❂ THE SOUNDS OF SATYAGRAHA: MAHATMA GANDHI'S USE OF SUNG-PRAYERS AND RITUAL Cynthia Snodgrass University of Stirling ❂ For My Mother, Lila, My First Teacher ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to gratefully acknowledge the many people who supported me in this work. First of all, I owe my deepest gratitude to Dr. Gavin Flood, for agreeing to oversee the project, and for his insight in helping frame the primary tenets of the thesis as one of Mahatma Gandhi, religion and ritual. Beyond and around the framework, Dr. Timothy Fitzgerald was very helpful in advising the placement of the thesis in historical perspective, while Dr. David Smith was instrumental in weaving the thesis into current events, as well as offering his linquistic acuity. I would like to thank those at the University of Stirling, especially, Katharine Reibig and Alison Cooper for their administrative oversight, as well as Julie Dawson for her administrative support. Special gratitude is owed to Shirley Harryman, Stonehouse Studio, Kansas City, Missouri, for work on the computer formatting and graphics. I am very grateful to Dr. Monish R. Chatterjee of the University of Dayton for his translation of Ayi Bhuvanamanamohini. I also owe much gratitude to Aushin Abraham and Sherly Abraham for their advisement in the translating of Hindi, Marathi, and Bengali texts; also much gratitude is due to Jitu Patel and Hitesh Patel for their advisement in the translating of Gujarati texts. Meilu Ho was also very generous with information concerning the Pusti Marg. I very much need to thank the Sur Laya Sangam of Albany, California for their generous hospitality and support. Of course, the work could not have been completed without the knowledge, generosity, and wit of the inspirational Shri Karunamayee of the Shri Aurobindo Ashram in Delhi, India. Her knowledge of the Ashram Bhajanavali is indispensable. Finally, I owe great gratitude to the Barbulesco Family Fund for travel grants, and to my many parents, family, and friends who have nurtured me and encouraged the continuation of this work. THE SOUNDS OF SATYAGRAHA: MAHATMA GANDHI'S USE OF SUNG-PRAYERS AND RITUAL Cynthia Snodgrass Page Table of Contents 1 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION 5 INTRODUCING THE ASHRAM BHAJANAVALI 5 METHODOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES 8 METHODOLOGY AND RITUAL STUDIES 15 TOWARDS THE DEFINITION OF A FEW TERMS 18 Religion and Politics 21 Theology and Creed 26 Hymns, Poetry, and Sung-Prayers 26 Bhajan, Kirtan, and Ram-dhun 27 TEXTUAL CONSIDERATIONS 32 SETTING THE SCENE: PRE-GANDHI CONTEXT 32 GANDHI'S RETURN TO INDIA AND HIS VIEW OF SVARAJ 45 CHAPTER 2. ASHRAM BHAJANAVALI 51 HISTORICAL OVERVIEW AND DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS 52 South Africa: 1893-1914 52 India: 1915-1930 54 1930 62 The 1930 Salt March 62 Gandhi's Translations of 1930 66 1930 to1942 72 1942 to 1947 73 1947 74 ASHRAM BHAJANAVALI: DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS 75 Preface through Raº-dhun 75 After 1947 160 SUMMARY/CONCLUSION 160 CHART #1 - Abbreviated Historical Overview 169 CHAPTER 3. RITUAL: TWICE-DAILY SUNG-PRAYERS 171 THE FEATURES OF RITUAL 173 Encoding by Others than Performers 173 Decorous Formality 174 Invariance 176 2 Performance and Participation 181 Non-Physical Efficacy 184 Self-Referential and Canonical Streams of Information 186 Communication 192 Ultimate Sacred Postulates 192 Acceptance 193 Levels of Meaning 195 Ritual Space 196 HOW RITUAL FUNCTIONS 198 Communitas 199 Hidden Similarities Discovered 201 The "I" of Discourse 202 Extraordinary States of Consciousness 209 Frequency of Recurrence 215 Divine Order Enacted 217 OUTCOME OF RITUAL 220 Outcome for the Individual 220 "State of Grace" 220 Extra-Ordinary Feats 221 Overcoming Fear 222 Transcending Time and Space 223 "Even Unto Death" 225 Outcome for the Community 227 SUMMARY/CONCLUSION 228 CHAPTER 4. RITUALS BEYOND THE TWICE-DAILY SUNG-PRAYERS 230 RITUAL (YAJNA) FOR DANGEROUS TIMES 235 Fasting 236 The 1930 Salt March 242 RITUALS OF TRANSITION 243 Kasturbai's Funeral 243 Marriage Ceremony 245 COMMUNITAS 247 Satyagraha Communitas 248 Ash¿am Administration and Organization 248 "Spiritual Advice" from Bapu 253 Raºanama 258 National Communitas 262 Bhajan Parties Organized 262 Hindu-Muslim Solidarity 266 Inter-religious and International Communitas 267 3 Christian Fellowship 267 Europe 268 America 269 Universal Appeal 271 SUNG-PRAYERS AND PUBLIC TEXTS: THE FINAL YEARS 271 Sung-Prayer Meetings throughout India 271 Bhajans: The Texts for Gandhi's Public Discourse 272 1945 273 1946 274 1947 279 1948 288 SUMMARY/CONCLUSION 291 CHAPTER 5. GANDHI, MUSIC, AND SUNG-PRAYER AND RITUAL 294 GANDHI AND THE POWER OF MUSIC 294 Music Produces Synchronized, Non-Violent Behavior 296 Sung-Prayers Produce Synchronized Non-Violent Reaction 398 Spiritual Development 301 The Music of the Charkha 303 Musical Instruments 304 THE POWER OF SUNG RITUAL 308 Rappaport and the Power of Sung Ritual 309 The Power of Sound in Ritual Participation 310 A Phenomenology of Sound 314 THE POWER OF SOUND IN THE INDIAN CONTEXT 319 The Sound Sacrifice 320 brahman 323 Upanishads and Later 329 The Sants 333 SUMMARY/CONCLUSION 334 CHAPTER 6. SHRI KARUNAMAYEE 337 FAMILY BACKGROUND 341 SINGING FOR GANDHI 346 INSIGHTS INTO ASHRAM BHAJANAVALI 348 THE CURRENT MISSION OF A TRADITION-BEARER 360 CHART # 2 - SHRI KARUNAMAYEE'S FAMILY TREE 364 CHAPTER 7. POST-COLONIALISM, SOME REFLECTIONS, 4 AND A FINAL SUMMATION 366 POST-COLONIALISM AND ASSESSMENTS OF SATYAGRAHA 366 MAHATMA GANDHI'S VOICE 373 A SUMMATION OF THE THESIS 376 A FINAL SUMMATION 381 BIBLIOGRAPHY 383 ABBREVIATIONS 395π APPENDIX 1-A CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION 5 INTRODUCING THE ASHRAM BHAJANAVALI The life and work of Mohandas K. Gandhi have been, it would seem, examined quite thoroughly by every academic discipline, with Gandhi's public and personal lives having been placed beneath the microscopes of diverse and diverging theoretical perspectives, and with his actions having been viewed and analyzed from every conceivable angle. So, it is with healthy amounts of both respect and fear that I take up the examination of the present topic. The topic, not so easily captured beneath the lens of a miscroscope, is that of Gandhi's use of music and sung-prayers during the time of India's struggle for independence, during the time of satyagraha (satya = truth; agraha = strongly grasping). These sung-prayers are found in a volume entitled Ashram Bhajanavali. This collection of chanted prayers used by the Indian satyagraha community, was and is sometimes referred to as a hymnal or a hymn-book. However, the collection was and is much more than what the term "hymnal" might imply to most, both in the scope of its contents and in its importance as another tool with which to understand the developments of Gandhi's non-violent, satyagraha community. Gandhi's use of music, chant, and sound has been largely unrecognized, if at all, and when mentioned, it has been sorely under-thematised. Thus, a very important aspect of the satyagraha movement has been missed, "written off," or "viewed" as insignificant musical entertainment. While Gandhi's satyagraha encompassed vast social and political change, it was heavily grounded in devotional principles, and ultimately, those devotional principles were undergirt by a repertoire of sung-prayers found in the Ashram Bhajanavali. Highly-developed theologies concerning the divinity of sound have been part of India's development and self-definition for millenia, and this understanding of sound and/or music as a Thing Divine played, as well, a very important role in Gandhi's ability to accomplish his goals of national organization and change. While this has remained unrecognized in western estimation, we will see, in the course of this work, that 6 Gandhi's "political" and "religious" aspirations were grounded in his utilization of ritual and sung-prayers. We will hear how the Ashram Bhajanavali sung-prayers, resounding from India's depths, struck such a correspondence of inspiration with Gandhi's followers, and why India responded so strongly to his call. Woven into the discussion will be a consideration of the phenomenon of sound itself. India has a long tradition of regarding sound (music, chant, mantra, and the phenomenon of sound) as a pathway to connect with, comprehend, and manifest divinity. 'The primary aesthetic criterion for the evaluation of an Indian music performance is...the strength of the [devotional] message conveyed through it. Thus, insight into and comprehension of the prevalence of the devotional aspect at the core of Indian music is the key to the understanding of this unique and many-shaped tradition' (Thielemann 1998, p.116). This elemental reality has been largely missed by academia. Even in western musical circles, where a certain acknowledgement of music's divine character has been acknowledged, there has remained a predominance of seeing music as servant to theology: '...worship is wonderfully served by music' (Blackwell 1999, p.23). From this perspective, music (sound, mantra, chant) has been consigned to the rank of "second-class citizen." As a result of this limited perspective, the significance which Gandhi placed on the regularity of group sung-prayer meetings (the chanting of holy scriptures and singing of devotional songs) has been overlooked in current scholarship. While some attention has been paid to the historical tradition of bhajan (hymn) singing in India as a political tool connected with social critique and unrest (see, e.g., Lorenzen, D.L. 1987 in K. Schomer & W.H. McLeod, Eds. 1987, The Sants. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, pp. 281-303 and Lorenzen (1995), this view of bhajan singing can not be readily applied to Gandhi and the satyagraha movement. Gandhi's use of 7 sung-prayers went beyond that of a purely political tool, and it can not, therefore, be viewed so singularly. The present examination will begin by looking at the the social, cultural, and historical context in India prior to the time of Gandhi's reform efforts.