By Robert Messenger, *Everyday Devotions * - The Wall Street Journal - NYC, NY, USATuesday, June 15, 2010
In modern-day India, an astonishing variety of beliefs and rituals.
New York and London have been treated in recent seasons to major exhibitions of Chola bronzes. A thousand years ago, sculptors in southern India began creating exquisite devotional figures—most often depictions of the Hindu god Shiva and his consort Parvati.
The bronzes are palpably sensuous and, even now, undimmed by centuries of worship that involves draping the figures in silks and garlands; anointing them in butter, curds, milk and sandalwood paste; and parading them through villages and towns to show the gods their domain.
Among the most sublime art that the hand of man has produced, the bronzes remain part of a living religious tradition.
It turns out that they are part of still-living artistic tradition, too. In "Nine Lives," William Dalrymple introduces us to Srikanda Stpathy, a 35th-generation bronze caster directly descended from the stone carvers who first learned the art of bronze casting in the region of India called Tamil Nadu. The casting tradition has kept his family busy for 700 years, and his workshop has "a backlog of orders that would take at least a year to clear."
Such are the joys of "Nine Lives," in which Mr. Dalrymple profiles nine Indians and through them the variety of religions that thrive in our reportedly homogenized world. His subjects include a Jain nun, a Theyyam dancer, a sacred prostitute, a singer of ancient epics, a Sufi "lady fakir," a Tibetan monk who renounced his vows to fight the Chinese invaders and now lives in exile, a Tantric worshipper of the ferocious goddess Tara, and a blind Baul (wandering singer).
Mr. Dalrymple lets them all speak directly about their lives and beliefs, and he sketches along the way both their individual narratives and the history and literature of their faiths.
Discussing the meaning of Srikanda's work, Mr. Dalrymple ends up musing on the place of sex in Hinduism—noting that the Judeo- Christian Scriptures begin with the creation of light while Hinduism "begins its myth with the creation of Skama—sexual desire: in the beginning was desire, and desire was with God, and desire was God."
He cites a fourth-century poet-prince who tried to discern whether asceticism or sensuality was the true path to God: "Tell us decisively which we ought to attend upon," the poet says in one of his verses. "The sloping sides of the mountain in the wilderness? Or the buttocks of a woman abounding in passion?" In a later chapter in "Nine Lives," the Baul singer, part of a mystical Hindu tradition, seems to offer an answer: "Never plunge into the river of lust / For you will not reach the shore. / It is a river without banks, / Where typhoons rage, / And the current is strong."
Mr. Dalrymple calls "Nine Lives" a travel book, but it is more an episodic look at religion in the age of globalization. Turning away from the country's most pressing religious story—the battles between Hindus and Muslims that have shaped Indian politics for the past two decades as the secularism into which the country was born in 1947 has eroded—Mr. Dalrymple conveys the details of everyday worship and fulfills that hoary cliché of giving voice to the voiceless. Each of the figures he profiles exults in his faith, but most also fear the future.
In modern-day India, an astonishing variety of beliefs and rituals.
New York and London have been treated in recent seasons to major exhibitions of Chola bronzes. A thousand years ago, sculptors in southern India began creating exquisite devotional figures—most often depictions of the Hindu god Shiva and his consort Parvati.
The bronzes are palpably sensuous and, even now, undimmed by centuries of worship that involves draping the figures in silks and garlands; anointing them in butter, curds, milk and sandalwood paste; and parading them through villages and towns to show the gods their domain.
Among the most sublime art that the hand of man has produced, the bronzes remain part of a living religious tradition.
It turns out that they are part of still-living artistic tradition, too. In "Nine Lives," William Dalrymple introduces us to Srikanda Stpathy, a 35th-generation bronze caster directly descended from the stone carvers who first learned the art of bronze casting in the region of India called Tamil Nadu. The casting tradition has kept his family busy for 700 years, and his workshop has "a backlog of orders that would take at least a year to clear."
Such are the joys of "Nine Lives," in which Mr. Dalrymple profiles nine Indians and through them the variety of religions that thrive in our reportedly homogenized world. His subjects include a Jain nun, a Theyyam dancer, a sacred prostitute, a singer of ancient epics, a Sufi "lady fakir," a Tibetan monk who renounced his vows to fight the Chinese invaders and now lives in exile, a Tantric worshipper of the ferocious goddess Tara, and a blind Baul (wandering singer).
Mr. Dalrymple lets them all speak directly about their lives and beliefs, and he sketches along the way both their individual narratives and the history and literature of their faiths.
Discussing the meaning of Srikanda's work, Mr. Dalrymple ends up musing on the place of sex in Hinduism—noting that the Judeo- Christian Scriptures begin with the creation of light while Hinduism "begins its myth with the creation of Skama—sexual desire: in the beginning was desire, and desire was with God, and desire was God."
He cites a fourth-century poet-prince who tried to discern whether asceticism or sensuality was the true path to God: "Tell us decisively which we ought to attend upon," the poet says in one of his verses. "The sloping sides of the mountain in the wilderness? Or the buttocks of a woman abounding in passion?" In a later chapter in "Nine Lives," the Baul singer, part of a mystical Hindu tradition, seems to offer an answer: "Never plunge into the river of lust / For you will not reach the shore. / It is a river without banks, / Where typhoons rage, / And the current is strong."
Mr. Dalrymple calls "Nine Lives" a travel book, but it is more an episodic look at religion in the age of globalization. Turning away from the country's most pressing religious story—the battles between Hindus and Muslims that have shaped Indian politics for the past two decades as the secularism into which the country was born in 1947 has eroded—Mr. Dalrymple conveys the details of everyday worship and fulfills that hoary cliché of giving voice to the voiceless. Each of the figures he profiles exults in his faith, but most also fear the future.
As a child, Lal Peri twice escaped the violence engendered by the birth of Bangladesh and has since found sanctuary in the temple of Lal Shabhaz Qalander, a Sufi saint who preached religious tolerance in the 13th century. But she knows that this syncretic worship, and Sufism in general, is threatened by the exponential rise of fundamentalist Islam, supported by the Gulf states and the madrassa school system they have built throughout Pakistan.
Mr. Dalrymple goes to see the head of a new madrassa in the town, who speaks quite openly of his desire to destroy the Sufi temple and any variant type of Islam.
As close as Mr. Dalrymple comes to anger is in describing the dynamiting by Pakistani Taliban of a small shrine to the 17th-century Pashto poet-saint Rahman Baba at the foot of the Khyber Pass. Mr. Dalrymple had visited it often in the late 1980s while covering the war in Afghanistan and reveled in the way refugees gathered there to take solace in the poetry and music of the Sufis.
Modernity is another threat. The Theyyam dancer, Hari Das, works as both a well digger and a jail guard to make ends meet. The high point of his year is the two months when he travels to festivals incarnating deities and monsters as part of the Theyyam rites.
In an intense ritualist dance, the actors—dressed in fantastic and weighty costumes—are possessed by the Hindu deities they are incarnating. Yet as much as Hari Das wants his sons to master the physically demanding art, he knows that they can find better jobs through education.
It is the same for the sculptor Srikanda, whose son is interested in computers. As pained as he is by the thought of sundering a 700-year tradition, he acknowledges: "Our work here is very hard. Computer work is not so difficult, and it pays much more. . . . After all, as my son says, this is the age of computers. And as much as I might want otherwise, I can hardly tell him this is the age of the bronze caster."
It is, though, the age for writers like Mr. Dalrymple who fall in with the rhythms and languages of foreign lands. "Nine Lives" shows us lives hidden almost entirely from Western readers.
Another recent book, Alice Albinia's "Empires of the Indus," presents the cultural richness of the still fought-over lands around the Indus River—which flows from Tibet through India and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea—and manages to humanize Pakistan.
Such books open up the world in a compelling way.
Mr. Dalrymple goes to see the head of a new madrassa in the town, who speaks quite openly of his desire to destroy the Sufi temple and any variant type of Islam.
As close as Mr. Dalrymple comes to anger is in describing the dynamiting by Pakistani Taliban of a small shrine to the 17th-century Pashto poet-saint Rahman Baba at the foot of the Khyber Pass. Mr. Dalrymple had visited it often in the late 1980s while covering the war in Afghanistan and reveled in the way refugees gathered there to take solace in the poetry and music of the Sufis.
Modernity is another threat. The Theyyam dancer, Hari Das, works as both a well digger and a jail guard to make ends meet. The high point of his year is the two months when he travels to festivals incarnating deities and monsters as part of the Theyyam rites.
In an intense ritualist dance, the actors—dressed in fantastic and weighty costumes—are possessed by the Hindu deities they are incarnating. Yet as much as Hari Das wants his sons to master the physically demanding art, he knows that they can find better jobs through education.
It is the same for the sculptor Srikanda, whose son is interested in computers. As pained as he is by the thought of sundering a 700-year tradition, he acknowledges: "Our work here is very hard. Computer work is not so difficult, and it pays much more. . . . After all, as my son says, this is the age of computers. And as much as I might want otherwise, I can hardly tell him this is the age of the bronze caster."
It is, though, the age for writers like Mr. Dalrymple who fall in with the rhythms and languages of foreign lands. "Nine Lives" shows us lives hidden almost entirely from Western readers.
Another recent book, Alice Albinia's "Empires of the Indus," presents the cultural richness of the still fought-over lands around the Indus River—which flows from Tibet through India and Pakistan to the Arabian Sea—and manages to humanize Pakistan.
Such books open up the world in a compelling way.
Nine Lives
By William Dalrymple
Knopf, 276 pages, $26.95
Knopf, 276 pages, $26.95
Mr. Messenger is a senior editor at the Weekly Standard.
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