The Past As a Scarce Resource Author(S): Arjun Appadurai Source: Man, New Series, Vol

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The Past as a Scarce Resource Author(s): Arjun Appadurai Source: Man, New Series, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Jun., 1981), pp. 201-219 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2801395 . Accessed: 17/06/2014 11:46

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This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE PAST AS A SCARCE RESOURCE

ARJUN APPADURAI Universityof Pennsylvania

The assumptionthat the past is an infiniteand plasticsymbolic resource, wholly susceptible to contemporarypurposes, is widespreadin contemporaryanthropology. It is partlyrooted in Malinowski's conceptionof mythas social charterand partlyin Durkheim'sformulation concerningthe cross-culturalrelativity of fundamentalcategories of humanthought. This articleis a critiqueof this assumption,and suggeststhe existenceof culturallyvariable sets of norms whose functionis to regulatethe inherentdebatability of the past. Such norms,which vary substantivelyfrom culture to culture,are neverthelessfrom a formalpoint of view subjectto certainuniversal constraints. An examplefrom south India is thebasis forthis argument, which also has implicationsfor the theoretical analysis of social change.

There exists a widespreadthough tacit assumption that the past is a limitless and plastic symbolic resource,infinitely susceptible to the whims of contemporary interest and the distortionsof contemporaryideology. The principalthesis of thisarticle is thatthis assumption is false,and thatto correct it entailsa new view of thecultural limits of thepast as a symbolicresource. The anthropologicalassumption that the past is a boundless canvas for contemporaryembroidery representsthe confluenceof two historically distinctlines of argument.The first,inspired by Malinowski,simply derives fromobservation of the rhetoricalinvocation of the past (as 'charter')in con- temporarysocial organisation,and thetacit conclusion that such chartershave no inherentlimits, except those of expediency.The second, inspiredby Durkheim (I954), carried through by Evans-Pritchard(I940), Hallowell (I937) and Lee (I959) and mostrecently revived by Geertz(I966), makesa subtlerand further-reachingrelativist case. In thislatter view, conceptsof time (and indeed the perceptionof durationitself) are fundamentalcultural vari- ables. The joint consequenceof thesetwo argumentsis to renderthe past a boundless resourcein particularcultures, as well as infinitelyvariable cross- culturally.My argumentis principallydirected at thefirst view, derivedfrom Malinowski. The second view cannotbe falsifiedin principle,but I shallargue thatthere do appear to be some generalconstraints which limit any collective use of thepast.

Cross-culturallimits In a recentMalinowski lecture,Maurice Bloch (I977) has criticisedClifford Geertzfor exaggerating the extent to whichparticular cultures might perceive

Man(N.S.) i6, 20I-I9

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 202 ARJUNAPPADURAI durationitself in drasticallydifferent ways. The problemof whetherduration is a universallyrecognised aspect of temporalprocesses is not my central concern. My concernis ratherwith 'pasts' in Malinowski'ssense of charters: collectivelyheld, publiclyexpressed and ideologicallycharged versions of the past, which are likelyto varywithin the groups that form a society.Yet there is an importantpoint of agreementbetween Bloch and Geertzwhich impinges on my argument. Bloch concedes thatGeertz is rightin arguingthat the Balinese have two kinds of past: a 'ritualised'past which denies duration,and a non-ritual, mundane past, concernedwith such pragmaticactivities as agricultureand politics, in which durationis universallyrecognised. Bloch's quarrelwith Geertz concernsonly the weightto be given to thesetwo kindsof past. The troublewith this dichotomy is thatboth are conceivedas beingbeyond debate. The ritualpast is entirelyshared and the non-ritualpast is a brutepragmatic given. There is, however, a thirdkind of past whose essentialpurpose is to debateother pasts. It generallypartakes of both ritualand everydaykinds of discourse and indeed makes it possible for people to pass fromone to the other. It too has a culturalform, in each society,even if durationis a uni- versally recognised datum of socio-biological reality. Nor, like Geertz's version of the Balinese view of time, is it wholly a culture-relative phenomenon. It comprisesantagonistic pasts that are themselvessubject to a sharednormative framework, and in an Indianexample I describeone suchset of niorms.That such pastsare subjectto disagreementand debateis, of course, hardly a novel point. As Leach (I965) has pointedout, Malinowskihimself observed that even in stable and well-balancedsocieties, opposing factions would be likelyto generatedifferent myths, a pointthat was laterforcefully madeby Fortes (I 945) andFirth (I930-3I). Inhis own classic analysis ofpolitics in highlandBurma, Leach makesthis argument with a strikingseries of examples of variationson myths which supportedvarying political interests. In his famous phrase, mythand ritualis a language of argument,not a chorusof harmony.The main significanceof thisinsight, from Leach's pointof view, was its furtherproof that the thenreigning assumptions of integration,equi- libriumand consistencyin relationto small-scalesocieties were in drasticneed of revision. My own argument,following Leach, takesfor granted that discourse concerningthe past between social groups is an aspect of politics, involving competition,opposition and debate. But the centralquestion with which I am concernedis: how is suchdebate culturally organised? This latter questionhas not so farreceived explicit attention from anthropologists. To treatdebate concerningthe past as an aspectof politicsis, of course,not the same as to explain the sociology of competitionand dominancein any given politicalcontext. The ethnographicportion of thisarticle deals largely with antagonismsbetween organised interests in a southIndian temple, but its purpose is not to account for the sociology of factionalismin the standard sense. The argumentis, rather,concerned with what Cohen and Comaroff (I976) have recentlycalled 'the managementof meaning'.By thisthey mean the competitiveprocess by which values are defined,images of transactions contrived,and interpretationsof a situationsuccessfully imposed by one party

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ARJUN APPADURAI 203 on others. Cohen and Comaroffmake a forcefulargument that analysis of those transactionsthat involve competition over themanagement of meanings should precede analysisof those substantiveand intrinsicvalues over which the competitionis apparentlytaking place. My own concernwith the past in the politicsof a southIndian temple extends Cohen and Comaroff'sinsight in one importantregard. Rather than taking for granted that political competition over the meaningof transactionsis constrainedonly by itssocial context, I propose thatthere is a definablecultural framework with which such debates concerningmeaning must take place. The bulkof thisarticle is concernedwith the ethnographicdescription of one such framework.But the priorquestion is: are such setsof norms(whose functionis to regulatethe inherent debatability of the past) entirelyculture-relative or do theyoperate within universal constraints? I propose thatalthough there might be infinitesubstantive variation concern- ing such normsabout thepast, there is a minimalset offormal constraints on all such sets of norms. These formalconstraints can be seen as four minimal dimensionsconcerning which all culturesmust make some substantivepro- vision. i. Authority:this dimension involves some culturalconsensus as to thekinds of source,origin or guarantorof 'pasts'which are required for their credibility. 2. Continuity:involves some culturalconsensus as to thenature of thelinkage with the source of authoritywhich is requiredfor the minimal credibility of a 'past.' 3. Depth: involves culturalconsensus as to the relativevalues of different time-depthsin themutual evaluation of 'pasts'in a givensociety. 4. Interdependence:implies the necessity of some conventionabout how closely any past must be interdependentwith other'pasts' to ensureminimal credibility. Substantive conventions concerningeach of these dimensions can, of course, vary both cross-culturallyand intra-culturally.Thus, while prophetic dreamscan be a sourcefor the authority of chartersin northAmerica, they do not have thisstatus in Hindu India. Similarly,the substantive norms concern- ing continuityin Africancultural systems can be verydifferent for aetiological myths (in which significantbreaks in the link betweenpast and presentare permissible)and for politicalgenealogies (where such breaksmight severely impairthe credibilityof a charter).But thepoint is thatno culturecan manage the on-going collectivedebate among 'pasts' withoutsome substantive provisions concerningthese four dimensions. These dimensionsmay thereforebe taken as constitutinga minimaluniversal structure for the culturalconstruc- tion of pasts. Such a structurerepresents only a formalset of constraints,with no necessarysubstantive implications. The formalconstraints neither limit nor predeterminethe variationof substantivenorms from culture to culture,and the minimal recipe can, needlessto say, be variedand expanded;the Indian case is one such variation. Let me brieflyaddress the problemof generalisationfrom this case. Treat- ments of the role of the past in contemporarypolitics have generallybeen made in the contextof small-scale,kin-based polities, where 'myth' (in the

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 204 ARJUNAPPADURAI classic sense of tales of the sacred and semi-sacred)are the basic currencyof such discourse. The principaldifferences between these contexts and the one I describe are the productof the fact that south Asia has known a literate civilisationfor over two millennia,and fora good partof thisperiod social groups have created writtenhistorical charters.- In addition,of course, the modem colonial impacton southAsia was longerand culturallymore intense than in most otherareas. As a result,the politicsof discourseconcerning the past have become almost completelysevered from the languageof mythand ritual,in the traditionalsense. Rather,they turn on linearaccounts of events organised around historicallydateable written texts of a varietyof sorts,in- cludingcolonial legal and administrativedocuments. But thisis a differencein the mode and currencyof such discourse,and not a differencein principle. There seems to be everyreason to supposethat even in thosesocieties in which the past is largelyorganised in termsof orallytransmitted, mythic narratives, there should exist culturalnorms that regulatedebate concerningthe past, thoughtheir substantive nature might be quitedifferent: While it is outsidethe scope of thisarticle to analysethe nature of thesedifferences and similarities,it might be noted thatthis problemis anotheraspect of the cross-culturaland historicalanalysis of theconsequences of literacy (Goody I977).

The Indiancase The case of Hindu India is interestingpartly because (like Islamic,Buddhist and pre-modern European societies) it combines featuresof small-scale societies(in mattersof rank,ritual and kinship)with others that assume large- scale organisation,temporal depth, literacy and civilisationalcomplexity. As Bloch has wittilyput it, India is an excellentcase of 'too much'social structure, infinitehierarchy and a superabundanceof the past in the present.The con- structionof the past in the southIndian temple discussed below is not necess- arilyparadigmatic of Indiansociety as a whole, but it maycertainly be takenas an importantexample. In the particularsouth Indian templewhich I studied,five norms serve to provide the culturalframework within which the chartersof specificsub- groups are constructed,defended and mutuallyevaluated: i. that textual evidencefor the authorityof any charteris superiorto any otherkind; 2. that the evidencefor a charterought to involvethe ratification of a credibleexternal authoritativefigure (whether sacred or secular)in the past; 3. thatthe charter should be based on an authoritativedocument that encodes (in additionto the claims of the group in question)the privilegesof a maximumnumber of other relevantgroups; 4. thatthe evidencefor the charterin questionshould be reflected,as faras possible, continuouslyin thedocumented past, and 5. thatthe greaterthe antiquityof the referentsof the charterin question,the betterthe case forthe rightsin question.It appearsas well thatthe above fivenorms are indigenouslyconceived such thatthey stand in an orderof decreasingpower: thusthe first is theleast dispensable and thelast, the most. When one describesnorms such as these,it is especiallyimportant to relate how they are accessibleto the ethnographer.They are by no meansexplicit.

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ARJUN APPADURAI 205 They are revealed, however, in conversationsabout temple-politics,in the actual prosecutionof conflicts,and in reflectionson the evolution of the managementof the Temple. I have formalisedthem not because they are explicitlycodified, but because theyare sharedassumptions repeatedly borne out by ethnographicexperience. In the continuingconversation that is lifein the Temple, theyconstit-ute one partof thegrammar of discourse,reflected in manyparticular formulations.

The ethnohistoricalbasis formy argumentcomes froma yearof fieldwork and archival researchcentered on the Sri PartasaratiSvami Temple, in Madras City. I have elsewheredescribed this context in detail(Appadurai I98I). The followingdiscussion is thereforea skeletalstatement whose sole purposeis to set thestage for the rest of thisessay. The Sri PartasaratiSvami Temple is by its long urbanhistory, its Vaisnava sectarianaffiliation and its Tenkalai sub-sectariancontrol, in many respects peculiar.But its social role and culturalform are muchthe same as mostsouth Indian temples since at least the Chola period (c. A.D. iooo). This shared paradigm has alreadybeen discussedelsewhere (Appadurai & Breckenridge: I976), and can brieflybe summarisedas follows. The deity is the centreof the south Indian temple. This deity is not a mere image or icon for the expressionof abstractreligious sentiments and principles.In its capacityto command and redistributeeconomic resources, and in its capacityto rank individualsand groups, by the unequal redistri- bution of theseresources, the deity is foundedon thesouth Indian understand- ing of sovereignty.The deityis a paradigmaticsovereign, and thusthe south Indian temple is a polity,in which all relationshipswith the royalfigure are privileged.All contributionsto the temple,whether endowments or services, are privileged.So also theoutput of thedeity, in whateverform, is privileged. The food he has eaten, the water in which he has bathedor has drunk,the vestmentshe wears, are quintessentialobjects of value. In the divinecourt of the deity, rank and status are expressed by the amount of these divine 'leavings' one receives,on what occasions,and in what order.Access to these divine remnantsis systematicallyrelated to the servicesor substancesone offersto the deity. Thus, endowing the deity and servinghim in various capacitiesare also privilegesconstitutive of rank. For those who constitutethe followingof the deity (temple-staff,worshippers, managers, donors) these sumptuary privileges are not mere denotative emblems of rank and privilege. They are seen as constitutive featuresof shares(panku) in theredistributive process of thetemple, composed of both ritual and economic entitlements.Conflict betwen groups and in- dividuals in the Temple oftenerupts in the formof tensionsurrounding these sumptuaryprivileges, which are referredto as 'honours' (mariyatai).Such conflictsare endemic for a varietyof reasons:because thereis no overarch- ing bureaucraticprinciple of temple-control;because thereis no ecclesiastical hierarchyin India that governs temples; because the State is in a delicate

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 206 ARJUN APPADURAI positionin regardto the controlof temples;and because theboundaries of the Temple as an institutionare poorlydrawn. Thus thereis tensionbetween groups thathave an enduringcorporate in- terestin temple-control.In theexpression and resolutionof theseconflicts, the 'pasts' of thesegroups play a directand importantrole. Whenthese pasts have a high degree of mutualcredibility, conflict can be mutedor reduced.When thisis not the case, specificcontemporary battles are morelikely to rise.In the lattereventuality, these charters are likelyto be reformulated,refined, some- timesexpanded. The currentsituation is one such, and in thesecircumstances it is especiallyvital to understandthe politics of thepast in thepresent. In such conflicts,the normsthat govern the debate come frequentlyinto view. I now discussthree groups that play central roles in thepolitics of worship today at the SriPartasarati Svami Temple: theState, the Tenkalai Brahmins ofTriplicane and thenon-Brahmin worshippers.

The state In 1973-74, when I conductedfieldwork, the Governmentof the State of Tamil Natu (previouslyMadras State) was the dominantforce in temple politics. Representativesof the Hindu Religiousand CharitableEndowments (Administration)Department (hereafter the f1RCE Department)controlled the bureaucraticapparatus of theTemple: the supervisionof templefinances, the paymentof temple-servants,the logistical operation of theritual calendar. They consistedof an ExecutiveOfficer, a Superintendentand a small clerical staff.This bureaucraticphalanx occupied a small set of officeswithin the Temple precinctsfrom which theyconducted operations vital to themanage- mentof theTemple. The position of these representativesof the State was neithercomfortable nor unanimouslyapproved. The HRCE Departmenthad come to exercise administrativeand legal controlover the Temple only afterI948, and in the subsequent decades they had been vigorouslyopposed (in Court) by local members of the Tenkalai community.This protractedlegal battleended in favour of the State in I968, but even in I973 therewere a numberof local Tenkalai Brahminswho were planninga renewedlegal battleagainst the State. At the same time, the local representativesof the State were hardlyviewed with sympathyby the priests.The thengovernment of the State had com- menced a frontalassault on the ritualand economic privilegesof temple- priests, a matterthat had raised delicate legal and constitutionalissues of 'religious freedom.' The local priests,therefore, were openly hostileto the representativesof the State. The threeState-appointed trustees of theTemple representedthe broad Tenkalai constitutencyof thecity of Madras. Although they owed theirappointments to State patronage,they nevertheless resented day-to-dayinterference by the officialsof the Statein the managementof the affairsof the Temple. In fact by I973 the trusteeship,on'ce a position of considerableprestige and power, had become a purelydecorative office, de- void of possibilitiesfor patronage-distribution, because of thetight day-to-day supervision of the State. Nevertheless,as in all segmentedpolities, rep-

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ARJUN APPADURAI 207 resentativesof the Statewere certainlycapable of marshallingsupport among donors, temple-servantsand influentialworshippers, adequate to permitthem to exercise significantmanagerial control. But theywere nonethelessrecent entrantsinto the politics of temple-control,and, as such, were obliged to presentarguments (both in Court and in everydayinteractions) for the legitimacy of theirposition. Their 'charter'looked in keyways to thepast. In the most abstractand inclusiveterms, it is clearthat the bureaucracyof the HRCE Department,at the Statelevel, viewed itselfas followingthe pre- Britishcultural mandate of Hindu rulersto affordprotection (raksai) to Hindu temples. In this respect,the contemporaryState clearlyidentified itself with the model of traditionalHindu royalty.This model, thoughrarely argued in termsof specifictextual sources, is so diffuseand widelyaccepted that it allows contemporarybureaucrats to do two thingsat once: to claim a diffusepre- Britishtextual basis for theirclaims; and to identifytheir position with the dominanttraditional model of externalauthority, that is the Hindu king. This vague, thoughpowerful, aspect of theircharter was considerablystrengthened by the furtherclaim forthe continuityof thisroyal role. It was argued,in the course of the legislativeproceedings that led to the formationof thisdepart- ment in I95I, thatmany instances in the past, underHindu rulers,under the English East India Company and under the rule of the English Crown, provided amplejustification for the interferenceof Governmentin the affairs ofHindu temples (Mudaliar I974: I49). But in theirlegal battlewith the Tenkalai community of Triplicane, over the control of the Sri PartasaratiSvami Temple, this generalmandate was in- adequate. The Tenkalai case, as we shallsee shortly,was formulatedlargely on the basis of legal and administrativeprecedents from the nineteenthand twentiethcenturies. They had to be beatenon thesenarrow grounds. Essen- tially,the State assertedits right,through the HRCE Department,to appoint trusteesfor this Temple, startingin I95I. Trusteeshad previouslybeen elected by the Tenkalai residentsof Triplicane.This electoralprocess, begun in the I880's, had finallycome to be formalisedin a schemefor the management of the Temple which was partof thejudgement in an electionsuit at the High Court of Madras in I924. This 'scheme' (hereafterreferred to as the High Court Scheme of I924) was thefundamental constitutional document for those membersof the Tenkalai communityof Triplicanewho were opposed to the managerialincursions of theState. In nullifyingthe provisions of the I924 scheme,which were clearly opposed to theirinterests, the representativesof the HRCE Departmentrested on the legislativefiat of an Act passed in I95I, which simplypermitted them to appoint trusteesto all temples except those which had had 'hereditary' trustees.But the 1924 schemehad preciselyopposed theelectoral principle to the hereditaryprinciple. Most importantly,it was partof theargument of the State thatsuch legal schemessuperseded any usages on whichthey might have been based, and were thus subjectto legislativemodification or veto. Essen- tially,however, it came to this:a laterpiece of statutorylaw (Act XX of I95 i) was held to invalidate an earlierlegal judgement (the one of I924). The argumentof the State in one strokeopposed a largerexternal authority-the

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 208 ARJUN APPADURAI legislature-to a more limitedone-the benchof judges who had passed the High Court scheme of 1924. Furthermore,they advanced the superiorityof explicitlegal textsto thevague antiquityof 'customand usage', whichwas the cornerstoneof theTenkalai case. On theother hand, the Tenkalai case, though based on legal textsthat were intrinsicallymodifiable, had continuityof docu- mentationon theirside afterI 843. To this,the State simply responded that the Governmentof theEast IndiaCompany had 'appointed'trustees prior to I843. In exercisingroutine control over the affairsof the Temple today, the Executive Officerand the Superintendentconsistently have recourseto all of thesearguments rooted in thepast to justifytheir own shareof control.Their credibilityrests principally on one subtlebut significanttransformation of the past. Whereasthe role of the State,in both pre-Britishand Britishtimes, had been relativelydistant, intermittent and uneven, it was reformulatedas a naturalbasis forthe State's presentdetailed supervision of virtuallyall aspects of templelife. The presentdelicate position of the Statein theTemple in part reflectstheir ambiguous and uneven conformitywith the culturalnorms in termsof which such chartersare evaluated.The pre-Britishtextual basis for the currentposition of the State's officers-namely,the mandateof Hindu rulers to 'protect' Hindu temples-is too abstractto encode theirspecific powers and actionsin theTemple today.Their strong textual strength is based on recentlegislation, which has giventhe Stateincreasing powers over Hindu templesin Tamil Natu. But thedifficulty with these legislative texts, precisely because of their State-wide applicability,is that they do not embed the privilegesof the State in a set of specificprivileges attached to thoseof other enfranchisedgroups in theTemple today.These textsserve to isolatethe local representativesof the State, while simplygiving them the credibilityof the highest'external authority', a properlyelected legislative assembly. Lastly, the role of the Stateis highlydiscontinuous over time,and theantlquity of partici- pation is insufficientlyevident to compensatefor this lack of continuity.The State has thusfar, for numerous reasons having to do withthe macro-politics of Tamil Natu, been successfulin the courtsof law. But its opponentsin the locality of the Temple have by no means allowed thisde facto victory to be transformedinto genuine local legitimacy.The State's representativeshave failed either to defuse or to suppressthe argumentsof theirprincipal op- ponents, the Tenkalai Brahmincommunity of Triplicane,to whichwe shall now turn.

The TenkalaiBrahmin community of Triplicane The Tenkalai Brahmins of Triplicane are a large and highlydifferentiated community,with multipleand diverseinterests in the Sri PartasaratiSvami Temple, includingthose of regularworship, donation of endowments,partici- pation in temple-management,and monopolyof certainritual services in the Temple. Within this large and relativelyloose-knit community, there is a smaller communityof betweenthirty and fortyfamilies, linked by marriage ties, friendship,shared ritual expertise, enduring political alliances, and resi- dentialpropinquity, since theylive by and largein the residentialstreets that

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ARJUN APPADURAI 209 surroundthe Temple. This smallergroup, althoughitself subject to internal factionalism,does share a common identity,a common set of interestsin Temple managementand ritual,and thusa commonideology. By extension, thisgroup of Tenkalai Brahminsshares a common past,which in partframes theirrights and privilegesagainst real or perceivedthreats from the State, from the Vatakalai communityof Triplicane(members of an antagonisticsub-sect of South Indian Sri Vaisnavas), and fromother interested groups, principally theVaikhanasa priests of theTemple. In general, these Tenkalai Brahminsare membersof familiesthat have residedin Triplicanefor several generations, whose male heads are in modern white-collarprofessions (often lawyers), but who preservea powerfulcom- mitmentto the local religioustraditions as theyperceive them. As an identi- fiableinterest group in the politicsof theTemple, theyare viewed withsome trepidationby othergroups, for they combine a fiercejealousy of theirrights and privilegeswith a strongpenchant for litigation.This penchantfor litigation is strengthenedand exacerbatedby theirmany ties to members,at variouslevels, of thelegal professionin Madras City. The primaryritual interestof this group of Tenkalai Brahminsin the Temple is their organisationalmonopoly of the daily recitationof certain devotionalhymns to thedeity. These hymns,written by twelvesaint-poets of the medievalperiod, have been forsome centuriespart of thecodified 'canon' of Sri Vaisnava theology,as theirrecitation has come to be partof the fixed ritualof many Sri Vaisnava temples.In virtueof theircommand of thispoetic and religious corpus, known as the Prabandham,and their established monopoly over its recitationin daily and calendricalritual, this group sees itselfas the repositoriesand guardiansof theessence of TenkalaiSri Vaisnava traditionat this Temple. Of all the groups interestedin the Temple today, these Tenkalai Brahminshave the most highlydeveloped picture of the link between theirspecific privileges in the presentand the social historyof Sri Vaisnavasmin southIndia sincethe early medieval period. Today, southIndian Hindus who see themselvesas Sri Vaisnavas(followers of the twelfth-centuryreligious leader, Ramanuja), are dividedinto sub-sects, known respectivelyas theTenkalai (Southernschool) and Vatakalai(Northern school). Althoughthere are a numberof ritual,dietary and maritaldistinctions in the lifestylesof these two sub-sects,the dominantantagonism between them pertains to temple-ritualand temple-management.These issues of temple-controlhave been mattersof disputebetween local membersof the two sub-sectsfor the last two centuries,at the Sri PartasaratiSvami Temple and at many other South Indian Vaisnava temples.Both indigenoushistori- ography and my own investigationsconcur in placing the origins of this schism in the centuriesfollowing the deathof Ramanuja (c. A.D. 1137). The contemporaryTenkalai Brahminversion of thismedieval schism is the basic charterof theirreligious identity, even ifit does not relatespecifically to their controlof theSri PartasaratiSvami Temple. These Tenkalai Brahminshave a highlyarticulated historical view of their contemporarysectarian position. Central to theirview of thedevelopment of the schism between themselvesand the Vatakalai is the importanceof the

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 210 ARJUN APPADURAI Prabandhamcorpus. The medievalsaint-poets who composedthese poems, the Alvars, are today also enshrinedas divinefigures in the Temple. Portionsof thislarge poetic corpus are recitedboth as partof thedaily worship in theinner sanctum and during the processionalfestivals when the various deitiesare borne,with all theirroyal paraphernalia, through the neighbourhood. Tenkalai Brahminstoday view thesepoems as providinga kindof mystical guide to the classical religiousliterature of Hindu India, principallyto the foundationtexts of Hindu religion,the Vedas. In factthis corpus of poems is often referredto as the Tamil Vedas. For the Tamil-speakingTenkalai Brahminsof Triplicane,the mostimportant fact about thispoetic corpus is its equalitywith, and complementarityto, the classicalSanskrit Vedic corpusof the North, the ultimatereferent of all religiousauthority in Hindu India. It is also of importancethat these poems were composedby a multi-castegroup of poet-saints,in a vernacularlanguage (Tamil), and in the affectivemode of devotional poetryrather than in the esotericlanguage of Sanskritreligious texts. Tenkalai Brahmins hold that, in so far as the Alvar poet-saintsare concerned,caste is an irrelevantcategory, for those individualswere mani- festationsof the divine. But, as we shallsee later,these Tenkalai Brahmins do not see the Alvar poetry as necessarilya charterfor the full and equal participationof non-Brahmins in templeworship. The Tenkalai Brahminsdo, however, contrastthemselves with the Vata- kalai, at least in part because they see themselvesas descendantsof a sub- traditionalways dedicatedto the celebrationand transmissionof the Tamil Prabandham.But theyalso see anotherhistorical implication of devotionto this corpus of religiouspoetry. They argue thattheir leader, Ramanuja, institu- tionalisedthe recitationof thesehymns in temple-worship.As a result,they believe, a genuinelycongregational element was added to temple-worship, and non-Brahminswere thusmore fullyincorporated into thetemple. In this view, the medieval forebearsof the contemporaryTenkalai Brahminswere equally dedicatedto thePrabandham corpus and to itsrole in temple-worship. In this medieval phase, accordingto the contemporaryTenkalai view, the Vatakalai Brahminsremained oriented to the Sanskrittexts of the north,to domestic (as opposed to temple) worship, and by implicationwere more concerned with theirown salvation as Brahmins,than with theircongre- gational identityas Sri Vaisnavas. The Tenkalai,and hereis the criticalargu- ment, thus came to dominate Sri Vaisnava templesin the early medieval period not by chicaneryor force,but simplydue to the indifferenceof the Vatakalai. This constitutesthe broad historiographicalbasis of the Tenkalai Brahmin claim that they had been interestedin temples long before the Vatakalai. The modern (colonial and post-colonial)extension of thishistori- ographyis thatin thelast two centuries,members of theVatakalai sect, fanned by envy, supported by royal patronageand subsequentlyencouraged by British administrativeand judicial mechanisms,made a sustainedand 'con- spiratorial'onslaught on templespreviously controlled by Tenkalaiwith some degree of success. In short, for the Tenkalai Brahminsof contemporary Triplicane, theirpresumptive right to the controlof Sri Vaisnava templesin general,and the Sri PartasaratiSvami Temple in particular,is rootedin their

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ARJUN APPADURAI 211 special relationship,both ancientand continuous,to a body of texts-theTamil Prabandham-whichstands on a par withthe religious authority of theVedas. However, in recentattempts to resistVatakalai incursions into the managementof the Sri PartasaratiSvami Temple, and in theircontemporary struggles with the State, local Tenkalai Brahminsrefer to a more moderntextual tradition: the dicta of Britishadministrators in the eighteenthand nineteenth centuriesand thejudgements of the Anglo-Indianjudicial systemin the late nineteenthand twentiethcenturies. These modem texts,to which thisgroup makes frequentand astute recourse, are seen to be mere ratificationsof 'immemorialusage.' In a sense, the factthat these administrativeand legal texts are specificin termsof Tenkalai controlof the Sri PartasaratiSvami Temple, and concretein termsof therights they grant to variousmembers of the Tenkalai communityof Triplicane,makes themeven more valuablethan the more abstractmedieval devotional texts. It is importantto note,also, that theBritish preoccupation with the preservation of 'customand usage' in native religious affairsmakes these texts inherentlycontinuous and progressively self-fulfilling,in theirlanguage if not in theireffects. Thus the authorityand continuityof these Britishlegal and administrativedocuments, as social and politicalcharters, tends to spiralin thenineteenth and twentiethcenturies. Today, Tenkalai Brahminstend to be remarkablyaware, particularlywhen contemplatinglitigation, of thisextended series of colonialtextual resources. It is a principalsource in theirclaims against the State and sectarianopponents. In particular,they tend to justifytheir claims by referenceto two specificHigh Courtjudgments: the judgment and schemeof 1924 (alreadyreferred to) and a closelyrelated case, in whichthe rights of a closedgroup of Tenkalai Brahmins to recite the Prabandhampoems in this Temple were elaboratelycodified. Taken togetherthese two High Court judgmentshave high value and con- siderablecredibility in theeyes of therest of thecommunity, for they place the claims of the Tenkalai Brahminsin a wider constitutional/legalframework which links the legitimacyof theirclaims to those of other groups. This accords with the thirdcultural norm that,according to my argument,defines the status and credibilityof particularcharters: namely, for an authoritative past utteranceto have the maximumvalue as a charter,it must encode the maximumnumber of featuresrelevant to thecharters of other groups. This interdependenceof charterscan occur in one of two ways. Eithera specificauthoritative text in the past encodes the rightsof a largenumber of groups in the Temple, namelya Hindu royal order,a Britishadministrative rulingor a High Courtjudgment. Or it can occurwhen a grouplinks its claim in a general way with a broad textualtradition or corpus, to which other groups must also necessarilyhave recourse.In thislatter sense, both Brahmin and non-BrahminTenkalai in Triplicaneanchor their self-perceptions in the Prabandhamcorpus of medieval devotional poetry; both Vatakalai and Tenkalai revere the writingsof Ramanuja as authoritative;both Tenkalai Brahmins as well as Vaikhanasa temple-priests,as well as virtuallyevery organisedinterest group in the Temple today,have a vestedinterest in High Court judgments as valid chartersof theirrights-largely a productof the highlygenerative period between i 88o and 1925, whenthe Temple was almost

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 212 ARJUN APPADURAI

continuouslyin Court forone or anotherreason, and nativelitigants learned to conceive theirclaims in Anglo-Indianlegal terminology. The strengthof theTenkalai Brahmins in theTemple today,and theawe in which they are held by most other groups in the Temple, is not simplya functionof caste superiority,legal skills,or ferocityin conflict.It is as mucha functionof the kind of past thatthey can crediblymarshall in defenceof their collectiveinterests, a past thatfulfils admirably all thefive cultural norms that determinethe differentialcredibility of such charters:textual evidence, externalauthority, interdependence with other pasts, continuity and antiquity.

Non-Brahminworshippers The non-Brahmincommunity interested in theSri PartasaratiSvami Temple, like its Brahmincounterpart, is large,spatially spread over Madras City, and socially highly segmented.It includes wealthynon-Brahmin donors to the Temple, powerfuland politicallywell-connected non-Brahmin trustees, as well as a large body of poor and relativelydisenfranchised non-Brahmin worshippers,resident in and aroundTriplicane. It is thislast set of non-Brahmins, who have been explicitlyconcerned with their rights qua non-Brahmins,with which I am here concerned.This group providesthe mass of worshippers (sevartikal)during daily and calendricalfestivals. Startingin the I940's, and continuingup to thepresent, a looselyorganised group of thesenon-Brahmin worshippers (consisting largely of lower middle- class Telugu migrantsto Madras City) has conducteda vigorouscampaign againstwhat theyperceive as discriminationagainst them in keypublic aspects of temple-ritual.In theprocess, they have antagonisednumerous other groups in theTemple, but, most importantly,they have provokedthe hostility of the Tenkalai Brahminswho monopolisethe recitation of thePrabandham hymns in daily ritual.Further, these non-Brahmin protests in theearly I960's provided yet anotherpretext for the extensionof State controlover the temple,in the role of mediator. In the last threedecades, the protestsof non-Brahminworshippers to the temple-trusteesand to theState, have focusedon a seriesof practiceshaving to do with the distributionof the sacred leavingsof the deity(honours) to the congregation,at fixedmoments during the daily ritual outside the sanctum. In these criticalpublic aspectsof the redistributiveprocess, these non-Brahmins felt that they were systematicallydiscriminated against and publicly dis- honoured. It is importantto understandthese complaintsin theirspecific culturalcontext, for they suggest how powerfulspecific transactions with the deity can be, even when theyare not explicitlylinked to property,office or emoluments. Justas sharesin the divineleavings demarcate special rights and rolesin the contextof worship,so also theycan serveto symbolisethe unity, identity and essentialequality of the entirecongregation. It is thislatter aspect of thedaily distributionthat these non-Brahminworshippers felt was being deliberately subverted.They complainedof threespecific malpractices: i) whilethe tirttam (holy water) was given to the assembledBrahmins in one vessel,it was then

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ARJUN APPADURAI 213 deliberatelywithdrawn and thispart of the divineleavings distributed to the non-Brahminmembers of the congregationin anothervessel; 2) while the entire congregationwas obliged to remain standingwhile the Brahmins receivedthe holy waterand the Sri Satakopan(the metal representation of the feetof Visnu), the latterimmediately sat down to receivethe prasatam (sacred food), while thenon-Brahmins were stillstanding to receivethe holy water; 3) the non-Brahmins rarely received the Sri Satakopan honour at all, and certainlynot, in thewords of one non-Brahmininformant, 'immediately after and in continuationwith the Brahmin devotees'. My own observationsof daily ritualat the Temple in 1973-74, afterthis issue had allegedlybeen resolved,suggest that these complaints were neither incrediblenor esoteric.The atmosphereof thedaily redistributive ceremonials is one of considerablefrenzy and crowding,on thesurface. Closer observation (difficultin a crowd of two or threehundred people) suggeststhat perhaps the priests grow increasinglydisrespectful when the 'honours' in question are distributedto the non-Brahmins.Whereas Brahmins stand close to the sanctum and are scrupulouslyserved, non-Brahminswho forma crowded outercircle certainly do not meritthe same care. For themass of non-Brahmin devotees, who hold no officeand subsidisefew ritualsas donors, the daily receiptof thesedivine leavingsis the sole transactionthat they publicly con- duct with the deity. To them, it is both the symbol and substanceof their participationin this divine polity.Crowded, impersonaland hurriedas their contactwith the deitymight be, the mannerof the transactions(about which theycomplain) is inextricablylinked with their meaning. The deprivationthey feel in this public ritualarena is, to the non-Brahminworshippers, a sign of theirdishonour and indeed theirdisenfranchisement from the redistributive domain of the deity.This is an unseemlyintrusion, they claim, of the worst featuresof the caste systeminto theputatively egalitarian world of a Tenkalai Sri Vaisnava Temple. There is one kind of discrimination,however, which theydo not challenge.They have no quarrelwith the special privileges shown to the fixednumber of Brahminmales (the attiyappaka)who legallymonop- olise the recitationof the Prabandhamin daily ritual.It is the extensionof this priorityto any and all Brahmins(male and female,Tenkalai and Vatakalai, Vaisnava and Non-Vaisnava) to which they take exception. In theirargu- ments,it is thislatter extension which is discriminatory,and whichthey see as both 'contraryto the law in forceand to Sri Vaisnava tradition'.This kindof assertionpithily summarises their view of the inequitiesof the present,in relationto theirconception of thepast, a matterto whichI shallnow turn.The following account of the way in which this group of non-Brahminwor- shippersuses thepast to argueabout thelegitimacy of theirpresent complaints is based partlyon petitionsand pamphletsproduced by them,in thelast three decades, and partlyon a seriesof interviewswith one of the leadersof this group, who spearheadedits activities in theI960's. To some extentthe non-Brahminview of 'the Sri Vaisnava tradition'uses preciselythe same argumentsagainst their Brahmin co-sharers in thisTemple thatthe Tenkalai Brahminsrally in supportof theirsuperiority to theVatakalai sub-sect. In the firstplace, thesenon-Brahmins place considerableweight on

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 214 ARJUN APPADURAI the sacrednessof the Alvar poet-saints(several of whom were non-Brahmins) as a charterfor their own importancein contemporarytemple-ritual. But further,and here theydiverge from most Brahmininterpretations, they cite specificverses from this devotional corpus of textsto arguethe irrelevance of caste discriminationsin the contextof the worshipof Visnu. These verses, theybelieve, emphasisethe equality and identityof all worshippers,regardless of caste,in thepresence of thedeity. It is this aspect of the non-Brahminversion of the Sri Vaisnava Tradition which is the mostembarrassing for their Brahmin antagonists, for, as we have seen, the egalitarian,populistic, and congregationalaspects of the life and writings of the Alvars are also fundamentalto the ideology of Tenkalai Brahmins in theirstruggles with Vatakalai Brahmins.On the otherhand, thesetexts are necessarily formulaic and universalistic in their language and do not bear directlyon specificmatters of rankand orderin particularritual contexts. To achievethis specificity, these non-Brahmins rely on whatis referredto as Ramanuja's Code (RamanujaDivyajna). This code, which theytreat as if it were a text,is in factbelieved by Sri Vaisnavasto be enshrinedin thearrange- ments that Ramanuja made for temple-worshipat the great Sri Vaisnava templeat Srirangam.They arguethat this 'code' has historicallybeen adhered to at all Sri Vaisnava temples,by loyal followersof Ramanuja,to thepresent day. In theirview, the'custom' at theSri PartasaratiSvami Temple is a 'recent' and illegitimatedeviation from this widely accepted tradition enshrined in the Code of Ramanuja. While the non-Brahminscan invoke the unquestioned authorityof Ramanuja, the sharedtradition of all Sri Vaisnava temples,and the pseudo-textualCode of Ramanuja (all of which have wide credibility), thesedo not bear directlyon theirown protests.But certainlyas elementsof a charterthat embed theirown claims deeply in historicentities dear to the self-perceptionof othergroups in the Temple, theseare a strongfoundation for their contemporaryprotests. The non-Brahminsloosely gloss all these components of theirview of traditionas 'the Vedas and the Shastras',the highestsymbols of Hindu textualauthority. They also refer,as best theycan, to aspectsof therecent legal and adminis- trativecontext in supportof theirclaims. One of theirpetitions refers to a High Court judgmentof I935, involvinganother temple, in whichthe judge establishedthat the term 'Sri Vaisnava' was a comprehensivecategory, in- cludingall thosewho were borninto the creed and observedits tenets, regardless of caste. They cite thisjudgment, drawn from anothercontext, but carryingthe authorityof the Anglo-Indianlaw, in supportof thejustice of theirclaims. Much more powerfuland to the point,they repeatedly cite the followingprovision of theMadras HRCE Act of i959;

Notwithstandinganything in thisAct or in any text,rule or interpretationof Hindu law, or any custom or usage as partof thatLaw or in anyother Law or in anydecree of Court,there shall be no discriminationin thedistribution of any Pradadamor Theerthamin anyreligious institution on groundsonly of caste,sex, place ofbirth or anyof them.

There is little doubt that this legal provisionprovided freshfuel to the long-standingnon-Brahmin malaise, and it certainlywas thestrongest textual

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ARJUN APPADURAI 215 charterfor theirclaims. In general,however, the non-Brahmins had to argue the validityof generaltextual injunctions (whether ancient religious ones or recentlegal ones) againstthe counter-argumentsof local Tenkalai Brahmins. These counter-arguments,while denyingsome of the more shockingnon- Brahmin accusations, in general defendedcurrent practice as having the validityof local usage (mamul).Under the influenceof Britishadministration and law, a greatmany issues were resolvedby referenceto whatwas perceived to be 'customary.'Thus Indianlitigants rapidly learned to makeeven themost outrageous and innovativeproposals in the language of 'custom and usage'. The non-Brahminsrecognised the double-edgednature of resortingto tradition in order to make theircase. The followingparagraph is takenfrom a letterwritten by one of the leadersof the non-Brahminprotestors in 1948 to thePresident of theHindu ReligiousEndowments Board:

... The procedurementioned in the foregoingparas and in vogue in thistemple is improper and unjustand unbearablyhumiliating to the majorityof the congregation;but thisis resorted to by thecultured temple authorities sheerly under the pretext of 'Mamul'. Mamul is ofour own makingto serveour interests.If a mamul servesits purposeit is allowed to live; otherwiseit is put to death. Many a mamuldied and now would-be mamulshave made theirappearance. The recentinstallation of electriclights will become a mamul in course of time. In thesecircum- stancesthe cruel mamul in questiondeserves to be rootedout withoutfurther loss of time.

Eventually,in I967, the HRCE Department,in its quasi-judicialcapacity, passed an administrativeorder banning the specificacts of discrimination complained about, while carefullyprotecting the specificrights of male Brahmin Prabandhamreciters. In I973, however,the feelingwas widespread among thenon-Brahmin worshippers that this was onlya 'paper' victory,and thatmuch had to be done beforetheir notion of 'tradition'was restoredat the Temple. To the extentthat these non-Brahmins did receivea serioushearing and serious counter-arguments,this was because of theirastute reliance on shared textualor pseudo-textualelements of the Sri Vaisnava traditionand a few recentadministrative and legal dicta.But to theextent that they could not link these broadly authoritativetexts to theirspecific grievances, they laid themselvesopen to a counter-argumentbased upon the moral forceof local 'custom and usage'.

The sharedpast Naturallythese three versions of thepast, held by threedistinct and important groups at the Sri PartasaratiSvami Temple, do not exhausethe 'pasts' of the communityas a whole. Limitationsof space have preventedme fromdealing with the special and fascinatingcase of thepriests at theTemple, who constitute a distinctinterest group in the politicsof theTemple, and whose current isolationfrom power is closelylinked to thepeculiar and separatesources from which theyderive theirown textualmandate. They do, however,constitute the threemost highlydetailed, explicitly held and publiclydiscussed charters of thepast in theTemple. Particularworshippers, donors, trustees and temple- servants, depending on the context,are likely to propose simpler,more

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 2i6 ARJUN APPADURAI specific,more shallow and less inclusiveversions of thepast. Thus, a particular personvying for the office of trusteemight promote his candidacyin termsof his own experiencein temple-affairs,the donations he or his familyhave made to the Temple, or some specificmisdeeds of his opponentsin thepast. Wor- shippersoften complain about particularaspects of thecurrent management of theTemple, in termsof vague, casuallyformulated models of 'theway it was.' A Temple-servant,about to get dismissedby the trustee,might cite his long record of dedicated service, the conditionsand termsunder which he was hired, past precedentsfor the dismissalof temple-servants,and so on. The temple-priests,in quarrelsamongst themselves, tend to speak in veryshallow historicalterms, restricting their references to the past to those eventsmost relevantto thevery specific issue at hand. A particulardonor, in contestingthe way that temple-servantsconduct the festivalhe sponsors,would generally recitethe historyof his endowment,recent litigation involving it, thefacts of the case, and littleelse. Such examples could be multiplied,and they,taken together,form the bulk of the occasions in which the past is a conscious element of contemporaryinteractions. When, however,the conflictis more serious,and the stakeshigher, those in conflictare likelyto draw fromone or other, or some combination,of the three 'paradigmatic'pasts that I have discussed. Since these 'pasts' stand,by and large, in a segmentedrelationship to one another,does this imply thatthere is no generalisedview of the past thatis sharedamong those who have regular interestsin the Temple, eitheras managers, servants,worshippers or donors? There is such a shared past, althoughit is largelycomposed of elementsalready contained in thedivergent 'pasts' of particulargroups. Most individualswho have any on-going interestsin this Temple share threesets of ideas concerningits past. The firstis a beliefin themythic origins of the temple, describedin a specificsthala-purana (local history),which is a genreof historicalliterature always found in sacredplaces. This work,following a set format,describes in a mixtureof Sanskritand Tamil, a seriesof divine dialogues thatpertain to the sacred originsof thisTemple and the deityen- shrinedin it. Few personsknow much of what is in thistext, but mostknow some legend or storycontained in it. Secondly,most of my informantsknew thatthe earlieststone inscriptionin theTemple is dated to theeighth century A.D. and take pride in the factthat this makes it the oldestshrine in Madras city.There is also widespreadknowledge of thelinks between this Temple and the devotional historyof south Indian Sri Vaisnavism. Lastly, many indi- viduals know the broad outlinesof the administrativeand politicalhistory of theTemple in thecolonial period. The past thatis shared,however, always standsin a delicaterelationship to the 'pasts' thatare held dear by distinctgroups today. The propositionuttered by many persons around the Temple, in many contexts,'this has been a Tenkalai Temple fromtime immemorial', is an importantcomponent of the shared past of the Temple. Yet it means differentthings to differentgroups. To the representativesof the State,it meansthat in ritualterms the procedures followed in thisTemple mustconform to the tenetsof theTenkalai faith. To

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ARJUN APPADURAI 217 Tenkalai Brahmins, it additionallyencodes the legal rightof the Tenkalai communityof Triplicaneto exclusivelymanage the Temple, withoutany State interference.To thenon-Brahmin worshippers, it meansthat this Temple has always been controlledby a sectthat has been especiallyresponsive to theirfull participationin temple-worship,until recently.To the priests,one may furthernote, it simplydefines an unalterableand receivedfeature of theland- scape, to be stoicallyendured but not especiallyto be encouragedor em- broidered.Each group is aware of the constructionthat the others place upon this proposition,but simplyemphasises its own preferredinterpretation. It is preciselythis self-consciouslyvaried interpretationof core propositionsthat best characterisesthe political culture of theTemple.

In the south Indian temple,the past is an extremelyimportant component of debate and divisionin thepresent. But it does not seeminfinitely susceptible to contemporaryinvention. Indeed, there appear to be a set of norms,pertaining to authority,continuity and interdependence,which governthe termsof the debate concerningthe past. These normsserve to providea formalframework within which 'charters'are mutuallyevaluated and interpretedas part of political action in the present. Further,these norms permit a controlled accommodationof thestructurally 'new' featuresof colonialrule with the core conceptsof the culturalsystem of the temple.Such norms,therefore, have a dual function:on the one hand, theyprovide a set of ruleswithin which the past may be debated; and, on the other,they provide an idiom formediating the effectsof structuralchange on culturalcontinuity. This latterpoint has some generalimplications. Bloch has made an elegant and complex argumentabout the theoretical problemof the past and its consequencesfor the analysisof social change.He arguesthat neither structural-functionalist nor Marxistapproaches can account adequately for social change, because the formerapproach sees 'the social process in termsused by the actorsand so is unable to explainhow it is that actors can change those terms', whereas the neo-marxiananalysts 'see the mechanismsas occurringin termstotally alien to theactors and so are unable to explain how thesemechanisms can be transformedinto meaningfulaction' (I977: 278). Bloch sees thecommon root of theseproblems in a belief,derived from.Durkheim, in the social determinationof concepts,which leaves the actors'with no languageto talkabout their society and so changeit, sincethey can only talk withinit' (I977: 28i). His solutionto thisimpasse is to propose thatthere exist in all humansocieties two kindsof cognition.One is universal in nature,with durationas itsbasis, and is orientedto pragmaticand everyday contexts,such as agriculture.The otheris- culture-relative, with variable (often non-durational)perceptions of time underlyingit, is expressedin ritualand ritualisedcommunication, and is what has generallybeen objectifiedas 'social structure'.Bloch argues thatsocial change can occur, because the pragmatic past can be a sourceof conceptsfor challenging the ritualised, often static past, thatgenerally dominates the present.

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 2I8 ARJUN APPADURAI The single defectof thisimaginative solution to theproblem of accounting for social change is thatits mechanismremains fuzzy. We are not quite clear about how these two systemsof cognition,these two formsof communi- cation, thesetwo notionsof time,can come into meaningfulinteraction. My own argumenthas been that thereis a thirdaspect of the past, which is culture-specific,and which consistsof a set of normswhose sole purposeis to regulatethe inherentdebatability of the past in the present.Such a normative organisation of discourse concerningthe past, I propose, is the ghost in Bloch's otherwiseelegant machine. This normativeframework permits an orderlysymbolic negotiation between 'ritual' pasts and the contingenciesof the present.The termsof this negotiationare, of course, culturallyvariable. The Indianexample shows the 'facts' of colonial rule being accommodatedto traditionalconcepts precisely throughthe set of norms which governs debate concerningthe past. Else- where (Appadurai i98i) I have shown how thisnegotiation actually leads to structuralchange, and not onlyto revisedterms of discourse. Like all systemsof norms, those concerningthe past constitutea link between culturalconcepts and social action. But unlikeany otherset of norms, this set is, necessarily,a code for societiesto talk aboutthemselves, and not only withinthemselves. This is so becausethe past is an intrinsicallyalternative mode of discourseto thoseother cultural modes of communicationwhich can, and oftendo, assume an eternalpresent. Such norms,therefore, constitute an aspect of culturein which concessionsto changeare builtin, and divisionand debate are recognised.As a result,such normspermit new formsof action,at the same timeas theyallow culturesto regulatesocial change. Withoutthis sort of normativeframework for debating the past, we would be left with only two options, culturesthat collapse in the face of social change, and thosethat are radicallyrevitalised in responseto suchchange. But much culturechange is neitherreluctant nor radical. It is this kind of un- dramaticaccommodation that we can betterunderstand if we grasp thatthe past is a rule-governed,therefore finite, cultural resource. As withother kinds of culturalrules, anything is possiblebut only some thingsare permissible.It may be possible forcultures to mask thebio-physical reality of durationbut it is infinitelyharder for them to deny the inherentdebatability of the past. To the extentthat such denial is successful,as Levi-Strausshas observed,culture takeson the characterof custom(Levi-Strauss i966: 236). To theextent that it fails,culture is open to revision,revitalisation or subversion.It is thefunction of norms governingthe unavoidable debates about the past to ensure that when changedoes occur,it is not entirelyat thecost of culturalcontinuity.

NOTES

The fieldworkand archivalresearch on which thisarticle is based were conductedin I973-74 and I977 in London and Madras, India. I am gratefulfor the financialsupport of the Danforth Foundation, the Committee on South Asian Studies of the Universityof Chicago, and the AmericanInstitute of IndianStudies. Previous versions were presented to theEthnohistory Work- shop at the Universityof Pennsylvaniaand to theAnthropology Colloquium at PrincetonUniver-

This content downloaded from 216.165.95.66 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:46:27 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ARJUN APPADURAI 2I9 sity. On both occasions I receiveduseful criticism. Special thanksare due to my colleague,Igor Kopytoff,for a carefulreading of thefinal version which helped to clarifythe argument consider- ably.

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