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The Gift of the Eye. Mortuary Ritual Performed by the Jadopatias in The The Gift Of The Eye Mortuary ritual performed by the J¤dopa·i¤s in the Santal villages of Bengal and Bihar, India By Hans Hadders Bashudev Chitrakar describes the creation of the chitrakar: “When the elder son of Pilchu Haram and Pilchu Buri died, his parents cried a lot. The god Sin Bonga came and told them not to cry because he would do something for them. He created the first chitrakar from a ball of dirt from his forehead. The chitrakar asked: why did you create me? Then god said: I created the chitrakar because the son of Pilchu Haram and Pilchu Buri has died, you shall go there, you shall make a representation, a picture, chitra , of the son and you shall take the salary, dan . The chitrakar told him: I shall take the salary, but to what sign shall the parent recognise him? You shall do a mark on his forehead, with a ball of rice grains - And how shall I make the eyes that give life (Beng. chakshudan )? The god then gave him a pencil to paint the eyes”. (Faivre 1979:119) i PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In North-eastern India there exist a group of scroll painters and performers known as J¤dopa·i¤s . They occur in West Bengal as well as in the bordering areas of Bihar. These male performers are of Bengali origin but operate mainly in the Santal villages where they show their scrolls in return for rice. The Santals belong to one of the many indigenous populations that inhabit the Indian Subcontinent. They number approximately 5 million people and are scattered throughout the North Indian subcontinent, including Nepal and Bangladesh. The Santals speak Santali, a language that belongs to an Austro- Asiatic language family (Gautam 1998:14). The J¤dopa·i¤s generally live in the outskirts of the Santal village, or in close proximity to it. Their mother tongue is Bengali or Hindi, but they speak Santali with great ease. The J¤dopa·i¤ s also have another source of income, a ritual service rendered in return for rice, as well other items and money. They eagerly await the news of any death that may have occurred in a Santal household. Some time later they visit that house and perform a mortuary ritual known as cokhod¤n 1. One of the central events of this ritual performance, is the bestowal of eyesight to a pictorial representation of the deceased person. This picture is about the size of a hand. During the ritual invocations uttered by the J¤dopa·i¤ he puts a dot, representing the iris of the eye, in the blank eye space, with a pen. At the bottom of this picture are some representations of the remuneration that the J¤dopa·i¤ expects for his service. With the help of these actions the J¤dopa·i¤ claims to be able to assist the blind soul of the deceased person and render it a safe journey to heaven. These and other ritual doings of the J¤dopa·i¤ are firmly planted in the religious world-view and ritual context of the Santal as well as Hindu society. However, this ritual event is not a compulsory part of the Santal funeral ritual cycle. When the J¤dopa·i¤ describes his practice and his role as a funerary priest, he borrows categories from the Hindu context and glosses his role with these categories. The J¤dopa·i¤ calls himself the purohit , agradan¯ or Brahman of the Santal. He compares cokhod¤n, and the gifts he receives from the Santals for performing the funerary service, with the gift ( d¤n ) given to the Hindu funerary priest. How is it then that the Santal generally accepts the J¤dopa·i¤s visit , and complies with the J¤dopa·i¤'s demands when he performs his mortuary ritual act? Are the relationship between the J¤dopa·i¤s and the Santals a parasitic one, rather than one of symbiosis? Many authors have described the J¤dopa·i¤'s practice as sheer exploitation of the Santal. W.G. Archer has 1 In this work cokhod¤n is not transcribed 'cak¿ud¤n' , which is the way it would be transcribed following the "sanskritised" manner. The reason for this is that I want to stay closer to the colloquial pronunciation of my informants. iii Preface and Acknowledgements characterised the J¤dopa·i¤'s role in the funeral context by calling him a funerary beggar (Archer 1974:335). J. B. Faivre relates how the J¤dopa·i¤s try to impress and even threaten the Santal (Faivre 1979:111). Rosita de Selva focuses on the manipulatory aspects of cokhod¤n (de Selva 1994). I can see the validity of all these views. However, in my exposition of cokhod¤n I want to paint a broader picture of the J¤dopa·i¤ and the mortuary ritual event in the light of a variety of contexts. My account will contain the voices of J¤dopa·i¤s as well as Santals. The discourses of the J¤dopa·i¤s themselves will be contrasted with the various descriptions of cokhod¤n related to me by the Santals. I will describe the actual ritual, as I have been able to see it “in situ” along with the invocations of the J¤dopa·i¤ that I have tape-recorded at the time. Many people, academic and non-academic, have assisted me in my endeavour to produce this thesis (originally submitted for a Cand. Polit. degree). I am greatly indebted to all of them. First, I want to express warm gratitude to my supervisor, Solrun Williksen at the Department of Social Anthropology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Particular thanks are due to my wife who have given me limitless encouragement and borne patiently with my many periods of absence. Many of my fellow students have helped me along the way. Among them, Øyvind Eikrem has proved himself a persistent reader, and Petter Grytten Almklov has functioned as a tireless combatant in many inspired discussions. Philippe Mainçon has undertaken the Herculean task of translating a number of French articles. Philippe and his wife Annette have also read through drafts of my manuscripts and supplied me with helpful criticisms. Lipi Biswas and Bidyut Roy have generously shared their time and knowledge with me. Lipi and her Santal friends has been a great help when it comes to the Santali translations that appear in this thesis. The staff at the NGO I.M.S.E showed me great hospitality at the time of my visits to Santal Parganas. Harald Tambs-Lyche and Marine Carrin have generously involved themselves in lengthy discussions that have been fruitful for me. Others who have offered encouragement, generous assistance and inspiration include, Arild Englsen Ruud, Jeanne Openshaw, Shakti Nath Jha, Ranjit Bhattacharya, Kumkum Bhattacharya, Pulak Dutta, Daniel Rycroft, Peter Andersen, Santosh Soren, and Lise Bjerkan. Andreas Granberg have kindly helped me to download the diacritical marks needed for the Bengali transcriptions and Antarin Chakrabarty have assisted me with these transcriptions. I would also like to express my gratitude to; ‘The institute of comparative cultural studies’, for financial aid granted for my fieldwork, the Swedish Government for the financial support through my last three terms, the Centre for Environment and Development (NTNU Dragvoll) for supplying me with an office and a computer, the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies for granting me a ‘Contact Scholarship’, and the library staff at Dragvoll, NTNU for their faithful and excellent service. iv Preface and Acknowledgements Last but not the least I convey my hearty gratitude to all the J¤dopa·i¤s and the Santals who have shared so generously of their time and information. The warm recollections of the time spent with Budhesvar Citrakar will always be with me. I am very grateful to his family for the kind hospitality they showed me during my stay in their village. Transliteration and translation The standard system of transliterating the Bengali language, as exemplified by Andersen (1962), has been followed with minor modifications. ‘V/b’ is written ‘b’ when thus pronounced in the Bengali, and ‘v’ when not. Where other authors are cited, the diacritical mark system (or lack of it) of these authors are reproduced. When it concerns words that are common in Indological literature and in works on Hinduism, I have followed the conventions common in most of these works, rather than taxing the text with meticulous transcriptions. Indian words appearing in the text are 'pluralised' in the English manner by adding an ‘s’. When it concerns the Santali words that appear in the text I have been less consistent, partially due to lack (on my word processor) of the diacritical marks needed to follow the conventions of authors like Bodding and Campbell. Philippe Mainçon has undertaken all translations from French. Lipi Biswas has done the translations from Santali with the help of Santal friends from the village Baner Pukhur Da³ga . Santosh Soren has also contributed with clarifications in some cases. Except where otherwise stated, quotations are from my recordings or my field notes. The author has undertaken the translations from the Bengali. The author has taken all the photographs that appear in this work. Budhesvar Citrakar made the painting on the cover. The chapters 1 and 2 of this book will appear as separate articles in a different form. v CONTENTS PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.......................................................... III CONTENTS ............................................................................................................VII ILLUSTRATIONS...................................................................................................IX 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Plunging into the field.................................................................................. 1 2 BACKGROUND .................................................................................................. 9 2.1 The Santals................................................................................................... 9 2.2 Scroll painters in ancient India..................................................................
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