Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

constructions, it has often been approached as a unified
entity – as one thing – The Nature. I aim to illuminate
the interrelatedness of culture and nature not as opposing
categories but by emphasising that there is neither
culture nor nature as such, but different interacting
spheres of humans and materiality. Bodily fluid matters
in particular and water in general dissolve and transcend
the traditional dichotomy of mind and matter on the one
hand, and nature and culture on the other hand.
Perceptionally, a water perspective will be developed
and used not only as an interpretative framework, but
more importantly, as an approach which illuminates one
of the most structuring, although often neglected,
variables in society. Fresh water represents deep
ontological relations, and the water-worlds in a society
create opportunities for all kinds of constructions (Tvedt
1997). Fresh water has a unique character of universality
both in society and nature, but it is always used in a
particular way in the specific constitutions of society and
cosmos. The hydrological cycle links all places and
spheres together, and water transcends the common
categories by which we conceptualise the world.
Moreover, the physical character of water combined
with its role as an historical agent enables the medium to
link the past with the present and the future (Tvedt
2002:166-168). The water perspective developed
through contemporary ethnography is not an analogy for
culture-historical interpretations of the past, but a
premise for an understanding of both the past and its
development and continuity up to the present. Hence, a
material culture study emphasising and combining both
contemporary contexts and culture-historical settings
through a water-perspective may illuminate historical
specific and structural processes on the Indian subcontinent.
Thematically, death is crucial in the formation,
manifestation, and elaboration of social structures and
hierarchies. The death of a member of a society threatens
any society and the descendants’ performance of the
burial rite includes a concern for the spiritual world and
the ancestors as well as the society in general. Hegel
wrote once that history is the record of “what man does
with death” (Whaley 1981:1) because “the dead did not
bury themselves” (Bradley 1989). Death lies at the
bottom of all facets of humanity, and hence, it is a
crucial factor in the development of societies (Parker
Pearson 2001:203). The stability of society and cosmos
is not only threatened during death but more positively,
death is a means by which it is possible to encapsulate
and to grasp the dynamics that constitute both society
and cosmos. Death triggers reconstitutions of society and
cosmos that invoke both the descendants and the
divinities. But despite the significance of death, its
pervasive role in the constitution of society is often
neglected, with some exceptions however. The most
notable works on death are Robert Hertz’ Death and the
Right Hand (1960), Peter Metcalf and Richard
3
Huntington’s (eds.) Celebrations of Death (1993[1979]),
Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry’s (eds.) Death &
Regeneration of Life (1987[1982]), for Hindu death
rituals in particular, Jonathan Parry’s Death in Banaras
(1994), and the recent The Archaeology of Death and
Burial by Mike Parker Pearson (1999) and The Buried
Soul by Timothy Taylor (2002). Apart from these
studies, mortuary rituals are often touched upon in
ethnographies, although little emphasis has been put on
this transformation as the mould by which society and
cosmos are created. Most ethnographic studies are
concerned with spiritual and ancestral aspects of death,
and not the actual funerals involving corpses. Therefore,
I have conducted fieldworks on cemeteries emphasising
on what the descendants actually do with their deceased.
Methodologically, most studies of death are either
particular case studies from which universal statements
are made, or comparisons of death rituals across time
and space from which generalisations are concluded.
Both these approaches reveal insights into the nature of
death, but I believe it is possible to gain more knowledge
by combining the particular and the general approaches
in a comparative study of different karmic traditions.
This strategy has several advantages. There are cultural
and religious similarities between all the groups which
are investigated, and therefore, the similarities in the
mortuary rituals highlight the structuring role of death in
society, and the differences put the emphasis on the
actors’ own reasons for the performances of the rites. A
comparison of various karmic traditions explores how
and why cultural differences are rooted in structural
similarities, and hence, it is possible to conceptualise and
separate the structuring variables which create social
change and constitute cosmos.
Geographically, the areas of investigation are parts of
Nepal, India and Bangladesh, together with
archaeological materials from the Indus valley in present
day Pakistan. The selected case studies represent a wide
range of ecological zones, water-environments, religious
practices, particular cultural developments, and time
dimensions. The geographical distribution strengthen the
methodological comparative approach which illuminates
that despite cultural differences in time and space, there
are structural similarities in the ways the life-giving
waters constitute society and cosmos. On the other hand,
the differences in practices and beliefs are also
highlighted and illuminated through an emphasis on
structural aspects, which enables an analysis of the
specific and historical origins of ideas and solutions to
particular problems. Hence, the geographical distribution
and variation in case studies open up for a combined
discussion of both the general and the particular.
Therefore, based on these fieldworks, my aim is to
contribute with new empirical data and theoretical
approaches to the debate of social structures and changes
by including the life-giving water as a bridge between