Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

etween the sacred and the profane worlds, and in order
to grasp the essence and structure of religious
phenomena he argued that comparative studies were
necessary (ibid).
This separation between a secular and religious world is
not Eliade’s invention. The distinction between the
sacred and the profane goes at least back to Durkheim’s
Elementary Forms of Religious Life from 1915.
However, rather than seeing the sacred and the profane
as two separate worlds existing beside each other – one
world for believers and another world for non-believers
– I will argue that the world of everyday life for
believers is practical, mundane, and “profane”, but it is a
part of, and inferior to, another religious world which
includes cosmogony and the divine Parthenon.
Therefore, I will not restrict the profane sphere to nonbelievers
and the sacred sphere to believers, but rather
stress that in a religious world there are certain spheres
where religious principles may guide and structure the
social interaction, but the activities in themselves are not
considered religious in nature, and hence, they belong to
the “profane” sphere as opposed to the sacred or ritual
sphere.
If religion both defines and shapes social order, I see
ritual as an active interaction between humans and gods.
Although not identical, the relation between religion and
ritual bears some similarities to the relation between
structure and agency. In order to elaborate this approach,
one may distinguish between transcendental and
cosmogonic religions. “In transcendental religions such
as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, where the
omnipotence of a single god renders that god’s existence
totally independent of his creation, sacrifice becomes
merely a token of individual and collective human
gratitude for the deity’s favours” (Trigger 2003:473). In
cosmogonic religions, individual deities are viewed as
dependent of humans and supported by humans through
sacrifices, and hence, humans and gods depend upon
each other (ibid).
There are two fundamental acts of worship; sacrifice and
prayer (Feherty 1974:128). Broadly speaking, sacrifice is
more common in cosmogonic religions and prayer in
transcendental religions, although both types of worship
are inherent in the respective religions. Both sacrifice
and prayer as worship have certain characteristics.
Firstly, it is humans who initiate this interaction with
their gods. Secondly, because of the human initiative and
engagement with the gods, humans are inferior and this
interaction is asymmetrical. In a gift theory the gods give
more back to humans than what they receive from them,
and thus, this interaction establishes a reciprocal but
hierarchical relationship.
Since sacrifice is fundamental in cosmogonic religions, I
will elaborate some aspects of sacrifice. There are many
types of sacrifices with specific functions and outcome,
and it is possible to categorise some of them:
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1) Sacrifices of expiation and purification. In a religious
world it is not sufficient for the individual merely to ask
pardon from the one he has offended. A sacrifice to their
common deity or deities is required, and the god’s
acceptance of the offer ends the social disorder. Thus,
the deity’s acceptance of the offer is a part of the
community where all parties partake – both the offender
and the offended. 2) Propitiatory sacrifices. These rites
are meant to avert potential disorder or favour future
prospects. Pleasing the deity can be done for many
reasons, such as securing the life of the body, securing
the fertility of the fields, avoiding famine and obtaining
rain, etc. 3) Sacrifices in rites of sorcery. There are both
offensive and defensive types of sacrifices included in
this category of sacrifice. In these rites the deities that
are engaged personify amoral actions and aims. 4)
Divinatory sacrifices. The divinatory component is
always present since the participants believe that they
are observing signs of the outcome of the sacrifice in
various ways. 5) First-fruits sacrifices. This group of
sacrifices includes agricultural and cultivation products
which are given to the gods, but also first victims of
wars and other generative activities and labour products
(Valeri 1985:41-44).
Offerings can be ranked in terms of their value to the
sacrifier. The value of each sacrifice is culturally and
religiously dependent, but ultimately it depends on the
offering’s capacity to symbolise the sacrifier. The
sacrificial hierarchy includes the sacrifier’s own body,
and the importance of the sacrifice is often measured
from the sacrifier’s body. The human victim is one of
the supremest offerings possible, and beyond human
sacrifice remains only the sacrifier’s own sacrificial
death. The sacrifier’s own death is the uttermost logical
limit of the sacrifical hierarchy and gives the system its
full meaning. The sacrifier’s death is precisely what the
sacrifice aims to avoid by representing it by other offers.
Human sacrifice is therefore not a separate category but
rather the ultimate and extreme form that every sacrifice
may take – or the essence common to all sacrifices.
Sacrifices carried out in this manner normally require the
king, or a sacred person, because the king incarnates the
society as a whole, and such sacrifices are made for the
benefit of the collective welfare (Valeri 1985:49). The
offering must evoke not only the deity, but also the
results sought by the sacrifier (ibid:50). Sacrifices of
humans in funerals are one of the most efficacious
means of legitimating the current social order and
regenerating the entire cosmos.
The pure as sacred vs. the impure as chaos
“The Mahabrahmans…who are in many contexts treated
much like Untouchables…are after all Brahmans” (Parry
1994:77-78). This paradox sums up where the caste
system stands today and the inherent ambiguity in caste
as a phenomenon. Notions of purity and pollution are
inevitably connected to caste theories, although the