morally guided worldly ascetics, but unless these reformations are recognized by people other than Chamars, their significance is limited—limited, that is, if one is trying to understand the precise interface between Hindu ideology and other nascent ideologies.

It is at this point that wrestling becomes an important issue. Like the Chamar ideology described by Khare, the wrestling ideology reconceptualizes the relationship of the sannyasi to the world. However, the ideology of the wrestler differs from that of the Chamar in two important ways. First, the wrestling ideology is not an explicit criticism of caste status. Wrestling calls for a redefinition of sannyas in its own terms, and this has a significant impact on the understanding of caste as a conceptual framework. Wrestlers do not, however, attack caste directly: for them, caste, as a structure of signification, simply does not work as a framework for self-definition. It is inadequate and inappropriate.

Second, wrestling is an ideology that transcends caste-group affiliation. Its appeal, as I have argued, is general rather than specific; it is public, and many wrestling activities create a sense of emotional, psychological, and physical unity. Because the wrestling ideology is amorphous—to the extent that it is subscribed to by a broad spectrum of people of all castes, of many occupational backgrounds, and from different regions—it does not find expression in any institutionalized, sectarian form. Even in the akhara, where there is a strong sense of communitas based on somatic ideals, there is little sense of social solidarity. The ideology cuts through social boundaries and appeals to the individual on reconstituted somatic terms. What distinguishes the wrestler’s appropriation of the terms of world renunciation from that of the Chamars and other sectarian groups is that the wrestler draws a parallel between his nascent individuality and the sannyasi’s spiritual individuality. Chamars, on the other hand, seek to transpose the category of sannyas, through advocacy, onto the level of an institutionalized social group. As Dumont and others have rightly argued, on this level sectarian movements will be subsumed within the larger and more primary framework of caste.

I do not want to suggest that the wrestling ideology is a particularly powerful critique of the caste ideology. At best it is rather oblique. Unlike the partisan rhetoric of certain sectarian ideologies, however, the wrestling ideology cannot be reduced to caste terms. Because its appeal is broad, if weak through such extensive dilution, it is strong at precisely the point at which the Chamar and other sectarian ideologies are not. One primary reason for this is that the wrestler’s ideology, as I have argued, is the product of a precise mechanics of body discipline. It is not an intellectual critique, at least in the first instance, and thus it does not fall into the trap of juxtaposing a discipline of the individual body/mind on the one hand to society on the other. Wrestling draws the moral value of world renunciation into the world and calls for a reform of the individual in terms of a holistic somatic synthesis. Individuality then finds expression, as we shall see in the next chapter, when it is made the object of nationalistic reform.