Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes

by Milton Singer (Editor)

extremely rare,very good condition

Paperback

Published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The West knows Krishna as the god-charioteer of the Bhagavad Gita, offering his wisdom to the prince Arjuna before battle (referenced by T.S. Eliot in the "The Dry Salvages"), then revealing himself as the overpowering divine (cited by J. Robert Oppenheimer, who read Sanskrit, at the detonation of the atomic bomb). But Hinduism, like any religion with staying power (and it has more of that than perhaps any other) changes. The Krishna who, it appears, is best known at present is the mischievous boy-god who inspires intense devotion and desire among the female cowherds. That myth is often taken as a metaphor for the desire of the soul for God, and in that aspect it seems concordant with the tenets of the Upanishads. But what is most interesting is the spread of that myth, as documented in this volume, across the extremely varied languages and cultures within the modern nation of India, north (or really, norths) and south, city and village, scripture and daily practice. This volume is a collection of essays, by both American and (thankfully) Indian scholars, that each examines an aspect of this enormous subject. The first two address the Bhagavata Purana (not the Gita) in which the gopi myth is set down; one finds in that text a doctrine that subverts the caste system, and the second finds its language deliberately archaic in an effort to claim authority in intellectual circles. What really astounds, though, are the descriptions of practice (at least as they existed prior to the original publication of this book in the sixties). Of particular interest is Surajit Singh's essay on religious practice in a tribe of the Bengali region, where non-Brahman gurus are accepted and there are a few particularly intense rituals beliefs, such as the drinking the water used to wash the guru's feet, the honoring of village (pre-Hindu) gods, and the notion that discharge of semen is the root of all evil, leading to an afterlife of Hell. (It is hard to see how this fits into a Hinduism with reincarnation or that emphasizes the union of the soul with God, but, as Singh notes drily, these particular gurus did not habitually engage in theological discussions with the villagers). Milton Singer's essay examines how devotion to Krishna and the principal gopi, Radha, made sense to residents grappling with the pressures and discontents of the city now known as Chennai. Perhaps most startling is recounting by Marriott McKim of Holi, the festival of Love, in a north Indian town, which provides the impetus for what can only be described as the kind of carnival that helps relieve the tensions built up by rigorous social structures. Gangs race through the town's streets, hurling mud and cow dung at people, especially the local powerful. McKim himself was soaked with buffalo urine by a woman he describes as having been "quiet and deferential." Of another gathering, he notes "there was on great throng of villagers watching an uplifted male dancer with padded crotch writhe in fevered passion and then onanism; then join in a remote pas de deux with a veiled female impersonator in a parody of pederasty, and finally in telepathic copulation." Alone in this volume, McKim writes like someone who has set aside intellectual training and decided to simply experience this moment. It is an interesting final entry in a volume that, for all its scholarly heft, demonstrates the insufficiency the tools of academe are when trying to explain intense religious experience.