Overt Auxiliary Priests and Para-Priests
Rajopadhyaya Brahmans in Bhaktapur in discussions of "religious work" identify a group of "Karmacari," that is, "workers" or in this context "religious workers," whom we will group as "overt auxiliary priests and para-priests." These make up an important segment of traditional Newar society. Their services as a group are to all the clean or marginally clean segments of that society. They perform services necessary in the performance of various religious rites, and usually do these services for hereditary patrons, jajaman s, as the Brahmans themselves do. The various types of Karmacari listed are all members of thar s whose distinguishing traditional and hereditary function are these services even though many of their members now do other things. They perform either priestly functions during the course of rituals, or in the case of the Nau and the Josi (in their major functions), activities that are preparatory and prerequisite to participation in rituals. The Rajopadhyaya Brahmans often describe those auxiliary priests who
perform ritual work (as opposed to the preparatory functions of the "para-priests") as "kinds of Brahmans," and often claim that their powers are, or were originally, passed on to them through Rajopadhyaya Brahmans as the guru s who provided esoteric teaching and mantra s. This group of workers assist the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans in three ways: (1) the preparation for rituals, (2) assistance in doing rituals, and (3) the performance of rituals or aspects of rituals that would be polluting to the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans, and which would compromise their ideal status. We will call this group of religious workers overt auxiliary priests, in distinction to the very low polluting thar s, whose essential priestly function is relatively covert and submerged and obscured by the more salient symbolic meanings and actualities of their traditional roles. We also find it useful to distinguish "para-priests" whose functions, in the terminology of the next chapter, are at the margins of the sacred.
Josi
There are presently in Bhaktapur two thar s whose name indicates that their members' traditional professions were astrology. The thar s and thus their members' surnames are "Josi" (often written in Newari as "Josi"), a name derived from "astrology," jyotisa[*] in Sanskrit. One of these thar s is in the highest segment of the Chathariya group. The other is at the Pa(n)cthariya level. As is true of most upper-level thar s, with the exception of the Brahmans, most members no longer follow traditional occupations. There are, however, a few families at each level, some of whose members perform astrological work for individuals, and who transmit professional knowledge about jyotisa[*] to new generations within their family. Some families in the Chathariya group have members who traditionally serve the Taleju temple, working there not specifically as astrologers, but for the most part as assistant priests.[11] As astrologers, the Josis serve middle-status and upper-status people.[12] They prepare a written record (jata :) of the time of the birth of children, an indication of their relation to the Nine graha , or "Planets," at their birth. The jata : in later life will be used by Josis in the determination of the proper sait , or astrologically proper time span, within which important activities should be initiated or avoided. The Josi's advice based on his interpretation of an individual's jata : is of particular importance in the determination of saits for rites of passage and also contributes to judgments regarding proper marriage partners. The Josi can also advise
on procedures for mitigating the ill effects of astrological conditions, and can help supervise the proper ameliorative worship. Finally, Josis help in determining the proper positioning and timing in propitiating the disturbed local forces when a home, temple, or other building is to be constructed.
Bhaktapur's Josis make their predictions and decisions for individual clients by comparing the information on an individual's jata : with a patra , an annually published astrological calendar. This generalized calendar, used throughout Nepal, is a reminder, in fact, that the Josi is concerned with worlds that are beyond Bhaktapur's civic mesocosmic system. He is concerned with the macrocosm represented by the graha s and with the individual microcosm. His function is to adjust those two realms so that the individual starting from his idiosyncratic position is able to periodically realign himself with the macrocosmic forces. In so doing he can then successfully fit into the ongoing moral, social, and religious patterns of Bhaktapur, the middle world properly presided over by the Brahman. The Brahman explains unfortunate events in terms of improper relations to the city's deities, or to bad karma caused by some moral error in this life or a previous one. The Josi ascribes unfortunate events most characteristically to a dasa , an astrological condition that can produce good or bad "luck," usually the latter.[13] This luck, being astrologically produced, does not derive immediately from moral sources as bad karma usually does,[14] nor does it derive from relations to the civic deities.
In his function as an astrologer the Josi is not, properly speaking, a priest. He puts individuals into a proper relation with a macrocosmic world whose divine representatives, the "astral deities" (chap. 8), have the most minimal meaning as "gods," being rather impersonal forces, and he characteristically does this through advice on timing and choices, which is not "worship" in any sense, not an attempt to influence the divine. He advises corrections and adjustments that allow people to get on with their ordinary lives, one aspect of which is the timing of puja s and ceremonies, the realm of the true priests. In his rectifying and enabling activities, he is like another "para-priest," the barber, who "mechanically" purifies people in a nonsacred procedure and prepares them for worship. As astrologers, the Josis do have second ary priestly functions. When bad fortune, or the possibility of bad fortune, is produced by a violation of order of certain types—those having to do with some reference to an astral deity, or, in the construction of a house, with the preexisting order of the space around and
under the house (symbolized as a disturbance of the supernatural serpents, naga s), the Josis advise on and often lead special restituting worship. They also act as auxiliary priests in some elaborate Brahman-led ceremonies, such as ceremonies for the cure of illness of high-status clients, and they participate as auxiliary priests to the Brahmans in the major Taleju ceremonies. In such helping roles they are not astrologers, but simply assistant priests.
Rajopadhyaya Brahmans claim that Brahmans could do astrological work (as they do in many parts of South Asia), but that they "have given this right to the Josis." Josis are considered by Rajopadhyaya Brahmans to have been derived by some sort of downfall from the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans.[15] It is pointed out that they belong to the same gotra as the Rajopadhyayas[*] , the Bharadvaja gotra . This puts them into a more intimate relation with the Brahmans than some of the other priests who are distinguished as "a kind of Brahman" in terms of their function but not in terms of their descent. The theme of fall in status, for the Josis from Brahmanical status, recurs in a variety of ways, as we will see, in regard to other auxiliary priests.
Acajus
There are in Bhaktapur two thar s with the that name Karmacarya, one among the Pa(n)cthar[16] and the other among the Jyapu. The traditional profession of the men of these thar s is as a kind of priest called "Acaju" in Newari (from the Sanskrit Acarya , "spiritual guide or teacher," plus the Newari honorific particle ju ). D. R. Regmi, in a discussion of the Josis and Acajus in Malla Nepal, gives a useful orienting account of their still persisting functions (1965-1966, part II, p. 715):
The Acaju functioned as an inferior priest in all Brahman led households. They accepted daksina[*] (gifts m money) as well as food m their host's house. . . . But they could not chant the Vedic mantras and also could not conduct the [Vedic] rituals. These were done by the Brahmans alone. The Acajus and Josi, however, were indispensable for any ritual. The Josi was concerned with the task of finding out an auspicious time for any kind of rites to be performed. The Acaju helped to arrange methodically the requirements of the ritual performance. He prepared the ground work for the actual rite. It was left for the Brahman priest to use them.
As the Josis, in addition to being assistants to the Brahmans, have their independent function as astrologers, the Acajus also have an independent function. The Acaju are Tantric priests in public settings. This
has lead to an impression in certain accounts of the Newars that only the Acajus work as Tantric priests and that the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans never do. Like many of the auxiliary priestly performers, they undertake tasks that would be improper for the Brahmans, at some cost in status for themselves. However, in this case it is not the function itself from which the Brahmans are protected, but, as we have discussed in chapter 9 in the Tantric context, its public performance. The Acajus also serve as surrogates for members of upper-status households in Tantric rituals in those cases where household members do not have the proper initiation or, sometimes in recent years, the available time to perform them. They also conduct ordinary Tantric puja s for their clients. In elaborate rituals with Tantric and sacrificial components (for example, the major rites of passage and rituals for the establishment of a new house), the Acaju is required, for well-to-do upper-status and middle-status families, at least, as one of the priests in the ceremony. Here he is not only an assistant to the Brahman priest but also (in keeping with the public nature of the sacrifice) the performer of the sacrificial part of the ritual.
Among the Pa(n)cthariya Karmacaryas there are approximately eight groups, who are differentiated in part according to where in the city they live and according to the particular kind of traditional work that they do. The Jyapu Karmacaryas are unique in the Jyapu group in that they, alone, have the right both to wear the sacred thread and to have Tantric initiations and practices. In spite of this they are not ranked in the upper levels of the Jyapus, and the thar s that are in those levels (and cannot wear the sacred thread) will not marry them. When people in the lower levels of the status system were asked to rank Bhaktapur's thar s, they usually placed Brahmans, Josi, and Karmacarya, in that order, at the top, because of their priestly status. In fact, among their peers the Pa(n)cthariya and Jyapu Karmacarya both have what would seem to be a more depressed status than their priestly status accords them in the point of view of those well below them.
Like many other kinds of priests, including the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans, members of the Karmacarya families also work as temple priests at many of the city's temples and shrines.
Tini
In Bhaktapur's status hierarchy there is one thar placed below the Pa(n)cthariya level and above the great mass of Jyapu or farming thar s.
This is the Sivacarya ("Acariya of Siva") thar , whose members are priests, in Brahmanical phrasing, "a kind of lower Brahman." The priests of these families (and their members in general) are called "Tini."[17] It is said that the Tini exist only in Bhaktapur and in some surrounding villages. In the other Newar clues their special functions are performed by Karmacaryas.[18] In Bhaktapur a Tini priest is required during two important rites of passage. He is necessary for the performance of a purificatory fire ceremony, the gha:su: jagye ceremony, among middle and upper thar s, performed (depending on the particular thar 's customs) on the eleventh or twelfth day after a death (app. 6). The Tini priest makes a fire on the cheli of the house. Offerings to the fire are considered as offerings to Siva (which is sometimes given in partial explanation of the thar name of the Tini, "Sivacarya"). In the course of this fire ceremony the Tini makes a meat-containing offering of samhae to the fire. It is believed that the smoke of the fire will penetrate the house and drive out the evil influences of illness and death.[19] Members of the family and at least one representative from each household of the extended phuki (who have shared in the death pollution) hold their hands over this fire to purify themselves and the members of the households whom they represent. In the course of the gha:su: jagye ceremony the Tinis have (in contrast to Karmacarya priests) the right to read verses from the Veda, which they possess in a simplified version in manuscripts passed on in their families. They also have the right to transmit, know, and use Vedic mantra s. The other important general community use of the Tini is as one of the necessary assistant priests to the Brahman (the others being Acajus and Josis) during the mock-marriage ceremony, the Ihi ceremony (app. 6).
The Tinis are the purohita s, the family priests, of the families of the Bha thar , a thar of borderline clean status, whose members have, as we will see below, their own contaminating priest-like function. In terms of their right to know Vedic mantra s and read the Veda, their status, by traditional criteria, would approximate the Brahmans. Tinis are explained as being a "kind of Brahman" probably "fallen" because of some irregular marriage, although in contrast to the Josis with their Taleju functions, the connection to the Rajopadhyaya Brahmans themselves seems much vaguer. In contrast to the work of the Josis as astrologers, which Brahmans say that they could do but delegate to others, Brahmans say that they themselves could not perform the gha:su: jagye ceremony without losing their Brahman status. This is because that ceremony has to do with the removing of pollution, a pro-
cedure that always depresses the status of those who do it. This illuminates both the anomalously low status of the Tinis—they are lower than any of the other upper-status sections—Brahmans, Chathariya, and Pa(n)cthariya—and their protective or surrogate function for the high-status Rajopadhyaya Brahmans.