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JOHANNES BRONKHORST
a passage in his booklet La civilisation indienne et nous. Here he says:" "Que de nos jours on soit souvent conduit à se faire une assez piètre idée de la masse des renonçants contemporains, mendiants, yogis ou sadhus, ne change rien au fait que c'est dans cette condition que la pensée indienne a trouvé les racines de sa vie."
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DUMONT's theory therefore primarily concerns the past, more precisely the rather remote past. It is not based on contemporary observation, but on philology. DUMONT says so himself, where he describes his theory as an attempt "to bring together from a sociological vantage point the main findings of Indology" (1960: 37). It is true that he claims on the same page that "the direct study of a small Hindu group led me to abstract certain principles which, it then appeared, could be more widely applied". But his main attention was focused on the past. It is even possible to be precise with regard to the period about which he thinks in the first place; he speaks "of that extraordinary post-vedic and pre-hindu development which goes on from the first Upanishads to the Bhagavadgita, the golden age of speculation in which emerge, from discovery to discovery, the dominant tendencies of Hindu thought" (1960: 49). It seems indeed that the theory of DUMONT covers first of all the centuries which precede our era.
This impression is confirmed by what DUMONT says about bhakti: love, or total devotion to the Lord. He considers this, as distinct from Tantrism, a sanyasic development, an invention of the renouncer: "This religion of love supposes two perfectly individualized terms; in order to conceive of a personal Lord there must also be a believer who sees himself as an individual" (1960: 57). On the next page DUMONT continues: "The central point is that, thanks to love, renunciation is transcended by being internalized; in order to escape the determinism of actions, inactivity is no longer necessary. detachment and disinterestedness are sufficient: one can leave the world from within, and God himself is not bound by his acts, for he only acts out of love. ... By transferring his conquests from the plane of knowledge to that of affectivity, the renouncer makes a gift of them to everybody: by loving submission, by identifying themselves unreservedly with the Lord, everybody can become free individuals." (1960: 58). In other words, at least since the Bhagavadgită there are individuals in Indian society itself, who are not renouncers. And their number must be considerable, for the Bhagavadgītā has exercised an enormous influence on Hinduism. Since the Bhagavadgītā dates from the beginning of our era or from even earlier, one must conclude that from that moment onward India has had a large number of individuals who were not renouncers, but lived in society. If, then, we look for the period
6. DUMONT 1975: 33. "The fact that nowadays one often gets a miserable impression of the mass of contemporary renouncers, beggars, yogis or sadhus, doesn't change the circumstance that Indian thought has found the roots of its existence in this condition."
IS THERE AN INNER CONFLICT OF TRADITION?
during which the theory of DUMONT might have been applicable, we arrive at the centuries preceding the beginning of our era."
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DUMONT's remarks about Tantrism - another religious development which becomes manifest after the beginning of our era - agree with this. He describes Tantrism as a large branch of Hinduism which presents us with the rejection of ascetic renunciation (1960: 52), or as "a truly fundamental variant of Hinduism, in which renunciation is replaced by reversal" (1960: 56). Tantrism constitutes therefore a religious innovation in India, which has not been created or invented by renouncers. This is possible, because Tantrism does not belong to the period preceding our era, which appears to interest DUMONT more than any other period.
With regard to modern India, DUMONT accepts the presence of individuals in society. He explains this as the result of a mixture of two mentalities, accentuated perhaps by European influence, but primarily due to the influence of the renouncer who often, as spiritual master (guru), has followers in society. One must, DUMONT thinks, distinguish analytically these two mentalities, for logical, historical and comparative reasons. Only in this way can we, with the help of simple principles in an otherwise indecipherable whole, situate the society, the thought and, to some extent, the history of India with regard to ourselves. We may conclude that DUMONT's theory is, for the present situation, at best an analytical instrument; it does not at all claim to be a correct description of it.
But even at the period before our era, at least certain renouncers (in the sense of DUMONT) were hardly free from restricting relationships and completely independent. We are particularly well informed about the daily life of Buddhist monks at that period, and we know that they lived under very
7. For an evalutation of the degree of individuality taught by the Bhagavadgitä, see BRONKHORST, forthcoming. It hardly corresponds to the ideas mentioned by DUMONT, for which he used such expressions as "vraiment indépendants","capables d'introduire des innovations religieuses", etc.
8. DUMONT 1975: 56-57: "Il faut ... répondre à une objection que la grande majorité des Hindous instruits ne manquent pas d'exprimer contre la distinction que j'ai proposée des deux mentalités. Pour eux, et fort légitimement, le désir de la délivrance (moksa) n'est pas incompatible avec la vie dans le monde - et en effet on la trouve de bonne heure associée à la triade des fins proprement mondaines: le devoir religieux, le profit économico-politique, et le plaisir immédiat. Ou encore ils se sentent comme des individus, reconnaissent une morale universelle et pensent qu'il y a à l'intérieur de l'hindouisme une moralité subjective. On répondra simplement que cela résulte du mélange de deux mentalités, accentué peut-être par l'influence européenne, mais dû en premier licu à l'influence du renonçant qui souvent, comme maître spirituel (guru), a fait des adeptes dans la société. Ces deux mentalités, il faut bien les distinguer analytiquement pour des raisons logiques, historiques et comparatives. C'est seulement en procédant de la sorte que nous pouvons, en dégageant des principes simples d'un ensemble autrement indéchiffrable, situer la société, la pensée et, dans une certaine mesure déjà, l'histoire de l'Inde par rapport à nous."
