Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

The process of procreation
Chapter 10:
The hydrological circle – Cosmos and copulation
Richard Gombrich (1988:6) asks the question “if religion
claims to explain the world, can we in the world explain
religion?” Religion contains both beliefs and practices,
and the relation between myth and ritual is complex.
Leach once argued that “myth implies ritual, ritual
implies myth, they are one and the same” (Leach
1954:13ff), but most researchers argue that the
relationship is more complex, and that myths and rituals
possess qualitatively different aspects (e.g. Bell 1992,
1997, Humphrey & Laidlaw 1994, Rappaport 2001).
This is not the topic here, but it inevitably raises the
problem of how to interpret religion? There are
numerous sacred scriptures, which are not presenting a
coherent picture of the religion; they belong to different
time-scales and paths, and the devotees’ penances are
motivated by deep personal experiences (e.g.
Obeyesekere 1981), in short: there is a huge variation in
both the practices and the beliefs. What is the best way
to approach such a complex?
Schutz has pointed out several continuities between the
“common sense” thinking of members of a community
and the “scientific thinking” of social research, because
all scientific thinking has its roots in common sense
thinking (Bloor 1997:41). According to Schutz, “the
primary goal of social sciences is to obtain organised
knowledge of social reality” (Schutz 1971:53). Thus, he
makes a distinction between constructs of the first and
second degree. “The constructs of social sciences
are…constructs of the second degree, namely constructs
of the constructs made by the actors on the social scene,
whose behaviour the social scientist has to observe and
to explain in accordance with the procedural rules of his
science” (Schutz 1970:273, my emphasis). This
distinction seems to grasp an essential difference
between the various spheres and orders of constructions
in empirical research. However, the relation between and
the dependency of the first and second degree of
constructions are not obvious, and a scholarly
interpretation may not differ much from an interpretation
put forward by a priest or holy man. A solution to this
alleged problem might be found in Latour’s approach to
hybridisation where he argues that there are no ‘pure’
things or fields of discourse, but focuses on what he calls
‘hybrids’ or ‘quasi-objects’.
Latour starts describing the problem by referring to an
article he read on page four in his daily newspaper one
day: ”I learn that the measurements taken above the
Antarctic are not good this year: the hole in the ozone
layer is growing ominously larger. Reading on, I turn
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from the upper-atmosphere chemists … to companies
that are modifying their assembly lines in order to
replace the innocent chlorofluorcarbons, accused of
crimes against the ecosphere. A few paragraphs later, I
come across heads of state of major industrialised
countries who are getting involved with chemistry,
refrigerators, aerosols, and inert gases. But at the end of
the article, I discover meteorologists don’t agree with the
chemists” (Latour 1993:1). The conclusion for further
elaboration, which Latour draws, is that the same article
mixes together chemical actions, political re-actions, and
“a single thread links the most esoteric sciences and the
most sordid politics, the most distant sky, and some
factory in the Lyon suburbs, dangers on a global scale
and the impending local elections or the next board
meeting. The horizons, the stakes, the time frames, the
actors – none of these is commensurable, yet there they
are, caught up in the same story” (ibid).
Latour’s approach to hybridisation may enable an
entrance to an understanding of how seemingly
incommensurable threads are woven together into
interpretations of the devotees’ own life-worlds.
Particularly holy men may combine esoteric experiences,
devotional penances, public rituals, fragments of various
sacred scriptures, which altogether comprise a unity
giving ontological meaning to themselves. Speaking
from a strictly scholarly perspective, some may argue
that it is impossible to combine the Rig-Veda, the Sutras,
contemporary ritual experiences, and practical
considerations, in the very same narrative. This is,
however, a matter of how many webs of significance are
spun together. The cosmic origin is interwoven with the
future release from samsara through knowledge acquired
by reading sacred scriptures and executed in daily
practices and penances. To rephrase Latour, a religious
interpretation links the most esoteric experiences, the
most practical concerns for purity, the most distant sky
(or stars), particular temples in Kathmandu, cosmic
threats on a grand scale, and mundane problems here and
now. All these facets may seem incommensurable, but
still they constitute the very essence of religious practice
and webs of meaning. Hence, the interpretations put
forward here belong to this category, which aims to
bridge what are seemingly incommensurable positions.
In other words, these interpretations combine both the
cosmic origin and end, which most cosmogonic
explanations do: they aim to explain how micro- and
macro cosmos are connected.
The main problem, which I will discuss here, is how the
soul is transformed from one sphere or state to another,
or how and by which processes the soul is transferred
from the deceased on cemeteries to the womb of a birth