Modernity and Spirit Worship in India This book investigates the entangled relations between people’s daily wor- ship practices and their umwelt in South India. Focusing on the practices of spirit (būta) worship in the coastal area of Karnataka, it examines the relationship between people and deities. Based on extensive fieldwork, this book links important anthropologi- cal theories on personhood, perspectives, transactions, and gift-exchanges together with the Gestaltkreis theory of Viktor von Weizsäcker. First, it ex- amines the relations between būta worship and land tenure, matriliny, and hierarchy in the society. It then explores the reflexive relationship between modern law and current practices based on conventional law, before exam- ining new developments in būta worship with the rise of mega-industries and environmental movements. Furthermore, this book sheds light on the struggles and endeavours of the people who create and recreate their rela- tions with the realm of sacred wildness, as well as the formations and trans- formations of the umwelt in perpetual social-political transition. Modernity and Spirit Worship in India will be of interest to academics in the field of anthropology, religious studies and the dynamics of religion, and South Asian Culture and Society. Miho Ishii is an associate professor at Kyoto University, Japan. Her current research focus is on the relationship between spirit worship and environ- mental movements in South India. Routledge New Horizons in South Asian Studies Series Editors: Crispin Bates, Edinburgh University; Akio Tanabe, Kyoto University; Minoru Mio, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan Democratic Transformation and the Vernacular Public Arena in India Edited by Taberez Ahmed Neyazi, Akio Tanabe and Shinya Ishizaka Cities in South Asia Edited by Crispin Bates and Minoru Mio Human and International Security in India Edited by Crispin Bates, Akio Tanabe & Minoru Mio Rethinking Social Exclusion in India Castes, Communities and the State Edited by Minoru Mio and Abhijit Dasgupta Modernity and Spirit Worship in India An Anthropology of the Umwelt Miho Ishii For a full list of titles please see https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-New- Horizons-in-South-Asian-Studies/book-series/RNHSAS Modernity and Spirit Worship in India An Anthropology of the Umwelt Miho Ishii LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Miho Ishii The right of Miho Ishii to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-41028-5 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-82266-8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra Contents List of illustrations vii Preface ix 1 Introduction: towards an anthropology of the umwelt 1 PART ONE Humans and the wild śakti of deities 33 2 The land of paddy fields, forests, and deities 35 3 The būta shrine and deities in Perar 48 4 Pāḍdana: the oral epics of deities 60 5 Dances, oracles, and blessings in the ritual 70 6 The transaction of wild śakti 82 7 Playing with perspectives 94 PART TWO Social transformations and the emergence of a new umwelt 107 8 Būta’s agency in conflicts over the village shrine 109 9 Historical changes in land tenure in South Kanara 135 10 Modern law, customary law, and the reflexive imagination 164 11 Land reforms and deities as the ‘owners of land’ 183 12 Būtas in the midst of the development project 209 vi Contents 13 The new umwelt in the industrial plant 236 14 Conclusion: being, pathos, and the umwelt 248 Glossary 263 Bibliography 275 Index 291 Illustrations Figure 6.1 The transactional network between humans and būtas 87 Tables 2.1 The number of households based on religion in Mudu Perar and Padu Perar 37 2.2 The number of households based on caste group in Mudu Perar and Padu Perar 38 2.3 Land use in Perar 41 2.4 The crop calendar and yearly rituals in Perar 42 3.1 The prominent families in Perar in relation to būta worship 53 9.1 Land holding and land tax assessment of paṭṭadār in Mudu Perar (Fasli 1312) 151 9.2 Caste/type of paṭṭadārs 152 9.3 Total number of registered paṭṭadārs corresponding to assessed plots 153 9.4 Total number of registered paṭṭadārs belonging to Baṇṭa (by family) 154 10.1 Muṅḍabeṭṭu guttu family property partition plan 177 11.1 Types of applicants and landlords 185 11.2 Types of Baṇṭa landlords 186 11.3 Types of land applied for rights in the Muṅḍabeṭṭu guttu 186 11.4 Caste/group of households and population 187 11.5 Number of (a) landlord households, (b) tenant households, (c) domestic labourer households, and (d) other households by caste/group 188 11.6 Families of Baṇṭa landlord households 189 11.7 Area of land holdings of landlord households (2008) 190 11.8 Classification of holdings of landlord households according to manner of acquisition 190 11.9 Landlord households that lost land due to land reform 195 Preface In a sense, this book follows an established line of anthropological prede- cessors focusing on the dynamism of religious practices and/in modernity. It is, after all, primarily a book about būta (or spirit) worship in South Kanara, a coastal area in Karnataka, India. Būtas are generally considered to be deities or spirits that dwell in forests and embody the realm of sacred wild- ness. In this book, I investigate the endeavours and struggles of people in village communities, who create and recreate their relations with the realm of sacred wildness through transactions with būtas, amidst social-political transitions such as colonisation, changes in land tenure systems, and devel- opment of mega-industries. However, I also attempt to introduce a novel twist to this anthropological genre. The theoretical core of this book is the notion of the umwelt pre- sented by Viktor von Weizsäcker, who uniquely developed Jakob von Uex- küll’s ideas on the existence of entangled and inseparable relations between an organism and its environment. By linking anthropological theories on personhood, perspective, transactions, and gift-exchanges to the theory of the umwelt, I attempt to consider the relations among villagers, land, na- ture, and būtas as part of the dynamic and creative interactions between humans and their life-worlds, including nonhumans. If this book successfully presents a perspective that exceeds, even a little, the limits of a monograph sticking to its discipline and geographical field, I owe it to the members of a research project titled ‘Kansekai no Jinbungaku (The Studies of Umwelten)’, undertaken at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, Kyoto University, since 2015. Discussions and conversations with colleagues from various academic backgrounds in the course of this project provided great inspiration in the writing of this book. These discussions also inspired an earlier version of this volume pub- lished in Japanese under the title, ‘Kansekai no Jinruigaku: Minami Indo ni okeru Yasei, Kindai, Shinreisaishi (An Anthropology of the Umwelt: Wildness, Modernity, and Spirit Worship in South India)’, by Kyoto University Press in 2017. Though the core of the argument has remained consistent, through the long process of rewriting, this volume has become not a mere translation, but a fresh creation. I deeply thank Dr Masakazu Tanaka, my colleague x Preface and former supervisor, for his precious comments on the earlier version of this book. Drs Crispin Bates, Akio Tanabe, and Minoru Mio, the series editors of Routledge New Horizons in South Asian Studies, gave me great support from the earliest to the final stages of publication of this book. Without their support and encouragement, it would not have been possible for me to com- plete this work. Nick Kasparek and Dr Yumiko Tokita-Tanabe made great efforts to improve the quality of this book. Their sensitive and deep knowl- edge of English greatly helped me construct the whole argument in English. I am also very grateful to the editors at Routledge, Dorothea Schaefter and Alexandra de Brauw, for their support in the publication of this volume. After completing my doctoral and postdoctoral research on spirit wor- ship in Ghana, I first visited South India in 2008, in search of a new field site. It was Dr Chinnappa Gowda at Mangaluru University who first introduced me to the fertile world of būta worship in South Kanara. Since the start of my fieldwork, Akshaya Shetty, her mother Baarati, and her father Harisha always provided me with warm and generous support. Vidya Dinker not only gave me wise advice, but also instilled the courage I needed to pursue difficult tasks in the field. Without their support and friendship, I could not have accomplished my research. Finally, I would like to thank Kenta Funahashi and our two daughters, Hina and Sui. They accompanied me on my fieldtrips and shared my joy and wonder through the entire process. They provided me with great inspiration and encounters that would not have been possible if I were alone in the field.