Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

The context – regions and religions
There are approximately 70 glaciers in the Himalayas
and they represent the largest body of ice outside the
Polar ice cap, and hence, communities which are
dependent upon this melt-water for their primary
production are highly vulnerable to changes in the
glaciers’ extent (Vetaas 2002). Nepal’s rivers contribute
45 per cent of the Ganges’ annual flow. Since the
Himalayan Mountains are tectonically unstable, and
given the monsoon climate, the larger north-south rivers
are powerfully erosive (Sill & Kirkby 1991).
Kaligandaki River is located in Dhaulagiri Zone in
Western Region of Nepal in the North, and the river is
the border between Gandaki and Lumbini Zones in the
South. Kaligandaki River rises in the High Himalayas on
the Tibetan plateau, following steep courses cutting
across the geological grain of the country on the Terai
Plain. Between Dhaulagiri (8176m) to the West and
Annapurna (8091m) to the East the river cuts one of the
deepest gorges in the world. At the widest point of
separation, the peak-to-peak distance is only 32 km, with
the river flowing at an elevation of 2000-2500 metres.
The gorge is over 6,000 m deep, and it is dangerously
prone to landslides, especially since earthquakes are
common.
The Himalayan mountain range in Nepal represents in
certain areas a cultural, ritual, and religious border
dividing Hinduism and Buddhism, although in other
places in Nepal the religions co-exist (e.g. Gellner 1993).
Muktinath is a holy pilgrimage site for both Hindus and
Buddhists located at an elevation of 3800 m., and the
place is “near the extreme northern edge of Hindu
influence in this part of the Himalayas and at the same
time is near the extreme southern edge of Buddhist and
Tibetan influence” (Messerschmidt 1992:30). This area
is situated in the rain-shadow behind the Annapurna and
Dhaulagiri peaks with an annual rainfall of 200-400 mm
a year. In front of the mountains, next to Baglung
Bazaar, the river runs at en elevation of 800 metres.
Baglung Bazaar is only 20 km west of the Lumle village
in air distance; a village at 1610 metres above sea level,
receiving between 4000 and 6000 mm of rain each year,
and the air distance between Muktinath and Lumle is
less than 60 km. In summary, the Himalayan range
separates the Tibetan and Buddhist regions in the north
in an arid rain-desert virtually unaffected by the
monsoon rain, whereas the Hindu regions south of the
mountains are situated in a highly humid and fertile area,
creating some of the world’s steepest gradients regarding
both elevation and precipitation.
Based on one research site in each of these regions, the
aim is to see to which extent, why, and how changes in
the natural environment affect the conceptualisation and
qualities of water as a life-giving process in death rituals.
This point of departure needs some theoretical
clarification. Fredrik Barth argues that social actions are
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“intended” and not simply “caused” (Barth 1981:3),
avoiding an ecological determinism because functional
interdependencies “constitute necessary but not
sufficient conditions for understanding the actual pattern
of energy flow which emerge in man’s interaction with
the natural environment” (Haaland 1991:14). Thus, it is
necessary to develop a perspective combining macrolevel
ecosystem dynamics with micro-level analyses of
the actor’s intentions and perceptions (ibid). The
question ”when does a system stop being what it has
been and become something else?” is difficult to answer
unless there is a distinct break in the successions of
ecosystems (Rappaport 1979:149). The “human
ecological triangle” links up three recursive systems, the
environment, the society, and the person (Steiner
1993:57). Adaptation is a cultural phenomenon and
connected to power, and thus, the social systems which
are favoured by various environmental conditions, are
not necessarily a maximizing process (Rappaport
1979:71).
One major fallacy of much post-modern writing is the
denial of economic, ecological, and natural factors in the
explanations of human action. The post-processual
archaeology’s emphasis on landscape analysis is an
approach for incorporating the material world people
inhabit and live in. Landscape, environment, nature,
space, or other words designate the physical
surroundings or the world humans live in, but different
meanings and schools of thought are associated with the
various terms. “Landscape” is a black-box category, but
it often refers to the meaning imputed by local people on
their physical and cultural surroundings. Painters
introduced the term in the English vocabulary in the late
sixteenth century as a technical term. Thus “landscape”
originally has connotations to “scenery” or picturesque
images. The cognitive, cultural, and representational
aspects are in the foreground, and the actors are
somehow outside the landscape (Hirsch 1995).
Whereas “environment” often implies notions of
“constraints”, “landscape” refers to notions of
“constructions”. There are therefore implicit hierarchies
found in the various concepts. “Space” is in archaeology
a neutral category, and as such it does not denote any
particular meaning. But as Godelier notes, the very
concept of “space” is social because space is distributed
among communities, which exploit territories or
appropriate natural resources (Godelier 1988:55).
“Nature” is untamed and controls humans,
“environment” is a contested field of relations between
man and nature where humans most often are the inferior
part, and “landscape” designates the surroundings
culturally conquered by man. The point of departure in
archaeology is “that…monuments took over the
significance of important places in the landscape and
brought them under control” (Bradley 2000:17). Humans
built monuments and therefore natural places have a
significance in people’s minds (ibid:35). Man conquers
Nature.