20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

604 Jan E.M. Houbenalso that has mostly been the subject of continued efforts of philologistsand classical indologists and that has sparked their interest in mythologicaland ritual studies. But it is through the necessary capacity to transmitRAPPAPORT’s self-referential messages that rituals are interwoven in thesocial and political history of a country or area. 9 It is the dimension of theseself-referential messages that links up best with a performative approachto ritual (TAMBIAH 1979, SCHECHNER 1987a, 1993) but also with anapproach to ritual as social practice (BOURDIEU 1977, BELL 1992, 1997:76-83). For several reasons 10 it is better to refer to the two major types ofmessages distinguished by RAPPAPORT as(a) the canonical dimension, and(b) the performance dimension.STAAL’s interest in the formal side of ritual evidently concerns thecanonical dimension. STAAL did study the performance and even filmedit (invited the anthropological filmer Robert GARDNER to film it for him)but exclusively in order to have a better understanding of the canonicaldimension.2.5 Among critical reviews of STAAL, mention can also be made ofHEESTERMAN’s early reaction in 1984 and his remarks in 1993. Inspiredinter alia by Johan HUIZINGA’s Homo Ludens (1938), HEESTERMANattributes an important place to the element of play in Vedic ritual. In astudy focusing not on ritual but on (ritual) sacrifice, he conceives ofritual and sacrifice as rule-governed activities. However, in a sacrificethere are real stakes, ultimately the life and death of the victim and thesacrificer; thus: “Despite being play, sacrifice is no less consequential”(1993: 2). HEESTERMAN can accept STAAL’s meaningless ritual as acharacterization not of all ritual of all times but at least of Vedic ritual asit is known to us on the basis of late classical texts whose performative9For instance, a ritual may require the sacrifice of “many” animals of a certain sort.The sacrificer may then decide to sacrifice as many animals as he can afford, dependingon economic power and social status. To compare the very abstract entities of powerand status of two persons would be very difficult, but expressed in ritual in the form ofthe number of animals sacrificed – a self-referential message of the performer – theseentities would become comparable. In another context the performer may want to showhis political power or sovereignty to himself, his subjects and his neighbours, as in the caseof an Aśvamedha. An increased attention for the performance dimension even in researchfields which are traditionally more interested in the canonical dimension suits the recent“cultural turn” in the humanities (and South Asian studies) – away from essentialism andahistoricity – see MICHAELS 2004, 2005.10One reason is that self-referentiality may also have an important place within thecanonical dimension and is therefore not suitable to characterize the other dimension.