Yale Journal of & Religion

Volume 6 Number 2 Sound and Secularity Article 6

2020

Singing and Sensing the Unknown: An Embodied History of Hindu Practice in Ghana

Shobana Shankar Stony Brook University (SUNY)

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Recommended Citation Shankar, Shobana (2020) "Singing and Sensing the Unknown: An Embodied History of Hindu Practice in Ghana," Yale Journal of Music & Religion: Vol. 6: No. 2, Article 6. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17132/2377-231X.1172

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. It has been accepted for inclusion in Yale Journal of Music & Religion by an authorized editor of EliScholar – A Digital Platform for Scholarly Publishing at Yale. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Singing and Sensing the Unknown: An Embodied History of Hindu Practice in Ghana

Cover Page Footnote I am grateful to Stony Brook for a Fellowship in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences that enabled me to undertake research in Ghana in 2019.

This article is available in Yale Journal of Music & Religion: https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/yjmr/vol6/iss2/6 Singing and Sensing the Unknown An Embodied History of Hindu Practice in Ghana Shobana Shankar

Soon after the untimely death of his ritual facilities, as Asonzeh Ukah describes mother in 1945, Kwesi Essel started them, have dramatically altered African what he described as a camp in urban landscapes, providing renewal and his hometown of Senya Beraku, a fishing resources that deliberately “assert religious village in southern Ghana.1 He led a small presence and power in the social and cultural group in meditation and other practices, ecology of a people.”4 Lagos and Accra could although what all their activities were is be remapped to show the locations that are not clear. To be sure, Essel had felt a strong perceived as sites of spiritual power in the connection to the religion of his mother, minds of city-dwellers and visitors from who was renowned for her ability to enter afar. Yet in Ghana, Pentecostal camps have different states and communicate with the drawn scrutiny nationally and abroad over spirit world, and worked as a priestess in their abuse of people with psychosocial the court of the local Fante traditional ruler. disabilities who either came voluntarily or A Christian presence also existed in Senya were committed by others claiming to want Beraku, where the Dutch had built a slave to cure them of spiritual illnesses.5 Though “castle,” Fort Good Hope, in the eighteenth nothing like this has come to light in the century. What was probably an eclectic history of in Ghana, Essel’s camp prayer camp concerned with spiritualism did coalesce for at least one of the same rather than religion grew into a community purposes that prayer camps have today— of thousands affiliated with the Hindu to control the human body and its senses Monastery of Africa (HMA), headquartered in an effort to reach the unseen world. Of in the Odorkor area of Accra.2 Essel, who all the senses, sound is perhaps the most became initiated as the first African Hindu important, I argue, for an African Hinduism monk, remained the or spiritual that represents an embodied experience and leader of the HMA’s five branches in Ghana religious style more than a belief system. and one in Togo until his death in 2016. As Hinduism in West Africa emerged The Monastery holds a unique reputation, largely outside the agency of Indians, especially among the Indian diaspora, as a Ghanananda understood that its place of Hindu devotional songs (), translatability to a cultural landscape quite performed in Indian languages by Africans, different than that of its birthplace would many of whom are Christian or Muslim.3 be tested.6 In the competitive religious It may be surprising that Swami environment of Ghana, the HMA and Ghanananda , as Essel became other Hindu movements, such as the Inter- known, described his early community national Society for Consciousness as a prayer camp. Such camps now pro- (ISKCON, or Hare Krishna movement) liferate in Ghana, Nigeria, and other and the Sathya Sai Baba Mission, have African countries, not as Hindu sites but been condemned by Pentecostal preachers as Pentecostal Christian outposts. These as “occultists” in the same manner that

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) 89 white Christian missionaries denounced holdovers from tradition. Does Hinduism indigenous African religions in earlier need to go through the same processes centuries.7 One strategy that Ghanaian as Christianity or Islam to become an and their supporters have used is African religion? To be more specific, to highlight the universality and historicity must Hinduism be vernacularized as the of Hinduism as “the original religion Christian Devil was among the Ewe— of the world” in which all believers can through struggles between selfhood and find “fulfillment,” thereby employing a community as part of the conversion “discourse of antiquity” that highlights process and new kinds of personhood Hinduism’s inclusiveness.8 Another strategy that emerged—as Birgit Meyer argues in I analyze in this article, using ethnographic Translating the Devil?11 and documentary evidence collected over My research suggests that conversion two visits to the Monastery in 2017 and and translation, arguably concerns of 2019, is the use of Hindu music, , Christianity and Islamic studies, are not and other sounds, as well as silences, to the most central questions for African emphasize the unknown and unknowable Hindus themselves. As a relatively new in the search to become one with the divine. religion among Africans, distinct from In other words, African Hindus, especially that of the Indian diaspora that has been their leading guru, directed devotion away the primary focus of research to date, from understanding through translation Hinduism represents a popular devotion of music, words, and sounds in order to in which belief is only part of the religious promote performance, particularly in public project, and in fact can be a distraction as a participatory experience in which from the goal of earthly detachment. Peter newcomers can join. Swami Ghanananda, Lambertz, who has studied Japanese-origin chastising the Indian diaspora for not spiritualist movements in the Democratic sharing Hinduism with Africans, argued Republic of Congo that came via Brazil, that this belief system contained the means offers a helpful framing for studies of for “harmonizing the efforts of all religions “sense making” that allow us “to overcome to foster the needed peace for both material the analytical distinction between a and spiritual development.”9 phenomenological focus on experience This article recasts translation, a on the one hand, and a mentalistic central theme in religious studies, concentration on the other.”12 This sense especially in African studies. Scholars in making is precisely my focus in seeking to this field feel a strong impetus to make show how African Hindus cultivate sound African cosmologies comprehensible to in everyday lived experiences in ritual and non-Africans, usually secular-minded nonritual encounters at the Monastery. Westerners who see African cultures as oral, Sound has been an underdeveloped vernacular, indigenized, and “different.”10 theme in religious studies, even with the Africanist scholars of African religions turn to lived experiences and everyday have emphasized the modern processes out practice.13 Indian music in Africa, of which African religions have developed, furthermore, has been trapped in scholarly challenging the Eurocentric secularist preoccupation with Bollywood music, which assumptions that Africans’ religions are has overshadowed other fascinating musical

90 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) cross-currents, such as that between India without knowing the words, has made a and Senegal in Sufi music.14 Hinduism new ritual in the Monastery’s repertoire in Ghana is also a unique test case for the by adding a regional festival sought by the argument that the religious soundscape is increasing number of South Indian migrants noisy, particularly due to competition and to Ghana. The third section explores a new conflict between Christianity and Islam layer of Hindu sound that coincided with and within these religious communities in the visit of a female Indian guru (swamini) Africa.15 Hinduism also has a “necessary following the death of Swami Ghanananda. sonic realm built into its structure and Her gender ambiguity and production of substance.”16 Competition is less its modus sounds and deities have brought into being operandi in the Hindu Monastery of Africa; popular devotion focused on fertility, a focus rather, controlling sound to calm the mind that did not exist before in the Ghanaian and body was Ghanananda’s prescription to Hindu context. This new gendered creation his listeners. “Gradually all sounds will melt of Hindu sound and meaning emerged after away. In the beginning you can close your the death of the beloved Ghanaian guru, ears with cotton, wax or any other substitute giving the community a renewed sense of for some time to shut out gross sounds identity to carry on. which disturb your [ repetition] and concentration,” he wrote in The Secret Lost in Strange Sounds of True Spiritual Practice.17 Hinduism was By the early 1960s, Kwesi Essel had moved made for a raucous religious landscape like his prayer camp from Senya Beraku to Ghana’s, and the guru understood how to Odorkor.18 Encouraged by an acquaintance create the effect of an oasis or refuge for the who was reportedly high up in the experimentation with sound control. government, he began a correspondence I start by exploring Ghanananda’s life, course with the Divine Life Society the history of the Hindu Monastery of Africa, based in Rishikesh, on the Ganges River and its rootedness in the popular devotion in India, with branches throughout the tradition () of Krishna worship, tied to world. The ashram was founded by Swami a North Indian Hindi-language ashram on Sivananda in 1936, after he, too, had founded the Ganges River. Out of his learning there, a kind of prayer camp. A major focus of the the African guru developed a set of rituals, a Divine Life Society was the dissemination routine of prayer and silence, and an entire of magazines and other literature in English corpus of writing to shape the creation of and Indian languages.19 Sivananda was a cultural world within Hindu camps that deeply invested in using Indian languages, were visited not just by Africans but also by which surely surprised Essel when he went Indians in West Africa. The second section to study at Rishikesh in the late 1960s. The of the article examines how the untranslated Ghanaian remembered feeling utterly lost and devotional musical tradition at the and inadequate, ashamed that “the colonial HMA has incorporated new practices and masters had not taught them [the Africans] expansions of Hinduism, notably in the anything but Christianity, and now at the performance of South Indian bhajans in in India he could not understand Tamil, Telegu, and . African anything either, the language was foreign singers’ ability to perform these songs, and he could understand nothing of all that

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) 91 was chanted.”20 So he was advised to “listen . Ghanananda’s Indian guru, Swami to the noise from mouths” of these around Krishnananda, focused on Krishna worship, him, those whom he did not understand, and he urged his Ghanaian disciple to “and understanding will come.”21 promote it because of the simplicity of After returning to Ghana, Essel led the popular devotion around Krishna. spiritual discourses and pujas (worship The International Society for Krishna services) that attracted a growing group Consciousness also had a following in of followers, including Africans and some Ghana for decades, creating the possibility Indians, though others worshipped in a of a larger community.25 Moreover, the rich temple started by Sindhis who had fled artwork associated with the Indian epic Pakistan after Partition in 1947. Shortly tradition had inspired an older fascination thereafter, in 1976, Swami Krishnananda with Hindu images. Essel’s own journey Saraswati, a Divine Life guru who had began when he started to collect pictures of worked with Gandhi in the anticolonial Hindu and goddesses from catalogue struggle and established the Human advertisements for Indian astrologers and Services Trust charitable organization talismans, such as rings.26 Krishna, a in Mauritius, visited Ghana and laid the who was so dark that he was shown in foundation of the Hindu Monastery of blue, was pictured with snakes and dancing Africa in Odorkor.22 He initiated Essel as women, which tapped into a deep vein the first African Hindu monk, renaming of West African art and worship of Mami him Swami Ghanananda Saraswati and Wata, a water deity of African and African anointing him the head of the Monastery. diasporic communities.27 Yet, in apparent The Divine Life Society and the defiance of his teacher, Ghanananda wanted discipleship with Swami Krishnananda to go beyond the visual appeal of the laid certain foundations for the Ghanaian blue god and explore more esoteric visual guru, but it is clear that he interpreted these representations of the , the aniconic through his experience of losing himself in symbol of generativity associated with , foreign sounds. While Sivananda’s Divine the destroyer god. Beyond that, he sought Life Society made the major “export” to create a more holistic Hindu cultural of his Hindu message to others, particularly repertoire, forgoing image for a focus on in the West,23 Ghanananda felt that sound sound as sacred. Swami Ghanananda did was more fundamental, even in yoga. “The not want to focus on a single deity, set of soul is of God, not of the physical body. To images, or tradition of worship, but rather verify this truth, we must resort to yoga on a sensorial universe. which includes meditation and ‘Japa,’ the Thus, the theme of words spoken repetition of the holy names of God.”24 At at specific auspicious occasions runs the HMA today, there is a notable absence throughout his many writings. In one of yoga, especially among its most ardent of his instructional works, titled Vedic Hindus; yoga is almost understood as Sacrifice and , Swami Ghanananda a Western fad that misses Hinduism’s outlined major (hawan, or ritual essence. Another example of Ghanananda’s sacrifices, typically done by creating a fire) autonomous vision is in the Ghanaian and accompanying mantras and verses. He guru’s veneration of Krishna, avatar of explained the significance of the word

92 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) as the opening to recognize and awaken “Get up at 4 a.m. Start the japa of Mantra God, and the ending, Svaha, as the closure or . . . take some or fruits.”31 of the act of sacrifice. He quoted the Given its globalization and popu- to instruct his disciples how larization, it is not surprising that the they could give of their bodies to the divine: performance of the Gayatri Mantra “Other aspirants offer the sense of the eyes, at the HMA has been contextual and ears, and organs and of the ingoing () communicative of elements not found in and outgoing (apana) breath in the fire of the words themselves. In the classical Indian yoga of self-restraint kindled by knowledge dance , for example, the aura (Gita 4: 27).”28 of devotional prayer has been invoked in the Along with numerous mantras and Gayatri Mantra through bodily movements hymns, Swami Ghanananda encouraged that mimic the movement and brightness the chanting of the Gayatri Mantra, which of light and the fanning of the lotus flower. is considered the “mother of the ” and In Accra, the Gayatri Mantra is performed revered as the first mantra taught to a boy of communally in the mornings as fires are lit the higher castes when he is initiated. in the central courtyard. Participation in the Om Bhur Bhuvaḥ Swaḥ Gayatri mantra is open to all present, not Tat-savitur Vareñyaṃ just self-identified Hindus. This echoes the Bhargo Devasya Dheemahi point made by Katherine Zubko, citing the Dhiyo Yonaḥ Prachodayāt performance of mantra in dance. Non-Hindu audiences can participate in “secularized General meaning: We meditate on that most adored Supreme Lord, the bhakti” (devotion) and “de-personalized creator, whose effulgence (divine rasa” (aesthetic mood) “that [move] across light) illumines all realms (physical, circumscribed religious traditions” to mental, and spiritual). May this sustain meanings in different religions.32 divine light illumine our intellect. Accompanying the verses in As an ancient verse from the Rig Veda, the HMA repertoire are numerous Hindi- the Gayatri Mantra has been repurposed language bhajans for Krishna. many times over, and Swami Ghanananda Ganga Yamuna Nirmal Pani classified it as a universal poem sung Sheeta Hot Shareer—Chalo Mana aloud to “purify the atmosphere.”29 This The waters of the Ganges and is a distinct departure from its former Yamuna are pure reservation for high-caste initiates, which They cool the body—let us go had already been eroded by Hindus of the school like Sivananda. They These are followed by more stanzas evoking mainstreamed the mantra as a “widespread the mythic places of Krishna stories. core practice of Hinduism,” chanted either Meela Ke Prabhi Giridhar Nagar as part of a or as a regular practice.30 Charan Kanwal Parseer— Swami Sivananda told his audiences that Chalo Mana the “common book for Hindus is the Meera says “O Lord Giridhar Nagar, Gita and the common mantra is Gayatri” put my head at the lotus feet and recommended the following ten-day Let us go [to the banks of the Ganges practice, for Christmas or holidays: and Yamuna]

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) 93 These bhajans evoke Rishikesh, another Primal Sound and Songs for Potency name for Lord Vishnu, which is central in The disciples and other regular visitors Krishna stories and in the HMA founder’s to the Hindu Monastery of Africa include spiritual path. Thus, the authority of the Ve- well-educated professionals and also das and Indian vernacular devotion are both working people who are comfortable evoked in the assemblage of songs that and mobile.34 The earliest members of Swami Ghanananda taught to African Hindus. Swami Ghanananda’s community included The HMA repertoire has had a regular university science professors, musicians, and schedule of sacrifices performed daily, early civil servants, many of whom were women. in the morning, followed by bhajans, with Traders and other businesspeople who had (communal singing) in the evenings on weekdays and on Sundays early in the connections to Indians, particularly the morning for an extended time. Gatherings Sindhi shop owners, as well as afficionados of devotees (satsang) also convene to discuss of Indian cinema were also attracted to topics related to Hiudu beliefs and practices. Hinduism, though less to the Monastery Songbooks are available with lyrics in Latin than to the more youth-oriented ISKCON script, allowing visitors to join. The doors movement. Unlike Christianity, which has a to the sanctums housing idols () of strong prosperity gospel that attracts poorer Krishna, Shiva, and are kept open segments of society along with the well-to- only during certain times when the deities do, Hinduism seems to attract the already are awakened by bells, dressed and adorned relatively prosperous who are spiritually with fresh flowers, fed with milk and fruit, curious about non-Western and non- sacrificed to with fire, and called with Abrahamic cosmologies and even culturally prayers and songs. Even during the kirtan, nationalistic about indigenous knowledge.35 it is not possible to see the idols unless one As Elom Dovlo insightfully notes, Swami enters their individual houses within the Ghanananda’s preaching is as much about Monastery complex. At other times, the the unknown as it is about “knowing.”36 doors are closed. Thus, devotional music It is perhaps this appeal of mysticism like bhajans (Hindu hymns) and mantra and the esoteric, then, that accounts for chanting during pujas and other rituals Monastery disciples’ disinterest in the envelope the silent idols and draw focus to translation of Hindu music and prayers sound, away from potential controversy into Ghanaian languages like Fante or over idolatry that Wuaku and Atiemo have Twi. In this regard, African Hinduism written about in relation to Hinduism in sharply diverges from Christianity and, to West Africa. Sound in no way replaces a lesser extent, Islam. Swami Ghanananda’s the visual, as seeing and being seen by the divine are highly significant and regularized explanations of the work of sound in the experiences known as darshan to Hindus body and mind appear to be one reason for in India, who keep household shrines and this disinterest in the Indian languages of visit temples for this very purpose. Swami Hinduism. (It should be made clear that he Ghanananda used the words of the Divine told Hindu epics and folktales in English and Life founder, Swami Sivananda, to construct Twi, but never translated songs.) Another a different order of pleasures, with sound reason for keeping music “faithful” may be enhanced over sight to “please the mind” that Hindu music has commonalities in its and lead a person to purity and clarity.33 instruments with African music, whereas

94 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) foreign Christian missionaries fought hard compositions were largely excluded from to separate African music from European the repertoire of singing bands that used music until African Christians took African songs, which foreign missionaries matters into their own hands. About “bells, accepted as long as no percussion cymbals and drums,” the Hindu Monastery instruments were used. African Initiated leadership wrote: “these are used to drive Churches, known as Sunsum Sore or away evil spirits and they also invite good spiritual churches, rejected this prohibition spirits into the Temple. They provide an and combined wholly African tunes with auspicious atmosphere for worship. By drums of different kinds, hand bells, hand playing the small drum the holy sound of clapping, and tambourines to feature songs OM is produced. OM stands for that had “healing as a major theme.”40 [the Creator] or the Almighty God. It is the Musicologist J. H. Nketia’s observation of mother or primal sound. All other sounds the African ideal of the worship occasion emanate from OM.”37 as recreation supports Atiemo’s assertion It is useful to contrast this Hindu that Ghanaians’ love of gospel is part of an view of indigenous cultural forms with impetus for self-expression as communal Christian history. In his history of Christian healing that required a radical reorientation gospels, religious studies scholar Abamfo of Christianity away from control by white Atiemo shows how the localization and missionaries. diversification of forms of Hindu music at the Monastery, on the have long been a priority for local believers other hand, has always featured hand bells in Ghana.38 Christianity has, of course, been or cowbells, other percussion, harmonium, a Ghanaian religion for many centuries. and various instruments used in precisely Indigenous agency and independence in the same way—for healing and, most the church, undergirding “conflicts and important, cleaning the atmosphere—as compromises between the custodians Swami Ghanananda described the Gayatri of the Western missionary heritage and Mantra’s daily importance. Rather than African Christian groups and individuals,” view this healing drum only as part of the is a factor that has touched virtually every aforementioned “discourse of antiquity” sphere of religious ideology and practice, that authenticates Hinduism in Ghana, I from theological interpretation to marriage, would suggest that it is a popular devotion dress, and music.39 While gospel music’s in which trust is in the divine and in the guru popularity can be dated to the 1980s, Atiemo as a teacher. Moreover, Swami Ghanananda’s identifies an older continuum of musical silence on translation acknowledges his own forms in which to situate newer entrants lack of knowing and cultivates pluralistic like gospel music. By the late nineteenth spirituality at the Monastery, where century, African singing bands used local discovery is more central than dogma. As he dialects and tunes to create African Christian liked to tell visitors, “I am not God . . . I am musical forms that were distinguished from only a teacher. I only help you identify the the European ones that were understood as path to salvation. Everything else depends “normal” within the church. There were also on you.”41 Ghanaians who composed church music Thus, Swami Ghanananda did not that was deemed more “European.” These claim to understand Hinduism better

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) 95 than others but rather emphasized his . These devotees honor Ayyappa, journey to Rishikesh as one undertaken for a celibate god known for great strength, learning; indeed, his trip was sponsored who is the son of two men, Shiva and Lord and sanctioned by a group of Ghanaians Vishnu—the latter disguised as the woman seeking to have more access to Hindu during their coupling. The South knowledge. It is possible, therefore, that Indians also venerate the god Murugan, the reluctance to translate songs may result also known as Karthikeya, the bachelor from an apprehension of translating holy god of war who was the son of Shiva. The texts, which is not unique to Hinduism worship of Karthikeya for Tamils overlaps or to cross-cultural transplantations of with the worship of Ayyappa. The songs religious ideas.42 Hindu music retains its urge pilgrims to make the annual arduous holiness according to “how people use it and journey at to reach the Ayyappa the status they give it” in immediate uses, shrine on a mountaintop, and to attend the which still remain uncommon, esoteric, Thaipusam festival for Murugan, during and embodied in communal performance.43 which his devotees are said to carry their This centrality of music seems, therefore, heavy debts to discard. The Monastery to be an indigenization suited to the music thus becomes host to overlapping deities history and interreligious context of Ghana and festivals clustering around the winter instead of to the full-body yoga promoted solstice, celebrated mainly in South India by the Divine Life Society, although the and its diaspora—including Tamils, Telugus, different approaches had a similar purpose: and Malayalis—in Malaysia, Singapore, “unification . . . making it clear that shared , South Africa, and elsewhere. action was more important for creating The Ayyappa ritual is unique for bringing community than belief.”44 together Hindus from different castes, as The loss of ego, of the “consciousness of well as Muslims and Christians. As it has being an individual,” is a central aspect of grown to millions of pilgrims, it has become the ascetic orientation of the Monastery.45 a scene of intense protest, particularly over This loss even translates to a waning of the the banning of women of child-bearing age particularistic and ethnocentric identities of from entering the Ayyappa temple. This ban Indian Hindus who come to pay respects to is also a means of high-caste domination, as the Ghanaian guru and see the deities at the the lower castes recognize women’s power temple. While Swami Ghanananda studied more directly.46 in a Hindi-focused Vaishnavite school, It is remarkable to find the in recent years, he has honored requests in practice in Ghana, as the festival is for the Monastery to host bhajans for the not well documented among the Indian other deities. The most significant of such diasporas in Africa. In South Africa, the occasions is Makaravilakku, a month-long Indians descended from indentured festival celebrating ’s acceptance of the workers—largely Tamil and Telugu—tended ritual sacrifices of a common tribal woman to marry within their linguistic enclaves, devotee, Sabari, and his meeting of the deity and the Hindi-speaking “passenger Indians” Sasta, also known as Ayyappa. The stories who came as businesspeople also arranged of Ayyappa do not come from the Vedas but their unions apart from other Indians. This rather from folklore of and Coorg in endogamy meant their rituals remained

96 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) distinct as well, although the South Indian The one who protects those who groups have had more crossover in worship surrender unto his feet and marriage.47 The Sindhis in Accra have their temple, but, strikingly, the South (Stanzas repeated by the audience) Indian community did not approach them. Subramanya the one who killed the Some in the newer Indian diasporas in Demon Soora Africa present a uniquely different kind of The one who was born of Karthigai religious identity, one that rejects high- women and makes his consorts Valli caste control and its gender conformity and and Devayani delighted embraces social intercourse with Africans. It is not clear for how many years the HMA (Stanzas repeated by the audience) has hosted these South Indians to perform The song, like the occasion, itself the Makaravilakku at their temple, but it reveals the complicated genealogy of Hindu has been long enough that Ghanaians join cosmology. In the South Indian Hindu Indians in venerating Lord Ayyappa in pantheon, the god Karthikeya, or Murugan, bhajans in Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam has no mother but was born of the semen that are performed only once a year in Accra. of Shiva, which in some birth stories was Swami Ghanananda’s nonconformity to the swallowed by the god of fire, , and cast strict (upper-caste) interpretation into the Ganges River or into river reeds. of the Divine Life Society is striking and a He has no natural mother but instead many testament to an African sensibility about adopted mothers; one of his consorts is a the sacredness of sound as a means of tribal woman who, in some folk stories, transforming Hinduism.48 clashed with the other, a royal woman. On the night of January 12, 2019, the But the stories in these songs remained in HMA hosted the annual Ayyappa the realm of very ecstatic performances— performance. The lengthy performance by including men singing and beating their a single male Indian singer, with responses chests, as hitherto the Ayyappa in Tamil from the Ghanaian and Indian has been a performance of masculine audience, contained the following lyrics: potential—until a new guru appeared in the Vel is the trident weapon in the fold of the HMA in 2017. Ironically, this hands of Lord Murugan happened only after the Ayyappa festivals began and Ghanaian Hindus’ interest in The trident-holding Murugan residing in the great Pazhani unknown was piqued, leading them [Palani] hill to initiate new relationships to South Indian Hindus. (Stanzas above are repeated by the audience.) Fertility in a Female Swami’s Calling These are the other names of Swami Ghanananda passed away (in the Murugan Hindu view, attained mahasamadhi—the The one with a kind and great and final leaving of one’s body) on compassionate heart January 18, 2016. Thereafter, his Ghanaian (Stanzas repeated by the audience) initiate Swami Satyananda became head of

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) 97 the HMA until 2019. To mark the one-year rituals and private darshan (seeing a holy anniversary of Ghanananda’s death, some person). Ghanaians invited an Indian female guru Visiting gurus had come to Ghana from or teacher, Swami Jayanthi Kumaraswami, time to time, but Swami Jayanthi appears based in Chennai, India, to conduct the to be the first female Hindu spiritual leader funerary rituals. Swami Ghanananda had among these visitors. Swaminis are not, in taught his disciples about Hindu death and of themselves, unique, as Ruth Vanita rituals, though he adopted the Ghanaian shows. She suggests that great women gurus preference for burial over cremation. with millions of followers are venerated More important, Hindu rituals—such as locally and that, in social terms, the status the Sanskrit invocation of the divine to of swamihood offers “safety for women distribute “all the components of the body and men from all classes and castes who into the five elements of the earth” and do not wish to marry, procreate, or pursue to offer favorite foods of the deceased to a profession.”52 The creative potential ancestor-spirits in animal forms—were of a singular powerful entity, moreover, entirely familiar to Ghanaians.49 What is celebrated in Hindu folk narratives is striking is the African initiative in that reveal the possibility of fertility and the invitation of a South Indian woman reproduction within the singular body. swami, which fits into a longer history in Vanita gives the example of the South Indian West African religious outreach to Indians, god Karthikeya or Murugan, mentioned in Hinduism, Islam, and Mami Wata above, who has no mother but was born of worship.50 The stories about how Swami Shiva’s semen. Deities are both male and Jayanthi came to Ghana include dreams, female and ultimately neither, she argues. social media contacts, and prophecies of a Of course, deities can also be both. new guru. This insight is critical for Swami Jayanthi, Swami Jayanthi, with and who uses aurality and orality in shaping a charitable organizations in Chennai and layered spiritual authority that combines Trinidad, was able to explain the South male and female powers in ways that are Indian Hindu devotions in relation both different from male Hindu sainthood, to North Indian worship and to African which has been the norm in India, Ghana, diasporic folk traditions from the Caribbean. and around the world. She is a vessel for Ghanaians, with a long history of Pan- Ghanaians’ beloved Swami Ghanananda Africanism and Hindu spiritualism and and, during two visits, has conveyed his other mystical new age religions that messages and information about HMA connect African-Americans and Africans, history, previously unwritten and untold, were eager for this kind of worldview.51 The to his devotees. She, like him, also belongs swami’s discourses on Dravidian sangams, to no singular tradition of learning, instead or oral epics about the great floods and being a svayambhu or self-manifested saint. lost land bridge between India and Africa, Unlike many swamis, including Swami were captivating for Ghanaian listeners. Ghanananda, Swami Jayanthi never studied She also introduced entirely new spiritual Hindu scriptures with any gurus or teachers experiences, shaped in large part through but rather is understood to be self-arisen. her use of chanting and singing in public Svayambhu, born in form as , or the

98 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) Hindu god of creation, split into heaven and fire lit in a special hearth she also had built earth, man and woman.53 The spontaneity for the occasion. of self-creation or noncreation has made Some of the songs she taught svayambhu a particularly important concept those assembled at the HMA have female in Buddhism, which envisions creation and male call and response. She performed without birth as possible. Swami Jayanthi’s both, embodying the double gender of the presence in Ghana after the death of Hindu deity. Swami Ghanananda suggested to local Thai pongalum vandhadhu Hindus that gurus may appear to them, Paalum pongudhu as their first one did, not as heirs to any Paattu solladiyo singular religious tradition but rather as Vanna mangaiyar aadidum teachers for their particular times. Her Mahaanadhiyai potri solladiyo appearance answered a powerful need Indha Ponni enbaval felt by Hindus in Ghana and also fit into thennaattavarkku Anbin annaiyadi a trajectory of relative nonconformity to Ival thanneer endroru aadai the past—toward South Indian popular kattidum Hindu devotion that centered on sexually, Dheiva mangaiyadi and therefore reproductively ambiguous, power and possibility. Pongal came Milk boiling over One of the most important manifestations Sing songs of this kind of spontaneous creation came Beautiful ladies are dancing in January 2019, when Swami Jayanthi Tell me about the big river introduced the South Indian—especially This girl Ponni is for people Tamil—harvest festival, Thai Pongal, to in the South the Hindu Monastery community. The She is like a mother importance of this holiday, centered on She is wearing water like a dress She is a goddess cooking rice with raw sugar until it boils over (the literal meaning of pongal in Tamil), The elements of this song have, of course, is attested by its maintenance in the Tamil a resonance with fertility, a concept that diaspora from South Africa to Sri Lanka neither Swami Ghanananda nor his successor and Singapore. When the rice boils over, all had previously emphasized. Moreover, the present shout “Pongalo pongal” to harken cooking and eating of food were not part abundance for the coming year. Before doing of the Monastery’s rituals until Swami this, Swami Jayanthi recited mantras from Jayanthi’s visit, although before her arrival, early morning while constructing a new hard candies were occasionally distributed , or idol, out of clay in the figure of as a prasadam (offering). Yet food is intrinsic , the elephant god who is the son of to Vedic religion, and in this song, the priest Shiva and one of the most beloved deities in as cook and sacrificer of food, in performing South India. Ganesha is to be one of the first the Pongal rite, is “associated with birth,” who is presented with pongal, but the HMA from ingestion to gestation and delivery.54 did not have an idol. Thus, Swami Jayanthi Milk is the semen of the fire god Agni, made one and literally breathed life into it and the transformation of it through fire with mantras and song over a ceremonial represents a developing fetus.

Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) 99 The swamini’s power in the Monastery “male” forms.58 Significantly, ISKCON and is altogether different from the experiences other nonconformist Hindu organizations of Swami Ghanananda’s devotees and have adapted rituals like the sacred thread newcomers with male gurus, though initiation (a rite of passage for high- not because they were unfamiliar with caste boys) to confer sacerdotal power on the meaning embedded in her actions. women. It is perhaps for such reasons that Most Indian Hindus themselves do not ISKCON has maintained a strong presence experience their rituals with complete in places like Ghana, where the impetus awareness. Rather, the collective for different kinds of self-making has led observation and participation of the to the emergence of such personalities as birth of Pongal reveal Swami Jayanthi’s Swami Ghanananda and non-Ghanaians procreative power and fertility. like Swami Jayanthi. Swami Jayanthi also Swami Jayanthi’s production of sounds revealed herself to seekers in personal and objects has contributed to audible darshans, episodic encounters with capital accruing to a new spiritual personage individuals or small groups of supplicants in West Africa and in India, where her who require her help with problems related devotees have relished her reception to domestic life, jobs, health, or spiritual abroad.55 Devotional sounds manifest sickness. These meetings included the bodily power, which for Hindu male private chanting and teaching of mantras, (sages or ascetics) traditionally was seen special prayers, and the investiture to reside in semen.56 Antoinette DeNapoli of amulets spontaneously created for argues that women and lower castes could individual use. scarcely attain the dominant Sanskritic Yet Swami Jayanthi’s making of a textual representation of the Hindu male persona in Ghana has not been purely ascetic path to religious sanctification through her own actions but also through defined by celibacy, solitude, detachment, Ghanaians’ embedment of her into local peripateticism, austerities like , and narratives. Hindu devotees arranged for other renunciations, along with knowledge her to pay her respects and perform before requirements. Instead, these “other” the Asantehene, the ruler of the traditional devotees have practiced forms of asceticism kingdom of Asante with its capital in dependent on relationality and reciprocity, Kumasi, first in 2017 and then in 2019. of the kind found in performances—oral The Asantehene rechristened her as Yaa and ritual. DeNapoli also discusses cases Asantewaa, the Queen Mother of Edweso, in which female renunciates express an Asante principality, who helped lead power () by singing strongly over her people against the British colonialists others in public; not to sing powerfully in their last war to conquer the kingdom. would lead to questions about their bona After the British defeated the Asante, she fides.57 Female ascetics, priests, and was exiled to the Seychelles, where she died. experts do not have to follow male scripts, Yaa Asantewaa has been commemorated in but they do sometimes adapt scripts that Ghana and abroad in many ways—visually, allow them to garner acceptance and in writing, and in verse.59 To rechristen authority to perform important religious an Indian religious figure with the name functions, thereby effectively assuming of an Asante queen is to bestow a place

100 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) of power for the Hindu swamini. As Yaa To return to the beginning, prayer Asantewaa is the mother of the Ghanaian communities must share space not only nation, naming Swami Jayanthi after her is with each other but also with spirits, being to recognize her as the creator of new life ever mindful that sensory experiences in the in a new place. human body are connected to the unseen realm. Devotional music, mantras, and In the afternoons, the Hindu Monastery of other kinds of sound have made possible Africa is silent. No one makes any sound Hinduism’s growth in Ghana—at times until a bell is rung to awaken the gods over the last half century without Indians, for the evening puja. No strictures have converts, or even comprehension in the been placed on Hindu noise, as had been intellectual sense. In many ways, it can imposed against born-again Christian be a devotional repertoire adaptable to churches in Accra from 1998 to 2002.60 embodied experiences that do not require The Christians had violated a time- teachers, texts, or other trappings more honored ban on drumming, clapping, and commonly associated with Hinduism in other noise making by the Ga traditional India and even beyond. African Hinduism’s authorities of Accra. An annual month- soundscape reveals unique features that, long silence was “meant to give the local perhaps most surprisingly, have even deities the peace to look after the growth of begun to change the Indian diaspora. This the ritually sown corn before it is harvested includes Indian migrants who have come and prepared into a ceremonial dish to ‘hoot to Ghana to work and choose to worship at hunger’ during the harvest festival.”61 in the Monastery, like Sharma, a The interruption of the silence could Kenyan Indian scholar of Akan religion, as have disturbed the festival in a number of well as traveling gurus like Swami Jayanthi ways, from angering the local deities to and others, who recognize an undisguised disorienting ancestral spirits who answer devotion in African Hindu disciples. Swami to their individual tunes. Hindus, on the Ghanananda, like other sages, understood other hand, are known for their attention that the Hindu soundscape would outlast to ritual, especially the proper ordering of his life and reverberate in new registers to silence and sound. sustain the Monastery he founded.

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1 Swami Ghanananda Saraswati, The Secret of Orientissime: Touba-Madras-Paris (2005), which took True Spiritual Practice (Odorkor: HMA, 2006), 13. him to India; and my discussion about Senegalese 2 Elizabeth Graveling, “‘That Is Not Religion, students of in Shobana Shankar, That Is the Gods’: Ways of Conceiving Religious An Uneasy Embrace: Africa, India and the Spectre of Race Practices in Rural Ghana,” Culture and Religion 1/1 (London: Hurst Publishers, 2021). (2010): 31–50. 15 Harry Englund, ed., Christianity and Public 3 Rajash Joshi, “Ghana’s Unique African- Religion in Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press, ,” BBC online, June 20, 2010; https:// 2011). www.bbc.com/news/10401741. Diasporic Indians 16 Guy L. Beck, Sonic Theology: Hinduism and post videos of African Hindus singing on social media Sacred Sound (Benares: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, and news of the attendance of Indian participants, 1995), 3. such as the Indian High Commissioner of Ghana. 17 Ghanananda, True Spiritual Practice, 81. See, for example, https://www.youtube.com/ 18 Wuaku, Hindu Gods in West Africa. watch?v=yljPuQh8pR8. 19 Sarah Strauss, “Adapt, Adjust, Accommodate: 4 Asonzeh Ukah, “Emplacing God: The The Production of Yoga in a Transnational World,” in Social Worlds of Miracle Cities–Perspectives from Yoga in the Modern World: Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Nigeria and Uganda,” Journal of Contemporary African Mark Singleton and Jean Byrne (New York: Routledge, Studies 36/3 (2018): 351–68, at 351. 2008), 49–76. 5 Human Rights Watch, Abuse in Ghana (Oct. 20 Veena Sharma, “An African Hindu Swami,” 2, 2012). Ananda Kutir Ashrama newsletter, November 2011– 6 Albert Wuaku, Hindu Gods in West Africa February 2012, Cape Town, South Africa. (Leiden: Brill, 2013). 21 Ibid. 7 Abamfo Atiemo, “Returning to Our Spiritual 22 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/ Roots: African Hindus Negotiating Religious Space obituary-swami-krishnanand-saraswati-1550253.html. and Identity,” Journal of Religion in Africa 47/3–4 23 Sarah Strauss, “The Master’s Narrative: (2017): 405–37. Swami Sivananda and the Transnational Production 8 Ibid., 408. of Yoga,” Journal of Folklore Research (2002): 217–41. 9 Swami Ghanananda Saraswati, “Africa Is 24 Swami Ghanananda Saraswati, An Intro- Ripe for a Strong Hindu Future,” Hinduism Today duction to Meditation (Odorkor: HMA, 2001), 14. (August 1998): 1–3, at 2. 25 Wuaku, Hindu Gods in West Africa. 10 See, for example, David Chidester on the 26 Atiemo, “Returning to Our Spiritual Roots.” intellectual history of comparative religions: Empire 27 Henry Drewal, “Performing the Other: of Religion: Imperialism and Comparative Religion Mami Wata Worship in Africa,” TDR 32/2 (1988): (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014). 160–85; Dana Rush, “The Idea of ‘India’ in West 11 Birgit Meyer, Translating the Devil: Religion African Vodun Art and Thought,” in India in Africa, and Modernity among the Ewe of Ghana (Trenton, NJ: Africa in India: Indian Ocean Cosmopolitanism, ed. John Africa World Press, 1999). Hawley (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 12 Peter Lambertz, Seekers and Things: Spiritual 2008), 149–80. Movements and Aesthetic Difference in Kinshasa (New 28 Swami Ghanananda, Vedic Sacrifice and York: Berghahn Books, 2017), 2–3. Prayers (Odorkor: HMA), 7. 13 Rosalind Hackett, “Sound, Music, and 29 Ibid., 8–11. the Study of Religion,” Temenos: Nordic Journal of 30 Katherine Zubko, “Embodying ‘Bhakti Rasa’ Comparative Religion 48/1 (2012): 11–27. in Bharata Natyam: An Indian-Christian Interpretation 14 Brian Larkin, “Bandiri Music, Globalization, of Gayatri Mantra through Dance,” Journal of Hindu- and Urban Experience in Nigeria,” Social Text 22/4 Christian Studies 19/1 (2006): 37–43, at 39. (2004): 91–112; Hélène Neveu Kringelbach, 31 Swami Sivananda, Self-Knowledge “Moving Shadows of Casamance: Performance (Rishikesh: Divine Life Trust, 1958), 15, 63. and Regionalism in Senegal,” in Dancing Cultures: 32 Zubko, “Embodying ‘Bhakti Rasa,’” 42. Globalization, Tourism and Identity in the Anthropology 33 Swami Sivananda, “Concentration and of Dance, ed. H. N Kringelbach and Jonathan Skinner Meditation,” http://www.sivanandaonline.org/ (New York: Berghahn Books, 2012). By contrast, see public_html/?cmd=displaysection§ion_ the recording of Senegalese musician Thione Seck, id=640&format=html.

102 Yale Journal of Music & Religion Vol. 6, No. 2 (2020) 34 Atiemo, “Returning to Our Spiritual Roots,” 50 Wauku, Hindu Gods in West Africa; John 412. Hanson, The Ahmadiyya in the Gold Coast: Muslim 35 Ibid.; Wuaku, Hindu Gods in West Africa. Cosmopolitans in the British Empire (Bloomington: 36 Elom Dovlo, “Grace and Faith: The Indiana University Press, 2017); Challenge of Oriental Spirituality to Christianity in Shankar, An Uneasy Embrace. Ghana,” Missionalia: Southern African Journal of Mission 51 Shankar, An Uneasy Embrace. Studies 23/3 (1995): 295–311; Wuaku, Hindu Gods 52 Ruth Vanita, “Gender and Sexuality,” in West Africa. in Hinduism in the Modern World, ed. Brian Hatcher 37 Universal Vedic Hymns and Prayers (Odorkor: (New York: Routledge, 2015), 293–307. HMA, 2013), 135. 53 S. Kamrisch, The Presence of Shiva (Princeton, 38 Abamfo Atiemo, “Singing with NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 215. Understanding: The Story of Gospel Music in Ghana,” 54 Laurie Patton, Bringing the Gods to Mind: Studies in World Christianity 12/2 (2006): 142–63. Mantra and Ritual in Early Indian Sacrifice (Berkeley: 39 Ibid., 144. University of California Press, 2005), 92. 40 Ibid., 150. 55 Barbara Cooper, “The Strength in the Song: 41 Wuaku, Hindu Gods in West Africa, 113. Muslim Personhood, Audible Capital, and Hausa 42 Lynne Long, ed., Translation and Religion: Women’s Performance of the Hajj,” in Gendered Holy Untranslatable? (Bristol: Multilingual Matters, Modernities, ed. Dorothy Hodgson (New York: 2005). Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), 79–104. 43 Ibid. 56 Antoinette DeNapoli, “Beyond Brahmanical 44 Ibid., 237. Asceticism: Recent and Emerging Models of 45 Wuaku, Hindu Gods in West Africa, 88. Female Hindu Asceticisms in South Asia,” Religion 46 T. K. Arun, “Sabiramala: Caste Redux,” Compass 3/5 (2009): 857–75. Economic Times (Jan. 9, 2019); Dinesan Vadakkiniyil, 57 Antoinette DeNapoli, “‘Real Sadhus Sing “Mahishi’s Rage: Communitas and Protest at to God’: The Religious Capital of Devotion and Sabarimala, Kerala,” Anthropology Today 35/5 (2019): Domesticity in the Leadership of Female Renouncers in 16–20; Filippo Osella and Caroline Osella. “‘Ayyappan Rajasthan,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 29/1 saranam’: Masculinity and the Sabarimala Pilgrimage (2013): 117–33. in Kerala,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological 58 Vasudha Narayanan, “Gender and Priesthood Institute 9/4 (2003): 729–54. in the Hindu Traditions.,” Journal of Hindu-Christian 47 E. Pratap Kumar, “Hinduism in Ghana,” in Studies 18/1 (2005): 1–10. The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to African Religions 59 Harcourt Fuller, “Commemorating an (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), 389–98. African Queen: Ghanaian Nationalism, the African 48 Shobana Shankar, “A Tale of Two Gandhis: Diaspora, and the Public Memory of Nana Yaa Complicating Ghana’s Indian Entanglements,” in Afro- Asantewaa, 1952–2009,” African Arts 47/4 (2014): South Asia in the Global African Diaspora, ed. Omar Ali, 58–71. Kenneth X. Robbins, Beheroze Schroff, and Jazmin 60 Marleen de Witte, “Accra’s Sounds and Graves, 3 vols. (Greensboro, NC: University of North Sacred Spaces,” International Journal of Urban and Carolina Ethiopian and East African Studies Project/ Regional Research 32/3 (September 2008): 690–709. Ahmedabad Sidi Heritage and Educational Center, 61 Ibid., 690. India, 2020). 49 Ghanananda, Vedic Sacrifice and Prayers,7.

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