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Soma2019-Rel-5 Systems of Purity PDF
Soma2019-Rel-5 Systems of Purity PDF
SYSTEMS OF PURITY
G.A. Somaratne
Centre of Buddhist Studies
The University of Hong Kong
2019
2/12/2019 G. A. Somaratne, BSTC1003, HKU 2
A period of impurity
• In the case of a death of a
member of any community the
structure of that community
gets disturbed.
• It is implied an intermediary
period of reconstruction in order
to regain the former stability.
• This transitional phase of
loosing status and achieving it
again is characterized by a
period of impurity.
2/12/2019 G. A. Somaratne, BSTC1003, HKU 14
Permanent impurity
• The activities of some are regarded as permanently
polluting.
Privileges cost
• The punishment rules elaborated in the
Manusmrti, a Hindu law book, clearly
show the privileged position of the
Brahmins comparing to that of the
Kshatriyas and the Vaisyas as they are
granted more legal immunities.
tension
• Purity only exists in tension
with its opposite, impurity.
Opposites
• Whatever the religious goal, there will
always be something to obstruct, oppose,
or ruin it.
Purity as consistency
• Purity is the factor of consistency in every
domain of existence.
• An Eskimo taboo disallows a wife to knit
while her husband is on a harpoon hunt.
• Her crossing and tangling of threads and his
need to keep the harpoon lines untangled
cannot coexist.
• Their behavior needs to be symbolically
consonant, not dissonant, with the goals at
hand—that is, the successful harpoon
throw.
• The symbolic world is here very much the
real world.
2/12/2019 G. A. Somaratne, BSTC1003, HKU 29
Zoroastrianism
• Zoroaster says: “Purity is best for
man from his birth.”
In Early Judaism
• Early Judaism (before the Roman destruction
of the Second Temple in 70 B.C.) focused on
ritual purity and animal sacrifice as well as
moral righteousness.
Kosher food
• To the Hebrew pastoralist, proper ungulate
species were those that both chewed the cud
and had cloven hooves.
• But the pig, rock badger, and hare, each have
just one of these features. Since they lack the
other, they do not conform to purity of type; so
they are unholy.
• In the water, finless creatures with legs also fail
to conform to the natural prototype of the fish (a
swimmer, not a walker).
• Such unclean animals stand for the mixing,
confusing, or contradicting of what God has
made discrete.
2/12/2019 G. A. Somaratne, BSTC1003, HKU 37
2/12/2019 G. A. Somaratne, BSTC1003, HKU 38
Avoidance
• Profanity is something to be avoided. Much
religious behavior is defensive or preventive.
Removal of sins
Two extremities
• Some offenses to the cosmos are utter evil;
they must be expunged absolutely.
Ways of purification
• From the point of view of the
individual as agent of self-purification,
we find acts of repentance,
atonement, expiation, discipline,
confession, isolation, fasting, apology,
and prayer.