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Poetics of Conduct: Oral Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town
Leela Prasad's riveting book presents everyday stories on subjects such as deities, ascetics, cats, and cooking along with stylized, publicly delivered ethical discourse, and shows that the study of oral narrative and performance is essential to ethical inquiry. Prasad builds on more than a decade of her ethnographic research in the famous Hindu pilgrimage town of Sringeri, Karnataka, in southwestern India, where for centuries a vibrant local culture has flourished alongside a tradition of monastic authority. Oral narratives and the seeing-and-doing orientations that are part of everyday life compel the question: How do individuals imagine the normative, and negotiate and express it, when normative sources are many and diverging? Moral persuasiveness, Prasad suggests, is intimately tied to the aesthetics of narration, and imagination plays a vital role in shaping how people create, refute, or relate to "text," "moral authority," and "community." Lived understandings of ethics keep notions of text and practice in flux and raise questions about the constitution of "theory" itself. Prasad's innovative use of ethnography, poetics, philosophy of language, and narrative and performance studies demonstrates how the moral self, with a capacity for artistic expression, is dynamic and gendered, with a historical presence and a political agency.
312 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 21, 2014
Sringeri being one of my favorite place i enjoyed this book page-by-page
I found this book more informative about Sringeri and people living there,author has compartmentalized this book so well it starts with a very clear and detailed description of the town, temples and monastery.
People of Sringeri is also known for their hospitality, which is potrayed so well in addition to this aspects of tradition, customs and ascetic lifestyle generally observed in the town made me more knowledgeable.
Author's conversation with the people of Sringeri is recorded in this book which was very interesting and got lot of ideas how Sringeri was in ancient days, completed with a feel of contendedness.
I found this book more informative about Sringeri and people living there,author has compartmentalized this book so well it starts with a very clear and detailed description of the town, temples and monastery.
People of Sringeri is also known for their hospitality, which is potrayed so well in addition to this aspects of tradition, customs and ascetic lifestyle generally observed in the town made me more knowledgeable.
Author's conversation with the people of Sringeri is recorded in this book which was very interesting and got lot of ideas how Sringeri was in ancient days, completed with a feel of contendedness.
April 14, 2021
How 'shastra' is used in the context of everyday actions and how does it affect the orientation of one's life?
The texts of Indian Traditions do not give a definite implication for our actions. A linear equation in math can have one and only one definite answer. One cannot think of traditional texts in a similar way as a set of statements that can be strictly applied in our conduct. Prasad’s work is a richly descriptive resource to understand how traditional texts, lived experiences, oral narratives, rituals, and practices collectively produce what she calls, ‘imagined texts’ of daily life.
Leela Prasad’s book Poetics of Conduct describes lived understanding of moral conduct and everyday shastras that exist along with the scriptural knowledge and ethics represented by an institution interpreting Dharmashastras. Prasad builds her decade-long research in a small South Indian town, Sringeri, a prominent pilgrimage center and authoritative institution of Advaitic texts and Hindu codes of conduct known as the Dharmasutras and the Dharmashastras. Over 1200-year-old lineage of interpretation of the Dharmashastras and counseling royalty and lay public by gurus, the matha transformed from a hermitage and temple into a powerful institution.
Prasad, familiar with Sringeri since her childhood, then asks, how do people living in the vicinity of a powerful institution, that for centuries have been an influential interpreter of the Dharmashastras, imagine and express their moral worlds? What relationships do individuals envisage between generalized moral imperatives, moral reflection, and acts in everyday life?
The conversationally shared stories powerfully illustrate the moral process by which individuals perceive and engage with their histories, their surroundings, their visions, and their realities. Prasad's study mainly relies on the interpretation of oral narratives. She says narratives speak in complex ways to the memory and self-understandings of narrators. Hence, she takes extra care while translating the conversations from Kannada to English to use contextually correct words and capture expression and style of narration. Prasad says the work of interpretation is perpetual and has no beginning or no end for ethnographers. We can see this, in her book, as she keeps the interpretations provisional instead of making them conclusive.
Prasad’s work brings in nuances of ‘everyday’ contexts of a cultural experience where individuals describe and organise their knowledge through experiences of practicing local traditions and reflecting on their moral conduct from day to day ordinary events. Prasad concludes her book by providing perspectives on relations, possible and imagined, between the normative discourse and everyday narratives. Shastras seem to have a normative value but not a normative force in shaping moral norms on the level of individual and lived experiences. The narrative interpretation shows how multiple sources of normative exist and how they are negotiated.
The texts of Indian Traditions do not give a definite implication for our actions. A linear equation in math can have one and only one definite answer. One cannot think of traditional texts in a similar way as a set of statements that can be strictly applied in our conduct. Prasad’s work is a richly descriptive resource to understand how traditional texts, lived experiences, oral narratives, rituals, and practices collectively produce what she calls, ‘imagined texts’ of daily life.
Leela Prasad’s book Poetics of Conduct describes lived understanding of moral conduct and everyday shastras that exist along with the scriptural knowledge and ethics represented by an institution interpreting Dharmashastras. Prasad builds her decade-long research in a small South Indian town, Sringeri, a prominent pilgrimage center and authoritative institution of Advaitic texts and Hindu codes of conduct known as the Dharmasutras and the Dharmashastras. Over 1200-year-old lineage of interpretation of the Dharmashastras and counseling royalty and lay public by gurus, the matha transformed from a hermitage and temple into a powerful institution.
Prasad, familiar with Sringeri since her childhood, then asks, how do people living in the vicinity of a powerful institution, that for centuries have been an influential interpreter of the Dharmashastras, imagine and express their moral worlds? What relationships do individuals envisage between generalized moral imperatives, moral reflection, and acts in everyday life?
The conversationally shared stories powerfully illustrate the moral process by which individuals perceive and engage with their histories, their surroundings, their visions, and their realities. Prasad's study mainly relies on the interpretation of oral narratives. She says narratives speak in complex ways to the memory and self-understandings of narrators. Hence, she takes extra care while translating the conversations from Kannada to English to use contextually correct words and capture expression and style of narration. Prasad says the work of interpretation is perpetual and has no beginning or no end for ethnographers. We can see this, in her book, as she keeps the interpretations provisional instead of making them conclusive.
Prasad’s work brings in nuances of ‘everyday’ contexts of a cultural experience where individuals describe and organise their knowledge through experiences of practicing local traditions and reflecting on their moral conduct from day to day ordinary events. Prasad concludes her book by providing perspectives on relations, possible and imagined, between the normative discourse and everyday narratives. Shastras seem to have a normative value but not a normative force in shaping moral norms on the level of individual and lived experiences. The narrative interpretation shows how multiple sources of normative exist and how they are negotiated.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews