Book Review: "The Construction of Religious Boundaries" by Harjot Oberoi

Central to the main theme of this book is the notion that there is nothing natural or self-evident about such religious categories as ‘Hindu’, ‘Muslim’, or, in particular, ‘Sikh’. Due to the nature of religion in Indian society, these categories are fluid and ambiguous in that they did not possess a pure form. “Historically, it is more precise to speak in terms of simultaneity of religious identities rather than distinct, universal, religious collectives" [1, p. 418]. By utilizing history and anthropology, Oberoi constructs an ‘ethnohistorical approach’; in which he explores the formation and distribution of ideologies which would coalesce into the Tat Khalsa episteme that would eventually be associated with the standard Sikh identity. The blurred boundaries became distinct in that the Tat Khalsa had ‘framed’ the modern Sikh community. By viewing this progression within the Sikh community, Oberoi hopes to reveal the “entire process underlying the rise and dissolution of a episteme" [1, p. 30].

He begins by recounting the first attempts by the Khalsa in the later eighteenth-century to establish boundaries by establishing concepts of self and other through life-cycle rituals, taboo behavior, transgressions, and the constitution of sacred space. Next he explores the displacement of the Khalsa episteme by the Sanatan Tradition and its transmission through the Dasam Granth; a sacred text that was used by and/or promoted the three major forces of change: guru lineage, holy men, and traditional intellectuals. The mixing of Khalsa and Sahajdhari texts, theology, and social practices formed a bricolage; which deeply transformed Sikh thinking and conduct. Whereas the Sanatan Tradition is viewed as belonging to the elite, rural Sikhs also participated in ‘popular religion’; which varied village to village and consisted of a plurality of religious beliefs and conducts. Despite the dissimilarities, these two forms of religious expression coexisted until the encroachment of Colonial Christianity forced a unification of the Sikh identity in lieu of a perceived decline of the Sikh population. In order to preserve the Sanatan Tradition from the repercussions of military defeat, the misidentification of Colonial census, and the inroads of Christian missionaries, the Singh Sabha formed to record and codify Sikh customs and practices. Most Sanatanists recognized a plurality of beliefs but in following the European logic the Singh Sabha strove to form a rational and uniform tradition. A new ‘elite sub-culture’ utilized the advantages of nineteenth-century modernization to influence the formation of the Tat Khalsa with which to purge the religious diversity within the Singh Sabha tradition. Puritanism, asceticism, and restraint were touted in the construction of a neo-Sikh moral community and the establishment of the Adi Granth as the sole religious text. In the ensuing struggle the elite Tat Khalsa and the non-elite Sanatan Sikhs demonstrated a clash of ideals reflecting divergent world-views. Faced with the prevailing attitudes that the Sikhs would not be able to compete with other religious communities for jobs and facing a possible loss of cultural independence, the neo-Sikhs established schools in which the Sikh community identified themselves with the Tat Khalsa and eventually this identity defined Sikhism.

Through this account, Oberoi demonstrates that the reification of the Sikh religion is not the simple product of British policy or the compulsions of elite politics, but rather the result of a complex evolution within religious, political, and economical domains.

-Safari Bob

[1] Oberoi, H. (1994). The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 0-226-61593-6

Book Review: "Lives of Indian Images" by Richard H. Davis

Central to the purpose of this book is the notion that the identities of Indian religious objects are not fixed or permanent but constructed and reconstructed by the religious, cultural, economic, and political circumstances in which they are found. Davis approaches this idea by adapting the reader-response theory of ‘interpretive communities’ into his notion of ‘communities of response’ in which one may consider “the plurality of ways viewers approach and encounter a visual object" [1, p. 9]. The location, presentation, and environment in which an object is encountered constitute a “frame” that guides the responses of a viewer in looking at and acting toward the object. The viewer also brings a second frame or “dispensation”, i.e. her own socially shared assumptions, ideas, needs, experiences, and hopes, to this encounter. This interaction between the icon and the viewer creates a series of responses or “reinterpretations” over time in which these objects may be animated as much by these encounters as by the deities they represent and support. By going beyond material creation, Davis argues for “an expanded frame for viewing Indian religious objects, one that accepts contingency, instability, and plurality in the identities of images" [1, p. 263]. This focus on the moment of creation restricts the meaningful possibilities of an object and distracts from the participation of the object in the ongoing social life of its communities.

To demonstrate his purpose, Davis examines a series of objects and sites to explore significant moments or shifts in response that affect these and other Indian objects. He begins with a bronze Siva to juxtapose how an American museum and its original temple setting would present this icon to the viewer. He then illustrates the range of rhetoric in the appropriation of select religious images such as the Calukya door-guardian by medieval Indian rulers. Next he uses Islamic iconoclasm and Hindu response to demonstrate the ways in which Indo-Muslim and Hindu texts narrated acts of image destruction and reconstruction, differing ways of interpretation and response to Indian religious icons, and the political and theological purposes behind them. After this Davis explores the transformation of Indian icons into ‘art’ vis-à-vis the acquisition of “Tipu’s Tiger” by British colonial forces and the altered political relationship of Britain and India. Next he traces the diachronical formations of meanings in relation to Somanatha and the efforts of diverse social groups to retell its story according to each group’s purpose. Finally he examines the current market in the West for ancient Indian art by following the bronze image of Siva Nataraja to illuminate the conflicting claims and views of Indian worshippers and Western collectors hold toward these objects.

In all of these “biographies” Davis demonstrates how historical, devotional, and cultural frames affect the meanings and interpretations of these objects by different viewers. I found his treatment of the bronze image of Siva Nataraja to be especially illuminating in that I also previously held the assumption with the Indian Government of “once a religious image always a religious image" [1, pg. 252]. By exploring the various layers of ‘the recovery of ritual selfhood’ he truly demonstrates the murky definitions of how we should approach these icons. The fluidity of how these ‘dispensations’ can subtly morph as well as the ever-changing environmental framework in which these icons are found truly form multiple complexities of the subjective imposed on the objective.

- Safari Bob

[1] Davis, R., H. (1997). Lives of Indian Images. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN: 0-691-00520-6