20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

The Sviṣṭakṛt: formal structure and self-reference in Vedic ritual 601Vedic studies, I refer here to an overview which HOUSEMAN and SEVERI(1998) provide for the sake of demarcating their own theory. 7A very different approach to the problem of ritual form was offered byLévi-Strauss in the concluding section of L’Homme Nu (1971). Overand above the standard question of the relationships to be establishedbetween myth and rite, the main part of his criticism [of contemporarytheoreticians of ritual] concerns the very nature of mythology. [followsa quote from LÉVI-STRAUSS 1971: 598] Yet, he [LÉVI-STRAUSS]continues, “contemporary theoreticians of ritual” (1971: 598), includingfirst and foremost V. Turner, approach ritual by illegitimately mixingin with it elements of “implicit” mythology, with the result that “whatremains in their hands is a hybrid object about which anything can besaid, that it is verbal and non-verbal, that it fulfils a cognitive functionand an affective or cognitive function, etc.” (1971: 598). Lévi-Strauss,for his part, proposes that ritual be studied “in itself and for itself” (ibid.),and that, accordingly, “one should, on the contrary, first strip it of all theimplicit mythology which adheres to the ritual without really forming apart of it, in other words, beliefs and representations that are rooted in anatural philosophy in the same way as myths [...] (ibid.).How then is ritual to be defined? For Lévi-Strauss, the movementsthat compose ceremonial activities “act in loco verbi; they replace words”(1971: 600), in order, through action, to actualise a mythology: “ritualcondenses in a single, concrete form procedures which would otherwisehave been discursive” (ibid.). It is precisely this supplementary functionwhich, in his view, distinguishes ritual acts from similar operations ineveryday life. From this standpoint, the specificity of ritual lies primarilyin the particular way in which it enacts mythology. In other words, ritualis distinguished not by what it says but by how it says it. (HOUSEMAN& SEVERI 1998: 178-179)It is clear that LÉVI-STRAUSS’s proposal to study ritual “in itself andfor itself” would be entirely in line with STAAL’s – and even with ourcurrent – endeavour to establish a “science of ritual” (Staal 1989: 349). Onthe other hand, LÉVI-STRAUSS’s proposal to see rituals as actualizationsof mythology harmonizes with widespread theoretical practices amonganthropologists and philologists from the time of FRAZER onwards, butit goes exactly counter to approaches that bring the domain of praxis front7Although HOUSEMAN and SEVERI present their “relational approach to ritualaction” on the basis of atomic kinship paterns as a universal approach for ritual study,its value and applicability beyond the specific ritual that is the subject of their book, theNaven of the Iatmul of Papua New Guinea, are not proven and have not been explored.