INSIDE THE GURU'S GATE - Anpere

cation. “Meaning to mean it” is, in Humphrey & Laidlaw’s wordings, “experiencing
modes of enactment and prepositional meanings as sincerely and emotionally felt”, 781
in other words, a mental mode of a ritual actor in the moment of performing acts. The
intention signified is not a propositional religious statement of the devotee, but a
strong feeling of genuinely “meaning to mean it”. As Humphrey & Laidlaw clarifies,
“no one except for the actor knows if he or she feels that what is being thought is
really meant in this sense. But for the actor the distinction is very important.” 782 When
their Jain interlocutors explained the achievement of conducting a puja they recurred
to the cultural idiom of bhav, which was explained in terms of a religious sentiment, a
deep sincerity in worship, or a mental medium cognate to the notion of devotion
(bhakti). As Humphrey & Laidlaw interpret Jain worship, the notion of bhav stands at
the core of puja performances and signifies “the medium within which religious
meanings come to be realized and attributed to ritual archetypes.” 783 Like other
“meanings” people may attribute to ritual action, bhav and the feeling of sincerity is
something that actors superimpose on their action.
To the Jain laity, the experience of bhav is considered both a means and end to
puja performances. Like many other religious traditions in India, Jainism advocates
that all human action produces karma that binds the human soul to the cycle of rebirths.
The soul can be freed from transmigration by meditation and ascetic practices
that intentionally work against the accumulation of karma. Humphrey & Laidlaw
note that the observance of puja worship may appear paradoxical to the notion of
enlightenment through “non-action” in the Jain philosophy, but to lay-Jains the puja
performance remains an important expression of devotion. The presence of bhav in
puja enactments enables people to gain spiritual insight from devotional acts, and
even transform ritual action to a type of “non-action”. To have the correct bhav is the
way by which lay-Jains transform ritual action to religious “non-action”.
My Sikh friends at Varanasi would employ the words bhav or bhavna to indicate
an individually-felt sincerity in the performance of religious action. 784 In the Punjabi
language the noun bhav is enriched with several connotations, such as “underlying
meaning or idea, import, sense, drift of thought; gist, purport, purpose, object; feeling,
sentiment, emotion, passion, sensibility, affection.” 785 The noun bhavna equally
displays many semantic shades, like “desire, wish, fancy, feeling; sentiments, inclination,
thinking, way of thinking, motive,” and is used in a wide range of religious and
secular contexts. 786 Considerably many would equate the word bhavna with “will” or
“wish” (iccha), which people have and do verbally articulate as the prime reason for
781
Humphrey & Laidlaw 1994: 213.
782
Humphrey & Laidlaw 1994: 210.
783
Humphrey & Laidlaw 1994: 162.
784
Another noun occasionally used for the ideal feeling when performing worship acts is dharna,
which in translation means “fasting to obtain favours” or “sitting constantly at the door of a
person whose attention one is demanding” (McGreggor 1997: 524).
785
Gill & Joshi 1999: 642.
786
Gill & Joshi 1999: 643.
484
Published on www.anpere.net in May 2008