APPEASEMENT and ATONEMENT in the MAHADANAS, the HINDU “GREAT GIFTS”1 This Paper Aims to Historicize Certain Practical Notion

APPEASEMENT AND ATONEMENT IN THE MAHADANAS, THE HINDU “GREAT GIFTS”1 BY MARKO GESLANI* 1. INTRODUCTION This paper aims to historicize certain practical notions of sin and misfortune prevalent in modern Hinduism. I will argue that the clustering of karmic sin, astrological portent, personal misfortune, and expiatory gifting operative in contemporary practice can be linked to rituals of gifting and appeasement, particularly at the royal courts of early medieval India. Thus my remarks about medieval ritual apply directly to practices found in so-called “popular” or “village” Hinduism as depicted in ethnographic literature. Two aspects of contemporary understandings of sin and expiation relevant to this discussion can be seen, for instance, in the work of Judy Pugh and Gloria Rajeha.2 The first point is the close causal connection between karmic sin and astrological portent. It is thought that prior karmas become manifest in signs observable in the natural world. These omens are inscrutable to the average person; they can only be made intelligible through the specialized calculations of astrologers. Prior karmic sins, if * Yale University, Department of Religious Studies. 1 An early version of this paper was originally delivered at the conference “Sin and Expiation: Asian Perspectives” at Yale University, October 15th-17th 2010. I thank the organizers, Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara, for their invitation. I am also indebted to Gérard Colas and Phyllis Granoff for their helpful comments on subsequent drafts. 2 Gloria Rajeha, The Poison in the Gift: Ritual, Prestation, and the Dominant Caste in a North Indian Village (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988). For the work of Judy Pugh, see for example “Astrology and Fate: The Hindu and Muslim Experiences,” in Karma: an Anthropological Inquiry, ed. Charles F. Keyes and E. Valentine Daniel (Berkeley: UC Press, 1983). Journal Asiatique 299.1 (2011): 133-192 doi: 10.2143/JA.299.1.2131062 994253_JA_2011/1_06_Geslani.indd4253_JA_2011/1_06_Geslani.indd 113333 114/09/114/09/11 115:215:21 134 M. GESLANI not corrected, “ripen” in the form of heavenly influences, which are thought to be the direct agents of misfortune. Thus personal fate and misfortune are inextricably bound to astrological processes. The interpre- tation of sin and misfortune, and the prescription of expiatory rituals, are therefore highly dependent on astrological specialists. This dependence on astrology has profound implications for another important aspect of the modern view, which concerns the means of expi- ating karmic sins and the removal of astrologically determined inauspiciousness. Among the many ritual forms for the removal of misfortune, ritual gifting, or dan (Sanskrit dana), is commonly thought to rid the donor of the fruits of karmic fault by transferring sin and inauspiciousness to the recipient. Gloria Rajeha calls this transference of inauspiciousness through gifting the “poison in the gift”. She argues that it forms the central ritual structure in the annual cycle of contemporary village society in North India. How then did we arrive at this ritual culture in which gifts are able to ward off disasters that are themselves the fruits of past misdeeds? I con- tend that to understand this complex formation in its proper historical perspective, we need to take into account medieval understandings of sin, omens, and their ritual remedies. I will argue that modern astrological notions of sin and misfortune can be traced to the partnership between late-Vedic ritual specialists and astronomers, or purohitas and saμvatsaras, in the royal courts in early medieval India. Furthermore, this partnership is best viewed in the late ritual manuals of the Atharvaveda. The rituals collected in these manuals, known as the AtharvavedaparisiÒ†as (AVPS), coincide, in my view, with the broader set of practices seen in the important divination treatise of the 6th century, Varahamihira’s B®hatsaμhita (BS). My analysis relies on a close reading of these two texts. Thus I will use the santi-related rituals found in Atharvan and astrological literature to help unpack the construction of the mahadanas (“Great Gifts”) in the Matsyapura∞a (MtP).3 The mahadana chapters from the MtP (274-289) 3 I have used the following editions for my citations: The ParisiÒ†as of the Athar- vaveda, eds. George Melville Bolling and Julius von Negelin, Parts I and II (Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz, 1909, 1910); The B®hat Saμhita by Varahamihira with the Commentary of Bha††otpala, ed. Mahamahopadhyaya Sudharaka Dvivedi (Benares: E.J. Lazarus & Co., 1895, 1897); Srimaddvaipayanamunipra∞itaμ Matsyapura∞am, No. 54 in Anandasrama Sanskrit Series (Pune: Anandasrama Press, 1989). I have also consulted the edition and Journal Asiatique 299.1 (2011): 133-192 994253_JA_2011/1_06_Geslani.indd4253_JA_2011/1_06_Geslani.indd 113434 114/09/114/09/11 115:215:21 APPEASEMENT AND ATONEMENT IN THE MAHADANAS 135 are important to the Hindu gifting tradition at large insofar as they were “canonized” in the later orthodox literature. In other words, the dana chapters from the MtP were quoted at length in the dharmasastric com- pendia of law and ritual (nibandhas) belonging to the early second millennium,4 and would therefore come to represent the orthodox forms of these rites in mainstream (smarta) Hinduism. Thus my remarks about the structure of the Great Gifts in the MtP may be relevant to the Hindu practice of gifting in general. 2. THE PROBLEM OF AUSPICIOUSNESS/INAUSPICIOUSNESS The cluster of concepts mentioned above (sin-portent-misfortune-gift) can only be made intelligible in reference to Hindu theories of auspiciousness and inauspiciousness. An understanding of the cultural category of auspiciousness as a theoretical concern separate from the notion of purity arose as a major outcome of the debates that spanned the 1970s, following the publication of Louis Dumont’s Homo Hierarchicus (1966 in French, 1970 in English). These discussions were primarily motivated by ethnographic data, although important contributions were also made by Vedic scholars. According to one part of this critique, Dumont’s argument, namely, that the caste system in Indian society is undergirded by a pure-impure translation of the B®hatsaμhita by M. Ramakrishna Bhat, Varahamihira’s B®hat Saμhita (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1982) and the edition and translation of the Matsyapura∞a by K.L. Joshi, Parimal Sanskrit Series 93, 2 vols. (Delhi: Parimal Publications, 2007). Additionally, the passages from the Matsyapura∞a discussed in this paper are quoted in the K®tyakalpataru of LakÒmidhara, in the Danaka∞∂a and in the PratiÒ†haka∞∂a. Both texts are included (vols. 5 and 9) in K®tyakalpataru of LakÒmidhara, ed. K.V. Rangas- wami Aiyanagar, Gaekwad’s Oriental Series, 14 vols (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1941- 79). The Danaka∞∂a has recently been critically edited by David Brick, The Danaka∞∂a (“Book on Gifting”) of the K®tyakalpataru: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 2009). I am grateful to David Brick for sharing a copy of his dissertation, which has been invaluable to the preparation of this article. Finally, another important text I will discuss is the Atharvaveda Santikalpa, edited in two parts by George Melville Bolling under the title, “The Santi- kalpa of the Atharvaveda,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 35 (1904), pp. 77-127 (also including a translation) and JAOS 33 (1913), pp. 265-278. 4 See section 7, “Chronology,” below. Journal Asiatique 299.1 (2011): 133-192 994253_JA_2011/1_06_Geslani.indd4253_JA_2011/1_06_Geslani.indd 113535 114/09/114/09/11 115:215:21 136 M. GESLANI polarity, contributed to a “collapse” of the theoretical distinction between purity and auspiciousness, which was otherwise nascent in ethnographic literature of the 1950s and 60s.5 Thus the focus of Dumont’s argument may have forestalled a more precise rendering of the relationship between purity and auspiciousness in the study of Indian society. It was in the late 70s and early 80s then that the category of auspiciousness became the object of serious scholarly reflection. The most explicit statement of this post-Dumontian concern was made in a 1980 conference on the topic of “Purity and Auspiciousness,” whose proceedings were published in 1985.6 There T.N. Madan offered a definitive theoretical statement of the distinction between purity and auspiciousness (suddha and subha) on the basis of ethnographic evidence.7 According to his distinction, auspiciousness-inauspiciousness is an attribute of events, whereas purity-impurity is an attribute of objects (and persons). So for instance, despite the fact that childbirth results in the impurity of the mother and child, birth itself is considered an auspicious event. Likewise, while funeral rites pollute their participants, death itself is additionally seen as a highly inauspicious event. And it is this condition of inauspiciousness, rather than the temporary condition of impurity, that causes anxiety and danger among the surviving kin of the deceased. Immediately it should be noted that Madan achieves this distinction (purity: objects | auspiciousness: events) in spite of the testimony of his informants: It would be useful to recall here two important distinctions mentioned by me earlier: first, between objects and persons as such, on the one hand, and events and performances on the other. When the devadasis are called mangalanari or the songs they sing, mangalagita, it is clear that two meanings are implied: first, and obviously (even superficially perhaps), these women and their songs contribute to an atmosphere of joy; second, they are associated with happy events whether these occur (births) or are arranged (weddings, pilgrimages). In the process they come to symbolize 5 Most notably in the writings of M.N. Srinivas. See Frédérique Marglin, “Introduction,” Purity and Auspiciousness in Indian Society, eds. John Carman and Frédérique Marglin (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985), pp. 1-11. 6 Ibid. 7 T.N. Madan, “Concerning the Categories suddha and subha in Hindu Culture: an Exploratory Essay.” Ibid., 11-29.

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