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JOHANNES BRONKHORST
34.
opment. If something does not fit in its context, it is because it has been borrowed from another context where it did. Since there is, in these cases, little or no direct evidence concerning that other context, nor about the presumed fact that the feature concerned has been borrowed, these historical reconstructions are bound to be speculative. This does not however invalidate the general principle. I do believe that an historical explanation of a feature that does not fit its present context may often be appropriate. I just want to emphasize that in practice it may be encumbered by many uncertainties. When can we say that a feature does not fit the context in which we find it? How can we be sure that it must originally have fitted its context? Is it conceivable that certain features of Vedic sacrifices, or of other cultural entities. have never fitted in any context?
Of course, there are more direct indications that middle Vedic literature was acquainted with a non-Vedic population. It has repeatedly been suggested that the Asuras, the eternal enemies of the gods, were somehow linked with the non-Vedic population. I doubt whether such a link can be generally postulated. In some cases it does however seem to hold. One of these is the famous passage of the Satapatha Brāhmaṇa (3.2.1.23) where the Asuras are stated to exclaim in barbarous language he 'lavo he 'lavah. Paul THIEME (1938: 4 (10)) has argued that this stands for Magadhi he 'layo he 'layah (so cited by the grammarian Patanjali), corresponding to Sanskrit he 'rayo he 'rayah "hail friends!". David CARPENTER (1994: 30) is tempted to conclude from this and other evidence that later Vedic society is to be viewed "as a hybrid culture forged out of Indo-Aryan and indigenous... elements under the ægis of the cultural norm represented by the sacrifice and its language". F.R. ALLCHIN remarks similarly, on the basis of archæological and literary evidence (1995: 331): "The period must have witnessed the further development of a multi-ethnic society in which Indo-Aryans or their descendants, and self-styled Indo-Aryans of various origins, formed elite groups, claiming dominance and power over a mixed population of whom an increasing proportion were what we referred to as 'acculturated Aryans', that is to say descendants of the earlier population of any region who had acquired Indo-Aryan speech and perhaps other traits." The question to be asked is, of course, to what extent the non-Vedic elements (I would hesitate to use the term "indigenous" here) were integrated in this society, and to what extent they were, at that time, ready to accept the cultural norm represented by the sacrifice and its language.
I will now turn to another problem, one which has interested scholars for a long time. In late Vedic literature certain new ideas make their appearance, which are absent (or at any rate not clearly present) in earlier Vedic literature, and which form the backbone of much of later Indian thought. These same ideas are strongly present in, and determine to some extent, a number of new religious movements which make their appearance in about the same period or soon after. I am, of course, speaking of the belief in rein
4. Cp. BRONKHORST 1993: 69 f.
IS THERE AN INNER CONFLICT OF TRADITION?
carnation and in the role of actions therein; or in good English: about the doctrine of karma. The question I wish to raise is: Is there reason to assume behind these particular innovations an opposition between different communities of people? Or is there no need for such an assumption?
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The question is hardly original, and it is impossible to discuss all the answers that have been proposed to it. I will confine myself to discussing the opinions of some few scholars which have been, and still are, particularly influential.
The French sociologist Louis DUMONT, to begin with, speaks of a fundamental opposition between the renouncer and the man in the world. He presents this opposition as characterizing Indian society throughout most of its history, and as being responsible for all its innovations. In reality it is the late Vedic period and the beginnings of Buddhism and Jainism which he thinks about in the first place. Since this is not generally realized, we have to pay some attention to his words.
The renouncer, according to DUMONT, has played a major role in a great number of religious and other innovations in India. This is how he describes that role (1982: 94-95):
For more than two millennia Indian society has been characterised by two complementary features: society imposes upon every person a tight interdependence which substitutes constraining relationship for the individual as we know him, but, on the other hand, there is the institution of world-renunciation which allows for the full independence of the man who chooses it. Incidentally, this man, the renouncer, is responsible for all the innovations in religion that India has seen. Moreover, we see clearly in early texts the origin of the institution, and we understand it easily: the man who is after ultimate truth forgoes social life and its constraints to devote himself to his own progress and destiny. When he looks back at the social world, he sees it from a distance, as something devoid of reality, and the discovery of the self is for him coterminous, not with salvation in the Christian sense, but with liberation from the fetters of life as commonly experienced in this world. The renouncer is self-sufficient, concerned only with himself. His thought is similar to that of the modem individual, but for one basic difference: we live in the social world, he lives outside it.... The renouncer may live in solitude as a hermit or may join a group of fellow-renouncers under a master-renouncer, who propounds a particular discipline of liberation.
This passage is but a brief restatement of an earlier article called "World renunciation in Indian religions", published in French in 1959 and in English in 1960.
Note to begin with that DUMONT's theory does not claim to be an exact description of the present situation in India. DUMONT characterizes his theory as trying "to show that it is useful to distinguish two "ideal types'. which in fact combine more and more in the course of time" (1960: 47). DUMONT's lack of appreciation for present-day ascetics in India is clear from
5. The following remarks draw heavily upon an article "Louis Dumont et les renonçants indiens" which has been published in Orientalia Suecana 45-46 (1996-1997): 9-12.
