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SVASTI Essays in Honour of Prof. Hampa Nagarajaiah
services from monks. The rules of the order explicitly rule out the practice of equivalent exchange in favour of the ideal of service to the order.
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Monastic Networks
The key questions for network analysis concerned the extent to which the order was socially integrated, which informal networks or groups ('cliques') existed, and how the monastic rules and regulations shaped the network structure." The analysis of selected features of the monastic networks demonstrated: (a) that many mendicants do not know one another; (b) that older mendicants are better connected than younger mendicants; (c) that mendicants of the same category, gender, age group and kinship group are more connected than others; (d) that the members of the entourage of the head of the order, or gurukula, are more connected than others; and (e) that both novices (saman/) and ex-novices who were promoted to the status of fully initiated mendicants are extremely well connected. There are three reasons for this: the samanis lived and studied together for several years in religious boarding schools, they are allowed to travel and meet other monks and nuns, and they meet each other every year at the annual assembly of the mendicants. Thus, over time, the entire network structure of the order will be affected by the introduction of the novice category in 1980. Increased connectivity between the nuns is to be expected.
The data also showed that: (a) (with the exception of the members of the gurukula) fully initiated male and female ascetics hardly ever interact across the gender divide, since contact between male and female ascetics is strictly regulated and because there are few opportunities for itinerant mendicants to meet; (b) the networks are oriented. towards the office holders of the centralised monastic hierarchy, who qua position know and interact with everyone; (c) family members of the same gender often live together in the same itinerant group, because in this way conflict within small groups is minimized; (d) family connections are maintained within the order through occasional "exchanges" of small gifts which have to be mediated by the group-leader and the head of the order; (e) group solidarity as a whole is strengthened through birth-day and initiation-day cards from the leadership of the order; (e) rotation of personnel does not often take place, except: in cases of conflict, to balance the educational and age profile of a group, and for specific collaborative projects; (f) due to the greater group size the rate of rotation is higher amongst nuns than amongst monks; (g) novices show a higher degree of mutual interaction than other mendicants for the said reasons.
"The following characteristics of personal or ego-centred networks oriented the analysis in particular: (a) morphological: anchorage, reachability, connectedness (density), range, (b) interactional: directedness (symmetry/asymmetry), frequency, content. See Mitchell 1969.
