The Guru in South Asia

New Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Jacob Copeman, Aya Ikegame, Jacob Copeman, Aya Ikegame

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136298066
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Indian & South Asian History
• Index: History

This book provides a set of fresh and compelling interdisciplinary approaches to the enduring phenomenon of the guru in South Asia. Moving across different gurus and kinds of gurus, and between past and present, the chapters call attention to the extraordinary scope and richness of the social lives and roles of South Asian gurus. Prevailing scholarship has rightly considered the guru to be a source of religious and philosophical knowledge and mystical bodily practices. This book goes further and considers the social engagements and entanglements of these spiritual leaders, not just on their own (narrowly denominational) terms, but in terms of their diverse, complex, rapidly evolving engagements with 'society' broadly conceived. The book explores and illuminates the significance of female gurus, gurus from the perspective of Islam, imbrications of guru-ship and slavery in pre-modern India, connections between gurus and power, governance and economic liberalization in modern and contemporary India, vexed questions of sexuality and guru-ship, gurus' charitable endeavours, the cosmopolitanism of gurus in contexts of spiritual tourism, and the mediation of gurus via technologies of electronic communication.

Bringing together internationally renowned scholars from religious studies, political science, history, sociology and anthropology, The Guru in South Asia provides exciting and original new insights into South Asian guru-ship.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

1 The multifarious guru

An introduction¹

Jacob Copeman and Aya Ikegame
DOI: 10.4324/9780203116258-1

guru / n. 1 a Hindu spiritual teacher. 2 each of the first ten leaders of the Sikh religion. 3 an influential teacher or expert: a management guru. – ORIGIN from Hindi and Punjabi, from Sanskrit guru ‘weighty, grave’ (cf. L. gravis), hence ‘elder, teacher’.

multifarious / adj. having great variety and diversity > many and various. (Oxford English Dictionary).

The phenomenon of guru-ship has been a classic and enduring theme within South Asian scholarship, but nevertheless critical aspects of the social lives and roles of gurus remain under-explored. Bringing together scholars from religious studies, political science, history, sociology and anthropology, this book aims to provide an innovative and interdisciplinary set of approaches to the guru and open up for analysis terrains either untouched or dealt with only cursorily in previous studies. The principal aim of this book is thus at once modest and considerable: it is to demonstrate the diversity of social sites and conceptual domains in which gurus have participated and continue to participate. Rather than focus on a particular sect or leader, this book provides insights into the wider political and social significance of guru-ship in pre-modern, modern and contemporary South Asian society. The book moves across different gurus, and kinds of gurus, defining the term ‘guru’ broadly – not only does this collection deal with categories of South Asian religious leader variously called maharaj, sant, baba, sadhu, mahant, swami, sanyasi, and acharya, it deals with guru-ship as a kind of principle or model with particular capacities of structuration.² Considering guru-ship as a set of principles as much as specific persons enables us to better apprehend significant ways in which ‘guru-ship’ affords movement across social and conceptual domains in addition to ways in which logics of guru-ship act as conceptual modelling tools for other forms of social phenomena.

Recent literature has begun to move beyond the study gurus and their ‘sects’ in narrowly denominational terms and instead place them in the context of their multiple roles in South Asian society more generally (Peabody 1991; McKean 1996; Prentiss 1999; Copley 2003; Fuller and Harriss 2005; Warrier 2005; Beckerlegge 2006; Shah 2006; Barrett 2008; S. Srinivas 2008; Copeman 2009; T. Srinivas 2010; see also Khare 1984). Studying gurus and the structures of experience and belief they embody ‘in their own right’ is no doubt important and continues to have its place, but we welcome this turn to a broader approach because it gives due recognition to the extraordinary breadth of social roles and entanglements of gurus. This book seeks to reflect on this expansive analytical move and to take it further. We insist that it is not that gurus have only recently begun to participate in non-denominational domains – extending beyond the ashram, so to speak – but that scholars, influenced by Latour (1993) and others, are now less prone to unhelpfully fence off the practice of ‘religion’, say, or politics, from other areas of life (see Spencer 1997). We are thus now better able to ‘see’ the manifold extensions and entanglements of the guru.

Such an emphasis on the remarkable range of social positions that gurus, broadly defined, occupy (and indeed have occupied) prompts a note on the titles of the chapters that comprise this book. In adopting a particularising ‘definite article’ format (‘The governing guru’, ‘The cosmopolitan guru’, etc.) our aim is to draw attention to the diversity (and in some cases novelty) of themes covered. The format of the titles is thus a contrivance, or tool, that seeks not to essentialise the figure of the guru as, say, intrinsically ‘governmental’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ (far from it), but rather to highlight the diversity of thematics and conceptual schema generated by ‘the guru’ and dealt with in this volume. Indeed, taking our cue from the essays brought together in this book, we draw attention in this introduction to the guru’s capacity to participate in, and move between, multiple symbolic and practical spheres,³ the aim being to reassess some of the key existing literature on guru-ship⁴ while developing a kind of analytical toolkit in order to aid future studies and stimulate new thought on the matter of the extraordinary phenomenon that is South Asian guru-ship.

As we have already noted, we are interested not only in the ways in which gurus are translated into new and sometimes unexpected contexts in present times, but also in considering how the guru was always a social form of peculiar suggestibility; a veritable ‘vector between domains’ (Carsten 2011: 2). Indeed, the guru is a prolific producer of ‘domaining effects’; effects that occur when the logic of an idea associated with one domain is transferred to another, often with interesting or unanticipated results (Strathern 1992: 73). In many ways, this book is a study of the domaining effects of gurus. The prolificness of the guru in this regard is connected to its extraordinary propensity for becoming apt for given situations, whether the situation is one of quasi-legal adjudication (Ikegame, this volume), political mentorship (Jaffrelot, this volume), anti-stigma campaigns concerning leprosy or HIV (Barrett 2008; Mehta and Pramanik 2010), a liberalising economic milieu (Frøystad this volume) and its connected frame of globalising cosmopolitanism (Khandelwal this volume) or indeed the high-profile anti-corruption campaigns of 2011 (one of whose leaders was yoga guru Swami Ramdev – see Cohen this volume). Such ‘aptness’ is consequent on a guru’s ability to respond to the vagaries of situations in ways that allow him or her to be carried forwards: The agent [guru] keys into the momentum of the situation and surfs its possibilities’ (Thrift 2010: 261). This sense of ‘carrying forward’ by way of an ability to ‘harvest’ situations is suggestive of the expansibility of the guru, an idea we develop later in this introduction. We also ask: what are the conditions of possibility of such ‘harvesting’? Through analytical discussion of the essays in this book, we explore in this introduction the ways in which gurus have crossed domains and become apt for given situations, drawing in and re-composing diverse aspects of Indian social life in the process: from sexuality to new media; from slavery to imagination and transgression; from Brahmanical orthodoxy to the arts of government; from milieus of modernising reformist fervour to those of convention and continuity. Needless to say, while intervening in and mediating these phenomena in various ways, the guru is not reducible to any of them. Following Carsten (2011), we suggest that the multiplicity and diversity of these interventions points towards a sense of the guru’s uncontainability. Surely their power to act in such a diversity of situations and projects partly rests on the polyvalent meanings of gurus themselves, and their unusual capacity to accrue resonances that, because of the nature of gurus’ participation in multiple fields and discourses, are simply uncontainable.⁵ We return to this sense of uncontainability below.

Recent key scholarly works have focused on ‘middle-class’ gurus such as Swami Dayananda Saraswati (not to be confused with his namesake, the founder of the Arya Samaj), Mata Amritanandamayi and Sathya Sai Baba, the latter two each claiming millions of devotees. These studies pay close attention to the nuanced links between these gurus and processes of economic liberalisation, globalisation and technological modernity. In terms of the typology proposed by Nanda (2009), Mata Amritanandamayi and Sathya Sai Baba are type 1 gurus, whose appeal is critically dependent on the miracles they are said to perform, whereas Swami Dayananda Saraswati is an instance of a type 2 guru, for his appeal lies principally in his exposition of Hindu philosophy (chiefly the Vedas) such that it may be applied to contemporary practical concerns (for instance business management – see Fuller and Harriss 2005). Type 3 gurus, according to Nanda, are primarily known for teaching yoga or meditation (Swami Ramdev would be a high-profile example).⁶ What links each type, says Nanda, is their comparability to CEOs, and a pronounced evangelism, in respect of which she quotes media commentator and Hindutva supporter Swapan Dasgupta’s (2005) contention that ‘the real energy of contemporary Hinduism’ lies in its ‘living saints’:

There is a thriving tradition of what can be loosely called evangelical Hinduism. It comprises the likes of Asaram Bapu, Murari Bapu, Swami Ramdev, Amma, Satya Sai Baba, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and many others who feature on the various religious channels on TV. They are the Pat Robertsons and the Billy Grahams of modern Hinduism. They are able to inspire and motivate individual Hindus far more successfully than purohits and pontiffs.

(original emphasis)

The reference to evangelical Christian preachers is instructive on several levels. That the Hindu right seeks to operationalise gurus in support of its agenda is hardly a novel proposition. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP – ‘World Hindu Council’) famously seeks (and is frequently granted) the support of such gurus in initiatives to combat ‘minority appeasement’, the building of a Ram Mandir, and so on, and Nanda cites evidence that the organisation is actively seeking to harness the evangelical potential of such gurus. Moreover, such gurus – mirroring the highly mediatised presence of US evangelicals – may possess and appear on their own television channels. Sociologist Dipankar Gupta (2009: 260–1) also draws a comparison between India’s ‘living saints’ and US evangelical Christians. Seeking to debunk worn-out perceptions of Indian ‘exceptionalism’, Gupta questions whether India’s so-called ‘passion for godmen’ implies some unique Indian predilection for the mystical. For Gupta, though Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell may look and sound different from Sri Sri Ravi Shankar or Asaram Bapu, ‘what is categorically not different is the fact that the evangelist and godman are both showmen, skilled in whipping up collective effervescence, skilled also in verbal pyrotechnics or crude shows of legerdemain’. Like Dasgupta, Gupta points to the presence of these gurus on Indian cable TV as a factor connecting them to the US ‘holy man’ variant; and, presumably drawing on Kakar (1982) and others, he sees Indian ‘godmen’ as equivalent to US psychoanalysts who ‘soothe the febrile temperaments of middle-class Americans’ (Gupta 2009: 261).

We agree that the study of high-profile Indian spiritual gurus and their milieus can tell us much about contemporary middle-class predicaments and sensibilities, and aim to show below that their study can illuminate important features of new media in the subcontinent (see also Frøystad this volume). This kind of analysis is also in sympathy with our aim of exploring the lives of gurus beyond the ashram, so to speak, and several recent ethnographies have underscored the importance of middle-class ‘godmen’ for understanding the ways in which faith ‘travels’ (in particular, T. Srinivas 2010). But there are several dangers here. The comparison with US evangelism is certainly instructive up to a point given the VHP’s evident attempts to instrumentalise gurus for evangelical purposes (Dasgupta’s comments imply a direct emulative link between the phenomena; cf. Jaffrelot’s [1996: 76] theorisation of Hindutva organisations’ strategy of simultaneous stigmatisation and emulation of the minorities by whom they feel threatened). However, as can be the case with projects of comparison, it results in a simplification. The term ‘Indian godmen’ is frequently made to subsume massive differences beneath its obviating moniker. It has purchase insofar as it refers to what Nanda (2009) calls the ‘new gurus’ – those who tend to be followed by well-heeled Indians (and indeed many foreigners), who purvey a new age-ish spirituality, and who are ‘practically CEOs of huge business empires’ – but its prevalence could all too easily lead to an impression that such gurus are the only game in town, that all gurus share such characteristics.

Study of such publicly visible ‘hyper’ gurus is extremely important for reasons already stated, and several of the essays in this book contribute to key debates about their prominence, but the rise of globalising middle-class gurus, who appear on television and possess millions of devotees, is only part of the picture. In addition to contributing new perspectives on such figures, this book explores the lives and roles of non-Hindu gurus (Copeman), perspectives on ‘the guru’ from outside Hinduism (Das, Pinch), gurus who stand as advocates of their lower-caste/class followers (Ikegame, Copeman),⁷ more minor gurus who do not necessarily appear on television or claim millions of devotees (Gold, Khandelwal) and the complex and multifaceted roles of gurus in history (Morse, Jaffrelot, Pinch, Pechilis) and myth (Pechilis, Morse). While we may be sympathetic to Gupta’s assault on the western appetite for ‘exotic’ India, it is important not to obscure what is genuinely distinctive about the Indian experience of guru-ship, and to avoid a situation where scholarly and public representations of hyper gurus or ‘godmen’ substitute for recognition and analysis of the radically variegated figures and milieus of the guru in actuality.

A distinction introduced by Benjamin (2000) and further elaborated by Harriss (2007) might be helpful here. The distinction is between South Asia’s ‘local’ and ‘corporate’ economies, and our suggestion is that categories of guru may be loosely assimilated to the division: ‘ “local economies” are diverse and complex … and provide most of the population with their accommodation, work and livelihoods. Their links with government are through middle and junior bureaucrats and local political leaders … “[C]orporate economies”, on the other hand, are the arena for industrial, bureaucratic and IT sector elites; they are plugged into higher level political circuits, and have quite direct links with state-level and national parastatal agencies (including finance corporations and development authorities). They operate through “master planning” and mega-projects’, which have made it possible for the capitalist, or upper middle classes, to achieve hegemony in the shaping of the urban form (Harriss 2007: 4).

Of course, we see the majority of Indian spiritual leaders as analogous to local economies, more diverse and complex than headline-stealing hyper gurus; and though they represent the majority of guru-led communities, they are likely to be less politically influential than ‘parastatal’ corporate (hyper) gurus who, with their vast resources, are able to engage in high-profile development works and achieve hegemony in public discourse and representation (and to some degree, academic debate). But the connection is not only analogical. Gurus and their institutions participate in and help form the ‘local’/‘corporate’ division of which Benjamin and Harriss write. That is to say, the relationship is both conceptual and thoroughly material: it is one of personal connections, transactions and flows of money/spirituality – as examples provided below and throughout the book demonstrate.

Anti-gurus and non-human gurus

We seek now to elaborate further on what we earlier called the uncontainability of the guru, and delineate several of its features. First, we examine how the category of ‘guru’ is uncontained to the extent that even those who campaign against what they see as the pernicious influence of gurus sometimes come to be treated as gurus themselves; second, we explore the powerful and complex role of the guru in imagination and fantasy, such that the guru–disciple relationship may surface in different situations as a ‘model of’ various societal relations – or at the very least as a ‘model for’ apprehending them; finally, we draw on recent literature in order to investigate the guru as an expansible figure who employs a variety of well-honed techniques in order to extend his/her influence.

We begin with what we call the anti-guru paradox. Copeman’s chapter provides an example of this. The focus of his chapter is on a controversy that took place in 2007 in which the guru presiding over the north Indian devotional order the Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) was widely considered by mainstream Sikhs to have blasphemously imitated Guru Gobind Singh, who in 1708 had proclaimed himself the final living Sikh gur...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The multifarious guru: An introduction
• 2 The governing guru: Hindu mathas in liberalising India
• 3 The slave guru: Masters, commanders, and disciples in early modern South Asia
• 4 The political guru: The guru as éminence grise
• 5 The gay guru: Fallibility, unworldliness, and the scene of instruction
• 6 The female guru: Guru, gender, and the path of personal experience
• 7 The dreamed guru: The entangled lives of the amil and the anthropologist
• 8 The mimetic guru: Tracing the real in Sikh–Dera Sacha Sauda relations
• 9 The mediated guru: Simplicity, instantaneity and change in middle-class religious seeking
• 10 The cosmopolitan guru: Spiritual tourism and ashrams in Rishikesh
• 11 The literary guru: The dual emphasis on bhakti and vidhi in western Indian guru-devotion
• 12 Continuities as gurus change
• Index