Cremation, Caste, and Cosmogony in Karmic Traditions.

Models. The main advantage with comparative research
is also a methodological disadvantage, which relates to
the problem of induction and deduction. The rainmaking
death rituals in Manang, the river ideology in
front of the Himalayan range, and the Kali-Ganga
complex and ambivalence in Faridpur, are all case
studies which make sense in an overall model or
perspective emphasising the life-giving waters. The
problem is that these small case studies are only a few
examples from innumerable places where I could have
conducted fieldwork. What I do not know is whether
data from the neighbouring villages would have
strengthened or weakened my models. Thus, it seems to
be wise to see the models as an “ideal type” of
explanation as Weber (1949) and Obeyesekere (2002:16,
130) do. The life-giving water is a structuring variable at
least in those case studies I have analysed, and hence, for
the moment I cannot say anything about other villages
and places. But as a structuring principle it is possible to
use the life-giving water as an approach to other places
and periods.
Inter-disciplinary research. I believe that disciplinary
boundaries are more hindrances and obstacles than
sources of knowledge production, and in postdisciplinary
sciences, which look “for the parallels in
knowledge constructions across the social sciences,
throws such inhibitions out of the window and asks us to
be more flexible and innovative in the ways we define
objects and the methods we use” (Smith 1998:311). In
other words, in post-disciplinary sciences it is not the
disciplines that unite researchers but the questions they
ask and the topics they study. My approach is a broad
material culture study aiming to bridge archaeology and
anthropology, and the past and the present. The danger
with inter-disciplinary research is that rather than
conjoining synergy effects of different approaches it may
become a quasi- or uninteresting middle way of
everything or nothing. My scope is broad, covering
partly Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, human
ecology, anthropology, and archaeology, among other
disciplines, and there are of course natural limitations to
the knowledge possible to obtain and books to read. 1 As
I have argued, a material culture study is the most
coherent way of doing archaeology and anthropology.
The main problem is, however, the large areas and time
depths in this study. I have obviously missed a lot of
potentially useful and fruitful knowledge and
information: a lot of good books and articles are not
referred to because I have not been able to read them for
whatever reason, 2 and as said before, during a lot of the
fieldworks I have only stayed for shorter periods of time.
1 Govinda Tandan is a scholar who has written extensively on
Pashupatinath, but I have not read his two-volume and brick
thick work on the temple complex since I cannot read Nepali.
Fortunately, I was able to meet him and had the possibility to
ask him questions directly regarding matters I wondered about.
2 Unfortunately, others who have written on the subject in
Nepali are not included in this study because of my limitations
regarding language.
311
These are the main objections, limitations, and problems
with this work, but it is also what I have done and what I
have had at hand. Data, descriptions and ideas cited,
quoted, or referred to, which I use and give new meaning
to in other contexts, may illuminate or elaborate certain
points and themes in slightly other directions. Thus, it is
possible to shed different types of light on the problems
– whether this light is brighter (better) or not. A
comparative approach to parts of the Indian subcontinent’s
water worlds encompassing numerous social
spheres, where water is an intrinsic part of people’s
lives, is a difficult and dangerous task. Whether it is
successful or not is not for me to evaluate, and I share
the view of Arthur M. Hocart;
“The attempt is necessarily a crude one…but there can
never be any progress if we live in a perpetual fear of
those critics who esteem a work more for the absence
of faults than for any positive endeavour. The
meticulous scholar who never publishes because he
does not feel that he has attained perfection is often
held up to us for admiration. In point of fact he has no
right to exist: he is not doing his share of the world’s
work; whether from idealism or sluggishness…the
result is the same. In science, as in politics, finance and
war, he who risks nothing achieves nothing. Let us be
careful, but not timorous. The conclusions arrived at
this book may be right or may be wrong; but in any
case they make sense out of apparent nonsense without
in the least distorting the statements of the ancients
themselves. A method which make sense cannot be far
off the right track; and this is half the battle” (Hocart
1969[1927]:v).
I started on the cemetery, and I will try to summarise
some of the threads from the veranda, at Ganpath
Guesthouse in Varanasi, next to Ganga and a only twothree
minute walk from Manikarnika Ghat. Fieldwork
and death rituals are intensive, and sometimes it is
necessary to slow down the speed and withdraw from the
crowded ghats and streets and just relax for a few hours.
The veranda at Ganpath Guesthouse, with panorama
view of Ganga, was such a place; it was calm (apart
from monkeys), it was in the shadow, and the food was
delicious. One morning after having enjoyed breakfast,
some children suddenly came carrying with a bamboostretcher,
on which what seemed to be a corpse was
wrapped in golden clothes. They stopped just beneath
the veranda, and started to perform what looked like the
preparation rite for the funeral. I was very eager and
fascinated. I had never seen what street children were
doing with their friends when they die, and a lot of street
children are dying, and naturally they have to do some
obsequies. Did they know what to do? Had any of them
conducted a funeral before?
Or would some adults take care of the dead? I was quite
certain that they would give the young one a water burial
since they could not afford cremation, and most probably
he or she was too young for a cremation anyway. But
how could they afford to procure a boat from which they
would immerse the bier with the corpse into the river?