INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

debates, Douglas (1970) observed that ritual had developed into a depreciatory word
associated with empty conformity: “The ritualist becomes one who performs external
gestures which imply commitment to a particular set of values, but he is inwardly
withdrawn, dried out and uncommitted. This is a distractingly partisan use of the
term [ritual]”, she noted. 58 Douglas adopted a functionalist approach to argue that
rituals are symbolic actions with power to create and express a meaningful universe.
All human communication is ultimately dependent on symbolism. 59 She considered
the antagonism of rituals illogical for two reasons: firstly, symbolic actions have
power to secure stable social relations and organize the society. Secondly, the revolt
of anti-ritualism would ultimately yield new recognitions of the need to ritualize.
People who claim themselves to be anti-ritualistic are in reality only adopting new
symbols in place of others. 60
It is important to note, as Muir (1997) does, that discourses which attempt to reform
religious worship and authority from rituals involve theories of representation
and do not necessarily approach ritual action as a kind of human behaviour. In a
study of Sikh practices the difference between what apologetics present the religion
to be and what people actually do in their religious life becomes significant. Although
intellectuals may represent the Sikh religion in terms of religious doctrines, history
and moral principles for a number of underlying reasons, 61 Sikhs who live and practice
their religion are more inclined to (re)present the religion by references to the
purported that religious practices, customs and rituals were unchangeable over time, in comparison
to the mythologies or meanings related to practices. As he argued, ritual practices were
well established in ancient religions, while people could explain the meanings of rituals in various
ways. To Robertson Smith, the myth derived from ritual and not the other way around,
simply because rituals had a fixed and obligatory character (Robertson Smith 1927).
58
Douglas 1970: 20.
59
To explain why some societies have more rituals than others, Douglas (1970) developed the
theory about social control and symbolic codes and the scheme of “group” and “grid”. According
to this scheme, a society with clear boundaries and well-defined roles, i.e., a strong group
and grid, will certainly have a more developed ritual system, while a society with loose social
control and not well-defined roles is prone to shun ritualism.
60
As Douglas exemplified, fundamentalists who reject the magic of the Eucharist become magical
in their attitude towards the Bible (Douglas 1970: 40).
61
Arvind-Pal Singh (1996) has argued that Punjabi intellectual self-representations continue to
bear the stamp of European modernist ideologies in the nineteenth century, as they culturally
translate indigenous phenomena by using terminologies of European and Christian discourses.
These discourses neutralize cultural differences in order to fit a homogenous and theologised
representation of religion. During the colonial period some keywords of modernism ‒ the self,
history and the book ‒ emerged in discourses that was mainly theological in character and
which suppressed differences for a cultural rectification. These discourses created an “onthotheological”
understanding of religion, which became foundational for a modern identity and
fostered a theological understanding of the written word. Singh refers to this process as a “theologization”,
which still manifests itself in Sikh literature and how Sikhs choose to represent
themselves by means of the written word. Sikhism becomes a religion with an authentic history,
a venerated founder, a revealed scripture, holding a unique and rational ideology.
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Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008