Humour is not a strong point of ancient Indian philosophers, or philosophers in general. Besides some sharp repartees, ingenious ironies and downright abuses, humour proper is seldom to be met with in philosophical works. One notable exception is the parable of the wolf's footprint. In what follows I propose to discuss the parable in some detail. The parable most probably originated with the Cārvāka-s and was quite well known in the Jain, Buddhist and Brahminical circles.

The first allusion to the parable occurs in the MBh, Śāntiparvan, Mokṣadharma-parvādhyāya. Bhīṣma tells Yudhiṣṭhira that the acquisition of righteousness (dharma) and wealth is the direct object of a Kṣatriya (one born in the warrior caste) and one should not get involved in deciding what is righteousness and what is not, for no one has seen their results. So it is as useless as the discussion about the wolf's footprint:

Nīlakaṇṭha in his commentary left the word, vṛkapadaṃ, unexplained, presumably because he did not know the parable behind the simile. He wrote, “As the judgment regarding the footprint on the ground —whether it belongs to a wolf or a dog or a leopard— is futile, so is the judgment whether something contributes to righteousness or to its opposite.”

An earlier scribe fared no better. Baffled by the word, vṛkapadaṃ, he ‘emended’ it to read vṛkṣaphalaṃ, ‘fruit of a tree’.

1. It has long been known that the Rāma-kathā —the story of Rāma— has been narrated in variant versions. The variants have been seen as each imprinted by the particular religious traditions which had appropriated the narrative. I would like to argue that since they are composed at different time periods and in different historical contexts they reflect varying perspectives of the past which gives them a place in the historical tradition. The three versions to be discussed here are parallel stories emanating from what might have been an original Rāma-kathā with inputs from other perspectives. They all have links to the epic genre. The first is the Dasaratha Jātaka from the Buddhist tradition which is either just prior to or contemporary with the second, the Rāmāyana of Vālmīki; and the third, later in date, is the Jaina version of the story, the Paumacariyam of Vimalasūri which contests the Vālmīki version and claims historicity.

Irrespective of when the earliest oral tradition was current, these three versions were by the early half of the first millennium AD familiar to various audiences. These variant versions are significant for the statements they make at particular historical moments and the similarities and differences between them. Such variants are prolific in Indian history. The three selected here reflect the consciousness of their historical moments and implicit in that, their perception of the past. Therefore, apart from the religious identity of each they also reflect other concerns pertaining to a historical tradition.

Introduction

Bagan was the capital of a vast kingdom between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Today it is a dusty conglomeration of hundreds of brick temples among which wander a few tourists, horse cart drivers and local farmers who have been forced by the government to move to the fringes of the site, 5km away, in the towns of New Bagan and Nyaung-U. The darkness of the nights is partially relieved by scattered temple lamps sponsored by Buddhist devotees.

For a few nights a year, powerful rhythmic beats of the Burmese saing waing (drum circle orchestra) draw crowds from a temporary marketplace in the forecourt of the Alopyi temple. Tourists are rarely present at these performances. The drums pound out pulsating traditional music for a few hours before the zat pwe begins. Osnes and Gill (2001, 376) described zat pwe as a mixture of classical Thai and Burmese dance and Western ballet. Less than a decade later, another observer defined it differently: an all-night Burmese variety show or vaudeville performance consisting of a potpourri of traditional songs, modern Burmese popular music, classical dance, comedy sketches, plays in traditional verse, modern melodramas (Diamond 2009, 105) and dance drama based on Burmese legends and Jatakas.

The years between 2001 and 2009 form a transitional period in the zat pwe, anyein pwe and other Burmese pwes or performing traditions. Fletcher (2004) provides an introduction to Diamond's description of the modern zat pwe, which contains two plays one modern, the other traditional – each lasting four hours.

Scholars have noted similarities between certain aspects of Mahānubhāv theology and practice and other religious systems. For instance, I. Karve observed that, according to some, Mahānubhāvs are nearer to Jain philosophy than to any other form of Hinduism (Karve 1968: 190-191). Brāhmaṇs have often derogatorily linked the sect to other religions, especially Jainism and Islām, encouraging the identification of Mahānubhāvs with these heterodox and hated mlecchas, precisely because of their perceived nonconformity.

In the Yādav period, Jainism was the dominant religion of Karṇāṭak, having its stronghold among merchant and trading castes and receiving an ongoing royal patronage from the various dynasties in power. This is precisely the reason which has led to suggest a Jain influence over Vīraśaivism. At the time of the Yādav King Mahādev, it appears that even one of the royal preceptors was a Jain (one Bhaṭṭārkadev). In the Marāṭhī-speaking area, one of the most important Jain centers was Kolhāpur. Feldhaus has noted that there are partially excavated Jain ruins in Rddhipur and that there are mentions of Jain temples (vasais) in both the LīỊā-caritra and the Sthān-pothī. Though G. B. Sardar has argued that Jains and Mahānubhāvs were never on friendly terms, he cannot fail to notice similarities, especially in the realm of ethics, venturing to suggest that Mahānubhāvs copied their monastic system from the Jains (Sardar 1969: 36-49; 133).

Although it seems impossible to provide a definition of “religion” that would likely be consensual, religion yet appears to be an essential analytical key to account for the transformations of the contemporary world. Hence the new visibility religion has acquired in the public and scientific debate in the last few years: the debate has shifted from discussions specific to the sociologists of religion to an appropriation of religion by different disciplinary and theoretical approaches. This has led to interpretations through the religious lens of, among other things, ethnic conflicts, terrorism, the political evolution of the Middle East, the management of immigration, and even the “civil unrest” in the suburbs of France.

This new visibility of religion does nothing to prevent it from representing a continuing enigma: is religion still disappearing? Or is it endlessly reemerging? Besides, when religion is foregrounded nowadays, it is often something else that is at stake: the relation to the other (and thus to pluralism) or rather, identity and consequently the relevance of the criteria that will allow us to define identity. A precondition of this milieu is the inability to find a register of discourse that is better adapted to what tries to be formulated. Herein religion would be the vehicle through which could be articulated, in the words of Michel de Certeau, “both the necessity and impossibility of taking hold again of the whole” (2003: 142).

Gramsci viewed popular religion as having the possibility of being a progressive movement against the bourgeois hegemony produced and reproduced in symbiosis with official religion and the state. In this pre—mass consumption society, there was the germ of a revolt in popular religion that could help the revolutionary push needed and guided by earlier Marxists. The goal of this chapter is to argue that with the entry of popular religion into the consumer societies of the Western world, popular religion has not moved further in terms of its opposition against the state. A case study of hyperreal religions and more specifically of Jediism will form the thread of the chapter. Following Simmel and Beck, I will argue that popular religion, like money, now individualizes and standardizes and by this process loses its oppositional strength.

Introduction

In pre-consumer and pre-cyber culture, Gramsci argued that popular religion could help with counterhegemonic forces and that this could offer an opposition to the state. Could this still be the case today? Jediism is a spirituality that has been inspired by the Star Wars franchise. It is a subset of popular religion that has emerged in consumer and cyber culture and will be used as a case study for the purpose of this chapter.

Jediism has infiltrated a few censuses around the world and is actively present on the internet.

Vātsyāyana in his commentary (Bhāṣya) on the NS employs the word, nāstika and its derivatives, nāstikatva, and nāstikya, thrice (on NS, 1.1.1, 1.1.2 and 3.2.61, IIIb60 in Ruben). The meaning of nāstika (lit. negativist) in the last two instances is conventional and readily comprehensible. But it is not so evident in the case of the first. I propose to deal with this problem in detail and consider the views of other explicators of the NS.

Let us begin with NS, 1.1.2. In course of explaining what is meant by false knowledge (mithyājñāna), Vātsyāyana enumerates how evils produced under the influence of attraction and repulsion lead to moral lapses: “Driven by the evils and through the agency of the body one commits violence, theft and incest. Through words (one is led to) plotting against others, covetousness and nāstikya.” Vātsyāyana adds that motivations like these are sinful, resulting in adharma, lack of merit.

Apparently nāstikya is here associated with irreligiosity. The Manu very succinctly explains nāstika as ‘a defiler of the Veda’, nāstiko vedanindakaḥ (2.11). Defiling the Veda is one of the worst sins in the eye of Brahminical orthodoxy. By including nāstikya in the enumeration of vices, Vātsyāyana records his unflinching devotion to the Veda as well as his own orthodoxy.

It is, however, well known that the term, nāstika, is also employed by the Buddhists and Jains to designate those who, instead of denying the validity of the Veda, used to deny the existence of the other-world or after-life (paraloka) and hence the concept of virtue and vice.

The voices of dissent as an essential element in understanding the textual production of an ‘orthodox’ tradition

In a short essay written in 1990, Friedhelm Hardy drew attention to a singular gap in the field of Indological studies. Taking as his example the minor and marginal position to which certain South Asian religious traditions have been consigned, Hardy raised various thorny methodological issues. On the one hand, he indicated how many of the supposed monolithic ‘givens’ (as the ‘true Vedic life’) to which we are accustomed are such only by virtue of the history of the discipline. On the other hand, he argued that the part played by ‘unorthodox distortions’ and ‘sectarian developments’ has not been attributed sufficient weight, and that their historical role may have been anything but secondary or marginal. With the penetrating originality characteristic of his work, Hardy outlined a short but intensive research program:

Saṃnyāsa is a relatively new term in the Sanskrit vocabulary. It occurs rarely in the Vedic corpus and did not enter the Buddhist or Jaina vocabularies. Even medieval Sanskrit lexicographers ignore this term. Saṃnyāsa is used exclusively in Brahmanical writings, and in its early usage indicated only one aspect of renunciation, namely the abandonment of ritual activity. In the early phase of its semantic development several attempts were made to give it restricted technical meanings. These, however, did not gain popular acceptance. An important stage in this development is the use of saṃnyāsa to designate the rite of renunciation. Saṃnyāsa must have acquired its classical meaning as a generic term for renunciation and a synonym of such well-known terms as pārivrājya and pravrajyā several centuries after Manu. We find it used with that meaning in texts belonging to the 3–4 century CE.

Saṃnyāsa is the most common term for the life-style of a world renouncer both in Sanskrit and in the modern Indian languages. It is often given as the title of the fourth āśrama. Saṃnyāsin is commonly used as a synonym of terms such as parivrājaka, pravrajita, śramaṇa, bhikṣu and yati. I shall call this the classical meaning of S.

Perhaps due to the extensive use of S with that meaning in the medieval Sanskrit literature, scholars have tacitly assumed that the term had an identical meaning also in the ancient period of Indian literature. Evidence, however, does not warrant such an assumption.

Introduction

The issue of cultural sovereignty continues to be a prominent one in Timor Leste, which is now liberated from Indonesian rule. Out of the ashes of recent history, various ethnic groups are increasingly demanding their own cultural space and authority within the fledgling nation-state, as the conflicts following independence amply demonstrated. It is within this context that we wish to discuss the declaration of Nino Konis Santana National Park, the first national park in Timor Leste. This paper will examine fundamental issues with the concepts of “national heritage,” public good, protected area models and the assignment of cultural and natural heritage values to the park.

At the time the Nino Konis Santana National Park was first proposed, reports emphasized the natural values of the park to the neglect of cultural values (see Trainor et al. 2003; Whistler 2001). Since the 1970s, this has become a common ideal worldwide where nature is viewed as a biodiversity bank which must be preserved at all costs (Katz 1998; Luke 2003; Pannell 2006b, 13). However, the Nino Konis Santana National Park contains six villages and is home to over fifteen thousand people. In every regard it constitutes an area where over time, the interaction of people and nature has produced a landscape with significant cultural value. Research shows that this area contains “manifestations of unique [and] traditional land use patterns and social organizations as evidenced in human settlements, local customs, livelihoods, and beliefs” (IUCN 1994, 22).

The whole literature of the Cārvāka system is lost. Scholars have ransacked all Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit works to glean whatever little that can be salvaged. However, the Arabic and Persian sources have not been tapped yet. Here I propose to discuss three such works.

The first source is, of course, India by al-Bīrūnī (1031). The passage runs as follows:

Bīrūnī apparently had no access to the first work he refers to. That is why he could mention only one aspect of this system, viz. sense-perception (pratyakṣa) as the only valid means of knowledge (pramāṇa). From earlier sources we know that the Laukāyatika-s denied everything that the theists believed in: God, the infallibility of the Vedas, the efficacy of the observance of religious duties either for this world or for the next, etc. The Buddhists and Jains too had no faith in God and the Vedas but they believed in after-life or the otherworld (though, unlike the Jains, the Buddhists did not accept the idea of the imperishable soul). The Laukāyatika-s had gone several steps ahead: they were rooted in this world and had nothing to do with anything beyond the senses.

Here we give the translation of the sūtras mentioned in the psū section according to the order of their occurrence in the Aṣṭādhyāyī. This is essentially based on R.N. Sharma's translation (1987-2003), but we have sometimes modified its terminology and provided examples. However, this is in no way meant to be an exhaustive treatment of the grammatical issues involved, but simply a supplement to our translation of the psū section in the KV.

vṛddhir ādaic (A. 1.1.1)

“āṬ (i.e. ā) and aiC (i.e. ai and au) are technically termed vṛddhi.” Ex.: ā in śālīyaḥ and au in aupagavaḥ.

iko guṇavṛddhī (A. 1.1.3)

“When vowels denoted by the technical terms guṇa and vṛddhi are ordered as substitutes, and no substituendum is specified, they only come in the place of vowels denoted by iK (i.e. i, u, ṛ and ḷ).” This rule will allow the correct interpretation of rules such as mṛjer vṛddhiḥ (A. 7.2.114), which prescribes a vṛddhi substitute for the root MṚJ-. One should understand that only an iK vowel, i.e. the vowel ṛ of MṚJ-, must be replaced (e.g. in mārṣṭā, mārṣṭum), not the whole root.

halo 'nantarāḥ saṃyogaḥ (A. 1.1.7)

“A sequence of haL (consonants) uninterrupted by aC (vowels) is technically termed saṃyoga ‘cluster, conjunct’.”

Introduction

The material remains of the past make up a major, though not the only, portion of what is called “cultural heritage.” These remains are a limited and threatened resource globally. Archaeologists are but one group of people who have interests in controlling, using and conserving these resources. In fact, archaeologists and cultural resource managers may have very different objectives as well as methods, which may at times be in conflict with each other. Additionally, so-called “indigenous” archaeology may present a third set of differing objectives and methods.

In this paper, we review the history of archaeology and cultural resource management (CRM) in Timor Leste in the context of global movements and, in particular, contrast to North America. Our paper also presents qualitative impressions about public attitudes regarding archaeology and cultural heritage in Timor Leste, as well as the results of a pilot survey of public attitudes about archaeology in the town of Manatuto in July 2005 (conducted by Randy Hert who was then a University of Washington archaeology field school student). While the small sample size and range of questions should not be taken to represent public opinion more generally in Southeast Asia, the study does highlight some of the key issues as well as the diversity of opinions held by people in a town in Timor Leste.