Notes 03/29/1

Christianity in India: Contextualizing The Saint in the Banyan Tree

with Brian Pennington

Caste

·      Concept came out of the European colonial cxt when they encountered this unfamiliar social system

·      **There is no such “system” in India—no monolithic social tradition that corresponds to what we think about when we thing about caste

1. Varna (covering, color): emerges out of Sanskrit texts, about 2000 years old

-Skin tone? Clothing?

-text that describes sacrifice of cosmic person purusha as founding the physical, material, and social order of the universe

a) mouth: Brahman = priests

b) forearms: Ksatriya = warriors

c) thighs: Vaishyas = farmers, merchants

d) feet: Shudras = servants

*ideal image of order according to male Brahmin authority

**this is virtually irrelevant for the ways that caste is practiced

2. Jati (kind, sort, genus)

-birth groups, about 3,000 in India today

-governs marriage(endogamous groups) *still critically important through arranged marriage: widespread preference across age and education today

-traditionally governed occupation

--Brahmans who do particular things: cook, ritual, memorize texts

--blacksmiths, leather workers, etc. 

**hardly linked to occupation anymore

-commensality (who you eat with and rules about food)

àonly eat food that is prepared by and for the group itself—lower caste people can take food from higher caste people, but it doesn’t work the other way around if they’re observant

*food is one of the ways in which purity and pollution are communicated

-ranked hierarchically according to perceived purity and pollution

*not fixed in text or tradition (©Mary Douglas Purity and Danger)

*pollution = state of being ≠ sin (©Jewish conceptions of purity & the mikvah)

àone goes in and out of impurity: touch a dead body, give birth to a baby, etc.

--dirty work=low caste: anything that involves death or bodily substances (ie: barber, leather worker)

--practices that rank you low: drinking alcohol, eating meat

--polluting occupation=low ranking (ie: pig herding)

**SO YOU SEE these things can change over time, they are fluid states of being and today highly political states of being

-in some ways you “can’t escape” your jati because it is your family and your people

-you can definitely dispute the placement of your jati

*it is a ridiculous truism to see jatis as a doom n gloom sort of thing

Colonial period:

·      caste became more fixed thanks to Europeans

·      now we’ve got politicized caste identities (50+ parties in India)

Independence: 1947 after WWII

Christianity in India

·      Distributions: 79% Hindu, 14% Muslim, 2.5-3% Xian

·      Xians are visible and prominent part of Indian social life

·      Uneven distribution across country

o   Northeast states: not culturally or linguistically similar to much of India but act as a sort of buffer, these concentrations were the product of American evangelizing

o   Southern 2 states: Kerala and Tamil Nadu

o   Malabar coast to the left: Vasco Da Gama slides into their DM (Portuguese, Catholic)

·      Today:

o   17 mil, Roman Catholic—conversions in early days of Euro colonialism

o   3.8 mil, Church of South India (protestant)

o   1.9 mil, St. Thomas Xians

§  Thomas arrived in Kerala 52 CE (apostle Thomas of Xian gospels)

§  Some oral trads say he came w/ apostle Bartholomew

§  Converted Brahmins and Jews who had migrated/taken refuge from 500ish BCE-1948 when State of Israel was formed

§  St. Thomas in India until martyred in year 72 in Chennai

§  Graves, martyrdom site, footprints

§  First historical mentions of Thomas tradition: mid 3^rd century

o   1.25 mil, Church of N. India (protestant)

§  *various protestants (like Methodists and others) banded together forming the 2 protestant churches

o   Less than 1mil, but growing Pentacostals (very visible and audible)

·      St. Thomas tradition continued

o   St. Thome Basilica, Channai

§  Diorama depicting martyrdom at St. Thomas Mount

§  Tomb of St. Thomas—has become a place of pilgrimage for Indians of many religious backgrounds—porosity of religious identity in India

§  i.e. pray to St. Thomas for healing a very sick baby

§  this drives religious authorities crazy

o   Xians who trace their Hx to travels of St. Thomas

o   Texts in syriac (some ppl use this as evidence against the tradition)

Modern History:

European images predating contact w India 12^th-15^th c.

=artists in Europe visually interpreting travelers’ writing

·      Italian Ganesh in contrapasto

·      Shiva image

·      Primary trope used dealt with demonic or monstrous

·      Euro point of view: this all looked like chaos

Thomas Xians in Kerala were typically high-rank Brahmins—important: earliest xians in India definitely practiced caste

Portuguese Church=oldest in India

·      Tomb of Vasco da Gamma

Francis Xavier 1506-1552

·      Cofounder of Jesuit order

·      Chastity and poverty

·      One of the first Catholic declarations that there was a responsibility to convert the heathen

·      Boundaries and xianity

·      Missionary to Christian soldiers who kept running off marrying Indian women

·      It simply didn’t go well for him

·      Successful conversion of Paravars, a {low} fishing caste

o   Huge saint in S. India

o   *probably most responsible for Xianity becoming associated w Xianity and low-caste groups

o   xians historically have experienced the most success among the most marginalized groups

Robert de Nobili 1577-1656

·      recognized that Xianity wasn’t going to work if it was assoc. with lower castes

·      foreign=no caste=anomalous=implicitly impure bc you don’t fit in

·      Europeans would have had improper bathing practices and eucharist eating body and blood “what the heck,” they said

·      Accommodationist strategy: lived and dressed as a Brahmin

·      Went to Madurai, Tamil Nadu

o   Refused to meet w Catholic hierarchy

o   Called himself as a Brahmin—even had Italian documents that said so (fake ids back in the day am I right)

o   Brought the 5^th Veda, the Jesus veda

·      Had to convince Rome that caste was not implicitly religious but social àpaved the way for caste to be incorporated and preserved in xian communities

Lowest Castes: Untouchables

·      Most polluting and impure

·      Deal w dead bodies and dead animals, sweep streets

·      Very marginalized: living outside main area, shadows are polluting,

·      Harijan (“children of God”)

o   Ghandi’s strategy: attack discrimination on the basis of caste and dignify communities and humanity; many low-caste people saw this as patronizing

·      Dalit (“broken, oppressed”)

o   Used by in-group activists

o   Political claim

·      Scheduled Castes (SC)

o   British gov’t’s way of locating the “most backwards classes”

o   Benefits: government education at colleges and government jobs

·      *de Nobili ignored them and thereby let them be marginalized in Catholic cxt

A (Protestant) Missionary Age

·      bible=v important for protestants

·      goal: get people to accept the message

·      first Euros to learn Indian languages well

William Carey

·      Baptist: 1^st to call for the “conversion of the heathens”

·      Protestants saw their mission to low-caste peoples as a liberating mission

Images

·      Religious cruelties

·      Idolatry

·      Illicit sexual behavior

·      Distributed among European readers to get them into missionizing

·      Potential “after” images of all the good that could be done

Tamil context:

Self-Respect Movement

·      Important distinction: Brahmin and non-brahmin—attacking hegemony of Brahmins

·      founder Perriyar

·      all people are equal

Anti-Brahmanism

·      B.R. Ambedkar: founder of contemporary dalit liberation movements

o   Believed caste was fundamentally tied to Hinduism—led a move to Buddhism

o   Major voice of dalit-activism