Hybrid Mysticism: the Journey to Enlightenment in the Works of Sir Richard Burton and Rudyard Kipling

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2016 Hybrid Mysticism: The Journey to Enlightenment in the Works of Sir Richard Burton and Rudyard Kipling

Rahim, Sheba Aniqua

Rahim, S. A. (2016). Hybrid Mysticism: The Journey to Enlightenment in the Works of Sir Richard Burton and Rudyard Kipling (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26400 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/3231 doctoral thesis

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Hybrid Mysticism: The Journey to Enlightenment in the Works of Sir Richard Burton and

Rudyard Kipling

Sheba Aniqua Rahim

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN ENGLISH

CALGARY, ALBERTA

AUGUST, 2016

This dissertation examines the significance of the themes of hybridity and enlightenment in select works by Sir Richard Burton and Rudyard Kipling. The thesis proposes that a more sustained examination be given to the spiritual and religious elements of Kipling’s and Burton’s works. This thesis establishes the importance of identifying and interpreting the uniquely wrought mystical treatises that are present in the following works by Kipling and Burton: The Jungle

Book (1893-95), Kim (1901), Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and

Meccah (1855-56), Stone Talk (1865), and The Kasidah (1880).

The chapters discuss how the authors’ esoteric faith systems—with attention to Burton’s allegiance to Sufism and Kipling’s ties to Freemasonry—inform and give rise to the trope of the hybrid trickster/god in their respective works. For Kipling and Burton, the specific figure of the hybrid hero—as the disruptor of boundaries—is a recurring emblem that serves to interrogate, articulate, and define the elusive concept of “enlightenment.”

By tracing the deployment of hybridity in the works of Burton and Kipling, it is argued that there are striking parallels between the two writers’ use of and reliance on the hybrid trickster/god figure to examine the mystical themes of unity, universality, and “oneness.” In striving to define “enlightenment,” both veer away often from Western models of reason and rationalism to weave rich and complex narratives that draw upon Eastern conceptual models depicting syncretism and the worlds of spirit, myth, magic, and lore.

ii Acknowledgements

Dr. Shaobo Xie: I am truly grateful for your generosity and meticulous supervision. It has been an honor having you as a supervisor and learning from you. I am thankful also for the support of the English Department at the University of Calgary. Dr. Pamela McCallum: your encouragement and feedback have been invaluable.

A special thank you to my colleagues from the Department of General Education at Mount

Royal University. Dr. Karim Dharamsi and Dr. Allison Dube: I would not have reached this point without your wisdom. To my dear students: you have enriched my life and your love and enthusiasm for literature inspired me to reach this point of completion. Jessica Yu: our lively conversations and moments of contemplation will not be forgotten.

Thank you, Samantha Orthlieb, for all that you have shown me. Kelly Schwab: I express much gratitude for the love and kindess that you have shown me during the final phase of writing.

Mrs. Ruby Ramraj: this thesis is the result of a promise I made to you. To all who have supported me in life and opened me to other ways of knowing, thank you!

Finally, I am forever grateful to my parents, Munna and Manjoor Rahim, for the love, encouragement, and support. My passion for books and learning started with you!

iii Dedication

To the memory of Dr. Victor J. Ramraj—the man who showed the way.

iv Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii Acknowledgements ...... iii Dedication ...... iv Table of Contents ...... v

CHAPTER 1 THE SHAPING OF HYBRID DISCOURSE IN THE WORKS OF SIR RICHARD BURTON AND RUDYARD KIPLING: AN INTRODUCTION...... 1

CHAPTER 2 MAGIC, EDUCATION, AND RELIGIOUS SYNCRETISM AND THE SHAPING OF KIM’S HYBRIDITY: AN EXAMINATION OF THE EARLY TO MIDDLE CHAPTERS OF KIM ...... 44

CHAPTER 3 JOURNEY TO ENLIGHTENMENT: “UNITY WITHIN MULTIPLICITY” IN KIPLING’S KIM ...... 121

CHAPTER 4 “WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?” HYBRIDITY AND THE TRICKSTER GOD IN KIPLING’S THE JUNGLE BOOK ...... 185

CHAPTER 5 PILGRIMAGE TO MECCA: HYBRIDITY AND BURTON’S JOURNEY TO ENLIGHTENMENT ...... 251

CHAPTER 6 STONE TALK AND THE KASIDAH: “UNITY WITHIN MULTIPLICITY” AND BURTON’S ENLIGHTENED POETICS OF TRUTH ...... 302

CHAPTER 7 TRACING THE ARC OF HYBRID DISCOURSE: A CONCLUSION ..343

WORKS CITED ...... 357

CHAPTER 1

The Shaping of Hybrid Discourse in the Works of Sir Richard Burton

and Rudyard Kipling: An Introduction

I have dedicated my research to an examination of hybridity in selected works by Sir

Richard Burton (1821-1890) and Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)—two famous Victorian writers who have left indelible marks on contemporary literary consciousness. Kipling and Richard Burton are two English colonial figures who, at first glance, bear little resemblance. For his masterful works of prose and poetry, Poet Laureate Kipling is lauded by many for having captured the exquisite beauty, complexity, and diversity of the world. Burton is remembered often as a powerful and misunderstood figure whose interests were at times considered salacious, brash, and offensive to Victorian sensibilities regarding race, sexuality, gender, and religion, politics, and more. My interest and devotion to the study of their works stem originally from a fascination regarding their enigmatic and ambiguous portrayal of hybridity. I began my journey researching these figures by simply asking: what is the function of hybridity in their works and why are their portrayals of this notion conceived of similarly? Furthermore, I noted that the concept of hybridity was intriguingly explored through multiple and recurring depictions of the emblem of the trickster hybrid god in their select writings. In addressing these fundamental questions, I am led to assert that this specific emblem of hybridity—the trickster hybrid god—represents not only the art of boundary transgression, but more importantly, the manifestation of a singular subjectivity that enables the achievement of enlightenment for their featured heroic characters.

Harold Scheub defines “[t]he trickster . . . [as] outrageous. Humans move from one state to another, but the trickster’s is the liminal state, the state of betwixt and between. Trickster is

undifferentiated energy, ungovernable” (6). Further, he speaks distinctly of the importance of “the trickster moment” (3) and how “during that moment, we are out of ourselves. We are broken into parts: we are man and woman, god and human, hero and villain; all of the possibilities of life. . . .

We are taken apart and rebuilt. It is for that reason that the moment revitalizes us, freshens us” (3).

He explains further on the interconnections between the hero and the trickster:

The trickster and the hero seem to stand on either side of the . . . [main] character,

the one his shameful origins, the other his glimmering vision. . . . The seemingly

antithetical characters are not at all contraries. . . . [T]he hero and the trickster are

the most durable of storytelling figures, ancient, unchanging, adapting to

contemporary realities but ever the same. (12)

I my work, I refer to trickster hybrid god as the term that captures best the ambiguous character/figure that appears in Kipling and Burton’s works to explore issues of race, culture, and religion through shapeshifting and assuming the guises of others (with the intent to discover new possibilities of identity). In a way, I argue that a specific mythical character or symbol appears in the works of both writers who serves to question, at times, dominant ideas of racial superiority, and shape awareness. As Scheub puts it:

Myth is not myth until the meaningfulness necessary to the shaping of human

experience is achieved. [Myth creates symbols that] reorder it and in the reordering

provide it with fresh meaning—this organization does not take place without

something emerging from the very act of arranging. Images are brought together,

and in the bringing together of those images experience is altered. (14)

I suggest that the hybrid trickster god in my writers’ works is a symbol that attempts to interject in existing discussions of race, difference, and hybridity.

Paul Young notes on early conceptions of the term: “A hybrid is defined by Webster in

1828 as ‘a mongrel or mule; an animal or plant, produced from the mixture of two species.’ Its first recorded use in the nineteenth century to denote the crossing of people of different races is given in the OED as 1861” (Young 6). He further informs that: “From the 1840s onwards, the question of species, and therefore of hybridity, was always placed at the centre of discussions and was consistently and comprehensively treated” (7). In our globalized, digitalized, and postmodern world, the term appears in multiple manifestations to denote the (promising) state of

“inbetweenity.” Historically associated with agriculture and human genetics, increasingly, the term appears with relation to science and technology, marketing and media, the arts, literature, philosophy and more. As Young points out during the eighteenth century the sustainability and fertility of “hybrid organisms” (7-8) were brought to question; however, the interest in hybrid states grew with the promise of yielding more tenacious, sturdy, and resilient attributes in organisms that are not present in their non-hybrid counterparts.

For Young, questions around race, unity, and hybridity were brought to the fore often during the Victorian period and earlier and as he notes regarding the Age of Enlightenment:

The question of humans being one species or many, and the attendant importance

of hybridity, though often mentioned in passing was for many years generally

regarded as more or less settled in favor of a consensus that they were one. The

Enlightenment humanitarian ideals of universality, sameness and equality reigned

supreme. (8)

However, the growth of the slave trade and Europe’s growing overseas empires and imperial interests led to changing discourse around race and equality and led to the rise of ideologies that maintained belief in the divide and separation between the races of humankind. Young pinpoints

how “[b]y the 1850s the Enlightenment ethos of the universal sameness and quality of humanity was being increasingly ridiculed as the evident diversity of human societies became ever more apparent” (47). Writers of fiction too became imbricated in the debate around racial unity or separation. Exploring figures such as Joseph Arthur de Gobineau and James Prichard, Young describes the great variance in perspectives regarding race in Europe and how there were some who were proponents of

the amalgamation thesis: the claim that all humans can interbreed prolifically and

in an unlimited way; sometimes accompanied by the ‘melting-pot’ notion that the

mixing of people produces a new mixed race, with merged but distinct new physical

and moral characteristics. . . . (18)

Conversely, those professing belief in the “polygenist species argument: [believed in] the denial that different people can mix at all” (Young 18), presented hybridity as an anomalous state where the individuals are characterized as freaks of nature, destined to perish without creating progeny.

The importance of matters of race during the Victorian period can be understood through reference to a few key works. Robert Knox (1791-1862) contends in The Races of Men (1850) that his lectures are designed entirely “to show that in human history race is everything” (10).

Qualifying this view, he expresses that race is the defining feature of all aspects of human history for “literature, science, art . . . civilization, depend on it” (7). Knox contributes to a broader cultural debate around theories of race by stating: “That the idea of distinct species and of race is fast passing away from the human mind, may, or may not be true; the old doctrine has been deeply shaken; still species and race exist for us” (34). In this work, he offers detailed essentialist accounts of race and inventories of racial attributes (moral and physical) while also seemingly critiquing the validity of colonialism and the subjugation of groups based on racial difference. For example, he

speaks scathingly of the motives underlying “the English invasion of Hindostan,” (11) explaining that “[a] profitable war is a pleasant thing for a Saxon nation; and a crusade against the heathen has always been praiseworthy” (11). Moments of contradiction and ambivalence in his writing regarding race are manifold; he falls back at times to an appeal to the mysterious, inexplicable nature of human origins that seem at odds with his authoritative voice regarding the scientific underpinnings of racial diversity. Unsurprisingly, Knox devotes some attention to the study of hybridity and the “admixture” (53) of race and proposes that “Nature produces no mules; no hybrids, neither in man nor animals. When they accidentally appear they soon cease to be, for they are either non-productive, or one or other of the pure breeds speedily predominates, and the weaker disappears” (52). The suggestion here is that hybridity is an unnatural state and cannot sustain itself. My study explores Kipling’s and Burton’s own speculations about hybridity as a privileged space within key texts and as such, may provide insight regarding portrayals of race that arose from the cultural, social, and scientific climate of the era.

It is important to take into account the history of perspectives regarding hybridity so that we may situate Kipling and Burton within the trajectory of time and changing views. Speaking further of the complexities and perspectives issuing from the Age of Enlightenment and the emergence of European modernity, Young observes:

While on the one hand civilization, especially in France, marks the triumph of

modernity, in which the modern world was for the first time confident enough to

set itself up as equal or better than antiquity, at the same time European explorations

of other worlds had demonstrated the potential relativity of European culture and

values, and opened up the possibility of a critical relation to its prevailing ideology.

(36)

Young moves on to explain how literary figures used the non-western world as contrast points to their own and how imaginative explorations of the world at large helped launch criticisms of the

Western world:

The Enlightenment enthusiasm for other cultures, mostly imperial ones, such as

India, China, Persia or ancient Egypt and Rome, provided a means of achieving a

cultural distance from which a writer such as Montesquieu, or Swift, could

construct an ideological critique of contemporary Europe. Romantic writers after

Rousseau turned to primitive or popular culture for the ground of their ideological

interrogation of European civilization, and this represents the first signs of a turning

inward of European civilization, of the exploitation of an inner division in which it

began to be set against itself. (37)

Many seventeenth and eighteenth century thinkers continued with this line of reasoning. Young specifically examines the theory of German philosopher Johann Herder (1744-1803) and writes:

In his Outlines of a Philosophy of the History of Man (1784-91), Herder provided

a genetic, universal history of culture . . . which traces the cultural origins of man

back to the very beginnings of recoded history and emphasizes the extent to which

different cultures have contributed knowledge and technology that have been

subsequently utilized by later ones. (37)

In Reflections of the Philosophy of the History of Mankind, Herder alludes to the idea of unity within diversity by stating that “every man is ultimately a world, in external appearance indeed similar to others, but internally an individual being, with whom no other coincides” (Herder 4). In many ways, this text—while not entirely devoid of racist positions—is a celebration of the richness of the diverse traditions of the world. In eloquent terms, Herder speaks of the human as the

“wanderer upon Earth, the transient ephemeron” who “builds up and destroys, improves and alters forms” (5). Moreover, he expresses: “all mankind are only one and the same species” (5) and that

“the whole species is one continued metamorphosis” (Herder 4). He enjoins his readers to discard their prejudices: “O man, honour thyself. . . the American and the Negro are . . . men, like thee”

(Herder 7), adding that “all are at last but shades of the same great picture . . . [scattered] over all parts of the Earth” (Herder 7). One sees a specific intention outlined in his work: that of the desire to find and promote vehicles of expression that emphasize human commonality over difference.

He expresses further that “we are ductile clay in the hand of Climate; but her fingers mould so variously, and the laws, that counteract them, are so numerous, that perhaps the genius of mankind alone is capable of combining the relations of all these powers in one whole” (Herder 15). While appearing partly as a totalizing vision, Herder also identifies here that certain difficulties emerge in the endeavor to honor and acknowledge the unity of humankind and that human desire, creativity, and volition can lead to the fulfillment of this drive. I argue that Victorian authors such as Burton and Kipling share this form of inquiry and (partially) this vision; indeed, Herder asks a question that I will soon trace to be one that leads my chosen authors to a field of exploration that

I define as "hybrid mysticism": “Thus we wander over the Earth in a labyrinth of human fancies: but the question is; where is the central point of the labyrinth, to which all our wanderings may be traced, as refracted rays to the Sun?” (Herder 49).

It is clear that Herder finely observed the interconnections and cross-pollination that occurred between civilizations and cultures. He openly sought to “qualify European claims to superiority” (Young 37) and launched an “attack on ethnocentrism” (Young 38) through this work.

Importantly, Young cites direct lines from Herder to invoke the following compelling image, an image that I argue is conceived of also by Burton and Kipling: “Mankind . . . were to be from their

origin a brotherly race, of one blood, and formed by one guiding tradition; and thus the whole arose, as each individual family now rises, branches from one stem, plants from one primitive nursery” (qtd. in Young 38). One observes the variance of thought and the diametrically opposed views that co-existed during this period which advocated for the “natural hierarchy” of humankind and the natural separation between the races. Within Kipling’s and Burton’s works, we see at times an uneasy dissonance and divisiveness regarding the topic of race, perhaps reflecting the broader discussions circulating within society of their times.

In Taming Cannibals: Race and the Victorians (2011) Patrick Brantlinger contends that

“[a]s numerous scholars have shown, moreover, scientific racism did not emerge with the ‘new imperialism’ in the 1880s or even with controversies over slavery in the West Indies and the

American South. It emerged instead during the Enlightenment” (Bratlinger 3). He further explains:

“In the 1700s, natural historians such as J.F. Blumenbach began to place human varieties and races in hierarchies along with other organisms; the white race always came out on top” (4). Bratlinger also observes that it was after the publication of Darwin’s theories on evolution that the term

“backward races” became popular during the Victorian period (5). He suggests that “[i]t is only since World War II that hierarchical distinctions based on race have been widely regarded as irrational and stereotypic. Nor has racism disappeared from any modern Western society, but is instead deeply embedded in many of the institutional structures” (10). Indeed, “[f]rom the outset of the modern era in the 1400s, racism has been the discursive or ideological supplement of both nationalism and imperialism” (Bratlinger 11). I would like to highlight in this study Kipling’s and

Burton’s moments of grappling with scientific racism through deployment of the image of the trickster-god, a figure that in specific moments brings to question the legitimacy of the colonial enterprise.

A figure who left a great mark on the topic of race during Victorian times is Charles

Darwin. As Spencer Wells states, Darwin’s age saw a change where instead of religious doctrines,

“Science was leading the way into a brave new world” (4). Contrary to popular thought, Wells observes that Darwin’s writings reflect a firm belief in human commonality:

To Darwin, writing before the acceptance of this codified definition [of species],

there nonetheless seemed to be no question as to the commonality of humanity. His

abolitionist call as the end of the Voyage was heart-felt, as slavery had recently been

outlawed in Britain, and the debate still raged in the United States and elsewhere.

(8)

He adds too that “Darwin was not a ‘hard racist. He was prone to trivial biases as the next person, but from his few statements on the subject, we can infer that he believed humanity to be largely equivalent in terms of its biological potential. This was not true for many of his adherents” (Wells

11). Opposing schools of thought existed and the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus helped establish nomenclature that concretized a distinct hierarchy of race (Young 8). It is clear that not all Victorians held the uniform views of racial and cultural superiority. In my study, I locate

Burton’s and Kipling’s positions on culture and race within this spectrum of viewpoints suggesting that they at times align with figures who favored a more fluid view of race. Through my research,

I suggest readers to see the many faces of Victorian writers such as Kipling and Burton and to see how their works carry at times, albeit in a latent manner, a compelling message regarding the unity of humankind.

Young speaks also of Europe’s uneasy relationship with the notions of race and unity, suggesting that in discussions on these matters:

the races and their intermixture circulate around an ambivalent axis of desire and

aversion: a structure of attraction, where people and cultures intermix and merge,

transforming themselves as a result, and a structure of repulsion, where the different

elements remain distinct and are set against each other dialogically. The idea of

race . . . shows itself to be profoundly dialectical. (19)

My interest in the works of Burton and Kipling grew as I saw the expression of a similar tension regarding race and hybridity permeate many of their texts. I saw moments where the authors were caught in the mode of thinking that privileged European racial and cultural superiority. But my interest was piqued by stories and specific texts that sought to reconcile these sentiments and present an opposing picture similar to the messages crafted by notable figures such as Herder, Sir

William Jones, James Frazer and many others where humanity appears as one extended, unified but dispersed group. I wondered: what literary pathways/devices shape and portray this message and why is it latent and shrouded, only to be conveyed through the chosen authors’ fixed gaze upon the mythical and amorphous figure of the hybrid god? As I will illustrate, Kipling and Burton have similar ways of employing the idea of hybridity through their construction of the hybrid/trickster/god character and both present the message that it is through acceptance of the hero’s hybrid nature that the floodgates open to higher learning and enlightened perspectives— albeit for a chosen few.

Burton appears to us today as a quintessential shape-shifter, a playful master of disguise who remained throughout his career, a free-thinker and a man of immense skills and varied interests. He travelled far and wide and sought to understand Self through his explorations of the

Other in diverse geographical settings far removed from what he perceived as the confining and narrow setting of Victorian England. He represented the British Empire traditionally as an

explorer, cartographer, diplomat, ethnographer, linguist, and translator, but it is through his narratives and travelogues that we see a different and more complex face where the creative storyteller, writer, and deeply meditative and expressive man emerges. He appears to us in certain texts primarily as an inquisitive mind who, through his creative examination and treatment of culture, religion, and spirituality from the Eastern worlds, sought to overspill the social, conceptual, and religious boundaries sanctioned by his homeland. His keen interest in cultural customs and folklore resulted in his major translated works of Oriental writings such as The

Arabian Nights and The Kama Sutra, among others. Fascinated by religious traditions of the

Orient, Burton is attributed today for writing a beautiful work that models itself upon Sufi poetry and is entitled The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi (published in 1880 initially under the pen name/assumed guise of a Persian poet, Haji Abdu El-Yezdi). Edward Rice offers us an apt description where he depicts Burton with glowing terms:

If a Victorian novelist of the most romantic type invented Capt. Sir Richard Francis

Burton, the character might have been dismissed . . . in the most rational age as too

extreme, too unlikely. Burton was the paradigm of the scholar-adventurer . . . a

soldier, scientist, explorer, and writer . . . [and] undercover agent. (1)

Indeed, Burton was a colorful character who did not fail in provoking popular reactions regarding his unique ways of envisioning the world. In my work, I focus on Burton’s worldview and on how his experiences of travel come to shape his spiritual outlook and philosophy of life. Interestingly, after exploring several religious traditions of the world, Burton adopted the Sufi branch of Islam as his final belief system. Reflecting on Burton’s religious and cultural evolution from 1842 onward, Christopher Ondaatje notes: “Over the next seven years, Burton greedily took in all he could find: delving into tantric Brahmanic rituals, converting to Sikhism and then Islam; enjoying

Eastern erotica; keeping native mistresses” (28). Indeed, Burton was an adventurer who sought to engage with foreign cultures in diverse and often curious and problematic ways. While many have commented on Burton’s religious interests, few have explored his fascination with Eastern mysticism with relation to the topic of hybridity.

Ondaatje further examines Burton’s interest in India and the linguistically heterogeneous, multi-religious and multi-ethnic and liberatory space of learning that it was perceived to provide:

He found himself right at home in the multilingual, multi-ethnic and multicultural

milieu of a country with a long tradition of religious pluralism and sexual tolerance

. . . the Muslim Sufi saint would see no dichotomy in taking a tithe from the local

prostitute. (35)

Further noting Burton’s vacillating views on religion, Ondaatje writes: “Burton’s writings about

Sufism, the mystical offshoot of Islam, are the first by a Westerner with inside knowledge writing for the general public. His great sympathy for the Arab race centered on its religion” (33). He adds,

“Burton was always curious about religion. He moved from Protestantism to Catholicism, then to an exploration of Brahman Hinduism, Sikhism, Sufism and, finally, the world of Islam” (33).

Indeed, Burton’s experience of culture in India left a lasting impression and perhaps helped to consolidate his open, yet ambivalent, criticism of rigid views of categorizing culture, religion and race.

A highly celebrated figure—though one who is rightfully disparaged in our current times for expressions of racism in his works—Kipling received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.

In the presentation speech, C.D. af Wirsen (1907) of the Swedish Academy praises Kipling for his distinct portrayal of the world:

Kipling reveals himself as an imperialist, a citizen of a world-wide empire. He has

undoubtedly done more than any other writer of pure literature to draw tighter the

bonds of union between England and her colonies. . . . [He has also] brought India

nearer home to the English nation than has the construction of the Suez Canal.

(n.pag.)

Indeed, we may wince at these words of celebration today in our awareness of the violence of colonialism and globalization. I highlight these words nonetheless to show how Kipling was viewed during the heyday of the Victorian Empire—a man gifted with artistic perception and whose vivid and evocative literature satiated a growing demand in the Occident for narratives depicting the varied vistas of the Orient. Critics including Edward Said have famously outlined the correlation between empire building and the role of literature in creating the conceptual scaffolding within culture that enabled the colonial enterprise. Said observes:

Being a White Man, in short, was a very concrete manner of being-in-the-world, a

way of taking hold of reality, language, and thought. Kipling himself could not

merely have happened; the same is true of his White Man. Such ideas and their

authors emerge out of complex historical and cultural circumstances . . . [including]

culturally sanctioned habit of deploying large generalizations by which reality is

divided into various collectives. . . . Underlying these categories is the rigidly

binomial opposition of “ours” and “theirs,” . . . This opposition was reinforced not

only by anthropology, linguistics, and history, but also . . . the Darwinian theses on

survival and natural selection . . . [and] the rhetoric of high cultural humanism.

(Orientalism 227)

Certainly, Said’s perspective is valid and highly accurate when evaluating Kipling and his works.

However, I suggest that the binary, or ‘binomial opposition of “ours” and “theirs”’ (Orientalism

227) is complex when we examine manifestations of the topic of religion and spirituality in Kipling and Burton’s works. In so doing, I will illustrate that we see a statement visible regarding the unity between all people in both their selected works. Alluding to Kipling’s Kim, Said states the following regarding the characteristic “White Man” of Victorian Literature:

Behind the White Man’s mask of amiable leadership there is always the express

willingness to use force, to kill and be killed. What dignifies his mission is some

sense of intellectual dedication; he is a White Man, but not for mere profit, since

his “chosen star” presumably sits far above earthly gain. (Orientalism 226)

In a sense, it seems that Said and many others propose that modernity or “modern thought” and the colonial ideologies that gave rise to imperial conquest were predicated on binary logic. My work is dedicated to illustrating how this view is largely valid, yet it is not wholly or uniformly the case. For both Kipling and Burton attempt to show a different view of the “White Man” as one who receives wisdom through pursuing education and engaging with non-European mysticism, or modes of syncretic religious and spiritual thought that I define as "hybrid mysticism." Richard

King posits:

The modern academic study of mysticism began in earnest towards the end of the

nineteenth century. The term ‘mysticism’ derives from the same time period and .

. . is an offspring of ‘la mystique’, a term that first comes to the fore in early

seventeenth-century France. ‘Mysticism’ . . . was initially coined by Western

intellectuals to refer to that phenomenon . . . of the Christian tradition that was

understood to emphasize religious knowledge gained by means of an extraordinary

experience or revelation of the divine. (7)

King notes correctly that “mysticism suffers from the same problems of definition as does the equally problematic term ‘religion’, not least because of constant attempts by scholars to delineate the precise nature or ‘essence’ of the phenomena under consideration” (8). He pointedly also remarks: “‘the mystical’ also represents the conceptual site of a historical struggle for power and authority” (10). Kipling and Burton’s own expressions of this term will be explored and defined in this work. As I argue, “enlightenment” is partly understood as the realization of the unity of all of humankind (unfortunately, a formulation that is restricted to the male gender in the examined works). Moreover, Kipling constructs figures that mirror each other in his characters of the Indian hybrid child Mowgli and the Irish Orphan/ Anglo-Indian Kim, as if to denote thematic parallelism and commonality of heroic “hybrid” attributes and potential. I suggest that Burton himself appears as a forerunner to these fictional characters in terms of his engagement with hybridity in his role as seeker/adventurer.

One central component of my work is to show that Burton and Kipling define heroism through underlining the function of hybrid subjectivity as leading to enlightened consciousness.

Burton constructs an alter-ego, one that is distinctly non-European who acts as a compelling voice for Burton’s latent, unaired, and more esoteric views. In ways that I will explore, Kipling's and

Burton's works describe and construct a unique interpretation of mysticism that transcends boundaries by blending and straddling multiple traditions of the East and West—fictional and real.

Through forging this theme of "hybrid mysticism," they similarly launch a criticism of European society by highlighting limitations of popular modes of thought. Their careful and conscious portrayal of hybridity can be effectively read as efforts to critique aspects of the value systems of

the Victorian Age. In other words, through interrogation of hybridity by way of mysticism in their works, both figures at times and in ambivalent ways critique European modernity and notions of race and empire. Further, hybrid consciousness offers a particular conception of self, other, and the world. The central figures in the select texts explore and utilize symbols from myth, magic, legend, spirituality and religion to make sense of the question: “Who am I” and “What is my relationship to the Other and the World?” Thus, I suggest that the works that will be examined in this thesis can be seen in the light of the authors’ attempt to reconcile the binary oppositions inherent within Victorian structures of conceptions on race.

Indeed, there is no doubt that Burton and Kipling both contributed to the building of empire by advertently and inadvertently shaping perceptions of the colonial Other in ways that Said would term as Orientalist—in short, violent, wrongful, misinformed and crass. However, I will not act as an apologist on their behalf and it is not the focus of my project to illustrate how the popular opinions of race were thus shaped by these authors in their home country; for this has been the subject of rich inquiry by numerous scholars. Within Kipling and Burton scholarship, one notes that fairly recently there appears a shift in interest to an exploration of the complexities of their narratorial voices and how neither author can be cast as staunchly imperialist or wholly a defender of the colonized peoples of the world.

For example, David Sergeant’s Kipling’s Art of Fiction 1884-1901 (2013) is a new and fascinating examination of Rudyard Kipling’s major literary works. Sergeant explores many of

Kipling’s short stories, poems, novels (and briefly his non-fictional texts) and asserts that Kipling must be read and understood in a broader light than typically permitted by scholarly readings. He ponders and addresses the question: how do we move beyond “postcolonial readings that have come to dominate the interpretation of Kim [that] rely on a partial and distorting account of the

book?” (10). He suggests we may best understand Kipling’s fiction as art and through more deeply revealing the role of Kipling as “literary craftsman” (2). Sergeant affirms that his aim is not to reduce Kipling’s works to a uniform set of identifiable patterns but to illustrate that two different types of writing styles coexist in Kipling’s fiction. He mentions early that “[a] binary two- sidedness was a quality Kipling detected in himself, and has been a near-constant feature of critical accounts of his work” (5). Sergeant refers centrally to Kipling’s works that reflect restrictive and conservative imperial mindsets as “authoritarian” and texts that elude and undermine these staunch imperialist mindsets by appearing more fluid and abstract (in a postmodern sense) as “complex.”

Simply put, the “authoritarian” story adheres to imperial dogma, while the “complex” departs from the dominant Victorian beliefs and value-systems regarding race, religion, and empire. Explaining the distinction drawn further, he asserts:

The first block of work [the authoritarian] is coercive, concerned with the

inculcation of views derived from Kipling’s right-wing imperial agenda; . . . The

second [the complex] relates less directly to such contexts, is more aesthetically

sophisticated, and eludes definitive interpretation in a way that can be troubling to

the right-wing ideology. (4)

Like some contemporary critics, Sergeant’s work is concerned with the ambivalent nature of

Kipling’s voice. At one level, he examines whether there are correlations between Kipling’s life experiences and maturation as a writer and how, in different periods of his life, he treats and depicts the subjects of race, empire, religion, and the boundaries—real and imagined—between individuals and nations differently. There is undeniably a “right-wing imperial agenda” (4) present in his writing but Kipling readily subverts this impulse to reflect perspectives that are “more aesthetically sophisticated, and eludes definitive interpretation in a way that can be troubling to

the right-wing ideology” (Sergeant 4). Critics have attempted to reconcile and explain the polarities embedded in Kipling’s voice and Sergeant addresses this area by contending that

“Kipling shows us how literature can both serve an authoritarian mindset and elude it, can enforce existing boundaries and force an extension beyond them” (13). Sergeant’s unique and new critical contribution is that he sets out to label, classify, and identify these two “types” of writing as

“authoritarian” and “complex” by critical illustrations from Kipling’s oeuvre. He explains how his project traces and demarcates the “two kinds of Kipling story, [as] it can reveal new divisions in his writing” (5). Whether the unique nature of Kipling’s art—or the mysteries of his ambivalent voice—can ever be fully theorized and reconciled is a matter best left to the readers to determine for themselves.

Ben Grant offers a notable study of Burton’s hybridity in Postcolonialism, Pyschoanalysis and Burton: Power Play of Empire (2009). This work examines Burton’s art of disguise and self- representation with relation to his encounters with the diverse groups of the world. Grant focuses his study on the dual nature of Burton and how he views Burton as a figure that frustrates current gestures to label him as an unwavering imperialist. He focuses on Edward Said and his stance in

Orientalism when he states on Burton that “In no writer on the Orient so much as in Burton do we feel that generalizations about the Oriental . . . are the result of knowledge acquired about the

Orient by living there, actually seeing it firsthand, truly trying to see Oriental life from the viewpoint of a person immersed in it” (Orientalism 196). Interestingly, Grant posits, then, that

Burton even “pose[s] a considerable challenge to Said’s thesis and, in particular, to his oft-cited opening claim that ‘the Orient was almost a European invention’” (2). More boldly, Grant claims that “his [Burton’s] example uncomfortably marks the moment when Said’s attack on the discipline of Orientalism [in the Western tradition] on the grounds of inaccuracy and

oversimplification appears to collapse” (2). It is not Grant’s intention to simply critique

Orientalism but to suggest that one can “push it [Said’s thesis] further” to suggest that “Burton, as an imperialist . . . comes into being simultaneously with an Orient which, far from being merely a fantastic projection, is a place which can really be lived in, and seen firsthand” (2-3). It is the way that Burton chooses to see and “live in” the Orient as a perpetual shapeshifter that draws my interest and it is my endeavor to illustrate the veracity of a few of the claims made by Grant and other recent scholarship by showing how this other side of the imperial narrative is manifest through observing Burton’s reliance on the trope of hybridity—a trope that he uses to chronicle his select journeys to the Orient. Indeed, Grant’s focus is similar to my own in that it focuses upon this other side of Burton—the man who sought at times to enlargen cultural awareness through familiarizing himself with the lived experiences of diverse peoples—that intrigued earlier scholars such as Said. He suggests that more attention needs to be given to Burton’s “psychological investment in . . . the Orient” (2) and that this focus will shed light on how the Orient represented for Burton “[a place] standing in lieu of something which is other than Europe, a potential place to which he can escape and from which he can cast a critical eye upon Europe” (2). Grant goes as far as to suggest that the fictional creation of Burton’s alter ego Abdullah is one with Burton himself by declaring: “Said, in common with all other commentators . . . does not accord Abdullah the same status as Burton” (3) and that it is his central aim to make this association. He qualifies this move as he declares that one can see “in the relationship between these two individuals, who share the same body . . . a key signifier of Burton’s relationship with the Orient, and with the wider non-European world” (3). This is an important claim for it suggests that the fictional construction of this voice is one with Burton’s own. He adds that how Burton represents himself is “intimately connected with the way in which represents the places he travels to, and the people he meets there”

(3). I extend this point a step further: by tracing how Burton’s fashions his self-identity through adopting hybrid guise during his travels, we become privy to how Burton at times formulates theories of race that appear to have a universalist drive, and one that threatens the stability of

Eurocentric notions of racial hierarchy. My work agrees with Grant’s position and further suggests that Burton’s authorial voice and self-concept appear mutable and fluid and as a writing style,

Burton seems to consciously blur the boundaries between various genres of writing such as by melding aspects of biographical narratives, travelogues, ethnographic manuals, with the traditions of fantasy and fiction. It is for this reason, that I compare and contrast Kipling’s fiction and poetry with Burton’s travelogues that appear more as works of non-fiction but read as a blend of writing styles.

What is also noteworthy about this work is that Grant uses the lens of psychoanalysis to enrich his rereading of Burton’s life and career. It is this interest that will pertain to my own research as Grant attempts to examine and piece together the psychological motivations that led

Burton to adopt the guise of multiple others. He contends that his work is part of a new wave of criticism that challenges readings of Burton solely as an eccentric figure whose writings on scholarly matters are overshadowed by the events marking his unconventional existence (4). Grant notes that “much recent critical work has sought to question this reading, and to suggest that his writings indicate new ways of understanding conceptions of ‘difference’” (4). He seeks to “explore

Burton’s articulations of ‘difference’. . . through closely reading Burton, to draw connections between postcolonialism and psychonanalysis” (4). Explaining the scope of his study, Grant observes:

The aggrandizement of the nation . . . went hand-in-hand with the self-

aggrandizement of its subjects . . . to understand Burton’s contributions to the

imperial project and nineteenth-century metropolitan debates, we must also engage

with his self-construction as an ‘individual.’ (5)

I argue that to understand Burton, one must explore his penchant for hybridity as a means of self- expression. Indeed, Grant’s study is important to my research as it acknowledges the importance of hybridity in Burton’s self-representation. He adds, “In this close reading of Burton’s work, I have frequently been drawn, like Homi Bhabha before me and in his wake, to hybrid figures, of which Abdullah is an example” (6). However, he takes a different approach than mine by asserting that Burton uses the Other solely as a means to bolster his self-image and in turn, sanction the expansion of empire. Grant focuses upon “an all too familiar Occidental stereotype: the White

Man on top” (5) to support his stance that Burton appears primarily as a staunch imperialist— albeit one with numerous contradictory stances as visible during his frequent adoption of the guise/alter ego of Abdullah. Yet, for Grant ultimately “Burton’s relativism and ‘critique of British ethnocentrism’ then appear as a part of this fantasy [imperial], and not an overcoming of it” (6).

Interestingly, Grant departs from Bhabha’s views by asserting forcefully how “the hybrid also disturbingly displays the loss of the other, that clearly identified part of the self which must remain forever outside in order to incite an appropriative desire; what must be achieved, in the service of

Empire, is a continuation of this desire, and never its fulfilment” (7). In other words, Grant argues that Burton’s hybridity does not weaken the imperialist ideology but instead, serves to strengthen and fortify it. Reflecting upon Burton’s ambiguous stance, he claims that the “border between self and other, inside and outside, is ostensibly abolished, but at the same time retained” (Grant 7). His work is important to my own in terms of his treatment of Burton’s hybridity and his awareness of

Burton’s irony and ambivalence in his use of language. It is also a reminder to my own position that one must not simply see one side of Burton above all others and that his imperialist self cannot

be negated, and must be remembered and seen, even when his self that seeks a relativist position regarding race and difference comes to the fore. Grant claims that it is not “possible to see Burton, the ‘redoubtable individualist,’ as distinct from the hegemonic producer of knowledge, or ‘imperial scribe;’ the two come into being simultaneously” (5). His work stands out as it acknowledges the complexity and duality of Burton’s concept of self; a project that is similar in intent to my own.

His scope, however, is to “explore the imbrication of the ‘individual’ and the ‘typical’ in Burton’s work, rather than privileging one or the other” (5). By referring to the “typical,” he seems to gesture to Burton as “an all too familiar Occidental stereotype: the White Man on top” (5), and the

“individual” as one who is ready to form individual opinions, sometimes untainted by the views sanctioned by society.

Grant suggests that one must “resist the temptation of celebrating Burton’s self-awareness as somehow mitigating his prejudice” (7). My work takes a varying stance by suggesting that moments in his works that do reveal his self-awareness are notable and do often “mitigate his prejudice;” albeit never in uniform ways and that these warrant close inspection for they reveal

Burton’s deep-seated ambiguity; an ambiguity that I have earlier noted to be a feature of some of the writings of race theorists such as that of Robert Knox. Building upon existing criticism, I specifically ask: why do these moments occur and what broader messages surface through these anomalous episodes that reveal another aspect of Burton’s multifarious self? My work focuses on the two poles of the broader discussion regarding Burton—the Universalist and the “imperial scribe” (Grant 5) to illustrate that Burton’s use of the hybrid image highlights clearly his

Universalist self and becomes a means of interrogating “the imperial scribe” found within himself and society.

U.C. Knoepflmacher in his introduction to Victorian Hybridities states: “Victorian writers not only addressed hybridity as a subject but also incarnated it through a great variety of blended forms and discursive mixtures” (3). On the impact of one particular figure, Thomas Carlyle, upon the minds of Victorians, he asserts: “he . . . provided them with models for the creation of generic and intertextual hybrids when he boldly mixed, say, the comic form of Tristam Shandy with the sermonizing of a religious tract or yoked a medieval manuscript to contemporary political manifestos” (“Introduction” 3). This idea of hybrid genres allows me to effectively compare

Burton’s travelogues to Kipling’s works of fiction, as I suggest that the authors have also employed

“blended” genres where fiction and non-fiction and intersect. Both authors seemingly employ different forms such as stories, poetry, and travelogues to return to a key centre of focus—an examination of hybridity and race. This text also suggests that Victorian writers such as “Robert

Louis Stevenson” (Introduction” 7) and “Arnold, Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett and Alfred

Tennyson. . . [and] Charles Dickens” (4) among others dealt with hybrid literary forms and/or hybrid themes (Introduction” 4).

Another important text on Burton’s ambiguous and complex character is by Dane Kennedy and is entitled The Highly Civilized Man: Richard Burton and the Victorian World (2005).

Kennedy focuses upon “notions of difference that took shape in the nineteenth century” (1) and looks at Burton’s contributions to shaping race theory. His writing is valuable because of its focus on Burton’s complex, multiple, and often conflicting aspects of self-identity, as denoted by the choice of chapters that include “The Gypsy,” “The Orientalist,” “The Racist,” “The Relativist” and

“The Impersonator.” Each chapter acknowledges the dualism and complexity of Burton’s nature and Kennedy contends that a study of his life allows those in the contemporary world to contextualize current issues of race and difference with attention to the predecessors of some of

these concepts, the Victorians: “Whether the issue is race or religion or language or sex or class, we work within or struggle against paradigms of difference the Victorians did much to determine”

(1). For Kennedy, Burton is a notable figure as “[h]e took part in some of the Victorians’ most celebrated debates about difference—linguistic difference, racial difference, religious difference, sexual difference, and much more” (2). In other words, Kennedy claims that a deeper understanding of Burton will also enable one to better understand the Victorian climate of often clashing ideas. He states that in his “panoramic” view of his life “Burton casts light . . . on the wide-ranging intellectual ferment . . . generated on subjects such as race and religion and sexuality” (8) during the Victorian period. Also, he adds that “Burton emerges as a man who contributed more than most to the vast body of knowledge about other peoples and practices that constituted the Victorians’ ‘imperial archive”’ (8). My work orients itself through this understanding regarding the importance of focusing on Burton’s complex nature and inquiries into the subjects of race and difference, and I do so in particular through an examination of Burton’s hybridity and his roles as, in Kennedy’s words: “The Impersonator,” “The Racist,” “The

Relativist.” Kennedy further explains that

[b]iographers have tended to portray him in Nietszchean terms as a heroic,

independent spirit operating outside the bounds of social conventions. Yet, for all

his unusual talents and contrarian character, he was very much a man of his time, a

product of nineteenth-century Britain and its imperial encounter with the world. (2)

Kennedy explains how for Burton “[t]he boundary between impersonation and identification was a permeable one . . . and he acquired a deep and lasting affection for the Islamic religion and

Muslim culture. They supplied important frames of reference from which he began to articulate objections to Christianity and Britain” (3). He adds further that “[d]ifference became for Burton

the basis for critical inquiry, capable of being turned in any direction, not least against Britain itself” (9). These are all observations that will reflect a few of my own central arguments and I use

Kennedy as a way of affirming the importance of exploring difference through the portrayal of hybridity in Burton’s texts.

Kennedy further captures well the dual nature of Burton as one to bolster the system of scientific racism that was growing in popularity, while also working to undermine existing notions of race/racism. He writes:

Yet even as Burton positioned himself as an exponent of “scientific” racism, he

also marshaled this understanding of racial difference as innate and immutable to

challenge European universalist claims that its own civilization was unsurpassed

and supplied a model for others to emulate. Because those claims were so closely

bound up with Christianity, he deployed his knowledge of other systems of belief—

not just the great traditions of Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Buddhism, but lesser

ones such as African animist traditions and new creeds like Mormonism and

Spiritualism—to demonstrate that each was embedded within its own particular

historical and cultural context, precluding the possibility that any single system of

religion enjoyed a monopoly on truth . . . his interpretation of difference took a

direction that can best be described as cultural relativism. (4)

In my work, I will support this assertion through tracing and analyzing Burton’s self- characterization as a man of many faiths and cultural and ethnic backgrounds, as the quintessential shapeshifter, or in my preferred term, a hybrid trickster god. Finally, he expresses how “[u]ntil recently, historians have given little attention to the cross-pollination that occurred as a result of

the constant traffic of peoples, goods, institutions, and ideas between” (7) cultures of the colonizer and the colonized. Kennedy notes that previous literature on Burton appear often as one-sided as

Burton’s biographers have neglected the larger influences on his life: they have had

no historical framework within which to make sense of a man who moved so freely

across the formal boundaries that the discipline has imposed on the past. . . . This

has begun to change with the appearance of what have been termed . . . the “new

British history” and the “new imperial history,” which converge on the common

realization that there is much to be gained from the examination of the

interconnections between these hitherto separate areas of inquiry. (7)

This point is of interest for scholarship on Kipling will benefit too from becoming increasingly aware of the “other side” by seeking to uncover the greater complexity of many seemingly uniformly imperialist writers.

Another key reference throughout my writing will be The Lotus and the Lion by Jeffrey

Franklin (2008). In this work, Franklin explores the importance of Buddhism upon Victorian consciousness and makes the claim that the Victorian period, despite the driving force of the civilizing mission and the promoting of an imperialist consciousness, experienced the proliferation of “Hybrid Religions” that blended traditions. In Chapter Two, “Buddhism and the Emergence of

Late-Victorian Hybrid Religions,” he explains that “Victorians nevertheless appear to have been extraordinarily active in the invention of new religions” (50). Further, that “[the] last quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed the generations of new, alternative or syncretic religions in

Europe at a rate perhaps unprecedented in modern Western history” (50). He names a few examples including “The Church of Christ, Scientist; the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn,”

Spiritualism, and important to his research, “the Theosophical Society” (50). Like others, Franklin

focuses on the considerable appeal held by Theosophy and Spiritualism and how some followers of Spiritualism held “a thoroughly Protestant distrust of the “exoteric” trappings of institutionalized religion” (55). Similarly, one can notice the favoring of the esoteric over the exoteric within the works of Burton and Kipling as if in retaliation to aspects of rigidity and dogma of Western conceptions of faith. Franklin’s work explores hybridity within the context of religious studies and notes that “when a native of whichever hemisphere demands an Eastern-Western, mystical-scientific religion, she too is using the powers of hybridity, and doubly so, both to co- opt—as well as honor—another religion and to renew—and thus subvert—her own religious tradition” (61). It is this position that will prove to be invaluable to my own research for Franklin argues that some Victorians participated in religious and spiritual modes of expression that promoted the blending of spiritual traditions from the East and the West. I will be employing several of Franklin’s findings on the phenomenon of the bourgeoning of syncretic religions in order to account for my own tracing of the presence of "hybrid mysticism" in the works and lives of my chosen authors. His work is also useful to my own in terms of his exploration of the thematic and symbolic importance of the role of Buddhism in the text of Kipling’s Kim.

Franklin suggests that the “ways in which new hybrid religions sampled from and modified elements of Buddhism is a study in cultural assimilation and, more telling, failed assimilation” (51). In my own work, I explore the appeal and importance of Sufism, Freemasonry, and Buddhism upon the minds and imaginations of Burton and Kipling and it is useful to be reminded of what Franklin speaks of as the “Western construction of” Buddhism (and by extension, I suggest, other religions such as Sufism) in the West (51). It is important to note that

Burton and Kipling have conjured up religious symbols from the East, often loosely and imaginatively, and sometimes violently, and my work contends that it is important to explore what

the motivations and conceptual underpinnings may have been to adopt "hybrid mysticism" as a central motif. Franklin observes that

One of the most pervasive and persistent tensions within the history of European

culture is the conflict between materialism and spiritualism, most broadly

conceived. One manifestation of this conflict erupted . . . in full-scale public combat

between evolutionary scientists and Church of England apologists following

Darwin’s publication of The Origin of Species (1859). (51)

Franklin speaks of the debate being launched far earlier with scientists such as Jean-Baptiste de

Lamarck (51) and the “culmination in the preceding century of Enlightenment skepticism . . . [and] as far back as the materialist philosophy of the pre-Socratics” (51). The tension between scientific reason and blind faith is clear and Franklin points out that throughout “the first half of the nineteenth century, commentators increasingly associated materialism . . . with scientific naturalism, the ideology of science’s truth-telling authority, as well as with atheism” (51). Further, he notes that “[m]any Victorians saw materialism as the historical nemesis not only of Christian belief but of spirituality at the most fundamental level of belief in the human soul” (51). I suggest that a similar tension is also visible in the writings of Kipling and Burton and applicable to how the figures occasionally critiqued and rebelled against the scientific racism of the period—and its corollary, the justification of the expansion of empire—in favor of faith, unreason, human commonality and its expression through the tropes informed by magic, myth, and lore. Franklin further observes:

The failure at mid-century of natural theology to stand up to scientific naturalism

created a crisis within the Anglican establishment and only confirmed the

suspicions of those who from early in the century had argued not only that the

Anglicans were complicit with materialism but that Christianity in general,

however purified by the Protestant Reformation, had lost touch with genuine

spirituality. (52)

In a way, Kipling and Burton in their chosen works, appear to engage in a form of conscious alterity in their imaginative search for new spiritual expression in the non-Western world. In my own work, I largely theorize on the possible factors that may have informed the pull in the writings of Burton and Kipling to the perceived liberatory space of "hybrid mysticism"—inhabited so strikingly and often, I argue, by the symbol of the hybrid trickster hero. Franklin’s work will allow me to anchor my inquiry within the climate of religious fervor for constructing syncretic faiths during the Victorian period.

Franklin also calls for a new way of interpreting Kim that can be found through observing the effect and function of syncretic religious imagery that appears throughout Kim. Franklin offers an important re-reading of the characters of Kim and the Teshoo Lama, by focusing on the Middle

Way and how this Buddhist philosophy critically shapes the themes and plot (130) and helps readers to understand Kipling’s ambiguous voice. He declares that within the body of criticism dealing with Kipling

[t]he divide is between . . . two camps . . . : (1) those who celebrate the novel’s

accomplishment in portraying Indian peoples and Eastern religions . . . that

transcends its author’s well-known prejudices, and (2) those who focus on the

implicit racism of the novel . . . [and the] rightness of British colonial rule. (128)

He articulates his position within this debate by aiming to create “a Middle Way of reading Kim”

(130) and by giving attention to an under-explored area—the importance of Buddhism within the text of Kim. His investigation includes a noteworthy awareness that “Kipling’s syncretism was not

limited to major world religions. Mixed with them were elements of Freemasonry, Spiritualism,

Theosophy, and occultism peripheral to Hinduism and Islam” (133). Further, Franklin critiques the perceived shortcomings of previous criticism including that of Zohreh Sullivan. He explains that in a few of her claims, such as when she points out that Kim privileges the role of spy over that of the chela, she “misses the point . . . failing to take the religious themes of the novel seriously and, therefore, to analyze sufficiently its Buddhist content” (138).

In a manner, my work adds to this Middle Way “camp” of interpreting Kipling; and by extension, Burton. Focusing on the topic of hybridity in Burton’s and Kipling’s selected works, I am interested in how there are notable moments in both their works where alternative narratives emerge that challenge the traditional master-slave dialectical model of representing the colonized world as child-like, naïve and backward; particularly seen through an examination of the authors’ portrayal of Eastern philosophy, wisdom and spiritual and religious beliefs. Indeed, in strikingly similar ways, one notices how Burton and Kipling appear in central texts to promote unity and understanding between different ethnic groups and individuals bearing diverse religious, political and cultural identities—and as I will show, this important message recurs multiply throughout their writings through Burton’s and Kipling’s representation of the trope of the hybrid-trickster god/ hero.

My research arose from contemplation upon the significance of colonial ambivalence in

Burton and Kipling. Through examination of key texts, it became clear to me that ambivalence and colonial anxieties regarding race and culture become transformed as the central characters/narrator more fully embody their hybrid state and embark on the journey toward unification and enlightenment. This project, then, focuses upon Burton’s and Kipling’s conception of hybridity and how it offers their central heroic characters/figures the passage to enlightenment.

Undeniably, problematic representations of race, culture, gender, and religion do emerge repeatedly in many of their writings. I argue that to view such authors solely in such a light limits a fuller examination of how both figures are similarly, and in related ways, compelled by the idea of hybridity, and the desire to know and represent the Other. Indeed, they are often similarly caught

“between and betwixt” the spaces of the Orient and the Occident. Moreover, both authors are intrigued and sometimes repelled by the idea of “turning native”; yet they are fascinated with the idea of breaking the boundaries that demarcate the permissible zones of cross-cultural interaction.

Mary Louise Pratt speaks of the site of such interactions as the “contact zone,” or “the space of imperial encounters, the space in which peoples geographically and historically separated come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, and intractable conflict” (8). The chosen texts studied can be read in terms of a journey to enlightenment—defined seemingly by both authors as a spiritual maturity that entails full understanding of the mystical concept of the “unity” of creation. And as we will explore, this idea appears present in both Freemasonry and Sufism and we will examine the implications of Kipling and Burton as adherents of these faiths.

Let us explore more closely now the idea of the trickster hybrid god and how I focus upon this characterization. Kipling shows a fixed interest in the figure of the chameleon-like boy—in

Kim and the character of Mowgli in The Jungle Book—who is able to uniquely and expertly transcend lines of culture, race, and even species. Kipling’s formulation of “magic” and

“enlightenment” is conveyed through this very ability that is wielded by Kim and his other famous hybrid character, Mowgli. The children’s story of Mowgli is an example of an inter-species adoption and interdependence between an Indian child and the wolves and other animals of India.

Kim is a memorable novel that depicts the life of a young Irish orphan who is raised in India and

is initially unaware of his roots. He is discovered and taken into the folds of the Great Game by

British officers who realize his potential as a hybrid spy in serving the British Raj. Notably, both

Mowgli and Kim appear as messengers or reconnaissance agents who “defamiliarize” audiences regarding the shortcomings and limitations of human society. Rather than through a fictional intermediary, Burton himself embodied the role of the chameleon through applying his ability to learn languages, customs, and to take on disguises to enable his travel expeditions. Most famously,

Burton at the risk of death if caught, took, on the guise of a Central Asian Muslim and entered into the Islamic holy land of Mecca to perform Hajj. Burton was catapulted to fame after he chronicled this journey and shared his adventure, entitled Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah, with the Western world. Entering into the heart of the forbidden land was no small feat and was made possible by Burton’s reliance and construction of on a hybrid identity. In my work, I question the purpose of his journey and explore how we can read this problematic travelogue. Should we view it simply as an ill-conceived, whimsical and crude adventure that belittles the sanctity of the Islamic sacred rite of Hajj? I ask: or is there evidence to suggest that the pilgrimage represented a spiritual quest that allowed Burton to come closer to his personal understanding of the concept of “unity within multiplicity”? I argue that in this travelogue1 and other writings, Burton relies on his ability to blend and “shapeshift” in a bid to pursue higher truth and perspectives not granted to him in the West. This angle of inquiry—viewing Kipling and

Burton’s texts as treatises on hybridity and enlightenment—has been largely unexplored.

It is intriguing that the figures of Kipling’s Kim/Mowgli and Burton bear resemblance to each other in terms of their shared exploration of the concept of enlightenment through

1 The travelogue appears in the format of a journal, replete with stories, anecdotes and poetical musings. 32

characterizing the hybrid state; as I will illustrate, this concept of enlightenment appears inextricably entwined with the hybrid condition found in both their works. Few scholars have deeply explored the question: what is the function of hybridity in select works of Kipling and

Burton with relation to each other? Or what are the similarities between the two figures in terms of their representation of hybridity? Further, to my knowledge, there is little scholarship examining how hybridity is represented in Kipling and Burton’s works and tracing its connection with enlightenment. While I will draw upon contemporary literary theory, I will also refer to teachings from the domain of religion and spirituality to inform my work. More specifically, I attempt to show how both figures attempt to reconcile binary thinking through turning to the notions of non-duality found in select metaphysical traditions of the Orient. They explore “other ways of knowing” that depart from traditional models of Western reason and rationalism. I will show that hybridity is the gateway to enlightenment as imaged in the themes of religious and spiritual syncretism and the hybrid characters and hybrid discourse found in The Jungle Book

(1893-95), Kim (1901), Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah (first published 1855), Stone Talk (1865), and The Kasidah (first published 1880).2 Ondaatje points out that with a rise of financial gains of the East India Company,

2 These texts are chosen particularly because of their focus on hybridity through the image of the chameleonic, shapeshifting figure. There are other texts by Kipling that focus on hybridity to varying degrees that can also be read less directly with relation to my arguments including “Naulahka - A Story of West and East, ” “Lispeth,” “How the Leopard Got His Spots” and importantly “The Man Who Would Be King.” I have not included substantial treatment of these tales primarily as they do not feature the feral child, or the hybrid hero in training to the same degree as my chosen works; moreover, the chosen titles relate well with Burton’s self-construction as hybrid chameleonic wanderer in the examined works. Additionally, attention may be given to Burton’s other writings such as the problematic text (for its racist portrayals of Jewish rituals): The Jew, the Gypsy and El Islam (1898) and The Gold Mines of Midian (1878) for accounts of cross-cultural interaction. First Footsteps in East Africa chronicles a failed attempt Burton’s attempts to pass as a native and enter another Muslim heartland. A revision of this project may direct more attention to these works.

the East was seen primarily as a commercial property to be exploited as thoroughly

as possible. It had not always been so. In English thought in earlier decades,

especially from 1800 to 1820 (the age of Byron, Keats and Shelley), the East was

seen as the centre not of commercial gain, but of a kind of mystical, spiritual gain.

(34)

Ondaatje adds that “[i]t was this earlier, Romantic view that Richard Burton took with him to

India” (34). I show that the same can be said about Kipling and his portrayal of India. In short,

Burton sought to understand human evolution, unity between people, and spiritual interconnectivity through embarking on his pilgrimage. In many ways, both authors are drawn to the condition of hybridity and while Burton experiences hybridity though the course of his own real-life adventures, Kipling vicariously creates this state through his writings, particularly through the figures of Kim and Mowgli. I will trace the ways in which Kipling and Burton treat the topic of hybridity in similar ways to show how both engaged in a discourse around spirituality, human evolution, to show the possibility of the “unity of being” between people.

One main intention of my writing is to propose that a more sustained examination be given regarding the mystical and spiritual elements of Kipling and Burton’s works. It seems that many scholars fall within two camps—those that wish to mark these figures as questionable spokespersons of Empire and the others who wish to redeem these figures and recuperate their works in terms of their significant messages on unity, tolerance, and universal human family that can bear relevance in our postmodern-globalized world. My writing contributes to the latter camp as I am interested in interstitial spaces and how the subject of hybrid consciousness, shapeshifting, and the metaphysical realization of enlightenment work together to allow Kim, Mowgli and Burton to delineate and comprehend the principle of “unity.”

More specifically, I compare Kipling’s and Burton’s religious views as presented in their selected writings and show the way some of their central beliefs in esoteric traditions inform how they present themselves or their central characters as “hybrid heroes”—to illustrate and define the notion of enlightenment. It is well known that Kipling and Burton were both Freemasons, though

Burton moved towards greater devotion to the study and practice of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. Kipling’s views on religion manifests most markedly in his novel Kim where he speaks of world religions in term of doctrinal or theological/spiritual similarities—indeed, a type of

“perennial philosophy” emerges in their works that needs to be explored. I will examine this text in depth along with Kipling’s own accounts of faith found in his autobiography Something of

Myself (1937), his “Lodge” poems, and historical research on Kipling’s affiliations with the group.

Marie Roberts in British Poets and Secret Societies notes that in principle the Freemasons upheld this image of the common brotherhood of mankind and in my writing, I will refer to this overarching belief variously phrased as “a unity of being/creation,” “the notion of interconnectivity,” or a “unity of consciousness.” She writes to:

Many lodges were set up for employees [of the East India Company] on a kind of

“home from home” basis. . . . While lodges in India had originally insisted upon

European exclusivity, gradually membership was extended to carefully selected

members of the Asian majority. This gesture was in line with lodge precepts

concerning cultural and racial egalitarianism. In [beginning in] 1844 . . . a cross-

section of race and creed ranging from Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Parsee [were

granted entry into the order]. (103)

Roberts informs further that “The Masonic principles of equality and racial and religious toleration, which were practiced in some lodges, greatly appealed to the young Kipling” (103). In her view,

During the twentieth century, the craft’s belief-system continued to blanket

differing religious convictions through the Deistic concept of the Great Architect

of the Universe. The re-orientation of social values fostered religious uniformity

which ensured that there would be no dissidents within the Masonic fold. (104)

She explains how the gesture to equalize and incorporate dissonant parts into one central fold would have appealed greatly to Kipling—but the question remains: why exactly? Seemingly,

Kipling’s subtle allusions to Freemasonry are linked to a bid to reconcile differences through the focus upon the centrality of a prime creator of all people. To my knowledge, few scholars have extensively examined how Kipling’s views as a Freemason relate to and impact his portrayal of hybridity, the trickster god, and esoteric spiritual inquiry through the character of Kim and storyline of Kim. John McBratney observes, “[t]hroughout Kipling’s writings, Freemasonry stands as a simulacrum of an ideal imperial federation uniting men of different races and nations in equality” (Imperial Subjects, Imperial Space 90). Though not uniformly so, it is clear that Kipling upholds for the large part this view of universal brotherhood throughout Kim.

Certain stereotypical portrayals of ethnic groups appear, for example, through the sometimes problematic representation of characters such as Hurree Babu, among others. The

Russian antagonists in this tale describe him as representing “little India in transition—the monstrous hybridism of East and West” (Kim 215). Yet as Knoepflmacher observes there is certainly a tinge or irony and sarcasm in this representation. Knoepflmacher explains that while

“Kipling’s pervasive doubts about the possible assimilation of distinctly contrary cultures”

(“Mixy” 926) are certainly present in his literature, Kipling examines the other side of this picture by privileging hybrid subjectivity: “[t]he “hybridism” that a Russian interloper considers to be so

“monstrous” proves to be a decided asset in a novel” (Knoepflmacher, “Mixy” 924). Despite this and other ambivalent characterizations of race, it is through Kim’s hybridity that Kipling presents the message that embodying hybrid consciousness allows a chosen few to achieve spiritual and intellectual liberation and hence, enlightenment.

While uncovering moments in the chosen texts that entertain a position of oneness is a key goal, I will also offer examinations of where these arguments are compromised, at times with relation to portrayals of gender. Gayatri Spivak famously asserted that women bear the brunt of oppression in its multiple forms through experiencing patriarchy within the community, and also, by way of the compounded effects of colonialism; she explains that as a result, she is often "doubly in shadow" (Subaltern 288). I will illustrate that this formulation applies well to the writings of

Kipling and Burton where the native woman appears variously as an obliging ornamental figure, a compliant nurturer and assistant to men, or a mere (sometimes voiceless) nuisance and distraction that tempts the central characters from their missions. Importantly, her potential hybridity and the related theme of interracial coupling (viewed frequently as miscegenation at the time) if explored at all, is presented in a negative light as seen in Kipling’s portrayal of the character Lispeth in Kim.

To inform my position, I will theoretically ground my analysis of Burton and Kipling by way of contemporary postcolonial and other criticism that examine the nature of hybridity, ambivalence, and human commonality. I will refer to thinkers from a range of historical periods, drawing upon the writings of Carl Jung, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ibn Arabi, Kabir, Evelyn Underhill,

Bruno Latour, Homi Bhabha, Gauri Viswanathan 3, Gayatri Spivak, Parama Roy and others.

Bhabha’s The Location of Culture will be an important text that I will turn to as it offers an insightful and thorough examination of hybridity and ambivalence with respect to colonialism and the historical moments of interface between cultures. 4 Bhabha’s work details the nature of hybridity with relation to migration, travel, colonization and globalization. He examines ambivalence in its many forms including that of tone, mindset, language, and within the psychology of the oppressor and the oppressed during the colonial period. He looks as well at the state of inbetweenity as a current and future model for the globalized world that we inhabit. He examines hybridity in the form of “sly civility”—a term he uses to describe how the colonized overturns imposed structures of power. For Bhabha, a representative model of hybridity and inbetweenity is the stairwell and he writes the following of this telling image:

The stairwell as liminal space, in-between the designations of identity, becomes the

process of symbolic interaction, the connective tissue that constructs the difference

between upper and lower, black and white. The hither and thither of the stairwell,

the temporal movement and passage that it allows, prevents identities at the either

end of it from settling into primordial polarities. (5)

3 Gauri Viswanathan in Masks of Conquest provides an illuminating examination of how British imperial policies regarding education and indoctrination gradually changed over the course of British rule in India and did not initially appear as staunchly racist. She points out that initially, establishing state education was meant as a gesture of goodwill (24). Referring to the Charter Act of 1813, she writes that significantly, the goal of “civilizing the natives was far from being the central motivation in these first official efforts at educational activity” (Masks 24) and that “[t]he extravagant and demoralized life-styles of the East India Company servants, combined with their ruthless exploitation of native material resources, had began to raise serious and alarming questions in England about the morality of British presence in India” (24).

4 William Dalrymple has written somewhat sensationalized historical accounts of the “white native” during the British Raj in White Mughals. His research follows numerous episodes of cross-racial love during the early period of the Raj and proves useful in highlighting how recent history has overlooked historical moments where the master-slave model is unsettled. 38

Burton and Kipling both are intrigued by this space of interstitial contact and position themselves and/or their characters as fluidly moving between the multiple levels of the stairwell of identities.

Bhabha helps to provide a better understanding of how Burton and Kipling do not settle upon

“primordial polarities” but prefer more fluidity of movement between categories of identity.

Bhabha further states that “[t]he interstitial passage between fixed identifications opens up the possibility of a cultural hybridity that entertains difference without an assumed or imposed hierarchy” (5). Both writers often show at times belief in an assumed hierarchy of races but their overall position on hybridity, in specific moments, belies this view. Discussing the fiction of Henry

James, Bhabha further observes that “the borders between home and world become confused; and uncannily, the private and public become part of each other, forcing upon us a vision that is as divided as it is disorienting . . . the ‘unhomely’ is a paradigmatic colonial and post-colonial condition” (13). My chosen writers’ views of “the home and beyond” and their ambivalent definitions of nationality and the condition of (not)belonging will be closely examined in this thesis.

My work is comprised of seven chapters including the introduction and conclusion. My second chapter is entitled, “Magic, Education, and Religious Syncretism and the Shaping of Kim’s

Hybridity: An Examination of the Early to Middle Chapters of Kim.” In this chapter, I explore the forms of education/training that Kim receives on shapeshifting and becoming the Other and how the themes of magic, hybridity, and religious syncretism operate in the novel. In my third chapter, entitled “Journey to Enlightenment: ‘Unity within Multiplicity’ in Kipling’s Kim,” I explore the importance of the motif of the pilgrimage in the final sections of Kipling’s Kim. I explore the religious and mystical symbology in the text to show how Kim—the shape-shifter—attains enlightenment through reconciling his inner duality and his ambivalent views on race and religion

and by embracing the principle of “unity.” My fourth chapter, ‘“What is Enlightenment?’:

Hybridity and the Trickster God in Kipling’s The Jungle Book,” explores how Kipling also portrays the character of Mowgli in The Jungle Book like Kim, as a hybrid hero who contemplates the question: “What is Enlightenment?” I show how a similar conclusion is reached to Kim’s own journey where Mowgli arrives upon the understanding that hybridity leads to unity—a concept/space that is for Mowgli, true liberation from the oppressive structures of human and animal society and is found finally through forming a syncretic utopic system where the best of all worlds are merged. The two final chapters are respectively entitled “Pilgrimage to Mecca:

Hybridity and Burton’s Journey to Enlightenment” and “Stone Talk and The Kasidah: ‘Unity within Multiplicity’ and Burton’s Enlightened Poetics of Truth.” Here, I focus upon Burton and his texts where I show how there is a similar pattern to Kipling’s engagement with hybridity present in terms of how Burton defines and explores the state of enlightenment. I will illustrate the correlations between the characters of Kim/Mowgli—the Seeker, and Burton—the Sufi dervish/ pilgrim. Each seek a path to higher learning and find that it is only through walking upon the untrodden, unconventional path of the seeker of mystical wisdom that one can know the self, other, and the world—often unbounded by Western strictures regarding knowledge, truth, or reason.

I will show how Kim, Mowgli, and Burton appear as trickster hybrid gods who appear difficult to ‘label’ and are not malicious but appear to us as pranksters representing the space that lies “Beyond Good and Evil”—to borrow Nietzsche’s phrase. They appear as reworkings of mythical trickster characters that willingly test the boundaries of faith, culture, spirituality and race upheld by dominant Victorian society. Through practicing and mastering the art of

“shapeshifting,” they interrogate the notions of similarity and difference regarding human diversity and creation. In an attempt to understand and reconcile the warring psychological aspects within,

and by extension, outer colonial ambivalence, all the figures seek catharsis through assuming guise of the multiple others and by immersing themselves in various mythological and religious frameworks. Their journey entails that they become like the disciple/sage/healer/prophet in a bid to obtain full knowing or gnosis. They must finally rest upon a system of belief that acknowledges the truth of more than one system of knowledge—in others words, both show appreciation and honor for syncretic views of religion. It is through an exploration of world traditions and the commonality and difference between religious myth and symbols, that Kim, Mowgli, and Burton discover an understanding of the connectivity of people/creatures/creation. 5 By reconciling duality, all three figures express the truth of unity and envision enlightenment as a transcendental space where all barriers of separation (explored in their journeys) are dissolved. At the height of their heroic journey, we are finally able to see the importance of hybridity in Burton and Kipling’s respective works. Hybridity becomes a metaphor for metamorphosis, personal and collective evolution, and the interconnectivity of humanity and creation. As I will show, the chosen texts pivot around the idea of “unity within multiplicity” in a manner that is tied to Burton’s and

Kipling’s respective faith systems of Freemasonry and Sufism—both profess the interconnections of humanity (desiring to create a worldview to unify, and make sense of plurality and diversity of the world), often eschewing the “binomial” system described earlier by Said. In the collections of texts, we will see that Kipling and Burton punctuate their stories with emphasis placed on the profundity of the trickster god nature of Burton, Kipling, and Mowgli; through this depiction, we are aware that hybridity represents enlightenment. By invoking the names of ancient mythological

5 It is important to emphasize that these moments of free-thinking are at odds with the often viciously racist positions found throughout Burton and Kipling’s writings. 41

figures such as Hermes and Abraxas, Kipling and Burton craft a Victorian mythology that interrogates problematic assumptions of race, religion, philosophy, knowledge/truth and culture.

My chapters honor the motif of the seeker and his journey. My writing follows this track and emulates the journey by tracing the footsteps of the central characters in each narrative from start to finish—highlighting their adventures into hybrid subjectivity and leading to the fruition of hybrid consciousness. I employ a linear path of analysis by focusing upon the essential moments and features of the characters’ path to enlightenment. It is recommended that the chapters be read in a linear fashion as the ideas are slowly compounded through the analysis in each section. All the figures strikingly focus deeply on the significance and symbolism of the pilgrimage or sacred journey. I trace the unfoldment of the plot in each narrative sequentially and chronologically as I attempt to show how the individual components of the writing must be seen through the bird’s eye view, and as a whole, in order to see how hybridity is defined and established as a vehicle of enlightenment as the story/journey progresses. Perhaps I have instituted a slight departure from institutional methodologies by focusing more on myth, magic, and lore to thread together my arguments. As Gauri Viswanathan suggests in Outside the Fold, “to engage in discussions about belief, conviction, or religious identity in a secular age of postmodern skepticism is already fraught with infinite hazards, not least of which is the absence of an adequate vocabulary or language”

(xiv). My rationale is that both figures were canny of alternative conceptual models that are anchored in what we broadly construe as the “Eastern Worlds.” I suggest that in their striving to define enlightenment, both depart from Western models of post-enlightenment reason and rationalism and Eurocentric models of interpreting this notion and turn instead to the Eastern conceptual models depicting the syncretic worlds of spirit, myth, magic, and lore. Hence, I rely on

secondary sources that are not only from domains of literature but also from comparative religion, mythology, and spirituality to support my study.

To recapitulate, I ask again: what is hybridity? Hybridity is a state of consciousness in both

Kipling’s and Burton’s works, an illuminated state where beings can fathom their connection to each other and their place in the broader tapestry of creation. It is a search for spirituality against the nineteenth century climate of scientific racism and mechanization. Hybridity leads to enlightenment as it allows the individual to finally comprehend the idea of “unity within multiplicity”—a notion that we will find in Kipling’s view of Freemasonry and also in a related concept in Ibn Arabi’s mystical notion of the “unity of being.” It is through materially understanding this that the writers are able to move briefly and fleetingly beyond European parochial and (Social) Darwinian notions of race. Indeed, in their writings, we see a (proto) postmodern comprehension of multiplicity and diversity emerge at times, and, through this, the reader/hybrid hero is able to better understand self, other, and the world.

***

CHAPTER 2

Magic, Education, and Religious Syncretism and the Shaping of Kim’s Hybridity: An

Examination of the Early to Middle Chapters of Kim

Anjali Prabhu states within the context of postcolonial theory that hybridity plays an important role: “In its dominant form, it is claimed that it can provide a way out of binary thinking, allow the inscription of the agency of the subaltern, and even permit a restructuring and destabilizing of power. These assertions need to be tested” (1). Let us “test” Prabhu’s assertion that hybridity can offer a means to escape binary thinking through an examination of Kipling’s presentation of hybrid motifs in the early to middle sections of Kim—motifs that I argue are partially and fleetingly utilized to question the prevailing conceptual boundaries of race and difference. As Benita Parry aptly notes: “It is Kim which critics call upon to argue that in his representation of India’s uniquely multiple being, Kipling did indeed transcend the boundaries of his own ethnocentric vision” (124). But as she points out, one cannot argue that “Kipling is an exemplary artist of imperialism” (131). In this chapter, I explore both sides of the debate regarding the ambivalence of Kim by exploring the formative years of Kim and the training that he receives.

In particular, I will explore the role of magic and religion in shaping Kim’s character. Richard

King, on the subject of magic and imperialism examines “a genealogy of ‘the mystical’ and attempts to demonstrate that a category that is often conceived to be preeminently ‘otherworldly’, private and apolitical is in fact implicated in a network of power relations in the contexts in which it has been employed” (2). Indeed, by tracing the influence of magic in the shaping of the character of Kim, it is clear that Kim’s hybrid, otherworldly abilities are brought to the service of the Empire.

At another level, Kim’s affiliation with magical thinking and mysticism serves paradoxically to point to other ways of knowing and concepts of unity between races.

There are notable fissures in the text that disrupt the narrative of empire and the legitimacy of colonial rule. As this project explores, Kim, Mowgli and Burton appear to us as mercurial, trickster gods who at times subtly and openly interrogate Victorian assumptions of race, nationalism, empire and identity. In this first section, I will show how Kipling’s Kim trains to become a hybrid, embodies the role of colonial trickster, and at one level, raises awareness regarding religious plurality. This first chapter also explores whether Kim’s role as shapeshifter is to promote the text’s message on unity or to facilitate his role as imperial spy. Jan Montefiore exclaims regarding the ambiguity of this text: “Kim (1901), the most enchanting of Kipling’s fictions and the only one ever to be compared with the great traditional names Dickens,

Shakespeare, or Chaucer, is that rare thing, a colonial fiction that takes ethnic and cultural otherness as a source of pleasure, not anxiety (81). He adds:

To mine Kim for evidence either of its colonial fear and suspicion of ‘natives’ as

Zohreh Sullivan’s brilliant but one-sided reading in Narratives of Empire does, or

of Kipling’s imperialist anxiety about maintaining white superiority in response to

the Boer War, as Joseph Bristow does in Empire Boys, means neglecting this

novel’s exceptional pleasure and serenity. (89)

Indeed, I align with Montefiore’s view in that there are moments of tranquility and beauty found in Kim particularly in its representations of religion, spirituality and mysticism—points that I will return to in this chapter and the next. Further, John Kucich points out that “[r]ecent Kipling criticism always begins by addressing his political multivalence. The most redemptive leftist readings have tried to valorize this multivalence as an instance of Kipling’s “hybridity,” casting

him as an avatar of Homi Bhabha” (136). As suggested here, it is imperative that one acknowledge that there is indeed another side to the tale of Kim and that problematically any “serene” message that promotes spiritual unity within the text operates alongside the major plot of empire-building and the bid for territorial control.

Homi Bhabha in his seminal work, The Location of Culture, speaks fully to the idea of hybridity and ambivalence from a postcolonial perspective. He poses thought-provoking questions regarding the liminal or third space and asks:

How are subjects formed ‘in-between,’ or in excess of, the sum of the ‘parts’ of

difference (usually intoned as race/class/gender, etc.)? How do strategies of

representation or empowerment come to be formulated in the competing claims of

communities where, despite histories of deprivation and discrimination, the

exchange of values, meanings and priorities . . . may be profoundly antagonistic,

conflictual and even incommensurable? (2)

In this chapter, I am concerned with moments in colonial texts when the opposing pattern is visible and where the third space of hybridity leads beyond “inbetweenness” into a realm of what Frithjof

Schuon enunciates as the “Divine All-Possibility” (55)—what I will present in this chapter as

"hybrid mysticism", or a syncretic space of spiritual union where all potentialities and variants of the perceived Other join, blend, and merge. I will also demonstrate how these moments are at odds with the concurrently present racist elements of the tale—thus, potentially highlighting colonial ambivalence and ambiguity. Parry explains: “Whether a revisionist criticism erases, commends or reconstrues Kipling’s imperialism, its various practices circumvent a critique of the texts’ deliberated ideological enunciations and inadvertent registering of contradictory meanings” (120).

She tellingly adds:

For western critics . . . who communicate their opinions, a reading which amplifies

Kipling’s address to the crisis of contemporary western civilization, while muting

the strident colonialist register of his thematic and rhetorical predications, has the

advantage of allowing a renegotiation of his status as a serious thinker/artist. (120)

It is clear that Parry is rightly wary of criticism seeking to recuperate Kipling as an uncomplicated figure who sought to reify universalist values through the blinding art of storytelling; for she states:

“The outcome is a criticism which, by reiterating Kipling’s ideological assumptions, naturalizes the principles of the master culture as universal forms of thought and projects its authorized representations as truths” (121). This is truly often the case, but I suggest that there are still slippages within Kipling’s writings where characters support or critique the Imperial culture while promoting the Indigenous traditions and ideals as valuable. Bhabha focuses on how: “[t]he borderline engagement of cultural difference may as often be consensual as conflictual; they may confound our definitions of tradition and modernity; realign the customary boundaries between the private and the public, high and low” (3). But what of the use of the hybrid characterizations made by authors to confound the spaces between the worlds of matter and spirit? I suggest that one may build upon existing theories of hybridity by way of the concepts of spirituality, mysticism, magic, and comparative religion. In short, I am interested in how exploration of these topics and themes with relation to the subject of cultural difference in Kim can deepen our understanding of the function of hybridity in this text.

Edward Said offers an enduring critical reading of Kim. He emphatically expresses: “Kim is a work of great aesthetic merit; it cannot be dismissed simply as the racist imaginings of one fairly disturbed and ultra-reactionary imperialist” (“Introduction to Kim” 30). He contends too that

“Kim most assuredly in not a political tract” (“Introduction to Kim” 46). Rather, Said refers to the

historical and sociological impact of the novel and claims that we must “see Kim both as a great document of its historical moment, as well as an aesthetic milestone along the way to midnight 15

August, 1947 [the independence of India]” (“Introduction to Kim” 46). Moreover, he associates

Kipling with Thomas Hardy and Henry James and other European great figures when claiming:

“In France, Kipling’s peers are Flaubert and Zola, even Proust and the early Gide” (Introduction to Kim” 37). Said appears well aware of the two sides of the text of Kim, noting both its beauty and the dimensions that are blatantly and aggressively prejudicial.

It seems to me that one must simultaneously focus upon and theorize Kipling’s Indianness and to strive to read his works via relation to non-Western figures. Specifically, more can be said about the pervading influence of indigenous characters representing spirituality, mysticism, and religion in Kim. Indeed, the text appears to show regard for concepts of non-duality by underlining, at times, the essential unity of humankind. I suggest that Kipling should be read partly in light of figures also from the Orient including Kabir, Tagore, Rumi and others. King notes: “Indian philosophy, we are frequently told, tends towards the mystical and the otherworldly and thus does not maintain the high standards expected of Western philosophy as the pursuit of truth through the exercise of pure rationality” (29). This is an idea that Burton and Kipling challenge at one level, by foregrounding mysticism as a dominant and recurring theme throughout their texts. Indeed, I propose that at an important level, hybridity appears as a marker of the possibility of unity and spiritual syncretism in Kim. At another equally plausible level, hybridity in the text functions to promote a myth of empire founded upon the false premise of harmony between the colonizers and the colonized—painting the fictional image of fluid connectivity between the races of India, such that the legitimacy of empire is never questioned but rather naturalized and glorified. As Parry accurately relays: “Although Kipling has been hailed as a visionary, his mystique of empire more

properly belongs to that worldly imperialist aspiration which imbued a predatory project with a revelational quality” (123). Indeed, I suggest that Kim is the deified presence who at times commands full attention from all who willingly and freely offer resources and support to aid him on his/the empire’s “civilizing mission.” His role as trickster hybrid god would, then, point to the sense of colonial entitlement, ethos of self-aggrandizement, and cultural appropriation—all in the name of empire-building, yet blindingly masked by the allure of the message of unity.

Bhabha refers abstractly to the ingrained impulse of individuals to connect and commune with each other as “Looking for the Join” (25). I show that this quest for communion takes a broader objective in Kim where the prominent characters assist each other in a shared spiritual search for transcendence, unity, and belonging. Bhabha contends further that “[t]he study of world literature might be the study of the way in which cultures recognize themselves through their projections of ‘otherness’” (17). I reveal, conversely, that Burton and Kipling explore aspects of

Self through discussions of Oneness and human commonality. I will propose how Kipling’s faith in Freemasonry may have inspired his literary reliance of the symbol of the hybrid/trickster god— for some of the key teachings of Freemasonry find embodiment and expression within Kim’s hybrid character.

Bhabha expresses: “To live in the unhomely world, to find its ambivalence and ambiguities enacted in the house of fiction . . . is also to affirm a profound desire for social solidarity: ‘I am looking for the join . . . I want to join . . . I want to join’” (27). In this chapter, I will focus solely on the early to middle section of Kim and this desire to “join” through analysis of Kim and the

Teshoo Lama’s quest for enlightenment and transcendence. The remaining chapters will look upon my central argument of how the emblem of the hybrid illustrates and promotes the concept of

spiritual oneness not only in Kim but also in The Jungle Book stories and Burton’s Pilgrimage to

El-Medinah and Meccah, The Kasidah and Stone Talk.

East Meets West: “Friendship between Priest and Priest’”

Many postcolonial critics have examined the thematic significance of the opening pages of

Kim and have written extensively about the colonial context of the image of Kim and the young native boys scrambling for control of the Zam-Zammah, or the “fire-breathing dragon” (1). Parama

Roy explains how Kim

is acutely conscious of his difference from and superiority to the Hindu and Muslim

lads who are his daily companions: especially in his games on the Zamzammah

cannon ("first of the conqueror's loot") with the other boys, he registers a very

precise sense of being the representative of an imperial race. (77)

Ian Baucom notes of this early scene that “Kipling exposes the reader to a vision of the colonial state benevolently inventing itself as India’s cultural guardian” (87). Gail Ching-Liang Low offers another view that “Kim’s ancestors did kick his friends’ ancestors off the trunnion and it is the historical significance of such an action that the boy Kim must learn as he moves from being a street-wise urchin to an imperial spy” (207). In short, Roy, Baucom, Low, and others have argued that this opening line stages the novel as a text promoting empire through presenting Kim as an authoritative figure who will utilizes his unique subjectivity to aid the colonial mission in India.

I inquire: what other angles can be investigated to add to the existing body of criticism? I suggest that we seek an alternative reading of Kim by focusing on how and why Kipling uses the theme of magic in the text of Kim with relation to Kim’s hybridity. Sylvia Pamboukian notes that

“Kipling's short stories and novels exhibit a paradoxical mixture of magic and reality, which may

be due, in part, to Kipling's own ambivalence about the supernatural and enthusiasm for new gadgetry” (429). She contends further that

Kipling offers a vision of modernity in which men, women, Indians, Englishmen,

scientists, and writers are equally muddled by the contraptions and theories of

science, both old and new. In this vision, modern technology not only fails to

deliver on its promises of knowledge and power, but it reveals instead the

fragmentary nature of human knowledge. (442)

For Pamboukian, “Paradox dominates his canon and biography” (429). In tracing his use of magic as a recurring thematic tool, it becomes clear that Kipling paradoxically uses magical tropes and discussions of spirituality to present an alternative, competing vision to Eurocentric models of reason/discourse. This method of writing promotes human commonality, at one level, over views of racial separation. Let us examine and qualify this view with attention to the opening chapter.

Kipling introduces the concept of magic early on in the opening scene where we learn that young Kim is an orphaned boy whose father has left precious documents, such as Kim’s birth- certificate, that are now enclosed in an amulet case around his neck:

Those things . . . belonged to . . . such magic as men practised over . . . in . . . Jadoo-

Gher—the Magic House, as we name the Masonic Lodge. . . . Kim's horn would

be exalted. . . . Nine hundred first-class devils, whose God was a Red Bull . . .

would attend to Kim. (2; emphasis added)

From the outset, it is clear that the text links the ideas of prophecy, magic, devilry, and occult symbolism with Kim’s heroic legacy. Kipling further associates the Lahore Museum with the

Masonic Lodge, and brings the concepts of magic, archives/storehouses of knowledge, and

Freemasonry to the foreground. Kipling repeats the word “magic” throughout the text but its

significance is made especially clear in the opening pages by its repetition. Perhaps Kipling’s fascination with the theme of magic has to do with his life experiences, for Bishnupriya Ghosh notes:

in the 1880s Kipling had close association with the Society for Psychical Research.

. . . Kipling's sister, Alice Fleming, performed as medium . . . [and] Kipling was no

stranger to telepathy, a theme he pursues with some rigor in his early fiction. Allied

with nineteenth century concepts of sympathy, telepathy offered a controversial

theory of communication. (336)

This first chapter examines the early to middle chapters of Kim and draws upon the notion of magic to portray a message promoting unity and human commonality. At another level, I will interrogate this notion to show how Kim’s hybridity supports the British occupation of India. Indeed, Kim through his hybrid form will eventually come to represent a symbolic bridge between the worlds of spirit and matter, and reason and myth. King explains:

Since the Enlightenment . . . dominant representations of Western culture have

tended to subordinate what one might call the ‘Dionysian’ (as opposed to the

Apollonian) aspects of its own culture and traditions (that is, those trends that have

been conceived as ‘poetic’, ‘mystical’, irrational, uncivilized and feminine). These

characteristics represent precisely those qualities that have been ‘discovered’ in the

imaginary realm of ‘the Orient.’ (4)

I suggest that Kipling positions Kim as a character who often appears “Dionysian” in his makeup and through the nature of “education” (free-spirited vs. regulated/disciplined) that he receives.

King speaks also of “the ascendancy of secular rationality as an ideal within Western intellectual thought, [and] a concomitant marginalization of ‘the mystical’ and the projection of qualities

associated with this concept onto a colonized and essentialized India” (4). Kipling’s choice of focusing upon mystical India must be queried in terms of all the possibilities and intentionalities of representation including the bid to exoticize/contain/subdue India.

Ambreen Hai notes that “the text Kim offers a fantasy of its own potential freedom from authoritarian control, its own ability to signify freely and to produce multiple stories unhampered by constraints of location or of racial or political affiliation” (69). Kipling notably indicates Kim’s distinct status by conferring him with a special name of endearment: the “Little Friend of all the

World” (14). Kipling continues to characterize Kim’s singularity as a charismatic and playful character who is able to associate freely with all. For example, he is marked by a great freedom of mobility as he navigates the city of Lahore with ease:

[h]e executed commissions by night . . . for . . . young men of fashion . . . he loved

. . . the game for its own sake—the stealthy prowl. . . . Then there were holy men,

ash-smeared fakirs . . . with whom he was quite familiar—greeting them [and] . . .

eating from the same dish. (3; emphasis added)

The narrator draws a sharp contrast between the image of the young men of fashion living as

Epicureans with the image of the frugal lifestyle lead by the holy men—the ascetics—as if to highlight that Kim is at ease with them all and is thus able to straddle multiple identities and subject positions. In the previous passage, Kipling establishes a paradigm of juxtaposing themes that will underpin the entire narrative. Of the double-sided structure of the tale, Montefiore posits:

The double narrative corresponds to the Indian and British poles of Kim’s dual

identity: the Indian self which both reverences a holy man and takes an expert

delight in begging and journeying with him, and the English (or rather Irish) self

which delights in duplicity and intrigue and is an ideal recruit for the ‘Great Game’

of spying, played in the service of the British Empire. (85)

While Kim displays the agile qualities of an adept spy, we also witness Kim’s joint fascination with the world of spirituality as he readily and seemingly without prejudice befriends sages and fakirs, prior to his recruitment as imperial spy. In fact, he will show a preference throughout the tale for mystical characters over more rational, traditional and dogmatic figures (the contrast indicated by the “shiny young men of fashion” against the image of the fakirs). From the beginning, then, Kipling paints a picture of Kim as a freethinking spirit. Further, Kim will also appear throughout as a champion and friend to fellow non-dogmatic, esoteric characters. Schuon classifies the esoteric seeker as one who “participates in universal Knowledge” and is not deterred by dogma

(3). Schuon affirms: “Dogmatism reveals itself . . . by its inability to conceive . . . the universality that resolves all outward oppositions” (3). Kim’s role will be established as a mediator between dogmatism/exotericism and freethinking/esotericism, reflecting perhaps Kipling’s own thoughts and ambivalences towards this topic. He will appear as the reconciler of ambivalence and

“contradictory truths” (Schuon 3). Further, the picture of Kim sharing meals with fakirs at their shrines leaves the reader with an enduring message of friendship and unity. Indeed, this is not a uniformly sustained image as elitist and colonialist structures are ever-present that bolster the role of Kim as rightfully sanctioned ruler over other characters of differing race, caste and gender. In this passage, the text blends and relates various seemingly opposing thematic threads together— mainly that of espionage, self-mastery, knowledge-seeking and spirituality.

The opening of the novel is set against the backdrop of the Wonder House of Lahore and the Masonic Lodge. The museum houses ancient and modern artifacts from East and West and it is here that Kipling first introduces the reader to the concept of syncretism and the historical

blending of religious and cultural traditions. Kim first observes the Tibetan Lama as he greets the

British Curator (who is likely a Freemason):

In the entrance-hall stood the larger figures of the Greco-Buddhist sculptures done

. . . by forgotten workmen whose hands were feeling . . . for the mysteriously

transmitted Grecian touch.. . . In open-mouthed wonder the lama . . . checked in

rapt attention before a large alto-relief representing a coronation or apotheosis of

the Lord Buddha. (5; emphasis added)

Art historian Janice Leoshko explains that this statue is a form of

Gandhara art [which] was a significant focus of archaeological activity in the late

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Its images were especially valued then by

Western scholars because of the Greco-Roman influences evident in their form . . .

[that] reflect the substantial contact between the Mediterranean world and lands

further east. (51)

The artifacts featured thus speak subtly to the history of the cross-pollination of ideas and the transfer of knowledge across cultures over time; in this passage, Kipling presents an early image of hybridity through the form of historical artifacts. We will see in later chapters that Burton, in much the same way, introduces the similar idea of hybridity explicitly through his examination of ruins and cultural artifacts. Further, Kipling emphasizes the Buddhist relics of the Lahore Museum and particularly the powerful image of the deification or crowning of Buddha. Through emphasizing the Lama’s “rapt” attention, Kipling underlines and foreshadows the thematic importance of the image of this statue, representing enlightenment, with the broader themes of the novel. It is striking to see Greco-Buddhist hybrid artwork depicting the concept of enlightenment or apotheosis. I argue that this correlation between hybridity and enlightenment is an important

feature in the text. We will trace how Kim gradually appears as a hybrid demi-god whose otherworldly nature will lead the Lama to the gates of enlightenment. In ways that we will explore,

Kipling intricately and subtly fashions Kim’s hybrid, magical subjectivity as the key to enlightenment.

At this point, Kim is in the backdrop secretly observing the discourse between the two elders, the Lama and the Curator, who appear to speak in terms of mutual understanding. The narrator remarks:

Here was the devout Asita, the pendant of Simeon in the Christian story, holding

the Holy Child . . . here was the Bodhisat in royal state. . . . In a few minutes the

curator saw that his guest was no mere bead-telling mendicant, but a scholar of

parts. (7)

The significance of this scene is that Kipling establishes a sense of equality between the two men as scholars of equal standing and as holders of wisdom. Another feature of this passage is that

Kipling uses Christian references to describe Buddhist parables, and vice versa, indicating a fluid correlation, a synergy, and mythological similarity between religious traditions. In this first chapter, Kipling offers a rich tableau of a culturally, ethnically and religiously heterogeneous

India—a vision that no doubt would aid in problematically sanctioning the presence of the British as another influence within India’s multi-faceted ethnic, religious and cultural history. Even the

Lama’s manner of speech is noteworthy as Kipling carefully accentuates linguistic hybridity through emphasizing the blending of tongues. The Lama as a polyglot, like many of the other central characters, is typified in this early scene as “talking at railway speed in a bewildering mixture of Urdu and Tibetan” (7). While Kipling presents many forms of hybridity by way of

linguistics, architecture, and mythology, he figures Kim in the text as a striking physical embodiment of the hybrid philosophy that permeates the text.

Moreover, Kipling brings to light the theme of spirituality through the character of the Lama.

The lama describes, in length, his quest for Buddha’s legendary river of healing and salvation and laments the spiritual crisis afflicting Buddhism. Interestingly, Curator responds to his notion with the idea that this decline is taking place the world over:

“… For five—seven—eighteen—forty years it was in my mind that the Old Law

was not well followed; being overlaid, as thou knowest, with devildom, charms,

and idolatry. . . . ”

“So it comes with all faiths.” (8)

Kipling makes it clear that the Lama is seeking a higher truth and that the existing frameworks of

Buddhist philosophy seem insufficient. In short, he is seeking knowledge outside the confines of his known world. The Lama also alludes to his adherence to a reformed branch of Buddhism, marking his desire for a distinct and untainted spiritual practice:

The books of my lamassery I read, and they were dried pith; and the later ritual with

which we of the Reformed Law have cumbered ourselves—that, too, had no worth

to these old eyes. Even the followers of the Excellent One are at feud on feud with

one another. It is all illusion. (8; emphasis added)

Kipling does not explicate what he means by the Reformed path but potentially is signaling a distinction from mainstream religious paths. Shamsul Islam asserts: “The Buddhist faith is subdivided into two sects, the Hinayana and the Mahayana. The Lama, being a Tibetan, belongs

to the Mahayana group to whom two ways are open to gain nirvana (salvation): one is Sutra, the exoteric way, and the other Tantra: the esoteric course” (42). As we will examine, both Kipling and Burton at various moments highlight the esoteric traditions of the world for enjoining the principles of oneness, hybridity, and pluralism—in ways that are paradoxical to their role as imperial spokespersons.

Significantly, Kipling crafts the plot such that the wisdom that the Lama could not gain through years of training and teaching will be facilitated by the presence of Kim. The lama’s quest is, then, signaled as reliant on Kim as guide, and further, symbolically as one who will uncover and reveal hidden, esoteric truths. At another level, Kim problematically appears as the divinely appointed guide to the Lama who soon becomes reliant upon this child, indispensable to his quest, revealing a paternalistic scenario where the image of the colonizer, albeit a child, is more knowledgeable/powerful than the colonized indigenous subject. Yet the Lama also appears in my view as a deeply revered character who is essential to the story. Indeed, Kipling places much emphasis on the idea of hidden truths through choice of theme, symbolism, and diction. Later, for example, Kim associates the Lama as the bearer of hidden messages when describing him, thus, to fellow travelers: “he is holy, and thinks upon matters hidden from thee” (26; emphasis added).

Significantly, both characters see each other as deliverers or keys to atonement (the etymology of the term refers significantly to the state of unity or oneness). In ways that I will outline, Kipling will construct Kim as a countering force against what the Lama and the Curator describe as a spiritual Dark Age afflicting humanity. It is also important to question why Kim is offered as the highest symbol of mysticism in the text; for as King points out: “Defining mysticism . . . is a way of defining power. One’s answers to the questions ‘What is mysticism?’ and ‘Who counts as a

mystic?’ reflect issues of authority” (10). In the case of Kim and the Lama, both appear to wield significant mystical force, yet, ultimately Kim appears as the key to the Lama’s quest.

The language chosen by Kipling to describe the exchange between the Lama and the Curator is particularly revealing:

The lama brought his . . . face once more a handsbreadth from the Englishman's.

“I see thou dost not know. Not being of the Law, the matter is hid from thee.”

“Ay—hidden—hidden.”

“We are both bound, thou and I, my brother. But I”—he rose with a sweep of the

soft thick drapery—“I go to cut myself free.” (9; emphasis added)

A concept that appeals to Kipling throughout this text is that of maya or illusion and is presented through the numerous references to veiling and curtains. The text carries forward the idea of lifting the veils of deception and looking beyond the ignorance of this world. Kim’s views on spirituality, will in essence, allow for notions of difference to become simultaneously emphasized, and arguably (at times) deconstructed.

Another significant component of this early section is that the Lama sees the role of the seeker as universal. This will be a prevailing theme throughout the novel. He attempts to see the commonality and reflection of the spiritual savant/seeker in his British counterpart. The manner by which the Lama appears at “handsbreadth” to the Curator paints a mirror-like image, as though two men are versions of each other joined by their quest for knowledge and truth. This mirroring trope will recur throughout the novel where characters are reflecting commonalities, albeit primarily appearing between male figures. The underlying theme that Kipling returns us to is the

Lama’s and Kim’s shared desire to transcend the material barriers of the world through seeking

spiritual illumination. While this theme is elaborated upon extensively, this stance may clearly be a colonial ruse, a strategy used to wrest power from the subjugated Other. Kipling suggests from the beginning of the story that religious creed, age, racial background are no matter when seeking spiritual wisdom as this search acts as a potential equalizer. The Lama expresses this view when he explains that he seeks knowledge amongst all people. He notes to the Curator of his upcoming journey to Benaras: “There I shall meet one of the pure faith in a Jain temple of that city. He also is a Seeker in secret, and from him haply I may learn. . . . Nay, I will seek everywhere as I go” (9-

10; emphasis added). This line emphasizes that the Lama has no qualms learning from individuals from all backgrounds to further his quest. The world in Kim is at one level—primarily through the subplot of the Great Game and the perceived necessity of the English to protect their overseas territories—marked by numerous rigid boundaries and barriers that must remain impermeable. But in sharp contrast, Kipling accentuates the opposing message of the permeability, fluidity and the illusion of barriers, favoring instead the principle of oneness that joins all men who are seekers of enlightenment. Kipling’s understanding of the term enlightenment is at the heart of this novel and is explored through Kim’s hybridity, the lama’s philosophical teachings, and the intimately related topics of magic, religion and spirituality.

Upon parting, the Curator emphasizes affinity for the Lama through kind words and through the ritualistic exchange of gifts: “Suffer me now to acquire merit. We be craftsmen together. . . . Here is a new book of white English paper: here be sharpened pencils . . . all good for a scribe” (11; emphasis added). The book is rich with allusions to Freemasonry and its philosophy of brotherhood and unity. Kim is inspired by witnessing this exchange and soon after declares to the vegetable seller that: “The Sahib in the Wonder House has talked to him like a

brother” (12). William Dillingham observes that “The Lama’s admiration and affection for the curator derives . . . from the latter’s gift of the eye glasses” (352). Said writes that when the “British museum curator gives the lama his spectacles . . . he both adds to the man’s spiritual prestige and authority, and he consolidates the justness and legitimacy of Britain’s benevolent sway”

(“Introduction to Kim” 15).While others have seen a measure of condescension in that the Curator gifts the Lama with spectacles—conferring him with the colonial gift of sight and clear vision— one may also see this rather as a mutual exchange based on the virtues of diplomacy, brotherhood and respect (key components of the philosophy of Freemasonry). Leoshko also points out that “the

Curator . . . is asking the lama to let him acquire merit by accepting the Curator’s gifts” (62). The understanding is that the Curator perceives himself as rewarded by assisting the Lama. Indeed, the much coveted iron pen-case gifted by the Lama to the Curator appears as a richer token denoting power and protection—for we learn later that pen-cases are the defensive weapon of choice for lamas. Further, the Lama observes regarding the beauty of their meeting that they have exchanged presents “as a sign of friendship between priest and priest” (11).

Through Kipling’s choice of words emphasizing secrecy or hidden knowledge, secret societies, seeking, and magic, Kipling establishes early on a reliance on symbology associated with spirituality as well as esoteric traditions. Schuon, in his study of comparative religion, posits that many esoteric traditions have a central shared message: the unity of humankind and the corollary understanding (and also the title of his major work) of The Transcendental Unity of Religions.

Huston Smith, in the introduction to this text, notes: “Unity must . . . be of an exceptional, indeed unique, kind, for it must include everything. . . . Absolute Unity must be All-Possibility: every possibility must be actualized within it” (xiv). I will proceed to illustrate in this chapter and the

next how this particular view of Unity is manifest throughout the tale: in the proliferation of Kim’s hybrid expressions, in the text’s commentary on magic and the occult and esoteric religious traditions, in Kim’s role as spiritual warrior protecting the sanctuary of India in the Great Game, and finally in Kim’s and the Lama’s transcendental experience for enlightenment. I will also demonstrate that these themes compete with alternative images promoting Kim’s superiority as white colonial ruler. As Lewis Wurgaft contends: “the British ruling elite realized, their power in

India rested on the perpetuation of . . . illusion” (54). He adds that the “examination of British power—or rather the illusion of power—can help to clarify the nature of . . . imperial ‘magic’”

(55). To extrapolate Wurgaft’s thoughts, it can be argued that Kipling uses magic in Kim to create a colonial myth of Kim as divinely appointed and benevolent ruler who tends to his subjects equally and without prejudice. Wurgaft also observes that “[t]he revival of ‘Orientalism’ in the

1870s was accompanied by a wide-ranging Anglo-Indian concern with the occult and the supernatural” (57). Undoubtedly, this climate may have informed Kipling’s penchant for the recurring trope of hybridity/magic that appears in Kim and other texts.

Examining Kipling’s own background as a Freemason will deepen our understanding of hybridity in this text. Only one major critical work currently exists that focuses entirely upon the influence of Freemasonry upon Kipling and is entitled Man and Mason—Rudyard Kipling (2011) by Richard Jaffa. Yet little research is presented regarding the notion of hybridity, and the portrayals of hybrid characters of Mowgli and Kim, with relation to Freemasonry and its central tenets.

Jaffa maintains that “the use of Freemasonry in his [Kipling’s] early work is largely a dramatic device but when he returns to it after the First World War he engages with it in a far more

profound way, especially its key message of universal brotherhood” (xv). He observes that “most competent academics do not grasp the scope of Freemasonry and its ability to cut across the religious divide” (93), adding further that “Freemasonry . . . has as its basis the encouragement of brotherly love, charity and truth. It requires a belief in a deity, but does not belong to any specific religion. It is a meeting ground for men of all faiths” (228). Jaffa posit too that Kipling’s “Masonic education was the catalyst in the development of Kipling’s long-term philosophy, which he later called ‘the Law’ and which became the benchmark from which his ideas on life developed” (16).6

We will see multiple expressions of these values or codes from Freemasonry as manifest throughout the story of Kim. The message of universality finds expression through the character of Kim and his hybrid identity.

Jaffa also notes that Kipling did not openly discuss his views on faith but he gathers that

“[a]lthough he never demonstrated much interest in participation in organized religion, it did not stop him being absorbed in the search for spiritual significance and order in the universe, a quest he pursued for nearly all his adult life” (91). He further contends:

Kipling’s creed and his approach to man and God were derived from his early

Masonic experiences . . . [he] had studied and observed all the major religions and

he appeared to reject the corset of formal religion but never ceased to seek a

structure that would bring some order to the chaotic . . . world. (xvi)

6 Jaffa suggests: “[t]his was, of course, not “law” in the strict meaning of the word but a code or set of rules for existence” (17). 63

More contentiously, he further makes the distinction that Kipling “approved of the concept of the

British Empire but not for any jingoist motive but for the force for good it seemed to be in the developing world” (xvi). On the other hand, Bernard Porter points to Kipling’s “White Man’s

Burden” and observes that Kipling promoted the myth of empire: “Its victims had to be presented as beneficiaries (liberalism . . . was supposed to have no victims). Those who resisted it were demonized as . . . usually primitive, treacherous, or cruel. . . . This too was necessary to sustain the

‘liberal’ myth” (242). Shamsul Islam reports the following on Kipling’s personal and ambivalent thoughts on colonialism as expressed in a letter from 1895:

It is my fortune to have been born and to a large extent brought up among those

whom white men call ‘heathen;’. . . it seems to me cruel that white men, whose

governments are armed with the most murderous weapons known to science,

should amaze and confound their fellow creatures with a doctrine of salvation

imperfectly understood by themselves and a code of ethics foreign to the climate

and instincts of those races whose most cherished customs they outrage and whose

gods they insult. (22; emphasis added)

Kipling was known to be guarded regarding his personal views, and even his autobiography,

Something of Myself, only partially reveals his stance. Little is mentioned about his experience of

Freemasonry and this perhaps had to do with how Freemasonry was viewed in a hostile light during his time. To contextualize the anti-pluralism during Kipling’s time, Jaffa cites: “In 1874 the Roman

Catholic Church was still publicly hostile to Freemasonry, and being a Roman Catholic was still unpopular with the English establishment” (12). While certainly the many allegorical symbols embedded in this text function to heighten the atmosphere of mystery and intrigue in the novel,

Kipling may also have consciously veiled his message on unity and tolerance with an eye to a diverse, rigid-minded readership. Smith further writes on the prevalence of the concept of

“religious unity on the esoteric plane; [that] it is hidden and secret . . . because the truth to which they are privy is buried so deep in the human composite that they cannot communicate it, not in any way the majority will find convincing” (“Introduction” xv).

There is evidence in his autobiography that Kipling had to guard his views of faith from a more parochial Victorian readership. He speaks of his unease and experience of condescension around those who did not understand his perspective when he reflects: “in my wanderings beyond

Villiers Street, I had met several men and an occasional woman, whom I by no means loved. . . .

They derided my poor little Gods of the East” (55; emphasis added). Porter claims that “the Indian- bred Rudyard Kipling . . . [felt] so alien in the British environment. . . . Britain never lived up to his ideal of what he felt it should be” (232). He even characterizes him as “a sahib to his fingertips, who as a result found himself deeply alienated from the British society he eventually came to live amongst; hence his notorious grumpiness in later years” (254). Kipling proceeds to refer to the derision of Eastern gods as an insult to his own beliefs, indicated by the inflection: “my poor little

Gods.” While he does not elaborate what he meant by this phrase perhaps reading Kim with an eye to its commentary on religion reveals more on this matter. This comment provides clues to why it is that Kipling found sanctuary in the closed space of Freemasonry. Kipling also fleetingly refers to his adoption of a more Eastern spiritual mindset when he chronicles his experience of living in a specific house in Torquay in 1896. He accounts for his growing depression as linked to that specific space: “It was the Feng-shui—the Spirit of the house itself—that darkened the sunshine and fell upon us every time we entered” (79). Kipling certainly appears to place credence

on the idea of Feng-Shui and the world of spirit openly accounted for in certain aspects of Eastern traditions.

The enduring appeal of Freemasonry for Kipling may have been that it sought “to counterbalance the rigid class system within the British army, and to provide a forum for Anglo

Indians to meet, and later for Hindus to socialize free from the caste system” (Jaffa 55). Jaffa presents the Lodge as a safe haven where hierarchical structures and rules of separation present in the outer world are momentarily dissolved. Notably, the Lodge gradually opened up to representatives of other faiths in India, their admittance reliant only upon the proclamation of faith in one prime creator. Jaffa notes:

The current Grand Lodge of India had . . . its first Indian Mason . . . initiated in

1775. When the first Hindus were proposed there was strong opposition . . . by

some of the Christian brethren, who claimed that the Hindus were not monotheists

. . . this complaint was eventually swept away. (56)

Additionally, he suggests too that “[i]n a country overshadowed by the social and cultural gap between the British and the Indians, and among the Indians themselves by religion and caste differences, Freemasonry was the only institution that made a genuine attempt at universal brotherhood” (62). In Something of Myself Kipling reveals how his participation in the Lodge enabled him to expand his awareness: “In ’85 I was made a Freemason. . . . Here I met Muslims,

Hindus, Sikhs, members of the Arya and Brahmo Samaj, and a Jew . . . . So yet another world opened to me which I needed” (61).

Parry importantly points out that in the same autobiography: “The Club, the Mess and the

Freemasons Lodge are prized, while the ‘perversions’ and ‘unclean microbes’ infecting exclusively male communities are deplored; there is hostility to liberals, socialists and the labour movement, xenophobia towards Jews and contempt for blacks” (122). The expansion of consciousness that he alludes to here is thus a limited one, restricted by Kipling’s trenchant prejudices. Yet a notion of honoring racial diversity/pluralism runs deep in the text of Kim; for the words found in this autobiography appear strikingly similar to the expressions of understanding of compassion and tolerance that will permeate select sections of Kim. Kipling writes a letter to his nephew Oliver Baldwin who informed him of his admittance to the Craft. Here, he points out how the Craft assists its members to open up to the nuances of human existence: “It ought to be rather a revelation to you and should increase your already not small knowledge of human nature”

(Letters of Rudyard Kipling 130). Perhaps for Kipling, the multiple references to the “hidden” gestures in Kim towards a spiritual outlook that can bring one closer to knowledge of self, other, and the world.

I will point out in the proceeding sections that Kim will appear in multiple guises assuming the form of a messiah, a demon, and a messenger of universal values. He will sometimes draw upon the teachings of Freemasonry and from other mystical traditions long forgotten within mainstream culture. In what follows, I show how Kipling breathed life into the character of Kim with esoteric teachings in mind and that Kim is a manifestation, in his hybrid guise, at times of an expression of unity.

III

Mystic/ Messenger/Sage/Prophet: The Many Faces of Kim

We have now alluded to how the emblem of the hybrid is associated with Kipling’s adherence to the values of universal brotherhood found within Freemasonry. As Noel Annan posits: “Kipling realised that men break under the strain which society imposes upon them and that the protection afforded by the normal in-groups is insufficient. Freemasonry can heal them” (241). I will now take a closer look at the character of Kim and how he upholds the story’s position on unity and human commonality. This position can also be read as a strategy that bolster the imperial agenda by promoting a peaceful image of India, unperturbed by civil unrest and native rebellion.

An important section of the novel is where Kim and the Lama embark on their first footsteps as travelling companions [chapters two to four]. When Kim offers himself as the Lama’s chela or disciple, he rationalizes why the two make good partners, pointing out how the Lama’s desire for truth captivates Kim:

“. . . If it is our fate to find those things we shall find them—thou, thy River; and I,

my Bull, and the Strong Pillars. . . . ”

“It is not pillars but a Wheel from which I would be free,” said the lama.

“That is all one. Perhaps they will make me a king,” said Kim. . . . (15; emphasis

added)

Islam importantly observes: “The Lama seems at times to be a mouthpiece for Kipling himself.

The follower of the ‘middle way’ projects a vision of brotherhood and love for mankind, none having monopoly over Truth” (41). Pillars are known symbols of Freemasonry and in conflating

the emblem of the Buddhist wheel and the Pillar together, Kipling may hint towards the intersections between religious and spiritual philosophies. There is also a conjoining of prophecies and quests, which can be seen as Kim’s desire to aid the Lama and be united with his father’s people under the banner of the Red Bull. Through his swift dismissal of the petty differences in religious terminology through the utterance, “That is all one,” Kim underscores the notions of unity and commonality. It is apparent that Kim sees no difference in the aims of both their dreams and in his childlike expressions declares his goal of becoming crowned as king as akin to that of the Lama’s quest for apotheosis or transcendence. I will show in the next chapter that Kim’s crowning glory will be his otherworldly apotheosis rather than simply the fulfillment of earthly desires for political power and authority within society.

Kim is endearingly known by many in India as “Little Friend of all the World” (14), but it is noteworthy that Kipling elevates his status further by imparting otherworldly cosmic properties—foreshadowing the later culmination of Kim as a symbol of spiritual transcendence.

When questioned by Mahbub Ali about Kim’s origins, the Lama expresses his lack of interest in such mundane matters:

“. . . He was sent, I think, to guide me to that River . . . he said he was of this

world—a Hindu.”

“And his name?”

“That I did not ask. Is he not my disciple?”

“His country—his race—his village? Mussalman—Sikh Hindu—Jain—low caste

or high?”

“Why should I ask? There is neither high nor low in the Middle Way.” (18)

Here, Kipling emphasizes the Lama’s disinterest in markers of identity including names, race or religion, symbolizing his desire to overcome codified and topical aspects of identity. He is only concerned with Kim’s function as guide though later, his identification with Kim will develop into that of a loving father. Similarly, Kim places faith in the Lama without consideration of his background or history, as if to indicate how they perceive each other more through the mystical bonds of trust, faith, and love. Hai notes: “In Althusserian terms, we are given names, or labels, placed in the world, so that we can be interpellated through our given identities. By evading the signification that, unknown to him, is tied around his neck, awaiting its fulfillment, Kim is free from the fixity of identity” (72). She adds: “Only the lama seems able to accept the unimportance of that lack of fixity, of place, in the system of signification” (72). As we will later see, Mowgli and Burton too will identify with the enchantment of a classless and nameless identity at various stages of their story/narrative.

In the memorably descriptive scene where Kim and the Lama are in the train together—a colonial technology that their quest supersedes—Kipling paints India as a fantastical space where seekers gather on individual quests for knowledge and truth. The narrator expresses India as full of “holy men stammering gospels in strange tongues; shaken and consumed in the fires of their own zeal; dreamers, babblers, and visionaries: as it has been from the beginning and will continue to the end” (29). This image paints a picture where the natives are too concerned with spiritual matters to intervene in or shape the political sphere, paving the way for the appearance of Kim as a full-fledged figure signifying imperial rule. King notes: “the association of religions such as

Hinduism and Buddhism with mysticism and the stereotype of the navel-gazing, antisocial and otherworldly mystic has come to function as one of the most prevailing cultural representations of

Indian religion and culture in the last few centuries” (33). He adds: “Mystics are not necessarily quietistic, antisocial hermits, nor have they always been unconcerned with issues of social justice, poverty, sexual inequality” (34). Indeed, there are two sides to the representation of the mystic in

Kim—one that promotes empire, and the other which presents an erroneous myth of utopia where all are peace with one another. While Kim’s spy mission will hold growing importance through the passage of the story, it is important to note Kipling’s carefully placed emphasis on spiritual seeking as a universal endeavor, and as such, a marker of human commonality. This connection will be threaded into sections of the narrative. I argue that Kim himself comes to represent a composite figure of all spiritual traditions encountered in the novel, lending to his characterization as a chameleon-like hybrid/divine character—representing the one and the all. As James Thrall aptly observes: “given the irreversible mingling of cultures in both Kim and the lama, we might set aside the dichotomies with which we originally described their face-to-face encounter, and turn instead to some conception of ‘hybridity'” (64).

Let us return to the theme of magic with relation to the character of Kim and the implications of figuring Kim as larger-than-life. Kipling presents Kim’s hybridity as a special privilege that grants the youth with a special rank and leadership role. In the early sections, Kim is able to astound his audiences through clever speech and accurate forecasts of political affairs— information acquired secretly through his earlier spying missions. A woman overhearing his statements reacts with surprise, crying “‘Ai!’. . . [and the narrator notes:] This seemed to make

Kim's supernatural origin more certain” (35). Further, he is described as a but or spirit (41) and as a “young soothsayer” (43), and this is not a surprising attribute given that Kipling has already highlighted the role of astrology, fortune-telling and mysticism through the early chapter of Kim.

The Lama gives Kim added otherworldly status by declaring: “He is, I think, not altogether of this world” (41) and “He is the Friend of the Stars!'” (43). Kipling makes clear that Kim takes delight in adopting this magical/heroic/trickster role and is fascinated by his ability to sway and cleverly manipulate the people of India to offer knowledge, food and sanctuary—for the benefit of the

Lama and the Raj at once. Further playing upon the idea of Kim as chameleon, the narrator explains how Kim in his mission to aid the Lama takes on various guises including that of the fakir, or the

Indian sage. Kipling writes of the influence of these archetypes: “Had Kim been at all an ordinary boy, he would have carried on the play; but one does not know . . . all the faquirs by the Taksali

Gate, for thirteen years without also knowing human nature” (43; emphasis added). Recall the earlier reference to Kipling’s nephew and how he had indicated the merits of the Craft. Kipling offers here clear words that the fakir, like the Mason, enjoys a privileged vantage point where he can observe the intricacies of human nature. Kipling observes further that, “He [Kim] knew what the faquirs of the Taksali Gate were like when they talked among themselves, and copied the very inflection of their lewd disciples” (44). Kim takes on the mannerisms of the mystic, or the fakir, and is if to become a penetrating observer of human affairs—a Machiavellian ploy perhaps to create a shrewdly informed leader. It is as though the detached role of ascetic permits an acute and piercing understanding of universal human nature not otherwise accessible to most. It is as if to say that true human nature can only be understood through adopting detached spiritual lenses. As we will observe, Kim draws upon this archetype of the sage, even as the fledgling British secret agent.

In the span of a few chapters, Kipling carefully creates a picture of Kim as at once a sage, god, and prophet. He appears like Hermes as a divine messenger to those who witness his sermon-

like-prophecies. For example, when his talk of war materializes, the countrymen speak of Kim as bearer of “auspicious news” (54) and Kim declares: “we brought the news, and now we go” (54).

The Indian solider too reverently views him: “For once in all my days I have met a true prophet— who was not in the Army” (54). Later in Chapter Five, the narrator exclaims that “Kim spoke as might have Solomon” (70). We see that Kim takes great delight in inhabiting the role of the playful trickster and sees immense power in molding and influencing popular perceptions. The soldier ironically equates Kim with a Biblical/Quranic figure who is purported to have had legendary magical skills—thus, again the narrative points to Kim’s otherworldly stature. Also, we will observe that his abilities will allow people to see beyond their usual worldviews. On playing the part of beggar/soothsayer, the narrator exclaims: “Kim warmed to the game, for it reminded him of experiences in the letter-carrying line, when . . . he pretended to know more than he knew. But now he was playing for larger things—the sheer excitement and the sense of power” (42). Kipling characterizes Kim as more worldly than ethereal, marked at this moment by his lust for power.

Further, we can see that the role of the hybrid hero/ trickster is one that the text playfully supports.

The lama speaks of Kim as a mystical creature who is beguiling and neither good nor evil, representing perhaps his understanding of the concept of non-duality. Addressing Kim, he utters:

“. . . . thou art a spirit, sometimes, or sometimes an evil imp,” said the lama, smiling slowly.

“I am thy chela [follower].” Kim dropped into step at his side—that indescribable

gait of the long-distance tramp all the world over. (55)

With regard to the topic of hybridity, in this section Kim represents a boy with firm resolve who refuses to be contained by labels. Rather, he chooses to be seen through unfixed terms, as seen

here when Kipling associates him with the universal archetype of the vagabond/seeker/wanderer.

Kim chooses to transcend the markers of race, creed and geography through the declaration of his simple words, “I am thy chela.” This image of universalism is important because the text will challenge, undermine, and finally support this message most prominently at the ending of the novel.

It is significant too that the message of universalism takes place against descriptions of a multi-caste India where there are strict codes segregating people and such passages serve to contrast Kim’s own unique role as simultaneously an outsider and an insider looking in. Kipling offers a colorful description of the interactions between the different castes journeying upon the

Grand Trunk Road:

They met a troop of . . . strong-scented Sansis. . . . These people kept their own side

of the road . . . for the Sansi is deep pollution. . . . These merry-makers stepped

slowly . . . to make a prayer before one of the wayside shrines—sometimes Hindu,

sometimes Mussalman—which the low-caste of both creeds share with beautiful

impartiality. (55-6)

Daphne Kutzer writes: “Both Kim and the lama are outsiders in India, free of caste and of family attachments, and thus free to transform themselves in ways not open to caste-bound Indians” (19).

The scene reads partly as one where the British colonial gaze fixates upon the hierarchical structure of the caste system as if to highlight an implicit understanding of the egalitarian ways of the metropolitan centre and the colonizer’s civilization. The description is double-sided as there is some ambiguity whether Kipling extolls the diversity and co-existence of groups in India. Kucich

speaks of Kipling’s naïve portrayal of Indian life as hardly innocent: “Through the eyes of Kim the child, the reader is encouraged to transform verbal or physical violence into the detached pleasures of voyeurism. In many of the novel’s supposedly pastoral scenes, some other child of

India is being beaten” (164). Of this scene, Roy explains that “[o]ne of the necessary paradoxes of this multiplicity is that only the English, or their agents, can fully understand, delight in, and indulge in the variety” (77). Offering another angle, Alexander Bubb reads Kipling’s reliance on syncretic images as follows:

he ushers his reader into a historical myth of religious and social syncretism

predating the entrenched caste divisions of the colonial period. . . . Kipling often

returns to the image of the wandering mendicant or holy man who, abandoning the

privileges of caste, has attained a peripatetic unity with all. (392)

These are all accurate impressions of this scene, and I suggest that it is important to note that the shrines are described as shared by Indians of multiple faiths, and so is an inclusive picture of the harmoniously shared spaces of India. Kim appears as a neutral participant who does not intervene to bring about change or to critique what he sees; indeed, no denouncement of the caste system is offered. Yet the insidious possibility is also present of a divided India coming together under the purview of Kim, the legitimate ruler. This passage deepens the text’s investigation of the interactions between religious traditions and the fluidity of perceived cultural and religious barriers. Markedly, while Kipling refers to the ill-treatment of the untouchables, he also focuses in upon an image of followers of multiple faiths offering prayers at the same shrine without discrimination. The diversity and admixture portrayed in this section is also reflective of Kim’s inner world and more specifically, with regard to his ambiguous religious beliefs.

Certainly, Kipling’s early life in India informed some of the thematic concerns that we see in

Kim. In Something of Myself, Kipling opens the account of his life with a poignant recollection of his early childhood. The first lines of this account portray young Kipling fully immersed in the variegated religious setting of India; he recounts: “Our ayah was a Portuguese Roman Catholic who would pray—I beside her—at a wayside Cross. Meeta, my Hindu bearer, would sometimes go into little Hindu temples where, being below the age of caste, I held his hand and looked at the dimly-seen, friendly Gods” (3). He continues to express his natural curiosity regarding the manners and customs of different people: “There were far-going Arab dhows on the pearly waters, and gaily dressed Parsees wading out to worship the sunset. Of their creed I knew nothing” (4). This recollection of his formative years shows the imprint, and perhaps literary influence, of the theme of multiple religious traditions that comprised India. Interestingly, Kipling accentuates his own role in the scene as both passive observer and active participant—this I will suggest, is a characterization that also applies to Kim in his navigation of the world of religion and spirituality.

Perhaps Kim is a paean to Kipling’s early memories of an India populated by devout followers of many faiths. In many ways, Kim can be read as a fictional and imaginative inquiry into the nature of the diversity of religions.

King speaks of "two spheres in post-Kantian intellectual culture. Philosophy is frequently characterized as the pursuit of rationality in contradistinction to the mystical, which is now seen as the pre-eminent example of the irrational. . . . the mystic rejects or . . . transcends rational argumentation" (28). By casting Kim as the ultimate figure of mysticism in the text, Kipling confers him with authority that should not be questioned or challenged. Additional understanding of Kim’s function as a trickster can be gleaned through comparison with other notable trickster

gods in the world canon that pertain to a colonial or postcolonial setting. One may inquire whether

Kim serves like the trickster Eshu of the Yoruba tradition as described by Henry Gates Jr. as “a figure for . . . double-voiced utterance” (xxi). Regarding hybrid religions, in a study of Afro-

Caribbean poetry, Jahan Ramazani speaks of the “cross-religious syncretism that was basic to life in the colonies and postcolonies” (450). One can glean from Ramazani’s essay that in the

Caribbean and other colonized territories, expressions of bricolage and hybridization appear as narratives of struggles for empowerment by the indigenous. Ramazani explains: “Modernist heteroglossia—rapid turns from high to low, Standard to dialect, English to Sanskrit or Chinese .

. . is another form of literary bricolage submitted to the dialectics of indigenization by postcolonial poets” (453). The text of Kim shows consideration of the merits of hybrid tongues with many characters appearing as polyglots, but to what end? This begs the question: to what effect does

Kim show sympathies to the original inhabitants of India and their struggle for independence? It is clear that at times, Kim’s linguistic and cultural hybridity does not translate to a “dialectics of indigenization,” as he aligns often with the imperial cause.

Babacar M'Baye explains how “[o]ral tradition had major roles in the critique of slavery and imperialism in early black diasporan narratives” (3). She adds how black writers

overcame difficult personal, social, political, and economic conditions through

appropriation and reconstruction of the resistance strategies of diasporan trickster

figures such as Brer Rabbit, Nancy, and Bro’ Boar-Hog, who remind us of West

African prankster characters such as Leuk [the Rabbit], [and] Bouki [Hyena],

Ananse [Spider]. (3)

She adds too that “the trickster figures of Anansi and Leuk in West Indian and African tales invoke

African traditions in order to survive in a world in which terror and divisions replaced love and unity” (179). In other words, the trickster became a symbol of hope to a group dispossessed and displaced, offering hope and healing amidst a dark and perilous reality. In a similar vein, Gates explains that the "trickster topos . . . seems to have survived the bumpy passage to the New World

. . . . [and]. . . attests to shared belief systems maintained for well over three centuries . . . [and] testify to the fragmented unity of these black cultures in the Western Hemisphere” (5). Thus, in particular historical moments, a trickster discourse appears connected with a desire for solidarity and with a bid to retain ties with a one’s ancestral and cultural past. Aime Ce´saire's “A Tempest” is a play that conjures up this image of Eshu who speaks of himself as an indomitable force of disruption: "From disorder he makes order, from order disorder" (46). This play is a postcolonial rewriting of Shakespeare’s The Tempest where Ce´saire introduces Eshu, the "Yoruba god of boundaries between worlds" (64)—a role that is loosely shared by Kim, another boundary transgressor, in Kipling’s text. The perverse and carnivalesque nature of Eshu’s songs and expressions serve to disconcert his audience and render Prospero, the colonial figure in the play who oppresses Caliban (the symbol of the colonized in the play), confused and threatened.

Prospero declares: "He's [Eshu] gone. But alas, the harm is done. I am perplexed. My old brain is troubled. Power! Power! . . . . My power is cold" (47). It is clear that his authority is undermined by the fleeting presence of the Yoruba trickster god who is figured as a force of anti-colonial resistance—a rebellious figure whose shapeshifting abilities allow him to resist the chains of subjugation, and to violently vocalize refusal to be subjugated by colonial power. In other words,

Eshu offers strategies of decolonization through promoting civil disobedience and active

resistance. Babacar M'Baye further asserts on the deployment of the trickster as a means of rebellion within black diaspora writings:

trickster characters from various black cultures achieve freedom from alienating

circumstances by using dexterous and creative resistance strategies and ideologies

that are visible in the early literature of the black diaspora in which . . . kinship,

communal support, verbal adeptness, and courage were necessary tools of rebellion

against slave owners. (4)

The trickster figure is thus directly equated with active resistance. It is useful to consider with relation to Ce´saire's play, Kim’s positioning as colonial trickster god. While Kim acquires skills of “courage” and “verbal adeptness” and the task of forging diplomatic connections and “kinship” ties with ease, he does not incorporate these talents for subversive goals in the aim to decolonize

India. Indeed, his function is dramatically different than that of Ce´saire's Eshu. It is clear that he does not propose outward rebellion or seek means of overturning the power structures in place during the Raj. Instead, he promulgates a specific myth where Kipling’s “brethren” coexist and are unconcerned with the need to question and account for the legitimacy of colonial rule. Rather, they support each other in secretly building and maintaining the myth of “unity within multiplicity” throughout the duration of the story. While Eshu writes back to the image of the ruthless and stalwart ruler, Kipling’s Kim constructs the myth of the Colonial master as god—a magical force of omnipotent divinity. In this light, the recurring themes of magic in the text return to the image of Kim as the divinely appointed ruler who resides in a space ungoverned by rules applicable to others. King takes note of how:

Sikh reformers in the 1920s accepted Orientalist stereotypes of the Sikh, and yet

used them to create a mass movement in opposition to British colonialism. The

same transformation can be seen in the Hindu context, where Orientalist

presuppositions about the ‘spirituality’ of India, etc., were used by reformers such

as Rammohun Roy, Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda and Mohandas K.

Gandhi in the development of an anti-colonial Hindu nationalism. (86)

It is clear that Kim does not embrace his self-concept as Indian-European hybrid, and proponent of "hybrid mysticism", to foment change with regards to overthrowing the Empire. In the next chapter, we will explore how Hurree Babu is the closest approximation of a native who in his hybrid guise voices the call to arms against the empire, yet equivocally so. The French and Russian intruders describe him as representing “in little India in transition—the monstrous hybridism of

East and West” (215). As Kucich tells “Kipling’s condescending portraits of figures like

Mookerjee [Hurree Babu] in Kim are also a sign of class anxiety” (190). Through Kim’s non- action in voicing criticism of British presence in India, the text is complicit with the imperial agenda and in maintaining a specific hierarchical social order. Regarding tales such as Kim, Parry writes:

Since the language of European ascendancy and Anglo-Indian conceit remains

uncontradicted, the narrative structure of such tales is sealed against any

interrogation of the Raj’s self-presentation. On those occasions when the Indians

do appear to speak, they are the mouthpieces of a ventriloquist who . . . projects

his own account of grateful native dependency. (123)

She adds: “Kipling’s imperialist writings can be read as a pre-emptive reply to Indian opposition”

(129); indeed, there is truth to this remark. Moreover, in outwardly combatting religious dogma, it can be argued that Kipling effectively creates another dogmatic view where mysticism shrouds the political motives underling Kim’s support of the Lama’s quest—leading to the valorizing of the

Great Game. A specific hierarchy of race is created, one that grants the Lama some token privileges as an emissary of Buddhism. Indeed, as Ania Loomba posits: “In Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim, the ‘Mutiny’ or Rebellion of 1857 sparked off by Hindu and Muslim soldiers of the Indian Army against the British is represented (by an Indian soldier loyal to the British) as a ‘madness [that] ate into all the Army’”(140). She elaborates, however, that “it is possible to read the conflation of madness and rebellion in the novel as Kipling’s repression of his own awareness of the colonial conflict” (140). Ultimately, an examination of hybridity and the trickster figure in Kim reveals the two-sided nature of the text, the central character, and the author’s views.

In Kipling’s other story that also focuses upon Freemasonry and the trickster, The Man

Who Would Be King (1888), the narrator portrays a failed attempt by two Englishmen at shapeshifting/ capitalizing upon hybrid guise. Regarding the central characters of this tale, Elaine

Showalter writes:

Kipling uses Dan and Peachey as figures for British rule in the Punjab and its post-

Mutiny feelings of omnipotence and divine right. In the aftermath of the Mutiny,

feelings of racial antagonism intensified. The British came to believe that they ruled

by racial superiority over an emotional, superstitious, and depraved Indian people.

(93)

I raise the example of this novella, as it shows another instance of hybridity within Kipling’s oeuvre and the trickster characters contrast well with Kim. The tale features would-be colonialists who engage in a performativity of race/hybridity. Kucich notes: “Kipling constantly satirized his experts’ tendencies to exaggerate their own social and epistemological power—to engage . . . in fantasies of omnipotence. ‘The Man Who Would Be King,’ . . . plainly satirizes the omnipotent delusions of Carnehan and Dravot” (173). Joseph Kestner writes: “clearly he [Kipling] indicts the two men for their methods: the vast killing, the exploitation of the land and people, their use of brute force, their assumed superiority, their blasphemy” (85). In contrast, Kestner reads the story as a cautionary tale that warns of the pitfalls of aggressive colonial desire: “Masculinity . . . becomes a wild card. It can lead to aberrant behaviours of the worst kind, and it can also lead to madness. In this ambiguous narrative, if Kipling endorses the imperial project, he is demanding a great deal by asking for men who would not be kings” (85). There are numerous parallels to the story of Kim and also central differences. In this story, two Englishman, Peachy Carnehan and

Daniel Dravot, are on a pursuit to establish a kingdom in a mythical space in India described as

Kafiristan where a secluded and fierce tribe exist following the principles of Freemasonry. Early on in the story, the Englishmen express the following drive: “we will subvert that King and seize his Throne and establish a Dy-nasty” (253). In the plot of this tale, Kipling conflates the world of the Kafiristanis with the world of the Englishmen: “The Chiefs and the priest can work a Fellow

Craft Lodge in a way that’s very like ours” (265). Highlighting the perceived hybridity of the locals, one character adds: “These men aren’t niggers; they’re English! . . . . They’re the Lost

Tribes” (269). Like Kim, assuming a new form is linked dramatically to the search for power. The men engage in artifice and disguise to penetrate into their local society and Kipling describes:

“Dravot took off all his clothes and mine too, and said we would be heathen, because the Kafirs

didn’t allow Mohammedans to talk to them. So we dressed betwixt and between” (259). Like the characters in Kim and their involvement with the Great Game, these men are enthusiastic and wish to lead the Kafiristani men in a battle where they are “ready to cut in on Russia’s right flank when she tries for India!” (316). A dramatic turning point in the tale is when one character seeks political gain and to establish a new lineage of rulers through securing a mate from the Kafiristani people.

Showalter explains that in this tale “Women are nameless, divisive, and potentially deadly” (94).

While successful at first, as they are seen by the Kafiristanis as gods, their demise comes about when Dravot attempts to take a wife, a young woman who shatters the imperial fantasy of conquest and subjugation by biting him and drawing blood just prior to the nuptials. Showalter adds that this would-be-bride appears as “the castrating vampire-woman of other fin-de-siècle stories” (94).

This signifies the end for she reveals the human aspect of the two Englishmen and discloses their deception as tricksters appearing as gods; the locals then attack, mortally injuring, and banishing these men. The story appears much like a cautionary tale of failed hybridity depicting native insurrection, suggesting perhaps that some boundaries can never be crossed and penalties must be paid in return for such grand ambitions of wresting power. Further, the colonizers also appear defeated morally as well as spiritually, as a state of enlightenment is not achieved, as is the case in

Kim. Indeed, the two stories illustrate that hybridity is a theme that Kipling revisited often during his career. In Kim, the role of the hybrid can be seen as more favorable as he is neither punished nor erased/maimed/killed as is the case with the novella where the two characters are punished for their failed attempt to blend fully with the Other. Further, the ending of the story links Kim’s nature as hybrid trickster to the state of enlightenment and omits a scene of Kim’s symbolic “crowning” in terms of territorial control, or marriage with the Other, as imaged in The Man Who Would Be

King. Hybridity in Kim is distinct from this envisioning of the colonialist’s ambitions. Kucich

points out “his [Kipling’s] apparent ambivalence about the politics of empire within the inevitable contradictions of colonial experience, weighing his competing loyalties to British authority and to resisting colonial subjects in a great variety of ways” (136). Kucich ultimately contends:

I will also argue, contrary to claims about Kipling’s supposed transcendence of

class, that his sadomasochistic groups underwrote a remarkably unilateral class

politics, which accommodated contradictory attitudes toward imperialism within

an integrated vision of middle-class authority. Rather than eroding social hierarchy,

Kipling’s multivalent imperialism absolutely depended upon it. (138)

Indeed, Kucich is correct in noting that Kipling relies on forging commonality between characters based on rank and class, as evident in the prominence of secret, elite societies of like-minded and comparably skilled men of various races.

Edward Said sees Kim’s shape-shifting in terms of a superficial masquerade, asserting that

Kim “can pass from one dialect, from one set of values and beliefs, to the other” and that he is

“chameleon-like in his gift for dancing in and out of it, like a great actor who passes through all situations, at home in each of them” (“Introduction to Kim” 42). Said correctly indicates a degree of superficiality in Kim’s role as shape-shifter. Yet it seems that there is a degree of ambiguity when Kim’s hybridity represents religious plurality—for representations of "hybrid mysticism" partially support views of human commonality. Jasper Ridley observes that “[b]efore the end of the nineteenth century Rudyard Kipling, who was an especially ardent Freemason . . . was claiming that the religious and racial quarrels which troubled British India disappeared inside the masonic lodges” (220). Kim’s preference for the hybrid mantle, then, can be understood partly with

attention to what the Craft signified for Kipling: an escape from social and religious boundaries into a world of unity and brotherhood. Unfortunately though, this characterization of Kim allows for the text to create a utopic myth that in actuality did not reflect the climate of unrest and foment that would be marked by events such as the formation of the Indian National Congress (1885) and the Sepoy Mutiny (1857)—events that are referred to fleetingly, if at all in Kim.

One of the inexplicable thematic currents that run through the novel is Kipling’s association of Kim with both war and enlightenment. Critics have attempted to reconcile these warring, disparate aspects of the text. Jeffrey Franklin focuses upon this polarization between critics regarding whether the text of Kim favors ultimately the Game or the Way. He asks: “But I question whether the text makes an exclusive choice between the two. . . . Why has the assumption of a dualism— whether agonistic, one-sided, or irreducible— been virtually automatic in Western criticism?” (129). Ian Baucom focuses upon another side of the critical divide and posits: “We might also suggest . . . [that] in the unmapped spaces written over the imperial map of India, and the de-Anglicization of the sahibized Kim, we could equally discover the subversion of all the works of imperial discipline” (100). Ultimately, he suggests that it is a complex text that evades critical containment into one camp or the other: “At every turn it seems, perversely, to undo itself, to inscribe itself now as a narrative of the accomplishment of Englishness, now as a document of

England’s hybridization; here as a plot of entrapment, there as a hymn to escape; . . . as an ode to the policing of empire” (99). Even the characters in the text seem perplexed by Kim’s inscrutable and ambiguous nature and two-sidedness. One of the soldiers encountered early in the story appears confounded by Kim and exclaims to him: “But why should one whose Star leads him to war follow a holy man?” (45). This question lies at the heart of the novel and the contradiction is

not fully resolved till the conclusion. In this section, however, the question is responded to enigmatically, and not fully, with Kim stating: “But he is a holy man. . . . In truth, and in talk and in act, holy. . . . I have never seen such an one” (46). Kim’s earnest words mark him as a seeker and a follower who is drawn to the qualities of purity, benevolence, and holiness embodied in the

Lama. Moreover, by these words, Kipling signals the text’s central concern with the amorphous notion of divinity as present within many peoples and places—it is through Kim and the Lama that

Kipling muses upon, examines, and gives artistic form to this concept. In a way, the Great Game and the subplot of espionage and war become momentarily eclipsed by Kim’s spiritual journey of self-mastery. At one level, his learnings will involve lessons in cartography, disguise, subterfuge, and espionage. John McBratney discusses the relevance of mapmaking in Kim by noting that “[a]t

St. Xavier’s . . . he [Kim] studies those subjects—mathematics, mapmaking, and surveying—that will prepare him for a future under the Colonel’s command” (Imperial Subjects, Imperial Space

111). It is clear Kim must learn these skills in order to qualify one day as a commander of native people. Kipling’s text suggests too that a well-mapped India brings better infrastructure and transportation to a needy people. He will also learn to map the inner terrains of mind and soul through spiritual training and importantly, through acquiring qualities that oppose the skills attained from his spy training. Indeed, from the Lama he learns to temper the ego, seek humility, transparency, and to transcend his lower self. Simultaneously, the question lingers whether Kim puts on a hybrid mask as a ruse in order to serve his own agenda of gaining power, prestige, and clear standing within the Secret Service of the Raj.

A Scramble for Kim: A Meeting of Five Fathers

The first stage of the journey is abruptly interrupted when Kim meets his father’s people.

This section is important in identifying Kim’s function as a hybrid figure who serves to unsettle rigid perspectives. Through Kim and the Lama’s encounter with Father Bennett, Father Victor,

Mahbub Ali and Colonel Creighton, Kipling presents the reader with a closer look at the impact of Kim’s powerful presence on others. The conversations that take place between the father figures regarding Kim’s future also will reveal Kipling’s fascination with the topic of faith and religion.

Kim’s indeterminate, multifarious hybrid nature will cause others to question and expand their existing perspectives, showing the reader how Kipling deploys the concept of hybridity to contemplate the opposing poles of thought regarding race, culture, religion and difference.

Kipling delves into the topic of comparative religion in the section depicting the meeting of father figures. This section is replete with syncretic metaphors and allusions to the intersections between Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. I argue that these references amplify and speak to

Kim’s hybrid status as an emblem of the symbolic unity linking these traditions. This is an intriguing scene as Kim comes to a deeper understanding of the diverse systems in place and the ways of his father’s regiment. Further, Kipling describes how “Kim's limitations were as curious and sudden as his expansions, the men . . . of his father's prophecy, might pray to the beast after dark, as Hindus pray to the Holy Cow” (75). Kipling refers to Kim’s ability to conceptually expand beyond the limitations that are pressed upon him—a quality that he transfers to those he engages with. Notably, this is Kim’s first significant encounter with so many of his own people in terms of race. By referring to the Hindu manner of worshipping as akin to what he observes in the camp,

Kim is initially attempting to understand the Colonizer through terms of familiarity. Further, he

uses descriptions of religious similarity in a bid to understand outward trappings of difference. In this scene, Kim is faced with reorienting himself towards a new potential identity.

This section investigates how people of diverging beliefs systems interact and whether they choose to view each other benevolently or prejudicially. Kipling places value on the innate wisdom of this child who is able to maneuver and partake in, yet not be consumed by, the signifiers represented by societal labels. Kipling further invokes the theme of religious commonality and difference when describing how Father Bennett and Father Victor view each other: “Between himself and the Roman Catholic Chaplain of the Irish contingent lay . . . an unbridgeable gulf. . . .

[However] Bennett's official abhorrence of the Scarlet Woman . . . was only equalled by his private respect for Father Victor” (76). Surely this is a sarcastic description showing how theologically divisive these two colleagues are; yet this does not prevent them from respectfully working with each other. An air of prejudice and condescension lurks heavily over the scene and these sentiments are not easily understood by the unschooled and untrained Kim. Kim, while refusing to be molded, has the impact of influencing and expanding the parochial perceptions held by others. In contradistinction to the Lama’s profession of the oneness of all humanity, Bennett appears close- minded and parochial as the narrator describes his first encounter with the Lama: “Bennett looked at him with the triple-ringed uninterest of the creed that lumps nine-tenths of the world under the title of ‘heathen’” (79). This is a view that the novel investigates but partially dispels through the unfolding of Kim’s journey to self-realization. The priest’s behaviour seems hostile and unenlightened in view of moments where Kipling extolls the virtues of Kim’s simple and open- minded views of race. Kim appears at times and not uniformly as a counterforce to racist values.

In an era that would have been informed by notions of scientific racism, this scene is indicative of

a creation of an alternative worldview—one that accounts for difference but entertains an understanding of human diversity.

Kipling places emphasis on the hybridity of Kim’s identity by focusing upon the manner by which he readily translates and borrows from different conceptual backgrounds. When interrogated regarding his background and his relationship to the Lama and his spiritual quest, Kim responds with a syncretic articulation:

“There is a River . . . .” Kim . . . translated in his own mind from the vernacular to

his clumsy English. “. . . made by our Lord God Buddha . . . [where] you are washed

away from all your sins and made as white as cotton-wool.” (Kim had heard

mission-talk in his time.) . . . .

“But this is gross blasphemy!” cried the Church of England. (80)

Here, Kim expresses his values through merging different traditions with ease and fluidity. Kipling seems to cast Father Bennett in a trivial light, reflecting his rigid mentality and lack of understanding or tolerance towards others. This scene will reveal the first attempts to proselytize/regulate Kim’s beliefs and tellingly, there will be no real progress made. Not only will

Kim resist all attempts to impose Christian teachings on him, but overt references to Christianity will fade away with Buddhist and Sufi iconography taking precedence in the latter half of the novel.

In the harried conversations that follow, there are significant cross-cultural interchanges that are taking place. Kim explains to the Lama: “I must needs go to a madrissah and be turned

into a Sahib” (81). In a state of excitement when reflecting upon Kim’s chance encounter and his future prospects, the more understanding Father Victor expresses, “It's predestined . . . tell him it's

Kismet” (81). In this scene all characters appear in a frenzied state, appearing as interlocutors and cross-cultural communicators, not fully succeeding in effectively conveying meaning. Kipling draws attention to how others are reacting to Kim’s hybrid nature—some view him as a threat to the status quo while others see his heroic potential as colonizer-in-training. Kipling describes

Kim’s language as composed of multiple tongues to highlight his hybrid status. This scene underlines the importance of mutual understanding and respect and it is noteworthy that Kipling underscores the use of the vernacular—for example, the word kismet as interchangeable with

Christian terms such as predestination or providence.

Kipling further blends languages, and religious imagery and symbolism when the characters discuss the fate of Kim. When the Muslim letter writer translates the Lama’s words requesting the finest education for Kim, he intersperses the documents with frequent invocations of the name of Allah/God. Kipling, in a lighthearted manner, expresses the ease by which these translations are made, indicating perhaps a larger discourse on the commonality of religious systems, while leaving the reader with a staggering contrast of images and sounds. Kipling draws the reader’s eye to what takes place in terms of (mis)translation by pinpointing how the letter contained “an amazing prayer to ‘Almighty God.’ The lama would have been more annoyed . . . had he known how the bazar letter-writer had translated his phrase ‘to acquire merit’” (96). We are able to see how the text entertains the possibility of coexisting within different frameworks of belief and this may be seen as a bid to dispel racist ideologies. This point of the novel further accentuates the cross-pollination that took place during the Raj—knowingly glossing over the

history of violence and oppression—and momentarily serves as a testimony to a shared humanity rather than a divided one. Thus, a convenient myth of empire is constructed. The father figures notably conspire to train Kim and to lead the way to his entrance into the Great Game. Eventually, as Kucich aptly notes “The Great Game . . . answers Kim’s questions about his own identity by folding him into the magic of British national omnipotence” (166).

Kim’s sudden entry into the camp also creates an atmosphere of fear and miscommunication but within this surrounding Kim represents the unifying symbol. No character seems to understand each other fully, but all come to a final resolution over the fate of the boy’s future. The scene highlights once again, Kim’s ability to act as a syncretic symbol of admixture and commonality, with each father figure expressing their desire to look after his wellbeing and—albeit differently envisioned—success. Kim acts, then, as a mediator for he is able to placate all as seen when the

Lama expresses his lament regarding Kim’s identity as a Sahib:

“A Sahib and the son of a Sahib—” The lama's voice was harsh with pain. “But no

white man knows the land and the customs of the land as thou knowest. . . .”

“What matter, Holy One? . . . Remember, I can change swiftly. It will all be as it

was when I first spoke to thee. . . .” (82)

Wurgaft notes that “the conventional wisdom of the late nineteenth century stressed the unassailable distance between the European and the Indian mind” (14). We see an opposing sentiment present here with the characters’ commonality underlined. While his hybridity offends and intrigues some, Kim seems unconcerned and pushes away such gestures attempting to define him. Instead, Kim self-defines by way of his shape-shifting qualities. Kucich notes: “By making

Kim’s power seem benign, however, Kipling camouflages its affinity with sadomasochistic energies that always lie just beneath the surface of both narcissistic and imperial grandiosity”

(162). Parry comments:

It is through collecting and collating information about India’s roads, rivers, plants,

stones and customs that the Ethnological Survey makes available to the government

that intelligence which is essential to the proper exercise of British power. And it

is Kim, the sahib who can pass as any one of India’s many peoples, who has access

to the secrets of all India and puts these at the disposal of a benevolent Raj. (124)

Roy notes on the additional nuance regarding Kim’s subjectivity as Irish that:

Kim's own whiteness is never something that can be taken as given; it must also be

learned, demonstrated, and defended. . . . [H]is racial identity is always interstitial

and contested. He is, after all, Irish, an ethnic-national category often conflated with

the Indian and in many instances affiliated with Indian nationalism. (87)

Indeed, Kipling chooses to cast Kim as a divine trickster god representing unity against the backdrop of the contested space of India under the British Raj. The endearing scene glosses over the political dimensions of the period and instead focuses upon the parting of the Lama and his chela. And as Kutzer contends: “By the end of the novel Kim uses his relationship with the lama as cover in order to complete a spy mission in the north of India, thus subverting Eastern spirituality to the causes of Western colonialism” (22). The scene imparts a bittersweet note with Kipling once again reminding the reader that Kim belongs to all the world. Kim is one who holds the ability to broaden, confuse, and frustrate the perspectives of those he meets, including that of the lama and

the other fathers. Indeed, he will continue to appear to us a changeling and a disruptor of boundaries—a common feature of trickster figures across the world.

Kipling often establishes Kim’s role as that of teacher who causes people to challenge and break away from their preconceived values. Kim’s illustrates himself to be the benevolent/mischievous colonial trickster when he leads the Lama away from the tenet of his faith that calls for renunciation of all mortal ties. A tearful lama who is shaken by his fatherly love for

Kim expresses the following sentiments: “So my heart went out to thee for thy charity and thy courtesy and the wisdom of thy little years. But those who follow the Way must permit not the fire of any desire or attachment, for that is all illusion. . . . It is the Law which I have broken!” (83; emphasis added). This positions Kim as an appointed guide for the Lama and can also be seen as a proselytizer/saviour who wrenches the Lama away from his traditional path in the name of love/gain. Not only will Kim break laws but he causes others to overspill their own theological and philosophical boundaries; yet never quite fully with respect to colonial ideologies. The text will ultimately present this as a beneficial rather than destructive quality as the Lama ends his search only through pushing the barriers of his beliefs and through his religiously unsanctioned love for Kim. At this stage, Kim represents a means to transcend the confines of regulations that dictate behaviour and the codes of social engagement.

Kim’s hybridity is accentuated through the numerous references to his near demonic nature.

Colonel Creighton lightheartedly calls Kim “A cheerful young demon!” (100) while Mahbub Ali calls him “A most finished Son of Eblis” (120). Father Bennett sarcastically claims that Kim heralds the dawning of a new age by virtue of his freakish, otherworldly constitution: “D'you add prophecy to your other gifts? . . . Who says the age of miracles is gone by? . . . My poor mind's

weakening” (86). Kipling illustrates how discomfiting Kim’s presence is to those he encounters by threatening existing worldviews and causing men (and possibly women) to shift their perspectives and horizons. The priest expresses teasingly how his thought process has become disrupted and this demonstrates Kim’s role as a mythical bearer of new truths and perspectives.

Questioning Kim regarding the anomaly of his being, Father Victor inquires: “Are there many more like you in India? . . . or are you by way o' being a lusus naturae?” (88). Lusus naturae translates to “freak of nature” in Latin and here Kipling accentuates Kim’s many guises using diction referring to the demonic. Kipling casts him variously as demiurge, a god, a demon and a changeling who is neither good nor evil. At one level, he illustrates how Kim’s hybridity is a means to transcend the limitations of binary-thinking and a world of duality. At another level, he constructs an image of Kim’s spell-binding persona—representing love, unity and acceptance— that loosely masks his trickery and deception and his ultimate drive to wrest control and further establish/promote colonial rule.7

7In the Symposium, Plato explicates the nature of Eros, who he formulates to be a Daemon. Notably, this demon of love bears striking resemblance with Kim in his role as messenger/Eros/Demon and informant of the heavens. Diotima of Mantineia, purportedly a female seer who teaches Socrates matters of Divine Love, expresses the following wisdom in a dialogue: 'Love?' . . . is a great spirit (daimon), and like all spirits he is intermediate between the divine and the mortal.' . . . 'he is the mediator who spans the chasm which divides them, and therefore in him all is bound together, and through him the arts of the prophet and the priest, their sacrifices and mysteries and charms, and all prophecy and incantation, find their way. (Plato, Symposium; n.pag.; emphasis added) Note the resemblance to our spirited character Kim to the Daimon—Love. I have throughout this chapter highlighted Kim as the messenger and the symbolic bridge between worlds. His ability to convey these messages will deepen as the story unfolds, culminating with a scene depicting enlightenment. Elsewhere, in the Symposium, Plato’s character observes: “human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love. There was a time, I say, when we were one, but now because of the wickedness of mankind God has dispersed us. . . .” (Plato, Symposium n. pag.). It is noteworthy that in his exposition on Divine Love, Plato includes a note on universal love and the original unity of humankind. This interplay finds expression through Kim’s story of hybridity and where he appears, at one level, as a harbinger of universal love and unity. 94

Kipling’s autobiography provides clues that Kipling was well aware of the Platonic,

Aristotelian, and neo-Platonic inquiries into the nature of the Daemon—a creative potential that can be unleashed through invocation/meditation. He seems to equate the Daemon as an aspect of the writer’s higher self or higher consciousness by indicating: “Let us now consider the Personal

Daemon of Aristotle and others, of whom it has been truthfully written, though not published”

(Something of Myself 122). He speaks of this force/entity as guiding him in his work, allowing him to channel insights otherwise not available. Regarding the crafting of a short story, “The Eye of

Allah,” he writes: “Then said my Daemon . . . ‘Treat it as an illuminated manuscript’. . . . My

Daemon was with me in the Jungle Books, [and] Kim” (Something of Myself 122). Thus, we see how Kipling raises the image of the Demon, not only through the character of Kim, but also in terms of the art of writing. His words perhaps shed light in his chosen characterization of Kim as an imp-like figure, embodying creativity that is lacking in others: it is clear that in his personal narrative he invokes the term positively as a distinct stream of consciousness that creates illuminated texts that are free of the rigid impositions of the rational mind. He writes further on how he birthed the tale of Kim: “Kim . . . grew like the Djinn released from the brass bottle”

(Something of Myself 82). Kipling makes a further elusive reference to magical Eastern teachings while writing Kim: “Kim took care of himself8 . . . . [I had] to bother the India Office . . . for a certain work on Indian magic which I always sincerely regret that I could not steal” (82). These words reflect how Kipling was conscious of the thematic importance of magic in the text. Magic, for Kipling, may represent a fluid understanding of religious and spiritual syncretism as imaged in

8 The word choice is curious: as though the text exposes another viewpoint that Kipling is distancing himself from by claiming that the text wrote itself. The section appears partly as a kind of apology or proleptic guarding on Kipling’s part regarding potential viewpoints contained in Kim. 95

the texts of Kim and The Jungle Book stories. Kipling’s use of magic appears as a way of supporting the status quo, and privileging whiteness within Kim’s hybridity, while also promoting the myth of unity.

We can add a further element of analysis in noting how Kim is positioned as demonic, but distinctly not evil. He may reject binaries of good and evil by multiply invoking “heretical” images to impart his views, enjoining the reader to interrogate the notions of faith that permeate their world. Part of Kim’s demonic, heretical nature is that he refuses to swear allegiance to one faith; rather, choosing to associate with all and none. This figuration too bears traces with Kipling’s own history. In his introduction to Something of Myself, Thomas Pinney notes: Kipling’s “restless life seemed to be that of a man who belonged to no particular country” (xiv). The story of Kim bears traces of biographical elements perhaps in that it is marked by a series of existential moments where Kim is troubled by the difficulty of self-identification. In the moment where the priests consider the future of his religious and intellectual training, his belief in self is once again brought to question: “Father Victor . . . discoursed to him of an entirely new set of Gods and Godlings— notably of a Goddess called Mary, who, he gathered, was one with Bibi Miriam of Mahbub Ali's theology” (105). Hai notes of Kim’s subjectivity: “Innately crafty, he knows not to tell too much, but his loyalties are not tethered to any cause or race. Indeed, he regards those of his race with suspicion” (71).

Not comfortable in the company of the two priests, Kim searches for answers with another important father figure in the tale, Mahbub Ali, the Afghan horse-trader, and asks:

“What am I? Mussalman, Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist? That is a hard knot.”

“Thou art beyond question an unbeliever, and therefore thou wilt be damned. So

says my Law—or I think it does. But thou art also my Little Friend of all the World,

and I love thee. . . . This matter of creeds. . . . Each has merit in its own country.”

(129)

This conversation appears comforting to Kim and we see that Kipling focuses on the matters of the heart over the mind, dogma and reason. In so doing, he brings to light the intricacies of the prejudices held by various people, as if to suggest that these beliefs can be dissolved by the pervading force of love. Kipling will notably shift the choice of diction to words such as soul, heart and love as Kim moves towards his enlightenment as if to indicate the importance of these concepts as complicating the parochial and discriminatory views that are also present within Kim.

Alternatively, Tim Christensen proposes that the “apparent dualism . . . [of Kim] can be best understood in terms of a Lacanian logic of misrecognition” (11). He adds: “the limitations of essentialist notions of identity are projected onto racial others, while the freedom of self-creation derived from a performative notion of identity becomes the exclusive privilege of whites” (11).

Parry notes: “Between Kim’s pursuit of action, the life of the senses and personal identity, and the lama’s quest for quietism, asceticism and the annihilation of self, there is no dialogue”

(128). I propose a different reading for as the story unfolds, Kim negotiates the terms of his course of study by ensuring his eventual reunification with the Lama. He expresses enduring love for this man and his expression of affection perplexes Mahbub Ali. Kim sees the Lama as a key to his

“crowning” and his reunification with his father’s people. His admiration appears associated with the Lama’s spiritual philosophy. Kim seemingly shuns dogma but spiritual seeking, represented by the Lama, will appear of great importance to him and will propel him forward on his mission

to understand self and other. Kim explains to Mahbub Ali: “to him my heart is drawn. . . . It is one part of my bond . . . If I do not see him, and if he is taken from me, I will go out of that madrissah

. . . and—once gone, who is to find me again?” (129) We see here that Kim chooses to “see worth in a man so little known” (129) and this signals his preference for the Lama, the humble spiritual teacher, over all others. Kipling highlights, at this moment in the text, how the subplot of the Great

Game and Kim’s role as a spy in training are dependent upon, and not superseded by, the Lama’s spiritual quest. Kucich explains: “Kim’s relationship to the lama also mixes pain with love, but in preoedipal terms, which complement the oedipalized, sadomasochistic dynamics of the spy ring without seeming to contradict them” (166). He adds: “The spy ring, however, generates a form of omnipotence that exceeds anything the lama can provide” (166). I suggest that both readings are valid and point to Kipling’s expression of colonial ambivalence.

At one level, the novel focuses upon the love bond between the Lama and Kim and their journey to enlightenment. At another, it captures the process of metamorphosis that enables Kim to become a full-fledged and masterful spy. While others have chosen to view the spiritual quest as a subsidiary plot thread, I illustrate how Kim’s symbolic hybridity is the focal point and prominent theme in the text, revealing Kim as key to understanding the mystical nature of human existence—that of the interconnectivity of creation.

Lurgan Sahib and the House of Magic and Illusion

In the middle section of the novel, Kipling again consciously invokes the topic of magic to further define Kim’s hybrid status. Kim receives a different form of training under the tutelage of

Lurgan Sahib. The narrator makes known that he will not refer to Kim’s experience at the boarding school for Sahibs for “[t]he record of a boy's education interests few save his parents, and, as you know, Kim was an orphan” (147). Yet, as Kucich explains “In addition to honing his perceptual skills through Lurgan’s training, Kim must also be introduced to the newest, most modern forms of surveillance available to the professional spy ring, including the processing and classification of information in reports, memoranda, and academic papers” (170). Sara Suleri contends: “Kim’s tutors fall into Orientalist and Anglicist camps, with the Anglicists clearly winning over the

Orientalism that the lama represents” (128). I will argue that Kipling foregrounds the education that Kim receives from the Teshoo Lama, a marked image of Eastern wisdom. As the Lama soundly notifies Kim: “The Sahibs have not all this world’s wisdom” (173). Kim also expresses that he is indebted to the Lama by declaring: “My teaching I owe to thee. I have eaten thy bread three years” (171). One sees throughout the text that Kim acquires teachers of non-European or mixed descent.

In Chapter Nine, Kipling introduces us to the enigmatic figure of Lurgan Sahib. He meticulously chronicles Kim’s growth at Lurgan Sahib’s house of curiosities and in so doing, emphasizes other ways of knowing in the form of training in disguise, multi-religious understanding, and magic. On the theme of magic in Kipling’s works, Kucich soundly notes,

“Kipling was centrally concerned with rewriting social hierarchy on imperial terrain by merging the sadomasochistic logic of what I will call ‘magical groups’ with both professional and evangelical values” (140). He adds: “Kipling promoted magical groups as the foundation for

British imperial rule in India” (160). Like the Lama, Lurgan Sahib will enable Kim’s self- actualization by exposing him to atypical philosophical teachings. It is also important to note that

Lurgan Sahib’s racial background is left unclear and is described only as a “black-bearded man, with a green shade over his eyes” (133).

We are first introduced to his character through Mahbub Ali who describes Lurgan Sahib as a skilled and unconventional man who is affiliated with the notion of magic. Mahbub Ali explains:

“Men say he does magic, but that should not touch thee . . . Here begins the Great Game” (132; emphasis added). Hai writes:

As Lurgan Sahib later tells him, this mobility is not just a form of revelry or an

exercise of freedom: it is literally a matter of life and death when Kim is employed

in the Great Game, for if he makes one false step of bodily gesture or cultural

knowledge, those among whom he is spying would kill him. (67)

Kipling will again place emphasis on the idea of underground secret societies and the shared concepts that are at the centre of their teachings. There is an unspoken acknowledgement in the ties that bind these chosen men and it is understood that young Kim is entering into a new phase of awareness of his place in the world and eventual role in the Great Game. I will examine the following questions: What greater knowledge does Kim acquire and how does Kipling portray the

Buddhist notion of maya or illusion in this section, and to what effect? And why should Kim’s entrance in the Great Game be catalyzed by his association with Lurgan Sahib? We will find that

Lurgan Sahib trains Kim for him to see beyond artifice, societal conditioning, control and deception, and also to become a masterful spy/colonial agent. As Christensen observes: “Kim is white by virtue of the fact that he extracts a[n] . . . abstract and disconnected pleasure from the exchange of Indian identities” (11). As Hai notes, in the early stages of the novel, “Kim is a reader

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of the body or of the world as text, he poses a danger to the order of empire, for his freewheeling is too uncurtailed in its brilliance” (71). Lurgan Sahib will ensure that the Kim is trained, made less free, so that his skills are targeted in action in the name of empire. As Hai notes further “As

Kim is instructed in the Game, he acquires a new ability to act from Lurgan Sahib. But this is not acting on his own behalf or action in the sense of autonomy. Increasingly acting for others, Kim gradually loses the autonomy he began with” (78).

The scene opens significantly with another reference to veils and curtains. Kim enters into

Lurgan Sahib’s house of gemstones, antiques, and curiosities and finds a mysterious and somewhat forbidding atmosphere: “Kim . . . parted the curtain. A black-bearded man . . . sat at a table. . . .

[the room] smelt like all the temples of all the East. A whiff of musk, a puff of sandal-wood . . . the smells made him forget that he was to be a Sahib” (134). As we will find, Kim will undergo another rite of passage through being tested for his fearlessness, tenacity, and resolve. The house appears more as a temple and Kim is assailed by the vapours of the incense sticks that leave him unsettled. Interestingly, we are returned to the opening scene depicting the Lahore Jadoo Gher as

Kim observes: “This place . . . is like a Wonder House” (134). He further describes the setting:

“Lahore Museum was larger, but here were more wonders” (137). Kipling returns us to the first pages of the novel where Kim was introduced to the topics of enlightenment, fraternity/brotherhood between chosen men, and of comparative religion. I suggest that another degree of knowledge on these issues will be conveyed in Lurgan’s house of curiosities. By likening the interior space of this home to that of the Lahore Museum, Kipling returns again to the theme of hybridity.

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Regarding Lurgan Sahib’s hybrid character, the narrator informs: “He was a Sahib in that he wore Sahib's clothes; the accent of his Urdu, the intonation of his English, showed that he was anything but a Sahib . . . [and] he treated Kim as an equal on the Asiatic side” (136). Lurgan Sahib teaches Kim to accept his shape-shifting abilities and to sharpen these skills to become more masterful in his hybrid constitution. Lurgan Sahib miraculously repairs the broken earthen water- jug after it is broken into multiple pieces. A typically fearless Kim is rendered awestruck and rattled by what he witnesses. Kutzer writes: “it is only when Kim can resist seeing the vision of the transformed jar that Lurgan Sahib wants him to see that he is ready to take his place as an adult player in the Great Game: he must learn to separate truth from illusion, stability from instability”

(19).

Yet Kim does not fall prey to the illusion and attempts at mesmerism as he recites the

English multiplication tables as a talisman against the Sahib’s maneuver: “So far Kim had been thinking in Hindi. . . [but] his mind leaped up from a darkness . . . and took refuge in—the multiplication-table in English!” (138). Thrall writes of this scene:

The seemingly supernatural power of Lurgan Sahib to make a pitcher travel through

air and restore itself . . . resolves to the effects of hypnotism . . . some Eastern art

of mind control. . . . [When] Kim saves himself from Lurgan's illusion by reciting

the multiplication tables, a Western-styled reason is Kipling's chosen antidote to

threats that his narrative will take leave of a firmly grounded naturalism. (56)

Hai notes of this scene: “The order of mathematics . . . and the English language together seem to release him from a form of tyranny— hypnosis—enabling him to read for himself. Hindi, his

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language of first proficiency, cannot effect that independence” (78). Wurgaft explains: “The

British came to regard themselves as the incarnation of austerity, courage, and self-control; natives were caricatured . . . as their emotional opposites” (10). This scene can be read as Kim’s return to the western logos, switching from the vernacular back in a bid to embrace his identity as imperial master in the making. The story of Kim is strewn with inquiries regarding existential truth. It is here that Kim realizes that his grasp on his reality is loose and Kim entertains the idea that there is more to behold than is apparent to the eye. Kipling notes that Kim becomes more alert or more conscious after this frightening experience, for he declares: “‘Was that more magic?’ . . . he felt unusually wide awake” (139; emphasis added). Kim is being tempered and transformed under the

Sahib’s guidance in terms of skills/awareness/power over mind control as well as regarding gaining acceptance for his own hybrid attributes and spy abilities. Only a European can achieve this and not be swayed by Oriental magic—the imperial lord who will not succumb to the temptations of the sinister mystical forces of the East. Kucich adds: “Kipling does his best to make these omnipotent personal qualities seem innocent of aggression. . . . Kim’s talents obviate the need for physical assault” (161).This scene appears as a test of Kim’s mettle and fearlessness and through passing the trial, Lurgan intimates that Kim is a chosen one, a savior figure who is the first to save himself (and the text maintains, problematically, that he will presumably save others).

The main teaching Kim gathers through Lurgan Sahib is that there are other ways of knowing and seeing and that book knowledge alone is insufficient. Lurgan Sahib encourages Kim to savour the ten days that they have together by uttering: “thou canst return to Lucknao where they teach nothing” (142). Here Kipling emphasizes the importance of discerning truth against illusory images and practices—understood by the reader as teachings to aid Kim as future

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ruler/spy/colonial master. In this setting, “[t]here were occasional gatherings of long-coated theatrical natives who discussed metaphysics in English and Bengali, to Mr Lurgan's great edification. He was always interested in religions” (143). Significantly, all the men in Kim’s inner circle are fascinated with the topic of comparative religion. Perhaps this sequence of the novel outlines how Lurgan ingrains in Kim the importance of understanding culture and faith with a keen and lively interest, potentially to gain ethnological knowledge, to know the Other to better rule

India. Notably, Lurgan Sahib also trains Kim in the art of disguise and how to adopt the mannerisms, garb and speech of various peoples of India. Kim shows a propensity for this art and

Kipling’s description of this aspect of his training is telling: “The Hindu child[’s] . . . little mind .

. . could not temper itself to enter another's soul; but a demon in Kim woke up and sang with joy as he put on the changing dresses, and changed speech and gesture”(143).

Gail Ching-Liang Low aptly points out:

Colonial cross-cultural costume shares cross-dressing’s fascination with

boundaries and theatricality. . . . Does the crossing of cultural boundaries divest the

cross-cultural dresser of colonial power? Fanon’s cautionary remarks point to the

asymmetrical nature of a colonial fantasy which treats the Other as usable fiction.

(222)

Another angle of interpretation can suggest that that Kim’s otherworldly nature enables him to acquire the spirit and psyche of another at will—as indicated by the lines that Kim, unlike the other boy, could “enter another's soul.” He appears as part of a colonial fantasy as the colonizer as god.

Clearly, Kipling takes great pains to present to us the idea that Kim is remarkable in his ability to

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transmogrify and acquire the essence of another. We are told that “the narrative thrust in Kim is also to remind the reader of the real body underneath his clothes; the story harnesses the real purpose of cross-cultural dress to espionage” (Ching-Liang Low 224). At one level, then, “it is only through a fetishism of Kim’s whiteness that the colonial text is secured and the reader enabled to participate in the pleasurable fantasy of cultural/racial metamorphosis” (Ching-Liang Low 210).

The themes of magic and secrecy in Kim enable a particular myth to take form—Kim must understand the roles of magic, superstition and religion in India in order to transcend obstacles that may be present during his future missions as spy/colonizer. Another thread operates at the same time that Kim’s spiritual growth is dependent upon his knowledge of unity and oneness. We find that the proponents and brotherhood of Oneness in this text are bound by secrecy, finding nurturance only within protected esoteric circles. In the house of Lurgan Sahib, Kim finds an inner sanctum where he freely undergoes further metamorphosis, gaining consciousness which moves him closer toward the fulfilment of his father’s prophecy heralding his rise to power and greater fortunes.

Witchcraft, Magic, and Incantations: The Forging of a Mystic Warrior

Kim is a text full of ambivalence and ambivalent imagery is seen again when the character of Huneefa appears—the section points to the conjoining of themes of Indian dark magic rituals and Kim’s hybrid attributes, leading to Kim’s elevation of rank/strength/colonial mastery. It is tricky to ascertain whether Huneefa is presented in a comical and derogatory light or if she is

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granted substantial power in a text where women’s roles are limited and minimal. Of other texts featuring women within Kipling’s writings, Parry observes that they exhibit

the colonialist appetite for possession and control. Such multiple exigencies are

dramatized in the love stories ‘Beyond the Pale’ . . . where native subordination and

Oriental passion, those staples of colonial discourse, come together in the ecstatic

and ceremonial yielding of the native as female to the dominating presence of a

masculine west. (126)

However, while Lurgan Sahib reflected the dangers of Oriental magic, Kipling presents a differing view when he furthers develops the thread of Magic as Kim is initiated by a Muslim witch before he embarks on his first official mission for the Great Game. Thrall speaks of this curious scene as a “bizarre expression of Eastern supernaturalism [that] verges on caricature” (57). The reader must naturally inquire: why does Kim’s final induction take place via a purification and protection ritual overseen by Huneefa, a witch? Wurgaft explains that the “mysterious or magical conception of native India was placed directly in opposition to the mythical achievements of the British [for example] in Punjab” (16). Thrall reads this scene as a battle between European reason and Oriental views of faith.

Western reason again is elevated in the resistance of Kim's "white blood" to the

effects of hypnotism. . . . Significantly, except for Kim, the scene is peopled by the

East, and even Kim is there to have his "orientalness" reasserted through Huneefa's

colored dye and rituals. . . . With no unadulterated Westerner . . . present to cast

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the coolly dismissive gaze of unaffected science, Kipling gives the reader up to the

power of the exotic "other" side of the East- West nexus. (57)

The scene can also be read as a type of carnivalesque overturning of gender roles. Wurgaft explains that the “British saw as emotional anarchy religious rituals like . . . Holi. . . where the gamut of emotions, from destructive to orgiastic, were played out” (61). Indeed, sexual, ambiguous undertones are present with Huneefa cast as the seducer harnessing power to destroy or uplift men—indicating perhaps a threat to colonial rule. Wurgaft adds: “It seems clear that at an intrapsychic level the British were unable to separate their possession of India and control of its population from an erotic involvement with native life” (74) and that “an image of imperial rule reflects the vulnerability of the magic on which it was based—a fear of loss rooted in archaic fantasy as well as in political reality” (Wurgaft 78). As we will find, this “fear of loss” is indeed present in this scene.

It is important to consider the reasons why Kipling includes a scene rich with ritual, mysticism, and feminine magic in a story where women are overlooked and often disparaged as nuisances and distractions impeding important masculine pursuits. Indeed, Huneefa appears as the focal point where men gather around her for a special anointment and blessing for their apprentice- spy, Kim—a sort of semi-divine, partly derided female principle in the text. In another symbolic light, the scene can indicate the exploitation of Huneefa wherein her sexuality and nurturance, and supernatural talents and gifts are directed, forcibly or through economic coercion, to the advancement of Kim’s civilizing mission—for in empowering/protecting Kim, Huneefa furthers the imperial cause. Sadiyya Shaikh explains that women played a prominent role within the Sufi

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tradition of Islam and that there were numerous “spiritual savant[s]” who were female (2).9 She writes of the great Sufi master Ibn Arabi and how in later stages of his life accorded women, and in particular one by the name of Yasmina or “Shams” with “full recognition to the spiritual mastery of a woman adept, depicting her as superior in ability and attainment to many of her male contemporaries” (100). She contends further that Ibn Arabi “collapses some of the patriarchal stereotypes that isolate and bind women solely within the realm of the body” (104). Kestner writes of how “Kipling is the great chronicler of male homosocial spaces: the barracks, the square, the regiment, the public school, the army, the ship” (86). Indeed, it can be argued that Kipling affords a semblance of agency to Huneefa by granting her power over Kim and the circle of men who are witness to the ceremony. The scene denotes a possible condescending air where the Western gaze ridicules the East for its perceived pseudo-religious rituals. Ghosh examines another critic to note on Kipling’s use of magic:

Gail Ching-Liang Low's sympathetic account is closer to my sense of Kipling's

spectrality: she insists the supernatural cannot be entirely reined in, for it leaves a

wound gaping in the colonial text. Knowing the ghost prompts a crisis in colonial

administrative (and often authorial) authority. (338)

Indeed, the scene can be read as a fissure of sorts where the pull from the Indian side is relentless and Kim must submit and undergo ritualistic change through his interaction with Huneefa. His

9 Sadiyya Shaikh also points out how in our recent age, “a worldwide Muslim debate was sparked in 2005 when Professor Amina Wadud led Friday ritual prayers . . . in New York City” (4). It is is interesting to observe Kipling casting a Muslim woman in a leadership position in the tale, yet potentially disturbing gender segregation codes. It is unclear whether Huneefa is a woman of “questionable” virtue, based on the societal norms of the period, who operates outside the stict Islamic principles of gender segregation. 108

growing colonial identity is momentarily underminded with a strengthening of his Indian side, signalled by his moment of occult "union" with the Indian enchantress/witch. As we will find, the theme of magic plays an important role as curiously linked to the the narrative threads displaying political intrigue, espionage and imperial expansion. Perhaps as Low and Ghosh suggest, the theme of spectrality, and by extension Huneefa as the communicator with the spectral realms, represents the unknowable feminine force that threatens to "wound" and unsettle colonial authority. Ghosh further maintains that: "Colonial occult fiction translates, then makes palatable through the affective capacities of literature, those subjugated knowledges (emerging from folklorists, psychical researchers, and Spiritualists, among others) considered doxai by colonial elites" (341).

One can read this too as exoteric dogma pitted against spirtual/magical Eastern ways of thinking.

Let us closely examine the scene where Mahbub Ali and Hurree Babu decide upon a secretive ceremony before deploying Kim into the world of danger—to assess if the text presents the scene as mockery of Eastern "customs" or as a necessary act that propels Kim to higher levels of action/prowess in the Great Game.

Indeed, the men that have been established thus far as superior in skill, intelligence, and consciousness are bowing to this female presence by choosing to induct Kim into their league through her incantations. The very description of Huneefa is striking—she is heavily bejewelled and her ominous/sexual presence is quickly made apparent with the men cautioning Kim of her dangerous power. The narrator describes her as a “shapeless woman clad in greenish gauzes, and decked . . . with heavy native jewellery . . . Kim checked, bewildered, at the door-curtain” (160).

This scene again invokes the imagery of veiling and illusions as Kim peers through the curtains to

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the other side for a return to his familiar world. Mahbub Ali explains why he must undergo the strange ritual:

“To protection. Tonight we change thy colour. Huneefa has the secret of a colour

that catches . . . Also, we fortify thee against the chances of the Road. That is my

gift to thee, my son. . .”

"Jadoo? [magic]," said Kim, with a half start. He did not like the white, sightless

eyes. (160-1)

In the scene, Huneefa’s “eyes” suggest her ability to commune with the unseen, spirit realms—a point that Kim expresses displease and fear. He slips into a state of senselessness as the blind

Huneefa proceeds with the ceremony: “Huneefa, now whispering in his ear . . . the boy lost his senses” (161). One learns further that “Huneefa, in some sort of drugged ecstasy, wrenched herself to and fro . . . by Kim’s still head” (162). Significantly, Kipling uses to language of “ecstasy” and

“trance” to depict this scene as if to subtly denote a sexual connotation. Yet in this scene, the Indian

“mistress” dominates as Kim appears in a supine position entirely under the sway of Huneefa. This strange scene appears as a final inculcation of otherworldly, demonic attributes in Kim. Not only does Huneefa offer Kim the hybrid ability to blend in terms of colouration of skin, she imparts protection from demonic forces to enable him to safely navigate the world of the Raj and the dangerous circuits of the Great Game. In certain ways, she helps shape his hybrid constitution, and arguably, is herself an amalgam of the material and spiritual planes in the text, and is thus also a notable “hybrid” figure. Her presence may fortify the notion/myth that hybrids possess special powers. Regarding narratives of women in Islam, Shaikh explains that:

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Women and femaleness are constructed as sexual, carnal, and often . . . emotional

and irrational, engendering chaos. This sexualized feminine realm is seen as

oppositional to spirituality, intellect, and rationality, which are associated with

maleness. . . . Thus, men are superior and are inevitably leaders . . . over the lesser

human being, who is female. This gendered split between the principles of body

and the mind presents us with Cartesian dualism in Muslim garb. (8)

This scene denotes, at one level, a call to a form of pluralism. Kipling paints a curious tapestry of images with three seemingly divergent figures converging over the figure of a young Irish boy about to undergo transformation: the fearful witch, the Muslim Pathan, and the rational agnostic/Hindu Babu. Certainly, we see again how Kim is further established as a symbol of union between diverse and opposing lines of race, religion, creed, as well as unifying the divide between the material and immaterial worlds. In a story confusingly strewn with prophecies, omens and symbols, Huneefa sheds light regarding the mystery of Kim’s role through asserting his function as a key to illumination, unity, and transcendence. The narrator explains:

Huneefa . . . called upon devil after devil, in the ancient order of the ritual, binding

them to avoid the boy's every action."With Him are the keys of the Secret Things!

None knoweth them besides Himself He knoweth that which is in the dry land and

in the sea!" Again broke out the unearthly whistling responses. (162; emphasis

added)10

10 Simon Digby claims: “All of these sentences are taken from the Qanoon-e-Islam. . . .The second and third sentences are ayats (verses) of the Qur'an, which [Ja’far Shariff] Herklots quotes as they appear in Sale's early eighteenth century 111

Wurgaft contends: "If the impulse behind British rule in India was informed by magic—by the desire for omnipotence, and by the need to ward off the threat of loss—then such magic most often took the shape of myth" (79). In a sense Kipling creates a specific type of myth through tracing

Kim’s search for unity. While a portion of these lines are taken from the Quran, Franklin proposes also that the key is a reference to "a phrase Kipling either borrowed from Theosophy or else from the same sources as Madame Blavatsky" (137). Gauri Viswanathan examines the topic of

"Religious Dissent and Racial Theory" during the Victorian period (Outside the Fold 187) and suggests that there are elements of "anticolonialism of ideologies as disparate as secularism and theosophy (185). Kipling perhaps consciously inserts a subtle reference to Theosophy through the image of Kim as the "master key." Reflecting on Annie Besant’s The Evolution of Society,

Viswanathan describes how it held a particular vision: "As the culmination of biological and social development, a harmonious federation of nation-societies will match a diverse variety of races, now no longer subsisting in a state of competitive tension but in mutual reconciliation" (Outside the Fold 190). Perhaps Kim’s role as key can be understood with attention to this envisioning of harmonious future societies. Viswanathan adds further that the conversion to "minority or alternative religions" (Outside the Fold 192), and by extension, I argue, references to esoteric

Oriental traditions during the Victorian period, can be read in a certain way; she asserts: "Besant’s conversions illuminate the successive ties between British secularism and Orientalism, between dissent from Christianity and imperialism, and between British support for Indian nationalism and race theory" (192). A similar picture of polarization resides within the text of Kim. It is within

translation” (63). He suggests that the Qanoon-e-Islam is the text that inspired several of the magic rituals seen in Kim; Digby also links this text to Burton and shows how Burton commended this text as an excellent treatise (59), suggesting to the reader that both authors were utilizing tropes of magic potentially sourced/inspired from the same text. 112

these interstices that Kim’s hybridity and ambiguous subject position, a character as a symobol of the point of tension of ideological drives, can be best understood. In a similar vein, Bubb contends :

"If worldwide theosophy indirectly disseminated Kipling’s vision of India, then Kim in particular must be appreciated in its extended, global ambit" (401). Functioning as an oracle in this scene,

Huneefa speaks of the gravity of Kim’s character as the one who is omnipotent and divine—a potential messenger or portal to new ways of being. Simultaneously the scene reads as a coronation ritual where Kim is deemed the divinely appointed ruler. Kim’s status as master translator/interpreter of many tongues and cultures becomes solidified through Huneefa’s ministrations.

Peter Washington, in his comprehensive study of Theosophy, explains:

another nineteenth century preoccupation, [was] the search for a single key that

would solve the mysteries of the universe. A key, it was thought, might unlock the

source. . . . explaining apparent diversity in terms of actual unity is the formative

principle of most ancient philosophies and religions. But this desire to find unity in

diversity became a nineteenth-century obsession in direct proportion to the

confusing multiplication of new ideologies. (9)

We see elements of this drive in Kim with its particular ideology and worldview that is certainly informed by imperial dogma and other times by the presentation of alternative narrative of human coexistance. He adds: “It was proposed . . . that all human tongues derive from one common language, all races from one mother-race, all philosophies and religions from one original

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doctrine” (9).11 These findings can help contextualize Kipling’s fascination with the occult, secret societies, spirituality and magic in Kim. Washington contends that many sought in the West to confirm “the possibility of a universal philosophical language” (14) and that “two early western gurus, Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) and Franz Anton Mesmer (1735-1815), [were] both candidates in the race to find a Key to Everything” (13). Washington’s historical insights further shed light regarding the function of the presentation of multiple faiths in Kim. He explains:

Hinduism and Buddhism . . . were slowly becoming more diffused in nineteenth-

century Europe, and it is characteristic of the turn eastward which was affecting

many branches of Western enquiry. . . . Transcendentalism and Unitarianism, for

example, are major Christian sects influenced by Vedic doctrines in the unity of all

created things and the sole reality of spirit. (22)

In the East, there were also similar aims/concerns expressed in notable reform organizations such as the Arya and Brahmo Samaj in Bengal promoting human commonality. The story of Kim, then, must be read in light of these inquiries and philosophical drives.

We have thus far seen that magic is a key concept that runs through Kim; Ghosh links this theme with that of spiritualism and mesmerism within broader Victorian culture and informs of how: “The swell of sympathy for telepathic address in the 1880s is one such phase, where several highly visible British proponents of telepathy variously voice opposition to the hegemonic thrust

11 Peter Washington argues that this drive is present patently in many works of Victorian fiction such as Middlemarch and explains how “[t]hough George Eliot satirises Mr Casaubon’s search for a Key to All Mythologies in Middlemarch, it is clear that she sympathises with the attempt” (10). 114

of Empire” (343).12 In Kim telepathy and its associated concepts appear in the form of the occult and in the references to the esoteric. By examining the many references to esotericism, I am illustrating how the entire novel is driven—subtly—by a desire to cast Kim, the hybrid-hero, as the ultimate signifier of transformation, enlightened consciousness, and transcendental unity. At another level, Kipling constructs a mythical space that serves Kim in terms of fashioning himself as the colonial ruler, occluding the material, historical, and political reality of the surrounding world.

Many of Kim’s teachers are notably followers of reform paths. Mahbub Ali distinguishes himself in this section as a Sufi rather than an adherent of more dogmatic, exoteric branches of

Islam. Even Huneefa’s ministrations can be read as an atypical, esoteric—perhaps Sufi—ritual. In addition, one may also puzzle over the countless references to mystery schools and esoteric traditions in the novel. I argue that Kipling privileges the esoteric over the exoteric, and that the exoteric may have represented the polarized, racist bigotry commonplace in the Victorian world— dark aspects of which emerge in his own writings, but partially reconciled in Kim and The Jungle

Book through the trope of hybridity. In contrast, esoteric philosophies appear to counter and mitigate such values through professing the divinity of all creation, and the principles of Oneness and Interconnectivity.

12 Bishnupriya Ghosh adds further that: “Stead was one among several proprietors of telepathy with high visibility in the 1880s. Writers such as Kipling and Conan Doyle, radical journalists such as William Stead and Andrew Lang, scientists of wireless telegraphy and sound such as Oliver Lodge and Alexander Graham Bell, and many others saw telepathy as a Utopian mode of communication with the other, a democratic prosthetic for social justice, an opportunity for stretching the boundaries of Western modern epistemologies.” (343) 115

At the end of this section, Mahbub Ali’s declares: “The boy is well protected if—if the

Lords of the Air have ears to hear. I am a Sufi [free-thinker]. . . ” (162). Significantly, Mahbub Ali aligns with an esoteric mindset that appears as a recurring theme in Kim; as Smith notes: “Exoterics are persons whose meanings derive from forms that are more restricted in scope than are those of esoterics” (xxv). The very next page, Kipling deepens this commentary on the spiritual solidarity between freethinkers when Hurree Babu expresses his assessment of the Lama:

". . . Now it is curious that the old gentleman himself is totally devoid of religiosity.

He is not a dam' particular." . . . Then he [the Babu] recited in English an Arya-

Somaj prayer of a theistical nature. . . .

". . . He is pure agnostic—same as me." (163)

There is a certain violence of tone where the Babu, echoing the text’s central stance, strips away the markers of faith in his estimation of the Lama’s religious mindset, imposing a totalizing interpretation of his faith. It is of note that Kipling positions the Babu here as a member of the

Arya-Somaj, for the Brahmo Samaj (and the Arya Samaj) were “reformist movement[s] within

Hinduism” (Jaffa 66). Elsewhere in the text, the Lama describes his opinion of the Babu employing similar terms. He tells Kim of how: "there came one seeking Enlightenment . . . that had been, he said, a Hindu, but wearied of all those Gods" (172). Like Mahbub Ali, the Bengali Babu attempts to establish the difference between spirituality (imaged here as the Lama’s purported agnosticism) and overt religiosity. "Eastern" systems of magical thinking oppose rationality, scientific reason, and Eurocentric models of learning; further, they are pitted against each other in the text with

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Kim/Kipling appearing to move between valuing one over the other at different phases of Kim’s journey.

Many of these references discussed in this section appear to reflect a model of plurality that Kipling found within the Masonic Lodge. Kipling reveals much about his interest in comparative religion and the notion of universal brotherhood promoted by the Craft in his poem

“The Mother Lodge” where he descibes the diversity of his "Brethren" of all skin tones:

There ain't such things as infidels,

Excep', per'aps, it's us.

.…………………….

An' man on man got talkin'

Religion an' the rest,

An' every man comparin'

Of the God 'e knew the best.

.………………………..

An' we'd all ride 'ome to bed,

With Mo'ammed, God, an' Shiva

Changin' pickets in our 'ead . . .

I wish that I might see them,

My Brethren black an' brown. (318-20)

The poem portrays the Masonic brothers as avid seekers, even “infidels” of all colors—bearing similarity to Kim and his inner circle. Kipling establishes how all hierarchies are dissolved while

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inside the Lodge and all men stand equal as Brothers. Each man is enthralled by, and seemingly at peace with, the similarities and differences between their respective faiths. I suggest that the function of the theme of unity in Kim is connected to Kipling’s notions of Masonic brotherhood.

However, as Parry points out, there are limitations to Kipling’s freethinking: "In 1886 Kipling wrote an article for the Civil and Military Gazette on The Mahabharata . . . in which his disparagement of the epic echoed the contempt for the Sanskrit classics earlier and famously expressed by Macaulay in his 1839 Minute on Education" (125). Thus the text of Kim presents a strategic universalism founded on the principle of unity as a means of promoting the myth of harmonious and benevolent British Rule.

Regarding colonial ambivalence and fluctuations of imperialist perspectives, Parry declares: “The recognition of such tensions and contradictions does not . . . remove the inherent restraints on reading fictions which are indelibly etched by thematic assertions and rhetorical coercions that make known and consolidate an imperialist triumphalism” (121). She notes too that

Kipling’s works served as an inspiration for Marxist writer Bertolt Brecht due to the perceived egalitarian themes contained: “Neither the influence of Kipling’s demotic verse on Brecht nor his popularity in the Soviet Union, which are routinely cited as evidence of his universal appeal and ecumenical sympathies, can obliterate these [imperialist] inscriptions” (121). She adds:

What criticism can recover, through dismantling the plural discourses and

reconstructing the displacements and erasures, is the effaced historical contest and

unrehearsed enunciations of the anxieties in the conquering imagination, both

necessarily repressed by the exigencies of ideological representation. (121)

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Critics who theorize upon Kipling’s ambiguity, Parry contends, reveal only the traces of colonial anxiety within the colonial imagination. She adds further regarding Kipling’s strident political stance and mentality of expansion:

Later, when an established author and a pillar of the establishment, political

conviction inspired him to write his Boer War verses and tributes to Joseph

Chamberlain, Cecil John Rhodes and Lord Milner. It was passion for the expansion

of empire which moved him to offer his gift with language to Rhodes, the architect

of a plan for territorial aggrandizement whose imagination of conquest

encompassed annexing the planets to England. (122)

Ultimately, for Parry: "Imperial spaces . . . are spaces of possibility, spaces where the empowered can see their power reflected, spaces in which various fantasies can be played out by the colonizers" (21).

In this chapter, I have focused upon the two-sidedness of Kipling’s Kim and revealed that

Kim is a promoter of empire, and also one who merges with the Other to partially undermine the text’s colonialist stance. In have illustrated that the deployment of themes of magic, hybridity, and religion in Kipling’s early chapters of Kim do promote specific—and often competing—fantasies of empire. In so doing, I have participated in a form of criticism that Parry describes well as revealing “both imperialism’s grandiloquent self-presentation and those inadmissible desires, misgivings and perceptions concealed in its discourses” (131). In short, I have traced and

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highlighted Kipling’s fascination with secret societies13, the theme of magic and the privileging of spirituality over religious dogma in the text of Kim.

***

13 Regarding Kipling’s penchant for the emblem of secret societies, William Dillingham asserts: “Kipling’s depictions of secret societies are far more than . . . his own personal craving to belong, to possess roots . . . to feel exclusive . . . they are expressions of what can be done to prevent the destruction of those who have been exposed suddenly and traumatically to the darkest but most fundamental of truths— that life is one of the hells” (259).

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CHAPTER 3

Journey to Enlightenment: “Unity within Multiplicity” in Kipling’s Kim

In this chapter, I will examine the final chapters (eleven to fifteen) of Kim and explore the significance of Kim’s performance as agent in the Great Game with contrast to his role as the

Lama’s disciple and student of spirituality and religion. Moreover, I will examine the final sections to compare and contrast the themes of war and enlightenment in the text and I will argue for the primacy of the plot thread concerning Kim and the Lama’s spiritual quest. Richard Jaffa contends:

“The search by both the Lama and Kim are also journeys of self-realization” (123) and he suggests regarding Kim: “Again there is a Masonic resonance with the exhortation to seek ‘knowledge of yourself’ urged upon Masonic candidates” (123). The ending of Kim reveals final compelling points regarding the nature of the Lama and Kim’s “journeys of self-realization” and the message of unity found at the end of their separate but intertwined quests.

In Chapter Eleven Kim finds himself further confounded regarding his identity: at one level, he is enormously daunted by his entry into the Game, and at another level, he puzzles over notions of self, as expressed in the following passage:

A very few white people, but many Asiatics, can throw themselves into a mazement

as it were by repeating their own names over and over again to themselves, letting

the mind go free upon speculation as to what is called personal identity. . . . “Who

is Kim—Kim—Kim?” (167)

Kim meditates emulating an Eastern fashion through the chanting of mantras to reach an altered consciousness. Perhaps it is the case that he seeks answers regarding his self-concept as hybrid

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and amorphous. It is also feasible that he is conflicted about his allegiances to the Empire and his often conflicting responsibility toward the Lama. Kipling defers offering the “solution” of the puzzle till the conclusion but offers early hints regarding the matter. Zohreh Sullivan suggests:

"Kim’s identity as Sahib generates a contradiction: he cannot be a Sahib and friend, child, and son to Indians simultaneously; and the unacknowledged contradiction with its embedded loss is articulated, through metonymy, to the recurring cry of Kim ‘all alone’" (174). Interestingly, she does not see the mystical dimension of the experience where Kim grapples at one level with the notion of unity but rather views it in light of Kim’s racial superiority and unbridgeable separateness.

I will illustrate that Kim’s questions pertaining to existentialism are primarily answered in the text by Eastern, non-European figures—revealing perhaps the privileging of non-European modes of knowledge in the text. Throughout his journey, Kim is met in a timely manner by spiritual teachers who seemingly understand him better than the other traditional, dogmatic, but more politically powerful ones. A wandering sanyasi finds Kim and offers words of solace and understanding: “Thou wast wondering there in thy spirit what manner of thing thy soul might be.

The seizure came of a sudden. I know. Who should know but I?” (168). Kim’s brief communion with the sage or bairagi reveals a message regarding human commonality and Kim’s conflict regarding his hybrid identity. All of the mystics in the text stand for a common teaching: that it is acceptable for Kim to embrace his hybridity and seek unity. In the latter chapters, Kipling uses the deployment of the trope of Kim’s hybridity, his trickster god role, to interrogate the concept of transcendentalism and Oneness; further, at another level, notably against the backdrop of war and imperialism the text blatantly glosses over Indian bids for nationalism and independence and in so

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doing, uses the notion of unity as a way of promoting an image of unified Indians who are willing subjects of British rule.

The conversation between the Sage and Kim is particularly important. Each sees the other as kindred spirit joined in the eternal journey towards truth and gnosis. Kim opens up and shares the experience of his inner turmoil:

“I too am a Seeker,” said Kim . . . he forgot his Northern dress for the moment—

“though Allah alone knoweth what I seek. . . .”

“Go in hope, little brother,” he said. “It is a long road to the feet of the One; but

thither do we all travel.” (168)

This reader is privy here to Kim’s innermost thoughts where he shares his unfixed and fluid views of faith and longing with another compassionate figure. The bairagi speaks to the idea that the

Divine Absolute remains an in-articulable concept and that many like him travel toward, using whatever religious or spiritual framework available. Curiously, Kipling will vilify those in the story who are not seekers; for the true enemy as proposed by the text are those not bound by this drive towards spiritual unity. Edward Said offers a compelling reading of Kim’s apartness when he contends:

Part of the boy’s strength is his deep knowledge, almost instinctive . . . of his

difference from the Indians around him; . . . and unlike all other boys he plays

with—this is established right at the novel’s opening—he is endowed, through natal

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prophecy, with a unique fate of which he wishes to make everyone aware.

(“Introduction to Kim” 39-40)

While indeed Kim expresses superiority with regard to his young native friends encountered in the opening of the text, I point out that Kim markedly and ironically expresses solidarity with Indian sages whom he sees as kindred spirit.

As a marker of his personal/spiritual development, Kipling makes clear that Kim is coming to terms with his unique subjectivity. He reveals after the described encounter that: “Kim did not feel so lonely after this, and . . . was cheering his neighbours with a string of most wonderful yarns about his own and his master's magical gifts” (168; emphasis added). Here Kipling refers to magic yet again and casts, perhaps humourously, Kim and the Lama as magic. We can read the section as showing Kim’s acceptance of his hybrid nature, his magical self. In short, magic comes to represent the concepts of divinity, hybridity, and spirituality in the text. I hope to illustrate how these concepts are associated intricately in the text, working together to present Kim’s hybridity as an emblem of unity and human commonality. Kim cannot be understood simply as a novel thematically positioned as one that uniformly promotes empire through highlighting human difference, for this occludes the message of unity often championed by Kim. Indeed, unity is the subtle but dominant teaching pointed out frequently and often paradoxically by the figure of Kim.

The Lama joins Kim again in Chapter Eleven, signalling another stage of the admixture of the spiritual quest with the espionage/adventure plot components. Kim reunites with the Lama in a heartwarming scene and their compassionate exchange repeatedly points to dissolution of external markers of self, leaving the threads of love only intact. Kim expresses gratitude for the

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Lama’s love and support and acknowledges that his final stage of learning will take place under his guidance:

“I was made wise by thee, Holy One,” said Kim . . . forgetting St Xavier's;

forgetting his white blood; forgetting even the Great Game as he stooped,

Mohammedan-fashion, to touch his [Buddhist] master's feet in the dust of the Jain

temple. “My teaching I owe to thee. I have eaten thy bread three years. . . . I come

to thee.” (171; emphasis added)

Kipling articulates how young Kim addresses the Lama through his spirit, looking beyond the outward trappings of the material world. This is marked by the emphasis placed on his “forgetting” of all prior training and his connection to the Great Game. Instead, he presents himself as a humble disciple offering himself in service to his master. The intersection of different religious references in this scene points further to Kim’s hybrid subjectivity and syncretic sense of self, as well as to

Kim’s representation as the unity of religions—a point that I argue is concretized as the tale draws to an end.

Notably it is under the Lama’s supervision that Kim’s final transformation takes place. The

Lama’s greatest teaching is that of castelessness and unity as seen when Kim echoes his words:

“And we . . . are beyond all castes” (177). Further, Kipling concretizes the notion of spiritual seeking in this section, as if to set the thematic tempo for the remainder of the chapters. For example, the narrator depicts the unity of all free-thinkers when describing the Lama’s benevolent influence on others. The Lama is offered sanctuary in the Jain temple and receives honorable

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treatment. Further, we learn of these Jains, in Kipling’s estimation, that their faith is syncretic and also, that these characters favor pluralism and religious tolerance:

Now the Jains officially recognize all the Gods of the Hindu creed . . . they adhere

to every claim of Hindu caste-law. But, . . . because he sought the Way . . . because

he collogued long of nights with the head-priest—as free-thinking a metaphysician

. . . they murmured assent. (176; emphasis added)

Kipling establishes how the Lama and Kim both mirror each other more closely than other characters in their ability to penetrate into bounded regions through their earnest seeking and yearning for knowledge.

Kipling markedly depicts Kim’s gradual transformation or metamorphosis in this scene of reunification with the Lama as ethereal/ascetic and saint-like:

[H]e stood, tall and slim, in his sand-coloured, sweeping robes, one hand on his

rosary and the other in the attitude of benediction, faithfully copied from the lama.

An English observer might have said that he looked rather like the young saint of a

stained-glass window, whereas he was but a growing lad faint with emptiness. (177)

It is evident here that Kipling portrays Kim as saint-like—a sharp contrast to the recurring image of Kim as the boy whose “sign is war.” Thus we are able to see how in multiple ways, prior to the climax of the adventure story marked by the defeat of the Russian and French mercenaries, the tale firmly establishes the importance of spiritual seeking and enlightenment. Kim’s approaching beatification is further alluded to when Kipling introduces another prominent symbolic image.

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Kim enters into the Lama’s cell and the “lama pointed to the Arhats” (172). The Arhat refers to a

“perfected one” who has attained enlightenment and broken free from the endless suffering of the wheel of life, or the Bhavacakra. This is the second time the artistic rendering of the enlightened one is invoked, as if to prompt the reader to the commmencement of the final stage of Kim’s enlightenment.

Kim’s Many Successes: Espionage, Healing, and Self-Discovery

We are now at the point in the novel where Kim and the Lama take to the road again to resume their quest. The Lama silently observes the changes that he sees in Kim with respect to his training and education. Kim displays, significantly, the qualities of a healer as he impresses his fellow travellers by healing a poor child. I emphasize that Kim assumes the role of healer prior to the victorious moment of saving the life of an endangered fellow spy. Kipling describes how Kim miraculously cures an ailing child through the use of quinine. Kim meets a father who is trying in vain to cure his only son of illness, beseeching all the Gods of his land to come to his aid. This scene positions Kim in a god-like stature, epitomizing strength and power and as one who crosses the barriers of faith, culture, and ethnicity. In Chapter Eleven, Kipling writes of “a chance-met

Punjabi farmer . . . who had appealed in vain to every God of his homestead to cure his small son, and was trying Benares as a last resort” (168). In this section, Kipling highlights the fluidity of faiths and how many of the characters have no qualms regarding switching allegiance if the fulfilment of their supplications is assured. Within India’s varied pantheon of Gods, Kipling symbolically paints Kim as a new blended mythological figure comprised of Native and English

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features. Significantly, the grateful father appears in awe of Kim’s skills and proceeds, thereafter, to call him a “miracle-worker” (182).

At another level, the construction of Kim as larger-than-life lends to a view that indirectly and directly legitimizes the Raj. Appreciating English efforts to “civilize” and improve Indian society, one native character thus expresses his views on trains: “The Government has brought on us many taxes, but it gives us one good thing—the te-rain that joins friends and unites the anxious”

(178). By appreciating the train, this native character gives tacit approval for the imperial tactics such as mapmaking that lead to such technological and civil advances—and by extension, the

“services” offered by Kim.

In the scene that follows, Kim, the “miracle-worker,” puts his skills further to test when he comes to the aid of E.23, a Mahrattan spy for the Great Game. Upon crossing paths, E.23 inquires of Kim: “Art thou anything of a healer? I am ten leagues deep in calamity” (180). And further:

“Has thou a charm to change my shape” (182)? One notes how Kim operates as a spy and refrains from the use of force and violence. In short, Kim saves E.23 from discovery and death by transforming him into a sadhu. Let us examine this scene more closely for it is pertinent to my central argument. In this central scene that takes place on a train, Kim conducts another act of transformation, finding odd bits and pieces to facilitate the metamorphosis:

[using] bits of cloth, quack medicines . . . a packet of curry-stuff . . . . Kim turned

it over with the air of a wise warlock, muttering a Mohammedan invocation. . . .

“We must make thee a yellow Saddhu all over. Strip . . . while I scatter the ash. . .

. .” (183; emphasis added)

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Parama Roy points out that this “is Kim's masterpiece, a performance/production that produces two mimic subjects in the same process: himself as chela with magical powers, E23 as half-naked sadhu. This process of ceaseless mimicry is obviously not without its (homo)erotic charge” (88).

It is important to note once again that Kipling features Kim here as a warlock/healer rather than a warrior/spy. Yet, Kim accomplishes the task successfully and saves E.23 who, then, is able to hand over sensitive documents to Strickland Sahib. Furthermore, E.23 escapes death through changing into the guise of a spiritual seeker—once again showing to us Kipling’s investment in this particular archetype, albeit symbolically, as one that is worthy of Kim’s protection.

The second major culmination point in Kim’s adventure story is when he assists Hurree

Babu in diffusing the larger threat of the French and Russian infiltrators. Kim and the Lama are now in the foothills of the Himalayas in search of the fabled river of healing. The spy story is once again interspersed by spiritual teachings and it is here that the Lama introduces the Great Wheel of Life to Kim to teach essential Buddhist principles.

Significantly, the Lama imparts key concepts of Buddhism that underline the commonality of all life. The Lama draws attention to the doctrine of reincarnation—a concept that will also highlight the theme of the universal thread that ties all—through his teaching of the Wheel of Life.

The narrator notes: “[t]here was always the Wheel of Life to draw forth [for the Lama] . . . to expound cycle by cycle. Here sat the Gods on high . . . Here was our Heaven and the world of the demi-Gods. . . . Here were the Hells. . . . Let the chela study” (191). In this scene, the Lama appears in full stature as teacher imparting important knowledge from the Buddhist scriptures. Arguably, no other philosophy will impact Kim as much and it is here that Kipling underlines the concept of reincarnation—which is in itself a principle that acts as a great equalizer—for all are regarded as one and are separated only through one’s karmic footprint and varying degrees on consciousness.

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He explains patiently to a receptive Kim: “note how the flesh takes a thousand shapes, desirable or detestable as men reckon, but in truth of no account either way” (191). The notion of reincarnation is an important one, invoking Kim’s appearance as a “hero with a thousand faces”14

(Joseph Campbell). Kim seemingly accepts or at least shows affinity for this view, for he represents this in his ability to take on the guise and experience of any role at will.

Kipling portrays the Wheel of Life as a masterful work of art that merits respect. He meticulously describes the beauty of the hand-inscribed images and the work that the Lama put in for its creation. Both symbolically and literally, the destruction of this sacred piece of art will catapult the story to another level. Kipling seemingly associates the appearance of this symbol as a reminder for Kim’s spiritual growth. The Lama’s prophecy will prevail in the story and he surmises: “To those who follow the Way there is neither black nor white, Hind nor Bhotiyal. We be all souls seeking escape. No matter what thy wisdom learned among Sahibs, when we come to my River thou wilt be freed from all illusion—at my side” (192; emphasis added). Significantly, against this backdrop of diligent religious training, Kim intersects the Russian and French spies.

We learn that these men are attempting to map the highlands of India while conspiring with a few native rajahs to gain territorial control in the region. This is a section where the message on human commonality collapses, revealing the British imperial propaganda and blood-lust, multiply pronouncing the supremacy of the British Raj over all other colonial missions. These outsiders are portrayed as dross, vulgar, and uncivilized and the indigenous men of the hills speculate thus on their difference: “All the Sahibs of their acquaintance . . . had servants and cooks and orderlies. . .

14 See Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces for more details regarding the proposed commonality between religious and mythological traditions of the world. 130

. These Sahibs travelled without any retinue. Therefore they were poor Sahibs, and ignorant” (215; emphasis added). The choice of words is particularly revealing if we recall Colonel Creighton’s earlier lessons to Kim. He cautioned Kim gently when he showed an air of racial superiority:

“There is a good spirit in thee. Do not let it be blunted at St Xavier's. There are

many boys there who despise the black men.”. . .

“. . . thou art a Sahib. . . . Therefore, do not at any time be led to contemn the black

men. I have known boys newly entered into the service of the Government who

feigned not to understand the talk or the customs of black men. . . . There is no sin

so great as ignorance.” (107; emphasis added)

It is clear that Colonel Creighton ironically cautions Kim against discrimination against the Indians yet his motives are likely different than that of the compassionate Lama preaching universal unity—as he seeks likely to shape Kim in the image of the benevolent ruler so as to efficiently rule

India. This section is important for it helps us better grasp the text’s understanding of enlightenment through its antithetical quality—that of ignorance which is here defined as a form of racism, and will later be personified in the characters of the foreign intruders.

Moreover, I would like to note that the new Sahibs are characterized by their “uncivilized” behavior and are also marked distinctly as not being seekers. The scene where they first encounter the Lama and Kim appears as follows:

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they came across an aged lama—but they called him a bonze—sitting cross-legged

above a mysterious chart held down by stones, which he was explaining to a young

man, evidently a neophyte, of singular, though unwashen, beauty.

“Look!” said the Frenchman. “It is like a picture for the birth of a religion—the first

teacher and the first disciple. Is he a Buddhist?” (216)

Kipling describes this scene as a depiction of the primordial birth of a new religion. Perhaps the text in its entirety, through its emphasis on hybridity is presenting plurality, freethinking, and esotericism as more viable solutions required to displace the damaging effect of religious dogma.

Kipling presents these “foreign” intruders as forcefully and maliciously desiring to obtain the

Wheel of Life—symbolizing, at one level perhaps, their desire for spiritual insights through robbery, greed, and manipulation rather than by conscious work and dedication. They even express a form of jealousy upon viewing the Lama and his noble presence: “Why does this one make one feel that we are so young a people?” (216). They further state: “We have nowhere left our mark yet. Nowhere!” (216). Krupa Shandilya points accurately points out that

geographic, ethnographic, and spiritual maps in Kipling's novel render the

subcontinent transparent. In this way the colony is created as a manageable object

that can be manipulated for the perpetuation of empire; the map then becomes a

means of territorial conquest . . . [and] enables the functioning of empire. (354)

Indeed, both Kim and his opponents are trained in cartography and their skills will be pitted against each other; this scene notably creates a scramble for territorial control and emphasizes the primacy of the Great Game and the notion that “the irresistible amassed power of the empire . . . will

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ruthlessly crush even the most minor challenge posed to it” (Wegner 139). Phillip Wegner states too that: “[m]apping, movement, and imperial power are shown to be always already inextricably bound together” (146). The Lama initially responds kindly to their request for purchasing the sacred map: “Perhaps in three days, or four, or ten, if I perceive that the Sahib is a Seeker and of good understanding, I may myself draw him another. But this was used for the initiation of a novice” (218; emphasis added).

The scene that follows is set as the climax of the adventure storyline. A great act of violence is rendered when the men callously destroy the Lama’s Wheel of Life. Invariably, the entire spy mission that will unfold is spurred by the destruction of the sacred mandala as all of Kim’s party view this act as a sacrilege. The Lama is injured and Hurree Babu reacts: “They are highly unscrupulous people. Oh, sar! sar! You must not hit holyman!'” (218). Further, the Lama breaches the tenet of Ahimsa, or non-violence, and finds himself altogether in a state of blood-thirsty vengeance. Calling Kim to action, the Lama utters in agony: “Chela! He has defiled the Written

Word!” (218). It is the one action of the desecration of the Wheel of Life that leads Kim to great action in service to the Lama primarily, which arguably secondarily and in turn, serves the Great

Game. Driven by the lust for vindication, Kim rouses himself to sabotage the foreigners’ mission and oversees the destruction of their surveying equipment, weapons, and supplies. Yet, it is also noteworthy that there was no loss of bloodshed or life in this segment of the story. Sullivan explains that in the story Kipling presents the idea of how “native India can be contained (or tricked) by an

English boy in Pathan disguise so long as he has the gun” (171). Yet it is also significant that no bullet led to death of an enemy, promoting perhaps a particular myth of benevolent British rule where governing tactics seldom resorted to the use of ruthless violence. It is as though Kipling

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frames the scene with the idea that India facilitates spiritual growth and, as a sacred seat of higher learning, is worthy of protection—thus a particular myth of benevolent empire is constructed.

Regardless of how we choose to read the scene, it is evident that Kim proves himself

(conveniently) at once a champion of spiritual seekers and the Raj.

So I ask: in what multiple ways can we interpret this scene? Kipling’s ambivalent, prejudicial voice appears as he condemns the non-Anglo-Europeans for their lack of command, mastery and presence over the natives, largely undermining the other sections of the novel where the story of a joined human collective is thoroughly explored—proving perhaps that the image of unity is limited, and a strategy for consolidating imperial power at best. But this is still too simple a reading. Frithjof Schuon observes: “in the consciousness of the esoterist, and consequently in his life, ‘sin’ is replaced by ‘dissipation’ that is, by everything that is opposed to spiritual concentration or, in other words, to unity” (49). We see a similar formulation at work in this section of the text where I argue that Kipling describes the intruders significantly not as seekers of enlightenment but as mired in states of ignorance/dissipation—they do not bear the marks of seekers or of the hybrid, enlightened consciousness and are thus antithetical to all that the Lama, Kim and the other male central characters represent at one level. It is their lack of spirit and compassion in conjunction with their competing colonialist aspirations that set them as evil in Kipling’s narrative. This section culminates with the success of Kim and Hurree Babu through their retrieval of incriminating documents showing the complicity of the Rajahs with the European intruders and their thwarted attempts to betray the Raj. I hope to have persuaded the readers that while this is part of Kim’s mission, the competing message is that India is a heterogeneous, hybrid land for seekers and thus, worthy of protection. It is up to Kim and his Indian allies to guard the land such that all true seekers

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may freely study and grow in consciousness together. Examining the influence of the trope of brotherhood in Kipling, Alexander Bubb explains: “These brothers are not embraced in the missionary sense of the Christian fold. Neither does Kipling allow the racialist platitudes of ‘Aryan brotherhood’ ever to drip from his pen without facetious intent” (392). As Shandilya notes:

“Kipling's novel implies that the sacred is an alterity that must be acknowledged in order to govern

India” (359). In short, this section portrays how the brotherhood of seekers must remain inviolable and how India must remain impenetrable to the forces of ignorance and evil. At another level, the text’s extended focus on unity reveals a ploy—for Kim’s professed bid to know the other enables him to rule and guide the natives all in the benevolent name of universal brotherhood and spiritual unity.

III

Lispeth and the Limits of Hybridity: Gender, Sexuality, and Race in Kim

There are present numerous fissures in the text—for example, in the form of prejudicial and sexist diatribes—that challenge the picture of universality in Kim that I have painted thus far.

In this section I explore how the the image of “unity within diversity” does not apply equally to women in Kipling’s gender-segregated fictional world—in particular through a study of the character of the Woman of Shamlegh, who appears in service to Kim and the Lama during the final stages of the novel. Ian Baucom aptly expresses: “To read Kim as a novel that represents no conflict between the police and the partisans of the picaresque—or . . . which depicts the nomad as always already in the service of the state—is to read the plot of imperial desire as a plot of eternal accomplishment” (88-9). Indeed, Kim’s hybrid training should be seen, at one level, as

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essential to furthering the colonial mission in India. His entire training can be read in the following light: “The business of reforming Kim . . . has become the labor not simply of rendering this child serviceable to the state, but of recovering Englishness for imperialism” (Baucom 90). Again, I remind the reader that I am not erasing all references that are racist, sexist, or problematic in Kim, but rather I am illustrating how the message of universal love and brotherhood—albeit selective and reserved for a privileged few—is one important, and often competing, focus of the novel. As

Jeffrey Franklin asserts: “Kim’s love and devotion are genuine, and he is in part an instrument of power” (138). Indeed, there can be multiple ambiguous aspects of the story that operate at once.

James Thrall observes: “In Kim's own lack of religious piety, the specific practices of religion certainly have no more sticking power than the adopted roles he changes with such ease” (53).

Regarding Kim’s shapeshifting abilities, Thrall notes too that Kipling "portray[s] religion as he would have it: a universal, humanistic celebration of the binding ties of (specifically) brotherly love" (46). We will see this assertion more clearly illustrated in my examination of the final sections of the novel that explicitly deal with the topic of Kim and the Lama’s enlightenment, or in my estimation, a direct lived experience of unity. In this section, I would like to briefly explore how Kipling’s vision of unity collapses when gender and female presence in the text is considered; in particular, I will closely examine the role and function of the Woman of Shamlegh who first appears in Chapter Thirteen and plays a prominent role in the final stages of the novel. Said notes:

“The women in the novel are remarkably few in number . . . and all are debased or unsuitable for male attention: prostitutes, elderly widows, or . . . lusty women like the Woman of Shamlegh”

(“Introduction to Kim” 12). I ask specifically given the paucity of a compelling female presence in the tale: what portrayals of hybrid women are present in Kim and does Kipling’s notion of unity,

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at any point, construct a picture of parity between the sexes and between men and women of different ethnic backgrounds?

For the most part, the women of Kim are few and do not possess significant roles. There are a few exceptions such as the Woman of Kulu, the Woman of Shamlegh, Huneefa, and the other unnamed women who appear fleetingly throughout Kim’s journey to assist him without demanding recompense. They are for the most part, willing supporters of Kim, but are treated often as distractions in the context of the pilgrimage and the Great Game. Virginia Woolf notes of

Kipling’s works that he only: “celebrate[s] male virtues, enforce[s] male values and describe[s] the world of men . . . one blushes . . . as if one had been caught eavesdropping at some purely masculine orgy” (97). Bart Gilbert-Moore speaks also pointedly of cross-cultural romance within

Kipling’s works and the

“Divine Law” against miscegenation. By Kipling’s time . . . prejudice had

intensified further . . . by the 1880s a liaison between a government official and an

Indian woman had come to seem almost unthinkable. . . . Even less acceptable was

the prospect of love between a white woman and an Indian. (Kipling 53)

In this section, I will focus upon the character of Lispeth, also known as the Woman of Shamlegh who disrupts Kipling’s traditional narrative of the androcentric world and thus, merits close inspection.

In the epigraph to the short story entitled “Lispeth” (1886) where she first appears, the titular character laments the betrayal experienced with an Englishman and attributes this to the coldness of a Christian God. Lispeth cries out:

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Look, you have cast out Love! . . .

……………………………………

To my own Gods I go.

It may be they shall give me greater ease

Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities. (33)

Her figure is arguably hybrid and the story tells of how she converts to Christianity as a child and is given the name “Elizabeth, and 'Lispeth' . . . [in] the Hill or Pahari pronunciation” (33). Kipling describes her Grecian features, a supposed marker of her hybridity, and likens her striking beauty to that of “Diana of the Romans” (33).15 However, Kipling problematically emphasizes Lispeth’s unique value as related to her non-indigenous features. Reflecting upon the history of sexual relations between the colonizer and the colonized, Mary Louis Pratt points out that “the colonized heroes and heroines of European sentimental literature are rarely ‘pure’ non-whites . . . they are typically mulattoes or mestizos who already have European affiliations or . . . are ‘really’ princes or princesses” (98). Indeed, Lispeth seems to merit closer attention because of her singular

“Grecian” features that render her a “hybrid character” in terms of appearance and the blending of mannerisms and cultural practices. Notably, she reaches adulthood while adopting Christian practices and European ways of cleansing16 (33), and these changes are not well-received by her community who ostracize her for her hybridity/ difference. As the story unfolds, Lispeth falls in

15 Zohreh Sullivan draws attention to the other marginal half-caste figure in Kim, that of Kim’s caretaker who looks after him upon the death of his mother. She writes: “Although the half-caste who raised him tells the missionaries she had been Kim’s mother’s sister, the narrator takes pains to counter the problem of miscegenation explicitly by reminding us that she is no kin, but an Other” (151). 16 Kipling troublingly associates bodily purity, and even sexual purity, in this story with European ways; he makes references to differing bathing practices of the natives of this hill region both in Kim and “Lispeth” as if to demarcate the boundaries between the civilized and uncivilized worlds. 138

love with an Englishman whom she rescues and nurses back to health—she also oversteps sexual norms and cultural boundaries by claiming him as her lover and husband-to-be, much to the chagrin of her Christian missionary caretakers.

Kipling makes it clear that Lispeth is cruelly treated by the Englishman who toys with her emotions and discards her readily after she has devoted herself to him. While some sympathy is extended to Lispeth’s suffering, Kipling suggests that it is Lispeth who is the transgressor for refusing to acknowledge that love cannot join/unite the two, and that unbridgeable differences of race and caste will prevent their union. The story describes Lispeth using conflictual terms, both as a “stately goddess” (33) and as “at heart a heathen” (35). Like Kipling’s other short story featuring interracial union, “Beyond the Pale,” (published in 1888)17 the conclusion drawn is that

Lispeth’s attraction for the Englishman is ill-conceived and will ultimately lead to her destruction/suffering. Indrani Sen notes that during the Raj, white men outnumbered women and that

[t]his sex-imbalance sometimes created a critical stress as well as a curious

inversion of gender power-relations in the Anglo-Indian stations and female

sexuality often came to be anxiously perceived as exercising unusual psycho-sexual

power and posing a potential threat to undermining masculine domination or even

male unity in the colony. (13)

17 John Kucich explains: “Instances of cross-racial sadomasochism in Kipling often simply express his belligerent, one-sided militarism, either through his condemnations of native savagery or his glorifications of soldierly vengeance. Or, if cross-racial cruelty had a sexual dimension, it compelled stiff refusals, like the famous moral lesson drawn by the narrator of “Beyond the Pale” (139). This story offers a cautionary message marked by the gruesome and violent ending to the love affair between an Englishmen and his beautiful Indian mistress.

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Sen further notes that several colonial “myths pertained to the moral laxity of the Anglo-Indian female, which was contrasted with the moral superiority of the metropolitan Englishwoman” (13).

Denise Comer asks: “To what degrees and in what capacities did British women and children participate in formulating and supporting British hegemony in India during the early nineteenth century?” (43). She suggests also that some depictions of parental roles in English colonial literature include a specific skewed portrayal. In evaluating the work of Maria Graham

(from the early nineteenth century), she writes: “Highlighting Indian parents’ vanity and materialism enables Graham to ennoble British parents” (45). One may observe the impact of the roles of the European parental figures in the tale of “Lispeth” and the light Kipling uses to cast them—in the case of our story in a less than noble light. The Chaplain’s wife, Lispeth’s caretaker in the story appears in favor of the superiority of Christianity and Western codes of female decorum, viewing Lispeth as a beautiful anomaly, yet one who cannot quite remove herself from her intrinsic “heathen” ways. Kipling notes: “Chaplain’s wife did not know what to do with her.

Somehow, one cannot ask a stately goddess . . . to clean plates and dishes” (33). It is clear, then, that the Chaplain’s wife is perplexed by Lispeth’s hybrid status and her liminal state; when Lispeth declares her intent to marry an Englishman, the tension and discomfort of the Chaplain and his wife appears palpable, moving the plot to a focus upon Lispeth’s perceived sexual transgression and the implicit proposal to further blur the boundaries of race and class. Kipling writes that upon hearing “the first mention Lispeth . . . ever made of her matrimonial views . . . the Chaplain’s wife shrieked with horror” (34). In other words, while supporting Lispeth’s Western education, and hence her hybridity, her caretakers cannot fully reconcile the outcome of her dual subject position with regards to sexuality. Perhaps Kipling suggests that Lispeth has sought to enter into territory

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that is beyond her social/racial standing and the story issues a dire warning against such futile sexual longings. As the Chaplain’s wife tellingly utters:

“There is no law whereby you can account for the vagaries of the heathen,” . . .

“and I believe that Lispeth was always at heart an infidel.” Seeing she had been

taken into the Church of England at the mature age of five weeks, this statement

does not do credit to the Chaplain’s wife. (36)

One discerns a tinge of sympathy that the narrator relays here, highlighting the irony of the situation by placing “blame” upon the Chaplain’s wife herself for poor parental skills, thus questioning her motives for seeking to attribute Lispeth with immutable, uncivilized traits; rather

Kipling seems to suggest that she and her husband should accept responsibility for Lispeth’s upbringing and passage to adulthood. At least in this section, Kipling suggests that Lispeth’s character highlights the limits of the English couple’s perceived liberal-mindedness (in raising a

“heathen-child” in their home), and suggests that Lispeth has been wronged by the lying and compassion-less Colonial figures. Thus, Kipling outlines starkly the tragedy of Lispeth’s hybridity, a figure caught impossibly between the divides of race, culture, and class.

Similarly, it is also of note that the Englishman perceives her as pretty and enjoys her company but does not grant her personhood or dignity by not being mindful of her emotions, hence normalizing the objectification and exploitation of native women. Pratt writes of accounts of colonial male entitlement where men are nursed back to health by their indigenous “wives,” but are later abandoned for white wives. In Imperial Eyes, she explores the case of John Stedman, a

Scotsman born in 1744 who married a mulatta slave, Joanna, in Surinam and wrote about the experience (90)—one of other texts that “the abolitionist movement made ample use of” (90). She writes:

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Stedman’s marriage to Joanna, like many transracial love affairs in the fiction of

this time, is a romantic transformation of a particular form of colonial sexual

exploitation, whereby European men on assignment to the colonies bought local

women . . . to serve as sexual and domestic partners for the duration of their stay.

(93)

She adds: “Such is the lesson to be learned from the colonial love stories, in whose denouements the ‘cultural harmony through romance’ always breaks down. . . . the lovers are separated, the

European is reabsorbed by Europe, and the non-European dies an early death” (95). Lispeth’s story is one of unrequited love where Kipling fates her to wither away as a result of her failed courtship.

Anjali Arondekar notes: “To be ‘women-ridden,’ Kipling’s critics and reviewers repeatedly claimed, is to hinder the true tales of empire by obstructing the flow of masculine representations with an extensive interest in female characters and emotions” (65-66). It is noteworthy, then, that

Kipling brings attention to Lispeth’s story twice in his career as though to discuss the significance of Lispeth’s attempts at interracial romance, and her unjust suffering and complex subjectivity.

Pratt notes that ultimately Joanna rejects “European culture” and “the invitation to assimilate” (99). Likewise, in her manifestation in the short story, Lispeth is not entirely voiceless and without agency, for after hearing of the deceit on the part of her caretakers and absent lover, she shuns all ties to the English and to their God, and declares boldly: “'I am going back to my own people,' . . . 'You have killed Lispeth. There is only left . . . the daughter of a pahari and the servant of Tarka Devi. You are all liars, you English'” (36). Her outright rejection of her Christian upbringing can be read as an anti-colonial pronouncement and a call to autonomy and self-rule; and also by extension, a refusal of her hybrid identity. However, Sen rightly reads her character as

“tragic . . . belonging neither to her old community, which rejects her as a 'memsahib' nor her new,

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which detests her as 'native'” (22). Hybridity appears more as a restrictive space that positions the female hybrid in a precarious and perilous state. For Lispeth, her hybridity, unlike that of Kim and his brethren, is positioned as a failed, or limited, attempt at hybridity—one where the union with the other cannot be realized and sexuality becomes the impenetrable borderland, dividing the

European self from the racialized, sexualized Other. Another layer of complexity is added where

Kipling tells of her future where her abusive husband subjects her to a life of hardship and servitude, such that her beauty wanes and she is unrecognizable as the luminous belle of her youth.

Sen explain of this ending: “The folly of trying to westernise India, with the resultant problems of identity and acculturation is indicted in this story where the programme of westernisation leads to tragic consequences for the hill girl” (22). This ending troublingly speaks of how Lispeth’s prospects of an egalitarian relationship are forever thwarted because she could not secure for herself an Englishman—an Englishman who ironically cannot extend egalitarian and moral principles to his treatment of the non-European female counterpart. Gayatri Spivak, in A Critique of Postcolonial Reason examines another short story18 featuring a European woman in famine- ridden India and explains how “Kipling shows that a woman’s a woman for all that, and she conquers, as women will, through love” (159). Despite her singularly regal, sensuous, and stately ways, Lispeth’s failure in winning her English lover through the force of love, then, translates into a loss of power and female agency, highlighting the limits of the native/female hybrid subjectivity.

Indeed, her ability to be the Other and her desire to join with the Other through the sanctioned union of bodies, can only go so far before it is cruelly halted. David Scott, however, reads this story in terms of its anti-Christian position and suggests that “ongoing criticism of Christianity can

18 See Kipling’s “William the Conqueror” for more details. 143

be seen not only in Kipling's travel accounts and personal letters but also in his writings like

"Lispeth" (1886)” (309). Dieter Petzold categorizes Lispeth as one of many of Kipling’s “silent sufferers” (3) but suggests that “the antagonism between man and woman may be inevitable [in

Kipling’s works], but that it can be overcome by love—and humour” (3). This seems not to be the case for “Lispeth” as even the continuation of her story in Kim does not lead to any resolution on issues of gender equity as experienced by the native woman and the male colonizer.

It is important to note that Kipling revives this character and places her within the pages of

Kim in the form of the Woman of Shamlegh. Said notes that in Kim we are in “a masculine world dominated by travel, trade, adventure . . . we are in a celibate world, in which the common romance of fiction and the enduring institution of marriage have been circumvented. . . . At best, women help things along” (“Introduction to Kim” 12). Moreover, Sullivan notes: “The woman of

Shamlegh and the woman from Kulu help to conclude the series of women that appear marginally in the text. If it is through her sexuality that she has been allowed power in the past, Kim will deny her that power, yet will accept and invite her friendship” (175). She is the most striking female, who aside from Huneefa, embodies hybridity in this text; it is significant to explore the ways that

Kim and Lispeth interact and to explore the conscious mirroring of their hybrid subjectivities.

Within the pages of Kim Kipling describes her as high-born, hailing from the lineage of “the Rajah”

(Kim 214) and “no common bearer of babes” (Kim 214). Upon their first meeting, this high-born hillswoman immediately offers sanctuary and financial support to Kim—and one wonders, why she chooses to readily extend such kindness, given the ill-treatment by the Englishman of her past.

Kipling describes her early on as one who has “no love for Sahibs” (206). She appears with a proud demeanor and as a minor sovereign in this text who lives in a polyandrous society where women govern. It is an interesting shift from her earlier permutation in “Lispeth” as she enjoys more power

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in this later guise. I suggest that she sees Kim as separate from the English and that his hybridity appeals to her due to partial recognition of its manifestation within her own subjectivity. She even assists him against the Russian and the French by assisting with the destruction of their possessions. In return for her labour, she asks for affection and a form of acknowledgement that

Kim only half-heartedly offers. Kipling makes it clear that Kim actively guards himself against the sexual overtures from Lispeth. He sees her as a sexually enticing woman, who “being aught but unlovely, [he] thought best to stand on his office” (212). In this section, he labels the female sex as nuisances who continually “pestered” him (214) and this seems to be the message that undergirds the entirety of the tale—women as useful, sometimes desirable, but ultimately discardable, fearful beings. Yet they ambiguously appear indispensable in this story as this bold and fierce woman plays a crucial part, so much so that she has in the eyes of the Lama “acquired merit beyond all others” (221), but for the simple reason that it is virtuous to assist a man on his mission (221). Her hybridity is underlined when we learn that she speaks English and has learned the ways of the Europeans, playing the “pianno in the Mission-House” (220) of her former life. It appears that she notices Kim and treats him kindly because of the reminder of her early experiences with Europeans and the wounds of the past, a time when she saw her English love as “my God”

(220). She utters to Kim that: “Thy face and thy walk and thy fashion of speech put me in mind of my Sahib, though thou art only a wandering mendicant” (218). The duality of his nature must be noted that he is like a Sahib and not a Sahib at once, and this ambiguity of nature wins Lispeth’s favor—in another light, this acknowledgement can be read as honoring his hybrid nature as akin to her own. As Sullivan notes: “Kim will refuse her sexual invitation, not only to show his moral superiority over callous Sahibs, but also to prove that he has passed a crucial test of colonial manhood—the denial of sexuality” (175). They part in English fashion with a kiss “on the cheek”

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(221) that startles but placates/appeases her (perhaps Kipling’s ways of redressing the errors of the past) and Kipling makes it clear that yet again, there are limits that bar the possibility of further sexual communion. Yet, unlike the short story where we are given the final image of her as reduced to the state of “a wisp of charred rag” (37), this ending allows Lispeth to retain her dignity, beauty, and fierce aspect, softened momentarily by sentiments of nostalgia, but not destroyed/transformed or heartbroken by her encounter with Kim. Sen notes that Kipling’s views of gender are ambiguous and can be read variously:

Kipling's complex narratives do indeed contest and even militate against prevailing

race, class and gender prejudices. At such moments . . . Kipling's literary texts do

not merely voice contemporary ideologies but seem to subject them to ironic

scrutiny and contestation through their narrative elusiveness and ambivalences.

(28)

I agree partly with Sen, but also suggest that while the female hybrid figure of Lispeth appears empowered somewhat by her knowledge of multiple worlds, she is limited in her options of hybrid self-expression and freedom of movement (she is confined to Shamlegh and does not venture outside its confines unlike the freedom of movement granted to the rich widow of Kulu) afforded to her male counterparts. She experiences the repercussions of striving to be everything and nothing at once. Franklin contends that “[b]y refusing to force Kim to one side of any dichotomy,

Kim enacts the Middle Way” (159). In my estimation, this applies well to Kim but not to Lispeth as she appears as one to suffer the consequences of not choosing one side of the dichotomies of race and gender. It is clear that she is set apart from her native counterparts, by virtue of her

Christian past, and thus is viewed as inhabiting a solitary strata—albeit upper strata—of society alone. Lispeth, the hybrid female, may participate in a few hybrid ventures but is tragically

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thwarted and cruelly ridiculed when seeking to amorously join with the other. The two permutations of Lispeth’s hybridity examined in this section highlight that the image of “unity within diversity” does not pertain equally to women in Kipling’s gender-segregated fictional world.

Kipling’s Two-Sided Authorial Voice: The Limits of Unity and Universality

It is interesting to note how complex the body of Kipling’s literature is and how his ambivalence has been a topic of critical research. For example, Sandra Kemp examines

the peculiar divisions of voice and vocabulary that haunt Kipling’s archive: victim

and persecutor; the language of trades, professions and the gentleman’s club and

the discourse of dream, drugs and insanity. But there is no way of resolving the

conflict of voices by reference to authorial intention. (41)

David Sergeant in his recent study, Kipling’s Art of Fiction 1884-1901, notes the two-sidedness of

Kipling’s authorial voice and acknowledges the pulse of a “right-wing imperial agenda” that is present throughout many of his works. But Sergeant also accounts for how there are simultaneously mediating elements that subvert this impulse. He suggests that this type of

Kipling’s writing is “more aesthetically sophisticated, and eludes definitive interpretation in a way that can be troubling to the right-wing ideology” (4). Regarding the ambivalence of Kipling’s narratorial voice, Sergeant adds that “[a] binary two-sidedness was a quality Kipling detected in himself, and has been a near-constant feature of critical accounts of his work” (5). Further,

Sergeant claims that “Kipling becomes the archetypal expression of the mindset of the Raj” (45).

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Yet Kim is more than a mere reflection of the Raj and its imperial vision for I have argued that he represents a nexus point where various mystical traditions meet, including those that originate from the Orient. I argue that while indeed the function of mysticism is undeniably linked to the support of the Raj, at one earnest (though not uniform) level, Kim paradoxically comes to represents the unity of humankind. In the final unit of this chapter, I will return to my original contention that

Kipling’s relationship with other Eastern poets and thinkers, such as Kabir, must be more thoroughly examined. In so doing, we are able to uncover an additional layer of meaning and glimpse at what lies beneath the mystery of Kipling’s ambiguity, and I argue, Kim’s ambivalence.

While an aspect of Kim is party to prejudicial thought and sentiment throughout the narrative, his ambivalence regarding self and relation to others transforms into an awareness of unity when he experiences peace, enlightenment, and resolution at the end. I suggest that the conclusion of Kim, with its focus upon enlightenment, must be assessed in relation to the mystical symbols and religious allegory that inform the final sections of the text.

The reader must also be mindful that any message of unity operates alongside a staunchly imperialist stance. We have explored how Kim offers throughout a troubling view of imperialism as a benevolent enterprise that seeks to improve and benefit the lives of the native subjects. Not surprisingly, the Indian characters unwaveringly speak in favor of English occupation; this is a sentiment that I have argued earlier falls in line with the text’s numerous deployments of the trope of magic—the construction of the otherworldly Kim as the divinely ordained leader—as a means of establishing imperial control over the colonized. As many have pointed out, minimal attention falls upon the legacy of the Great Mutiny in the text. The characters mainly deny the importance of this event and other key historical moments where Indians mobilized in the name of self- determination. Edward Said notes that the “Indian National Congress was established in 1885,”

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(Culture 135) but there are no references made of this in the text. On this oversight, John McClure further explains:

Kipling simply wipes out, erases from his pictures of India, all those groups and

forces that were making life there in his time difficult for any imperialist. . . . In

order to paint a picture of a harmonious India reconciled to imperial rule Kipling

has no alternative but to exclude the Indian nationalist entirely, and he does so. (79)

The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 was one of the first powerful uprisings against Imperial rule in India and as Gautam Chakravarty explores how there was

often bitter debate in the early twentieth century between imperialist and Indian

nationalist understanding of the event. The debate was at first between critics and

partisans of the Company, and the latter tried anxiously but unsuccessfully to

contain the crisis by describing the events as a mutiny. (23)

Though Kipling makes passing reference to this event in Kim, he dismisses it as mere “madness,”

(47) a passing incident without deeper repercussions. Early on in the text, a former sepoy, a native

Indian soldier, in the text relates his experiences of the Great Mutiny to Kim and his companion, the Teshoo lama. He says:

A madness ate into all the Army, and they turned against their officers. That was

the first evil, but not past remedy if they had then held their hands. But they chose

to kill the Sahibs’ [the imperial officers’] wives and children. Then came the Sahibs

from over the sea and called them to most strict account. (47)

This passage appears as a purposeful glossing over of a history of British violence and a lack of acknowledgement of the Indian desire to attain independence. This soldier clearly sides with the

British as he continues to relate that he did not himself partake in the killing. Rather, he saved the

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lives of an English woman and her child, for which he takes pride in being decorated with honor by the English. The word “madness” says much about the incident, as it suggests that Indians who express discontent are surely mad and ignorant. Phillip Mallett observes that “[t]he Ressaldar is the only person who remembers the Great Rebellion of 1857, and his account of it endorses the

British view, that it was an outbreak of ‘madness’ and cruelty on the Indian side, justly met by the

British with a calling to ‘strict account’" (119). Indeed, Said’s observation sheds light by observing: “Kim is a major contribution to . . . [an] Orientalized India of the imagination, as it is also to what historians have come to call the ‘invention of traditions”’ (Culture 149). The passage also alerts us to the father-child metaphor that illustrates the colonizer-colonized relationship, a perception which Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient creatively and critically deconstructs19.

This section also demonstrates that Kim sanctions English imperialism, presenting it as the only legitimate and benevolent ruling force. Further, Kim speaks in awe of the Great Game and of its members. One of the undercover agents that Kim saves expresses his fearlessness and readiness to die by declaring: “We of the Game are beyond protection. If we die, we die. Our names are blotted from the book” (181). Even Hurree Babu, the other hybrid character in the text appears in a subservient light when compared to the authority and status wielded by Kim. As Said notes regarding this character that “lovable and admirable though he may be, there remains in Kipling’s portrait of him the grimacing stereotype of the ontologically funny native, hopelessly trying to be like ‘us’” (“Introduction to Kim” 33). Thomas Macaulay in his “Minute on Education” (1835) lays out clearly the colonial function of the hybrid Indian through stating: “We must at present do our

19 See Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient for a fictional rewriting/redressing of the problematic colonialist aspects of Kim. The tale is notably told through the penetrating eyes of the Indian character, Kip, who is an Indian version of Kim who corrects and modifies the racist elements of Kim. 150

best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect”

(Macaulay par. 34). Hurree Babu is a prime example of such an “interpreter” and his character makes clear that men like him must remain subservient to the English. Yet his defiance at times is palpable, though coded often in ways that are obscure and ambiguous. He adheres to the role called for by Macaulay when he calls for a new class of men who are to be privileged above their peers but must simultaneously and unconditionally remain subservient to the English. Said observes on

Hurree Babu that “to be Anglicized, is emphatically, not to be English” (Culture 128). Kim’s ability to blend in India by speaking the many languages, knowing the customs, religions and land makes him an invaluable spy for the English. But the same cannot be said of Hurree Babu who competes with the desires of Colonel Creighton to join the National Geographic Society. Phillip

Wegner observes that he is “a weak parody of Colonel Creighton” (154) and both wish to become members of the Royal Society. On hearing of Hurree Babu’s shared desire, Creighton responds:

“Curious—his wish. . . .Very human too . . . deep in his heart also lay an ambition to write ‘F. R.

S.’ after his name . . . . So Creighton smiled, and thought the better of Hurree Babu, moved by like desires” (157). His words ‘curious’ and ‘human’ hint condescendingly that Hurree Babu’s desire is implausible because by race he is inferior to the English. Thus, barriers of race cannot be crossed.

Kim maintains that Hurree Babu can never attain equal status with Creighton. It is also important to note that as a “mimic man,” Hurree Babu does not challenge colonial rule and succumbs to a role of subservience and British understandings of racial inferiority. He notably declares himself to be “unfortunately Asiatic, which is a serious detriment in some respects” (202). As Jan

Montefiore claims:

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Hurree’s materialism and worldliness have their practical uses; besides

masterminding the plot against the Russians, it is he who rescues the lama from

drowning in his River of healing. Nevertheless, his adoption of English thought is

represented as a serious loss to him, not a gain. Hence his comic mixture of Indian

superstition and Spencerian skepticism. (93)

Both men, Kim and the Babu, are chameleon-like and hybrid and notably trained in the art of disguise to contribute to the support of the colonial enterprise. Kim perfects the art of disguise so that at an instant he can change into a lower-caste Hindu boy. These lessons enhance Kim’s already existing knowledge of India, showing the motives behind the text’s encouragement of his “hybrid” training. At one level, the text makes plain that no matter how deep his love for the Indian people, his true allegiance lies with the Empire. As Chakravarty contends: “The fictional writings of . . .

Rudyard Kipling were redolent with high imperial hubris” (11). He adds:

the European ‘scramble for Africa’ fuelled the growth of popular imperial culture

from the 1880s, the reception of the news of the rebellion in Britain, and the almost

immediate manufacture of a language combining patriotic fervor with xenophobia,

. . . anticipates middle- and working-class jingoism and warmongering of later, high

imperial, decades. (25)

Indeed, it can be argued that Kipling perpetuated the imperialist fantasy by choosing to underplay the importance of the Great Mutiny and by diminishing the role of the Babu—a largely strong character who also possesses hybrid qualities that are similar to Kim’s in the ability to blend against numerous backgrounds—to a servile and subservient role. The French and Russian intruders describe the Babu significantly as representing “in little India in transition—the monstrous hybridism of East and West” (215), thus signaling a mockery of the Babu’s attempts at hybrid

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status. Bart Moore-Gilbert explains that the “clear implication . . . is that Britain’s authority as imperial power is closely related to its capacity for sympathy and identification with its subject peoples, as against a master/ slave model built upon policies of absolute separation between ruler and ruled” (Writing India 125). Notably, the Babu who retains traces of a vocal, rebellious and anti-colonial nature unfailingly supports Kim through the entirety of his mission. Thus, the text constructs a deliberate image of unity through their partnership that ultimately sanctions British rule. Moreover, while both characters are marked by hybridity, it is clear that the Babu takes a lower status in the text in contrast to the more celebrated (and nearly thematically deified) Kim.

Kim thus reveals how colonial literatures support imperialism by authorizing the right to rule through presenting perceptions of the colonizer’s racial, moral, and intellectual superiority over the native subject. In speaking of English men such as Kim and Creighton, the Woman of

Kulu states that “[t]hese be the sort to oversee justice. They know the land and customs of the land” (68). The text emphasizes the strong image of the British in India, while diminishing natives to the role of the irresponsible, racially inferior, and child-like other who require and request

British rule. Indeed, stereotypical portrayals of Indians persist throughout the novel and natives appear as dishonest, liars, lazy, or unintelligent. Said observes on this that imperialism and colonialism are not “simple act[s] of accumulation and acquisitions . . . [rather they are] impelled by impressive and ideological formations that included notions that certain territories and people require and beseech domination, as well as forms of knowledge affiliated with domination"

(Culture 9). Further, he highlights that imperial administrative figures sent to India were retired at fifty-five, with the intention that “no Oriental was ever allowed to see a Westerner as he aged and degenerated, just as no Westerner needed ever to see himself, mirrored in the eyes of the subject race, as anything but a vigorous, rational, ever-alert young Raj” (Orientalism 42). Abdul

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JanMohamed notes that “European colonialists promoted the destruction of native legal and cultural systems and, ultimately, the negation of non-European civilizations” ("Manichean

Allegory" 61). At one critical level, references to human commonality in Kim emphasize the

English rulers’ cultural understanding, which in turn justify the claim of the English to rule. The bid to know the other is interlocked with a potent corollary message enjoining the English to rule the other; as Said observes on the field of anthropology:

Creighton as anthropologist is important. . . . Of all the modern sciences,

anthropology is the one historically most closely tied to colonialism, since it is often

the case that anthropologists . . . advise colonial rulers on the manners and mores

of the native people. (Culture 152)

I suggest that one can argue that both a bolstering of empire and a critique of empire is launched in the text and plot of Kim. The ending of the text, I argue, can be constructed as a partial critique and theoretical dismantling of empire through a sustained examination of spirituality by way of the enlightenment of the Lama and Kim.20 Mallett explains:

Kipling was not to know that in 1903– 4 Lord Curzon would send a British force

into the Lama’s native Tibet . . . with Maxim guns mowing down monks armed

with hoes, sabres and flintlocks: not quite weaponless dreamers, but hardly a threat

to the Empire. But he must have known that Indian nationalists of 1900 saw the

Rebellion as a step towards independence, not as an act of madness. In Kim, Kipling

allows himself to forget . . . that even the British Empire was not eternal. (119)

20 For Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, decolonization “is the process of revealing and dismantling colonialist power in all its forms” (63). While full attempts of “decolonization” are not visible in Kim, there are subtle gestures that question the legitimacy of empire that I suggest are visible in the ending of Kim. 154

I suggest that there is another side to this picture. In Kipling’s illusory world of Kim, the threat of native insurgency is glossed over, and the focus transfers instead to an equally present countervailing force—that of "hybrid mysticism." I turn my focus now to how Kipling places substantial emphasis on non-European body of knowledge acquired through spiritual practices in the ending of Kim—indeed the ending constructs a view of Eastern spirituality as a destabilizing force that appears at times to convey an anti-colonialist stance.

To my knowledge, not enough attention has been given to the text of Kim with reference to the themes of unity and mysticism in connection with Kim’s hybrid identity. Scholars such as

Sullivan have viewed the story critically and primarily in light of its colonial agenda. She concludes that in this text “Kipling constructs a pathology of selves that illuminates the pathology of empire” (180). Further, she argues that Kim never joins the native as one but firmly maintains his separateness; she asserts that Kim “disavows difference from the native, yet knows otherwise”

(177). Her words indicate that she rightly sees a sinister duplicity in Kim`s role as shape-shifter.

Other critics such as Said have commented on the array of segregated racial groupings in the text.

For Said, “Everyone in Kim is . . . equally an outsider to other groups and an insider in his”

(“Introduction to Kim” 36). Further, Said notes: “The division between white and non-white, in

India and elsewhere, was absolute, and it is alluded to through Kim: a sahib is a sahib, and no amount of friendship or camaraderie can change the rudiments of racial difference” (“Introduction to Kim” 10). He adds with sarcasm that “Kipling could no more have questioned that difference, and the right of the white European to rule, than he would have argued with the Himalayas” (10).

I suggest that the conclusion of Kim partly reveals an aspect of Kipling’s authorial voice where he attempts to partially question the legitimacy of racial difference through extended focus upon the

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spiritual notion of unity and enlightenment. In the final chapters of Kim the reader is able to meaningfully observe Kipling’s compassionate focus upon Indian mystics, sages, prophets and heretics—indeed, I argue that the tale ends with a final compelling message on human commonality and unity that must be thoroughly explored.

Gateway to Enlightenment: Scramble for Spiritual Truth

I will now develop my position with a thorough look at the ending of the novel. I ask: can the conclusion of Kim, with its focus on the topic of enlightenment, complicate and partially reconcile the discriminatory stances that appear in the novel? I will illustrate how the text’s stance on spirituality and religion in the end of the story partly contradicts the earlier expressions of racial hierarchies and ambivalence regarding duality and difference in ways that merit closer attention.

On one hand, Kipling highlights and privileges mainstream, dogmatic and orthodox views as exoteric and commonplace knowledge, but he counters by showing the opposing viewpoints through emphasis on esoteric knowledge regarding unity and human commonality through the character of Kim and his relationship to his beloved Lama.

Rightfully many critics have pointed out the prejudicial stances in the novel and have ascertained that Kim’s chameleon-like properties are harnessed in the service of the Empire. While

I will not refute these multiple claims, I am of the view that the novel foregrounds the quest for enlightenment as more powerful than Kim’s quest for worldly power. For the central question remains, as visible in the conclusion of the text, where does Kim’s extensive training finally lead to? Let us trace the endpoint in the story of Kim’s growth in some detail.

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One must pay attention to moments in the text where Kim maintains his silence with regards to questions posed to him. His silence often marks a disavowal of the dominant views that he encounters. In the final pages of the novel, Kipling consciously chooses to not include a scene where Kim’s colonial fathers, namely Colonel Creighton and Father Victor, gather to celebrate

Kim’s success in the Great Game. Moreover, the reader is only left with the promise of some form of recompense for Kim’s commendable efforts. Instead, we witness an excited Babu reporting the details of their mission to Kim, who has just awakened from a deep slumber. He expresses to Kim:

“It is feather in both our caps! Yess, and they gave me a certificate. . . . And thank Almighty God you got their papers so well! . . . You shall have all sorts of credits for your game” (252). Notably, while the Babu has already received his reward, Kim is left without a reward. Yet, Kipling will make clear that no amount of monetary or worldly acknowledgement will satisfy the newly awakened Kim, for Kim remains silent and simply observes. To add further, he does not even express pleasure and his indifference is visible to the Babu.21 Kipling leaves Kim’s fated role as ruler unclear as if to suggest that this role may not be as significant at the end of his quest. We may also note that the plotline focusing on the Great Game becomes minimized in this final chapter and indeed, Kim seems to have lost all the pompous, youthful arrogance under the Lama’s careful guidance. It is revealing that Kim seemingly reorients his original boyish dream to merge with the

Lama’s more spiritual goal. Instead of a crowning ceremony or other ritual of bestowing honor,

Kipling opts to end with a picture of universal love, brotherhood, and enlightenment. Kim’s multi- faceted and atypical training can be equated with a protocol for spiritual cultivation, as steps

21 On may recall that in Chapter Seven, Kim comes to the realization that his education would lead him to eventually rule over natives. The narrator informs: “One must never forget that one is a Sahib, and that some day, when examinations are passed, one will command natives. Kim made a note of this, for he began to understand where examinations led” (112). 157

leading to enlightenment, perhaps akin to the Buddhist Eightfold Path. The Great Game appears as a different type of playing field—the scramble for spiritual truth. As Shandilya points out:

“indeed, the sacred knowledges of India transform the colonial subject as much as the secular knowledge of imperialism creates India as a manageable object of governance. Yet, in Kim the sacred itself is never politicized or made into a tool of empire” (349). I align with this view and furthermore suggest that the ending of Kim must be accounted for with reflection of the entirety of the novel and its commentary on comparative religion and spirituality.

The final chapters of the novel provide illumination regarding the intersections between the themes of hybridity, unity, and enlightenment in Kim. Chapter fourteen notably opens with a message inspired by Kabir, the famous Indian poet-sage from the fifteenth century. Through this

Kipling reminds the reader that the story has thus far been about duality and the ways by which one can choose to view each other through either the lenses of separation or unity. The poem, simply entitled “The Prayer,” markedly reaffirms the unifying theme of this novel—that of spiritual transcendence and reads as follows:

My brother kneels (so saith Kabir)

To stone and brass in heathen wise,

But in my brother's voice I hear

My own unanswered agonies.

His God is as his Fates assign—

His prayer is all the world's—and mine. (226)

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The closing chapters will focus specifically on a belief in the unity of all religions and will come to define hybridity—I argue, defined metaphorically in the text as the notion of “unity within multiplicity”—as the gateway to enlightenment. Kipling, drawing from his great awareness of

Indian spiritual traditions, has chosen the figure of Kabir to represent the final stages of Kim’s journey. Let us examine Kabir’s legacy and how his image relates to the thematic, spiritual, climax of this novel.

Shashi Prasad informs that critics have viewed Kabir’s “statements about oneness of

Brahman (universal soul) and Atman (individual soul) . . . [as] a pointer to his belief in advaita

(nonduality) or in the existence of the one single Reality” (xvii). She further explains of the Bhakti movement, a wave of liberal philosophy in India enriched by Kabir’s work, that it was “[i]n the first place . . . a protest against formalism in religion and externalism in worship” (xiv). She adds that Kabir referred to many spiritual and cultural traditions in his poetry and argues: “In fact, all

‘isms’ and ‘vadas’ can be deduced from his poetry, but Kabir identifies himself with none and transcends each of them” (xvi). Also of note, she suggests: “He was a votary of a ‘religion of man’, a universal religion” (13). Emphasizing his importance as a symbol of unity and human commonality, she describes how “Westernized intellectuals tend to consider him as a great mystic; the herald of the universal religion of man, the champion of the unity of mankind and a bold social reformer” (15). Prasad’s work reveals how Kabir, too, vehemently evaded classificatory gestures and how critics have seen him in many angles, sometimes positioning his ideas as “fundamentally

Buddhist” (15), but ultimately it is clear that he chose no single external marker of faith. What is more, he has become a symbol of adoration and reverence for people of many faith systems in

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India and beyond. Prasad cites the work of Vaudeville who aptly captures the implications of his syncretic, hybrid philosophy:

In Indian religious history, Kabir is unique, to the Hindus he is Vaisnava Bhakta,

to the Muslims a Pir . . . to modern patriots, Kabir is the champion of Hindu-Muslim

unity . . . a promoter of the Universal Religion or the Religion of Man . . . [and a]

bold enemy of Brahmanical pride and caste distinctions. (qtd. in Prasad 15)

I suggest that we can see Kim’s amorphous and shapeshifting character as carrying elements that are reminiscent of this medieval Indian saint. Indeed, I suggest that Kipling has made countless gestures towards Kabir’s philosophy of unity throughout the text of Kim. In Rabindranath Tagore’s compilation and translation of Kabir’s songs, we learn of his enduring message of unity: “The

Purana and the Koran are mere words; lifting up the curtain,/ I have seen” (XLII. I. 79). Perhaps we can make better sense of the earlier scenes discussed with these words in mind where Kim joyfully visits shrines of saints that are jointly reverenced by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Muslims.

Kipling’s invocation of Kabir, then, offers clues to his choice of religious imagery and description of scenes depicting and promoting religious syncretism.

The poem, “The Prayer,” paints a picture of humanity wandering through the morass of life seeking wildly for spiritual truth, desiring understanding of Self, Other, and the Absolute. It is this impulse that finds full resolution in the final two chapters of the novel through the Lama and

Kim’s attainment of nirvana. As Noel Annan asserts regarding the two characters’ quests: “There can then be no conflict in deciding what role to play in life. Kim and the Lama each has his vocation, Kim to govern, the Lama to achieve Nirvana. These vocations are not contradictory but

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complementary. Kim and the Lama are the two sides of the coin of man's duty on earth” (343).

Kipling presents to us an enduring picture of the dissolution of all markers of identity, revealing an expansive space of connection within and without—what is described by the Lama, as universal consciousness. The Lama experiences the death and dissolution of his soul, and has a direct, transcendental experience of unity. Let us trace the steps that lead to this climactic end.

Having disempowered the Russian and French spies, the Lama and Kim resume their search for the sacred river. The Lama is in need of recuperation and seeks emotional reassurance for he is no longer firm in his views of oneness and non-duality. His faith in himself and his beliefs are clearly shaken. He does not know how to regard Kim, whether as his superior, as a Sahib, or as his beloved Chela. Kim pacifies the Lama by uttering:

“Thou hast said there is neither black nor white. Why plague me with this talk, Holy

One? . . . I am not a Sahib. I am thy chela. . . .”

“. . . [voices the Lama] We reach Freedom together. . . . Perhaps I was once a

Sahib.” (244)

Kipling adds further imagery conjuring the memory of the curator of the Lahore Museum: “I am certain the Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House was in past life a very wise Abbot. But even his spectacles do not make my eyes see. . . . I am bound by the illusion of Time and Space” (244).

Daphne Kutzer writes of how “[s]ight is an important metaphor both here at the beginning of the novel and throughout” (19) and how the scene tells of a degree of parity for the “the lama will see

India partly through English and partly through his own Tibetan eyes, and the curator will have gained yet another artifact and another perspective, Tibetan, through which to view India” (19).

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Kipling returns us to the idea of reincarnation and how conceptually it acts as a great equalizer leading to the dissolving of notions of racial difference. For the Lama expresses again, utilizing the trope of mirroring, how the Curator and himself are soulfully connected and may have had past lives in each other’s present home countries and with a direct exchange of roles that they now assume. The Lama’s words act as a powerful reiteration of the book’s central but abstract inquiry: are we but One? Kutzer contends: “Kipling’s inclusion of the lama ensures that his novel will provide—or at least seem to provide—a multiple set of outsider eyes with which to view the bewildering complexity of India” (19).

Let us see further how Kim’s involvement in the spy narrative can be seen as an enabling device that catapults the Lama and Kim to the threshold of enlightenment. Kipling shifts gears in terms of his choice of diction and we note a change in the latter pages of the novel with the Lama’s use of terms of endearment. He addresses Kim with heightened affection as “child of my soul!”

(245); Kipling thereby shifts the reader’s attention to the notion of spirituality rather than political/colonial affairs. The reader’s eye will be placed on matters of the heart, essence, and soul.

The story is drawn to an end through depicting a scramble for spiritual truth rather than territorial control. Surely, the narrative could have been brought to a close with the vanquishing of the

Russian and French spies. Instead, the endpoint of the narrative occurs when the lama’s quest for spirit becomes realized, arguably enabled through his deep and unconditional love for Kim.

Regarding their synergetic relationship, Kim reflects sweetly a reciprocation of affection: “Thou leanest on me in the body, Holy One, but I lean on thee for some other things” (245).

At this stage of the novel in Chapter Fifteen, Kim and the Lama find themselves again under the nurturing care of the Woman of Kulu in her home in Saharanpur. The final transmutation

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of Kim as the hybrid hero occurs against this setting. The Woman of Kulu refers to the act of nursing Kim to health as that of the final polishing and carving of a stone. She exclaims: “he is getting a bloom on the skin of a new-curried horse. Our work is like polishing jewels to be thrown to a dance-girl—eh?” (249). We are reminded that Kim has appeared throughout as a gem, an instrument, a key, and a guide holding a precise function that will be fully revealed in the conclusion of the tale.

The Bengali Babu makes a re-entry into the scene and tells Kim, who symbolically awakens from a restful sleep, of the Lama’s discovery of the river of truth: “Yes, he [the Lama] might have died, but he is dry now, and asserts he has undergone transfiguration” (252; emphasis added). His choice of words are revealing as he employs the Christian term for the final stages of alchemical transformation undergone by Christ to depict the Lama’s attainment of enlightenment. Kim is excited to hear of this and utters Muslim phrases of praise and exaltation. To this, Hurree Babu responds by cautioning Kim to exhibit greater prudence, advice that Kim easily discards: “when next you are under thee emotions please do not use the Mohammedan terms with the Tibetan dress”

(254). There is great significance in that Kim does not respond to this lighthearted note but uses his silence to possibly signal indifference or disavowal. It must be emphasized that at no point in the novel does Kim openly profess allegiance to a single faith, evading all moves to classify him, and persists to the very end to employ proverbs, platitudes and all manner of expressions from all faiths and cultures—remaining true to his self-representation as unfixed and hybrid.

Soon after receiving the Babu’s message, Kim leaves in search for the newly enlightened

Lama. Overcome by exhaustion and the flux of waging emotions, he falls into a stupor and deep

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state of contemplation. It is at this point of the story that he arrives upon his own experience of spiritual illumination that is comparable to the Lama’s own. Kipling writes:

All that while he felt, though he could not put it into words, that his soul was out of

gear with its surroundings—a cog-wheel unconnected with any machinery. . . .

“I am Kim. I am Kim. And what is Kim?”. . . .

. . . . [Everything] slid into proper proportion. Roads were meant to be walked upon

. . . and men and women to be talked to. They were all real and true—solidly planted

upon the feet—perfectly comprehensible—clay of his clay, neither more nor less. .

. . Said the Sahiba . . . : “Let him go. I have done my share. Mother Earth must do

the rest.” (254-255; emphasis added)

It is noteworthy that Kim experiences what is likened figuratively to an out-of-body experience, for Kipling observes that his “soul was out of gear with its surroundings." The realization that jolts him back into the order of things is that all are comprised of the “clay of his clay, neither more nor less.” It is this realization, that I have argued is central to this story, as it causes aspects of Kim’s cognitive dissonance, his inner conflict regarding his hybrid state, to become harmonized into a state of unity. Of this scene, Franklin notes: "He has dissolved the body/soul dualism, seen through it into non-dualistic thinking. In that moment, Kim and the novel as a whole finally dissolve the dualism of the Great Game and the Buddhist Way" (175). He goes so far as to suggest that this ending can be read in a redemptive light: "Rudyard Kipling, champion of the British Empire, certainly did not transcend the Western paradigm of identity that underwrites invasion and

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occupation of the other, but Kim does" (163). Let us test this position with further attention to the narration of Kim’s profound awakening:

[He approached] a young banyan tree. . . . The ground was [full of] . . . the hopeful

dust that holds the seeds of all life. . . . And Mother Earth was as faithful as the

Sahiba. She breathed through him to restore the poise he had lost . . . cut off from

her good currents. . . . The many-rooted tree above him . . . knew what he sought,

as he himself did not know. Hour upon hour he lay deeper than sleep. (225;

emphasis added)

Of this scene, Thrall notes of Kim: "His reorientation is therefore more of a ‘both/and’ than Said describes, as Kim's final sense of himself incorporates East and West, at least in re- establishing

India as the world in which this particular Westerner has found a home" (62). Moreover, Kipling shows how a greater, all-pervasive force, personified here as Mother Earth, breathes new life into

Kim. Anne McClintock reads this scene as enacting "a displaced, incestuous merging with ‘Mother

Earth,’ an ambiguous act in which sexuality is both repudiated and confirmed" (71). It is significant that the event takes place in a village pastoral setting; Kipling adds the symbol of the sacred

Banyan tree, as if to recall Buddha’s own attainment of enlightenment. Kipling also adds a layer of mysticism to this scene by denoting the sentience of all creation: for in this passage, the trees are cast as omniscient witnesses and this formulation poetically intimates the themes of oneness and connectivity. This idea is emphasized further as the narrator speaks of “the hopeful dust that holds the seeds of all life.” Of particular importance are the last lines of this passage that accentuate that what Kim has undergone is not simply a state of deep slumber, but a spiritual state of transformation. This story comes full circle and the discourse surrounding the subject of magic

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found in earlier sections is brought to full light. Schuon writes: "If the expression ‘transcendent unity’ is used, it means that the unity of the religious forms must be realized in a purely inward and spiritual way and without prejudice to any particular form” (xxxiv). The key realization—the

“magic” or profundity of this moment—that Kim arrives upon is the understanding that all are one; he comes to accept himself and others as equal for he utters that all are built of the “clay of his clay, neither more nor less.” For the text at least, all inner and outer conflicts manifest in this text in the form of discord and racist ideologies harboured within the psyche, and externally as the battle between light and dark in the Great Game, are brought seemingly to an end. Said explains how this scene reveals "some mumbo-jumbo . . . but it shouldn’t all be dismissed" ("Introduction to Kim" 19). Offering a compelling insight, Franklin eloquently observes on the subject of dualism:

We must learn to read history non-dualistically. To force a dualistic reading,

whether of Kim or of current world events, is to perpetuate the violence of

imperialism and war. To recognize the non-dualistic reading that Kim itself makes

available is, in part, to cultivate the seeds of non-dualistic solutions to real-world

ethnic and religious conflicts. (174)

Indeed, the ending of Kim intimates that all questions of separation regarding race, religion, and power struggles are resolved. It is through this epiphany that Kim accepts his hybrid self, integrates the Lama’s teachings, and experiences a form of enlightenment. From the beginning of the novel,

Kim shirked the confines of imposed and conditioned identity; at this culminating point of his journey of awareness, he succeeds to unify all aspects within himself, leading to this moment of profound inner and outer peace/unity.

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It is clear also that Kipling employs Buddhist imagery to present his final image of unity as an enlightened state. Nolan Jacobson observes: "Buddhism has . . . anticipated by over two thousand years the efforts of a whole series of philosophers of the West-Bergson, Dewey, Darwin,

Fechner, James, Hartshorne, Whitehead, and Peirce—to construe the world as events in their novel, emerging forms of togetherness" (48). Kim emerges from this breaking point with deep insight and clarity. He is no longer concerned with duality and is now positioned in the text as one who has transcended all limitations. We find Mahbub Ali and the Lama conversing on what has transpired. This crucial scene reveals more regarding the text’s stance toward the unity of religions, or what I define as "hybrid mysticism."

“My chela aided me to the River. It is his right to be cleansed from sin—with me.”

[says the Lama]

“Ay, he needs cleansing. But afterwards. . . ?” [says Mahbub Ali]

“What matter under all the Heavens? He is sure of Nibban—enlightened—as I am.”

“Well said. I had a fear he might mount Mohammed's Horse and fly away.” (257)

In earlier sections, we have examined Kipling’s use of wordplay and the permutations of meaning with respect to the ideas of predestination and kismet. Kipling now once again focuses on the interchangeability of terms depicting religious/spiritual experience. In this section, there are three religions that are represented through the text’s portrayal of enlightenment: the Christian doctrine of Transfiguration, the Buddhist concept of Enlightenment and thirdly, the Muslim narrative of the Miraj or Muhammed’s mythical journey of ascension to the seventh level of the heavens. On

Kipling’s views on Islam, Robert Ivermee explains that "Kipling felt an affinity with Islam based upon its monotheistic grounding" (259). It is as though the text posits how the various

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representations of the concept must not be viewed as competing images but as conceptually interchangeable. While exoterics will not permit for such commonalities to be drawn, this is another instance in the text where Kipling inserts an esoteric message of unity. By reference to these terms, the text maintains that no one creed holds monopoly over others and all seekers can equally attain enlightenment. Schuon explains, “For the exoteric, God’s personal mode is his only mode; for the esoteric this mode resides in one that is higher and ultimately modeless: the Absolute, the Godhead, Nirguna Brahman of the Vedantists, the Tao that cannot be spoken” (xxvii). While

Kipling portrays the Lama’s experience in terms of a Buddhist framework, it is noteworthy that

Kipling intentionally depicts Kim’s transcendental experience as lying beyond a single theological signification. Regarding the Miraj, William Chittick, a Sufi scholar sums:

Both Sufis and philosophers have taken the night journey as the archetype for the

spiritual transformation that is the goal of praxis. Sufism has produced a vast

literature on the stages of the journey to God. . . . The ascending steps were

invariably explained as human virtues and character traits that need to be actualized

if people are to escape from their own shortcomings. (Divine Love 165)

He further adds:

The secret of climbing the ladder to God is to empty oneself of self-centeredness

and to open oneself up to the divine light. . . . To climb the ladder to God is to

harness the ongoing flow of creation in order to transform “base character traits”

(safsāf al-akhlāq) into “noble character traits” (makārim al-akhlāq). (Divine Love

167)

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I bring attention to Chittick’s words because there is a correlation to Kim’s experience in the text.

Kim seemingly lets go of racist beliefs in order to achieve enlightenment and attainment of freedom from previous restrictions and views. A central concern in the text is Kim’s metamorphosis and simply put, the endpoint of Kim’s journey leads—paradoxically, given the predominant themes of British racial superiority—to a pronouncement of the unity of humankind.

Indeed, Kipling focuses intensely on Kim’s ability to transmogrify. Let us briefly return to the idea of how Kim in his choice of guise often settled upon the archetype of sage, healer or fakir.

One can argue that his frequent role-changing represents the transmutations leading him to a final transformation into hybrid hero, or a form of ultimate realization of unity. In her introduction to

Tagore’s translation of Kabir, Evelyn Hill explains Kabir’s take on cosmogony and the Absolute:

In His personal aspect He is the "beloved Fakir," teaching and companioning each

soul. Considered as Immanent Spirit, He is "the Mind within the mind." But all

these are at best partial aspects of His nature . . . as the Persons in the Christian

doctrine of the Trinity . . . so Kabîr says that "beyond both the limited and the

limitless is He, the Pure Being. . . ." (24)

In light of these words, perhaps we can better understand Kipling’s choice to have cast Kim predominantly and endearingly as chela, sage/fakir, healer, prophet, magician and hybrid-god. He points to the totality of being, lying beyond all limitations, and represents what Kabir formulates here as the “Pure Being;” and for Kipling at this ending of the tale, everything and nothing at once.

As we will examine, Kim’s metamorphosis parallels the Lama’s transfiguration. Let us take a closer look at why Kipling revives a specific parable when Babu refers to the Lama’s

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enlightenment as transfiguration. Regarding Christ’s transfiguration, Aaron Canty points out that this experience has been overlooked within critical circles. He claims:

interpretations of the transfiguration by some early Christian and Gnostic

communities in the second and early third centuries were removed from the

ecclesial context of 2 Peter. . . . Although this event of Christ’s life was not treated

by the so-called “Apostolic Fathers” and the apologists, it nevertheless found a

place in apocryphal pseudepigrapha and Gnostic treatises. (11)

Kipling clearly recuperates a lesser known aspect of Christ’s history in this text. By doing so,

Kipling draws attention to enlightenment and transcendentalism as a cryptic and obscure subject, but one that is worthy of being brought to the fore through his fiction. Canty explores the various accounts of transfiguration in the synoptic gospels and explains the event as follows: “Jesus took

Peter, James, and John to a mountain, where they witnessed his transformation: His garments became exceedingly white and shining” (6). He adds that Moses and Elijah descended to the mountain and God’s voice issued from the heavens proclaiming him as his son, enjoining the followers to take heed of Jesus’s teachings (6). Further, Canty explains, “Matthew and Luke specifically recount how Jesus’ face was transformed. Jesus’ metamorphosis, His altered appearance rendered the disciples awestruck and terrified” (8). Canty notes too that Christ obtains

“clarity, and this gift is a quality that is manifested in Christ’s earthly life only during the transfiguration” (198). Towards the ending of Kipling’s allegorical narrative, Kim and the Lama symbolize divine truth. Their journey of transformation yields reward not in material gain, but through spiritual transfiguration. In key scenes, both Kim and the Lama are gifted with the virtues

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of clarity and lucidity enabling them to transcend the illusion of dualism, bringing them to a direct realization of the unity of creation.

By drawing attention to multi-faith accounts of enlightenment, Kim highlights the idea of human commonality and perhaps, his view of the arbitrariness of religious and racial boundaries.

In an earlier section, building up to this climax of the novel, Kipling trivializes Kim’s ability to adopt the identity of any faith at will. Kim employs almost a mercenary-like stance as seen when the narrator observes: "I will change my faith and my bedding, but thou must pay for it" (117). In this text, much importance is placed on the earnest seeking of truth, showing how spiritual seekers cannot abide by a single, prevailing dogma. Sara Suleri reflects on Kim’s hybridity along the following lines:

The magical quality of his hybridity . . . is modified by the nature of the disguises

that the Game requires he adopt. Much as a Macaulayan interpreter, Kim[’s] . . .

access to cultural “wisdom” must necessarily be reduced to the acquisition of

pragmatic information. . . . [T]he lama’s commitment to “acquiring knowledge”

assumes the fatigued irony that is Kim’s undoing, for within the parameters of the

Game of colonialism, all epistemologies reduce to utilitarianism. (127)

Suleri suggests that Kim’s "magical" hybrid talents are only employed in the name of utility to be harnessed in service to the Raj; this passage seems to suggest that the Lama and his quest are but mere distractions to Kim and that his character and words appear one-sided and monochrome.

Indeed, his enduring spiritual efforts to acquire wisdom, in view of this interpretation, can be seen as forgettable, unimportant, or a form of "fatigued irony," serving little function in the shaping of

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Kim’s character. Let us consider Kim as a Macaulayan figure. The use of religious diatribes in his infamous “Minute” (1835) should be noted when Thomas Macaulay issues the following condemnation of the religions of India in favor, seemingly, of the utility of proselyting natives:

[India’s] language is barren of useful knowledge. . . . We are to teach false history,

false astronomy, false medicine, because we find them in company with a false

religion. We abstain . . . from giving any public encouragement to those who . . .

waste their youth in learning . . . what texts of the Vedas they are to repeat to expiate

the crime of killing a goat? (Macaulay par. 31)

Clearly, Kipling positions Kim in an antithetical manner with respect to Macaulay in the ending of the tale— surely, his hate-spewing speech reflects an image of an unwaveringly racist figure. I have outlined the presence of an opposing sentiment prevailing in the text where Kipling infuses a Kabir-like message of tolerance and unity through the figures of Kim and the Lama. It is through

Kim’s hybrid identity that Kipling investigates theories of divinity in a manner that I describe as “hybrid mysticism”—the joining of multiple religious traditions through the concept of the unity of creation. As I will now show, Kipling presents Kim’s hybridity as the multiplicity of the nature of the divine One—a concept alluded to throughout the tale.

In her seminal work, Practical Mysticism, Underhill explains her understanding of the concept of unity within multiplicity as: "That great pair of opposites which metaphysicians call

Being and Becoming, Eternity and Time, Unity and Multiplicity . . . the Spiritual and the Natural

Worlds" (39-40). In this section, Underhill continues to suggest that reconciling one’s views of ambivalence leads to the understanding of the transcendent All. Through Underhill’s commentary

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on "unity within multiplicity," we are able to better understand Kipling’s presentation of Kim’s often vacillating views on race. His journey is, at one level, an attempt to understand the diversity of creation. Richard King critiques Underhill’s monolithic representation of mysticism as enjoining a theory of commonality that obliterates difference by expressing: "This is an astonishing statement to make—that the notions of God, communion, the soul and themes of a loving relationship between the two can be found in (actually imposed upon) all non-Christian religious experience. Underhill and Smith, of course, are not alone in this regard" (8). I argue that this

"astonishing" desire is patently present in the final pages of Kim.

Many critics have spoken at length of the enigmatic nature of the ending scene focusing on how Kim’s role in the Great Game is left undetermined. Thrall muses, what "is held in their [Kim and the Lama’s] mutual gaze, if not a shared hope for spiritual deliverance?" (45). He adds that equally, one may argue that the

Chela and lama could be said to face each other in a confrontation of pragmatic

Western rationality with Eastern mystical irrationality. . . . Or they could be

embodying other distinctions, between youth and age, modernity and antiquity,

colonizer and colonized. Or . . . [a] study in dominance and submission. (45)

Significantly, at this stage of the novel, Mahbub Ali lays a claim to him as his “colt” but the Lama assures that the choice of profession is meaningless once enlightenment and truth are obtained: "A good deed does not die. He aided me in my Search. I aided him in his. Just is the Wheel. . . . Let him be a teacher; let him be a scribe—what matter? He will have attained Freedom at the end. The rest is illusion" (257). Significantly, the Lama opines—aligning with the text’s central position—

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that Kim’s mastery has more to do with spiritual mastery, considering him the spiritual warrior than elite British spy.

Kipling proceeds to then beautifully recount the Lama’s experience of enlightenment.

Some critics have dismissed the nature of this depiction as comical or superficial. For example,

Sullivan concludes that “the lama is triumphant as lone discoverer of his river within and as lover of the ‘chela’ . . . on the second level, the lama is a museum piece, a nonviolent, nonactive absurdity in a world of guns, Russian spies, and violence” (175). The Lama chronicles his experience to Kim as follows:

So I removed myself to a hollow under a tree. . . . I sat in meditation two days and

two nights, abstracting my mind; inbreathing and outbreathing in the required

manner . . . Upon the second night . . . the wise Soul loosed itself from the silly

Body and went free. This I have never before attained. . . . (258-9)

Take note of the similarity of experience with how Kim too found himself, supported by a Banyan tree—a tree symbolic of Buddha’s enlightenment—as he experienced the void and found himself similarly unhinged from his external reality. The Lama continues to convey his story:

Yea, my Soul went free, and . . . saw indeed that there was no Teshoo Lama nor

any other soul. As a drop draws to water, so my Soul drew near to the Great Soul

which is beyond all things. . . . By this I knew the Soul had passed beyond the

illusion of Time and Space and of Things. . . . Then my Soul was all alone, and I

saw nothing, for I was all things, having reached the Great Soul. (260; emphasis

added)

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Thralls notes "for all that Said denigrates the description of the lama's final ‘out-of-body’ vision as including ‘some mumbo-jumbo’ (19), the experience itself is apparently offered as a legitimate supernatural event" (56). Bishnupriya Ghosh observes of the nineteenth century that some were exploring whether "direct communication between two or more people could occur without recourse to the five human senses; neither physics nor psychology could rationally explain . . . how thoughts flowed across geographically discrete spaces and beyond the temporal physical limit of a life" (336). Indeed, it is this interest that focuses upon the intricate connection between things that permeates the final pages of the novel. Regarding Kipling and his peers’ fascination with the supernatural, Ghosh further posits:

For Kipling and Conan Doyle, telepathy entailed an epistemological project, as it

mandated the interpenetration of colonial epistemic paradigms (legal, medical,

political, or religious) by native doxa, semi-legitimate or subjugated knowledge

(philosophies, sciences, religions, beliefs). If telepathy enabled the leaking of

psyches into each other, the telepathic mode in colonial occult fiction allowed for

a seeping of native philosophies, sciences, and religious beliefs into the literary text.

(337)

Further, Parry notes:“The contradictory ideological imperatives of etching the division between imperialist self and native other at the same time as representing colonialist/colonized hostility as

British/Indian collaboration, engenders the invention of boundary situations inscribing both exigencies” (128). Like Kim, the Lama breaks free from the need of “boundary situations” and moves beyond the conditions of time and space and joins with the great Over-soul. Muhammad

Awan reads this scene as one where the Lama “achieves salvation for himself and his beloved

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chela by wrenching his soul away from what many have regarded, variously, as Brahma,

Transcendental Oversoul, Immanence, Intellectual Beauty, Life Force, etc.” (n.page). Yet the

Lama forsakes this achievement to become a Bodhisattva, as he is drawn back to the material world solely for his mortal love for Kim. Thus, the text carves out an image of parity and interdependence between the Lama and the boy by suggesting that the two are reliant upon each other for their growth and enlightenment. We see that the Lama has experienced transcendental unity to realize the Oversoul/God as pervading all creation. He has finally pierced the veils of maya and has seen what lies beyond the boundaries of separation found in the material realms. He confirms to Kim that the ideas of separateness are as pure illusion and he conveys to his chela again that all are one. He proclaims: “I saw nothing, for I was all things.” These words are surely interchangeable with Kim’s own revelation of oneness. Of the Lama’s enlightenment scene,

Franklin writes:

In most Western discourse, this level of integration and connectedness typically is

dismissed either as a form of irrational mysticism or as a Romantic fantasia. . . .

From a Buddhist perspective, Kim simply is experiencing the Dharma as expressed

in the doctrine of dependent origination—the Lama’s Wheel—which is to

experience the reality of what is. (176)

I suggest that the reader not dismiss the importance of the symbolism of this final scene depicting enlightenment. Just like the Lama, Kim felt disconnection from the ties of the world when Kipling describes: "All that while he felt, though he could not put it into words, that his soul was out of gear with its surrounding" (254). Undergoing a shift in consciousness, Kim arrives upon a new and final realization of purpose and his relation to the world. He receives the gift of clarity to acknowledge the unity underwriting all creation. The following lines conveys the truth that Kim

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finds and significantly is the fundamental message that Kipling leaves the reader with: "men and women . . . [who were built of] clay of his clay, neither more nor less (255). Unlike earlier sections of the novel, the terms employed here appear more universal/non-judgemental and do not rely on racialized categories of difference. King notes the following regarding a prominent Indian mystic:

Vivekananda (1863– 1902), founder of the Ramakrishna Mission, an organization

devoted to the promotion of a contemporary form of Advaita Vedanta (non-

dualism), placed particular emphasis upon the spirituality of Indian culture as a

curative for the nihilism and materialism of modern Western culture. In

Vivekananda’s hands, Orientalist notions of India as ‘other worldly’ and ‘mystical’

were embraced and praised as India’s special gift to humankind. (93)

Vivekananda writes in 1915:

Materialism prevails in Europe today. . . . The salvation of Europe depends on a

rationalistic religion, and Advaita—non-duality, the Oneness, the idea of the

Impersonal God—is the only religion that can have any hold on any intellectual

people . . . that is why it has taken ground in Europe and America. ("Jnana" 320)

An element of this understanding of the gift of Indian mysticism permeates Kim. It is pertinent that

Kipling pairs the Lama and Kim’s two final mystical experiences with each other. In this moment of revelation, the two experiences of transcendence speak to and arguably redress prior descriptions of fraught ideologies and dualistic, ambivalent stances. Yet it is troubling that the gift of mysticism precludes any discourse that actively challenges the empire. Kipling depicts the full- spectrum of viewpoints but ends with placing emphasis on the spiritual commonality and

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interconnection between all. While the Lama experiences a deeper transcendence, Kim too finds wholeness within. He has appeared to us in the tale as the singular one who always-already embodied the qualities of unity and transcendence.

Sergeant argues that “[i]f the lama is allegory, Kim is realism; if the lama is mythos, then everyone else is logos” (157). I have shown a contrary position that Kim is the instrument that anchors the divine/the mythical into the Real, enabling the Lama to experience enlightenment. In their symbolic union marked by their separate but shared experiences of enlightenment at the end, the boundaries between mythos and logos appear indeterminate and porous. Moreover, Kim cannot be characterized simply as a product of the Western Logoctrism, for I have argued that while he associates with Eurocentric principles, ultimately, Kipling presents an image of Kim as lying beyond any single conceptual or theological framework. What is more, Kipling allows the allegorical references to Freemasonry to also fade away in the final chapter, signalling perhaps the arbitrariness of a single dominant spiritual modus operandi.22 Sergeant observes: “Like the lama,

Kipling seems to have thought of the faiths as different paths leading to the same goal (or one half of him at least: the religions encompassed by this viewpoint were limited, and elsewhere he could be poisonously anti-Hindu and anti-Semitic)” (183). I have attempted to show that Kipling, at least in Kim, seems to partially critique the value of exoteric religions in favor of lesser-known spiritual and esoteric paths.

22 It is noteworthy that Kim does not attend a school/orphanage for Freemasons even though the possibility was raised twice in the text. In Chapter Two, we learn of Kim’s half-caste caretaker that “[i]f the woman had sent Kim up to the local Jadoo-Gher with those papers, he would, of course, have been taken over by the Provincial Lodge, and sent to the Masonic Orphanage in the Hills” (2). 178

In this chapter, we have now traced how Kipling consistently, but subtly, foregrounds the esoteric, rather than exoteric traditions in this text. Kipling includes too a pagan or gnostic intimation where it is the loving energy of Gaia, or Sophia, that nurses Kim to a state of heightened consciousness (Schuon explains that “the Gnostics in fact looked upon the Holy Ghost as the

“Divine Mother” (24). Perhaps for Kipling and the text, Kim’s choice to remain “impersonal” and hybrid in religious affililation can be likened to how “Divinity manifests Its Personal aspect through each particular Revelation and its supreme Impersonality through the diversity of the form of Its Word” (Schuon 26). In many ways, then, the text of Kim can be seen a crucible where various seemingly divergent religious and spiritual philosophies are thrown together and given space to find common ground—and indeed, this is at times a shrewd and pragmatic way by which Kipling bolsters the image of benevolent English rule in India. Yet simultaneously as Awan asserts: “many

Western critics of Kipling's Kim . . . do not recognize that Kipling wrote this tale within a different paradigm which is Eastern, intuitive, and mystical” (n.page).

After offering the two accounts of enlightenment, Kipling moves to a portrayal of the love bond between the Lama and Kim. Once again, he raises the picture of “unity within multiplicity" and seems to draw from Neo-Platonic thought in his final poetic articulation of Kim and the Lama’s relationship. David Hernández de la Fuente formulates:

Neo-Platonism considered a downward movement from the One to the Many

(Progression) of the utmost importance for the scheme of emanation characteristic

of this philosophical current. But there was also an upward transition from the

Many to the One (Reversion), a kind of mystical coming back to divine unity. (307)

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Kim and the Lama’s mutual ascension can only be understood with a study of different mystical traditions that Kipling seemingly drew upon. Based on this model given, it is easy to picture

Kipling positioning Kim and the Lama as messengers of sorts who lift others to the exalted truth of the One; the ending of the story reveals how the Lama too, returns to the Many after the experience of the One. Fuente describes the spiralling movement as follows: “The transition from the One to the Many through imitation, reflection and continuous change—[denotes] metamorphosis” (325). I have proposed that Kim’s hybridity/transformations can be understood through similar philosophical/spiritual formulations.

How do we explain the concept of “unity within multiplicity” and its presentation through

Kim’s divine hybrid status? The climax of the story reveals Kim’s hybridity as the immanent expression of the Transcendent All. The story ends on a realization of love and the importance of the spy mission falls away as Kipling focuses on the bonds of mutual affection between the Lama and his chela. The novel has focused in a complex and bewildering manner on mystery schools, secret cults, the British secret service, esoteric branches of popular religions, all to depict Kim as a shared emblem, a universal rallying cry, the hybrid symbol through which all systems congregate, commune and find (partial) solidarity. Significantly, no further reference is made regarding Kim’s future as a player in the Game. As Sergeant notes: “It is ironic that so many modern critics have read the lama as diminished or dependent, when it is one of Kipling’s greatest achievements to have sustained his credibility through to the end . . . when Kim confirms the reciprocality of their relationship” (166). Indeed, the residual image left is that of two souls joined by the bonds of mystical love. The story ends eloquently with lines that invoke spiritual love: “He crossed his hands on his lap and smiled, as a man may who has won Salvation for himself and his

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beloved" (261). With these words, the story comes full circle as a problematic but rich and mystical text teaching the esoteric doctrines of universal love.

It is curious that the Lama refers to Kim finally as his beloved. Sullivan reads this ending negatively as “[b]y choosing love for the Sahib Kim over freedom from the Wheel of Life, the lama is appropriated into the values of action associated with such warriors as Mahbub and the

Colonial Sahibs” (177). Of this scene, Sullivan further writes: "Love, then, serves both as an oppositional discourse opening a possibility of an alternative method of negotiation with the Other and also as an excuse to transcend personal betrayal" (173). She also speaks of the tale as one that is based on a lack of resolution and furtiveness in terms of opinions disclosed for she observes that there are "frequent changes in narrative voice from the certain, omniscient, and distant narrator, to the insecure and involved subjective narrator" (173). She adds that the effect is somewhat disorienting in that "[s]uch changes in voice create a characteristic indecisiveness and glide in the

Kipling voice, a kind of evasiveness that raises issues and problems it does not intend to resolve"

(173). Suleri differently suggests: “Kim is envisioned as the absent other that indicates the silence of classical Urdu poetry, in which the beloved has no voice at all. But it is colonial education that has silenced his voice, and demonstrated that in its adolescence is its end” (131). She sees the scene in terms of an erasure of Kim’s voice and agency. Reference to the Sufi tradition may offer different, more illuminating reading of this culminating image. Chittick asserts that in Sufism,

“God’s supreme reality demands the most intense love” (Divine Love 171). In this light, it is not unusual that the Lama is rewarded by enlightenment as a result of his love for Kim, and vice versa.

Perhaps a Sufi poem by the Persian poet Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī from the fifteenth Century best sums up the relationship and offers the final word regarding the association between unity and

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hybridity, and Kim and the Lama’s love for each other. Chittick observes: “In his Lawā’iḥ (“The

Gleams”), a classic summary of Ibn ‘Arabī’s teachings, he [Jāmī] explains that tawḥīd (unification) demands the coming together of God and man in love” (Divine Love 179):

No, rather the lover is the Real and the beloved He, the seeker

is the Real and the sought He. He is the sought and the beloved

in the station of Unity’s gathering, and the seeker and the lover

in the level of differentiation and manyness. (Divine Love 179)

While indeed, the privileging of Kim’s role in the text above all others is highly problematic, I argue that partial reconciliation occurs at the end where the Lama and Kim seemingly experience greater parity in their relationship that is marked by their interdependence. Kim, in his proliferation of guises and stations represents the transcendental He, the Sought, and the sacred space where the

Seeker finds refuge and union. In each other, Kim and the Lama find the expression of divinity that is differentiated and multiple, yet one. Their embrace thus denotes unification and coming together in divine love.

Thus we see that Kipling ends the novel on an idealistic note on divine love as ever present and all powerful. In the unusual pairing between a Tibetan Lama and a young Anglo-Indian Irish orphan, we find a powerfull message on transcendentalism. Noel Annan describes how "[b]oth find enlightenment and freedom—the comprehension of the order of things—through love" (344).

For Seyyed Hossein Nasr, “There is, in fact, no religious universe to which we can turn without finding therein the presence of Divine Love in one form or another” (Divine Love x). Through the image of union, Kipling conveys an appreciation for the idea of mystical love—a topic explored

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and enriched by poets such as Kabir, Hafiz, and Rumi. Evelyn Underhill speaks of how the

Kabirpanthi, along with many other spiritual traditions of the world, ultimately preached: the

"mystical ‘religion of love’ which everywhere makes its appearance at a certain level of spiritual culture, and which creeds and philosophies are powerless to kill" (Songs of Kabir; “Introduction”

6). It is apparent from the descriptions of Kim and the Lama’s mutual affection for each other that the text, too, privileges this rendition of religious unity and divine love.

In this chapter, we have traced how Kipling figures Kim’s hybridity as the key to enlightenment. We have noted the limits of Kim’s representation of universality for indeed, as

Anne McClintock explains: "Kim’s passing is the privilege of whiteness" (70). However, I have argued for Kim as a text to also be understood through assessment of the multiple spiritual and religious metaphors and mystical allegories present throughout. We have traced how Kipling focuses on Kim’s mystical position as hybrid to represent the teaching of non-duality and how through the embodiment of this teaching, Kim guides the Lama, and conceivably others, to the realization of transcendental unity. I have shown how the prior multiple, elusive references to

Kim’s role as “key” and bearer of miracles, heralding a new age, become readily apparent through examination of this final chapter. The reasons why Kipling shrouded the simple message of unity through allegory and his emphasis on secrecy may also have become clear. Underhill observes that

Kabir was banished for his heterodoxy, drawing to mind Kim’s own liminality: “From the point of view of orthodox sanctity, whether Hindu or Mohammedan, Kabîr was plainly a heretic”

(“Introduction” to Songs of Kabir 15). The slippage we see in Kipling’s positioning of Kim as both divine and demon-like can be understood with regards to Underhill’s formulation, for Kim embodied a truth, safely cultivated within the space of the Masonic Lodge, that would certainly

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unsettle and undermine not only the colonial enterprise but the idea of nationhood, the great chain of being, and perceived notions of separation—even unsettling the deeply entrenched ambivalent and problematic views of race, hierarchy and difference employed by Kipling himself in numerous sections of Kim.

Shamsul Islam contends that “a study of his [Kipling’s] philosophy of life remains an open field. In other words, ‘the riddle of Kipling’, to use Noel Annan’s phrase, is yet to be solved” (4).

Noel Annan states also that “the problem of placing Kipling remains” (325) and that "Kipling, who had little love for the Christianity of the churches, implied that the Indians were as superior to the

British in religion as the British were to them in material power" (335). I hope to have contributed to the ever-expanding tapestry of criticism on Kipling’s works by illustrating the centrality of spiritual mysticism and the message of unity in the text; in both chapters on Kim I have also illustrated how Kipling’s own faith and spiritual/religious views permeate this work in intriguing and revealing ways. Through the numinous characterization of Kim, Kipling conveys how esoteric symbology combats the exoteric dogma present in Kim. The culminating desire in the novel—that competes with its own casting of the image of Kim as master spy—I have finally argued, is to portray Kim’s hybrid character as a signifier of unity.

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CHAPTER 4

“What is Enlightenment?” Hybridity and the Trickster God in Kipling’s The Jungle Book

Enlightenment is an elusive concept that many have sought to explore, define and understand during our collective history. Religious, cultural, philosophical and political systems have turned to single notions of the term—purportedly pointing to sublimity, divinity, or fixed higher truth and wisdom—to bring meaning to human existence. Enlightenment is variously described as a state of mind, a spiritual concept related to the infusion of light/wisdom within one’s being, divine unification, spiritual perfection, the intellectual process of attaining truth and knowledge, an event triggering awareness, a mythical space, an altered state of perception and more. Michel Foucault ponders the concept in response to Immanuel Kant’s original response to the question: “What is Enlightenment?” Foucault eloquently speaks of the question as a major entry point into a worthy and timeless philosophical inquiry:

From Hegel through Nietzsche or Max Weber to Horkheimer or Habermas, hardly

any philosophy has failed to confront this same question, directly or indirectly. . . .

What is modern philosophy? . . . [It] is the philosophy that is attempting to answer

the question raised so imprudently two centuries ago: Was ist Aufklärung? (32)

Indeed, the term enlightenment is not fixed and varies geographically, historically and is often culturally, religiously and individually determined.

From a Western vantage point, enlightenment symbolically has given rise to an entire period of rational, scientific, and philosophical inquiry during the Age of Enlightenment. A formative thinker from this period, Immanuel Kant, enjoins the reader to greater independence of thought, and tenacity and courage in his seminal essay “What Is Enlightenment?” (1784). He

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declares: “‘Have the courage to use your own understanding,’ [as this] is therefore the motto of the enlightenment” (n.pag.). He emphasizes that one must take self-responsibility and enter into a self-directed and willful state where “each citizen . . . should be left free to publish his criticisms of the faults of existing institutions” (n.pag.). For Kant, then, a self-critical subjectivity is imperative and one must never fall into a state of blind acceptance and complacency. All structures must be questioned and it is a grievous error to allow for time-honored structures to remain unchallenged. On this matter, Kant states:

But should a society of ministers . . . have the right to commit itself . . . to a certain

unalterable doctrine, in order to secure perpetual guardianship over all its . . .

people? . . . Such a contract, concluded to keep all further enlightenment from

humanity, is simply null and void even if it should be confirmed by the sovereign

power . . . . (n.pag.)

It is clear that Kant defines progress as an upward momentum where individuals and society move incrementally toward greater freedom and knowledge by acting as questioners of all value systems.

Notably, he positions the quest for enlightenment as an unalienable right when he declares: “A man may postpone his own enlightenment, but only for a limited period of time. And to give up enlightenment altogether, either for oneself or one's descendants, is to violate and to trample upon the sacred rights of man” (n.pag.). James Schmidt explains that for Kant, enlightenment

“designate[d] something that one did rather than an age in which one was living” (651). He adds:

“[w]hat exactly this process might involve and what its proper ends might be was something that was open for dispute” (651). One observes how enlightenment is figured for Kant as a mindset, a way of life, where one’s actions are informed by the drive to dismantle ideological structures

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undeterred and without fear. The emphasis is on change and impermanence and the absence of absolute truth—a point shared with Buddhist philosophy as we will soon correlate.

Kant follows in the line of many who have identified the significance of the term as holding the key to human freedom and liberty. The ancients as well as the moderns have contemplated the meaning of such terms as “awakening,” “illumination,” “henosis,” or “enlightenment” to make sense of creation: the self, the world, and the cosmos. Plato speaks of the importance of awakening in his piece, “The Parable of the Cave,” where he describes the unconscious state of slumber that many find themselves unknowingly imprisoned. This work is a timeless metaphor representing the awakened individual overcoming the blinding forces of group mentality and pre-existing systems of culture, ethics, government and religion. For Plato, perhaps enlightenment is the escape from illusion and the state one achieves through summoning the courage to break free from social conditioning.

Nicholas Egan defines the Tibetan Buddhist conception of enlightenment as a state of awareness that is without boundaries, formless, timeless, and complete: “enlightenment is the instant result of seeing reality as it truly is—free of characteristics” (32). He proceeds to express that for some Buddhist scholars, enlightenment appears as a celestial realm, a metaphysical space that one enters when the highest degree of awareness/wisdom is cultivated (61). Contemporary

Buddhist philosopher monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, also explains the doctrines that will lead one to enlightenment. He highlights the notion of the no-self or the dissolution of self as key to release from physical and emotional suffering. He summarizes his teachings in the following manner:

“nirvana . . . means solidity and freedom, freedom from all ideas and notions . . . [and] ‘the extinction of all concepts’” (n.pag.). He adds that “[l]ooking deeply into impermanence leads to the discovery of no self. The discovery of no self leads to nirvana. Nirvana is the Kingdom of God”

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(n.pag.). He establishes thus the importance of the perpetually changing self: “Because nothing remains unchanged from moment to moment it therefore has no fixed identity or a permanent self.

. . . We call this ‘no self’” (n.pag.).

Unlike Western Enlightenment thinkers who emphasize individuality and the importance of the intellect and rational senses to enable one to awaken, Hanh, explains how the process leading one to enlightenment is not intellectual. He writes: “Our intellect alone will not lead us to freedom.

It will not lead us to enlightenment” (n.pag.). It seems that awareness that leads to this state is an embodied state, a lived experience, a spiritual understanding that surpasses intellectual reason.

Intersecting with the teachings of Kant, Hanh observes the importance of the concept in the material reality pointing to the dangers of dogma and governance that supports continuity of tradition over change and innovation: “A government can also believe that they know the only way to make a nation prosper and be happy . . . [and] commit itself to that ideology for one hundred years or more. During that time its citizens can suffer so much” (n.pag.). He declares the importance of just leadership and governance that do not rely on a single unchanging ideology.

Like Kant and other thinkers, Hanh associates the concept with revolution, growth, progress, and the destruction of the old in favor of new ways of imagining, constructing, and inhabiting the world.

While it may be easy to identify the faults of the unenlightened state, the harder consideration is whether there is a definitive or singular prescribed path to attain this state. Further, one’s desire to belong and act as a social being situated within a community can interfere with one’s search for enlightenment and freedom. One may wonder: how can one be at once an enlightened questioner, a righteous rebel, and enjoy a state of acceptance from and communion with his or her fellow citizens? Kipling grapples with these matters in great detail through his

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character of Mowgli in the beloved collection of children’s stories, The Jungle Book.23 As will be traced, Kipling returns to the idea of “unity within multiplicity” and employs an ambivalence of tone as the narrative vacillates between promoting separation between diverse groups and advocating for the unity of beings. Douglas Lorimer notes:

The Victorians had an enormously rich, varied and flexible vocabulary to describe

differences in cultures defined by the ethnocentric norm of the metropolitan society

placed at the pinnacle of human progress and achievement. From this standard a

rich and variable set of binary opposites contrasted the ‘savage’ with the ‘civilised’,

the ‘higher’ and ‘lower’, and the ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ races. (165)24

I highlight how the character of Mowgli, through embodying hybrid identity, confounds such binaries and strict demarcations between “higher” and “lower groups” through emphasizing, at times, the commonality between animals and humans from varying ethnicities. Regarding humankind’s conception of their connection with the animal world, Douglas Candland notes how many “have been taught that among the distinctions between humankind and animal life are, first, the ability to use language; second, the ability to make and use tools; third, a sense of consciousness about oneself; and, fourth, the ability to transmit culture” (3). In the Mowgli tales, Kipling frustrates these notions through the story of the feral child through examining what constitutes civilized, utopic, and just societies—both human and animal alike. The tale anthropomorphizes animal societies in ways that suggest similarities and (unbridgeable) differences within societal

23 All the in-text references to The Jungle Book are taken from the compilation, All the Mowgli Stories (1964). 24 Lorimer further points out: “Herbert Spencer applied his powers of deduction to developing binary profiles of ‘savage’ and ‘civilised’ mentalities. More significantly, the evolutionary anthropology of E. B. Tylor and others attempted to use the established classifications of ‘savage’, ‘barbarian’ and ‘civilised’ to describe stages of human development” (165). Mowgli will appear in the text as a marker of “civilization” and purveyor of wisdom. 189

structures with that of humankind—pointing perhaps to a fictional and imaginative rendering of the theory of evolution/interconnection between organisms as proposed by Charles Darwin.

Sue Walsh notes regarding the lack of attention given to Kipling’s children’s books that

“much of his [Kipling’s] work has remained un-discussed in any detail, largely because it has been assigned to a category labelled ‘children’s literature’, and this category . . . carries with it critical assumptions about simplicity, transparency, and child reader-responses” (1). In this chapter, I explore the “Mowgli Stories” as several central stances and positions regarding “unity within multiplicity” within a religious, mythological framework and questions of belonging found in

Kim—a work of juvenile fiction—are also present and finely explored in the children’s work, the

“Mowgli Stories.” The correlations between Kim and Mowgli are plentiful and highlight Kipling’s fascination with the theme of hybridity with the distinction that Mowgli is now featured as an

Indian feral child removed from his birthplace—he is raised by a wolf pack and resists attempts at repatriation back to human civilization. Mowgli’s caste position is notably left unclear and his character compares well to the Indian born, Irish Kim in terms of bringing to question the complexities of identity, class, and racial/cultural origins. Further, Mowgli’s story complicates the notion that Kipling identifies the hybrid state as superior and a special prerogative of the European figure alone. Andrew Hagiioannu notes: “Mowgli was the figuration of an adaptive political identity and will, living by an imperial code whose hallmark was the questioning of species and caste-law, and the forging of new, unheralded alliances of interest” (98). The stories also foreground popular debates regarding race theory and human origins for as Lorimer explains:

Studies of juvenile literature, in identifying some correspondence between mid-

Victorian racist thought and the racial stereotypes in boys’ adventure tales in

colonial settings, attribute an influence to the polygenists. If one looks closely at

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the citations of scientific racist ideas in juvenile literature, they are drawn not from

the 1860s but from the 1880s, and especially from the 1890s onwards. This

chronology fits with the expansion in the market for juvenile magazines and fiction,

and . . . with the development of scientific racism as the new orthodoxy within

professional science. (112)

Against this backdrop, Kipling stages a fictional inquiry regarding the commonalities and differences between animals and humankind; as well as raising questions regarding ethics, morality, spirituality and the value of various fictional societal structures and institutions—holding up a mirror, in turn, to the rigid ideologies regarding race and empire upheld during Victorian society. In The Jungle Book stories featuring Mowgli, I suggest that Kipling proposes a view supporting monogenism by pointing to the common roots of humanity based on shared ancestral lineage. Regarding race theory during the 1860s onward in Victorian England, Patrick Bratlinger states: “From [Robert] Knox’s Races of Men to Darwin’s Origin, arguments about whether the races had a single beginning (monogenesis) or different ones (polygenesis) and were therefore distinct species were inconclusive, and continued to be so for several more years” (114). Mowgli’s foray into multiple worlds inhabited by divergent groups of creatures, animals and humans, may signify loosely an engagement with the notions of mogenesis and polygenesis as well as evolution as Mowgli comes to decide, through his interactions with various creatures (human and animal) whether to adhere to doctrines of separation or unity.

Kipling’s writings also invoke thinkers such as Sir James Frazer and Sir William Jones whose views on comparative mythology and the unity of mythological and religious traditions bear semblance to one pole—representing tolerance and preference for religious plurality—of Kipling’s ambivalent position regarding race and diversity. Lorimer states further: “After the mid-1880s,

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colonisation in Africa, innovations in statistics, and advances in theories of biological inheritance gave race-thinking a new stimulus. Racism gained credibility with the rise of specialised, professional experts as producers of knowledge in the natural and social science” (59). Kipling was a product of his time and this chapter will also note and acknowledge the elements of racism that are clearly embedded within these animal tales. However, the thrust of my exploration, in line with my earlier inquiry in the previous chapters, will be to primarily focus upon moments within the texts where Kipling’s more liberal—potentially monogenist—mindset emerges complicating the image of Kipling as staunch imperialist. Lorimer further notes on a formative Victorian thinker on race:

From his comparative anatomy, [Robert] Knox claimed that the races constituted

separate species with separate origins. His polygenesis challenged existing

ethnological thinking still dominated by James Cowles Prichard and the theory of

monogenesis or common origins which was compatible with Biblical teaching and

the humanitarian outreach of the abolitionist and missionary movements. (64)

Kipling’s works feature strands of two often conflicting aspects of such discourse on race—on the one hand, promoting liberal, tolerant views, and on the other, sanctioning white privilege and scientific racism as evident in The Jungle Book stories. Further, I argue that in these animal tales,

Kipling paradoxically uses the trope of the trickster again in a concrete way to explore and define enlightenment as unity between species and diverse human ethnicities—incorporating the idea of a mindset free of prejudice as showcased by Mowgli’s commonly displayed tolerance for all groups. Lorimer reflects on Victorian race theory that “[e]ven though scientific racism . . . argued for the natural inequality of racial groups, it was surprisingly deficient in describing how that natural inequality should be given form in the political, legal and social institutions and

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conventions of multi-racial colonial societies” (163). The Victorian period was marked by a degree of ambivalence regarding race for as Bratlinger explains:

For the scientific or pseudoscientific racism that began to gain wider currency in

the 1850s, Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 served as an anticlimactic climax . .

. because Darwin postponed discussing how Homo sapiens and its different races

had evolved until 1871, when he published The Descent of Man. (114)

Radhika Mohanram writes:

Together Darwin’s works argued that species were not fixed, but were constantly

evolving because of their tendency to select those traits that were favorable for

survival. Thus, humans and animals had a common ancestry and were further linked

through their capacities for reasoning, imagining, curiosity, and inventiveness.

Furthermore, just as animals were less evolved than humans, some humans were

less evolved than others. (23).

In the wake of such heated inquiries during the century regarding evolution, these animal tales can perhaps be figured as Kipling’s exploration of themes as varied as race theory, evolution, and the biological connections between groups and species. Indeed, as we will find Kipling casts Mowgli as a veritable nexus point allowing various human and animal groups to meet, clash, and potential blend. However, also as argued by numerous critics, the tale can be read clearly as a colonial allegory promoting empire that situates Mowgli as a member of the ruling class; in this light, the animal worlds can represent multi-racial societies and Mowgli’s treatment of them reveals prescriptions for governing the encounter between the colonizer and the colonized.

Indeed, Kipling undermines his own construction of a myth of unity through the portrayal of Mowgli as the reconnaissance agent who recovers data regarding multiple groups, in order to

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reveal their flaws and shortcomings with the intent to facilitate potentially their subjugation. As

Don Randall posits: “the Mowgli saga articulates itself as post-Mutiny allegory, organizing itself upon various allusions to the scenes and situations of the 1857 rebellion in India attempting—not with entire success—to resolve and assuage the imperial anxieties” (Kipling’s Imperial Boy 23).

In the name of gain and imperial profit, Mowgli the docile and malleable subaltern will be brought into the folds of the administrative arm of the empire. Randall states too: “Turning subsequently to the tales of boyhood, my argument identifies the adolescent Mowgli as an imperial proxy, as a protagonist who represents the British imperial mission in the absence of the British colonizer”

(“Post-Mutiny Allegories” 101). I suggest that these observations accurately reveal one thematic side of the narrative and that equal attention can be given to where the Mowgli tales appear unconcerned with Mowgli’s lust for power and imperial expansion, instead, delving into explorations of comparative religion and mythology and inquiries regarding the meaning of enlightenment.

On the influence of religious and ethical systems upon Kipling’s texts, James Whitlark notes:

Strong subversive implications also arise from the texts' connection to the more

skeptical tendencies of Kipling's time. The Jungle Books were composed at a period

when German "higher" criticism explained the Bible's contradictions and paradoxes

as deriving from the confluence of disparate traditions. Similarly, the emergence of

the comparative study of religions called attention to the world's many ethical

systems. Kipling's Law of the Jungle stands among other laws of the natives and

British. (26)

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Indeed, Mowgli is both bound to structure, the Laws of the Jungle, while also seeking to operate apart from all the systems—religious, ethical, moral, social—that seek to contain him. Mowgli’s feral state enables him to appear as a case study, a social experiment, showing by fictional means the outcome of an individual who is raised apart from all influences of the human world during his formative years. A fundamental question that this central character will grapple with is: “Who is

Mowgli?” In his journey, Mowgli reaches greater maturity and shows others how to create meaning from self-created interpretations of signs without relying only on pre-existing systems.

In the ending of Mowgli’s story, Kipling alludes to how Mowgli will ultimately experience freedom and happiness by relying on self to create his own society—a society that is an anomaly as it is linked to, but separate from, the main order of the world. Kant reminds us that “Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use—or rather abuse—of his natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting nonage” (n.pag.). Through his embodiment as a hybrid trickster figure, a figure who takes on multiple guises to survive as he traverses different social landscapes, Mowgli will appear as a fluid, impermanent figure who readily and masterfully adopts new shapes and conceptual forms at will. Yet, he ironically both bolsters and deconstructs various ideologies throughout his journeys. He will show to us his “natural gifts” that are available only due to his unfettered subject position. As Kipling’s story will posit, the source of his heroic nature lies in that he will adhere to multiple systems yet abide fully to none. His character will show to us the dangers, difficulties and rewards of adopting hybridity as a constitutive marker of identity.

Further, his identity will shift and flow akin to the Buddhist notion of impermanence and the mutable and changing sense of self. As Whitlark aptly points out: “A Masonic theist who sees all laws, consciences, and creeds as imperfect refractions of divine Justice, Kipling allows a child to

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follow his or her own sense of right. . . . The Jungle Book subverts one pious rationale of British empire: its frequent claim to give God's only Law to the benighted” (26).

The final Mowgli’s story, “In the Rukh”, I suggest bears traces of the teachings of Sir

William Jones, a founder of the Indo-European language theory, by directly featuring an ethnologist, Max Muller. This character takes on the same name as the German Indologist Max

Müller, who famously built upon the legacy of Sir William Jones. For as Tony Ballantyne notes:

“In Jones’s wake, this common [Indo-European] heritage was welded onto a Vedic framework by a later generation of scholars, most notably Friedrich Max Müller” (6). In his essay entitled: “On

Gods of Greece, Italy, and India” (1784) Jones writes:

when features of resemblance, too strong to have been accidental, are observable

in different systems of polytheism . . . we can scarce help believing [sic], that some

connection has immemorially subsisted between the several nations, who have

adopted them: it is my design . . . to point out such a resemblance between the

popular worship of the old Greeks and Italians and that of the Hindus. (Sir William

Jones: A Reader 179)

As we will explore, denoting a potential connection to the works of Jones and his theories of human commonality, the hybrid character of Mowgli appears as an amalgam of numerous traditions invoking the images of gods from the Occident and the Orient, as varied as Krishna and Mercurius.

As Ballantyne contends:

Jones’s legacy was ambivalent: his work did not simply inscribe colonial authority

by proclaiming British ascendancy over Indian knowledge. Rather, Jones’s

research established a new comparative framework for the writing of universal

history, a model that located Asia, and India specifically, at the heart of the history

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of civilization, shattering the images of a wild and exotic India that haunted the

European imagination from the Renaissance through to the mid-eighteenth century.

(189)

Regarding the falling out of favor of Jonesian philosophy, Ballantyne further notes:

from the 1820s . . . the authority of the Jonesian tradition itself were increasingly

undercut as evangelical and utilitarian reformers pushed for the East India

Company to assume a more aggressive position towards indigenous customs.

Within this context, the cultural affinities between Indians and Britons were

frequently downplayed or the Aryan theory was used to naturalize, justify and

celebrate British colonialism of South Asia: Britain, younger and more energetic,

was reinvigorating the increasingly decrepit culture of its ailing relative. (189)

“In the Rukh” showcases two sides of Kipling where he engages with ideas that are similar to

Jones’s notions of syncretic traditions and shared human origins while also undermining these stances with virulently racist remarks and positions. Yet as Whitlark rightly contends, in Kipling’s works “binary impulses toward egalitarianism and authoritarian hierarchy do not cancel each other.

Rather, they cooperate. . . . Maintenance of empire . . . required not merely colonists as

“Manichean” inquisitors but also self-sacrificing, parental figures” (24).

In my examination of Mowgli’s hybridity, the growing interest in comparative religion and syncretic traditions during the Victorian period and the potential influence upon Kipling’s writing cannot be overlooked. As Jeffrey Franklin explains: “F. Max Müller, the most outspoken advocate for the discipline of [comparative religion] argued strenuously that all religions were equally worthy of historical and comparative analysis” (57). He adds: “Comparative religion rose to prominence in England in the 1860s . . . and . . . proved to be a critically important source for the

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formation in the following decades of new hybrid religions” (57). Further, David Chidester aptly points out regarding Max Müller that

[a]lthough he was a German immigrant, he advanced the British imperial cause

with passion. Editor of The Sacred Books of the East, Max Müller also built general

theories of language, myth, and religion that were heavily dependent upon the

colonial extraction of raw materials from the peripheries of empire. (6)

I suggest that traces of these developments and broader discussions percolating within Victorian culture regarding race, unity, human commonality are visible in Mowgli’s journey to understanding self and other. Franklin further notes: “By making widely available for the first time the histories and doctrines of a range of Eastern religions, the discipline [of comparative religion] infused radically new concepts into European discourse” (57). Kipling’s continuing fascination for what I term as “hybrid mysticism”—the thematic hybrid admixture of mythological and spiritual traditions to promote a message of unity (as present in Kim)—appears also in the “Mowgli Stories” in ways that complicate, albeit momentarily, Kipling’s imperialist mindset.

Hybridity as Freedom from Unconsciousness

Before we are able to see how Kipling uses Mowgli’s hybrid subjectivity to define enlightenment, the concept of hybridity must be explored. The term is commonly known as the state of being “in-between,” an amalgamation of seemingly unconnected parts. In Kipling’s works, this idea is forwarded by his use of the trope of the mythical trickster god—a physical embodiment for this concept. As I will illustrate, Mowgli appears like Hermes or Mercurius at times—he is neither wholly good nor evil and is often appearing to us as impish, mischievous and naïve. Yet

Mowgli will also come to stand against the forces of unconsciousness in the tale and he will cause

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others to question their existing value systems and open up to the possibility of seeing their world from a different angle—presenting worldviews that at times challenge the imperialist structure.

Kipling uses the image of archetypal Mercurial trickster to tell the story of Mowgli and his quest for belonging, connection, and love.

It is through consciously casting Mowgli as convention-bending hybrid that Kipling interrogates the function of boundaries drawn between the Self and Other, the “civilized” self and the “uncivilized” other, and the human and animal kingdoms. As we will follow, Mowgli’s foray into multiple, competing realities will show us how he interrogates binary thinking and favors a view of interconnection and commonality between sentient beings, human and animal alike. Like

Sir Richard Burton, Kipling multiply and in varied ways uses the image of the hybrid to underline the relativity and arbitrariness of the lines that demarcate and separate individuals, nations and cultures, mythological traditions and religions from each other. I will also offer an alternative reading opposing the view that Mowgli should be read as the colonizer figure who re-enacts the colonial enterprise with its firm subjugation of indigenous people (animals). Like Kant’s perpetual questioner, Mowgli is cast as one who is uniquely free to interrogate perceived beliefs of organic, impenetrable and irreconcilable difference between individuals, races, and species.

Homi Bhabha entertains the question: “Can the aim of freedom of knowing be the simple inversion of the relation of oppressor and oppressed, centre and periphery, negative image, and positive image?” (29). He suggests that the borderlands of culture must be noticed and investigated as the Third Space—a region allowing more expansive understanding of the world, history, literature, and the politics of race. Indeed, for Bhabha, it is here that one can rightfully acknowledge the clashing, melding and intersecting forces of cultural production. Notably, Bhabha gives little attention to the trickster god as an emblem for liminality or the Third Space. I will extend his

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analysis by suggesting that hybridity is for figures such as Kipling and Burton the seat/source of enlightenment. I contend that Mowgli as a trickster figure urges the reader toward a celebration of moving beyond boundaries. I will show how the extolling of the hybrid state in these tales partially inverts or challenges rigid European colonial mindsets such as the desire to civilize/proselytize.

The characters explore whether one can be more than the tradition one is born into and effectively transcend the societal codes of strictly governed lives.

Further, it is through transitioning into the embodiment of the hybrid state that the plot is driven and Mowgli finds inner resolution to the question of his identity. Hybrid discourse can appear as double-edged for as May Joseph posits:

Although the foundational discourses of hybridity lie in the anthropological and

biological discourses of conquest and colonization, the modern move to deploy

hybridity as a disruptive democratic discourse of cultural citizenship is a distinctly

anti-imperial and anti-authoritarian development. (1)

Further, as Rani Rubdy and Lubna Alsagoff assert, it is important “in grappling with conceptualizations of cultural adaptation . . . to avoid a romanticized and celebratory valorization of hybridity/ization as symbolizing . . . linguistic and cultural diversity” (4). They also draw attention to how hybridity must be theorized for “[h]ybridity . . . [can move from a] position of weakness to one of strength in its ability to subvert and re-appropriate dominant discourses” (9).

In a modern context, the suggestion too is that hybridity should be critiqued as “[t[he revolutionary potential of hybridity . . . seems to be undermined by its being mobilized to serve consumerist and commercial ends that may reproduce asymmetries or exclusions that we seek to move away from”

(Rubdy and Alsagoff 10). In the context of Kipling’s works, the deployment of the theme of hybridity will at times lead to bids to dismantle power structures; yet such narratives will also fall

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into the pitfall of recreating power imbalances, for instance where Mowgli is featured as above the law due to his hybrid identity.

Jopi Nyman contends that The Jungle Book stories’ “racialized and interrelated images of

Indian children and animals contribute to an imagining of Englishness as a site of power and racial superiority” (39). In this view, Mowgli is imaged as a white imperialist who seeks control over the natives/animals of the uncivilized land/jungle. I will explore moments where this stance applies and also draw attention to countering instances where Mowgli appears to complicate the idea of sanctioning empire and promoting “benevolent” English rule.

In the chosen works of Kipling and Burton, I will interpret the role of the hybrid through noting a recurring pattern that can be best understood through mythology and Jungian psychology.

Each hybrid figure’s journey can be examined through the Trickster archetype, specifically that of

Hermes/Mercury. As Richard Roberts observes, “one interesting feature of the god’s role in classical mythology is his appearance frequently as trickster” (50). He adds: “Hermes/Mercury is the most volatile . . . it is deucedly elusive. At once fluid and solid, it suggests an amalgam of opposites . . . good and evil, dark and light . . . [and he represents the] mystical marriage of the divine and human planes” (Campbell and Roberts 50-1). Roberts further likens Mercurius to “The

Magician” (Campbell and Roberts 49) who represents also a union of opposites. Carl Jung, in his essay, “On the Psychology of the Trickster Figure,” (Four Archetypes) notes further that this symbol is found across the world and is sometimes associated with the Rabelian, carnivalesque overturning of authority, and social and religious hierarchy. Jung further characterizes Mercurius through “his fondness for sly jokes and malicious pranks, his powers as a shape-shifter, his dual nature, half animal, half divine . . . [and] his approximation to the ﬁgure of a savior” (Four

Archetypes 160). Mowgli’s journey into adulthood follows this approximation of the trickster cycle

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as outlined by Jung and others. It is through coming into a deeper sense of self via inhabiting different, otherwise forbidden identities assumed during his travels that Mowgli achieves enlightenment. After each foray into a new world, Mowgli is able to better understand his role as hybrid hero.

As we will find, Kipling will highlight Mowgli’s talents that stem from his hybridity as useful, prized, and powerful. Jung notes pointedly on the function of the trickster: “He is a forerunner of the saviour, and, like him, God, man, and animal at once” (Four Archetypes 170).

This description addresses the unique characterization of Mowgli as feral child who is adopted by, and seen as a powerful force, by all creatures, animal and human alike. Randall explains how:

“Objects of public and scientific curiosity since the seventeenth century, feral children in Europe

. . . had been quite extensively documented by Linnaeus and others” (Kipling’s Imperial Boy 69).

John Miller contends further that “Kipling’s Mowgli from the Jungle Books . . . and in Edgar Rice

Burroughs’ Tarzan on the Apes (1912) . . . feral humans illustrate the complex interplay of kinship and difference, of dwelling and domination . . . which complicate readings of colonial ecology and subjectivity” (165).

Indeed, Mowgli, the trickster hero is larger-than-life, defiant, mystical, uninhibited, mad, unreasonable, subversive, and otherworldly. Bhabha notes drawing upon the writings of Frantz

Fanon, “For Fanon, the liberatory people who initiate the productive instability of revolutionary cultural change are themselves the bearers of a hybrid identity” (55). The texts that I examine in this work are associated with the colonial enterprise of knowledge production—works that seek to chart unknown, foreign territories in order to facilitate the growth of empire—serve at times, in moments of slippage and in displays of colonial ambivalence, the contrary function of challenging the very ideological pillars of Victorian national identity that would bolster the colonial mission.

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I will illustrate my claims by analyzing the three different “worlds” that Mowgli finds himself within and how he creates and solidifies his hybrid identity through observing the qualities of each “people.” As the story unfolds, Kipling intricately details the contours of each world and describes the virtues, flaws, or idiosyncrasies of the inhabitants of Jungle, Human, and Monkey

Kingdom. With each encounter with a foreign group, Mowgli gains a level of higher understanding and consciousness and draws closer to attaining enlightenment. By navigating through multiple worlds, Mowgli undergoes metamorphosis to enter into his true self while remaining untainted by damaging dogma. No world will appear as utopic, as the Jungle people will be shown as more noble but still guilty of fear, misjudgment and prejudice; the Human world will appear as oppressive, prejudicial, hypocritical, and unreasonable; while the lowest ranking social model will be portrayed by the Monkey People whose utter wretchedness and unconscious ways cast them beyond the pale of redemption. For Sune Borkfelt, the “monkeys . . . are representatives of a native madness that threatens colonial order” (565). As Miller points out:

The representation of a resemblance between native and animal was a common

trope of colonial discourse, forcefully asserting the supposed gulf between

coloniser and colonised and opening a range of violent and repressive possibilities

for colonial rulers as racial others are emptied of their human status. (2)

Through his encounter with the Monkey People, Mowgli’s hybridity is put to the test as he ascertains whether to abide by some “laws” or to lead a lawless life.

Driven by the desire to answer the perplexing question, “Who am I?”, Mowgli will discover resolution and peace when he creates his own unique hybrid society through his union with his

Indian mate of Muslim origin, supported by his wolf clan. As I will establish, the final scene ending

Mowgli’s story will consolidate how his search for self leads him through various philosophical,

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political, religious and cultural systems, each offering him contrast and added perspective and the strength to define himself as he alone wills. At the conclusion of the story, he will finally choose to interface with the world abiding by his own estimation of conduct and behaviour. Mowgli, wielding the ability to straddle multiple realms at once through adopting hybrid form, appears as the seat of enlightenment in this tale.

III

Mowgli & the Jungle People: Early Lessons in Hybridity and Enlightenment

Kipling opens his story showing how swiftly Mowgli is adopted by the Wolf Clan. Kipling portrays an endearing scene conveying the theme of unconditional love in the first pages of

“Mowgli’s Brothers” when the infant Mowgli first crawls into the wolves’ lair and is immediately adopted by Mother Wolf, or Raksha. Kipling opens the improbable and fantastic story with Mother

Wolf defiantly expressing acceptance and full protection to the abandoned infant by exclaiming:

“How little! How naked, and—how bold! . . . He is taking his meal with the others. . . . Now, was there ever a wolf that could boast of a man's cub among her children?" (All the Mowgli Stories

14; emphasis added). Whitlark notes: “Mother Wolf champions the baby [evoking] . . . a compassion like that in Matthew 25:35- 36: ‘For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave: me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in / Naked, and ye clothed me’”

(26). The plot unfolds such that soon after Shere Khan, the tiger-villain-antagonist, comes to claim

Mowgli for his meal and is challenged by Mother Wolf who stands fiercely in her defense of

Mowgli. Mother Wolf issues a prophecy stating that Mowgli will rise above all ranks and will one day slay Shere Khan, the greatest adversary in the Jungle: "The man's cub is mine, Lungri—mine to me! . . . He shall live to run with the Pack and to hunt with the Pack; and in the end, look you, hunter of little naked cubs—frog-eater—fish-killer—he shall hunt thee!” (All the Mowgli Stories

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14). The significance of this opening scene is that Kipling, from the outset, positions Mowgli symbolically as one who will dismantle the heavily coded social stratifications of the Jungle.

Kipling casts the central character of this story as a seemingly hapless human infant who is set to defeat the Jungle’s most ferocious hunter. Raksha’s prophecy is significant as it speaks to the outcome of the hybrid training that Mowgli will receive—he will be able to fulfill an improbable goal by becoming, unlike any other character, a master of many tongues and many ways of being.

One may suggest too that Mowgli is staged as an outsider/foreigner who will assume a leadership/protector/hero role. Some have read this association as an enactment of the colonial enterprise, with the human representative standing for the colonial usurper of the native land. Jane

Hotchkiss writes:

The Mowgli tales register anxieties about the colonial "other" and demonstrate the

anxieties of identity that result from the double perspective of the second-

generation colonizer, one whose childhood attachment to the place of nativity is

complicated by a sense of exile as well as by cultural attitudes toward those

indigenous to the colonial place. . . . [Kipling’s stories featuring the feral child bear

traces of] pathology of colonial racism not yet sufficiently explored. (436)

She expresses further how the story, "In the Rukh," “presents Mowgli as a sort of Aryan figure, a throw-back to a pre-historic India; at the same time, he is the ‘noble savage’ who exposes the shortcomings of civilization” (441). While Hotchkiss offers a convincing interpretation of the role of Mowgli as a troubled colonizer figure, I offer a different reading. I highlight how Mowgli is distinctively of Indian origin and further, Kipling takes great pains to mask his exact heritage and class origins—suggesting that focus be placed on Mowgli as a figure set apart from the labels of class, caste, and religious faith. While we learn of Mowgli’s suggested Hindu middle-class origins

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through his association with Messua, his human mother, Kipling does not readily verify this connection. Interpreting the collection of stories as a model of the exploitation and destruction of the animal kingdom by a human emissary/intruder does not present a full perspective either. I will read the character of Mowgli as I have interpreted the story of Kim, as an intriguing otherworldly/trickster character that partially points to the notion of unity as he celebrates the virtues of inhabiting the hybrid state. 25

Mowgli’s hybrid state is one that facilitates (albeit ambivalently) an understanding of oneness/interconnectivity. Mowgli’s first teacher, Mother Wolf is the first to imbue this understanding in Mowgli through her actions and words, demonstrating in practice the wonderful possibility of inter-species familial love. As U.C. Knoepflmacher observes: “the love that . . .

Mother Wolf . . . display[s] for one who is not . . . [her] own offspring helps to enhance the uniqueness of Mowgli” (“Female Power” 20). She shows the reader that enlightenment in this instance in the text is understood as the love one holds for someone outside of one’s designated kinship group.

Kipling notably places great emphasis on the distinct education that Mowgli receives in order to embrace his hybridity. Part of this training entails that he learns the universal Laws of the

Jungle. Mowgli does not initially challenge the dictates of “The Law of the Jungle” for we learn that “Bagheera told him that he must never touch cattle because he had been bought into the Pack at the price of a bull's life. ‘. . . That is the Law of the Jungle.’ Mowgli obeyed faithfully” (All the

Mowgli Stories 21-22). In a manner, the story establishes respect for alternative codes of moral,

25 To deepen understanding of Kipling’s use of hybridity, it is beneficial to view Mowgli as Kim’s Indian counterpart and to trace how both represent similar themes regarding unity, transcendence, and the disruption of boundaries. 206

ethical, social and political conduct. The story points to the mutability and arbitrariness of the established rules as well as illustrates how society constructs them often haphazardly. Mowgli, the hybrid figure here sheds light on the mechanics of how societies and nations are founded and governed. It is also about how one can, through intention, training, and circumstance, adopt other cultures and languages as one’s “own.”

A unique feature to all three portrayals of hybridity—found through Kim’s, Mowgli’s and

Burton’s representations of self—hybrids themselves create a society where they offer advice and teachings for the novice hybrid to excel in the non-hybrid world. We learn that the fear-inspiring

Bagheera—the panther and Mowgli’s teacher—was subject to the tyrannies of human rule in his early childhood and that his sojourn in the human kingdom imparted him with greater skill and power:

There is no one in the jungle that knows that I, Bagheera . . . was born among men

. . . . It was because of this that I paid the price for thee at the Council. . . . And

because I had learned the ways of men, I became more terrible in the jungle than

Shere Khan. (All the Mowgli Stories 24; emphasis added)

In this passage, Bagheera likens his captivity to the hybrid experience where the individual is born into and taught the ways of another group. This section clearly demonstrates that Kipling’s story offers hybridity as a means of expansion, an experience that leads at times to heightened skills and talents that can make the individual a more powerful adversary. Aided by Bagheera’s teachings regarding the laws of hunting and navigating the jungle, Mowgli is able to surmount all obstacles presented to him. In a more elitist tone, Kipling also establishes the condition of being hybrid as an exclusive state—hybrids are part of an inner circle, a secretive brotherhood where the members uniquely understand and support the complexities of their shared identity.

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Another important teacher for Mowgli is Baloo, the Bear, who acts as a stern but benevolent guide. Kipling describes how language training is one important aspect of the education that Mowgli receives through Baloo. Wendy O’Flaherty observes how Mowgli “realized the deep human dream of learning the language of animals, breaking down the barrier between the wild and the tame, nature and culture, but who would neither become an animal nor remain merely a human”

(78). It is Baloo who oversees Mowgli’s tutelage and progress and in a key scene, he asks Mowgli:

"Tell Bagheera, then, the Master Words of the Jungle. . . ."

"Master Words for which people?" said Mowgli, delighted to show off. "The jungle

has many tongues. I know them all.". . .

"We be of one blood, ye and I," said Mowgli. (All the Mowgli Stories 37)

In this section, Kipling places emphasis on the value of communicating in multiple tongues and in identifying as one with each group through the utterance: "We be of one blood, ye and I." The

“Master Words” symbolically point to a master key that, like a Rosetta stone, deciphers and dissolves all barriers to communication; in this case, in the animal world. These words hint at a message of underlying unity and connectivity of which Mowgli is now acutely a part of.

Alternatively, Ballantyne expresses how European colonialists “worried constantly about flows of knowledge and their ability to identify ‘hidden cults,’ unravel ‘secret languages’ and forestall rebellion on the fringes of empire” (10). Certainly, Mowgli can now discern and decipher other cultures all the better to subdue and conquer the Other. His bid to know is hence strategic and not altruistic or benevolent. Ballantyne adds: “Colonial concern with . . . forms of ‘rebel consciousness’ . . . was an important stimulus for the study of folk religion, local dialect and the

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surveillance of new religious movements on the frontiers of empire” (10). Tess Cosslett similarly explains how “[m]any of Kipling's stories depend on a narrator who has inside knowledge of some secret or esoteric society, culture or organization. . . . [Some critics have] likened this to an imperialist desire to know and dominate the natives” (487). She adds that “it is significant that there is an ambiguity in the Mowgli stories as to whether knowing animal language means an admission to kinship, or a means to mastery” (487). Significantly, there is little said of how the other youth of the Jungle are schooled and great attention is given to capture Mowgli’s specific training and how he becomes a bridge between worlds in terms of his capacity to converse with all. Cosslett notices that “[h]uman and animal are related, but knowing the words is also a kind of trick, by which Mowgli compels the animals to do his will” (487). This section of the tale thus highlights the special status conferred upon Mowgli for being an ideological/cultural hybrid.

As with Kim and Burton, Mowgli soon learns that the hybrid state is dangerous and unstable and that he has to fight to maintain his position as an outsider who receives a special dispensation to stay within an otherwise impenetrable space. Mowgli’s self-identification with his animal brethren is put to question when he does not obey the rules. In despair he utters words to address his oneness with his wolf brothers when rumours surface that they will cast him out of their pack: “And what is a man that he should not run with his brothers? . . . I have obeyed the Law of the Jungle, and there is no wolf of ours from whose paws I have not pulled a thorn. Surely they are my brothers!” (All the Mowgli Stories 23). Throughout the tale, Kipling questions the essence and nature of “brotherhood” and belonging. As John McBratney observes: “Mowgli presents to his wolf companions a dual aspect: that of master and of brother. . . . The potential for condescension in this brotherhood had been present from the start” (“Jungle Book” 288). In this section, Mowgli experiences prejudice and falters as he questions the legitimacy of his perceived

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understanding of brotherhood—he harshly realizes that whatever badge of protection is bestowed upon him can readily be taken away. While Kipling positions Mowgli`s hybridity as unique and powerful, the story establishes that this too is compromised and mutable. In a memorable scene where the Wolf Pack are battling to decide whether to kill Mowgli or banish him from the jungle,

Akela, the wolf, expresses his dismay at what he sees as a betrayal against their own kind. His words markedly define the concept of belonging along lines other than based on the ties of blood:

“He is our brother in all but blood . . . and ye would kill him here!” (All the Mowgli Stories 30).

Through these words, Akela and the text call into question the character of Mowgli and how through him, the question of belonging and kinship is grappled with and brought to the foreground.

Akela, as another enlightened teacher, saves Mowgli’s life by ransoming him during the council meeting. Through his noble and selfless actions that jeopardize his own life, he represents the beauty of interspecies connectivity as he validates for Mowgli the value of his hybrid subjectivity.

In this section, we have seen how the first world that Mowgli finds himself in teaches him the benefits of adopting a hybrid identity. Through teachers such as Baloo, Bagheera, and Raksha, he learns how to accept that he will be set apart as an individual comprised of multiple identities and how this state is honored and supported by select mentors. In the Jungle Kingdom, he learns the necessity of laws and also how to train to overcome the limitations of boundaries. Kipling presents the ways of the Jungle People as more enlightened than the other worlds because there are benevolent figures/leaders such as Raksha, Akela, Baloo and Bagheera who work within a system but are unafraid to change the system to allow outsiders like Mowgli into their inner circle.

Despite strong leadership, their world does not offer a full model of perfection but showcases a good approximation to a free-thinking state—due primarily to the enlightened thinkers who greatly influence and shape Mowgli’s character.

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The Dystopia of the Monkey Kingdom

Mowgli receives a dire lesson on the topic of belonging during his ill-fated adventure into the forbidden land of the Monkeys, or the Bandar people. Kipling dedicates a full chapter to describe the ways and mannerisms of these people and Mowgli’s encounter with them.

Significantly, they represent the pariah group in the story who inhabit the margins of society, mirroring the treatment of the colonized by the colonizer. O’Flaherty aptly notes that “[t]hough animals may express the most intimate and primal sides of our own natures, what is most deeply us, they may also represent the extremes of otherness, human strangers (barbarians and foreigners) or gods” (80). As we will now trace, the Monkey People in The Jungle Book come to represent the extreme pole of behaviour; for indeed, Kipling emphasizes their unbridgeable otherness. Mowgli’s teachers Baloo and Bagheera severely chastise him for associating with this ostracized group:

‘“Listen, man-cub . . . I have taught thee all the Law of the Jungle for all the peoples of the jungle— except the Monkey-Folk who live in the trees. They have no law. They are outcasts’” (All the

Mowgli Stories 40). Kipling further writes that Mowgli is driven to this group as he desires kinship and allegiance with creatures more similar physically to himself. Baloo informs:

They have no speech of their own, but use the stolen words which they overhear . .

. . They are without leaders. They have no remembrance. . . . We of the jungle have

no dealings with them. We do not drink where the monkeys drink; . . . we do not

die where they die. (All the Mowgli Stories 40)

Nyman draws attention to “fear of hybridity, contamination, and potential loss of purity, [as] considered problematic by colonialists in general and Kipling in particular” (45). I complicate this idea, by suggesting that at times, the opposing views are present where hybridity becomes the

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means of building cross-species ties and deepening empathy, albeit with notable and problematic restrictions. Kipling provides a reversal of sorts where Mowgli, who is situated to break rules, finds himself fascinated and drawn by a group who are ostracized for being altogether lawless.

Mowgli professes desire to undertake a leadership role and lead the monkey people. This, then, becomes his first—but failed—attempt at becoming a hybrid hero/prince. It is also significant that the monkey people are reprimanded for being unconscious, immoral, anarchic delinquents who are mad: “‘Tabaqui the Jackal must have bitten all these people,’ he [Mowgli] said to himself, ‘and now they have madness’” (All the Mowgli Stories 53). Cosslett oposits that “[t]he lawless, parodic behavior of the monkeys . . . is of course extremely carnivalesque. Their defeat and punishment places a limit on the free-play, the inversion of hierarchy, that is allowed in Kipling's use of the talking animal convention” (490).

Let us harken back to Carl Jung’s analysis to explore the role of the Monkey people more closely. We realize that Mowgli’s exploration of the Monkey people’s way is a descent of sorts, a foray into the unconscious or the shadow self. Jung theorizes on the archetype of the trickster figure: “The trickster is a primitive ‘cosmic’ being of divine-animal nature, on the one hand superior to man because of his superhuman qualities, and on the other hand inferior to him because of his unreason and unconsciousness” (Four Archetypes 170). In a way, then, Mowgli initially identifies with these Monkey people because he contains aspects of their behavior within himself.

It is only through identifying with the Monkeys that Mowgli learns the lesson that utter lawlessness serves no function. Mowgli defends his disobedience by saying that the Monkey people offered him full acceptance and a leadership role. Mowgli states that he does not fully belong amongst the Jungle People and is often hurt by the harshness of the disciplinary tactics that he has to face: “Why have I never been taken among the Monkey People? They stand on their feet

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as I do. They do not hit me with their hard paws. . . . Bad Baloo, let me up!” (All the Mowgli

Stories 40). Mowgli’s defiance is telling. It points to his existential search and desire for a more anchored sense of self and social acceptance. Mowgli desires to be amongst people who look and act more like himself but the text illustrates that such bonding is not possible and that Mowgli will continue inhabiting an “in-between” space. Significantly, those that are a closer approximation to him physically will not provide him with the unity and connection that he seeks. I propose that the inclusion of the Monkey people into the text in terms of the treatment of hybridity lends a specific elitist angle on the topic—ultimately, there is a proper way of mimicking and becoming a hybrid.

While Mowgli will be positioned in a god/demon-like manner, the Monkey people represent the antithetical qualities of “sin” and “ignorance” and “uncivilized behavior.” Not all are qualified to assume the hybrid state and those who fail at it are severely admonished and are seen as monstrosities who cannot be acknowledged. The Monkey People are like the invisible untouchables of the Jungle and Mowgli is drawn to them just as he will be drawn to associating with and assisting the untouchables during his stay in the human village. The text establishes that while the hybrid is uniquely a law-breaker, often above the strictures of law, he is brought back into its folds and specifically into a codified system that details proper Hybrid/Hero conduct. This illustrates the way in which Kipling highlights the flexibility and power afforded by inhabiting the hybrid identity, while also simultaneously retracting and falling back to an ambivalent stance that suggests that hybridity is not a state that is inclusive of all. Problematically, the text suggests a system of privilege where the hybrid state can be entered into only with those exerting high moral principles, higher consciousness, and integrity.

The duality of the text’s position on hybridity is such that the text’s understanding of hybridity does not entail a full obliteration of all racial, caste, and inter-species divisions. Clearly,

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Kipling characterizes the Monkey people as hybrids of a despicable sort. The reader is led to form no sympathies for this group and their lawlessness seems to be the source of the text’s contempt.

Thus, Kipling draws a distinction between “true” and “honorable” law-abiding hybrid figures

(which is a contradiction in itself as the hybrid is multiply situated as bending the law), and those that make a mockery of the noble, singular status. Hagiioannu notes that Mowgli “disrupts the caste system of the Jungle, flouting its most cherished prejudices. He forces the Jungle into parlance with the untouchable Monkey People, long excluded from the society of the higher,

Brahminical animals” (111).

Reflecting on the works of a reputable Victorian-era essayist Walter Bagehot (1826-1877),

Bratlinger explains: “Bagehot agrees with almost all nineteenth-century authorities that, while a few races (white) manage to tame themselves and achieve civilization, more races (yellow, brown) progress up to a certain point and then fail to continue, while others (red, brown, black) make no progress whatsoever” (134). Certainly, within the context of such discourse the Monkey People appear as the caste that “make no progress whatsoever” (134). John Nale, in his examination of the work of race theorist Gobineau explains that for Gobineau, “[r]ace is responsible for the decline of civilizations because it lies at the heart of ‘degeneration.’ Degeneration is a technical term for

Gobineau that describes the erosion of a people’s common values” (110). He adds that for

Gobineau, “[w]ithout a pure-blooded identity to stabilize a people as a single unit, the society collapses. This degeneration of the world’s civilizations is ultimately fatal and irreversible” (111).

In this manner, Mowgli’s association with the Monkey people can also represent the threat of miscegenation and danger presented to the “purity” of the Jungle nation. Mowgli’s early defiance of the warnings of his Jungle teachers, then, signify approval of the “mixing” of groups/species and hence a rejection of the perceived dangers of miscegenation. However, his tacit approval of

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the folly of associating with the Monkey People at the end of his foray into their world may signify a hardening of his earlier liberal stance where boundaries segregating the groups were conceived as wrongful and illegitimate.

In Kipling’s stratification of society—both animal and human—Kipling establishes a hierarchy that cannot be transgressed and overturned even by a true hybrid figure. Clearly, there are thresholds that cannot be crossed. Two stances are pivoting around each other in this story.

Indeed, the text seems to undermine the value of the symbol of castelessness that Mowgli represents. The point to bear upon is that even hybridity must be governed by a universal omnipotent law/code of ethics that is restrictive and elitist in structure.

At the moment when Mowgli’s life is in danger, he is able to seek help through uttering the secret cry identifying him as friend to the lawful Jungle people: "We be of one blood, thou and

I" (All the Mowgli Stories 43). These powerful words declaring unity prompt the Kite to take immediate action. Yet the scene at the end also underlines how one cannot truly belong to one group unless he/she forfeits entry into another (Mowgli resigns from his association with the

Monkeys). The text, then, still relies on a process of Othering and an establishment of identity with reference to the derogatory treatment of the designated “other”—the Monkey-people who fall outside the universal ethics of the Jungle. Thus, an ambivalent and compromised picture of universality is apparent in this section. Mowgli’s experiences of hybridity in light of the subtext of the exclusion of the Monkey people suggest that the text’s overall position on the ability to transcend differences is compromised, fraught and not uniform throughout.

Let us consider another possible reading of the plot development where the monkeys kidnap Mowgli. Jung notes on the topic of simian mimicry:

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. . . many years ago, I was struck by the European analogy of the carnival in the

medieval Church, with its reversal of the hierarchic order, which is still continued

in the carnivals held by student societies today. Something of this contradictoriness

also inheres in the medieval description of the devil as simia dei (the ape of God),

and in his characterization in folklore as the “simpleton” who is “fooled” or

“cheated.” (Four Archetypes 159)

Jung’s analysis calls to mind Kipling’s depiction of the Monkey’s domain in the Jungle. They inhabit an abandoned human settlement (formerly a princely state), signaling inner and outer dilapidation, where they mimic the manners and customs of the humans. The text emphasizes that their mimicking is a failed attempt at attaining hybrid hero status: “The monkeys called the place their city . . . yet they never knew what the buildings were made for nor how to use them. They would sit in circles on the hall of the king's council chamber, and scratch for fleas and pretend to be men” (All the Mowgli Stories 51). Nyman notes that Kipling “makes their hybridity overt by referring to them as semi-human Monkey Folk, who also have a creolized, ‘stolen’ language based on the speech of the others” (47). She further adds: “Their status is explicitly that of mocking and half-civilized savage natives who are merely able to imitate the culturally superior . . . . [Hence, the text supports the] long-standing colonial discourse denigrating the Other” (47-8).

It is certainly possible to read the Monkey People as rebellious indigenous groups who are unwilling to succumb to colonial rule. As Nyman observes: “one of the main issues in the text is the conflict between orderly colonialism and anarchic nativism” (42). She explains further that

“the monkeys do not respect law, and their irrational behaviour violates the gendered codes of colonialist masculinity” (44). Nyman correctly points out that Kipling’s text “flirt[s] with notions of hybridity and translation, [yet] these issues are considered to be valid only up to a certain limit”

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(54). I agree fully with Nyman’s assertion for after this point, Mowgli “redeems” himself and is able to discern the pragmatic nature of laws by which “higher,” more “enlightened” groups govern themselves. Regarding Victorian notions of race, Bratlinger observes:

After the failed revolutions of 1848, in France Count Arthur de Gobineau contended

that history was the outcome of “the inequality among the races.” . . . Gobineau

argued that there were, throughout history and everywhere in the world, three races

that formed the “three original classes”: these were “the nobility. . . the conquering

race; the bourgeoisie composed of mixed stock coming close to the chief race; and

the common people who lived in servitude. . . .” (113) 26

Certainly, a hierarchy of creation is constructed by Kipling in The Jungle Book stories where he utilizes the jargon regarding race that circulated during the Victorian times. Mowgli can be seen to occupy the role of a representative of the noble conquering class with the Jungle People situated in a rank below him, with the humans standing a degree further below. Ultimately, the Monkey people are like a pariah class of the “untouchables” and cast as irredeemable folk who are beyond the pale of “civilization” and social and moral advancement. Bratlinger explains that for the prominent race theorist Gobineau miscegenation led to “the subversion of civilization” (113), and in this light, I suggest that the Monkey people are shown to us in the tale as the antithesis to enlightenment whose presence can defile and subvert progress.

26 Bratlinger offers the names of Victorian era scholars also promoting views similar to Gobineau’s in the following passage: In Britain and North America a number of authorities from the 1850s on espoused views similar to Gobineau’s. A major influence on later discussions of race was James Cowles Prichard, whose Natural History of Man appeared in 1843. Charles Hamilton Smith published The Natural History of the Human Species in 1848, while The Natural History of the Varieties of Man, by Robert Latham, followed in 1850. (114)

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Following the theme of dissent and madness, another reading can suggest that the Monkey people characterize the demonic or shadow aspects of the psyche giving Mowgli, the trickster the full range of experiential knowledge. They represent Mowgli’s shadow side, his unconscious self that has yet to be transformed. Like Mowgli, the Monkey-people too wish to belong and are gratified that Mowgli acknowledges their presence: “They were always just going to have a leader, and laws and customs of their own, but they never did . . . none of the beasts would notice them, and that was why they were so pleased when Mowgli came to play with them” (All the Mowgli

Stories 41). Kipling suggests that they are an anomaly, a grotesque mirror image reflecting back to Mowgli the dangers of improper hybrid mimicry. Jung speaks of how the trickster figure correlates with an inner latent drive within the individual towards unification of darker aspects of self: “As in its collective, mythological form, so also the individual shadow contains within it the seed of an enantiodromia, of a conversion into its opposite” (Four Archetypes 178). Noting the unfolding of the trickster narrative, Jung formulates how “the marks of deepest unconsciousness fall away from him; instead of acting in a brutal, savage, stupid, and senseless fashion, the trickster’s behaviour towards the end of the cycle becomes quite useful and sensible” (Four Archetypes 172). Roberts speaks of how the trickster figure is sometimes connected with the “the Hermetic mystery of self-transformation” (Campbell and Roberts 51), standing as a metaphor for individuation or metamorphosis. Significantly, it is only after Mowgli learns the humbling lesson of rejecting full unconsciousness in place of “proper hybridity” (in contrast to the hybridity of the Bandar people) that he assumes his role as hero warrior—marked by his slaying of Shere Khan and coinciding with his acknowledgement of his true hybrid identity.

In this section, Kipling is unable to fully extricate Mowgli from a hierarchical system as he constructs Mowgli as choosing to sever ties with what he learns to view as a lesser breed/class

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of creatures—in so doing, the text subscribes to a formulation of a “great chain of being” that restricts movement and communication between groups based on principles of difference. Further, he learns that his hybrid identity saves him from death as he is able to sound the call to allow

“just/benevolent” creatures to see him as kin and appear in service to him. A sense of solidarity is forged at the expense of demeaning and rejecting the Monkey People. In short, the Monkey People are an antithetical portrayal of enlightenment and through encountering this group, Mowgli learns vital lessons in discernment/differentiation that catapult him to self-mastery/heroism and the threshold of enlightenment.

Mowgli Returns: Humanity and Doctrines of Separation

The opportunities for Mowgli to surpass and transcend racial and species lines are plentiful in this text. Another layer of meaning describing the state of belonging or (not) belonging is consolidated in the story-line when Mowgli is banished from the Jungle and returns to the human world. This story of “repatriation” offers further insights regarding the story’s commentary on hybridity and belonging. The shock of separation from his animal family emotionally weakens

Mowgli who is naturally unsettled and disoriented upon returning to the Indian village. To whom does he now swear allegiance after this sudden disruption of his living conditions? This section of the novel reveals how Kipling further highlights the volatility of the state of belonging to a clan, nation, or species for the hybrid character—perhaps suggesting, to borrow Benedict Anderson’s theory, that boundaries between nations are always-already imaginary. Anderson seemingly describes patriotism as propaganda that conditions the citizen to belong, obey, and sacrifice for the sake of nation (132). He maintains “that nations inspire love, and often profoundly self-sacrificing love” (129). However, we see that Mowgli simultaneously seeks and rejects such notions of

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belonging and “nationalism”—more than other characters, Mowgli appears more willing to forge ties with multiple, diverse, groups. Mowgli’s wolf brothers intermittently visit him and their conversation points to the arbitrariness of human coalitions and notions of group belonging:

"Thou wilt not forget that thou art a wolf? Men will not make thee forget?" said

Gray Brother anxiously.

"Never. [says Mowgli] I will always remember that I love thee and all in our cave.

But also I will always remember that I have been cast out of the Pack."

"And that thou mayest be cast out of another pack. Men are only men. . . .” (All the

Mowgli Stories 93)

The human world seems more perplexing for Mowgli who cannot understand the “foreign” ways of humanity. Randall explains: “The jungle-boy is never allowed to discover a securely defined place within the village’s social structure, and, more importantly, the village is clearly represented as subordinate to the jungle” (Kipling’s Imperial Boy 75). A new world of caste differences and social stratification awaits Mowgli who is ill-trained to fit into Indian society. Mowgli is not conscious of the caste-lines that separate individuals and he refuses to obey or show deference to the priestly class and chooses to associate with the untouchables. Kipling describes a key scene depicting caste tension upon Mowgli’s arrival as follows:

And Mowgli had not the faintest idea of the difference that caste makes between

man and man. When the potter's donkey slipped . . . Mowgli hauled it out . . . and

helped to stack the pots for their journey. . . . That was very shocking, too, for the

potter is a low-caste man, and his donkey is worse. . . . [and] the priest scolded him.

(All the Mowgli Stories 94)

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Kipling underlines how Mowgli is continuously a figure who threatens class structures wherever he goes. He is certainly not cast as a prodigal son and as the story progresses Mowgli still cannot fathom class and caste divisions. While select members of Jungle Kingdom, through negotiation agreed to accept Mowgli, thus signaling acceptance of his hybridity, the human world appears more rigid where caste and class divisions appear unmovable. They are not able, as per Kant’s words, to critique their own value systems and allow for innovation and change. Thus, Mowgli elects to function outside of all social parameters and continues to inhabit a social space uniquely carved out by himself—the amorphous and secluded realm of the hybrid heroes. Randall aptly asserts that “the village-construct enables Indological discourse to contrast the ‘archaic’ (as represented by the Indian village) with the ‘modern’ (as represented . . . by British imperial government)” (Kipling’s Imperial Boy 76). For Randall, Mowgli “is imbued with the spirit of modernity: starkly an individual . . . who competitively seeks dominion over others” (Kipling’s

Imperial Boy 77).

Eventually, Mowgli will be further estranged from the village when, upon slaying Shere

Khan, he refuses to share his glory with the greedy huntsman of high rank, Buldeo. Buldeo seeks greedily to claim a reward for the skin of the man-eating tiger. For refusing to bow to Buldeo’s false authority, Mowgli is labeled an outcast and is banished from the human kingdom.

Furthermore, the village chief, the shrewd and immoral Brahmin wrongfully accuses Mowgli of sorcery and cries: “‘Wolf! Wolf's cub! Go away!’. . . ‘Again? [utters Mowgli] Last time it was because I was a man. This time it is because I am a wolf’” (All the Mowgli Stories 108). Buldeo finally submits to Mowgli’s strength and sees Mowgli in a supernatural, imp-like light: “It was sorcery, magic of the worst kind . . . and he wondered whether the amulet round his neck would

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protect him. He . . . [expected] every minute to see Mowgli turn into a tiger too. ‘Maharaj! Great

King,’ he said at last in a husky whisper” (All the Mowgli Stories 107).

Significantly, the slaying of Shere Khan is accomplished not through brute strength but through cunning, stratagem, and the aid of Mowgli’s wolf clan. Randall states: “The tiger shares his name with a sixteenth-century Afghan chieftain, who invaded the subcontinent and, for a short time, unseated the Mughals. . . . The tiger's name thus associates him with the conquest and consolidation of empires” (“Post-Mutiny Allegories” 110). Regarding potential political allusions in text, he adds:

Mowgli, by overcoming Shere Khan, stands in the place of the British imperial

adventurer and restages the British consolidation of empire in India. This jungle-

child . . . is the alien liberator whose final victory signals the establishment of just

rule in the place of an ostensibly corrupt and decrepit Mughal dynasty. (“Post-

Mutiny Allegories” 111)

Yet without reference to these political allusions, certainly Mowgli appears as a savior figure whose action serves both the human and jungle kingdom by foreseeably bringing greater peace and safety to both nations. Notably, Mowgli uses careful stratagem and tricks Shere Khan into falling over a precipice rather than by engaging in a face-to-face battle. Claude Lévi-Strauss notes:

“the trickster is a mediator. Since his mediating function occupies a position halfway between two polar terms, he must retain something of that duality—namely an ambiguous and equivocal character” (226). He adds: “Not only can we account for the ambiguous character of the trickster, but we can also understand another property of mythical figures the world over, namely, that the same god is endowed with contradictory attributes—for instance, he may be good and bad at the same time” (227). Lévi-Strauss’s observations apply well to the story of Mowgli as ultimately,

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Mowgli chooses the solitary path due to not fully belonging anywhere. Let us invoke Bhabha’s words where he notes the following on the mythic dimensions of cultural and physical hybridity, what he terms as Third Space: Inbetweenity or “Third Space . . . [is] the precondition of the articulation of cultural difference . . . [Wilson Harris] sees it as accompanying the ‘assimilation of contraries’ and creating the occult instability that presages powerful cultural changes” (56).

Coupling these words to Lévi-Strauss’ notion of the trickster as unifying difference, one can see that in postmodernist terms the hybrid trickster figure points to a conceptualization of self that is free of limiting barriers. Does the text, then, painstakingly lead the protagonist through several polarities of existence in order to at least entertain, and perhaps interrogate the idea, of a world without boundaries? I suggest that aspects of this view appear to be threaded throughout the narrative.

Upon defeating his foe, Mowgli finally receives acknowledgement and reverence from the wolves that had initially deposed Akela and sent Mowgli back to human society; they now exclaim:

“Lead us again, O Akela. Lead us again, O Man-cub, for we be sick of this lawlessness, and we would be the Free People once more” (All the Mowgli Stories 110). I suggest that Mowgli is celebrated in the text for carrying the message of peace that he relays throughout. Earlier, upon being banished from the Jungle, Mowgli expresses pain but also compassion, peace, and fortitude stating to the wolves:

"I go from you to my own people—if they be my own people. The jungle is shut to

me. . . . But I will be more merciful than ye are. Because I was all but your brother

in blood, I promise that when I am a man among men I will not betray ye to men

as ye have betrayed me." . . . "There shall be no war between any of us in the Pack.

. . .” (All the Mowgli Stories 31)

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Embroiled within such divisiveness, Mowgli still attempts to come upon an avowal of unity. This climatic scene is punctuated by a paean reflecting Mowgli’s sombre thoughts on the intricate dynamics of his personal identity and the continuation of the struggle with unity (belonging) and duality (alienation and separation). Kipling describes the scene as follows:

Wolf Pack, ye have cast me out too. The jungle is shut to me and the village gates

are shut. Why?

. . . so fly I between the village and the jungle. Why? . . .

These two things fight together in me as the snakes fight in the spring. . . .

I am two Mowglis, but the hide of Shere Khan is under my feet. . . . (All the Mowgli

Stories 115; emphasis added).

Walsh aptly posits:

According to both Jungle and village Mowgli functions as an original and

originating point of difference and division; and through his expulsion Jungle and

village strive to reconstitute their unities. Mowgli’s positioning as outcast traces

and retraces the boundaries between animal and man, Jungle and village, and yet

these are ceaselessly undermined by the conjunction of opposites within him. (67)

Regarding Mowgli’s dual nature as boundless, casteless, transgressor of laws and the ruler, Mary

Goodwin explains: “the issue is not whether man should rule the kingdom and its creatures, but how he must do so for maximum effectiveness. . . . In this ‘multicultural’ world, Mowgli, who learns all the jungle languages, is the first translator . . . Mowgli is both ruler and casteless” (113).

In “Mowgli’s Song” it is clear that at this point, Mowgli achieves a partial reconciliation with respect to his inner psychological battle. He asserts that there will be warring aspects within himself and that he will be cast aside perpetually but his resolution to carry forward signifies an

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acceptance of sorts of his hybrid identity. By referring to himself as dual, and by paying full homage to this state, we learn that the story is about a celebration of Mowgli’s hybrid identity.

Arguably, he is not heroic for slaying Shere Khan, as this is an aftermath and symptom of

Mowgli’s realization of his unique role—shown to us through the course of the story variously as mediator, trickster, hybrid, sorcerer/ god. “Mowgli’s Song” brings an end to an important part of

Mowgli’s journey, paving the way to his search for greater clarity and inner union regarding his identity. As we will next observe, a sense of resolution to the question of Mowgli’s identity will be achieved in the final Mowgli story entitled “In the Rukh.”

Regarding the marginal, interstitial space, Homi Bhabha describes the metaphor of the stairwell:

The stairwell as liminal space, in-between the designations of identity, becomes the

process of symbolic interaction, the connective tissue that constructs the difference

between upper and lower, black and white. . . . The interstitial passage between

fixed identifications opens up the possibility of a cultural hybridity that entertains

difference without an assumed or imposed hierarchy. (5)

Bhabha’s words apply well to Mowgli’s articulation of “double vision” (8) and his crisis of identity. Mowgli’s character, through his innate ability to unsettle social stratifications wherever he goes, reflects a prophetic, (proto) postmodernist rendering of identity politics. Mowgli conveys his inability to comprehend the process of stigmatization that he experiences. In other words, he cannot fully fathom the policies of exclusion, favoring instead an imagined world where such dichotomies do not exist. Mowgli comes to stand emblematically, physically, and emotionally as a cross-cultural, interspecies bridge who opens up a discourse on the politics of similarity and difference. “Mowgli’s Song” further directly conjures up Bhabha’s formulation of an interstitial

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passage that challenges and seeks to unsettle the rungs of the hierarchical ladder. Mowgli’s affinity for the Monkey People as well as the untouchables in the village also can be read in light of

Bhabha’s analysis of cultural hybridity. By considering Mowgli’s expression of discontent regarding the policing of individual identity and his desire to fully obliterate all markers of difference, indeed, it can be argued that the story adheres to Bhabha’s evaluation of the stairwell metaphor. Mowgli is drawn through a series of ascending and descending steps between polarities and binaries of identity and this movement reveals a depiction, however momentary or fleeting, of cultural hybridity as not contingent upon hierarchies of difference; thus, the trickster figure/hybrid hero inhabits what is seen as the most liberating space within the continuum of identity expressions.

As a hybrid, Mowgli has a unique way of seeing the world. His hybrid lenses are indeed celebrated in the text. Like Bagheera, Mowgli’s experience of other ways of seeing and inhabiting the world afford him with the expertise to outmaneuver and slay the slyest enemy. To know the way of another in a seemingly distant world is presented as a worthy quality. But the text outlines the difficulties of a hybrid status and suggests that while this is a flexible and fluid conception of identity, there is security in belonging to a rigid, monolithic category. Thus, the story pivots around the issue of identity by endorsing both the traditional model of identity and a proto-postmodernist fluid notion of straddling multiple identities.

Further, it must be noted that through his foray into the human world, Mowgli realizes that the fabled Human Kingdom alluded to by his animal teachers was not an approximation of an enlightened state. Mowgli witnesses firsthand the destructive and greedy ways of humankind and is unable to reconcile his differences to the ways of being found in the human world. Yet, unlike the Monkey Kingdom, the Human world is ordered and functional and Mowgli experiences

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degrees of love and connection through his interactions with Messua, but ultimately, he is again left incomplete and in search of a more concrete model/understanding of enlightenment.

Mowgli’s Union & Creation of the Enlightened State

Nyman points out that in The Jungle Book, “Kipling is unable to bridge the racialized gap between colonial lands and the isolated mother island, a solution that is ideologically bound up with the idea of the superiority of the English to other races and nations” (55). I wish to now analyze “In the Rukh” to complicate this view as I suggest that this Mowgli tale shows another angle wherein Kipling confirms Mowgli’s symbolic representation as a mythic trickster figure standing for unity and transcendence. The story shifts into a depiction of Mowgli as guide to others and shows how he is able to create a physical space to allow him and his beloved to live according to his own conception of enlightenment. As Cosslett explains: “sex and then marriage act to integrate Mowgli safely into human organisations” (488), yet I point out that Mowgli also rejects all organized societies at the end of the tale. McBratney sees the ending of the tale as anachronistic and notes that “[o]nly by trying, paradoxically, to recreate the happy relations of the original

Eden—in effect, returning to the time before the intervention of man—can Mowgli find peace with his jungle friends and within himself” (“Jungle Book” 284). Similar to the transformation of Kim,

Mowgli will transition from being cast as demon-like, impish to semi-divine and otherworldly. It is important too as it shows the culmination point of Mowgli’s transformation within the trickster cycle—the endpoint where he becomes partially a signifier, like the character of Kim, of unity.

“In the Rukh” (first published in Many Inventions in 1893) conveys a message on the topic of love, universality, and the barriers crossed by Mowgli with respect to religion, culture, and possibly race. Throughout her essay, Hotchkiss reads this story convincingly, not in terms that

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reflects Kipling’s ambivalence and uncertainty on these stated topics, but as a deeply and problematic racist tract that features Mowgli as an imperial force representing the violence of the

British colonial enterprise. This story traces Mowgli’s early adulthood and coming of age that leads to Mowgli’s union and marriage with a native Indian girl. Randall explains: In "In the Rukh,"

. . . the narrative point of origin and of resolution, imperial subjectivity is produced in contingent relation with the myth-figure of the boy, who represents, in ideal terms, the empire, and who is represented, at the same time, from the perspective of empire” (“Post-Mutiny Allegories” 105).

He adds that one must consider that the story “stages Mowgli's enabling identification with the

British empire and establishes his status as an imperial hero” (“Post-Mutiny Allegories” 101).

Notably, the story more closely focuses upon the Raj and its agents as the story-line involves

Mowgli befriending an English Park Ranger and eventually chronicles his entry into the service of empire as a forest guide. Other key elements include how Mowgli comes into contact with a

German evolutionist who inquires about his origins; he also seduces/woos a young Muslim girl who is the daughter of the Park Ranger’s butler.

Hotchkiss writes: “I suggest that Kipling's initial creation of Mowgli in ‘In the Rukh’ may also have been written in the ‘shadow of evil days’ of the Mutiny that still haunted the colonial imagination, thirty-five years later in 1892” (441). She alludes to how the colonial anxiety over the Mutiny is manifest in Mowgli’s character. A central argument in this essay seems to be that

Mowgli will “correct” what Kipling describes only passingly as “madness” in Kim, by appearing as the model Indian citizen who willingly aids the British agents of empire. I agree with this contention but I also will highlight that there is another angle to this interpretation as Kipling meticulously emphasizes Mowgli’s erasure of caste and class divisions and seeks to impose upon himself his own distinct belief system. Hotchkiss further contends:

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In the jungle, representing primal India, Kipling creates a Darwinistic proto-Adam,

and he does indeed provide him with an Eve. . . . Although Gisborne assures the

irate father that she will convert him, instead Mowgli initiates the young girl into

his animistic creed. (441)

Hotchkiss reads Mowgli specifically in terms of annihilation of native value systems and as a bearer of the British colonizer’s wrath and violence over the misbehaviours of the child-like, impish, and unruly Indian. I suggest that this not the only reading available of this story. One must note that Mowgli appears multiply as androgynous and appears often at key scenes as wearing a crown of flowers and freely expresses his emotions, including the shedding of tears of joy and sorrow. Perhaps Kipling makes reference to Hindu mythology to figures such as Ardhanarishvara, who is a composite deity representing the melding/co-existence of the divine feminine and masculine principles. Mowgli’s apparent ‘feminization’ may also suggest a figure who is untainted by European notions of masculinity. Further, he is notably not presented as a messiah-like figure cut from a Christian conceptual cloth, carefully cast as unanchored in one particular tradition. He is above all classification systems. Franklin notes: “Comparative religion rose to prominence in

England in the 1860s . . . [and] proved to be a critically important source for the formation in the following decades of new hybrid religions” (57). Kipling’s “Mowgli Stories,” like Kim, also reveal a fascination with the notion of syncretic or hybrid religions. We see qualities that speak to comparative religion built into the characterization of Mowgli as religiously and culturally hybrid.

For example, tellingly, he first appears to us first in this story in the following manner:

A man was walking . . . naked except for the loin-cloth, but crowned with a wreath

of the tasselled blossoms. . . . His voice was clear and bell-like, utterly different

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from the usual whine of the native, and his face . . . might have been that of an

angel. . . . (All the Mowgli Stories 241)

The above quote, however, also reveals prejudice as the “lowly” native is pitted against the image of the “Aryan” Mowgli, for as Ballantyne explains that “certain peoples could be understood as

‘Aryan’, through the archives of British imperialism” (3).27 Yet Mowgli further identifies himself as nearly raceless and as “a man without caste, and for matter of that without a father” (All the

Mowgli Stories 241). This identification is much like Kim’s own casteless status in Kim. Mowgli is now imaged as an “angel” or an otherworldly inhabitant of the pristine forest. He will continue to exude an innocence and purity that will signify his enlightened awareness that he will impart to those that he encounters.

Hotchkiss focuses upon where Kipling illustrates the physical beauty of Mowgli and notes

Mowgli is initially described as a godlike youth . . . [that invoke the image of] the

Hindu pastoral deity Krishna. But Muller calls him "Faunus," . . . divorcing him at

the same time from Hindu mythology by conflating its symbols with those of Greek

myth. Muller suggests, too, a Darwinian history of origins for Mowgli, making him

a biological anachronism as well as a cultural one. (441)

Randall explains: “To appreciative British eyes, Mowgli offers a glimpse of a "real'" India, of a

"natural and essential" India residing beyond the confounding veil of culture” (“Post-Mutiny

Allegories” 103). The passage can be persuasively read as drawing attention to Mowgli’s function as a point of unity between religions, faiths, and ethnicities. Hotchkiss overlooks the significance

27 Tony Ballantyne further notes: “At a fundamental level, the idea [Aryanism] came to explain the very fact of empire itself. The empire could be divided into vigorous Aryans (most notably the ‘energetic’ British colonizers themselves), degenerate Aryan communities whose cultural vitality had been enervated by intermarriage, and backward non-Aryan peoples whose culture might be ‘leavened’ through contact with Aryan rulers” (4). 230

of Mowgli’s positioning with respect to Faunus—an important trickster figure in European lore.

The adult Mowgli appears to us more concretely as an amalgamation of mythic traditions to suggest the commonalities between mythic symbols across the world. For Mowgli is distinctly non-European and is shown to us in this scene and others as a bridge between worlds, drawing/ uniting species and peoples of all races under the improbable banner of his hybrid subjectivity.

Hotchkiss establishes her distinct view when she states:

Amazingly, the "son of the forest" winds up working for the forest service,

becoming a cog in "the wheels of public service which turn under the Indian

Government" (222). . . . In Mowgli, in fact, Kipling has created the ideal subaltern,

the native without the "native problem," by engendering a new Indian race

disturbingly divorced from Indian history, culture, and tradition. (441)

Clearly, Hotchkiss reads Mowgli as one of Macaulay’s servile “Minute Men,” strategically straddling two worlds to complacently serve the Colonial Master. Randall notes: “Caught between two opposing worlds, divided in his identifications and his affiliations, he [Mowgli] can be read as a fabulous, idealized analogue of the socio-cultural in-betweenness of an India-born Englishman

(like Rudyard Kipling)” (“Post-Mutiny Allegories” 106). I note that Mowgli appears at the end as the benevolent steward and not as ruler of the Jungle and enjoys a position of authority and power over Gisborne regarding knowledge of the jungle:

“And how didst thou know all these things?” said Gisborne. . . .

“Tck! Tck! And thou art in charge—so the men of the huts tell me—in charge of

all this rukh.” He [Mowgli] laughed to himself. . . .

Gisborne retorted, nettled . . . . (All the Mowgli Stories 246)

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This scene calls the reader to question the nature of power, knowledge, and which character truly wields it. The text constructs a view that Mowgli is not in need of a pension, worldly riches, or power but is informed by a desire to witness other ways of being and to create ties with others.

Indeed, Gisborne’s butler notes how Mowgli shows no servility or deference towards his white master and “he personally did not approve of naked outcastes who had not the proper manner of addressing white people” (All the Mowgli Stories 248). Kipling makes clear too that it is Mowgli’s lack of deference that Gisborne applauds and is refreshed by.

Mowgli offers friendship and protection to Gisborne, while Gisborne entertains a different agenda: “I must get him into the Government service somehow. A man who can drive nilghai would know more about the rukh than fifty men. He’s a miracle—a lusus naturae” (All the Mowgli

Stories 248). Kipling uses the same terms to define Mowgli as he referred to Kim as a demon and a lusus naturae (freak of nature).28 The choice of words is significant as Kipling points to Mowgli and Kim’s otherworldly subject position and how both are able to defy the pressures of societal codes and all bids to define them. They are both nobly positioned above and beyond, spatially and thematically, within the text—Mowgli as relegated to the space of the Jungle and Kim as relegated to the outer peripheries of society by way of his role as chela and spy. Their Othering is the source of their miraculous nature and their eventual enlightenment. Abdul Gafur, the Muslim Butler says of Mowgli with scorn: “He has no caste . . . a jungle-gipsy is a thief till the death” (All the Mowgli

Stories 250). Curiously, the story unfolds such that the reverse is proven true through the revelation

28 In Chapter Six of Kim, we read: “‘Are there many more like you in India?' said Father Victor, 'or are you by way o' being a lusus naturae?’” (88). 232

of Gafur as thief—that the jungle-brat or gypsy appears as the rescuer and redeemer while those found within clearly demarcated class stratifications appear as vapid, thieves, or plainly unheroic.

The remainder of the story proceeds with the introduction of the German Head Ranger who makes an unannounced visit and studies Mowgli to extol his god-like hybrid qualities. The story’s religious message needs to be explored in order to see how a myth of unity is carefully created that at one level counters the pro-colonial message. Hotchkiss asserts that “[t]he character Muller . . . is something of a Victorian evolutionist; one wonders whether his name . . . [is] meant to refer to

Max Müller” (441). The association to Max Müller (1823-1900) is likely a conscious one on

Kipling’s part.

Müller was a major Sanskrit scholar who supported the Indo-European language theory and was reportedly interested in the Brahmo Samaj—a group that Kipling alludes to in Kim through the character of Huree Babu. Ballantyne states: “Max Müller [’s] . . . translation of the

Vedas . . . marked a pivotal point of reconfiguration of understanding of religion and ancient history . . . [and] was the most influential Victorian popularizer of ‘Aryanism’” (6). David

Chidester observes:

Because he was an academic expert on the language, myth, and religion of India,

Max Müller’s scholarly work often depended upon the resources and intersected

with the interests of the British Empire. While his edition of the Rig Veda was made

possible by the support of the East India Company, his academic authority was

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occasionally drawn upon to provide symbolic reinforcement for British rule over

India. (61)29

Müller built upon the tradition of inquiry established by Sir William Jones. Ballantyne adds:

Sir William Jones’s discovery of linguistic affinities between Sanskrit, Latin and

Greek was the basis for a fundamental reconceptualization of Indian history and

culture. [He also worked upon] . . . tracing the affinities between Greco-Roman

mythology and Hindu tradition and in locating ancient Indian history within a

Judeo-Christian chronological framework. (188)

In the story, Muller proceeds to express that he sees something of himself in Mowgli—his Indian counterpart in hybrid philosophy. He inhabits the role of ethnologist/surveyor of the lands; regarding the colonialist underpinnings of the field, Lorimer notes; “Anthropology . . . studied the exotic cultures of colonised peoples. Its practitioners promoted the utility of their discipline for the administration of a multi-racial empire” (60). It is especially pertinent that Muller discloses his own religious beliefs as syncretic, and comprised of a mixture between Christianity and what he terms Pagan. He declares: “When I am making reborts I am Freethinker und Atheist, but here in der rukh I am more than Christian. . .” (All the Mowgli Stories 257). In this passage, he offers a profession of his beliefs prior to meeting Mowgli. Kipling shows how he observes the magic of the forest as one of full enchantment and how “der trees dey had der cult of der old gods—‘und der Christian Gods howl loudly” (All the Mowgli Stories 257). It is after this description that

Mowgli makes an appearance with Muller exclaiming: “Hush! Here is Faunus . . . he is der god”

29 Reflecting on Müller’s imperialist agenda, David Chidester notes: “For example, he translated “God Save the Queen” into Sanskrit in 1882; in 1884 he advocated the Ilbert Bill, which expanded the scope of Indian judges, because it demonstrated that ‘the Imperial word has been kept sacred’; and he provided a Sanskrit translation in 1890 for the erection of a statue of the prince consort in Windsor Park as part of the Women’s Jubilee offering to the queen” (61). 234

(All the Mowgli Stories 257). A few pages later, this same description is underlined: “Mowgli stood . . . in the very form and likeness of that Greek god who is so lavishly described in the novels” (All the Mowgli Stories 259). One must note how Kipling takes great pains to draw Mowgli as a pastoral god-like figure who appears as multiple deities from across the world. Mowgli may also appear here as a manifestation of the Hindu god Krishna, as intimated by Hotchkiss (441). In

Barbara Stoler Miller’s translation of Jayadeva’s famous long poem, Gita Govinda, Krishna appears as the divine lover who has a playful and mischievous side as he frolicks carefree with the milkmaids of the land. Krishna’s prime qualities are important to note, as we learn that: “The child

Krishna was adored for his mischievous pranks; he also performed many miracles and slew demons. . . . Krishna’s personality is clearly a composite one” ("Krishna" n.pag.). What must be underscored is that Mowgli takes on the face of numerous gods in this scene, not only limited to those from the Indian pantheon. Kipling consciously alludes to his amorphous nature at once as

Greek, Christian, Pagan, and Indian—yet ultimately, none of these.

Sir William Jones writes of the Indian god of love, Kama, that “such a God of India was the JUPITER of Greece; such, the APOLLO: such, the MERCURY” (Sir William Jones: A Reader

180). He further suggests that the correlations between the gods of India and the Western world are patently clear for: “we find many JOVES, many APOLLOS, many MERCURIES . . . in one capacity or another, there exists a striking similitude between the chief objects of worship in

Ancient Greece or Italy” and India (180). Ballantyne adds further that figures such as Sir William

“Jones confirmed the genetic relationship between Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit and mapped a new comparative vision of global history, an interpretation that insisted on the commonalities between

Europe and Indian history . . . [and proposed] a common Indo-European cultural heritage” (5). Yet one must also be wary that such views do not necessarily lead to an anti-colonial stance, for as

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Ballantyne correctly notes: “arguments that embraced Aryanism to render colonialism anodyne, even benevolent, remind us that ideas and representations cannot be understood as autonomous constructs that are somehow free from power-relationships” (4).

Notably, Krishna as portrayed in Edwin Arnold’s translation of the Bhagavad Gita appears as the fluid shapeshifter representing all and nothing at once. In the following passage, Krishna explains the mystery of his being by declaring to Arujna, the following characterization of self:

One Force in every place, though manifold!

. . . . ………………………………..

I am- of all this boundless Universe-

. . . . ………………………………..

The end of Learning! That which purifies

. . . . ………………………………..

The Way, the Fosterer, the Lord, the Judge. . . . (Chapter IX, n.pag.)

Max Müller writes: “In Krishna, the lovely shepherd-god, Sir W. Jones recognizes the features of

Apollo Nomius . . . and he leaves it to etymologists to determine whether Gopala—i.e., the cow- herd—may not be the same word as Apollo” (Essential Max Müller 94).

Kipling’s fictional variant of Müller/Muller echoes some of Jones’s views on comparative mythology in “In the Rukh;” he exclaims regarding his own syncretic outlook: “Now I know dot,

Bagan or Christian, I shall nefer know der inwardness of der rukh!” (All the Mowgli Stories 261).

These sentiments speak to the otherworldly character of Mowgli and signals that a character posited as an evolutionary anthropologist is brought to a state of humility regarding the parameters

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of his knowledge. Mowgli’s role, then, is similar to Kim’s where he allows other dogmatic or rigid- minded thinkers, English and Indian alike, to entertain (the text’s conception of) liberal and freethinking thoughts. I argue, that like in Kim, the central character of this story represents freethinking, unity, and transcendence as well as the great mystery that lies beyond rational thought— the realm of myth and legend figured in this story as the space of the forest and Mowgli as its emblem. It is through witnessing the wondrous character of Mowgli that Muller, perhaps in jest, declares “Gisborne, I am a Bagan now, once and for all” (All the Mowgli Stories 261). By these words, Muller sarcastically relinquishes all ties to dominant Western religions. Further, Kipling employs diction suggesting the centrality of the concept of “freethinking” throughout this chapter.

Not only does Muller express himself as one, the story unravels to portray Mowgli as the sign for this term. The text even suggests that the Rukh itself was forested by a kindred spirit: “Now der trees haf come back. Dey were planted by a Freethinker, because he know just de cause dot made der effect” (All the Mowgli Stories 257).

I suggest too that Kipling’s stories featuring Mowgli also invoke the concepts regarding human commonality promoted by his contemporary, Sir James Frazer who published The Golden

Bough in 1890. David Leinweber notes that Frazer “stand[s] as [a] major . . . .[figure] in the secularization of western historical thought” (94). He adds that “The Golden Bough attempted a vast treatment of the process by which all human societies had moved from primitivism to civilization, a process equated with the intellectual revolution spawning religious thought” (96).

Frazer posits regarding the similarities of traditions and customs from the Occident and the Orient:

“The custom of physically marrying men and women to trees is still practiced in India. . . . Why should it not have [been] obtained in ancient Latium” (8). He adds further in his section entitled

“Analogous Rites in India” regarding a spring harvest festival that the deities “Siva and Parvati

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are conceived as spirits of vegetation. . . . The marriage of these Indian deities in spring corresponds to the European ceremonies in which the marriage of the vernal spirits of vegetation is represented by the King and Queen of May” (Golden Bough 320). Chidester also points out, however, that the text reads as “a compendium of the foolishness of primitive humanity” (7).

Looking at the influences of Frazer, Müller, and Jones upon Kipling may reveal why

Kipling deploys Kim and Mowgli as syncretic mythical figures—in so doing, Kipling highlights the importance of a study comparative religion in gesturing towards the notion of the unity of creation.

We must take a closer look at the final stages of the story describing Mowgli’s marriage with a Muslim girl to further examine this possibility of Mowgli as antithetical to the “divide and rule” policy employed by the British (intentionally pitting religious groups against each other). It is significant that the final scene reads rather as sanctioning inter-cultural union leading to harmony. Hotchkiss sees the union as follows

John McBratney notes that the ending of "In the Rukh," . . . Kipling's hope that the

earlier doctrine of paternalism . . . might replace "the remote, coldly efficient

Utilitarianism that dominated British government after the Indian Mutiny" (289).

[With]. . . sepoys like Mowgli, the Mutiny never would have happened. There are

hints in Kipling's neo-romantic Darwinism of the political directions the idea of

eugenics would take in the early twentieth century. (442)

Hotchkiss bases this understanding looking at Muller’s portrayal of Mowgli as a primordial being, an originary figure giving rise to humanity. Muller offers his assessment: “Look here, he is at der beginnings of der history of man—Adam in der Garden, and now we want only an Eva!” (All the

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Mowgli Stories 261). Indeed, Hotchkiss rightly points out that Mowgli is cast as a prototypic Adam and by extension, problematically as an Aryan-type figure. Ballantyne notes:

Within India . . . not only Britons but also South Asians with a stake in the

maintenance of British authority, used the Aryan theory to reconfigure British

imperialism from being a series of fundamentally unequal political, social and

economic relationships into a ‘family reunion’ between long lost Aryan cousins.

(4)

With regards to the race theory focusing upon polygenism, Damon Salesa points out:

By the middle of the nineteenth century . . . ‘polygenism’ . . . was still controversial

but was in much wider circulation. . . . There was little doubt that in Britain the

biblical orthodoxy, or ‘monogenism’, continued as the majority and orthodox view.

. . .Yet the significance of polygenist thought had become clear . . . it had

reinvigorated the study of human origins and differences. (4)

By linking Mowgli, an Indian born Adamic figure, Kipling’s grapples with questions regarding

“human origins and differences” by proposing a monogenist vision wherein Mowgli shares common human ancestry with other races (German and English as figured in the story) and promotes the creation of ties between races and species—albeit with some restrictions. Salesa notes on the matter of colonial ambiguity regarding race: “Despite expectations that everywhere there would be efforts to punish race crossing, to condemn it, to exorcise and legislate against it, this was rarely the case. After the abolition of slavery (1834), one will find few laws that do this in the British Empire” (1). He adds: “in many instances racial crossings were seen as solutions or benefits, strategies of colonialism not challenges to it” (2). Salesa points out:

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In the troubled British Empire of 1830s . . . reformist impulses inspired ‘racial

amalgamation’, where a single colonial political and legal community would be

forged by intermarrying and intermixing different races. This was heralded as a

new era of systematic and humane colonization. Though in conception and

implementation this strategy was gravely flawed. (27)

Indeed, as will be soon examined, a form of cross-religious/racial/ethnic union is sanctioned when the imperial figure (albeit cast as Indian—appearing symbolically as European/Aryan), Mowgli, forms a union with his Indian beloved. Avtar Brah and Annie Coombes note that “one of the features of colonial contact, particularly in the nineteenth century, was the emergence of a set of administrative directives and strategies designed either to promote assimilation with the colonized or to ensure that a stricter code of segregation was observed” (3). They add further that “[o]ne of the structural features of the ensuing debate was a concern with the point of origin of the species which played itself out as the infamous war between the polygenesists and the monogenesists” (3).

It should be noted that Mowgli is distinctly not a passive figure who takes orders but he holds strongly to his indeterminate state, his marginality that becomes a space of enlightenment and transformation. He is a boundary disruptor and this role is underlined in the final pages of this story. In Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Nietzsche speaks of the archetype of the trickster god alluded to as the Great Pan and also as Dionysus. He uses this figure as a metaphor for the scholar unbound by religious and societal strictures of his time. He laments of the crisis of spirit overtaking the European intellectual tradition and it is curious that he ends his text with a resonant call to return to these two mythic figures for wisdom and liberation. He notes: “Meanwhile I have learned much, all too much, more about the philosophy of this god, and, as I said, from mouth to mouth—

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I, the last disciple and initiate of the god Dionysus. . . . for it concerns much that is secret, new, strange, odd, uncanny” (Nietzsche 235). He explains further:

The genius of the heart, as that great concealed one possesses it, the tempter god

[translator’s note:“Versucher-Gott” could also mean “god of experimenters”’

(233)] and born pied piper of consciences whose voice knows how to descend into

the netherworld of every soul. (Nietzsche 234)

Nietzsche warrants that this mythical figure serves as a symbol of unpolluted knowledge, courage, and strength and the unlocking of inner wisdom. It is significant that for Nietzsche, this powerful image of the divine represents the figure that is able to shun labels—indeed, his assessment of true knowledge and wisdom through his interrogation of the trickster god harkens the image of Mowgli to mind. Mowgli, who walks through life learning to reject the need for names, labels and pre- determined philosophies, can easily be interchanged with the figure of Nietzsche’s analysis. In many ways that I have outlined, Kipling characterizes Mowgli as the “god of experimenters”

(Nietzsche 234). Hotchkiss observes: “One of Mowgli's virtues, as Gisborne sees it, is ‘his ignorance of all forms of ceremony and salutations,’ of the ‘customs and use’ Gisborne finds so deplorable in the buffoonish servant, Abdul Gafur (238)” (442). Indeed, this very spirit of awareness/zeitgeist favored by distinct nineteenth century thinkers such as Nietzsche, also appear in fictional manifestations in the works of Burton and Kipling.

Mowgli’s greatest “experiment” and marker of his triumph perhaps will be seen through his union with an Indian girl. His bride-to-be is unnamed and Mowgli becomes, in a paternalistic fashion, a teacher to her and familiarizes her eventually to the laws of the Jungle and the beauty of the woods and teaches her not to fear the jungle as an abode of devils (All the Mowgli Stories 265).

Anne McClintock explains: “forbidden meeting[s] [and sexual unions] across social limits reveals

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itself as a recurrent theme in the domestic and racial fetishism that structured . . . Victorian society at large” 133). There is an element of transgression embedded in their courtship as Mowgli seduces her against the wishes of her father, violating religious rules of marrying within one’s community and religious group. Goodwin explains that Mowgli’s marriage can be construed as based on a violation of moral principles for: “Mowgli steals away the (willing) daughter of Abdul for his mate” (115). Expressing ardour, Mowgli woos his mate through declaring his allegiance to her

God:

“Thou hast seen a thousand maids. I—have I thy heart?” [she exclaims]

“What shall I swear by? By Allah, of whom thou speakest?”

“Nay, by the life that is in thee . . . .” (All the Mowgli Stories 266)

Of importance, Mowgli shows his malleability and his openness to honor some traditions when he curiously offers to convert in order to “honorably” marry his Muslim mate. He even says that he will comply with his future father-in-law’s demand for a marriage ritual. He tells Gisborne: “I myself will talk to Abdul Gafur, for I am a man of the Government service, with a pension. He shall make the marriage by whatsoever rite he will, or he shall run once more” (All the Mowgli

Stories 267; emphasis added). Randall observes:

by accepting an imperial career Mowgli assures himself of the status and income

necessary to claim a wife; by taking a wife, he confirms his stable placement within

the human community and hence his candidacy for imperial service. Mowgli

espouses, at one and the same time, humanity and the empire. (“Post-Mutiny

Allegories” 102)

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The angered father of the girl sees matters less kindly and Gisborne acts as mediator between the two parties acting on Mowgli’s behalf. The scene portrays effectively the tension between the three parties over matters of creed, justice, and honor:

“He is an outcaste . . . an eater of carrion!. . .” [declares the father of the girl]

“[Gisborne exclaims]. . .Make the shadi swiftly, and the girl will make him a

Mussulman”

. . . Abdul Gafur thought awhile, and then broke down and howled, forgetting that

he was a Mussulman:— (All the Mowgli Stories 267)

It is clear that Mowgli presents an ultimatum, to make peace and negotiate new terms, or he will use his brute strength to challenge Abdul Gafur. Significantly, Gisborne promises that Mowgli will convert and the scene can both mark Mowgli’s desire to compromise and can also symbolize a state of defeat in that he succumbs to follow religious laws. Strikingly, the two lovers utter in unison: “we will obey—for the last time” (All the Mowgli Stories 269), suggesting that they both see laws as arbitrary, superficial, and unimportant in their future life—their profession is seen as the enlightened perspective. Lorimer contends regarding notions of savagery and sin during the

Victorian times: “The equation of an uncivilised or savage state with a life led in sin, commonplace both in missionary publications and in the secular representations of popular science, informed the common culture in a more pervasive way than did the theories of mid-Victorian science” (111).

Kipling perhaps confounds such Victorian notions of sin by trivializing the idea of honor and the necessity of marriage to legitimize sexual union, in the case of Mowgli and his beloved. With the inhabitants of the human world pacified, the two retreat into the Jungle where we are left with a final scene depicting a scene of marital harmony. Mowgli is absent from this final scene and instead, Gisborne and Muller chance upon Mowgli’s bride in a clearing by the thickets in the forest.

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It is curious to now observe a woman at the forefront of the tale who notably draws the

Mowgli stories to an end through vocalizing her narrative—albeit tersely—of her newfound life with Mowgli in the Edenic space of the wilderness. Gayatri Spivak speaks of native women as doubly repressed by race and sex and how the subaltern woman is often "doubly in shadow"

(Subaltern 288). It is possible to read her unnamed character as an empowered figure within

Kipling’s works where women are given nominal space and agency. McClintock also notices in her examination of Kipling’s works blatantly “the elision of women from political and economic power” (66). Regarding Victorian-era depictions of women, Laurence Talairach-Vielmas observes: “Victorian fairy tales and sensation novels explore . . . [a] paradoxical terrain, where women oscillate between subject and object” (6). He adds further: “female representation and the construction of femininity is mastered by a patriarchal rhetoric which confines and changes the female bodies” (6). We can read the representation of Mowgli’s wife as one informed by violence as she is wrenched away/seduced by Mowgli and indoctrinated into his creed and philosophy of life. Lorimer writes: “The civilising mission seeking to convert the peoples of the world to superior

Victorian ways was a doctrine of assimilation” (27). In effect, she too falls under Mowgli’s (the symbol of the colonizer) sway and notably rejects the culture and religion that shaped her early life—effectively enacting an obliteration of her Indian Muslim heritage. Kipling draws attention to how she is now a mother and is notably unveiled—gesturing toward her rejection of the Muslim veil and traditions of segregation. Knoepflmacher contends that “[e]ven in those fictions Kipling published prior to his becoming a family man, the emphasis on male bonding all too often conceals a boy's ambivalent perception of a matriarch's power” (“Female Power” 15). One may be able to read the ending of the story of Mowgli’s adulthood as a privileging of the voice, authority, and outlook of the matriarch, for it is Mowgli’s bride, now assuming a maternal image, who offers a

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prescription for enlightened living and harmonious coexistence. Anne Stoler explains: “Colonial authorities with competing agendas agreed on two premises: Children had to be taught both their place and race, and the family was the crucial site in which future subjects and loyal citizens were to be made” (23). In a manner, then, the text’s earlier positioning of valuing “hybrid” religions and multiple worldviews collapses as the bride’s rejection of her original tradition translates to a full obliteration of her past and speaks to the creation of a “loyal” subject.

Mowgli’s beloved does not appear to retain traces of her upbringing but appears as a tabula rasa, her body and mind, being inscribed by Mowgli alone with meaning as he wills. Thus, their relationship can be seen a reenactment of the master-slave dialectic wherein she submits fully to the domination of the masculine, colonial Other. True to the nature of Kipling’s ambivalent narratorial voice, the scene can also be read as empowering her character; for she appears unabashed, standing firmly and nursing her child, unveiled and boldly narrating the experience of her new life where the wolf siblings assist in the raising of her young. She represents the figure that extolls her self-positioning in the fringes of society. Talairach-Vielmas explains: “The

Victorian cult of the angel-woman conceived ideal femininity as comprising qualities above all of lightness, but also of passivity and even saintliness” (9). Mowgli’s beloved is not docile in her presentation of self as she shows a fierce aspect not granted to her while abiding by her father’s and society’s codes of behavior and decorum. Moreover, it is notable that Kipling offers only a fleeting glimpse of Mowgli’s marital world. He does not clearly delineate the exact conditions of his bride’s new lifestyle or her worldview; but she becomes, rather, an abstract symbol of enlightenment signified by her happy appearance and the final revelation of the pair as thriving outside the circuits of mainstream society.

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As introduced in the first sections of this chapter, Kant succinctly and aptly describes the state of enlightenment as follows:

Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. Nonage is the

inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage

is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and

lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance. (n.pag.)

Mowgli and his bride have succeeded where others have failed in tearing themselves apart from the conditioning of society. They inhabit an Edenic space purportedly created and governed by themselves. She, like Mowgli, and presumably her young are models for the exemplary learner who has obtained enlightenment for him or herself. For the two, then, enlightenment is a mindset, an awareness, and a cultural space allowing the two to flourish untainted by the harsh ideologies of other societies. In contrast to the other worlds depicted in the sections of The Jungle Book studied in this chapter, it is in their newly created world that Kipling locates enlightenment as a microcosmic model for societal, political and philosophical perfection.

In interpreting “In the Rukh,” one must be mindful of the imperialist underpinnings of

Mowgli’s character. McBratney correctly reminds the reader that we “might be tempted to see in

Mowgli’s kingly position and Dionysian dress the accoutrements of divinity. . . . But godliness, the absolute freedom of the divine, is illusory, for Mowgli’s paradise is not a creation independent of imperial politics but a coextensive product of it” (“Jungle Book” 290). McBratney also observes regarding the ending of this tale that it “reveals a snake in the new Eden. In staking off the glade for himself and his family, Mowgli has not really escaped the world of Gisborne and Muller. In fact . . . he has established a kingdom whose rule depends heavily on notions of imperial rule”

(“Jungle Book” 288). He adds that Mowgli’s “tiny realm of personal rule . . . seems to ward off

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the Raj’s enveloping authority. But this resistance requires the Empire’s tacit cooperation”

(“Jungle Book” 289). Hagiioannu notes: “There is nothing anti-imperialist about Mowgli’s cultural mobility. It is an aspect of Kipling’s highly sophisticated interpretation of the new imperialism, which translated empire into a global language adjusted to multi-ethnic, liberal-humanist concerns” (112). In a similar vein, Randall contends that at the end of the tale, Mowgli assumes

“his status as imperial hero” (Kipling’s Imperial Boy 67). Yet I point out that no indication is given regarding whether he has assumed his role as agent to Gisbourne, similar to the ending of Kim where Kim’s ultimate choice regarding following the path of the chela or the agent is left unclear.

Hagiioannu finds that “[d]espite his multiple orientations regarding ‘culture’, Mowgli is a purveyor of social discipline, whose Jungle ventures extend and reinforce the hierarchies of imperial politics.

His raison d’être, after all, is absolute command of the Jungle People” (113). Further, McBratney posits: “As long as Mowgli is too young to serve the Empire, he may dwell in happy castelessness beyond racial distinctions. But once he becomes part of the Raj, he has to bow. . . to the disambiguating force of race” (“Jungle Book” 291).

I suggest that at one plausible level, the text does inquire seriously into the nature of unity and commonality between humans/animals. Kipling once again directly invokes the name of Kabir in The Second Jungle Book—a set of stories that also feature Mowgli as a character. 30 He devotes the following lines to Kabir in his short poem, “A Song of Kabir”:

30 For a similar invocation of the poems of Kabir in the text of Kim, see the opening lines of chapter 14 in Kim (226). 247

He has looked upon Man, and his eyeballs are clear

(There was One; there is One, and but One, saith Kabir);

……………………………………………………..

To learn and discern of his brother the clod,

Of his brother the brute, and his brother the God.

He has gone from the council and put on the shroud. (Second Jungle Book 61)

Through these lines of poetry, we are able to better understand the role and function of Mowgli who appears as a bearer of the teachings of Kabir. The poem reflects in microcosm the journey of

Mowgli—as well as Kim and Burton’s path to enlightenment. Like Kabir, Mowgli attempts to fathom the mystery of “There is but One.” One notes the invocation of Kabir in both Kim and the

Mowgli stories which indicates perhaps that some attention to Kabir will further illuminate how and why Kipling frames the named tales with central characters that take on a hybrid hero/trickster aspect. Kabir’s philosophy of unity, I argue, deeply informs aspects of Kipling’s writings including the construction and deployment of the central characters as hybrid heroes who promote the notion of unity.

In his poem, “Buddha at Kamakura,” Kipling reflects a philosophy of religious tolerance as he writes:

O ye who tread the Narrow Way

…………………......

Be gentle when ‘the heathen’ pray

To Buddha at Kamakura!

…………………......

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Is God in human image made

No nearer than Kamakura? (Kipling Abroad 103-104)

Through these words, Kipling addresses the importance of plurality and calls for the suspending of religious hatred and prejudice and notably addresses readers who he deems to be followers of

“the Narrow Way”, indicating a critique of the racism of his day. As Andrew Lycett considers:

As an imperialist, he may have held unyielding opinions about political systems,

but as a writer in touch with the two sides of his head, he was much more flexible

in his attitudes to individuals. He liked to understand what made them tick, and

scrutinised them in the context of their jobs, beliefs and environments.

(“Introduction” 10)

I hope to have revealed again a two-sided narrative structure within Kipling’s works—Kipling the imperialist, and the liberal minded pluralist. Indeed, one cannot diminish the role of Kipling as imperialist, for as Bratlinger explains regarding his imperialist “divine” mission:

This “divine mission” Kipling attempted to communicate to his friends in the

United States by offering them his poem “The White Man’s Burden.” On

November 22, 1898, he sent it to Theodore Roosevelt, who had just been elected

governor of New York. Kipling’s specific aim was to encourage the United States

to take over the Philippines . . . and rule it with the same energy, [and] honor . . . he

believed, characterized British rule over the nonwhite populations of India and

Africa. (204)

My work affirms what contemporary critics such as Salman Rushdie point out as Kipling’s dual nature, for he states: “Kipling is a writer with a storm inside him, and he creates a mirror-storm of contradictory responses in the reader . . . I have never been able to read Kipling calmly. . . . [his

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early] stories do indeed have the power simultaneously to infuriate and to entrance” (74). Rushdie adds in a compelling tone: “There will always be plenty in Kipling that I will find difficult to forgive; but there is also enough truth in these stories to make them impossible to ignore” (80).

In my examination of Mowgli, I have shown that the text through the reliance on the trope of the trickster hybrid god seeks to deconstruct, at time, theories of race and dominance. Further,

Mowgli’s journey into assuming hybrid states reads as a struggle for self-knowledge, indicated by the desire to understand the depths of the mind through knowing the similarities and differences inherent in the Other. I have argued that it is only through a descent into the depths of multiple identity categories, that Mowgli remerges to teach a philosophy of enlightenment—defined as the doctrine of oneness, connectivity and commonality with creation.

***

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CHAPTER 5

Pilgrimage to Mecca: Hybridity and Burton’s Journey to Enlightenment

Abdul JanMohamed states that “the colonial mentality is dominated by a Manichean allegory of white and black, good and evil, salvation and damnation, civilization and savagery, superiority and inferiority, intelligence and emotion, self and other, subject and object”

(Manichean Aesthetics 4). In contemporary times, increasingly scholars are interested in the interstitial hybrid spaces and how some Victorian authors consciously frustrated the boundaries between the Occident and the Orient in their writing to explore the possibility of human commonality, unity, and universalism.

Bruno Latour, the famous French philosopher laments the loss of interconnection between disciplines, nations, and peoples and offers us a compelling look into why the concept of hybridity should be seen as the most beneficial emblem of our contemporary globalized reality. Throughout

We Have Never Been Modern, Latour seemingly argues that it is only through demolishing barriers—conceptual, theoretical, physical—that one will be granted greater meaning and awareness of self and reality. Here, he convinces the reader that notions of modernity are false and misleading and that there is merit to viewing how the ways of being and knowledge of the ancients permeate our culture, politics, science, arts, and philosophy. He uses a motif that I will employ in this chapter to explore Sir Richard Burton’s own central thesis regarding hybridity—specifically, the image of the tapestry of life that unites all creation across time. Latour notably speaks of himself as the quintessential hybrid and argues how we all really are this, if we but contemplate:

Hybrids ourselves . . . half engineers and half philosophers. . . . To shuttle back and

forth, we rely on the notion of translation, or network. More supple than the notion

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of system . . . more empirical than the notion of complexity, the idea of network is

the Ariadne’s thread of these interwoven stories. (3)

Latour takes us away from the rational planes and relies more on a mythical understanding of connection—that of Ariadne’s thread—to launch his interpretation of hybridity. He invokes the image of the goddess whose gift of yarn leads Theseus to escape the labyrinth upon slaying the

Minotaur. It seems for Latour and others, by noting the permeability of all barriers and through tracing the thread that intersects all, our collective shadow may be annihilated. For Latour, Kipling, and Burton, our own individual and collective escape from the quagmire of unconsciousness can be obtained through adopting hybrid consciousness, and contemplating upon the concept of “unity within multiplicity” as the gateway to enlightenment.

In Max Müller’s translation of The Upanishads, in the Seventh Brahmana, there appears also the metaphor of the spiritual "thread by which this world and the other world, and all beings are strung together" (132). Latour speaks of the challenge of bringing to light the latent and invisible: “The delicate networks traced by Ariadne’s little hand remain more invisible than spiderwebs” (Latour 4). Latour contends that it is by recuperating the myths of the ancients that we can reach a new era of mutualism, peace, and heightened consciousness. He recalls times of antiquity when scholars were not confined to one domain of thought and were rather polymaths well-versed in multiple areas such as spirituality, science, arithmetic, religion, arts, culture and philosophy and more. He cries: “Our intellectual life is out of kilter. Epistemology, the social sciences, the sciences of texts—all have their privileged vantage point, provided they remain separate. If the creatures we are pursuing cross all three spaces, we are no longer understood” (5).

His words point us to how the culturally sanctioned divisiveness in the West (and perhaps

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elsewhere) enables the shortcomings of our current reality whether we speak of environmental degradation, warfare, poverty, pollution, spiritual and moral crises, the hierarchy of wealth and power, or individual lack of compassion for the global collective. He brings forth the realization:

In the eyes of our critics the ozone hole above our heads, the moral law in our

hearts, the autonomous text, may be of interest, but only separately. That a delicate

shuttle should have woven together the heavens, industry, texts, souls and moral

law—this remains uncanny, unthinkable, unseemly. (5)

Latour offers a disparaging view of how intellectual circles operate in the West and issues instead the very same call to celebrating interconnectivity between disciplines and value-systems that permeate Burton’s quest for enlightenment.

Latour moreover alludes to the subtle but growing prominence of the chimera, the hybrid metaphor in our culture:

if we can no longer separate the work of proliferation [literature promoting

hybridity] from the work of purification [literature promoting one perspective/one

disciplinary vantage point] what are we going to become? Can we aspire to

Enlightenment without modernity? . . . [W]e are going to have to slow down,

reorient and regulate the proliferation of monsters by representing their existence

officially. (12)

Our study of modernity must evolve into one where we examine monsters, chimeras, tricksters: the gods that represent at once the grotesque and the sublime. In short, ancient mythology speaks to our current experience in palpable ways that must readily be explored. For Latour and Burton,

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us moderns must now turn to the ancients to salvage hope for a higher way of being. Latour,

Kipling, Nietzsche, and Burton alike call for a more evolved spirit of humanity to resurface through their discussions of the hybrid figure.

Latour speaks passionately of the inevitability of our mutual hybrid reality and how avoidance of this subject is but a short-sided and failed deferral: “the more we forbid ourselves to conceive of hybrids, the more possible their interbreeding becomes—such is the paradox of the moderns” (12). What, then, is required as an antidote, a panacea to cure our conceptual blinders and self-imposed limitations? For Kipling, Burton, Latour and Nietzsche, what may be required is a form of mystical or mythological atavism where we revert back to the heritage of the trickster god to offer illumination to carry us forward and to fortify us to address our most urgent and pressing issues: ranging from climate control and environmentalism, war and the fight for resources, religious pluralism and the search for inner spiritual peace. By refusing to comprehend the hybrid metaphor, we risk our collective salvation.

In Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Nietzsche outlines how hybridity can create a group of formidable shapers of global affairs:

In an age . . . that mixes races indiscriminately, human beings have in their bodies

the heritage of multiple origins, that is, opposite . . . drives and value standards that

fight each other. . . . [If] a real mastery and subtlety in waging war against oneself

. . . [has been gained] . . . then those magical, incomprehensible, and unfathomable

ones arise, those enigmatic men predestined for victory and seduction. . . . (112)

In this chapter, we will trace how Burton employs a similar mindset by proposing that transcendence and unparalled strength are available to those who venture into the untrammelled terrain of hybridity—the space lying beyond good and evil. Indeed, Burton self-positions as hybrid

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to explore esoteric forms of knowledge and the notion of unity in a time and age that saw great shifts in societal structure and viewpoints. As Bianca Tredennick notes, major changes came about due to the “the culmination of the industrial revolution . . . the railroad brought speed and mobility

. . . the telegraph . . . . [T]he Victorians suddenly . . . [found] themselves in a rapidly shrinking world with far greater and far quicker communication” (1). Further paradigm shifts in vantage points came about with the publication of key texts for she adds: “Darwin’s 1859 The Origin of

Species . . . changed the age of the world, threatened the narrative of Christianity, and challenged the special status of humankind” (1). Cosmopolitanism was also on the rise as pointed out by

Radhika Mohanram:

by midcentury, Victorian Britain was already cosmopolitan, in contact with

numerous places and cultures. The span of the Victorian Age, from 1837 to 1901,

was marked by tremendous changes in the day-to-day life of the British. The British

Empire spanned territories from Canada and the Caribbean to parts of Africa, India,

and what we now refer to as Australia and New Zealand. Its trade monopoly had

not only shifted the British economy and class system, but also indelibly changed

its tastes and aesthetics. (4)

In the previous chapters, I have outlined how Rudyard Kipling, through the deployment of the trickster god in select texts, offers ambivalent and conflicting depictions of race, religion, and empire—both supporting and critiquing the premise of the “civilizing mission.” I have argued that the chameleonic figures of Kim and Mowgli appear to us as compelling symbols of cultural hybridization, reflecting the potential of drawing together disparate groups and allowing the featured heroic individuals (both Indian and English) to reach enlightenment through embracing the notion of unity. In this chapter, I explore how like Kipling, Richard Burton too shows a similar

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fascination with the hybrid figure and uses a creative exploration of the hybrid/demon/god to offer his own distinct philosophy of life. Burton’s uses the trope of the hybrid to explore broader questions regarding common human origins, similarity of spiritual belief systems and cultural intersections in ways that reflect notable parallels with Kipling’s portrayal of the hybrid in Kim and The Jungle Book.

Like Kipling, Burton reflects a keen interest in the nature of human diversity and evolution, as well as in the topic of esoteric traditions, the occult and magical practises of the Orient and

Occident. Burton notably professes adherence to a sect of Sufism and some scholars point out that he was also a Freemason. Significantly, in a footnote in Chapter Eight of First Footsteps in East

Africa or, An Exploration of Harar, Burton boldly defines Sufism as “[t]he Eastern parent of Free- masonry” (footnote 44; n.pag.). In the next chapter, I will explore Burton’s understanding of unity as framed arguably by tenets of the Sufi tradition, in ways that compare well to Kipling’s formulation of the term as based on his adherence to Freemasonry. In this chapter, I raise the questions: what is the function of hybridity in selected works of Richard Burton?

In a collection of Burton’s “Terminal Essay” and notes on Arab culture and the Arabian

Nights entitled Love, War and Fancy, Burton contends that mainstream Islam is a stern, dry and puritanical creed that restrains the human spirit. He cites an Arabic saying to allegedly describe the qualities inherent within orthodox followers of Islam: “it will be said of a pious man, ‘He always studies the Koran, the Traditions and other books of Law and Religion; and he never reads poems nor listens to music or to stories’” (Love, War and Fancy 61). Burton subsequently expresses his own preference for less rigid mentalities by stating:

Mohammed left a dispensation . . . so arid. . . . But human nature was stronger than

the Prophet . . . took speedy and absolute revenge. Before the first century had

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elapsed, orthodox Al-Islam was startled by the rise of Tasawwuf or Sufyism, a

revival of classic Platonism and Christian Gnosticism . . . which, quickened by the

glowing imagination of the East, speedily formed itself into a creed the most

poetical and impractical, the most spiritual and the most transcendental ever

invented; satisfying all man’s hunger for ‘belief’. . . . (Love, War and Fancy 62;

emphasis added)

Burton accentuates and extolls the syncretic origins of Sufism, often through comparisions to

Christianity in a somewhat denigrating manner. Edward Rice notes how “Burton's adult life was passed in a ceaseless quest for the kind of secret knowledge he labeled broadly as ‘Gnosis’” (3) but “he was often [also] a scoffer and skeptic, particularly of organized religion” (3). I suggest that

Burton utilizes the trope of hybridity to arrive at a state of “Gnosis” and enlightenment.

Christopher Ondaatje notes, “Burton’s chameleon-like nature was nowhere more evident than in matters of religion and sex. In religion, for example, he distanced himself from

Protestantism and Catholicism. And he became fascinated with Islam, and its mystical current,

Sufism” (66). It may well be the case that Burton saw Sufism as a philosophy that appeared more liberating, tolerant and well-aligned with his free spirited nature. Further, Burton’s preferred choice of disguise during his travels to Arabia was often that of a Sufi who went by the names of

Mirza Abdullah or Haji Abdu. In the following two chapters, I propose that the figure of Burton— the adventurer, explorer, and the mystic—appears in Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El

Medinah and Meccah, and later in Stone Talk, and The Kasidah as a variant, if not a mirror-image, or precursor to the character of Kim (and Mowgli). I suggest that Kipling and Burton partially resolve ambiguity around matters of race by presenting the trickster/ hybrid hero as an emblem for unity, enlightenment, and non-duality. What is more, Burton and Kipling looked to the Orient for

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their intellectual counterparts and found kinship with free-thinkers such as Kabir, Ram Rohan Roy, and Hafiz—figures who aspired to promote teachings of unity. I suggest throughout that Burton, through his alter-ego Haji Abdu, is like Kabir—a figure who sought a universal religion that would unite humankind. He is the perpetual seeker searching for a “Universal Law” (The Kasidah 82) as seen when he ponders: “this craving after the secrets and mysteries of the future, the unseen, the unknown, is common to all races and to every age” (The Kasidah 82). In what follows, I argue that

Burton, like Kipling, at times challenged the dominant ideologies of the time by exploring the possibility of human commonality and universality through imaginatively reworking the myth of the trickster god.

Stephen Lecourt, in his examination of Burton and Mormonism posits that he is “following a recent turn in work on Victorian global thought away from the postcolonial dialectic of self and other and toward an exploration of how the Victorians imagined sameness abroad” (3). In a manner, this chapter explores Burton’s conceptual engagement with the notions of sameness and difference in his travelogue. I will focus solely upon Burton’s infamous travelogue that chronicled his journey into the Muslim heartlands of Mecca and Medina entitled Personal Narrative of a

Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Mecca (first published in 1855, second edition published in 1857).

Regarding the societal impact of travel literature, Douglas Lorimer explains how travel literature informed other domains such as science and culture:

The literature of travel and exploration, sponsored by learned societies such as the

Royal Geographical Society, was accepted as scientific knowledge. These books

and lectures contained much more in the way of descriptions of cultural differences

than strictly biological knowledge. In more popular forms, the descriptions in

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science publications borrowed extensively from and were indistinguishable from

travel literature. (62)

Barbara Korte defines the genre as follows: “travel writing is defined by the interaction of the human subject with the world. . . . Accounts of travel let us participate in acts of (inter)cultural perception and cultural construction, in processes of understanding and misunderstanding” (5).

She rightly adds that “accounts of travel are never objective” (6) and that the genre blurred the lines between fiction and non-fiction. She asserts: “As far as the text and its narrative techniques are concerned, there appears to be no essential distinction between the travel account proper and purely fictional forms of travel literature” (10). Given this understanding, I suggest that Burton’s travelogue reads at times like a work of fiction tracing the adventures and spiritual journey of a central character—Burton. As such, I seek to draw thematic connections in terms of portrayals of hybridity between Kim to Burton’s famous travelogue.

In this chapter and the next, we will examine the interplay between the figure of the hybrid and the author’s conceptualization of enlightenment. I begin with an examination of Personal

Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah to show thematic correlations to Kim.

Journey to Mecca: Burton’s Performativity of Race

Burton’s Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El-Medinah and Meccah (1855-1856), at one level, is like a detailed manual instructing the reader on the art of disguise.31 In this text, Burton

31 Fawn Brodie points out that “He was the first European to explore the forbidden Moslem city of Harar in Somaliland, which promised death to any infidel” (16). For Burton’s account of his trip to Harar, see First Footsteps in East Africa. 259

maintains his interest in linguistics and anthropology by detailing the customs and manners of the inhabitants of Arabia and offers a captivating account of the diverse landscapes that he traverses.

Focal to this text is his narration of the steps taken regarding self-transformation—literal and perhaps figurative—that enabled him to enter into the Islamic heartland without discovery. One would imagine that the pinnacle of his journey would be marked by his entrance into the Islam’s most sacred site: the Kaaba in Mecca. However, as we will see, this is not the case and his account of this stage of his journey is accompanied by no significant fanfare. Clearly, Burton explains that he is not transported into a state of spiritual transcendence through the pilgrimage alone. So the reader must consider: what was the purpose or outcome of his mission, one that he so decidedly constructs as dangerous?

Burton does not engage in self-aggrandizement when he expresses with a note of humility that his endeavour to enter Mecca was accomplished by other Europeans before him. He tempers the sensational quality of his account by acknowledging that he could have attempted his journey without feigning disguise. This declaration doubly emphasizes the importance of examining the politics of shape-shifting in this text as it calls the reader to decipher the intentions behind his journey. Burton clearly states in his introduction that he would easily be granted permission to perform Hajj as a British citizen if he declared himself a Muslim prior to embarking on the journey.

He observes in his revised preface to the third edition (1879) of this text: “On the other hand, any

Jew, Christian, or Pagan, after declaring before the Kazi and the Police Authorities at Cairo, or even at Damascus, that he embraces Al-Islam, may perform, without fear . . . his pilgrimage in all safety” (n.pag.). He offers a weak explanation that new converts are treated with contempt by others and often regarded in a condescending light. Burton further explains regarding the choice of identity:

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My spirit could not bend to own myself . . . an object of suspicion . . . and of

contempt to all. Moreover, it would have obstructed the aim of my wanderings. . .

. . [M]en do not willingly give information to a “new Moslem,” especially a Frank:

they suspect his conversion to be feigned or forced, look upon him as a spy, and let

him see as little of life as possible. (Personal Narrative 1: 23)32

Moreover, Burton explains that he took pains to consciously study Islam before the onset of the pilgrimage. The reader cannot fully determine if he became a Muslim or simply trained to appear as one. However, it is clear that Burton expressed deep respect and solidarity with Islam. It was perhaps an active decision on his part to opt for a persona/mask rather than embark on the pilgrimage as an open convert to Islam. The choice aimed to sensationalize and heighten the allure of his project, as well as make the journey appear as one with higher stakes as an intruder/non- believer would be undoubtedly punished. But his choice can also be read as a conscious one where he chooses to perform hybridity in an experiment to embody and know the Other. In his preface to the revised third edition, Burton further notes on the singularity of his endeavour:

After my return to Europe, many inquired if I was not the only living European who

has found his way to the Head Quarters of the Moslem Faith. I may answer in the

affirmative, so far, at least, that when entering the penetralia of Moslem life my

Eastern origin was never questioned. . . . (n.pag.)

Burton highlights that he is the first European, to his knowledge, who performed Hajj as an

Easterner without discovery of his true origins. In other words, he accentuates how the hybrid

32 Unless otherwise indicated, the quotations for Burton’s Personal Narrative (1857) are from the second edition (2 vols). 261

state and his performance of race contribute to the unique nature of his adventure narrative. The travelogue must be read, then, with attention to Burton’s emphasis on the hybrid state as this text is possibly more about the dynamics of hybridity than the tale of the pilgrimage alone.

As we will explore, the hybrid mantle gave Burton increased space to maneuver and to explore the world around him—for he found greater mobility, freedom of association with multiple ethnic groups, and the freedom to adopt spiritual and religious frameworks at will and without constraint. The greatest appeal of the hybrid emblem, perhaps, is that it mirrored Burton’s desire to remain unnamed, uncontained by the impositions of all classificatory systems. Burton understanding of universality, I argue, was enabled through entering into the hybrid space.

Like Kipling, Burton also explores the differences between the seemingly “liberated” freethinker/esoteric and the exoteric imprisoned by an orthodox mindset. Homi Bhabha articulates that “[t]he study of world literature might be the study of the way in which cultures recognize themselves through their projections of ‘otherness’” (17). Exploring the theme of “hybrid mysticism”, Burton adopts a reversal of stances at times as though he seeks to know the self, and the nature of divinity, through seeing the other as self and self as other.

At multiple levels, Burton’s oeuvre is marked by attempts to dissolve the very barriers between self and other—whether through his exploration of sexuality, spirituality, cultural practices around the world, or through examining comparative literature and mythology. For example, he observes:

The literary origin of the fable is not Buddhistic. . . . Nor was it Aesopic . . . Africa

therefore was the home of the best-fable not . . . because it was the chosen land of

animal worship, but simply because the Nile-land originated every form of

literature between fabliau and epos. (Love, War, and Fancy 55)

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Burton paradoxically shows a preoccupation throughout his works with evolutionary biology arguing for the common origins of all humans while seeing Africa as the source point. Reflecting on the topic of cross-pollination between East and West, Burton observes: “when the conquests of

Macedonian Alexander completed what Sesostris and Semiramis had begun, and mingled the manifold families of mankind by joining the eastern to the western world, the Orient became formally hellenised” (Love, War, and Fancy 56). These impressions capture Burton’s desire to argue in favor for a belief in human commonality, though this view is often problematized by contradictory stances. In several cases Burton issues racist judgements regarding specific groups for as Betina González-Azcárate and Joshua Lund point out: “Burton’s racism only allows him to see the enslaved African in Brazil as a by-product of imperial practices, one that can be tolerated, even ignored, in the periphery precisely because it is “naturally” ceding before a higher form”

(271). In this chapter, I focus on a specific aspect of Burton where, through embodying the trickster figure, Burton accounts for the ideas of unity and the permeability of perceived cultural boundaries.

In the introduction, he explains how his journey corresponds to an inner inquiry regarding self:

“it is the personal that interests mankind.” . . . some perchance will be curious to

see what measures I adopted, in order to appear suddenly as an Eastern upon the

stage of Oriental life; . . . I make no apology for the egotistical semblance of the

narrative . . . [a] mere outpourings of a mind full of self. (Personal Narrative 1: 4-

If the text, then, is to reveal much about Burton, it does not succeed so well at accomplishing this task; a deeper analysis of ancillary, partner texts such as Stone Talk and The Kasidah is required

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to demystify the commentary on Self and Other with relation to Burton and his choice of assuming hybrid guise in this narrative.

Burton and the character of Kim share many characteristics, objectives, and interests in common. Edward Rice writes of Kipling’s invocation of Burton in his writings:

Rudyard Kipling used him at least twice, once as Strickland in the short story "Miss

Youghal's Sais" and rather vaguely as Colonel Creighton . . . in Kim; there are also

shades of Burton in the strange shopkeeper Lurgan. Kim is filled with anecdotes

that sound as if Kipling had heard them directly from Burton or from Burton's

friends. . . . Strickland "held the extraordinary theory" that an officer in India

"should try to know as much about the natives as the natives themselves." (5-6)

Rice and others have overlooked the parallels between Kim and Burton joined by their fascination for shapeshifting—a gap that this study attempts to fill. Like Kim, Burton is a polyglot, cartographer, spy, and student of culture and religion who also quests for truth by embarking on a pilgrimage. To achieve his plan of entering Mecca undiscovered, Burton first masters the art of disguise and chooses to appear variously as a magician, a healer, a saint and a mystic—strikingly roles also taken by Kim. Like Kipling, Burton places great emphasis on the topic of magic, religion, spirituality, and the supernatural in association with crafting and embodying hybrid guise. It is clear that Burton expresses a deep penchant for the theme of magic as a metaphor for self- transformation and the idea of transmutation/alchemy as he explains in his notes to The Arabian

Nights:

Every man at some turn or term of his life has longed for supernatural powers and

a glimpse of the Wonderland. Here [in the space of “The Nights”] he is in the midst

of it. Here he sees mighty spirits summoned to work the human mite’s will,

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however whimsical, who can transport him in an eye-twinkling whithersoever he

wishes. (Love, War, and Fancy 59)

He speaks further to the appeal of supernatural creatures and how tales of fancy, such as The

Arabian Nights, positively inspire and construct the human psyche: “They form a phantasmagoria in which archangels and angels, devils and goblins, men of air, of fire, of water, naturally mingle with men of earth” (Love, War, and Fancy 71). Burton outlines the broad appeal of mythical creatures that enable and signify freedom of movement and permit the intermingling of boundaries by opening the spaces between realms. Already, Burton shows a fascination with such abilities that he strives to acquire in his own material world. Perhaps the hybrid figure that Burton adopts for himself during his travels to Arabia is an amalgam of these fanciful dreams of uninhibited movement and access to forbidden spaces.

It is widely known that throughout his life Burton was interested in spirituality, the occult and magic, leading his to seek company within Theosophical societies, Freemasonry, Sufism and other esoteric societies. Kim too is a text that heavily invests in the theme of magical arts with relation to Freemasonry and secret brotherhoods in India. Rice notes that while Burton finally settled upon his Sufi identity, he sought teachings in other systems:

Even then he found other esoteric interests to investigate: spiritualism, Theosophy,

the doctrines of Hermes Trismegistus, and extrasensory perception. . . . Despite his

private searches, however, he was often a scoffer and skeptic, particularly of

organized religion, and wrestled constantly with the problem of "God and No-God."

(3)

He writes further on Burton’s position as perpetual nomad and seeker:

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Burton's adult life was passed in a ceaseless quest for the kind of secret knowledge

he labeled broadly as "Gnosis," . . . [that] led him to investigate the Kabbalah . . .

Roman Catholicism, a Hindu snake caste . . . before settling on Sufism, a mystical

discipline that defies simple labels. He remained a more or less faithful practitioner

of Sufi teachings the rest of his life, seeking the mystical heights denied all but the

elect, what certain Muslims define as . . . the Perfect Man, who has attained the

most profound spiritual goals. (3)

I suggest that in Burton’s travelogue, his many spiritual inquiries are inextricably linked with his interest in the notion of hybridity, transformation of self, and the search for unity.

Offering detail regarding the art of disguise, Burton informs that his persona of preference is that of a Sufi dervish who dabbled in magic and healing. Regarding his training in Sufism, Burton details his experience as a Sufi disciple in Alexandria prior to embarking on the Hajj:

I prepared to assume the character of a wandering Dervish. . . . A reverend man . .

.initiated me . . . [and] elevated me to the proud position of a Murshid [or Master]

in the mystic craft. I was therefore sufficiently well acquainted with the tenets and

practices of these Oriental Freemasons. No character in the Moslem world is so

proper for disguise as that of the Dervish. It is assumed by all ranks, ages, and

creeds. . . . [T]he Dervish is allowed to ignore ceremony . . . no one asks him —

the chartered vagabond — Why he comes here? . . . Add to this character a little

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knowledge of medicine, a “moderate skill in magic . . . you appear in the East to

peculiar advantage. (Personal Narrative 1: 13; emphasis added).33

In this passage, Burton highlights what he perceives to be the connections between Freemasonry and Sufism. Elsewhere, he identifies the syncretic, hybrid nature of Sufism by declaring that “the rise of Tasawwuf or Sufyism, [is] a revival of classic Platonism and Christian Gnosticism” (Love,

War, and Fancy 62). Stuart Holroyd examines Gnostic traditions and argues, “Fundamental to

Hermeticism and to the practices and strategies that it developed was the principle that there exist[s] occult connections, relations and influences between seemingly disparate things” (94).

Rice explains how Burton was driven by “Gnosis” “to uncover the very source of existence and the meaning of his role on earth” (3). Burton’s exploration of Sufism through the adoption of the

Sufi mask is perhaps related to a desire to transcend boundaries of all forms—to acquire knowledge about the nature of self and creation.

Burton uses the Sufi dervish to define the attributes of Hybrid hero; for the dervish is a free-thinker, free to wander, free to choose and discard whatever rules and regulations—political, social, cultural religious and otherwise—according to his temperamental whims. Perhaps for

Burton, this figure holds the keys to enlightenment by stepping beyond the strictures of duality by advocating for a moral code that situates conceptually, to borrow Nietzsche’s articulation, a space that lies “Beyond Good or Evil.” Like the characters of Kim and Mowgli, Burton—the Sufi

Dervish— represents a pariah figure who is free to do as he pleases and can elect to live a culturally and societally unrestrained life.

33 The parallels with the character of Kim are clear: Kim chose often to don the guise of the seeker, the chela, and Burton expresses affinity for the role of the seeker, the “eternal vagabond” and mad dervish. 267

On his path, Burton befriends a fellow hybrid, a Russian who converts to Islam. This character appears as an equivalent to the hybrid figures of Lurgan Sahib or Bagheera, who represent multiculturalism and open-mindedness, and act as teachers and guides to Kim and

Mowgli respectively. The section of the text where the two meet is important as it is here that

Burton closely identifies the benefits of becoming hybrid. Like in Kim and to a lesser degree, The

Jungle Book stories, hybridity is only partly intrinsic and must be learned and mastered. Burton, like Kim, becomes seemingly initiated into a society of hybrids through rituals and initiations. The text stipulates that the mantle of hybridity must be conferred by one who already has intimate knowledge and is able to initiate the neophyte. Under Lurgan Sahib’s tutelage, Kim learns to recite the Koran, master the art of disguise, and honor and investigate the religious/spiritual traditions of the world. Soon after arriving in Cairo, Burton finds the Russian who has turned “native,” and conveys the following narrative of their encounter: “When we lived under the same roof, the Haji and I became fast friends. . . . Originally from Russia, he also had been a traveller, and in his wanderings he had cast off most of the prejudices of his people. ‘I [the Russian] believe in Allah and his Prophet, and in nothing else’” (Personal Narrative 1: 44; emphasis added). Burton follows a proto-postmodernist vein and makes a conscious association here when he employs the phrase

“casting off prejudice” as though prejudicial thought is like a garment that can easily be discarded—and exchanged for a newer and better suited garb. Thus, he points to the theme of his narrative that prejudice can be exchanged or rejected wholly by exercising conscious thought. In this case, prejudice is understood as a result of socialization and enculturalization. We see now how “casting off prejudice” is a theme that is of central significance to both Kipling and Burton.

At one partial level, Kim and Burton excel in chameleonic behaviour through adopting multiple colorful guises as if to highlight the superficiality and malleability of outward markers of race. At

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another prominent level, their choice to become another may be seen as comical or theatrical or even racially violent/insensitive. Indeed, both writers choose to overlook such factors and instead explore individually the psychological and spiritual outcome of consciously shapeshifting into multiple Other forms.

Regarding nineteenth-century perceptions of the value of Oriental knowledge, literature and religion, Viswanathan notes that in 1824, James Mill “called attention to the state of the

Madrassa (Mohammedan College) in Calcutta and the Hindu College in Benares set up during the tenure of Warren Hastings. . . . Mill questioned whether Oriental poetry was a worthwhile objective for establishing colleges in the first place” (Masks 39).Viswanathan further cites Horace Wilson and his 1836 essay, “Education on the Natives of India” that forecasts the ill effects of promoting

English education systems in lieu of indigenous institutions/methods of teaching:

By annihilating native literature, by sweeping away all sources of pride and

pleasure in their own mental efforts, by rendering a whole people dependent upon

a remote and unknown country for all their ideas and for the very words in which

to clothe them, we should degrade their character, depress their energies and render

them incapable of aspiring to any intellectual distinction. (qtd. in Viswanathan,

Masks 42)

Burton’s celebration of native customs and pratices appears in opposition to these perspectives that demanded the replacement of traditional modes of learning with that imparted by the colonizer.

The Russian Haji also aids Burton by instructing him to adopt a choicer and more suitable guise than that of the Sufi/Dervish. Burton reflects on his suggestions:

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“If you persist in being an ’Ajami,” said the Haji, “you will get yourself into trouble

. . . in Arabia you will be beaten because you are a heretic. . . .” After long

deliberation about the choice of nations, I became a “Pathan.” Born in India of

Afghan parents, who had settled in the country, educated at Rangoon, and sent out

to wander . . . . (Personal Narrative 1: 44; emphasis added)

When choosing his alter-ego, Burton exchanges one face readily for another—that of an Afghan raised in a nomadic and diverse lifestyle in multiple lands—signifying perhaps, to contemporary readers, a proto-postmodern notion of the mutability of self. Like Kim, Burton faces little resistance and expresses no qualms in assuming “false” personas, and narrates no major circumstances where his “true” identity was subject to discovery. In this section, Burton presents his rationale for cultivating a fluidity of identity while illustrating how this space is limited to a chosen few.

Another similarity to Kim is that Burton casts himself at times as a healer, trickster, and saint. Burton informs us on his views on superstition and magic:

In our West African colonies the phrase “growing black” was applied to colonists,

who, after a term of residence, became thoroughly imbued with the superstitions of

the land. . . . As a “Hindi” I could use animal magnetism, taking care, however, to

give the science a specious supernatural appearance . . . yet patients would consider

themselves my Murids (disciples), and delighted in kissing the hand of the Sahib

Nafas or minor saint. (Personal Narrative 1: 58)

Ironically, one can detect a tone of condescension/egocentrism that Burton bears toward those

Europeans who have fallen to the superstitions of the locals—he seems also to capitalize upon the superstitions and beliefs of the locals to his own advantage. He even accords himself with special

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agency and identifies as master of the craft, taking pleasure in using his talents to garner respect as a “minor saint” and doctor. Further, he pompously expresses how he has “successfully” filled this role by reflecting:

Then there was something infinitely seducing in the character of a magician, doctor,

and fakir . . . combined to make "great medicine." Men, women, and children

besieged my door, by which means I could see the people face to face, and

especially the fair sex. . . . Even respectable natives, after witnessing a performance

of "Mandal" and the Magic mirror, opined that the stranger was a holy man, gifted

with supernatural powers, and knowing everything. (Personal Narrative 1: 12-3;

emphasis added)

The passage reads somewhat comically and reflects his sense of self-aggrandizement, as well as reveals a voyeuristic quality with Burton seeking to see the hidden lives of the veiled women.

Korte notes: “While the imperialist view is founded on an ideology which strives to possess what it has seen, the tourist seems to be driven by the pure pleasure of seeing” (94). Burton appears as both the tourist and the imperialist in this scene as his motives for desiring to know and see the other are not readily made clear. Edward Said observes:

[W]hat is never far from the surface of Burton’s prose is another sense it radiates,

a sense of assertion and domination over all complexities of Oriental life. . . . [H]e

is a European for whom such knowledge of Oriental society as he has is possible

only for a European, with a European’s self-awareness of society as a collection of

rules and practices. (Orientalism 196-7; emphasis added)

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Indeed, Burton’s choice to appear as “magician, doctor, and fakir” may be linked to his imperial agenda to infiltrate into the domestic sphere to retrieve information to aid the expansion of empire.

Mohanram contemplates upon the question, “what is Whiteness?” (178) and ponders:

Whiteness travels like plants and seeds, a Caucasian tsunami in the nineteenth

century. In fact, it is the traveling, the contact with colonized, racial Others that

greatly conferred a whiteness to British bodies of the Victorian Age. . . . Whiteness

is also a melancholic formation; the white subject cannibalistically and mournfully

consumes the Other (178).

In the passages describing Burton’s delight in deceiving the Other, one detects such a thirst to know the other, otherwise described by Mohanram as a form of cultural “cannibalism.” At another level, like Kim, by asserting that he wields esoteric knowledge/magical powers of healing, Burton casts himself in a divine, otherworldly light—in other words, as the trickster, hybrid god.

Burton notably offers an apology for his careless behaviour and reveals foresight by providing justification for “healing” natives:

But the reader must not be led to suppose that I acted “Carabin,” or “Sangrado”

without any knowledge of my trade. From youth I have always been a dabbler in

medical and mystical study. . . . I therefore considered myself . . . not more likely

to do active harm than most of the regularly graduated young surgeons who start to

“finish themselves” upon the frame of the British soldier. (Personal Narrative 1:

13)

Burton highlights that no bodily harm was inflicted upon others and perhaps unconvincingly, expresses that he is free of malicious intent. It cannot be overlooked that his words indicate, at one

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level, the desire to fool and trick the Oriental Other and to obtain an intimate look into the private lives of his patients. Carl Jung offers observes that “[t]here is something of the trickster in the character of the shaman and medicine-man, for he, too, often plays malicious jokes on people”

(Four Archetypes 160).

Significantly, Burton’s explains that he will always return to the archetype of the mad dervish/trickster no matter what guise he temporarily assumes: “I assumed the polite, pliant manners of an Indian physician, and the dress of a small Effendi (or gentleman), still, however, representing myself to be a Dervish, and frequenting the places where Dervishes congregate” (1:

45). I raise this point as while he does not explicitly mention this, Burton never falls away from the role of the trickster god, manifest here as the Sufi heretic, who perpetually seeks evidence and validation for the Sufic theory of the oneness of creation defined by Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) as the

“unity of being.”

Burton may have fixed upon the desire to become a Sufi earlier in his career when at length, he visits and writes about Sufi communities in the Sindh region of India. Significantly, in Sindh:

And the Races that Inhabit the Valley of the Indus, Burton expresses knowledge of the concept of the “unity of being” when he writes of the Sufi practices that he witnesses in Sindh. He observes that “[t]he religious fanatics usually hold the tenant of Wahdat el Wujud, or the unity of existence

(in kind),—utter Pantheisism, as the very phrase denotes that God is all things and all things God”

(Sindh 219). Burton explains in a note that many Sufis do not abide by the principle of the “unity of being” but rather, the “Nakshbandi . . . believe in Wahdat el Shuhud, and consider . . . a distinction between Creator and creature” (408). I suggest that this concept of unity will permeate and emerge within select works by Burton examined in this chapter and the next.

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In this section, I have outlined how Burton emphasizes role playing and metamorphosis and links this with the intent to transcend class, race, and creed during his pilgrimage to Mecca.

The embodiment of the trickster god, the Sufi dervish, for Burton, is directly linked to the search for transcendence and unity.

III

Burton as Spy and Messenger

It is unsurprising that another facet of Burton’s multi-faceted self is that of spy and messenger. Like Kim, Burton is tasked with extracting information that can aid Britain’s colonizing missions. Burton sprinkles his account with reference to cartographical data, the possibility of new land and water trade routes, as well as commentaries on the complacency or resistance of the peoples that he encounters to foreign control. However, at times, his attention to these matters is superficial and his active interest appears to lie in gathering data and understanding regarding his thesis on the unity between peoples and civilizations. One can see how often Burton’s notes on reconnaissance are captured as tangential information and removed to the space of footnotes or presented as cursory and extraneous remarks. I suggest that like Kim’s role as a spy,

Burton’s narrative reveals how he is invested in acquiring spiritual and philosophical findings during his travels. His journey to Mecca appears indeed, as a pilgrimage for spiritual wisdom and growth.

We may recall how Kipling sets his story of Kim against the backdrop of the historical event of the Great Game illustrating how Kim and those in his inner circle act as a buffer against

Russian and French intrusion. Rice speaks of Burton’s role in strengthening the British Empire when he observes:

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He was a pioneer in ethnological studies . . . although Burton's contribution to the

science has only recently been recognized. Perhaps as important as any other

preoccupation was his role in what was later called the "Great Game," a phrase

Rudyard Kipling popularized in Kim. . . .

He never wrote openly about it but left clues scattered throughout his works—

notably in his cryptic references to the use of "Secret Service funds" in the

overthrow of certain native princes and to the "shady side" of great military

victories. . . . And he was one of the agents who helped put the Indian provinces of

Sind, Baluchistan, and the western Punjab firmly under British control. (3-4)

Burton participates in the future of territorial expansion by commenting on how his exploration of uncharted terrain will offer strategic and political advantage to future European colonial endeavours. As Rice further notes:

Under the pretense of amateur archaeological investigation, he explored areas of

Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria that his government considered worthy of

expropriation. There were other areas that, sometimes virtually alone, he scouted

out for England and then suggested taking. (4)

In this particular narrative, he markedly leaves out any extended commentary on the function of colonialism and for the most part, refrains from issuing remarks that outright sanction the civilizing mission. In fact, he curiously expresses anti-proselytizing stances throughout and further deconstructs notions of civility by attacking popular Victorian moral codes and Europe-centered notions of civility.

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Burton interjects periodically to reaffirm that his study will allow for a closer mapping of foreign lands—something that will greatly benefit England’s imperial interests. Moreover, Burton glosses over the cases of violence and conflict that took place in the regions already colonized. A notable example of Burton aiding the empire is when he speaks prophetically of the enormous potential of securing Egypt as a colony. He outlines strategies to ensure control in the following manner:

There is no longer much to fear from the fanaticism of the people, and a little

prudence would suffice to command the interests of the Mosque. The chiefs of

corporations, in the present state of popular feeling, would offer even less difficulty

to an invader or a foreign ruler than the Olema. Briefly, Egypt is the most tempting

prize which the East holds out to the ambition of Europe, not excepted even the

Golden Horn. (Personal Narrative 1: 110)

Regarding the Ottomans as rival forces, he proceeds to point out how the Egyptians are averse to their rule as they exerted:

an iron-handed and lion-hearted despotism. . . . Of all foreigners, they would prefer

the French yoke. . . . But whatever European nation secures Egypt will win a

treasure. . . . [C]apable of supporting an army of 180,000 men, of paying a heavy

tribute . . . this country in western hands will command India, and by a ship-canal

between Pelusium and Suez would open the whole of Eastern Africa. (1: 109-10)

I suggest that in terms of focus and attention given, Burton’s interest in exploring the idea of universality and human connectivity takes precedence in this narrative over political issues much

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in the same way that Kim appears deeply engrossed and informed by the Lama’s spiritual quest.

Burton justifies his expedition and discloses his objectives:

I was desirous . . . to obtain information concerning the Great Eastern wilderness,

the vast expanse marked Rub’a al-Khai (the “Empty Abode”) in our maps . . . and

finally, to try, by actual observation, the truth of a theory proposed by Colonel W.

Sykes . . .[that] in the population of the vast Peninsula there must exist certain

physiological differences sufficient to warrant our questioning the common origin

of the Arab family. (Personal Narrative 1: 3; emphasis added)

Here, Burton illustrates how he surveys the region with an eye to trade routes and commerce but also couples this drive with the desire to find evidence for the common origins of all Arabs. Later, we find that he extends this search to determine for himself the unity of all humanity—albeit, like

Kipling, this is never a stance that he uniformly holds. He expresses great ambivalence when he examines theories of evolution and migration as he falls back to racist diatribes:

Finally, I have found proof . . . for believing in three distinct races. 1. The aborigines

. . . . 2. A Syrian or Mesopotamian stock . . . . 3. An impure Syro-Egyptian clan. . .

. . And in most places, even in the heart of Meccah, I met with debris of heathenry,

proscribed by Mohammed. . . . (Personal Narrative 1: 4; emphasis added)

It is clear that Burton maintains the existence of a racial hierarchy and expresses contempt for certain groups of “uncivilized” and less “evolved” people who have not benefited from the forces of modernization (in this account, marked by conversion to Islam). Ironically, he expresses such sentiments that are bound to a binary method of categorizing race as he himself attempts to resolve the dualities afflicting human interaction. He observes on the topic of human evolution and the purported superiority of distinct “stock”:

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Phrenology and physiognomy, be it observed, disappoint you often amongst

civilised people. . . . But they are tolerably safe guides when groping your way

through the mind of man in his so-called natural state, a being of impulse, in that

chrysalis condition of mental development which is rather instinct than reason.

(Personal Narrative 1: 17)

This is a clear example where, like in Kim, blatant derogatory comments surface. These words reflect Burton’s formulation of a hierarchy of human development based on a degradation of certain groups as “closer to nature” and “uncivilized.” What is clear is that Burton wavers throughout his account, sometimes extolling certain groups and deriding others as inferior on grounds of delayed evolution and intellectual development. However, as I will illustrate he continually attempts to reconcile this position by providing a philosophical case for oneness and connectivity between people.

Like Kim, while gathering data for the promotion of empire, Burton notably refrains from promoting the need to convert the locals. In fact, he curiously interrogates western assumptions of civility as he explains how he is repulsed by the pretentious behaviour of Arabs who have become westernized. For example, Burton reflects on a particular stay at Khudabakhsh:

But at the end of that time my patience was thoroughly exhausted. My host had

become a civilised man, who sat on chairs, who ate with a fork, who talked

European politics, and who had learned to admire, if not to understand, liberty—

liberal ideas! and was I not flying from such things? (Personal Narrative 1: 35)

Here, and elsewhere Burton avidly seeks alternative vantage points and enlightened perspectives and he unashamedly declares that he has not found higher learning, or gnosis, in Europe.

Viswanathan notes how “[t]he English Education Act of 1835, proposed by Governor-General

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William Bentinck on [Babington] Macaulay’s advice, made English the medium of instruction in

Indian education” (44). Korte too points out that “Another aspect common . . . to Victorian travel writing is that they largely uphold the values and norms of the traveller’s home society” (98).

Burton departs somewhat from these dominant perspectives in blatant and bold ways. In the following passage, he carefully outlines European mannerisms, sexism, and moral hypocrisy in his foreword to The Arabian Nights (1885) and entreats the reader to dispel prejudices against

Muslims:

Apparently England is forgetting that she is at present the greatest Mohammedan

empire in the world . . . . We may, perhaps, find it hard to restore to England those

pristine virtues, that tone and temper, which made her what she is; but at any rate

we (myself and a host of others) can offer her the means of dispelling her ignorance

concerning the Eastern races with who she is continually in contact. (Love, War,

and Fancy 34)

He proceeds to exalt the superiority of the Muslim “race” as he declares in his chapter entitled

“The Character of the Arab”: “those who can discern the soul of goodness in things evil will note the true nobility of the Moslem’s mind in the Moyen Age, and the cleanliness of his life from cradle to grave” (Love, War, and Fancy 35). He even derides Victorian notions of female chastity and purity and suggests that “Orientals” are more honoring of women’s rights. He writes,

“Christians place them [women] on a pedestal, the observed of all observers, expose them to every danger and if they fall accuse and abuse them instead of themselves” (Love, War, and Fancy 143).

He scathingly adds that sexuality is a topic that is puritanically treated in England and that

Europeans can benefit from learning non-Western sexual teachings and attitudes: “The mock virtue, the most immodest modesty of England and of the United States in the xixth century,

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pronounces the subject [of female sexuality] foul and fulsome” (Love, War, and Fancy 144).

Burton further critically questions “Briton’s right to will property away from his wife and offspring” (Love, War, and Fancy 135). In contrast, he suggests that Muslim women enjoy rights not granted to her European counterpart:

Europeans, knowing that Moslem women are cloistered and appear veiled in public,

begin with believing them to be mere articles of luxury; and only after long

residence they find out that nowhere has the sex so much real liberty and power as

in the Moslem East. They can possess property and will it away without the

husband’s leave. (Love, War, and Fancy 136)

Attempting to banish inflated and prejudicial stereotypes of the Muslim, he declares: “in no

Moslem land, from Morocco to China, do we find the brutals without manners or morals which are bred by Europeans and especially by English civilisation” (135). Colette Colligan observes further regarding his focus upon homosexual practices in Arabia that his

interest in the alleged frankness and liberality of Arab sexuality disguises an

overwhelming and pervasive preoccupation with the idea of English sexual

inadequacy. Burton’s translations allowed his English readers to displace this

putative sexual perversion onto the Arabs, but also forced them to face the

inadequacies and prudery of English sexual mores. (2).34

Paulo Lemos Horta also notes: “Burton was ahead of his contemporaries in Victorian England in culturally contextualizing and seeking to decriminalize homosexuality” (90). As John Maynard

34 Colette Colligan further informs: “Burton’s underground translations served as sexual guidebooks, not only migrating and transforming the Arab text to accommodate the English armchair sexual adventurer, but even inciting migration among wealthier readers to the presumed source of sexual deviance and fulfilment as well as the birthplace of European homosexual identity” (12). 280

notes: “Victorians often are unusual in their dual obsession with a discourse of sexuality and their need to seem to repress it” (271), and Burton calls his readers to adopt a freer mindset regarding human sexuality. Herbert Sussman highlights Burton’s atypical views on sexuality by remarking that “such Englishmen as Richard Burton . . . and T. E. Lawrence . . . found in the “Orient” a wild zone beyond the compulsory heterosexuality of bourgeois masculinity” (162). Indeed, Burton articulates a belief in cultural relativism that moral codes are arbitrary the world over and should be treated as such: “Nations are but superficial judges of one another: where customs differ they often remark only the salient distinctive points which, when examined, prove to be of minor importance” (Love, War, and Fancy 128).

Burton repeatedly advocates for the importance of non-dualistic ways of knowing, particularly with respect to race and religion. Burton, the dervish and mystic seems to cry from beneath the lines of this narrative: “We are but one!” Kwame Appiah explains: “He [Burton] was an odd sort of melange of cosmopolitan and misanthrope” (7), for in The City of Saints “he manages to express hostility to the Irish . . . condescension towards French-Canadians . . . [and] distrust of Pawnee Indians” (7). Fawn Brodie points out an aspect of Burton’s prejudicial stance by highlighting a line from a letter to Dr. Norton Shaw in 1860 that recounts Burton’s trip to the

United States, specifically to Salt Lake City. Regarding his departure from the city, Burton exclaims: “The road is full of Indians and other scoundrels . . . but I’ve had my hair cropped so short that my scalp is not worth having” (188). Indeed, Horta describes it best by noting a form of insufficiency within Burton’s writings and explains that the “insufficiency might better be termed an asymmetry: Burton is remarkably receptive and open in his attitude to some foreign cultures, but not to others” (91). It is an important reminder that like Kipling, Burton two had a dual voice

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and vacillated in his views of race, culture, and empire; indeed, “Africans he ranked below Arabs and most Indians, both of whom were below civilized Europeans” (Appiah 7).

The liberal side of Burton emerges when he adopts a heretical stance when he cites

‘irreverently’ that Muslims are an offshoot of Christianity: “Locke, and many others, held

Moslems to be unorthodox, that is anti-Trinitarian Christians who believe in the immaculate

Conception, in the Ascension and in the divine mission of Jesus” (Love, War, and Fancy 83).

Indeed, Burton appears at times to urge the reader to also view the Other in terms of commonality rather than difference. In short, in this section, I have argued for the case that Burton’s role as a spy or reconnaissance agent is often paradoxically at odds with his greater drive to understand the idea of human commonality.

Seeking Sublimity: Dunes, Deserts, and Mecca

I will now examine the phase of Burton’s journey where he finally penetrates the city of

Mecca. I will also focus upon his understanding of sublimity and examine his account of the spiritual experience of crossing the deserts of Arabia. Doing so will give us a better interpretation of the subtle aims of his journey and show us how he arrives upon a distinct understanding of enlightenment that finds parallel to the conclusions drawn in Kim regarding hybridity, unity, and enlightenment.

Burton uniquely comes closest to a space that inspires sublime sentiments in the emptiness of the Arabian deserts. He eloquently expresses that within the seeming vacuity and expansiveness of this space, he finds himself grasping at the threads of enlightened and mystical experience:

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It is strange how the mind can be amused by scenery that presents so few objects

to occupy it. . . . [t]he senses are sharpened. . . . [D]esert views are eminently

suggestive; they appeal to the Future, not to the Past. . . . To the solitary wayfarer

there is an interest in the Wilderness unknown to Cape seas and Alpine glaciers,

and even to the rolling Prairie,—the effect of continued excitement on the mind,

stimulating its powers to their pitch. (Personal Narrative 1: 144-5)

We receive the impression that, for Burton, voyaging through the desert is like a meditation and that the sharpening of senses leads him to a deeper awareness of his place in the world. Burton continues to describe the richness of the golden landscape eloquently and pensively: “What can be more exciting? what more sublime? Man's heart bounds in his breast at the thought of measuring his puny force with Nature's might, and of emerging triumphant from the trial. This explains the

Arab's proverb, ‘Voyaging is victory.’” (1: 145).

In contrast to Burton’s eventual entry into the Kaaba, this scene will appear more victorious and sublime, appearing as the pinnacle of this phase of his journey. It is not surprising that he experiences sublime emotions in the vast and empty expanses of the desert for he insinutates that it is here that he is best able to be aware of the contours of his consciousness and trace his inner spirit. His inner preference for hybrid subjectivity finds an outer correlation with the romanticism of the unbounded world of the Arabian deserts.

Burton richly describes his experience of joy when finding an oasis, “the Wady al-Ward

(the Vale of Flowers)” and describes the event as follows:

[Y]our sight brightens . . . and your spirits become exuberant; your fancy and

imagination are powerfully aroused, and the wildness and sublimity of the scenes

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around you stir up all the energies of your soul—whether for exertion, danger, or

strife. . . . [T]he hypocritical politeness and the slavery of civilisation are left behind

you in the city. . . .

Hence it is that both sexes, and every age, the most material as well as the most

imaginative of minds, the tamest citizen, the parson, the old maid, the peaceful

student, the spoiled child of civilisation, all feel their hearts dilate, and their pulses

beat strong, as they look down . . . upon the glorious Desert. (Personal Narrative

1: 146-7)

Burton sees the desert as a great equalizer where all experience the space as one regardless of individual markers of differences such as one’s background, sex, class, and personal histories.

Burton maintains that Nature does not cast a discriminating eye and treats all her subjects equally and unconditionally. He uses the word “sublime” twice to describe his engagement with the cleansing, purifying influence of the desert—likening the expansion of consciousness veritably to an obliteration of all markers of difference. For he notes that in this sacred space “all feel their hearts [equally] dilate” (1: 147). The mystic Burton seemingly cries yet again: All are one! Let us contrast this rendition of a sublime experience with that of his entrance into Mecca.

Burton’s foray into the forbidden lands of Mecca and Medina appears subtle, guarded, and hardly painted in sensational terms. In Volume Two, Chapter XXVI, he describes the rite of circumambulating the Kaaba. He comments on the rites of the pilgrimage, the scenery, the passion and reverence experienced by others while visiting the sacred site. Yet surprisingly, he describes the setting without describing his emotions or reactions as he witnesses the grandeur of his

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surroundings, in sharp contrast to his earlier vivid depiction of the desert. Instead, he provides us this:

I may truly say that, of all the worshippers . . . none felt for the moment a deeper

emotion than did the Haji from the far-north. It was as if the poetical legends of the

Arab spoke truth, and that the waving wings of angels . . . were agitating . . . the

black covering of the shrine. But, to confess humbling truth, theirs was the high

feeling of religious enthusiasm, mine was the ecstasy of gratified pride. (2: 185-6)

Korte notes: “Despite his sense of personal triumph, however, the traveler is also careful to act as an exacting researcher and is explicitly cast in this role in the text. He even risks the danger of being found out in order to measure the sanctuary” (90). In this instance, the undoubtedly passionate man is rendered unimpassioned, feeling only the sentiment of pride. Although the narrative reaches a physical climax, Burton appears defeated and unsatisfied as though his spiritual investigations have not come to a close. Indeed, as we have seen, he expresses greater fervour in the desert landscape. His only triumph at this stage is that he accomplishes his goal of being viewed as a Muslim and entering Mecca without discovery and penalty. Burton silently indicates that he is able to become the Other by participating in the most sacred rites as a follower of Islam.

As the narrative continues, it is clear that he sees no distinctiveness within the rituals and experience afforded by the Hajj and describes the setting of the Kaaba as though to diminish its uniqueness: “[T]he little pagoda-like buildings and domes . . . vanished. One object . . . stood in view—the temple of the one Allah, the God of Abraham, of Ishmael, and of their posterity.

Sublime it was” (Personal Narrative 2: 196-7). In an extensive footnote, Burton inserts a controversial hypothesis regarding the hybrid architecture of the Meccan landscape. He explains:

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The Hindu Pandits assert that Shiwa and his spouse . . . dwelt at Meccah. . . . The

Meccan pigeons, resembling those of Venice, are held sacred. . . . Some authors

declare that in Mohammed’s time, among the idols of the Meccan Pantheon, was a

pigeon carved in wood, and above it another. . . . This might have been a Hindu, a

Jewish, or a Christian symbol. (Personal Narrative 2: 198)

It is significant that when immediately witnessing the most sacred site of Islam, Burton seemingly reduces its unique importance by associating it with other religions. Indeed, he wanders consciously to a discussion of the unity of religious traditions, stating opinions perceived by many as pure blasphemy—for conflating the Kaaba with the Pagoda would not have been taken lightly.

Like Kim who does not find enlightenment in the sacred river (like the Lama) but in its vicinity (as if to denote the unimportance of a single mystical location in inspiring transcendence),

Burton too appears wary of locating the source of enlightenment or spiritual salvation in one specific region alone. In his notes to the Arabian Nights, Burton asserts:

All forms of faith, that is, belief in things unseen, not subject to the senses and

therefore unknown and (in our present stage of development) unknowable, are

temporary and transitory: no religion hitherto promulgated among men shows any

prospect of being final or otherwise than finite. (Love, War, and Fancy 81)

He further explicates his “Out of Africa” theory by suggesting that all religions find a common root in Egypt through suggesting: “Religious ideas, which are necessarily limited, may all be traced home to the old seat of science and art, creeds and polity in the Nile-valley and to this day they retain the clearest signs of their origin” (Love, War, and Fancy 81). Moreover, he himself explains how many of his philosophical and creative reflections came to him after performing Hajj: “this

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translation [of the Nights] is a natural outcome of my pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah”

(Love, War, and Fancy 25). When Burton emphasizes the transience and ephemerality of religious ideas, it is no surprise that he uses the hybrid hero to promote the indeterminacy of knowledge and the precarious nature of all claims to truth.

With clear application to our own contemporary world torn apart by religious, cultural, and political conflict, Burton eloquently offers words of wisdom by contending that the spiritual quest is an intrinsically universal drive. In Appendix I of the travelogue, Burton observes how “[t]he word Hajj is explained by Moslem divines to mean ‘Kasd,’ or aspiration, and to express man’s sentiment that he is but a wayfarer on earth wending towards another and a nobler world”

(Personal Narrative 2: 372). He adds further in the same section:

[P]ilgrimage is common to all old faiths. The Hindus still wander to Egypt, to Tibet,

and to the inhospitable Caucasus; the classic philosophers visited Egypt; the Jews

annually flocked to Jerusalem; and the Tartars and Mongols—Buddhists—journey

to distant Lamaserais. (2: 372)

I posit that Burton stands as a colonial figure who sought avidly, yet conflictedly, to promote a picture of universal kinship through his exploration of comparative religion.

The parallels between the Kim’s quest for enlightenment and Burton’s account of his pilgrimage to Mecca are manifold. Both see the role of the pilgrim or seeker as universal and unrestricted by creed and race. Both embark on spiritual quests in order to grapple with questions regarding self, faith, religion, human diversity and to interrogate the constructed hierarchical systems that separate humankind. It is noteworthy that both are hybrid shape-shifters who reject the fixed nature of spiritual truth.

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Hybrid Architecture and Affirmations of Oneness

I will now explore the role of hybrid architecture and syncretic art within this travelogue in promoting the notion of unity. In the opening scene of Kim, Kim and the Lama significantly meet in the vicinity of the Lahore Museum, a repository of relics, art, and architectural design: “In the entrance-hall stood the larger figures of the Greco-Buddhist sculptures done, savants know how long since, by forgotten workmen whose hands were feeling, and not unskilfully, for the mysteriously transmitted Grecian touch” (5-6). Again, in Lurgan Sahib’s abode, Kipling highlights how art symbolically represents the unified creative consciousness of humanity. Burton too promotes his view of human commonality through his detailed observations on art, architecture, and the syncretic nature of humanity’s creative potential during his travels to Arabia. In Cairo,

Jeddah, Mecca and Medina, Burton draws attention to the similarities in design, construction, and aesthetics to suggest that the creative inspiration for the monuments’ creators are of one source. I term Burton’s interest in ‘hybrid’ art and architecture as an exploration of ‘physical hybridity’ that he employs to point toward the commonality of peoples across many geographical spaces.

González-Azcárate and Lund point out:

Captain Richard Francis Burton . . . with the scholar Dr. James Hunt, inaugurated

the Anthropological Society of London in 1863. Decades later, Burton would

describe the project as a forum for the frank discussion of the sexual practices of

savages, free from the obscenity laws that could regulate more popular media. . . .

But its guiding agenda was to advance the polygenist thesis, the idea that human

beings are the result of multiple, local creations . . . [and] polygenesis proposed that

African man and European man are different animals altogether. (249-250)

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Reflecting colonial ambivalence, Burton offers contradictory stances for in this travelogue, he appears to offer a monogenist approach by seeking awareness of cultural and historical crossroads between civilizations. He explains in his notes to Arabian Nights that “Under the Seleucidae and during the life of the independent Bactrian kingdom (B.C. 255-125), Grecian art and science, literature and even language overran the old Iranic reign and extended eastward throughout northern India” (Love, War, and Fancy 56). In his journey to Mecca, he explores this subject and deepens his commentary regarding physical hybridity as a testimony to the unity of humankind.

Commenting on shared mythological archetypes, Burton uses terms similar to Kim’s description of how variations of Mary, emblematic of the goddess archetype, can be found across cultures.35 He makes the following assertion:

Passing over the objections of deified Eros and Immortal Psyche, and of the Virgin

Mother—symbol of moral purity—being common to every old and material faith,

I believe that all the noble tribes of savages display the principle. Thus we might

expect to find . . . some traces of a sentiment innate in the human organisation.

(Personal Narrative 2: 90)

Like Kim, Burton too is seeking evidence for his theory of oneness and searching for a wellspring of intersecting spiritual knowledge or "hybrid mysticism".

The function of hybrid architecture in Burton’s works can be better understood through

Homi Bhabha’s articulation of the “Third Space.” For Bhabha notes: “by exploring the Third

Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the other of our selves” (56). Syncretic

35 For a comparable theme present in Kim, see the following quote: “Father Victor . . . discoursed to him of an entirely new set of Gods and Godlings—notably of a Goddess called Mary, who, he gathered, was one with Bibi Miriam of Mahbub Ali's theology” (105). 289

artifacts and monuments present Burton precisely with this opportunity as he observes his inner mind as he examines the external surroundings. Burton appears fascinated by desert landscapes strewn with ancient ruins, silently bearing testimony to the story of human commonality. In many ways, Burton’s complex writing seems tailored to allow us to “rethink our perspective on the identity of culture” (Bhabha 52). His journey demonstrates a simultaneous desire to understand the depths of the mind, the self through the other, and to question the apparent parameters delineating home and world. Burton’s embodiment of the trickster allows him to see the world as home. The very symbols that Burton casts his observant eye upon draw attention to the idea of hybridity and the Third Space. Let us examine this concept in greater detail. Bhabha proposes that

[i]t is only when we understand that all cultural statements and systems are

constructed in . . . contradictory and ambivalent space of enunciation, that we begin

to understand why hierarchical claims to the inherent originality or ‘purity’ of

cultures are untenable, even before we resort to empirical historical instances that

demonstrate their hybridity. (55)

He adds firmly,

[i]t is that Third Space, though unrepresentable in itself, which constitutes the

discursive conditions of enunciation that ensure that the meaning and symbols of

culture have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be

appropriated, translated, rehistoricized and read anew. (55)

In Burton’s scrutiny of landscape and architecture, we are able to see the concept of fluidity of exchange between cultures at play where cultural expressions appear as links between peoples and are presented as reworkings of earlier creative endeavours from diverse locations of the world.

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In Chapter VI, Part I Al-Misr or “The Mosque,” Burton offers an exposition of the architectural origins of Arabian mosques. He suggests that invading powers chose to modify and impress upon the existing structures leading to syncretic and hybrid styles. Moreover, according to Burton, as a result of lack of creativity, much borrowing or “plagiarism” took place leading to these hybrid constructions. The imagery created in this section reflects Burton’s view that humanity branched off from a common family tree. Burton chooses to describe scenes as

“incongruities of architecture” and as showing “greatest irregularity,” yet, he is not displeased. In a way, the physical world around him mirrors that of his own sentiments regarding the benefits of metamorphosis and identity-bending. The opening paragraph to the chapter reads:

WHEN the Byzantine Christians, after overthrowing the temples of Paganism,

meditated re-building and re-modelling them, poverty of invention and artistic

impotence reduced them to group the spoils in a heterogeneous mass. . . . Their

Syncretism, the result . . . of extravagance and incuriousness, fell under eyes too

ignorant to be hurt by the irregularity of the hybrid: it was perpetuated in the so-

called Saracenic style, a plagiarism from the Byzantine, and it was reiterated in the

Gothic. . . . (Personal Narrative 1: 88)

His choice of words is significant as he emphasizes yet again the notions of hybridity and syncretism: related ideas that appear as conceptual touchstones in his work. While not openly celebrating the admixture of design ideas, Burton continues on to speak of the positive qualities of such structural palimpsests. He underlines the paradoxical understanding of “multiplicity within oneness” as he continues with his description:

Such “architectural lawlessness,” such disregard for symmetry, —the result . . . of

an imperfect “amalgamation and enrichment,” —may doubtless be defended. . . .

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Architecture is of the imitative arts . . . everywhere delighting in variety, appears to

abhor nothing so much as perfect similarity and precise uniformity. (Personal

Narrative 1: 89)

Burton keenly admires the the artistry and craftsmanship of these sites. A single originary prototype of art gives birth to all creative emanations, Burton contends. Problematically, he does not see this viewpoint as violence enacted through the erasure of markers of difference, or as forced cultural appropriation but as an endeavour that arises naturally and organically to all people.

This entire chapter (VI) appears as a compendium of architectural analysis where Burton laboriously asserts the common roots of humanity. He urges that if one searches, evidence is strewn across the world that human societies are constructed as a result of the cross-pollination of ideas, culture, and blood. For Burton, the study of architecture with an eye to the subject of hybridity allows one to see the intersecting patterns of the unfoldment of human history. I contend that

Burton’s focus on architecture in this work serves to validate his own musings about ethnic, spiritual, and religious hybridity.

Burton widens his analysis as he continues his commentary on a seemingly transcendental note. He suggests that there is no real newness of concepts and that all ideas are gathered from a single source. He states how warring religious and ethnic groups may opt to stand by myths of difference but the architecture of their houses of worship show distinct and irrefutable markers of commonality:

There is nothing, I believe, new in the Arab Mosque; it is an unconscious revival

of the forms used from the earliest ages to denote by symbolism the worship of the

. . . the creative gods. . . . The Hindus . . . first . . . symbolised by an equilateral

triangle their peculiar cult, the Yoni-Linga . . . in England it was a mere upright

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stone. . . . D’Hancarville and Brotier have successfully traced the worship itself, in

its different modifications, to all people. . . . And finally the ancient minaret . . .

became the spire and steeple of our ancestors. (Personal Narrative 1: 89-91)

Scholar of comparative religion, Max Müller states provocatively on the outcome of classifying and interpreting the nuances of various faiths: “Let us take the old saying, Divide et impera, and translate it somewhat freely by ‘Classify and conquer,’ . . . we shall then lay hold of the old thread of Ariadne which has led the students of many a science through darker labyrinths even than the labyrinth of the religions of the world” (Introduction to the Sciences 19). At one level, Burton’s bid to classify and interpret the monuments that he encounters can, in light of Müller’s words, can be seen as laying the groundwork for colonial subjugation. Maynard in discussing the theme of universality in James Frazer’s writings, suggests that The Golden Bough offers “too universalistic demonstrations of prominent similarities between, say, the Christian myth of death and resurrection and fertility myths in polytheistic cultures” (6). His contention is that Frazer offers monolithic and sweeping assessments of the unity of traditions and by doing so, obliterates the differences that are warranted and supported by the adherents of distinct traditions. Indeed, the same accusations can be applied to Burton’s oversimplistic assessment of physical hybridity and architecture.

Burton notably employs a totalizing language when he describes the syncretic roots of

Sufism:

Evidences of it may be formed in the annals of almost every ancient and civilized

race. Sufis were called . . . by the Hindoos, Gnaneshwar and Atma-gnani. Among

the Greeks they became Platonists, and have continued up to the present time, under

diverse mystic appellations, with tenets modified by the ages in which they lived. .

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. . Probably deriving the dogma from Socrates and Plato . . . they formed from the

“archetypes” of existence, a regular system of spiritual creation anterior to the

material. (Sindh 406)36

In short, in this section I have explored how Burton variously illustrates that it is part of the human condition and history to naturally appropriate and acquire aspects of the conceived Other into one’s psyche, body, culture, art, architecture, religion, and national identity.

Appraisal of Burton’s Liberalism in Pilgrimage to Meccah

Drawing from the work of Alex Owen, Stephen Lecourt observes on the burgeoning of hybrid religions that “religious syncretism was a key, though often despised, component of late

Victorian culture” (105). I suggest that the promotion and study of hybrid religions may indicate a liberal mindset. Regarding liberalism during the 1800s Radhika Mohanram writes:

From the early 1800s onward, the Evangelical movement and the Utilitarians in

Britain had set the nation on the path of liberalism. While one was religious and the

other secular, the trajectories of these movements were intertwined. . . . The

evangelical emphasized a salvation that came after an illumination of

consciousness; the liberal believed in the rational working of law, education, and

free trade that would transform the individual. Further, they both believed that

human nature was the same everywhere. (9)

36 Stephen Lecourt follows Burton’s penchant for exploring syncretic faiths. He examines Burton’s journey to a Mormon society in Salt Lake City (1862) and states that “to writers familiar with the emerging enterprise of comparative religion, Mormonism resembled a kind of monstrous body stiched together from the severed limbs of various defunct faiths” (89). Burton took interest and defined them as: “strange . . . agglomeration of tenets . . . [including] the Semitic Monotheism, the Persian Dualism” (qtd. in Lecourt 90). See Burton’s The City of the Saints (1862) for more details. 294

She points out further that “John Stuart Mill, the proponent of liberal values, was himself uneasily aware of the lack of equality extended to Indians and realized the essentially despotic nature of

British rule in India” (11). She adds that liberal philosophy steadily took a turn towards parochialism:

[W]ithin Enlightenment scientific thought . . . [p]lants, animals, and humans were

taxonomized according to a classificatory schema that was formulated by

Europeans. . . . British liberal democratic discourse, with its origins in the

Enlightenment movement and its emphasis on re-creating the Indian in its own

image, inevitably carried out this hierarchization of race, thus simultaneously

undercutting its own liberal philosophy that all men are born equal. (12)

Speaking also to the history of European liberal perspectives, Jennifer Pitts in A Turn to Empire further comments on its key thinkers:

In the closing years of the eighteenth century, a critical challenge to European

imperial conquest and rule was launched by many of the most innovative thinkers

of the day, including Adam Smith, Bentham, Burke, Kant, Diderot, and Condorcet.

They drew on a strikingly wide range of ideas to criticize European conquests and

rule over people across the globe: among others, the rights of humanity and the

injustice of foreign despotism, the economic wisdom of free trade and foolishness

of conquest. (1)

However, she notes that there was a steady decline in such critical attitudes during the height of the Victorian period, when I point out figures such as Burton were actively writing:

Just fifty years later, however, we find no prominent political thinkers in Europe

questioning the justice of European empires. Indeed, nineteenth-century liberals,

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including . . . Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill, turned decisively from

the earlier thinkers’ skepticism about empire and supported the expansion and

consolidation of European rule over non-European subjects. (1)

Indeed, Pitts posits that “[t]he liberal turn to empire . . . was also accompanied by the eclipse of nuanced and pluralist theories of progress as they gave way to more contemptuous notions of

‘backwardness’ and a cruder dichotomy between barbarity and civilization” (2) and that “many of the staple concepts of liberal political thought have indeed been mobilized in favor of the European imperial enterprise. . . . European liberalism was forged alongside, and deeply affected by, imperial expansion” (4). In a similar vein, David Chidester notes that “the empire was a problem because it raised the contradiction between liberal ideals of liberty and the realities of colonial coercion”

(6). Regarding colonial hypocrisy and racism, he further observes:

While politicians generally . . . [proclaimed] political freedom at the center and

enlightened despotism at the periphery, imperial theorists of the human sciences

generated accounts of the primitive, whether African, Indian, or Irish, that could be

used to justify coercion while awaiting the long evolutionary delay in their

trajectory to civilized liberty. (6)

Indeed, Chidester outlines the dangers of notions of “liberalism” that is founded on binary thinking, pitting fractions of humanity against each other in the name of biological difference.

Pitts describes the emergence of an “imperial liberalism” (2), which I find is an apt term to describe the form of fluctuating liberalism that Burton and Kipling promoted through their exploration of hybridity and unity, revealing the tension between their humanist/universalist and imperialist views.

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In Orientalism, Edward Said offers us a noteworthy assessment of Burton’s life and works.

He explains first how Burton lacks a degree of creativity in that “Burton’s Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah (1855-1856) is rigidly chronological and dutifully linear, as if what . . . [Burton was] describing was a shopping trip to an Oriental bazaar rather than an adventure” (Orientalism 193). On the other hand, he adds that Burton must be remembered for his exceptional attributes and accomplishments:

As a traveler, Burton was a real adventurer; as a scholar, he could hold his own

with any academic Orientalist in Europe; as a character, he was fully aware of the

neccesity of combat between himself and the uniformed teachers who ran Europe

and European knowledge with such precise anonymity and scientific firmness.

(Orientalism 194)

Said also explored the ambiguity and deep complexity of Burton’s life by commenting on Thomas

Assad on Burton:

[Thomas] Assad sensitively points out that Burton was an imperialist, for all his

sympathetic self-association with the Arabs; but what is more relevant is that

Burton thought of himself both as a rebel against authority (hence his identification

with the East as a place of freedom from Victorian moral authority) and as a

potential agent of authority in the East. It is the manner of that coexistence, between

the two antagonistic roles for himself, that is of interest. (Orientalism 195)

In several ways, Said’s views of Burton’s ambivalent and dual nature confirm some of my own insights, for he succinctly explains:

As a traveling adventurer Burton conveived of himself as sharing the life of the

people in whose lands he lived. Far more successfully than T.E. Lawrence, he was

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able to become an Oriental. . . . Burton’s most extraordinary characteristic is, I

believe, that he was preternaturally knowledgeable about the degree to which

human life in society was governed by rules and codes. . . . So what we read in his

prose is the history of a consciousness negotiating its way through an alien culture

by virtue of having successfully absorbed its systems of information and behavior.

Burton’s freedom was in having shaken himself loose of his European origins

enough to be able to live as Oriental. (Orientalism 196)

Burton does in fact indicate a clear reversal of power dynamics where the European observer momentarily acknowledges a sense of absence, a gap or aporia in terms of his own existing knowledge and awareness. I have sought to show how Burton gravitated, in select moments, towards a particular spiritual philosophy of unity that privileged the dissolution of markers of difference and racial and intellectual superiority. For as Dane Kennedy posits regarding Burton:

His extended immersion in other cultures, especially those he entered by means of

impersonation, gave him the experiential knowledge that made it possible for him

to develop a relativist conception of difference. Once he understood that difference

itself was a neutral epistemological device, a polarity that contained no inherent

meaning, he began to wield it in ways that challenged the universalist claims of

British society. . . . [H]e embodies the transition from a Victorian to a modernist

consciousness, a transition integrally connected to the encounter with the wider

world of difference. (9)

Ultimately, I assert that both sides of Burton—the proponent of “hybrid mysticism” and the imperialist—must be equally explored.

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It is important to note too that critics have highlighted the inherent violence in Burton’s attempt to become Sufi. Miroku Nemeth explains, “Unfortunately, much of what Burton has written about Sufism shows the almost inextricable web of Orientalist discourse which dominated and still largely dominates the Western representation of this traditional Islamic science of purification of the soul (Nemeth 3). He suggests that “in the Personal Narrative, there are gaps in the text or subtle segments of disclosure, where Burton seems to evidence a truer understanding of Sufism or at least some genuine emotional attachment at the time” (4). His work outlines the

“misrepresentations of Sufism” in Burton’s works and for Nemeth, “[t]here is very strong evidence that Burton was fundamentally dishonest, not possessing the sincerity required for the Sufi in his representation of Sufism” (24). He particularly attacks how Burton suggests that Sufism is

“a modification of Pantheism.” This is an unacceptable statement and characterizes

the worst kind of misleading information about Sufism that is popularly available

in the West until today. It creates a kind of New Age, Freemasonic image of Sufism

which is more Hindu than Islamic, and would arouse the vengeful ire of any of the

great adherents of the path of Al-Tasawwuf throughout history. (Nemeth 58)

My work has offered a different reading of Burton. Michael Wheeler in Heaven, Hell, and the

Victorians notes that “[b]oth preachers and poets, for example, confronted the problem of finding a language which could convey an idea of the transcendent in an increasingly scientific-materialist world” (5). While I have not sought to ascertain the veracity or sincerity of Burton’s Sufi/Muslim beliefs, I have highlighted how Burton launches a partial critique of the mores, values and ideologies of the Western “scientific-materialist world” through his exploration of comparative religion, spirituality, and syncretism through adopting (Sufi) hybrid guise. I suggest that it is likely that his engagement with Sufism permitted him to better explore the symbolism of the trickster

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god and invest in a form of hybrid consciousness. Ultimately, as I will show in the next chapter,

Burton seemingly defines the transcendent enlightened state through a belief in hybridity and the unity of being.

As Idries Shah eloquently observes: “Sufism is engaged upon developing a line of communication with ultimate knowledge, not with combining individual facts, however historically exciting, or theorizing in any way at all . . . Sufism is known by means of itself” (xxv).

He adds further: “Burton, writing in a time when science and reason were in the full flow of their ecstatic self-discovery, insists that ‘there are things which human Reason or Instict matured, in its underdeveloped state, cannot master. . . .’” (qtd. in Shah 251). I have argued thus far that through the vehicle of the trickster god, the guise of the Sufi, Burton reflects upon and critiques at times the logic of empire and the civilizing mission. I have proposed that Kipling and Burton be understood through their reliance on the trope of the trickster and how reading their works today asks of us, as modern readers, to move beyond dogma and conceptions of good and evil, to see the value present in their imaginative representations of hybridity, unity and enlightenment—while critical too of the limitations and imperialist/prejudicial mindsets that are simultaneously operating alongside views of unity. Shah adds positively that “Burton, by relating Sufi thought to modern

Western feelings, provided a bridge whereby the thinking Westerner could accept essential Sufi concepts” (257). For Burton, much wisdom lies beyond the space of ritual. Sufism perhaps represented for him a metaphor of being-in-the-world rather than an immutable and fixed practice that is governed solely by external forces, scriptures, and codes.

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o in Decolonising the Mind states the “biggest weapon . . . unleashed by imperialism . . . [is] a cultural bomb . . . to annihilate a people’s belief in their names, in their languages, in their environment, in their heritage of struggle, in their unity, in their capacities and

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ultimately in themselves” (3). In this section, I have outlined the permutations of a partial liberal mindset expressed by Burton when he honors the diversity of humanity, “their languages . . . [and] environment.” I have illustrated how Burton contends that syncretic symbols are common throughout time and that a unified artistic force unconsciously permeates the work of all people and this testifies to humanity’s common origins. Finally, I have illustrated various ways that

Burton comes to embody the role of the hybrid trickster—similar to the deployment of this emblem in Kipling’s Kim—to explore and promote the concept of unity.

***

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CHAPTER 6

Stone Talk and The Kasidah: “Unity within Multiplicity”

and Burton’s Enlightened Poetics of Truth

Thus far, my project has asserted that there is a certain “trickster cycle” in place in Rudyard

Kipling’s and Richard Burton’s narratives that bear striking resemblance. In my examination of my chosen authors, I see a distinct pathway in place that I formulate as follows:

A Map of the Pathway of the Trickster Hybrid God in the Works of Kipling and Burton

Kim/Burton/Mowgli, the Trickster god, embarks on an adventure/spy quest/heroic journey that

transforms into a spiritual quest→ he experiences doubt and ambivalence regarding human diversity→

he attempts to understand the warring psychological aspects within through assuming the guise of

multiple others→ he finds fellow hybrid teachers that initiate him and offer training in hybrid manners

AND, in the teachings of unity→ he seeks catharsis and wisdom through immersing in various

mythological and religious frameworks→ he assumes the guise of the sage/healer, magician, and

prophet in a bid to know truth→ renounces affinity to one system of codes and values→ moves towards

a deeper understanding of the connectivity of all people, all symbols, and all spiritual traditions→ finds

acceptance, resolution, nirvana, atonement, salvation, transcendence and enlightenment through

becoming ONE with all creation→ and becomes the hybrid god OF ENLIGHTENMENT—

Mercurius/Hermes, Abraxas, Krishna, or other symbolic derivation/ permutation of a trickster god.

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In the previous chapters, I have carefully outlined the sensational quality of the stories and how the featured heroes appear larger-than-life, defiant of social norms, and possess mystical attributes and wisdom. Further, they appear uninhibited, mad, unreasonable, and otherworldly. The hybrid protagonists learn the art of disguise, shape-shifting, the importance of mastering multiple tongues, and are “initiated” by teachers who are learned in the ways of hybrid identity.

I suggest that in his Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to El Medinah and Meccah, Burton moves towards a deeper understanding of unity but does not yet find the full truth that he seeks. I proposed that he did not experience a transcendental frame of mind while performing the Hajj. I now illustrate, following the suggested trickster god pathway, that there is a significant turn of ideas where Burton, arrives upon a clearer understanding of hybridity and “unity within multiplicity” as the gateway to enlightenment in his later works of verse, entitled Stone Talk and

The Kasidah. Further, these two texts read together show thematic similarity with the conclusions regarding “hybrid mysticism” found in the ending of Kim.

I will now proceed to examine Burton’s work of poetry entitled Stone Talk (1865).

Regarding this text, Dane Kennedy observes:

At the height of his involvement in the heated debate about the racial character of

Africans, Burton put his nascent relativism to use in Stone Talk (1865), a bitter,

free-wheeling satire in verse that was directed at Britain itself, and in particular at

its arrogance, dogmas, and hypocrisy, which he argued were responsible for

warping the lives of the nation’s inhabitants and wreaking havoc on other peoples

around the world. (164)

He adds further:

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Burton probably composed Stone Talk in bits and pieces . . . in the mid-1860s—

[drawing upon his experience of] the meetings of the Anthropological Society, the

debates about the racial character of the African, the controversy over the source of

the Nile, his responsibilities as British consul in West Africa. (179)

It is notable that he publishes this text about ten years after his pilgrimage to Mecca and through his own maturation, we see a deepening of his spiritual exploration of the principle of unity. The concepts of metamorphosis, reincarnation, and enlightenment are the central focus of this intriguing, playful and cryptic piece. In both Kim and Stone Talk the subject of hybridity intricately relates to the notion of reincarnation. We have identified in the previous chapter how the Teshoo

Lama had regarded the Curator as potentially a counterpart in another lifetime. He blurred the boundaries of race by imaginatively transposing himself as the European and the Curator as the

Tibetan.37 In teaching the concepts of nirvana and the unity of consciousness/creation to Kim, the

Lama focuses on the principle of reincarnation to impart his key spiritual teachings. In turn, Kim leans upon the Lama and absorbs his teachings to achieve release from cognitive dissonance/ambivalence regarding his ‘cultural’ hybridity. The theory of reincarnation can be read in light of both Kipling’s and Burton’s fascination with transmogrification, human evolution, shape-shifting, metamorphosis, and the desire/ability of an individual to embody the racial Other.

In this sense, Stone Talk is another natural permutation and manifestation of Burton’s continuing creative and critical reflection on the entwined notions of hybridity and unity.

37 See Kim (244) for the specific passage depicting this theme of reincarnation with relation to the Lama and the Curator. 304

Reincarnation and Burton’s Stone Talk

Stone Talk is in many ways an inscrutable poem that Gavan Tredoux introduces as follows:

Stone Talk is best read as obfuscated autobiography, for its reflections of Burton’s

highly idiosyncratic concerns . . . [and] for its insights into Burton himself. Burton

apparently thought of himself as a “dual man”, a popular idea of the mid-Victorian

era. . . . This is cast in Stone Talk as a less-than-sober dialogue between “Dr.

Polyglott, Ph.D.” and a paving stone which “vocabulates in human tones.” Though

the sardonic stone often has the better of Dr. Polyglott, it won’t do to identify

Burton with the vocabulating stone, since the stone is often made to look shrill and

ridiculous . . . . Burton is both in part and neither in full, hence a dual man. (n.pag.)

I now analyze sections of the poem that highlight Burton’s fascination with syncretism and the search for a higher organizing principle that seemingly binds disparate concepts together. This long poem features a young male speaker who is floundering along the streets of London in a drug induced stupor. The narrator/speaker proceeds to relay in a nonsensical, rambling and whimsical manner the “tale of his metamorphosis” (12). He seeks questions pertaining to the Divine and describes himself early on as “being, when in wineity, / Addicted to divinity” (7). It is easy to detect this character as an offshoot of Burton’s own charismatic self. As the story unfolds, the speaker encounters a sentient and articulate stone with which he holds a lengthy dialogue about the stone’s multiple incarnations upon diverse areas on earth—thus, Burton chooses another

“hybrid” emblem in crafting the character of the stone. The stone appears learned and sage-like and offers insights into the nature of divinity, creation, and the realms unseen. The stone is markedly a hybrid character for he was “A Brahman once, and now a stone” (13). The narrator reveals a curious suggestion that the stone was at one point, the legendary Bengali reformer by the

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name of Ram Rohun Roy. The stone utters: ‘“Then must I tell, however coy,/ All that befel Ram

Mohun Roy.”/ He stopped. I listened to him, sore posed/ To see the Ram thus metamorphosed”

(15). Yet in a corresponding note, Burton immediately offers, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, the warning: “N.B.—[Roy] Must not be confounded with the modern Bengali philosopher of that name” (15). It is clear that Burton wants the reader to be canny of the symbol of Roy (1772-1833)38 and consider the significance of this passing reference with relation to the meaning of the poem.

Roy was one of the founders of the Brahmo Samaj, seen as some as “the father of modern India”

("Ram Mohun Roy” n.page) and a notable Bengali movement that sought to reform and secularize society through the creation of a new syncretic socio-spiritual movement that combined elements of multiple faiths including Hinduism. As Subrata Banerjee posits: “The religion of the Adi

Brahmo Samaj stood for repudiation of all ‘distinctions between People’ and the foundation of a modern educated secular Indian nation under the timeless and formless One God” (27). It is also important to note that “[i]n August 1828 Roy formed the Brahmo Samaj . . . , a Hindu reformist sect that utilized Unitarian and other liberal Christian elements in its beliefs. The Brahmo Samaj was to play an important part, later in the century, as a Hindu movement of reform” ("Ram Mohun

Roy" n.page). Similar to the Freemasons, members had to acknowledge the primacy of a single creator, and significantly, all are allowed entry regardless of background, creed, or caste. Banerjee describes the group as “an elite social reformation movement in India” (21) that carried “with the concept of a universal religion” (27). This reference sets the tone for the poem as the stone speaks eloquently on the topic of “unity and hybridity” by explicating his worldview:

38 Subrata Banerjee informs us that “Rammohun Roy, the founder of Brahmo Samaj, believed in the sublime ideal of a universal religion without barriers of caste, color, nationality or race. He imagined the world would offer prayers to one eternal God. Roy was closely acquainted with diverse cultures such as the Buddhist, Islamic and Christian” (28). 306

But, pray, what sage hath yet been able

To separate brute from vegetable?

……………………………………..

All are but One—One Universe.

The essence of existing things,

The germ from which world-matter springs. . . . (12)

The stone sings a song of a primal creator that issued forth multiple and exquisitely diverse physical emanations. The stone echoes Burton’s central queries regarding the idea of unity within multiple expressions of diversity, perhaps linked to the Indo-European theory that had gained currency due to the efforts of Sir William Jones, or more problematically, the Aryan Invasion theory as forwarded by Max Müller (Banerjee 25). Yet one must also bear in mind that such theories were also informed by notions of racial hierarchy and gradation of human value for as

Banerjee posits, “[t]he kinship that could then clearly unite India and Europe would actually be welcomed by a significant group of Indian intellectuals. . . . For Orientalists, like Müller, the circumstances of India at that time could be explained by degradation from their superior, ancient

Aryan traditions” (26). She adds too that regarding missionary activity in India, “Müller was well aware of international missionary activities and fully sympathized with their cause” (37). Giving a sense of the cultural clash taking place, Banerjee adds further that in the nineteenth century in

Calcutta, the “cultural centre of India” (26) at the time, “[t]here was an ongoing crisis in religious identity there, especially among the youth. This occurred as a result of the strong currents of ancient rituals coming up against the new wave of Western thought brought by Christian missionaries” (26). It is important to note that both Stone Talk and The Kasidah do not overtly sanction colonial conversions and advocate for each group to retain their own individual religious

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traditions thus adopting, through the absence of a pro-proselytizing stance, a (partial) form of a critique of empire. Banerjee posits that: “Several members of Brahmo Samaj played a leading role in organizing the Indian Political Association, forerunner to the Indian National Congress, as a platform for the educated middle class. This was the first organized casteless movement in British

India” (31). Banerjee notes too: “The Christian mission had become an important representative of Victorian society, especially in the non-European world” (38). An indirect reference to such a formative group that advocated for liberty, castelessness and home rule—through invoking the name of its founder—casts a revealing light upon the poem’s view of the legitimacy of empire.

The stone cautions his new friend about the veracity of knowledge found within books:

“Yet would I rather, by your leave, / In stones than in your books believe” (27). The two characters endlessly argue on the subject of the non-existence of truth, urging the reader to abandon the pursuit of seeking fixed notions of truth:

‘Facts stubborn things?’ thou leather-head!

Facts are chameleons, whose tint

Varies with every accident:

Each, prism-like, hath three obvious sides,

And facets ten or more besides. . . . (28)

Through their dialogue, the speakers allude to the prismatic and multidimensional nature of truth.

Dane Kennedy asserts:

By investing this spectral representative [the Stone] of a colonial society and a

polytheistic religion with a body of knowledge and depth of insight that far

surpasses anything exhibited by its degree-enhanced English disputant, Burton hits

upon a provocative and powerful way to speak the unpleasant truths he believed his

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own society was reluctant to hear. His exercise in ventriloquism provides him with

the distance and disguise he requires to give free expression to his unorthodox,

freethinking, relativist views. (173)

Like the views found in Kim, the narrator of the text continues to express great dismay regarding all traditional and exoteric systems. It is apparent that the stone is a consummate chameleon who teaches the ultimate message of unity—a truth that Burton the Sufi pilgrim had searched for to no avail during his performance of the Hajj. For Burton, the hybrid symbol represents the indeterminacy and multifarious nature of truths.

The poem is quite passionate about carrying forward the theme of the unity of creation. We learn that the stone favors the view that chance determines the allotment of one’s individual faith:

Against th’ unhappy Count whom chance

Drew from Spain, Italy, or France?

In India born, he would have bowed

To Vishnu, or, mid Shiva’s crowd,

…………………………………………….

Chance birth, chance teaching—these decide

The faiths wherewith men feed their pride. (43)

In short, for the stone, religious identity is seemingly determined by the cast of a die and by the uncertain tides of fate. The two figures proceed to assess that if one views the world and its people in this light, violence in the name of religion become a senseless and meritless act. Through their dialogue, they come to agree and show scorn for the violence that takes place due to ignorance and fear. Burton’s concludes that the Self—regardless of ethnicity—is misguided when it views the racialized Other as separate and diametrically opposed. He further explicates:

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Ye new-light saints, whose dear delight

Is envy, hatred, malice, spite—

Is sending a whole world to hell

By troops and squadrons mixed pell-mell, . . .

If heaven be . . .

Filled with th’ insensate company. . .

I say shun . . .

Such Paradise—a cul-de-sac. . . . (44)

The stone takes an anti-authoritarian stance and refuses any promise of heaven that is founded on bloodshed, separation and racial exclusivity. It further contends that exoteric dogmatic traditions will reach an impasse where humanity’s spiritual development will be thwarted. In contrast, the stone enjoins that only the unity principle draws the individual soul and the collective up the evolutionary ladder.

The speakers then move to entertain the idealistic values that spring from the belief in metamorphosis and the connectivity of all creation—what Burton had articulated as “Hylozoism”

(Love, War, and Fancy 62), a philosophy that decrees that all matter is animated by a single incomprehensible source. The stone, like the Lama, maintains that bickering in the name of difference is meaningless because all will experience the other through the process of reincarnation/ evolution. Perhaps directly invoking the subversive teachings of Rumi, it explains:

I shall become a grass or flower

(The state . . . [c]lassic’ly termed Metempsychosis . . .Soul

transmigration),

And, rising through each gradual term,

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Reanimate me in the worm,

………………………………………

I claim once more Brahminity,

When, haply ’scaping all temptation,

I win the crown—Annihilation. (16)

In Stone Talk Burton’s search for a “higher law” is apparent, and like the character of Kim, his chameleonic primary characters are consumed by the search for a master key to unlock the mysteries of creation. The poem is significant in that it reflects Burton’s understanding of the concept of Nirvana, expressed here as “Annihilation.” Sufism too holds a corollary concept referring to divine unification through annihilation as denoted by the term Fanā. We will continue to see how Burton shows an intense curiosity regarding different conceptualizations of the idea of nirvana or enlightenment and will offer clear expressions on this matter in The Kasidah—a text where Burton’s strident opinions and veiled truths are contained and poetically expressed as Sufi verse.

In the final section of this chapter, I will explore The Kasidah and how presentations of the theme of hybridity is intimately linked with Burton’s drive to find Enlightenment, Nirvana, the final endpoint, or the victorious “crown—Annihilation.”

III

Burton’s Spiritual Masterpiece: “The Kasidah”

The Kasidah is a mystical Sufi text that was first published in 1880 (ten years before

Burton’s death) with Burton professing to be only its translator. Fawn Brodie informs that “[u]nlike most of his writings the Kasidah was . . . a skilful rendering of his own philosophy” (276). She adds that “Burton even hid his identity as the alleged translator . . . [and] added to the deception

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by analyzing the poem in notes at the end with presumed serious detachment” (276-7). She suggests that in this text, we find “Burton ruminating about himself” (277) and that “Translation meant wearing the mask of another” (279). Kwame Appiah points out that “[a] qasida (as we would now write it) is a pre-Islamic classical Arab poetic form, with strict metrical rules, that begins, by tradition, with an evocation of a desert encampment” (3). The full title of this book sometimes appears as The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi: A Lay of the Higher Law. Ben Grant notes that

Burton’s alter ego, Abdullah, appears again in this work:

This figure occurs once more in The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi, which Burton

published in 1880 as a Sufist poem written by ‘Haji Abdu,’ a name which clearly

recalls ‘Abdullah,’ and translated by ‘F.B.’ It is also interesting to note that, outside

of these works, this name haunts Burton’s text, as he compulsively signed letters to

his friends with the signature of Abdullah, written in Arabic. (56)

It is evident that Burton was himself the creator of the text and only lightly masks his authorship.

This begs the question: was the decision an act of self-censorship, a bid to create critical distance between his artistic creations and his self, or was the message conveyed too transgressive or unpalatable for the age? Burton gives some insight to his rationale when expressing in the opening:

“The Translator has ventured to entitle a ‘Lay of the Higher Law’ the following composition, which aims at being in advance of its time; and he has not feared the danger of collision with such unpleasant forms as the ‘Higher Culture’” (6). This long poem, I argue, reveals a consolidated and mature picture of Burton’s syncretic belief system. This text appears as the climax of Burton’s freethinking expression as Burton appears most uninhibited, appearing to speak with free reign regarding topics that he had earlier presented in a more subdued, masked light. Here, Burton comments extensively on the spiritual and biological evolution of humanity. It is clear that he is

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concerned with the place of religion in an industrialized metropolis and a world at the cusp of unprecedented change and expansion. His message would have bearing at a future time, when the world would become increasingly complex and, to borrow Marshall McLuhan’s infamous words39, a global village. As Appiah observes regarding the veracity of the claim that the author of the text is separate from Burton himself: “He was also, as one might guess from reading the poem, a fiction.

For though the Kasidah is infused with the spirit of Sufism—Islam’s mystical tradition—it also alludes to Darwin’s evolutionary theory and to other ideas from the Victorian West” (3). He adds:

“Burton’s point is, in part, that Haji Abdu is, like himself, a man with no strong sense of national or local identity (dare I say it, a rootless cosmopolitan), it is also, surely to give us the broadest of hints that El-Yezdi is his own invention” (4). He adds that he expresses “views that, for a traditional

Muslim, are more than mildly heretical” (4). In this poem, the narrator gives a poetical take to how the orthodox and heterodox respond differently to the cross-pollination and admixture of philosophical thought from different global regions. The poem, then, is an illustration of the divergent views held by the Philistine or the blind and unquestioning follower of exoteric religion—known in Persian as the Zahid—pitted against the thoughts of the Sufi freethinker.

Burton repeatedly privileges the “The Soofi or Gnostic opposed to the Zâhid, [Burton’s original note]” (27-8) as if to suggest that the divine cannot be forced into conceptual parameters as constructed by the Zahid; the Sufi or gnostic knows better.

Through a process of metaphysical questioning on issues such as the mysteries of human existence, the cycles of birth and death, the rise and fall of empires, and the construction and

39 See Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media (1964) for more details regarding the context and use of the term, “global village.” 313

deconstruction of political and religious value systems, the narrator concludes that faith in human commonality obliterates unpeaceful behavior catalyzed by false doctrines of difference. He seems to claim that the diversity around the world is representative of unique expressions of human experience and that no one system can assume dominance or a monopoly over knowledge production. In fact, Burton rejects flamboyance—a trait that he exuded in his own life—and adopts a tone of extreme humility when he suggests that the mysteries of the world will never be fully disclosed during the physical experience and that it is folly to war over the veracity of foundational myths undergirding societies.

In The Kasidah Burton extends and finalizes the central message found in his earlier travelogue chronicling his pilgrimage by exploring more closely the epistemological value of Sufi thought. Atif Khalil and Shiraz Sheikh observe:

The attention given to Sufism only took a serious scholarly turn after the colonial

powers began to administer their new holdings in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

The religion of the “natives” became important to state interests. Scholars who

specialized in the languages and cultures of the East—Orientalists—were recruited

and trained to study Eastern religions . . . [interpreted] largely through a Christian

lens. The Orientalists Sir William Jones (1746 –1794) and Sir John Malcolm

(1769–1833) . . . [had] access to certain Sufi texts, although their sources were

limited and therefore prevented them from developing an accurate grasp of the

tradition in question. (197)

I will now show how Sufi thought as addressed in The Kasidah further speaks to the glories of physical, cultural, and religious hybridity and how this text acts as a counterpart/reflection of the

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final chapters of Kipling’s Kim with explicit focus placed on the topic of transcendentalism, unity, and enlightenment.

Idries Shah, a scholar who has prolifically written on the topic of Sufi mysticism, speaks highly of Burton in his work, The Sufis. He explains, “One of the most interesting productions of

Western Sufic literature is the long poem The Kasidah, written a century ago by the explorer Sir

Richard Burton, himself a Sufi, and composed on his return journey from Mecca” (249). He adds further:

Although only a few hundred copies appeared, The Kasidah . . . was included in

Lady Burton’s biography of “the greatest Oriental scholar England ever had and

neglected” . . . Isabel Burton . . . [expresses:] “It is a poem of extraordinary power,

on the Nature and Destiny of Man, anti-Christian and Pantheistic. . . .”

What Burton has done has been to comment in verse upon Western methods

of thought, modern theories and philosophies, from the Sufi point of view. . . . There

seems little doubt that Burton was trying to project Sufi teaching in the West. To

this extent he must be considered a part of the process which has been continuous—

the interchange between the East and West. . . .

In Sufism he finds a system of application to misguided faiths “which will

prove them all right, and all wrong; which will reconcile their differences; will unite

past creeds; will account for the present and will anticipate the future with a

continuous and uninterrupted development." (250-1)

Shah importantly perceives Burton as a true Sufi scholar rather than an imposter who subverts his portrayal of Sufism to further his own imperialist agendas.

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Let us examine what Sufism has come to represent in theological terms. Robert Graves in his “Introduction” to The Sufis explains,

The Sufis are an ancient spiritual freemasonry whose origins have never been traced

or dated. . . . Though commonly mistaken for a Moslem sect, the Sufis are at home

in all religions: just as the “Free and Accepted Masons” lay before them in their

Lodge whatever sacred book—whether Bible, Koran, or Torah—is accepted by the

temporal State. If they call Islam the “shell” of Sufism, this is because they believe

Sufism to be the secret teachings within all religions. (ix)

Graves recollects a poem by Ibn El-Arabi who describes himself, like Burton and Kim, as chameleon-like, masterfully evading labels of nationhood and electing to appear as the universal sage and hybrid seeker. Ibn El-Arabi says of himself:

I follow the religion of Love.

Now I am sometimes called

A Shepherd of gazelles . . .

And now a Christian monk,

And now a Persian sage. (“Introduction” xi)

This message expressed within these lines pointing to transcending the requirement for labels in asserting identity also permeates The Kasidah. The influence of Ibn Arabi on Burton’s ideas will be more closely examined.

With good reason, the essence of the messages conveyed needed to be guarded against reactionary forces. Like many others, we learn that Ibn El-Arabi was “summoned before an Islamic inquisition at Aleppo to defend himself against charges of non-conformity, pleaded that his poems were metaphorical” (Graves, “Intro” to The Sufis xi). Countless Sufi figures were ostracized or

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faced pogroms (xix) and it is notable that Burton openly identified as a Sufi heretic. Graves speaks further of how “[t]he poets were the chief disseminators of Sufi thought . . . and used a similar secret language of metaphorical reference and verbal cipher” (xi)—perhaps, then, The Kasidah can be read as a secret text revealing Burton’s inner views. Regarding the fascination for “Sufi” literature during the colonial period and erroneous portrayals of the genre in the West, Khalil and

Sheikh note:

The poetic celebrations of wine-drinking, love, music, and dance seemed to be at

odds with the rigid spirit and sterility they had come to associate with Islam. This

perception was also due to the misguided belief that the Sufis considered the rituals

of not only Islam but all religions to be superfluous, hindrances to the real goal of

mystical union. Similar misinterpretations of Sufi texts also led to the belief that its

followers were freethinkers who had more in common with Christianity, Greek

philosophy, and Hindu metaphysics than anything Islamic. (196)40

Indeed, Burton presents his view of Sufism as linked to the notion of unity—a correlation that

Khalil and Sheikh, and others, point out are misrepresentations of Sufi doctrines.

Harkening to mind Kipling’s link to secret societies such as Freemasonry, Graves says suggests that “Freemasonry itself began as a Sufi society. It first reached England in the reign of

King Aethelstan (924-939) and was introduced into Scotland as a craft guild at the beginning of

40 Khalil and Sheikh also note: “The German missionary and theologian Friedrich August Tholuck (1799–1877) published the first comprehensive study of Sufism, titled Ssufismus, sive Theosophia Persarum Pantheistica (Sufism, or the pantheistic theosophy of the Persians)” (198). 317

the fourteenth century, doubtless by the Knights Templars” (“Introduction” xix).41 Graves adds that “Richard Burton, translator of the Thousand and One Nights, being both a Freemason and a

Sufi, first pointed out the close relation between the two societies, but he was not sufficiently advanced in either to realize that Freemasonry had begun as a Sufi group” (“Introduction” xx).

Ben Grant observes regarding the narratorial voice that:

it seems to me important that the views are expressed not by Richard Francis

Burton, but by Haji Abdu, within a framework that clearly establishes an ironic

distance between the author and his mediator; we might say that Burton is only able

to give expression to freethinking relativism in a performative mode, and the

content of the poem, is therefore not separable from its ‘Orientalist trappings.’ (86)

Shah also states that in the poem, "[t]he Sufic echo is treading close to the agnosticism of which the Sufis have sometimes been accused. It is only here, in this narrow strip between faith and disbelief, that truth is to be found" (253). Espousing an understanding of mystical, divine love, the poet addresses the nature of unity:

millions live their horrid lives

by making other millions die.

How with a heart that would through love

to Universal Love aspire. . . . (21)

41 Tangentially, in Burton’s Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage (1857), he mentions how a member of his caravan was likely a Templar: “‘A friend recognised Sa'ad the Demon, and swore that he was no black slave, but a soldier at Al-Madinah—’no waiter, but a Knight Templar” (1: 211). 318

Here, the narrator clearly addresses the horrors of the human condition where humans kill each other because of outward markers of difference. As in Stone Talk, the poet narrator laments that such acts are needless and achieve nothing for, following his poetic reasoning, all emerge from the same fabric of creation. For Burton’s poet narrator, ultimate spiritual realization emerges through contemplation of the metaphor of life as an expansive tapestry connecting all existence across time and space—the idea that I describe in my writing as "hybrid mysticism." For Burton, the Sufi, there appears an inscrutable force within and without that is the master weaver. The poem exhorts the reader to interrogate the importance of self-knowledge and to perilously go against the grain like the mad dervish.

As the poem builds, Burton expresses his views more fervently. The narrator expresses how he regards truth as arbitrary:

All Faith is false, all Faith is true:

Truth is the shattered mirror strown

In myriad bits; while each believes

his little bit the whole to own.

What is the Truth? was askt of yore.

Reply all object Truth is one

As twain of halves aye makes a whole;

the moral Truth for all is none. (42)

Appiah points out eloquently:

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And though his Kasidah endorsed the kind of spiritualism that was common among

the educated upper classes in late Victorian England, its image of the shattered

mirror—each shard of which reflects one part of a complex truth from its own

particular angle—seems to express exactly the conclusion of Burton’s long

exposure to the philosophies and the customs of many people and places: you will

find parts of the truth . . . everywhere and the whole truth nowhere. (8)

Shah offers a similar stance when he states: “Even the meaning of faith itself has to be approached by the Sufi in what seems to the ordinary person as elliptical manner. Like the masters before him,

Burton approaches this by seeming paradox. All faith, he says, is both false and true” (256). To assume hybrid guise, then, for Burton is to assert the universality of all wisdom traditions. The hybrid undergoes metamorphosis to reflect the versions/fractals of truth that he sees everywhere.

I have argued that the art of hybrid shape-shifting is linked intimately with the pursuit of higher wisdom or the “Higher Law”—coincidentally, also part of the title of this poem. We can see how this poem provides clues as to how and why hybridity as a sign serves to unsettle rigid perspectives on life, law, and religion.

The Sufi narrator enters into an appraisal of the concept of interconnectivity when he offers the lines:

Life is a ladder infinite-stepped,

that hides its rungs from human eyes;

………………………………………..

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No break the chain of Being bears;

all things began in unity;

And lie the links in regular line

though haply none the sequence see. (47)

The stanza signals the text’s view that most have fallen away from the principles of interdependence, unity, and interconnectivity. Indeed, Burton provokes others to adopt a freer form, a liberated mindset and to rely on the senses rather than the closed off boundaries of

Eurocentric reason, science, and intellect. He says the following in the notes to The Kasidah regarding the unseeing man:

Consequently he holds to the “dark and degrading doctrines of the Materialist,” the

“Hylotheist”; in opposition to the spiritualist, a distinction far more marked in the

West than in the East. Europe draws a hard, dry line between Spirit and Matter:

Asia does not. (88)

Burton thus issues an appeal to his western readers to move toward mysticism as a bridge between

European rationalism and reason, and intuitive and imaginal thinking. The poet/Burton/Haji Abdu notes that his philosophies will not appeal to most, especially to the "Zealot,"

Whose mind but means his sum of thought,

an essence of atomic “I.” (48)

……………………………………………

Reason and Instinct! How we love

to play with words that please our pride;

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Our noble races mean descent

by false forged titles seek to hide! (50)

The poem traces the aftermath of rational thinking during the course of human civilization as contributing to countless cases of violence, oppression, and bloodshed. In contrast, the narrator posits that teachings promoting unity derived from the freethinker can mitigate such outcomes by tempering/balancing the egocentric aspects of Western civilization—articulated here as a form of narcissism or the cult of self presented as the European “atomic I.” The Sufi sage contemplates further on needlessly repeating cycles of warfare, driven by the lust for moral superiority. He suggests that each group holds degrees of truth:

“You all are right, you all are wrong,”

we hear the careless Soofi say,

. …………………………………..

He noblest lives and noblest dies

who makes and keeps his self-made laws. (58)

The poet offers the solution to peace as based upon a spiritual inward turn where the individual questions all knowledge systems and relies upon "self-made" laws. He expresses scorn for the

“herd mentality” and suggests that group thinking has littered the pages of human history with harrowing episodes of violence (62). He further espouses the notion of inner divinity: "Be thine own Deus: Make self free,/ liberal as the circling air:/ . . . break every prisoning lock and bar" (63).

Burton draws to a close in the narration of the poem with final words on a unity of

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consciousness/creation by enjoining the reader to seek enlightenment through adopting “hybrid consciousness”:

Survey thy kind as One whose wants

in the great Human Whole unite. . . .

And hold Humanity one man,

……………………………………..

See clear, hear clear, tho life may seem

Mâyâ and Mirage, Dream and Naught. (66)

In the notes of this poem Burton translates a line of poetry from Kabir: “Illusion dies, the mind dies not though dead and gone the flesh" (112) and explains that “[t]he allusion to Mâyâ is from

Dâs Kabîr” (Outside the Fold 112). Regarding Kabir’s legacy, Gauri Viswanathan speaks of the

"particular appeal . . . [of] the devotional bhakti school of Kabir, which sought to abolish the inflexibility of the caste system and initiate an unmediated relation between devotee and deity"

(Outside the Fold 225). It is curious that Kipling too opens the final pages of his story of Kim (and includes "The Song of Kabir" in The Second Jungle Book) with a direct invocation of Kabir, the

Indian poet-sage, which convinces me that the two authors were driven by a similar philosophical bent captured by the writings of Kabir (representing universal mysticism). Burton further clarifies that his invocation of Kabir hints to the concept of supreme Unity within the Hindu/Buddhist framework. He writes: "Nirwâna, I have said, is partial extinction by being merged in the Supreme, not to be confounded with Parinirwâna or absolute annihilation" (112).

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Burton’s The Kasidah can be read as a Sufi manual outlining how to attain enlightenment.

One cannot become enlightened, for Burton and the text of Kim, if one holds to doctrines of separation. The key teaching in both Stone Talk and The Kasidah is that there is benefit from embracing the idea of oneness as peace and resolution are then to be found. We have already examined how Kipling brings the story of Kim to a close with an enduring image of the loving embrace between two newly enlightened beings, Kim and the Teshoo Lama. The Kasidah too ends with a Buddhist impression of enlightenment, drawing all of its teachings to a close. Haji Abdu in the following stanza envisions a future where humankind will become more egalitarian and unified across lines of difference:

Where ’twill be man’s to see the whole

of what on Earth he sees in part;

………………………………………

Then, if Nirwânâ42[is attained]. . .

with nothingness, tis haply best;

Thy toils and troubles, want and woe

at length have won their guerdon—Rest. (67-8)

Here again, through exploring the manifestations of the topic of spiritual or religious hybridity, or

“hybrid mysticism,” the narrator outlines again the idea of “whole” and “part” drawing final attention to the idea of “unity within multiplicity” as leading to enlightenment/nirvana.

42 Burton translates this word to mean “Comparative annihilation” (68). 324

Kennedy speaks of The Kasidah as having “adopted a relativist stance, this time in order to show how spurious were all religions’ exclusive claims to truth and how feeble their dependence on faith in the face of reason” (165). He adds that it “pursues a highly provocative theme, centered on the inadequacy of all religions’ appeals to faith” (197) and that “The Kasîdah, in short, is the testament of a man who knows there is no God” (199). I suggest a different reading that the poem points actually to a validation of all religions paths and cautions against the upholding of a single narrative of truth and one picture of divinity. I align more with Kennedy’s observation that

“through the exercise of relativist reasoning, an approach that provides him [Burton] with the theoretical means . . . to break free from a hierarchical, culturally inscribed perspective on difference” (203). The Kasidah, is I suggest, a masterpiece in conveying a sustained and compelling message on religious tolerance, human commonality, and the unity of creation.

In my analysis of The Kasidah, I have revealed how Burton asks the reader to adopt a broader vantage point and presents the subject of hybridity as offering different worldviews and a key to transcendence. In next and final section, I explore Burton’s notes to The Kasidah where he more directly explains the figure of Abraxas and how this trickster god acts as a conceptual gateway for achieving enlightenment. I will now explore Carl Jung’s treatise on Abraxas in conjunction with Burton’s poem.

A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Hybridity: Abraxas as the God of Enlightenment

In my view, the most illuminating section of Burton’s writings is the notes section of The

Kasidah. It is here that Burton threads together all of his positions and attempts to offer resolution to the dichotomies, struggles, and colonial anxieties that have perplexed him. By invoking the name of an apocryphal god by the name of Abraxas, Burton offers the final clue that helps us

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understand the purpose of hybridity in his works. Wendy Doniger proposes that “Basilides of

Egypt, an early 2nd-century Gnostic teacher, viewed Abraxas as the supreme deity and the source of divine emanations, the ruler of all the 365 heavens, or circles of creation” (“Abraxas” 7). I propose in this concluding section that an interpretation of hybridity—by way of Carl Jung— is beneficial to understand the literary role of the trickster god. The trickster god directs us to acknowledge the undifferentiated divine space beyond conceptions of good and evil and as Burton notes, “The Hâjî broadly asserts that there is no Good and no Evil in the absolute sense as man has made them” (102). In the closing of the notes section, and hence of The Kasidah, the poet Haji

Abdu/Burton discusses the nature of divinity and creation alluding to the function of Abraxas as a signifier of unity, transcendence, and enlightenment.

Burton discloses how Haji Abdu constructed his worldview relying on figures such as Plato,

Aristotle, and Basilides:

He [Haji Abdu] alludes to Plato, who made the Demiourgos create the worlds by

the Logos (the Hebrew Dabar) or Creative Word, through the Æons. . . . Basilides,

the Egypto-Christian, made the Creator evolve seven Æons or Pteromata

(fulnesses). . . . All were subject to a Prince of Heaven, called Abraxas, who was

himself under guidance of the chief Æon, Wisdom. . . . Thus the two incompatibles

combined in the Scheme of Creation. (103, emphasis added)

Burton makes no further mention of Abraxas but the fact that he was canny of this figure propels me to connect his modeling of hybrid subjectivity partially upon the myth of this god. The highlighted lines from the passage reveal how Abraxas appears in Burton/Haji Abu’s cosmogony as the highest god, albeit an instrument/partner of the Aeon Sophia/Wisdom. He explains

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enigmatically how “the two incompatibles,” referring perhaps to good and evil or to states of duality, are ultimately unified by the overarching rubric of the One/ “Creator.” Ultimately, this passage concretizes Burton’s research and explains his creative thrust and affinity for the trickster god, represented here as Abraxas—who he himself reflects and embodies. How conscious he was regarding this association—Burton as Abraxas—is difficult to determine. Certainly the symbolism of Abraxas guides Burton’s own creative template and patterns of expression and one puzzles why this link is included only as a side note, separate from the centre of all of his major work—yet so critical in understanding hybridity in his life and works.

Burton’s propensities towards heretical expressions and his zealous embodiment of the character of the non-conformist are intimately tied with the Gnostic myth of Abraxas. Hermann

Hesse in Demian (1919) writes of this god as “a deity who had the symbolic task of combining the godlike with the devilish” (63). For Hesse, Abraxas is the subversive and unapologetic teacher of truth. Burton’s own ‘devilish’ side can be seen when he asserts the heretical stance of the Haji and utters that he speaks what others dare not:

Some will charge the Hâjî with irreverence, and hold him a “lieutenant of Satan

who sits in the chair of pestilence.” But he is not intentionally irreverent. Like men

of far higher strain, who deny divinely the divine, he speaks the things that others

think and hide. (81)

The symbol of Abraxas offers the most fitting key to the resolution of Burton’s own ambivalence regarding theories of race.

Burton refrains from signalling true authorship of the Kasidah and thus chooses to appear nameless. This choice has implications as Burton, the Sufi recites the beautiful poem The Kasidah

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through adoption of an alter ego/spokesperson—Haji Abdu. In his notes to this text, he provides details about this elusive figure, poorly masking his real self as scripter of the text:

Hâjî Abdû . . . [a] native, it is believed, of Darâbghird in the Yezd Province, he

always preferred to style himself El-Hichmakâni . . . meaning “Of No-hall,

Nowhere.”. . . To a natural facility, a knack of language learning . . . [including]

scraps of Chinese and old Egyptian; of Hebrew and Syriac; of Sanskrit and Prakrit.

. . . . he had every talent save that of using his talents. (71)

Burton explains how even his name indicates a lack of belonging and implies statelessness. While the poet learns and masters multiple languages and is aware of the spiritual and religious traditions of the world, he adamantly rejects single identification. This position recalls Kipling when Kim echoes the Lama and declares: “And we . . . are beyond all castes” (177). Similarly, we find in “In the Rukh,” Mowgli identifying as “a man without caste, and for matter of that without a father”

(241). Thus, like Kim, Mowgli, and Burton himself, Haji Abdu is the peripatetic wanderer, the universal nomad who willfully resides in the abyss/sanctuary of the “no man’s land.” Like prominent Indian figures, Ram Mohan Roy, Kabir, and many others, the Haji chooses to teach his own brand of philosophy tethered to all, but sworn to none. The god of this philosophy is Abraxas.

Burton gives further clues to the markers of this distinct mentality:

We, his old friends, had long addressed Hâjî Abdû by the sobriquet

of Nabbianâ (“our Prophet”); . . . He evidently aspires to preach a faith of his own;

an Eastern Version of Humanitarianism blended with the sceptical or, as we now

say, the scientific habit of mind. The religion, of which . . . Hinduism and . . .

Judæism, Christianity and Islamism are . . . accepted by the Philosopher. . . . He

traces from its rudest beginnings the all but absolute universality of some

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perception by man, called “Faith”; that sensus Numinis which, by inheritance or

communication, is now universal except in those who force themselves to oppose

it. (72-3)

Through the reference to universality of faith and creed, I suggest that like Kabir, the poet/Burton attempts to forge a universal mysticism that encompasses all and is not based upon exclusivity. He poses here and throughout the question: how can we stake a claim to one formulation of the divine?

For Burton, this is indeed figured as an impossibility.

Burton adds wisely how one must look askance at all available traditions and be wary of doctrines professing immutable notions of truth:

He looks with impartial eye upon the endless variety of systems, maintained . . . by

men of equal ability and honesty. He is weary of wandering over the world, and of

finding every petty race wedded to its own opinions; claiming the monopoly of

Truth; . . . whereas in abstruse matters of mere Faith . . . one in a hundred will claim

to be right, and immodestly charge the other ninety-nine with being wrong.

(Kasidah 73-4; emphasis added)

The remedy to this sad state of human affairs, Burton/ the poet suggests is that one should be constructing new and innovative spiritual systems, adhering to “hybrid mysticism,” aiming to reflect unity over difference. Of the drive to create this system, he reveals:

Thus he seeks to discover a system which will prove them all right, and all wrong;

which will reconcile their differences; will unite past creeds. . . . [I]t would be

singular if the attempt succeeded. Such a system would be all-comprehensive . . .

not limited by space, time, or race. (74)

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This passage indicates how the aims are clearly to construct a philosophy that includes all and through this endeavour the poet achieves satisfaction, contentment, and if I may extrapolate— enlightenment.

He adds to his goal of rectification of the ills of humankind by saying that the Occident and

Orient must conspire to merge the best of all traditions:

But this is not the fashion of Easterns. They have still to treat great questions ex

analogiâ universi, instead of ex analogiâ hominis. They must learn the basis of

sociology, the philosophic conviction that mankind should be studied, not as a

congeries of individuals, but as an organic whole. (75)

He suggests that a biological theory of evolution be paired to an understanding of spiritual unity.

It is clear again that Burton strives to understand and accept the paradoxical stance of “unity within multiplicity.” For Burton, then, in order to be whole and enlightened, one is obliged to understand unity, hybridity, as captured by the representation of the hybrid god Abraxas.

Carl Jung, in one of his more obscure texts offers an illuminating reading of the philosophy of Basilides, (invoked by Burton as we have seen) who teaches the wisdom of non-duality through invoking the figure of Abraxas. In Carl Jung’s text: “Seven exhortations to the dead, written by

Basilides of Alexandria, the city where East and West meet” (1916), we find a conceptual linkage between the idea of “unity within multiplicity” and the figure of the Abraxas. Jung speaks through the voice of the gnostic saint Basilides who appears to us as a sage/prophet/teacher addressing angry souls caught in limbo and despair, clamoring for wisdom to ease their suffering. Basilides

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speaks to them of salvation through knowledge of the concept of divine plenitude or Pleroma in his first sermon43:

I begin with nothing. Nothing is the same as fullness. In the endless state fullness

is the same as emptiness. . . . That which is endless and eternal has no qualities,

because it has all qualities.

The Nothing, or fullness, is called by us the PLEROMA. (Seven Sermons 44-5)

He introduces, then, the relationship between the individual soul and the Pleroma, or the space of oceanic plenitude and the paradox of the undifferentiated space:

The Pleroma is the beginning and end of the created world. . . . We ourselves,

however, are the Pleroma, so it is that the Pleroma is present within us. Even in

the smallest point the Pleroma is present without any bounds, eternally and

completely, for small and great are the qualities which are alien to the Pleroma.

(Seven Sermons 45)

The corollary terms for dissolution may be enlightenment, henosis (Neoplatonism), or nirvana/”Annihilation.” Here, he speaks through a play of images of the enigmatic concept of the

“one within all” and the “all within one.” He continues to then teach the idea of individuation with relation to the Pleroma, suggesting that one individuates through awareness of this primal truth. I suggest that Burton’s own self-inquiry is propelled by his desire to overcome duality through inner and outer unification.

Jung’s formulation of the Pleroma helps to explain Kipling and Burton’s quest for spiritual transcendence. Jung explains that “[t]he Pleroma possesses all: differentiation and non-

43 This is a concept alluded to by Burton as “Pteromata [or] (fulness)” (The Kasidah 103). 331

differentiation” (46). Throughout this sermon, Jung paints a vivid textual image of what happens when we overspill our conceptual boundaries. Kipling’s and Burton’s narratorial voices both are characterized by bouts of discriminatory expressions regarding the racial other but through settling upon the hybrid emblem, they seek to find resolution in the space(s) of fullness, infinity and the boundlessness of the absolute.

Both Burton and Kipling, as I have illustrated, focus initially on binary oppositions and ambivalence regarding race and religion. However, both accentuate at different times their personal understanding of the negation of such oppositions in a field of unity—and this, I argue, is how they define the point of enlightenment/salvation/nirvana. Jung also explains how salvation can only be gained through embracing non-duality after acknowledgement of differentiation and multiplicity. Jung further explicates how we must achieve union within and move away from oppositional thought: “if we know how to know ourselves as being apart from the pairs of opposites, then we have attained to salvation” (47). Basilides explains the inexplicability of the idea of “unity within multiplicity”:

You will object and say to me: Thou hast said that differentiation and sameness are

also qualities of the Pleroma. How is it then that we strive for differentiation? Are

we not then true to our natures and must we then also eventually be in the state of

sameness, while we strive for differentiation? (48)

Basilides informs:

All things which are brought forth from the Pleroma by differentiation are pairs of

opposites; therefore God always has with him the Devil.

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This interrelationship is so close, as you have learned, it is so indissoluble in your

own lives, that it is even as the Pleroma itself. The reason for this is that these two

stand very close to the Pleroma, in which all opposites are cancelled out and unified.

(Seven Sermons 49)

For Jung/Basilides, one must understand the characteristics of Abraxas, as the key to achieving this mythical union, “the sacred wedding” (Seven Sermons 51)—the coming together of opposite parts. I argue that the role of hybridity in Kim and Burton too can only be understood through an examination of the function of this figure. Jung notes further on the distinct attributes of Abraxas:

There is a God about whom you know nothing, because men have forgotten him.

We call him by his name: ABRAXAS. He is less definite than God or Devil. . . .

Abraxas stands above the sun and above the devil. . . . If the Pleroma were capable

of having a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation. . . . At this point the dead

caused a great riot, because they were Christians. (Seven Sermons 50)

If Pleroma can be understood as oceanic plenitude, unity, and enlightenment, Basilides explains how Abraxas is the mythical embodiment/emissary. The representation of Abraxas, “the highest god” of Burton, unsettles most for it eludes simple identification and classification and is amorphous and chameleonic. Jung emphasizes that “Abraxas is the god whom it is difficult to know” (50). He is the formidable force that seeks to destroy heterodoxy. Conveying a similar belief in the notion of the relativity of the qualities of good and evil, Burton in The Kasidah notes how

[t]he Pilgrim [Haji Abdu] holds with St. Augustine: Absolute Evil is impossible

because it is always rising up into good. He considers the theory of a beneficent or

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maleficent deity a purely sentimental fancy, contradicted by human reason and the

aspect of the world. Evil is often the active form of good. (The Kasidah 79)

Additionally, Jung proposes:

Abraxas is the god whom is . . . the very greatest. . . . Man sees the summum

bonum (supreme good) of the sun, and also the infinum malum of the devil, but

Abraxas he does not see, for he is undefinable life itself, which is the mother of

good and evil alike. . . . Indeed, he is himself the greater Pan, and also the lesser.

He is Priapos. . . . He is fullness, uniting itself with emptiness. (51)

This section recalls to mind Muller’s characterization of Mowgli as Faunus (All the Mowgli Stories

257), a figure who Jane Hotchkiss reminds us is ‘"son of Libidina and Priapus" (441). It is clear that Kipling, Burton, and Jung all place great importance upon the symbol of the trickster god throughout their works. Abraxas is the trickster god who embodies and straddles multiple realms, multiple subject stations, multiple dimensions and existences, continuously transmogrifying and undergoing metamorphosis in order to experience fullness and union. Abraxas, like Kim, Mowgli, and Burton appear as trickster gods walking the untrodden path to experience the nature of diversity, plurality, and multiplicity and freedom. He is the solution to the fractured self, leading one as a devoted guide to wholeness, individuation, unity and enlightenment. Jung offers wisdom pertaining to the function of the symbol of hybridity in Kipling and Burton’s works. In all the tales that we have explored, the hybrid figure appears as the juggernaut waging battle against the forces of maya, illusion and deceit by representing completion, fullness, plenitude and enlightenment/nirvana.

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Through analysing the Jungian theory on Abraxas and Burton’s own invocation of this same figure, we can more easily observe Burton’s rationale for his shapeshifting ways. Indeed, his pilgrimages can be seen as the journey toward Self through merging with and becoming the Other.

I suggest that Burton’s illumination/enlightenment manifests through a construction of a personal syncretic cosmogony, a contemplation upon his origins, and most importantly, through a deeper awareness of "hybrid mysticism" and his place within the web of creation.

In the opening of this chapter, I suggested that key transformations could be found within

Burton’s authorial voice in the two texts The Kasidah and Stone Talk. We can see more readily manifest the speakers’ desire to renounce affinity to a single system of thought and how the resounding message of the unity of creation permeates these works. There also seems, psychologically, a deeper sense of fulfilment in terms of the seeker and his quest—we may even detect a sense of resolution, wholeness and completion that is apparent within the tone, diction, and poetic themes of oneness in these works.

In Sindh: And the Races that Inhabit the Valley of the Indus, Burton describes the twenty meditative stages of transmutation that the Sufi discipline must undertake in order to become god- realized. He explains the first stage as follows:

The first Huzur [meditation which] is called Fana fi’l af’al: the meditater must

suppose his entity to be that of a stone or clod of earth, every action of which

proceeds from the One Actor. By contemplating this Spirit within him, the devotee

now becomes "Maslub el af’al," and may act in a way by no means permissible to

the vulgar herd. (219-20)

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In terms of Burton’s own journey, perhaps his first Huzur was the ability to assume guise and identify as the other, and change form so as to experience solidarity with his fellow brethren.

However, the full realization takes place only when all darkness is shed, the equivalent being in

Burton’s narrative, to the rejection of all divisiveness and sentiments of racial/religious/cultural separation. He explains:

"The twentieth and last Huzur enables the Gnostic to arrive at "Fana fi’llah," or

absorption into the Deity. His soul is now so thoroughly purged of the alloy of

matter, that nothing impedes his free contemplation of the Godhead, or prevents his

recognizing the Eternal Origin of all things. The Sufi is now justified in

exclaiming,—

"How high and how great is my degree (in creation)!

There is nothing within my coat but God."

With this the celebrated fanatic Mansur, he may indulge himself in asserting Ana’l

Hakk ("I am God", especially if equally ambitious of the crown of glory. . .). (Sindh

221-2)

The final and highest stage of illumination is indicated here as a complete merger/union with the divine principle that erases all markers of difference. I have suggested in this chapter, that Burton is at one level—as most apparent in his esoteric writings—informed by this search for unity amidst a complex and changing world of difference.

Finally, I have shown that within the imaginative space of the written word, for Burton, the trickster god pathway comes to an end with the invocation of the name, and by extension, through

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association with the attributes of Abraxas whose symbolism, I have argued, gives rise to the key thematic impulses in the examined texts. Further, as I will now explore, Burton’s penchant for non-duality may be rooted in particular tenets of his interpretation of Sufism.

Burton, Ibn Arabi, and the Poetics of Oneness

It is notable that both Kipling, toward the end of Kim, and Burton, in the entirety of The

Kasidah, settle upon a final image depicting the Sufi mystical notion of divine love and union. The

Lama and Kim achieve illumination and are, then, revealed as I have pointed out as beloveds to each other. As we have seen, The Kasidah too invokes the image of divine love in multiple ways and is clearly an extended treatise on divine unification, told from the Sufi perspective. One is, then, compelled to ask: why do both authors appear open and receptive to Sufi teachings? And more specifically: what key teachings within Sufi doctrine does Burton adopt in his life and works?

One of the foremost Sufi scholars that Burton would undoubtedly be familiar with is Ibn Arabi.

He was born in Muslim Spain in A.D. 1165 and was a gifted philosopher, theologian and spiritual scholar who came to be known as the “Greatest Master” (Chittick,“Imaginal Worlds” 1). His ideas caused controversy then and now and was seen by many as subversive to mainstream tenets of

Islam due to depictions in his works of the belief in the inherent god-nature of humanity. I will now briefly explore his Sufi hermeneutics and how his formulation of the idea of “oneness” directly permeates and informs Burton’s self-representation as hybrid seeker.

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Ibn Arabi, William Chittick asserts, was deeply concerned with the question: “How does manyness arise from Oneness? (The Sufi Path 7). Pursuing this critical inquiry, Ibn Arabi, according to his followers, arrived upon a specific understanding of unity of which Chittick writes:

[t]he famous expression “Oneness of Being” or “Unity of Existence” (wahdat al-

wujud), which is often said to represent Ibn al-‘Arabi’s doctrinal position, might

also be translated as the “Oneness” or “Unity of Finding.” . . . his main concern is

not with the mental concept of being but with the experience of God’s Being, the

tasting . . . of Being, that “finding” which is at one and the same time to perceive

and to be that which truly is. (The Sufi Path 3)

Some readers of Ibn Arabi construe his words to imply the inner divinity of humanity and how all beings/things are offshoots of an original godhead and are thus, by this nature, sacred and divine.

One can certainly argue that throughout the chronicles of his journey to Arabia, Burton was testing the truth of Ibn Arabi’s words. He attempts to ascertain, through direct experience of changing guise and becoming the Other, the function and value of this abstract and paradoxical theological/spiritual principle of “unity within multiplicity”—as represented by Ibn Arabi, the

Lama, Mowgli and Kim in the texts studied in my work. The body of Ibn Arabi’s works reveal a desire to marry reason, mind, and intellect with intuition, creativity, and spirit; a desire mirrored in the character of Burton who employed magical imagery and thinking, fantasy, myth, and legend to make critical comments about the state of the world and its inhabitants. We learn more of Ibn

Arabi’s philosophy through the following summary that portrays his search for a unity of consciousness and an understanding of the principle of oneness as embedded in Islam:

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The rational path of philosophers and theologians needs to be complemented by the

mystical intuition of the Sufis, the “unveiling” (kashf) that allows for imaginal—

not “imaginary”—vision. The heart, which in itself is unitary consciousness, must

become attuned to its own fluctuation, at one beat seeing God's incomparability

with the eye of reason, at the next seeing his similarity with the eye of imagination.

Its two visions are prefigured in the two primary names of the Scripture, al-qur’ân,

“that which brings together”, and al-furqân, “that which differentiates.” These two

demarcate the contours of ontology and epistemology. The first alludes to the

unifying oneness of Being (perceived by imagination), and the second to the

differentiating manyness of knowledge and discernment (perceived by reason). The

Real, as Ibn ‘Arabî often says, is the One/the Many (al-wâhid al-kathîr), that is,

One in Essence and many in names, the names being the principles of all

multiplicity, limitation, and definition. In effect, with the eye of imagination, the

heart sees Being present in all things, and with the eye of reason it discerns its

transcendence and the diversity of the divine faces. (Chittick, "Ibn Arabi" n.pag.;

emphasis added)

Indeed, it is evident that Ibn Arabi stood for religious syncretism or a perennial philosophy.

Chittick contends that Ibn Arabi spoke in tolerant terms in favor of religious plurality and about how the diversity of humankind correlates with the mercy and expansiveness of the divine mind

(Imaginal Worlds 4). Chittick explains how “specific Sufi teachings . . . have a bearing on the unity and diversity of the religious heritage of humanity” (4). He adds that Ibn Arabi “typically wants to show that diversity has been established as God’s wisdom and compassion . . . [and that diversity

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of thought must be honored for] divergent beliefs stem from God” (Imaginal Worlds 4).

Furthermore, he cites direct lines from Ibn Arabi’s works that show how he envisioned diversity as a sign of the multiplicity of God: “God Himself is the first problem of diversity that has become manifest in the cosmos . . . the dispositions of the existent things are diverse. . . . Therefore the

Real is the first problem of the diversity in the cosmos” (Imaginal Worlds 4).

Let us recall Burton’s fascination with the erasure of labels and link this with how Ibn

Arabi speaks at length of the value of being nameless and the importance of seeking unification/annihilation through the subsistence, or baqa of God (Imaginal Worlds 59). Ibn Arabi declares that the seeker,

by situating himself in the Station of No Station, he is able to accept and reject

every station. He acknowledges the validity of every mode of human knowing, and

at the same time he recognizes the limitations of every mode. Thus he considers

every perspective, every school of thought, and every religion as both true and false.

(Imaginal Worlds 10)

Chittick adds further that

In accepting the truth of the diverse perspectives on reality offered by human

beings, the Shaykh [Ibn Arabi] announces the radical relativity of all things and all

perceptions, even perceptions that are informed by prophetic wisdom. In this

respect, his approach has a deep resonance with certain currents of postmodernism.

(Imaginal Worlds 11)

He explains how for Ibn Arabi,

[a]mbiguity and intermediateness are properties of cosmic things . . . as each thing

is both identical with and different from wujūd . . . And the reality of wujūd, its

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simultaneous oneness and manyness, finds its most complete outward expression

in perfect human beings, who manifest all the names of God in their fullness. . . .

Oneness displays its infinity in the manyness of human perfections. (Imaginal

Worlds 28-9)

Again, we see the manifestation of the idea of the thread that interconnects all—an enduring image that we have thus far discovered in the teachings of the Upanishads, Latour, Kim, Mowgli, Burton,

Ibn Arabi and more. Thus, my study seeks to acknowledge the traces and substantial impact of

Eastern, non-Christian thinkers upon the writings of select Western Victorian era writers such as

Burton and Kipling. I hope to have illustrated that by exploring the fascination Burton and Kipling had with esoteric and syncretic spiritual systems (or the theme of “hybrid mysticism”) and the trope of the hybrid hero we are able to gain a broader understanding of the complexities of their literature. I have suggested throughout that we can deepen our understanding of Kipling and

Burton through turning a bold and inquisitive eye to their relationship with universal mysticism.

Appiah rightly observes that Burton can be remembered as “the least Victorian of men, and the most” (6). Indeed, Burton and Kipling are products of their times and have in many moments violently represented the Other through robbing them of their agency and self-representation and by having their hybrid heroes mimic the essence of the Other. However, we can also see how the imaginative and spiritual components of their endeavours enable them to deploy the hybrid as a necessary means to creatively explore the meaning of unity with creation—an idea rooted in both

Freemasonry and Ibn Arabi’s teachings of Sufism.

I close this chapter with a final invocation of Ibn Arabi’s words on the importance of religious plurality—a message that bears direct significant in our contemporary world fraught by wars waged in the name of difference. On the topic of religious and ethnic diversity, Chittick cites

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the following captivating lines directly from Ibn Arabi’s work, al-Futuhat al-makkiyya,

Muqaddima:

The perfect human being worships God through every revealed religion [shar’],

glorifes Him with every tongue, and acts as a receptacle for His every self-

disclosure—on condition that he fulfills the reality of his humanity and knows

himself, for none knows his Lord but he who knows himself. (II 69.27; cited in

“Imaginal Worlds” 35-6)

This section from Ibn Arabi’s works uncannily captures the essence of Burton’s own philosophy as displayed and explored in the Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage, Stone Talk and The Kasidah.

In his search to become the “perfect human” representing the oneness of divinity, Burton adopts many faces and perspectives and ultimately acknowledges the merits of hybrid consciousness.

Regarding the The Kasidah, Idries Shah suggests, “[t]he allegory of alchemy, a traditional Sufi tale in which the great work of transmutation is accomplished, is given a fresh form in the book”

(258). For Burton, then, the greatest outcome of the journey of transformation, ecapsulated in The

Kasidah, is the full understanding of the “unity of being.” Importantly, Burton fervently questions the topics of race, ethnicity, and religious difference, and through his lifelong pilgrimage for seeking truth, he arrived upon enlightenment through the esoteric branch of Islam known as

Sufism—for Burton, a path amidst many that lead the weary traveler to the Real.

***

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CHAPTER 7

Tracing the Arc of Hybrid Discourse: A Conclusion

This study has compared and contrasted the portrayals of the hybrid trickster encountered in select works of Sir Richard Burton and Rudyard Kipling. I have aimed to show that there are numerous thematic and symbolic parallels in the way Burton portrays himself as a shape- shifter/trickster figure seeking enlightenment and the way Kipling portrays the questing figures of

Kim and Mowgli from Kim and The Jungle Book.

In various ways, I have explored how and why Kim/Burton/Mowgli assumes the role of a trickster to facilitate understanding of Self and Other. In part, I argued that their travels are spurred by the character’s experiences of doubt and ambivalence regarding their views of popular

Victorian conceptions of race and human diversity. In the respective texts, the central figure experiences existential crises as he attempts to understand the warring psychological aspects within himself. In a manner, he seeks answers to pressing questions regarding identity and his place in the world through assuming the multiple guise of the Other. I have demonstrated that there appears a similar trajectory of growth in each text where the adventurer/ neophyte learns the art of shapeshifting and disguise and often assumes the guise of the sage/healer/pilgrim in a bid to search for meaning, knowledge, and truth. The outcomes of the characters’ journeys to enlightenment are diverse, multiple, and manifold. Yet, I have highlighted that there is a similarity in the end-goal and culmination point in the chosen narratives where the authors subtly highlight the central figures’ renunciation (albeit partial) of affinity for a single faith, political, religious, cultural or social system. Edmund Wilson observes that “Kipling had no real religion. He exploited, in his poems and his fiction, the mythology of a number of religions” (57). I have highlighted how a

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similar sentiment prevails within the narratorial voice of Burton, where he experiments with various traditions to make sense of the notion of “unity.”Regarding the role of religious symbology within Kipling’s works, Wilson surmises:

the various symbols and gods which figure in his stories and poems are mere

properties which the writer finds useful for his purposes of rhetoric or romance. Yet

we cannot but suspect in Kim and in the stories of metempsychosis that Kipling has

been seriously influenced by the Buddhism which he had imbibed with his first

language in his boyhood” (57).

He adds further that it “is certainly with Buddhism that we first find associated a mystical side of

Kipling’s mind” (57). In my own work, I have embarked on an exploration of both Burton and

Kipling’s “mystical side” as visible through their creative and critical engagement with the genre of comparative religion—as expressed numerously through their variegated use of rich symbols drawn from the world’s religious traditions.

David Chidester points out that

In his first lecture introducing the science of religion . . . on February 19, 1870,

Friedrich Max Müller, who has often been identified as the founder of comparative

religion, proposed that the real founder was the Mughal emperor Akbar, “the first

who ventured on a comparative study of the religions of the world.” With a passion

for the study of religions, Emperor . . . Akbar (1542– 1605) convened regular

interreligious discussions at his court, bringing together Muslims, Hindus,

Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians for debates about religion. (1)

I have suggested throughout this study that both Burton and Kipling have displayed great interest in the idea of religious syncretism—or as I term the notion, “hybrid mysticism” to ponder the

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possibility of biological monogenism, a shared human ancestry, and a common spiritual origin.

The imperial roots of the field of comparative religion cannot be ignored and as Chidester further elaborates, “[m]ore than any other imperial science, comparative religion dealt with the essential identities and differences entailed in the imperial encounter with the exotic East and savage Africa.

Comparative religion, therefore, was a crucial index for imperial thinking about empire” (4).

Indeed, Burton and Kipling’s stances are never uniform and their lofty ideals and humanist values seeking unity often collapse rapidly through the construction of virulently racist imagery and language.

Chidester comments also on the search for a “universal theory of religion” during the

British Raj:

As Max Müller observed, the British Empire provided unprecedented access to the

sacred texts of the world and accounts of the religious beliefs and practices of

colonized people. By weaving this data together, imperial theorists had the

opportunity to produce a universal theory of religion. . . . [T]heories that resulted

from this opportunity differed dramatically. (5)

I urge that Burton and Kipling also be read within the context of the growth of interest in comparative religion. They too are intrigued by a common search for such a “universal theory” of religion—the two authors investigate this theme through their engagement with the emblem of the larger-than-life, otherworldly, trickster hero. Indeed, some of the conclusions drawn by the authors are overly simplistic, sensational, and totalizing in vision where their depictions of the racialized

Other and his or her adherence to faith is often misunderstood. As Chidester states, European scholars of religion and culture would “[w]ithout leaving home, . . . accumulate and process

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colonial texts” (6), leading inevitably to a proliferation of misinformed and fabricated accounts of customs and traditions.

Jeffrey Franklin contends that “[w]hile Kipling’s Orientalism unavoidably was an appropriation of Indian culture and religion for colonialist purposes, it also was a genuine expression of respect for and celebration of that culture and those religions” (135). Both Kipling and Burton are figures that inspire thought, debate, and controversy regarding authorial tone and imperial ambitions and it is not surprising to see great conflict and ambiguity within the voices of scholars that engage with them. George Orwell writes: “During five literary generations every enlightened person has despised him, and at the end of that time nine-tenths of those enlightened persons are forgotten and Kipling is in some sense still there” (70). He adds further that: “Kipling is a jingo imperialist, he is morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting” (70). Regarding the memorable character of the Lama in Kipling’s Kim, Edward Said suggests that “[e]ven the saintly guru is made by Kipling to affirm the difference between a white man and a non-white”

(“Introduction to Kim” 40). I have proposed an alternative reading by asserting that saintly figures, sages, and chameleon-like trickster figures in both Burton and Kipling’s select works serve to actively blur the boundaries separating the “white man and . . . [the] non-white” (40). Through an exploration of religion, spirituality and the notion of unity, Burton and Kipling launch subtle—and wavering—criticisms of the ideologies and viewpoints of their own “home” culture. My project has thus contributed to a body of criticism that engages with colonial ambivalence, as I have illustrated that both Kipling and Burton are two-sided figures with complex and often conflicted views regarding race, religion, and empire.

Further, I have examined how my chosen Victorian authors have used the trope of hybridity and the trickster god to forward beliefs in a perennial philosophy and a view, though wavering, in

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the “transcendental unity” of creation. Finally, I have shown that, through correlating hybridity with enlightenment, both authors propose a similar understanding of the connectivity of all people as marked by their proposed syncretic views of the world’s spiritual traditions. My project has traced how the central figures embody the role of the hybrid god of enlightenment and conjure up the attributes of multiple trickster figures—such as Hermes, Abraxas, Krishna and other mythical representations from the world’s pantheon of deities. Navigating multiple worlds in their search for truth, Burton, Mowgli and Kim each seemingly find acceptance, resolution, transcendence and enlightenment; further, their destination is symbolically and metaphorically marked by the experience of union with creation.

A Personal Journey

In retrospect, I realize that through the project of studying hybridity I have come to appreciate the interconnections between all things; to name a few, the knowledge and belief systems, histories, and mythologies that have shaped and continue to shape human experience.

The process has invited me to peer closely into the mirror of the soul, and acknowledge that I have been guided by the philosophical questions posed by my chosen characters in their respective journeys. Further, I have learned the importance and validity of broaching the topic of “unity within multiplicity,” for it eludes us still in a world where sadly, all lives still do not hold equal value in our increasingly technologized and globalized world—a world impacted by a myriad of issues including unequal wealth distribution, gender violence, war and conflict, the fight for resources, the pursuit of profit and gain at the cost of human rights violations, environmental degradation and more. Perhaps it is the role of creative writers and artists of today to contemplate the question: what is implied by the notion of “unity within multiplicity” and why does this matter?

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I will perhaps offer a continuation of this study, and craft a creative work that looks further at the importance of myth in shaping cultural perception—offering a new hybrid mythology that addresses the concerns of our contemporary world. Indeed, the pertinent question remains: as global citizens, how do we ensure that we value ourselves and value the lives of those around us in our immediate surroundings, our nation, and other nations—human and animal, animate and inanimate—that comprise our world? I do not profess to have answers to these difficult questions.

I have, however, come to acknowledge that we are all, in different ways, hybrid chimeras, reconstituted molecules, bearing the imprints of our forbearers, their genetics, their stories and experiences, and the shared ancestral legacy of our single human origins.

Latour speaks of the web of life and how hybridity and hybrid mindsets offer us the ultimate liberatory tool. My work concurs and suggests the future is increasingly a hybrid one—in all permutations of this word—whether we refer to ethnicity, culture, perhaps even religion, technology, literature, and more. The challenge is to retain individuality in the seeming face of the dissolution of boundaries. Such fear may not be warranted for, in embracing multiplicity, unity is confirmed. I have learned through this writing journey that the unity of self can be found through acknowledging the multiplicity of creation.

III

“Beyond Orientalism”: Hybrid Mysticism

In his brilliant work Culture and Imperialism, Edward Said writes of Kipling as one “who finally saw only the politics of empire” (39). He notes further:

Kipling (few more imperialist and reactionary than he) rendered India with such

skill, . . . his novel Kim not only depended on a long history of Anglo-Indian

perspective, but also, in spite of itself, forecast the untenability of that perspective

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in its insistence on the belief that the Indian reality required, indeed beseeched

British tutelage more or less indefinitely. (xxi)

I reiterate that I do not make the claim that Burton and Kipling are not imperialists but, rather, that there is an intriguing aspect of their views that becomes manifest when we explore their representations of what I define as “hybrid mysticism”—the cross-pollination of religious and spiritual ideas and perspectives that lead to an understanding of unity. Through each chapter, I have portrayed that Kipling’s and Burton’s spiritual beliefs offer a more complex and penetrating look at their worldviews and conceptions of race. Said further suggest that “one has Kipling’s fiction positing the Indian as a creature clearly needing British tutelage, one aspect of which is a narrative that encircles and then assimilates India, since without British India would disappear into its own corruption and underdevelopment” (Culture 167). I have outlined that this statement serves in many scenarios but there are alternative narratives that are also at work. Through examining

Kipling and Burton’s invocation of Eastern figures such as Ibn Arabi and Kabir, among others, I have shown that the attainment of hybrid consciousness is the gateway to enlightenment and the path to higher knowledge, for Burton, Kim and Mowgli, is enabled by the space and mystical teachings of the Eastern World. Ultimately, I argue that it is important that readers are able to perceive the ambivalence of both figures and to realize the deep complexity of opinion that informs their works.

Avenues for Exploration

“A man should, whatever happens, keep to his own caste, race and breed. Let the White go

to the White and the Black to the Black. Then whatever trouble falls is in the ordinary

course of things—neither sudden, alien, nor unexpected” (Kipling, “Beyond the Pale” 339).

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My project has several limitations that may be addressed in a future revision. There may be charges that my work adopts a universalizing tendency, and overlooks blatant racism in the works of Burton and Kipling, which I may more adequately address in a future revision. My original plan was to include two additional chapters. The first would be entitled “Cross-Cultural

(D)alliances: Stories of Romance, Sexuality, and Depictions of the ‘Oriental’ Female in Kipling and Burton.” Here, I would look more fully at the miscegenation and portrayals of interracial unions in the works of Burton and Kipling, asking the question: What are the authors’ ideas on the possibility of union between men and women of different races? While Kipling is more conservative in his attitudes than Burton, a close examination of their stories of miscegenation set in India shows the native woman as an ambivalent and potentially derogatory figure who incites feelings of scorn in the reader. Bart Moore-Gilbert makes note that Kipling was aware that interracial relationships often exploited Indian women (54) and in several of his stories “local women are discarded without compunction by their European lovers once more ‘suitable’ opportunities arise” (Kipling 54). As Said’s contends, “no amount of friendship or camaraderie can change the rudiments of racial difference” (Culture 135); this observation applies both to the topic of love and friendship between the races in the works of Burton and Kipling.

Burton, too, expresses ambivalence with the respect to the topic of interracial union. In

Goa and the Blue Mountains (1851), he presents a disdainful view of the Portuguese half-caste population. Elsewhere professing the oneness of humanity, here Burton oddly contends that the admixture would lead to the decline of the Portuguese population in India. Yet, in other instances, he is less scathing in his comments and shows pity and/or enthusiasm for those caught between cultural and ethnic boundaries. Burton’s accounts of sexuality in the East are prolific and numerous and he often readily expresses his enthusiasm to “learn” of a culture through acquiring (firsthand)

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knowledge of its sexual customs and traditions. Offending Victorian sensibilities, he expresses the view that to know the Other culture, one must know the other intimately. An examination of his views on sexuality and race may add nuance to my study.

In contrast, Kipling issues a stern warning to those who participate in a mixed union in his short story “Beyond the Pale.” In this story, the Englishman falls in love with a beautiful, uneducated Hindu woman and the tragic tale ends with extreme violence and the mutilation of both lovers. Elsewhere, Kipling issues a similar cautionary message. In The Man who Would be

King, the love interest is a proud woman from a secluded mountainous region of India who rejects the advances of the Englishmen because of their foreign appearance and inscrutable ways. Again,

Kipling portrays the limits of cross-cultural unions and paints the picture of an impasse that cannot be crossed. Certainly, Kipling’s poetry too reflects the idea that “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet” (“The Ballad of the East and West” 53). However, in both

Kipling’s and Burton’s works, the two do meet and I would explore these interstitial spaces and the ambivalence and contradictory nature of such meetings. In short, this chapter would propose that there are unresolved matters within Kipling’s and Burton’s formulations of hybridity and the unity of creation and this would be further examined through an exploration of the topic of love and “miscegenation” in their works.

Another chapter would be devoted to the study of “Native Hybrid Figures in the Works of

Burton and Kipling.” It is clear that Burton’s and Kipling’s position on hybridity is typically constricted to the elite class of white men and in this chapter, I would explore how “monstrous hybridity” (Kim 215)—to borrow Kipling’s words, manifests in problematic hybrid representations of Native, non-European figures in both their works. I will also examine how

Kipling’s portrayals of the anglicized Indians, such as Hurree Babu in Kim, are often grotesque

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and racist caricatures. In this section, I would ask: why is hybridity imagined primarily by Burton and Kipling as solely or predominantly (for Mowgli is non-Caucasian) a white male prerogative?

Further, how do the two writers depict the reverse situation, where the native seeks to cross over or is forced to adopt the cultural rulings of the colonial power?

Another intention is to investigate how other Victorian authors have explored “hybrid mysticism” through representations of the trickster god, and to what effect. Further, I am interested to trace how Indian writers of the period may have also broached the topic of hybridity in their works. Due to restraints of length, I have refrained from speaking to these themes and realize that a future revision of this work will involve an examination of these worthy subjects.

Imagining Hybrid Futures

In The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey Spencer Wells writes of the first Western account of the diversity of mankind:

Herodotus, the fifth-century BC Greek historian . . . gave us our first clear

descriptions of human diversity. . . .We learn of the dark and mysterious Libyans,

the barbaric man-eating Androphagi of the Russian north . . . to exotic descriptions

of tribes in northern India who collect gold form the burrows of ants. Overall, it is

a tour-de force—the first ethnographic treatise in Western literature and, despite its

obvious flaws, a valuable snapshot of the known world at the time. (1)

There are many other literary figures across the world that have been compelled by the idea of diversity, unity, and multiplicity. Heraclitus of Ephesus is cited as one of the first to have formulated the idea of the “Unity of Opposites”—a theory of the paradoxical unity between

352

opposite elements. Hegel says the following on the fragments of teachings that remain of

Heraclitus:

Heraclitus also conceived of the opposites and their unification in a more definite

manner. He says: “The opposites are combined in the self-same one, just as honey

is both sweet and bitter.”. . . Aristotle . . . quotes this from Heraclitus: “Join together

the complete whole and the incomplete” (the whole makes itself the part, and the

meaning of the part is to become the whole), “what coincides and what conflicts,

what is harmonious and what discordant, and from out of them all comes one, and

from one, all.” (284)

It is clear that many influential thinkers from across the world and from varying historic moments have pondered the ideas of the unity of creation, the unity of opposites, and the unity of consciousness. Perhaps the most expansive and foundational mythological treatise on the subject is found in Ovid’s Metamorphosis. In Book I, Ovid opens with an invocation to the Gods as he begins his epic myth of creation:

OF bodies changed to other forms I tell;

You Gods, who have yourselves wrought every change,

Inspire my enterprise and lead my lay

In one continuous song from nature’s first

Remote beginnings to our modern times. (1)

He proceeds, then, to craft a picture of the coming-into-being of earth and human existence:

. . . in the whole world the countenance

Of nature was the same, all one, well named

Chaos, a raw and undivided mass,

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Naught but a lifeless bulk, with warring seeds

Of ill-joined elements compressed together. . . . (1)

In these opening lines, we may observe some of the central themes of transmogrification, reincarnation, “unity within multiplicity” and the encompassing web of creation. Rumi portrays similar notions in his short poem, “A Stone I died”:

A stone I died and rose again a plant;

A plant I died and rose an animal;

I died an animal and was born a man.

Why should I fear? What have I lost by death? (n.pag.)

Rumi’s poem on the subject of reincarnation can act as a conceptual tool that lets us interrogate our assumptions about race, class, unity and difference—for Rumi, there is little separation between objects, things, and creatures. I invoke these lines from various thinkers to conclude as my study has chosen to see the works of Burton and Kipling in terms of these very same subjects raised works by philosophers and artists from times of antiquity and onward. Indeed, my work may serve those who are curious to continue to trace concepts linked with the notion of “unity within multiplicity,” from ancient, pre-modern, to modern times (and not anchored in one geographical location). My study may lead one to inquire: which contemporary writers and thinkers have carried on in the wake of the figures discussed in this work?

Bruno Latour explains that a synthesis of ideas is in order and that the finest hybrid conceptual structures from different epochs must be melded together. He explains: “the moderns have always recognized that they too had blended objects and societies, cosmologies and sociologies. But this was in the past, while they were still only premodern” (130). His protocol to move the human collective forward is to embrace hybrid thinking and interstitial spaces. He

354

expresses this position in his exploration of “morphism” in order to envision a new future and create a new way for inhabiting the world:

Morphism is the place where technomorphisms, zoomorphisms . . . ideomorphisms,

theomorphisms, sociomorphisms, psychomorphisms, all come together. . . . By

seeking to isolate its form from those it churns together, one does not defend

humanism, one loses it. (137)

For Latour, it seems that every possibility that leads to the dissolution of boundaries and the union of disparate parts will ensure the deepening of our collective humanity. However, he proleptically warns that hybrid thought must be cautiously approached and that we must revise past conceptualizations by the premoderns and the moderns such that we proceed without relying on essentialist, ethnocentric, or universalizing tendencies. Hybridity must be bolstered but we must discard faulty notions of “universality, rationality . . . ethnocentrism . . . anachronism” (Latour

135). I have also learned that enlightenment is not a fixed state and that we need to build upon and clarify the formulations of hybridity presented by thinkers such as Kipling and Burton. Let us forge a new future where the human condition is revitalized through conceptualizing the trope of hybridity in a manner that suits us best.

I return finally again to the pivotal question that has framed my analysis: “What is enlightenment?” Enlightenment can be best understood as the process of continuous reflection on self and society through the unhindered challenging of one’s most deep-seated assumptions, values and beliefs. It is the process of reinventing ourselves, assuming multiple unfixed guises, such that our former selves die repeatedly to give rise to a newer self that sees with clarity and depth what the world chooses not to see. The enlightened hybrid self brings newness into the world while glancing at, but not heeding to, the forces that inform(ed) the past and present. Indeed, hybrid

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tricksters allow us to challenge and facilitate the entry of new ideas that are not easily celebrated initially by ourselves or our peers. To borrow Latour’s words, I acknowledge that “we are indeed the heirs of the Enlightenment” (142). A continued exploration of “hybrid mysticism” in our world may offer us an antidote to the malady of ambivalence, hatred, apathy and fear that prevents us from embracing the elusive beauty, truth, and plenitude of the concept of “unity within multiplicity.”

***

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