Critical Terms for Religious Studies

Edited by Mark C. Taylor·

EDIT ORIAL ADVIS ORY BOARD

DonaldS. Lopez, Jr., Tomoko Masuzawa, Jack Miles,

Jonathan Z. Smith, David Tracy, Edith Wyschogrod

The University of Chicago Press Chicago & London Contents

Introduction / Mark C. Taylor/ 1 1 Belief/ DonaldS. Lopez, Jr./ 21 The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press Ltd., London 2 Body/ William R. LaFleur/ 36 © 1998 by The University of Chicago 3 Conflict/ Bruce Lincoln/ 55 All rights reserved. Published 1998 Printed in the United States of America 4 Culture / Tomoko Masuzawa/ 70 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 4 5 6 7 8 9 5 Experience / Robert H� Sharf/ 94 IS BN-13: 978-0-226-79156-2 (cloth) ISBN-13: 978-0-226-79157-9 (paper) 6 Gender/Daniel Boyarin/ 117 ISBN-10: 0-226-79156-4 (doth) ISBN-10: 0-226-79157-2 (paper) 7 God/ FrancisSchussler Fiorenza and Gordon D. Kaufman/ 136 8 Image/ Mat;!JaretR. Miles I 160 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 9 Liberation / KennethSurin / 173 Critical terms for religious studies/ edited by Mark C. Taylor. Modernity/ Gustavo Benavides/ 186 p. em. 10 Includes bibliographical references and index. 11 Performance/ Catherine Bell/205 ISBN 0-226-79156-4 (alk. paper). - ISBN 0-226-79157-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) 12 Person / Charles E. Winquist/ 225 l. Religion-Terminology. I. Taylor, Mark C., 1945- BL3l.C75 1998 13 Rationality/Paul Stoller/239 210'.1'4-dc21 97-52257 CIP 14 Relic/ GregorySchopen / 256 15 Religion, Religions, Religious/Jonathan Z. Smith/ 269 16 Sacrifice/Jill Robbins/ 285 17 Territory/Sam Gill/ 298 18 Time/Anthony F. Aveni/ 314 19 Transformation/ Bruce B. Lawrence/ 334 20 Transgression/Michael Taussig/349 21 Value/ Edith Wyschogrod/ 365 0 Tbe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, 22 Writing/David Tracy/ 383 ANSI Z39.48-1992. Contributors/395 Index/399

v ------

FOURTEEN RELIC

only ones recorded for "relic" in the plural in IDbster's Unabridged Dictionary. But in Buddhist sources, in Sanskrit, death-and usually cremation-produces Relic not remains of a body but a plurality of bodies. The language moves from singu­ lar sartra, "body," to the plural saririini, "bodies." Alternatively, death and cremation reduce the person to its "essential ingredient," dhiitu. They extract­ Gregory Schopen to exploit a pun used by the Buddhist poet ASvagho�a-the ore (dhiitu) from the dross. These would appear to be very different conceptions. However, ety­ mological meanings, like appearances, are often deceiving. cholars of religions have generally been more comfortable with ideas than If the literal meanings of relic and sarira or dhiitu are clearly different, what with things, more comfortable with what they thought others thought S with is done for or to them, what is said about them, and what they themselves do are than what they knew they did. They have been particularly uncom­ very often not. There is, moreover, an enormous body of material bearing on fortable, perhaps, when people touched or rubbed or hugged or kissed things, all these things, but once again, any approach to it lands us in immediate diffi­ especially when those things were themselves somewhat disconcerting-dead culties, most of which are of our own making or-to shift the blame-our bodies, bits of bone or cloth, dirt or fingernails, dried blood. This unease itself forefathers' and predecessors'. The Protestant reformers were, for example, no may go a long way toward explaining why we still understand little about relics. friends of relics (see Eire cf. Delumeau And this lack of understanding may represent a serious gap since these bodies 1986, 40-3, 96-7, 2lltf.; 1989, 234- Calvin's Admonition Showing the Advantages which Christendom might De­ and bits of bone and otherwise seemingly dead matter have played a lively role 42). rive from an Inventory ofRelics (Beveridge ), a characteristically in the history of several major religions, in religious architectures and arts, in 1844, 289-341 vituperative tract, is peppered with descriptions of relics as "frivolities," '�absurd­ religious practices, economies, and institutions. They have discomfited some ities," with repeated references to "superstition," "corrupt practice," "the ex­ and consoled many. They have challenged official doctrine, created conflict, and cessive zeal of rude and ignorant men or old women," "ignorant people," "the quite literally brought diverse types of people together. They have changed secu­ wretched populace," "the stupidity of men," and "monkish and priestly impos­ lar laws and even rearranged landscapes, and we still do not understand exactly tors." Although he lets slip that he himself-of course "long ago"-kissed a how. Even the etymology of the term, which should be the easiest part of any portion of St. Ann's body, he concludes with the hope that others will not, that discussion of relics; immediately lands us in both conceptual and crosscultural "every man, who is not obs ately determined against the truth, though he may difficulties. t0- not yet clearly perceive that the worship of any relics, of whatever kind they be, Whether it be the English word "relic" or the Sanskrit originals that it almost whether genuine or spurious, is execrable idolatry, yet seeing how clear this false­ always translates, it is clear that etymologies and literal meanings can only rep­ hood is, will have no desire to kiss them any more." resent a small part of what the terms mean. The English "relic" is derived from If Calvin, then, would have us believe that he believes that relics are humbug, Latin relinquere, "to leave behind"; the same Latin verb has also produced En­ that is well and good. We are simply dealing with his beliefs, and as a theological glish "relinquish." A relic, then, is something left behind. But the two Sanskrit position they are as good or bad as any other. But as a representation of the terms that are taken to correspond to the English word relic do not mean this at beliefs of all those "rude and ignorant men or old women" who were going all. The etymology of the most common of the two terms, sarira, is unsettled. around kissing such things-and Calvin's polemic established, if anything, that Its most common usage, however, is not. In the singular it means "the body, they were-as a representation, in short, of history and actual practice, they will bodily frame." It is when it is used in the plural that it comes to have some of the not do, in spite of the fact that until recently, given the enormous influence senses of the English word relic. The other Sanskrit word that is usually trans­ of Calvinism and Protestantism on Western intellectual values, they often have. lated by relic is dhiitu. Its basic meanings are "constituent part," "ingredient," That they have probably needs little demonstration. If it does, two entries in "element," "primitive matter," or "constituent element or essential ingredi­ what was-and in important ways remains-the most authoritative and learned ent." It is, for example, the word used for a primary element of the earth: a encyclopedia of religion and ethics will suffice. metal, mineral, or ore; it is also the word used to designate what we call a verbal When the history of twentieth-century religious studies is written, Hastings' root. If we assume for the moment that the process we call biological death must Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics will undoubtedly be seen to have played a intervene between a living person and at least the bodily relics of that person, very important role. The first volume was published in the last in It then these lexical differences become interesting. In the West, death-and usu­ 1908, 1921. therefore summarized the great richness of nineteenth-century scholarship and ally burial-produces remains, "remaining fragments; surviving parts," or "the values, and set the agenda for much of the twentieth century. It is, then, a little body, or parts of the body, of a dead person." The latter two meanings are the

256 257 GREGORY SCHOPEN RELIC disconcerting to see what it says under the heading "Relics," and it is prob­ the appearance of a particular species of, or particularly specious, explanatory ably no accident, and certainly symptomatic, that the topic of Christian (here deus ex machina: need. People do and think these sorts of stupid things because called "Western") relics is treated together with what is called "Primitive." The various needs make them: the need for reassurance, the need for physical contact actual rubric is "Relics (Primitive and Western)." The entry was written by J. A. with what is thought sacred, the need to locate that curious commodity (the list MacCulloch and contains a great deal of interesting material, withan equal num­ is long). We are an alarmingly needy bunch. But that there is something to all of ber of unbecoming adjectives and phrases: the views of early Catholic fathers this is almost as certain as the fact that it so far has been badly expressed. To do "differ little from the theory implicit in savage magic, as far as that concerns the better, however, is not necessarily an easy task. use of relics"; he refers to "the extent and the absurdity of the cult," "abuses," There is both a startling precision and a maddening conceptual fuzziness in "the credulity of the people," "superstition," and "many anomalies and absurd­ what Christians and Buddhists say about relics and sariras·' and both , it seems, ities," all of which should have a familiar ring, as does his conclusion: "the ad­ are here to stay. Like it or not, when we are dealing with sariras and relics we mitted great uncertainty which surrounds any relic, the certainty of impudent are, it seems, dealing both with conceptions of something like what Bergson fraud in the case of many, the gross superstitions and abuses to which they have called "elan vital," Dylan Thomas called "the force that through the green fuse given rise and which have attended the cult from early times, far outweigh any drives the flower," or your grandmother called "life," and something that re­ positive good which they may ever have done." MacCulloch did not invent his mains stubbornly material, something that is transmissible and has weight. The vocabulary nor, it seems, did he arrive at it through a disinterested study of his latter, for example, was already demonstrable-or thought to be so-in the time sources. This is even more obvious in the second entry that follows immediately. of Gregory of Tours. In his Liber in gloria martyrum, with regard to the tomb The noted historian of India, Vincent A. Smith, wrote that second entry of St. Peter, he says, under the title "Relics (Eastern)." In fact it is almost entirely devoted to Bud­ But if someone wishes to take away a blessed relic, he weighs a little dhist South Asia and here too is the familiar litany: "rank superstition, open piece of cloth on a pair of scales and lowers it into [the tomb]; then to every kind of abuse and fraud"; "superstitious veneration"; "disgusting he keeps vigils, fasts, and earnestly prays that the power of theapostle extreme." MacCulloch, writing about Christian relics, could call up Christian willassist his piety. [What happens next] is extraordinaryto report! If critics for his talk, and there was thereby at least a certain theological continuity, the man's faith is strong, when the piece of cloth is raised from the even if it had crept noiselessly into scholarship. The language at least came from tomb it will be so soaked with divine power [imbuitur divina vir­ a part of the tradition itself. Smith could do no such thing. Although sarira had tute] that it will weigh much more than it weighed previously. (van had their challengers in the ,Indian Buddhist tradition, they had never had these Dam 1983, 45-6) sorts of rabid detractors. In fact, the only individuals who had ever said this sort of thing about Buddhist relics were outsiders-European travelers and mission­ That such hard-nosed empiricism is not just ancient, and that we are indeed aries. In this sense the sources of Smith's evaluations are clear: They could not dealing with "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower," seems to have been either Buddhist or Indian. Though some things have changed, these be confirmedby the Boston Globe for 19 December 1972: views-now perhaps in more cleverly disguised forms-are still sometimes with A medical man in Dusseldorf ...claimed to have measured the us, and both MacCulloch's and Smith's entries are cited, for example, in the new weight of the human psyche. He placed the beds of his terminal pa­ Encyclopedia of Religion as "still useful, although dated." But the problems, tientson ultra sensitive scales and claimed that as they died he found surely, are more than simply chronological, and the language of abuse and stu­ thatthe needle dropped 21 grams. (MacGregor 1992, 16n. 1) pidity surely is only one part of a complex set of conceptual clutter that, like their "virtues," still clings to relics. We of course do not like this sort of thing much because it confounds our cate­ Without, of course, wanting to follow out their logical implications, both gories, but our preferences cannot-however humbling-prevent our sources MacCulloch and Smith, for example, "explain" the use of relics as the result of from saying what they do. Indian Buddhist sources-epigraphical, canonical, natural "affection" or "instinctive reverence": "reverence for the remains of the and learned; early and late-are all but unanimous that relics are, if you will dead or the treasuring of some of their more personal belongings is natural and pardon the etymological pun, animate. What is probably the earliest actually instinctive"; or it "is a natural exhibition of emotion." Since, again according to datable reference to a Buddhist relic occurs in what is known as the "Bajuar both, this natural and instinctive reverence invariably leads to abuse, superstition, Inscription of Menandros" (Schopen 1997, 126 and n. 49) and may be as early and fraud, we are invariably led to a rather unflatteringanthropology, and there as the second century B.C.E. Although it refers to what we now would call we sit. This unflatteringanthropology is also almost as invariably associated with the deposition of a "relic," it calls what we call a relic "the body of the Blessed

258 259 GREGORY SCHOPEN RELIC

One Sakyamuni which is endowed with life [literally, breath]" (prii1Jasametarp, the living, and the old Roman separation of the living and the dead was gone. sarirarp, bhagavatal? siikyamune/J). Oddly enough, however, the cognitive fact Sort of that relics were alive should, by necessity,also put them at risk: If relics lived they What has generally been presented as the breakdown of the Roman separation could also, it seems, die and -more importantly-be killed. This seemingly nec­ of the living and the dead effected by Ambrose and other Christian worthies has essary corollary is also found in Buddhist sources. First of all, the destruction of more recently been remodulated in an interesting way by Jill Harries. Harries a stiipa or monumental reliquary was ruled a particularly heinous crime and, (1992) argues that in regard to the common dead, there was initially no change when classified, it occurred alongside several other forms of murder. Probably at all: "Christian promoters of martyrs did not directly challenge assumptions the most dramatic example of the latter is recorded in a collection of rules for about the common dead" (59}. The separation here, at least initially, remained. monks belonging to the Miilasarvastivadin Order. What Christians succeeded in doing, she argues, was to change notions of A group of nuns had built a stiipa or monumental reliquary for the relics of a who was and who was not dead. They did not break down the separation but monk who had died, and had instituted a cult with regard to it. Another monk rather succeeded in shifting certain individuals from one category to another: came along and, thinking it was a stiipa of the Buddha, paid worship to it. When "Their point about the martyrs was that they were not dead at all; like Christ he was informed of the stiipa's "contents" he was furious-a rather unseemly they were historical people who had died as witnesses to their faith and were now state of mind for an arhat-tore the stiipa down, and threw the "bones" away. alive. Their relics therefore could not be classified among the remains of dead When they were told what had occurred, the nuns did not understand it as the people" (59). It was this shift and reclassificationthat Christians "had succeeded destruction of a structure but as the death of the monk whose relics had been in imposing on the world of Late Antiquity" (59). The separation here too still enshrined. They said, "Our brother is from today truly dead! (bdag cag gi ming remained. po deng gdod shi ba lta zhes ...) . " He had, it seems, been murdered (see Schopen Something like this reclassification seems already to have been narratively ar­ 1996). Similarly, in the much later Sri Lankan monastic chronicle called the ticulated in the Mahiiparinirvii1JaSiitra, the well-known early Buddhist canoni­ Ciilavarp,sa, a group of Tamil invaders is said to have wrecked image houses and cal text dealing with the death of the Buddha. There the Mallas, the people in monasteries, destroyed sacred books, and torn down reliquaries, destroying whose territory the Buddha had died, intend to carry the body "by the south relics that were "the veritable life of them" ( te�arp, jivitasarp,nibhe ...dhiitii and outside, to a spot on the south, and outside of the city." The gods, however, siiririke; Geiger 1953, vol. 1, 133). The similar actions of the opponents of have other ideas and the Mallas cannot lift the body. The gods want the body to Christian relics probably should also be read in this way. When Julian the be carried out "by the north �o the north of the city, and entering the city by the Apostate, for example, destroyed chapels containing the "bodies" of martyrs north gate, let us [the gods] bring it through the midst of the city into the midst or, more particularly, removed the "remains" of St. Babilas from his church and thereof. And going out again by the eastern gate ... to the east of the city ..." had them carried away in a wagon to a cemetery (Ricciotti 1959, 210-13), he (Rhys Davids and Rhys Davids 1910, 181). And so it is done. Although the was almost certainly attempting to kill him, if by no other means than by dump­ directional symbolism here remains obscure, one thing is certain: to carry a dead ing his remains unceremoniously in a wagon and relocating "him." The equa­ body into the city would have been unheard of. Indian notions of death pollu­ tion seems clear: that which is in a church or stiipa is alive; that which is dumped tion were, if anything, even stronger than Roman. The narrative fact that this in a cemetery or thrown away is dead. Relics, then, are definedas much by where was what the gods not only insisted on but effectedcan only mean, it seems, that they are located and what people do withthem as they are by what they physically this body was not-on divine authority-to be classifiedas dead. Here too there are. And this idea is only narratively rephrased in two dramatic events, one in is no breakdown of separation but a selective reclassificationusing old categories. Kusinara immediately after the death of the Buddha and one in Milan in 385 c.E. If Christian and Buddhist relics are defined by where they are put or allowed Although St. Ambrose was by no means the first churchman to take an active to enter, and by what people do in regard to them, they are also defined by what role in the relic cult, and although his translation of the newly discovered bodies is said about them. And here too the language used is sometimes hauntingly of the martyrs Gervasius and Protadius to his basilica "had thus failed to breach similar. Buddhist sources-again early and late, inscriptional and learned-talk the ultimate barrier," that is, the city walls (Harries 1992, 61), still "he had about sariras or dhiitus as, for example, "infused with morality, infused with been prepared both to move bodies and to link them decisively to the altar of a concentration, infused with wisdom," infused, in other words, with the three new church" (Brown 1981, 37). This move was-or more accurately has come things that define a living Buddha or saint. They are also described as "full of to symbolize-the crucial moment in what came to be a full-scale Christian re­ virtue" or "informed with universal benevolence" (see Schopen 1997, chap. 7). arrangement of Late Antique urban landscapes. Mter Ambrose, "dead" bodies Sometimes too the Buddha himself is described as "the Perfectly Enlightened came to be ever more commonly housed in urban churches in the very midst of One who is enclosed within the most excellent relic" (Schopen 1997, chap. 8);

260 261 GREGORY SCHOPEN RELIC or it is said that worship directed toward the relic is the same as worship directed situation is found in our Gallo-Romancities" (1981, 34). To these observations toward the living Buddha; or, finally, it is simply said that "when relics are pres­ should be added the more recent remarks of Yvette Duval: ent the Buddha is present." So very soon relics also attract the dead, and not just the holy For the language used by Christians in regard to their relics, we might simply tombs as in the first inhumations ad sanctos attested in Mrica and De laude sanctorum cite some examples from Victricius of Rouen's written at Italy: moreover the same terms-memoria, then reliquiae-desig­ the end of the fourth century. Victricius was a bishop speaking of relics he nate the "remains" whether they are the whole or a part of the body had just received. For example, he says that the saints "inhabit forever the Holy or just contact relics of the second degree .... [T]he dead are said to (semper sacratas reliquias possidetis), Relics" that "in these relics perfect grace be buried "near the martyrs" even when, after the 4th Century, only (in istis reliquiis perfectam esse gratiam perfectamque and virtue are contained" a little of their ashes or tiny relics are alone deposited under the altar uirtutem); and that "he who cures lives. He who lives is present in his relics" of the edifice that shelters the burial. It is necessary to emphasize, (qui uiuit, in reliquiis e$t) (Hillgarth 1986, 23-8; Mulders and Demeulenaere finally, that one also buried someone ad sanctos around places that 1985; cf. Bynum 1995, 106-8; for later conceptions of relics, see Delumeau were sanctifiedby the life (or the death) of the martyrsand saints, but 1989, 228-33). that had never contained their tombs or even their material relics ... In both traditions, then, the relic is or has virtue, grace, benevolence, and life. these places which were sanctified by only the presence of the mar­ It is also important to keep in mind that in both traditions virtue,grace, benevo­ tyrs and saints during their passage on this earth (loca sancta) and lence, and life are transmittable by touch or through less direct contact. In the were charged withtheir virtus. (Duval 1988, 56-7; cf. Bynum 1995, passage cited above fromGregory of Tours, we saw that a cloth that comes into 200-25) contact with St. Peter's tomb is soaked withdivine virtue, and much the same is said in the Georgian and Arabic versions of a text ascribed to John Moschos Duval also points out that burial ad sanctos was a "mass phenomenon," but (McCulloh 1976, 183-4). In the Buddhist case the transmission is sometimes also "a 'praxis' fully participated in by the highest authorities of the church." even articulated by a shadow. In the monastic code of the MiilasarvastivadinOr­ This is what the highest authorities did. It is not, however, what they talked der, for example, monks who are charged with sweeping the compound refuse about. Apart from stray references in literary sources, Augustine alone among to walk on the shadow cast by the stiipa, and in the SarvatathagatOfrJtfavi­ the church fathers wrote a small treatise-De cura pro mortuis gerenda, little jayadhararJ"i-a much later text-it is said that "those who are touched by the more than a long letter in response to a question by Paulinus ofNola who himself shadow of the stiipa, or sprinkled with its dust, will not go to an unfortunate had buried his own son near the saints of Aecola-dealing withthe problems this destiny" (Suzuki 1955-61, vol. 7, 173.3.1). Something moves from A to B and practice created. The De cura has been variously described. MacCulloch says the B, it seems, is the beneficiary even if, in at least one very important case, B is treatise was written "in support of the practice" (Hastings 1908-21, 657); supposed to be dead. Brown (1981) refers to it as a "clear answer." But neither seems to be entirely The case in point brings together, summarizes as it were, much of what we true. More than anything it seems to be hesitant, at times tortured. Augustine have already seen in regard to relics, but it does so in such a way as to make says, for example, "If ...supplications which are made with true faith and de­ problematic both their meaning and our typical approach to the study of reli­ votion for the dead should be lacking, there would be no advantage to their gion. The case concernswhat in the Latin West came to be called burial or depo­ souls, I think, however holy the places be in which their lifeless bodies are bur­ sition ad sanctos, "near to, by, close by, a saint." This practice produced a typical ied" (Lacy 1955, 359). But later he says, "This question as to how the martyrs archaeological configurationsuccinctly described by Philippe Aries: aid those who certainly are aided by them surpasses the powers of my intelli­ gence" (379). These latter sentiments are in fact something of a leitmotif run­ Over the saint's tomb a basilica would be built.... Christians ning throughout the work: "Somehow or other ..."" I might believe that this sought to be buried close to this structure. Diggings in the Roman is done by the workings of angels." "In what way such things happen I do not cities of Mrica or Spain reveal an extraordinary spectacle concealed know." "This question is so deep that I cannot comprehend it, and so complex by subsequent urban growth: piles of stone sarcophagi in disorder, as to defY all my efforts to scrutinize it successfully." Augustine here, perhaps one on top of the other, several layers high, especially around the uncharacteristically, is struggling. He has a problem, and so do we. walls of the apse, close to the shrine of the saint. (1974, 16, 17) Part of our problem is that Augustine's De cura is the only extended dis­ This, again according to Aries,"is what one findsin Tipasa, Hippo and Carthage. cussion that we have; and part of our problem is that-as in this case-the reli­ The spectacle is just as striking in Ampurias, in Catalonia ... [and] . . . the same gious elite, those who wrote for and of the tradition, did not always write about

262 263 GREGORY ScHOPEN RELIC what they and others did. We often know-again as in this case-what reli­ lectual UJ?.derstandings of what religion is. Since these understandings excluded "true," gious people did, not from learned treatises and official writings, but fromarche­ from the definition of what we would probably now refer to as "real," ology and epigraphy. It is on the basis of Christian archeological and epigraphic religion those things that people did, would it be surprising if those sources that sources that Duval "knew" that burial ad sanctos was a "mass phenomenon ... told us about such things were to be marginalized? (cf. Geary 1994, 30-45). fully participated in by the highest authorities of the Church," knew, in fact, All of this, and the meanings of relics and burial ad sanctos, might merely be what people did (see also Duval and Picard 1986). And here we have several considered a bizarre and long episode in the history of Christianity but for one more problems. thing: we have seen other religions-as indeed we only can-through our own that allow us to see at least something of what religious people eyes. And that has often meant that for a long time we might not have seen some Those sources , did are the same sources that until recently have not been allowed a fullvoice in things at all. the histories of religious traditions. We can track this slow and sometimes grudg­ When what was considered early Buddhist literature was first read, it con­ ing development in the historiography of Christianity, for example, in W. H. C. tained so little about disposal of the dead that it was almost assumed that Indian Frend's recently publishedArchaeology ofEarly Christianity (1996). Frend notes Buddhists did not do it. Buddhist scholastic literature also did not address the that Harnack, still a name to be reckoned with, used little archeological material question. Since Buddhism was identified as a religion, and since religion was by in his "monumental" Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den er­ then all but assumed to be located in texts, and especially sacred texts, this almost sten drei ]ahrhunderten, and says that Benjamin Kidd's History of the Church to clinched it. The fact that even very early archeological work at Buddhist sites A.D. 461, published in three volumes in 1922, "remains the last (if not also suggested otherwise counted for very little because, as in the Christian case, ar­ the greatest) history of the early Church that relied almost exclusively on patris­ cheological material could only show what Buddhists did, and it had already tic texts" (213-4). "Henceforth," Frend says, "no study of early Christianity been culturally decided in the West that that was at best marginal to "real" reli­ could afford to neglect the wealth of evidence from archaeology." The defini­ gion. Though the archeological evidenceconstantly increased, its admission into tiveness of this remark, however, is considerably blunted by others: "Even Hans the study oflndian Buddhism has been even slower and more grudging than in Lietzmann, archaeologist at heart though he was, kept closely to his literarytexts the case of the Christian West (see Schopen 1997, chap. 1). However, it too in the firsttwo volumes of his masterly Geschichte der Alten Kirche, published in revealed a typicaland repeated configuration,and it was almost exactly the same 1930 and 1936" (251). "The year 1961 had seen the first textbook designed as that found in Tipasa, Hippo, and Carthage, in Ampurias and Catalonia, and to correlate literary with archaeological remains .... his [M. Gough's] The in our Gallo-Roman cities. As ' Early Christians was a pioneering work, a pointer to future writing of early at Christian sites, so too at Buddhist sites the presence of a relic perma- Church history, which integrated literary and archaeological studies" (327). In nently housed in ever more elaborate stupas, or spots sanctified by the former fact, it is only in reference to work published in the 1970s and 1980s that Frend presence of the Buddha, also usually marked by a stupa, drew to themselves an can finally say "A rchaeology and literary studies are now seen as inextricably equally disorderly array of secondary deposits, several layers high, of mortuary linked" ( 362 ). remains. Though often poorly excavated, poorly reported, or both, there can be It is hard to believe that this long exclusion, and then the slow and grudging no doubt about the basic pattern. Whatremains unsure is the lower chronologi­ admittance of archeological and epigraphic sources into the study of Christianity, cal limit of the practice (although it appears to have been in full swing at early is completely unrelated to theological controversies within the tradition itself. sites like Saiki and common even in Sri Lanka in the first few centuries of Archeological and epigraphic sources tell us, after all, what people did, but this the Common Era) and its extent: it may have been far, far more common than was almost precisely what the Protestant reformers who were concerned with at first thought (see Schopen 1994). Although this pattern has only recently locating "true" religion in sacred texts were trying to exclude from their defini­ been brought into something like focus, it had not gone entirely unnoticed. tion of religion. What people did and had been doing was in fact a large part of C. Duroiselle, for example, had said long ago in speaking about Buddhist Burma the Protestant problem: what had "been practiced in some ages, and is now prac­ that the Burmese have "a curious custom, which is similar to that which is in ticed wherever Popery prevails," and what "have been admitted into the general vogue in Christian countries, of turningthe sacred precincts of a pagoda [stupaj belief and practice" (both from Calvin). Suffice it to say that the Protestant into a cemetery" (1915, 147). It is indeed curious and from several points position won and, although it has been diluted, residual, and secularized, "a of view. basically Whiggish and ultimately 'Protestant' view of things is still a potent in­ What we have bumped up against here are two religious traditions that dif­ fluence on our thinking" (Scarisbrick 1984, 1), and especially on Western intel- fer radically in formally expressed and "official" doctrine, in worldview and

264 265 GREGORY SCHOPEN RELIC orientation, and very largely in institutional organization. Still, they share similar theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee" (Gilman 1965, understandings of a relic and their sacred sites reveal the same archeologically 269). It may well be that many did just that, and so might we. determinable spatial configurationor distribution of mortuary deposits crowded around that permanently housed relic. What are we to make of this since in nei­ SUGGESTED READINGS ther tradition has the practice that produced these configurations been subjected to ernie exegesis, discussion, or rationalization. We can, I think, only describe in Aries, Philippe. 1974. �stern Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Ages to culturally specific terms, insofar as that is possible, what is there. But that itself the Present, translated by Patricia M. Ranum. turns out to be interesting. ---. 1981. TheHour of Our Death, translated by Helen Weaver. There is at the center or focal point of both configurations usually a relic or Bareau, Andre. 1960. "La Construction et le culte des stiipa d'apres les vina­ tomb or stupa. These are all considered to be or contain the holy person: "He yapitaka." Bulletinde !'ecole fr anyaise d'extreme-orient 50. who lives is present in his relics." "When relics are present the Buddha is pres­ Dooley, Eugene A. 19 31. Church Law on Sacred Relics. ent." The center is culturally alive, and it is permanently and architecturally Duval, Yvette. 1988. Aupres des saints corps et dme: L'inhumation ccad sanctos" located-it does not move. Its life is transmittable by contact, closeness, and dans la chretiente d'orient et d'occident du IIIe au VIle siecle. shadow. In both cases mortuary deposits are permanently and definitively placed Faure, Bernard. 1991. TheRhetoric ofImmediacy: A Cultural Critique of Chan/ within its range. They too do not move. In the Buddhist case, for example, mor­ Zen Buddhism. tuary remains are permanently-dare we say eternally-in the shadow of the Geary, Patrick J. 1978. Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages. presence of the Buddha. If the bones and ashes and broken bodies in these de­ ---. 1994. Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages. posits are also alive-and must they not be to be affected by the shadow-then Lacy, John A., trans. 1955. The Care to Be Taken fo r the Dead. Vol. 27 in The we have a materially constructed, articulated, and assured permanent state of, if Fathers of the Church, edited by Roy J. Deferrari. not "salvation," then heaven or paradise: the conventionally dead have been per­ Schopen, Gregory. 1994. "Ritual Rights and Bones of Contention: More on manently placed in the presence of the Holy. Monastic Funerals and Relics in the MUlasarviistiviida-vinaya."Journal of Duval in her important study has come close to these kinds of conclusions. Indian Philosophy 22. She has suggested that burial ad sanctos "is evidently based on the certitude ---. 1994. "Stiipa and Ti:rtha: Tibetan Mortuary Practices and an Unrec­ that the dead body is not entirely exanimum [dead], it has been 'in-formed', ognized Form of Burial Ad Sanctos at Buddhist Sites in India." In The modeled by the soul which during its lifetime had given it form, and after death Buddhist Forum. Vol. 3', 1991-1993, edited by Tadeusz Skorupski. it guards the imprint of its soul (vestigia animae suae)." "One is here," she says, ---. 1997. Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Ar­ "far from the doctrine hammered out by Augustine" (xl), but that is another chaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts ofMonastic Buddhism in India. matter. She also says in regard to the "themes" expressed in Christian epitaphs that "One sees without going further, that these themes, certainly tied to the material situation of the tomb and the relics nearby have a resonance that is REFERENCES above all spiritual; they refer to the links in the hereafter which are prefiguredby Aries, Philippe. 197 4. *stern Attitudes toward Death: From the Middle Agesto the Present, translated burial ad sanctosand which, by so doing, it favors" (134). We need only add that by Patricia M. Ranum. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress. in the mind of the believer, burial ad sanctos may not simply favor it. It may --. 1981. The Hour of our Death, translated by Helen Weaver. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. effectit. Bareau, Andre. 1960. "La Construction et le culte des stiipa d'apres les vinayapitaka." Bulletin de And what of the fact that all of this would seem to fly in the face of formal !'ecole franraise d'extrtme-orient 50. Beveridge, Henty, trans. 1884. Tracts Relating to the Reformation, by John Calvin. Edinburgh: doctrine, both Buddhist and Christian? It may well be that scholars of religion Calvin Translation Society. have not yet sufficiently distinguished formal doctrine from belie£ In may well Brown, Peter. 1981. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Chicago: be that large numbers of religious men and women knew little and cared much University of Chicago Press. less for formal doctrine than have modern scholars. It may well be that religious Bynum, Caroline Walker. 1995. TheResurrection of the Body in *stern Christianity, 200-1336. New women and men-even those who did not know they had a metaphysics-fol­ York: Columbia University Press. Delumeau, Jean. 1989. Rassurer et proteger:Le Sentiment de securite dans !'occident d'autrefois. Paris: lowed Emerson's suggestion: "In your metaphysics you have denied personality Fayard. to the Deity: yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them Duroiselle, C. 1915. "Excavations at Hmawza, Prome." Annual Report of the Archaeological Survey heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. Leave your of India for 1911-1912. Calcutta: Government oflndia.

266 267 GREGORY SCHOPEN FIFTEEN

Duval, Yvette. 1988. Aupres des saints corps et dme: L>inhumation «ad sanctos" dans la chretiente d>orient et d>occident du IIIe au VIle siecle. Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes. Religion) Religions) Religious Duval, Yvette, and J.-Ch. Picard, eds. 1986. VInhumation privilegiee duM au VIIIe siecle en occi­ dent. Paris: De Boccard. Eire, Carlos M. N. 1986. War against the Idols: TheReformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jonathan Z. Smith Freud, William H. C. 1996. The Archaeology of Early Christianity: A History. Minneapolis: For­ tress Press. Geary, Patrick J. 1994. Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages. Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press. n the second earliest account of the "New World" published in English, A Geiger, Wilhelm, trans. 1953. Ciilavart�sa: Being the More Recent Part of the Mahiivart�sa. Colombo: Treatyse ofthe Newe India (1553), Richard Eden wrote of the natives of the . . Ceylon GovernmentInformation Department. I Canary Islands that, "At Columbus first comming thether, the inhabitantes Gilman, W. H., ed. 1965. Selected Writings ofRalph Waldo Emerson. New York: Penguin Group. went naked, without shame, religion or knowledge of God." In the same year, Harries, Jill. 1992. "Death and the Dead in the Late Ro man West." In Death in Towns: Urban Responses to the Dying and the Dead> edited by Steven Bassett. London: Leicester Univer­ toward the beginning of the first part of his massive Cr6nica del Peru (15 53), sity Press. the conquistador historian Pedro Cieza de Leon described the north Andean Hastings, James. 1908-21. Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics. Edinburgh: Clark. indigenous peoples as "observing no religion at all, as we understand it (no ... Hillgarth, J. N. 1986. Christianity and Paganism, 350-750: The Conversion of R-rstern Europe. religion a!guna, a lo que entendemos), nor is there any house of worship to be Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. found." While both were factually incorrect, their formulations bear witness to Lacy, John A. , trans. 1955. The Care to Be Taken for the Dead. Vol. 27 of The Fathers of the Church, edited by Ro y J. Deferrari. New York: Fathers of the Church. the major expansion of the use and understanding of the term "religion" that MacGregor, Geddes. 1992. Images of Afterlife: Belieft from Antiquity to Modern Times. New York: began in the sixteenth century and anticipate some of the continuing issues Paragon House. raised by that expansion: ( 1) "Religion" is not a native category.It is not a first McCulloh, John M. 1976. "The Cult of Relics in the Letters and 'Dialogues' of Pope Gregory the person term of self-characterization. It is a category imposed from the outside Great: A Lexicographical Study." Traditio 32. on some aspect of native culture. It is the other, in these instances colonialists, Mulders, I., and R. Demeulenaere, eds. 1985. Victricii Rotomagensis: De Laude Sanctorum. In Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina 64. Turnhout: Brepols. who are solely responsible for the content of the term. (2) Even in these early Rhys Davids, T. W., and C. A. F. Rhys Davids. 1910. Dialogues of the Buddha, part 2. London: formulations, there is an implicit universality."Religion" is thought to be a ubiq­ H.Frowde. uitous human phenomenon; therefore, both Eden and Cieza find its alleged ab­ Ricciotti, Giuseppe. 1959. Julian the Apostate, translated by M. Joseph Costelloe. Milwaukee: Bruce. sence noteworthy. (3) In c;onstructing the second-order, generic category "reli­ Scarisbrick, J. J. 1984. TheReformation and the English People. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. gion," its characteristics are those that appear natural to the other. In thes� Schopen, Gregory. 1994. "Stilpa and Tirtha: Tibetan Mortuary Practices and an UnrecognizedForm of Burial Ad Sanctos at Buddhist Sites in India." In The Buddhist Forum. Vol. 3, 1991-1993, quotations this familiarity is signaled by the phrases "knowledge of God" and edited by Tadeusz Skorupski. London: School of Oriental and Mrican Studies. "religion ... as we understand it." (4) "Religion" is an anthropological not a --. 1996. "The Suppression ofNuns and the Ritual Murderof Their Special Dead in Two Bud­ theological category. (Perhaps the only exception is the distinctively American dhist Monastic Texts." Journal of Indian Philosophy 24. nineteenth-century coinages, "to get religion" or "to experience religion.") It --. 1997. Bones, Stones, and BuddhistMonks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and describes human thought and action, most frequently in terms of belief and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Suzuki,D. T. , ed. 1955-61. The Tibetan Tripitaka. Peking Edition. Kyoto: Otani University. norms of behavior. Eden understands the content of "religion" largely in the Van Dam, Raymond, trans. 1988. Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs. Liverpool: Liverpool Uni­ former sense ("without ... religion or knowledge of God"), whereas Cieza ar­ versity Press. ticulates it in the latter ("no religion ...nor ...any house of worship"). The term "religion" has had a long history, much of it, prior to the sixteenth century, irrelevant to contemporary usage.Its etymology is uncertain, although one of the three current possibilities, that it stems from the root * leig meaning "to bind" rather than from roots meaning "to reread" or "to be careful," has been the subject of considerable Christian homiletic expansion from Lactantius's Divine Institutes (early fourth century) and Augustine's On True Religion (early fifth century) to WilliamCamden's Britannia (1586). In both Roman and early Christian Latin usage, the noun forms religio/ religiones and, most especially, the adjectival religiosus and the adverbial religiose were cultic terms referring primar­ ily to the careful performance of ritual obligations. This sense survives in the

268 269