1

Michael Witzel December 13, 2001

HarvardUniversity

Macrocosm, Mesocosm and Microcosm:

The persistant nature of 'Hindu' beliefs and symbolical forms.

§ 1 Introduction : Mesocosm

With his recent book, Mesocosm, Robert Levy has greatly indebted students and
scholars of South Asia. The work deals with the universe and the private sphere of
Hindus in the Newar town of Bhaktapur/Nepal during the mid-seventies. It presents,
differently from the primarily philological, historical, phenomenological or social
analyses, a structured account of the totality of a local form of Hinduism, and in my
opinion, for first time, a clear view of the intricate nature of Hinduism.

Mesocosm successfully combines a well-informed textual and historical background

with anthropological observation, and, need it be stressed (cf. his earlier award winning
book, Tahitians) 1 , insightful analysis. For, it is all too often forgotten that our texts,
whether in Sanskrit, Middle or New Indo-Aryan, or even in Dravidian, all to
frequently represent the voice of the Brahmin (or Buddhist, Jaina, etc.) establishment.
Even originally antinomous movements (e.g., Tantra) made it into the received texts
only after a period of 'Brahmanization', studious purification and adjustment to the
(local) norms of Hinduism.

This book, however, presents traditional Hinduism in all its aspects, from private beliefs
to the generally held Tantric religion, from private ritual to the public festivals of a
whole realm, from individual sacred space in private houses to the sacred geography of
the town of Bhaktapur and the surrounding areas. This has intrinsic value not just for
the recent form of local Newar Hinduism but for the study and understanding of
Hinduism as such, though it is, admittedly, Hinduism seen through the eyes of
Bhaktapur people.

§ 2 Eternal Hinduism?

There are several reasons, well known to specialists in Nepalese studies, for the choice of
Bhaktapur, and consequently, for the value this study has in the understanding of
traditional Hinduism. They include: the 'museum' character of Bhaktapur, a very
conservative town largely untempered by medieval Muslim and more recent British
influences; a history of some 2000 years of the complete take-over of Hinduism by a
people belonging to the Tibeto-Burmese language family, (thus, not so recent, e.g., as
in the similar case of Manipur); the Newar stress on rituals and festivals as expression of
their culture that has preserved a lot of older Hindu traits (e.g., the Indrajåtrå, see
below). Consequently, we can take, for the time being, Bhaktapur Hinduism as a
standard representation of medieval Hinduism, in a traditional monarchy and in an

1 Robert I. Levy 1973.

 2
urban context, and not in the usually studied a village context where most
anthropological accounts are based.

Another reason why this analysis is so important is the one already hinted at above:
Mesocosm is a structured analysis. The usual, run-of-the-mill books on Hinduism2 --an
ever increasing tide-- are, as ethnologists will say, more or less 'thick' descriptions of
Hinduism, with its festivals, customs, rites, beliefs. But they often remain descriptive,
sometimes to the extent of mere enumeration of features. Such books repeat, often a-
historically, the usual litany of the supposedly main concepts of Hinduism such as the
four åśrama, the three or four puruårtha,3 -- the outcome of a medieval Brahmanical,
'great tradition' restructuring of the various archaic, ancient or more recent Hindu
approaches to life, with little relation to the realities of life 'on the ground' in the
villages of South Asia , and, for that matter, in traditional towns such as Bhaktapur in
Nepal.

Occasionally, one can come across a good analysis of one aspect of Hindu life or the
other (brides and marriage, death rituals, purity and pollution, the 'caste' system, etc.)
but we normally miss, in such books, an incisive, deep-going analysis of the whole of
Hinduism and its world view that transgresses the common puruårtha/varåśrama
concepts.4 Or, if we limit our point of view to the formal aspects of the Hindu religion,
such as worship, festivals and pūjå, then again, there virtually is no single book which
clearly delineates the structure, the bewildering variety and the meaning of these
rituals.5 I will concentrate on ritual and festivals for the purpose of this paper.6

I am not of the opinion of some who maintain an eternal, unchanging nature of

Hinduism: Vedic religion can not be compared directly with the Hinduism of the
Great Epic, that of the various historical and levels visible in the Purå
as and in the
various Śivaite, Vi
uite, Śåkta, etc. Tantras, -- or the more informal local versions of
Hinduism in the towns and villages from Srinagar and Kathmandu to Cochin and
Jaffna, and from Dwarka to Manipur. Rather, I would like to point out and stress an
historical fact: many of the structures of South Asian religion that R. Levy discovers at

2 I do not enter the question of a definition of this grouping of a multitude of local and regional S. Asian
religions and sects.
3 Or, they repeat the lists of festivals compiled from Purå
ic sources, e.g. D. Eck (1982), basically a
retelling of the Kåśī Måhåtmya, arrived at with the help of three Indian collaborators. Yet already the
portrayal of Benares by E. B. Havell (1905) is a useful and detailed description by a typical late 19th c.
scholar who provided much of the historical and anthropological detail as well.
4 See, e.g., the short but insightful summary by Thomas Hopkins 1971. There are, it is true, a few
intelligent analyses such as those of L. Dumont or M. Biardeau; however, they have some flaws of their
own: Dumont`s overstressing hiercharchy and purity, Biardeau’s overstressing the eternal, quasi-
unchangeable nature of Hinduism, all of which is quite different from what I will try to provide here.
5 Neither C.G. Diehl (1956) nor G. Bühnemann (1988) provide what R. Levy presents in his Mesocosm;
now S. Einoo (1992, 1994, 1996) has begun to investigate the relation between late Vedic/early Hindu
pūjå. - For Kathmandu cf. also the purely descriptive book of M. M. Anderson (1971) on the festivals of
Nepal.
6 Leaving aside, e.g., other useful insights, such as Levy`s interviews on all levels of society.
 3
Bhaktapur can be seen to be present already in the Vedic period. This was not the aim
of his book (henceforth abbreviated L):

"Many of Bhaktapur's local forms of behavior (like its material artifacts) are of
great historical and theoretical importance for South Asian studies... They are
not immediately relevant for the kind of place Bhaktapur was at the time of
the study and are either neglected or treated summarily in this report." (L,
687)

To begin to fill this -intended- gap, I will make use of his observations of modern
Newar Hinduism (and add some of my own) in tracing back such structures to the
Vedic period.

In fact, some of them have been described well by Hermann Oldenberg and Stanislaw
Schayer some 75 years ago: the procedure, found in the Bråhma
a texts, of analyzing
the universe on three levels and connecting these by a series of 'identifications'
(homologies) and the use of 'creative etymologies'. These studies have not penetrated
well in the Anglophone world, as they were written in German.7 Bråhma
a thought is
based on a multi-faceted picture of the world, based on a three-level division into the
Microcosm of humans, Macrocosm of gods/forces of the universe and the mediating
realm of ritual (yajña), which is supervised and manipulated by self-appointed priests,
the Brahmins, in the interest of their clients (and, not to forget, their own interest!)8
This intermediate realm of ritual has now conveniently been termed Mesocosm by R.
Levy for the Hinduism of Bhaktapur.

Indeed, the three-level pattern of the Veda holds for modern Hindu Bhaktapur as
well. As we will see, some of the dramatis personae on the three levels may have changed
over time, but the model is still in place. In other words, R. Levy's analysis allows to
view Hinduism, just like any other religion, on its own terms, as a more or less well
organized system of beliefs, rites, and customs.

Western scholars usually do not see it that way as they are blinded by the
overwhelming, seemingly endless array of gods, images, motifs, stories, mythical cycles,
the seemingly infinite number of smaller and larger rituals and festivals. Too easily,
they get confounded and confused by the multitude of gods, symbols, customs, etc. of
Hinduism, -- a feature that especially drove many of the 19th and also the 20th
century admirers of India into despair, so much so that they lost sight of the
underlying structures. Hindu (or Vedic) mythology is not just a jungle of tales that
seem to sprout ever new shoots and branches like a jungle creeper or banyan tree. They
are variations on a number of well established themes and well established structures. It

7 Except for the recent book by B.K. Smith (1989) who copies these approaches without mentioning or
discussing them in detail, and, while not providing any new insights beyond Oldenberg and Schayer,
supplying a fashionable framework; see the recent criticism by A. Wezler, 1996. - Incidentally, Smith has
not understood my point (Witzel 1979): My aim was not to add western parallels, but to explain the
matter by showing that our (modern, western) thought patterns are not so very much different from
those of the Vedic period.
8 For the self-interest of the Brahmins in the early/middle Vedic period, see now Witzel, 1996=1997a.
 4
is just their effulgence and their multitude that confounds. There was need of a clear
thinker such as R. Levy to cut through the maze.9

Further, we also have to distinguish between an 'academic' approach, based, on the one
hand, on the systems of (some) Indian philosophers - all too often this is Śakara! -
and, on the other, and an analysis of the thought and religion of the bulk of the
population. As I have frequently learned 'on ground level' in towns and villages it is,
primarily, not the concept of karma and the cycle of endless reincarnations that is
prominent or dominating in the thought and in the lives of Hindus (as R. Levy, too,
mentions, p. 215, 442, cf. p. 223 but contrast p. 520, 318, 361) but there are some
much older and persistent features which are much more prominent.10 These include:
-- a the 'debt' to the gods and ancestors, due a 'line of progeny' (prajåtantu)
connecting humans to these progenitors,
-- consequently, an exchange of 'food stuff' (anna) between gods and humans in a
'generational contract', as well as between various social levels of humans, (cf. L,
332), and importantly,
-- one's going to heaven (divagata; L, 215, esp. 442, cf. L, 223) and eventual
return to earth.

R. Levy has aptly captured (much of ) this system by his two key terms: 'Mesocosm'
and 'the dance of symbols', both of which will be investigated in their historical
dimension in some detail below.

§ 3 Modern Bhaktapur and the Textual Tradition.

As has already been hinted at, R. Levy's description of Bhaktapur society and religion
and his penetrating analysis make it easier to compare what has happened during the
long period extending between the (pre-)Hindu religion of the Vedas and the
Hinduism of modern Nepal. One may, of course, question why such a comparison
could be made at all. A thorough comparison of early Buddhism in Bihar and
surrounding areas and its modern forms in Sri Lanka or Japan would result in a large
number of incompatabilities, even while all of this is based on, ultimately, the same set
of teachings. The same can, certainly, be said of Vedic religion and a local form of
modern Hinduism. It can even be denied, and frequently is indeed denied by scholars
of the Veda and of South Asia alike, that this is the same religion since most of its
deities, beliefs and rituals have changed considerably.

However, when working in Nepal during the Seventies (1972-1977, and ocasionally
later on), I frequently noticed that many individual features of ritual, customs and
beliefs have continued from the Vedic period into modern Hinduism; nevertheless, I
was also aware of the fact that such correspondences are not recognized very easily.

9 A mere listing of mythological motifs and their variants (W. D. O`Flaherty 1973) does not aid
substantially in such an undertaking. At best, one ends up with a Lévi-Straussian dichotomy:; in his last
book, Histoire de lynx, he even compares, on the last page, this structure with that of the bicameral
structure of the brain (Lévi-Strauss 1995).
10 Cf. also the strong views Tamils hold with regard to the clash between predestination, fate and karma,
in Charles F. Keyes and E. Valentine Daniel (1983).
 5
What is necessary is a Vedic specialist who takes a close look at some facets and features
of modern Hinduism. This, of course, is usually not done, as the myths and the
'theology' of Hinduism seem to be that of the Epics and Purå
as and these are
regarded as something intrinsically different from the preceding Vedic period.

However, we may easily find some individual examples where Vedic concepts and
beliefs have been perpetuated into modern times. One such group is clustered around
death and its rituals. For example, Vedic texts refer, passim, to the departed (preta)
flying around as birds or visiting their descendants in the form of birds (KS 34.8;
KahĀ; as a golden goose: KB 7.4, JB 2.53-53,VådhB 4.37; BDhS 2.14.9-10). This
concept still is found in various parts of modern South Asia and fits ill into the idea of
a departed soul on its way to the other world or in the process of reincarnating itself.
First of all, there is the offering of kåka bali in many rituals,11 and crows indeed
represent ancestors in Tamil Na u, Maharastra, etc., -- though not everywhere
throughout India. It is noteworthy that on a certain day once a year, all crows are said
to assemble at Benares, as if to take part in an annual śråddha feeding. In Bhaktapur this
belief persists in the annual Kwa Pūjå, just before the Newar New Year in October,
which R. Levy characterizes as "placation of Yama, the god of death" (L, 656).

Another persistent idea is that of the departed persons's going to heaven (or the
pleasant world of the ancestors in Yama's realm, RV 10.135.1, VådhB 3.91). While this
is prominent in Vedic religion, from the RV onwards, some doubt about the concept
should have been expressed once the late Vedic 'doctrine' of reincarnation emerged.
This juncture 12 of an earlier common belief in rebirth and the new one of the
retributive force of karma would turn 'heaven' into an unnecessary if not an
impossible notion: rebirth should take place upon death. Indeed, medieval Jainas (and
some, non-Nepalese) Buddhists frequently ridiculed the Brahmins for performing
'useless' śråddha rituals since their ancestors must have been reincarnated for long.
However, rebirth is frequently not stressed at all in modern S. Asia, and a more or less
long sojourn in (Vi
u's) Heaven is supposed to occur. The stay in Yama's, by now,
dreadful world or subsequent rebirth in this world are frequently overlooked (L, 442),
and this is indeed what I often heard expressed in Nepal and India: people do not talk
about reincarnation but everyone wants 'to go to heaven.' The expression is also used
in the common Sanskritic term for a departed person: divagata 'gone to heaven'. It
can be read on the printed flyers commonly found on the walls of houses which
announce someone's death. Even the Newar Buddhists suppose that a departed person
would go to heaven (e.g., Amitåbha's western paradise, etc.) before the various
constituent parts of his personality would re-assemble in various new life forms. Both
Buddhists and Hindus in Nepal therefore perform śråddha ceremonies to feed their
departed ancestors (even though the Buddhist interpretation may vary). In other
words, the old Vedic idea of a stay in heaven has been integrated into the post-Vedic
and medieval view of constant reincarnation, and it nowadays forms but one step in
this process. However, it is such an important step that it still takes precedence over all

11 Witzel 1986, 1992; for offerings to birds at the time of ancestor worship, see BDhS 2.14.19-20, KhGS
2.1.26, GGS 1.8.
12 See Witzel, Rebirth and Karma (in progress).
 6
post-Vedic philosophy and perpetuates the age-old human wish to stay in a blissful
world in the afterlife.

While such concepts have persisted, the great gods and myths of the Vedic period, on
the other hand, have all but disappeared and, instead, an innumerable number of
stories with countless variants and transformations of the old myths are told: why
things are the way they are, or how the gods of Hinduism were involved in the
establishment of the world as it is now. Such tales are frequently couched in terms of
the great Hindu trinity, Brahmå , Vi
u and Śiva, of their wives (especially Kålī,
Lakmī) and of their various helpers and adversaries. But to add to the complexity and
confusion, any local form of a deity, the various Sages, Epic heroes,13 and even semi-
historical persons are linked to other, frequently local variations of the myths so that
the final result is the well-known bewildering array. Not surprisingly, we still lack a
reasoned and insightful analysis. Books such as the older description by E.W.
Hopkins14 etc., are descriptive and enumerative; they do not supply it. They often are
not more than just lists of deities and the attached myths, and they generally repeat
and perpetuate the confusing mass of data they are taken from. A cogent analysis
might be provided by a perceptive thinker if the structures which underlie the myths,
say those of Śiva, would be interpreted along the lines of R. Levy, but this has not yet
been done.15

However, such Epic/Purå
ic 'explanations' all too frequently are quite obvious ad hoc
explanations in terms of a relationship between the great gods and their associates.16
Like a Levi-Straussian analysis they convey little beyond the fact that such and such a
dichotomy (e.g. eroticism/asceticism) and such and such a solution (in the character of
Śiva) of the conflict exists, and that this conflict is somehow important for medieval
Hinduism. But again, it was so already in the outgoing Vedic period: the
Vråtya/Brahmacårin :: puścalī dichotomy, represented in the New Year mahåvrata
ritual (e.g., ĀpŚS 21.17 sqq., ŚŚS 17.18 sqq.) by the intercourse/verbal exchange
between Mågadha/Brahmacårin and the prostitute, is also visible in the dichotomy of
(Gandharva-)Apsaras :: humans, or that of Purūravas: Urvaśī, Yama : Yamī when
compared to the Manu : Manåvī/Yåjñavalkya : Maitreyī one. We do not hear anything
of this sort from O'Flaherty whose analysis begins and terminates with Levi-Straussian
oppositions. -- Of course, such a dichotomy has remained important, for why
otherwise, should a local branch of Hinduism such as Newar Hinduism have continued
to engage in creating a large collection of tales, in the Svasthånīvrata (L, 425),

13 See A. Hiltebeitel 1988, cf. the Indonesian På
avas as gods, Himalayan Mbh. dramas in Garhwal
(W. Sax 1991) and also Bhīmsen as god of merchants in Bhaktapur (Bhisi Dya, L, 252-4) or the five
Dīpåkara Buddhas as the five På
avas (L, 435, 452).
14 E.W. Hopkins 1915.
15 W. D. O`Flaherty 1973 amounts to a mere listing with little analysis beyond Levy-Straussian
dichotomies/opposites of asceticism and eroticism, expressed in several dozen features that are recurrent
in Shivaite mythology. The complex figure of Śiva cannot be simply reduced to such opposites; such
analysis does not result in a self-contained description of the structure of (a large part of) the Hindu
Universe, or in an explanation of the underlying force of Dharma that pervades the actions of gods,
demi-gods, humans and demons, -- not to to speak at all of historical and regional analysis.
16 Excepting such tales as the Mbh. and Råm. tale of churning the ocean which details the underlying
structure and conflict of the universe, between the gods and non/countergods , the Asuras.
 7
Nepålamåhåtmya or, on a larger scale, (parts of) the Himavatkha
a? Or why to create
the same relationship as found between Urvaśī and Purūravas in the abrupt change
from sexual indulgence17 to abstinence18 in the relation between the Devī and the
Malla kings (the living goddess).19 In theVedic text ŚB 11.5.1, this union is allowed to
resume once per year,20 just as the Nepalese king will meet the goddess in her
incarnation as Kumårī once again during the Indrajåtrå -- if only to receive a tilaka
mark ( īkå) from her. The dichotomy is visible in modern Bhaktapur as well in many
of its rituals and festivals (see below).

We can thus frequently turn for an explanation to earlier sources which quite often
state the problem in different but clear terms, -- obvious, at least to Vedic specialists.
Indeed, it has been my repeated impression and now is my considered opinion, that
the way things are formulated in the Epics and the Purå
as are nothing but a
'secondary elaboration' of a Vedic (and often, still older) set of concepts . This is, of
course, not to deny that certain, in fact, a huge number of developments have taken
place between the two periods. However, there are many overlooked constants that
have been retained from the Vedic through the Epic to the modern period.

To give just one, and quite obvious example. The importance of (male) children in the
Epic (Mbh 1.19) shows links with Vedic thought as well as with modern concepts. In
the Epic, the childless ascetic Jaratkåru meets his ancestors hanging on a string, gnawed
at by rodents, so that they are in danger of falling into a deep abyss. They explain that
this is so because they have no descendants beyond Jaratkåru, who could take care of
them in the next world. He quickly marries a women called Jaratkåru(!) and
procreates. This is nothing but a retelling of Vedic concepts which include the string of
progeny (TU 1.11) that extends between the various generations.21 It is to be kept
intact (TU 1.11, AB 7.13). If not, the deep darkness of Nir ti threatens, an abyss which
has no light, no food, and no children (RV 7.104).

Yet even in 'heaven' or in the still blissful world of the ancestors of Yama, the departed
have to be fed by śråddha rituals. In fact, the tale underlines one of the well-known
three 'debts' (a, TS 6.3.5.10, Manu 6.35), that is to maintain the ancestors -- a very
important feature in Hindu society, to this very day. Only in this way, one can
"support the lineage (kul)" (L, 116) which can only be done by having sons. This wish
(by now thoroughly internalized and usually not present rationally) is, of course, the
reason that so many female babies are aborted today.22 The ritual worship and feeding
of the ancestors also continues, and takes a typical Newar expression in the yearly
worship, usually in the spring, of the stone representing the lineage god, digu dya
(L,

17 ``Three times per day,`` RV 10.95.5.

18 ``I am difficult to obtain like the wind,`` RV 10.95.2.
19 Michael Allen 1975; cf. below.
2 0 Similarly BŚS 18. 44; Herodotus: Amazones/Scythians, the two major Japanese deities
Amaterasu/Susa.no wo, The Chinese myth of the cowherd/the weaver goddess, Himalayan polyandry:
several Tibetan brothers sharing one wife, etc., see Witzel, Vala and Iwato, forthc.
21 Cf. RV 1.142.10, AV 3.1.60, 6.122.1-2, cf. PS 16.1= AV 8.1, ŚB 10.5.2.13 achedy asya, etc.
22 Amartya Sen`s statistics (1990).
 8

260) and also in the Newar form of the śråddha half-month (pitpaka) in early fall (L,
655 [66]).

In other words: set off against this kind of background, to read Epic and Purå
ic
stories in isolation is like interpreting medieval Christian mystery plays, the legends of
the innumerable saints, and medieval art without taking recourse to the source (mūla)
texts, i.e. the Judaeo-Christian Bible. In medieval stories, just as in the Epic-Purå
ic
texts, one and the same topic is taken up and modified again and again. Further, it is
important to note that medieval tales of saints quite often represent pre-Christian
thought, myths and deities in a Christian garb, and the same relationship can be
observed in Hinduism. Its various regional and local forms have incorporated local
religious beliefs and re-interpreted them, in interpretatio Romana fashion, as 'Hindu.'
Examples abound in Nepal (Nåsa dya
, L, 254-5, or 'stone gods' such as the lineage
god, digu dya
, L, 260-1, cf. 259 sqq.)

The preceding lines are, of course, not meant to claim that all Vedic themes and rites
make a transformed appearance in Hindu texts and, conversely, that all of Hinduism
has Vedic roots, as some maintain. For example, female deities are much more
important in Hinduism than in Vedic texts where they play a more hidden but
nevertheless crucial role. What is easier is to discern are the sources for Hindu beliefs in
the Vedic texts, if one can actually detect and interpret them; then, the line of
development up to modern Newar Hinduism is fairly easily visible and more or less
straight-forward. What helps in this endeavor is the well known conservatism of
Nepalese or, more precisely, of Newar Hinduism. Sheltered in a valley beyond the often
steep, c. 9000 ft. high Mahabharat range, the Kathmandu Valley has seen only one brief
invasion by a Muslim army in the fourteenth century and none by the British.
Medieval influences from India, e.g., of the Mughal court, or that of the British, were
only indirect, and received by osmosis. Modern 'invasions' (tourists, Hindi films,
world-wide TV) are a more serious threat. It is only recently that more severe changes
have set in. R. Levy worked at Bhaktapur in the mid-seventies, at a time when the old
world was still by and large in tact. The same study could no longer be done in the same
way today, which is, incidentally, another one of its lasting merits.

Against this background, I have selected, for historical and structural comparison, some
paradigmatic examples, such as pūjå, festivals and ritual exchange, the role of the priests
in this. Similar cases could be treated at great length, but neither time nor does space
allow to do so in this context. The structured description and analysis of R. Levy's
Mesocosm allows to execute such comparisons in a systematic, not an impressionistic
way. This, again, bears testimony to the excellence of his analysis and synthesis.

The persuasive analysis and comprehensive view of Hinduism (as present at

Bhaktapur) indeed, is one of the great accomplishments of R. Levy's synthesis, and
stands quite apart from its intrinsic value for the understanding of medieval (North
Indian) Hinduism and modern Newar (city) culture. Mesocosm deals with Bhaktapur's
microcosm, the social organization and the family (but little still with the individual23),

23 This has been reserved by him for another work, based on interviews.
 9
and Bhaktapur's macrocosm, the Vedic, Purå
ic and Tantric pantheon (and, in
passing, also with the universal, underlying force of Dharma). The main sections of the
book, however, describe, discuss, analyze and interpret the mediating realm of
Mesocosm, its ritual technicians and their helpers, the concept of ritual purity, and
especially the all-important "dance of symbols" expressed in ritual and festivals.

For this, the name of the book and indeed its central concept, mesocosm, is extremely
well chosen. When we compare Vedic concepts, we notice that there is a conceptional
gap in the Vedic descriptions of the macrocosm (adhidevata) and microcosm
(adhipurua) discussions in the Upaniads: the middle realm linking the world of the
gods and the humans is simply called 'ritualistic (discussion)' (adhiyajña). 2 4
Accordingly, in western languages, we speak of the Macrocosm - ritual - Microcosm
connections (bandhu, nidåna). R. Levy's term fills the 'ritual' gap perfectly, and
stresses its mediatory function. It is also much more inclusive that of the solemn yajña
level. 'Mesocosm' would include the various offerings to threatening deities such as the
ominous Rudra Paśupati, various Gandharvas and demons, and also the festivals of the
Vedic period which are much less prominent in the texts than they are in the Epic and
especially in the Purå
as. The term 'mesocosm' stresses the link between the humans
and the gods, established and maintained by ritual, (Vedic yajña, or post-Vedic yåga),
pūjå, food offerings (bali) and by festivals (utsava), whose terminology, incidentally,
goes back to the numerous Vedic sava rituals, special Soma sacrifices.25

I can deal, for want of space, only with three or four aspects of this mesocosmic dance
of symbols. This includes a comparison of the Vedic and modern form of:
- the role of mesocosm between the world of the gods and the humans,
- the cycle of exchanges between the gods/humans /other beings that keeps the
relations between these realms intact,
- the parameters of space and time in which the exchanges between the these realms
take place, and
- a glance at the complex "dance of symbols" that express these realms and their
relationships, exemplified, finally, by taking a closer look at one of the festivals :
Bhaktapur's Indrajåtrå as compared to the Vedic Indradhvaja ritual.

§ 4 Ritual Exchanges

The relationship between the macrocosmic realm of the gods and that of the
microcosmic realm of the humans, their society and their environment, is established,
maintained and mediated by the mesocosmic expanse of rituals and festivals and the
'technicians' involved in these proceedings, the Brahmins and other priests.

(4.1) Food, the universal medium of exchange

24 yajña, in older translations: ``sacrifice``.

25 J. Gonda 1965.
 10
The mesocosmic function of ritual is, first of all and most importantly, a cosmic
exchange of food:26 the humans offer food substances to the goods, these partake of it
and they gives the remnants (ucchi a) back to the humans in the form of food
leftovers, and nowadays also as fruits, flowers; this is now usually called prasåda 'grace'.
Notably such leftovers are not 'untouchable', soiled food (New. cipa, Nep. ju ho from
Skt. ju a 'enjoyed' [as food]) as they have been tasted by a socially marked superior (L,
385; see below).

These 'superiors' include the gods, the ancestors (cf. New. digu dya
) and the is, the
primordial seers. The gods have, as deva, procreated, via the first mortal, Manu, the
humans whom they would like to eat (BĀU 1.4.10) -- if humans had not invented the
ritual substitutions of the five domestic animals. Manu and the other semi-divine pits
have procreated the individual clan or lineage groups (gotra, New. thar, phukī), and
they must be fed by them in the next world as not to starve. Other early humans, the
semi-divine is, have created ancient Vedic poetry: the hymns necessary for ritual as
food for thought (man-tra) and for praising the gods. Humans have to learn and
recite this poetry in order to feed the is with metaphorical 'food of thought' but also
to gain new insight (medhå) and wisdom. All of these types of food have to be
constantly recycled in ritual as to keep the universe in motion and functioning well
according to the rules of the universal 'law' of ta which underlies and regulates all
actions of gods, nature and humans (just as Dharma does for post-Vedic Hinduism)

The return of food by the deities (ucchi a) can take 'invisible', less direct returns. A
prominent one is the gift of the gods, rain, which enables life on earth: megha 'cloud' is
derived from mih 'to urinate', and one says devo mehati 'the god urinates/rains'.
Another gift is in the form of (male) children, who are described as ancestors returning
to earth via rain/semen in the Upaniads. The universal 'currency', however, is food. It
can be regarded as a code substance (McKim Marriott).27 Interestingly, Mariott was
referring to modern status relationship and did not take account of the much older
Vedic evidence which underlines the same kind of relationship.

This has been detected and described for post-gvedic society by W. Rau already in
1957 in his Staat und Gesellschaft,28 but the discovery has been lost in the Anglophone
world as the book was written in German. According to Rau, the Bråhma
a texts
describe Vedic society as one of eaters and eaten ones: the Katriyas (usually in alliance
with the Brahmins, JB 1.287) are the eaters (att) and the Vaiśya (and Śūdra) are the
eaten ones (anna 'food'). In fact, the concept is sometimes expressed in this fashion
even in modern times, as I once heard a Marathi businessman say: "they [the poor
people] will eat us [the rich ones] if we do not do something for them." The concept of
a threatening reversal is expressed in the Bråhma
as as well (reverse world, ŚB 12.9.1.1,
JB 1.42-44, 2.182, Manu 5.55)29 . The well-known Indian jajmån system of the

26 The following section is a summary of my longer paper on Vedic ritual, written in 1990 and so far
only circulated among a group of friends and students.
27 McKim Marriot 1976.
28 Wilhelm Rau 1957.
29 See H.-P. Schmidt 1968.
 11

anthropologists 30 reflects this relationship as well: it is services and food that are
recycled between the patron (jajmån) and his clients (tailors, etc.). The jajmån
represents the 'eater' of the Vedic period. He 'eats' the products of his clients but he
also gives back something (as prasåd, as it were), for example, payment in the form of
food: grains, etc.

While the Vaiśya and Śūdra are to be 'eaten' by the higher classes (just as the gods want
to eat humans), the pollution that usually arises from eating does not affect the socially
lower groups: this is why humans can eat the remnants of the food of the gods. These
are, after all, their ultimate progenitors. This is also the reason why in modern
Bhaktapur society, low caste persons (such as the outcast Po) can and occasionally do
eat the food of high status groups (L, 385). More importantly, the system is seen at
work also in the three realms of the gods/humans, husband/wife and king/populace.
Interestingly in all three cases, the superior person is called deva 'god'. The gods (deva)
partake of human (cooked) food offerings and return the remnants (ucchi a/prasåda).
The husband (deva) eats the food prepared by his wife and gives back the leftovers as
her food which she can eat only then; this is nothing new, passages of this import are
found already in post-gvedic texts (MS 1.6.12, KS 11.6, TS 6.5.6, ŚB 3.1.3.3-4;
further KahB: Agnyådheya, ŚB 1.9.2.12, 10.5.2.9). It is not surprising that the king
(addressed as su-deva already in RV 10.95.14), is also called deva until today (Birendra
B. B. Śaha Deva of Nepal) and his prajå (lit. 'progeny' as in the Nepalese national
anthem) offers 'food' to him as taxes, called bali 'food offering' in the Veda. But from
this also flows the duty of the king to give back something to the populace: dåna 'gifts'.
Sometimes, such as in the famous gift giving ceremony of emperor Harsha (7th c. AD)
gifts were given to Brahmins, Buddhist monks, beggars etc. until the royal coffers were
empty and a new cycle of acquisition had to begin. This potlatch-like distribution,
unfortunately, is no longer maintained.

In all these cases, food or its equivalences are recycled among the constituent parts of
the Vedic/Hindu universe. However, in the Vedic period all food offered to the gods
was cooked by the fire god Agni, and only cooked food is agreeable (ju a) to the gods.
Nowadays one can also offer uncooked food, such as fruits, in pūjå. This probably is the
outcome of the low status of people coming to offer pūjå to the gods: just as a husband
can or should accept cooked food only from his wife, the gods originally could accept
cooked food cooked in Vedic sacrifice only from the three Ārya classes (vara)

(4.2) Ritual structures

Second, ritual itself has several important features: what happens, then, in fire rituals?
The food brought and prepared by the patron (yajamåna) of the ritual is prepared by
the priest who in the Vedas, is sometimes regarded as female in this relation towards the
gods. In the long Lakahoma of 1976 at Bhaktapur, people teased one of the Brahmins
who had to cook, in full view of the public, a rice bali for the gods: he was doing a
woman's job.

30 From Skt. yajamåna `someone who offers (to the gods) in his own interest`, i.e. the sponsor of a ritual.
See W. H. Wiser 1998 [1936].
 12
By cooking, food is transformed from its natural state into a 'civilized', domesticated
one (Lévi-Strauss). In Vedic ritual, however, something else happens as well: the gods,
who are present on the offering ground, may directly eat from the cooked food, but
often enough they can only partake of it at a distance or in heaven. In such cases, they
may consume the smell of the cooked food, for as some Vedic texts say, smelling is
eating and not eating at the same time (KahĀ 2.143). In every ritual using fire (and
Vedic rituals always do so) the smell of the offering rises to the gods and they can
consumre its medha ('juice, essence'). This is not always the meat, vegetarian cake or
drink (which also is poured into the fire!) but frequently their essence. As the
Bråhma
a texts explain (VådhB 4.19a, 4.108), every offering is 'split' in the process
into its asu 'life force' and its medha. Its 'essence', the life force (asu) of the victim rises
to heaven as well. There, it is promised a new life there 'in the fold of the gods' (RV
1.161, H.-P. Schmidt 1973.31) This sacrificial theory has not been given up to this very
day (ChU 8.15; L, 327).

The fire ritual, with its transformational force of fire, thus transubstantiates the
offering on two levels, thus: on a physical level, it changes raw food into cooked food,
on another, invisible level, it prepares it for the gods by separating the asu and the
medha of the plant or the animal offered.The medha 'essence' rises to the gods, just as
the flames of the ritual fire link this world with that of the gods by a visible/invisible
string (tantu), which has been described from the RV onwards.

However, what the gods really want - but usually do not get in the Vedic period - are
human flesh and blood (VådhB 4.108). Instead, they only receive substitutes: the
horse, the cow, the goat and the sheep, and, later on, only rice or barley (VådhB 4.19a)
or fruits and flowers (as in modern pūjå). While human, and later on, animal sacrifice
is avoided, modern Tantric rituals express the same desire of the protecting dangerous
deities (L, 323 sqq.) for blood and flesh or meat: what has been subdued by centuries of
Vedic, Buddhist, Jaina influences survived 'under the surface' and reemerged with
Tantra ritual.

(4.3) Guest worship and Pūjå

Another important aspect of the form of ritual is that it originally (in the RV) had the
form of guest worship. This feature has been well known ever since P. Thieme's study.
Such relationships between host and guest are governed by a set of rules based on
mutual acceptance and trust; 'trust, belief' is called śraddhå in Skt. It is not surprising,
then, that this term is central in the relationship between humans and between humans
and gods or ancestors. Vedic rituals work only if this relationship of trust exists (RV
10.151, KahU 1.2). In the post-Vedic period,the meaning is further narrowed to 'trust
in the efficacy of the ritual' (Köhler 1948)32 . The main ritual of ancestor worship,
śråddha, is but a derivative of the term: 'that which is related to trust', for, without the
trust of the ancestors in their descendants' faithfulness in carrying out these rites, they
would go hungry in the next world, just as the gods would do without Vedic sacrifice.
Among humans, the term for guest friendship (aryaman) is derived, rather artificially,

31 H.-P. Schmidt 1973.

32 H.-W. Köhler 1972 [Dissertation, 1948]
 13

from arya 'hospitable' (and ari 'stranger'), the etymology of the self-designation of the
Iranians and Vedic Indians, årya. The concept of hospitality, thus, was crucial for the
self-image of the Vedic Indians and they wanted to treat their gods in the same fashion.

In short, the Vedic gods are ceremoniously invited (åvahana) to the offering ground
(vedi), seated on the grass strewn around the fires (barhi), feasted with a meal (havi)
of food and drink, which is accompanied by poems lauding them and their great deeds
(mantra, śastra), some which are sung (stotra). Then, the gods are sent off - until next
time. The parting gift, however, is given to the priest (as dakiå), not to the departing
guest.

This might sound as a description of a modern pūjå, and in fact, the basic structure is
the same, and it even is sometimes recognized as one of guest friendship by modern
Hindus (A. Östör, 1982)33. Though pūjå can comprise 16 or 36, in Bhaktapur (L, 639)
even 60 sets of actions, its most basic structure still is: first, åvahana ('driving here', or
even åkaraa 'drawing close', in Tantra), second, worship with food, stotra/stuti, and
the giving of a gift, and third, visarjana, the sending away. The return gift of the gods,
the ucchi a/prasåda, is applied by the performer of the pūjå, be it a private person or a
priest, in the form of a tilaka (Nep. īkå) on the forehead of the worshipper. In
accordance with one possible etymology of the word pūjå,34 the unstudied history of
this act seems to go back to a smearing blood of the victim.35 Interestingly, the very
word is not, as has often been supposed, a post-Vedic loan word or an innovation, it is
attested already in the RV (Witzel 1980), though in an unclear context.

The guest or god is supposed to return the favor by a counter-invitation (to heaven)
or by a more substantial return gift (rain, children, etc.). Even then, the cycle of giving
and taking is kept in progress as the exact amount of gift and counter-gift are difficult
to measure and evaluate.36 Humans give, the gods give back, to a degree, and humans
have to give again. The stone age mentality37 of dō ut dẽs ("I give, so that you give")
applies to the Veda (dehi me, dadåmi te, "give me, I give you", TS 1.8.4.1, VS 3.50) and
to modern Pūjå as well.

Finally, both gvedic ritual and modern Pūjå work within the framework of micro-
and macrocosm. This universe, however, is limited. Though it comprises the gods
(Ved. Deva, Āditya, Epic Sura) and the antigods (Asura, Epic Daitya), it does not
comprise non-being (a-sat) which is described as nir-ti 'state without order'. In
contrast, the Vedic (and Hindu) universe is governed by a certain underlying order.
This is the Vedic ta, the active force of truth (opposed to active untruth: d r u h

33 A. Östör 1982.
34 M. Mayrhofer 1953-80.
35 Witzel (in progress). The custom is still attested, in battle, in the later Råjataragi
ī of Jonaråja,
further in certain hunting and slaughter rituals in England, Turkey, etc.; cf. also the Hindu ash tilaka,
received after fire rituals, and the Catholic Ash Wednesay `tilaka`.
36 Note, for example, the difficulty commonly experienced in Japan to guess the proper (half) value for
the return gift.
37 M. Sahlins 1972.
 14
'deceit'). All gods, their actions as well as all humans and their actions are governed by
this force, and only because of ta, the RV says, the rivers flow, the sun moves in its
paths, etc. In the post-Vedic period, this is replaced by dharma which has quite similar
functions. Our universe is one governed by dharma, even if the 'amount' of dharma
has been decreasing in the present Kali age and kings as well as gods constantly have to
work at improving the rate of detrition. The same hold for the various classes of
citizens of Bhaktapur (L, 395 sq.). Even then, nothing exists outside this oikumenical
and civic cosmos. In the Vedic period the amorphous outside was called nir-ti, 'being
without ti/ta'. It was a realm of absolute destruction, perpetual darkness, without
food and drink, and without children, in short, without all that made life livable for
the Vedic Indian. This negative concept, however, is not a 'hell' since it was not
reserved for those who had committed morally bad actions (such as killing of humans)
but for those who went against everything that supported the Vedic oikumene: by
killing Brahmins (the transmitters of poetry), the cow (the symbol of poetry itself 38),
(male) embryos (who perpetuate the family line). However, in post-Vedic Hinduism,
with the development of the morally determined force of karma and with rebirth
regulated by it, the role of Nir ti has been taken over by the various types of hell,
according to the fruit of one's deeds in this world. Consequently, Nir ti has become the
intracosmic 'deity' of the inauspicious south-western direction and now is the daughter
of Adharma ('non-dharma') and the mother of Naraka ('hell').

A certain amount of historical transformation, thus, is seen in the most basic concepts
as well as in the content of those concepts that have withstood the three millennia since
our earliest texts.39

(4.4) Historical transformations

The solemn gvedic guest worship of the gods, carried out by a priestly class, is
perpetuated in pūjå by the same priests (L, 638 sq) as well as by private people of all
classes (often women) at home and at various temples (L, 636 sq). The intervening
period saw, first, the development of Vedic Śrauta ritual with its obfuscation of killing
and the shift of the 'guilt' inherent in killing to special assistant priests (such as the
Śamitar 'pacifier'), expressed through the myth of the priests and healers of the gods,
the Aśvin who substitute a horse head for the real thing, the head of a human.40 It is
notable that, in the same vein, the modern Bhaktapur Råjopådhyåya Brahmins, who
occasionally carry out some non-violent Vedic rituals such as the daily Agnihotra and
the fortnightly Dårśapaur
amåsa, still make frequent use of lower class 'assistant
priests', the karmåcårya or åcåju, when it comes to blood sacrifice (L, 329) though not
always in Tantric rituals (L, 329).

After the hiding of violence in Vedic ritual and the complete shunning of such rites by
the anti-ritual stance of the Jaina and early Buddhists (DN 4.22 sqq., DN 5), the older
traditions have reasserted themselves in the originally antinomian Tantra. They have

38 Witzel 1991.
39 Note the development in Nepal from the Vedas until today of the Vedic Agnihotra ritual (Witzel
1986, 1992) and the complex of rites connected with the installation of a king (Witzel 1987a).
40 Witzel 1987b, cf. Witzel 1987c.
 15
done so on two levels. On the one hand, the late Vedic tendency to interiorize the ritual
actions, so much so that even breathing is regarded as offering into the (internal) fires,
is very dominant in Tantra: all ritual activity is seen as an inner process (antaryåga), for
example the joining of the iå and pigalå veins into the uttaravahinī vein at the navel
is used to imagine a ritual bath of the adept at this sacred confluence, like the
prominent one of the Gagå and Yamunå. Nevertheless, the same rituals are also
carried out outside the body, in a ritual enclosure, at a temple or in the natural
surroundings (including, in Nepal, all of the Kathmandu Valley).41

While the aim of such Tantric rituals is self-realization, they are supposed to produce
super-natural faculties (siddhi). Some adepts may perform Tantric rituals simply to
achieve such supernatural faculties, just as Vedic (and post-Vedic) ritual could be
performed to produce certain, meticulously specified effects. They may include, as the
Mañjuśrīmūlakapla, a Buddhist Tantric text, specifies, the gaining of one dinåra gold
piece, of three dinåras -- or the king's daughter.

Apart from the initial interiorization and the subsequent expansion into public ritual,
Tantra also has given rise to often violent rituals. They involve the dangerous
(originally, interior) deities who in Bhaktapur are made use of to protect the city from
the dangerous outside (i.e. the Måt kås, L, 154 sq, 166 sqq, 229 sqq). Their equally
dangerous pūjås frequently involve animal sacrifice (L, 323sqq), and it seems,
occasionally even human sacrifice (L, 331): exactly what the Vedic gods originally
wanted. Now their Tantric reincarnations can gorge themselves on the blood and flesh
of still living victims.

In a similar way, the simple form of guest worship, Pūjå, has reasserted itself, even
among the Buddhists. Nevertheless, in all these cases, both Hindu and Buddhist ritual
have undergone considerable 'Brahmanization' and have become, in the process, as
complicated as the Vedic Śrauta ritual, especially in the long drawn-out
Purå
ic/Tantric fire rituals.42 While this may apply to the outward form, the meaning
of these Tantric rituals frequently is entirely spiritual: unification with the god
worshipped, or immersion in śūnyatå in the Buddhist version. The distinction between
inner experience (antaryåga) and outward ritual (bahiryåga) applies in both cases.

In short, what we can now observe in Bhaktapur are various levels of complication of
the old rituals of guest friendship. First, there are the domestic Pūjås, often executed by
the women of the household (L, 636-8). They are fairly simple affairs which slightly
embellish on the old, main structure of invitation, worship and sending-off. There are
the more complex, brahmanized forms of domestic Pūjås (L, 638 sqq.) which must be
carried out by a priest and can be very elaborate, up to sixty stages and require up to
some ritual 200 items for their performance (L, 639). Historically speaking, this is a
sort of re-Śrautification of the simple Pūjå performed by the householder or his wife,
just as the simple offering into the domestic fire was enormously enlarged in scope in
the Vedic Śrauta ritual, and subsequently even in the Vedic domestic (g hya) ritual.
The same cycle of Brahmanization can be observed in the development of an originally

41 Witzel 1992.
42 Witzel 1992, 1984.
 16
private Tantric Pūjå to the enormous public rites held for the Malla kings or the
modern citizens of Bhaktapur.

Apart from the domestic Pūjås, there are the well-known Pūjås carried out by priests at
various temples. Like the domestic forms, they cane be rather simple affairs or very
elaborate ones; their Tantric versions are usually held in secret, in the upper floor
Aga (ågama) worship rooms which are not open to the public. Many Pūjås involving
animal sacrifices are mostly carried out by the lower caste Karmåcårya priests (L, 329).
In all such rites, excepting some Tantric rituals in the Aga, the Newari speaking
Brahmins (Råjopådhyåya) try to keep away, to preserve their ritual purity (L, 329)
even when they have adapted their traditional rituals to the local conditions and
participate, at certain levels in the local rituals and festivals. It is notable, at any rate,
that among the Newars, women and the lower classes of the population are much more
involved even in quite solemn rituals (Witzel 1992) than elsewhere in South Asia (cf. L,
120-125). A comparison with the historically somewhat similar, but quite neglected,
situation in Bali may be instructive.

The scope of Pūjås ranges from daily guest worship of the household gods or a
particular god to seasonal and yearly rituals which reflect the same concerns that were
visible in the Vedic period: to keep the cycle of the year and the seasons, the phases of
the moon and the course of the sun intact, to ensure rain, increase of progeny, cattle,
agricultural products, personal health, and finally, a way to heaven. In Bhaktapur the
cyclical aspect, though present in some Pūjås (e.g. the Navånna Ii at the Agnimah in
Påan), is more prominently expressed by festivals involving part of the city or all of it.
The rituals of Bhaktapur are part of the civic space of the town of Bhaktapur,
encompassed by its procession path and its circle of protective Måt kås (L, 154 sq).
They take their special form in the "dance of symbols" (L, 401 sqq) in the multitude of
festivals (see the list p. 643 sqq). There is one or another festival almost every fourth
day. In Skt., they are called utsava, it seems from the Epic onwards; the term closely
related to sava, a particular type of solemn Soma ritual.

(4.5) Festivals

Indeed, we know little about festivals in the Vedic period. What we can discern are
elements of festivals that have been inserted into -- and thus domesticated by -- the
solemn Śrauta rituals of the post-gvedic period. They include the 'hunting
expedition' during the Soma ritual or the violent exchange between the buyer and
seller of Soma, or the enigmatic Kurūå Kaunta and Kuntåpa rituals. The most
obvious example perhaps is the Mahåvrata day just before the Vedic New Year. This
includes chariot races and bow shooting by men, a great din of music, singing and
dancing by women, and also ritual word fights and ritualized sexual intercourse (see
below). A lot of what we would call festivals reemerged in the Epic and Purå
ic texts.
They often provide catalogues, like the one by R. Levy given for Bhaktapur. The
Nīlamata Purå
a of Kashmir (Y. Ikari 1994), for example, does so for Kashmir. Later,
these rituals have been added to by rituals involving various Tantric deities, some as late
as some 250 years ago, e.g., by the Malla kings of Bhaktapur, Påan or Kathmandu.

Thus, the Vedic carnival of the Mahåvrata is replaced by those during the Purå
ic Holi
festival, or the medieval Nepalese Gai Jåtrå, Bisket Jåtrå and Indra Jåtrå festivals (for
 17
details see below). Some Tantric semi-public rituals such as the Cakrapūjå have been
supplanted by private Råjopådhyåya or more innocuous public rituals such as the
Ka
phaa Cakrapūjå along the rims of the Valley.

§ 5 Mediators, Space and Time

I can mention, only briefly, the changing role of the priests as mediators between
Macro- and Macrocosm, and the role of space and time.

(5.1) Mediators

In the early Vedic period, the functions of priests and poets who composed hymns to
be used in ritual are not always clearly distinguishable. Nevertheless, certain priests are
already described as purohita, literally 'placed in front' of the offering ground or of the
sponsor of the ritual, the yajamåna. Both Agni who is addressed in these terms as well
as the 'house priest' protect the sponsor from the forces of darkness, evil etc. and both
establish a link to the gods. In a text such as the (unfortunately not well dateable)
'appendix' (pariśi a) to the Atharvaveda, the role of purohita is clearly specified as
that of the king. The protective role of the house priest continues to this day; the
Purohita still is a hereditary figure, and remains attached to a certain family. He
continues to take care of the annual rituals of the family and of the individual rites of
passage. He is more specialized, thus, than other Brahmins who may pursue various
sorts of professions. At the same time he always has been in a slightly lower social
position than his fellow Brahmins as he must take up work not only with Brahmins but
with members of the other two Ārya classes, the Katriya and Vaiśya who often treat
him as an employee. His theoretical dominance as member of the first class, thus, has
always been compromised by his dependence on the two lower classes. The Brahmins
tried to camouflage this during the Vedic period by stressing, on the one hand, the
close cooperation between the two highest classes (brahma-katra, JB 1.287, W. Rau
1954, 36) in expropriating the Vaiśya and Śūdra but they also underlined their
superiority by declaring Soma their own king in the public installation ceremony of the
king. Social reality has been as varied as it is today. It is not surprising that the Buddha
puts the Katriyas first. As a (rather recent) member of the second class, he wants to
underline his social status (cf. the Ambhaa story, Dīghanikåya 3.1.20) The tension has
been built in since the beginnings and continues to this day.

The role of the, by now, c. 100 families of Newari speaking Brahmins in the
communities of the Kathmandu Valley has been similar. Theoretically they have always
stood at the top of the social pyramid (already in Licchavi inscriptions),43 have acted
as powerful spiritual advisors of the king (such as the famous Tantric Viśvanåth of 17th
c. Påan), and they have always been the main priest of Tantric deities such as Taleju.
But at the same time they have shared the fate of all 'employed priests', that of being
regarded as mere servants. In the case of the Newari speaking Råjopådhyåya, however,
this status has been mitigated by their very number: The several hundred thousand
Hindu Newars have always depended on the services of a few hundred Råjopådhyåya
Brahmins for their domestic rituals, and this fact has put them in a stronger
competitive and economical position than that of their (Nepali speaking) Kumai,

43 Witzel 1980, cf. further, the legend of their arrival and a family tree, see Witzel 1976.
 18
Pūrbe, Maithila brethren. Some of them, especially the Taleju priests, have built large
houses in the center of town and have maintained large collections of Sanskrit
manuscripts44 and a certain degree of traditional Śåstric, but informal learning which
they transmit to their sons at the time of initiation and during the ensuing study
period (now considerably shortened, to maximally four weeks).

(5.2) Time

I can only briefly sketch the concepts of space and time. In the Vedic period, time is
closely linked to the year and its changing seasons, the course of the sun and the
waxing and waning of the moon. Consequently, the perhaps most important Vedic
rituals are tied to the liminal points in the course of the year. The dangerous 'joints'
(parva) of dawn and dusk (Agnihotra ritual), of new moon and full moon
(Dårśapaur
amåsa), of the three seasons of winter, gharma (hot season) and fall
(Cåturmåsya), and of New Year (Mahåvrata, Śunåsīrīya, yearly Soma ritual) are
marked by the great, solemn transitional rituals of the Śrauta system; they function, as
it were as rites of passage of the year. They are intended to keep the sun moving
beyond the liminal points in the morning/evening, the seasons, or the dangerous
winter solstice. The importance of the yearly cycle in nature is stressed by the
'theological' identification of the year with the ritual, the universal creator god
Prajåpati and the sponsor of the ritual (yajamåna). The year is not only a complete
cycle but also the symbol, if not the perceived reality, of the whole (sarvam), the
universe (sarvam) which encompasses time (and space). Only occasionally we also hear
of larger units of five years (based on astronomical features such as the full moon on
new year's day), and perhaps even of still larger units, 'eras' (yuga).

In post-Vedic Hinduism this system is maintained but, as is well known, built into a
grand scheme of repetitive, reverting cycles of thousands of years (Kirfel 1920).4 5
Against the background of these eons found in the tetxts we often loose sight of the
smaller annual cycle which is much more important for the citizens of Bhaktapur, and
of linear time (inside a particular Yuga) which is so important for the Newars (and, in
fact also other Hindus) that they kept quite detailed diaries (thyåsaphu) about the
occurrences during the reigns of various kings, and of personal data (births, deaths
inside the family, etc). These 'chronicles' are a neglected feature in Indian
historiography (Witzel 1990). Yet, apart from such general observations, the main
feature of observed and marked time remains that of the year which is permeated by
seasonal, monthly and fortnightly festivals of a very complex nature (see below) and
incidental festivals devoted to a particular deity, such as the birthday of K 
a. The
main features of the year still are marked by major festivals such as New Year, the
beginning and end of the monsoon season.

(5.3) Space

44 The National Archives of Nepal have a collection of some 2000 MSS (No. 1-1996, I believe)which
were confiscated about three generations ago from the family of Ratnaråja Råjopådhyåya of Bhaktapur.
45 W. Kirfel, 1920.
 19
The sacred, extra-terrestrial Vedic ritual was clearly set off from its non-sacred
surroundings by the demarcating lines such as that of the Vedi and Mahåvedi (in more
complicated rituals). The area marked by the three fires actually represented the
universe, and the priests transversing this ground, as 'gods on earth', are clearly
described as ascending to Heaven (the square åhavanīya fire) and returning from it to
earth (the round gårhapatya fire). The post-Vedic temple, as the perpetual house of a
particular god (devagha, New. dya
-che, cf. S. Kramrisch)46, is equally well marked
off against its surroundings by its walls; especially well-known is the S. Indian system
with its concentric walls surrounding the temple itself.

The sacred space involving the mesocosmic function of festivals, however, is

more complex. The various festivals involve parts of Bhaktapur (local Ga
eś, Luku
Dya, etc. festivals, etc.,), the whole town (Bisket Jåtrå), or the whole kingdom
(Navadurgå dances) and all its citizens. Then, parts or all of Bhaktapur become, for a
limited period of time, sacred space and sacred time. A vetåla on the main street is
stepped on every day but becomes a god on certain festival days. Certain low caste
persons are incarnations of the goddess for days or for parts of the year. Still, the city as
such is separated from the dangerous outside (and from its outcasts), just as the Vedic
offering ground, by a clear demarcating line. In a Hindu City this is the
circumambulation path around the city proper (pradakiapatha) and the circle of
Måt kås further outside (L, 154 sq). (Some additional features involve the whole of the
Valley or all of the subcontinent, jambudvīpa).47

In that sense, the old Vedic distinction between gråma 'settlement' (for a long time still
a circle of the wagons of the trek) and wilderness (araya) is maintained. Ara
ya (not
'forest! ') is the area "from where one can no longer see the roofs of the settlement" (TĀ
2.11). It is dangerous and full of threatening. Others (the Niåda aboriginals, JB 2.183-
4, called dasyu) and demons (e.g. the Ara
yå
ī goddess in RV 10.146) dwell there; one
goes home at nightfall not to spend the night in this dark and dangerous area, -- just as
a Newar town shut their gates at night against similar dangers from the Outside and
the Others (L, 156 sq.). The distinction between the town surrounded by a procession
path, pradakiapatha, (and, at times, also by a wall) and the surrounding countryside
is maintained in legends referring to the areas in front of its gates as haunted at night
by spirits of all sorts.

Life and its accompanying rituals and festivals still revolve around the two axes of space
and time, and they are interlinked and interwoven with a multitude of rituals and
festivals, the dance of symbols that is the major feature of R. Levy's book. The main
function of the festivals of Bhaktapur is akin to that of the Vedic rituals in that they
seek to establish a link between humans and gods and to use this to keep the civic
cosmos intact, -- for the time being, or for another year. I will briefly discuss one
example of the latter sort, the various forms of the Indra Jåtrå, as it lends itself to an
historical and structural analysis since it has roots in the Vedic texts (and even beyond).

46 Stella Kramrisch 1976.

47 N. Gutschow 1982.
 20

§ 6 The dance of symbols in the Indra Jåtrå

(6.1) Indrajåtrå and Bisket Jatrå

The Indrajåtrå/Biskå festival has a long history, going back all the way to the raising of
Indra's pole in the Vedic Indradhvaja ritual, and, in fact, even beyond this, for the same
custom can also be discerned in the raising of the English, Dutch and German May
pole. 48 The discussion is further complicated when taking the Kathmandu and
Bhaktapur variants of the Indra festivals into account. As R. Levy remarks, "some of the
elements in Kathmandu's focal Indra Jåtrå are moved in Bhaktapur to other times of
the year, amalgamated into Bhaktapur's own major and focal festivals." Indeed much of
what is centered around Kathmandu's Indra Jåtrå in September (Bhådrapada śukla 12,
c. equinox) is arranged around Bhaktapur's Bikå (Bisket) Jåtrå in March (Caitra, c.
vernal equinox). I cannot go here into the difficult question of the history of the New
Year festival in India, which has dates ranging from winter solstice, or eight days after
winter solstice (ekå akå, Vedic), to vernal equinox (Bisket Jåtrå) to the autumn
equinox (Indra Jåtrå) or Bhaktapur's New Year date (in the month of Kårtika, śukla 1:
Mhå Pūjå, in late October) or, similarly, in old Kashmir (Nīlamata-Purå
a: full moon
of Kårtika). It may be pointed out, however, that these shifts have a connection with
the reordering of time according to a different subsistence calendar (pastoral, non-
monsoonal in the Veda, while agricultural, monsoonal in later times).49 R. Levy (p.
492) underlines, among other items, the solar aspect of the Bisket festival at the vernal
equinox and the E/W alignment of the chariots of Bhairava/Bhadrakålī (see below) as
well as the E/W axis of raising and lowering the pole. The various elements that link
Vedic and Bhaktapur rituals include the following.

(6.2) Indradhvaja

First, the Vedic Indra festival (Indradhvaja) was characterized by the raising of a pole
symbolizing Indra, the demiurge, who as soon as he was born, raised heaven with his
outstretched arms. A remnant of this may be seen in the strange form of the Indra pole
(Yasi) in the Bisket Jåtrå, with its cross bar (L, 476 sqq), which has received a new
interpretation in Bhaktapur.50 Indra, the Indian Atlas (who has close connections,
among others, with the Polynesian Toko)51 is also a symbol of royalty, right from the
oldest text, the gveda onwards. The king in the Vedic inauguration ceremony
(abhieka) has to stand up, firmly, just like Indra (RV 10.173). The raising and the

48 Cf. also such customs as that of the Mexican (originally Aztek etc.) four voladores, hanging head
down and spiralling downwards, from a high pole; this symbolizes the progress of the seasons.
49 See F.B. J. Kuiper 1979.
50 The 17th c. Christian missionaries of course wanted to see a cross in this, and they especially paid
attention to the image of the caught and `crucified` Indra, see G. Toffin 1993. Note that the smaller,
secondary pole, erected in the potter square of Bolåche Twa is popularly called the `Yasi God without
arms` (L, 475) while the main one has `arms` (L, 476). (Observe also the position of the potters as
representative of lower classes, L, 81, caste level VII).
51 Cf. my work on comparative mythology (Origins, in progress).
 21
lowering of the pole is the climax of the Bisket Jåtrå and takes the cooperation of many
people (L, 482); it marks the liminal point at the end of the old and the beginning of
the new year.

The Indradhvaja festival was popular in Vedic (KauśS 140.3,7,9, PGS 2.15), Epic (Mbh
5.58.15, 6.114.84, Råm. 2.71.9, etc.) and even in medieval times (Nīlamata Purå
a
726sq., B hat Sahitå 42.61, etc.).52 Nowadays it is preserved, apart from Nepal, only
in Kashmir as a minor pūjå at home (under the name Indra Bah, from Indra-dvådaśī,
the 12th day of Bhådrapada śukla).53 In Bhaktapur, the pole, the Yasi deity (L, 467
sqq.; festival no. [21], L, 649) is raised on the Yasi field near the Hanumante River, a
'vaguely defined boundary area' (L,476) which befits it liminal function at the end of a
year; note that the field is near the houses of the outcast group of the Po (L, 84 , caste
level XVIII), who settle, outside of the limits of the town proper, just east of the Yasi
field.54

(6.3) Bisket Jåtrå and the Veda

In Bhaktapur the raising of the pole and the accompanying competitions closely follow
the age old pattern of Indo-European (and other) New Year festivals. The Vedic New
Year was characterized by verbal contests (in brahmodya style) and by sportive
competitions. They included chariot races imitating and aiding the sun in its turning
around the difficult solstice point, or bow shooting at a white skin (= sun) on a scaffold
which was meant to nudge the sun on its path. It also included a series of carnival
events, such as a verbal 'contest' of the sexually abstinent Vedic student and a
prostitute, restricted to shouting abuse at each other, while, just as in the ancient
Babylonic New Year rites (cf. the Enuma Eliš myth), actual intercourse followed in a
hut on the edge (!) of the offering ground, carried out by the prostitute and a
'foreigner', a Mågadha man.

The sexual element is repesented in Bhaktapur by Bhairava (always a liminal if not a

transgressional deity) and his frightening consort Bhadrakålī; it is also seen in the two
banners hanging from the Yasi pole whose fluttering in the wind is said to represent
intercourse of their ultimate prototypes, Śiva and Śakti, while that of the ropes tied to
the top of the pole again is that of Bhairava and Bhadrakålī (L, 478); this interpretation
is repeated at the lowering of the pole (L, 485). It is also not without significance that
the male/female moieties of the universe, represented by Bhairava and Bhadrakålī, are
placed west (looking east) and east (looking west) of the Cyåsi Madap, facing each
other. Notably, these two deities are always kept near to each other during the festival
but they are not united on a single chariot or building (L, 482). However, they do so

52 For a detailed listing of passages see F.B.J. Kuiper 1983, p. 238 n.45.
53 See S. Einoo 1994, p. 138, 196. In Maharashtra, there is, however, a brahmadhvaja or guhī påavå on
Caitra, Śukla Prat., cf. Bühnemann 1988, p. 185. Ashok Aklujkar (pers. comm., May 22, 1997) tells me
that this is a home ceremony in which a relatively thin pole (guhī) is erected at the entrance or in the
balcony or on the terrace of the home; it is decorated with some silk cloth capped by a silver or brass
vessel tied to its upper end, with twigs of kau-limba (ka u-nimba) and a garland of flowers. -- On the
Diwålī påavå (first day of Kårttika), there is no erecting of a pole; differently from Nepal, this is not
considered beginning of a new year except for the accounts of merchants.
54 The pole had been dragged into town from the surrounding hills.
 22
on the fifth day, after the beginning of the new year: On Gåhiti square the Bhairava
and Bhadrakålī chariot crash into each other three times, which is thought of as
representing intercourse (L, 486). Perhaps it is not just pure chance that these two
representatives of the world of the gods are depicted, at this moment, as having
quarreled. It might reflect the often misunderstood relationship, in Vedic times,
between Indra and his wife Indrå
ī at this liminal point in time, when she had been
angered by the aggression of Indra's oversexed friend, the 'bull-monkey' V åkapi (RV
10.86, with the -ironic- refrain 'Higher than all is Indra!'). Bhadrakålī (just like
Indrå
ī) is appeased by her male partner after the quarrel -- and not insignificantly,
the final stanza of the gvedic hymn speaks of abundance of children, just as some
Bhaktapur people look for male children by picking up leaves from the pole when it is
lowered. Just as in the RV hymn all (Vråkapi included!) return home peacefully, so
does Bhadrakålī now visit her husband's home at the Taumå hi square(L, 488).55 It is
therefore not without interest to note that on the same day, the Sakrånti day, when
the lowering of the pole marks the beginning of the new solar year, not only the pole,
(representing, in the Vedic interpretation), Indra himself but also his otherwise rather
insignificant wife, Indrå
ī ('Mrs. Indra') are the focus of some rituals (L, 484); in the
present set-up of Bhaktapur pantheon, Indrå
ī, is at other times of the year just one of
the Aamåt kå goddesses (situated in the north-west of the town).

While the Bhaktapur festival involves a number of dangerous deities, the Vedic ritual
does so only in its mythic form: it is based on the yearly struggle between the Devas and
their perpetual rivals, the Asuras. At the same time, it also involves a struggle, repeated
since cosmogonic times, between Indra and Varu
a. This has usually been taken as a
purely cosmogonical trait, but it may very well have been repeated on the level of the
gods, in the sexually very explicit, often comical four-sided quarrel between Indra, his
wife Indrå
ī, and the 'bull-monkey' V åkapi and his wife V åkapåyī (RV 10.86). The
conflict, started by an assault of V åkapi on Indrå
ī, is solved in the end (see below).
V åkapi shares some of the comic, trickster-like characteristics of the Vidūaka of the
Sanskrit drama which indeed has cosmogonic origins.56 In Vedic ritual the deities, if at
all, are impersonated by human representatives: the Gods by the Brahmins ('gods on
earth', the offering ground), the Vedic student, the king, while the Asuras appear as
their societal equivalent, the Śūdras and other outsiders such as the prostitute and the
Mågadha man. Still, to echo R. Levy again, 'the 'deities' that are at issue here, far below
the surface and the anthropomorphic gods, are order and chaos." (L, 496)

In Bhaktapur, the myths and tales that have become attracted to the New Yearpole
repeat the old motive of semi-devine Någinī and her human royal husband (L, 478-9)
but also that of the cut-off head of a deity, equally well known since Vedic times (L,
479-80). While this motif is common place in its stark form of the 'lost head of the
sacrifice' which, even according to the RV, can originally have meant only a real human
head, 57 there also is a sanitized version where the head of Dadhyañc is cut off by the
Aśvin gods, divine representatives of the main 'working' priests of Vedic ritual, the

55 See Witzel, forthc. (1997).

56 F.B.J. Kuiper1979.
57 Witzel 1987b, J.C. Heesterman 1985.
 23

Adhvaryus, who substitute the head of a horse:58 this is the charter myth of Vedic
Śrauta ritual (Witzel 1987b), typical for its obfuscation of ritual violence and its further
transfer to scape goat like para-priests (the śamit 'pacificator', a parallel to the
Bhaktapur Acåju).

All these features can be rediscovered in the rituals surrounding Bhairava. There is the
legend of Bhairava having sunk into the ground and being beheaded by his wife (L,
486). It is precisely at the location where this happened (Swatua Bhairava on Gåhiti
square) that the Bhairava and Bhadrakålī chariot crash into each other on the fifth day
of the festival, representing intercourse of the, so far, carefully separated deities. This is
preceded by a series of competitions: In Bhaktapur the upper and lower town compete
in dragging the chariot of Bhairava to their part of town, after it had been deposited on
the dividing line between the two moeities, at Taumådhi (Tamarhī) square (L, 468).
Note that the Malla kings, now repesented by their Råjopadhyåya priest carrying the
royal sword, sit on the chariot (L, 469). They both (king and purohita) did so already
in Vedic times when the king always won the race. The two moities of society are well
represented in Vedic ritual as well, though here it is a Brahmin as the representative of
the three higher classes and a Śūdra who - only at this moment- has the liberty to
accuse the Brahmin of having robbed the lower class of its wealth. In Bhaktapur, society
is divided, at this moment, not according to its stratification but according to its spatial
extention.

The tug of war ensuing often results in bloody heads (L, 472 sq.) and a sphere of
anxiety is present. Just as the "struggle with the chariot is the major manifestation in
Bhaktapur's annual calender of conflict" (L, 473), so is the Brahmin-Śūdra
confrontation the major, indeed the only open conflict allowed in the course of the
Vedic year. In both cases the liminality of the closing days of the year with the
dissolution of time and society are underlined. This is expressed in Bhaktapur at the
time of taking down the pole (beginning of the new year) when prasåda is given
directly by the Brahmins to the untouchable Po surrounding the Bhairava chariot
(L, 486). It is also at this moment that the farmers (as representatives of 'proper'
society) struggle with the outcast Po in which direction the Bhairava chariot is to be
drawn. Just like the Vedic Brahmin always overcomes the Śudra in pulling at a round
skin representing the sun, so does the Jyåpu farmers succeed in pulling the chariot
away from the Po into the city proper (p. 486).

While these actions are carefully orchestrated in Bhaktapur as to include all sections of
(the sacred geography) of town space and its deities, such a thing could not be done in
the more amorphous geographical structure of Vedic half-nomadic settlement.
Nevertheless, the offering ground has its own carefully laid out plan, representing
macrocosmic structure (sun, moon, earth, etc.): many of the actions, including even
the carefully orchestrated verbal fight and tug-of-war between the Veda student and
the prostitute occur at the door to a hut in the middle of the offering ground,and thus

58 This seems to be reflected in a grave of c. 2000 BCE at Potapovka in the northern Krasnoyarsk region
west of the Ural Mountains, an area that has long been suspected as being home to the Indo-Iranian
civilization. In one grave, a human skeleton whose head is missing has a horse head supplanted instead.
At the foot of the skeleton lies a pipe together with a human head; the flute is an instrument typical for
the other world, the realm of Yama. See Vasik'ev et al. 1994, p. 115, fig. 11.
 24
in sacred space. However, the tug-of-war between the Brahmin and the Śūdra takes
place on the boundary line, half inside and half outside of the offering ground; and, as
expected, the actual intercourse between the prostitute and the Mågadha man happens
in a hut straddling the borderline of the offering ground. Obviously, the various
regions of the universe and its two groups of deities as well as all sections of society are
involved in the Mahåvrata New year ritual, just as they are in the Bisket Jåtrå.

R. Levy, while clearly stressing the points of conflict arising at this time of the year, also
underlines the restrained manner in which these conflicts are depicted and enacted (L,
494). The same may be said about the Vedic new year. Though people push, tear, and
shout at each other, these are well-orchestrated actions with 'set lines', -- and the
existing order always wins. In the Vdic New Year, the Mahåvrata, the various actors
often sing, play music, recite, act at the same time on the same offering ground, they
indeed "are dynamic, and can express relations, conflicts, dilemmas, resolutions and
their failures; in short, they have the quality of narrative and drama" and "combine to
say something ... to capture and hold the attention of the narrative's audience." (L,
494). These actors are assembled on Bhairava's chariot or pull at it (L, 495), while in
Vedic times they all act often simultaneously, on the sacrificial ground (even the
prostitute and the foreign Mågadha man), or immediately next to it (in the chariot
race). While the two halves of the city are stressed in Bhaktapur, it is the two
dichotomic macro-segments of society, the Ārya and the Śūdra which act in the Veda.

These conflicts are, thus, only temporarily resolved. The gods and the Asuras are
constantly (or, rather, periodically) in conflict. The Asuras (or the Śūdras) are chased
away and overcome, for the time being. The problem will arise again. "It will all need to
be repreated yet again in each revolving year." (L, 499).

The underlying myth -- and in S. Asia, at least, myth and ritual always proceed
together very closely -- speaks, in quasi-cosmological terms about the founding of
Bhaktapur and it certainly does so for the origins of Vedic society and oikumene. The
difference is here between a general location (in the Panjab, in Kuruketra or anywhere
in N. India) in the case of the Veda, and a specific geographical location in the case of
Bhaktapur. This difference cannot be bridged. Vedic myth and ritual is 'transportable'
(and it has been exported all over India, up to Bali, or more recently even to North
America and Europe), but Bhaktapur myth and ritual are not; often, they are too
specifically local. Even the surrounding towns (Kathmandu, Patan, Thimi etc.) have
their own versions of this festival and its legends.

R. Levy, in his interpretation of the festival (p. 494), underlines the complexity which
is, nevertheless, well-structured and requires the participation of all segments of the
town's population. Both the Bhaktapur and the Vedic New Year share this complexity
and focus. Indeed, it is, quite uncharacteristically, the Vedic Mahåvrata day which is
(next to the royal inauguration, Råjasūya, modern Råjyåbhieka)59 marked by the
participation of large segments of the population while other Vedic rituals are much
more geared to individuals, households or clans. To quote, conversely, R. Levy: "it is
about the city in itself, not about one element of life in the city".

59 Witzel 1987a.
 25

Nevertheless, the king who plays a focal role in a chariot race at New Year, still is
present in the form of his sword (L, 468) carried by a Kathmandu official. Though he
is, in R. Levy's interpretation rather passive at this liminal time (L, 493), his mythical
counterpart, Indra, indeed acted in cosmogonic time but was fairly inactive, and
apparently too weak, until structured 'time', the New Year began.

There is a dissimilarity between Vedic and modern Bhaktapur rituals, though. R. Levy
calls it the rhetoric of the ritual actions involved (L, 499). In the case of Bhaktapur he
stresses that danger exists when marked symbolism collapses into real danger, for all
actors in the drama are real-life persons: the king, the high caste Brahmins, the 'true'
Bhairava (versus his copy image), etc. They all can be endangered when the festival
goes awry and the forces of disorder take over. Hardly so in the well-ordered world of
the Vedic ritual. Though I am not of the opinion that old conflicts have been collapsed
here into a sequence played out by one actor (Heesterman),60 it is clear that the chance
for real conflict is very much limited: In the Mahåvrata, the Śūdra may pull too hard at
the skin representing the sun, and draw it outside the offering ground, -- but so what?
Or he may not speak his prescribed (incidentally quite revealing) lines of complaint
and launch into a tyrade, but one man's voice does not really count in the din of the
performance! In all of t his there is little physical danger to the gods, to the king, to the
Brahmins.

Nevertheless, the central message of these rituals is quite clear, and quite similar in both
cases: "admire and celebrate civic order" (L, 499sq.) Especially in the Vedic case we may
add: 'and cosmic order.' (This actually also holds for Bhaktapur when the Bisket Jåtrå is
viewed as solar new year). "That order may momentarily sway and lurch, but when
[the populace] works together ... and accepts the traditional directives of mesocosmic
order, it will all hold together." (L, 500). "The main danger to civic order is civic strife"
(L, 500), which we may enlarge, in the Vedic case, to include the replica of human
society, the civitas of the gods as well: The gods and the Asuras - not quite gods, but not
the obnoxious demons of later myth yet - have to find their balance, just as nature has
to do: the sun swings on its pendulum between a south-eastern rise (at winter solstice)
and a north-eastern rise (at summer solstice). For good reason, this is symbolized by a
Brahmin swinging on a giant swing in Bangkok(Quaritch Wales 1931),61 or a rather
small one in the Mahåvrata ritual of the Vedic period.

In the preceding passages I have intentionally let R. Levy speak not only for Bhaktapur
but also for the Vedic period, though he never intended it or may not have thought
this possible. As outlined above, his analysis is so penetrating that it holds true, in a
great number of cases, in comparable fashion even for the Vedic period in which the
major rituals were structured, as I have repeatedly endeavored to show here. In short,
if my analysis is correct, this procedure is not only important from the point of view of
the resilience of the underlying structure of 'Hinduism' with its ever-changing

60 It is clear that one can even lose one`s head in the period of the `domesticated` Śrauta ritual (see
Witzel 1987b); the Sattrins in JB 2.299 are killed by outsiders and female hunters(!). Clearly, all danger
is not eliminated.
61 Quaritch Wales 1931; note that the autumn equinox is accompanied, in the Himalayas, by the
appearance of ferry-wheels for children.
 26
appearances of myth and ritual -- but, conversely, it also bears witness to the insight of
R. Levy's analysis of modern Bhaktapur rituals and festivals.

(6.4) Kathmandu and Bhaktapur

Turning now to a few items in other cities' enactment of the Indra Jåtrå in
Nepal, we may note, to begin with, that even in Bhaktapur the Bisket Jåtrå has its faint
echo in September with a number of small rites some of which are integrated into the
Kathmandu Indra Jåtrå of September: Yama Dya Thånigu [59], Indrå
ī Jåtrå [61],
Yau Dya Punhi [62] and Pulu Kisi Haigu [65] (L, 456 sqq.). Note, that the Indrå
ī
festival is repeated even in Bhaktapur, though the September one is only of moderate
importance (L, 655). The two Indra Jåtrås are really mirror images of each other,
including the fact that the 40 foot Kathmandu pole and the Bhaktapur pole are made
of the "same kind of tree, gathered in the same place by members of Bhaktapur's
branch of the same thar (the Sa:mi)" (L, 457). This coincidence is simply due to the
fact that the Kathmandu ritual is that of the vernal equinox/solar new year while the
Bhaktapur one is that of the fall equinox (thus preceding by two month the beginning
of the Bhaktapur lunar new year).

(6.5) Indra as Rain god

In Kathmandu the autumnal Indra Jåtrå is more prominent than the one of the vernal
equinox at the time of the solar New Year in March, the 'small Dasain'. A connection
with the Vedic ritual is seen in the centrality of Indra, who is not only represented by
the pole but also in myth, and even in ritual by a small figure. The Vedic Indra is,
among other things, also a god concerned with rain. According to medieval myth,
Indra was raining too much and was caught and imprisoned in a cage by the great
Tantric Matsyendranåth. (In post-Vedic myth Indra has only retained his function as
king of the gods and as the rain god). The cage containing a small Indra figure still is
put at the foot of the pole in Hanuman Dhoka, signalling the approaching end of the
monsoon season. The last time I saw and photographed it (1979), however, the cage
was left open. (In Patan, of course, all of this is superseded by the rain association of
Bungadya -Lokeśvara-Matsyendranåth and his prominent chariot festival including
the Bhoo Jåtrå which is still attended by the king).62

Kathmandu also has another Indra festival, Indradahasnåna) in late monsoon (on full
moon, Bhadra śukla) when people visit the little known Indra temple (Indrathån) at
the top of the Dahacok hill (with a reputed Licchavi palace), north of Thankot.

(6.5) The elephant in Bhaktapur symbolism

One of the major rituals taking place in Bhaktapur during the eight days of the
Kathmandu Indra Jåtrå is the Pulu Kisi Haigu. This is the often drunken procession of
an elephant, Indra's vehicle, through town. The elephant is covered with the funeral
mats of the dead of the last year. R. Levy downplays the connection between the
elephant and Indra and regards the festival as one mainly connected with Yama, the

62 John Locke1980.
 27
lord of the dead and their judge in the netherworld. Indeed, the Pulu Kisi Haigu day is
preceded, by a day called Śmaśåna Bhailadya Jåtrå [64], where a funeral mat of the
Bhairava of the cremation grounds is carried around the town limits. This is preceded,
three days before, by Yau Dya Punhi, when lamps are set out to show the dead the
way to to heaven, and another four days earlier, by the Yama Dya Thånigu, when
poles representing Yama are put up in each ward, to protect people from death.
Further, the elephant festival is immediately followed, five (or eleven) days later, by the
Dhala Salå [66] rituals in which all who have been dead for two years (and have
thus become members of the amorphous pit group of ancestors) are worshipped and
fed in a śråddha ceremony, by the river side; this is often attended by large groups of
mourners, led by a Brahmin in their rituals. The whole half month after Yau Dya
Punhi (corresponding to Newari Yalågå) is usually called pitpaka , i.e. the half
month of the ancestors.

The question rises: why, then, is an elephant used in the first place? I think because of
its close relation to Yama and Indra in Vedic texts: after all it is their father, Vivasvant
or Mårtå
a, who had been born, or rather aborted in the form of an undifferentiated
ball or egg (mårtåa 'coming from a dead egg'; he is a sun god). The elephant,
according to KS 11.6, ŚB 3.1.3-4, is the remnants of the cuts made into this amorphous
mass by the gods to give Mårtå
a shape. The elephant thus is a sort of ersatz father of
the twins Indra and Yama, or perhaps their uncle. (Of course, in later Hinduism, the
elephant (Airavant) was made the vehicle of Indra).63 The appearance of the
Bhaktapur elephant, covered with the funeral mats of the last year, is therefore no
longer surprising. In fact, these mats may very well represent a second skin for the
poor beast cut from the raw flesh of Mårtå
a. Such a concept is not singular: JB
2.183-4 (Caland 144) tells that humans first had the skin of the cows and the cows that
of humans; they exchanged them as the poor cows could not stand the sun and the
rain. When someone dies, the departed is cremated with the covering of his original
skin, that of a cow as to protect the deceased from the fire. In sum, the mythology and
ritual of Indra and Yama are closely related and some interaction in Bhaktapur is not
really surprising. The interesting question to be asked is, of course, how could the
medieval priests know of this? Were some vestiges of these myths known to them or are
they hidden behind some Epic and Purå
ic transformations?

Not surprisingly now, the raising of the Indra Pole in Kathmandu happens on the
same day that those of his twin brother Yama are erected in Bhaktapur and both are
left standing for eight days (L, 458, no. [59]). Indra's wife, Indrå
ī, is then taken
through Bhaktapur town to the Ta Pukhū pond and left for worship (no. [61]. Note
again that this has an echo in the Bisket Jåtrå. But is takes on special importance when
we take a closer look at one of the main events during the Kathmandu Indra Jåtrå, the
appearance of the main Kumarī and her two small 'brothers' and their procession on a

63 Note also the little observed fact that the Buddha was conceived when an elephant entered the womb
of his mother (an Indian version of the Catholic immaculate conception). Humans and elephants are
closely related mythologically, because the elephant has a `hand`, the trunk, and it is called accordingly,
`the one with the hand` (hastin).
 28
larger and a smaller chariot through town, not unlike that of Bhairava and Bhadrakålī
(but in reverse importance at Kathmandu).64

(6.6) The role of the Kumårī

The cult of the Living Goddess (Kumårī) is, by and large, medieval. The oldest
specimens of a Kumårī Tantra65 are written on paper and date back only to the 17th
century (National Archives of Nepal). However, there is a Kumårī Pūjå manuscript of
1420 AD, and a Kumårī Pūjå is already reported, centuries earlier, in the Kålikå Purå
a,
ch. 62 (cf. Toffin 1996 p. 71sq.)

Why this connection of the Kumårī with the Indra Jåtrå and the King? The close
connection between the Devī and King Harisiha of Mithilå is visible, at least since
December 1324, when this last independent king of Mithilå, defeated by the Muslims,
"entered the mountains". Legend has it that he conquered Bhaktapur, but the almost
contemprorary Gopålaråjavaśåvalī states that he came only as far as Tinpatan in the
Mahabharata Lekh and died there, while his wife continued up to Dolakha
(Råjagråma). It probably is due to intentional legend forming under the uspstart king
Jayasthiti Malla and his successors that the introduction of the Taleju cult was
attributed to Harisiha.66 In a version of this tale67 that is more detailed than the one
used by R. Levy (L, 347), the introduction of Taleju is attributed to the year after
Harisiha's exile, during which the goddess also allowed the consumption of buffalo
meat. 68 The text also gives a long fanciful history of Taleju (Tulajå) worship, dating
back to Råma's time at Ayodhyå, Turyåpura and Sīmanagara (Simraon). Nevertheless,
it is clear that from Malla time onwards, Taleju has been the protective deity of the
Malla and Śaha dynasties and that she has absorbed several places of worship that had
only male counterparts earlier.69

A typical Tantric form of Devī worship thus is linked to origins in Mithilå (just as
many other Tantric gods are said to have come from Assam in still earlier periods).
Nevertheless, her priests belong to the local Råjopadhyåya Brahmins;70 interestingly,

64 Note that all Indra-like and Indra-related figures aggregate here: his wife Indrå
ī, his brother Yama,
his own elephant (= uncle), and maybe his terrible form, as Bhairava of the burning ground (śmaśåna),
the Rat-Ga
eśa Chuman Gandya as his(?) son; and finally, maybe, Vi
u as the one who expands the
world, like Indra, by widely stepping beyond the earth, etc.
65 Cf. M. Allen 1975.
66 For similar cases see Witzel 1980.
67 Witzel 1976.
68 Due to the hardships of exile? (cf. the Råjguru allowing the consumation of yak meat during the
Nepalese-Tibetan war). Or is this due to the fact that the goddess kills Mahiåsura?
69 The Licchavi/Malla time Måneśvara at Harigaon, see Witzel 1980, p. 318 sqq., for Tanå Devī at
Hanuman Dhoka, see M. Kiauta 1977.
70 According to one story told to me in 1976, the Bhaktapur Taleju was (mentally) buried in a garden
when its priest had been disposed due to a pratiloma marriage some three generations ago; and, as I was
told in the summer of 1979, the loss of Taleju at Patan, was quickly repaired by importing an old
(Newar) Taleju from Lhasa.
 29
the local Taleju priests of Bhaktapur trace their origin back to Kanyakubjå, some 600
years ago (Witzel 1976; cf. L, 347).

The close relationship between the Devī and king Harisiha is perpetuated in medieval
legend about the Malla kings of Kathmandu who were supposed to have had a daily
meeting with Taleju, playing cards with her, until this was betrayed, and the deity
disappeard forever,71 but instituted her representation by a prepubescent Bajråcårya
girl. We do not know, of course, the exact nature of the relationship between the Malla
kings and the Devī, but from comparable sources it should be quite clear, that this also
involved sexual tension or relationship. Nowadays this tension is specially highlighted
by the fact that the female side is represented by a young, prepubescent girl while in
the case of the king, male potency is stressed (as for example in the royal inauguration,
råjyåbhieka, the 'coronation' ceremony).72 As is well known, the Kumårī has to give
up her position as soon as her first menses set in. However, the wish of such a young
girl for a husband has already been highlighted in the famous Apålå hymn of RV 8. 91
(H.-P. Schmidt 1987). Note that apålå 'unproteced' is a speaking name and that it can
also stand for 'earth', here as the wife of King Indra, the king of the gods, just as a
human king is husband of the earth, modelled on the divine marriage between
P thu/P thi/P thī Vainya and the earth (frequently told in the epic, etc.; cf. RV
1.112,15, 8.9.10; 10.148.5). Similar relationships are not uncommon in the RV dialogue
hymns.73

We have already seen that Indra, Indrå
ī (and their opponents V åkapi, V åkapåyī)
make an appearance at the Vedic New Year. This is accompanied by strong sexual
tension between Indrå
ī and V åkapi. It can be deduced from the hymns that Indra
has become unpopular, unworshipped and weak before new year and that his 'friend',
the bull-monkey V åkapi uses the opportunity to assail Indrå
ī.74 A New Year
atmosphere of sexual carnival has also been witnessed in some of the Indra Jåtrå festivals
discussed above. It is structurally congruent that the state of the king in the
Kathmandu Indra Jåtrå corresponds to the weakened state of Indra just before New
Year and that he must receive new strength in one way or another. In the RV (10.86)
this is achieved by a strongly charged verbal competition between the two wives,
Indrå
i and V åkapåyī. At the same time the refrain of the hymn praises, not only
ironically but probably also magically, Indra as the highest. This hymn is outrightly
obscene, but as we have seen such limited obscenity is part and parcel of New Year
festivals; in Babylon as well as in the Vedic New Year ritual (Mahåvrata) actual sexual
intercourse is prescribed. Another reflection of the Vedic situation is that the Kumårī is
accompanied by her 'two brothers' just as the king is accompanied by the queen. In
short, Queen : Indrå
ī = Kumårī : V åkapåyī; King : Indra = 2 'brothers' (the
auspicious Ga
eśa, and the terrifying Bhairava) : V åkapi. In the present brief
investigation this kind of relationship can only be hinted at; it is in need of further
detailed study.

71 See M. Allen 1975.

72 See Witzel 1987a.
73 Witzel, forthc. (1997b).
74 Witzel, forthc. (1997b).
 30

No hint of this complicated relationship is seen in the public performance of the

Kathmandu Indra Jåtrå. On the contrary, the encounter is one of the King with a virgin
Devī (but potentially sexually dangerous woman, of unclear social status), who once
per year solemnly reconfirms his power by publicly placing a tilaka on his forehead.
The two thus are separated for the whole year but meet once per year (just like
Bhairava and Bhadrakålī at the Bhaktapur Bisket Jåtrå) in a reversal of normal or
rather, the normative Hindu role of the sexes, the female partner dominating the male
one. The meeting once per year has been a prominent point in several dialogue hymns
and Vedic as well as in other, non-Indian myths:75 The archetypical story is that of the
human 'king' Purūravas and the semi-divine Apsaras Urvaśī who lived together, just
like the Malla king and the Devī, for a number of years, until they were both betrayed
by their household members and thus were separated for good, -- until the (demi-
)gods took pity and allowed them to meet again once per year: in the Veda (ŚB 11..5.1,
BŚS 18.44) to procreate, and in modern Kathmandu to regain prowess and power.

We do not know, of course, how the medieval priests conceived the idea to attach the
Kumarī festival to the old Indra Jåtrå, which already had a large amount of accretion of
rites and multiple layers of interpretation. But it is important to note that they inserted
it just where we might have expected, in the complex interrelation betwen Indra/king
and the Indra's wife = Goddess/incarnation of the Goddess, just before the beginning
of another year with the festival of the Devī's victory over Mahiåsura. (Note that in
Kathmandu this encounter has been shifted, it seems, from the spring equinox to the
fall equinox). In other words, an old Vedic myth of a mortal son of the gods
(Purūravas) and the immortal semi-divine Apsaras (Urvaśī) has been retold, again and
again, and has been re-enacted again and again, in ritual disguise: from the Mahåvrata
Vedic New Year festival (with the interaction of the Brahmacårin/Mågadha with the
prostitute), of the various encounters of the God and the Goddess on their chariots (as
in Bhaktapur) or that of a god incarnate, the 'walking Vi
u' (the Nepalese King) and
the incarnation of the Devī, the Kathmandu 'royal' Kumårī.

(6.7) The Indrajåtrå and the Vedic Indradhvaja ritual

Finally it is interesting to observe that R. Levy recognizes that the Bhaktapur rites
corresponding in time and partly in nature to the September 'Indra Jåtrå' of
Kathmandu, are at Bhaktapur, in contrast to Kathmandu, "not integrated. They seem
only fragments of what may have been once in Bhaktapur - and that is now elsewhere -
a coherent set" (L, 462). The question rises: when and how? And how does this fall
festival relate to the older New Year festival in spring (March) and the still older one
about the time of winter solstice (c. Jan. 1, or 6)? Or is the spring date really the oldest
one (comparing the Germanic May pole)? Since creation is always related to 'the first
dawn' in Vedic India, one would assume a January date. Be this as it may, the various
layers in Newari festivals make for a fascinating study of layers of meanings, that are
constantly changing and become reinterpreted through time. However, we can
approach a history of these festivals even when restricting the investigation to the

75 Herodotus` Amazones/Scythians, Amaterasu/Susa.no Wo in Japan, the cowherd/weaver goddess in

China, etc. Note also the myths of the stolen clothes of the nymphs, of K 
a`s cow girls, of the nymph`s
hagoromo in Japan, etc..
 31
Newar culture of the Kathmandu Valley, only after more variants from Patan,
Kathmandu, Kirtipur, Panauti, etc., will have been compared.

It can be summed up, that, while not all details of the modern and medieval Bhaktapur
rites and festivals can be called straight descendants of Vedic rituals,76 it nevertheless is
clear that the medieval rituals re-enact, often with new means (e.g. the Bhairava chariot
instead of pulling at a round skin), the ancient oppositions in the macrocosmic world
of the gods and their adversaries (Devas and Asuras) and in the microcosmic world of
the humans (three Ārya classes of Bråhma
a, Katriya, Vaiśya versus the outgroup, the
Śūdra). In addition, the sexual conflict between human (king) and immortal (Apsaras
or Goddess) is a feature of the ritual of New Year as well. The force of the king (of the
gods, Indra, or of the humans, the Nepalese King) is reconstituted by their encounter.
These conflicts which break out at the liminal point of time, New Year, are depicted by
the mesocosmic Vedic ritual (yajña), and are especially visible and 'graphic' on its
Mahåvrata day. In the the Mesocosm of festivals and Pūjås of medieval and modern
Bhaktapur, they are both brought into a new balance when the dangerous period
between the years, the tension between the sexes and between the classes of society has
been overcome and (the old) order has been (re-)established.

§ 7 Conclusion

In sum, R. Levy's Mesocosm is not only a incisive and cogent analysis of Bhakatpur
Hinduism itself but it also allows us to draw far-reaching conclusions about the nature
and development of Hinduism as such and of its many local variants, from the
Himalayas to Sri Lanka and from Cutch to Bali.

We now begin to understand the complex relationships between the realms of the gods
and humans that result in the bewildering mass of rituals and festivals of Hinduism in
all its variants found all over South Asia. And we begin to understand how they are set
in the parameters of sacred and profane space and time. Within this framework the
functions of gods, humans and the "dance of symbols" linking them become clear, for
modern Hinduism of Bhaktapur as well as by extension, for the archaic one of the
Vedic period. It is only then that we can begin to establish meaningful links between the
structures of Vedic, Epic/Purå
ic and medieval/modern Hinduism. For R. Levy's well-
considered analysis is based on careful observation and examination, accompanied and
supported by a wealth of descriptive materials from an undisturbed form of
traditional, quasi-medieval Hinduism.

76 The development of Vedic rituals in Nepal cannot be discussed here. However, it may be briefly
pointed out that, on the one hand, some of the ancient Vedic rituals have been continued to this day in
(almost) unchanged fashion. Examples include the Agnihotra ritual carried out by the Nepalis speaking
Brahmins at Kumarigal, Thamel and Paśupathinåth (Witzel 1986) or many of the rites of passage. On
the other hand, Vedic rituals have also undergone considerable change and re-interpretation such as the
Tantric Agnihotra of the Patan Råjopådhyåyas (Witzel 1992) or the Royal Consecreation ritual which
changed from a simple abhieka (RV) to an elaborate Śrauta ritual (the Råjasūya of the YV Sahitås and
Sūtras) and then into the post-Vedic Råjyåbhieka (Nīlamata-, Vi
udharmottara-, Agni-Purå
a,
Nepalese MSS), see Witzel 1987a.
 32

With R. Levy's Mesocosm as basis, we can observe Hinduism how it must have looked,
'at ground level' in medieval India, tempered and changed, as it may be, by the
ultimately 'tribal' nature of Newar 'High Culture', though. In this context, we should
not forget the obvious Newar penchant for the performance and elaboration of rituals,
that is the expression of their culture and of their social relations, through rituals
ranging from eating to lineage. We may add: with a stress on rituals and with little
theoretical expression in philosophical or religious texts, except for a few medieval
Newari and Skt. stories.77

It is another, separate task that can not even be outlined here to separate such 'tribal'
elements from 'general' Hinduism in the rest of India (where much of it is 'tribal' or at
least local, as well). For the time being we can take R. Levy's description and analysis as a
standard representation and interpretation of medieval Hinduism, which is largely
untempered by outside, Muslim and British, influences. And this is, as has been
pointed out, another important item indicating the value of the book: we get a peep
into medieval customs, rites -- and beliefs, not through the eyes of a medieval Brahmin
wo composed or redacted normative texts, such as a Purå
a or a Dharma-Nibandha,
but through the picture of the living relationship between the people and their gods,
and of the various groups of the people among themselves.

Robert Levy will expand this analysis, I am sure, by a series of articles, preferably and
ultimately collected in a book, which will investigate the psychologial side of these
customs and beliefs, from the lowest Po e to the high caste Råjopådhyåyas. This is yet
another task that has not been executed in comparative psychology, at least not with
this particular perspective in mind.78 We are eagerly awaiting this new work and may
we express the hope to see smaller or larger pieces of it appearing over the next few
years.

Abbreviations

AB Aitareya Bråhma
a
ĀpŚS Āpastamba Śrautasūtra
AV Atharvaveda Sahitå
BĀU B haåra
yaka-Upaniad
BDhS Baudhåyana Dharmasūtra
BŚS Baudhåyana Śrautasūtra
B hat Sahitå by Vårahamihira
ChU Chåndogya Upaniad
DN Dīghanikåya, Påli Canon

77 Such as the Aamīvratakathå, Svayambhūpurå
a, Nepålamåhåtmya -- all of which await detailed

analysis along the lines detailed above.
78 Sudhir Kakar offers Freudian explanations, which are ultimately based upon another, though
modern western myth. In his work, they are mostly supported by his own Freudian interpretation of the
(Brahmanical) literary texts, the Mahåbhårata, Råmåya
a and the Purå
as, as well as on the case
histories of his patients. However, a culture-specific, internal analysis of Hinduism with its many local
variants still is missing.
 33
IIJ Indo-Iranian Journal
JB Jaminīya Bråhma
a
KahĀ Kaha Āra
yaka
KahB: Agnyådheya-Bråhma
a
KahU Kaha-Upaniad
KauśS Kauśika Sūtra
KB Kauītaki Bråhma
a
KS Kaha Sahitå
Manu Månava Dharma-Śåstra
Mbh Mahåbhårata
MS Maitråya
ī Sahitå
Nīlamata Nīlamata Purå
a
PGS Påraskara G hya Sūtra
PS Paippalåda Sahitå
Råm Råmåya
a
RV gveda Sahitå
ŚŚS Śåkhåyana Śrautaūtra
ŚB Śatapatha Bråhma
a
StII Studien zur Indologie und Iranistik
TĀ Taittirīya Āra
yaka
TS Taittirīya Sahitå
TU Taittirīya Upaniad
VådhB Vådhūla Bråhma
a (=Vådh. Anvåkhyåna)
VS Våjasaneyi Sahitå
WZKS Wiener Zeitschrift zur Kunde Südasiens

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