Indian Asceticism

Indian Asceticism
Power, Violence, a nd Play

Carl Olson

1
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This book is dedicated to the memory of my father,
the best man that I have ever met.
Contents

Preface ix
List of Abbreviations xiii

1. Introduction 1

2. The Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 28

3. Types of Power 52

4. Violence, the Demonic, and Power 81

5. Language and Power 116

6. Ludic Elements: Eroticism, the Comic, and Power 141

7. Miracles, Play, and Power 169

8. Power and Theory 189

Notes 211
Bibliography 243
Index 267

vii
 Preface

Over the centuries, Indian ascetics have been enduring and ubiquitous fea-
tures of Indian culture with respect to the religious paths of Hinduism, Buddhism,
and Jainism. Their strange habits, physical appearance, ways of communicating, and
modes of thinking have fascinated ordinary people and scholars of Indian culture.
A primary manifestation of this fascination with Indian ascetics is the multifaceted
collection of discourses and narratives that reflect the lifestyle of the ascetic figure
whether that person is Hindu, Buddhist, or Jain. Beyond their ability to fascinate
others, Indian ascetics have shaped Indian culture and given it a strong ascetic char-
acter while also being shaped by the prevailing culture itself.
Using various types of literary evidence concerning ascetics in Indian culture,
this study focuses on discourses and narratives about the ascetic and what they
reveal about his/her quest for liberation/salvation. Embodied in the discourses and
narratives about asceticism throughout the history of Indian religions, the ascetic
figure is most closely identified with power, a phenomenon that is the centerpiece
of this book. Power is a byproduct of the ascetic path, and is displayed by the abil-
ity to fly, walk on water or through dense objects, read the minds of others, know
the former lives of others, see into the future, harm others, or simply levitate one’s
body. The discourses and narratives relating examples of these powers gives a stu-
dent a glimpse into their violent nature, and gives rise to thoughts about the inter-
relationship between power and violence within Indian asceticism. Based on the
contents of these discourses and narratives, a reader also finds that they also give
ix
x Preface

rise to questions about how power and violence are related to the phenomenon of
play. There are several forms of play that are discussed in the following chapters that
include the erotic, the demonic, the comic, and the miraculous.
Even though Hinduism is the featured religious tradition from early Indian reli-
gious history to more modern times in this book, evidence is also presented from
both Buddhism and Jainism, which provides evidence that the subject matter of
this book pervades India’s major indigenous religious traditions. The introductory
chapter that sets the agenda for what is to follow discusses basic topics such as the
nature of asceticism, the relationship between culture and asceticism, the body of
the ascetic and how it is marked, the marking of female bodies, the role of celibacy,
the relationship between asceticism and pain, and the nature of hagiography. The
following chapter gives a selected and sweeping overview of the history of asceticism
in India. The third chapter focuses on the powers acquired by ascetics by examin-
ing the third chapter of the Yoga Sūtras along with a consideration of Buddhist and
Jain understandings of such powers. This chapter includes a look at the extent to
which contemporary findings in cognitive science can add to our understanding
about these various powers. It is suggested that the practice of extreme forms of
asceticism triggers certain chemicals in the brain that shape the way that an ascetic
understands his/her acquired powers.
Because the narratives and discourse associated with ascetic powers manifest
violence, the fourth chapter looks at the relationship between ascetic powers
and practice that demonstrate the role of violence in the ascetic lifestyle by look-
ing at such practices as fasting and the role of food, violence and food, and vio-
lent demons and asceticism, which leads to a consideration of the nature of the
demonic. What this chapter demonstrates is that violence is built into the practice
of the ascetic. A  good example of the relation between violence and practice is
the act of fasting that turns an ascetic into something resembling a living corpse.
This examination of fasting and violence necessitates a look at the Indian under-
standing of food in order to give the discussion about fasting its proper cultural
context. In addition, narrative literature depicts demons practicing asceticism to
gain powers with a nefarious purpose, suggesting a connection between ascetic
power and the demonic. In order to enhance this discussion, an attempt is made
to define the nature of the demonic and elicit some of its features. Moreover, if
ascetic power manifests a close association with violence that can harm or destroy
those against which it is directed, it gives rise to the ways that power and violence
can be countered by a potential victim. Before concluding this chapter, there is a
discussion of the theoretical relationship between power and violence and how
the various theorists fall short of a satisfactory understanding of violence and
power associated with ascetic life.
 Preface xi

In the third chapter of the Yoga Sūtras, Patañali, compiler of the text around the
fourth century CE, reviews numerous powers acquired by the yogi-ascetic. These
various powers called vibhūtis in the introduction to the third part of the text are
replaced with the term siddhas in the remainder of the third chapter. Patañjali dis-
cusses various powers that can be acquired by an ascetic. There is, however, a power
that he does not mention, one that plays a large role in the narrative literature. This
power is the curse of the ascetic. The fifth chapter of this book places the curse of
the ascetic within the Indian cultural context by examining the role of language in
the ancient Vedic texts, the act of truth, and the mantra in order to call attention to
the power inherent within different types of language. It is demonstrated that the
curse is a speech act that can make something happen and that serves as a rationale
for ordinary people, powerful kings, and gods to fear the power inherent within
the curse of the ascetic. When these speech acts are embodied within a narrative
framework they express messages about the nature of power, language, and violence.
The sixth and seventh chapters represent a turn in the book to a consideration
of ludic elements and their relationship to power. These chapters on the play motif
associated with the Indian ascetic include a look at the relation between power and
the erotic, the playful comic element, and the relation between power, play, and
miracles. The discussions about violence, the demonic, the erotic, and play are all
intertwined with power and contribute to a broader understanding of the nature of
power and asceticism.
Finally, in ­chapter 8, I isolate and emphasize the characteristics of power as a pre-
lude to moving toward a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of
power. But before I attempt this move, it is useful to consider the theoretical contri-
butions on the topic of power in the works of van der Leeuw, Eliade, Wartenberg,
and a postmodern theory of power exemplified by the work of Michael Foucault
before offering an alternative theory. I suggest that power is an elusive, diverse, and
ubiquitous phenomenon that is uncanny, rendering it difficult to precisely define.
The subject matter of this book has had a long gestation. It is a pleasure to finally
give birth to this fascinating topic. The reason for my long-term pregnancy is related
to other book projects that continually kept arising and keeping me from focusing
on asceticism, power, violence, and associated phenomena. Nonetheless, this book
has been a labor of love because it forced me to read even more Indian texts and
marvel at the creative imagination of Indian writers.
There are many people that I should thank. My department colleagues, library
staff, and administrative leadership of the college on the hill deserve my gratitude
for understanding my health situation and covering my classes during my medi-
cal leave of absence. I especially apologize to those students who took my courses
because I was teaching them, and thanks go to Allegheny College students for their
xii Preface

many cards and emails wishing me a speedy recovery. I would be remiss if I did not
thank my nurse Peggy for her selfless assistance. I also want to thank the Disney
character Goofy for his good humor after colliding with me and being knocked to
the ground on my way to the dispensary of the cruise ship on the return trip from
the Cayman Islands.
I also want to thank friends abroad for help and companionship during my stay
in England. Thanks go to Gavin Flood and Shaunaka Rishi Das for giving me an
opportunity to present a paper at Oxford University. I want to also thank Julius
Lipner and his wife for their hospitality during a stay at Clare Hall, University of
Cambridge. When I told Julius what I was working on he graciously gave me some
bibliographical help for which I am grateful, as I am for his taking time to drive
my wife and me to some lovely old homes in the English countryside to see how
the wealthy lived, a tour that enriched our English experience. I also want to wish
Julius a healthy and fruitful retirement. Liz Leonard, producer of the radio pro-
gram “Beyond Belief” on the BBC, and her assistant Shariffa Abdulrehman deserve
my gratitude for including me on a panel on the topic of celibacy. The enjoyable
experience broadened my horizons. My thanks go to Karen Pechilis and Corinne
Dempsey for giving me an opportunity to share my work on the curse of the ascetic
at a Council on the Study of Religion in India at Drew University during the sum-
mer of 2013. Finally, I want to thank Cynthia Read and Marcela Maxfield at Oxford
University Press in New York, and especially Geetha Parakkat for her expert guid-
ance of the book through the copyediting process.
 List of Abbreviations

AB Aitareya Brāhmaṇa
AV Atharaveda Saṃhitā
BDhS Baudhayana Dharma Sūtra
BhG Bhagavad Gītā
BhagP Bhagavata Purāṇa
BĀU Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad
CC Caitanya Caritāmṛta
ChU Chāndogya Upaniṣad
DMU Dakṣinamurtya Upaniṣad
DN Digha Nikāya
JB Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa
JaU Jabala Upaniṣad
KB Kauṣātaki Brāhmaṇa
KBU Kauṣātaki Brāhmaṇa Upaniṣad
KN Khuddaka Nikāya
KinS Kindred Sayings
LiṅgaP Liṅga Puraṇā
Mbh Mahābhārata
MaitU Maitri Upaniṣad
Manu Manusmṛti
MN Majjihima Nikāya
xiii
xiv List of Abbreviations

MLS Middle Length Sayings

MuU Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad
PainU Paingala Upaniṣad
PB Pañcavimṣa Brāhmaṇa
PrasU Praśna Upaniṣad
Rām Rāmāyaṇa
RV Ṛg Veda
ŚB Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa
SN Saṃyutta Nikāya
SauraP Saura Purāṇa
ŚivaP Śiva Purāṇa
SkandaP Skanda Purāṇa
SvU Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad
TB Taittiriya Brāhmaṇa
TS Taittiriya Saṃhita
VS Vedānta Sūtras
VinP Vinaya Piṭaka
ViṣṇuP Viṣṇu Purāṇa
Vism Visuddhimagga
YS Yoga Sūtras
Indian Asceticism
 1
Introduction

As numerous scholars have shown, power is a ubiquitous concept in religion

that proves to be difficult to precisely or adequately define, but this definitional diffi-
culty has not hindered scholars from trying to discern its meaning and implications
for religion. In Edward B. Tylor’s Primitive Culture (1871), power was, for instance,
associated with animism, a belief in a spiritual soul animating nature, derived from
the Latin anima (spirit). Hence, things within nature—animate and oftentimes
inanimate—are energized by spirits and are to be distinguished from totemism, a
belief that a person is intimately related to a specific species of animals and thus
should not harm them. In order to avoid confusion, totemism and animism should
be distinguished, with the former using natural images in its conceptions, whereas
the latter uses sociological representations to construct order in nature, implying
that totemism models society after nature and animism does the exact opposite by
constructing nature after society.1 By 1909, R.  R. Marett’s work The Threshold of
Religion, borrowing insights from the work of R. H. Codrington, rejected Tylor’s
rationalistic scheme and advocated that mana, a power believed to be inherent in all
things by Melanesians, was an earlier stage of religion. Other anthropologists dis-
covered power in the tribal religions of North American Indians: manitou among
the Algonquian, orenda among the Iroquois, and wakan among the Sioux.
In comparison to these indigenous religions, the major monotheistic religions
of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam view God as a source of power, whereas power
is conceived a bit differently in China and Japan. The notion of kami, shadowy
1
2 Indian Asceticism

spiritual forces, is vaguely associated in Japan with various types of natural and
supernatural powers, which makes it an elusive concept. Even more elusive are the
concepts of Dao and De in Chinese Daoism. The Dao, mother and ancestor of all,
is a mysterious power because it is invisible, inaudible, and subtle. The empty, name-
less, unmarked Dao brings all things into existence and governs them. If Dao is
what is common to all things, De (virtue, power) is the force within things, a func-
tion of the Dao, which differentiates one thing from another. In other words, Dao
is the underlying cosmic order of everything and De is its power.
In ancient India, the governing principle of the universe is called ṛta, a cosmic
law similar to asha in ancient Iran, ma’at in ancient Egypt, and dike in Greece. Ṛta
represents the law, unity, or rightness underlying the orderliness of the universe.
Without ṛta there would be chaos instead of cosmos, and, on the social level, there
would be immortality and disorder instead of community. This cosmic power also
enables the sacrifice to work. Therefore, ṛta (literally, “the course of things”) is the
foundation of truth and reality that makes possible cosmic harmony and dynamic
order between objects and events. It is neither a particular thing nor does it exist in
a particular place; it is a creative power that permeates the cosmos.2
In addition to ṛta, another fundamental part of the ancient Indian structure of
reality is tapas (literally, heat), a natural power built into reality.3 According to an
ancient Indian creation hymn (RV 10.190.1), ṛta (cosmic order) and satya (truth)
were born from tapas (heat), a natural heat associated with either the sun or fire. By
means of this natural heat associated with biological conception, embryonic matu-
ration, and birth, one can gain certain powers: invincibility and the ability to reach
the highest point in the cosmos, poetical inspiration, increased strength, and the
ability to conquer death (RV 10.154.2; 8.59.6; 19.183.1). This suggests that tapas is a
creative, energetic, and transformative power that can shape the cosmos by cooking
it.4 Moreover, tapas preceded Vedic deities in origin, but the deities use it to accom-
plish their creative efforts, even though they owe their own existence to it.5 In a cre-
ation narrative from the Brāhmaṇical literature (ŚB 6.1.3.1), the god Prajāpati existed
alone and practiced tapas in order to reproduce himself, which resulted in becom-
ing heated and producing waters from himself. In the same text (ŚB 10.4.4.1–2),
the god practices tapas to rid himself of evil that gives rise to stars emerging from
the pores of his body. This scenario suggests that tapas is becoming elevated in Vedic
literature to a highly ethical notion, which later equates it with patience (kṣamā).6
It is also comparable to wealth and is something that can be possessed by the ascetic
(Mbh 12.182.4; 12.92.4). Just as wealth can be lost by the person possessing it, tapas
can also be lost by overindulging oneself in sensual pleasure or anger, while it can
decay due to a person’s carelessness. In summary, tapas, a powerful substance that is
 Introduction 3

spiritually potent, can be either gained or lost, which implies that a person possess-
ing it must be alert to protect it from decay or loss.7
By means of tapas, a person gains certain benefits and powers that anticipate its
eventual association with yogic powers. In the Vedic literature, a person can achieve
poetical inspiration (RV 8.59.6), become invincible, and attain the highest point of
the cosmos (RV 10.154.2). It is also possible to conquer death and avoid rebirth by
practicing tapas (RV 10.183.1; AV 11.5.19). Besides overcoming afflictions associated
with normal life, a practitioner gains wisdom hidden from ordinary people and con-
tact with divine beings.8
The wisdom to be gained is associated with a unifying force and power within
the Sanskrit language, Brahman. Since Brahman and ṛta are often synonymous in
the Vedic literature because they both sustain the existence of the cosmos, it can be
a challenge to differentiate them. The fundamental difference between them is that
ṛta “was regarded as a principle of being, a dynamic cosmic order and truth that has
always existed and that continues to drive the movements of the sacred universe,
while Brahman was the unchanging foundation on which all things rest, the onto-
logical beingness in which all things have their being.”9 More specifically, Brahman
represents a mysterious power embodied within revealed words to Vedic seers and
represents something imperishable, immovable and firm that enables it to support
everything and function as the ground of all existence.10 In addition to its close
interconnection with ṛta, Brahman is also closely intertwined with tapas.
From a natural heat in ancient Indian hymns, tapas, creative warmth, became by
the time of the Upaniṣadic texts the non-natural heat of asceticism connected to
spiritual rebirth. By kindling an inner fire of illumination, an ascetic is, for exam-
ple, purified and achieves immortality, according to the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad (1.2.11),
and by practicing tapas a person achieves immortality (MuU 1.2.11). The practice of
tapas helps to reveal ultimate reality or Brahman (MuU 1.2.11), discover the true self
(ātman, SvU 1.15), and prepares one for higher states of consciousness, knowledge
(MuU 3.1), or meditation (MaitU 4.4).
In his alleged commentary on the Yoga Sūtras, Śaṅkara, the famous eight-century
commentator on the Vedānta Sūtras and advocate of nondualism, comments that
tapas is essential for yogic success because of the impurity of karma.11 Examples
of tapas given by Śaṅkara are fasting, repetition of mantras, study of scripture on
release, devotion to God, and dedicating all actions to God as one attempts to
extricate oneself from the impure prison of the body.12 According to Śaṅkara, the
practice of asceticism represents an endurance of opposites, such as enduring time,
silence, or taking vows. The powers that come with the practice of yoga have degrees
and thus can increase, or presumably decrease, with a lack of discipline.13 The acqui-
sition of powers is a measure of the yogi’s success, and is dependent on unchangeable
4 Indian Asceticism

consciousness, which represents a person’s innate power (cit-śakti). It is precisely

on the Indian ascetic that this book will focus in order to illustrate the concept of
power and its relationship to the narrative and discourse concerning the ascetic. In
addition to the notion of power, this study looks at the interrelationship between
power and other phenomena such as violence, demonic, language, and examples
of play.

Nature of Asceticism
Ascetics in India were indeed the spiritual athletes suggested by the English term
asceticism, which derives etymologically from the Greek term askēsis (to exercise).
The ascetic exercises, more specifically, actions that are intended to control one’s
body and mind and that assume the form of vigorous regimens including various
forms of self-denial with respect to food and sleep, various kinds of bodily mor-
tifications that involve self-inflicted pain upon one’s flesh, vows of silence and/or
celibacy, rejection of worldly status, wearing of rags or products of nature (e.g., ani-
mal skins, grass, tree bark) and leading a wandering lifestyle without a fixed abode
in many cases.14 Using a simplistic formula that can be applied cross-culturally,
asceticism involves the three Ds: detachment, denial, and discipline. Detachment
involves becoming disconnected from one’s body, others, and desires, whereas
denial involves the rejection of anything that might result in enjoyment, such as
food, clothing, or sex. Finally, discipline can assume a variety of forms depending
on the ascetic movement that include the overall ascetic regimen of practice and life-
style. Within the Indian context, the wandering lifestyle is, for instance, the ideal
even when an ascetic joins a monastic type of community. In order to adopt such a
lifestyle of denial, it is presupposed that an ascetic renounce the world, society, and
relatives, although Indian culture exhibits male ascetics living with their families in
the forest, for instance, while observing an ascetic way of life.
Over the centuries, asceticism in India becomes intertwined with the fabric of
the culture, and its spirit is still thriving today. In classical Hinduism, asceticism is
incorporated into the conception of the stages of life (āśrama, which literally means
exertion or the place where exertion is practiced).15 Olivelle adds that āśrama is
derived from a-śrama, a lack of fatigue, and concludes in a spirit of synthesis that the
two meanings are distinct but related: “it refers to both a residence for or a mode of
life devoted to religious exertion.”16 This etymology suggests that the stages of a per-
son’s life are a planned exertion that begins with student life and its close association
with asceticism (tapas), such as fasting, observing silence for periods of time, beg-
ging for food, sleep deprivation, isolation in a remote area, prolonged standing, and
observing celibacy. The ascetic aspects of a student’s life involves the generation of
 Introduction 5

heat (tapas) that enables him to transcend ordinary abilities and his human con-
dition.17 According to the Āpastamba Dharma Sūtra (2.21.3), the stage of stu-
dentship is a necessary requirement for all the stages of life (āśramas) because of
its foundational nature.
From legal, social, and gender perspectives, asceticism was recognized by civil
authority and allowed the admittance of low-caste members and women into its
ranks in spite of cultural convictions about the social and spiritual superiority of
males. Some of these females became teachers and writers. In an epic narrative
(Rām 3.109.9–10), Anasūyā, wife of an ascetic, responds to a devastating drought,
for instance, by creating roots, fruit, a flowing river, and removing any kind of
obstacle by means of her vows because of the power that she possesses from practic-
ing extreme forms of asceticism. Facing a precarious lifestyle as a widow, there were
women who decided to reject such a confining mode of life, which is an inauspi-
cious, austere, and ascetic life.18
Within Hinduism, asceticism can be an end in itself for the acquisition of powers,
virtues, discipline, and the god-like status associated with an ascetic lifestyle. The
historical Buddha is critical of and rejects extreme forms of asceticism practiced by
other Indians and Jains, and refers to his path as the middle way, a moderate way to
liberation, between the extremes of hedonism and excessive forms of asceticism. The
Buddha opposed the Jain tendency to publicly wander naked or to use a single cloth
to cover private parts of their bodies and insisted on proper decorum that included
wearing three robes while leading a detached and meditative monastic life.
The Jains produced a rationale for their extreme forms of asceticism that included
an attempt to destroy negative karmic residues by burning them away and purifying
the soul. The Jain path to liberation includes practices common to the Buddhist and
Hindu paths such as the following of vows and actions such as the following: non-
violence; speaking the truth; not stealing; celibacy; and detachment from the world.
These five Jain vows are obligatory for all monks and nuns, although lay people can
practice these vows to the best of their ability without personal penalty or cultural
stigma.
Whatever the religious tradition, the ascetic lifestyle possesses economic con-
sequences because the ascetic leads a life of self-imposed and enthusiastically
embraced poverty. Whether within a monastic context or wandering on the mar-
gins of society, the ascetic contributes no labor for the improvement of society and
does not stimulate economic activity by purchasing goods and services, although
there are historical exceptions to this general rule, such as the Buddhist monas-
teries running business enterprises in China with the intention of earning wealth
in order to support themselves. In many instances, the ascetic depends on mem-
bers of society for their everyday sustenance and other forms of support, such as
6 Indian Asceticism

clothing and medicine. In turn, the ascetic teaches ordinary people and serves as a
paradigm of moral and ethical virtue, even though there are ascetics who are able to
exist in the forest and use what it naturally provides to live. In short, the ascetic is
a non-economic entity and can be negatively viewed as an economic parasitic crea-
ture, even though Buddhism and Jainism have appealed for different reasons to the
merchant and banker classes of Indian society.
There is probably no better example of the close relationship between culture and
asceticism than the Indian religious tradition. In the popular imagination, asceti-
cism is associated with purity, wisdom, legitimacy, denial, detachment, control, holi-
ness, marginality, and power. According to Harpham, asceticism forms the ground
of a particular culture, implying that members of a society must compromise their
biological, egotistical, narcissistic, and hedonistic drives and proclivities in order
to protect the social and cultural fabric and to make communication possible.19 If
self-denial in its many forms is necessary for a person or a group to live in a commu-
nity or culture, asceticism assists social interaction, integration, and functioning.
The typical Indian woman’s obedience to her husband is considered an ascetic act
that is so culturally important that women need not practice any other ascetic act
(Rām 3.110.9). Making use of self-denial for positive ends, an individual becomes
integrated into a cultural system and is influenced by that culture while also influ-
encing the prevailing culture and making communication possible, becoming an
empowered person, and equipping a person for a productive life. Nonetheless, ascet-
icism is still ambivalent because it creates a polarity between culture and what is
contrary to culture, which in many religious cultures is equated with asceticism.
This brief discussion suggests that asceticism possesses broader implications beyond
religion.
Within the cultural realm of religion, an essential feature of asceticism is its
repetitive nature. The methodological procedures that enable an ascetic to control
his/her body, breath, and mind are practiced by the ascetic on a regular basis. The
repetitive nature of the ascetic path operates to internalize the previously established
cultural tradition. Flood develops this point and observes that “asceticism can be
understood as the internalisation of tradition, the shaping of the narrative of a life
in accordance with the narrative of tradition that might be seen as the performance
of the memory of tradition.”20 More extreme forms of asceticism, such as standing
in a stream of flowing water on one leg for long periods of time, taking a vow not
to sleep on the ground but rather to sleep while standing, holding one’s arms above
the head, standing under constantly dripping water upon one’s head, or exercising
some form of mortification of one’s flesh, are also executed on a repetitive pattern.
If normal life is lived on a habitual pattern, asceticism represents an interruption
 Introduction 7

of everyday patterns and emphasizes an alternative pattern of life that enables the
ascetic to create a new identity from an ascetic’s former social identity.21
When an individual turns to the repetitive nature of asceticism that person
adopts and enters a very different religious culture when compared to ordinary lay
folk. By differentiating oneself in this way, ascetics become different people with
new identities when compared to their former identities, and create an alternative
culture for themselves by transforming themselves by a process of exerting control,
learning, and repeated behavior. By practicing the regimen of asceticism, the ascetic
is able to function in his/her newly selected cultural milieu, and ascetic practices
provide a means of translating theoretical and strategic concepts into patterns of
behavior, transforming his/her perception of the world, and providing a means for
the discovery of new knowledge, which in the Indian religious cultural context
involves awareness of the nondual absolute Brahman for some Upaniṣadic thinkers,
Advaita Vedānta philosophers, or the dualistic recognition of Prakṛti and Puruṣa.
Within the Indian cultural context, asceticism (tapas) possesses implications for
creativity, truth, gender, and death. The self-restrained, tranquil ascetic is a creative
figure, according to a story in the Mahābhārata epic (3.210.5–15) that depicts the
ascetic Pāñcajanaya becoming the founder of five dynasties by means of his austeri-
ties, which enable him to create offspring, gods, and elements of nature. According
to the same epic (Mbh 3.245.16–17), there is nothing higher than asceticism because
it enables one to obtain wonderful things, and nothing is beyond its reach. The epic
Rāmāyaṇa (3.101.14) insists that truth, which is the highest form of righteousness
in the world and ultimate goal for humans, is the foundation of asceticism along
with forming the basis of giving of alms, sacrifice, sacrificial oblations, and Vedic
scriptures. In an epic narrative (Mbh 3.182.14–20), the ascetic Mārkaṇḍeya informs
the Pāṇḍava brothers, members of royalty, that asceticism (tapas) restores a son who
practices asceticism and confirms to them that death does not have power over
them. Instead of the princely warrior, it is rather the ascetic who possesses power,
according to the worldview of the ascetic.

Culture and Asceticism

These various types of ascetic implications for Indian culture draw our attention to
the relationship between culture and asceticism. Harpham views this relationship
as the latter structuring oppositions within culture without collapsing them. For
Harpham, asceticism represents the ground upon which culture is constructed and
enables it to operate. In contrast to culture, asceticism creates an anti-culture that
calls the prevailing culture into question and yet supports it. Harpham’s position is
criticized by Valantasis because the relationship between asceticism and culture is
8 Indian Asceticism

not about a deep cultural structure and cultural expressions, but is rather pertinent
to the integration of an individual with others. Valantasis clarifies his point: “At the
center of ascetical activity is a self who, through behavioral changes, seeks to become
a different person, a new self; to become a different person in new relationships; and
to become a different person to a new society that forms a new culture.”22
Valantasis proceeds to define asceticism as performances intended to inaugurate
an alternative culture, to enhance new social relations, and to create a new personal
identity. He identifies four elements of his definition of asceticism: performances,
culture, relationship, and subjectivity. These performances are characterized by
repetition and include intentionality.23 Valantasis goes on to identify four major
social functions of asceticism: (1) it enables a person to operate and thrive within
a re-envisioned or re-created world; (2) it provides a method for translating several
theoretical and strategic concepts into patterns of behavior; (3) this re-envisioning
of the world and human self necessitates a perceptual transformation that reflects
the ascetic’s different perception of the world; (4) it reveals other realms of knowl-
edge and understanding unknown prior to the practice of asceticism that are incor-
porated into the re-envisioned world.24
Arguing from within the context of the theory of evolution, Bronkhorst uses
ancient Indian and Christian evidence to argue for what he calls an “ascetic instinct”
that he thinks is an innate predisposition by individuals, and which he explains as
an interaction between the brain and language. The ascetic instinct is not associated
with strong emotions, unlike sexuality, and is not related to involvement in nature.
It is possible to imagine that his “ascetic instinct” would hinder human survival.
Bronkhorst does not think that asceticism reduces human chances for survival
because any survival reduction is countered by evolutionary developments related
to language in the prefrontal region of the brain. Therefore, the “ascetic instinct”
and its predisposition to denial and sexual abstinence are not contrary to long-term
human survival and are not contrary to the workings of the evolutionary opera-
tion of natural selection. Why did this instinct persist? Although it seems contrary
to natural selection, the “ascetic instinct” owes its existence to the development of
symbolic representation and language that also contributed to the rise in a notion
of a soul and disembodied spirits.25 This is an interesting point based on the theory
of evolution, but it seems possible to falsify it using the theory of evolution and the
role of natural selection against it because asceticism seems to be directly contrary to
the spirit of evolution and the importance of survival of a species. Why the evolving
brain would embrace the pain associated with the practice of asceticism seems to
be an intractable question. Bronkhorst does not provide a specific answer to such a
complicated question.
 Introduction 9

The Human Body and Ascetic Impulse

If we consider the human body in a cross-cultural way, it is possible to make some
general observations that go beyond the Indian context and inform us about essen-
tial features of the body that may or may not apply to Indian ascetics. It can be
generally agreed that ascetics follow their regimen of discipline in an embodied
condition and often mutilate their bodies in the process and/or bring it under con-
trol. Therefore, the human body is partially the locus of where the ascetic struggles
physically and plays out the drama of liberation in which he/she is engaged. The
ascetic often views his/her body as a hindrance and/or a vehicle that transports one
through life, with his/her body being a major obstacle to achieving their goal. While
not placing much emphasis on bodily experience, ascetics do regard the body as a
chore in the sense that it must be maintained with food and kept healthy enough
for the ascetic to attain his/her goal.26 But it is also in this embodied condition that
the ascetic experiences unimaginable powers that suggest more the status of a divine
being rather than a human being. When an ascetic works to control his/her body
in order to become detached from it, this rigorous practice ironically calls attention
to his/her body.
In the Indian cultural context, the human body is conceived as an entity in flux
within the cycle of time and subject to the power of time, functioning to transform
a body from infancy to adulthood to death. Pāli Buddhist texts constantly refer to
the impermanent nature of the body especially within the context of the chain of
causation, forming the fourth link of the chain along with the mind that is also
connected to ignorance. The popular Dhammapada, a postcanonical text, makes
the impermanent nature of the body evident when it compares it to a mirage (4.46),
a worthless piece of wood (3.41), a discarded pot (11.149), and a dilapidated chariot
(11.151). In Buddhist and Hindu texts, the human body is often imagined as a vehicle
that transports a person through life and at the end of a life a person—or more spe-
cifically, an immortal self/soul in Hinduism or karmic energy, or consciousness, as
in Buddhism—is reborn into a new body (BhG 3.15–20; Dhammapada 11.148). On
the battlefield where the dialogue in the Bhagavad Gītā unfolds, Krishna gives the
fainthearted Arjuna, who decides not to fight because he would be required to kill
friends, relatives, and former teachers, four reasons to fight, which are: the immor-
tality of the soul; certainty of death; duty as a warrior to fight; and avoidance of dis-
grace and dishonor upon oneself and one’s family. The first reason calls attention to
the immortal nature of the soul and contrasts this fact with the unreal and destruc-
tible nature of the body. When embodied a person is able to act and perform various
kinds of tasks that include working, walking, running, eating, sleeping, thinking,
and various kinds of religious actions. When in an embodied condition a person
10 Indian Asceticism

encounters other embodied beings with whom a person can socially inter-react and
communicate. These positive and pragmatic aspects of embodiment are balanced
by what are considered polluting aspects of the body, such as urinating, defecat-
ing, spitting, crying, menstruating for women, and engaging in sexual intercourse
for amorous partners. In addition to these examples of impurities, the human body
discharges at its margins other secretions such as saliva, phlegm, tears, skin, and
sweat. In Hinduism, these types of polluting substances and liquids entail necessary
social precautions to avoid polluting others or being polluted oneself. This type of
cultural scenario suggests that the human body is constantly under threat by the
continual inflow and outflow of impurities. The disgusting and impure aspects of
the human body are especially evident in Buddhist Pāli sources with references to
the body as a boil, a bag of excrement, an open wound, a foul-smelling heap of cor-
ruption, a charnel ground, or village sewage. The Milindapañha (26.1–42), a postca-
nonical Buddhist text recounting the dialogue between a learned monk and King
Milinda, recounts the thirty-two loathsome constituent parts of the human body
that include things that grow at the margins of the body (e.g., hair, nails, skin), inte-
rior parts of the body (e.g., bones, internal organs), and disgusting byproducts (e.g.,
feces, phlegm, pus, blood, sweat, tears, salvia, snot, synovia, and urine). Many of
these items are considered dirty in Indian culture and are evident on the surface of
the human body for others to witness.
Similar types of attitudes about the human body are present in Jainism, but the
emphasis is on freeing the human soul of karmic residues that confine the soul to the
body and result in rebirth of some form. If karma weighs down the soul and perme-
ates it, it is insufficient to discard the body at death because karmas that form bodies
might still remain, making it absolutely necessary to practice an arduous method
of asceticism in order to extinguish any subtle residues of karma. A dramatic result
of ceasing the flow of karma is evident with tīrthaṅkaras (ford-crossers, liberated
beings) on or just below the surface of their bodies because “hair and nails cease
to grow, the blood becomes milky, the body shines like crystal. Auspicious marks
appear on the body.”27 Among the Digambaras, the female body cannot possibly be
purified by asceticism and thus is not capable of attaining liberation, whereas the
Śvetāmbaras accept female bodies as perfectly capable of being purified of karma
and thus able to gain salvation.
Whether we imagine or accept it as real, dirt clings to the surface skin of bodies,
serving as a visible example of difference between an average person and an ascetic.
There is a paradoxical potential for the skin of the body to function as a mediator
between the self and society and simultaneously exclude each other.28 In the case
of ascetics, they use dirt to inscribe their bodies marking them different from the
bodies of others. This does not necessarily mean that ascetic bodies are disgusting
 Introduction 11

because dirt is not inherently dirty; it can refer to something more metaphorical
rather than something actually polluted. Masquelier clarifies this point in the fol-
lowing way: “Because dirt often stands for deviance, anyone that cannot, will not,
or should not fit into a particular social system or pattern can be defined as ‘dirty,’
polluting, or impure, regardless of whether that individual agrees with such a defini-
tion or even understands it.”29 Thus the skin and surface of the human body signify
transgression, but they can also indicate normativity and submission.
From another perspective, the human body is something substantive, resilient,
and fragile, which suggests that one can see and touch other bodies, execute ardu-
ous physical actions, and easily be injured or destroyed. Humans attempt to protect
their bodies by taking precautions to guard it, clothe it, wash it, feed it, and give it
medicine when necessary to cure an illness. If these observations are germane to
people within the world, they are not necessarily true of ascetic attitudes toward the
body that tend to be more negative by emphasizing the filthy aspects of the body. In
fact, Buddhaghoṣa, a renowned Buddhist scholar of the late fourth century C.E.,
calls attention to the impurity of the body by mapping its conception in a female
body, birth, nurturing, and eventually producing another impure body as an adult
(Vism 19.4). It is possible to find similar attitudes toward the body in Hindu ascetic
discourse where the human body is impure because it is produced by sexual inter-
course and passes through the urinary canal of a woman during birth. The ascetic
discourse consistently associates the body with excrement and other bodily dis-
charges, and renders the body as impure in its very essence.30
The human body, which is a product of a biological process of sexual intercourse,
genetic inheritance, and nurturing, is malleable because it can be trained to per-
form a plethora of actions. At the same time, a particular body is given to a person
at birth and limits what a person can do to a large extent. The given nature of the
body does not stop humans from attempting to modify it for a specific purpose such
as military, athletic, religious, or cultural uses. Religious modifications of the body
include practices, such as tonsure, circumcision, tattooing, scaring, fasting, celibacy,
or flagellation, which are also related to the ascetic regimen of bodily control.
It is only as an embodied being that a person can emotionally respond to his/her
sexual drive, causing a person to go to extreme lengths and sometimes committing
bizarre acts to satisfy his/her desires. By transgressing social norms about satisfying
one’s desires, a person might feel shame or guilt about choices made and actions
taken, or a person can attempt to control sexual urges by means of ascetic practices,
such as bodily control, a vow of celibacy, and/or meditation. It is common for a
person to be aware that his/her body is a sensitive substance, which suggests that a
human body is also a complex combination of feelings and emotions, something vis-
ible and tangible, and an entity located in time and space. An embodied person can,
12 Indian Asceticism

for instance, touch other bodies or be touched by other bodies, features of embodi-
ment that possess important implications for human sensations, such as smell, taste,
hearing, and perception.
Besides all the actions that a body can perform within its location in time and
space, the human body can become a sign or a symbol that often functions in a
self-referential manner and as other-referential by means of its ability to give itself
meaning. By becoming a symbol, a body can function as a bridge connecting nature
and culture, or it can become an ambivalent entity. And as a symbol, the body can
embody and reveal cultural values and attitudes. From the period of the ancient
Vedic texts in India, the body has functioned as a symbol of a hierarchically ordered
society (RV 10.90) with the head, or superior part of the body, representing the
priestly caste and the lowest caste being represented by the feet. Thus, touching the
feet of another person is indicative of one’s inferior status in relation to the other.
Likewise, striking someone with a shoe or sandal is an insult and a way of polluting
another person.
In addition to its ability to function as a sign or symbol, the human body is sim-
ply flesh, an expression of its lustful nature that renders the body threatening and
dangerous. This aspect of the body, a biologically given feature, calls for control
and regulation by social processes, with asceticism serving as an excellent example
of this aspect of the body. Social and cultural practices exerted upon the body are
often intended to control and shape human bodies, behavior, and discourses associ-
ated with them. Although the body is biologically given to a person, it is addition-
ally constructed by social and cultural discourses that define its shape, the way it
behaves, and manner in which it interacts with other bodies. The way that social
and cultural discourses operate informs us that the human body exceeds being a
biological gift because it is something constructed by social and cultural forces.
Even though the body is socially constructed, it continues to play a role in mental
conceptualization.31 Over a period of time, the Indian ascetic’s body shows signs of
its own social construction because it is marked in a very distinctive manner that
differentiates it from those following a more well-recognized, ordinary social and
family mode of existence associated with economic activities necessary for survival,
whereas the ascetic’s body forms the location of a creative relationship between
power and knowledge, a point that can be clarified by looking at the way ascetics
mark their bodies.
The embodied Indian ascetic experiences his/her body in a paradoxical way
because it is a means by which the ascetic practices austerities, but it is also a potential
trap that ties him/her to the world of contingency. What is at stake for the ascetic
is expressed by Hausner in the following way: “In ideal terms, being a renouncer
mediates between these two poles; the renouncer’s body is the link between the
 Introduction 13

spatial-historical plane of social and material process and the transcendent, unified
place of knowledge.”32
Within the context of Indian culture, the body and discipline of the Hindu
ascetic function as a model for an Indian wrestler. But this apparent sameness is still
diametrically opposed because the body of the wrestler represents vigor, strength,
and health, whereas the emaciated body of the ascetic is more akin to death. Even
though the disciplines of wrestling and asceticism are different, Alter calls attention
to their underlying similarity, which he attributes to the somatic philosophy of yoga
and lack of transcendent attitudes toward the wrestler’s body, which tends to be
grounded in the ethical-moral world.33

Marked Body of the Indian Ascetic

After making a decision to adopt an ascetic way of life in their biologically given
and socially constructed bodies, Indian ascetics create their own bodies by marking
them in particular ways that distinguish them from ordinary members of society by
means of practicing their regimen of discipline, which includes detachment from
the world, society, their own corporality, and the bodies of others. These marks or
characteristics make it easy for people within society to recognize their religious
status outside of normal social intercourse and on the margins of Indian culture.
More specifically, Indian ascetics mark their bodies by eating habits (including for
example types and amounts of food, means of procuring it, and fasting), care of
their hair, a possible vow of celibacy, and wearing certain types of clothing. The role
of fasting in the lifestyle of the ascetic will be considered in c­ hapter 3 in relationship
to violence.
Ascetic figures are classified in Indian texts according to duties prescribed by
their stage of life, according to begging habits, according to the number of staffs that
they carry, according to their type of begging bowl, and according to their eating
habits. Certain ascetics (kuticakas) beg from their children; others (bahudakas) beg
from Brahmin families; some ascetics (hamsas) are like wandering birds; and other
ascetics (paramahamsas) beg from all four castes without discrimination, according
to the historically later Aśrama Upaniṣad (4). A further distinction is made by the
Bhikśuka Upaniṣad (2–5) when it states that kuticakas live on eight mouthfuls of
food, bahudakas subsist on eight mouthfuls from Brahmin sages, hamsas consume
cow’s urine and other products from the cow, reducing their daily food consump-
tion by a single mouthful each day after starting with fifteen mouthfuls. Finally, the
paramahamsas live on eight mouthfuls of food. The Naradapurivrajaka Upaniṣad
(5.12–17) also discusses the location of the food consumption: kuticakas eat in a sin-
gle place, bahudakas eat like bees, hamsas eat food gathered from different locations,
14 Indian Asceticism

and paramahamsas beg from only five homes during an evening, using only their
hands as begging bowls. Buddhist monks and nuns are encouraged to beg randomly,
whereas Jain ascetics of the Śvetāmbara sect beg using small pots to collect food, and
the Digambara ascetics use their hands for the consumption of one meal a day.34
Besides the protruding bones and visible veins that provide a kind of symbolic
road map of the ascetic’s body and perceptual sign of the ascetic’s chosen lifestyle,
another visible aspect of the practitioner’s body is the hair or lack of it on the head
of the ascetic. Similar to nail clippings, spittle, skin, tears, feces, and urine, hair is
a bodily byproduct located on the margins of the human body. Because of the way
that hair is conceived and cared for, it carries cultural messages that provide insight
into the socio-religious practices and belief of a people. Hair can, for instance, indi-
cate a person’s social and/or religious status.
In ancient India, hair was considered to be a polluting substance. Shaving the head
and cutting the nails of a dead person was standard practice for funeral preparation
and a common way to remove pollution believed to be absorbed in and returned to
the hair. Therefore, a shaved head was symbolic of a corpse. Male members of the
Brahmin caste have traditionally worn a top-knot that signifies a person’s family
(gotra) and line of descent and thus serves as a visible sign of a person’s social iden-
tity, resulting in fixed family customs concerning the proper manner of wearing
one’s hair. The top-knot is based in a belief that the hair is the locus of a person’s vital
power and that a lock of hair can represent the individual.
Within the Indian cultural context, some ascetics shave off all facial and scalp
hair, while others let their hair grow into a tangled and matted mess. By shaving
off his top-knot or entire head, an ascetic is making a dramatic gesture about com-
pletely rejecting his/her caste, former identity, and family lineage, an extremely
radical step in a culture that places a high value on family relationships. Besides rep-
resenting a radical break with his line of descent and his/her past social identity, the
shaved head signifies that a person is no longer a part of society. Since they no longer
possesses any social role or status, they exist on the margins of the prevailing social
order. Shaving is also symbolic of a return to a sexually and socially undifferentiated
status of an infant. Besides individuals renouncing the world, student initiation,
widowhood, and status as a criminal are also occasions that are marked by shaving
the head. These are examples of individuals living within a liminal condition that is
characterized by ambiguity, paradox, and transition.
Within the Buddhist monastic context, the shaven head of a monk or nun is sym-
bolic of monastic purity. As part of the ordination of a Buddhist monk or nun, his/
her head is shaved in a symbolic ritualization associated with death and rebirth. The
Buddhist monk or nun is considered dead to the world, while paradoxically being
alive at the same time. Shaving of the hair on the head and the removal of hair from
 Introduction 15

other parts of the body possesses important soteriological implications: being dead,

one cannot die again and being alive, one cannot be reborn. From a psychological
perspective, Gananath Obeyesekere interprets the shaven head of a monk as repre-
senting a symbolic castration because it is the location of unspent semen in India,
whereas long hair is a denial of castration.35 By shaving his head, a monk submits to
the social control of the monastic institution, and he ritually separates from society.
In comparison to the Buddhist preference to shave the head, Jain ascetics pull
out the hair on their head by hand when they decide to renounce the world, which
is, of course, an obviously more painful form of hair removal and a unique practice
among their ascetics. Mahāvīra is said to have pulled out all his scalp hair in five
handfuls. By slowly and painfully pulling the hair from one’s head (keśa-loca), ide-
ally in five handfuls similar to Mahāvīra, a Jain ascetic manifests a determination to
successfully meet the extreme rigors of his adopted lifestyle.36 The Scottish scholar
of Jainism, Paul Dundas, equates the extraction of hair as directly associated with
extreme austerity and rejection of sexuality.37
The alternative to the shaven head for an ascetic is to let his/her hair grow into
a long, disheveled, dirty, matted mess, which evokes different sexual connotations
compared to the shaven head. The long hair is the location for the deposit of unspent
semen and spiritual power.38 Long, disheveled hair signifies being dead to the world
along with dissolution and chaos in the metaphoric sense of the dissolving of social
bonds and the chaotic life of the wanderer. Among Śaiva ascetics, long dreadlocks
are indicative of a person’s length of time as an ascetic, rejection of ordinary life, and
power.39 Long hair can be conceived as a form of dirt, which represents matter out
of place and a substance that offends against order, whereas eliminating dirt (hair)
suggests that an individual organizes his/her environment and defends it against
the danger of pollution.40 Whatever the ascetic does with his/her hair—shaven or
grown long—a person leading an ascetic lifestyle represents a marginal social being
and someone in transition from bondage to liberation.
Besides a shaven head or long hair, another visible sign on the body of an ascetic
is their clothing or nudity. From a general perspective, clothing not only covers the
body, but also protects one from the weather, insects, and prickly thorns, helps a
person make a socio-economic statement when wearing expensive clothing, can
announce a person’s mode of employment or status in the case of wearing a uniform
or a clerical robe, can convey a message about whether or not one accepts or rejects
social convention, and in the case of unique clothing, can be used to mark a special
occasion. The donning of particular garments in certain contexts signifies particu-
lar responsibilities, duties, status, or power possessed by the wearer, while simulta-
neously conveying a message to others about one’s status and spiritual commitment
if the garment possesses religious significance.
16 Indian Asceticism

In Indian classical texts, ascetics are described as wearing animal hides, garments
made from tree bark, bird feathers, hair, and discarded rags (Rām 3.1.6–7; 3.89.6).
In the formative period of the Buddhist movement, monks or nuns used rags that
they sewed together. If they were given whole cloth, they would tear it apart into
smaller pieces and then sew the parts to make a whole robe, a practice suggestive of
rendering the cloth less valuable by tearing it apart. In contrast to Hindu ascetics,
Buddhist monks and nuns wore a more conservative uniform of their office, con-
sisting of three robes: an outer cloak, an inner robe worn as a toga, and a final robe
used as underclothing. Monks also used a strip of cloth that functioned as a belt in
order to keep their undergarment from falling down, while nuns were required to
wear an extra interior garment to conceal their breasts. The nun’s breast-protecting
garment was rooted in an episode when a strong wind blew up the outer robe of a
nun, resulting in her embarrassment and laughter at the awkward event by observers
(VinP 4.345). Buddhist robes were made of a variety of fabrics, although monks and
nuns were prohibited from decorating their robes with gold or silver trim or from
dyeing them a distinctive color. The donning of monastic robes was never intended
as a form of penance in Buddhism as might be the case in other religious cultures.
In addition to the three robes, monks and nuns were allowed to wear sandals made
from a single strand of rope while in public, but they tended to resort to bare feet
within the interior of the monastery. Overall, Buddhist monastic regulations
with regard to clothing resulted in a common and distinctive appearance for all
monks and nuns to the extent of blurring sexual distinctions and exhibiting social
homogeneity.
Along with the unusual clothing of Hindu ascetics and uniform robes of
Buddhist monastic members, many Śaiva ascetics and Jain monks, especially the
Digambara (wind-clad) sect, chose to go completely naked. Within Jain religious
history, the movement split over the issue of clothing or nakedness for its ascet-
ics, whereas the historical Buddha was opposed to nakedness for his monks and
nuns. The naked Jain ascetic is symbolic of their detachment from and renuncia-
tion of the world. Although nudity is a visible example of difference from normal
or non-ascetic members of society, this does not mean that it is something negative
because it is possible to view nudity as an odd form of dress that renders a per-
son other and exposes the essential self of a person.41 This Jain cultural acceptance
of nakedness motivates Jain artists to depict revered ascetic figures with exposed
sexual organs, whereas this is not true of Hindu or Buddhist artists who chose
to adorn the human body. Dehejia explains that “Ornament is auspicious; orna-
ment is protective; ornament makes the body complete, whole, beautiful, and
desirable.”42 Instead of the exposed sexual organs of the Jain ascetic, Hindu and
Buddhist artists used folds of clothing or a strategically placed hip-belt to conceal
 Introduction 17

the nude human body, an idealized physique incorporating “the essential elements
of the yogic body.”43
Reviewing Buddhist literature about making a gift of the body, Reiko Ohmuna is
able to demonstrate that negative and positive Buddhist views of the body are mutu-
ally related when one examines their context within a path that leads to detachment
from the body. Ohmuna draws a distinction between the worth and the worth-
lessness of the body, forming a context of two kinds of thinking that she claims
complement each other rather than contradicting each other. By being motivated to
conquer his attachment to his delusional self, a monk stresses the worthless aspect
of his body, whereas when he is motivated to attain higher spiritual goals there is
emphasis on the body and its worth.44 If a monk or nun sacrifices the worthless
body, this represents a positive outcome, transforming it from a vehicle of bondage
without value to one of freedom, which allows one to achieve an ideal body. This
scenario enables one to recognize that an apparent negative act of abandoning the
body thus becomes something positive and rewarding.45

Marking Female Bodies

If the bodies of Indian ascetics are marked in the ways discussed thus far, it is the
female body that is especially negatively defined, marked as dangerous and impure,
and made a focus of acute attention. Whatever the ascetic tradition, women are
generally depicted as obstacles on the path to liberation for the male ascetic with
the exception of left-hand Tantric movements. It is not unusual to find horrific
imagery in Buddhist Pāli literature equating the sexual organ of a woman to a poi-
sonous snake or a cave populated by snakes. Moreover, the body of a woman is the
epitome of impurity that negatively affects any ascetic coming into contact with
it. According to a narrative commentary on the Dhammapada, the comely Sirimā
becomes an erotic obsession of a Buddhist monk. As the narrative develops, the
beautiful woman dies and is finally encountered by the monk, who uses her dead
and decaying body as an object of meditation about the impermanence of life and
the human body in particular.46 This type of narrative and grotesque images of
females are intended to promote detachment from the body of a woman.
Western scholars demonstrate a fascination with the horrific ways that female
bodies are depicted, for instance, in Buddhist literature, manifesting both defensive
and critical positions. Hamilton offers a more middle position when she attributes
negative comments about the female body in Buddhist texts to Brāhmaṇical or non-
doctrinal influences, whereas the Buddhist view of the human body is analytical,
with Buddhaghoṣa diverging from the original material.47 Hamilton’s revisionist
interpretation neglects the pervasive nature of the negative references to the female
18 Indian Asceticism

body in Pāli literature. Other female scholars perceive a blatant misogyny and gyno-
phobic gaze by monastic writers.48 Criticizing such feminist scholars and defending
Buddhists, Rita Gross tends to see little distinction drawn by them between female
and male bodies with the exception of specific women.49
Within the Tantric religious milieu, women have an important place to play
with respect to helping male ascetics attain liberation via sexual techniques that are
highly ritualized. Along with male bodily fluids, the circulation of female sexual
fluids by means of yogic techniques is a way to transform the body into a vehicle of
liberation and not an obstacle to the ascetic’s goal. By retaining their bodily fluids,
women of the Baul movement and others, for instance, gain power, social mobility,
and freedom.50
Female participants not only gain power, but they are worshiped by male
partners. The Yonitantra (2.22–24) discusses, for instance, a male ascetic wor-
shiping the female sexual organ (yoni) in a rite called yonipūjā or kumārpūjā
that equates the female organ to a Vedic sacrificial altar. In addition to this
overt worship of the female sexual organ, the male participant is required to
offer his semen as a sacrificial gift at the altar of the female organ. This type of
rite suggests the powerful nature of bodily parts and fluids that operate to make
male and female ascetics even more powerful.
Within the everyday realm of women who are normally subordinate to males,
women can also perform religious vows (vratas) for the welfare of family members
or as thanks for cures or good fortune, which gives them a degree of personal auton-
omy, self-determination, and control. This voluntary activity is directed to a deity
from whom the practitioner expects a response. While taking a vow a woman can
refuse to have sexual relations with her husband as she not only controls her body,
but also purifies her mind. In addition to bodily control and purification of her
mind, a woman often practices fasting.51 These types of ascetic practices increase a
woman’s feminine power (śakti).
It is also possible to witness the ascetic nature of female vows in the region of
Bengal. The ascetic features of these vows involve, for example, self-torture while
lying before an image of the deity or crawling to a divine altar or shrine associ-
ated with the deity with the purpose of engendering possibly sympathy from
the deity but certainly action by the deity, who is usually an angry goddess.52
Another example of folk asceticism within a Tantric context is the use of three
pots containing hot charcoal, holding one in each hand, and balancing a third
pot on one’s head. Meanwhile, incense is used to create a thick smoke that a
participant must hold until the coals are extinguished.53 These practices are good
examples of the interweaving of asceticism, female religiosity, and power in the
greater culture of India.
 Introduction 19

The Vow of Celibacy

Celibacy, a refraining from sexual relationships, is an important invisible aspect of
marking the ascetic body, although the attire of an ascetic is often indicative of a
celibate status in the popular imagination. In order words, the robes of a Buddhist
monk or nun are also an outward manifestation of a celibate status. Celibacy is
actually a western term originating with the Latin term caelebs, which means “alone
or single.” The Latin term can be misleading because it is still possible to live in a
community setting with other celibates, requiring usually a community of the same
gender. What appears to be a rather simple notion about refraining from various
types of sexual practices is actually a complex practice because it is associated with
a religious culture’s worldview, divine paradigms, social values, gender relations,
ethical values, religious roles or offices, conception of the human body, and personal
power.54
Within the classical Indian cultural context, celibacy is called brahmacarya,
which refers both to students (brahmacārin) studying Sanskrit texts and those ascet-
ics who take a vow to maintain a celibate lifestyle. The term designating a student
stage of life and celibacy are derived from the same Sanskrit root and are thus nearly
synonymous terms. The life of a typical student shares numerous similarities with
that of the ascetic, such as celibacy, fasting, silence, begging, control of breath, not
cutting hair, beard, and nails, avoiding certain types of food, embracing the spirit of
renunciation, and performing meritorious deeds.55 While the āśrama system (stages
of human life) is crucial for the development of celibacy and the introduction of
ascetic values into Indian culture, the value of celibacy changes as it is domesticated,
creating a tension between domestic life and ascetic values.56
The social tension between ordinary citizens and ascetics is evident in a narra-
tive from the Mahābhārata (1.13.9–44). In this tale, Jaratkāru is the celibate ascetic
without a son to carry on his lineage. During his wanderings, he comes across his
ancestors, who find themselves in an extremely disagreeable and life-threatening
situation as they hang down in a hole, heads down, attached to a rope, which a rat is
about to gnaw through. The reason that they find themselves in such a predicament
relates to the fact that their lineage is soon to become extinct because the celibate
ascetic did not leave a son to carry on the family name. Jaratkāru feels sorry for his
ancestors, breaks his vow of celibacy, and produces a son, thereby saving his kin.
The sentiments expressed by this narrative about the importance of family and its
propagation are obviously based on real-life dilemmas.
Given the built-in social tension for the aspiring ascetic and his/her family, the
vow of celibacy is still essential for joining a Buddhist monastic community because
succumbing to sexual urges disrupts the community and hinders an individual’s
20 Indian Asceticism

spiritual progress.57 The Buddhist monastic prohibition against sexual relations

includes heterosexual, homosexual, lesbian sexual relations, bestiality, and forms
of masturbation because any type of sexual relation increases a person’s desires,
a form of personal defeat for a Buddhist monk or nun.58 Ordinary householders
are not expected to take a vow of celibacy and are expected to produce children,
although one may take a vow of celibacy for a short period of time for spiritual or
worldly reasons. It is not unusual for older married Buddhist and non-Buddhist
couples to adopt a vow of celibacy as they live a more spiritual life in the latter part
of their lives.
There are no cultural negotiations about celibacy among members of Jainism
between social and religious values about the wisdom or adequacy of practicing
celibacy for monks or nuns. In fact, celibacy fits comfortably into the social and
cultural values of the Jain religious worldview because of the shared conviction that
celibacy protects the soul from being afflicted by negative karmic consequences
associated with sexual activity. Since Jains believe that an act of sexual intercourse
destroys numerous single-sense creatures believed to dwell in the generative organs
of humans, there is thus a direct association between celibacy and nonviolence
(ahiṃsā), a principal virtue of the religion. There is also an emphasis in Jain culture
that householders should restrict sexual activity to certain times, have a single part-
ner, and curb the sexual drive by periodically observing celibacy.59
When Indian ascetics, Buddhist monks and nuns, or Jain monks and nuns take
a vow of celibacy they are not merely rejecting sexual relations, but they are also
adopting a sacred status and non-verbally demanding economic support from soci-
ety. Embedded within Buddhist culture, there is an expectation that monks and
nuns will be paragons of virtue worthy of communal support in the forms of pro-
viding shelter, food, clothing, and medicine for the monastic community. The laity
does not want to squander the merit earned by giving to unvirtuous and unworthy
monks and nuns because the greatest amount of merit is gained by giving to the
most virtuous. Likewise, monks and nuns are under social and cultural pressure to
conform to the highest religious expectations of the laity. For their social support
and generosity, monks and nuns give back to the lay community by sharing lessons
and sermons based on the teachings of the Buddha, conducting funeral rites, and
participating in certain festivals.
In general terms, an ascetic vow of celibacy reflects the values of a religious move-
ment and a concern for maintaining purity, order, unity, and perfection. If sexual
relations are considered polluting and dangerous in the various religious movements
discussed, celibacy represents part of a process of becoming holy, complete, perfect,
and clean. Writing about the Hindu Rāmānandī sect and its ascetics’ practice of cel-
ibacy, van der Veer calls attention to the fact that celibacy creates a social boundary
 Introduction 21

between laity and holy persons, a phenomenon that is also true of Buddhists and
Jains.60 There is also a direct correlation between celibacy and power of an ascetic
in Indian religions as evident in the following chapters, whereas its opposite—loss
of power—is associated with deviating from the ascetic path by resuming sexual
activity.
Several scholars have called attention to a semen anxiety among male ascetics
within the context of the vow of celibacy that possesses social, religious, political,
and psychological implications. An ascetic can protect his semen by controlling his
body and curbing his desires. An ascetic wants to retain his semen because it rep-
resents a powerful fluid, a vitality, an ability to teach, and is connected to physical
beauty and the truth.61 The ascetic’s discourse about sexuality gets introduced into
public life. Alter clarifies this point:

To be sure this is not an erotic sexuality. It is more of a banal or quotidian

sexuality that is focused on the microphysics of personal health. Sexuality is
integrated into everyday life so that control can be effected over the ebb and
flow of a person’s biomoral essence. For the brahmachari, sexuality is an open,
pervasive and public issue.62

Within the discourse of the ascetic, there is also a connection between heat and
semen within the ascetic’s body, and it is celibacy that enables the ascetic to save and
retain the heat associated with semen.63 By means of eating hot foods and losing
control of one’s sexual drive, it is possible to lose semen, which makes one weak and
susceptible to ill health.64 The possibility of losing semen by improper eating habits
or succumbing to sexual passion is also part of the discourse surrounding anxiety
over losing semen.

Asceticism and Pain

Reference made previously to Jain ascetics pulling out clumps of scalp hair evokes
painful connotations. This practice and other forms of extreme asceticism are
very painful. Even a mild form of asceticism, such as sitting in meditation, can
inflict pain on the meditator’s bodily joints, back, and leg muscles. Devoid of an
object, pain is a universal, embodied human experience that can be distinguished
from mere suffering, an emotional and evaluative reaction to many different types
of causes of which some are entirely painless.65 In comparison to suffering, pain
is a sensation associated with tissue or bone damage. For Buddhism, suffering is
the general condition of life in which pain may play a role among other types of
causes. Pain can be defined as “a sensation that is tangled with mental and even
22 Indian Asceticism

cultural experiences.”66 It is possible to find a connection between pain and magi-

cal thinking:

Pain is an alchemical force, like the forger’s fire, which magically transforms
its victim from one state of existence to a higher, purer state. Or the pain
inflicted by striking or biting acts like an agricultural instrument that magi-
cally produces growth. Finally, pain can be the mysterious source of superhu-
man powers.67

These superhuman powers are grounded in asceticism and meditation in the Indian
cultural context.
Pain can also be considered involuntary or voluntary, with the former resulting
from an accident or a disease, whereas the latter type of pain involves a personal
decision and self-infliction. The pain experienced by ascetics normally tends to be of
the second type. The pain usually experienced by ascetics occurs within the context
of an ascetic worldview that contributes to making sense of it. Sometimes, the pain
experienced by an ascetic appears visibly on his/her body, but within the context of
the worldview adopted by the ascetic pain is considered meaningful and leads to
an expectant goal. The context within which pain occurs is decisive for grasping its
meaning, which is often associated generally with control of the body or purifica-
tion of it.
Pain possesses the ability to transform a person, provide insight into human
existence, evoke meaning, open a path to salvation, and inspire a person’s imagina-
tion. In contrast to these positive results, pain can also cause a person to become
decentered, leading to personal disintegration and psychological dissociation, and
triggering powerful emotions, which may become objectified and projected onto
objects, although pain can also enhance the possibility of grasping reality. For the
Indian ascetic, pain not only marks the body both invisibly and visibly, but it is also
directly relates to gaining power. As one scholar puts it, pain can be turned into
power: “Thus, the endurance of force, usually in the form of pain, yields power to
the one enduring it.”68
The relationship between pain and asceticism is even evident with the contempo-
rary practice of yoga, a type of practice that leads to injuries to its adherents. Various
western medical journals are among the first to report injuries associated with yoga,
with others pointing to its benefits as an agent of renewal and healing by lower-
ing blood pressure, producing chemicals that function as antidepressants, and even
enhance your sex life. According to an article in the New York Times, critics of yoga
point to postures that can cause harm and pain when by placing weight and stress on
the cervical vertebrae, rib cage injuries, tearing Achilles tendons, depriving oxygen
 Introduction 23

to the lower spine and deadening the nerves, quick or excessive neck movements can
lead to strokes or other brain injuries, and strokes related to a reduction of blood
flow to the basilar artery.69 Within India, there are rationalists who use subterfuge
to subvert any ascetic-like figure claiming to possess supernatural powers, which
causes disenchantment with the world. By means of rational calculation, a person is
able to master the world and to see that there are no mysterious forces beyond the
powers of rationalism to grasp.70 This type of ability leads the rationalist to feel dis-
enchanted with the world in general and ascetics in particular. Disenchantment can
also be connected to social pressure to conform, which members of a given culture
can reject, but it is difficult to recapture spontaneous participation in one’s culture
and to totally liberate oneself from the narratives of a culture. This scenario helps
us to understand in part the rationale for calling an ascetic movement a “religion of
resistance,” which is designated heterodox by the predominant religious tradition
and advocates of the status quo.71

Hagiogr aphy
Because this study of asceticism and power uses discourses and narratives about
ascetics to illustrate the notion of power, it will necessarily be using material con-
nected to hagiography (from the Greek terms hağios for “holy” and graphēin “to
write”), which literally refers to revered writings about a holy person that works
to preserve the memory of the holy figure. In the Christian context, these stories
are considered most effective when they imitate the life of Jesus.72 These holy per-
sons stand apart from normal people and are imitated and venerated. It is possible
to make a distinction between sacred biography and hagiography, with the former
being defined as accounts composed by followers or devotees, while hagiography
is restricted to accounts of charismatic figures.73 But both of them share mythical,
fictional, and historical characteristics that are created into a sacred history com-
posed of myth, legend, and popular piety that manifests a rhetorical strategy by the
author(s). Hagiographical writing is partly an attempt to preserve the memory of
the subject, to function as a mediator between the holy person and followers, and to
recruit others to the movement. The preservation of the life of the exemplary person
also includes a chronicle of the way followers have remembered the holy person and
their experience of the sacred person. Therefore, hagiography operates not merely to
preserve the life of the sacred subject, but also to record the experiences of those who
have been influenced by that life.74
Sacred narratives are found cross-culturally, although their different context does
not free them from becoming stereotypical descriptions of sacred persons. This sug-
gests that hagiographers borrow from a common cultural source of religious motifs
24 Indian Asceticism

and patterns to construct their tales. By using historical, mythical, and legendary
elements in the construction of their narratives, hagiographers create “mythohis-
torical” products that are invitations for others to imitate and/or revere the depicted
subject by inspiring one’s imagination, shaping one’s belief, and encouraging imi-
tative practice. It is thus difficult to discern a chronological account of a subject’s
life because his/her virtues and religious achievements tend to be emphasized by
the composer. These sacred biographies refer to both the past and present, medi-
ate between the ideal and what is real, and function as a didactic tool.75 What a
reader receives is an ideal portrait of a subject bereft of personal faults and weak-
nesses. Thus, rather than a complete and objective portrait, the composer stresses
the sanctity of the subject. Because hagiographies are embellished pious narratives,
it is impossible for a reader to grasp their accuracy and truthfulness, although the
stories are realistic in order for readers to feel comfortable with them and to be able
to relate them to their current world.
Hagiography provides a paradigm for a particular type of religious figure.
If we consider narrative within an evolutionary context, it is possible to argue
that it represents a pre-linguistic mimetic form of communication that changed
human consciousness and our mode of thinking.76 Armin Geertz characterizes
narrative as an inter-relational speech act, a story of a protagonist involved in a
sequence of events, and one that exhibits either a formal or informal structure,
can be co-created by the story teller and his/her audience, assumes cultural val-
ues acting as cognitive and social functions, promotes the illusion of an individ-
ual, contributes to self-construction, supervises social relationships, stimulates
our neurochemistry, and makes utmost use of the brain’s ability to map events
and things.77
Narratives also function didactically in the sense of precisely demonstrating ideal
models for religious life within a particular tradition, employing cosmologies and
teachings already accepted by followers. A good illustration of the didactic func-
tion of narrative in the Indian cultural context is the composite of Hanumān in the
epic Rāmāyaṇa, a figure often portrayed in popular art as a muscular wrestler. He
is also a celibate figure who wears a red langoti (loincloth). He possesses great yogic
powers such as the ability to change his bodily form at will. The source of his power
is grounded in his celibacy, which affords him complete control over the energy
connected to semen.78 Hanumān’s asceticism is unique because it occurs within the
context of devotion to Rāma, a divine kingly figure.79
Hagiographical literature also combines paradigmatic thinking that provides a
system of categories and concepts with narrative thinking that depicts experience by
locating it in particular times and places. These two types of thinking complement
 Introduction 25

each other because paradigmatic thinking produces a whole system, while narra-
tive thinking generates particular stories. Within a particular hagiography, paradig-
matic and narrative thinking reinforce and legitimate each other.
Hagiographers function as mediators and recruiters to a religious movement by
both communicating their stories by means of providing a chronicle of the holy per-
son and preserving the memory of the holy person for his/her followers.80 By telling
the story of the life of a holy person, the hagiographer is part of a communicative
exchange between the holy person and his/her followers, who confirm the status of
the holy person. Therefore, hagiography is more than an account of the holy person’s
life, because it also records the experiences of others to the narrative of the holy
person.81
Within the Indian cultural context, there is a connection between ascetics, kings,
and gods in hagiographical literature. Granoff draws attention to the close cor-
relation between the lives of ascetics and kings in Sanskrit literature, where royal
biographies serve as models for hagiographies of holy persons.82 With respect to
deities and ascetics, some biographies depict a god becoming incarnate as a holy
person. According to religious tradition, Śiva incarnates himself as Śaṅkara with
the goal of defeating heretical demons. Ungemach claims that elements of Śaṅkara’s
legend are borrowed from the legends surrounding the lives of Gorakhnāth and
Matsyendranāth of the Nāth-Yogins.83 Whatever the true historical situation, the
scenario of a divine incarnation is indicative of a thin line between divine beings
and holy figures in Indian religious culture.
Upagupta and Śāriputra are, for instance, two Buddhist monks who exemplify
Buddhist virtues and truths and are subjects of hagiographical literature along with
the historical Buddha. Śāriputra, who is considered second in stature and authority
to the Buddha during their lives together, is depicted as a paragon of humility, com-
passion, wisdom, and patience. He is also remembered and depicted as an expert in
the more philosophical Abhidharma literature. Upagupta, a very handsome man,
is depicted as an accomplished monk who is able to resist the entreaties of the most
beautiful harlot in the area. After she is severely punished with disfigurement for
murder of a lover, Upagupta demonstrates his compassion for her by teaching her
the Buddhist doctrine.84
It is important to observe that the term hagiography is criticized by some scholars
because the stories are glowing accounts about the subject, mixed with mythical and
legendary elements, and represent uncritical descriptions of a person that lack much
trustworthy content, and these scholars want to replace the term with “sacred biog-
raphy” in order to escape the negative associations characteristic of hagiography. 85
But other scholars want to retain hagiography for narratives about saints, mystics,
26 Indian Asceticism

prophets, and other charismatic figures, while sacred biography should be saved for
stories initiated by followers or devotees of a religious founder.
In contrast to narrative language, discourse is more than gossip or common social
talk and dialogue. Social and cultural discourse is inseparable from a discipline such
as asceticism and helps to shape it. Thus discourse focuses on social subjects and
their consciousness, which is shaped by certain ideologies. Discourse is also associ-
ated with power that works to shape, regulate, construct, and exclude extraneous
elements. The resulting discursive knowledge created by discourse renders possible
what can be said and what cannot be part of the discussion.86
In addition to its connection to power, discourse is also related to violence in the
sense that it imposes its linguistic order on a cultural world, thereby, functioning as
an instrument of power.87 Within this interconnection of power and violence, the
Indian ascetic is a human being with agency to act in such a way as to be a form of
resistance against cultural and historical forces. Based on what I have related about
the characteristics of an ascetic and how he/she is represented by the literary culture
of India, it is possible to confirm that this entire process is a form of violent dis-
course within the context of a process of repetitive representation.

Plan of This Study

At the beginning of this study, it is important to acknowledge that I intend to
use the term “ascetic” in a broad sense to include figures that are more specifically
examples of monks, nuns, seers, mystics, renouncers, saints, or yogis in certain
contexts. By following this path, my net of relevant material gets wider and richer
with respect to the examples of holy persons manifesting certain powers. Hence,
this study uses hagiographical, epic, biographical, and religio-philosophical
materials to illustrate the relation between asceticism and power in Indian
religious culture. This type of an approach enables us to examine the eptisme, a
cluster of ideas that are often invisible, that forms the conceptual and cultural
context associated with ascetic practice and discourse about it. 88 Moreover, this
approach enables us to view Indian examples of asceticism and power in their
socio-cultural context.
Rather than attempt to define power at this early point of the study, I propose
to give examples of discourses, narratives, and texts about ascetics and their use of
power. I intend to get beyond political uses of power and to offer a preliminary the-
ory of it in the final chapter after examining various narratives about Indian ascetics
and reviewing both the types of powers exhibited by ascetics and the relationship
between violence, the demonic, language, and play (including eroticism, the comic,
 Introduction 27

and miracles), an approach that gives this study an opportunity to demonstrate the
complex interconnections between these phenomena and power. Many scholars
write about power without attempting to define or develop a theory of it that is
outside of the political realm because of the elusive nature of power and its assumed
obvious aspects to scholars. The final chapter attempts to rethink the nature of
power that is informed by the evidence of the preceding chapters.
 2
The Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism

The banyan tree with its many roots growing into the soil and growing
upward only to bend back into the ground represents an apt view of the history of
Indian asceticism because it is impossible to determine with precision the exact
origins of asceticism in the Indian subcontinent, just as it is difficult to identify
the original trunk of a banyan tree. Not being able to isolate an Ur-asceticism in
India, we can, however, recognize the emergence of several ascetic groups that
include multiple Hindu ascetic movements of one or more individuals around a
single influential leader, and other groups that formed more enduring organiza-
tions such as the Buddhists and Jains, respectively around Siddhārtha Gautama
and Mahāvīra. These ascetic movements, along with the Ājīvikas lead by Gosāla,
emerged around the sixth and fifth centuries BCE with their own identity and
partly as reactions to the prevailing Brāhmaṇical priestly culture of the ancient
Vedas. From the orthodox priestly perspective, Buddhists and Jains were examples
of nāstikas (those that did not accept the truth of the Vedas as divinely inspired
scriptures). A substantial body of folklore accompanied the various ascetic move-
ments that related narratives about the lifestyle, appearance, and adventures of
awe-inspiring and culturally revered ascetic figures. This chapter gives some exam-
ples of these narratives from epic literature toward the end of it.
The literary tradition also contains narratives about ascetic charlatans, but
even these tales reflect the awe, if not respect, in which ordinary people hold
ascetics. Hemacandra, a medieval Jain monk and writer, illustrates false ascetics
28
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 29

when he relates the tale of two junior monks who could obtain little food by beg-
ging during a famine. Apprehensive about starving to death, they used a magic
eye-ointment to become invisible in order to get food by eating from the king’s
plate. They are eventually discovered when dense smoke made their eyes water and
they lost their invisibility.1 With tales of false or genuine ascetics, Hemacandra
espoused an influential cultural role for the centrality of asceticism in human
existence by writing, “Without asceticism, life is inhuman and without any pur-
pose.”2 Hemacandra’s assertion about the central role of asceticism in Indian cul-
ture might be a bit overstated, but it does capture much of the spirit of asceticism
within the culture.
Around the fourth century CE, the legendary Patañjali collected elements
associated with ascetic practices in order to serve as a guidebook for others; this
became the Yoga Sūtras. In his attempt to bring unity to the various preexist-
ing yogic traditions, Patañjali gathered together various elements into aphoristic,
cryptic, and esoteric statements (sūtras) that lent themselves more to remembrance
and oral transmission. Because the text was incomprehensible, it invited commen-
taries by authorities with the intention of rendering the text comprehensible to
the uninitiated. The Yoga Sūtras consisted of four parts with about three quarters
of the text focusing on technique and the third part of the text concerned with
powers gained by yogis practicing the various disciplines. Hence a quarter of the
text was concerned with these various supernatural powers called in the intro-
duction to chapter three vibhūtis, but renamed siddhas in the remainder of the
chapter. A reader is informed that these powers are a result of practicing the final
three parts (saṃyama) of the path to liberation that begins with concentration
(dhāraṇi) and includes meditation (dhyāna) and absorption (samādhi), and all
major commentators agree that the various powers are results of practicing yoga,
but are not the goal of the yogic path. Practitioners are warned not to become
attached to the powers gained by yogis because they are a trap that keeps a yogi
attached to the world. Nonetheless, within the context of a “how-to manual,” it is
curious that an entire quarter of the book is devoted to powers (siddhas). Patañjali
obviously considered the acquisition of powers to be an essential aspect of the
yogic path. This apparent oddity of the text puzzles scholars, and various attempts
have been made by scholars of yoga to attempt to make sense of this feature of the
text. In the following chapter we consider this text more fully and examine what
it tells us about the nature of powers acquired by the ascetic. Because these various
types of power are a central focus of this study, it is advisable to review interpre-
tations of these powers by different scholars, placing asceticism in its historical
context from its origins to the contemporary era.
30 Indian Asceticism

Scholarly Interpretations of Ascetic Powers

In his magisterial, multivolume work on the dharmaśāstra literature, P.  V. Kane
calls attention to the integral part that the siddhas (powers) play in the Yoga Sūtras.3
Kane asserts that his opinion is based on the fact that there are 35 references to sid-
dhas in the text out of a grand total of 195 sūtras. Kane goes on to discuss the origins
of the various powers according to Patañjali.
An early discussion of the importance of ascetic powers in the West was offered
by Charles Rockwell Lanman of Harvard University in 1917 for the American
Philological Association. Lanman thinks that the practice of asceticism is motivated
by the promise of its rewards. Lanman argues that some yogic powers are indubita-
bly instances of hypnosis as in the case of entering another body and gaining power
over the will of another person.4
Max Weber, a preeminent and influential German sociologist, published The
Religion of India in 1920, where he discusses the importance of Indian asceticism,
which he describes as “the most rationally developed in the world.”5 Weber traces its
origins to the practice of “magical ecstasy” with the purpose of acquiring magical
powers that extended to control of the gods, who also practiced asceticism. Indian
ascetics are characterized as “possessors of holy charisma and even revered as saints
and wonder workers, giving them a power the Brahmans wished to monopolize for
themselves.”6 The charisma (a Greek term referring to grace, favor, or gift) to which
Weber points is characterized as a charisma of knowledge in the Indian cultural
context. For Weber, an ascetic’s attainment of powers is a personal achievement that
is not confined to any single group status. Weber thinks that the orgiastic-ecstatic
features of Indian asceticism point to something irrational and connects it to neu-
ropathic states, a stance that anticipates the approach of cognitive science to some
degree. According to Weber, charisma is a relational notion because it is based on
perceptions of others that a particular person is endowed with extraordinary quali-
ties, which renders it an ideal type and gives the charismatic authority to lead oth-
ers, although such leadership is unpredictable and unstable. Taking what he terms
an “other-worldly asceticism,” Weber also writes about a “this-worldly asceticism,”
which he defines as an ordered, diligent, and temperate life that is suited to the
development of an economic system such as capitalism. Dumont, a French sociolo-
gist, characterizes Weber’s theory as “a miracle of empathy and sociological imagina-
tion.” 7 In spite of Dumont’s strong endorsement of Weber’s theory, other thinkers
would make their own contributions to the study of powers acquired by ascetics.
The earliest systematic scholarly study of the powers in Hinduism and Buddhism
is Siddhi und Abhiññā: Eine Studie über die klassischen Wunder des Yoga, written by
Sigurd Lindquist and published in 1935. Comparing yogic siddhas with Buddhist
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 31

ṛddhis, Lindquist conflates them with his psychological approach, and argues for
their equivalence. He argues that powers are mental states brought about by a
process of hypnosis, which results in a subjective creation of mental illusions and
hallucinations.8 Therefore, he reduces various types of powers to psychological
phenomena. Overby warns against such a conflation of yogic and Buddhist pow-
ers because it is misleading, and creates a false impression about the traditional
development of these powers. Thereby, Lindquist’s approach misses instances of
importation and appropriation of the powers.9
Prior to Lindquist’s study of the powers associated with the practice of yoga, J. W.
Hauer published Die Anfange der Yoga: Praxis imalten Indien in 1922, and in 1958 he
published Der Yoga: Ein Indischer Weg zum Selbst. In the latter study, Hauer indi-
cates that the powers are part physiological and part psychological.10 Hauer is also
interested with finding the origins of yoga, which he traces to a group of wandering
ascetics called Vrātyas, whom he identifies as Aryan, although not belonging to the
orthodox Brāhmaṇic priesthood.11 The Vrātyas are a group that worshiped a primal
god known by several names.
Written during the same time of Hauer’s second book, Mircea Eliade’s
Yoga: Immortality and Freedom, an influential work based on his doctoral research
in India and published in Paris in 1954 before its translation into English in 1958,
reflects the scholar’s approach to the study of religion and his theory of religion.
Eliade likens the yogi, for instance, to a magician, the acquisition of powers to a
nostalgia for a divine condition, and “Yoga leads to a mythological perfection, the
very perfection enjoyed by the personages of the Indian pantheon.”12 For someone
who writes about initiation, it is not surprising that Eliade also finds an initiatory
aspect to the practice of yoga and the attainment of powers. Eliade observes that the
knowledge obtained by a yogi is akin to something both grandiose and paradoxi-
cal because it is equivalent to an appropriation: “For obtaining direct revelation of
the puruṣa is at the same time to discover, to experience, an ontological modality
inaccessible to the noninitiate.”13 As a phenomenologist, Eliade does not raise the
question about the literal validity of the various powers by bracketing-out such a
question because he wants to understand the powers on their own religious level and
not impose his opinions and biases on the textual evidence.
Gaspar Koelman, a Jesuit scholar of yoga, is critical of Eliade’s position, although
he does agree about the magical quality of the powers. Koelman claims that it is not
a yogi’s acquisition of perfect knowledge about matter (prakṛti) that forms a direct
link to the powers, but it is rather “psychological and psychical pacification that
matters.”14 Koelman views the acquisition of powers as an ascendancy of spirit over
matter and not simply an extraordinary intuitive insight into the nature of reality
32 Indian Asceticism

that Eliade seems to suggest to him, resulting in a recovery of the self, its absolute
awareness, and complete freedom.
Similar perspectives on yogic powers are offered by Corrado Pensa, Georg
Feuerstein, and Gerhard Oberhammer. Viewing powers as intrinsic to the yogic
path, Pensa thinks that they represent specializations connected with the path
to liberation, but he also sees them as spurious aspects or magical residues with-
out a textual foundation.15 Feuerstein agrees with Pensa that powers do not
fit into the text, refers to them as the magical aspect of the yogic path, asserts
that they conflict with Patañjali’s rationalism, and wonders why this is the
case.16 According to Oberhammer, Patañjali’s compiling of inherited elements
of yoga into a consistent discipline represents the attempt to synthesize two
forms of meditation:  samādhi (concentration) and samāpattih (unification),
which manifest different structures. In fact, unification is a method intended
to appropriate a belief or truth without a real object because it only possesses
representations and ideas.17 In another work, he acknowledges the importance
of yogic powers in the Yoga Sūtras that he traces to a foundational stage of the
development of the practice of yoga before it is superseded and humanized by
Buddhism and Sāṃkhya.18
In contrast to Feuerstein, Pensa, and Oberhammer, Jean Filliozat, a French
scholar, argues that the various powers are “not miraculous in the sense of a suspen-
sion of the laws of nature, but they are deemed to be realizable through a higher
and even integral knowledge of the laws of nature.”19 Filliozat offers a physiologi-
cal explanation of some powers by the yogi who manipulates his/her external and
internal body.20 According to Filliozat, the yogi gains control by means of his/her
practice of the muscular synergies of the body and/or the neuro-vegetative system.
Obeyesekere, a psychoanalytic anthropologist of South Asia, argues that yogic
powers are reflections of a penetration into the depths of consciousness, and are
connected to ego identity. By entering into meditative absorption, the ascetic
comes into contact with deep recesses of the unconscious that are interrelated to
an area where symbol creating occurs an area that forms the foundation for cul-
ture. What Obeyesekere calls hypnomantic states include dream, trance, ecstasy,
and concentration, which form models for myths that are logically ordered and
coherent, representing ancient forms of knowing with a narrative structure. This
implies that a narrative myth is modeled on a dream, yet removed from that dream,
but the images created in the dream are consonant with the prevailing cultural
symbols and meaning. 21 Thus culture and dreams influence each other. Developing
the implications of Obeyesekere’s position, although he does not mention ascetic
powers specifically, we can affirm that powers are a product of hypnomantic states
developed into narratives.
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 33

If the ecstatic person subordinates ordinary, delusional reality to a deeper reality

that governs that person’s existence, is such a person irrational? Obeyesekere gives
two reasons why the ecstatic’s behavior is not irrational: “First, the ecstatic is acting
in terms of the supramundane reality that he has constructed for himself; second,
the average citizen does not see the behavior of the ecstatic as ‘abnormal,’ only differ-
ent from his, but intelligible according to the central values of the culture that both
share.”22 Moreover, the ecstatic continues to adhere to the pleasure principle because
the new level of reality is meaningful and bearable. By taking into consideration
extreme forms of asceticism, it is questionable whether or not the ascetic conforms
to the pleasure principle as Obeyesekere claims because the ascetic represents a para-
doxical exception to any pleasure principle. The fourth and fifth chapters of this
book address issues of violence associated with the ascetic, and call into question any
pursuit of a pleasure principle by the ascetic.
Another scholarly viewpoint about the powers of ascetics is offered by Gerald
Larson. After agreeing with previous scholars that Patañjali’s assertion about the
powers are obstacles to attainment of concentration, Larson acknowledges that the
powers are part of the common experience for yogis. Larson cites two sūtras (YS
3.37; 3.51) that embody a skeptical cautionary attitude toward the powers, which he
claims proves that the powers are not intended to be taken literally. He concludes
that “These powers are most likely imaginative (kalpita) fantasies that arise in the
process of doing yoga . . . ”23 He goes on to claim that the powers do not play any role
as signs or marks of progress on the path. Larson’s evidence does not prove what
he claims because the two textual references cited are both warnings and not skep-
tical expressions about whether or not the yogi actually gains and exercises such
extraordinary powers. Moreover, Larson does not take the powers seriously. Why
would Patañjali link saṃyama techniques with specific powers? This is a question
that Larson does not answer. It is as if Larson cannot accept the possible reality of
the various powers and injects his personal skepticism into his interpretation, which
is perfectly understandable for a person living in the twenty-first century that is far
removed from the time period of the text compiled by Patañjali.
A different approach with respect to yogic powers is offered by Steven Phillips
in his fine study of yoga philosophy. Since powers are an obstacle to concentration
(samādhi), this is an excellent example of voluntarism, according to Phillips, because
the “claim that siddhas follow upon thought and emotion coming under the control
of the conscious being . . . ”24 What Phillips means by voluntarism is not simply a
goal but also something that is an instrument, which means that concentration is
part of the means to powers and not merely a final goal for the basic reason that it
leads to something else. Therefore, the powers are a feature of the yogic path that
cannot be renounced. From a critical perspective, Phillips argues that Patañjali’s
34 Indian Asceticism

dualism of self and matter stands in opposition to his own yogic tradition of siddhas
(powers), and the Indian philosopher does violence to the yogic tradition by setting
aside the value of powers. Phillips offers the following judgment: “The ties between
yoga practice and siddhas are in my judgment intrinsic, both culturally . . . and in
psychological fact. No one counts as a master yogi or yoginī who does not possess
siddhas . . . ”25 Phillips thinks that the fundamental message of chapter three of the
Yoga Sūtras is that various powers flow from the practice of saṃyama.
Ian Whicher agrees with aspects of Phillips’s position, especially the observation
that powers are a natural byproduct of the yogi’s practice. As any worthwhile yogic
instructor, Whicher warns that “Indulging in them only serves to inflate the ego
and prevents spiritual growth precisely because the deployment of them presup-
poses that we invest our attention in the sensorial world or the desire for powers
or control over it (reinforcing the subject-object duality, within prakṛti that Yoga
seeks to overcome).”26 Whicher’s observation is an echo of advice given by many
yoga instructors and commentators over the centuries.
Finally, Stuart Sarbacker adopts the sociological theory of Pierre Bourdieu and
its notion of habitus in order to interpret ascetic acquired powers, along with also
contrasting the forces of doxa (worldview) and hexis (body culture) of a yogi. He
thus states, “Psychic powers, in this interpretation, would represent the mastery of,
or recovery of, the previously unconscious doxa and hexis, both of which in turn
are reflected out into the world through communal experience.”27 Sarbacker thinks
that the community shares in the yogic powers of the ascetic, who strives to master
his/her inner psychic and somatic worlds and simultaneously one’s relationship to
the external world that theoretically gives power, control, and authority. In short,
Sarbacker is saying that yogic techniques transform an ascetic internally, and this
internal transformation affects the external world of the ascetic along with people
who share his/her world. He explains further that “[w]‌hether literal or symbolic,
actual or mimetic, the demonstration of yoga powers and the representation of such
powers in literature encapsulate how the practice of yoga is a vehicle for the trans-
figuration of the human practitioner into a being of supernormal power and knowl-
edge and a paradigm for a particular type of communal existence.”28 Sarbacker
continues by sketching a series of interpretive possibilities.
Each of these learned opinions about the place of powers in the Yoga Sūtras have
merit. But I think that there is an additional way to approach the subject within the
Indian religious culture. In order to do this, it is important to review the history of
Indian asceticism to actually understand more fully and contextually the compiling
of the Yoga Sūtras in the fourth century CE. This historical approach contributes to
a tendency to take Patañjali seriously when he affirms that he is merely a compiler of
an ancient tradition or several traditions.
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 35

A Brief Historical Sketch of Indian Asceticism

A Ṛg Vedic hymn (10.129) called the Nāradīya Sūkta, a creation hymn, might not
have been influential on the development of asceticism, but it at least provided a
context and inspiration for later developments in ascetic life.29 The puzzling hymn
begins by recounting a primordial darkness covering a watery chaos. Then, a life
force arises by means of tapas (heat, a term that is also used later to refer to the
practice of asceticism) and desire also arises, which forms the first seed of the mind.
By means of wisdom, the kavi (seer) establishes the bond of existence within nonex-
istence, suggesting a creation of the world through mind, a primeval consciousness
considered divine. Forming an association between the existent within the nonex-
istent, this connection is discovered by seers by means of inspired thinking. Other
than this kind of inspired type of thinking, the text does not refer to meditation or
contemplation practices.
It is possible to find some hints of the practice of asceticism during the ancient
Vedic period of Indian culture, though the extent of the practice cannot be known
for certain. There are certainly ascetic types of practice located within the sacri-
ficial cult with its meticulous preparations, esoteric knowledge, denial of the
senses, mental concentration on sacred utterances (mantras), and the importance
accorded to tapas (literally heat). For some scholars, this scenario suggests conti-
nuity between the Vedic sacrificial cult and asceticism.30 In contrast, Bronkhorst
identifies two sources of Indian asceticism: Vedic and non-Vedic, which he discovers
in the Āpastamba Dharmasūtra with the term vānaprastha, signifying both Vedic
and non-Vedic ascetics. Bronkhorst sees three different types of religious practice: a
way of insight into the true nature of the self; a path of action; and a half-sacrificial
and half-ascetic way of life.31 Thus Vedic rooted asceticism extends and elaborates
aspects present in Vedic sacrifice, whereas non-Vedic asceticism represents different
goals related to inaction with the goal of becoming free from the results of one’s
actions.32 Bronkhorst’s position is disputed by Olivelle: “It was not the Brahmins,
the leaders of societal religion, who co-opted, internalized, and thus neutralized
ascetic vocabulary, values, institutions, and symbols, but ascetics and supporters of
asceticism who sought acceptance, legitimacy, and patronage by a variety of strate-
gies, including the co-opting of major symbols of Brahmanical religion.”33
For whatever reasons, the sacrificial cult of ancient Indian orthodox religion was
considered too confining, rigid, and static for some seekers of religious experience.
Some practitioners interiorized some Vedic sacrifices, which dispensed with the
necessity of priestly expertise, as evident in some texts of the Upaniṣads, such as
the mentally performed horse sacrifice by a seeker in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka (1.2.5–7)
performed by a person; mention is also made of the mental sacrifice, the offering
36 Indian Asceticism

of bodily parts as oblations, and sacrifice of the breath in the Chāndogya (5. 19–23),
and the Praśna (4.4) Upaniṣads where the mind becomes the sacrificer.
The majority of ascetic figures and movements existed outside of the domi-
nant Vedic culture, although it is possible to find references to such groups as the
long-haired Keśins and Vrātyas. In addition to their long hair, the Keśins wear dirty,
discarded rags, wander naked or wear saffron-colored robes that marks them as a
renunciant group (RV 10.136.1–4). Reportedly, their alienation from the prevail-
ing society placed them on the social margins much like the deity Rudra, who also
resides on the margins of the social world in wild and dangerous places. Sharing a
consciousness-altering drug with Rudra, the Keśins could transform their condition
into sensations of flight, able to read the mind of others, being able to transcend and
view their bodies from a transcendent perspective, suggesting ecstatic experiences
that are drug induced, although there is some scholarly debate about this point.34
It is very likely that the Keśins, existing outside of the prevailing culture, represent
precursors of later ascetic groups and share features with the early Buddhist, Jain,
and other śramaṇa (renunicant) movements.
Another marginal social group is the Vrātyas (a term referring to those who have
taken vows) identified as wandering warrior ascetics, who practiced self-flagellation
and other forms of extreme asceticism, traveling by means of bullock carts.
Apparently, Vedic priests attempted to induce them to join the orthodox culture
via purification rites. Not previously married or fully adult, these ascetics engage in
raiding expeditions for cattle, fighting, and small-scale warfare in order to release
their aggressive tendencies.35 In addition to their martial exploits, they also perform
Vedic rites in the forest for their community.36 Retaining their leadership positions,
some Vrātyas remained unmarried, while others played a role expanding the reaches
of Vedic culture. They are described in the Atharva Veda (15) as dressed in black with
two ram skins over their shoulders and wearing a turban. Their marginal status to
Vedic culture is evident in a ritual called the “great vow” (mahāvrata), a rite char-
acterized by obscene dialogue and by a leader’s sexual intercourse with a prostitute
that is preceded by breath-control exercises.37
In addition to these obscure groups mentioned in Vedic literature, there are also
other ascetic groups, referred to by the generic term śramaṇa (renunciant), that
include Jains, Buddhists, and Ājīvikas, originating historically around the fourth–
fifth centuries BCE. Calling attention to the martial imagery in Jain texts, Dundas
draws a link between the śramaṇa groups and the Vrātyas, whom he thinks may
have served as ascetic models.38 This is disputed by Samuel because the Buddhist and
Jain teachings are not martial in spirit and thus not a major predecessor for these
movements, even if one grants the influence of some imagery and organizational
structure.39
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 37

During the historical period when Buddhist, Jain, and Ājīvika ascetic movements
were developing, Indian culture was experiencing several important changes that
increased the chances of individuals adopting an ascetic lifestyle. Probably, the rise
of urban life was a central motivating factor because it provided people with more
liberty of behavior and thought that contributed to an atmosphere of changing val-
ues. The hot, humid climate and closer living arrangements fostered by urban life
enhanced the spread of contagious diseases and death. Urban expansion and agri-
cultural innovations were accompanied by population growth. Economic changes
increased job specialization and mercantile activity, which made increased travel
necessary between the growing urban centers with their expanding populations.
Buddhists and Jains found strong economic support from merchants, bankers, and
kings. Political changes placed more power into fewer hands. The political, social,
and economic flux caused uncertainty, gave rise to questioning the prevailing social
hierarchy, reconsideration of the meaning of life, and contributed to alternative
choices about lifestyle.40
Buddhism and Jainism arose around the same time in northern India, in the fifth
century BCE. Both religions coalesced around two charismatic figures—Buddha
and Mahāvīra—with biographies including instances of personal ascetic practice,
which involved renouncing their social status, family, wealth, and the world. They
agreed about the importance of adhering to nonviolence and other ethical/moral
observances. After reaching enlightenment, they followed teaching careers until
their deaths, accepted a cyclical concept of time, stressed the centrality of media-
tion, advocated begging to survive, emphasized a need for celibacy for monks and
nuns, and acknowledged a necessity for monastic institutions, although the wan-
dering lifestyle remained the ideal. The Buddha taught a middle path between two
extremes: hedonism and extreme asceticism. The latter is represented by the path of
Mahāvīra from the perspective of the Buddha, who rejects such extreme practices
as, for example, pulling out one’s hair rather than shaving the head and the Jain
option to fast unto death.
Buddhists believed that the historical Buddha was preceded by numerous births
in many different types of bodies, whereas the Jains imagined their historical
hero as the last in a lineage of twenty-four tīrthaṅkaras (crossing makers). Neither
Buddhism nor Jainism are monolithic religions, and both exhibit a wide variety of
ways to follow their respective religions.41 Both religions split into different schools
or sects over disputes about doctrine and practice. In Jainism the practice of going
naked or not resulted in the establishment of the Śvetāmbaras (opposed to ascetics
going naked) and the Digambaras (sky clad), who claimed to be following the exam-
ple of Mahāvīra. At a point in Buddhist history, there were eighteen schools, but
eventually the religion evolved into two major divisions: Theravāda and Mahāyāna.
38 Indian Asceticism

The ideal figure in the former division was the Arhat while the latter espoused the
virtues and unselfish person of the Bodhisattva, a figure who vows to save all human
beings and not just him/herself. Both religions were dependent on lay followers and
royalty for support. Monks and nuns told narratives to entertain, instruct, comfort,
and convert ordinary people. Many of these narratives contained examples of holy
figures who possessed extraordinary powers.
The types of historical changes affecting early Buddhism and Jainism can also be
inferred from ancient Vedic and Upaniṣadic texts that testify to the existence of a
religious skepticism, an anti-priestly bias, an acknowledgment of the existence of
ascetic groups, and an advocacy of ascetic practice in the form of yogic discipline.
Within some Vedic passages, doubts are raised about the existence of the gods based
on the claim that no one has seen a particular deity (RV 8.89), and another pas-
sage indicates that people have doubts about the existence of gods (RV 2.12). These
types of examples from the Vedic literature are indicative of the quest for absolute
certainty and the absolute that forms a bridge to the Upaniṣadic literature and its
secret teachings about the relationship between the self and Brahman (identified
as the ultimate reality). The Upaniṣadic texts overcome the priestly dominance by
interiorizing some Vedic sacrifices and transforming them into mental operations
performed by the individual without the services of priestly expertise as previously
noted. The śramaṇas (ascetic groups) appear in one text (BĀU 4.3.22) in a nega-
tive association with thieves, abortionists, and two pariah groups (Chandalas and
Pulkasas). A sixfold path of yoga is prescribed by the Maitri Upaniṣad (6.18) that
includes breath control, withdrawal of the senses, meditation, concentration, con-
templation, and finally absorption, while a briefer version appears in the Muṇḍaka
Upaniṣad (1.2.11) that includes practicing the following two aspects: tapas (austerity)
and śraddha (faith) in the forest. It is difficult to know what the text means precisely
with respect to these two practices, especially the role of faith. What is remarkable is
the close resemblance of the path of the Maitri Upaniṣad to the classical yogic path
contained in Patañjali’s compilation of the Yoga Sūtras. Not all Vedic texts are, how-
ever, advocates of an ascetic lifestyle, because the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa (7.13–18) calls
into question, for example, ascetic attire and the conflicting attitudes of household-
ers toward ascetics that run the range of reverence to distrust.42 And there evolves
the widespread figure of the false ascetic, who is depicted as greedy, sexually danger-
ous, dishonest, and immoral.43
If the appeal of renouncing the world and leading an ascetic lifestyle is evident
among Brāhmaṇical groups in the Vedic literature, they become figures of even
more importance in, for instance, the Dharma Sūtras, where they are called vana-
prastha and vaikhānasa, which are terms that capture their lives in the forest in
either a married or unmarried condition, although they continue to maintain the
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 39

household ritual fire along with their ascetic practices in order to attain rebirth
in heaven. Living often with their wives and children in uninhabited areas out-
side of towns, these semi-renunciate Brahmins, fixing their hair in a braided or
matted style, continued a priestly lifestyle centered on maintaining the sacred
fire and offering oblations into it. This scenario suggests a tension between tradi-
tional priests residing in villages and those newly urbanized figures.44 Other ascet-
ics dwelling in the forest assumed a non-Vedic type of renunciation by neglecting
the ritual fire and attempting to achieve freedom from rebirth, suggesting a more
other-worldly focus. This type of evidence suggests that some Brahmins were not
ready to completely leave the Vedic priestly ethos, and they may have been just
reacting against priestly excessiveness, seeking freedom from an increasingly regu-
lated society, or freedom from a religious life dominated by an expensive and com-
plex ritual system.45
If we focus on one predominant example of dharma literature, it is possible to
find an outline for the ascetic lifestyle in the Manusmṛti (Laws of Manu), a text
completed around the second century CE.46 According to the text and its priestly
perspective, a twice-born man should retire to the forest and live his life as a celibate,
forest hermit, after a life as a householder when old age approaches him, although
the text allows for him to be accompanied by his wife. He leaves behind his earthly
belongings, but he can take along his sacrificial implements for the continued per-
formance of the domestic fire ritual (6.1–4). Within the seclusion of the forest, he
practices an ascetic lifestyle that includes celibacy, food restrictions, donning gar-
ments of animal skin or tree bark, wearing matted hair, letting his beard and bodily
hair grow, and not cutting his nails (6.5–6). He is instructed to gradually increase
his ascetic regimen to include such practices as rolling on the ground, standing on
his tip toes all day long, living in the open during the rainy season, and wearing wet
clothes in the winter (6.22–23).
From the role of a forest hermit, he should proceed to the lifestyle of a home-
less ascetic by symbolically internalizing his sacred fire within his physical body
(6.25–26). At this point, he should wander homelessly and without a domestic fire,
subsisting on products offered by the forest such as fruits and roots, being celibate,
sleeping on the earth, and being detached (6.25). This wandering lifestyle marks the
fourth stage of life, but he is only qualified to lead such an itinerant lifestyle if he
has previously studied the sacred Vedas, produced sons, and offered sacrifices (6.35).
The formal way to renounce the world involves making all possessions a sacrificial
gift to the deity Prajāpati (6.36). The ascetic’s renunciation of the world is similar to
death, which includes a voluntary renunciation of life by rejecting food, controlling
evacuation of the body of disgusting waste products, and consuming only sacred
water of the Ganges River.47
40 Indian Asceticism

According to Manu (6.42–43), the ascetic’s mode of life involves wandering aim-
lessly alone, being mentally composed, and silent. He should have a shaved head
and beard, have his nails clipped, should carry a bowl for begging meals, a staff,
and a water pot, while practicing nonviolence (6.52). The ascetic should strictly
observe the following rules:  beg only once a day (6.56); inspect the ground care-
fully as he wanders to avoid harming any insects (6.68); practice meditation (6.72);
meditate on his body and eventually abandon it (6.75). Other texts of the Dharma
Sūtra genera often concur with the Manusmṛti or offer variations on specific topics.
The Dharmasūtra of Āpastamba (2.21.1.7–17) mentions, for instance, that the ascetic
should wear discarded clothing; the Dharmasūtra of Baudhāyana allows an ascetic
to eat the flesh of animals killed by predators, but not eat anything stored for more
than a year, not step on plowed land, and to shave his head but leave the topknot
(2. 11.15–17), whereas the Dharmasūtra of Vasiṣṭha (10.11–12) instructs a wandering
ascetic to sleep on the ground and not retain a fixed residence.
The Manusmṛti calls attention to at least five advantages of adopting the ascetic
lifestyle. Asceticism assuages a person’s mind of guilt for wrongful acts (11.234). If
a person commits moral and ethical transgressions, the practice of asceticism puri-
fies him (11.100). Medicines, antidotes, and spells become more effective by means
of practicing asceticism (11.238). Insects, snakes, moths, animals, birds, and immo-
bile creatures can attain heaven by means of ascetic practice (11.241). In addition,
ascetic toil, a combination of asceticism and knowledge, destroys impurity and by
knowledge one gains immortality (12.204). Along with pregnant women, sages, and
Brahmins, an ascetic should not be compelled to pay tolls (8.407). And finally, by
practicing asceticism, nonviolence, Vedic recitation, and purification, an ascetic
gains powers, such as the ability to remember former modes of existence (4.148).
The close connection between the ascetic lifestyle and pilgrimage is also evident
in epic literature (Mbh 3.80–93), where one finds a panegyric to pilgrimage that
marks and justifies a religious shift from the practices of sacrifice to pilgrimage. The
epic’s position is that pilgrimage exceeds the practice of sacrifice, reflecting a devo-
tional spirit that opens a religious practice that is available to everyone regardless of
social status. The Yoga Vāsiṣṭha (6.199.18–23) also provides evidence of wandering
ascetics making pilgrimage to holy cities. Pilgrimage sites are places of salvific power
because they are often associated with Hindu divine beings. When ascetics journey
to sacred pilgrimage sites they add to the sacredness of a place by means of their
presence, serving as a visible symbol to ordinary people that liberation is the goal of
life.48 It is, moreover, important to be aware that ascetics journey to sacred places in
order to be near sources of power and to perform tapas. In addition, these places of
power enhance the ascetic’s attempt to acquire powers such as the ability to be in
two places at once, according to the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha (6.64.28–29).
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 41

The pluralistic nature of asceticism in ancient India is evident in a Jain text,

Isibhāsiyāim, a title that evokes the sayings of Ṛṣis (wise men), which refers to vari-
ous Jain figures, Vedic and Brāhmaṇical sages, Buddhist monks, and Makkhalī
Gosāla, founder of the Ājīvikas.49 References to multiple ascetic groups can also be
discovered in Buddhist texts. The Majjhima Nikāya (1.92), for instance, refers to
large numbers of Nigaṇṭhas (unattached ones) who follow the cātuyāmasaṃvara
(fourfold restraint), which involves refraining from four activities—injury,
non-truthfulness, stealing, and possession—that reflect Jain ascetic practice or
some other ancient religious order.50 Although formative Jain texts do not refer to
Buddhists monks or nuns, Buddhist texts also call attention to ascetics performing
a ritualized form of suicide (SN 1.120–126). The proliferation of ascetic individuals
and groups in India is associated with the rise of urbanism, along with economic,
political, and social changes. In addition to the new urban way of life and the social
changes ushered into existence by these rapid changes, life becomes viewed as more
risky, uncertain, and unpredictable when such occurrences as illness, disease, and
death are considered by an individual.51
By the period of the epic literature (approximately 200 BCE–200 CE), asceticism
is well established as reflected by its appearance in the Mokṣadharma (teachings of
liberation) section of the Mahābhārata with its discussion of Sāṃkhya philosophy
and the practice of yogic techniques, although neither of them are systematically
developed. This late part of the epic describes ascetics as leading a wandering life-
style, wearing kuśa grass (considered sacred within the context of the Vedic sacrifi-
cial cult), animal skins, or tree bark. Ascetics do not cut their hair, beards, nails, or
bodily hair (12.192.2). An ascetic code of conduct (12.192.3–5) includes such practices
as leaving behind fire, wealth, and wives, being detached, treating all objects equally,
having detached thoughts, viewing all people the same, practicing nonviolence in
thought, word, and deed, begging from pure householders, dwelling in a village for
a single night or five nights in a town, desisting from sensual pleasure, and not suc-
cumbing to anger, pride, greed, delusion, niggardliness, hypocrisy, abuse, conceit, or
violence, and internalizing fire offerings within one’s body.
The Mokṣadharma section of the epic refers to the pervasive nature of suffering
no matter a person’s station in life or economic status (12.174.13). Moreover, happi-
ness is not something that endures and is followed by misery. Happiness and misery
are compared to a revolving wheel to stress their continual alternation and imper-
manence (12.174.19). And the locus of happiness and suffering is the human body,
which is under the influence of past karma (12.174.21). Suffering is also associated
with attachment to various kinds of social relationships. By cutting associations
with society, the ascetic wanders devoid of possessions, a condition connected to the
experience of bliss (sukham) because a person is free of all ties. Therefore, curbing
42 Indian Asceticism

desires is comparable to a tortoise withdrawing its limbs (12.174.51). Suffering is

experienced by a person within a body and within the flux of time that is conceived
as a wheel with neither beginning nor end, and is characterized by existence and
nonexistence (12.210.13). Time is described as powerful, destructive, and able to cook
creatures (12.227.15, 73, 84) in order to prepare them for death. This dire scenario
can be countered by tapas (asceticism), a power that permeates the three worlds to
the extent that it enables the moon and sun to shine (12.217.15). From another per-
spective, the light that tapas, which consists of celibacy, nonviolence, and control
of speech and mind, produces is knowledge (12.217.16). In conclusion, not only is
meditation called the highest power, but the ascetic is indubitably a person of power
(12.294.7; 215.14).
It is precisely the acquisition of power that functions as a motivating factor for
someone choosing an ascetic lifestyle in traditional India, along with attempts to
eradicate the effects of transgressions and ritual failures, and to secure a place in
the afterlife.52 And the later Upaniṣads suggest a search for an absolute entity as a
motive because it was deemed necessary to go beyond the practice of tapas, which
began to be understood to have limitations with respect to achieving a higher goal
that embodied gaining control of and maintaining the universe.53

Post-Epic Developments
Beginning around the fourth century CE, ascetic movements became associated
with sectarian movements focused on deities such as Viṣṇu, Śiva, and Śakti (vari-
ous Tantric types of movements featuring goddess figures). Around the tenth cen-
tury, inscriptional references identifying ascetics begin to appear in southern India,
but there is little evidence that they represent any type of organized body, although
there is some evidence for the presence of women ascetics attached to Śaivism.
Inscriptions depict ascetics residing in caves in the twelfth century, but established
monastic communities are mentioned in the eleventh century. Inscriptions pertain-
ing to ascetics reach a pinnacle in the thirteenth century but decline afterward for
unknown reasons.54 Although there have been Vaiṣṇava ascetics, the Śaiva move-
ment sparked more ascetic groups, and thus receives more attention in this section
of the chapter.
Since Śiva is depicted paradoxically as a married householder and ascetic, it is
not historically surprising that this deity would provide inspiration for the develop-
ment of various ascetic movements. These ascetic movements include, for example,
the Pāśupatas, Lakulīśas, Kālāmukhas, Kāpālikas, and the Nāth-Yogins. Sharing
in common an ascetic lifestyle and some beliefs, each of these various Śaiva groups
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 43

manifested distinctive features with respect to practices, symbols, lifestyle, and

theology.
Worshiping Śiva as the Lord of Beasts (paśupati), the Pāśupatas are specifically
mentioned for the first time in the Mahābhārata (12.349.64) and allegedly were
founded by Śiva Srikaṇtha. The ascetic group was religiously and politically influen-
tial during approximately the seventh to eleventh centuries. Their ascetic regimen
includes living in or near a cremation ground in order to facilitate bathing oneself
in ashes three times a day, which is done as an act of purification and in imitation
of the deity.55 What the ascetic accomplishes is purification of his body of negative
karma as preparation for the acquisition of good karma with the intention of cre-
ating a superhuman body that eventually equates an ascetic with Śiva. The ascetic
could chose to go naked or don a single cloth garment to wear around the waist. For
the advanced ascetic, the practice of incurring the censure of others is attempted
by acting strange or mad. Typical practices to incur censure include faking being
asleep, uttering senseless noises, acting like one is crippled, directing crude gestures
toward women, and generally acting like a beast. By acting like a beast, one attempts
to transform oneself into a beast of god with the intention of becoming the Lord of
Beasts or Śiva at a later time, which transforms one into an all-powerful being.56 At
an advanced stage of their practice they subsisted on the offerings made by families
to the dead.
The Lakulīśas represent a subsect of the Pāśupatas that owes its origin to a
pre-third-century CE ascetic, whose name means club.57 According to the lore of
the movement, the founder represents a discarded dead body left at a cremation
ground that is enlivened when Śiva enters the inert body. Lakulīśa, whose dates are
unclear despite a 971 CE inscription that refers to him because he might have lived
several centuries earlier, is depicted with two arms, carrying a short club, naked, and
remarkably with an erect penis, which symbolizes both priapism and chastity and
not sexual arousal. Although his body is dead, the ascetic’s penis is alive, and is sym-
bolic of bodily control with respect specifically to accumulated semen. The amassed
semen is connected to the heat of tapas and power.
Inhabiting the Karnātaka region of India during the ninth to the thirteenth
centuries, the Kālāmukhas (black faced) distinguish themselves by marking their
foreheads with a black streak while also bathing in ashes and carrying a staff, sym-
bolic of travelers and their itinerant lifestyle as they make pilgrimages to holy sites
throughout India. Emerging as a division of the Lakulīśas, they were eventually
absorbed in the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries by the Lingāyats, worshipers of
Śiva in his liṅga (phallic) form that is worn around the neck of a follower because of
its protective and dynamic power. Contrary to orthodox practice, the Kālāmukhas
44 Indian Asceticism

pay homage to their ascetic deity with a container containing alcohol, a beverage
normally forbidden to conformist Hindus, but a preferred drink of their deity.
By eating their meals from a human skull, the Kāpālikas (skull bearer), a more
Tantric oriented movement, imitated their god, a ferocious form of Śiva called
Bhairava, who decapitated the god Brahmā with his thumbnail, thereby commit-
ting the heinous offense of killing a Brahman that involves a punishment requiring
the guilty party to wander homeless, beg for alms, and to carry a skull as atonement.
The paradigm for this crime and its punishment appear in the Manusmṛti (2.73).
In addition to carrying a skull, these ascetics bathe their body with ashes, carry a
trident (khaṭvaṅga), include wine in their worship, and engage in extreme forms of
self-mutilation by cutting off pieces of flesh that are used for sacrificial oblations.
Again, these types of practices, which represent transgressions of social and ritual
norms, are intended to help an ascetic attain superhuman powers and eventually
final liberation from the world in a heavenly realm, which is imagined to be a para-
dise of sexual bliss.58
The Kāpālikas’ doctrine was often called Somasiddhānta (doctrine of soma).
Excluding reference to the famous Vedic sacred liquid that gave priests the power to
communicate with the gods and goddesses of the divine pantheon, the Kāpālikas
used the term to refer instead to a blissful experience initiated by the sexual union of
god with his consort. The Kāpālikas eventually morphed into the Aghorī ascetics,
who allegedly consumed flesh of human cadavers with the intention of acquiring
supernatural powers.
Tracing their lineage to eighty-four siddhas, immortal demigods or teachers of the
sect, the Nāth-Yogins combine Tantric elements, ordinary yogic practices, and popu-
lar philosophical views; their leader is identified as Gorakhnāth, a former student of
Matsyendranāth.59 The Nāth-Yogins emerged in the late twelfth or early thirteenth
centuries CE. This sect is also known as the Kānphaṭa Yogins because of their practice
of splitting their ears for the insertion of large, heavy earrings, which allegedly help
with the acquisition of yogic powers that they combined with the practice of haṭha
yoga, alchemy, sacred mantras, and smoking cannabis. Their intention is to cultivate
and purify their bodies (kāya-sadhana) in order to perfect their bodies (kāya-siddhi)
by overcoming the process of rebirth and decay and attaining immortality. Various
types of powers are attributed to Gorakhnāth, such as turning well water into gold
and then into crystal, taking the form of a fly, iron, or a frog, transforming the bodies
of disciples into half gold and iron, turning married women into donkeys and restor-
ing them to human form when their husbands appeal to him.60 In summary, these
examples of ascetic Śaiva sects share the goal of attaining supernatural powers.
The quest for powers is also evident in various Tantric movements that seek
to use feminine power (śakti) to their advantage. Deriving from a Sanskrit root
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 45

term that suggests stretching, weaving, and saving, Tantra refers to the expansion
of knowledge. Its most creative and influential period falls within the eighth to
fourteenth centuries when it influenced Hindu sectarian movements, Buddhism,
and Jainism. Tantra devised its own origin myth, with Śiva revealing its doctrine
to Śakti, a goddess of feminine power, at the beginning of the cosmos. From the
goddess, the doctrine was transmitted to a succession of nine Nāthas (perfected
yogic masters), which they then shared with humankind. The term “tantra” can
be found in the titles to a variety of texts from different religious traditions, but
it does not attain an independent status until the nineteenth century. Early in
its history, Tantra is represented by clans (kulas) that evolved from Śaiva ascetic
movements. Around the ninth century, an unknown reformer rejected the mor-
tuary features of the movement, and introduced erotic elements related to a copu-
lating Śiva and his consort, leading to the development of various clan groups
such as the Siddha Kaula, Yoginī Kaula Krama cult associated with Kālī, and the
Trika, centered on three goddesses: Parā (transcendent), Paraparā (transcendent
and material), and Aparā (material).
Reflecting the four geographical directions, the Kaula tradition was divided
into four modes of transmission in the following ways: worship of Kuleśvara (Śiva)
and Kuleśvarī (Śakti) in the east; a western transmission focused on Kubjikā, a
hunch-backed crone; a northern transmission with devotion directed to Guhyakālī;
and a southern transmission focused on the worship of Kāmeśvarī or Tripurasundarī
(Three Cities), an erotic and beautiful goddess. The eastern transmission gives birth
to the Trika branch of Kashmir Śaivism, the northern transmission develops into
the Krama movement that worships several series of ferocious deities, and the
southern transmission originates the Śrī Vidyā tradition.61 These various streams of
Tantra did not represent a single or identifiable tradition, even though they might
have adhered to specific texts and practices across the various fluid and evolving
traditions.
The Kaula movement was connected to the cult of Yoginīs, who revealed them-
selves as beautiful women with the ability to grant male devotees spiritual powers.
During ritual occasions, Yoginīs would descend from the sky to their male consorts
assembled at cremation grounds, mountains, or other locations for the expressed
purpose of sexually uniting with them. The semi-divine Yoginīs carried so-called
“clan fluid” in their bodies that they would exchange with male initiates for their
semen. The female sexual fluid was located in their mouth, which represented a
euphemism for her sexual organ, a source for a male to find and draw upward into
his own body by means of his sexual organ the fluid of the Yoginī. This type of
encounter with Yoginīs or lower caste women was typical of Tantric sexual practice
because it involved “the shedding and consumption of sexual fluids in initiation and
46 Indian Asceticism

other ritual contexts.”62 A related gift bestowed by Yoginīs to male devotees was the
ability to fly.
Without focusing on a specific Tantric tradition, the various transmissions and
movements have some features in common that are pertinent to this book. Most of
the various Tantric movements share an emphasis on the secret and esoteric natures
of their teachings, extensive use of mantras (repetitive sacred utterances), maṇḍalas
(sacred diagrams) and mudras (symbolic and gestures). In contrast to the more con-
servative and orthodox (right-handed) branch of Tantra, the left-handed (inauspi-
cious) radical type advocates the partaking of the illicit Five Ms: wine (madya), meat
(māṃsa), fish (matsya), parched grain (mudra)—which is probably an intoxicant—
and sexual congress (maithuna). These five things are forbidden and violate reli-
gious and social norms within an orthodox Indian society, and are purposely used
by Tantrics because they intend to engage in dangerous and prohibited items and
practices with the intention to use their hidden energy to the ultimate benefit of a
practitioner. It is claimed that the Five Ms hasten the quest for supernatural powers
and liberation. The embrace and advocacy of erotic aspects will emerge in a later
chapter within the context of a discussion of play.
Even though some of the Śaiva and Tantric movements developed loose affili-
ations among members, Śaṅkara, a major influence in nondualistic philosophy,
is given credit for establishing several monastic institutions in the eighth cen-
tury. Hagiographical literature relates the marvelous signs surrounding his birth,
his genius as a student, the distinguishing marks on his body suggesting the god
Śiva, and intimates that he is an incarnation of the ascetic deity. The hagiographi-
cal accounts of his life make it clear that he attained various types of supernatural
powers. The religious spirit of his monasteries exists in sharp contrast to the radical
nature of some forms of Tantra.

Female Ascetics
As best as we can determine, there were never large numbers of female ascetics at any
time in Indian history for a variety of cultural reasons that include a woman’s role
as a subservient wife, the importance of her reproductive role, the conviction that
women are not fit for the rigors of the ascetic lifestyle, the dangers associated with
women wandering unattached and unprotected by males, their inability to control
their sexual drive, and other reasons.63 In short, if a woman adopts an ascetic way
of life, she is threatening the established social and a patriarchal order because she
cannot perform normal duties expected of a wife, and is not available for repro-
ductive labor and perpetuation of the family and society. The female ascetic overtly
challenges patriarchal gender assumptions pertaining to sexual control, and resists
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 47

normal family pressure to marry because a woman becomes inauspicious to those

around her for staying in her father’s home as a single woman.64 These types of cul-
tural reasons do not, however, exclude an ascetic spirit that permeates the life of an
ordinary woman who is devoted to her husband, children, and relatives. With the
death of her husband, a typical woman begins to lead a more obvious ascetic lifestyle
as a widow that includes shaving her head, eating plain food, sleeping on the ground,
being socially isolated outside of her immediate family, and being considered bad
luck and inauspicious by others. If these types of cultural factors militate against
women choosing an ascetic way of life with the exception possibly of widowhood,
some modern women have adopted an ascetic lifestyle, attracted ardent followers,
and become the center of national and international organizations.
Two examples of Indian national figures initiated by Ramakrishna, a
nineteenth-century Bengali holy man and inspiration for the international
Ramakrishna Math and Mission, are Gauri Ma and Shree Maa of Kamakhya, who
some think is a reincarnation of Sarada Devi, wife of Ramakrishna. The latter holy
woman follows a right-handed style of Tantric practice, which is more conservative
than the left-handed movement, although she does radically reject the caste system
and socio-economic status.65 In contrast, Gauri Ma assumes the role of a wandering
ascetic who prays to god to disfigure her body, acknowledging that it is a hindrance
to liberation. This type of request is part of her madness, as is the application of
ashes to her body, cutting off her hair, and dressing like a male.66 Eventually, she
established an ashram (monastic community) and created a community of ascetic
women.
A female ascetic with both a national and international following is Ānandamāyi
Mā (1896–1982), who often fell into trance states and even fulfilled the role of an
ideal obsequious wife. The official portrait of this holy woman asserts that she and
her husband never enjoyed a sexual relationship, which is partly explained by the
electric shock received by her husband, who eventually becomes a follower, when
he attempted to touch her. It was not unusual for her to suddenly become inert and
stare into space.67 Even though she was celibate, she did not extend her practice of
celibacy to her followers as a required practice.
She practiced a strong regimen of asceticism and manifested various types of
powers. She lived on the floor for extended periods of time, refrained from food
or drink for long periods of time, and observed silence for three years. Because she
ceased to feed herself, an attendant assumed this role to keep her alive. She exhibited
many kinds of powers reported by observers that include a man wanting children
touching her feet, going into a blissful, unconsciousness trace state, and having his
wish fulfilled. She cures a person of cholera, makes water appear from a hole in
the ground, reads the minds of others, appears to others in visions, helps to protect
48 Indian Asceticism

followers from accidents, and she assumes the karma of her devotees.68 Many fol-
lowers became convinced that she was not merely an ascetic, but more analogous to
an incarnation of the goddess.

Narr atives about Power

The major epic texts—Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa—of Indian literature con-
tain many narratives about the display and use of ascetic powers. According to
the Mahābhārata (12.115–119), once there was an ascetic of such goodness that
flesh-eating wild animals were akin to his disciples in the forest. A dog, weak and
emaciated from eating only fruits and roots, like the ascetic, became attached to
him out of affection, developed a tranquil demeanor, and heart similar to that of a
human being. One day, a hungry leopard came to where they were residing and was
about to seize the dog as its prey when the dog begged the ascetic to save him. The
sage turned him into a leopard, and then, when a tiger attacked, into a tiger, and
then a rutting elephant, and a lion. Now that he was carnivorous, all the other ani-
mals feared him and stayed away, and finally he wanted to eat the ascetic, who read
his thoughts and turned him back into a dog, which was his proper form by birth.
The dog moped about unhappily until the ascetic drove him out of the heritage. This
narrative captures the ascetic’s power to turn another creature into any form. Other
parts of the great epic highlight other ascetic powers, such as an ascetic’s possession
of a divine eye that allows him to see into the future (Mbh 1.111.18–19), the ability to
fly (Mbh 3.156.15), power to suddenly disappear (Mbh 3.289.24), or manifests con-
trol over nature (Mbh 3.109.6–9).
Similar types of ascetic powers can be found in the Rāmāyaṇa with narratives
about an ascetic who possesses power over human biology by being able to create a
son for a woman by means of his mind (Rām 1.29.11–18). By means of his powers,
another ascetic creates a beautiful pond called the pond of the five Apsarases (Rām
3.9.11–12). The monkey Hanumān, a devoted servant of the hero Rāma, and his army
get lost in a cavern where they encounter a female ascetic, and he asks her for help
getting out of the cavern in order to accomplish their task of rescuing Sītā, wife of
the heroic Rāma. The female ascetic agrees to use her power to help the floundering
monkeys, and instructs them to close their eyes, which frees them instantaneously
(Rām 4.52.1–10).
What is especially interesting is the way that asceticism is embodied within the
text. An excellent example of the interweaving of asceticism into this epic is evi-
dent in the figures of Hanumān, Rāma, and Lakṣmaṇa. At the beginning of the
Kiṣkindhānkāṇḍa section of the epic, Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa are disguised as ascet-
ics, with Hanumān referring to their bark garments (4.3.6) to emphasize this fact.
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 49

When he encounters the two heroic Raghu brothers, disguised as ascetics, and
inquires about their presence at a lake, Hanumān transforms himself into an ascetic
in order to question them, and admits to them that he can change shapes (4.3.3).
Overall, the Rāmāyaṇa depicts Hanumān, general of a monkey army, as a selfless
figure who serves the hero Rāma with ardent devotion and also simultaneously
assumes an ascetic demeanor in spite of his muscular body, strength, and physi-
cal prowess, representing him as a warrior-ascetic similar to human ascetics who
become warriors in Indian history. In the epic, Hanumān plays the role of a mes-
senger who gives knowledge, hope, and healing to others.69 Hanumān is described
in the epic as a lifelong celibate, a central feature of ascetic life for many figures.
Popular imagination regards him at the present time as the simian paradigm for the
second human stage of life of the brahmacarya (student life).70 Similar to the powers
exhibited by celibate ascetics, there are various references in the text of his ability to
fly or to become very small or large in bodily size. Hanumān, son of the wind god,
is not only endowed with great strength and beauty, but he can assume any form at
will (Rām 6.19.11–12). In one instance, he assumes a human form in spite of his sim-
ian nature and returns to the city of Ayodhyā, home and center of political power
of the hero Rāma (Rām 6.113.18). In another episode, Hanumān seizes a mountain
and flies off with it, after having been sent to collect healing herbs that he could not
find for the dying warrior Lakṣmaṇa, mortally wounded fighting the demonic army
of Rāvaṇa (Rām 6.89.20–21).
Stories about the powers exhibited by the Buddha and Mahāvīra are also evident
respectively in Buddhist and Jain texts. According to the Sāmaññaphala Sutta of
the Digha Nikāya, the historical Buddha could become one or many, could become
visible or invisible, pass through a wall, move through solid ground, remember pre-
vious births, walk on water, or travel cross-legged through the sky. The Saṃyutta
Nikāya (2.212; 5.264–65) states that the Buddha can become one or many, suddenly
vanish, pass bodily through a wall or mountain, travel like a bird, or touch the moon
and sun. His mental powers (telepathy, clairaudience, and clairvoyance) and his wis-
dom surpass that of even the gods.
Even though these powers were evident of his advanced spiritual status, the
Buddha is depicted rebuking a man who displays similar types of powers in the
Cullavagga (5.7). According to this account, Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja, a disciple of
the Buddha, rises into the air, takes a bowl from the top of a pole, and flies three
times around the city. The Buddha did not favor such displays because it gave ordi-
nary people the wrong impression about the importance of powers and could poten-
tially distract a practitioner from the path to liberation.
Mahāvīra is no less powerful than the Buddha, according to Jain literature. The
Ākārāṅga Sūtra (2.15.260) and the Kalpa Sūtra (121) offer similar accounts of the
50 Indian Asceticism

powers gained by Mahāvīra when he attains liberation by mentioning omniscience,

knowledge of the condition of all worlds, remembering former births, and ability
to read other minds. What stands out about this list is the emphasis on mental
powers over physical prowess. According to the Uttaradhyayana Sūtra (30.7–37),
these powers are the byproduct of six types of internal and six kinds of external
austerities. The external austerities are fasting, five kinds of abstinence, collecting
alms, abstention from rich food, and mortification of the flesh, whereas the internal
forms of practice include expiation of sins, politeness, serving the teacher, study,
meditation, and abandoning the body. Internal forms of asceticism focus on human
attitudes, thoughts, and emotions, which cannot be perceived by others, whereas
external forms are related to the interaction between ascetics and others, restricting
association with worldly objects, and exposing ascetic practices to the gaze of oth-
ers.71 Any display of these powers is intended to glorify Jain teachings and to assist
the flourishing of the religion.
Hagiographical accounts of the life of the renowned Advaita Vedānta philoso-
pher Śaṅkara depict him with an array of powers. Within the context of a story
associated, for example, with his renunciation, a youthful Śaṅkara is captured in
the jaws of a crocodile while bathing. Needing his mother’s permission to become a
renouncer, she acquiesces to avert this life-threatening situation. Śaṅkara is miracu-
lously freed from the crocodile’s grasp once he utters his request to be allowed to
renounce the world because his words possess power.72 In other tales, he alters the
course of a river, flies through the air, and causes an idiot to shine with wisdom.73
In modern time, Muktananda (d. 1982), an advocate of siddha yoga, also claimed
to have had similar powers to those of Śaṅkara. Muktananda reported visions in
which he saw siddhas (perfected ones), lights, and other worlds.74 By acquiring clair-
voyance, he could see objects at a great distance or what was happening in the next
room.75 He also received visions of the future, which enabled him to see a house fire
or automobile accident, and these visions would be confirmed the following day.76
Other visions were more spectacular in the sense of being transported to the medi-
tative realm of siddhas (perfect ones) or the world of deceased ancestors.
If we revert back to the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition and the life of Milarepa
(1043–1123), we learn about additional types of powers. When Milarepa became a
wizard to seek revenge on greedy relatives he destroyed many of them by his powers,
but he became remorseful and sought help. He encountered a lama who informed
him that those killed would become his followers in the future and not be reborn
in an undesirable realm by means of the lama’s power.77 While practicing yoga,
Milarepa confessed to others that he could transform his body into any shape, levi-
tate, wander through the universe in his dreams and visit Buddha lands, transform
his body into fire or water, and finally fly through the sky.78 It is precisely narratives
 Banyan Tree of Indian Asceticism 51

like these that monks and nuns would share with lay folk that proved to be enter-
taining, inspiring, and functioned as a recruiting tool.

Concluding Remarks
The narratives about ascetic powers from Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu texts are evi-
dence of the popular folklore and convictions surrounding the life and exploits of
ascetics. Thus, as asceticism in its many manifestations developed in ancient India,
its historical evolution is accompanied by narratives depicting extraordinary pow-
ers. It is this plethora of narratives about ascetic powers that shape the attitude
of Patañjali about the nature of yoga in the fourth century CE as he attempts to
compile and systematize its techniques. Since the association between powers and
ascetic life is so pervasive in the culture, it is this pervasiveness and popular, unques-
tioning assumptions about asceticism to which Patañjali needed to respond. Acting
as a compiler of the Yoga Sūtras, if we accept the traditional understanding of his
role, Patañjali needed to make sense of a religious phenomenon—extraordinary
ascetic powers—in order to do justice to an aspect of asceticism that was unques-
tionably accepted by many Indians. Therefore, Patañjali included an entire section
of the text devoted to a discussion and treatment of powers (siddhas) in order to
treat his subject in a through manner, which suggests that various kinds of powers
are an essential aspect of the ascetic/yogic life style. Moreover, the cultural context
in which Patañjali lives, compiles, and writes calls for him to devote some of his text
to making sense of ascetic powers. If Patañjali did not consider ascetic powers, he
would have been negligent in his vocation. Instead, he takes the folk narratives and
oral traditions seriously by devoting an entire chapter to a discussion of ascetic pow-
ers in a four-chapter book, even though some scholars are perplexed by this alleged
over-emphasis on powers.
 3
Types of Power

Along with various wandering individual or groups of ascetics in ancient

India, there was also a diffuse plurality of those practicing some form of yoga as
part of an ascetic regimen, rendering a primordial Ur-yoga impossible to identify
and even raising doubts about its existence. This plurality of ascetic/yogic traditions
suggests a variety of meditative practices that were grounded in an ascetic lifestyle
and referred to as yoga in a loose, not clearly defined, and unsystematic collection
of techniques.1 Within at least a four-hundred-year period from about 200 BCE to
200 CE, there was an absence of a systematic understanding of yogic techniques,
even though the epic Mahābhārata manifests its wide usage as especially in book
12 or the so-called Mokṣadharma section of the text and at other places throughout
the epic.2
These diverse ascetic/yogic traditions were finally collected and systematized by
Patañjali as the Yoga Sūtras, a collection of succinct, aphoristic statements intended
to be memorized and orally transmitted by a practitioner, which contains a cluster
of techniques. Although there is no precise date for the Yoga Sūtras, scholars tend
to locate its compilation in the fourth century CE and certainly no later than the
fifth century CE. In addition to being laconic aphorisms, many of the statements
are incomprehensible because of their often cryptic, imprecise, and esoteric nature, a
scenario that necessarily invites commentaries to explain a particularly difficult pas-
sage to grasp. In fact, early commentaries invite additional commentaries because of
historical periods of cultural change.
52
 Types of Power 53

Patañjali, original compiler of the diverse yogic techniques, not only systematizes
the various practices of yoga, but he necessarily brings order to the powers gained by
and manifested by practitioners. He accomplishes this task in an entire chapter (the
third) devoted to a discussion of powers within the context of a four-chapter text. If
a quarter of the Yoga Sūtras focuses on powers, it seems safe to assume that Patañjali
regards them as extremely important to his systematizing of the diverse practices.
Hence, Patañjali is not only concerned with yogic techniques, but he is also con-
cerned with byproducts of the practice of yoga—powers gained—because they can
divert a practitioner from proper concentration and thus reaching his/her final goal
(YS 3.37). Yogic techniques and acquired powers are also evident in Buddhist texts
with similar vocabulary and concepts used to express them. In addition to incor-
porating Buddhist traditions such as Abhidharma and Yogacara, scholars have also
identified the inclusion of Sāṃkhya traditions and an emerging yoga philosophy
that embodies older ascetic speculation.

Powers in the Yoga Sūtr as

It is a curious feature of the Yoga Sūtras that in the third chapter the term vibhūti is
used to identify them, but appears only in the title, whereas the term siddhi is used
indirectly and only directly mentioned in YS 3.37 and implied in YS 3.45, although
the latter term is used extensively in the epic literature of the Mahābhārata and
Rāmāyaṇa. The yogic siddhas (powers) are achieved by successfully practicing
saṃyama, or a successive application and practice of the final three limbs of the path
of yoga, on various objects on which the yogi concentrates in order to focus his/her
attention to the exclusion of internal and external mental and physical distractions.
The final limbs of the path that constitute saṃyama (holding together, restraint, or
control) are dhāraṇi (concentration), dhyāna (meditation), and samādhi (absorp-
tion), although these limbs rest on previously mastered breath and body control.
Samādhi (absorption) occurs when the yogi is extensively absorbed in an object and
the distinction between an object and the meditator disappears.
There is no evidence that Patañjali and later commentators on the Yoga Sūtras
looked at these powers as irrational, weird, or false claims by misguided or
self-deluded individuals. By means of oral and literary narratives about instances
of the manifestation of various kinds of powers, these tales are accepted as facts
in traditional Indian culture and as literally true by compilers and commentators.
Asceticism and yoga are part of a long tradition in India that represents a shared
memory that is then performed anew by those embracing the tradition.3 In fact,
these various powers are fundamental to the Sāṃkhya-Yoga tradition and form a
corollary to its metaphysical presuppositions that are suggested by the Yoga Sūtras
54 Indian Asceticism

(3.13–15) itself, forming a metaphysical infrastructure for explaining and ground-

ing the powers. Even when Patañjali warns about the deleterious results that the
powers might have on a person, he sounds this warning because he is convinced
that the powers are genuine and guaranteed to arise, and form challenging dangers
to the yogi that could divert a yogi from the path to liberation. Thus, the acquisi-
tion of powers is to be expected by the yogi as he/she advances on the path, which
implies that the powers are not mythological narratives, fanciful or imaginative
tales intended to entertain others with strange happenings.4 For those practitioners
who want to attain liberation, the powers are not to be displayed in public (YS 3.37),
although this does occur according to numerous narratives in Indian literature.
This ancient tradition of acquiring powers in India will be reviewed later in this
chapter by new findings in cognitive science with the intention of shedding new
light on an old practice. But we must first review the traditional types of powers
acquired by ascetics.

Types of Powers in the Third Chapter of

the Yoga Sūtr as
The various powers that are mentioned in the third chapter of the Yoga Sūtras
can be classified as corporeal or cognitive, but some of them border on some
all-encompassing cosmic powers, rendering the yogi nearly god-like. The text does
not, however, include all the powers associated with yogis. These non-mentioned
powers will be discussed later in this chapter as an addendum to the powers featured
in the third chapter of the text.
As a consequence of saṃyama grounded on previous progress, eight extraordi-
nary bodily powers are mentioned in a single sūtra (YS 3.45):  ability to become
small (aṇimā); become large (mahimān); become light (laghimān); become dense
(gariman); become all-pervasive (prāpti); attain all one’s desires (prākāmya);
have power over elemental forces (īśitṛtva); and obtain instant gratification
(yatrakāmā-vasāyitva). These various bodily powers are similar to a will to power
acquired by the yogi that enables him to become atomic in size, which suggests that
he/she can enter anything or become invisible to others. The yogi can also will his/
her body to become light or as large as he/she wants. In addition, the yogi can attain
every personal desire, touch the moon, or dive into the earth and treat it as if it
is water, according to Vyāsa’s comments. Not only is the yogi able to control the
external appearance, disappearance, or rearrangement of the elements, but he/she
also possesses the ability to manipulate them according to his will. The historically
later commentator Vijñānabhikṣu remarks that these various powers do not mean
that a yogi can create the world, an assertion on which the Vedanta Sūtras agree
 Types of Power 55

(4.4.17). According to the commentator Vyāsa of the Yoga Sūtras, these bodily pow-
ers mean that the yogi is not obstructed by anything solid, and possesses the ability
to even enter a stone. Likewise, other elements beside the earth do not affect the
yogi, such as water that does not make him wet, fire does not burn him, wind does
not move him, and ether covers him to the extent of making him invisible. The
initial four powers are related to performing saṃyama on various gross features of
prakṛti (matter), whereas the final four bodily powers pertain to focusing on various
subtle aspects of material substance.
Other sūtras of the third chapter also reflect bodily powers, such as becoming
invisible (3.21), having the strength of an elephant (3.24), entering the body of
another (3.38), rising above the earth (3.39), possessing burning energy (YS 3.40),
attaining divine hearing (3.41), flying through the air (3.42), becoming disembod-
ied (3. 43), and perfecting the body, which consists of possessing beauty, charm,
strength and the power of a thunderbolt (3.46). According to the Yogavārttika of
Vijñānabhikṣu, by practicing saṃyama on his external body, the yogi can will his
body to cease contact with the eyes of others after he gains a direct perception of the
totality of the appearance of his body, rendering his body invisible to the perception
of others even during daytime.5 By means of acute concentration on the strength of
an elephant, he is able to manifest that power within his body. By knowing how the
mind operates, the yogi gains the ability to mentally enter the bodies of others. This
power is illustrated by an episode from the epic literature when the sage Bharadvāja
enters the body of a thirteen-year-old prince and enables him to master bodies of
knowledge at a very young age (Mbh 12.31.29–33), or when the king Yudhiṣṭhira’s
body is entered by a yogi who renders the king more powerful and virtuous then
previously (Mbh 3.33.24–28). Commenting on such matters, Vyāsa attributes men-
tally penetrating into the body of another to the dwindling of the power of karma
over the yogi, awareness of the operation of his own mind, and withdrawing his
mind-stuff from his own body in order to place it into the bodies of others.
By controlling the udāna (vital breath), according to Vyāsa, the yogi gains
the ability to levitate above the earth, whereas control of the samāna (vital air)
enables one to achieve a burning radiance and effulgence, which, according to
Vijñānabhikṣu, gives the yogi the power of self-combustion. Moreover, by becom-
ing disembodied, the yogi can have an out-of-body experience by projecting his
mind out of his body in either an imagined or non-imagined way by focusing
on something external to the body for an imagined out-of-body experience, or
he can simply project his mind outside of his body, enabling his mind to func-
tion free of his body for a non-imagined disembodied experience. 6 In contrast to
the disembodied experience, the perfection of the body suggests that the yogi’s
body possesses beauty, charm, strength, and the power of a thunderbolt. When
56 Indian Asceticism

named Vajrāṅga, Hanumān, companion and devoted servant of the hero Rāma, is
described as having the limbs of a thunderbolt. Having achieved perfection of his
body, the elements of the world do not obstruct the yogi, which implies that he
cannot become wet by water or burned by fire.
As a result of focusing on the relation between the body and ether, the yogi gains
the ability to fly through the air, and by performing samāpatti (absorption) on cot-
ton and its aspect of lightness, a yogi becomes light. Vyāsa comments on this sūtra
(3.42) and presents the power to fly as a sequence of achieving lightness that enables
the yogi to be transformed into something light in weight, which then enables him
to walk on water, a spider web, a ray of sunbeams, and finally to fly.7 In the Buddhist
tradition, the Buddha acts out of compassion for palace women by flying in the air
and exhibiting his psychic powers, while emitting fire, water, and lightning from his
body.8 There is also a reference in the “Story of Purna” to monks flying on leaves,
grass, and domestic vessels.9 And the Jain ascetic Hemacandra, in his Lives of Jain
Elders, refers to the monk Vajra who uses his powers to transport a congregation of
monks from a northern location to the southern city of Purī where there is an abun-
dance of food (12.307–334). The same monk flies to the garden of the gods located
in the Himalayas to retrieve flowers, which impresses the king of the gods so much
that he converts to Jainism (12.335–388).
Less spectacular powers associated with the body of the yogi include being able
to subdue hunger and thirst (3.30) and calm the body by saṃyama on the bron-
chial trachea tube. Below this region of the human body, there is a tortoise-shaped
tubular structure (3.31). This reference by Vyāsa is to a tortoise-like vein, a vessel
that courses throughout the body, located in the chest. By disciplining this ves-
sel, a yogi becomes similar to a tortoise with a steady demeanor, able to withdraw
his/her senses like a tortoise retracts its limbs when it senses danger, and to hence
immobilize his senses.
In addition to corporeal powers, the Yoga Sūtras also contains many passages
pertaining to cognitive ( jñāna) powers attained by an advanced yogi. These cog-
nitive powers include the following: understanding the nature of past and future
(3.16); being able to understand the sounds or language of all sentient creatures
(3.17); becoming aware of one’s past births (3.18); being able to intuitively know
what another mind is thinking (3.19–20); intuiting the arrival of one’s own death
(3.22); intuiting the nature of subtle, distant, or hidden objects (3.25); intuiting the
correspondence between the macrocosmic and microcosmic universe (3.26); intuit-
ing the connection between the moon and one’s body (3.27); intuiting the move-
ment of the stars and their correspondence with the yogi’s body (3.28); intuiting the
structure of the body and its orderly arrangement (3.29); intuiting a truthful insight
 Types of Power 57

with the presence of puruṣa (3.35); intuiting the distinction between sattva guṇa and
puruṣa (3.54); having total control over the sense-organs (3.37). Some of these powers
deserve further comment for the purposes of clarification.
Knowledge of the past and future (YS 3.16), which is inherent in the present
moment because the present is an effect of the past and a cause of the future, is asso-
ciated with the ability to recall past modes of life lived by the yogi (YS 3.18). Vyāsa
attributes the power to recall previous births to the yogi’s intuitive knowledge of
subliminal impressions (saṃskāras) in his commentary on this passage, while know-
ing births of others is also related to a direct awareness of subliminal impressions,
which are deposited on the mind after any type of mental or physical experience.
In turn the subliminal impressions shape new thoughts in an continuing process
that is both detrimental and also beneficial to spiritual progress because the former
type distracts thought, making it restless and unfocused, whereas the latter exerts
a calming influence on it. The power to know the thoughts of others (YS 3.19) is
attributed to a cultivated sensitivity to the possibilities of cognitive processes. The
power associated with knowing the thoughts of others presupposes freedom from
egoistical attachment to one’s false sense of self and body.
The yogi’s intuitive knowledge of time and past personal modes of existence are
connected to an awareness of the time for one’s own death, a power directly attrib-
uted to saṃyama on harm. After receiving three portents related to the self, other
living beings, and divine beings, the yogi can sense that death is near. Signals about
the imminence of death include not hearing any sound within one’s body when
one’s ears are closed and not being able to perceive any inner light when one’s eyes
are closed. Signs related to other beings involve seeing messengers of Yama, Lord
of Death, and unexpectedly seeing deceased ancestors, whereas signs pertaining to
divine beings includes seeing unexpectedly heaven or siddhas (perfect ones) or see-
ing everything contrary to previous experience. According to the commentary of
Vascapati Miśra, the yogi experiences the outcome of his own karma and dies when
he wills it.
Additional cognitive powers are the following: attaining mastery over the gross
elements (3.44); manifesting quickness of mind (3.48); and omniscience and
omnipotence (3. 49). The ability to control gross elements gives the yogi the ability
to enter the bodies of others, according to the commentary of Vyāsa (3.44). By mas-
tery over primordial matter (prakṛti) and its evolutes by means of subjugating the
five sense-organs, the yogi acquires speed of mind, which means that his body gains
a speed of motion comparable to that of the mind, according to Vyāsa’s comments.
With only pure sattva associated with the intellect (buddhi) free from the influ-
ence of the other guṇas (threads), the yogi discerns the difference between puruṣa
58 Indian Asceticism

(self) and intellect, which gives rise to omniscience known as viśokā, a perfection
related to becoming omniscient. Vijñānabhikṣu comments that omniscience can
be defined as the simultaneous knowledge of all puruṣas and of the guṇas quali-
fied by the properties of the past.10 The yogi now possesses total control over reality
and is thus omnipotent, although the attainment of the powers of omniscience and
omnipotence is not the end for the yogi.
With the destruction of the seeds of all faults (doṣas), the yogi becomes detached
from omniscience and omnipotence, and gains kaivalya (3.50), a supreme isolation
that enables liberation to occur in total independence. Now, the completely inde-
pendent and pure puruṣa (self) of the yogi is only conscious of itself, or a being con-
scious of one’s own consciousness, whereas omniscience and omnipotence, which
represent states of awareness, are unimportant to the yogi because they represent
a relation to primal matter (prakṛti). On the one hand, without discrimination
between spirit (puruṣa) and matter (prakṛti), a yogi continues to be involved in the
phenomenal world. On the other hand, being absolutely independent and isolated,
the pure and unencumbered puruṣa (self) is conscious only of itself.
In addition to these bodily and mental powers, the yogi attains certain cosmic
powers connected to his power over matter and universal forces. Previously men-
tioned powers, such as the ability to levitate one’s body (YS 3.39) and ability to fly
(YS 3.42), manifest a power over gravity. The powers to enter another body (YS
3.38) or become disembodied demonstrate the yogi’s ability to overcome the normal
limitations of physicality. Knowing the past and future (YS 3.16), knowing previous
modes of life (YS 3.18), and becoming aware of one’s moment of death are pow-
ers acquired over temporality. The yogi’s ability to intuit distant, hidden, or subtle
objects (YS 3.25), an ability to discern a correspondence between the macrocosmic
and microcosmic universe, is gained by meditating on the sun that gives rise to
knowledge about different realms in the universe (YS 3.26), attaining an intuitive
connection between the moon and one’s body (YS 3.27), and intuiting a correspon-
dence between the stars and one’s body (YS 3.28) gives the yogi an insight into and
power over interrelated aspects of the cosmos. Moreover, the yogi exerts power over
matter by being able to intuit the structure of his body (YS 3.29), have an insight
into the distinction between puruṣa (self) and prakṛti (matter) (YS 3.35), intuit the
distinction between the puruṣa (self) and sattva guṇa, and exert mastery over the
gross elements (YS 3.48). With respect to power over gross elements, the yogi is able
to reorganize and manipulate them, according to his intention or desire.
After devoting the entire third chapter to a discussion of various powers that
can be acquired by the yogi by means of saṃyama and objects on which a yogi
can concentrate, Patañjali (YS 4.54.1) begins the fourth chapter in an unexpected
 Types of Power 59

and curious way by stating that powers can also be obtained by ingesting magical
herbs, spells (reciting mantras), or as the result of ascetic practice performed in a
previous birth but coming to fruition in the present life in addition to tapas (ascetic
discipline) and samādhi (contemplation). In contrast to tapas and samādhi, these
other means of attaining power probably represent an inclusion of folk beliefs and
ascetic experience of practitioners passed from one generation to another. Again,
this is an example of Patañjali borrowing elements from the prevailing religious
culture of his time.
In contrast to the Yoga Sūtra, The Khecarīvidyā of Ādināth, alleged first guru
of the Nāth ascetic order, makes a case for using drugs to gain ascetic powers.
Composed prior to 1400 CE, this text represents a dialogue between Śiva and his
consort, Devī.11 The Nāth yogi mentions the imbibing of a liquid drug and its results
with respect to powers attained:

By drinking [the amṛta] he truly becomes free of old age and death after a
year. He becomes khecara and lives as long as the moon and stars. The best
adept quickly attains absolutely all the magical powers that are found in the
three worlds, such as those of magical sandals, the magical sword, power over
zombies, magical elixirs realgar, invisibility, access to the treasures of the sub-
terranean realms and power over male and female genies. (1.75)

The so-called magical sandals enable an ascetic to travel anywhere over long dis-
tances and over obstacles, such as mountains and rivers, whereas the magical sword
bestows upon the ascetic victory in battle. Realgar is specifically red-colored arsenic,
which functions as an ingredient in elixirs that can make one invisible when applied
to the eyes. Female genies represent yakṣiṇīs or female spiritual figures.12 Toward the
end of the text, Ādināth unequivocally emphasizes again the importance of drugs
for gaining powers: “Without drugs a yogin can never attain siddhi” (4.1).
Whether a person attains powers by virtue of yogic techniques or drugs, Ādināth
is not reticent about making exalted claims about the attained status of the yogi
because “he becomes equal to Śiva” (2.39). In the third chapter of his text, Ādināth
demonstrates his consistent message:

By means of this divine yoga divine sight arises. Truly he becomes Khecara
and there arise the destruction of all sickness [and] the [powers of] cheat-
ing death and of wandering throughout the three worlds. Endowed with the
[eight] powers whose first is the ability to become infinitesimal [the yogi]
assuredly become completely perfected; he becomes a ruler of yogins [and his]
60 Indian Asceticism

movements unimpeded. [The yogi] automatically gets the strength of nine

thousand elephants [and] becomes like Śiva, O goddess. (3.5–8)

According to Ādināth, it is possible for a practitioner to achieve a divine status by

practicing yogic techniques or taking drugs, which is similar to a message contained
in the Mahābhārata.
In retrospect, Patañjali does a good job of summarizing the various powers
attained by yogis, but the compiler does not exhaust all the possibilities because
he fails to mention other forms of powers associated with the attainments of yogis.
Outside the Yoga Sūtras, other texts refer to powers to heal others, perform miracles,
and to curse others with dire consequences for the unfortunate victim. The chapters
that follow will cover these other forms of power.

Types of Power in the Pāli Buddhist Tr adition

Various examples of powers are provided by the Pāli texts, and some texts attempt to
compile a list of the diverse powers such as the supernormal power of apperception
and knowledge (abhiññā), which are powers attained by the Buddha (MN 1.69) and
his disciples (SN II.217, 222). The Saṃyutta Nikāya (I.191) identifies the sixfold higher
knowledge:  psychokinesis (iddhividha), clairaudience (dibbasotadhātu), telepathic
knowledge (ceropariyaññāṇa), retrocognitive knowledge (pubbeni-vāussātiñāṇa),
clairvoyance (dibbacakkhis), knowledge of the destruction of defiling impulses
(āsavakkhayañāṇa). Psychokinesis is not knowing that something exists, whereas
the sixth type is a case of knowing that something does exist.13 Psychokinesis is
more akin to the power of will that can manifest itself by the power of levitation.14
At times, the Pāli texts describe the ease with which it is possible to levitate by men-
tioning that when the Tathāgata abides in consciousness of bliss and buoyancy his
body raises from the ground into the air (KinS 5.282).
Clairaudience refers to remarkable auditory ability (without the assistance of
sense organs) to hear sounds from a long distance, such as the Buddha overhear-
ing a long-distance conversation between two people that gives him knowledge of
the death and survival of others (MN I.502; DN I.152).15 According to the Middle
Length Sayings (MN 2.19), near and distant sounds of humans and gods can be heard
by an adept. Anuruddha is identified in the canon as the disciple with the greatest
gift of clairvoyance because he can see thousands of worlds (MN I.170), whereas the
Buddha overhears a distant conversation between a Brahmin and a wanderer that he
relates to an astounded Brahmin in his company (MN I.502). In the Sāmaññaphala
Sutta, the Buddha sees beings as they pass away and are reborn, and recognizes those
that are mean and noble or happy or wretched as they die (DN 2.95). In another part
 Types of Power 61

of this text, the powers of the Buddha are further described as being able to become
invisible or visible, being one he becomes many or vice versa, passing through solid
walls, passing through dense ground, walking on water, and traveling through the
sky with his legs crossed (DN 1.2.77).
According to the Assaka Jātaka (207), the Buddha is an ascetic in this tale about
the grieving King Assaka who cannot adjust to ordinary life after his queen, Ubbarī,
dies, and he simply lies next to her dead body. A young Brahmin informs the Buddha
and requests his help. The Buddha asks that the king visit him. Then, the Buddha
instructs the king that his wife was intoxicated by her beauty and performed no vir-
tuous deeds, being reborn now as a little dung worm in the park in which he resided.
The Buddha identifies the dung worm as the former queen, and gives her the power
to speak to her former husband to whom she admits that she would kill her former
spouse if given the opportunity. The story ends with the king cured of his obsession
with his former queen, his remarriage, and the continuation of his righteous reign.
In addition to the power exhibited by the Buddha, the power of clairvoyance
is also found in the Pāli scriptures associated with the monk Moggallāna, who is
famous for his acquisition of supernatural powers. While descending the Vulture’s
Peak hill, he smiles at seeing a skeleton moving through the sky as vultures, crows,
and falcons fly after it and peck at its ribs, pulling it apart as it utters cries of pain.
The third and fourth powers—telepathic and retrocognitive—are respectively
indirect and direct telepathy, with the former being able to receive the thoughts of
others in normal consciousness, whereas the latter kind of telepathy is achieved by
jhāna (meditation, trance) and gives one the ability to read the mind and thoughts of
others (DN I.80–81). Retrocognitive knowledge involves hearing human and divine
sounds near and far (DN I.79; MN II.19).16 In addition to knowing the destruction
of defiling impulses with the sixth power, a person is also able to personally verify
the Four Noble Truths (DN I.84).
Other extraordinary powers are called iddhi in Pāli (ṛddhi in Sanskrit) reflecting
physical, mental, and magical powers possessed by an advanced and accomplished
adept. A group of eight of them is usually identified that include the following: abil-
ity to project bodily images of oneself; become invisible; pass through objects; sink
into solid ground; walk on water; read the minds of others; touch the sun and moon;
and ascend to the divine realm (DN 1. 77). Another list of powers is provided by the
Kevaddha Sutta (DN 1.212) that is attributed directly to the Buddha in response
to the insistent Kevaddha, a young householder: become multiform; become one;
change from visible to invisible and vice versa; pass through a mountain; penetrate
solid ground as if through water; walk on water; travel cross-legged through the
sky; touch the moon and sun with one’s hand; reach the heaven of Brahmā in an
embodied condition.
62 Indian Asceticism

Examples of these types of powers are sprinkled throughout the Pāli literature.
While in the company of deities, the Buddha, for instance, suddenly vanishes (MN
1. 330). In another episode, while others seek boats to cross the flooded Ganges River,
the Buddha suddenly vanishes and reappears on the opposite side of the inundated
river (DN 2.89). Sitting cross-legged in the sky, Brahmā Samamkumāra ascends and
appears before the thirty-three gods of the divine realm. Just as spectacular is the
monk Abhibhu, who preaches with a visible body at one moment, then with the
lower half of his body visible, and finally with only the upper half of his body visible
(KinS 1.154).
These various types of powers are considered dangerous because they can be used
for good or evil purposes. According to the Cullavagga (5.8.1–2), the Buddha is
depicted as critical of Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja for levitating to retrieve a bowl from the
top of a bamboo pole set there by a merchant and flying around the city three times.
Based on this incident, the Buddha ruled that psychic powers are not to be revealed
to householders. Presumably, it is acceptable to terrorize divine beings of the Hindu
pantheon as the monk Moggallāna, renowned for his mastery of supernatural pow-
ers, using his toe, makes the Vejayanta Palace of Sakka, lord of the devas, tremble,
shake, and quake.
As the episode of Moggallāna suggests, the powers attributed to advanced monks
can affect nature. Mahaka, a young monk, in response to the wish of a householder
for a cool breeze and rain, for instance, to counter sweltering heat, creates a cool
wind and a thunderstorm (KinS 4.289). In another narrative, at the urging of Citta,
a householder, the monk Mahaka creates a fire that burns the grass surrounding a
cloak without burning the cloak (KinS 4.290). These narratives suggest that pow-
erful monks have control over aspects of nature as also evident by their ability to
overcome a natural force such as gravity and fly or levitate their bodies.
According to the Visuddhimagga (The Path of Purification) of Buddhaghoṣa
(fifth century), who was considered by the Pāli tradition to be the greatest Buddhist
commentator as evident by his name meaning “voice of the Buddha,” it is difficult
to attain supernormal powers and only one in a hundred or a thousand can accom-
plish it (12.8). Overlapping with texts of the Pāli canon, Buddhaghoṣa identifies the
following powers (iddhis): having become one, one becomes many; possessing the
divine ear; penetrating knowledge of other minds; knowing past lives of oneself
and others; knowing about passing away and rebirth of beings (12.2). According to
Buddhaghoṣa, these powers come to the meditator after his/her mind is concen-
trated, purified, lucid, malleable, steady, and imperturbable. By achieving the eight
attainments in each of the eight kasiṇas, or objects of meditation (some ten are iden-
tified: earth, water, fire, wind, blue, yellow, red, white, space, and consciousness),
a practitioner’s mental concentration is supported, and this mental foundation
 Types of Power 63

enables the mind and object to become identified. The aspirant must have control of
the mind in some fourteen ways, such as controlling the order and reverse order of
the kasiṇas, or controlling the order and reverse order of trance states.
Buddhaghoṣa also refers to a road to power (22.42) that includes the power of
concentration, which is one of four ways because it involves a faculty, an enlight-
enment factor, a path factor, and an insight (vipassana) power that is identified
with serenity that he defines as “The unification of the mind and non-distraction
due to renunciation are serenity, as a power” (23.20). As a power, serenity does not
waver because of hindrances (23.20), but gives a person insight into contemplation
of impermanence, pain, non-self, dispassion, fading away, and cessation. Moreover,
the road to power involves a grounding of concentration in four bases for the suc-
cessful acquisition of powers that include the following: (1) zeal and will to strive;
(2) energy; (3) purity of consciousness; (4) inquiry (12.50). When a monk’s practice
of meditation is firmly grounded in the four bases, eight steps, and sixteen roots
(e.g., un-dejected, unrelated, unattached, un-repelled, independent, untrammeled,
liberated, unassociated, free of barriers, unified, reinforced by faith, reinforced by
energy, reinforced by mindfulness, concentration, understanding, and illuminated
consciousness) lead to the obtaining of supernormal powers (12.55).
In addition to the powers identified as iddhi, Buddhaghoṣa also comments on
the abhiññā or mental powers that he surveys in his text. They include the follow-
ing:  divine ear; being able to penetrate the minds of others; recollection of past
lives; divine eye; knowledge of the future; and knowledge of the future according
to karma (deeds, actions). The knowledge of former modes of existence reflects the
enhanced power of memory, which for the bodhisattva of Mahāyāna Buddhism is
less a result of deep concentration; it is rather a benefit gained through meritorious
deeds. Being empowered with extraordinary memory does not indicate a realization
about impermanence that can trigger a quest for liberation, but represents instead
a change in the monk’s behavior.17 The ability to encompass the entire past is a dia-
chronic vision, which teaches one that there is no self because it is absent within the
chain of causation, rendering a person a mere projection of a self without reality.18
The divine ear, for instance, represents the ability to hear divine and human sounds,
which makes a person similar to divine beings, even in another world (13.2, 3). The
divine ear, a union of jhāna (absorption or trance consciousness) with knowledge,
is supported by divine abiding, and enables one to hear sounds that originate in
another world (13.2, 6). If there is a cacophony of sounds, the monk with a divine ear
can still distinguish one sound from another (13.7).
In addition to the divine ear, Buddhaghoṣa elaborates more fully on the features
of penetration of minds, recollection of past lives, and the divine eye. The pen-
etration of minds is a kind of knowledge that arises through the divine eye that
64 Indian Asceticism

constitutes its foundation. The monk understands all consciousness based on the
senses and finer and immaterial types of consciousness, which enables an aspirant to
understand all types of consciousness (13.9). By being able to recall past lives, one can
recollect one’s multiple past modes of existence and know circumstances of one’s
appearance and behavior (13.13). Depending on their level of spiritual advancement,
different types of holy persons can see backward further than those not as advanced,
with no limits on a Buddha. The basis for this power is the fourth level of jhāna
(trance) (13.22).
The divine eye, representing knowledge of the passing away and reappearance of
beings, is another power to which Buddhaghoṣa devotes a long discussion. Possessing
the divine eye gives a person an insight into what occurs to a person after the break
up of his/her body, such as being able to see whether he/she is happy or unhappy
in their destiny (13.72). This power is so-called because of its similarity to gods, its
being unimpeded by other parts of the body, and because it consists of knowledge,
divine abiding, and illuminates a range of visible objects (13.73). Exceeding the
human eye of the body, the aspirant can see into hell (13.79). Buddhaghoṣa arranges
the possessors of the divine eye in a hierarchical structure with each higher ranked
person knowing the consciousness of all those below them, beginning with an ordi-
nary person, a steam enterer, a once-returner, and an Arhat’s consciousness with the
Arhat’s ability to know the consciousness of all the others ranked below him/her
(13.110). In conclusion, Buddhaghoṣa would agree with post-structuralist Michel
Foucault’s assertion that knowledge is power, even though they would totally dis-
agree about its implications.
In addition to the Pāli textual tradition, various types of powers do not lose their
allure or importance in Mahāyāna texts. The Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sūtra gives,
for example, a list of ten powers: (1) know fully the finite and the infinite; (2) know
past, present, and future; (3) know fully the purity of emancipations and concentra-
tions; (4) know the various types of faculties and energy and the different thoughts
of others; (5) know various kinds of faith; (6) know innumerable events caused by
the many kinds of transformations; (7)  understand, comprehend, and know all;
(8) know all because his/her vision is unobstructed; (9) know all from first to last
without limit; (10) regard past, future, and present as all the same.19 In this text
power is depicted as a magnet because when the Buddha displays his powers monks
come to see the display from many different locations and distances.20
Another Mahāyāna text, the Śūraṅgama Samādhi Sūtra, points to a unique
power of the Buddha—his longevity: “You manifest such a brief life span in this
[world], yet your real [life span] is seven hundred immeasurable eons.”21 The power
of longevity, a power that enables the holder of it to prolong their life, can be traced
to the Pāli texts and attributed to the historical Buddha and certain arhats (fully
 Types of Power 65

enlightened ones). This power is specifically attributed to the monk Upagupta. In

the Daśabhūmika Sūtra, a seminal Mahāyāna text that is part of the much larger
Avataṃsaka Sūtra that also circulated independently of the larger text, the power of
longevity develops at the eight bhūmis (stage, level) of the ten traditional stages that
is called acalā (immovable) where one cultivates the ten vaśitā, which includes the
āyur-vaśitā (power of longevity, an ability to prolong one’s life). 22 Why would a bod-
hisattva want to extend his/her life? The standard answer is that the bodhisattva
acts compassionately for the welfare of others, although this mode of action might
be compromised by other requests for assistance. 23
A different interpretation of powers in the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition is offered
by the Japanese Zen master Dōgen (1200–1253) in his masterly classic Shōbōgenzō
(True Dharma-Eye Treasury). The twenty-fifth chapter is Jinzū (Mystical Power)
where he refers to six powers (rokujinzū): power of transmutation; mental power
over other minds; supernatural vision; supernatural hearing; power to know past
lives; and power to end excess. These six powers conform to traditionally accepted
powers within Buddhism. These powers are realized before the existent body is real-
ized, and are not related to the three moments of time: past, present, and future.
Dōgen stresses their importance, “Without the mystical power of Buddha, the
establishment of the mind, training, bodhi, and nirvana of all the buddhas could
never be.”24 Dōgen is indicating the nondualistic status of the powers with other
aspects of the Buddhist path to awakening.
This position necessarily entails that there are small and great powers, but they
are not aware of each other. This is precisely where Dōgen makes a creative contribu-
tion to the understanding of the powers because the six powers and what he calls the
five powers are all equally powers. The so-called small powers are abilities that we
have that enable us to fetch water, carry fire wood, wash our face, sit, or walk: “Its
embodiment is three thousand acts in the morning and eight hundred acts in the
evening.”25 Dōgen intends to say that there is no genuine distinction between pow-
ers acquired through meditation and those that are everyday actions because they
are all empty, and are transmitted from one person to another.26 Within the context
of these powers, buddhas play alone. This play feature will be discussed much fur-
ther in later chapters.

Jain Ascetics and Powers

The Jain sage Samantabhadra (fifth century) gives a list of eight powers that can be
acquired by the ascetic in his work Āptamīmāṁsā (1.2). These powers include the
following: become small (aṇimā); extend one’s body (mahimān); make body light
(laghimān); make body heavy (gariman); adopt any form and any number of bodies
66 Indian Asceticism

at one time (sakāma-rūpita); subjugate others (vaśita); power to exhibit superiority

(īśitva); power to act as one desires (prākāmya). Anyone practicing yoga can obtain
these powers, which makes such a person superior to celestial beings. These powers
are obtained by an ascetic way of life that purifies the practitioner of their karma
and makes the achiever omniscient, which is defined as the ability to be conscious
of every living being without being limited by time and space (1.4). The Digambara
sect refers to ascetic powers as ṛddhis, whereas the Śvetāmbara sect uses the term
labdhis.27
The eight-century Jain thinker Umāsvāti focuses on mental powers in his
Tattvārtha Sūtra. He discusses the advantages and superiority of telepathy, clairvoy-
ance, and omniscience over extrasensory perception by indicating their higher level
of spiritual attainment, while extrasensory perception is attainable by lower levels
of beings, such as hell-beings, animals, humans, and gods. He defines telepathy or
mind-reading as “the act of seeing the objects (the modes) of another’s mind” (1.9).
Clairvoyance refers to “the perception of things that are out of the natural range
of the senses,” whereas omniscience is knowledge of all substances in all modes of
the present, past, and future (1.9). These three mental powers are considered innate
because they exist independently of the senses, mind, and language, but “only
omniscience is perfectly innate because it alone arises out of the total elimination
of knowledge-covering karma and therefore knows everything past, present, and
future” (1.12). Clairvoyance and telepathy are associated with ignorance because
they are the result of the constant influence of knowledge-covering karma.
Umāsvāti offers a two-part typology of clairvoyance: a type that beings of heaven
and hell are born having and that which comes with controlling knowledge-covering
karma, which is only possible in animals and humans (1.21–23). He further specifies
six sub-types of the second type of clairvoyance: that which occurs at a particular
place but does not extend to a different location; a kind that does not depend on
a certain place but will not last for a long period of time; a type whose range con-
tracts; a type whose range expands; a kind that fluctuates constantly; and a type that
continues until death or even into whatever condition one is reborn, which could
extend to the achievement of omniscience (1.23).
Umāsvāti also divides telepathy into two types that he distinguishes by their rela-
tion to purity and infallibility (1.25). Telepathy is different from clairvoyance based
on issues of its purity, spatial range, the species of the knowing subject, and the
nature of the object identified by them. These four factors are intended to prove
the superior nature of mind-reading, which is a finer mode of knowing confined to
humans exhibiting advanced asceticism, self-restraint, and capable of a deeper mode
of knowing. In comparison to mind-reading and clairvoyance, Umāsvāti declares
that “Omniscience is autonomous, perfect, whole, incomparable, independent,
 Types of Power 67

pure and all-encompassing” (1.30). Omniscience arises when mind-obscuring karma

is completely eliminated and one attains enlightenment. Besides these powers,
Umāsvāti provides a list of thirty-six powers that he distinguishes as physical (first
twenty), seven mental, and nine verbal powers (10.7). Four of the initial powers listed
are identified with healing, which will be discussed in ­chapter 7. In comparison to
Umāsvāti, the Pravacanasāroddhāra of Nemicandra (ca. 950) gives a list of powers
totaling twenty-eight by means of specific transformations and particular practices
of asceticism.
The Yogadṛṣṭisamuccaya of Haribhadra, an eighth-century figure, views human
existence as an illness that comprises birth, disease, and death, contributing to
confusing delusions. There is a wide variety of illness that differs among humans,
but the omniscience attained by the ascetic is always uniform, even though the cir-
cumstances of this experience are conditioned by the status of each individual soul.
This distinction based on individual karma is also reflected in the different paths
traveled by ascetics.28 A particular ascetic possesses innately the seed for attaining
a higher power, but the ascetic must practice his discipline to make this potential
for knowledge and liberation a reality. This superior type of knowledge can have
revealing consequences as with the story about Maheśvaradatta, a rich merchant,
who sacrificed a buffalo to his ancestors and fed his son the sacrificial meat. A Jain
ascetic with insight into previous births told the merchant that he was feeding his
son with the flesh of his former father. His son was then identified as his wife’s for-
mer lover, and his wife was now a bitch chewing the bones of the buffalo. 29 This nar-
rative demonstrates the mental powers of an ascetic and exposes the deluded nature
of sacrificial actions from the Jain viewpoint.
In his twelfth century Yogaśāstra, Hemacandra, who died by fasting in 1172, traces
supernatural powers associated with the practice of yoga. He mentions walking in
the air, the powerful nature of the curse and ability to bestow benefits, extraordinary
perception, and ability to read other minds (1.9). These final two powers are related
to what the Jain philosopher Umāsvāti refers to as the five varieties of knowledge
( jñāna) that include the following: empirical, articulate, clairvoyant, mind-reading,
and omniscient. Hemacandra acknowledges the practice of concentration (dhāraṇi)
as the main instrument for developing powers (5.36). He also calls attention to two
additional powers:  entering the body of another (14.1) and the power to become
small by meditating on a sacred mantra (8. 60).
In the Jain literary work The Epitome of Queen Līlāvatī, there are references
to various types of ascetic powers that includes the following: memory of former
modes of existence (9.226–227); becoming as small as an atom (12.116); becoming
invisible (12. 221); achieving omniscience (12.234); being totally motionless and mis-
taken for an inanimate post (14.242); being self-transformed into a god (14.515).30
68 Indian Asceticism

This text emphasizes the importance of being initiated as a Jain ascetic, an event
that is analogous to the extinction of the flames of a fire symbolizing suffering. This
suggests that the act of ascetic initiation functions as a boat for crossing the bound-
less ocean of existence (2.248–249). Overall, the Jain types of power are very similar,
if not identical, to those that one can find in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions.

The Pur āṇas, Tantr as, and Ascetic Powers

In the Liṅga Purāṇa (1.13–31) of classical Hinduism, there is a list of six powers
(siddhas) to be attained by a yogi that is similar to the types of powers identified by
Patañjali, Jain, and Buddhist texts. The initial power given is knowledge exceed-
ing the limitations of space and time or that which is subtle or hidden (pratibhā).
With the second power (śravaṇā), the yogi can effortlessly hear words near or far
away. The perception of divine smells and subtle elements represents the power
of vārtā, whereas the ability to see fluently divine forms is darśanā. The fifth and
sixth powers are respectively āsvāda, ability to taste divine delicacies, and vedanā,
an awareness of touch without direct contact. These powers and other types are
identified as impediments to liberation that should be checked assiduously by
detachment from them, a warning that goes back to the Yoga Sūtras and beyond
that text to earlier Buddhist and Jain beliefs.
The text also identifies yogic powers over the five fundamental elements of the
universe: earth, water, fire, ether, and air. Powers associated with the earth element
include having the ability to become heavy, light, change biological ages, change
shape, or project a sweet smell. The power over water enables a yogi to remain sub-
merged in water for long periods of time, to drink an ocean, to will water to spring
forth, to hold a large amount of water in the hands, and to transform any form of
food into something tasty. The power over fire enables a yogi to create fire from his
body, not fear fire, ability to keep fire in water, hold fire in his hands, create fire by
recalling it, and re-create a pile of ashes into its former condition. Pertaining to the
power over air, the yogi can move as fast as the mind, can enter the body of others,
lift heavy items, become light or heavy, hold air in his hands, to shake the earth
with the tip of a finger, and to create bodies in air, whereas power over the element
of ether involves the ability to not cast a shadow, see subtle elements, walk on ether,
fulfill desires, hear distant sounds, comprehend all types of sounds, and perceive
all living beings. In addition, the advanced yogi can see the gods, planets, stars, and
dwellers of other worlds, which is a way to claim that nothing is beyond his ken.
In a purāṇic text originating around 950 CE, the Bhāgavata Purāṇa (11.15.1–33), a
similar type of list is given of powers (siddhas) of the advanced yogi in conjunction
with the type of concentration on god and method used. Some eighteen powers are
 Types of Power 69

identified, with eight of them related to the perfection of god, whereas the other ten
are gained by the increasing growth of sattva guṇa in meditation. Becoming small
or large, levitating, controlling other beings, the ability to enjoy everything, use illu-
sory power over others, detachment from objects, and will to enjoy pleasure are the
eight supernormal powers that are grounded in god. Powers gained by concentrat-
ing on sattva guṇa include immunity from bodily changes, ability to see and hear
from any distance, speedy travel, assume any form, enter the body of another, cast
off one’s body, see gods sporting with celestial nymphs, know the three moments
of time, mastery over opposites such as heat and cold, read the minds of others, an
ability to neutralize the harmful effects of fire, water, and poison, and so forth. The
attainment of these various powers is dependent upon the yogi fixing his concentra-
tion on god and controlling his breath, senses, and mind. Again, the author of this
purāṇic text warns that powers (siddhas) are impediments and cannot help a yogi
reach absolute freedom.
The Vāyu Purāṇa (13.3–4) includes a discussion of the Pāśupata yogis, an ascetic
movement associated historically with the Śaiva sect, and provides a list of eight
powers that can be acquired by a yogi: becoming as small as an atom (aṇimā); abil-
ity to become light or levitate (laghimān); ability to become large (mahimān); a skill
related to obtaining things and making things materialize (prāpti); will power and
telekinesis (prākāmya); will power over others that includes hypnosis (īśitva); power
to subjugate one’s own will and self-hypnosis (vaśitva); and a supernatural faculty
that fulfils all desires (kāmāvasāyitā). Prior to this list, the text also mentions the
enlightened yogi’s ability to see the past, present, and future moments of time (11.9),
and an ability to abandon his body and enter that of another by means of concentra-
tion (11.34).
The author of the text explains further that the power of levitation (laghimān)
enables a yogi to move fast (13.12), whereas the power of telekinesis (prākāmya) gives
a yogi an irresistible will that enables the yogi to obtain anything in the cosmos
(13.13). According to the author of this section of the text, the end result of the yogi’s
power renders all mobile and immobile beings subservient to the all-powerful yogi
(13.15). As with other lists of acquired powers, the yogi/ascetic accomplishes actions
that are the opposite of each other, such as becoming light or heavy, suggesting that
the yogi is symbolically a conjunction of opposites and a liminal person at the mar-
gins of society.
Similar lists of powers are also discovered in Tantric texts. Without listing the
various powers that are similar to those of other texts, the Yoginīhṛdaya (Heart of
the Yoginī) with the commentary of Dīpikā of Amṛtānanda provides a list of ten
powers. What is interesting about this list is the inclusion of bhukti (power of joy).
The commentator explains that this is the great joy that gives the possessor of this
70 Indian Asceticism

power the feeling of uniting all the diversity in the world.31 The commentator goes
on to say that those who are empowered by the force of these supernatural powers
become the supreme Śiva.32 The Tantric practitioner’s goal of achieving divine status
is not uncommon among this type of ascetic. Reaching this goal can be viewed as
a process executed by a Tantric ascetic. Sarbacker clarifies this point: “The attain-
ment of spiritual accomplishments represents a process of human divinization, as
the achievement of such powers represents a transcending of human capacities, a
breakdown of boundaries between the human and superhuman that leads the agent
to a state of otherness not bound by worldly limitations.”33
According to the Amanaskayoga (1.50–98), a Tantric text attributed to
Goraksanāth, there is a connected made between various type of powers attained
by the yogi and the length of time a yogi holds his/her breath. By holding one’s
breath for twelve minutes, the coiled kuṇḍalinī becomes straightened. With the
retention of the breath for ninety-six minutes, the yogi gains a vision of light, but
ten days gives one stronger visions. Numerous examples of how holding the breath
for long periods of time increases the power of the yogi’s senses include the follow-
ing:  increases olfactory powers (twenty-four hours); power to see distant objects
(three days); touch things at a distance (four days); hear distant sounds (five days);
increase power of one’s intellect (six days); gives knowledge of the entire universe
(seven days); enhances supernatural powers of speech (nine days); and bestows mind
travel (eleven days). By holding one’s breath for thirteen days, one gains the ability
to fly, and additional days of breath retention enable a yogi to become great, experi-
ence lightness of being, and ability to bend the universe to one’s will. Other forms of
progress give one mastery over the basic elements of the world, such as earth, water,
fire, air, or ether. Finally, uninterrupted breath retention for twenty-four years gives
a yogi control over the goddess Śakti, which renders the yogi all-powerful. The text
is unclear about whether a reader should accept these claims literally or whether one
should assume that the message is metaphorical or symbolic.

The Dangers, Loss, and Limits of Powers

In the Yoga Sūtras (3.36), there is a reference to achieving an intuition (prātibha)
that gives higher and more powerful levels of sense perception that takes a yogi’s
hearing, touch, vision, taste, and smell to prior inaccessible levels of ability. What
are presented as powers in one passage are disparaged in another, and a warning is
issued to a reader: “These powers are accomplishments for the mind that is outgo-
ing but obstacles to samādhi.” On the one hand, Patañjali acknowledges that these
powers do arise, are genuine, and not something created by the yogi’s imagination.
On the other hand, these powers are a hindrance to further spiritual advancement
 Types of Power 71

and reaching the goal of the path. In other words, these heightened sense powers
and others can become obstacles to achieving an ascetic’s final goal, assuming that
the ascetic intends to achieve the highest goal of liberation rather than simply using
the practice of asceticism to achieve powers. The danger that Patañjali and other
ascetic figures perceive is that acquired powers have an inherent danger of becoming
obstacles on the path to final liberation. In other words, the ascetic falls captive to
the allure of supernatural powers, and finds himself in a new type of bondage. The
danger associated with ascetic powers is also acknowledged by Buddhist and Jain
texts. In fact, the Buddha, for instance, was opposed to even displaying powers to lay
people, although a display of powers is permissible to convert others.
In the modern era, the Ramaksrishna Math and Mission has called attention to
the dangers associated with ascetic powers. Ramakrishna (d. 1886), inspirational
holy man and temple priest of this international movement, is opposed to powers
because they do not help a person realize ultimate reality. Powers cannot overcome
illusion (māyā), and they lead to egotism. In reply to a question from a follower
who heard about someone with superhuman powers and ability to perform mira-
cles, while another person could control ghosts and get them to perform tasks for
him, Ramakrishna responds, “What shall I do with superhuman powers? Can one
realize God through them?”34 This negative view about powers is curiously contra-
dicted by Swami Saradananda, a biographer of the holy man, who claims that people
revered and admired Ramakrishna because of his yogic powers, although he does go
on to say that powers are for the weak minded, lead to egoism, and are not the goal
of life.35
Swami Vivekananda (d. 1902), a disciple of Ramakrishna and person most
responsible for creating an international religious movement, discusses raja-yoga
(highest form of yoga) as a scientific method for achieving the truth by using the
mind as an instrument. He calls for a practice of yoga that is moderate and beyond
the extremes of hedonistic luxury and extreme austerity that tortures a practitio-
ner’s flesh. For support of his position, he refers to a passage in the Bhagavad Gītā
(6.16).36 Vivekananda acknowledges the existence of ascetic powers and refers to
examples of reading other minds, disappearing, animating a dead body, walking on
water and sharp objects without problems, becoming small or large, or becoming
heavy or light, but he sees a necessity to reject ascetic powers because they can hin-
der spiritual progress. He echoes his teacher’s position about the dangers of ascetic
powers and how they can hinder the aspiring novice, but have no influence on the
advanced meditator.37
Up to this point, we have been surveying the various types of powers that ascetics,
yogis, monks, and nuns can attain, but there have been no references to the pos-
sible loss of powers. Tapas (ascetic austerities) are comparable to wealth that can be
72 Indian Asceticism

gained and also lost.38 Fearful of the tapas of the ascetic Viśvāmitra, the deity Indra
instructs, for instance, an apsara (divine nymph) to seduce him, but the ascetic
detected Indra’s intention and in an irritated condition petrified the nymph by curs-
ing her, an action that caused him to lose tapas (Rām 1.63–64).
Just because a monk possesses power, this does not mean that he cannot lose it as
evident by narratives in the Buddhist Jātakas. According to the Saṁkappa Jātaka
(251), the Buddha is born as a wealthy layman who becomes an ascetic. He is invited
by the king to live in the royal palace. When the king goes to war and leaves the
ascetic in the care of his comely queen, the ascetic becomes entranced by her beauty,
and admits his infatuation with the queen to the king when he returns from wag-
ing war. After losing his powers because of his lustful association with the queen,
the ascetic finally regains an ecstatic state and flies away. There are also a couple
of Jātaka tales (263 and 507) that depict the Buddha in a former life lusting after a
female dancer. After a flying ascetic arrives, he is seduced by the woman and loses
his supernatural powers, which alerts the prince to the dangers of desire, motivating
him to devote his life to meditation and away from concupiscence.
In another Jātaka narrative (305), the Buddha is a hermit born into a wealthy
Brahmin family. Impressed by his countenance, he is invited by the king to the pal-
ace where the monarch asks the hermit to enjoy royal hospitality. After leaving the
holy man in the care of his wife, named Gentle-heart, the king proceeds to repress
an uprising in his kingdom. The hermit leaves the queen, but returns by flying to
the palace where the queen is waiting for him. Her hurried response to his sudden
arrival causes her tunic to slip down and reveal her body, which kindles lust within
the ascetic and motivates him to confess his lustful desire for the queen to the now
returned monarch. This confession prompts the king to give his queen to the ascetic.
With the queen as his consort, the hermit tries to please her, but she keeps making
demands on the ascetic for a house and then household items. After he loses his
power because of his immersion in domestic life and his inability to satisfy her, he
returns the queen to the king, and sets forth to regain his former powers. These
types of narratives indicate that the primary way to lose power is for an ascetic to
violate the ascetic or monastic code of conduct by indulging one’s passions.
By means of his prodigious power, an ascetic imprisons the dragon kings in a fit of
anger in a narrative from the Buddhist tradition, which results in a devastating and
life-threatening drought. In order to alleviate the drought, the king of the stricken
land sends five hundred comely maidens to seduce the ascetic. After a maiden is suc-
cessful seducing the ascetic, the dragons escape and a sudden deluge results. Falling
in love with the maiden, the ascetic shows her the way to return home. During their
journey, they encounter a river where the ascetic offers to carry her across on his
shoulders. Entering the city, the ascetic is the object of ridicule because the maiden
 Types of Power 73

still sits on his shoulders. Deciding to return to his mountain retreat, the ascetic
becomes aware that he has lost his ability to fly because of his contact with the
comely maiden.39
What this narrative and others similar to it suggest is the loss of energy that
Buddhists refer to as the “small death.” Since every sexual relationship is a form
of predation in the Buddhist monastic context, it represents violence and power.
Faure elaborates, “From the Buddhist viewpoint, desire and power always make
two victims: the subject or consumer, who becomes dependent on the sexual object
and is consumed by desire; and the object of desire, who is consumed (and consum-
mated).”40 The karmic act of sex and desire defiles the ascetic/monk and leads to
more defilement and desire by repeated acts, and reduces or destroys any acquired
powers achieved by practicing meditation.
In addition to tales about the loss of powers, Indian texts place limits on yogic
powers. The limitation of such powers is evident by the fact that powers cannot
be used to alter the basic structure of the world. The rationale for this limitation
involves the restriction that powers cannot compete with the previously perfected
yogi’s will personified as Īśvara, a yogic deity.41 This type of limitation can be
obscured by an ascetic’s ability to do things that are usually done by divine beings.
In an epic narrative (Mbh 9.4.15–20), the ascetic Agastya finds his ancestors hang-
ing in a cave because they are without progeny, telling the ascetic that he can free
them if he will produce a child. Since no woman is equal to him and fit to bear his
child, Agastya creates a woman, and gives her to the king of Vidarbha to mature to
adulthood. Growing fast, the girl attains marriageable age, and the king gives her
to the ascetic to marry, although the king had reservations about whether or not to
give her to the ascetic. The king is motivated by his fear of the ascetic’s curse and
pleading by his daughter to be married to the ascetic. This type of narrative bestows
a divine aura upon the powerful ascetic. It is precisely this type of narrative that
blurs the distinction between the ascetic and a divine being, which seems more pos-
sible in a polytheistic religious culture rather than a radically monotheistic religion
such as Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

Retrospective Reflections on Powers

According to David Gordon White, ascetic powers are either magical or abstract,
with the latter including a powerful will, becoming as small as an atom, and the abil-
ity to levitate, whereas the former types of powers are those that ascetics originally
sought to achieve, including invisibility, sudden disappearance, elixir of immortal-
ity, and telekinesis. White contends that the most sought-after power is the ability
to fly.42
74 Indian Asceticism

In contrast to White, Knut Jacobsen discusses attitudes toward powers that he

divides into two aspects: unintentional attitudes that simply accept the powers as
an inevitable byproduct of practicing asceticism and yogic techniques, and those
religious attitudes that intentionally strive to attain extraordinary powers such as
the Tantric traditions where the powers become an end in themselves. The Yoga
Sūtras, Buddhist, and Jain literature warn about the dangers of becoming enamored
of these various powers and the necessity of moving beyond such powers, which are
not the final goal. These traditions also warn about the connection between yogic
powers, trickery, fraud, and deception by unscrupulous ascetics seeking to prey on
unsuspecting and credulous members of society.
Whatever the motivation for seeking powers, the action of reducing them as
White does to two types is a bit too simplistic. The discourse associated with ascetic
powers and the narratives about them demand something more reflective of the
evidence. From one perspective, ascetic powers fall into a threefold typology and
twofold impetus of control. Ascetic powers discussed in this chapter reflect the fol-
lowing three types: somatic, mental, and cosmic. Among the somatic type are the
following: power to become small or large; become light or heavy; suddenly appear
of disappear; control bodily functions and needs; changing one’s body or entering
the body of another; becoming many; diving through the ground; ability to change
gender; walking on water; freedom from heat or cold; freedom from hunger and
thirst; hearing distant sounds; omnipresence; passing through solid things; separa-
tion of one’s limbs; strength of an elephant; transforming food; and flying through
the air. The mental types of power include the following examples: ability to read
the mind of others; omniscience; prescience; prognostication; understanding the
sounds and/or language of all sentient creatures; being able to speak to animals;
to mentally create miracles; visual knowledge; clairvoyance; mentally cure diseases;
knowledge of the past and future; knowledge of past lives. And the cosmic types of
power are represented by the following examples: becoming coextensive or one with
the universe; being connected to the cause of creation; having access to cosmological
powers such as Brahman or prakṛti; achieving a divine status. Based on a review of
various narratives, these powers often overlap or are intertwined with other powers.
Based on the micro/macro distinction, the ascetic gains control of the self on the
micro-level of existence, and this then gives him/her control of the world. With its
notion of non-self, Buddhism does not easily fit this distinction. Nonetheless, Hindu
and Jain asceticism and thought would fit to a large degree into this distinction.
Examples of power over nature in the epic literature of classical Hinduism enable
us to see the extent of the ascetic’s power (symbolic of the macrocosmic aspect).
For example, the ascetic Ṛṣabha, who is an irascible hundred-year-old figure, com-
mands mountains to heave rocks at intruders, and thereby demonstrates his power
 Types of Power 75

over nature (Mbh 3.32.5–10). In other episodes, the ascetic Rśyaśṛnga causes rain
to fall (Mbh 3.110.1–3), and Vāruṇi assists the gods by drinking the ocean (Mbh
3.103.1–4). In the epic, there is a reference to an ascetic conquering the five elements.
This indicates “the acquisition of yogic power with holding power over the cause
of creation, the avyakta prakṛti taught in Sāṃkhya.”43 According to the Buddhist
Pūrṇāvadāna, an ascetic causes flowers and fruits to disappear, a stream to dry up,
lush meadows to be ploughed up and fields to die only to later restore these things.44
Again, this ascetic ability is an apparent demonstration of power over nature and
akin to divine power. Any humanistic reflections, however, about the nature of
powers do not exhaust the subject because it can also be approached from the per-
spective of cognitive science. Thus this broad discussion of various types of powers
invites us to look deeper into the cognitive process of human beings by means of
developments in cognitive science.

Ascetic Powers and Cognitive Science

The findings of cognitive science have already had an impact on religious studies,
philosophy, and social sciences. Some scholars view it as a bridge between science
and religion. Ann Taves, for instance, views cognitive science as a bridge between
science and the academic study of religion. Taves writes, “Just as historical and com-
parative perspectives provide our primary window on the variation (and stability)
of cultural forms across times and places, so too evolutionary and developmental
perspectives provide a window on the similarities and differences across species and
across the human life span.”45
Early pioneers of the cognitive approach to religious issues include Pascal Boyer
and Harvey Whitehouse, who generally agree that we have religion because of the
way our minds have been constructed by the process of evolution. For Boyer, the
mind is not a tabula rasa because it is rather an advanced piece of mental equipment
that can identify information by means of a set of mental dispositions.46 Humans
are endowed with an “intuitive physics” that allows them to make distinctions in
their environment such as solidity, cause, motion, and function of something. If
this type of awareness is passed on to another generation, it proves to be useful for
survival. Gods and spirits are explained by our “anthropocentric tendency” that is
evident when we see, for instance, human faces in clouds or imagine gods in order
to make our lives meaningful.
For Whitehouse, religion is a discourse that is always culturally specific, and
which is transmitted by ritual and helps humans to learn. Whitehouse stresses
explicit knowledge rather than the implicit knowledge advocated by Boyer.47
Within Whitehouse’s theory, memory plays an important role. Semantic memory, a
76 Indian Asceticism

diffuse and broadly accepted form, is general knowledge that has social significance,
whereas episodic memory, which tends to be personal, refers to affective events that
possess a strong affective component.48
There are others that see problems with a cognitive science approach to the study
of religion. Warnings are advanced about epistemological and meta-theoretical lim-
itations of any cognitive science of religion.49 What any cognitive science of religion
encounters is a brain within a body with a complex nervous system, involuntary
bodily processes, emotions, feelings, a hormonal system, and semantic network. For
all of these aspects to be considered in any theory, it is essential to analyze the brain
as embodied within such a complex system, which cannot be accomplished without
an expanded view of cognition by a scholar.50 Because of the growing adoption of
cognitive science by scholars in humanistic and social science disciplines, it behooves
us to examine its potential to shed some light on the powers associated with Indian
ascetics. Before we turn to insights that cognitive science can offer about yogic pow-
ers, it seems wise to consider the context and its findings about religion.
Cognitive science needs to be understood within the context of evolutionary
theory, which represents a biological history of the human species. This biologi-
cal narrative suggests that there are many realities within which humans live and
work. To assert that ordinary life is real is merely a fiction because “[t]‌he world of
daily life, like all the other multiple realities, is socially constructed.”51 This implies
that humans construct religion. And within the overall context of evolution, the
impetus to be religious is inheritable, giving religion a definite biology that can be
founded and isolated in the human brain. In other words, there are regions within
the brain that are responsible for religious experience. Cognitive scientists have
been busy mapping the different places in the brain that are responsible for religious
experience and other types of experience. They have also been working on how the
human body and brain work to create and release psychoactive chemicals that pro-
duce changes or alterations of modes of consciousness. McNamara summarizes this
in the following way:  “Religious experiences are realized via the brain in human
beings, and knowing how the brain mediates religious experiences can tell us some-
thing about potential functions of religious experiences.”52
The move toward a cognitive approach to religion by examining the way that the
human brain operates reflects a continued commitment by some scholars to the rig-
ors of science and the goal of an unbiased, objective, certain, and falsifiable method
whose conclusions can be tested by others for accuracy. The cognitive approach to
religion implies that the type of religion that a person practices is based on his/her
type of mind. The cognitive approach tends to concentrate on humans and their
brains, but it tends to neglect the body, language, history, society, and material cul-
ture that shape a person. This type of approach and its gaps are reasons for some
 Types of Power 77

scholars to react negatively to a successful development of a coherent theory of a

cognitive science of religion.53
The regions of the brain that are associated with religious experience are located
mostly on the right side that dominates the ventral system, which is involved with
reflexive and involuntary types of diffuse attention. The right lower side of our brain
assumes a bilateral responsibility by responding to unexpected stimuli. Overall, the
ventral system functions to instantly redirect attention, serving an involuntary
mode of reorienting the brain.54 Overall, this simple sketch of the brain indicates
that there are regions of the brain that are consistently associated with religious
experience, serving a functional purpose for a person who needs religion to cope
with problems in life.
In addition to evolution and areas of the brain associated with religious expe-
rience, our genetic structure is also important to mention, even though we are a
conglomeration of conflicting, competing genes attempting to survive and be trans-
mitted to future generations. These numerous genetic sources construct multiple
brain connections. These brain networks that are crucial for religious experience,
according to clinical data, are identified with the limbic system (especially the amyg-
dala), portions of the basal anglia, the right temporal lobe, the dorsomedial nucleus,
or obitiofrontal cortex and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.55 These areas of
the brain are scientifically measured by PET and SPECT methods to isolate and
study, for example, individual meditators, examining areas of the brain that show
decreased or increased activity in specific areas of the brain. When a religious act is
being performed there are parts of the brain that are consistently activated.
It has been discovered that brain cells have specialized receptors that bind to
chemicals that are produced by the body/brain, which produce changes in states of
consciousness by enabling nerve cells to communicate with each other. The levels of
neurochemical activity are regulated within the brain’s religion circuit, depending
on the extent to which the brain is influenced by cognitions, emotions, or beliefs.
Although this brief discussion hardly does justice to the subject of cognitive sci-
ence, it does suggest that religious actions and thoughts contribute to the produc-
tion of certain chemicals. Even though neuroscience research is still at an early stage
of development with new findings being discovered as the research advances, it is
not too early to make some general remarks about what happens with a person that
practices asceticism and meditation. It is plausible that chemical changes in the
body and brain of the ascetic are partially responsible for helping to explain why an
ascetic thinks that he/she has attained certain powers.
Two central neurotransmitters are dopamine and serotonin, which are also neu-
rochemicals. The latter neurochemical is associated with feelings of happiness and
well-being, and regulates mood, appetite, and sleep. Among the other cognitive
78 Indian Asceticism

functions of serotonin are developments associated with memory and learning. The
neurotransmitter dopamine, an organic chemical, is connected in the brain with
motivation and reward. Being extraverted and reward seeking are characteristics
that are connected to dopamine. The dysfunction of dopamine results in diseases
such as Parkinson, schizophrenia, and attention deficit disorder.
Based on scientific measurement and studies, it is well-known that meditation
reduces heart rate and blood pressure. There are also other overall effects: “Meditation
creates a series of complex psycho-physiological changes.”56 This process becomes
even more complex when one factors in extreme forms of asceticism. Besides the
roles played in the brain by serotonin and dopamine, meditation also contributes
to the release of nitric oxide, a gas that acts as a free radical that is very reactive
and plays a role in consolidating memories.57 Another chemical produced is ket-
amine, a dissociative anesthetic that is clinically used to treat depression and is
also related to influencing the effect of sedation and hallucinations in humans. It
is, moreover, responsible for a condition called “oceanic boundlessness.” This state
gives one a feeling of merging with something greater than oneself such as the cos-
mos.58 Blissful states of experience are related to endogenous opioids that are asso-
ciated with the inhibition of the amygdale and its circuits. The brain’s inhibitory
workhorse is the GABA (an acronym for gamma (γ)-aminobutyric acid), which is
increased in the brain. This process increases ketone, an organic compound, pro-
duction that in turn increases the amount of GABA in the body. Other elements
that affect the meditator are the production of endomorphin, an endogenous opi-
oid peptide, which relieves pain and reduces levels of ACTH (adrenocorticotropic
hormone), an endogenous opioid produced by the anterior pituitary gland that also
results in higher levels of cortisone in the blood, representing hormonal effects from
meditation.59 Another chemical that influences the body is nitric oxide, which sig-
nals muscles to relax and increases blood flow. How this system specifically works is
still being researched by neuroscientists.
Regardless of how this system precisely operates in the brain, it is possible to
conjecture that this neurochemical system that regulates the circuit in the brain
associated with religion stimulates the dreams, hallucinations, consciousness, and
imagination of the meditating ascetic. The role of extreme forms of asceticism asso-
ciated with a lack of proper sleep, inadequate food, and self-induced bodily and
mental pain also make a contribution to stimulating the production of certain neu-
rochemicals that affect a person. Taking into consideration these various potential
influences on the brain and body, it is plausible to conclude that the ascetic imagines
attaining certain types of powers.
The imaginings and hallucinations about being powerful are more than infantile
fantasies that become delusions when they are believed.60 Instead the ascetic’s vivid
 Types of Power 79

imagination gives rise to flights of fantasy where anything is possible, enabling an

ascetic to creatively remake the past, create a new future, and to invent something
for the present despite the penchant of many Indian ascetics to be free of the cycle
of time. Fantasy, an advanced type of imagining, does, however, share some simi-
larities with the ascetic lifestyle. Fantasy frees us, for instance, from the ordinary,
habitual world, it suspends social rules of conduct, it suspends ordinary, everyday
reality, and it transforms us.61 Fantasy is related to hope and play, a topic that is
discussed in ­chapters 6 and 7.
These remarks are made from an etic (outsider) standpoint that embraces the
prospect that it is possible to view the powers of the ascetic as something imagined
(as if). From the perspective of an ascetic or commentator who is an insider (emic),
acquired powers are real and are determined by the insider to be authentic and
should be literally accepted as having been achieved by the ascetic, if an interpreter
is to understand the powers of the ascetic. Therefore, when Patañjali disparages
the powers in his commentary on the Yoga Sūtras (3.37) it is not because they were
conjured by someone’s imagination and/or fantasy, but because they are considered
really to exist and to be in the possession of the ascetic.
Having briefly reviewed some of the implications and possible results of neuro-
chemicals on the brain, this does not mean that I am completely convinced that
neuroscience has all the answers, although it is certainly very suggestive. I have used
some neuroscience findings in order to conjecture about how supernatural powers
might be imagined by an ascetic because it is unlikely that we will ever have a defini-
tive answer to these powers in my lifetime. Writing about Buddhism, I am inclined
to agree with Owen Flanagan’s criticism of neuroscience:

One can immediately see that drawing interesting cause-and-effect general-

izations is not something that psychology and neuroscience alone is remotely
equipped to do. Buddhism, like every other lived tradition, has a history, a
(set of) sociology(ies), and beings in the world(s) who live as Buddhist (accord-
ing to their own lights)—and none of these things or aspects of living as a
Buddhist is in the head.62

What this quotation implies is that neuroscience does not provide all the answers
by reducing the lifestyle of and acquisition of supernatural powers by the ascetic to
the brain. Much like ordinary people, the ascetic develops and changes during his/
her life, and is influenced by occurring events and those with whom he/she interacts
on a daily basis.
There are scholars who disagree with this line of thought because they think
that our religious experience can be scientifically examined as a neurological and
80 Indian Asceticism

biological phenomenon. It is possible according to this mode of thought to take a

subjective phenomenon and to develop a naturalistic understanding of it.63 There
has been a call for a radical empiricism to counter a neo-Kantian model that empha-
sizes concepts and language as the foundation for consciousness. A radical empiri-
cal approach would treat consciousness more inclusively by considering more fully
emotions, sensations, and feelings, which are claimed to be more deeply rooted in
brain structures.64 But not every scholar agrees that this is possible.65

Concluding Remarks
This chapter has offered a reader a look at the powers discussed in the Yoga Sūtras,
the variety of these powers in that text, and a rationale for Patañjali to include a
lengthy examination of these powers. It was observed that he was very probably
influenced by narratives—possibly written and oral—that permeated Indian cul-
ture about the powers displayed by or imagined by ascetics. Many of the same
ascetic powers included in the Yoga Sūtras can also be located in Buddhist and Jain
texts. And the same type of narratives depicting ascetics and their powers continues
with the Purāṇic literature. The types of powers acquired are somewhat standard,
although there are some that are not mentioned by Patañjali. The associated top-
ics concerning what happens when an ascetic loses power and the limits of powers
concluded the overview of powers. In order to enhance understanding of the various
powers, a threefold typology was offered based on the narrative evidence.
If the ascetic combines bodily and mental powers and manifests micro/macro dis-
tinctions in various narratives and ascetic discourses, it is possible to view the ascetic
as a representative of the coincidence of opposites. This suggests that the ascetic is
a paradoxical figure in the ascetic discourses and narratives of India. In following
chapters, we will witness other examples of the ascetic being the conjunction of
opposites with respect to such examples as violence and nonviolence, play and seri-
ousness, fasting and eating, and gentle language and curses. This approach affords
these chapters an opportunity to demonstrate further connections with power and
the ascetic.
 4
Violence, the Demonic, and Power

While tr acking a wounded deer on a hunting expedition in the forest, a king

encountered an ascetic engaged in deep meditation. When the king asked the ascetic
if he had seen a deer pass by him, the ascetic failed to respond to the king’s ques-
tion. The king did not know that this particular ascetic had taken a vow of silence,
and became angry with the ascetic’s lack of response. In order to demonstrate his
displeasure with the ascetic, the king hung a dead snake around the neck of the
meditating ascetic. Perturbed by the king’s intrusion into his solitude, breaking his
meditative concentration, and suffering an affront to his personal dignity due to the
mindless action of the king, the ascetic Śṛngin cursed King Pariksit to be hurled
into the hell of Yama by the great snake Taksaka (Mbh 1.36.8–19). In summary, the
inhospitable act of the infuriated king receives a response from the offended ascetic
that is intentionally violent as a recompense for the monarch’s insensitivity to the
ascetic’s practice and disruption of his solitude.
In another story from the epic literature of India, the sage Yavakrita, who had
performed austerities in order to master the Veda and had been warned about exces-
sive pride by the god Indra, arrived at the hermitage of the ascetic Raibhya, a friend
of the sage’s father. Spying the beautiful daughter-in-law of the ascetic, Yavakrita
was overcome by passion and proposed a tryst with her. After the sexual encounter,
the tearful and distraught daughter-in-law told her ascetic father-in-law what the
ascetic had done to her. Overcome by anger due to the injustice perpetrated against
his daughter-in-law, the irascible ascetic Raibhya plucked out two strands of hair
81
82 Indian Asceticism

from his head and consecutively placed them into the sacrificial fire, creating respec-
tively a bewitching and beautiful woman to match his comely daughter-in-law and
a fearsome, evil-eyed Rākṣasa or demonic being, instructing them to kill Yavakrita.
The beautiful demon seduced the sage and stole his water bowl, which prevented
him from purifying himself after having sex. Having become unclean and without a
means to cleanse himself, the sage was vulnerable to a fatal attack from the demon,
an encounter that ended when the ascetic’s heart was split by the pike of the demon
(Mbh 3.137.1–20).
In a third epic narrative (Mbh 9.40.12–22), the ascetic Vasishtra sees widespread
destruction on his return to the forest caused by the army of Viśvāmitra. Becoming
enraged at the devastation, the ascetic instructs his cow to release the terrifying
shabarās (men of horrifying appearance). After they destroy the king’s army, the
defeated king is motivated to adopt a life of asceticism.
These three narratives are very instructive because they both demonstrate the
awesome powers that are achieved by some ascetics and also call attention to the
close relationship between ascetic power and violence. The connection between
violence and power in the life of the ascetic is not an apparition, but it is rather
an essential component of his/her lifestyle.1 When discussing āsana practice, clas-
sical yoga texts, such as the Haṭha Yoga Pradīpika composed by Svatmarama in
the fifteenth century and the later Gheranda Samhita, refer to imitating animals,
some of whom are benign while others are violent, such as the following: lion pose
(siṃha-āsana); cobra pose (nāga-āsana); eagle pose (garuḍa-āsana); and scorpion
pose (vṛścika-āsana). Chapple explains this practice: “By imitating an animal, one
takes on a new demeanor, influenced by the qualities of the animal whose shape and
form and stance one emulates.”2 For a path that stresses nonviolence, it is curious
that yoga texts would use violent animals as paradigms to emulate. A possible expla-
nation rests with the close relationship between asceticism and violence. Moreover,
for the ascetic, the practice of asceticism leads to the acquisition of powers that are
gained by violent practice that is self-inflicted. Once an ascetic becomes powerful,
there is ample narrative evidence of them inflicting violence on others.
The power gained by an ascetic even permeates to his bones, according to one nar-
rative (Mbh 9.51.29–30). After the ascetic Dadhicha gives up his life, the gods entreat
him for his bones where his power is now believed to reside. Indra secures the bones
and turns them into divine weapons. It is thus a false and superficial impression to
imagine that the wandering or sedentary and generally nonviolent lifestyle of the
Hindu ascetic makes him an irenic figure. This misleading impression is contra-
dicted by a large body of evidence to suggest that many ascetics practiced a sacrificial
form of violence upon themselves as part of their ascetic regimen in order to attain
powers and/or spiritual liberation.3 This self-inflicted violence often took the form
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 83

of an interiorized self-sacrifice, a giving of a bodily part or self as a sacrificial offer-

ing.4 The Hindu ascetic discovered an archetypical model for this practice in the
ancient Vedic sacrifice called the Puruṣamedha, which developed from the sacrifice
of a cosmic man into a variety of forms.5 The Upaniṣadic texts exhibit, for instance,
different forms of self-sacrifice: mental sacrifice (ChU 3.16.1–5; BĀU 1.2.7; JaU 4);
offering of bodily parts (PainU 4.7; DMU 22–23); sacrifice of the breaths (ChU
5.19–23; KBU 2.5; PrasU 4.3–4; MaitU 2.6). The epic literature adds the sacrifice of
the senses (BhG 4.26–30) and the self (Mbh 12.23.6.23–24) to the list of examples.
In two hagiographical narratives about the philosopher Śaṅkara, he encounters a
Kāpālika ascetic in the region of Karnataka. Standing with his eyes closed and hold-
ing a human skull that mysteriously becomes filled with liquor that the ascetic drinks
while continuing to meditate on Śiva, he asks the great god to destroy Śaṅkara. In
a response reflective of the god’s relationship to Śaṅkara, Śiva asks the Kāpālika
whether or not the ascetic should destroy himself. As the ascetic counters with a
similar question, Śiva cuts off the head of the Kāpālika and becomes the champion
of Śaṅkara.6 In another hagiographical narrative, a Kāpālika asks Śaṅkara for his
head and promises him fame. Agreeing to the ascetic’s request, Śaṅkara instructs
the Kāpālika to decapitate him when he enters a trance state and to perform the
act in private. Padamapada, a spiritually advanced disciple of Śaṅkara, intuits what
is happening, and kills the Kāpālika with his nails after being transformed into
Narasiṃha, man-lion incarnation of Viṣṇu.7
In the Tantric tradition, Gorakhnāth, legendary founder of the Nāth-Yogins,
kills and skins two brothers and hangs their skins on a tree for anyone to see before
restoring them to life.8 If this narrative is an embrace of violence, a counter tale
relates that Gorakhnāth prevents violence by a king intent on killing a person with
his sword by making it impossible for the monarch to withdraw his weapon from
its scabbard.9
In order to wean king Kulōttuṅga II (1130–1150) of the Cola dynasty from his
favoring a Jain epic, Cēkkiḻār, a twelfth-century Tamil author, infuses his epic with
violent episodes instead of the erotic elements in the Jain work, but with the pur-
pose of replacing erotic love with devotional love. Cēkkiḻār’s spiritual heroes are the
Nāyaṇārs and their acts of self-slaughter grounded in their love of Śiva, an ascetic
deity, acts which destroy the outer body in order to purify the inner body. In this
instance, self-inflicted violence reveals the depth of the Nāyaṇārs’ devotion toward
their god. Their fierce and fanatical use of violence is relational because “[t]‌heir acts,
it turns out, are not just their own; they are also the acts of Śiva and they reveal
his nature to us—nature that appears to us at times as mad.”10 I  might add that
self-inflicted violence by devotees also reveals the demonic aspect of Śiva’s nature
because of the intimate connection between violence and the demonic.
84 Indian Asceticism

Even if Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain ascetic figures and monks take a vow of non-
violence, the Indian ascetic tradition manifests a creative tension between a vow of
nonviolence and an ascetic regimen that inflicts violence on the practitioner. This
tension is a continuation of the role of violence in the ancient Vedic sacrificial cult.11
Although nonviolence embodies the idea of security or safety in pre-Upaniṣadic
texts, nonviolence did not play a major role in Vedism, and we are hard pressed to
discover a genuine theory of nonviolence in the ritual context. During the Vedic
period, there is, however, textual evidence suggesting a spirit of nonviolence as when
the sacrificial victim is placed and killed outside of the sacred sacrificial plot and its
altars, when the sacrificer and priests turn away from the victim, when excuses are
made for the victim’s death, or when the victim is killed by strangulation or suffoca-
tion in order that it not utter a sound.12 It is thus possible to witness a movement in
the early Vedic period where there is little embarrassment concerning sacrificial vio-
lence and the later ritual texts and their manifestation of an uncomfortable increase
of embarrassment about inflicting violence.13 This nascent movement toward nonvi-
olence is opposed, for instance, by Kumārila in the Mimāṃsāsūtra because he “sees
the universalization of the ahiṃsā doctrine as a threat to the Vedic dharma and the
Āryan tradition.”14 Nonetheless, the spirit of renunciation of the world and embrac-
ing of an ascetic lifestyle helped to spread an emphasis on nonviolence. But violence
never really ceases because ascetics inflict violence upon themselves and others by
means of the powers gained by ascetic practice as evident in ascetic discourse and
narrative.15
As suggested by numerous examples, since there is an intimate association
between powers acquired by ascetics and violence, this close relationship between
power and violence that is emphasized by Indian literature needs to be explored
further and comprehended more systematically. Finally, there are numerous sto-
ries about demonic beings practicing tapas (austerities), gaining boons from a deity,
becoming thereby more powerful and a destructive threat to the universe and divine
beings, and finally being countered in order to preserve cosmic order from disrup-
tion. An examination of demons gaining powers by means of the practice of asceti-
cism enables us to briefly examine the demonic aspect of power. Finally, this chapter
considers some theoretical perspectives with regard to power and violence.

Ascetic Regimen of Fasting and Violence

An irony embedded within the Indian ascetic lifestyle is its violence—actual or
symbolic—despite the ascetic often taking a vow of nonviolence. As discussed in the
first chapter, self-inflicted violence is a perfect way for the ascetic to mark his/her
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 85

body. A type of self-inflicted violence adopted by ascetics is the practice of extreme

forms of fasting, a type of practice pushed to its most excessive extent by the vow to
fast unto death by a Jain ascetic.
Long periods of fasting result in emaciated-looking bodies, for example, because
of insufficient food to nourish the body with necessary proteins, vitamins, and
other nutrients in order to maintain a healthy body, resulting in a loss of bodily
fat and flesh. I am not referring to fasting as part of a yogic regimen practiced by
ordinary people that does no visible harm to the body, but I am rather alluding to
extreme forms of fasting. Ascetics often appear with visible ribs, other perceptual
bones showing, and a spinal cord protruding through their skin. As a result of vari-
ous types of self-inflicted violence, the emaciated bodily appearance of ascetics gives
an ascetic the look of an animated corpse. During a period of his life devoted to the
practice of extreme forms of asceticism within the context of a conversation with
Sāriputta preserved in the Middle Length Sayings (I.80–81), the historical Buddha
describes his extreme practice of fasting when he followed a path of extreme asceti-
cism trying to achieve liberation. He describes his bodily condition in the following
way: his limbs became knotted, his buttocks resembled a cow’s hoof, his spinal cord
was like a string of balls, his ribs became gaunt, his eyes sunk into his head, his scalp
shriveled, he could touch the skin of his abdomen and grab his backbone, and the
skin of his stomach clung to his spinal cord. He confesses that he subsisted on a
single rice-grain as the reason for his body becoming so emaciated, which was a regi-
men that he subsequently rejected.
Instead of emphasizing extreme forms of fasting, the Buddha and his tradition
stressed moderation when eating and adhering to rules of the monastic order. The
Buddhist text stressed eating one meal a day around noon and no eating at night,
although a monk or nun could eat again after sunrise and exceptions were made for
illness. The Pāli texts called attention to the healthful benefits of this type of moder-
ate eating pattern as well as its benefit of promoting strength, aging slower, and being
comfortable.16 Monks or nuns were instructed to eat moderately for the support and
maintenance of their bodies and not for amusement, intoxication, physical beauty,
or attractiveness.17 This emphasis on moderate food consumption and its benefits
are echoed by the great Buddhist thinker and commentator Buddhaghoṣa.18
The emphasis on moderation when eating in the Pāli tradition was not always
followed in the Mahāyāna tradition. An excellent example of a lack of moderation
in eating habits was practiced by the Tibetan holy man Milarepa, who confessed in
his biography that his body turned into a skeleton and his skin assumed the color
of nettles because they formed the basis of his diet. People who encountered him
thought that he was a ghost and fled in fear. At one period of his life, his sister, Peta,
86 Indian Asceticism

arrived at his cave with some beer and barley porridge. She looked into the cave and
saw, according to Milarepa:

My body was wasted by ascetic practices. My eyes were sunken into their sock-
ets. All my bones stuck out. I was emaciated with a green complexion. Fine
bristling greenish hair grew on the skin hanging from my flesh and bones.
The hair on my head grew in shocks and frightful disarray. My limbs were
about to break. When my sister saw this she was terrified, thinking I was a
ghost at first.19

In fact, she asked him if he was a human being because she was so shocked when she
saw him. By following his extreme diet of nettles, Milarepa was inflicting violence
upon himself that transformed his external body into a collection of bones cover by
a thin layer of green skin.
The importance of food consumption to the ascetic lifestyle is emphasized in India
in classical Hindu texts that classify ascetics according to habits associated with eating,
as noted in the first chapter. What I did not discuss is the extreme and strict regimen
of fasting, a form of self-inflicted violence associated with the ascetic lifestyle. Fasting
is a form of violence that leads to a phenomenon that characterizes the appearance of
many ascetics: veins. It is lucidly affirmed in some texts that the ascetic’s body is held
together by his/her veins. Because of Jayadratha’s extreme asceticism, for instance, his
body is described as being held together by veins (Mbh 7.41.12), and the same thing is
asserted of the ascetic Matanga (Mbh 13.30.2) later in the same epic. Again, the ascetic
Dhundhu (Mbh 3.195.1–4) is described as practicing extreme austerities by standing
on one foot and fasting. He is so emaciated that he is described as being composed by
his veins. Referring to the former bodily condition of the venerable Buddhist monk
Seyyasaka, his friends described his appearance during his previous ascetic phase by
stating “with veins showing all over your body.”20 What this means is that veins appear
all over the body of the ascetic, providing an outline of the body and the appearance
of holding the emaciated bodily figure together.21 The visible veins of the ascetic are
analogous to a roadmap, testifying to a personal history of self-inflicted violence.
The Buddhist Pāli textual tradition testifies to additional examples from its lit-
erature. Before he achieved enlightenment, the historical Buddha confesses to prac-
ticing extreme forms of asceticism, including eating foul substances and abstaining
almost completely from food. The Pāli texts refer, for example, to visible bodily
evidence of extreme fasting by the Buddha as evident from previous comments. 22
Eventually, the Buddha rejected extreme forms of fasting and other instances of
excessive self-mortification. This decision would function as a model for latter
monks to prove the dangers associated with excessive fasting and other extreme
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 87

forms of asceticism, and induce more lay support for the monastic community. 23
This Buddhist monastic injunction against extreme forms of fasting stands in direct
contradiction to the path of Jainism.
Even though Jainism uniquely embraces nonviolence along with Buddhism and
forms of Hindu asceticism in comparison to other religious paths,24 Jain monks
typically practice very strict forms of fasting with the most dramatic and paradoxi-
cally most violent being fasting unto death, manifesting an acceptance of suicide as
a legitimate form of release from karmic activity. A Jain monk/nun can chose to die
either against his/her will or with his/her will, with the former being the choice of
ignorant people, whereas the latter is a wise decision.25 From the Jain perspective,
the basic problem with dying against one’s will is the following: It binds a person to
the cycle of rebirth and accompanying sorrow and is thus counterproductive.
Overall, there are three ways for a Jain to die:  (1)  bhattapaccakkhana involves
rejecting food until winning release, but allowing other monks to move one’s body;
(2) paovagamana consists of imitating a motionless tree while fasting and waiting
for death; (3)  inginimarana means for a monk to seek refuge in a circumscribed
location and being responsible for one’s bodily movements.26 A key aspect in these
practices is whether or not they assume either a posture of not moving or moving. 27
Nonetheless, the most authentic and pure way to die for a monk is sallekhana (fast-
ing unto death), which is a formal affair involving renunciation of friends, wealth,
malice toward enemies, and confessing of misdeeds. What makes this form of
self-inflicted violence pure is that it does not increase one’s passions.28 Jain monastic
regulations reject drowning, burning, poisoning, or jumping from a high place to
commit suicide. There is also no fault, however, with offering one’s body to vultures
after lacerating it because the flesh serves as food for the birds.29 The common thread
making these forms of suicide acceptable is whether or not they violate the spirit of
nonviolence (ahiṃsā) and thus the subsequent accumulation of negative karma.
The observance of fasting is not restricted to Jain ascetics because lay members
of the religion practice it regularly during the fall festival of Paryusam, fasting then
for longer periods of time in addition to the usually observed twice-a-month regi-
men of fasting by the laity. Whatever the length of fasting, it is always according to
a strict vegetarian diet. This type of lay observance is intimately connected with the
Jain conviction that consciousness is a feature of many natural phenomenon within
the world, such as a rocks, water, fire, air, and plants, because each of these things
possess a soul that expresses its consciousness through ordinary sense faculties, such
as touch, taste, smell, and sight.30 It is the central nature of fasting in the Jain reli-
gion and its rejection of the sacredness of food that distinguishes its path from the
Brāhmaṇical tradition and from the Buddhist path by making an act of fasting a
central feature of the ascetic path and practice of the laity.31
88 Indian Asceticism

Food and Violence

By achieving an emaciated physical condition, the Indian ascetic manifests an overt
rejection of normal social food transactions that constitute a social code that defines
and reinforces prevailing hierarchical social structures and interpersonal relation-
ships. Instead of being a food producer, the Indian ascetic assumes the role of a food
gatherer who can collect alms in society by begging or procure food that grows in
the forest, a wilderness apart from society. The cosmic and social significance of
food is evident in Indian texts from ancient times because it plays a central role
in the Vedic sacrificial cult when a sacrificer bonds with the gods, a feature that is
often expressed by the sacrificer becoming food (ŚB 3.6.3.19). By having to wait for
his chance to consume the sacrificial offering, the sacrificer manifests his inferior
status in relation to the deities. The notion of food, which is equivalent to life itself
(ŚB 9.2.3.16), is connected in the priestly mind with strength (ŚB 9.3.3.10), vigor (PB
13.9.13), juice of life (KB 2.7), wealth and renown (ŚB 2.4.4.1), and power (PB 23.14.3).
Eventually, even eaters become food at the end of their lives as they become food for
death (ŚB 10.1.3.1). Overall, food travels through a circuit that reflects power rela-
tionships: “Food endlessly comes back to the eater, the exploited always returns to
the exploiter.”32
In ancient India, food and eating were much more than an attempt to nourish an
eater’s body because they were also associated with a display of wealth and status, a
revelation of domination, and a participation in the cosmic order. Eating and food
were, however, insidious to the ascetic because they lead to entanglement, attach-
ment, and dependence, and contribute to the cultivation of greed, pride, and lust.
The ascetic abandons rules of etiquette associated with eating and rejects the social
power relationships expressed by food transactions because the ascetic views food
as dangerous.33 In order to appreciate the ascetic’s perspective, orthodox discourse
makes a clear connection between creation, food, and sacrifice imagined as a vast
chain of food and eaters of it (ŚB 3.7.4.4).
The importance of food and philosophical speculation about its significance con-
tinues in one of the oldest Upaniṣadic texts, the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (6.4–6). In
this ancient text, all existence is composed of three qualities: (1) tejas (brilliance),
(2)  āpas (water), and annam (food). Corresponding to this hierarchically ranked
order, there are three essences of the basic categories:  (1)  vāc (speech), (2)  prāṇa
(breath), and (3)  manas (mind). This necessarily means that mind is the essence
of food because it is the highest and most rarefied of life-sustaining solid matter.
Besides their association with the three colors (red, white, and black), the phenome-
non of fire is, for example, further analyzed into the following components: (1) bril-
liance (red flame); (2) water (white smoke); and food (dark wood that fire eats and
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 89

its ashes that represent the fire’s excrement). The phenomenon of fire is further
analyzed into the threefold cosmos (loka) of heaven, atmosphere, and earth, with
the earth representing dark soil necessary for plants to grow and to become food
for human consumption. Finally, this speculative text connects the three qualities
with the prevailing social order: priests are associated with heavens, flame, and bril-
liance; the warrior caste represents the atmosphere, lightning bolts, and water; and
commoners are characterized with the dark earth, labor, dirt, excrement, and food.
This mode of thinking reflects a trend in sacrificial Vedic literature of identifying
one thing that one knows with another thing in order to exercise power over the
unknown thing and thereby gaining control over it.
Embedded within religious speculation of the Taitirīya Upaniṣad (2.1), it is
claimed that food is a manifestation of and a part of Brahman (nondual, ultimate
reality), with worldly creatures being produced by food, being nurtured by means of
food, and finally passing into food. With respect to the Ātman (self) in this text, it
is food that is identified as its foundation, and it is covered by the five sheaths that
hide the genuine self, which are identified with food along with breath, mind, bliss,
and understanding. According to the Praśna Upaniṣad (1.4), food also plays a role in
the lifecycle and rebirth when digested because food creates semen that eventually
becomes a person.
The Indian ascetic is influenced by these types of ancient speculation about food
and their metaphysical significance, but he is not completely shaped by them. By
observing a strict regimen of food consumption, the ascetic remains outside of the
social regulations for the most part pertaining to purity and pollution with respect
to eating, saliva, type of food safe to consume, and persons from whom one can
accept food. The ascetic also avoids the dichotomous cultural distinctions drawn
about food between hot/cold, boiled/fried, human/divine, and feasting/fasting.
Moreover, the ascetic evades the moral and material qualities associated with food
in Indian culture.34 According to Jaini, Jain texts trace the desire to commit vio-
lence to the craving for food and its association with impurity and karma as the
basis of bondage, while its uprooting helps to eliminate other problems.35 This Jain
attitude toward food is connected to the nature of and operation of karma, and the
role that food can play by transforming the soul into something impure. Therefore,
the Jain attitude toward food can be distinguished from the orthodox Hindu per-
spective on food as something sacred, and can be differentiated from Buddhism by
their emphasis on the centrality of fasting to the ascetic lifestyle.36
The Jain community disagrees about the desire for food for an enlightened indi-
vidual, with the Śvetāmbaras holding to the belief that an ascetic feels the pain
of hunger despite any absence of desire for food, which makes the eating of food
necessary for the sustaining of life, whereas the Digambaras think that bodily
90 Indian Asceticism

function and eating are incompatible with freedom from desire and omniscience
because the advanced ascetic is free from the binding effects of karma, rendering
hunger and thirst unable to tempt an ascetic with their urges. This does not mean
that the Digambaras are unaware that food is necessary for the welfare of the body
because they think that an involuntary intake of a subtle material substance called
nokarma-vargaṇā is sufficient food for sustaining life, a process common to all
embodied beings.37 In short, the differences between the two Jain sects mean that
the Śvetāmbaras think that the enlightened ascetic needs food to maintain him/
herself, while the Digambaras believe that with the attainment of omniscience the
desire or need for food ends along with hunger and thirst. From the Digambara’s
position, the omniscience achieved by the liberated ascetic (kevalin), his/her blissful
state, achieved powers, and pure body make it impossible for him/her to experience
hunger or to need food.38
The foundation of the Jain position about food is shaped by the notion of saṃjñās
(four subtle desires): basic instinctual craving for food; apprehension over compe-
tition for food; sexual desire that is stimulated by the consumption of food that
produces more craving for food; and attachment to things that stimulates more
attachment and volitional actions.39 Therefore, not only is the craving for food at
the root of all bondage, it is absolutely essential to uproot this craving in order to
eradicate other desires. Since everything in Jain metaphysics possesses a soul and to
obtain food involves killing the souls of lower forms of life, the Jain attitude toward
food connects it with violence. This scenario helps to understand the stress placed
on fasting in the Jain tradition even unto radical forms of fasting, such as increasing
the days of fasting until an ascetic fasts to death (ugra-ugra) or increasing days of
fasting (avasthita-ugra) for up to six months.40 The Jain spirit of fasting also influ-
ences the behavior of laypeople, who might vow not to consume food after sunset.
The radical nature of Jain fasting for their ascetics is shared by the Nātha Yogi,
whose interaction with the material world is tightly controlled. Within the closed
Tantric world of the Nātha Yogi, he/she does not need to eat or drink. By following
this ascetic regimen, the yogi remains pure because he/she does not produce bodily
secretions or waste.41 The radical left-handed Tantric tradition allows the yogi to
consume foul types of food and liquids that includes various types of animal blood,
human flesh, meat full of worms or maggots, meat mixed with dog and human
vomit, meat covered with urine, and mixed with excrement.42 From a Tantric per-
spective, this tasty meal should be consumed with gusto by the ascetic, although
there is no reference about asking for seconds.
Because food sustains the human body with nutritious elements and helps it
thrive, food is often depicted as synonymous with life in Indian culture, but ascetic
eating behavior is contrary to promoting life because he/she strives to become dead
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 91

to the world. For the ascetic, food does not have a role as a commodity within a
socio-economic system of exchange among human beings or between humans and
divine beings. The ascetic is unconcerned and detached from the nutritional value of
food for physical health, its role in shaping temperament, its influence on the emo-
tions, and its contribution to achieving longevity.
Nonetheless, there is a direct connection made between violence and pain,
such as that caused by extreme forms of fasting. An excellent textual verification
of the interrelationship between violence, pain, and fasting is lucidly made in a
fifth-century Jain text, the Āptamīmāṁsā of Samantabhadra, who responds to a
question about whether or not violence can be praiseworthy. He acknowledges
that violence causes pain and causing pain is always wrong but causing pain to
oneself for the sake of liberation is commendable. If pain is self-inflicted, it results
in virtue (puṇya), whereas evil (pāpa) results from happiness created by oneself.43
Even though a person practicing extreme forms of asceticism gets rid of attachment
(rāga) and aversion (dveṣa), he/she still causes pain to his/her body, a pain that often
comes in the form of hunger. In the Yoga Sūtras (3.30), Patañjali provides instruc-
tions to relieve the pain of hunger by means of practicing higher forms of yoga that
brings about a cessation of hunger and thirst. By providing this information, he is
acknowledging indirectly that hunger and thirst are painful and therefore a form
of violence inflicted on the body, even though fasting is done for a higher spiritual
goal by the yogi.
According to medical studies about the results of fasting, researchers have found
a wide range of affective states that include feelings of tranquility, and euphoria
connected to a rise of endogenous opioid substances in the body. There can also be
unpleasant, uncomfortable, or distressful feelings that can manifest dysphoria, dis-
orientation, confusion, weakness, and fatigue. Furthermore, extreme, strict dietary
practices can lead to a loss of libido drive and impotence.44 Thus extreme forms of
fasting can lead to a condition like anorexia nervosa that paradoxically can cause
pain or reduce it. And for those practicing meditation for long periods of time, they
can experience an increase in melatonin secretion.45 Produced in the pineal gland
located in the brain, melatonin is connected to learning and memory.
By using fasting as an example of self-inflicted violence by the Indian ascetic, this
approach helps us to witness that violence and nonviolence are relative concepts
because their degrees of social acceptability differ among religious cultures and even
within particular religions. The relative nature of violence and nonviolence can also
be traced to its acceptability during changing historical periods and circumstances.
Even though violence and nonviolence are relative notions, violence signifies actions
that injure, causes harm or pain, or destroys an object, animal, or person, whereas
nonviolence is relative to other persons, animals, or things.
92 Indian Asceticism

Later Asceticism and Violence

The practice of fasting observed by an ascetic is not the only mode of self-inflicted
violence. There is a long history in India and beyond its borders of a tradition of
violence being exercised against oneself or against others with the development
of ascetic armies. This involvement with violence stands in sharp contrast to the
importance of nonviolence in Hindu ascetic traditions, Buddhism, and Jainism.
Within the Pāli Buddhist context, violence needs to be grasped within the cycle of
causation in which ignorance and craving condition hatred in a person, and hatred
in turn leads to violence when our desires are frustrated, leading to anger, and finally
resulting in violence (DN 2.58–59). This type of scenario suggests that violence is a
mental and emotional problem in Buddhism.46 The Buddhist monk, for instance,
must practice nonviolence, and refrain from urging others to commit acts of vio-
lence against others or themselves (VinP 3.71–76). This type of injunction extends
in the Pāli literature to even single-cell creatures, seeds, and plants (VinP 4.49, 34),
although the Buddha’s attitude toward war is not unequivocally clear.47
Mahāyāna Buddhism embraced violence when it developed a tradition of
self-immolation in China based on inspiration from the Lotus Sūtra where the
bodhisattva Medicine King, a layman, serves as a model for imitation by others.
Self-immolation was associated with the Sinification of Buddhism; it was also asso-
ciated with transformation, social and cosmic renewal, causation of miracles, pro-
duction of merit, and represents a somatic path to Buddhahood. Chinese Buddhists
did not conceive of this practice as an act of self-destruction because it was conceived
as being in harmony with the cosmos, and evoked an efficaciousness and sympathy
from the cosmos. Benn explains that “[i]‌t is understood that human actions and
emotions can and do cause cosmic response and transformation. Acts that are the
most sincere because they are selfless (for example, self-immolation) will cause the
cosmos to respond in accordance with the petitioner’s intention.”48 During the age
of fragmentation (842–986 CE) in Tibet, there was an ambivalent attitude toward
violence: “On the one hand, violence represented the awesome and righteous power
of the avenging heruka buddha; on the other hand, it was something to be abhorred
and avoided.”49
According to the Jain tradition, extreme forms of asceticism are intended to
burn up negative karmic residues attached to the soul. The adoption of a vow of
nonviolence does not always protect a Jain ascetic from violence, however, because
of unrighteous actions performed during an earlier part of one’s life. A victorious
prince is given, for example, complete freedom by his father as a reward for his mili-
tary achievements. The prince uses his freedom to seduce the wife of a merchant
and performs sex with her in the presence of her husband. Eventually, the lecherous
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 93

prince converts to Jainism and practices extreme forms of asceticism. Being located
by the disgraced merchant asleep upon a corpse, the merchant directs the hammer-
ing of iron spikes into the body of the former prince, killing him.50 This murder is
conceived as a recompense for his former moral transgression. This type of narrative
does not suggest that the Jain view of violence is monochromic because violence
is unavoidable within a world with multiple life forms that extend from simple to
complex, a situation that resulted in a twofold classification of violence:  whether
action was intentional or not, and whether it was performed justly or unjustly.51
After the creation of the Delhi Sultanate around the fifteenth century, warrior
ascetics became significant participants in the political realm, and they were iden-
tified by carrying an iron lance.52 Some of these warrior ascetics can be traced to
Śaṅkara (d. 820), who was credited with defeating Tantric Kāpālikas in an armed
conflict by means of his yogic powers.53 In addition to Śaṅkara’s Dasnami monastic
order of warriors, the Śaiva Nātha yogis also armed themselves to contest the domi-
nance of Muslim rulers and to battle Muslim fakirs, with socio-economic issues
providing the context for the antagonism, which eventually lead to the so-called
Sannyasi Rebellion during the later part of the eighteenth century.54 These warrior
ascetics were shaped by their personal regimen of austerities that strengthened their
physical bodies and prepared them for the hardships of combat.
The tension between yogis and rulers was captured by a narrative that gave a large
part to the Muslim ruler Akbar. During this ruler’s reign, there was a yogi who
could fly with the assistance of a pellet of quicksilver that he kept in his mouth.
While napping on the terrace of the king’s harem, the pellet of quicksilver slipped
from his mouth, and was seized by the king. After awakening, the yogi recognized
his problem, and asked the king to return the item, but the king demanded that the
ascetic teach him some tricks after returning the quicksilver. The yogi agreed and
offered to transport his soul to any creature chosen by the king, who decided on a
deer. Alarmed by the ascetic’s power, Akbar ordered his guards to kill him, but wit-
nesses noticed a change in the king’s demeanor, and thought that the yogi had trans-
ferred his soul to the king.55 The supernatural powers demonstrated by this ascetic
and others in the popular imagination functioned as the ground of their martial
abilities. This tradition of the warrior ascetic inspired historically later Indian liter-
ary authors such as Bankimcandra and Vikram Seth.
In Seth’s novel A Suitable Boy, which is set in the 1950s, but published in 1993,
he depicts the riotous violence and mayhem made worse by naked Śaiva ascetics
armed with tridents and inflicting violence on other pilgrims at the Kumbha Mela
at the conjunction of India’s sacred rivers, Ganges and Jumna.56 This event com-
memorates the mythical narrative of a time when the gods and demons churned the
ocean of milk in order to create an elixir of immortality. The gods reneged on their
94 Indian Asceticism

promise to share the elixir with the demons, and were chased by the demon horde
that caused the gods to spill the elixir at four places on earth: Allahabad, Hardwar,
Ujjain, and Nasik. Meaning the house of Aquarius, the Kumbha serves as the most
auspicious time to bathe in the rivers every three years at one of these cities that
rotate periodically.
In contrast to Seth’s voluminous novel where they play a minor role, warrior
ascetics play a more prominent role in Ānandamath, or the Sacred Brotherhood by
Bankimcandra Chatterji (b. 1838). In this novel, ascetics become holy warriors who are
politically active, which upsets the traditional distinction between activity (pravṛtti)
and inactivity (nivṛtti) that can be found in a text like the Laws of Manu, which is
concerned with Indian law (dharma).57 Bankimcandra’s ascetics form a sacred broth-
erhood that stands opposed to Muslim political dominance and social and economic
injustice during this period of Indian history. The primary role of this ascetic broth-
erhood, whose members are conceived as the children of Mother India, is to purify
the Indian earth from its contact with impure foreigners, to overthrow the Muslim
oppressors, and to be willing to die for the objective. The celibate ascetics agree to
commit suicide by means of fire or ingesting poison if they violate any of their vows.58
Into his narrative Bankimcandra weaves together two sources of power: śakti (femi-
nine power) and celibacy (a form of tapas or heat generated by asceticism). The author
is suggesting that these sources of power can serve to empower Indians. This necessar-
ily means that the sources for political liberation are already present in Indian culture,
and non-Muslims must utilize these traditional sources of power. Bankimcandra’s call
for indigenous Indians to empower themselves and the development of ascetic war-
riors prior to the publication of his novel are indicative of the political associations
that can be intertwined with traditional forms of ascetic power.
The numerous narratives and discourses about violence in India tend to suggest
that violence is not necessarily senseless and irrational because recognizable goals
are evident. As the examples suggest, violence is culturally specific and historically
developed, implying necessarily that it is a historically evolving socio-cultural cate-
gory. The violence associated with asceticism is performed according to a formalized
pattern of theatrical action that communicates meaning about possibly dysfunc-
tional situations in a society, and makes a contribution toward social organization.59
Violence manifests something that is ontologically complex, which “turns it analyti-
cally evasive and socially extremely ambiguous.”60

Demons and Asceticism

Within the context of classical Hinduism, it was not usual for kings to refer to strang-
ers outside of the orthodox religious tradition as mlecchas (outsiders), implying that
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 95

they were demons (ŚB 3.2.1.24; Mbh 1.79.12). Indian narratives also refer to practi-
tioners and leaders of heretical religions as demons. In the Devibhāgavata Purāṇa
(6.11.42), there is a reference to Rākṣasas (demons) being born as human beings. The
sage Kapila, an ascetic figure, is associated with demons (BDhS 2.6.11.28). In fact,
his father is king of the asuras (demons). According to the Mahābhārata (3.106.1–4),
he destroys the sons of Sagara by reducing them to ashes with a splendor that he
ejected from his eyes after they angered him. In another part of the epic (3.210.22),
Kapila is identified as the founder of Yoga and Sāṃkhya.
The ascetic Cyavana begins to pour soma, a drink of immortality, for the Aśvins,
twin deities and harbingers of an early dawn, but Indra, Vedic warrior deity, objects
and threatens to heave his thunderbolt at the ascetic. Ignoring Indra’s threat of vio-
lence, the ascetic pours the cup of soma for the twin deities, prompting Indra to
throw his weapon. But when Indra tries to hurl his powerful weapon, the ascetic
counters this divine violence by paralyzing the god’s throwing arm. Then the ascetic,
by the power of his austerities, creates a gigantic and powerful demon named Mada
to further intimidate Indra. The king of the gods, Indra, faced with a powerful
demon and a paralyzed arm, relents and agrees to include the twin Aśvins in the
soma offerings in the future (Mbh 3.124.15–25). In this narrative, the ascetic creates a
demon to challenge a god, but in many more narratives it is the demon that practices
asceticism and achieves the desired results from a divine being that is most often
identified as Brahmā.
According to another epic tale (Mbh 3.195.1–35), Dhundhu, demonic son of
Madhu and Kaitabha, practices extreme forms of austerities. In response to these
excessive ascetic practices, the god Brahmā grants him a boon, and the demon
asks Brahmā to make him invincible with the exception of humans. After receiv-
ing his boon, Dhundhu assaults Viṣṇu in revenge for his parent’s death. Living
underground in the desert, the demon pressures a hermitage with destruction.
King Kuvalāśva sets out to destroy the demon, who is discovered by the king’s
son after he digs up the desert. During the confrontation, the demon burns them,
but the king oozes water that not only douses the demonic fire but also burns the
ascetic demon.
It is not unusual for demonic beings to not only practice asceticism, but to also
assume the dress and appearance of an ascetic as evident with the rākṣasa Mārīca
described as wearing black animal hides, matted hair, and bark cloth (Rām 3.33.37).
Ascetic rākṣasas are also described in another part of the Rāmāyaṇa (5.5.28) as hav-
ing matted locks, shaven heads, clad in cow skins, naked, associated with sacred
darbha grass, or sacrificial equipment, whereas they are normally described as beings
with huge fangs, yellow eyes, bristling hair, and the ability to change into any form
(6.65.14–15).
96 Indian Asceticism

The demonic king Rāvaṇa, arch enemy of the hero Rāma in epic literature, is
depicted as having an intimate association with asceticism and power. Standing on
one foot for a thousand years, the ten-headed Rāvaṇa, also living on wind as his
bodily sustenance, practiced the five fires type of asceticism with full concentration.
He also cut off one his heads and offered it to the sacrificial fire. Whereupon, the
god Brahmā becomes pleased by his extreme forms of austerities and grants him
a boon (Mbh 3.259.15–24). The powers gained in the Mahābhārata by Rāvaṇa are
made more specific in the Rāmāyaṇa where the ten-headed demon creates an illu-
sion of the heroine Sītā in his chariot (Rām 6.68.14–15) by means of his māyā (illu-
sory power) and becomes invisible while engage in battle (Rām 6.74.5), a power also
used by the demon Indrajit when fighting (Rām 6.67.17).
In addition to demonic rākṣasas practicing asceticism in order to attain cer-
tain powers, yakṣas, semi-divine beings that are usually benevolent but can cause
demonic possession, also use the practice of tapas to achieve their goals. A female
yakṣa, for instance, normally weak beings, gains the strength of a thousand elephants
by her father’s practice of asceticism, and she eventually gives birth to Mārīca, who
is cursed to become a rākṣasa by an ascetic, and his mother is cured to become a
repulsive-looking man-eater possessing a hideous face (Rām 1.24.1–19). Unable to
endure this curse, the female yakṣa goes on a destructive rampage before being killed
by the hero Rāma. This is a narrative that weaves together the elements of asceti-
cism, violence, the demonic, and death.
Narratives depicting demons utilizing asceticism to gain powers or boons from
deities that makes them powerful suggest a close relationship between power and the
demonic in Indian mythology. Two asuras (demonic beings), Pulomā and Kālakeya,
are depicted, for instance, practicing extreme asceticism for a millennium. At the
conclusion of their ascetic practices, they are given a boon, and they ask that none
of their progeny would suffer and that they would be inviolable by gods, rākṣasas,
and snakes. In addition to these boons, the god Brahmā creates a heavenly realm
for them (Mbh 3.170.6–9). This type of narrative and the others cited are indicative
of the negative aspect of power in the sense that it can be used by evil beings for
destructive ends. The malevolent or evil aspect of power can influence a person’s life
or a substitute figure, such as a demon, that can shape a person’s actions, speech, and
mode of thinking. Power is ambiguous enough to be used for either benevolent or
malevolent means. The numerous demons identified by name are personifications
of the evil use of power, which points to power’s ability to overwhelm the holder
of it and others. By viewing the demonic use of power, it is obvious that the use of
power and any encounter with it demand care, especially if we are not to become
overwhelmed or overawed by it.
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 97

Episodes depicting demons practicing asceticism (tapas) are especially prevalent

in Purāṇic literature where the arduous practice of asceticism is rewarded by some
type of boon for the demon that makes it very powerful, although there is always
a weak spot that eventually leads to the destruction of the demon. Under the lead-
ership of Hrāda (literally the roar, a serpentine demon), the demons conquered,
for example, the gods in a battle that lasted a hundred celestial years. By means of
arduous ascetic practice, the demons became extremely powerful, and faithfully fol-
lowed duties germane to their class and the path of the Vedas. The defeated gods
went to the northern shore of the ocean of milk to practice asceticism and praise
Viṣṇu, who rewarded them by appearing on his vehicle Garuḍa, holding his mace,
conch, and discus. After hearing the desperate request for assistance by the gods,
Viṣṇu emitted from his body a powerful delusional magic intended to confuse the
demons by means of his personal māyā (illusory) power. Viṣṇu’s delusional power
was directed at bewitching the demons and getting them to neglect the Vedic path.
By morally and ethically corrupting the demons, they will cease to be protected by
the power and sanctity of the Vedic path and susceptible to destruction. Appearing
naked, bald, and carrying peacock feathers to clean the footpath of insects similar
to Jain ascetics, the magic deluder encountered the demons practicing asceticism
on the banks of the Narmadā River, and proceeds to question them and lead them
astray from the Vedic path. After the demons were morally corrupted and turned
into heretics, the gods resumed their battle with them, and were victorious over the
demons (ViṣṇuP 3.17.9–45; 3.18.1–33).
After the demon Tāraka was destroyed by the gods, the demon’s three sons prac-
ticed asceticism and won a boon for their arduous practice that left the world bereft
of energy. They initially asked for immunity from being slain by any creatures. God
replied that complete immortality was not possible. Thereupon, the three demons
asked for another boon to establish three cities on the earth to last a thousand years,
consisting of cities of iron, silver, and gold. The demons requested that the cities
would become united and finally be destroyed by a single arrow, which was even-
tually fired by Śiva. (Mbh 8.24.3–44; ŚivaP 2.2.2–20; LiṅgaP 1.101–3). In another
myth, it is the demon Tāraka who propitiates Brahmā by means of his asceticism to
grant him a boon because the god is fearful of the demon’s asceticism burning the
universe, a boon that enables the demon to defeat the gods and abduct their wives
(SauraP 53.21–65).
Upset over the death of his brother at the hands of the gods, the demon
Hiraṇyakaśipu sought revenge by practicing the highest degree of asceticism. While
performing his asceticism, a fire arose from his head and spread in all directions
and scorched the gods who had to abandon heaven. The gods alerted Brahmā, who
offered a boon to placate the demon. The demon asked for a boon that would protect
98 Indian Asceticism

him from being killed by weapons, man, beasts, during the daytime, at night, inside
or outside of his palace, from neither above nor below. In order to trick and defeat
the demon, Viṣṇu appears as a man-lion, at twilight, in a threshold pillar, and tears
the demon to shreds with his claws and fangs (ŚivaP 2.5.4–43).
In a narrative that embodies a strong hint of eroticism, the demon Āḍi prac-
ticed asceticism with the intent to defeat the ascetic deity Śiva. Brahmā grants him
a boon, and the demon chooses immortality, but Brahmā replies that no creature
can obtain immortality, tracing it to embodiment. Then, the demon requests a
counter-wish:  He would become immortal except when he changed his form. In
order to enter the securely guarded dwelling of Śiva, Āḍi assumes the form of a ser-
pent, a form that he abandons once within the dwelling in order to adopt the form
of Umā, spouse of Śiva, and placing sharp teeth inside his vagina in order to diaboli-
cally kill the ascetic and householder god, who recognizes the disguise and attaches
a thunderbolt to his penis and destroys the would-be killer (SkandaP 1.2.27.58–73).
This narrative suggests a contest between two forms of power in the Indian religious
tradition: māyā (illusory) and ascetic.
The competitive conflict between the powers of māyā and asceticism are very evi-
dent in the narrative associated with Viṣṇu’s dwarf incarnation and his tricking of
the demon Bali, who achieved power over the three worlds through the practice
of tapas (asceticism). According to the account in the Vāyu Purāṇa (2.36.74–86),
the dwarf asks the demon for as much territory as he can gain with three steps.
The story concludes with the dwarf crushing the demon and sending him into the
lower depths of the earth with his third step. In this scenario, Viṣṇu’s māyā power
overcomes the ascetic powers of the demon. The former type of power, which is mys-
terious, unpredictable, and bewitching, is illusory because it creates a false impres-
sion by deceptively disguising the truth.61 The narrative of Viṣṇu and Bali suggests
a creative tension between two forms of power, and shows that ascetic power is not
predominant because it is ultimately impermanent and easily lost. Ironically, ascetic
power represents something that is arduous and painful to achieve.
The acquiring of ascetic powers is sometimes intended to serve a nefarious purpose
as some of the mythical narratives suggest. In a narrative from the goddess tradition,
the demonic sons of Diti are destroyed, for example, by the gods. In her distraught
emotional condition, she instructs her daughter to practice extreme asceticism in
order to have a son who would seek revenge against the gods. Assuming the form
of a buffalo, she goes to the forest to sit between five fires and practices asceticism
so dreadful that the world trembles with fear and gods are stupefied. The buffalo
demon is eventually destroyed by the goddess Durgā, riding on her vehicle, the fero-
cious lion (SkandaP 3.1.6.8–42).
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 99

A different spin to the scenario of demons practicing asceticism and gaining

power is given in the Padma Purāṇa (5.13.201–421). In this narrative the demons
lose access to the Vedic sacrifice and by implication power, with the gods receiv-
ing all the benefits. The demons ask Kāvya, a name for Śukra, guru of the demons,
for help, and he instructs them to practice asceticism, while he endures an extreme
form of asceticism to become powerful by inhaling thick smoke, head downward,
for a thousand years. During the interim, the gods attacked the demons, but they
were saved by the intervention of Kāvya’s mother, a goddess figure possessing ascetic
powers. She paralyzes Indra, leader of the gods, and immobilizes him, while the
other gods flee in terror. Viṣṇu commands Indra to enter into him for protection.
Witnessing this development, the goddess becomes angry and threatens to burn
both gods, who become fearful. Being incapacitated, Indra urges Viṣṇu to act
quickly to save them. With reservations about killing a woman, Viṣṇu uses his discus
to decapitate the goddess. As a result of this slaughter, Bhṛgu, husband of the slain
woman, curses Viṣṇu to be born among humans seven times for the welfare of the
world in order to restore dharma (law, order). In order to return his wife to life after
her decapitation by Viṣṇu, Bhṛgu utters a truth statement simply affirming that if he
knew the dharma fully and practiced it faithfully, then by such a spoken truth may
she be restored to life. Sprinkling her with water, placing her severed head on her
body, and uttering “Live,” his wife returns to life to the astonishment of observers.
Nonetheless, Indra still remains apprehensive about the asceticism being practiced
by Kāvya and what it might mean for his personal welfare. Indra decides to send
his comely daughter, Jayantī, to seduce Kāvya, disrupt his asceticism, and hinder
his acquisition of powers that threatens the existence of the god. Even though she
serves him for many years, she could not deter Kāvya from finishing his ascetic vow
and winning a boon from Śiva to be invincible. In turn, Kāvya asks Jayantī about
her identity and what she wants for her devoted service to him. She replies that he
can simply read her mind because of his achieved yogi powers to know what she
wants, which includes living with him for a thousand years invisibly. During this
time, Bṛhaspati (Lord of the Holy Word) disguises himself as Kāvya and misleads
the demons, who become Buddhists and Jains. In short, the demons renounce the
world that they originally conquered and controlled.
This narrative from the Padma Purāṇa weaves together several themes into a uni-
form tale. A  reader recognizes the acquisition of powers through the practice of
asceticism, delusion used as an effective weapon, the motif of seducing a powerful
ascetic, manifestation of the powers acquired by the ascetic, and expression of preju-
dice against the positions of Buddhist and Jain outsiders and depiction of them as
deluded. It is also possible to witness the role played by erotic seduction and Indra’s
100 Indian Asceticism

fear of ascetics and their powers to challenge to his dominion over the world. This
scenario is indicative of the danger posed by ascetic power to the gods.
In addition to the purāṇic narratives about demons practicing asceticism for
devious purposes, The Yoga-Vaiṣṭha (3.69–75) describes the demon Viṣūcikā’s
appearance as having long, erect hairs on her head, red eyes, a dark color, hooked
nails, a huge body with an enormous stomach that no amount of food could satisfy.
She is adorned with bones hanging from her body and earrings made of human
skulls. After practicing asceticism for a thousand years, Brahmā grants her a boon.
She requests to become an iron needle in order to become the cause of acute pain
in humans. Growing leaner each day, she finally achieves the thinness of a needle
that enables her to inflict her victims with cholera. She later repents for her choice
because her body is so puny and longs for her former state. Returning to her former
practice of asceticism by continuously standing on her tiptoes, she gains enlight-
enment and her previous shape. Again, this narrative weaves together asceticism,
violence, and the demonic as personified by Viṣūcikā.
There is also a competition and tension between ascetics and demons evident in
the recent Hindu tradition. A modern practitioner of yoga, Swami Muktananda,
founder of the Siddha Movement, for example, shares his vision of demons in his
autobiography. In his vision, Muktananda sees a sugarcane field on fire and naked
demonic beings surrounded by other demons and ghosts that increase his fear. In
response to this vision, he assumes the lotus posture, feeling pain in the knot of
nerves at the base of his spine, identified with the mūlādhāra cakra (root center) in
Tantric teaching. Muktananda admits to being immobilized and consciously aware
that everything he sees is unreal, even though he continues to be terrified at the
vision.62
Although it is possible to add further narratives about demons terrifying people or
acquiring powers, it is also possible to ask at this point the following question: What
do such narratives inform us about the relationship between the demonic and ascet-
icism? There is no simple equivalency between the ascetic and demons, but the nar-
rative evidence suggests that there is a close association between them. And what
does the narrative evidence suggest about the nature of the demonic?

The Nature of the Demonic

The fundamental problem incurred when considering the nature of the demonic
is that it cannot be represented by any method of thinking. There is no mode of
thinking that can represent its absolute alterity, or wholly otherness. It is also not an
object that can be identified with any certainty. In short, it is unthinkable. Thus it
is probably best to grasp it as a neologism with its roots in the original meaning of
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 101

daimon, a Greek term for something divine.63 If this is the case, any possible nature
or meaning of the demonic can only be suggested and not unequivocally asserted
with certainty.
Even though it is not possible to think the demonic in itself, it is possible to assert
that the demonic is located in the deep recesses of the human unconsciousness. And
the nothingness associated with the demonic within human unconsciousness is
ultimately grounded in the world. From within its location in the human uncon-
scious, the demonic is a potential destructive force.
The notion of the demonic presupposes a transformation of something benign
into something terrible and potentially destructive. This could playfully be called
the demonization of the demonic in the sense that the demonic is always there,
always present, or potentially present. Moreover, the demonic is a sign pointing to
itself and the advent of violence. From the deep reservoir of the demonic and its
grounding deep in the human unconscious, the demonic becomes personified as
particular demons or often unidentifiable groups of them, who often are depicted
in narratives with a hideous physical appearance and as perpetuators of mindless
violence. From the perspective of numerous religious traditions, to be demonic is to
be nonhuman.
The demonic is always in existence because it comes into being with human exis-
tence. Since the demonic represents a manifestation of non-being within the realm
of being, humans thus never really experience a time without the presence of the
demonic, even though it exceeds any mode of thinking about it. The demonic is
paradoxical in the sense that it is both creative and destructive, although its pri-
mary impetus is destruction of form. The thrust of its destructive capacity is the cre-
ation of chaos or the transformation of creation into chaos. Once chaos is achieved,
there ceases to be structure and destruction because there are no longer any forms
to destroy, having vanished in the chaos. The demonic destroys form from within
form and not externally to it. In other words, the destructive nature of the demonic
originates within the form itself. In this sense, the demonic subverts form from the
inside.
When the demonic becomes personified in narratives with specific names and
sometimes descriptions of their appearances, it represents danger to gods and
humans. What is most dangerous about demons, who are personifications of dan-
gers, is the danger that conceals itself; thereby, it conceals itself as that danger that
it is.64 Thus the full extent of the nature of the danger is hidden from the purview of
mere mortals and even divine beings.
The Ṛg Vedic creation hymn relating the narrative of the struggle between
the serpent-shaped demon, Vṛtra, and Indra is instructive about the nature of
the demonic personified by the serpent. Enveloping the cosmos and everything
102 Indian Asceticism

necessary for life with its gigantic form, Vṛtra causes thirst, hunger, cold, and death.
Being incapacitated and incarcerated by the demon, the gods are helpless and forced
to find a champion to save them and the world. The desperate gods broker a deal
with Indra, a warrior deity, to defeat the huge serpent before it is too late. Being an
astute bargainer, Indra extracts an agreement from the helpless deities that he would
become the king of the gods after he is victorious, to which the gods agreed. Before
he actually confronts the demon, Indra drinks three vats of the intoxicating and hal-
lucinogenic soma used in the priestly sacrificial cult. After a terrific struggle, Indra
splits open the head of the demon, an act that releases the cosmic waters, warmth,
light, and separates being from non-being (RV 10.104.10). In spite of Indra’s salvific
action, his act is flawed because the demons are not completely annihilated, and lurk
below the earth by day and emerge at night to afflict people. Therefore, the demonic
continues to be a threat to the welfare of humans.
As the Vedic creation myth makes clear, the demonic remains a threatening, dark,
violent power with the potential to disrupt or revolt against order at any moment.
In addition, the demonic is exorbitant—both internally and externally—because its
impetus is toward disruption and/or subversion of identity, order, system, or struc-
ture. Thus, the demonic does not respect borders, positions, rules, or connections. It
is excessive in its disruptive potential or actuality. The demonic is a powerful force
that strives toward destruction and what is inhuman. By standing outside normal
human life, norms, and possibilities, the demonic is marginal to social life and an
anti-human power that violates the order of being.
Even though its fundamental aim is destructive, the demonic remains paradoxi-
cally a creative force. By destroying form and creating chaos, the demonic establishes
a condition of pure potential. In other words, from the pure potential, anything is
possible despite disintegration, decay, and annihilation of being. But this should be
understood in a parasitic way. This suggests that it feeds on being before destroying
the very structure of existence that gives it expression in the first place by way of con-
trast. Thus, for all its destructive power, the demonic remains potentially or actually
creative. Nonetheless, the demonic is not an independent power within the world
because it is always in relation to something that is.
The demonic is uncanny, a feature that it shares with power and violence. F. W.
Schelling (1775–1854), an idealistic German philosopher, discusses “Unheimlich,” a
notion that he says represents something that should have remained secret and hid-
den, but has come into the open. Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis, borrows
this notion from Schelling and develops it by claiming that the uncanny gives rise
to anxiety because what is familiar and unfamiliar appear in inextricable conjunc-
tion. The uncanny aspect of the demonic is connected to its untimely feature. Even
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 103

if there is a reliable routine of violence or a regular and dependable pattern of it,

violence is still untimely. Arising from nowhere in particular, the untimely aspect of
violence also often assumes a completely new form.
Intertwined with the notion of the demonic is the concept of the demon, a per-
sonification of demonic power that is conceived to be evil. These malevolent spiri-
tual figures afflict people with illness, loss of goods, death, and insanity when they
possess people.65 In Aśvaghoṣa’s biography of the Buddha, he describes the bodily
parts of demons, possessing multiple tongues that dangle and quiver, sharp and
pointed fangs, eyes resembling the sun’s orb, gaping mouth, and ears upright like
spikes (13.35). In addition to their hideous appearance, demonic beings often func-
tion as counter forces to creator deities by attempting to undo, disrupt, or subvert
what has been created. Oftentimes, demons also corrupt victims or punish those
that offend them with or without justification. Within the context of Hinduism,
its powerful deities are often called upon by those afflicted to defeat the demons.
In addition, demons share certain powers with ascetics, such as illusion and decep-
tion by virtue of māyā (illusory power), ability to assume or change into any shape,
and to suddenly disappear. When Hindu ascetics use power acquired by means of
their practice they become like a demon and function as a threat to priestly power
grounded in their knowledge of the sacred texts and sacrifice.66 This scenario sug-
gests a competitive environment with powerful priests opposed to ascetics and
demons, powerful ascetics opposed to gods and demons, and powerful demons
opposed to all parties. Within the context of the Buddhist religious worldview, “the
enlightened being is dialectically opposed to the demon, which is the apotheosis of
carnality, delusion, and ignorance. This dialectical opposition is mediated by the act
of conversion to the Buddhist dharma, by means of which the two categories, bod-
hisattva/enlightened being and yakkha/demon, come closer together.”67
The Śaiva devotional tradition provides evidence of the union of an ascetic
human being with the demonic in the figure of Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār, a poet dating
to the mid-sixth century who becomes a pēy (demon, ghoul) by means of a personal
request to the ascetic deity and enters into relationship with the god’s dwarfish,
deformed gaṇas (hordes or ghouls), often depicted with animal heads and being
able to function in benevolent, obstructive, or destructive ways. Before appear-
ing with an enraptured face and skeletal form, she was born into an economically
secure trading family in the coastal town of Kāraikkāl with the name of Puṉitavati
and becomes a faithful wife of a wealthy merchant. Her sedate life was interrupted
when a Śaiva ascetic arrived and was given one of the two mangoes that she had
purchased for her husband’s meal. When her husband requested a second mango
she prayed to Śiva for another, and he made another one appear that she served to
her husband, who became suspicious because the second mango tasted superior to
104 Indian Asceticism

the first one. In order to ward off the suspicions of her husband, she confided to
him her story, but her husband demanded that she repeat the miracle in his pres-
ence. When she repeated the act her husband became frightened and fled to another
location, rejecting his wife for another woman. Eventually, she became aware of her
husband’s rejection, and asked Śiva to strip away her beauty and give her a demonic
form, becoming one of the god’s demonic company. She writes an autobiographical
poem describing herself in the Tiruvālaṅkāṭṭu Mūttatiruppatikam (1.1).68

A female ghoul with withered breasts, bulging veins,

hollow eyes, white teeth, shriveled stomach, red hair, two fangs
bony ankles, and elongated shins
stays in this cemetery, howling angrily.

Living in cremation grounds, this ardent lover of Śiva embraces the ascetic and
demonic persona united in her emaciated body that is reduced to the form of a skel-
eton. As part of her embrace of the ascetic lifestyle, she goes on pilgrimage to Śiva’s
mountain abode by walking on her hands with the purpose of not defiling the god’s
home with her feet. Cēkkiḻār, her biographer, joins love and asceticism in his narra-
tive of Kāraikkāl within a context of renunciation that severs her relationship with
society.69
We have called attention to the tendency of demons to achieve greater powers by
practicing asceticism, suggesting that there is potentially something demonic about
ascetic power, or that there is a close relationship between power and the demonic.
We have witnessed numerous instances when ascetics have used power for negative
results in order to punish someone for some type of perceived transgression. The
alleged founder of the Nāth-Yogins, Gorakhnāth, made it possible for siddhas (per-
fected ones) to attain their exalted status, prompting ordinary villagers to consider
them demons.70 This suggests that there is something demonic about ascetic power
because it can be used to inflict harm and destroy. If this is true, some type of pro-
phylactic response and action is necessary.

Countering Ascetic Power and Violence

Because ascetic power is dangerous, potentially violent, and directly associated with
demonic beings, it is necessary to devise ways to counter it by means of subterfuge
or greater power by the threatened party. In order to counter the power of demons,
the gods utilized the bones, for instance, of the ascetic Dadhīca to forge a powerful
thunderbolt to kill the demons (Mbh 3.98.5–10).
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 105

According to a narrative in the Rāmāyaṇa (7.64–67), a Brahmin’s child died

of unknown causes and the father blamed the hero Rāma for failing to maintain
dharma (order and well-being), accusing Rāma of being guilty of Brahmincide. The
sage Narada warned Rāma that a Śudra was generating tapas (asceticism), a practice
permitted to Śudras only in the Kali Age, a dark, benighted, and violent period, and
that this violation of dharma was causing disasters such as the death of children.
Rāma gave instructions to preserve the child’s body in oil. Then he explored the
country and found, south of Vindhyas, a man generating tapas by hanging upside
down. Rāma asked him his caste and the purpose of his tapas, and the individual
replied that he was a Śudra named Shambuka. He admitted that he was perform-
ing tapas in order to become a god and to conquer their world. In response to this
honest confession, Rāma drew his sword from its scabbard and cut off Shambuka’s
head while he was still talking. And at that very moment, the child came back to
life. This story is an example of the use of violence by a righteous man to counter the
evil being caused by a lower caste person performing asceticism.
In the Buddhist Pāli scriptures, there is a tale of asceticism being countered by a
stronger type of practice. According to the Assalāyana Sutta, a group of Brahmanic
ascetics with pernicious views attempt to impose a curse on Asita by burning him
to cinders by means of the power of their asceticism. Since Asita’s own ascetic power
is stronger, he is able to thwart their attempt to harm him (MN 1.337). Within the
same body of texts, there is the narrative of Aṇgulimāla, a robber who killed many
people, identified by the garland of fingers that he wore as trophies reminiscent of
his victims. After his begging rounds, the Buddha traveled on a road toward the
killer, and is warned by the local population about the presence of the killer in the
vicinity. Having vowed to kill the Buddha, the robber was unable to keep up with
the Buddha as he walked on the road. Finally, out of breath, the robber asked the
Buddha to stand still, but instead of killing the holy man the robber is converted to
the path of Buddhism (MLS II, 98–100).
According to a story in the Jātaka tales (532), the ascetic Nanda offers his services
to King Manoja to increase his kingdom by leading the king’s army and conquer-
ing neighboring realms. Nanda vows to use his supernatural power to make the
king lord over India. When it was hot, for instance, the ascetic created shade, and
did not allow rain to dampen the army. He also did away with natural obstacles.
Spreading a skin, he sat cross-legged upon it in the air and moved thus in front of
the army. As two armies engaged in battle, he sat between them and caught all the
arrows so that no one in either army was harmed. By countering violence with his
supernatural powers, he transformed King Manoja into a king of kings. Thus the
ascetic Nanda counters military violence with nonviolence, and achieves the same
106 Indian Asceticism

goal for his patron. In this narrative the power of nonviolence is stronger than the
force of violence.
In addition to the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, there is also evidence of coun-
tering ascetic power in the Jain religion as evident with two tales from the Bhagavati
Sūtra (15). The ascetic Gosāla, founder of the Ājīvika sect, was attracted to Mahāvīra
because of his reputation for possessing ascetic powers, and asked to become his
disciple. When they encountered a heretical Brahmin, an ascetic named Vesīyāyana
who was doing penance by fasting and sitting with his arms upraised toward the
sun for several days, Mahāvīra was able to display his power. Because the ascetic was
covered with lice, Gosāla taunted him about serving as a nest for lice. After repeat-
ing the taunt, Vesīyāyana became enraged and released a blast of power in Gosāla’s
direction, but Mahāvīra was able to neutralize it. In another narrative about Gosāla
and Mahāvīra, the former became offended when the latter exposed his liberated
state as a sham. Reacting with verbal life-threatening abuse, Gosāla used his pow-
ers to incinerate two of Mahāvīra’s disciples when they tried to oppose the insulted
ascetic. After this action, Gosāla turned his wrathful powers on Mahāvīra, but
Mahāvīra’s superior power protected him. Even though Mahāvīra became ill, he
was able to cure himself. The narrative ends with Gosāla’s power returning to him,
making him delirious, and causing his death, which is suggestive of its dangerous
potential to destroy its holder.
In another narrative featuring Jincandrasūri II from the Jain tradition, he encoun-
ters a Muslim cleric (kāji) who attempts to discredit the Jain monk by using mantra
power to cause his own hat to fly up into the air and hover there. In order to counter
this use of power, the Jain monk sends his ascetic staff flying after the hat, which it
retrieved and set atop the cleric’s head.71 Again, not all ascetic power is equal. These
narratives of superior power by one party over another are intended to assert the
superiority of a follower’s ascetic, his/her path, and state of liberation.
These various narratives enable us to see that ascetics and demons are engaged
in a discourse about power. Some narratives suggest that the ascetic operates in a
demonic way from a vast stockpile of power, implying a close relationship between
an ascetic and the demonic. The implied delicate task for an ascetic is to avoid being
overwhelmed by the deep reservoir of power associated with the demonic. Since the
ascetic gains various types of powers as a byproduct of his/her quest for liberation,
the ascetic must come to terms with the dangers of the demonic.72 When consid-
ered as a whole, the Indian narratives and discourses suggest a holy, triadic alliance
between asceticism, power, and the demonic that is very dangerous and calls for
extreme caution.
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 107

Power and Violence: A Theoretical Perspective

By using fasting as an example of self-inflicted violence by the Indian ascetic, this
approach helps us to witness that violence and nonviolence are relative concepts
because their degrees of social acceptability differ among religious cultures and even
within particular religions. The relative nature of violence and nonviolence can also
be traced to its acceptability during changing historical periods and circumstances.
Even though violence and nonviolence are relative notions, violence signifies actions
that injure, causes harm or pain, or destroys an object, animal, or person, whereas
nonviolence is relative to other persons, animals, or things. The term violence can
be traced to the Latin violare, which forms the basis for the word violation, and is
related to violentus (vehemence or impetuosity). With these roots and associations,
violence can be defined “as physical force, often vehement or excessive, used to inflict
injury or damage.” 73 Based on some of the narratives already reviewed, mental force
can be added to the physical aspect of violence. If violence is an energy or force that
causes destruction, this neither stops violence from existing without force nor for
force to exist without violence.74
From the internal perspective of a culture, it is difficult to find members who
identify their actions as violent because harsh actions are commonly equated with
justice, possibly a righteous conflict, heroic actions, martyrdom, or ritual perfor-
mance that results in the death of an animal or destruction of food offerings. With
actions that result in pain or destruction, why would cultural insiders fail to recog-
nize their actions are violent? It is not because cultural insiders are blind or totally
unaware that their actions are violent, but it is rather that they tend to rationalize
violence and thus justify it within the context of their society as necessary for the
well-being of the whole.75 The interrelationship between power, religion, and vio-
lence is complex and multidimensional, which helps to explain in a limited way the
many theoretic positions taken by scholars.
According to Jacques Ellul, a Christian realist, violence is a pervasive feature of
all cultures and historical periods because all states originate in violent actions and
maintain their existence by means of it. Agreeing with the philosopher Thomas
Hobbes (1588–1679), Ellul argues that violence is the natural condition of society.
Ellul identifies five laws of violence that can be summarized as (1) certainty; (2) reci-
procity, which implies that violence begets more violence; (3) sameness, which suggest
that one cannot distinguish between justified and unjustified violence; (4) violence
begets violence and nothing else; (5) a person who uses violence attempts to justify
both it and oneself. In order to counter this pervasive violence, Ellul offers the vio-
lence of love that demands the following: (1) that the other live; (2) rejects victory
108 Indian Asceticism

celebrations; (3)  excludes physical or psychological violence; (4)  and bases it on a

faith grounded in the possibility of miracle.76
A less hopeful position about the possibility of countering violence is offered by
René Girard from his neo-Freudian position that conceives of an inseparable relation-
ship between violence and the sacred. Girard argues that humankind is naturally vio-
lent and vengeance characterizes human relationships and leads to a cycle of violence
as the aggrieved party violently strives to reciprocate the violence perpetrated upon
them. This cycle and orgy of violence threatens the very existence of society because
it is devoid of a point of termination and can only end when society is completely
destroyed, and there is no one to respond to the last onslaught of violence. Thereby,
it motivates society to seek a strategy for its survival by breaking the repetitive and
destructive cycle of violence. Girard argues that it is precisely religion that channels
violence by means of sacrifice, a faithful replica of an original act of violence, which
protects humans from the cyclical pattern and pervasive nature of violence. Religion
is able to accomplish its goal by channeling violence toward a victim, a substitute for
a perpetrator of violence, whose death signifies the end of violent reprisals or recur-
rent, reciprocal violence. By means of the instrument and performance of a sacrifice,
a community is able to subdue the destructive forces, which are unleashed by the
cycle of violence, for potentially pulling asunder the social fabric that is developed
and nurtured over a period of time.77
Girard asserts that mimetic desire forms the foundation for human violence and
the killing of a victim because mimetic desire is a primary cause of rivalries and vio-
lence. This line of argument makes competition the principal source of violence and
not aggression.78 This scenario suggests that humans do not know what to desire,
and they turn to others to assist them, an imitative process that creates the potential
for violent conflict because of competition for the same object. In order to counter-
act this tendency of humans, society controls individual desires either negatively
by means of prohibitions and taboos, or it controls desire in a positive way by offer-
ing and enticing subjects with the promise of the intrinsic desirability of certain
objects and forms of behavior. According to Girard, violence is a continuation of
mimetic desire that needs religion to channel it in order to protect a community
from self-annihilation.79
In sharp contrast to Girard, Grace M. Jantzen argues that violence is not innate to
humans. Not only connecting violence to an obsession with death, Jantzen empha-
sizes that violence is a strongly male gendered phenomenon. 80 In disagreement with
Jantzen and in accord with Girard, Hent de Vries finds the source of violence in
religion: “It can be seen as the very element of religion. No violence without (some)
religion; no religion without (some) violence.”81 The discipline of the Indian ascetic
enables us to see that violence is present in a practice that outwardly appears to be
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 109

nonviolent. It can be affirmed that nonviolence obscures the violence at the center
of asceticism. This hidden violence operates secretly under the veneer of irenic disci-
pline, but manifests itself on the body of the ascetic and in outbursts of violence by
an ascetic, such as his curse to be examined in the next chapter. The marks of vio-
lence on the ascetic’s body, assuming the form of his veins and skeleton, are evidence
of internal violence being inflicted upon himself, whereas the ability to fly, suddenly
disappear or appear, feats of prodigious strength, and other powers are evidence of
potential external forms of violence. It is easy to be fooled by the apparent nonvio-
lent ascetic silently sitting in the lotus posture. This silence is deceptive because it
can also be grasped as an insidious and pervasive effect of violence.82
Reflections on violence rooted in language are offered by Jacques Derrida, a post-
modern philosopher and advocate of deconstruction, which he denies is a method.
According to Derrida, violence is impossible to avoid in life, an observation that
is especially true with the process of writing. Derrida identifies three moments in
which writing is associated with violence: (1) the original violence of writing; (2) vio-
lence of metaphysics; (3) violence associated with the deconstructive method itself.
The violence of metaphysics attempts to suppress the violence of writing, whereas
deconstruction makes it possible to return to original violence, even though it is
not a method. The violence of deconstruction can be identified with its tendency to
be parasitic as it preys on a text, other readings, and other interpretations. 83 From
Derrida’s perspective, violence is perpetrated on the battlefield of language. With
respect to religion, Derrida thinks that “ . . . there is no violence without (at least
some) religion and no religion without (at least some) violence . . . ”84
A different postmodern perspective on violence is offered by Michel Foucault, in
whose works violence is not part of the basic nature of power: “In itself the exercise
of power is not violence; nor is it consent which, implicitly, is renewable.”85 Without
getting into Foucault’s theory of power in any depth (it is considered more fully in
the final chapter of this book), it is possible, however, to understand that the play
of power relations does not mean that it excludes violence, because it is rather that
Foucault understands consensus and violence as instruments or results of power.
Foucault’s grasp of the relationship between power, a relation between forces, and
violence is interpreted by Gilles Deleuze in the following manner: “Violence acts
on specific bodies, objects or beings whose form it destroys or changes, while force
has no object other than that of other forces, and no being other than that of rela-
tion . . . ”86 Even though Foucault wants to define power in an nonconfrontational
and nonadversarial way, he still recognizes that a relationship of power involves
potentially a strategy of struggle.
Similar to Foucault, Arthur Kleinman is concerned with showing the multiple
forms and dynamics of social violence, a procedure that does not draw a sharp
110 Indian Asceticism

division between collective and individual experiences of social violence interwoven

with moral processes and emotional conditions by creating, sustaining, and trans-
forming the way they inter-react. Kleinman identifies what he calls structural vio-
lence in a society, which refers to people who experience violence because of extreme
poverty.87 Violence gives culture its authoritativeness in the following way:

Violence creates (and reemerges from) fear, anger, and loss—what might be
called the infrapolitical emotions. Violence, in this perspective, is the vector of
cultural processes that work through the salient images, structure, and engage-
ments of everyday life to shape social worlds. Violence, thus, is crucial to cul-
tural processes of routinization, legitimation, essentialism, normalization, and
simplification through which the social world orders the flow of experience
within and between body-selves.88

This quotation is indicative of Kleinman’s intention to show the many forms and
dynamics of social violence.
Kleinman’s emphasis on the social and multiple types of violence is shared by
Randall Collins, who advocates a micro-sociological theory of violent situations.
Rather than focusing on violent people, Collins stresses violent situations, because
even violent people are only dangerous in particular situations: “Most of the time,
the most dangerous, most violent persons are not doing anything violent.”89 The vio-
lence that we can witness is intertwined with fear, anger, and excitement, although
it is context that remains primarily important. For Collins, violence is not only a
situational process, but it is also dynamic because it begins with confrontational
tension and fear.90 For those that might think that violence is easy, as implied by the
theory of Girard, Collins stresses that it is difficult:

Symbolic violence is easy: real violence is hard. The former goes with the flow of
situational interaction, making use of the normal propensities for interaction
rituals. The latter goes against the interactional grain; it is because the threat of
real violence runs counter to the basic mechanisms of emotional entrainment
and interactional solidarity that violent situations are so difficult.91

Collins stresses that social conditions overwhelm the genetic component of vio-
lence. This position motivates Collins to criticize evolutionary theory for its insensi-
tivity to cultural and interactional patterns because this theory neglects to consider
intersubjective interaction between humans and emotional attunement to others.
Being neurologically hard-wired in this way, humans find violence difficult rather
than easy.
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 111

Collins disagrees with the overall thrust of Girard’s position about the innate
nature of violence in humans and the role of civilization in controlling it: “Violence
is not primordial, and civilization does not tame it; the opposite is much nearer
the truth.”92 The violence inflicted by the Indian ascetic upon himself represents a
successful ritualization of pain and injury, which represents acting against oneself
with the hope and even expectation of more lasting rewards. Many of the theorists
of violence surveyed to this point would agree that ascetic-initiated violence occurs
within a social situation that conveys a strong sense of membership in an exclusive
group of like-minded individuals.
Coming at the subject of violence from the perspective of an anthropologist,
Riches seeks to identify the dynamic nature of violence, which he isolates as a tri-
angle that includes the following participants: performer, victim, and witness. He is
concerned with finding the fundamental tension in this triangle, and outlines the
tension from two perspectives: political competition about the continued legitimacy
of the act and a consensus about the nature of the act.93 Stressing the importance of
an act of violence itself and a controversial assessment of the act by a performer and
witness, he seeks to also define the interpretive legitimization of violence.
A different perspective about violence, a deployment of physical force, is provided
by Bruce Lincoln, who views it as a force that converts individual subjects or collec-
tions of subjects into depersonalized objects. Even if one is a survivor of violence,
such a person remains intimidated and apprehensive about it being renewed in the
future. This uncertain situation for survivors means that they have the potential to
participate in their own objectification and dehumanization, which can be partial
and superficial, but diminishes the subjectivity of the survivor.94 A feature of vio-
lence that is a force to objectify the other is domination, a cultivation of a context of
fear. By means of threatening violence, it is possible to dominate others and make
them docile and compliant. For those being dominated by means of the fear of vio-
lence, this situation produces a survivor who is resentful, seeks revenge, and hopes
to be liberated.
Using material from late western antiquity, Lincoln proposes five general pat-
terns or ways of positively valorizing these patterns on religious grounds. The first
pattern is a conquest that is divinely sanctioned, while the second is the defeat of
humiliation, which reflects an attitude that the conqueror deserves it. The third is
the millenarian revolt, which “is the type that emerges when endurance gives way to
anti-imperial activism and movements of national liberation.”95 Fourth, mortifica-
tion of the flesh reflects an ascetic reducing oneself to an inert object. By inflicting
violence upon oneself, an ascetic “works across a division they take to be internal to
themselves, construing subjectivity proper as a dimension of spiritual being, while
regarding the body as degraded (and degrading) matter.”96 Lincoln suggests that
112 Indian Asceticism

ascetics are both aggressors and victims of violence. Finally, the pattern ends with
martyrdom, a willingness to die for personal religious convictions. Lincoln’s pattern
presents the multidimensional nature of violence.
The multifaceted nature of violence is also elaborated by Mark Juergensmeyer
within the context of discussing terrorism and its exaggerated type of violence that
is mesmerizing theater. Terrorism spiritualizes violence and thus empowers reli-
gion: “This is one of history’s ironies, that although religion has been used to justify
violence, violence can also empower religion.”97 Even if violence empowers religion,
it is also true that religion spiritualizes violence, which abrogates the built-in limita-
tions and laws of a society that promotes acts of terrorism. Because violence executed
by terrorism is conducted in divine time and within a hopeful context for success
and eternal rewards, terrorism is a good example of performative violence, a theatri-
cal form, in accord with a strategic plan. A performative act not only draws atten-
tion to a cause, but it also draws witnesses into an alternative view of the world.98
This is the general scenario devised by Juergensmeyer, although it does not blind
him to the inadequacy of terroristic violence because it offers an illusion of power to
the performers. Moreover, acts of violence have proven to be unproductive and have
not led to changes of power from one group to another.99 Religious violence cannot
apparently end without all parties reaching some kind of accommodation.

The End of the Cycle of Violence

Some of these theories about the nature of violence are not helpful when attempting
to understand the violence perpetuated or endured by the Indian ascetic. The short-
comings of four theories need to be examined because of their influence on the topic
of violence. The theoretical contributions about the nature of violence and its rela-
tionship to power, for instance, offered by Girard, Derrida, Foucualt, and Lincoln
do not advance our understanding of the relationship between power and violence
as it applies to the Indian ascetic because the Indian ascetic’s practice of making
parts of himself sacrificial offerings or sacrificing his entire being and the often sub-
sequent acquisition of various kinds of powers are indicative of a close relationship
between violence and power within the life of the ascetic. The close relationship
between power and violence among ascetics evident in Indian texts is confirmed by
Peter van der Veer’s anthropological fieldwork in northern India, where he discovers
ascetics inflicting violence on themselves in order to acquire power over their bod-
ies, nature, and society.100 Although the power gained by the Hindu ascetic might
not be violent in and of itself, it does have an intimate relationship with violence.
The intimate relationship between violence and power for the Hindu ascetic
that is evident in classical texts is also confirmed by the anthropological fieldwork
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 113

of Robert Lewis Gross and his recording of extreme forms of tapas (asceticism) or
self-inflicted violence. He reports that the Śaiva Naga ascetics pierce their penises
and insert large brass rings through them:  “Attached to the ring is a heavy iron
chain about two to three feet long which weighs down the penis. The end of the
chain is staked to the ground whenever these sadhus are seated in front of their
sacred dhuni fire.”101 Although he did not personally witness the rite, informants
told Gross about the tang-tora rite, a form of advanced ascetic initiation, at which
the guru masturbates the initiate and offers the semen to the sacred fire as a sacri-
ficial offering. With vigorous jerking motions to the left and then the right of the
initiate’s penis, the guru breaks the muscles, blood vessels, and nerves necessary for
the initiate to have an erection. Other informants told Gross that the same result
can be obtained with a surgical procedure using a knife to sever the tissues of the
organ. Either procedure results in a limp organ that is not able to have an erection or
ejaculate, which is supposed to protect the ascetic from sexual activity and allegedly
sexual desire.102 These procedures represent an attempt to control sexual desire, to
retain power gained through the practice of asceticism, and to terminate any possi-
bility of ever losing power by sexual means. This type of scenario and personal work
among the ascetics of the Rāmānandī order tends to confirm van der Veer’s con-
clusion that ascetics “use inward violence on their own body and mind to acquire
power over the microcosm of their individual existence and the connected macro-
cosm of nature. They also use outward violence to acquire power in society.”103
In radical Tantric sects there is a rite called shava sadhana, which involves an
ascetic proceeding to a cremation ground and sitting on a corpse of, ideally, an
attractive, low-caste person who died in a violent way. The body of the deceased is
prepared by washing and placing it on an animal skin or blanket. Thereafter, the
ascetic sits meditating on the cadaver, remaining emotionally detached while expe-
riencing frightening sounds and seeing horrific images. Power is acquired by use
of a mantra, a unitive experience with Śiva, or a vision of a goddess.104 In this type
of scenario, the ascetic does not initiate any violence, but he/she decides to enter a
macabre situation that evokes images associated with violence.
The relationship between power and violence in Girard’s and Foucault’s theories
cannot do justice to the ascetic, who represents the perfect victim because he/she
exists on the outside or on the fringe of society after renouncing the world in the
Indian cultural context to pursue his/her goal. By means of his/her marginal sta-
tus, the Indian ascetic lacks any desire or intention to share normal social bonds,
because the ascetic exposes or inflicts violence upon him/herself not in order to
protect the community, as René Girard might have one believe, but in order to free
him/herself from the bondage of time in the case of someone striving for liberation
(mokṣa) or practicing asceticism in order to gain powers. From the perspective of
114 Indian Asceticism

Heesterman, the ascetic breaks the cycle of violence that is so important in Girard’s
theory by excluding the other, which results in cutting off the sacrifice from soci-
ety.105 Serving as his own sacrificial victim and priest, the ascetic is the initiator of
violence, the object of violence, and the termination of violence, which eliminates
any cycle of violence and any risk of vengeance. By perpetuating violence upon him/
herself, the ascetic controls it and terminates it when he achieves his/her goal of lib-
eration or in some cases power.
With respect to Lincoln’s theory, the Indian ascetic does not turn him/herself
into a depersonalized object. Aspects of the ascetic lifestyle are not merely violent,
but violence is even embraced by the ascetic. Thus an ascetic does not objectify him/
herself, and does not dehumanize him/herself. As Juergensmeyer would claim, the
ascetic performs violence on him/herself to gain the greater goal of liberation, and
some performative action is executed before witnesses. The Indian discourse and
narratives about asceticism and violence replay these performances for a larger audi-
ence when others read or hear these narratives. In such a narrative scenario, the
ascetic performs indefinitely into the future as long as there is an audience that can
attest to the narratives given orally or verbally and again bear witness to them.

Concluding Remarks
In this chapter, we have seen that powers acquired by ascetics and demons by prac-
ticing ascetic discipline are used to harm others in an often dramatic fashion. This
performance of violence assumes a theatrical form, but it is not necessarily part of
a preconceived strategic plan, although it can be such a plan, especially in the case
of demons. According to the narrative evidence, violence performed by an ascetic is
usually more spontaneous and situational, whereas violence inflicted by demons is
more a strategy of action, implying a degree of calculation and a lucid vision of some
objective result. Moving from calculation to expectation, the demon, and for that
matter the ascetic, performs violence as an objective manifestation of his/her power.
When performing violence, the demon and ascetic feel justified in inflicting pain
on themselves or others. What is interestingly suggested by our narratives is that
violence enhances the power of the ascetic, but it offers demonic beings the illusion
of power because they are invariably defeated by a greater power.
An important similarity between both parties is that violence empowers demons
and ascetics, and lucidly expresses their power. By exercising violence, ascetics
empower themselves in sharp contrast to others without power, a vast majority
of people, but demons empower themselves for a brief time because their power
is destined to be overcome by the superior power of divine beings or ascetic fig-
ures. By means of their association with the demonic, both ascetics and demons
 Violence, the Demonic, and Power 115

are interrelated with it. While demons are personifications of the demonic, the
ascetic’s exercise of power manifests features of the demonic, such as its heterology,
its unthinkable nature, its paradoxically creative and destructive aspects, its exces-
sive nature with its ability to disrupt and subvert others and things, its uncanny
character, and its untimely aspect. In the final analysis, there is something demonic
about the ascetic because he/she uses his/her power to inflict violence against others
in many narratives, creating an intimate relationship between the ascetic, demonic,
and violence.
This chapter suggests that ascetics are actors and actresses in a narrative drama
that is often overtly or covertly violent. Similar to characters on a stage, ascetics
perform violent acts on themselves, or others, in the narratives in which they act. By
means of their theatrical actions, ascetics resemble modern suicidal terrorists threat-
ening to blow themselves up, though the ascetics do so by means of their extreme
lifestyle and not by explosives. Many of the narratives used in this chapter elucidate
that ascetics perform before witnesses and by telling and sharing the narratives the
audience expands. The theme of violence and its implications are continued in the
following chapter on the ascetic and his/her use of language.
 5
Language and Power

There was once an ascetic Brahmin named Mandavya, an expert on dharma

(law), who had kept a vow of silence for a long time. One day robbers surreptitiously
entered his home, but he refused to break his vow to tell the police where they were
hiding, although the authorities finally did locate their hiding place and appre-
hended them. Along with the robbers, the king also condemned Mandavya to death
for his failure to assist legal authorities. The executioners impaled the robbers and
the great ascetic on stakes. The Brahmin, who was the essence of dharma, remained
on the stake for a long time. Though he had no food, he did not die because he
willed his life’s breaths to remain within him, and his patience and fortitude were
finally rewarded when the king came to him and asked for forgiveness for his mis-
taken judgment. The ascetic forgave the king, and the monarch had the ascetic
taken down from the stake, but it was impossible to pull the stake out, and so the
ascetic had it cut off at its base, thinking that it might be useful for carrying things
like flower baskets. And so he went about with the stake still inside of him, extend-
ing to his neck, ribs, and entrails. Therefore, people called him “Tip-of-the-stake”
(Mandavya).
Proceeding to the house of Dharma, Mandavya scolded him and asked what he
had done that was so wicked as to deserve such punishment, and Dharma replied
that he had stuck blades of grass up the tails of little butterflies when he was a child,
and his current situation was retribution for his past karma. Mandavya replied to
Dharma that he was suffering a severe punishment for a minor offense. Then the
116
 Language and Power 117

ascetic cursed Dharma to be reborn as a man in the womb of a lower caste woman,
and vowed to establish a moral boundary for the fruition of the law in the world
by making it impossible to legally hold anyone guilty of transgressions against
another until the age of fourteen (Mbh 1.57.78–79), which represents the age of
adult responsibility.
According to another epic narrative (Mbh 3.116.1–15), Jamandagri, a married
ascetic, lived with his wife, Reṇuhā, and their five sons in the forest. When the wife
went to bathe where King Citrarathra was sporting with his wives in the water she
coveted the king, which caused her to lose control of herself and tremble, enabling
her husband to discover the reason for her excited emotional condition. Because
of her lack of marital fidelity, the ascetic ordered his initial four sons to kill their
mother, but they stood there mentally confused, conflicted, and silent. Thereupon,
the father cursed them to become insane and suddenly the four sons began to behave
like animals. The father ordered Rāma, the last son to arrive, to kill his mother, and
using his axe, he cut off his mother’s head. The fury of the husband subsided, and
he asked his son to choose a boon as a reward for executing such a difficult deed.
Rāma wished that his mother be restored to life, that she be unable to remember
the murder, to avoid influence of negative karma, and his brothers return to normal.
These narratives about Mandavya and Jamandagri depict them as violating
dharma (established law), acting impulsively out of anger, and demonstrating the
power of their curses. Their ability to render evocative and powerful curses is made
possible by their acquiring of ascetic power, an excellent example of a powerful per-
son utilizing language and demonstrating that language is a tool of power. These
examples are also evident of an intentional form of injury. Grounded in the power of
the ascetic, the curse is a negative speech act that attempts to harm or do violence to
another person or group. Along with an utterance of a blessing, a curse is also a form
of communication uttered by an authoritative person, operating magically without
additional actions. In addition to the cursing by the Indian ascetic, cursing can be
discovered cross-culturally in ancient and modern cultures.
A curse is the uttering of words with the intention of causing or invoking harm
upon someone. Although a curse can be distinguished from hate speech, terms of
opprobrium, they share in common degradation or stigmatizing another person or
target.1 From a comparative and cross-cultural perspective, there are three identifi-
able types of curses: revenge, binding, and conditional. A revenge type of curse is
uttered to punish an offending party after having been harmed by them in the past.
Regardless of moral distinctions, a binding curse is intended to restrain another
individual from any action that might be used against the curser in the future with
regard to a variety of issues, whereas the conditional type suggests that a curse will
118 Indian Asceticism

automatically transpire if pre-established conditions are not met or certain events

occur that one wants to avoid.
An examination of ancient Near Eastern texts reveals a link between the curse
and the metaphor of clothing a person because a curse covers the skin of the body
that publicly exposes one’s guilt by functioning as an empirical manifestation of a
curse. Due to this public exposure of guilt, the afflicted person must be necessarily
removed from the community. In these ancient Near Eastern texts, there is also a
similarity between a curse and an oath because both are worn on the skin. When
one rubs one’s body with oil this is a reflection of the conditional self-cursing char-
acter of all oaths: “The violation of the oath would then cause the curse to become
active and manifest itself on the flesh of the offender.”2 When the affliction appears
on the skin, the person is banished by the community, which possesses visible proof
of a person’s guilt.
The curse is used in ancient Israel to stipulate divine sanctions against the Jews in
the event of possible disobedience of divine decrees (Deut 28.:1–68), encompassing
all aspects of daily life. The ancient Near Eastern cultural belief that pestilence will
cling to a person is also evident in Deuteronomy (28:21). Moreover, the effectiveness
of a curse or even simply the threat of a curse is directly related to a cultural con-
text in which a curse is widely believed to bring harmful results (Zech 5:3–4). This
means that “[t]‌he power of curses is thus social and cultural—it consists in the harm
or threat of harm they are believed to carry.”3 As evident in Psalm 109, there is a
continuity with the Hebrew notion of curse and that of other ancient Near Eastern
religious cultures because the former refers to a curse entering into and clothing a
person: “He clothed himself with cursing as his coat, may it soak into his body like
water” (Psalm 109:18).
Ancient Greek and Roman curses (katadesmoi, defixioiones) were written back
to front or as nonsense script on lead, wax, or papyrus, which were then buried in
wells, other subterranean areas, or tombs because the perpetrator of the curse was
attempting to invoke the assistance of underworld powers. Using a first-person verb
to render a curse against another person, Greco-Roman curses, which were consid-
ered direct formulas, were similar to a performative utterance that was expected to
operate automatically. By utilizing an imperative verb, a second type of formula elic-
its divine actions, demons, or the dead to harm an intended victim. These formulas
were believed to have an automatic effect; this accounts for the reason that they had
to be destroyed immediately by an intended victim.4
Within the context of the Judeo-Christian tradition, God curses Adam, Eve,
and the serpent (Gen 3:14, 17) for their transgressions, while Cain is cursed from
the earth (Gen 4:11) for his evil deed. According to the Book of Proverbs (26:2),
an undeserved curse is not effective, goes nowhere, and may revert back upon the
 Language and Power 119

person uttering the curse. From the perspective of his evangelical mission to the
Gentiles, the Christian apostle Paul connects curses with the crucifixion of Jesus in
Galatians (3:13). This example from Paul and others from Greco-Roman culture sug-
gest that a curse is a weapon of those citizens without power, including the socially
wronged, the oppressed, and the righteous.
Among the Muslims of Morocco, there are two types of curses: categorical and
conditional. The former type means that a person calls down upon oneself some evil
in the event of what he says is not true, whereas the latter type is directed against a
person in the form of shame (ar), which implies that if a person does not do what is
asked of him/her a misfortune will befall that person. It is common for Moroccans
to say that “I am in your ar,” which necessarily means that one is cursed if one does
not assist the person pronouncing the curse.5 When a person curses another it is
common in Morocco to curse the father or mother of the object of one’s anger.
Moreover, social rank gives potency to a curse, which means, for instance, that a
husband’s curse upon his spouse is as powerful as that of his father. In addition,
the efficacy of a curse is influenced by the guilt of the person upon whom it is pro-
nounced. Whatever the socio-cultural contexts of these cross-cultural examples,
they are indicative of the power of one type of language—a curse—to unite, divide,
disrupt, or dissolve a society.
The curse helps us to recognize that language is a tool of power that can motivate
others to action, can inflict internal and external bodily pain as when an author-
ity punishes a transgressing party, and can make something happen by inflicting
violence. A common means of inflicting violence on offending others within the
Indian cultural context is the curse of the ascetic, a power that was uniformly feared
by others.
Besides enabling a person to communicate with others and inflict violence, lan-
guage allows humans an opportunity to give expression to their inner thoughts and
feelings. Like everyone else, the ascetic finds him/herself within language and gains
power over language to the extent of being able to cause harm with a curse. It thus
helps to understand the power inherent within language from the perspective of
movements of thought within Indian culture.
In order to understand the implications of the curse of the ascetic, this chapter
will place the act of cursing into the Indian cultural context with respect to the
Indian concept of the role of language. This will then turn to a consideration of the
power of words from two perspectives: an act of truth and the mantra. With these
two phenomena of the Indian concept of language, suggesting the power inherent
within words, we turn next to examine the cultural roots of the curse in ancient
Indian culture to provide a context for grasping the curse of the ascetic. After an
examination of the curse as a speech act according to the analytical philosophy of
120 Indian Asceticism

J. L. Austin, we will finally examine why and in what ways ordinary people, power-
ful kings, and the gods fear the cursing power of ascetics.

Language and Indian Culture

In ancient Indian culture as represented by Vedic literature, language is personified
as Vāc (literally speech or word) and is conceived as an interior power, creative force,
and essence of a thing.6 Vāc is conceived by inspired Vedic poets as being located in
the highest heaven, being the firstborn of earth (RV 1.164.35, 37), and consisting of
four quarters that are only truly known by the wise (RV 1.164.45). Overall, the Vedic
literature depicts language as mysterious, divine (RV 5.10.2;10.114), and a revelation
(śruti, RV 10.71.1). Language indicates power and power relations, and by mastery of
language a person gains power.7 When Vedic poets refer to Vāc as a cow they intend
to express its creative, nourishing, and life-sustaining qualities (RV 9.100.10–11).
If the cow can be grasped as a feminine figure, it is possible to witness a continu-
ation of this process when poets refer to Vāc as the ancestral queen and life giver
(AV 4.1.1–3), womb (AB 2.38), supporter of the cosmos (TB 2.8.4), mother of the
sacred texts, locus of immortality (TB 2.8.8.5), and her seductive powers are used to
retrieve soma (drink of immortality). Vāc is thus gendered as a female. But women
are not generally allowed access to her because she is possessed by males. As the
language of the gods, Vāc is confined to pure individuals (monthly female periods
make them impure) and cultured persons, while the vulgar and barbarian (mleccha)
non-speakers of Sanskrit are excluded from learning the language.8 Vāc might be
grammatically feminine and a powerful goddess, but she is possessed by males, a
situation that ideally reflects the prevailing social structure and the proper relation-
ship between the sexes. Besides being identified with Brahman (ŚB 2.1.4.10) and the
deity Prajāpati (ŚB 5.1.5.6), Vāc, who can express either truth or falsehood, helps the
gods win over demonic forces by embodying the truth that the gods wisely choose
compared to the false notions chosen by the demons (ŚB 9.5.1.2).
The identification of Vāc and Brahman continues in the Upaniṣads (BĀU 4.1.2)
with them sharing a mysterious nature, being the essence of things, and the inner
power of things. Since all syllables are Sanskrit phonemes and forms of Vāc that
are called mātṛkā (“little mothers”), they are all endowed with power and identi-
fied with the highest reality, Brahman (AB 4.21.1). This unity between Vāc and
Brahman is indicative of the nature of language to transform a person’s conscious-
ness, which is accomplished in part by the use of mantras (sacred formulas) that are
identified as being identical with the cosmos (ChU 1.13.1–3), possessing creativity,
symbolic and salvific power, and the ability to forge human correspondences with
the greater cosmos.
 Language and Power 121

The Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa (1.184) illustrates the power of words in a narrative.

While journeying through the forest, the three Āptya brothers became thirsty
along with their two gift cows. Finding a well, only the brother Trita was willing to
climb into the well to retrieve the water. After the two non-cooperative brothers—
Ekata and Dvita—satisfied their thirst, they covered the third brother in the well
with a chariot wheel and continued on their way with the cows. The brother Trita
called for help by chanting the name of the god of rain, Parjareya, who sends rain to
fill the well and float the abandoned brother upward. Following the footsteps of his
diabolical brothers, Trita cursed them by chanting powerful words and transform-
ing them into a bear and a monkey that scampered into the woods. This narrative
indicates the power inherent in words, and its power to transform and punish the
two devious brothers.
In contrast to ancient Indian philosophical speculation, words were not in any
sense divine for Nikāya Buddhists because they were human creations used for instru-
mental and practical purposes of communication with others.9 In Nikāya Buddhism
language possesses an ambiguous status because it is subject to time and causation
just like everything else within the world, which necessarily implies that it cannot
be said to be permanent or temporally enduring for any length of time, and thus
any lasting structure, although it is possible for words to have a relationship based
on their usage.10 If language is viewed within the context of the cycle of causation, it
is grasped as imperfect and impermanent without the ability to express any absolute
validity. From the Buddhist perspective, language is not only non-eternal, but is also
a creation by means of human mental formations, making it a human invention.11
Nonetheless, the dhamma (oral teachings) of the Buddha do possess power,
its own structure, unique logic, and freedom from bondage. Hence, a person can
grasp its meaning, even though the words are multiple and variable.12 The words
of the Buddha are truthful and authoritative if a monk’s experience accords with
the teachings embodied within the language of the Buddha. Therefore, the aspiring
candidate for enlightenment can both test and verify the teachings for him/herself
while using the teachings as a guide.13 The Buddha’s teachings are also indicative of
intention and meaning, according to the erudite Buddhist scholar Buddhaghoṣa,
called by his contemporaries the “second Buddha,” which makes them special and
distinctive compared to other teachings given by means of oral discourse by other
teachers.14 In his teachings, the Buddha emphasized the importance of language as
an indicator of a person’s character and as a lever for changing one’s disposition to
kinder, gentler, truthful, and non-harmful modes of language.
The ambivalent attitude toward language evident in the Nikāya Buddhist tradi-
tion is also present in the philosophy of Śaṅkara, an early eighth-century founder of
monastic institutions, who views it as both an instrument of ignorance and a means
122 Indian Asceticism

of liberation. On the one hand, language distorts any possible insight into reality
by obstructing and distracting our mind while also being a product of māyā (illu-
sory existence), pointing to its unreal nature. On the other hand, language is more
than a result of ignorance because it can also assist a seeker on the path to libera-
tion when he/she repetitively recites mantras (sacred formulas).15 Sharing the ability
with mantras to shift a seeker’s mode of concentration on the eternal, Śaṅkara also
emphasizes the so-called great sayings (mahāvākyas) of the ancient Upaniṣads (for
instance, tat tvam asi, that you are), providing evidence for the evocative nature of
language for Śaṅkara and its ability to reveal liberating knowledge that is ultimately
grounded in the revealed Vedas, a valid form of knowledge.
Śaṅkara asserts the eternal nature of the words (śabdas) of the Vedas and what
they denote as also eternal, which is indicative of the cosmological role of the
Vedas; their words are uncreated nature, and the origin of the world can be traced
back to their words, although the ultimate source of the Vedas is Brahman, the sole
reality.16 Someone might conclude that there is a contradiction between the Vedas’
origin in Brahman and the eternity of the words of the Vedas. Holdrege clarifies
this problem:

Śaṃkara’s argument that the Vedas ultimately derive from Brahman is not
incommensurate with his assertions of their eternality. Such a perspective
accords with earlier post-Vedic conceptions, which describe how at the time
of dissolution the Vedas are absorbed into Brahman and remain unmanifest
until the beginning of the next kalpa, at which time they re-emerge as the eter-
nal expressions of that totality of knowledge which is Brahman.17

If one accepts Śaṅkara’s fundamental nondualistic presupposition that only

Brahman exists, he not only proves the eternal nature of the Vedas, but he also
uses the words contained in the Vedas to prove his case because Brahman is the
power inherent within words in the Vedas as well as the nondual reality of the
Upaniṣads.
The major difference between the Buddhist position on language and that of
Śaṅkara is that between the nonessentialist stance of the former and the essentialist
position of the latter. Since everything for the Buddhists exists only momentarily
with the exception of nirvāṇa, it is impossible for wholes, such as a sentence, to arise
from a combination of parts or words. A sentence is really a human construct resem-
bling a meaningful whole. Because humans cannot grasp differences, an identified
object is merely a construct based on differences between objects. In sharp contrast
to the Buddhist’s position on the construction of a sentence, Śaṅkara claims that a
sentence, for instance, serves as a unit of verbal testimony and thus a valid form of
 Language and Power 123

knowledge. Thus, if one knows the meanings of the words, how they are related to
each other, and their syntax, it is possible to accept a sentence as valid verbal testi-
mony. Śaṅkara also argues that terms have universal as well as secondary meanings
because the particular inheres in the universal aspect of a term. The term “goat,”
for example, represents a particular animal to be sacrificed, but it also represents
“goatness” that represents the essential nature of the animal, rendering the universal
aspect of the term appropriate to every member of a given class of animal. A particu-
lar goat possesses a secondary designation or sign (lakṣaṇa), according to Śaṅkara.
According to a commentary on the Jain text Āpta-Mimāṁsā of Āchārya
Samantabhedra (10.111), a word possesses its own meaning distinct from other
words. Thus each word is distinct and meaningful in its own right, implying that it
possesses its own power. This power inherent in a word is illustrated by a Jain nar-
rative about a thirsty elephant driver and a Jain layman. The driver asks the layman
Jinadāsa for water. The layman instructs the driver to sing the praises of the Jinas
until he returns. By reciting his praises, the elephant driver receives water, burns up
his karma, and becomes a demi-god.18
Another Jain narrative also illustrates the power of words. In this narrative,
Mukunda, a Brahmin who converted to Jainism, enjoys reciting a text loudly at
night to the consternation of awakened monks. His teacher gets him to recite
scriptures during the day to the annoyance of lay people. A  lay person asks
whether or not he hoped to “make a dry stick suddenly burst into bloom by the
magic of his words?” In response to this question, Mukunda worships the goddess
of learning and receives her assistance. Returning to his teacher and the assembly
of monks, he intends to atone for their insults of him by shocking them with a
display of power by transforming a dry stick into a blooming flower by the power
of his uttered words.19

Words of Power: Act of Truth

The power intrinsic to language in India can be viewed in two ways: act of truth
and the mantra (sacred formula). The act of truth is a statement uttered to be true
if some previous circumstance is true. In the Rāmāyaṇa (6.78.30–31) for example,
before firing his bow, Lakṣmaṇa utters a truth statement to the effect that if his
brother Rāma is righteous, truthful, and valorous, then may he slay the demonic
Rāvaṇa. As evident in the earlier literature of the Chāndogya Upaniṣad (6.16), truth
possesses potency.
According to the Mahābhārata (3.50–79), the beautiful maiden princess
Damayantī utters an act of truth at two crucial points during her life. When choos-
ing her future spouse four Hindu deities—Indra, Varuṇa, Agni, and Yama—stand
124 Indian Asceticism

before her along with her beloved Nala, but she cannot distinguish between them.
In order to dispel her confusion and enable her to differentiate among her suitors,
she utters a truth act related to the fact that Nala is destined to be her husband from
the first moment that she heard his name, and calls on the gods to reveal her beloved
(Mbh 3.60.35). In response the gods assume their true appearance, giving the prin-
cess a view of figures that do not blink their eyes, wear fresh garlands, are free of
perspiration, wear dust-free clothes, are shadowless, and do not touch the earth with
their feet. When the gods are necessarily exposed by means of the power inherent in
the act of truth Damayantī is able to discern the figure of the inferior, human person
and her future husband. Later in the narrative, Damayantī utters an act of truth,
having to do with her loyalty to her husband as a virtuous wife, which kills a hunter
intent on raping her (Mbh 3.60.35).
As these examples from epic literature suggest, there are two major elements of an
act of truth: (1) a formal declaration of fact and (2) a command, resolution, or prayer
of the reciter that a particular purpose be accomplished. The philosophical basis of
the act of truth is a single-mindedness with which one fulfills one’s duty, accord-
ing to one’s social responsibility grounded in one’s caste and station of life. If one’s
duty is performed efficiently, purposely, and with integrity, the utterance will cause
something to happen if what is uttered is true. Therefore, this means that the perfect
execution of one’s duty can achieve any wish by compelling the gods to give. 20 This
scheme shows that power can be exerted over the phenomenal world by means of
virtue. Nonetheless, even immoral people can successfully exercise an act of truth by
appealing to the fact that they have remained loyal to their dharmic duty, as in the
cases of a prostitute or a thief.

Power of Words: Mantr a
The conception of the mantra as a source of power dates back to the Vedic texts
where it is associated with Vāc, or primordial word (RV 1.40.6), connected with
ṛta (cosmic law) governing the universe (RV 1.67.5; 3.53.8), and addressed to a deity
within the sacrificial cult (ŚB 2.3.4.10). Since Sanskrit phonemes are forms of Vāc,
they are frequently named “little mothers” (mātṛkā) that Padoux explains in the fol-
lowing way: “But these are presided over by, and are discrete forms of, the Mātṛkā,
the divine mother in her aspect as Vāc, the supreme power governing the world,
hence their force and efficacy.”21 During a ritual, mantras are continually recited by
the various priests in order to protect the ritual from human errors and evil forces
while sanctifying the ritual performance. The term mantra is related to a Sanskrit
verb man, a term that means “evoking, calling up,” and is associated with the noun
nāma (name).22 Containing the secrecy related to the potency of sound, a mantra is
 Language and Power 125

connected to speech that leads to a concentration of the reciter’s thought. Mantras

are considered sacred, subject to fixed and strict rules of recitation, and powerful
(śakti) enough that they can both sanctify and ratify ritual acts.23
Mantras not only possess inherent power (AB 5.14.8), but they are also only effec-
tive when orally pronounced; otherwise they remain powerless (RV 10.95.1). When
the mantra is pronounced in accordance with strict rules the power inherent within
the word, a revelatory force, is given supremacy over the speaker. There is evidence
of the mantra working as an amulet for a person’s protection, but it is still somewhat
ambivalent in the sense of offering protection and also threatening harm to the
speaker.24 Its ambivalence is not evident when it is explicitly identified with brah-
man, a power inherent within words, which suggests that mantras like brahman are
eternal (ŚB 7.1.1.5).25
The power of the mantra is illustrated in the epic literature by the story of
Vāsiṣṭha, a great seer, and his cow Śabalā, the wish-fulfilling cow (Ram 1.53–54.1–
17). King Viśvāmitra takes away the cow from the seer by force, and the cow is
overcome with grief, wondering if she had been abandoned by her master. She
runs back to the sage who informs her that a mighty king is taking her by force
and confesses that he is too weak to stop the power of the king. The cow counters
by saying that the power of a Brahmin priest is greater than that of a warrior.
Upon hearing the cow’s words, Vāsiṣṭha tells her to create an army to defeat the
king and his forces. In response, the cow roars a sacred mantra that creates an
army that destroys Viśvāmitra’s army. The king responds in a rage and kills the
army created by the cow, who then creates another fighting force, which is over-
whelmed again by Viśvāmitra. Thereupon, Vāsiṣṭha commands the cow to create
even more troops using her yogic powers. Uttering the sacred mantra Hombhā,
the wish-fulfilling cow creates troops from different parts of her body: from her
bellowing of the sacred mantra emerge the Kāmbojas, from her udders come
Pahlavas, from her vulva appear the Yavanas, the Śakas come from her anus, and
the Mlecchas, Hāritas, and Kirātas emerged from her skin, which are all unclean
parts of her body. After their army is destroyed, the remaining hundred sons of
Viśvāmitra charge the great seer in order to destroy him, but he utters the sacred
syllable “Hum,” which consumes the furious, wrathful sons along with their
horses and chariots. The defeated, despondent, and depressed Viśvāmitra makes
a journey to the slopes of the Himalayas to practice asceticism in order to gain
favor of the deity Śiva, the paradigmatic model of ascetics. For the purposes of this
narrative illustration, the use of a sacred mantra demonstrates that it is extremely
powerful. Nonetheless, the mantra also possesses less violent results, although its
outcome is equally powerful according to particular Indian thinkers, a power that
is intimately associated with its truth.
126 Indian Asceticism

From within the context of Śaṅkara’s nondualistic thought, a mantra possesses

the power to liberate a person from the painful cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
Using the metaphor of archery, Śaṅkara insists that the mantra is analogous to a
bow, the Ātman forms the arrow, and Brahman is the target to be hit with the man-
tra serving as the means of the Ātman hitting the designated target.26
In general agreement with Śaṅkara, Abhinavagupta (d. 1025), a Kashmir Śaiva
philosopher, views mantras as having the power of liberation because they possess
the ability to concentrate the mind and allow it to avoid distractions. 27 By follow-
ing the flow of one’s breath, the mantra, according to Abhinavagupta, functions to
fill one with the vibration (spanda) of consciousness that in turn causes conscious-
ness to also vibrate.28 Because language is grounded in the primordial, nondual,
and divine consciousness Parāvāc, an aspirant encounters the primordial word in
every word, and is transported to the source of the mantra by his/her consciousness
beyond all duality and language where he/she enters eternal silence.29
Abhinavagupta refers to the practice of nyāsa (placing the letters of a deity men-
tally on each limb of one’s body) while reciting mantras in order to transform one-
self into a god.30 Padoux observes that these interior operations are a process of
deification made possible by placing within oneself divine being as it is manifested
in the universe and achieving a Tantric yogic body. He proceeds to observe that the
Tantric initiate is normally not a seeker of liberation, but rather a seeker intent on
achieving supernatural powers.31 What makes this scenario possible is the divine
nature of the mantras, which are words of power by virtue of their identity with the
nature of Śiva, forming the essence of the deity. Therefore, a mantra is not merely a
way to achieve some goal, but is both a means to a goal and an autonomous transcen-
dent power that can make the reciter powerful.32 The repetition ( japa) of mantras is
also part of this process of deification and becoming powerful because it enables a
practitioner to use the phonic substance of mantras.
In Tantric Hinduism, there is a conviction among some texts that females have a
special facility with mantras. This belief means that women do not have to prepare
themselves for worship, meditation, or purification, according to the Gandharva
Tantra (36.5b). A woman merely needs to think of a mantra and she gains the abil-
ity to give boons to others. Nonetheless, Biernacki reminds readers that this special
ability of women did not exempt women from being used as vehicles for male attain-
ment of powers within the context of Tantric rites.33
In addition to the Hindu context, mantras also play an important role in Jainism
because of a general belief in their inherent power and auspiciousness that enables
a reciter to achieve supernatural or soteriological goals. The mantra is sound that
represents a modification of an atom that is not eternal. The material nature of a
speech utterance stands in sharp contradiction to the ancient Vedic position that
 Language and Power 127

Brahman represents the uncreated Veda.34 The most famous mantra in the Jain tra-
dition is the Five Homages (Pañcanamaskāra) that is addressed to the five central
figures of the Jain tradition in Prakrit: arhats (omniscient beings), siddhas (liberated
beings), ayariyas (teachers), uvajjhayas (preceptors), and sahus (monks). This mantra
is without beginning or author. Its inherent power enables it to destroy all evil. It is
not only recited during solemn ritual observances, but it can also bring the reciter
worldly success, destroy karmic residues, or help a person overcome pride and ego-
ism. Dundas calls the mantra a “form of integral austerity.”35 The power inherent in
a mantra in the Jain tradition is embodied within its narratives. A thief is reborn a
god after he utters the mantra while impaled on a stake, a punishment for his crime;
and a layman is saved from being the victim in a human sacrifice by reciting the
mantra, whereas it is also used to gain the power to fly.36
The oral or silent reciting of a sacred mantra is a speech act, an exercise of power
that contains creativity and effectiveness because their declaration represents a per-
formative utterance, although not all scholars agree.37 The power inherent within
mantras makes something happen, including the following:  removing ignorance
(avidyā); revealing truth; and obtaining liberation.38 The French scholar Padoux
stresses the mantra’s symbolic value, meaning, and intentional nature as fundamen-
tal to its nature.39 As a speech act that makes something happen, a mantra shares
this feature with the curse of the ascetic.

The Cultur al Roots of the Curse

Similar to the mantra, the use of a curse can be traced back to early Vedic literature
and ritual practice (RV 10.87.13). In another instance, the initial part of RV 6.25.9 is
a curse intended to cause one’s adversaries to enter into conflict with each other. In
another passage (RV 10.97.16), a writer asks to be released from the power of a curse,
or a person pleas for the curse to avoid him as a fire does a pond (AV 6.37.2). Another
person invokes words against a curse so that it dries up from its roots like a tree that
is struck by a thunder bolt (AV 10.7.59.1). The effectiveness of the curse is connected
by some to simply becoming thought.40 In addition, curses do not represent a “sense-
less waste of words, but have practical effect; materializing, they are supposed to
attach themselves to a person.”41
The curse also helps to explain current practices and events. The deity Agni curses
fish, for example, to be killed by humans (TS 2.6.6.1). After the gods become sick,
they curse trees to be cut down with axes as evident in another text (PB 6.5.11). These
episodes point to the fact that cursing is intended to lead to the destruction of one’s
enemies in ancient India and can potentially profane the holiness of a ritual. Curses
should not, however, be too sharply distinguished from blessings because “the forms
128 Indian Asceticism

given to both activities are often similar or parallel and the persons empowered to
perform both are frequently the same: misfortune, death, destruction upon other
men.”42 There are also instances when a curse is invoked to recoil back onto the
curser (AV 2.7.5; ŚB 14.9.4.11). This often occurs within a ritual context when the
rules of a rite are violated. Keith explains that “if a man performs an act in the offer-
ing incorrectly, then he places himself in such a position that, if any one were to say
of or to him something unpleasant, that would come true. The point is clear: the
mistake exposes the man guilty of it to the risk of the effective working of any curse
which is invoked upon him.”43 This type of scenario also indicates that the efficacy
of a curse is dependent upon time, place, an authoritative speaker, and formulaic
words pronounced in an accurate manner, giving the curse its authenticity.44
It is also important to call attention to the power of the curse as being part of the
magical side of rites because its working through the magical aspect of the ceremony
enables the curse to strengthen the rite. This scenario leads Gonda to call atten-
tion to the power of the curse as part of the magical side of rites.45 In addition, our
attention is directed to the magical power of words that in ancient India assumes
the verse form and only occasionally prose form. The magical formula is uttered in
gentle whispers with its power being enhanced by triple repetition.46
In some cases, the curse is used in conjunction with an amulet, touching, or water.
The power of an amulet is dependent on the substance from which it is made, such
as grain like barley. Sour milk and honey are also considered powerful magical sub-
stances.47 By pledging oneself verbally, this practice can be enhanced by touching
one’s head or heart, which is connected to purifying oneself from evil powers that
require cleansing oneself. While uttering a curse, one can hold water in one’s hand,
which becomes charged with the power of the curse and can have special effects
when it is poured by the holder (Rām 7.65.29–33).48
The amulet  also functions to protect a person from a potential curse. In the
Atharva Veda (4.9), an eye ointment is identified as an instrument to protect a per-
son from a curse and other forms of malaise, whereas a pearl-shell amulet protects
against distress and demons, and promotes long life (AV 10.1–7). Protection against
a curse is also provided by a metal amulet (AV 1.6). Or a person apprehensive about
being cursed can verbally redirect a curse back upon the perpetrator (AV 2.7.5).
A long time ago, Oldenberg called our attention to the relationship between a
curse and an oath, which he defines as “a curse directed against oneself if one breaks
one’s word or tells a lie.”49 To pledge one’s life, one’s possessions, life of a relative,
or to invite self-disaster gives force to an oath taker’s words. A queen swears, for
instance, that she wants to be reborn as a demon if she betrays her husband (Manu
8.113). It must be noted that the effectiveness of a curse also depends on the disposi-
tion of the cursed person.50
 Language and Power 129

According to the BĀU (6.4.112), instructions are provided for a curse upon a per-
son who flirts or carries on an affair with the wife of a Brahmin. In order to enact
the curse, the offended Brahmin should perform the following procedure:  “He
should place some fire in an unbaked pot, spread out a bed of reeds, arranging
them in a way that is the reverse of the normal, apply ghee to the tips of those reeds,
again in an order that is the reverse of the normal, and offer them in that fire, as he
recites: take away the enemy’s out and in-breaths, take away his sons, and livestock,
take away accumulated merit from performing sacrifices, and his hopes and expec-
tations.”51 If a person is cursed in this way, he will lose his virility and acquired
merit of his good works.
Within the context of a discussion about service (sevā) among Mangaldihi fami-
lies of a north Indian village community in more recent times, Sarah Lamb calls
attention to the current relevance and use of curses in a village society. If service
rendered by younger people to older citizens represents a transactional exchange for
respectful devotion, this service is not a one-way transaction because elders recipro-
cate with affection for the younger members and give them their blessings. However,
if service is neglected or flagrantly withheld, the older generation may respond with
curses that stick to junior members of the community. It is the fear of being cursed
and having blessings withheld by the older generation that motivates the younger
generation to respectfully serve elders of the village.52 If the elders are satisfied with
the service given by younger members of their family, they place their hands on the
bowed heads of their juniors and give them blessings. In her study, Lamb connects
this type of practice by village elders to mental and verbal heat (tapas) that is akin
to the heat generated by ascetics by means of their practice.53 The ability of seniors
to curse or bless others in Lamb’s north Indian village is shared with ascetics, whose
creative heat (tapas) can be used to bestow blessings on those favored or curse those
who offend them in some way.54

The Curse of the Ascetic

In the Indian narrative of the Abhijñānashakuntala (Shakuntala and the Ring of
Recollection) by Kālidāsa (ca.350–460 CE), the curse of an ascetic plays a pivotal
role in the story. King Dushyanta, a ruler of Hastinapura, was hunting in the for-
est, near the hermitage of the ascetic Kanva. In pursuit of a deer, the king caught
a glimpse of the beautiful Shakuntala, a daughter of the ascetic Viśvāmita and
the celestial nymph Menakā, but living as the adopted daughter of Kanva. After
a period of unfilled mutual longing, the two finally sexually consummated their
love. Dushyanta gave a ring to his beloved, sealing their relationship, while later
Shakuntala, in great excitement, failed to honor her ascetic teacher named Durvasas.
130 Indian Asceticism

The notoriously temperamental holy man cursed her to be forgotten by the king,
who had already left the hermitage. When she became pregnant she traveled to the
royal court, but the king did not recognize her because of the forgetfulness caused
by the curse of the ascetic. Along with being disavowed by the king, she discovered
that her ring was lost, and there was no way to get the king to remember her. Due
to her pregnant condition, the king did allow her to remain in the royal palace until
she gave birth. She suddenly vanished, snatched by a celestial nymph. Later in the
narrative a fisherman discovered her ring lodged in the stomach of a fish, and the
king recalled his beloved who suffered years of pain and regret. Setting out to fight
hostile demons, the king went on a quest that led him to the hermitage of Marica
where he encountered a mischievous boy and a pale and emaciated figure named
Shakuntala, but he recognized her as his beloved. In this narrative, the curse of an
ascetic harms the intended victim and an innocent person. In general, the curse
of an ascetic is analogous to a powerful weapon, similar to a flash of lightning. Its
application could exhaust the power of the ascetic, who could then resume his prac-
tice of tapas to regain power expended.55
In addition to the narrative of Kālidāsa, the curse of the ascetic also played a
role in the epic literature. In the Mahābhārata (3.8.21–11.7), Maitreya curses
Duryodhana if he does not listen to Dhṛtarāṣṭra. When Duryodhana rudely slaps
his thigh, Maitreya curses him to have it broken in battle, an utterance that super-
sedes Bhīma’s prior vow to do the same thing during the dice match. Later in the
narrative, Gāndhārī intends to curse Yudhiṣṭhira for the deaths of her sons, but she
is counteracted by Vyāsa and his divine eye, which knows the internal secrets and
thoughts of others, convincing her to reject uttering a curse (Mbh 11.13.3–6). But
Gāndhārī stills harbors some anger and glances below her blindfold, causing the
blackening of Yudhiṣṭhira’s fingernails (Mbh 11.15.6–7).
The epic literature also stresses the future consequences of a curse. Thirty-six years
after the slaughter at Kurukṣetra and insulting three Ṛṣis, the Yādavas destroy them-
selves (Mbh 16.2–4). Having been cursed to be reborn into his present condition
because he misruled heaven, Bhīma is almost strangled by a boa constrictor before
relating his story to Yudhiṣṭhira (Mbh 3.174.18–178). These types of examples suggest a
curse being used as a literary device to provide the narrative with a meaningful context
to make sense of something that is inexplicable. There is also a relationship between
the curse and karma, which is explained by George von Simson in the following way:

I assume personal guilt for anything negative that happens to a person, but
unlike the classical karma doctrine that prefers the idea of retribution in a
future existence, the curse establishes a direct connection between offender
and offended and normally produces its effect within a shorter period.56
 Language and Power 131

Von Simson’s observation does not always ring true because there are examples of
a longer time lapse with respect to karma and a curse. We notice this longer time
period in the narrative about the boy who made a straw snake that frightened an
irascible holy man, who cursed the boy to be reborn a snake in a future life with the
ability to speak (Mbh 1. 11.1–4).
Five apsarases, celestial nymphs and friends, encountered a handsome Brahmin
in the forest doing austerities in solitude. As the ascetic practiced his regime, a
light radiated from him that illumined the entire region. In a mischievous deci-
sion, the five apsarases decided to disrupt his practice by singing, dancing, laugh-
ing, and tempting him with their beauty. The ascetic never wavered from his
practice, but he did become angry and cursed them to become crocodiles (Mbh
1.208.15–20).
On the way to a council of the gods, Yudhiṣṭhira recounted meeting the great
ascetic Agastya performing tapas (asceticism) on the banks of the Yamunā River,
surrounded by a multitude of flowers and birds. The ascetic stood with his arms
extended, facing the sun. The Rākṣasa, Maṇimat, spit on his head from the sky,
polluting him, which motivated the ascetic to curse the demon to meet death
by human hands, although the demon would be purified when the demon died
(Mbh 3.158.50–55). A similar type of polluting episode resulting in a curse being
uttered is evident in a narrative about a learned, ascetic Brahmin (Mbh 3.197. 1–6).
Standing under a tree reciting sacred scriptures, a female heron defecated on him
from the top of the tree. He sent the heron an injurious thought that killed the
bird. Becoming remorseful at the sight of the inanimate heron’s body lying on the
ground, the ascetic vowed to overcome his emotions. Again, this narrative repre-
sents another example of an ascetic invoking a curse, a form of language power, to
injure another being.
The Mahābhārata (3.137.1–20) also contains a narrative that was cited in the pre-
vious chapter, combining humor, the demonic, fear, immorality, and the curse of an
ascetic. This narrative is about false identity, lust, emotion, immorality, deception,
and intrigue. The devious ascetic quickly responds to the threat from the demons
and runs to a nearby pond to hide, but the body of water is dry along with nearby
rivers. Finally, he runs to his father’s sacrificial ground where he is restrained by a
blind servant. While confined by the blind servant, the demon is able to beat and
split the ascetic’s heart with its trident, killing the immoral ascetic. This narrative
is further evidence of the close connection between the power of an ascetic and the
demonic.
There is also evidence of the curse of the ascetic functioning as a check on the
power of other mighty beings. The Rāmāyaṇa (4.11.38–45) recounts the violent
narrative of Vālin seizing the two horns of Dundubhi and throwing the gigantic
132 Indian Asceticism

demon to the earth, killing it. Lifting the huge body of the demon, Vālin hurled
it a long distance and over the hermitage of the ascetic Mataṅga. While the inert
body of the demon passed over the ascetic’s hermitage, drops of the demon’s blood
were scattered and fell on the hermitage. In reaction to the falling blood from the
dead demon, the ascetic pronounced a curse on Vālin with the intention of causing
his death, if he should enter the abode of the ascetic. The fearful Vālin begged for
forgiveness from the ascetic, even though he was a mighty, heroic figure. It is thus
possible to conclude that the curse of the ascetic is more powerful and curbs the
power of a great warrior in this narrative.
In Madhva’s hagiographical account of Śaṅkara’s life, the ascetic curses relatives,
neighbors, and his immediate family because they would not help him perform
the funeral cremation for his mother. Śaṅkara curses them to misfortune as a pun-
ishment for their unwillingness to help with the funeral ceremony. If this seems a
rather harsh response by a spiritually advanced renouncer, Madhva, the biographer,
emphatically asserts that the actions of liberated individuals should never be ques-
tioned or condemned by those of limited understanding.57
Tantric narratives also manifest evidence of an ascetic cursing others. After
being insulted, Bhairuji, a Nātha ascetic with a hot temper, curses a diary maid who
offends him, declaring that her churning stick is doomed to hang on a peg and her
churning pot will turn upside-down. In addition, black crows will rest on her house,
tigers will attack her livestock, wolves will eat her sheep and goats, and the mother
cow will be separated from her calves. When these curses become reality the dairy-
maid becomes distraught and confused, but finally realizes her mistake with the
help of a spirit medium.58
Some narratives of the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha suggest that the yogi’s curse is limited to
the body and cannot affect the mind. A supercilious, proud, vain, parentless demon
enters, for example, the hermitage of an ascetic and defiles and destroys the place.
In a rage, the ascetic curses the demon to be reborn as a gnat (6.136.11–20). While
flying through the air in another narrative, Kumbha tells an ascetic that he appears
to be a lover hurrying to meet his lover. Becoming incensed at the flyer’s remarks,
he pronounces a curse upon him to be transformed into an amorous woman every
night only to return to the form of a male during the day (6.105.1–19). A third nar-
rative tells a tale of a king who asks an ascetic to curse Indra for ravishing his wife.
After cursing the two fornicators, they inform the king that a pronounced curse can
affect their bodies but not their souls, indicating in this text that a curse is limited
to their bodies (3.90.1–14).
Narratives about the use of a curse presuppose the power of speech and language
in Indian culture discussed early in this chapter. The narrative examples of the
ascetic’s use of a curse demonstrate its infallible nature and veracity.59 This means
 Language and Power 133

that the ascetic’s words have truth (satya, Mbh. 3.13.117; 5.80.48) and a confidence
in the prior truthfulness of the ascetic (Mbh 1.49.19), which stands opposed to idle
speech and lies. When an ascetic is motivated by anger to utter a curse this attitude
stands in sharp contrast to his/her blessing, a result of the ascetic’s satisfaction. The
curse of an ascetic is often associated with a specific duration of time, and seldom is
an eternal curse uttered, a scenario that mitigates it to some extent.60

The Curse as a Speech Act

The feared curse of an ascetic, grounded in his practice of tapas (austerities), operates
like a speech act that represents a performative utterance because the uttering of
the curse makes something happen that is usually harmful to an offending party, at
least in the case of the ascetic’s curse. According to the theory of J. L. Austin, speech
acts are locutionary verbal acts that express something with a certain sense and ref-
erence, which is similar to affirming “the automobile is running” with respect to a
specific automobile, whereas an illocutionary act of doing something represents an
act of saying something, as for example when saying “Start the auto,” by performing
an act of giving an order. Finally, the perlocutionary act accomplishes something
by the act of saying, for example, “Turn the engine off.” Austin also specifies cer-
tain conditions that are necessary for a performative utterance to be successful that
involve an accepted conventional procedure with a particular context. In addition,
the participants and circumstances have to be appropriate for the invocation of the
specific procedure used. Finally, a performative utterance includes a complete and
correct execution of the procedure by all participants.61
In the case of the ascetic curse, the ascetic controls the power of the words and
others tend to play roles of instigators of the ascetic’s verbal ire. An excellent example
of this is the tale of the ascetic Kahoḍa, a student of Uddālaka, who receives learn-
ing and the daughter, Sujātā, of the teacher as his bride. When she gets pregnant her
fetus tells its father that he did not get his studies right. Taking offense toward these
words spoken by the fetus in the presence of his students and thereby humiliating
him in front of others, the father curses the fetus to be reborn crooked in eight dif-
ferent ways (Mbh 3.132.6–9).
The curse of the ascetic is so powerful that it can be used against gods, kings,
and demons. A narrative in the Rāmāyaṇa (1.74. 21–32) recounts the powerful curse
of the ascetic Gautama against the deity Indra, a warrior god, for having an illicit
sexual relationship after assuming the form of the ascetic in order to seduce his wife.
The ascetic curses the god to the effect that he would lose his testicles, which hap-
pens just as the ascetic finishes speaking. He also curses his wife to live in his mon-
astery for many years without food, subsisting on air, suffering, reclining on ashes,
134 Indian Asceticism

and becoming invisible to all creatures. In another episode, after offending some
ascetics, a king is cursed by them to become a pariah, transforming the king into
a black and coarse being, wearing black garments with unkempt hair, turning his
ornaments into iron, and obtaining his garlands and ointment from a cremation
ground (Rām 37.1–9).
It is also possible to find narratives of ascetics cursing other ascetics. According
to the narrative about Trita, a man of great austerities, he was abandoned by his
two ascetic brothers in a pit and cursed them for leaving him in such a predica-
ment. In this narrative, the three ascetic brothers—Ékata, Duita, and Trita—
won the Brahmā world by means of their austerities. Ékata and Duita hatched a
plot to perform sacrifices and acquire wealth by gaining all the sacrificial patrons
of their brother. They acquired numerous animals as fees for their religious ser-
vices, and decided to keep the animals for themselves. While encountering a
wolf, Trita fell into a pit and cried out for help, but he was abandoned by his
brothers. While stuck in the pit, Trita imagined sacrificial fires and that a shrub
was a soma plant, and he extracted the soma juice. He proceeded to perform a sac-
rifice and gave forth a resounding shout that was heard by the gods. The divine
beings were motivated to investigate the situation and source of the loud sound.
Giving the gods their portions of the sacrifice, Trita asked to be saved, and his
request was granted. When he encountered his brothers again, he cursed them
to wander as fierce wolves and extended the curse to include their offspring who
would become monkeys, bears, and apes (Mbh. 9.36.3–50). Apparently, the two
evil ascetic brothers were not powerful enough to counter the power inherent in
the curse of the offended brother, possibly because their transgressions subverted
their power, rendering Trita more morally and ethically powerful.
The curse plays an essential role in various parts of the Rāmāyaṇa. Kaikeyaī’s
father was forced, for example, to become separated from his wife by a curse.
Daśartatha was cursed to become separated from his son Rāma, and the hero Rāma
was cursed to become separated from his wife. In another instance, Pāṇḍu was
cursed to die if he made love to his wife in the Mahābhārata. In these examples, the
curses functioning to explain why events turned out as they did, operating as accu-
rate predictors of a character’s fate. The various narrative examples of curses share
one feature in common: Their utterance makes something happen in a manner that
is similar to a performative speech act.

Fear of Ascetics
Not only do ordinary people fear the power inherent in the curse of an ascetic,
but members of royal status also share this fear. Further evidence of those who are
 Language and Power 135

apprehensive about the devastating outcome of a curse uttered by such a powerful

figure is evident in the narrative of the ascetic Cyavana and King Kuśika. The ascetic
informs the king that he wishes to reside with the king for a time. The ascetic is
offered hospitality and the king’s domain, but the ascetic refuses the second gener-
ous offer. The ascetic says that he intends to observe a vow that involves the king
and queen serving him without complaint, a proposal to which the royal couple
agrees. Becoming invisible and disappearing from the presence of the royal couple,
the ascetic reappears in their bed only to disappear again. During his next appear-
ance, the ascetic is seated on the throne. Although this type of annoying behavior
of the ascetic challenges the patience of the king, he is motivated to serve the ascetic
because he fears the ascetic’s curse. At the request of the ascetic, the king and queen
yoke themselves to a chariot in order to pull the ascetic. Having humiliated the
royal couple, the ascetic next gives away the king’s wealth, creates a palace of gold
and finally sleeps for twenty-one days. Overall, the ascetic tests the righteousness
and patience of the royal couple (Mbh 11.52–53). Throughout their ordeal, the royal
couple is compliant to the whims of the ascetic due to their fear of the consequences
of his curse.
In the other major epic, Prince Bharata, a man of vision and son of Kaikeyī,
decides to spend the night with an ascetic at his ashram. The prince leaves behind
his army because he is fearful of the curse of the ascetic and does not want to offend
the ascetic in any way (Rām 2.85–1–6). If he had come with his army and the image
of political power that it conveys, the ascetic might have misconstrued this event
and cursed the prince and his army.
Beyond the human realm of powerless ordinary people and those of powerful
royal status, the gods are also fearful of the curse of ascetics or their general powers
grounded in their practice. In the Rāmāyaṇa (3.10.8–18), Dharmabhṛt, a sage, tells
a story to the heroes Rāma and Lakṣmaṇa about the ascetic Māṇḍakarṇi and a lake,
which is called Pond of the Five Apsarases, that he created by means of his ascetic
powers while subsisting on air and being immersed in water. The divine beings, who
were led by the god of fire, grew anxious and surmised that the ascetic intended to
displace one member of the divine retinue. As a result of their deliberations, the
gods decided to send the major apsarases, heavenly nymphs, to cast the spell of pas-
sion upon the ascetic. These nymphs became the wives of the ascetic, and he con-
structed a hidden house for them located within his lake. All the participants lived
happily engaging in frequent passion. By means of his power, the ascetic regained his
youthful appearance. As they played together, the sounds of musical instruments
and tinkling jewelry could be heard on the banks of the lake.
Besides Agni, the divine being who appears in such narratives repeatedly is the
warrior deity Indra. According to a narrative in the Mahābhārata (9.51.5–15), Indra
136 Indian Asceticism

was fearful, for example, of the extreme asceticism of Dadhicha. In order to subvert
the ascetic’s power, Indra sends the divine nymph Alambusā to seduce the unsus-
pecting ascetic and destroy his powers. When Dadhicha sees her near the river his
seed leaps into the Sarasvatī River, who retains the seed in her womb and conceives
an embryo. After its birth, the male child is given by the river to the ascetic to raise.
Episodes such as this one are also found in Buddhist literature. In the Alambusā
Jātaka (523), we find another instance of a miraculous birth and subversive actions
of Indra. According to this tale, after being born from a doe, who had drank water
mixed with the seed of a Brahmin ascetic, Isisinga (Ṛṣyaśṛnga, antelope-born)
was warned by his father about becoming ensnared by a woman. After his father’s
death, the young man practiced extreme forms of asceticism that Indra feared
would lead to his losing his divine throne. Therefore, Indra sent the nymph (apsara)
Alambusā to seduce him. The young man was overcome by lust when he saw her
comely shape and proceeded to embrace her and lose his chastity. The lovemaking
lasted three years until the young man realized that he had neglected his ascetic
lifestyle. Thereafter, he not only renounced the path of desire, but he also forgave
and blessed the heavenly nymph.
A narrative similar to this one is found in the Naḷinkā Jātaka (526). In this story,
Indra, who is disturbed by the ascetic practice of Isisinga, does not send rain for three
years and informs the king to send his daughter Naḷinkā to seduce the ascetic, blam-
ing his tapas for the lack of rain. After successfully seducing the ascetic, the royal
daughter runs away and rains fall. 62 According to the Mahābhārata (1.65.20–25),
Indra, fearful of losing his throne, convinces Menakā, an apsara, to seduce the
ascetic Viśvāmitra and turn him away from his asceticism and the power that
he gained. In another instance, Indra sends his own daughter, Jayantī, to seduce
the demon Śukra and divert him from practicing tapas.
According to various narratives, Indra becomes aware of the power of an ascetic
when his divine throne becomes heated by excessive tapas. Indra’s throne is made of
gold, an effective conductor of heat that is prone to become heated when an ascetic
practices his/her regimen. This action causes the excessive heat generated by tapas
to rise and warm Indra’s throne, making him rather uncomfortable. In order to
cool his throne, Indra sends a celestial nymph to distract or subvert the efforts of an
ascetic by means of inducing desire or anger. Sometimes, Indra sends Kāma (deity of
desire/lust) to distract an ascetic.
These types of narratives indicate that the power of the ascetic is a direct danger
to the gods, who fear that humans will become too powerful and usurp the place of
the gods. The renowned playwright Kālidāsa, working during the Gupta period of
Indian history, creates a dialogue in his Śakuntalā between a king and an ascetic.
The king says “The gods dread men who meditate” (1.22). The king is uttering a
 Language and Power 137

commonly accepted truth that even the gods fear ascetics and their powers. The epic
literature testifies to the cultural assumption that asceticism can even lead to divin-
ity (Mbh 9.48.14), and that in some instances yogi’s are greater than the gods (Mbh
3.32.12). If humans become divine, there is no need to sacrifice to the gods and to
pay any attention to them. As the king of the gods, Indra possesses the responsibil-
ity to ensure that humans remain subservient to the gods. Doniger summarizes the
conflict between Indra and the ascetic in the following way:

As a phallic god, Indra opposes various ascetics in order to maintain the bal-
ance of power in the universe and to maintain his own supremacy in heaven.
For, weakened as he is by his own profligacy, Indra’s throne is actually heated
by the tapas amassed by ascetics on earth, so that he becomes physically uncom-
fortable and must find a way to disperse the ascetic heat.63

Although gods fear the ascetic and his power, there are instances of divine beings
practicing tapas (asceticism) to gain additional powers to enhance their own power
and position in the divine hierarchy.
The epic Mahābhārata provides examples of gods trying to increase their power by
practicing asceticism. The god Kubera gains control over wealth by practicing asceti-
cism (9.47.23). Or Kumara, general of the gods, gains yoga power that enables him
to emit several bodies at the same time (9.44.34). Of course, the deity most closely
associated with asceticism is Śiva, who is described as an ascetic with long matted
hair, ashes covering his body, sometimes naked, and carrying a three-pronged staff.

Sadomasochism and Asceticism

With fear being evoked at the possibility of an ascetic cursing someone and with the
practice of an austere lifestyle that can be painful, self-inflicted violence and extreme
forms of fasting are performed with the promise of liberation from the never-ending
cycle of life, death, and rebirth. With no guarantee of successfully attaining libera-
tion no matter how diligent an ascetic practices, it seems reasonable to ask the fol-
lowing question: Is the typical Indian ascetic a sadomasochist?
The notion of sadomasochism combines two terms and historical persons, namely
authors Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) and Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836–1895),
author of Venus in Furs (1870). This combined term refers to receiving pleasure from
painful actions inflicted by one person upon another, although the pleasure aroused
by the inflicted pain need not be of a sexual nature. With respect to this dispensing
of pain, it is the sadist who enjoys inflicting it, and the masochist is someone who
enjoys receiving pain. Sigmund Freud is credited with combining the terms after he
138 Indian Asceticism

discovered evidence of it in the same person. In his reflections on masochism, Freud

discusses primary and secondary kinds of masochism, with the former signifying a
rejection of the sadist and the latter representing a less serious rejection, one similar
to a charade. Primary masochism is associated with the death instinct by Freud.
Within the context of the male sexual drive, Freud views sadism as a result of a
distortion of aggression.
If Freud combines the two terms, the postmodern philosopher Gilles Deleuze
distinguishes between them by arguing that they are entirely different, and indi-
cating that their similarities are only analogical. The terms are, however, comple-
mentary in nature because the sadist enjoys inflicting pain, while the masochist
likes to endure pain and suffering. Deleuze concentrates their difference around
the fact that the sadist needs institutions, while the other needs contractual rela-
tions.64 The sadist, according to Deleuze’s interpretation, tends toward negation
and destruction of the world, whereas the masochist wants “to disavow and thus
to suspend it, in order to secure an ideal which is itself suspended in fantasy.”65
Deleuze identifies the sadist as an apathetic figure, whereas the masochist is a
cold person, who is a severe, icy, and cruel individual. The sadist and masochist
are also different because the fantasy functions differently in each of them, result-
ing with Deleuze tracing the fantasy to a lack of fetishism in the primary sense of
masochism.
Linking the masochist with pain, sexual pleasure, bondage, and humiliation,
Deleuze argues that the masochist apprehends the death instinct in a mythical, dia-
lectical, and imaginative way.66 According to Deleuze, the masochist disowns sensu-
ality and the mother figure, who is identical to the law, and also abolishes the father
figure of Freudian theory from the symbolic realm. Even though the law is symbolic
of the mother figure, it represents a punitive process for the masochist that inflicts
punishment from the beginning of the process, forming a prelude to the experience
of pleasure.
In contrast to Freud, Deleuze views masochism as a process that liberates the ego
from the superego and destroys it. Along with this destruction of the superego and
the emergence of the ego, there is also a process of desexualization and resexualiza-
tion operating on the individual, and between these twofold processes stands the
death instinct. Desexualization takes the form of disavowal, a reaction of the imagi-
nation, whereas resexualization is linked to repetition, which suggests that pleasure
proceeds from pain. The outcome of this process is that passions are transformed
and put at the service of masochism.67
As this entire process unfolds, the masochist stands guilt upside down and radi-
cally overthrows the law symbolized by the mother figure. Standing within guilt, it
is a bit ironical that the masochist cannot recognize his/her guilt. Nonetheless, the
 Language and Power 139

masochist must atone for the sin of transgressing the father figure and rejecting the
mother figure.68
Do these observations about the nature of sadomasochism mean that the Indian
ascetic can be characterized this way? As twentieth-century physiologists claim, an
effect of pain is the production of natural endorphins that give a person a feeling of
pleasure. It is also true that pain can be eroticized through an association with sex-
ual pleasure. The Kama Sūtra, an ancient Indian sexual manual, indicates that pain
inflicted on a loved one by scratching with one’s nails, biting, or slapping another
(2.4; 2.5; 2.7) can be used to induce eroticism and sexual pleasure.
Neither the theory of Freud nor that of Deleuze indicates that the typical ascetic
is a masochist, although a superficial resemblance is evident. The last thing that
an ascetic wants to achieve is to fall into sexual bondage and violate his/her vow
of celibacy. The exception to this observation, of course, is the left-handed Tantric
ascetic. The ascetic is free of Deleuzian contractual alliance, and does not suspend
him/herself in fantasy like the sadomasochist. Rather than disavow and suspend
the common world of the masochist, the ascetic is more apt to become detached
from the world as he/she attempts to transcend it by renouncing all distinctions and
breaking all social ties.

Concluding Remarks
This discussion of the curse of the ascetic enables us to see additional powers of the
ascetic and the power of language. It is possible to recognize that language operates
both as a tool of power and a power in its own right within the Indian cultural
context. It also enables us to witness its importance within the Indian cultural con-
text and its close association with mantras, which function as speech acts that make
something happen, and with fear of the power inherent within the ascetic’s curse.
The fear of ascetics tends to set them apart from the rest of society, and subverts any
playful and creative interrelationship between the ascetic and members of society
because of the fear of upsetting the ascetic unintentionally and incurring the wrath
of his curse.
The relationship between the ascetic and the power of his/her curse is ambigu-
ous for a couple of reasons. The curse of the ascetic is indicative of the visible and
invisible nature of power. Since a curse does not arise unless the ascetic is both pow-
erful and exerts the intention to harm, the curse is not readily apparent to others,
although they might think that it is a potential of a given ascetic based on past
experience with prior ascetics or cultural assumptions about such figures and their
powers. Second, textual and empirical studies indicate that ascetics are both revered
and feared in India.
140 Indian Asceticism

The curse of the ascetic also indicates that words matter in India because they
can be creative, exert power, bring harm, or even destroy others. Therefore, certain
words and sentences have power in the right circumstances and have the power to
make something happen, if they are uttered by an authoritative and/or powerful
person. This essentialist grasp of language enables the ascetic to add the power asso-
ciated with the curse to his repertoire of powers.
 6
Ludic Elements: Eroticism, the Comic, and Power

The divine beings of the Hindu pantheon are not described as engaging in
work. They are by nature perfect, and thus need and desire nothing in particular,
but they continue to act. The continuous action of the divine beings is considered
līlā (play, sport, dalliance), which is a purposeless, spontaneous activity that is
intrinsically satisfying. The actions of divine beings are not intentional and thus
unmotivated. These actions are free from the law of karma or duty, and instead sug-
gest frivolity.1 This divine play is not pragmatic action, similar to making a pot or
picking fruit, because it is unfettered, unconditioned, spontaneous, and intention-
less. It is, however, awesome and wonderful. Divine play expresses the transcendent
completeness and freedom of the deities, while simultaneously indicating the aloof-
ness of the deities toward the world.2 From within the context of play, the divine
beings are not responsible for what they create.3
In Hinduism there is an intimate relationship between divine play and bliss
(ānanda) in the sense that divine beings possess bliss and their nature is blissful,
making the divine beings blissful when they dance, laugh, or sing and thereby trans-
forming the world into a theatrical stage on which divine beings can dazzle, sparkle,
fascinate, and even terrify witnesses. By performing on the stage of the world, divine
play transforms the mundane world from an ephemeral realm into a grand phan-
tasmagoric display or magic show that overflows with divine bliss that humans can
experience.

141
142 Indian Asceticism

In contrast to divine beings, ordinary people do not normally play for any
extended length of time because they are busy working, an inherent necessity and
burden performed in order to survive. The sociologist of religion Robert Bellah
draws a distinction between play and work:

It is not that those who work have no play, but that for them play is constricted
in time and quality because of the heavy burdens they carry just to make a liv-
ing. Here play may be egalitarian among the players, but it is not equally shared
in the whole society.4

When humans do engage in play they do not have to think about it, but they rather
just do it. Play is an interlude in our daily life, during which we leave the real world
and enter into a temporary sphere that is extraordinary.5 This becomes lucid for
Indians during festival celebrations when they get to play, such as the riotous Holi
festival with its orgy of colored dye, water, reversal of social practices, and rejec-
tion of accepted social hierarchies. Normally, to be a human being means that one
must work, which is a shortcoming common to all humans. Divine beings always
have more fun than humans because they are able to continuously play. From the
perspective of hard-working people, play is a pure waste of time, energy, and skill
because it does not produce any products or wealth. In short, this brief discussion of
play in the Indian, or primarily Hindu, context represents the cultural context for
the discourse of play.
This general scenario finds an exception, however, with Indian ascetic figures
because they generally are considered gods or god-like by common people, accord-
ing to religious discourse and narratives. Bellah observes about ascetic figures, “In
one sense what the renouncers renounced was ‘work,’ and what they pursued instead
was ‘play,’ often a very serious kind of play but having its joyous moments.”6 I might
add that work is a human endeavor, while play is divine in the Indian cultural con-
text. Indian ascetics reject work and thus are noneconomic actors, but they aspire to
be immortal and god-like.
Humans that play create an “as if” world by manipulating the metalinguistic
sphere in which a person can actively participate, which is a position that stands
in sharp contrast to the instrumental.7 Moreover, play is an event with a beginning
and conclusion that is structurally or temporally different than ordinary life. Play is
also repetitive, done for its own sake, and not done as a means to an end. Those par-
ticipating in play respond to each other, making play an inter-relational and inter-
personal event.
It is possible to find references to ascetics becoming or being reborn as deities in
Hindu (Mbh 3.32.12; 9.48.14), Buddhist, and Jain literature. According to the Jain
 Ludic Elements 143

philosopher Hemacandra (1089–1172) in his Yogaśāstra (4.24–25), an enlightened

ascetic becomes a god, who is omniscient, all-seeing, possesses other infinite quali-
ties, and travels the earth revered by other gods, demons, lower beings, and humans.
In Jainism, tīrthaṅkaras, omniscient and liberated ascetics, reach a plane of exis-
tence higher than gods, but Dādāgurus (deceased ascetics who are un-liberated) do
not become gods after they die, according to the Śvetāmbara branch of the religion.
Within the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain traditions, there is a general assumption that
powerful ascetics are not only divine beings, but they are also superior to gods.
There are also narratives, for instance, that depict ascetics exerting power over
divine beings or being acknowledged as equals to them in Hinduism. Despite the
powerful Indra threatening to hurl his thunderbolt at him, the ascetic Bhārgava
poured soma for the Aśvins. While pouring the soma, a liquid of which Indra is
very fond and loves to drink, the ascetic breaks into a smile and uses his power to
paralyze Indra’s arm, preventing the god from throwing his weapon. While recit-
ing proper spells and making offerings, Bhārgava creates a gigantic, powerful, and
uncontrollable asura (demon) named Mada (Mbh 3.124.14–20). This narrative
embodies a suggested equality between the ascetic and Indra as the former is able
to counter the threat of the god’s thunderbolt, and the ascetic creates a demonic
creature who is powerful.
A similar type of narrative can be found in the Jain tradition where the eight
Jinas (Conquerors) are considered equal or even superior to the gods. The inferior-
ity of the gods is evident in body language when gods bow down, for example, to
the ascetic Candraprabha, or with the use of language when an ascetic commands
gods to come forth at a temple.8 In another scenario, the ascetic Āryakhaputa medi-
tates on the Ṛṣabha mantra, an act that pleased the goddess Cakrā and the Arhat
Sarvānbhūti and motivated them to grant him a wish. The meditating ascetic asked
to have power over wicked gods. When the goddess Durgā appeared with a hideous,
enraged, frightening form, the confident and powerful ascetic scratched her on the
check with his fingernail, forming a scar on her face. Being driven to copious tears,
the goddess grants the ascetic a boon, and he requests that all killing be prohibited
in the future.9
Within the Buddhist tradition, the historical Buddha is comprehended as supe-
rior to Hindu deities because he liberates himself from the cycle of cause and effect.
In the Pūrṇāvadāna, the ascetic Pūrṇa is warned by a goddess that his brother is in
great danger, and instructs him to mentally concentrate on his brother. Suddenly, he
vanishes from his current location and finds himself in the ocean seated cross-legged
in meditation on his brother’s ship. This abrupt and miraculous arrival coincides
with a subsiding of the hurricane, which demonstrates the ascetic’s power over
nature and the implied equality between him and the goddess.10 Within the three
144 Indian Asceticism

narratives from Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism, it is possible to discern a ten-

sion in play that is related to its uncertain and risky nature that tests a player’s abil-
ity. These narratives also suggest a relationship between play, power, and asceticism.
A human form of play is normally not considered a serious activity; it is simply
fun and enjoyable, and it embodies a sense to it by giving meaning to various
kinds of action. Play is a cultural concept that means something to members of
a particular society. There is a non-materialistic quality of play, even though it
can transcend the immediate needs of life while also serving as a primary cat-
egory of life. There is a sense in which play is subjunctive (“as if ”) and replaces
the indicative (“as is”), which gives us the ability to articulate in a subjunctive
fashion different ways of classifying reality.11 Within various cultures, play tends
to be pervasive, irrational, and non-serious, although for those engaged in play
it can be very serious. From a cross-cultural perspective, play is associated with
the aesthetic beauty of the human body with regard to its rhythm and harmony.
This chapter proposes to examine the relationship between power, play, and
asceticism by examining such elements of play as the erotic and the comic. This
proposal allows us to see a close relationship in many instances between these
elements of play and power.

Play and Debates

Debates between religious opponents have occurred over a long period of time in
Indian culture among schools of Hindu thought, Buddhist schools, and Jain think-
ers. The question and answer form of the contest reminds one of the back-and-forth
rhythm of a game in which there is also a winner and a loser. The traditional Indian
debate is a mind game similar to chess, which originated in India, and it most often
occurs before a body of witnesses. Oftentimes, the key witness is the king, who is
expected to declare a winner, with frequently important consequences for his sub-
jects and kingdom because he converts to the religious path of the winner and
encourages his people to follow his example.
In the Ākhyānakamaṇikośavṛtti, a Jain text, Siddhasena, a Brahmin, overhears
the proud boast of a Jain monk, Vṛddhavādin. Accompanied by his disciples,
Siddhasena proceeds to challenge the Jain monk, who leaves the scene only to be
pursued by Siddhasena, who challenges the monk to a debate when he overtakes
him. The Jain monk wants to go to a city where learned men could serve as judges,
but Siddhasena insists that they debate at their present location and allow ordi-
nary cowherders and farmers to function as witnesses and judges, who collectively
decide that the Brahmin is the loser. After he loses the debate, Siddhasena asks to be
ordained a Jain monk.12
 Ludic Elements 145

This Jain narrative contains some examples of irony in the debate between a fig-
ure representing Jainism and another epitomizing the Hindu tradition. The role of
the cowherders and farmers functioning as judges is a type of comic inversion to
the cultural norm. It is also ironical that these judges embody the lower cultural
strata versus people from higher culture that is most often associated with Sanskrit
works and language. The judges are also unqualified to decide the winner of any
intellectual debate because of their lack of education. When Siddhasena, represent-
ing the Brahmin caste and orthodox culture, admits his defeat, the prevailing high
culture become objects of laughter.13 Similar types of humorous barbs are thrown
at Brāhmanical culture by Buddhists when their narratives poke fun at purity and
pollution regulations by depicting various kinds of birds and monkeys defecating
on members of the Brahmin caste and their frantic attempt to immediately cleanse
themselves. This is Buddhist humor at its most satiric level.
Instead of debates between different religious traditions, there are narratives
depicting exchanges between thinkers sharing a similar tradition with some differ-
ences between schools of thought. In the Śaṅkaravijaya of Anantānandagiri (21.1–
12), a debate between Śaṅkara and Maṇḍana begins with an exchange of some verbal
sparring and insults. With his ability to fly, Śaṅkara gains admittance to Maṇḍana’s
sacred ritual space where he is performing a rite. The two antagonists wager on the
outcome of the debate, agreeing that whosoever loses must adopt the lifestyle of
the winner. It is also agreed that Sarasvatī, goddess of learning and culture, will
serve as the judge. After a lengthy debate, Sarasvatī declares Śaṅkara the victor, and
Maṇḍana acknowledges his defeat by accepting alms food and adopting Śaṅkara
as his guru. After his initiation as a renouncer and embrace of an ascetic lifestyle,
Maṇḍana is renamed Sureśvara and proceeds to become a distinguished disciple
of Śaṅkara and an important figure in the Advaita Vedānta school of nondualism.
There are also narratives that portray co-antagonists using dishonest, devi-
ous methods to win a debate. An excellent example of a deceitful type of debate
appears in the Śaṅkaradigvijaya of Mādhava where Śaṅkara and Abhinavagupta are
engaged in a heated debate. In order to gain an edge in the debate, the latter debater
cast magical spells at Śaṅkara to make him sick (16.2). In spite of his unhealthy con-
dition, Śaṅkara eventually wins when he hurls back at his opponent his disease and
kills his dishonest antagonist (16.29–32). There are also narratives of Buddhist and
Jain figures using spells to gain an advantage in a debate. Within the realm of play,
this type of behavior is cheating, which makes the cheater a spoilsport. Another
method of gaining an advantage over an opponent is for a debater to utter sacred
mantras, a common method during the medieval period of Indian history.
The adoption of cheating is central to a narrative from the Kathākośa of
Prabhācandra, featuring a debate between Akalaṅka, a Jain saint, and Ṣamghaśrī,
146 Indian Asceticism

a Buddhist thinker. The Jain conceals his identity by donning Buddhist garb to
gain entrance into the Buddhist monastery. Once his identity is discovered, irate
Buddhist monks chase him into town where a Jain festival is about to be celebrated.
A  Buddhist challenges the performance of the festival by declaring that the Jain
religion is false, and challenges any Jain to debate him about the truth of his asser-
tion. The king halts the festival, distressing his Jain wife, who proceeds to ascertain
the identity of the smartest Jain thinker. Retiring to a Jain monastery, the queen
vows to starve herself to death unless she receives some help. A Jain image near the
queen begins to tremble and Cakreśvarī Devī appears to the queen, who tells her
that she will be assisted by Akalaṅka the following day. The king orders a debate,
but the Buddhist philosopher is intimidated by his opponent. Lacking the confi-
dence to defeat the renowned Jain monk, Ṣamghaśrī invokes Tārā, a Buddhist god-
dess, who instructs him to place a pot behind a curtain from where she will debate
the sagacious Jain for the Buddhist philosopher. Securing permission from the king
to debate behind the curtain, Ṣamghaśrī summons Tārā to assume her place in the
pot while he takes his place in the debate. This debate continued for six months, an
accomplishment that causes Akalaṅka to wonder and call into question the debat-
ing ability of the Buddhist. Finally, the Jain goddess makes her debater aware of
this dishonest contest, and advises him to ask Tārā to recall what she said during
previous days. Unable to give a coherent response, Tārā flees the scene in defeat; the
pot behind the curtain is revealed by Akalaṅka; and the truth and superiority of
Jainism is affirmed.
Instead of a debate between two human beings, the debate becomes a contest
between a Buddhist goddess and a Jain monk, who is described by the Jain goddess
as a man with divine nature. Jainism thus wins the contest on both the empirical
and supernatural levels. This is a victory not simply of a human being, but is rather
an “unambiguous statement of the superiority of the winning doctrine over the
losing doctrine, though the text credits Akalaṅka with the victory, where it more
properly belongs to Cakreśvarī Devī.”14 These types of examples demonstrate that
debates are forms of play. They are similar to an athletic contest of the mind instead
of the body. There are accepted rules, even though cheating is introduced to get an
advantage. The debates manifest a back-and-forth not unlike a soccer game along
with a winner and loser.
The to-and-fro movement of play is not related to any goal that would bring it to
an end. The ascetic and devotional leader Caitanya’s debate with a learned teacher
goes back and forth until the latter’s defeat and surrender to the devotional leader
(CC 1.16.26–102). Within the context of this type of game, there is no external goal
to be reached because play renews itself by constant repetition, an aspect of play for
Caitanya that is evident in the recitation of mantras (sacred formulas) especially the
 Ludic Elements 147

Krishna mantra with its power to save people during the present evil, degenerate
Kali age (CC 1.7.71–72). If his deity, Krishna, is the divine player par excellence, it is
evident that the author of the Caitanya Caritāmṛta, Kavirāja (1517 to ca. 1615–1620),
modeled the life of the saint on a continuous game of hide-and-seek with his deity.
In one scenario from the text, Caitanya thinks that he sees Krishna under an aśoka
tree and runs toward the vision while laughing with joy, only to have Krishna sud-
denly disappear. Again, Caitanya discovers Krishna only to lose him. At the point
of despair, Caitanya faints and falls to the ground. Even though Krishna had dis-
appeared, the garden is permeated by his perfume. Upon smelling the perfume,
Caitanya becomes unconscious and then mad as the scent enters his nostrils (CC
3.19.80–84). These examples suggest that play represents a predominant movement
of renewal and repetition.

Nature of the Erotic

A good place to begin a discussion about eroticism in Indian cultural history is
with ancient Vedic texts, which contain numerous examples of references to fertil-
ity and pleasure. There is an early reference (RV 1.71.8) to heaven discharging its
seed during a sexual encounter, whereas a later Vedic reference (RV 10.61.7) alludes
to a sexual encounter that is incestuous, resulting in the fertilization of the earth.
The principle figures are Sūrya, sun deity, Dawn, sun’s daughter, and Agni, god
of fire; it is Agni who punishes the father figure for violating prevailing law and
custom. In the later Manusmṛti (3.6.5), this episode occurs again with the main
figures identified as Prajāpati and Dawn; and later in this text she becomes a doe
while the father becomes a buck. In another text, the daughter again becomes a red
doe and the pursuing father a buck (AB 3.33), which is indicative of the continu-
ity of the incestuous narrative. Fertility is also a theme in a Vedic hymn (RV 5.37),
which depicts a young woman searching for a husband and requesting the growth
of plants. In the hymn, she wishes for pubic hair, which can be interpreted as a sign
of her sexual maturity.15
There is an Upaniṣadic text in which the act of sexual procreation is analogous to
the Vedic sacrificial oblation of butter in the sacred fire. The firewood is likened to
the female vulva, smoke of the fire is connected to pubic hair, the flame of the fire is
analogous to the vagina, and the sparks of embers of the sacrificial fire are associated
with acts of penetration and climax (BĀU 6.4.3). The Chandogya Upaniṣad (2.13.1–2)
refers to Sāman chanting of verses and likens it to an act of sexual congress. Male
ejaculation is connected to a concluding chant, whereas the sexual act of withdrawal
represents the concluding chant. The benefit for the chanter is that he becomes an
expert in sexual intercourse and is regenerated through the act.
148 Indian Asceticism

In contrast to ancient Hindu literature, the Kama Sūtra is an ancient Indian text-
book about the erotic and sexuality that dates to around the third century of the
Common Era in North India. There are sufficient hints in the text about the nature
of the erotic. The clearest definition of the erotic within the text states the follow-
ing: “The love that comes from erotic arousal arises from the imagination” (2.1.41).16
Rather than simply equating the erotic with the act of sex, the text discusses seduc-
tion and arousal, which are connected with such activities as biting, touching,
kissing, licking, slapping, and so on. In addition to these arousal techniques, the
essential ingredient in eroticism is imagination on the part of one or both parties,
which enables a person to fantasize about sexuality and become aroused.
In addition to the imagination, the notion of power is not far removed from the
erotic, because the text refers to putting someone in your power and especially under
your control. An example given is the following: “coat your penis with an ointment
made with powered white thorn-apple, black pepper, and long pepper, mixed with
honey, you put your sexual partner in your power” (KS 7.1.25). Presumably, exercis-
ing power over someone of the opposite sex represents the ultimate fantasy that sug-
gests overt or covert violence by exercising control over another person. Fantasy is a
form of play that enhances a person’s experience in the present moment by making
it more wonderful, rich, and creative.17
This connection between the erotic and violence is dominant in the erotic theory
of George Bataille, a French postmodern thinker who focuses on the relationship
between eroticism and mysticism. Using his method of heterology that stresses dif-
ference, otherness, transgression, and excess, Bataille calls attention to excrement,
tears, death, the cult of cadavers, religious ecstasy, and heedless expenditure. This
interest in excessiveness motivates Bataille to examine eroticism, a phenomenon
related to the sex act itself and knowledge of death. It is the awareness of death that
gives rise to a sensibility that stimulates eroticism, an extreme emotion that sepa-
rates the sexuality of humans from that of animals.18
According to Bataille, erotic play is associated with anticipation that in turn is
connected with the promise of culminating in sensual pleasure. In comparison to
work and its promise of gain, eroticism is a realm of pure play, whose “essence is
above all to obey seduction, to respond to passion.”19 Eroticism strikes at the center
of our being and gives us a foretaste of continuity. Even though a person dwells
in the realm of discontinuity, eroticism represents a partial dissolution of the indi-
vidual and reveals his/her fundamental continuity. 20 Eroticism is also radical and
antisocial in the sense of breaking down normal patterns of behavior as evident by
nakedness, a dispossession of the self, and revealing of one’s flesh. The antisocial
aspects of eroticism are related to its secret and solitary nature that is outside the
confines of ordinary life.21
 Ludic Elements 149

Bataille distinguishes between the sexual act and eroticism because he stresses
that eroticism is an aspect of a person’s inner life, representing a disequilibrium that
stimulates a person to question his/her own being.22 By means of its connection
to a person’s inner nature and as causing a sense of disequilibrium, eroticism plays
an essential role in a person’s inner or religious life with an ability to disrupt an
individual. If eroticism is to be distinguished from the sexual act, it is also to be
distinguished from desire because their objects are different.23 Desire is identified
with the transgressive nature of eroticism because “eroticism is the desire that tri-
umphs over the taboo.”24 Transgression is violent and a principle that causes chaos,
although it does help us to close the boundaries to a continuity of being, which
Bataille equates with death.
According to Bataille, death represents the final sense of eroticism because it is an
opening to the way of death.25 By our living a discontinuous way of life, it is death
that can return us to continuity by means of eroticism.26 It is due to eroticism that
life and death can be reconciled and united into a coincidentia oppositorum. This
type of uniting of opposites is expressed in some of Bataille’s pornographical novels,
such as My Mother with its central theme of incest that culminates with the son
having sexual intercourse with the cadaver of his mother.
A different theory of eroticism emerges with the work of Randall Collins and
his emphasis on social interaction and the role played by social processes that cre-
ate sexual desire. He identifies four interacting processes:  sexual behavior moti-
vated by seeking pleasure; an awareness of mutual bodily contact; a building up of
sexual excitement; and the preferred private nature of the act.27 Collins continues
to isolate three aspects of lovemaking:  rhythmic intensification; rhythmic enter-
tainment; and rhythmic synchronization. The increase in sexual excitement is what
Collins means by rhythmic intensification, whereas rhythmic entertainment leads
to rhythmic synchronization, an aspect that may involve variation, if one takes into
consideration, for instance, differences in female and male orgasms. Excitement is
associated with emotionally transgressing social taboos, which Collins identifies
with an antinomian dynamic.28 Throughout this interactive process, increasing
excitement is enhanced by intense mutual interaction in a spiral of mutual arousal.
A third attempt to define eroticism is offered by Jean-Luc Marion with his
emphasis on human flesh, which he identifies with personal awareness. My flesh
is not only mine, but it also defines me as an individual, opens up the world for
me, and exposes itself to another flesh without the necessity of an intermediary.29
Marion elaborates that “the indistinction between my flesh’s feeling and its feeling
itself feeling, for my flesh feels not only reciprocal feeling, but also the other’s flesh’s
feeling of itself.”30 By taking flesh, we are engaged in a process of eroticization that
is interactive because it is the other that gives me my flesh. This process involves the
150 Indian Asceticism

crossing of flesh. Marion explains, “I await the flesh of the other to give me my own
flesh; my flesh comes upon me all the more that the flesh that gives it to me receives
itself from my flesh, since each flesh feels itself feeling in the measure that the other
flesh lifts . . . ”31
Marion also refers to erotic finitude by which he means my relation to the other
as exerting itself over me, bordering me, setting bounds around me, overflowing
me, mutually arousing each other, defining me, and assigning me to the other.32
Does this mean that eroticism is endless? The reason for a negative response is made
evident when Marion states, “If eroticization were to last without end, it would thus
tear me definitively from the world. Suspension, on the contrary, keeps me in the
world and prevents me from leaving it too quickly; it thus maintains an open history
for me and for a possible other.”33 It is erotic finitude that guarantees the infinite
repetition of the erotic.
Being concerned with what he perceives as the dialectic of the erotic and mystical,
Kripal defines the erotic “as a dimension of human experience that is simultane-
ously related both to the physical and emotional experience of sexuality and to the
deepest erotological levels of religious experience.”34 In short, the erotic is the link
between sexuality and the mystical. In a book published a few years after these state-
ments were made, Kripal views the erotic as a key to helping us to bridge the gap
between the subjective (private) and the objective (public) construction, interpreta-
tion, and representation of mystical experiences.35
Finally, John Russon grounds his theory of the erotic firmly within the human
body that is meaningfully engaged in the world, which means that humans are
involved with things beyond themselves. Besides being alive and dynamic, the body
is a locus and source of meaning.36 The body possesses powers of openness to other
bodies, ability to learn, self-transcendence, and includes the “power to bear witness
to epiphany.”37 Russon asserts that the body is double in the sense of being itself and
being beyond itself. It is within this embodied condition that humans feel desire.
The embodied other stirs the subject to recognize the presence of the other within
the subject’s body. The other calls the subject to extricate him/herself from his/her
static everyday routines, calls the subject to be unique, calls to a body and singular
agent, and calls the body to act. The other erotically attracts the subject:  “Erotic
attraction is the epiphany of ‘other’.”38 The experience of attraction does not have
anything to do with rules or abstract principles, but it is rather an experience of
being absorbed by the other. The experience of attraction also makes the subject
aware that he/she is also a body, a second type of epiphany. In this way, erotic life
makes people aware of their uniqueness as individuals, as independent, as selves, and
as free to create, but erotic is always a co-experience of freedom within an embodied
condition.
 Ludic Elements 151

According to Russon, the other’s body calls to the subject to touch it. This act
awakens the subject to his/her own body and that of the other. Touching is not
an immediate experience because it is always mediated by the perspectives of those
in the encounter. The touching associated with eroticism is a shared experience,
involving touching and being touched.39 The process of erotic attraction invites par-
ticipants into sharing meaning.
Without accepting any of these five different theories of the erotic, it can nev-
ertheless be affirmed that they do enable us, however, to identify certain features
of the erotic, such as experiencing its physical nature, emotion, personal flesh and
that of another, shared flesh, touch and being touched, a mutually arousing experi-
ence, and its repetitive nature. We have also witnessed that the erotic is interactive,
exciting, transgressive, and a seeking for sensual pleasure that can lead to antisocial
consequences. Moreover, eroticism is connected to death. The erotic is also what
builds an excitement in which intense emotions are created that in turn feed erotic
excitement.
In addition to these characteristics, eroticism is not simply about desire, love, or
sex. Eroticism is excessive because it pushes beyond social and moral limits. If we
take into consideration its place within the social structure, eroticism is marginal
with respect to the prevailing society, and marks the limits of human experience.
Moreover, eroticism is also potentially subversive because it is associated with trans-
gression, insatiability, and ceaseless desire. Eroticism should not be identified with
the act of sex itself because it possesses more in common with anticipation than
fulfillment. Eroticism is associated with anticipation and tension as it builds up, a
never-ending sexual tease that is never fully satisfied as is evident by its repetitive
aspect.
Bataille is correct to call attention to eroticism as the realm of pure play. Within
this realm of play, a participant is able to allow his/her imagination to become
liberated and to freely fantasize. As one’s imagination operates to arouse one, the
imaginative fantasies are without limit. Within the Hindu context, the pure play
of eroticism is evident in the Gītāgovinda by Jayadeva, a twelfth-century poem
about the relationship between Rādhā and Krishna. Read from a spiritual perspec-
tive, this is a work about the human soul, personified by Rādhā, and God identi-
fied as Krishna. The love of these two figures is intense, passionate, violent, comic,
and erotic. Jayadeva describes a relationship that is an ordeal of sexual delight that
incorporates elements of violence because of the nail marks on Rādhā’s breasts,
bodies moist with sweat, red marks of passion, and tangled hair of wilted flow-
ers. Erotic features are expressed by Rādhā’s jeweled anklets ringing out an erotic
sound as the couple engage in some of the eight types of sexual intercourse, per-
form eight types of mysterious kisses, and rendezvous at night under the cover of
152 Indian Asceticism

darkness. The confused speech of Rādhā and the couple discovering each wearing
the other’s clothing after a night of making love represent elements of the comic in
their relationship, suggesting a love that turns the world upside down. Overall, the
play of these two figures occurs in a divine realm of play defined as a world of joy
and bliss. The dangerous and illicit features of their erotic relationship are height-
ened by its socially transgressive nature because Rādhā is the wife of an uniden-
tified man. Representing the paradigm for the human soul searching for God,
Rādhā gets caught up in a realm of interconnected eroticism, extreme emotions,
madness, and ecstasy.
In addition to the erotic relationship between Krishna and Rādhā within the
Hindu religious tradition, there is an apparent conflict between the ascetic deity
Śiva and Kāma, a personification of the erotic and desire. Within the context of
their mythical conflict, it is not simply a matter of Śiva, an ascetic power, standing
opposed to an anti-ascetic force such as Kāma. But the different aspects of these
two opposing figures cannot hide the fact that they are two forms of heat: ascetic
heat (tapas) and erotic heat (kāma). Śiva and Kāma are not genuine binary opposites
because of this shared feature. The picture is even made a little more complex by the
fact that Śiva is an erotic deity, functioning as a coincidence of opposites.

The Erotic and Power

The erotic and power are combined in the story of the nun Subhā, living during
the historical period of the Buddha. A  layman attempts to seduce her, but she
responds by suggesting that he conquer his lust, and proceeds to instruct him about
the impermanence and disgusting nature of the human body. The layman is espe-
cially attracted to the eyes of the nun, who responds with instructions about their
unwholesome features, such as its liquid secretions. None of her teachings have any
effect on the layman, who continues to apply pressure on the nun. Because the lay-
man is obsessed with her beautiful eyes, she responds by tearing out her eye and
making a gift of it to the infatuated layman with the result of subverting his lust.
Subhā’s eye is later miraculously restored by the Buddha.40 This narrative illustrates
the early Buddhist practice of meditating on the foulness of the human body and
attempting to eradicate the defilement of lust. If all bodies in Buddhist discourse are
impermanent, foul, lustful, and lacking any intrinsic essence that needs to be con-
trolled, Buddhist discussions of the body and the erotic enable us to discern a physi-
omoral discourse that reflects an intimate relationship between the human body
and morality with the ultimate goal of producing celibate male monks.41
An even more sensitive episode is located in the Jain Kathākośa (Treasury of
Stories), a work that probably dates to the fifteenth century, relating a narrative about
 Ludic Elements 153

averting an incestuous relationship between a mother and son. Madanakumāna

finds himself attracted to a woman, Jayasundarī, whom he abducts and plans to
marry. He does not know that she is his mother. Feeling strongly attracted to her
abductor, the pair prepare to get married. On the brink of their wedding, a pair of
talking parrots, one of whom was the son’s brother in a former life, intercedes to
reveal the true nature of the nuptial couple. With this social heritage known about
their genuine relationship, the mother and son cancel the wedding and become Jain
ascetics.42
From the Hindu tradition, a very different type of narrative is told about the
Nāth-Yogi Matsyendranāth and his sojourn in the land of women. In this kingdom
dominated by women, the ascetic becomes the lover of Queen Mainākinī along
with sixteen hundred courtesans despite an injunction against any male living in
the kingdom. The ascetic Gorakhnāth discovers the situation and sets out to save
his guru. In order to gain entrance into the all-women kingdom, Gorakhnāth con-
vinces a group of female musicians that he possesses the necessary musical ability
and transforms himself into a woman in order to adhere to its cultural exclusion
of males. Gorakhnāth must also overcome Hanumān, who stands guard to the
entrance of the kingdom. After nightfall, Gorakhnāth creates invisible weapons by
the power of his mantras and is able to subdue the monkey god. Proceeding to the
palace to play for the queen, the party of musicians enthralled the audience. During
the performance, Gorakhnāth emitted words on his drum that only his guru could
understand, asking him to awaken to his true identity and to become aware of
the truth about women as an obstacle to yogic practice. Finally, Matsyendranāth
recalls his true identity and embraces his disciple.43 It is possible to witness in this
narrative the use of ascetic powers to overcome attachment to eroticism, a different
type of power.
The narrative of Gorakhnāth and Matsyendranāth concludes in a horrific act of
violence by the former. Having fathered a child, Matsyendranāth asks Gorakhnāth
to wash the child because of illness. Gorakhnāth takes the child to the river to pre-
sumably wash him, but he instead smashes the boy against a washerman’s stone.
Then, the ascetic proceeds to scrub off the stone, and hangs the flayed skin on the
roof of the palace. After Matsyendranāth inquired about the welfare of his son,
Gorakhnāth pointed to his location on the roof where the skin is drying. The master
yogi is cursed by his disciple. Later Gorakhnāth restores the child to life along with
one hundred and eight identical sons. The queen cannot select her real son from this
collection of look-alikes and concedes that it is not possible to identify her true son
beyond a reasonable doubt. Finally, Gorakhnāth produces the real son and requests
that the queen give her consent for him to leave the kingdom. This continuation of
the narrative combines the elements of ascetic power, violence, and eroticism.
154 Indian Asceticism

Tantric works and figures amplify the relationship between power and the erotic
with narratives about figures such as Dattātreya, who develops in Indian literature
from a powerful ṛṣi to a deified guru, and finally avatāra (incarnation) of Viṣṇu.
According to the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa (17.18–25), Dattātreya practiced asceticism
by plunging into a lake for many years to overcome attachments. He emerged from
the waters in the company of a beautiful woman. The text relates that he makes
love with her, drinks liquor, is addicted to singing, and plays musical instruments.
Dattātreya plays an important role in Tantric literature as a paradigm for the holy
man in that tradition.44
Within the context of Tantric literature, the ascetic practitioner obtains powers
from practicing sexual intercourse. The Cakrasamvara Tantra, a text embraced by
Buddhists of northern India, accepts this basic premise and instructs an ascetic to
do the following: “The wise one should churn the yoginī, one’s body purified as is
desired.”45 The adoption of the term “churn” is a folk metaphor for the sexual act,
which is typical of Tantric literature and its use of the double entendre with the
purpose of protecting its secret practices. This method is the exact opposite of sexual
denial and practice of celibacy that is advocated by other strands of Indian asceti-
cism. In this type of scenario, desire, which is usually an enemy of the ascetic, is used
to spiritually advance and attain powers.
In the Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati, a Hindu text dating to between the late twelfth
century and the sixteenth century and attributed to Gorakhnāth, serves as a guide
to becoming a perfected one. After twelve years of practice, a yogi becomes Śiva’s
equal. A fully realized yogi is called an avadhūta-yogi, which means that he/she is a
knower, a perfected one, a vow-taker, a master, and a god (iśvara).46

Eroticism and the Ascetic

Having taken a vow of celibacy, the ascetic presents a distinct conundrum with
respect to eroticism as evident in the narrative about Indra and the ascetic Śaradvat.
Because he feels threatened by the austerities of Śaradvat, Indra sends the nymph
Jālapadi to seduce him from his ascetic labors. When the ascetic sees the nymph he
is able to maintain his exterior poise, and he emits semen though he is unaware of
it (Mbh 1.120.1–13). In another narrative about premature ejaculation, Bharadvāja
sees the nymph Ghṛtaci after she bathes and a wind blows her skirt away revealing
her flesh, which causes the ascetic to become aroused and lose control (Mbh 1.121–
3–5). The same result occurs with Kāśyapa when he sees the nymph Urvasī (Mbh
3.110.13–15). These types of paradoxical examples suggest a spontaneous orgasm by
the ascetic, who is normally a paradigm of sexual control, who loses it to erotic fan-
tasy. The ascetic’s practice of celibacy and the accumulation of unspent semen is a
 Ludic Elements 155

requisite for the acquisition of erotic powers. If erotic powers are lost, they can be
restored by expiatory tapas (asceticism) within a process of rejuvenation.47 From one
perspective, asceticism and the erotic are opposites that stand in conflict with each
other. But they also share the characteristic of heat: ascetic heat (tapas) and erotic
heat (kama).
In addition to the relationship between Rādhā and Krishna in the Hindu reli-
gious tradition, there is an apparent conflict between the ascetic deity Śiva and
Kāma, a personification of the erotic and desire. Within the context of their mythi-
cal conflict, it is not simply a matter of Śiva, an ascetic power, standing opposed to
an anti-ascetic force such as Kāma. But the different aspects of these two opposing
figures cannot hide the fact that they are two forms of heat: ascetic heat (tapas) and
erotic heat (kāma). Śiva and Kāma are not genuine binary opposites because of this
shared feature. The picture is even made a little more complex by the fact that Śiva is
an erotic deity, functioning as a coincidence of opposites. Kāma, a sly trickster who
possesses the power to make fools of everyone, is also associated with the comic as a
representation of its power.48 From another perspective, Śiva personifies both ascetic
and erotic powers within his divine person, which is symbolized by his erect phallus,
a sign of chastity on the one hand and priapism on the other hand.49
In addition, the loss of semen is culturally connected to various types of physical
illness, loss of power in the case of an ascetic, and even premature death. Conversely,
the ascetic who retains his seed enjoys good health, virility, physical energy, mental
alertness, and any powers (siddhas) gained by his ascetic regimen. This is illustrated
by a Buddhist story about an earlier incarnation of the Buddha who appears as an
ascetic with the ability to fly, according to the Mudulakkhana Jātaka. When flying
over the kingdom one day the ascetic sees the queen sunbathing in the nude and is
overcome with lust. Descending to her location and having a sexual relationship
with her, the ascetic then realizes that he has lost his ability to fly, and must return
to the mountains to practice asceticism again for a long period of time in order to
gain his power.
If we examine Mahāyāna Buddhist literature, it is possible to find a link between
power, the erotic, and ascetic life in the hagiographical The Life of Nāgārjuna
Bodhisattva. In this narrative, Nāgārjuna and three friends learn the art of becom-
ing invisible from a sorcerer by means of a drug. While invisible they gain access
to the king’s harem and get some of the concubines pregnant. The king takes
counter-measures to discover the culprits. Exposed by their footprints, the pleasure
seekers are killed by several hundred warriors wielding swords with the exception
of Nāgārjuna who stands holding his breath near the king. This experience enables
Nāgārjuna to recognize that desire is the root cause of suffering and motivates him
to turn to a more ascetic lifestyle.50
156 Indian Asceticism

The relationship between the erotic and power is clearly evident in a narrative
from the Jain tradition about sixty-four yoginīs, semi-divine, erotic, female spir-
its, who assume the forms of faithful Jain women in order to trick a monk. While
seated listening to the monk lecture, the monk was warned by a female follower
about the true identity of the sixty-four women. The monk perceived their unblink-
ing eyes, which proved to him the suspicions of the female informant, and he cast a
spell on them that paralyzed them. At the conclusion of the lecture, attendees arose
and left, but the disguised yoginīs could not get up, and acknowledged that instead
of tricking the monk they instead had been fooled. In order to regain their normal
condition, the yoginīs were forced to agree not to harass any other Jain monks in
the future.51
Another Jain narrative preserved by Hemacandra tells the story of four monks
who made different vows about how they would test themselves with respect to
their ascetic practices. The fourth monk, Sthūlabhadra, vows to reside in the house
of Kośā, a prostitute, whose walls are painted with murals depicting various types of
sexual positions. He vows to stay there four months while eating six-course meals.
Kośā attempts to seduce the monk with her alluring gestures and calling attention
to the sexually explicit murals on the walls. This pattern of behavior continued for
some time without sexually arousing the ascetic. Finally, after failing to seduce the
monk within an erotic context, Kośā converts to Jainism by falling at the feet of the
ascetic because she is astonished by his self-control, making the monk the winner
of this erotic contest.52 Although the prostitute loses in the seductive encounter and
can be considered a failure as a professional prostitute, she is really a spiritual winner
because she turns to the path of liberation.

Ascetic and Erotic Powers in Playful Competition

According to a story in the epic Mahābhārata (13.40–41), the guru Vipula leaves
home in order to perform a sacrifice, leaving his wife unprotected from the adul-
terous deity Indra, a master of many forms and disguises by means of his māyā
(illusory power). In order to protect her body from sexual assault, Vipula, a power-
ful yogi, enters his wife’s body through her eyes and resides throughout her body.
After assuming the body of a divinely handsome figure, Indra arrives at the home of
Vipula, whose wife attempts to rise and greet her unexpected guest. But she cannot
arise to greet the handsome creature because of the power within her being exerted
by Vipula. Moreover, her senses remain restrained and unable to react to the seduc-
tive words of the disguised Indra, who spies the ascetic within her body. Because he
fears the curse of the ascetic after being criticized for his lecherous behavior, Indra
becomes invisible and disappears.
 Ludic Elements 157

A similar type of narrative (Mbh 13.40–43) tells the story of Vipula Bhārgava, who
attempts to protect Ruci, wife of his guru, Devaśarman, against the sexual advances
of the lecherous Indra by using his yogic power to enter Ruci’s body. This scenario
represents a benign takeover of the body of another person in order to accomplish a
specific goal. The epic literature contains other playful tales of entering the body of
another person for a variety of reasons.
The female ascetic Sulabhā transforms herself, for example, into a beautiful
woman (Mbh 12.121.1–55) before donning the guise of a mendicant. Presenting her-
self to King Janaka to discern the truth about his religiosity, Sulabhā intrigues the
king, who inquires about her identity while offering her hospitality. Thereafter, she
enters the mind of the king by means of rays of light emanating from her own eyes
and rays issuing from the eyes of the king. During this encounter of rays of light, the
two figures convert each other.
Play often involves a contest as illustrated by a narrative of the poet-saint
Campantar and impaled Jains from the Periya Puraṇa, a story reflecting a strong
Hindu sectarian bias. According to this tale, wicked Jains plot against Campantar
by first setting fire to a monastery where he was residing, but the poet-saint prayed
and the fire left the monastery, and instead attacked the Pandyan king in the form of
a fever. The king said that he would throw his support to whichever of the two groups
cured his fever. After the Jains failed, Campantar cured the king. Then, the Jains
proposed that they and Campantar should inscribe the principles of their beliefs on
a palm leaf, throw them into a fire, and whichever parties’ leaves do not burn would
be declared the winner and representative of the true religion. The fire destroyed the
Jain’s leaf, but it did not harm that of the poet-saint. Then, the Jains proposed that
they subject another pair of palm leaves to a floating test on the river near Madurai,
vowing that the king should have them impaled on sharp stakes should they lose.
After the Jain texts are washed away and the saint’s texts floated upstream, a total
of eight thousand Jains impaled themselves, fulfilling their vow to the king.53 This
narrative illustrates the voluntary nature of play entered into by Jains, and embodies
the back and forth nature of play. This narrative also calls attention to the role of
violence, while other narratives manifest the erotic element of play in the form of an
erotic contest between a wife and a famous ascetic and philosopher.
After the great philosopher and ascetic Śaṅkara defeated an opponent in a debate,
the wife of the defeated debater challenged the ascetic to prove that he was master
of all knowledge, including the Kāmaśāstra, a sexual textbook. This challenge cre-
ated a predicament for Śaṅkara because he could not retain his celibacy while dem-
onstrating his knowledge of sexuality and maintaining his purity. Śaṅkara avoids
defiling his own body by entering into the dead body of King Amaruka in order to
honestly debate the topic of eroticism and defeat the queen.54 According to Śaṅkara’s
158 Indian Asceticism

commentary on the Vedānta Sūtras (4.4.16–18), a yogi can act intentionally to cre-
ate another body with an independent mind from his/her own mind: “The Soul has
the power of modifying itself into many souls, and of entering into new bodies, just
as one flame can produce many new flames” (VS 4.4.16). Endowed with universal
knowledge that is unchecked by spatial dimensions, the liberated person can extend
this knowledge to any location and even into the minds and bodies of others. The
liberated soul also possesses the power of becoming smaller or larger in size, but
it does not have the power to create the world, which is the responsibility of God,
who is creator, maintainer, and destroyer of the world (VS 4.4.17). Earlier in his
commentary on the Vedānta Sūtras (3.3.32), Śaṅkara recalls the example of Sulabhā,
a woman conversant with Brahman, from traditional Smṛti literature, wishing to
dispute with Janaka. In order to argue with Janaka, Sulabhā leaves her own body,
and enters the body of Janaka where she carries on a discussion with him before
returning to her own body at the conclusion of the discussion.
In a different religious context, the Bengali saint Caitanya grasps his personal sit-
uation as being engaged in a game of love with the overflowing, pervasive, and eter-
nal prema (love) of Rādhā, primary gopī (cowherd) lover of Krishna, a game of love
that continuously overwhelms him (CC 1.4.111). This copious love transforms the
ascetic saint into a madman. Caitanya’s biographer, Kavirāja, differentiates prema
from kāma, an egoistic useful desire that pleases oneself, whereas prema is egoless,
involves continual excitement, and is done for god’s sake (CC 1.4.164). Sometimes,
prema plays with Caitanya and transforms him while at other times it motivates
him to dance, suggesting a intertwining of play, love, and dance. It is also possible to
witness the themes of renewal and repetition characteristic of play in the repetitive
nature of singing and dancing.
The playful competition between a devotional ascetic and an erotic female is evi-
dent with the tales of Advaita, a follower of the Bengali saint Caitanya. While wor-
shiping the goddess Ganges, Advaita utters a roar that the gods could hear. Because
the gods do not know the reason for his practice of asceticism, they create and send
an apsarasa a heavenly nymph, to disrupt his meditation. When she dances before
Advaita she cannot break his concentration for seven days. Others laugh when they
see this event. Advaita is carried by the nymph on the wind to the assembly of the
divine beings where the gods turn to Brahmā out of fear that Advaita could harm
them because no one is able to perform difficult austerities in the present Kali Age.
Brahmā responds to the gods that they should become incarnate in order to serve
the meditating devotee.55
Within the hagiography of Caitanya composed by Kavirāja (CC 3.3.91–134), there
is an erotic contest of seduction that occurs between Haridāsa, an ascetic follower of
the holy man, and a prostitute. Living alone in the forest doing kīrtana (singing the
 Ludic Elements 159

praises of Krishna) night and day, the local people adore and worship this ascetic,
a situation despised by the jealous ruler Rāmacandra Khān. This impious ruler
devises a plan to subvert the spiritually of Haridāsa by means of seducing him with
a beautiful prostitute. An especially young and comely prostitute boldly announces
that in three days she would sexually unite with the ascetic. Thereafter, he could
be he seized by the king’s henchmen for being a fraud. After arriving at the dwell-
ing of the ascetic, the prostitute removes her clothing and offers herself to him in a
melodious and flattering voice. Haridāsa promises her that he would grant her wish
when he finishes reciting the names of Krishna and orders her to sit and listen to the
recitation of nāma-saṃkīrtana (repeated singing of the names of god). When morn-
ing arrives the prostitute excuses herself and reports to the ruler, informing him
that she would unite with the ascetic the next day. The following day meets with an
identical result. On the third day, Haridāsa claims that the recitation would surely
end. While the pious ascetic continued to recite into the evening, the mind of the
prostitute is transformed, she falls at the feet of the ascetic, and divulges to him the
sinister plot of the ruler. After repenting over her sinful life, the ascetic instructs her
how to save herself, causing her to shave her head and become an ascetic. The game
played by the ascetic and prostitute ends with the victory of the former by virtue of
his playful repetition of God’s name and the conversion of the prostitute.

Comic Play
Located on the boundary between the sacred and the profane, the rational and irra-
tional, faith and despair, and cosmos and chaos, the comic protects humans from
despair and dogmatism, and fortifies religious convictions against superficiality,
emptiness, and helplessness. It accomplishes these types of things despite being
grounded in seriousness, a precondition of it that avoids it being reduced to cynical
contempt or prey to distortion.
The comic and the sacred need each other because they mutually benefit each
other. Without the sacred, for instance, the comic can become irresponsible, while
the sacred apart from the comic may become inhuman, suggesting that the comic
is both playful and innocent. If we take into consideration the tension inherent
between the sacred and the profane, the comic and its accompanying humor enable
a person to transcend his/her situation. Moreover, it enables this transcendent per-
son to achieve a state in which categories, tools of order, and rationality do not exist.
Because the comic moves within the freedom of irrationality, of suspended order,
and of nonsense, it represents a chaos of infinite potentiality and creative possibility.
Therefore, the comic possesses the ability to collapse cultural categories and confuse
or blur social distinctions.
160 Indian Asceticism

Confusion is spread in a Sanskrit comedy written by Mahendra Varman I (600–

630), a Jain Pallava Dynasty king, The Face of the Drunkard’s Games. This one-act
comic farce dates to 600 to 630 CE and stars Satyasoma, a drunken Kāpālika
ascetic. The play tells the tale of a Śaiva ascetic of the Kāpālika order, who criticizes
Jains for being so rigidly conservative in their lifestyle: “They torment living beings
by making them remain celibate, tear out their hair, refuse to bathe, eat only at cer-
tain hours, and wear dirty clothes. Even mentioning them makes me now want to
wash out my mouth with liquor.”56 In addition to directing such sharp satiric barbs
at the Jains, he falsely accuses a Vaiṣṇava ascetic and a Buddhist monk of stealing
the human skull that he used as his begging bowl. The central focus of the play is
the recovery of the skull bowl that the Kāpālika loses, which makes it impossible for
him to fulfill his vow of begging with it as his bowl. The ascetic’s name is Satyasoma
(a name comically combining truth with soma, an ancient hallucinogenic), while
his female traveling companion Devasomā’s name connotes Umā, the wife of Śiva.
The play suggests that it is a farcical re-enactment of Śiva’s journey with this skull
of a Brahmin that he beheaded attached to his hand. The Kāpālika humorously
expresses the loss of his skull begging bowl with a poem:

My spotless skull was a very dear friend.

With it in my hand I drank and was fed.
And used it at night to pillow my head.
Its loss is a hurt that just won’t mend.57

Eventually, the skull bowl is discovered near a stray dog who had stolen it. If the
comic, for instance, insists that the socially lowly are valuable, it demonstrates that
it is more equalitarian, inclusive, and empathetic than possibly other aspects of a
culture.
The playfulness and innocence associated with the comic are needed by human
beings in order to avoid becoming inhuman and insensitive, to avoid tragedy, and
to become free and magnanimous. The comic perspective helps humans under-
stand their basic awkwardness within the world. It also suggests that to be truly
human one must be able to laugh at oneself and one’s situation within the world.
The Kathāsaritsāgara (65.132–140) illustrates these points with the story of an inat-
tentive Buddhist monk who is bitten by a dog while on his begging rounds. Rushing
back to the monastery, he climbs to the top of the building and rings the great bell.
After summoning other monks, they inquire about the cause of the disturbance.
The bitten monk relates what happened to him and confesses that his method of
informing the brotherhood saves him time. As this type of tale suggests, the comic
and laughter are not simply about gaiety, but they rather manifest a person’s struggle
 Ludic Elements 161

against hopelessness and despair. At the same time, the comic and laughter celebrate
life by mocking its absurdities and continue to give hope to humans.
Within the hagiographical account of the exploits of the great Mahāyāna Buddhist
philosopher Nāgārjuna and founder of the Mādhyamika school of thought, there is
a narrative about a king who invites the distinguished monk to join him in the audi-
ence hall to witness a Brahmin recite incantations with the purpose of producing a
large, clean pool containing a thousand-petaled lotus flower on which the Brahmin
sits and challenges the Buddhist philosopher. In response to the priest’s impressive
challenge, Nāgārjuna produces a six-tusked, white elephant that proceeds to walk
on the water in the pool, uproots one flower with its trunk, and raises it high before
dashing it on the ground. After being injured and trampled by the power of the
Buddhist monk, the Brahmin pays homage to Nāgārjuna.58 This playful contest of
competing powers is humorous because of the impossibility and incongruous nature
of this creatively imaginative episode, depicting an elephant walking on water.
In a complex and lengthy narrative depicting a contest in Jain literature,
Manovega, a prince endowed with magical powers, arrived at the city of Mathurā
where he performed a triple circumambulation of the Jain temple and offered
prayers to the Jina. Asking a local Jain ascetic what he should inform the Jina when
he arrives at the city of Śrāvastī, the ascetic Munigupta told him to convey blessings
to lady Revatī, but the prince was unable to comprehend the ascetic’s instructions
and rationale, thinking that the ascetic was not a true believer of Jainism and cap-
tive to his passions. Thus, the prince vowed to determine the truth. By means of his
magic power, he speed to Śrāvastī to learn the truth, and transformed himself into
the four-faced Hindu god Brahmā in the east seated on a royal swan and holding a
water pot. In the southern direction, he assumed the appearance of Viṣṇu seated on
his vehicle Garuḍa while holding a conch, club, and wheel. In the west, he took the
form of Rudra with a skull, club, and snake in his hair while mounted on his bull.
He appeared in the north as the Buddha seated in meditation. Jains and non-Jains
gathered to see the appearances in the four directions with the exception of the vir-
tuous Revatī, who remained at home. Manovega culminated his awesome creations
by finally creating twenty-five Jinas, omniscient beings, in the middle of the city.
These extraordinary conjured appearances were related to Revatī by several
women, but she could not see them at that time. She instead told the women that
the appearance of twenty-five Jinas conflicted with what she had been taught about
there being twenty-four Jinas, and insisted that the appearance of twenty-five Jinas
must be a trick. Not seeing Revatī in the crowd of Jains, Manovega abandoned the
form of a Jina, and assumed the guise of a novice monk afflicted by illness on the
road. The sick monk’s condition was reported to Revatī, who took care of the monk
in her own home. Complaining of being hungry, the monk proceeded to devour
162 Indian Asceticism

different and large quantities of food given to him by Revatī. After consuming an
astonishing amount of food and drink, the false monk became sick, proceeding to
have bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. Revatī compassionately cleaned up the waste.
After witnessing her humility and compassion, Manovega reverted to his true form
and revealed the truth to Revatī as the divine form of Vidyādhara, and told her that
he came to test her.59 This test assumes the form of a playful game between a human
and divine being.
A shorter Jain narrative uses scatological humor to make its moral point against
women in the story about a crow, a bird associated with filth. An old elephant, for-
mer leader of a herd, gets his foot trapped and eventually dies. Other animals devour
his flesh beginning with his buttocks. Crows repeatedly fly in and out of his anus
enjoying their feeding frenzy. A particular crow enters deeper into the interior of
the carcass. While he is located in the interior of the elephant, its anus closed when
touched by the rays of the sun and traps the crow. During the rainy season, the
elephant’s body is washed away to a river and then to the ocean. The waters split the
carcass and the crow finds an opening that enables him to escape from the interior
of the carcass. Unfortunately for the crow, he cannot find land, and is forced to
reside on the flouting corpse, which suddenly sinks along with the crow into the
ocean. A reader might assume that the message of the story focuses on greed, but
Hemacandra draws a moral that pertains to humans in the sense that women are
like the elephant, while the ocean suggests the cycle of death and rebirth, and men
are like the crow that drown in the ocean of existence.60

Erotic and the Comic

Narratives about helpless ascetics at the mercy of sexually voracious females
are used to illustrate the virtues of ascetics and monks, and such stories often
incorporate humor within the tale. While napping under a tree dressed in rags,
a monk experienced, for instance, an erotic dream that caused him to have an
erection. A group of six passing women noticed his condition, and decided to
engage in sex with the sleeping figure. Taking turns mounting the sleeping
monk, the women continued on their way praising the sexual prowess of the
monk. Noticing a stain on his clothing, monastic companions informed the
Buddha, who used his supernatural perceptual powers to discern the truth of
the situation. After the Buddha ascertained the truth, he absolved the monk
of any transgression of the monastic code because the monk did not intend to
have a sexual encounter with the six women, was not actively or consciously
involved in the incident, failed to experience any pleasure, and remained asleep
during the entire episode (VinP 3.38–39). Based on this type of violation, the
 Ludic Elements 163

Buddha instructed his monks to take precautions to protect themselves from

lustful women.
Within the Hindu cultural tradition, the Nāṭyaśastra, a book about Indian
drama by Bharata, connects the comic (hāsya), one of the eight legitimate senti-
ments (6.15), to the erotic (sṛṇgāva) because Bharata claims that the erotic gives birth
to the comic (6.39). In addition, the comic gives rise to laughter, which can be sub-
lime or descend into vulgarity. Bharata also recognizes a hierarchy of laughter from
the most refined to the most crass.
The narrative of the sleeping monk having an erotic dream is contextually comi-
cal because of its theoretical incongruity based on a definition and expectations of
the ascetic lifestyle. The relationship between the ludic elements—erotic and the
comic—are also demonstrated by the introduction of a monkey, a foolish creature
at the mercy of its sexual drive, into the narrative. The monkey is a figure that is not
only lustful, indeed a foolish champion of sexual excess, but is also unhindered by
conscience, reason, or social propriety, functioning in Indian literature as an alle-
gorical manifestation of human folly, lustfulness, desire unencumbered by social
decorum, reason, or conscience. 61
A lascivious monkey plays a major role in the Kacchapa Jātaka (273) when the
Buddha was living as a Brahmin who practiced austerities and could enter deep con-
templation. While engaged in meditation each day, a rambunctious monkey would
shove his penis into the ear of the future Buddha. The recklessness and foolishness
of the lascivious monkey become even more absurd when he tries to take sexual
liberties with a tortoise. A tortoise living in the nearby river decided to take a nap
in the sun, and slept with his mouth open. Seeing the sleeping, open-mouth turtle,
the monkey decided to treat himself to some fellatio. When suddenly awakened, the
tortoise bit down on the monkey’s penis. Screaming with pain, the monkey cried for
help as the tortoise maintained his powerful grip on the transgressive penis of the
monkey. Awakening from his deep meditation, the future Buddha laughed at the
antics and predicament of the monkey. In response to an inquiry about his identity,
the monkey confessed that he was a fool. The future Buddha joked that the two
animals represented different clans, and it was obvious that their marriage has been
consummated. When the tortoise responded to this bit of humor with laughter the
monkey freed himself.
In addition to the lascivious monkey paradigm, the false ascetic or monk is
another stock comic figure in Indian literature, appearing sometimes in satire
because “Satire is wary of all that seems holy, and it casts aspersions on all displays
of renunciation.”62 In many narratives, the ascetic is a victim of sexual aggression
initiated by a female figure. These types of narratives have cultural consequences
that reflect “[t]‌he ideological effort to preserve the image of man as the desireless
164 Indian Asceticism

ascetic leads to locating active sexuality in the female, who chooses her unwitting
partner, pursues, badgers, and seduces him, and enjoys sex all by herself.”63 Beyond
its cultural consequences for women, sex also includes negative results for ascetics.
In fact, there is an anti-ascetic folklore in India that connects nicknames for ascetics
depicting them as religious hypocrites. There are, for example, references in folklore
to cat or heron ascetics. The cat is characterized as covetous, deceitful, injurious,
and hypocritical, whereas the heron is cruel, dishonest, and falsely gentle.64 Besides
Indian folklore, other literary sources also refer to false ascetic figures.
While on his begging rounds, a Buddhist monk, having taken a vow of silence,
arrives, for instance, at a merchant’s home. The sight of the merchant’s beautiful
daughter causes the monk to utter some lustful sighs. In response, the credulous
merchant asks the monk why he broke his vow, and the monk replies that he notices
an inauspicious mark on the girl’s neck that predicts future disaster for the fam-
ily. Placing his trust in the monk and giving him power over his household, the
merchant inquires how it is possible to avoid calamity. The monk tells the mer-
chant to place his daughter in a basket and to place it in the Ganges River. After the
merchant complies with the monk’s instructions, a handsome prince discovers the
basket, frees the girl, and replaces her with a vicious monkey. When the lascivious
monk retrieves the basket, takes it back to the monastery, and opens the basket, he
is attacked and maimed by the monkey.65 The devious, tricky monk gets tricked in
the end. Even though the Buddhist monk in this narrative has presumably taken
a vow of renouncing the world, his comedic actions are life-affirming and suggest
he is rooted in the world. In this type of trickster story, we witness an oxymoronic
imagination at play. In summary, the trickster transforms the challenge of life into
a game.
It is possible to find the Buddha embodying features of a trickster with his skillful
use of word play, its deception, and illusions that he creates. Deceptions and illu-
sions can be defined more fully in the following way:

Deceptions are tricks in which the Buddha uses words in ways he knows will
be misunderstood by the listener, but that will also get the listener to act so
that some deep-seated delusion will ultimately be destroyed. Illusions are
tricks in which the Buddha creates illusory appearances that act in such a way
as to remove the delusions of those who witness them.66

The Buddha uses deceptions and illusions, forms of temporal and spatial manipu-
lations, to encourage or lead people on the spiritual path. Thus, even though the
Buddha uses subterfuge to achieve his goal for others, the Buddha plays the role of a
trickster without any negative connotations attached to it.
 Ludic Elements 165

The Jain tradition places a huge amount of importance on the ascetic, but it also
acknowledges that there are false ascetics not meriting any authority, as with the nar-
rative about the water-walking ascetic. Between two rivers, there lived some ascetics
and among them was an ascetic who knew how to apply magical unguents to his feet
that enabled him to walk on water. He not only ridiculed Jain monks, but he also
challenged them to match his power. By virtue of his practice of yoga, the advanced
monk Āryaśamita discerned a solution to the boasting of the water-walking ascetic,
saying that the ascetic did not gain his power by practicing austerities and dismissed
his ability as a trick. Instructed by the Jain monk to pretend to be devoted followers,
people invited the false ascetic to a gathering where he was honored by having his
feet washed. Concerned that his magic unguent might have been washed away, the
false ascetic could not enjoy his meal. A crowd gathered to witness the demonstra-
tion of the ascetic’s power. Returning to the river bank, the false ascetic, foolishly
thinking that some of the unguent adhered to his feet and sandals, attempted to
walk across the river, but he only succeeded in sinking into the water, and people
reacted vociferously to his deception and denounced the false ascetic.67
Unlike the narrative of the bogus water-walking ascetic, the erotic and humor
are playfully combined in the Jain story about King Viśākha and his wife Kanakśrī.
While the king was entertaining a former friend who had become a Jain monk,
the king was influenced to follow his friend’s path and renounce the world to the
consternation of the queen, who clung to false beliefs before dying and becoming
a demi-goddess. While a demi-goddess, the former queen encountered her for-
mer husband who was now a monk, and decided to shame him and wreak revenge
upon him for leaving her. After fasting for a month, the former king went to beg
for some food where he encountered Celenā, a housewife, who gave him alms. The
demi-goddess caused the monk to have an erection as he stood before Celenā, but
the housewife simply gave him a piece of cloth to conceal his private parts from
public view. After the former king attained enlightenment, he explained the origin
of his erection to Celenā and others as nothing more than a trick inflicted on him
by a disgruntled former wife.68
The erotic and the comic play an important role in the life of a modern ascetic,
Muktananda, who confesses to having a vision of a beautiful girl. Muktananda
relates in his autobiography, “My sexual organ became agitated with great
force . . . tearing my loincloth, my generative organ dug forcibly into my navel, where
it remained for some time.”69 He continues by saying that he became angry when
he saw his torn loincloth. Muktananda interprets this episode later as a manifesta-
tion of the goddess Kuṇḍalinī. Because his naked heart lacked true knowledge, the
goddess appeared to him in a naked form. Prior to his vision of the goddess, the
ascetic confesses to becoming obsessed with sex: “My whole body boiled with lust,
166 Indian Asceticism

and I cannot describe the agony of my sexual organ.” 70 He tells about a vision of a
beautiful naked girl framed by a red light. While meditating at night, he reports
that “[s]‌he would dance in front of me for awhile, moving her body suggestively,
and jump and turn around.” 71 While in deep samādhi (absorption), he says that he
suddenly became full of sexual desire, which ruined his meditation and disturbed
his phallus. In frustration, he relates that “I had made my sexual organ lifeless and
useless by the mastery of siddhāsana, but even so, this dead sense had come to life.” 72

Comic and Power

The comic is a power that disrupts and subverts spiritual pretensions and embodies
the power of incongruity. In the Bhagavadajjukīya of Mahendravikramavarman, a
yogi attempts to demonstrate his powers to a disciple by leaving his body and enter-
ing the form of a courtesan who just died of snake bite. The victim of the snake
bite was waiting in a garden for her lover. The Lord of Death takes the soul of the
girl and places it in the unanimated body of the yogi. This scenario brings together
incongruous elements: yogi with the soul of a courtesan and the courtesan with the
soul of a yogi. The satire suggests that the yogi is actually a whore and the whore is
remarkably similar to a yogi.73 The whore shares with the ascetic a lack of passion
and desire, and is also insouciant, detached, and in control.
According to the Dummedha Jātaka, in a former life the Buddha was incar-
nated as an elephant, his future disciple Ananda was a mahout, and Devadatta
was the king of Magadha. Upon a mountain precipice, the king argued with the
mahout about whether the elephant was well trained. The king challenged the
mahout to prove it by having the elephant stand on three feet, then two, then one
foot. Finally, standing at the edge of the precipice on one leg, the king challenged
the mahout to have the elephant stand only on air. Immediately, the elephant
stood in the air and flew to Benaras with the mahout on his back, and descend-
ing to earth he was installed as the royal elephant of the monarch. This narrative
weaves together the ludic elements of a playful contest with the supernatural pow-
ers of flight.
The powers to fly and/or levitate are essential to a narrative from the
Kathāsaritsāgara (3.20). In this story Princess Kuvalayavali saw some friends levi-
tating and asked how she could acquire such power. She was told that the secret was
eating human flesh as taught by the Brahmin crone Kalaratri, who made the initiate
take off her clothes after bathing and worshiping Gaṇeśa. Standing in a circle, the
female initiate was doused with water, taught some spells and then fed human flesh
that had been sacrificially offered. After consuming the human flesh and having
been taken beyond natural laws, the initiate could fly naked with her new friends.
 Ludic Elements 167

The spirit of this type of antinomian rite within a Tantric context is also evident
with Muktananda’s focus in an autobiographical work in which he refers to the uni-
verse as a divine sport and the playful arising of consciousness in the blossoming of
śakti (feminine power). Discussing yogic practice, he observes, “At a stage when he
hears the nāda, the yogi discovers an ability to dance. I would sometimes go at night
to the top of a hill and dance for hours on end.” 74 Out of a sense of potential embar-
rassment, he secretly danced—a form of play—in private. This type of play was for
Muktananda a state of “pure and natural spontaneity.” 75
In the biography of the Chinese monk Faxian, a translator of many Buddhist
texts, there is the narrative about people seeing men from different countries flying
to a monastery. To those that did not fly, villagers would ask the monks the reason
for them not flying. The interrogated monks would expediently reply, “Our wings
are not yet fully grown.” 76
The Jain monk Hemacandra tells the story of the foolhardy bird by comparing
it to an ascetic and his willingness to practice austerities despite the visible plea-
sures of existence for a goal that is invisible. The ascetic is like the bird who steals
pieces of meat from the jaws of a sleeping tiger.77 Just as the bird and ascetic are
equally fools, the latter is a fool for wisdom and omniscience, whereas the bird is
merely a risk-taking fool, opting for a dangerous choice for a momentary form of
gratification.

Concluding Remarks
This chapter makes it evident that the erotic and the comic are forms of play in the
sense of providing an interlude in ordinary life. In other words, they provide a break
from social convention. The erotic and comic enable an ascetic to extricate him/
herself from the real world at least in a temporary way. This suggests that the erotic
and comic are ecstatic experiences that enable an ascetic to stand outside (ek-stasis)
of him/herself. At the same time, they also debunk and subvert all social preten-
sions, challenge established authority, and form a danger to all established order and
structure. Moreover, they are promiscuous in the sense of sexual promiscuity for the
erotic and in the sense of uncontrollable laughter for the comic, becoming respec-
tively sexually orgiastic or comically orgiastic. Finally, these commonly shared fea-
tures of the erotic and comic are potentially dangerous.
Beyond the subjectivity of the individual, the erotic and comic perspectives dis-
close another reality and another potential mode of life, an additional perspective
that enables an ascetic to see the incongruity of life. It is this type of awareness
that contributes to a sense of transcendence, which bestows upon the ascetic a
counter-world, an upside-down world.
168 Indian Asceticism

The erotic and comic are also forms of play that make use of human imagination.
It is playful imagination that brings the erotic and comic to presence. The imagina-
tion is a force that gathers around a rising pressure. This force is the imagination
itself becoming effectual in the gathering process. By gathering horizon to image
and nonsense to sense, imagination holds together elements that cannot normally
be united.78 The imagination serves as an unperceived power that can make some-
thing hidden reveal itself.
As elements of play, the erotic and humor are forms of power associated with the
ascetic in traditional Indian culture. These two elements of play suggest that it is
potentially creative. Within the game played by many ascetics, play and power can
be merged. Nonetheless, it is also the case that power can frustrate play, although
power can also paradoxically stimulate it.
Implied in the various aspects of play discussed in this chapter, there is the impli-
cation that play possesses a liminal nature, which invites inversion, experimenta-
tion, and a new mode of thinking. The liminality of play also generates an inner
dialogue in the mind of the outsider as aspects of play are compared and contrasted.
This internal dialogue allows the outsider to simultaneously embrace opposites such
as normal and abnormal.
The narrative and hagiographical material of this chapter enables us to see that
play has an irrational quality and is not the exact opposite of seriousness. We have
also seen that play is intimately connected to the comic, even though a subsidiary
of play exists which is beyond foolishness. Moreover, play is not antithetical to wis-
dom and folly because play subsumes and transcends both of these opposites. It is
possible to grasp play as a type of power that attracts ascetics and enables them to
approximate the power of divine beings. The power inherent in play and its mani-
festations as erotic and comic are capable of challenging previous concepts of power.
 7
Miracles, Play, and Power

Although he does not fully develop the connection in his masterful work on
play, Johan Huizinga thinks that in hagiographical literature there is an “unmistak-
able connection between reports of miracles and the play spirit.”1 Narratives about
the exploits of ascetics in Indian literature suggest that Huizinga is on the right
path. Even though the various powers manifested by ascetic figures are certainly
miraculous in their own right, there are narratives that demonstrate ascetics specifi-
cally performing actions that would fit into the category of miracles. Since miracles
are not often specifically the focus of the list of ascetic powers that are reviewed in
the third chapter, narratives about ascetics trump these lists of powers that appear
in a work like the Yoga Sūtras and include an ability to perform miracles as a char-
acteristic of an accomplished ascetic. Narratives about miracles are a manifestation
of the spiritual progress of the ascetic.
Astonishment, wonder, surprise, and awe are a few of the human emotions asso-
ciated with witnessing miracles; the Greek root for miracle is meidian “to smile,”
which it shares in common with the Sanskrit root smi, also meaning “to smile,”
whereas the Latin root miraculum means “to wonder.” Another Sanskrit term is
vismaya, a word that refers to an astonishing and wondrous event, while alaukika,
a Hindi term, refers to something that departs from the normal social habits and
expectations associated with common life experience in a broad naturalistic sense.
The human condition of wonder and astonishment is captured by the term ascharya,
whereas the Tamil term putumai indicates that which is novel or new.2 In many
169
170 Indian Asceticism

cases the wonder evoked by a miracle serves as a sign for some particular message
that is intended by a divine being, saint, or ascetic. Operating in a direct or indirect
way, a miracle represents an act by a divine being, saint, or ascetic, and often con-
tains a particular message, purpose, and/or meaning for witnesses to the event or for
witnesses who report the wondrous event to others.3
Although the phenomenon of miracles carries heavy Christian historical bag-
gage, it is possible to find examples of them in Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and
Judaism. Generally speaking, miracles are extraordinary events that defy logic,
rationality, and everyday expectations by surprising and even shocking us. In short,
miracles are events of power that may indicate something about a particular ascetic,
saint, or the presence of God within the world. Powers typical of Indian ascetic
figures such as the ability to fly or levitate one’s body are indicative of violating the
law of gravity, a violation that signifies freedom from and mastery of the world along
with control over the body and freedom from it. But such extraordinary, miraculous
events are most apt to occur within a culture that allows for or even expects these
types of events. Within such an expecting cultural context, miracles become social
and personal habits of mind. Miracles are also a method for revealing the mysteries
of a religion to a wider socio-cultural audience.4
The fact that miracles, assuming that they exist or can occur for the sake of argu-
ment, violate laws of nature helps to explain British Enlightenment philosopher
David Hume’s motivation for arguing that they are irrational, non-empirical, and
lack probability. Hume also claims that the testimony of eyewitnesses to miracu-
lous events cannot be accepted as proof of miracles because such people are untrust-
worthy, deluded, or suffering from hallucinations. The crux of Hume’s argument
is summarized by his following assertion: “A miracle may be accurately defined, a
transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposi-
tion of some invisible agent.”5 He goes on to argue that when the spirit of religion is
connected to the “love of wonder,” common sense ceases to exist and human testi-
mony loses its association with authority, although he does recognize that human
reactions of surprise and wonder are associated with miracles.6 Hume’s obdurate
position, which is based on rational and empirical principles, is not overwhelmingly
embraced by eastern and western religious cultures of the past or present.
A spectacular display of power by the Buddha is playfully recorded in the
Patisambhidā-magga (KN I, 53) of the Pāli canon, which serves as a good exam-
ple to contradict the spirit of Hume’s philosophy. Exercising his acquired powers
to impress his tribal, the Śākyans, he ascends into the air while flames of fire issue
upward from his body and torrents of water pour downward. Then, the flames go
downward while water goes upward toward the sky. Next fire comes shooting from
the right side of his body, and water gushes forth from the left side of his body.
 Miracles, Play, and Power 171

Then, the fire and water change sides. After twenty-two variations of pairs have been
exhibited, the Buddha exercises his supernormal powers to create the illusion of a
jeweled promenade in the sky along which he walks. After descending to the earth,
he proceeds to teach people. This type of spectacular display of power is a perfect
example of the ability of the Buddha to conjoin binary opposites: fire and water,
ascent and descent, illusion and reality. Moreover, this scenario convincingly sug-
gests that the Buddha functions symbolically in this narrative as a conjunction of
opposites.
In Hindu epic literature (Mbh 3.126.1–30), a childless King Yuvanāśa is moti-
vated to return to the forest and visit the hermitage of Bhṛgu, where he intended
to receive a potion for his wife prepared by the reclusive ascetic to make the queen
pregnant. The king mistakenly drinks the potion during the night, and is berated
by the ascetic the next morning. Instead of his wife, the king now becomes pregnant
and gives birth after a hundred years to a son who emerges from the king’s right side.
The power of this potion results from the excess tapas of the ascetic, creating a result
that is contrary to nature and thus miraculous. This particular narrative points to
the creative aspect of tapas.
Although these astonishing, delightful, and wondrous events violate natural laws
and ordinary human expectations, some current theorists insist that it is misleading
to claim that miracles can be simply defined as violations of natural laws because
such an assertion amounts to begging the question and ignoring that natural laws
have a predictive value that informs us about natural occurrences under normal
circumstances.7 In contrast to natural laws, a miracle is an event that is naturally
inexplicable and unexpected, but it occurs within a social, historical, and cultural
context that makes the miracle a public event that is observed by others who are
prone to respond positively to it.8 In fact, it is possible for miracles to occur without
violating the laws of nature and for belief in them to be perfectly rational, because
the natural laws are not involved by themselves in the prediction or explanation of
any event.9 A miracle is not just any event: “A miracle is an interpreted event, set
within a tradition’s broader system of beliefs and understood as signifying some-
thing about transcendent reality.”10 From the perspective of the witness to a miracle,
the event enriches the everyday reality of the witness by expanding one’s religious
horizon and suggesting the wondrous nature of the transcendent.
The need for a community of responding witnesses points to the nature of mira-
cles as social acts that assume shared expectations. As a social act, miracles demon-
strate agency in the sense that a miracle is ascribed to some divine or human agent.
Miracles can serve as signs or modes of communication that can compel or provoke
faith, which can occur within situations of social and/or political conflict, leading
to conversion to a new religious path. Miracles and the narratives in which they
172 Indian Asceticism

are embodied make claims to religious authority. This is indicative of the polemical
purposes of miracles that function to subvert competing claims as is evident in the
playful competition described in the preceding chapter.11 Whether miracles occur
in a western or eastern religious context, they are not only subversive, but they are
also rationally transgressive and socially excessive, because they undermine our nor-
mal expectations about how the world works, exceed our rational mode of thinking,
and challenge our social habits.
As the topic of this chapter demonstrates, miracles are embodied within dramatic
narratives to be shared with others who may or may not be believers, but could be
potentially converted to the religious perspective of the performer of miracles.
Miracle narratives represent a form of performative language that is meaningful and
evokes a creative response from a listener. The miraculous act itself and identity of
the performer contribute to its meaning, which can be classified into a fourfold pat-
tern: (1) it hopefully suggests that humans are neither limited by the material world
nor bound by past events that fix the future; (2) by providing new and unexpected
evidence, it confirms a transcendent reality; (3) it serves a pedagogical purpose by
revealing truths about a religious tradition and inspiring adherence to those teach-
ings; (4) it may serve a political purpose to render symbolic expression to a group’s
aspirations for freedom.12 These four features of miracle narratives are indicative of
their transgressive nature by revealing spiritual possibilities that are beyond normal
limitations established by reason, nature, and history.13 This scenario does not imply
that all miracle narratives are intended to evoke wonder with hearers of the stories,
but can just as likely be intended to call attention to the power of the performer of
a miracle.
Within whatever social context miracles occur, they evoke wonder on the part of
witnesses. According to Bynum, European medieval theorist conceived of wonder
as cognitive, something non-appropriative, perspectival, and particular. But wonder
for these Christian thinkers was something that exceeds a physiological response,
because “wonder was a recognition of the singularity and significance of the thing
encountered. Only that which is really different from the knower can trigger won-
der; yet wonder will always be in a context and from a particular point of view.”14
In medieval Europe, wonder was also associated with diversity, imitation, curios-
ity, and paradox, and stood in contrast to what was usual.15 The various connota-
tions of wonder during the western medieval ages are similar to sentiments in India,
although there is not an exact equivalence between wonder in the West or East.
Within the Indian religious context, miracle narratives can motivate witnesses
or hearers of these stories to reject the illusory world in which they find themselves
and discover a way to ultimate freedom. Beyond their soteriological significance,
the rhetorical strategy of miracle narratives is political from the perspective of
 Miracles, Play, and Power 173

Weddle because they represent “the reversal of hierarchies of power in this world
by the administrator of justice by transcendent power. Miracles not only modify
material conditions, but also reverse unjust social and political orders.”16 A differ-
ent perspective is offered by Flood, who views miracles in Hinduism as being in
accordance with dharma, the law of the natural and social realms, and argues that
yogic powers do not transgress the stability of nature, “but are understood as using
the natural order to effect change in the world in accordance with the yogin’s will.”17
From Flood’s astute perspective, ascetic powers do not disrupt natural laws, but use
natural law to effect causation within the world, a position that is diametrically con-
trary to the position of the Enlightenment philosopher Hume.

Buddhist Mir acle Narr atives

Buddhist narratives about miraculous events are often playful in nature. Within the
context of a social gathering, the Buddha transforms, for example, a person sitting
near him so to be invisible to others (VinP 1.16). And he bursts into raging flames to
counteract fiery dragons in another episode (VinP 1.25). While attempting to cross
the flooded Ganges River, the Buddha playfully disappears from one side of the
bank of the river only to reappear on the other side without availing himself of any
visible conveyance (DN 2.89). In another scenario, the Buddha makes the Hindu
deity Brahmā invisible, a narrative that occurs within the context of a playful con-
test between the Buddha and the Hindu deity. After the Buddha vanishes from the
god, the Buddha resolves that Brahmā and his companions could continue to hear
him, even though they could not see the Buddha. In response to the disappearance
and disembodied voice of the Buddha, Brahmā and his companions are filled with
wonder and amazement (MN 1.330). In addition to the obvious sectarian nature
of this story and emphatic suggestion about the superiority of the Buddha versus a
Hindu deity, this narrative is an excellent example about two players engaged in a
power game and serves as an paradigm of the use of power via a miracle to influence
another party and to shape their behavior and mode of thinking. The Buddha wins
the power game by trumping anything that the Hindu god can offer.
According to the Kevaṭṭa Sutta of the Digha Nikāya collection of texts, the
Buddha identified three kinds of miracles:  superhuman feats (iddhipāṭihāriya),
telepathy (ādesanāpāṭhāriya), and instruction (anusāsanīpāṭhāriya). The type of
miracle preferred by the Buddha is the third one because it brings people to an
unconditional goal and freedom from ignorance, impermanence, and suffering.
In addition to the Buddha’s prowess performing astonishing miracles, the
monk Moggallāna is arguably the most famous executor of miracles in the early
Buddhist tradition. He allegedly could repeatedly shake a building with his large
174 Indian Asceticism

toe regardless of the depth of its foundation. The reaction of witnessing monks to
this event is expressed by acknowledgements of panic, bodily hair standing on end,
and exclaiming what a wonderful miracle (SN 5.269–271). In another episode, he
suddenly appears before Anuruddha, a monk meditating in solitude, after reading
this monk’s mind (SN 5.294–297). A narrative depicts him communicating with
the Buddha over a wide distance (SN 2.275–276) with consummate ease, suggesting
the effortlessness of a skillful player.
The performance of miracles is fully integrated with the teachings of the Buddha
that are intended to lead a person to liberation. Within the Buddhist context, mir-
acles are a direct result of practicing meditation (dhyāna) and can be demonstrated
before one achieves full enlightenment, although this possibility does not exclude
meditating non-Buddhists from gaining powers.18 Meditation is also a cure for dis-
ease, which demonstrates the Buddhist conception of disease as linked to a mental
state gone awry, a topic that is developed later in this chapter.
The great Buddhist sage Buddhaghoṣa, a third-century figure, shares instructions
with anyone interested in acquiring miraculous powers such as walking on water.
He instructs a person to meditate to the point of perfect concentration associated
with the fourth form of absorption, which forms the foundation for a variety of
powers. If an aspirant wants to be able to walk on water, for instance, he/she focuses
their mind on the element earth until achieving the fourth absorption. Then, the
aspirant withdraws their mind from this perfect mental absorption, and resolves
that water should be transformed into earth, which enables him/her to walk on it.
Buddhaghoṣa clarifies the particularity of such an exercise by stating, “And that
water becomes earth only for him; it is water for anyone else” (Vism 12.95–97). This
is an excellent example of integrating Buddhist practice with the desire for acquir-
ing a specific power.
The playful nature of miracles is evident in Mahāyāna Buddhism in The
Vimalakīrti Sūtra with a series of miracles performed by a layman. After the pro-
pagandistic layman, Vimalakīrti, enters a trance state, he shows those assembled
a country called Many Fragrances, a place beyond the Buddha-lands. He conjures
up a phantom bodhisattva and nine million lion seats. Then, he feeds rice to a
multitude from a single begging bowl. And he concludes by picking up the entire
assembly along with their lion seats, placing them in the palm of his right hand, and
journeying with them to the Buddha’s location.19 For this series of miracles to be
meaningful, an audience is an absolute necessity because they testify to and verify
the miracles.
In The Lotus Sūtra, another prominent and popular Mahāyāna text, the Buddha
emits a ray of light from the tuft of white hair between his eyebrows, which light up
all the worlds in the eastern direction and even reach the Avici Hell and heaven.20
 Miracles, Play, and Power 175

Maitreya expresses his doubts and uneasiness about the miraculous display of light.
Despite Maitreya’s reservations, the witnesses to this miraculous event are inexpli-
cably inducted into a cosmic view that is normally reserved for enlightened beings,
although this vision is not omni-directional like an enlightened being. “Thus the
Buddha as dispenser of magical light serves to establish a kind of total intersubjec-
tivity, rendering all visible to all, a place where public and private eyes are completely
collapsed in one beatific vision.”21
According to the Śūraṅgama Samādhi Sūtra, the Buddha sits simultaneously
on eighty-four thousand billion lion’s seats before the multitude assembled. The
Buddha eventually reins in his power by making many Buddhas and seats disap-
pear, and those assembled then see only one Buddha.22 Another miraculous vision
is presented by this text when Śāriputra informs the Buddha that he is preaching
this scripture, but Māra, a personification of evil and death, does not come to dis-
turb them. The Buddha asks a perplexed Śāriputra if he would like to see what is
troubling Māra. After an affirmative reply, the Buddha emits a light in the space
between his eye brows, revealing a vision of Māra bound and unable to escape, a
vision that is attributed to the power of the text.23
These examples of miraculous visions of Buddhists are indicative of the subjunc-
tive (as if) nature of play, which helps to create an alternative view of reality, which
suggests that the Buddhist use of play enables a person to act simultaneously and
subjunctively with multiple ways of experiencing and classifying reality in these
Mahāyāna texts.24 The conjuring of new realities and/or spectacular visions in a
playfully subjunctive way functions to subvert formerly accepted realities. The abil-
ity to play is a human capability that enables humans, who both create and use sym-
bols, to reach their creative potential. What is suggested by the Buddhist visions is a
person engaging in a power game in which play and power sometime merge. When
this merging occurs it is possible for power to frustrate play, although it can also
stimulate play.25
In addition to the playful element in the visions recorded in these three seminal
Mahāyāna texts, it is possible to view these visions as a kind of “aphoristic thinking,”
which can be defined as “ideas that occur when conscious thinking has been tempo-
rarily suspended.”26 This reflects the lack of a thinking subject or absence of rational
consciousness. Obeyesekere argues that Buddhist visions are both true and not true,
a feature that he explains by claiming that visions are true in a nominal sense within
a space-time context of experiencing it but lacking definitive truth value.27 He refers
to this type of time, which also represents the space of illusion, as “dream time,”
where an “inner-eye” of a person receives the visions that appear in this location. 28
Although Obeyesekere does not mention it, it is “inner-eye” that becomes the play-
ground for the visions to perform their awe-inspiring wonder. Within Mahāyāna
176 Indian Asceticism

Buddhism, what makes play possible from the very beginning is the coexistence
of emptiness and visions because there are no limitations to emptiness, enabling a
Mahāyāna visionary to traverse the cosmos, fly to other Buddha-worlds, encounter
supernatural beings, get rid of a person’s false self, and become a deity.
In addition to miraculous visions, other types of ascetic, supernormal powers
can be obtained through the text, indicating the power inherent in the scripture to
bestow powers and liberation on readers and copiers of the text.29 Other Mahāyāna
scriptures make similar claims about the power inherent in the text with the Lotus
Sūtra being an obvious example when this text is equated with the truth, and it is
the truth that liberates a person. According to the twenty-third chapter of the Lotus
Sūtra, any person hearing this particular chapter about the bodhisattva Medicine
King gains unlimited merit if a man, whereas a woman puts an end to her female
body and shall never be reborn in such a body in the future.30 Because such texts
represent the word or teachings of the Buddha, they also have the power to protect
people. The protective spirit is evident in a collection of hagiographical accounts of
monks and nuns in a narrative that depicts the Buddha protecting Ānanda as he
sits in meditation in a cave. Māra arrives at the entrance to the cave of the meditat-
ing monk, and transforms himself into a vulture in order to disturb and intimidate
Ānanda. By means of his power, the Buddha extends forth his hand through the
rock of the mountain and pats Ānanda on his shoulder to allay his apprehensions.31

Mir acles and Jain Ascetics

The Śvetāmbara Jains associated with the Khartar Gacch, a reform movement among
ascetics, acknowledge and worship four Dādāgurus (deceased ascetics): Jindattsūri
(1075–1154), Jincadrasūri (1140–1166), Jinkuūalsūri (1280–1332), and Jincandrasūri
(1541–1613). These ascetics are the main focus of a widespread cult, are distinguished
from the tīrthaṅkaras because they have not achieved omniscience and liberation,
but on the other hand are considered closer to ordinary people, and can be appealed
to more directly for mundane assistance in contrast to the more remote tīrthaṅkaras
located beyond the world and at the pinnacle of the Jain cosmos.32 After they die,
Dādāgurus become gods, although gods cannot become ascetics. Dādāgurus and
tīrthaṅkaras are both considered powerful beings, but the former are more apt to
intervene in worldly affairs instead of adhering to the spirit of renunciation typical
of the latter group. By worshiping the Dādāgurus, laity can share in the power of the
deceased ascetic via the intermediary of the temple cult.33
The Jain hagiographers legitimize the power of the deceased ascetics to per-
form miracles by creating a believable Jain cultural context using a twofold strat-
egy: (1) the ascetic’s power is legitimized by the asceticism practiced by the individual
 Miracles, Play, and Power 177

and (2) the purpose behind the miracles is intended to promote Jain teachings and
enhance the religion’s chance to flourish.34 In this sense, the Jain miracles tend to be
rather sectarian in nature.
Miracles attributed to Jindattsūri often involve victories over religious rivals such
as Muslims and Hindus. In one episode, he defeats five Muslim saints (pīrs), who try
to disturb his meditation and end up converting to Jainism. In another narrative,
he defeats sixty-four yoginīs (female spirits associated with Tantra) by casting a spell
on them while they are disguised as laywomen sitting on mats. At the conclusion
of his discourse, they are unable to stand, beg for forgiveness, and agree to assist
propagating Jainism.35 In a miracle of resurrection from death, he enters the carcass
of a dead cow left in front of a Jain temple by some priests, causing the cow to rise,
walk, and expire again in front of a Śaiva temple. In another episode, he performs
the same miracle with a dead Brahmin priest.36 Moreover, Jindattsūri protects Jain
laymen performing a rite in the evening by intercepting a deadly stroke of lightning
under his alms bowl.37
Similar miracles are performed by Jincandrasūri, who is called Manidhāri
because of the jewel (mani) on his forehead. He protects, for example, some pilgrims
from bandits by drawing a line around the group, prohibiting the bandits from
seeing their intended victims. Similar to the control of the yoginīs by Jindattsūri,
Jincandrasūri subjugates some non-Jain goddesses on his way to the latrine when he
sees them fighting over some meat, pacifies one of them, and she agrees to renounce
animal sacrifice. On his instructions, she assumes residence in a pillar in the Jain
temple and instructs lay followers to build and consecrate an image of her.38 In a
playful context, Jincandrasūri witnesses a Muslim judge use the power of a mantra
to cause his own hat to fly into the air and hover there. In response to the demon-
strate of miraculous power by the judge, the monk sends his ascetic’s broom flying
after the hat, retrieving it and setting it back on the head of the judge.39 The to and
fro movement associated with the notion of play is evident in this narrative.
Hearing people mocking Jain writings composed in Prakrit, Siddhasena offers
to translate the writings from Prakrit to Sanskrit, a more culturally prestigious lan-
guage, for the Jain society. The Jain community responds that such an offer repre-
sents a verbal error that requires a severe penance, and requires the monk to roam
for twelve years and conceal his identity as a Jain monk. After wandering for twelve
years, Siddhasena enters a Śaiva temple, but does not praise the god enshrined there.
People become upset and approach the king to demand punishment of this monk.
With the king and local community gathered at the temple, Siddhasena praises the
Hindu deity, an act that arouses a Jain goddess who creates on the forehead of Śiva’s
icon an image of the Jina Pārśvanātha. This miraculous event causes those assem-
bled to be overcome with wonder, some become enlightened, and many convert
178 Indian Asceticism

to Jainism.40 This narrative shows that the Jain goddess acts through the uttered
praises of the monk to perform a miracle. The monk playfully entertains the people
gathered at this scene, and transforms them into believers.
A different type of playfulness and miracle is mixed with humor in the biography
of the Jain monk Samantabhadra in the Kathākośa of Prabhācandra. According to
this story Samantabhadra is a learned Jain monk who is afflicted with a digestive
problem caused by previous ethical transgressions in former lives. The remedy for his
illness involves eating large quantities of rich food. In order to find such tasty delica-
cies he assumes the disguise of a Buddhist monk. Unable to find what he needed in
this city, he travels to another city where he sees a Vaiṣṇava monastery where monks
are receiving rich foods from the public during a festival, which causes him to don
the appearance of a Vaiṣṇava monk. This gambit ends in failure, whereupon he goes
to Benares and assumes the guise of a Śaiva ascetic, which proves to be a successful
choice for meeting his medical needs. After six months of eating large quantities of
rich food, Samantabhadra is cured of his illness, although the king is upset with his
deception. Promising the king that he would perform a miracle the next morning,
Samantabhadra is imprisoned in the temple and is visited by Ambikā, the protec-
tive goddess of Jainism. The goddess instructs the monk to compose a hymn to the
twenty-four tīrthaṅkaras. Before the king and the people the next morning, the
monk appears radiant, sings his hymn of praise, reveals to everyone his true identity,
and converts the king to a life of asceticism. Moreover, his powerful words make a
Jain image appear and shatter the Śaiva liṅga (phallic image).41 This ending suggests
inter-religious tension. But a Jain ascetic needing to consume large quantities of rich
food in order to regain his health is a sly creation by the author that injects some
humor into the narrative. The narrative comically implies that even a well-fed monk
can perform miracles. It also suggests a demand to an audience not to stereotype a
Jain monk.

Mir acles and Power in Medieval Hinduism

Needless to say, miracles are displays of either the power of a, for instance, the-
istic god/goddess or ascetic figure. There are numerous hagiographical accounts
of some famous Hindu thinkers leading an ascetic lifestyle and performing
miracles. Prominent and influential figures such as Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja, and
Madhva are excellent examples of ascetic figures who are credited with per-
forming miracles.
Vyāsācala, author of a hagiographical account of Śaṅkara’s life entitled the
Śaṅkaravijaya,42 recounts Śaṅkara’s ascetic regimen when he lived on water and
then only air (3.24) and calls attention to the light that emanated from his body
 Miracles, Play, and Power 179

(3.30). The author describes the beauty of the forest and its teeming with life. He
calls attention to Śaṅkara’s growing power as he practices tapas within the con-
fines of this idyllic location. This author and others use the forest as a symbol of
spiritual and dynamic renewal in contrast to the static and confining nature of a
typical village or town. The forest is a place set apart from ordinary society where
extraordinary things can happen, and separates the ascetic from a stifling society.
When an ascetic enters the forest he/she becomes a marginal individual in contrast
to members of the prevailing society. As a product of such an environment, Śaṅkara
practices tapas in solitude, but his greatness is confirmed by various members of the
Hindu pantheon. By means of his arduous ascetic regimen, he gains the ability to
perform miracles, such as reviving a dead child, enabling a dumb person to talk, and
making a simple-minded person wise. These miracles appear in other hagiographi-
cal accounts of his life.
The ability to perform miracles is also evident in hagiographical accounts of the
life of Rāmānuja and Madhva, respectively representatives of the Viśiṣṭādvaita
(qualified non-dualism) and Dvaita (unqualified dualism). In the hagiographical
Prapannāmṛtam,43 Rāmānuja miraculously cures people of demonic possession
(3.40–41), and receives visions from God that lead him to magical images (46.5–8).
In another episode, he cures the king’s daughter from a state of possession by a
demonic being (46.51–54). Learning that the cured daughter has become a dis-
ciple of Rāmānuja, jealous Buddhists challenge him to a debate that he becomes
apprehensive about winning. Therefore, he calls for divine help. His request for
divine assistance is answered when he reverts to an incarnation of Śesa, Viṣṇu’s
serpent vehicle on which the God reclines during periods between creative activi-
ties. For Rāmānuja, this involves reverting to his divine form (46.56). Madhva’s
miraculous powers are recounted in the Śrīsumadhvavijaya44 where he is depicted,
for instance, curing headaches by breathing into an afflicted person’s ears (3.53)
and walking across rivers without any floating support mechanism (10.8).
Within a theistic context, it is most frequently the deity that acts through a per-
son to exert power, whereas the Indian ascetic figures do not need the power of a
transcendent being to exert their power. Beginning around the twelfth century of
Indian history in the northern part of the subcontinent, numerous holy men and
women appear on the scene who are poets of often humble social origin and some
of whom embrace aspects of asceticism. These figures tend to manifest a devotional
spirit in combination with an ascetic lifestyle.
According to the Basava Purāṇa of the Vīraśāiva sect, at the request of a wan-
dering ascetic, Basava, who is credited with founding or developing the sect, turns
a large heap of sorghum into a pile of fine pearls.45 The text also relates miracu-
lous narratives of other sect members, such as Gōḍagūci, a young girl, who runs to
180 Indian Asceticism

embrace the liṅga of Śiva in a condition of fear and finds herself being absorbed by
the stone symbol of the deity.46 According to the narrative about Bāvūri Brahmayya,
he kills the elephant of the king after the animal goes mad and disrupts the army.
When order is restored the holy man restores the elephant to life.47 Two narratives
relate the miraculous actions of Musiḍi, with his restoring the life of a dead girl and
the parting of the waters of a river that makes possible passage to the other bank.48
In the story about Naminandi in the text, religious tension and intolerance are evi-
dent when Jains are depicted attempting to get rid of him. Naminandi’s offense is
connected to his burning lamps in a dilapidated temple. While the Jains plotted
against him, Śiva causes the Jain cattle to die, and instructs his devotee to light the
lamps with water instead of clarified butter. After Śiva restores the lives of the cattle,
the Jains convert to Śaivism. This particular narrative is a good example of a theistic
deity working through the holy man.
Believed to be an incarnation of Parameśvara (Supreme Lord), Guṇḍam Rāül,
known for his madness, miracles, and association with the Mahānubhāvas devo-
tional movement, emits a radiance from his body, exhibits extraordinary powers
of perception by means of his ability to perceive future events and deaths, and of
control of nature by both stopping and starting the rains. He restores a corpse to
life at a cremation ground, brings a dead woman to life, and restores a cow and
a donkey to life. He possesses knowledge of hidden things, such as underground
water, gold, and silver.49 In addition to these types of miraculous deeds, Guṇḍam
is also credited with economic and food miracles. Along with his eccentric behav-
ior, the various miracles attributed to him are intended to suggest to followers his
divinity.50
The hagiographical work of Mahipati entitled the Bhaktavijaya relates narratives
of various north Indian holy men. In one episode, a stone bull comes alive during
a prayer session and eats all the devotional offerings (3.233–236), demonstrating the
power of Tulsidas (c. 1532–1623), a Hindi poet and author of a seminal work on the
deity Rāma, the Rāmcaritamanas (The Lake of the Life of Rāma). Another episode
testifies to the power of Tulsidas when he restores the life of a merchant after his
wife walks by the cave on her way to commit sati (immolation) on her deceased hus-
band’s funeral pyre where the poet-saint stands and recites the names of God and
blesses her after she pays her respects to him. He tells her that she will be the mother
of eight sons, prompting her to inform the holy man that her husband is dead and
being a mother would be impossible without a spouse. But Tulsidas tells her that
God will make his prediction come true. When the wife arrives at the cremation
ground, she discovers her husband sitting on the funeral pyre.51 Other narratives
in his hagiographical text relate the miraculous deeds of Dnyandev, such as placing
 Miracles, Play, and Power 181

his hands on the head of a buffalo and having the animal recite the sacred Ṛg Veda
(9.62–63). Two additional narratives demonstrate Dnyandev’s yogic powers as when
flames jump out of his mouth, and he instructs a woman to bake cakes on his back
(9. 179–182), or when he reduces himself in size in order to enter a well to get a drink
of water (12.10–11).
Another hagiographical text by Mahipati relates the exploits of Tukaram (1608–
1649), a poet-saint of Maharashtra. He is credited with feeding a multitude of people
after asking God for help (37.11–21), transforms brackish water into a drinkable liq-
uid (38.45–47), performs a miracle of unfailing and non-exhaustible oil (38.55–56),
turns iron into gold (38.61–66), and raises a dead son to life (38.68–73). Tukaram’s
brother probably influenced him by becoming an ascetic because the saint also
renounces the world later after his business fails and several deaths in his family
occur. He becomes a madman when his deity fails to reveal himself. Thinking only
of God, practicing humility, serving others, constantly chanting God’s name, and
surrendering his life to God, the poet receives the gift of God’s grace.
The hagiographer Anantadās also writes about devotional saints of north India,
such as Namdev, Raidās, and Pīpā.52 According to Anantadās, a wealthy merchant
gives away all of his wealth to everyone with the exception of Namdev (1270–1350)
who does not appear, rejecting the merchant’s affluence. Finally, testing the mer-
chant, Namdev tells the businessman to give him whatever is equal to the weight of
a leaf of a tulsī plant, but the merchant cannot give enough gold and silver to equal
the weight of the leaf on which half of the deity Rām’s name is printed (2.8–18).
Drawing a comparative distinction between the yogic powers demonstrated by
Namdev and Jñāndeva, another devotional figure, Novetzke observes that the lat-
ter’s powers only serve him and lack social power, whereas the former’s display of
yogic types of power are a request for help that transcends individuality and have
social consequences.53 It is even possible for devotionally related miracles to repre-
sent a challenge to temporal rulers as it does for ascetic-engendered powers.
According to Anantadās’s text, Raidās (c. 1450–1520) is born into a family of
low-caste Śāktas because he never rejected eating meat in a previous birth (1.2–3). As
an infant, he lay dying, and his family is told to worship Hari (1.12). After the child
is saved, his love of God grows as he ages. He endures many bodily privations, how-
ever, associated with his worship, confessing that “I have been an ascetic from child-
hood” (3.13). In response, God gives him a philosopher’s stone that turns objects
into gold, but Raidās rejects it, although he did use it to pay for a religious festival.
Later in life while he is employed as a camār (leatherworker), he becomes absorbed
in meditation and transcends his body, which is a phenomenon seen everywhere
by others (11.18). This is a good example of the social aspect of the demonstration
182 Indian Asceticism

of powers associated with an ascetic lifestyle, even though Raidās is essentially a

devotional figure.
Depicted by the Bhaktamāl, a popular hagiographical work by Nābhādās, as
a great teacher and inspiration for the Sant movement in northern India, Pīpā
is depicted as a married householder who along with his spouse embrace a life
of renunciation and dedicate themselves to the welfare of others.54 According to
Anantadās’s hagiographical text and in contrast to the Bhaktamāl, Pīpā is another
devotional figure who is capable of demonstrating ascetic powers exemplary of mir-
acles by reviving a dead person (34.12), and by jumping into the sea with Sītā—his
wife—at his side only to have the water withdraw so that they are able to reach their
destination (10.13–17). And he subdues a tiger in the forest by laying his hands on the
rapacious feline and rendering it harmless (14.16–15). Some of Pīpā’s actions border
on the magical as when some men ask him for his wife in order to enjoy her sexually
only to have her turned into a tigress, terrifying the lechers, who repent their licen-
tious intentions and are initiated by the holy man (22.1–15). Pīpā’s playfulness is also
evident when he transforms himself into a lion and then into the form of a baby in
front of a witness (26.12–3), whose mind he also reads (25.5). By rubbing his hands
together, Pīpā creates and is able to see a fire at a distant location (36.2–3).
Similar to the Bengali saint Caitanya discussed earlier, Dādū Dayāl’s hagiography
manifests līlā (play) as the theme of his life (2.1) that is combined with his status
as an incarnation (2.5), and his ascetic style of life (2.14) adopted later in life after
he renounces his vocation as a cotton-carder.55 In the spirit of play, he tames a mad
elephant (3.6), and appears both inside and outside of a building to others (3.15–17);
by simply touching the foreheads of Jaimal and his mother, they become detached
from their bodies (4.5), and he sits on a throne that suddenly appears in the sky
(7.9–10). Dādū miraculously makes food appear to his disciples in another episode
(8.12). Dādū’s disciple Ṭilā engages in a playful contest with a yogi, who makes a
rock float on which he is sitting, whereas the disciple exceeds this display of yogic
power by making the rock fly (8.19.1–2). Dādū’s biography connects him with the
great poet Kabir by recounting how both their bodies disappeared after they died
(15.31.1–2). The hagiographical account of Dādū’s exploits acknowledges the limita-
tions of miracles: “With miracles illusion arises and this is an obstacle to reaching
the Supreme Lord” (15.9). At the same time, the saint possesses powers and is able to
perform miracles because these powers derive from God (13.9). This is a conviction
shared by other theistic holy men and women.
Although these devotional figures have some connection to asceticism and its
associated powers, the great poet Kabir would appear to be an unlikely candidate
for inclusion in this discussion because some negative poems about asceticism are
attributed to him. In some poems, he refers to false ascetics who beg from door to
 Miracles, Play, and Power 183

door, but they have not found God.56 A similar type of poem refers to an ascetic
shaving his head, although he does not find God.57 In the Bijak of Kabir, an oral
poet without formal education, employed as a low-caste weaver, and originally a
Muslim, he says the following:

Yogis and creeping creatures

follow their own way;
and yogis at their leisure
don’t withdraw
from pleasure.58

These types of poems would lead a reader to conclude that he was anti-ascetic and
not an ascetic himself. Vaudeville adds that “It is certain that Kabīr never received
the full dīkṣa of the Rāmānandī Bairāgis, and that he was never known to be an
ascetic.”59 There is also an acknowledgement by Kabir that all power comes from
God: “He makes the mustard seed a mountain and the mountain a mustard seed.”60
No power comes from a humble servant of God, who is conceived without attri-
butes (nirguṇ) as opposed to a deity depicted with attributes (saguṇ).61
In spite of his negative references to ascetic figures and rejection of the ascetic
lifestyle, Kabir is indebted to the Nāths, a community of yogis practicing bodily dis-
cipline associated with haṭha yoga. Moreover, Kabir represents the central figure of
the Kabir Panth, a devotional religious community consisting of householders and
ascetics of humble social backgrounds.62 These types of associations do not make
Kabir an ascetic, but they do cause one to pause to consider hagiographical accounts
that portray him in a different light as a performer of miracles.
An excellent example of this type of portrayal of Kabir as a performer of mir-
acles is evident in the Kabir Parachai of Anantadās. This work shows that Kabir
is opposed to the ascetic way of life, but this hagiography ironically depicts him
as an ascetic figure with supernatural powers, although ultimately the powers are
attributed to a theistic God working through the poet. A good example of this type
of scenario is a conflict with Muslims over which party is an infidel. Sikandar Lodi
(r. 1488–1512) orders others to bind Kabir’s feet and throw him into the Ganges
River with the intention of drowning him, but the chains fall loose in the water.
Next, Kabir is tied up and thrown into a house that is set on fire, but his chanting
of God’s name transforms the fire into its opposite or cool water. Then, Sikandar
exposes Kabir to a frenzied elephant, but it does not attack Kabir and flees from the
saint’s presence, which is explained as God appearing as a lion to keep the elephant
from attacking the poet (8.1–17).63 In this series of miracles, God acts on behalf of
Kabir to protect him from bodily harm.
184 Indian Asceticism

Anantadās includes another narrative about Indra sending an apsara (celestial

nymph) to seduce Kabir, an episode similar to this god’s attempt to subvert ascetic
figures in earlier Indian literature. This episode can be construed as a playful contest
between a jealous deity and a pious devotee. Indra’s nymph is unable to entice Kabir
by arousing his amorous interest (10.12–15). Other types of enticements intended to
distract Kabir are the offering of prodigious wealth (12.7), miraculous powers such
as the ability to survive fire, water, or to fly (12.9), and the power to assume another
body (12.10). Hari says to Kabir, “I will give you the eight siddhis and the nine
nidhis” (12.10). The siddhis are traditional yogic powers, whereas nidhis are treasures
of the god Kubera. Reminiscent of yogic, Buddhist, and Jain texts, Kabir refuses to
embrace powers as a goal of his spiritual path.
Similar to other holy persons, Anantadās attributes a food miracle to Kabir when
he produces food for Brahmin priests and renouncers (3.1). Lorenzen sees a social
tension expressed in this story between lower caste members represented by Kabir
and the upper priestly caste.64 In some of the narratives of the Kabir Parachai, it is
curious that God appears in an anthropomorphic form (saguṇ) when Kabir is well
known as worshiping God without attributes. This seems to suggest that the hagio-
graphical narratives do not exactly reflect the mind and religious sensibilities of the
historical figure.

Mir aculous Healings

Within a cross-cultural context, many miracles are associated with inexplicable
healings. Within the Christian tradition, Jesus is credited with performing vari-
ous types of healings that serve to testify to his ministry for the necessity of faith
and love and includes the truly astonishing power to raise the dead as is evident
in the narrative about Lazarus. Among the examples of Jesus’s healings, there
are the paralytic (Mark 2.1–12), woman with a withered hand (Matt. 12.9–14),
hemorrhaging woman (Luke 8.43–48), deaf mute (Mark 7.31–37), blind man at
Bethsaida (Mark 8.22–26), lame man (John 5.2–47), and man born blind (John
9.1–41). Jesus also heals those suffering from demonic possession, such as the boy
possessed by a spirit (Mark 9.14–29), exorcism of Mary Magdalene (Luke 8.2),
and expulsion of the Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5.1–20). These miracles are per-
formed within the context of the expectation of the coming kingdom of God and
are intimately associated with his status as a prophetic figure, his messiah status,
and his rank as a divine son, even though in many instances the performance of
a miracle did not necessarily lead to converting a person to the early Jesus move-
ment. As evident in Acts (28), miracle narratives function to entertain hearers
with astonishing tales.65
 Miracles, Play, and Power 185

In a way similar to that of Jesus, the historical Buddha is credited with the ability
to heal to the extent of having this ability intimately associated with his person and
career. The Buddha heals the afflicted by means of his teaching, psychic or miracu-
lous means, and meditative exercise. The precise method employed depends on the
condition and severity of the illness for a person. It is possible for those suffering
from a fatal disease to receive lessons on the nature of impermanence, whereas those
who can be cured might be instructed to meditate on the seven limbs of enlighten-
ment (bodhyangas): mindfulness, investigation of things, striving, joy, tranquility,
meditative trance, and equanimity. This represents another example of meditative
exercise acting as a cure for disease and the directly link between disease and mental
states gone awry.
In addition to curing a person by sharing teachings and meditation, there are nar-
ratives of the Buddha laying his hands on a sick person to affect a cure. According
to the narrative about Suppiyā, a laywoman who cut off a section of her leg to pro-
vide a meat broth for an ill monk, this act motivates the Buddha to declare that
to eat human flesh is a grave offense against monastic regulations. In addition, the
Buddha instantly heals the leg wound of the laywoman (MN 6.23.1; AN 1.14.7).
Non-canonical Pāli texts refer to another method called parittā (protection)—
consisting of recitations of various phrases and texts that are akin to resorting to
magic to dispel disease—that the tradition attributes these oral cures directly to the
Buddha.66
The importance of healing and miracles associated with it continue in Mahāyāna
Buddhism as is symbolized by two bodhisattva brothers: Bhaiṣajyarāja (Medicine
King) and Bhaiṣajyasamudgata (Supreme Healer). Their names act as sacred for-
mulas that enables those hearing either of these names to gain contact with their
spiritual force and protection, although five prerequisites have to be met in order
to hear the names: (1) having unceasing compassion and uncompromising deport-
ment; (2) practicing filial piety and ten wholesome precepts that embody the spirit
of nonviolence in bodily, speech, and mind actions; (3) having peace and quiescence
of body and mind; (4) listening to texts devoid of doubts or suspicions; (5) believing
in the eternity of the Buddha; and (6) learning to concentrate one’s mind on the
bodhisattva. This contemplation on the Medicine King, for instance, involves the
successful cultivation of five meditations: stabilizing thoughts by counting breaths;
pacifying the mind; non-exhaling of breath; reflecting on absolute form; and medi-
tating on serene abiding in absorption (samādhi). These meditations lead to a vision
of the Medicine King, while a second and more complete vision of the Supreme
Healer gives a visionary special purification.67 In general terms, the process of heal-
ing embodies not only a process of change from illness to health, but it is also a
means of transformation.
186 Indian Asceticism

In comparison to healing among the Buddhist, Jains are not to be out done. Jain
ascetics can cure the afflicted with their bodily waste, such as phlegm, saliva, and
nose discharge (called khelauṣadhi). They can also cure disease using their urine,
excrement, and semen (viṣṭhauṣadhi) as medicine. Moreover, all interior or surface
level bodily impurities (sarvauṣadhi) of an ascetic can become forms of medicine, or
an ascetic can treat a sick person by merely touching them.68 According to the The
Yogaśāstra (11.42–44) of Hemacandra, Jain ascetics have the power to automatically
heal severe diseases within a two-hundred-mile radius by virtue of their acquired
power. When the ascetic is present diseases associated with heat vanish as well as
smallpox, plague, famine, deluge, drought, warfare, and enmity. From the ascetic’s
body, a circle of light is emitted that resembles the sun.
This type of miraculous healing power is also evident in religious traditions that
are influenced by theism. If the power of a theistic deity operates through Jesus
and enables him to heal others of physical handicaps or spiritual malaise of various
kinds, the Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu ascetic figures use their own acquired powers
to perform miracles, although ascetics associated with theistic religious movements
more closely resemble Jesus. The Bengali holy man Caitanya, a theistic devotee of
Krishna, is also credited with some miracles. In one episode, Caitanya plants a
mango tree that immediately bears fruit, and satisfies a person’s hunger with just
one fruit (CC 1.17.73–81). In another instance, a Brahmin suffers from leprosy and
from his body worms fall. When the leper is touched by Caitanya he is cured of his
leprosy (CC 2.7.133–138).
Prominent followers of Caitanya are also credited with miraculous healings.
According to a hagiographical episode, his disciple Advaita arrives, for example, at
the home of a Brahmin in Shantipur, and sits down under a tree without uttering a
word. Bowing to the seated holy man, people are cured of their medical afflictions
by touching his feet. In response to the cures for blindness, lameness, or being mute,
people joyously dance.69 Nityānanda, another disciple of Caitanya, is seated on the
banks of the Ganges River when a dead body arrived to be cremated. Nityānanda
whispers Krishna’s name into the deceased woman’s ear, causing her to be restored
to life. Witnesses to this event conclude that the holy man is really a god in dis-
guise.70 This episode is a good example of the playful nature of miraculous healing.
Within the Tantric-influenced Śaiva tradition, Śakkarnāth, a disciple of
Gorakhnāth of the Nāth-Yogi sect of ascetics, is seized and forced to make it rain
or be tortured. After performing the miracle, he buries the king alive in an act of
retribution. Returning to the area twelve years later, the ascetic discovers the king as
a skeleton, but restores the king to life, making the former king a disciple and cook
for the ascetic.71
 Miracles, Play, and Power 187

Holy men of northern India are also famous for their healing miracles. By pouring
water over a leper, Eknath (1548–1600), a member of the Vārkari sect, cures a stricken
man. This sign becomes for the leper an indication that the saint is an incarnation
of Viṣṇu, according to the Mahipati’s hagiographical Bhaktavijaya (46.117–121).
Tukaram, a poet-saint, cures a Brahmin struck dumb (36.169–188), accomplishes
a similar miracle cure on a boy by giving him a mantra embodying God’s name
(37.48–53), and also cures a possessed man (37.94–105). Likewise, Guṇḍam Rāül of
the Maharasthra region enables a cripple to walk, gives the gift of speech to a dumb
boy, cures a disciple bitten by a snake, and enables a hundred-year-old woman to
lactate.72
A more recent ascetic figure engaged in miraculous healings is Sathya Sai Baba,
who was born into a lower caste family on November 23, 1926, in a remote village
located in southern India. He is famous for magically materializing food, sweets,
and vibhuti (sacred ash) with a wave of his hand. After a series of seizures and
trances at age thirteen, he declared that he was a reincarnation of Shirdi Sai Baba,
a deceased Muslim saint from Maharashtra who died in 1918. Suffering a seizure in
1963 that rendered him unconscious and unable to communicate, he made a twofold
announcement to his followers: he became ill to assume the sickness of a devotee in
order to heal that person, and he announced that he was now a union of Śiva and
Śakti, although he called himself a guru-avatar (teacher-incarnation). On April 20,
1972, he revealed a small medallion with a depiction of Jesus on its surface, blew
on it, and transformed the image of Jesus into that of Śiva. Beyond this magical
trick before an audience, he is most famous for his use of vibhuti (sacred ash) as
a substance of healing as with the case of a person healed of colon caner in 1997.
Srinivas insightfully says, “The vibhuti brings home to devotees that Sai Baba is a
shamanic, magical healer-physician and that all the many objects and substances
that emerge from his body have healing properties.” 73 In the case of Sai Baba, sacred
ash that allegedly comes from his body is not only a sign of his power, but it is also
a sign of his ability to heal and to play with his devotees. Moreover, his healing
miracles are indicative of his divine nature. Like all divine play, Sai Baba’s miracles
are non-rational, unpredictable, and embody unquestionable authority.74
These examples of an ability to heal those afflicted with various types of ailments
are dramatic models of the power manifested by the holy person or through the
sacred personage by a deity. The various healings or restorations to life are vivid
examples of the social nature of play, miracle, and power. In addition, miracles are
social forms of play that are directly intertwined with power. Moreover, miracles
represent an alternative way for a religious tradition to manifest power, stamp their
movement with authority, give it authenticity, and attract converts.
188 Indian Asceticism

Concluding Remarks
This chapter is a further development of the notion of play as it is related to power
with respect to the phenomenon of miracles, which are additional examples of
the play element in culture. Miracles are playful because they are indicative of a
non-rational aspect of religious culture. The series of visionary miracles of the
Buddhist bodhisattva suggests a pervasive quality, a superfluous nature. Much like
play, a miracle invites witnesses to step out of ordinary life and to experience some-
thing awesome. What play and miracle offer is an interlude in our ordinary way of
life and an opportunity to become totally free, if only for a brief time, in order to
savor the experience of wonder. Play and miracle also share a repetitive nature, a
secretive aspect, and offer the possibility of a blissful experience. Miracle and play
share the feature of agency in the sense that witnesses to miracles and players are
human or divine actors and participate in a social act. And they are both potentially
subversive. Finally, miracles and play share an incongruity along with humor.
Miracles do not, however, share all the elements of play. Miracles are closer to
a truncated form of play but not as a simple manifestation of power. If miracles
are interpreted events, play need not be interpreted, but can be simply enjoyed. In
contrast to play, miracles lead to possible communication, faith, and/or conversion
to a specific religion, whereas play does not necessarily possess any purpose or goal.
Miracles are not only closely associated with play, or aspects of play, but they are
also manifestations of power. Often times the power of miracles, as a social concep-
tion, leaves witnesses overwhelmed and bewildered. This suggests that miracles have
the power to transform the mental acuity and habits of a person’s mind. Miracles
are, of course, a power in their own right, and can give power to a witness, or they
may function as a manifestation of the power of the individual. With respect to the
examples of miraculous healings, these types of examples are indicative of the social
nature of power.
Within the traditional Indian religious context covered in this book, it is no
secret that Indians—Hindu, Buddhists, or Jains—expect the possibility of mira-
cles whether performed by a sacred personage or a divine being. Nonetheless, this
culture of expectation does not lessen the impact of miracles on subjects when
they do occur because witnesses are still awestruck by their experience as the nar-
ratives verify.
 8
Power and Theory

The nature of power has not been defined thus far in this book because
I  wanted to focus on its discourse and narrative expressions. We have witnessed
its rich diversity and its many connections to features such as the demonic, play,
and violence. In this chapter, I want to isolate power’s characteristics as a prelude to
moving toward a more comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of power.
But before I attempt this move, it is essential to consider the theoretical contribu-
tions of Gerardus van der Leeuw, a Dutch phenomenologist of religion, Mircea
Eliade, a Rumanian historian of religion, and Thomas E. Wartenberg, a field theo-
rist. Because it is arguably the most influential theory of power, the philosophy of
Michel Foucault, a French postmodern thinker, also needs to be considered in a
critical way. After elucidating Foucault’s methodological approach and theory of
power, I will put his theory to a pragmatic test based on materials from Indian cul-
ture in order to discern if his theory is applicable to a different culture.

Three Theories of Power

Van der Leeuw (d. 1950) argues that power belongs to both the subjective and objec-
tive aspects of religion. From his phenomenological perspective, he stresses the
impersonal, potent, and dangerous nature of power. With regard to the danger of
power, when a powerful person or thing is revealed to others it is set apart and dis-
tinguished from everything else around it.1 This act of distinguishing it from other
189
190 Indian Asceticism

things indicates that the powerful person or thing is dangerous and thus taboo, a
warning that the powerless person should maintain her distance and secure protec-
tion. When power is revealed in a person or thing it is being authenticated.2
According to van der Leeuw, power can become collective in the sense that
actions, thoughts, and principles of human beings can represent a collection, even
though it may be independent of its bearer. The accumulation of power constitutes
an effective potency, which can benefit an individual or group in an impersonal or
personal way. In the final analysis for van der Leeuw, power is the essence of things
and humans. Because of its dynamic nature, power tends to expand and deepen
into a universal force, implying that it is possible to discover power at the base of
religion.3 Humans respond to the potency of power with awe, amazement, and fear.
Similar to van der Leeuw, Eliade (d. 1986)  states that power is equivalent to
being, and it conquers nonbeing, making life possible within the context of a reli-
gious way of life. It is power that renders possible the being of things—animate and
inanimate—and determines the structure of things. Power is something in which
humans can participate and share with others. Power is meaningful and gives mean-
ing to life. In fact, power challenges us to find our center of being, helping a person
become master of her world. Power is, however, ambivalent because it can be both
creative and destructive.4 Therefore, any encounter with power demands care, if one
is not to be overwhelmed and overawed by it.
According to Eliade, the sacred is equivalent to power as well as being strong, effi-
cacious, durable, real, wholly other, saturated with being, and equivalent to reality.
An ordinary stone, for instance, manifests power due to its ruggedness, hardness,
and apparent permanence. By transcending the precarious human mode of being,
the sacred stone exhibits an enduring mode of being.5 What makes a stone sacred
is that it shares in a higher principle. This means that something possesses power
because it receives it from a superior force and is a sign of something beyond itself
that contains the sacred power of a hierophany, a manifestation of the sacred, for
which it is an instrument.6 Every hierophany is a kratophany, a manifestation of
force or power.7 Hierophanies and kratophanies form a system that is always greater
than individual manifestations of the sacred and its power. This implies that par-
ticular instances of the sacred and its power are part of a complete system.
For Eliade, power is ambivalent in the sense that humans can respond to power
with fear or veneration, becoming attracted or repelled by it, a process that renders
power psychologically ambivalent. Therefore, power reveals an ambivalent order of
values because it can be holy or defiled.8 Power causes humans to react to it with
attraction or withdrawal, which suggests that it is uncertain, paradoxical, and dan-
gerous. Whenever something manifests itself as a power it is unusual, mysterious,
dangerous, and set apart from ordinary experience.
 Power and Theory 191

In contrast to the phenomenological approach of van der Leeuw and the history
of religions perspective of Eliade, Thomas E.  Wartenberg offers a field theory of
social power and distinguishes between “power to” and “power over.” He turns away
from the first distinction, which is equivalent to ability or capacity, but he embraces
the second one, which is synonymous with dominion, force, or influence within the
context of socially hierarchical relationships.9 If one locates “power over” within the
context of discourse, it is possible to discern that power is not the possession of a sin-
gle person and is not an element intervening between one person and another. Not
only is power grounded in a social context, but it is also historically constituted.10
Power is dynamic and temporal in the sense that it operates as a consistent and
changing aspect of society that needs to be socially negotiated. Wartenberg locates
this dynamic and temporal entity within the context of intentional human actions.
This approach allows Wartenberg to stress the usefulness of power. It can, for exam-
ple, be used to either dominate others or transform them.11 Therefore, power is not
something static, but is rather a force that possesses the ability to compel, to intimi-
date, and to influence. A serious drawback to his theory of power from the perspec-
tive of Valantasis is that power becomes an objectified and disembodied force.12

A Postmodern Non-Theory of Power

Influenced by his reading of Friedrich Nietzsche, Foucault adopts and develops a
genealogical approach to historical materials because he wants to be able to account
for discontinuity in history. Early in his career, he espouses a method that he calls
archaeology, an intrinsically descriptive method. Archaeology is not a science or a
rationality, but it is rather a “tangle of inter-positivities whose limits and points of
intersection cannot be fixed in a single operation.”13 Rather than seeking to over-
come temporal ruptures, factual gaps, or encountered differences, Foucault thinks
that archaeology, a paradoxical notion due to its serving as both an instrument and
an object of research, allows a historian to focus on differences and avoid the ordi-
nary themes of convergence, culmination, and creation of totalities common to
traditional historical research. In addition to being devoid of any anthropological
theme, archaeology is also a comparative analysis that possesses a diversifying effect
and not a unifying result.14 Instead, archaeology discovers diversity and discontinui-
ties in the relations between discursive and nondiscursive formations, and it seeks to
undo the unifying work of historians in order to increase differences, obscure lines
of communication, and to make the connection between things more difficult.15
This decontextual type of approach abandons any theory that does not help to fully
explain the close relationship between self-inflicted violence and power in Hindu
asceticism. From one perspective, Foucault’s book on the penal system is concerned,
192 Indian Asceticism

for example, to explore the ways in which the human body is controlled by various
forms of power, which suggests that power operates by means of hidden and univer-
sal surveillance.
The genealogist cannot, however, grasp the power relations unless he/she is located
within the web of power in the present moment. Although this suggests that geneal-
ogy does not give one an objective position external to the web of power relations, it
can become effective history that is devoid of the burden of metaphysics and abso-
lutes and false claims of objectivity, but simply records historical justifications of
power. Continuing Nietzsche’s dissatisfaction with the historicism of modernity,
this type of approach does not assert any truth claims and recognizes that all knowl-
edge is relative.16 Another result of the method of genealogy is that it disconnects
history from any connection to memory and constructs a counter-memory, an active
forgetting, which tends to transform history into a totally different form of time.17
Genealogy, a radical anti-method, stands opposed to any objective identity, truth,
or reality, representing a method that is anti-structuralist, anti-phenomenological,
and anti-metaphysical. Genealogy is also anti-Hegelian because it is not concerned
with the general pattern of history and its eventual telos. The genealogist is convinced
that a person cannot attain a supra-historical standpoint by which to judge history or
trace its internal development. Foucault does appear to think, however, that the radi-
cal heterological nature of genealogy is ideally suited to capture the nature of power.
With his genealogical approach, Foucault writes that power is without essence or
structure, is not an attribute or a form of something, is not essentially repression,
subjugation, or domination of one group over another, is not acquired, and is finally
not something that can be isolated in the apparatus of a state.18 Foucault refrains
from juridical and negative representations of power, and also wants to avoid refer-
ring to it in such terms as law, prohibition, dominance, subservience, liberty, and
sovereignty.19 A couple of Foucault’s interpreters think that his account of power is
not intended to be a theory, a context-free, ahistorical, and objective description.20
In a more positive vain, Foucault asserts that power is a relation between forces.
Since force is non-singular, power always exists in relation to other forces and pos-
sesses no other object or subject than itself. Power, an all-pervasive force, cannot be
enclosed within margins because it is not located in any particular place: “It seems
to me that power is always already there; that one is never ‘outside’ it, that there
are no ‘margins’ for those who break with the system to gambol in it.”21 Although
power is all-pervasive, it is not possible to equate it with some single principle of the
cosmos.
The relational nature of power must not be understood as reflecting binary oppo-
sites because it is more like circulating air. Due to the diffuse nature of power and
its formation of a complex web of interconnections, power can never be localized
 Power and Theory 193

in a particular place or become a possession of a single person.22 Power is also mul-

tidirectional because it operates both from the top down and from the bottom up.
Moreover, it is also contextual, and can only be grasped within its context, which
in turn can only be comprehended in relation to the type of power that constitutes
the context.
Unlike some theories of power, Foucault correctly does not locate power sim-
ply within the structural apparatus of a state and view it simply in political terms.
I agree with Foucault that the exercise of power is much broader than that located
in a state because it is exercised through a network of channels and every individual
can have access to power at his/her disposal and can function as a vehicle for trans-
mitting a broader power.23 Moreover, Foucault does not perceive power in hierarchi-
cal terms, a position that suggests the equality of all power. If power is not located
within the structure of the state and is not to be conceived hierarchically, it must
be grasped within a context of continuous struggle traversing its location in which
all human beings find themselves. Thus Foucault is more interested in the internal
aspects of power rather than the outward manifestations of it. This type of power is
hidden and more difficult to grasp because it does not necessarily appear frequently
in public space.
From Foucault’s genealogical perspective, the relations of power are evident in
many kinds of economic, social, and sexual relations. By being immanent within
these kinds of relations and not exterior to them, power affects them and is also
affected itself by other relations in a mutual interrelationship of conditioning and
being conditioned, which emphasizes for Foucault that power is not simply related
to itself, but it is rather interwoven with a variety of other relations that are both
intentional and non-subjective. The intentional and non-subjective aspects of power
relations suggest that the exercise of power involves a series of aims and objectives. 24
Even though Foucault thinks that power is always there, it actually exists when
it is put into action. Power is a force that acts directly or immediately upon others,
even though the exercise of it does not necessarily imply that it occurs between one
person and another individual or between a person and a group. In fact, power does
not require a definitive perpetrator, although it does require a victim.25 The exercise
of power, a form of action, is rather a way that certain actions modify other actions.
Nonetheless, power can also impact upon present or future actions.
Foucault refers to the asymmetry of power by which he means the ubiquitous
nature of power that allows it to operate beyond fixed limits in a surreptitious way
that tends to undermine, for instance, the limits traced by the legal system.26 An
excellent example of the asymmetry of power is the Panopticon, originally designed
for a prison by the Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, conceived to have a
central observation tower surrounded by prison cells in a circular manner. Since a
194 Indian Asceticism

prisoner did not have a way to know when he/she was being watched, the incarcer-
ated individual felt visible before an invisible power.27 The Panopticon, an architec-
tural structure of control, represents an imaginative example of the micro-physics of
power that is integrated into the macro-physics of the web of power. The universal
scope of power and its ability to scrutinize others are suggested by the image of
the Panopticon, along with its ability to remain hidden while watching the actions
of unsuspecting others. This kind of universal surveillance subverts the notion of
public space. This example offers Foucault an opportunity to emphasize that power
can not only be made automatic, but it can also become deindividualized, which
elucidates its widespread distribution beyond any single possessor.
Within the interconnecting web of power for Foucault, there exists an integral
relationship between power and knowledge. In fact, they create each other: “It is
not possible for power to be exercised without knowledge, it is impossible for knowl-
edge not to engender power.”28 This does not imply that power and knowledge are
identical for Foucault, because he is rather concerned to indicate the specificity and
materiality of their interconnections in order to emphasize the intimacy of their
relation. Power and knowledge are joined together in discourse.
For Foucault, power, moreover, possesses a productive aspect:  “In fact, power
produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of objects and rituals of truth.”29
According to Foucault, sexuality is produced by power, which also possesses the
ability to create a new kind of subject with different desires and patterns of behav-
ior.30 Since power can also produce knowledge, discourse, and pleasure, it is best to
think of it as a productive network that circulates through the entire social body
but not as a commodity, position, or plot.31 By stressing the creative nature of power,
Foucault demonstrates his debt to Nietzsche and his discomfort with reducing
human striving to the will to power. But Foucault also wants to rework Nietzsche’s
will to power in a way that will moderate the intensity of power.32

A Pr agmatic Test of a Postmodern Theory of Power

There are aspects of Foucault’s reflections on power that are helpful in elucidating
features of the powers of Indian ascetics. But there are also parts of his reflections
that tend to hinder a full grasp of the Indian ascetic’s power because his reflec-
tions, despite being suggestive and creative in aspects, possesses some blind spots
due partially to his methodology that enables him to perceive differences but not
commonalities. The Indian narrative material suggests that an ability to grasp both
difference and sameness is essential to a more comprehensive theory. A review of the
Indian narrative material can also be used to create a pragmatic test to determine
the strengths and weaknesses of Foucault’s reflections on power.33
 Power and Theory 195

The close relationship between power and knowledge in the model of Foucault
is confirmed by Indian literature pertaining to the ascetic. Ascetic powers closely
associated with the power of the human mind are dramatic forms of knowing, such
as being able to see everything and know everything through the practice of tapas
(Mbh 3.205.2). In the Yoga Sūtras, several mental powers are mentioned: knowing
the past and future (3.16); knowing the cries of all creatures (3.17); knowing previ-
ous existences (3.18); knowing the mental stages of others (3.19). From the Advaita
Vedānta perspective of Śaṅkara, a person gains power by possessing knowledge; and
for Śaṅkara, it is through knowledge that one gains final release.34
Foucault tends to suggest viewing the lifestyle and behavior of the Hindu ascetic
as an exercise of disciplinary power upon his/her own body. From Foucault’s per-
spective, the body of the ascetic becomes an object to be manipulated, a technique
that regards individuals as objects and instruments of its exercise. But from an
ascetic perspective, it is necessary to discipline and control the body in order to be
detached from it.
The Indian discourse and narratives about ascetics agree with Foucault’s obser-
vation that an individual can become a vehicle of powers. Indian ascetics are not
normally encouraged, however, to exercise their powers, and are warned about being
possessed or controlled by them. Patañjali, complier of the Yoga Sūtras, comments
that siddhas (powers) represent perfections in the waking state, but he considers
them to be obstacles in the state of samādhi (absorption, enstasy; 3.37). A  good
example of a way in which ascetic powers can become an obstacle is illustrated in
the epic literature where the ascetic Jajali thinks that he is the most wonderful per-
son in the world because of his extraordinary ascetic powers. Convinced that he is
without an equal in the world, the ascetic’s prodigious pride is controlled by the wise
sage Tuladhara, who teaches the fulsome ascetic about morality (Mbh 12.261.1–61).
For many detached ascetics, powers are byproducts of the ascetic path; they are not
something that should be exercised or demonstrated to others because the acquisi-
tion and exercise of power is a trap that can further entangle one within the world.
Thus the authentic yogi or ascetic leaves his acquired powers behind him as he makes
spiritual progress (Mbh 12.288.37). Even though an individual can be a vehicle of
power and dispose of it for Foucault, power possesses a tendency to become ambigu-
ous for him/her because it passes through a number of channels though which it
is exercised. In contrast, the Indian ascetic encounters power in a less diffuse and
ambiguous manner that is more certain, at least from the perspective and certain
conviction of the ascetic and witnesses to these powers.
Despite Foucault’s claim that power acts directly on others and represents a
means by which certain actions modify other actions, this is not necessarily the case
because the exercise of power may have nothing to do with modifying the actions of
196 Indian Asceticism

others. The exercise of power may be a response to a condition that needs to be mod-
ified, and Indian epic literature affords an example. While on his begging rounds,
the Nātha ascetic Bharthari, a former king, gets into a quarrel with the female of
the house, ending with her insulting him and him responding by cursing her. In
another instance, the ascetic is critical of a prideful dairymaid and draws a compari-
son for her of his former luxurious life and the power of time to change things. After
leaving her house and arriving at a yogi camp, he sends Bhairuji, a fellow ascetic, to
curse her and destroy her possessions. Aggravated at the arrival of another yogi, the
dairymaid insults the ascetic. Being hot tempered, Bhairuji responds to her insult
by cursing her to lose her livestock to wild predators. She rushes to seek the help
of others, after failing to recognize the cause-and-effect relationship between her
insult and the resulting curse by the ascetic. When she does realize the situation
she seeks to make restitution to the yogis and constructs a fair at which food is
distributed to ascetics.35 This story and others indicates that the power manifested
in the discourse and narratives about the ascetic is opposed to Foucault’s assertion
that power is widely distributed and not the possession of a single person because
Indian literature tends to emphasize the individual possessor of the power. An ear-
lier cited example calls attention to an ascetic who paralyzed the arm of Indra as the
god started to hurl his thunderbolt at the ascetic, who also creates a fearsome and
uncontrollable demon to threaten the god (Mbh 3.124.11–24). This story illustrates
the concentration of power in a single individual to the extent of having control over
a mighty deity. Although Foucault makes an important contribution to the under-
standing of the nature of power by stressing its interconnected nature, he needs to
balance his viewpoint by acknowledging that power can be possessed by particu-
lar individuals to such an extent that it surpasses the power at any single point of
its interrelated network. This shortcoming and Foucault’s emphasis on the diffuse
nature of power are good examples of his method of genealogy and its focus on
discontinuity, heterogeneous systems, and difference shaping his view of the nature
of power.
Foucault’s view of power also does not make allowance for the possibility of
the accidental nature of power and a radical form of freedom. The vast majority
of Indian thinkers treat ascetic powers as a byproduct or signs about progress on
the ascetic path, although Tantric-influenced ascetics represent an exception to
the general rule because they adopt the ascetic lifestyle precisely in order to attain
power. Moreover, the majority of Indian ascetics want to escape from the limita-
tions inherently imposed by their gross physical bodies and freedom from time and
space, whereas Foucault’s theory does not seem to allow for such a radical form of
freedom. In other words, Foucault does not enhance the possibility of making sense
of a person who is an embodiment of sacred power, is a manifestation of radical,
 Power and Theory 197

nonpolitical freedom, and surpasses the ordinary human condition. Along a similar
line of argument, a critic of Foucault does not think that his model of power allows
for individual autonomy or an identity independent of power.36 If we place the
Hindu ascetic within the context of Foucault’s notion of power and its interrelated
network of power relationships, it does not seem possible for the ascetic to gain, as
Eliade claims is possible for such a figure, spiritual autonomy.37
Indian narratives and discourse about power tend not to depict an ascetic using
his/her powers to produce reality, such as Foucault claims is possible for power,
although it is possible for the Indian ascetic to create illusions. The ascetic Cyavāna,
for instance, creates a palatial mansion made of gold, and he disappears as King
Kusika approaches the throne upon which he is reclining. And the ascetic reap-
pears to the king later in the forest by utilizing his mastery of the illusory power of
māyā (Mbh 14.54.24–37). If the Indian ascetic is searching for reality, a permanent
condition beyond the flux of time and space, Foucault does not agree that a perma-
nent reality can be discovered because one does not possess a center from which to
discover another center.38 Moreover, Foucualt claims that there is no permanent
self that would enable one to achieve a center. What Foucault offers is a fictive self
formed by a multitude of heterogenous systems and simultaneously undermines at
the same time any stable nature that it might achieve over time.39
Foucault and the Indian discourse about power do agree that the possession of
power gives its possessor control over other subjects and objects. Enough narratives
and discourse about power enable us to see that the ascetic seeks to be near power,
to participate in it, to share in it, and to gain it for himself because power is closely
associated with control over oneself, other subjects or objects, and even with the
cosmos. By having power, the Indian ascetic gains control over being and becoming.
Or as Parry argues for the Aghori ascetic, he possesses the power to convert death
into life.40
According to Foucault, it is not necessary for us to fear power because its network
of relations is something within which we are apt to find ourselves. Many Indian
ascetics would agree with Foucualt to a certain extent that one need not fear power.
Writing about ascetic practice among the Rāmānandī sect in northern India, Peter
van der Veer notes that an accumulation of tapas (power) among the tyagis, a class
of ascetics, is regarded as both ambiguous and dangerous by them, and that it takes
a considerable effort to contain it.41 Moreover, the Indian layperson, according to
traditional textual evidence, is very fearful of the powers of the ascetic. A narrative
indicates that an ascetic seeks to marry the king’s daughter with the intention of
returning to the life of a lay person. Even though the king did not want to adhere to
the wishes of the ascetic, he confides to his wife that he is afraid that the powerful
ascetic would burn him with a fire created by the renouncer’s curse (Mbh 3.95.1–4).
198 Indian Asceticism

In Indian literature, responses of awe, wonder, astonishment, or fear by laity to dem-

onstrations of ascetic power indicate another shortcoming in Foucault’s notion of
power, because he does not account for any individual response to power.
Finally, Foucault perceives an intimate relationship between power and truth.
Foucault clarifies their relationship:  “We are subjected to the production of truth
through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of
truth.”42 This position does not mean that Foucault thinks that there is a connection
between truth and the essence of something because a particular thing does not possess
any essence from the methodological perspective of genealogy. Moreover, Foucault’s
conception of truth does not have anything to do with the transcendental or the cogito.
From his genealogical perspective, any belief in the efficacy of value, truth, or meaning
is illusory.43 For many Hindu ascetics, truth is a power that possesses the ability to set
one free and is identical with ultimate reality (BĀU 5.4.1; ChU 6.16.3).

Violence and Power

Chapters  4 and 5 have previously called attention to the intimate connection
between the ascetic lifestyle and violence. As noted previously, the connection
between violence and power in the life of an ascetic is not an apparition, exception,
or peculiarity of the ascetic life that is falsely assumed to be nonviolent. Despite
taking a vow of nonviolence, many ascetics/yogis/monks/nuns demonstrate by the
actions depicted in narratives that violence is rather an essential component of their
lifestyle. It is thus a false and superficial impression to imagine that an ascetic is an
irenic figure because there is enough evidence to dispel any misleading impression
about the nonviolent nature of the ascetic regimen. Ascetics not only inflict violence
upon themselves, but many narrative accounts show them inflicting pain on others,
including humans, demons, and gods by means of curses, whereas Foucault’s notion
of power tends to deemphasize violence.
According to Foucault’s model, violence is not part of the basic nature of power: “In
itself the exercise of power is not violence; nor is it consent which, implicitly, is renew-
able.”44 This does not mean that the play of power relations excludes violence. Rather
than their constituting the principle nature of power, Foucault understands consensus
and violence as instruments or results of power. Foucault’s grasp of the relationship
between power, a relation between forces, and violence is interpreted by Deleuze in
the following manner: “Violence acts on specific bodies, objects or beings whose form
it destroys or changes, while it has no object other than that of other forces, and no
being other than that of relation . . . ”45 Even though Foucault wants to define power in
an nonconfrontational and nonadversarial way, he still recognizes that a relationship
of power involves potentially a strategy of struggle.
 Power and Theory 199

With regard to the Indian ascetic, this is an aspect of Foucault’s theory of power
that does not advance an understanding of the violence associated with the ascetic
regimen. The ascetic’s practice of making parts of him/herself sacrificial offerings
or sacrificing his/her entire being and the often subsequent acquisition of various
kinds of powers are indicative of a close relationship between violence and power
that Foucault’s theory does not adequately explain. The close relationship between
power and violence among ascetics evident in Indian texts is confirmed by the
anthropological fieldwork in northern India by Peter van der Veer who discovered
ascetics inflicting violence on themselves in order to acquire power over their bod-
ies, nature, and society.46 Although the power gained by the ascetic might not be
violent in and of itself, it does have an intimate relationship with violence.
The intimate relationship between violence and power for the Indian ascetic is
evident in narratives discussed in ­chapters 4 and 5, and it is also confirmed by the
anthropological fieldwork of Robert Lewis Gross and his findings, as already dis-
cussed in c­ hapter  4, of extreme forms of asceticism and self-inflicted violence by
Śaiva Naga ascetics on their penises by inserting large brass rings through them.47
These procedures represent an attempt to control sexual desire, to retain power
gained through the practice of asceticism, and to terminate any possibility of ever
losing power by sexual drives. This type of scenario tends to confirm an der Veer’s
conclusion about Rāmānandī ascetics as discussed in c­ hapter 4.48
The relationship between power and violence in Foucualt’s theory cannot do jus-
tice to the ascetic, who represents the perfect victim because he/she exists on the
outside or on the fringe of society after renouncing the world in the Indian cultural
context to pursue his/her goal, which can be define as liberation, acquisition of pow-
ers, or a combination of both.
A possible reason for the failure of Foucault’s conception of power to adequately
account for violence is that power for him is not equivalent to repression, and is not
a confrontation between competing adversaries. Power is exercised only over free
individuals, and it involves “guiding the possibility of conduct and putting in order
the possible outcome.”49

Additional Critical Perspectives

The previous pragmatic test of Foucault’s grasp of power demonstrates some prob-
lematic areas with respect to his notion of power when applied to Indian discourses
and narratives about ascetic power. This would not present a problem for Foucault
because he did not let contrary evidence stand in the way because there are no his-
torical facts, just fictions created by writers. From a positive perspective, Foucault’s
model of power helps us to grasp power’s close relationship with knowledge and
200 Indian Asceticism

truth in Indian discourses and narratives. His model of power also enables us to see
more clearly the lifestyle and behavior of the ascetic as an exercise of disciplinary
power upon the body. Foucault also contributes to our understanding of the ascetic
as a vehicle of power and an exerciser of control over others.
There are also some problems with Foucault’s notion of power because the Indian
material suggests that the ascetic is a powerful figure even if he does not exercise
his power. While Foucault views power as an interrelated network, the Hindu
ascetic sees a potential danger of entanglement within such a network. Moreover,
the Indian ascetic tends to view power in a more hierarchical way, whereas Foucault
views power as equal and part of a general network. Power is less diffuse and ambig-
uous for the ascetic in contrast to Foucault’s position. Many ascetics remain open to
the possibility of discovering the single source of power, whereas Foucault wants to
stress the diffuse, ambiguous, and heterogeneous nature of power. A critical obser-
vation that applies to Foucault is made by Edith Wyschogrod who accuses such
postmodern thinking of being henophobic: “The attack on unity is bound up with
postmodernism’s anti-foundationalism, its antipathy toward the notion that there
is a privileged source of truth and meaning, whether a transcendent divine Other
or human consciousness.”50 Obviously, this is a major shortcoming of Foucault’s
notion of power from the Indian cultural viewpoint.
We have also noticed that Foucault cannot universally claim that power modi-
fies the actions of others because there is counter evidence in Indian literature that
sometimes a use of power is a response to a condition that needs to be corrected
by an ascetic. Although evidence suggests that power can be widely disseminated
in the Indian context, there is also evidence that it is more likely to be depicted as
being possessed by a single person. Foucault also does not account for the possible
accidental nature of power. Moreover, his notion of power does not allow for the
possibility of the radical kind of freedom for which the ascetic exerts him/herself.
The lack of a subject, truth, and liberation are also problematic in Foucault’s
notion of power. Foucault’s convictions about power being able to produce real-
ity and the fictive nature of the self places his philosophical position in obvious
opposition to the world-views of some Hindu ascetics, which is to be expected,
but it also locates his thought in opposition to many contemporary western phi-
losophers. By rejecting a theory of power in which a person or group exercises con-
trol over another person or group, Foucault substitutes a notion of power without
a subject, which Charles Taylor calls ultimately an incoherent position.51 Jürgen
Habermas agrees with Taylor about the incoherence of Foucault’s position due to
his combining certain empiricist ontological presuppositions with an idealist con-
ception of transcendental synthesis. According to Habermas, Foucault cannot find
a way out of the philosophy of the subject, “because the concept of power that is
 Power and Theory 201

supposed to provide a common denominator for the contrary semantic compo-

nents has been taken from the repertoire of the subject itself.”52 Rather than criti-
cizing Foucault for the absence of the subject, Richard Rorty states that the French
scholar is not a concerned critic of the social order because he is more of a dispas-
sionate observer in whose writings no “we” can be discovered.53 As we have noticed
with respect to the emphasis by some Hindu ascetic theorists on the importance of
being detached from powers gained while practicing asceticism, Foucault does not
seem to think that it is possible to become liberated from power because a liberat-
ing truth is a profound illusion and no truth can stand for long against systems of
power, whereas Taylor wants to assert that power is nonsensical without the idea
of liberation.54
Two additional shortcomings of Foucault’s model of power are his failure to
clarify the nature of an individual’s response to power and his lack of insight into
the relation between power, violence, and play. The narrative material depicting the
close relationship between violence and power indicates a serious gap in Foucault’s
model of power. Even though one can understand why Foucault did not want to
include violence within the fundamental definition of power, it is still important
for him to do a better job accounting for it. However, a more positive contribution
of Foucault’s notion of power is made to the subject of Indian asceticism by its abil-
ity to help one grasp that power does not need to be conceived in relation to public
authority or space, a feature that the power of the ascetic tends to confirm.
For the historian of religions, Foucault’s method of genealogy, which is intended
to uncover the beginnings of discourse formations, presents a challenge because
it wants to negate, following the inspiration of Nietzsche, traditional presupposi-
tions of historical consciousness and divorce itself from the use of hermeneutics or
Verstehen. Foucault also wants to sever the connection between the historian with
his/her object of study. Although thinkers such as Taylor, Habermas, and Rorty do
not think that Foucault is successful, Foucault wants to terminate universal histori-
ography in order to focus on the ruptures, margins, and changes of history. The kind
of history that Foucualt sees emerging is without any causal connections, lacking
any teleology, without any discernible progress or evolution, and devoid of any pos-
sibility for reconciliation. By adopting Foucualt’s method and theory of discourse,
a historian would be unable to synthesize his/her material or find any meaningful
patterns in history because he/she would encounter a plurality of spheres of dis-
course that appear and disappear in an irregular manner. Since historical accuracy
appears to be impossible and relativism is predominant, the scholar is forced to give
historical fictions.
Foucault is a different kind of so-called historian because he is concerned with the
margins and ruptures of history. This genealogical historian is probably best grasped
202 Indian Asceticism

as functioning as a Nietzschean prophet of power. Since they cannot be absolutely

ascertained, Foucault is less concerned with historical accuracy and truth than he is
committed to politically overturning the static Apollonian order and ushering in a
dynamic and creative ear of Dionysian disorder.
Finally, Foucault fails to see the play element in power that is amply proven by
the many examples provided in ­chapters  6 and 7.  These chapters call attention
to the role of the comic, the erotic, and miracle, although he does see the role of
power within language. And he intimates recognition of the role of the demonic
within power.

Toward an Alternative Notion of Power

I want to think about the notion of power prior to the time of sexual interrelation-
ships, hierarchical relationships, and social, psychological, economic, and political
forms of power. It is probably best to think of this as an experiment. In order to do
this, I propose to consider the nature of power prior to the context of Indian asceti-
cism. Then, I want to recontextualize power within the context of Indian asceti-
cism, and examine the features that it manifests in this cultural setting in order to
highlight many of its aspects that are suggested by the material covered in this book.
It has been revealed that the various forms of Indian asceticism occurred within
a specific social and cultural context that changed over time. We have also called
attention to the way the ascetic acquires powers through means of his/her own dis-
cipline and efforts, but this regimen of practice does not occur outside of an already
shaped cultural context with its pre-given social and political structures. Although
ascetically acquired power occurs within an already established religio-cultural con-
text, these powers suggest features of themselves that develop later and enrich the
already established cultural context.
A basic presupposition of my position is that we can think or imagine a moment
before power manifests itself, which is a time before the acquisition of power, its
exercise, or the influence of culture upon it. Based on this fundamental presupposi-
tion, it can be affirmed that the manifestation of power or its exercise is an event
(Ereignis). As an event, power is free from rules, concepts, or principles of disorder.
The event of power is prior to any recipient, expression, manifestation, or exercise of
power. The event of power is spacing, a place where it can take place, a point of time
and space where power does not give itself and cannot be acquired.55 To search for
power is to seek the impossible, but yet ascetics become powerful according to the
testimony of Indian narrative sources and religio-philosophical discourses on the
subject. In this sense, the ascetic seeks the impossible, which is a kind of madness, a
double ligature of the rational and irrational.
 Power and Theory 203

The event of power is characterized by its repetitive nature. For those ascetics
who hold power, when they exercise it they are involved in a repetitive process. As
the repetitive event appears, it quickly disappears. Overall, this repetitive aspect of
power points to how unthinkable and difficult it is to comprehend. The repetitive
nature of power as an event is contrary to a repetition of ordinary habits and memo-
ries. Rather the repetitive nature of power tends to be disruptive of common ways of
acting and knowing. Repetition points to the subverting of common expectations
about the limits of human beings, and is indicative of its paradoxical nature.
Power is paradoxical in several ways:  pleasurable and painful; cohesive and
non-cohesive; visible and invisible; structure and anti-structure; horizontal and
vertical; precise and imprecise; increase and decrease; danger and protection.56 The
narratives and discourse about Indian ascetics testify to these examples of power’s
paradoxical nature, and we need not cover and repeat all the paradoxes at this point.
In previous chapters, power appears as a danger and protection. Power is a potential
danger to the ascetic who holds it, and represents a danger to anyone despite their
exalted socio-political status. Besides being a source of danger to its possessor or
potential victim, power also suggests protection. Based on fieldwork in northern
Thailand and finding a nexus of ideas and practices that she labels “power-protection,”
Tannenbaum elaborates that “[i]‌f one has access to power, one is protected; if one
is protected, one has the power or freedom to do as one chooses.”57 Besides being
paradoxical, protective, and dangerous, power manifests numerous other features.
Assuming that it does not become impotent, power renders possible the being of
things—animate and inanimate—and determines the structure of things. In short,
power is intimately intertwined with being. As evident in the Vedic creation hymn
depicting Indra’s victory over the demon Vṛtra (8.25), the being of power conquers
nonbeing and makes life possible. Although we may begin by presupposing the
existence of power, it is only real to the extent that it actualizes itself. Since a reli-
gious person can participate in it and share power with others, it helps such a person
affirm life by overcoming the threat of non-power, of non-life, or of negation.
Even though power may be impersonal within a particular religious tradition, it is
meaningful and gives meaning to life. In a sense, power, whatever form it may take,
challenges us to find meaning. Moreover, it challenges us to find concomitantly our
center of being. This is significant because the more centered one is the more one
can control one’s individual situation and oneself. To be more centered suggests
being self-related and more interrelated with others, although it does not necessar-
ily imply being simply egocentric. Thus one is more self-aware and more aware of
others. Of course, power can also set an individual bearer of it apart from others, an
unavoidable possibility in some cases. Self-centeredness also suggests being in con-
trol or being powerful. At the same time, to possess power is to be possessed by it.
204 Indian Asceticism

By possessing power and discovering meaning, we find that power provides us space
in which to live.
According to Aristotle, everything in the world possesses the power to operate in
a distinctive way, depending on what kind of thing it is. Thus everything possesses
a drive, impulse, or tendency, which Aristotle calls hormē. This hormē is implanted
into each thing for it to realize its potential. What is the hormē of power? The drive
of power is to empower, suggesting that power gives itself, increases itself, and
enhances itself. As power generates itself, it increases itself and takes command over
the previous stage of power. To pause or to rest at any stage of empowering suggests
the commencement of impotence. This observation suggests the ebb and flow of
power, or its increase and decrease over time.
Religious beings are drawn toward power and are repelled by it. When they
encounter or gain power human reaction to it involves a wide variety of conflicting
reactions. These human reactions for either ascetic or non-ascetic subjects include
delight, wonder, astonishment, and pleasure from a positive perspective, but it also
involves terror, disgust, fear, or dread.
Our ontological experience also informs us that power is ambivalent: creative and
destructive, another paradoxical feature. Due to the ambivalent character of power,
when we draw it into ourselves we can either be strengthened or weakened by it.
An encounter with power demands care, if we are not to be overwhelmed and over-
awed by it.
The human encounter with power, an event, always occurs within language. It
is within language that the event of power subsists and manifests itself within the
world. The numerous prior examples of narrative expressions about the power of the
ascetic provide ample evidence of power’s intimate interconnection with language,
especially with curses and mantras.
As a force within the world, power suggests strength or potency. It affects things
to some degree and manifests degrees within itself when it reveals itself in the world.
For the individual possessing power, its acquisition gives its holder mastery over
something or someone. It enables a holder of it to reach out beyond oneself.
Since there appear to be degrees of power, how can we measure it? We can only
measure power when we encounter it. In other words, when power manifests itself
we can measure it, but never to our complete satisfaction because it is so elusive.
Thus we can never be absolutely certain in our final calculations because power
always remains an ultimately mysterious and subtle event.
Power affects things by forcing them to move or behave in a certain manner.
Aristotle refers to the capacity to do something as dynamis and the putting of
power to work or the working of force as energia. As a dynamic, energetic force,
power possesses a controlling aspect because it can coerce certain actions and even
 Power and Theory 205

prohibit other actions.58 When power actualizes itself its controlling nature is
manifested, and the religious person is compelled by it to react in a certain way. In
short, power is the exercise of force. By itself, power presupposes something over
which it exerts force. This fundamental presupposition about power suggests that
power is never isolated because it must necessarily, by an inner dynamic, exert force
over something. By its force of compulsion, it coerces that which it encounters and
controls it.
Due to its nature, religious persons seek to be near power, to participate in it,
to share in it, and to gain it for themselves because power offers one control over
oneself, other people, gods, demons, other things, or the cosmos. In the context of
Indian asceticism, power gives one control over being and becoming. To achieve
control is an instance of power extending beyond itself. In summary, power suggests
ontological, psychological, social, and cosmological implications.
Directly related to its ontological aspect, power embodies temporal and spatial
aspects. As affirmed at the beginning of this book, power is ubiquitous; it is located
within and beyond a person; it is located everywhere and nowhere; it is between
things or persons, assuming a pervasive presence and absence. It flows in space and
time horizontally across, vertically from top to bottom and bottom to top, and
obliquely at an angle.
In addition to its ontological and spatial dimension, power is also intertwined
with time. Within the flux of time, the ascetic experiences and exercises power. The
Bhagavad Gītā (11.32) insightfully equates God (Krishna) and time:  “I am Time
(Death), cause of destruction of the world.” This passage indicates that power is
intertwined with time and destruction. On the human level of existence, time ulti-
mately destroys power, suggesting that time is more powerful than any acquired
power. This suggests that as one gains power, one’s horizon of power and interre-
lationships grow. As one loses power, one’s horizon diminishes along with its web
of interrelationships. This implies that power is relative to person, place, and time.
With respect to the Indian ascetic, power is never absolute for an extended period
of time.
Appearing as an event, power subsists within a spatio-temporal sphere in which
it brings about either positive or negative effects as is evident in the narratives previ-
ously presented to the reader. The event of power inscribes itself in a spatio-temporal
order that also grounds the narrative of power. The narrative holds the secretive and
hidden aspect of power because the event nature of power is intertwined with lan-
guage. With respect to time, power arrives at the instant of an in-between or liminal
time, a disjunction between before and after.
If earthly ascetic power eventually succumbs to time, this suggests the apocalyp-
tic nature of time, whereas the apocalyptic nature of power is a feature that points
206 Indian Asceticism

to its dangerous nature and its excessiveness. This implies that hidden within power
is a lack of orderliness and moderation. Power is excessive because it gives rise to an
event of madness, which is associated with violence. The violence of power annuls
and overwhelms those against which it is directed. At the same time, it traps its
holder as it inflicts pain against or controls others. Within the violent context of
this scenario, power makes the ascetic an ontological terrorist because he/she is not
unwilling to exercise their acquired power. This observation is not mere groundless
hyperbole, but is a position that takes seriously the self-inflicted and other-inflicted
violence of the ascetic as confirmed by discourse and narrative evidence about the
powers and motivations of an ascetic.
Based on the discussion about the Indian ascetic gaining and losing power, it was
previously noted that gaining power gives the ascetic one type of experience, while
losing power results in a contrary type of experience. This type of scenario suggests
that power increases and decreases depending on the circumstances of the ascetic.
There is thus an ebb and flow to power as acquired or loss by an ascetic. Taking
into consideration previous discourse and narratives about power within Indian
culture, this strongly suggests that power is not something that is permanent. Thus,
its impermanent nature is related to its dynamic nature, implying that power is not
something static.

Power and Its Relations with Other Phenomena

In the fourth chapter, Indian discourses and narrative sources called attention to
the close relationship between power and violence. By means of a difficult regimen
of practice, the ascetic becomes a powerful person with the ability to inflict harm
upon others. The ascetic can also use curses, a form of harmful language, to cause
pain or transform another person as evident by the many examples provided in
­chapter 5, giving us an opportunity to recognize that language is a tool of power.
In addition to being intertwined with violence, power is also interconnected with
the demonic and its violence. Chapter 4 demonstrates the connection between the
demonic and power. Narratives of demonic beings practicing asceticism are given
to show that asceticism helps a demon gain more power or boons from the gods.
Violence is thus not without a goal, senseless, or irrational. Violence is a developing
socio-cultural phenomenon that follows a pattern of theatrical action that commu-
nicates meaning; it is a force that can be excessive, features that it shares with power.
Besides its intimate connection to violence, power shares certain features with the
demonic. Power and the demonic are almost mirror images of each other. Power
and the demonic are potentially or actually creative, while also sharing the ability
to destroy. They are also both uncanny, although they are so for different reasons.
 Power and Theory 207

As manifested in the behavior of an ascetic, power demonstrates heterology, an

unthinkable nature, paradoxically creative or destructive, and an excessive nature
by which it can disrupt and/or subvert others or things.
An aspect of power that tends to get missed is the following:  Intrinsic to the
nature of power is its excessiveness, which is illustrated by its playfulness. As evident
in c­ hapters 6 and 7, the narrative evidence about Indian ascetics points to the play-
ful nature of power. The spirit of this playfulness is captured by a narrative from the
Jain tradition about Pādalipta and how he plays with his devotees. Concealing his
true identity, he plays with some children until a group of monks arrive desiring to
challenge him to a debate, another kind of play. Proceeding with these monks to
the monastery, he plays with them by imitating the sound of a rooster, intending
to call attention to lax sleeping behavior. Then Pādalipta makes the sound of a cat
and blesses them, making them fall at his feet and praising him.59 By transforming
himself into something else, Pādalipta playfully transforms others into joining him
in a devotional game in which he is the acknowledged winner.
Play embodies the characteristics of an interlude in our lives that can create an
“as if” world. It shares with power the following features: an event with a begin-
ning and end, something interpersonal and interrelational, repetitive, uncertain,
and risky. The shared characteristics of power and play do not mean that they can be
equated. But it does suggest that power possesses play elements, which is suggested
by the many narratives in the Indian religious tradition.
The erotic and comic are other types of play. The erotic shares with power the
features of control, excessiveness, and repetitive nature. Power and the erotic are
also seductive. Once a person is seduced there is little that can be done to satisfy
such a figure because he/she becomes captive to either power or the erotic. The
comic offers protection as well as power does, while also disrupting and subverting
socio-cultural structures and pretensions, which is certainly within the potential of
power to accomplish.
The comic can be used to make a philosophical and sociological point. It is possi-
ble to find this type of intention by a thinker in the most ancient of the Upaniṣadic
texts (BĀU 3.1–2). In this narrative, King Janaka calls together all the Brahmin
sages in his kingdom, ties sacks of gold to the horns of ten thousand cows, and then
announces to the sages present that the wisest among them could drive away the
cows. None of them dared until Yājñavalkya told his pupil to drive them to his
house. Questioned and challenged by other Brahmins about whether or not he is
the wisest among them, he replies “No. I merely wanted the cows  . . . We bow hum-
bly to the most learned man! But we are really after the cows, aren’t we?” Why did
Yājñavalkya act in this way? He wants to get beyond priestly pretension and convic-
tions about inherent feelings of superiority. Yājñavalkya is saying that these learned
208 Indian Asceticism

men are really greedy behind their pious priestly facade, and he uses a humorous
remark to cut through the upper caste pretense. This type of humorous dialogue
and other narratives about the adventures of ascetics make it evident that the ascetic
can stand outside of him/herself by embracing the playful element of the erotic and
comic. Overall, play is a type of power that makes something happen.
The final example of play reviewed in c­ hapter 7 was the performance of miracles
that offend our sense of rationality. It was noted that miracles are transgressive, sub-
versive, excessive, and performative, which are features that give rise to wonder on
the part of witnesses. By representing an interlude in our lives, miracles share this
feature with play, and other features such as secrecy, repetition, and possibility of
a blissful experience, although in the final analysis miracles are a truncated form
of play because they do not share all the characteristics of play. Miracles are public
demonstrations of power, even though witnesses may become mentally bewildered
and emotionally overwhelmed. As a direct manifestation of power, miracles can
give power or represent the demonstration of power by a religious figure.
Indian narratives and discourses about power enable us to recognize power as an
excessive gift that can be given by a higher power or earned by arduous practice. The
typical Indian ascetic gives him/herself up completely. Oftentimes, this is expressed
as making of parts or the whole of oneself into a sacrificial gift. With nothing valu-
able to give as an offering, the ascetic makes a gift of him/herself, an ultimate pot-
latch gift.
With all these features of the event of power, a reader might be tempted to con-
clude that power is easily recognizable by any discerning person. This opinion is
based on a false assumption because in the final analysis power is difficult to under-
stand. What makes it difficult to comprehend is that in the final analysis power is
uncanny.
Is there a feature of power that unifies all of its characteristics? Running like a
thread that holds power’s features together and its association with violence, the
demonic, play, comic, erotic, performance of miracles, and healings, the common
feature is the feeling of the uncanny, which involves something strange, weird, and
mysterious. The uncanny disturbs what is normal and habitual on both the social
and personal levels of life. The uncanny is associated with repetition, an inherent
compulsion to repeat. It is also connected to an experience of liminality. With rela-
tion to the strangeness associated with liminality, the uncanny is never far removed
from the comic, humor, irony, incongruity, and laughter.60 The uncanny is also con-
nected to storytellers and their narrative creations, but is not a literary genre because
it overflows or exceeds literature.61
Not only is power uncanny, but so is asceticism that teaches a person about pain-
ful experience, questions prevailing norms, and renders a person uncertain at one
 Power and Theory 209

point, although it holds out the hope and even anticipation of achieving something
more certain. Just as the event of power suddenly reveals itself to a witness, this sud-
den revelation is consistently uncanny for witnesses or those subjected to the might
of power. The uncanny nature of power often surprises the ascetic with its force or
energy as well as the witness or victim.
With respect to Indian ascetics, we become aware how Indian religio-philosophical
discourse, narratives, and hagiographical accounts of their adventures use the force
of imagination to conjure various incidents of displays of power. This force of the
human imagination hovers over power and associated features such as violence, the
demonic, and play. What is a unity (power) cannot be completely unified with what
is not unifiable (other related phenomena). Sallis clarifies what is occurring: “Its hov-
ering is a gathering; it gathers the horizon around the upsurge of presence, though
in a sense that yokes together the opposed drafts of bringing together and setting
apart.”62 What Sallis means is that the imagination can bring together disparate ele-
ments that do not ordinarily form a unity. This implies that Indian authors attempt
to bring together elements that do not obviously go with power when writing about
ascetics, but by the power of their imagination they can make it happen.
In general terms, what Indian imaginative authors create with their conception
of the ascetic is a contradictory, ambiguous, and liminal being. To be portrayed as
a liminal being means that one stands between positions assigned by law, custom,
social convention, or ceremony. Within this ill-defined status, the ascetic is neither
here nor there, which means that an ascetic lives in an in-between realm. The lim-
inal, ambiguous ascetic stands opposed to structure and order. From this nebulous
position, the ascetic works at gathering together as much power as possible. Instead
of being encompassed by the power of the state, the ascetic gathers together power,
is encompassed by it, and oftentimes directs his/her power at already established
political holders of power. The ascetic more often wins this playful competition
between holders of powers because the ascetic’s powers are spiritual, which in the
Indian cultural context trumps political power.

Concluding Comments
Power is an elusive, diverse, and ubiquitous phenomenon that is uncanny, rendering
it difficult to precisely define it. Since it is an event that is uncanny, it seems prefer-
able to view power within the context of its many associations with phenomena
such as violence and playfulness that includes humor, erotic, miracle, and healing.
These various associations of power are pieces of the puzzle that is power.
The context in which asceticism occurs suggests that gaining power is the begin-
ning and end of the religious quest. Power is inherent to the nature of religion, and
210 Indian Asceticism

can be used to define it, which some scholars have done. Possessing power or being
near a source of it is a means of coping with the uncertainties of human life. The
acquisition of power does not have to come from the practice of asceticism because
in certain contexts reliance upon a divine being, ritual, prayer, or pilgrimage can
satisfy one’s need for power. By whatever means one uses to acquire it, power makes
its possessor comfortable and confident that one can cope with the uncertainties
of life. When scholars such as van der Leeuw and Eliade equate religion and power
they are on the right theoretical path. From one perspective, religion is the quest
for and acquisition of power, which helps the religious person survive in a hostile
world. Thus any attempt to define the nature of religion must include the role of
power along with its association with violence, demonic, and many modes of play. It
must be acknowledged, however, that the relationship between power and religion
is ambiguous.63 Thus, when considering the relationship between power and reli-
gion an individual should proceed with caution.
 Notes

Chapter 1

1. See Graham Harvey, Animism:  Respecting the Living World (New  York:  Columbia
University Press, 2006).
2. William K.  Mahony, The Artful Universe:  An Introduction to the Vedic Religious
Imagination (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 51.
3. The best single book on the subject of tapas is the following: Walter O. Kaelber, Tapta
Marga: Asceticism and Initiation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989). See also
his essays, “The Brāhmacarin: Homology and Continuity in Brāhmanic Religion,” History of
Religions 21/1 (1981): 77–99 and “Tapas, Birth, and Spiritual Rebirth in the Veda,” History of
Religions 15/4 (1976): 343–386.
4. For a fuller discussion of importance of cooking, see Charles Malamoud, Cooking the
World: Ritual Thought in Ancient India, trans. David White (Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1998).
5. Mahony, Artful Universe, p. 28.
6. See H. W.  Köhler, Śraddhā in der vedischen und alt-buddhistischen Literatur, ed. K.
L. Janert (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1973).
7. Hara Minoru, “Tapo-Dharma,” Acta Asiatica 19 (1970): 62–63.
8. Jan Gonda, Die Religionen Indiens I:  Veda und alterer Hinduismus (Stuttgart:  W.
Kohlhammer, 1960), 184–185. Tapas is akin to a mystical substance that gives the ascetic’s
body a magical power, according to Hermann Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Stuttgart: J.
G. Cotta’Sche, 1923), 403, 423.
9. Mahony, Artful Universe, 118.
10. Jan Gonda, Notes on Brahman (Utrecht: J. L. Beyers, 1950), 43.

211
212 Notes
11. Wilhelm Halbfass disputes the authenticity of this commentary that is attributed to
Śaṅkara in Tradition and Reflection: Explorations in Indian Thought (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1991).
12. Śaṅkara, Śaṅkara on the Yoga-Sūtras: The Vivaraṅa Sub-Commentary of Vyāsabhāṣa on
the Yoga-Sūtras of Pātañjali, 2 vols., trans. Trevor Leggett (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1981), II: 3–4.
13. Ibid., I: 90.
14. Martin Riesebrodt calls the ascetic a “religious virtuoso” because of the way that the
ascetic earns his identity through self-discipline and not simply by inheriting his status.
Riesebrodt identifies three persistent characteristics of an ascetic:  creation of a new person,
transformation of the ascetic’s social identity, and a spiritual transformation in The Promise of
Salvation: A Theory of Religion, trans. Steven Rendall (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2010), 126–127.
15. See Jan Gonda, Religionen Indiens, I:  287 n.  11; Joachim Friedrich Sprockhoff,
Samnyasa:  Quellenstudien sur Askese im Hinduismus, Abhandlungen für Die Kunde
Morgenlandes 42/1 (Wiesbaden:  Kommissionverlag Franz Steiner GMBH, 1976), 5;
Pandurang Vaman Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, 5 vols. (Poona:  Bhandarkar Research
Institute, 1953–1973), II/1: 425.
16. Patrick Olivelle, The Āśrama System:  The History and Hermeneutics of a Religious
Institution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 16.
17. Jan Gonda, Change and Continuity in Indian Religion (The Hague: Mouton, 1965), 294.
18. Sondra L.  Hausner, Wandering with Sadhus:  Ascetics in the Hindu Himalayas
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007.), 43.
19. See Geoffrey Galt Harpham, The Ascetic Imperative in Culture and Criticism
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).
20. Gavin Flood, The Ascetic Self: Subjectivity, Memory, and Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2004), ix.
21. Elisabeth A.  Clark, “The Ascetic Impulse in Religious Life:  A  General Response,” in
Asceticism, ed. Vincent L.  Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New  York:  Oxford University
Press, 1995), 505–510.
22. Richard Valantasis, “A Theory of the Social Function of Asceticism,” in Asceticism, ed.
Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 547.
23. Ibid., 548.
24. Ibid., 551.
25. Johannes Bronkhorst, “Asceticism, Religion, and Biological Evolution,” Method and
Theory in the Study of Religion 13 (2001): 374–418.
26. Hausner, Wandering with Sadhus, 9.
27. Marcus Banks, “Representing the Bodies of Jains,” in Rethinking Visual Anthropology, ed.
Markus Banks and Howard Murphy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 219.
28. Adeline Masquelier, “Dirt, Undress, and Difference:  An Introduction,” in Dirt,
Undress, and Difference:  Critical Perspectives on the Body’s Surface, ed. Adeline Masquelier
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 5.
29. Ibid., 10.
30. Patrick Olivelle, “Deconstruction of the Body in Indian Asceticism,” in Asceticism, ed.
Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 190.
 Notes 213
31. See George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and Its
Challenge to Western Thought (New York: Basic Books, 1999).
32. Hausner, Wandering with Sadhus, 188.
33. Joseph S. Alter, “The ‘Sannyasi’ and the Indian Wrestler: The Anatomy of a Relationship,”
American Ethnologist 19/2 (1992): 323–334.
34. Padmanabh S. Jaini, The Jaina Path of Perfection (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1979), 40–41. For a discussion about the importance of classification for Indian culture, see
Brian K. Smith, Classifying the Universe: The Ancient Indian Varna System and the Origins of
Caste (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
35. See Gananath Obeyesekere, Medusa’s Hair:  An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious
Experience (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1981). Olivelle disputes Obeyesekere’s claim
about castration because he interprets the shaven head as a symbolic ritual separation from society,
indicating that the ascetic/monk has no social role or status. The shaving symbolizes a return to a
sexually and socially undifferentiated status of an infant (p. 205) in “Deconstruction of the Body.”
36. Jaini, Jaina Path, 245.
37. Paul Dundas, The Jains (London, New York: Routledge, 1992), 134.
38. Obeyesekere disputes the equation of long hair with unspent semen. During his first-hand
work with the Kataragama festival in Sri Lanka, he did not encounter anyone who associated
matted hair with celibacy, although he did find many people who reacted with disgust, fear,
revulsion, and horror to it. He stresses that long matted hair separates such a person from the
remainder of society in Medusa’s Hair, p. 37.
39. Hausner, Wandering with Sadhus, 46.
40. See Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo
(New York: Praeger Publishers, 1966). From his psychological perspective, Obeyesekere traces
matted locks to painful emotional experience that represents a denial of castration. It is better
to view it as god’s penis or his gift of śakti (energy and vitality). The ascetic’s matted hair holds a
power directly connected with the feminine power (śakti) of the deity in spite of the matted hair
being dirty, smelly, and inhabited by lice in Medusa’s Hair, 33–35.
41. Masquelier, “Dirt, Undress,” 3.
42. Vidya Dehejia, The Body Adorned: Dissolving Boundaries between Sacred and Profane in
India’s Art (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 24.
43. Ibid., 33.
44. Reiko Ohnuma, Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist
Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 205–208.
45. Along these lines, Susanne Mrozik focuses on the Buddhist conception of the body to
discern what it tells us about Buddhist ethics because she thinks the following: “There is a bodily
dimension to morality and a moral dimension to bodies” (8) in Virtuous Bodies: The Physical
Dimensions of Morality in Buddhist Ethics (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
46. Dhammapada Commentary in Buddhist Legends, 3 vols., trans. Eugene Burlingame,
Harvard Oriental Series 28–30 (London: Luzac & Company, 1969), 17,3b, III: 103–107.
47. Sue Hamilton, “From the Buddha to Buddhaghosa:  Changing Attitudes Toward the
Human Body in Theravada Buddhism,” in Religious Reflections on the Human Body, ed. Jane
Marie Law (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 61.
48. See Karen Christina Lang, “Lord Death’s Stare:  Gender-Related Imagery in the
Theragāthā and the Therigāthā,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 2/2 (1986):  63–79;
214 Notes
Kathryn R.  Blackstone, Women in Footsteps of the Buddha:  Struggle for Liberation in the
Therīgāthā (Surrey, UK:  Curzon Press, 1998), 59–81. Elizabeth Wilson views the Buddhist
attempt to characterize the female body as a dangerous construction of the male gaze; this,
together with the reconfiguration of the male body with the biography of the Buddha, serves as
a paradigm for “gynophobic horror” in “The Female Body as a Source of Horror and Insight in
Post-Ashokan Indian Buddhism,” in Religious Reflections on the Human Body, ed. Jane Marie
Law (Bloomington:  Indiana University Press, 1995), 93; Wilson makes similar claims in her
Charming Cadavers:  Horrific Figurations of the Feminine in Indian Buddhist Hagiographic
Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 77.
49. Rita Gross, Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction
of Buddhism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 4. Steven Collins finds Lang’s
position that nuns did not reflect on the attractiveness of men as overstated and the difference
between men and women was not confined to Buddhist texts, in “The Body in Theravada Buddhist
Monasticism,” in Religion and the Body, ed. Sarah Coakley (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997), 191. Kevin Trainor examines a narrative about a nun and a male rogue who attempts
to seduce her, and he concludes that “Finally, recognizing that the experiences Theravāda monks
and nuns have been shaped in significant ways by gender differences, we must work through the
interpretive implications of the tradition’s unambiguous affirmation that the state of one who
has reached the goal of arahantship by definition transcends the category of gender” (69) in “In
the Eye of the Buddha: Nonattachment and the Body in Subhā’s Verse (Therīgāthā 71),” Journal
of the American Academy of Religion 61/1 (1993); Jonathan S. Walters warns that it is essential not
to conflate early Buddhism with all Theravādin thought. Otherwise, women’s voices are silenced
and their striving to realize the equalitarian ideal of early Buddhism is lost, in “A Verse from the
Silence: The Buddha’s Mother’s Story,” History of Religions 33/4 (1994): 377.
50. Kristin Hanssen, “The True River Ganges:  Tara’s Begging Practices,” in Women’s
Renunciation in South Asia: Nuns, Yoginis, Saints, and Singers, ed. Meena Khandelwal, Sondra
L. Hausner, and Ann Grodzins Gold (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 95–123. See also
Lisa I.  Knight, “Renouncing Expectations:  Single Baul Women Renouncers and the Value
of Being a Wife,” in Women’s Renunciation, 191–222. When an ascetic gains power over his/
her body, this is a metaphorical expression for power over the world, according to Hausner,
Wandering with Sadhus.
51. A more complete discussion of women’s vows and their significance is offered by Anne
Mackenzie Pearson, “Because It Gives Me Peace of Mind”:  Ritual Fasts in the Lives of Hindu
Women (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996).
52. June M. McDaniel, Offering Flowers, Feeding Skulls: Popular Goddess Worship in West
Bengal (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 34.
53. Ibid., 54.
54. For an essay that treats the subject of celibacy in a cross-cultural context, see Carl Olson,
“Celibacy and the Human Body: An Introduction,” in Celibacy and Religious Traditions, ed.
Carl Olson (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 3–20.
55. See Sprockhoff, Samnyasa, 4–5.
56. See Patrick Olivelle, “Celibacy in Classical Hinduism,” in Celibacy in Religious Traditions,
ed. Carl Olson (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 151–164.
57. Obeyesekere draws a comparison between the Buddhist and Hindu notions of celi-
bacy: “Hindu celibacy is not absolute, as is Buddhist celibacy. Hindu ideas of celibacy pertain to
 Notes 215
withholding sex to conserve semen, the well spring of vitality, long life, and health” in Medusa’s
Hair, 38.
58. For more complete and comprehensive discussions of celibacy in Buddhism, see John
Powers, “Celibacy in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism” and John Kieschnick, “Celibacy in
East Asian Buddhism,” in Celibacy and Religious Traditions, ed. Carl Olson (New  York,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 201–224 and 225–240.
59. See Paul Dundas, “Sthūlabhadra’s Lodgings:  Sexual Restraint in Jainism,” in Celibacy
and Religious Traditions, ed. Carl Olson (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008),
181–199.
60. Peter van der Veer, “Taming the Ascetic: Devotionalism in a Hindu Monastic Order,”
Man (n.s.) 22 (1987): 685.
61. Joseph S. Alter, “Seminal Truth: A Modern Science of Male Celibacy in North India,”
Medical Anthropology Quarterly 11/3 (1997): 284.
62. Ibid., 290.
63. Peter van der Veer, “The Power of Detachment,” American Ethnologist 16/3 (1989): 463.
64. James W. Edwards, “Semen Anxiety in South Asian Cultures: Cultural and Transcultural
Significance,” Medical Anthropology 7/3 (1983): 53–54.
65. Ariel Glucklich, Sacred Pain: Hurting the Body for the Sake of the Soul (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001), 11.
66. Ibid., 11.
67. Ibid., 25.
68. Bruce J.  Malina, “Pain, Power, and Personhood:  Ascetic Behavior in the Ancient
Mediterranean,” in Asceticism, ed. Vincent L.  Wimbush and Richard Valantasis
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 171.
69. William J.  Broad, “All Bent Out of Shape: The Problem with Yoga,” New York Times
Magazine (January 8, 2012): 16–19, 46.
70. Johannes Quack, Disenchanting India: Organized Rationalism and Criticism of Religion
in India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 32.
71. Bruce Lincoln, Holy Terrors:  Thinking about Religion after September 11
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 82–83.
72. Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography: Saints and Their Biographers in the Middle Ages
(New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 216–217.
73. Frank E. Reynolds and Donald Capps, eds. The Biographical Process: Studies in the History
and Psychology of Religion (The Hague: Mouton, 1976), 3–4.
74. Robin Rhinehardt, One Lifetime, Many Lives:  The Experience of Modern Hindu
Hagiography (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1999), 12.
75. Juliane Schober, “Trajectories in Buddhist Biography,” in Sacred Biography in the Buddhist
Tradition of South and Southeast Asia, ed. Juliane Schober (Honolulu:  University of Hawaii
Press, 1997), 1–12.
76. Armin W.  Geertz, “Religious Narrative, Cognition and Cultures:  Approaches and
Definitions,” Religious Narratives, Cognition and Culture:  Image and Word in the Mind
Narrative, ed. Armin W. Geertz and Jeppe Sinding Jessen (Sheffield: Equinox Publishers, Inc.,
2011), 10.
77. Ibid., 23.
78. See van der Veer, “Power of Detachment.”
216 Notes
79. Alter, “ ‘Sannyasi’ and the Indian Wrestler,” 330.
80. Rhinehardt, One Lifetime, 12.
81. Ibid., 14.
82. Phyllis Granoff, “Holy Warriors: A Preliminary Study of Some Biographies of Saints and
Kings in the Classical Indian Tradition,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 12 (1984): 291–303.
83. Anton Ungemach, Śaṅkara-Mandāra-Saurabha:  Eine Legende Über das Leben des
Philosopher Śaṅkara (Stuttgart:  Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992), 22. For more recent stud-
ies devoted to the hagiographical literature surrounding Śaṅkara, see Jonathan Bader,
Conquest of the Four Quarters: Traditional Accounts of the Life of Śaṅkara (New Delhi: Aditya
Prakashan, 2000); Vidyasankar Sundaresan, “Conflicting Hagiographies and History:  The
Place of Śaṅkaravijaya Texts in Advaita Tradition,” International Journal of Hindu Studies
4/2 (2000): 109–184.
84. John S. Strong, The Legend and Cult of Upagupta: Sanskrit Buddhism in North India and
Southeast Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).
85. See Heffernan, Sacred Biography. Charles F. Keyes, “Introduction: Charisma: From Social
Life to Sacred Biography,” in Charisma and Sacred Biography, ed. Michael A. Williams, Journal
of the American Academy of Religion Studies 48/3, 4 (1982): 1–22.
86. Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, trans. A.
M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972), 21–39.
87. Foucault, Power/Knowledge:  Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, ed.
Colin Gordon and trans. Colin Gordon, Leo Marshall, John Mepham, and Kate Soper
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1980), 142.
88. Edith Wyschogrod, “The Owl of Oedipus, the Cry of Héloise:  From Asceticism
to Postmodern Ethics,” in Asceticism, ed. Vincent L.  Wimbush and Richard Valantasis
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 16.

Chapter 2

1. Hemacandra, The Lives of the Jain Elders, trans. R. C. C. Fynes (Oxford, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998), 8.377–404.
2. Ibid., 13.151.
3. Kane, History of Dharmaśāstra, V/2: 1452.
4. Charles Rockwell Lanman, “Hindu Ascetics and Their Powers,” Transactions and
Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 48 (1917): 147.
5. Max Weber, The Religion of India: The Sociology of Hinduism and Buddhism, trans. Hans
H. Gerth and Don Martindale (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1958), 148–149.
6. Ibid., 155.
7. Louis Dumont, Homo Hierarchicus: An Essay on the Caste System, trans. Mark Sainsburg
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 30.
8. Sigurd Lindquist, Siddha und Abhiññā: Eine Studie über die klassichen Wunder des Yoga
(Uppsala: Uppsala Universitets Ǻrsskrift, 1935), 70.
9. Ryan Richard Overby, “On the Appearance of Siddhis in Chinese Buddhist Texts,” in
Yoga Powers:  Extraordinary Capacities Attained Through Meditation and Concentration, ed.
Knut A. Jacobsen (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2012), 131, 141.
 Notes 217
10. J. W.  Hauer, Der Yoga:  Ein Indischer weg zum Selbst (Stuttgart:  W. Kohlhammer,
1958), 319.
11. Ibid., 91.
12. Mircea Eliade, Yoga:  Immortality and Freedom, trans. Willard R.  Trask (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1969), 90.
13. Ibid., 94.
14. Gaspar M. Koelman, S. J., Patanjala Yoga: From Related Ego to Absolute Self (Poona: Papal
Athenaeum, 1970), 244.
15. Corrado Pensa, “On the Purification Concept in Indian Tradition, with Special Regard to
Yoga,” East and West 19 (1969): 194–228.
16. Georg Feuerstein, The Philosophy of Classical Yoga (New  York:  St. Martin’s Press,
1980), 101.
17. Gerhard Oberhammer, “Meditation und Mystik des Patañjali,” in Weiner Zeitschrift für
die Kunde Sud-und Ostasiens und Archiv für Indische Philosophie, ed. E. Frauwallner and G.
Oberhammer, vol. 9 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965), 113–114.
18. Gerhard Oberhammer, Strukturen yogischer Meditation: Untersuchungen zur Spiritualität
des Yoga (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademic der Wissenschaften, 1977), 223. Angelika
Malinar is critical of Oberhammer’s position because textual evidence is indicative of some-
thing else. She writes, “It seems that the powers of the yogin have become an integral part of
many yoga traditions, not in spite of Sāṃkhya philosophy, but because of it,” in “Yoga Powers
in the Mahābhārata in Yoga Powers: Extraordinary Capacities Attained Through Meditation and
Concentration, ed. Knut A. Jacobsen (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2012), 58.
19. Jean Filliozat, Religion, Philosophy, Yoga, trans. Maurice Shukla (Delhi:  Motilal
Banarsidass Publishers, 1991), 348.
20. Ibid., 350–358.
21. Obeyesekere, Medusa’s Hair, 180–181.
22. Gananath Obeyesekere, The Work of Culture: Symbolic Transformation in Psychoanalysis
and Anthropology (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 67.
23. Gerald James Larson, “Introduction to the Philosophy of Sāṃkhya,” in Encyclopedia of
Indian Philosophies IV: Sāṃkhya, a Dualist Tradition in Indian Philosophy, ed. Gerald James
Larson and Ram Shankar Bhattacharya (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 130.
24. Steven Phillips, Yoga, Karma, and Rebirth:  A  Brief History and Philosophy
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 141.
25. Ibid., 60.
26. Ian Whicher, The Integrity of the Yoga Darśana:  A  Reconsideration of Classical Yoga
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 215.
27. Stuart Ray Sarbacker, “Power and Meaning in the Yogasūtra of Patañjali,” in Yoga
Powers:  Extraordinary Capacities Attained Through Meditation and Concentration, ed. Knut
A. Jacobsen (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2012), 214.
28. Ibid., 218.
29. For a comparison of the lifestyle of ancient Christian desert ascetics and Hindu fig-
ures, see Oliver Freiberger, “Locating the Ascetic’s Habitat:  Toward a Micro-Comparison of
Religious Discourses,” History of Religions 59/2 (2010): 162–192. See also his book length study,
Der Askesediskurs in der Religionsgeschichte:  Eine vergleichende Untersuchung brahmanischer
und frühchristlicher, Texte Studies in Oriental Religions 57 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009).
218 Notes
30. J. C. Heesterman argues that Vedic ritual manifests a movement toward more individu-
alism of the sacrifice in The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and
Society (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1985), 2–64. Hans-Peter Schmidt sees a link
between a movement toward more nonviolence in sacrifice as a source for the later doctrine of
nonviolence in asceticism in “The Origin of Ahiṃsā,” Mélanges d’Indianisme à la Mémoire de
Louis Renou, Publications de l’Institut de Civilisation, 28 (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1968): 625–655.
Joachim Friedrich Sprockhoff argues that the ascetic spirit of renunciation is rooted in Vedic rit-
ual in “Āraṇyaka und Vānaprastha in der vedischen Literatur,” Weiner Zeitschrift für die Kunde
Südassiens 28 (1984): 5–43.
31. Johannes Bronkhorst, The Two Sources of Indian Asceticism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1998), 19.
32. Ibid., 22.
33. Patrick Olivelle, Ascetics and Brahmans:  Studies in Ideologies and Institutions
(London: Anthem Press, 2011), 28. Gregory Schopen makes a similar observation about Buddhist
practices in Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy,
and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997).
34. K. Werner, “Yoga and the Ṛg Veda: An Interpretation of the Kesin Hymn,” Religious
Studies 13/3 (1977): 289–293. J. C. Heesterman, The Broken World of Sacrifice: Essays in Ancient
Indian Ritual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 178–179.
35. Michael Witzel, “Early Sanskritization,” Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 1/4 (1995), 18.
36. David G. White, Myths of the Dog-Man (Chicago and London: University of Chicago
Press, 1991), 95–99.
37. Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press,
1996), 79.
38. Paul Dundas, “The Digambara Jain Warrior,” in The Assembly of Listeners: Jains in Society,
ed. M. Carrithers and C. Humphrey (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press,
1991), 173–174.
39. Geoffrey Samuel, The Origins of Yoga and Tantra:  Indian Religions to the Thirteenth
Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 128.
40. Patrick Olivelle emphasizes the ways that asceticism is deeply embedded in culture when
he identifies three levels of asceticism: (1) root asceticism that represents a basic asceticism char-
acterized by self-restraint and is manifested in restriction on personal desires; (2) cultural asceti-
cism representing specific tools for members to exercise self-control; (3) elite asceticism refers to
extraordinary forms of self-control that only a small minority is able to practice with the pur-
pose of achieving specific goals in “The Ascetic and the Domestic in Brahmanical Religiosity,” in
Asceticism and Its Critics: Historical Accounts and Comparative Perspectives, ed. Oliver Freiberger
(New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 25–42.
41. See Carl Olson, The Different Paths of Buddhism:  A  Narrative-Historical Introduction
(New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005).
42. See T. N.  Madan, Non-Renunciation:  Themes and Interpretations of Hindu Culture
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987).
43. Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Śiva
(London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 44–68.
44. Olivelle, Āśrama System, 24, 59.
45. Romila Thapur, Interpreting Early India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), 132.
 Notes 219
46. Patrick Olivelle, Āśrama System, 25.
47. Jonathan Parry, “The End of the Body,” in Fragments for a History of the Human Body
Part Two, ed. Michael Feher (New York: Zone, 1989), 503.
48. Knut A. Jacobsen, Pilgrimage in the Hindu Tradition: Salvific Space (London: Routledge,
2013), 96.
49. See Walter Schubring, Isibhāsiyāim: Ein Jaina Text der Frühzeit (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck
and Ruprecht, 1942–52).
50. Sthānāṅga Sūtra, in Jaina Sūtras, 329.
51. R. F. Gombrich, Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern
Colombo (London: Routledge, 1988), 57.
52. A. L. Basham, The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism, ed. Kenneth G. Zysk
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), 51.
53. J. A. B. van Buitenen, “Dharma and Moksha,” Philosophy East and West 7/1–2 (1957): 33–34.
54. For a more complete discussion of ascetic inscriptions, see Leslie C. Orr, “Renunciation
and Celebration:  Ascetics in the Temple Life of Medieval Tamil Nadu,” in Classical and
Contemporary Issues in Indian Studies: Essays in Honour of Trichur S. Rukmani, ed. P. Pratap
Kumar and Jonathan Duquette (New Delhi: D. K. Printworld, 2013), 306–325.
55. Pasupata Sutram with Pañchartha-Bhasya of Kaundinya, trans. Haripada Chakraborti
(Calcutta: Academic Publishers, 1970), 5.3; 1.2; 1.9.
56. Daniel H.  H. Ingalls, “Cynics and Pāśupatas:  The Seeking of Dishonor,” Harvard
Theological Review 55 (1962): 291–392.
57. David N.  Lorenzen, The Kāpālikas and Kālāmukas:  Two Lost Śaivite Sects
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), 175.
58. Ibid., 87, 83.
59. Jan Gonda, Die Religionen Indiens II: Der jüngere Hinduismus (Stuttgart:W. Kohlhammer,
1963), 221.
60. George Weston Briggs, Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1973), 187–188.
61. A fuller discussion of these developments can be found in the works of Alexis Sanderson,
“Śaivism and the Tantric Tradition,” in The World’s Religions, ed. Stewart Sutherland, Leslie
Houlden, Peter Clarke, and Friedhelm Hardy (London:  Routledge, 1988):  660–704. Hugh
B. Urban argues that the Tantric movement was not a coherent or unified religious tradition.
In fact, it was not until the nineteenth century that the term Tantra becomes a lucid refer-
ence to a distinct tradition; in Tantra, Sex, Secrecy, Politics, and Power in the Study of Religion
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).
62. David Gordon White, The Alchemical Body:  Siddha Traditions in Medieval India
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 109.
63. Female scholars have investigated some of the social and cultural reasons that women
adopt asceticism. Lisa I.  Knight gives an example of a single Baul woman who decides to
adopt an ascetic lifestyle in order to avoid the stigma attached to her status in “Renouncing
Expectations:  Single Baul Women Renouncers and the Value of Being a Wife,” in Women’s
Renunciation in South Asia: Nuns, Yoginis, Saints, and Singers, eds. Meena Khandelwal, Sondra
L. Hausner and Ann Grodzins Gold (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 191–222. In the
same collection of essays, Sondra L. Hausner, “The Social Actions of Radha Giri,” in Women’s
Renunciation, 125–138 examines why women might become ascetics to avoid a bad marriage, or
220 Notes
an unsupportive home situation. Anne Vallely, “These Hands Are Not for Henna,” in Women’s
Renunciation, 223–245 shows how religious observance is a fundamental marker of sexual purity
and female honor that leads women to become indifferent to their bodily appearance. And
Meena Khandelwal relates her experience with a female ascetic, and how she navigates gender
problems among Hindu ascetics in “Walking a Tightrope: Saintliness, Gender, and Power in an
Enthnographic Encounter,” Anthropology and Humanism 21/2 (1996): 111–134.
64. Mark Jyväsjärvi Stuart discusses Brāhmaṇical cultural reasons for discouraging women
from becoming ascetics and leading a wandering lifestyle at greater length in “Male Guardians
of Women’s Virtue: A Dharmaśastric Theme and Its Jain Variations,” Journal of the American
Oriental Society 13/1 (2013): 35–56.
65. Loriliai Biernackti, “Shree Maa of Kamakkya,” in The Graceful Guru:  Hindu Female
Gurus in India and the United States, ed. Karen Pechilis (New York: Oxford University Press,
2004), 180–181.
66. Carol S.  Anderson, “The Life of Gauri Ma,” in The Graceful Guru:  Hindu Female
Gurus in India and the United States, ed. Karen Pechilis (New York: Oxford University Press,
2004), 68.
67. Lisa Lassell Hallstrom, Mother of Bliss: Ānandamayī Mā (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999), 28.
68. Ibid., 41–42, 117–119.
69. Philip Lutgendorf, Hanuman’s Tale:  The Messages of a Divine Monkey (Oxford,
New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 28.
70. Ibid., 50.
71. John E.  Cort, Jains in the World:  Religious Values and Ideology in India (Oxford,
New  York:  Oxford University Press, 2001), 120–121. Similar lists and discussions appear
in the following works:  Helmuth von Glasenapp, Jainism:  An Indian Religion of Salvation
(Delhi:  Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1999), 235–236 and Raymond Williams, Jaina Yoga
(London: Oxford University Press, 1963), 238–239.
72. Śaṅkaravijaya by Vyāsācala, ed. T. Chandrasekharan, Madras Government Oriental
Manuscripts Series 24 (Madras: Government of Madras, 1954), 4.50–51. Scholars have dis-
puted the religious affiliation of Śaṅkara. Paul Hacker argues for a Vaiṣṇava connection
in “Relations of Early Advaitins to Vaiṣṇavism,” Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd-und
Ostasians IX (1965):  147–154. David N.  Lorenzen argues for a Śaiva identity in “The Life
of Śaṅkarācārya:  A  Consideration of the Śaiva Mythological Themes Associated with the
Biography of Śaṅkara as a Case Study in the Dynamics of the Śaivization of Hagiography,”
in Experiencing Śiva:  Encounters with a Hindu Deity, ed. Fred W.  Clothey and J. Bruce
Long (New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1983), 155–175. Karl L. Potter criticizes Lorenzen
for accepting narrative accounts of the philosopher as the founder of a sect, author of vari-
ous works, and founder of a monastic order in an uncritical way in “Śaṅkarācārya:  The
Myth and the Man,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Thematic Studies 48/3, 4
(1982): 111–125.
73. Śaṅkaravijaya, 5.9; 7.121; 21.63–70.
74. Swami Muktananda, Play of Consciousness: A Spiritual Autobiography (South Fallsburg,
NY: SYDA Foundation, 1978; reprint, 2000), 35.
75. Ibid., 188.
76. Ibid., 136.
 Notes 221
77. The Life of Milarepa by Tsongnyön Heruka, trans. Andrew Quintman, (London: Penguin
Books, 2010), 72.
78. Ibid., 149.

Chapter 3

1. Edwin F. Bryant, “The History of Yoga,” in The Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali (New York: North
Point Press, 2009), xxxiii. Larson, “Introduction to the Philosophy of Sāṃkhya,” 36.
2. Peter Schreiner does a statistical analysis of the references to Yoga in the epic Mahābhārata
and argues that Yoga is more original than Sāṃkhya in “What Comes First (in the
Mahābhārata): Sāṃkhya or Yoga?” Asiatische Studien Études Asiatiques 52/3 (1999): 755–777.
3. Flood, Ascetic Self, p, 2.
4. Bryant, Yoga Sūtras, 334.
5. Yogavārittika of Vijñānabhikãu, 4 vols., trans. T. S.  Rukmani (Delhi:  Munshiram
Manoharlal, 1981), 1, 102.
6. Bryant, Yoga Sūtras, 377.
7. See also the Apastamba Sūtra in Jaina Sūtras, 2.9.23.6–8.
8. The Heavenly Exploits:  Buddhist Biographies from the Divyāvadāna, vol. 1, trans. Joel
Tatelman (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 36.273.
9. Ibid., 2.249.
10. Yogavārittika of Vijñānabhikãu, vol. 1 trans. Rukmani, 184.
11. The Khecarīvidyā of Ādinātha, trans. James Mallinson (London: Routledge, 2007), 4.
12. Ibid., 212 n. 273.
13. See Lindquist, Siddha und Abhiññā, 12–65.
14. Visuddhimagga of Buddhaghosacariya, ed, Henry Clarke Warren. Harvard Oriental
Series. Vol. 41. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950, 405.
15. Khecarīvidyā, trans. Mallinson, 82–88.
16. Lindquist, Siddha und Abhiññā, 72–74.
17. Gregory Schopen, “The Generalization of an Old Yogic Attainment in Medieval
Mahāyāna Sūtra Literature: Some Notes on Jātismara,” Journal of the International Association
of Buddhist Studies 6/1 (1983): 109–147.
18. Donald S. Lopez, Jr., “Memories of the Buddha,” in In the Mirror of Memory: Reflections
on Mindfulness and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, ed. Janet Gyatso
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 25.
19. The Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sūtra, trans. Paul Harrison (Berkeley: Numata, 1998), 88.
20. Ibid., 7.
21. Śūraṅgama Samādhi Sūtra, trans. John McRae (Berkeley: Numata, 1998), 84.
22. The Flower Ornament Scripture:  A  Translation of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra, 3 vols., trans.
Thomas Cleary (Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 1984–87).
23. Reginald A. Ray, “Nāgārjuna’s Longevity,” in Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions
of South and Southeast Asia, ed. Juliane Schober (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997),
132–133.
24. Dōgen, Shōbōgenzō, trans. Nishimjima and Cross, II:  2.90. For a discussion of ṛddhi
(power) in Mahāyāna Buddhism, see Har Dayal, The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit
Literature (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1932; reprint, 1970), 105–115.
222 Notes
25. Dōgen, II: 2.27.
26. Ibid., II. 2:94–95.
27. For a fuller discussion of this distinction, see Kristi L. Wiley, “Supernatural Powers and
Their Attainment in Jainism,” in Yoga Powers:  Extraordinary Capacities Attained Through
Meditation and Concentration, ed. Knut A.  Jacobsen (Leiden, Boston:  Brill, 2012), 159–160,
167–175.
28. Reconciling Yogas: Haribhadra’s Collection of Views on Yoga, trans. Christopher Chapple
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), 109–110.
29. Phyllis Grandoff, The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden: An Anthology of Medieval
Jain Stories (London: Penguin Books, 1998), 126.
30. Epitome of Queen Līlāvatī by Jinaratna, trans. Fynes.
31. Le Coeur de la Yoginī: Yoginīhṛdaya avec le commentaire Dīpikā d’Amṛtānanda, André
Padoux, trans (Paris: Diffusion de Boccard, 1994), 3.115.
32. Ibid., 3.154, 366.
33. Stuart Ray Sarbacker, “Herbs (auṣadhi) as a Means to Spiritual Accomplishments (siddhi)
in Patañjali’s Yogasūtra,” International Journal of Hindu Studies 17/1 (2013): 40.
34. M. [Mahendranath Gupta], The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. Swami Nikhilananda
(New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1973), 58.
35. Swami Saradananda, Sri Ramakrishna The Great Master, 2 vols., trans. Swami Jagadananda,
5th ed. (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1978), II: 766.
36. Swami Vivekananda, The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, 6 vols. (Calcutta: Advaita
Ashram, 1986), I: 136.
37. Ibid., I: 188, 281, 289; VI: 516.
38. Hara Minoru, “The Losing of Tapas,” in India and Beyond: Aspects of Literature, Meaning,
Ritual, and Thought, Essays in Honour of Frits Staal, ed. Dick van der Meij (London: Kegan Paul
International, 1998), 226.
39. Bernard Faure, The Red Thread: Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1998), 30.
40. Ibid., 275.
41. Jacobsen, “Introduction: Yoga Powers,” 5.
42. David Gordon White, Kiss of the Yoginī:  “Tantric Sex” in Its South Asian Contexts
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 199–200.
43. Malinar, “Yoga Powers,” 46.
44. The Glorious Deeds of Pūrṇa: A Translation and Study of the Pūrṇāvadāna, trans. Joel
Tatelman (Surrey: Curzon, 2000), 73.
45. Ann Taves, “2010 Presidential Address: “Religion” in the Humanities and the Humanities
in the University,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79/2 (2011), 305. Along the same
line of thought, Taves argues that we must foster collaboration between the academic study
of religion and the sciences in “No Field Is an Island:  Fostering Collaboration between the
Academic Study of Religion and the Sciences.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22/1–2
(2010): 170–188.
46. Pascal Boyer, Religion Explained:  The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought
(New York: Basic Books, 2001), 3.
47. Harvey Whitehouse, Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission
(Walnut Creek, CA: Alta Mira Press, 2004), 24.
 Notes 223
48. Ibid., 64–65.
49. Matthew Day, “The Ins and Outs of Religious Cognition,” Method and Theory in the
Study of Religion 16/3 (2004):  241–255. In a later published essay, Day thinks that a science
of religion threatens to disrupt a nonconfessional academic field in “The Educator Must Be
Educated:  The Study of Religion at the End of the Humanities,” Method and Theory in the
Study of Religion 22 (2010): 1–8. Fabio Gironi sees intrinsic limitations of the relevance of sci-
ence and religion because the field is limited and not multidisciplinary in “Turning a Critical
Eye on Science and Religion: Theological Assumptions and Soteriological Rhetoric,” Method
and Theory in the Study of Religion 22 (2010): 37–67. Peter Harrison argues that the relation-
ship between science and religion needs to be placed within the context of religious pluralism
in “Science and Religion: Constructing the Boundaries,” Journal of Religion 86 (2006): 81–106.
50. Armin W. Geertz, “Brain, Body and Culture: A Biocultural Theory of Religion,” Method
and Theory in the Study of Religion 22/4 (2010): 304–321.
51. Robert N.  Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution:  From the Paleolithic to the Axial Age
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 3.
52. Patrick McNamara, The Neuroscience of Religious Experience (Cambridge:  Cambridge
University Press, 2009), 11.
53. Luther H. Martin and Donald Wiebe, “Religious Studies as a Scientific Discipline: The
Persistence of a Delusion,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 80/3 (2012): 587–597.
54. James H.  Austin, Meditating Selflessly:  Practical Neural Zen (Cambridge, MA:  MIT
Press, 2011), 18.
55. McNamara, Neuroscience of Religious Experience, 105.
56. James H. Austin, Zen-Brain Reflections: Reviewing Recent Developments in Meditation
and States of Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010), xxv. For another perspective on
Buddhism and neuroscience, see B. Alan Wallace, Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and
Neuroscience Converge (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).
57. James H. Austin, Selfless Insight: Zen and the Meditative Transformation of Consciousness
(Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009), 260.
58. Austin, Zen-Brain, 300.
59. Ibid., 111, 142.
60. For a Freudian perspective on this issue, see J. Moussaieff Masson, “The Psychology of the
Ascetic,” Journal of Asian Studies 35/4 (1976): 611–625.
61. Harvey Cox, The Feast of Fools (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 62.
62. Owen Flanagan, The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 2011), 15.
63. Ann Taves, Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of
Religion and Other Special Things (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), xiv.
64. Jason N. Blum, “The Science of Consciousness and Mystical Experience: An Argument
for Radical Empiricism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 82/1 (2014): 150–173.
65. Barbara Herrnstein Smith is critical of the cognitive approach to religion because religion
is too complex for a monolithic explanation, the approach is intellectually restrictive, theorists
adopt some dubious conceptual and methodological biases that limit their perspectives, and the
approach limits our understanding of religion and gives us narrow, mechanistic-centered view
of science in Natural Reflections: Human Cognition at the Nexus of Science and Religion (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009). Benson Saler argues that religion is a polychromatic
224 Notes
phenomenon, and it is likely that a monochromatic approach like cognitive science is unlikely
to prove adequate. Saler suggests an epigenetic analogy as an improvement in “Theory and
Criticism:  The Cognitive Science of Religion,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion
22 (2010):  330–339. Aaron W.  Hughes perceives a danger in a shift from cultural to biologi-
cal approaches because it is possible to misunderstand how religion shapes matters of identity
and difference in “Science Envy in Theories of Religion,” Method and Theory in the Study of
Religion 22 (2010): 293–303. Michael Stausberg criticizes cognitive science on epistemological
and meta-theoretical limits related to its methods in “Prospects in Theories of Religion,” Method
and Theory in the Study of Religion 22/2 (2010):  223–238. The anthropologist Maurice Bloch
thinks that cognitive science rests on the dubious premise that religion is something distinct and
set apart from society: “To explain religion is therefore a fundamental misguided enterprise”
(p. 2060) in “Why Religion Is Nothing Special but Is Central,” Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society B 363 (2008): 2055–2061.

Chapter 4

1. For a more complete discussion of the lifestyle of the Hindu ascetic, see Joachim
Sprockhoff, Saṃnyāsa: Quellenstudien zur Askese im Hinduismus, Abhandlungen für die Kunde
des Morgenlandes 42/1 (Weisbaden:  Kommissionsverlag Franz Steiner GMBH, 1976; Patrick
Olivelle, Renunciation in Hinduism:  A  Medieval Debate, 2 vols. (Vienna:  Publications of the
De Nobili Research Library, 1986, 1987) and “Introduction,” to Samyāsa Upaniṣads:  Hindu
Scriptures on Asceticism and Renunciation (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992).
For historical studies of Indian asceticism, see M. G. Bhagat, Ancient Indian Asceticism (New
Delhi:  Munshiran Monoharlal Publishers, 1976) and Haripada Chakraborti, Asceticism in
Ancient India (Calcutta: Punthi Pustak, 1973). For a work that focuses on the ascetic organization
in the city of Kashi and at the Kumbha Melā, see Surajit Sinha and Baidyanath Saraswati, Ascetics
of Kashi: An Anthropological Exploration (Varanasi: N. K. Bose Memorial Foundation, 1978).
2. Christopher Key Chapple, Yoga and the Luminous: Patañjali’s Spiritual Path to Freedom
(Albany:  State University of New  York Press, 2008), 56. Taking issue with Chapple’s point
about imitating animals, Daniel Raveh calls attention to Vyāsa’s commentary with respect to
its reference to animals, Raveh writes, “He does not speak of animal imitation, but mentions
a certain nāḍī (energy channel), which can be used as object of meditation” in Exploring the
Yogasūtra: Philosophy and Translation (London: Continuum, 2012), 22 n. 23. Raveh argues that
the context is a discussion of yogic powers and references to animals are about acquiring pow-
ers similar to the animals mentioned. Along similar lines of discourse, Andre Bareau points to
the superhuman character of the Buddha depicted in ancient canonical literature with both
spiritual and physical connotations and their connection to certain animals intended to elicit
symbolic associations in “The Superhuman Personality of Buddha and Its Symbolism in the
Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra of the Dharmagupta,” in Myths and Symbols: Studies in Honor of Mircea
Eliade (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 9–21. Raveh appears to have problems with
the term “imitate,” and takes Chapple’s use of the term too literally. I think that the passage is
more about the powers of certain animals and a yogi gaining powers akin to those of the animals.
3. See the following works for discussions about the self-inflicted violence by the Hindu
ascetic: Carl Olson, “The Śaiva Mystic, Self-Sacrifice and Creativity,” Religion 10 (1980): 31–40;
Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, “Ātmayajña: Self-Sacrifice,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 6
 Notes 225
(1942): 358–398; Lorenzen, Kāpālikas and Kālāmukhas; Jonathan P. Parry, “The Aghori Ascetics
of Benares,” in Indian Religion, ed. Richard Burghart and Audrey Cantlie (London: Curzon
and New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 51–78. In an essay on haṭha yoga, Jason Birch denies
that it is a discipline that leads to self-inflicted violence and provides primary textual support
for his position in “The Meaning of haṭha in Early Haṭhayoga,” Journal of the American Oriental
Society 131/4 (2011): 527–554.
4. For a discussion of interiorized sacrifice, see Eliade, Yoga, 111–112; J. C.  Heesterman,
“Brahman, Ritual and Renouncer,” in Weiner Zeitschrift für die Kunde Süd-und Archiv für
Indische Philosophie, ed. E. Frauwallner und G. Oberhammer, Band VIII (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1964):  1–31; Carl Olson, The Indian Renouncer and Postmodern Poison:  A  Cross-Cultural
Encounter (New York: Peter Lang, 1997), 122–188.
5. See Carl Olson, “A Reconsideration of the Puruṣamedha of the Ancient Hindus and the Sun
Dance of the Sioux Indians,” Journal of Religious Studies 17/1–2 (1991): 165–184; Willibald Kirfel,
“Der Aśvamedha und der Puruṣamedha,” in Beitrage zur Indischen Philogie und Altertumskunde.
Walter Schubring zum 70. Geburtstag dargebracht von der Deutschen Indologie (Hamburg: Cram,
1951), 39–50; A. Weber, “Ueber Menschenopfer bei den Indren der Vedischen Zeit,” Zeitschrift
der Deutschen Morgenlandishchen Gesellschaft 18 (1864):  262–287; Alfred Hillebrandt,
Ritual-Litterature Vedische Opfer und Zauber (Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner, 1897), 153.
6. Madhavācarya, Śaṅkaradigvijaya (Poona: Ānandāśram Press, 1915), 15.24–29.
7. Ibid., 15.11–36.
8. Briggs, Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis, 190.
9. Ibid., 191.
10. D. Dennis Hudson, “Violent and Fanatical Devotion among the Nāyanārs:  A  Study
in the Periya Purāṇam of Cēkkilār” in Criminals Gods and Demon Devotees:  Essays on the
Guardians of Popular Hinduism, ed. Alf Hiltebeital (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1989), 385.
11. See D. Vidal, G. Tarabout, and E. Meyer, Violences et Non-violences en Inde. Collection
Puruṣārtha 12 (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1994).
12. Henk W.  Bodewitz, “Hindu Ahiṃsā and Its Roots,” in Violence Denied:  Violence,
Non-Violence and the Rationalization of Violence in South Asian Cultural History, ed. Jan E. M.
Houben and Karel R.  Van Kooij (Leiden:  Brill, 1999), 18, 24. Laurie Patton sees an ambiva-
lent attitude expressed in Vedic literature toward violence in “Telling Stories about Harm: An
Overview of Early Indian Narratives,” in Religion and Violence in South Asia:  Theory and
Practice, ed. John R. Hinnells and Richard King (London: Routledge, 2007), 10–38.
13. See Jan E.  M. Houben, “To Kill or Not To Kill. The Sacrificial Animal
(Yajña-Paśu)?:  Arguments and Perspectives in Brahmanical Ethical Philosophy,” in Violence
Denied:  Violence, Non-Violence and the Rationalization of Violence in South Asian Cultural
History, ed. Jan E. M. Houben and Karel R. Van Kooij (Leiden: Brill, 1999): 105–183.
14. Halbfass, Tradition and Reflection, 114.
15. J. L. Masson argues that any attempt to control the body involves violence, and “When this
fails, as it must inevitably do, hallucination and states bordering on the psychoses are likely to
develop” (311) in “Sex and Yoga: Psychoanalysis and the Indian Religious Experience,” Journal
of Indian Philosophy 2 (1974): 307–320.
16. The Book of Discipline (Vinaya-Piṭaka), vol. 4 (Mahāvagga), trans. I. B.  Horner
(London: Luzac & Company, 1962), 1.55; The Middle Length Sayings (Majjhima Nikāya), vol. 2,
226 Notes
trans. I. B. Horner (London: Luzac & Company, 1970), 2.1.473; The Book of the Kindred Sayings
(Sanyutta Nikāya), 5 Volumes, trans. Mrs. Rhys Davids and F. L. Woodward (London: Luzac &
Company, 1962–1972), 1.402, 4.120.
17. Book of the Kindred Sayings, 4.239.
18. Buddhaghoṣa, The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga), trans. Bhikkhu Ñyāṇamoli, 2nd
ed. (Colombo: A. Semage, 1964), 1.93.
19. Life of Milarepa, 142.
20. The Book of Discipline (Vinaya-Pitaka), vol. 5 (Cullavagga), trans. I. B.  Horner
(London: Luzac & Company, 1963), 1.9.1–5.
21. See Hara Minoru, “A Note on the Phrase Kṛśo dhamani-saṃtata,” Asiatische Studien /
Études Asiatiques 44/2 (1995):  377–389. Within the Christian ascetic context, Gillian Clark
calls attention to extreme fasting among females that results in an amenorrhea appearance
that she calls a survival strategy, in “Women and Asceticism in Late Antiquity: The Refusal of
Status and Gender,” in Asceticism, ed. Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 39.
22. The Middle Length Sayings (Majjhima Nikāya), 3 vols., trans. I. B. Horner (London: Luzac
& Company, 1967–1970), 1.245–246.
23. André Bareau, Recherches sur la biographie du Buddha, 2 vols. (Paris:  École Française
d’Extréme-Orient, 1963, 1970), 1: 50.
24. Ākaranga Sūtra in Jaina Sūtras, 2 vols., trans. Hermann Jacobi, Sacred Books of the East
23, 45 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1968, 1973), 1.1.7..
25. Uttaradhyayanasutra, ed. J. Charpentier, Archives d’Études Orientales publiées par J.
A. Lundell, vol. 18 (Upsala: Appelbergs Boktryckeri Aktiebolag, 1921), 5.3.
26. Ākaranga Sūtra in Jaina Sūtras, 1.7.8.12.
27. Walter Schubring, Die Lehre der Jainas (Berlin: Walther De Gruyter & Company, 1935), 183.
28. Colette Caillat, “L’ascétisme chez les Jaina,” Archives de sociologie des religions 18 (Juillet–
Décembre, 1964): 52.
29. Schubring, Die Lehre der Jainas, 182.
30. Christopher Key Chapple, “The Dialectic of Violence in Jainism,” in The Blackwell
Companion to Religion and Violence, ed. Andrew R. Murphy (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011),
266.
31. Padmanabh S. Jaini, Collected Papers on Jaina Studies (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2000),
283.
32. Brian K. Smith, “Eaters, Food, and Social Hierarchy in Ancient India: A Dietary Guide to
a Revolution of Values,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 58/2 (1990): 185.
33. Olivelle, Ascetics and Brahmans, 77, 87.
34. See the following essay for a discussion of the relationship between food and Indian cul-
ture:  R. S.  Khare, “Annambrahman:  Cultural Models, Meanings, and Aesthetics of Hindu
Food,” in The Eternal Flood: Gastronomic Ideas and Experiences of Hindus and Buddhists, ed. R.
S. Khare (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992): 201–220.
35. Jaini, Collected Papers, 284.
36. Ibid., 283.
37. Ibid., 200.
38. Paul Dundas, “Food and Freedom:  The Jaina Sectarian Debate on the Nature of the
Kevalin,” Religion 15 (1985): 179–183.
 Notes 227
39. Jaini, Collected Papers, 284.
40. Wiley, “Supernatural Powers,” 172.
41. Lubomir Ondračka, “What Should Mīanāth Do To Save His Life,” in Yogi Heroes
and Poets:  Histories and Legends of the Nāths, ed. David N.  Lorenzen and Adrian Muñoz
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011), 141.
42. Quoted by Christian K. Wedemeyer from an unpublished Sanskrit document located
in the Tokyo University library in Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism: History, Semiology, and
Transgression in the Indian Traditions (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 146.
43. Āpta-Mimāṁsā of Āchārya Samantabhedra, 2nd ed., trans. Saratchandra Ghosal (New
Delhi: Bharatiya Jnapith, 2010), 9.93
44. William C.  Bushell, “Psychophysiological and Comparative Analysis of
Ascetico-Meditational Discipline:  Toward a New Theory of Asceticism,” in Asceticism, ed.
Vincent L. Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 555, 558.
45. Ibid., 567.
46. Rupert Gethin, “Buddhist Monks, Buddhist Kings, Buddhist Violence:  On the Early
Buddhist Attitudes to Violence,” in Religion and Violence in South Asia: Theory and Practice, ed.
John R. Hinnells and Richard King (London: Routledge, 2007), 64.
47. For a more in-depth discussion of the Buddha’s attitude toward war, see Lambert
Schmithausen, “Aspects of the Buddhist Attitude Towards War,” in Violence Denied: Violence,
Non-Violence and the Rationalization of Violence in South Asian Cultural History, ed. Jan E. M.
Houben and Karel R. Van Kooij (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 45–67.
48. James B. Benn, Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism, Studies in
East Asian Buddhism 19 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2007), 7.
49. Jacob P. Dalton, The Taming of the Demons: Violence and Liberation in Tibetan Buddhism
(New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2011), 11.
50. Friedhelm Hardy, The Religious Culture of India:  Power, Love, and Wisdom
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 177.
51. Paul Dundas, “The Non-Violence of Violence: Jain Perspectives on Warfare, Asceticism
and Worship,” Religion and Violence in South Asia, ed. John R.  Hinnells and Richard King
(London:  Routledge, 2007), 46. Dundas disagrees with my comments on the violence of
Jain asceticism in my book The Indian Renouncer and Postmodern Poison:  A  Cross-Cultural
Encounter (New York: Peter Lang, 1997). Dundas calls attention to the creative and universal
aspects of Jain ascetic violence.
52. A. L. Basham, History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas (London: Luzac and Company, 1951),
42, 44.
53. Madhvavācarya, Śaṅkara-digvijaya, 15.8–23.
54. See David N. Lorenzen, “Warrior Ascetics in Indian History,” Journal of the American
Oriental Society 98/1 (1978): 61–75. According to Mark Singleton, “The practice of yoga, in cer-
tain milieu, became an alibi for training in violent, militant resistence” (103) in Yoga Body: The
Origins of Modern Posture Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
55. William R.  Pinch, Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires (Cambridge:  Cambridge
University Press, 2006), 53–54.
56. Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1993).
57. Ariel Glucklich, Religious Jurisprudence in the Dharmaśāstra (New  York and
London: Macmillan, 1988), 4.
228 Notes

58. Bankimcandra Chatterji, Ānandamaṭh, or The Sacred Brotherhood, trans. Julius J. Lipner
(Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 180–181.
59. Anton Blok, “The Enigma of Senseless Violence,” in Meanings of Violence: A Cross Cultural
Perspective, ed. Göran Aijmer and Jon Abbink (New York: Berg, 2000), 33.
60. Göran Aijmer, “Introduction:  The Idiom of Violence in Imagery and Discourse,”
in Meanings of Violence:  A  Cross Cultural Perspective, ed. Göran Aijmer and Jon Abbink
(New York: Berg, 2000), 15.
61. David R. Kinsley, The Divine Player: A Study of Kṛṣṇa Līlā (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1979), 79.
62. Muktananda, Play of Consciousness, 87.
63. For an excellent essay tracing the meaning of the demonic from the Greeks to the twen-
tieth century, see Wolfgang M. Zucker, “The Demonic: From Aeschylus to Tillich,” Theology
Today 26/1 (1969): 35–50.
64. In his remarks about demons in Sinhala Buddhist society, Obeyesekere asserts, “Demons
are both subjective and objective realities; subjectively, they are demonomorphic representations
of internal states, or at least they are manipulated by individuals to express these states; objectively,
they are beings who live in the behavioral environment of a particular group” (115) in Medusa’s
Hair. On the cognitive level of human existence, demons help to explain misfortune, and they
possess specific identities and myths of origin.
65. For the best current discussion of this issue, see Frederick M. Smith, The Self Possessed: Deity
and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2006).
66. Richard Burghart sees an ideological and logical opposition between Brahman and ascetic
because ascetic rules, vows, and rituals differentiate them in “Renunciation in the Religious
Traditions of South Asia,” Man. New Series, 18/4 (1983): 635–653.
67. Gail Hinich Sutherland, The Disguises of the Demon:  The Development of the Yakṣa in
Hinduism and Buddhism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 135–136.
68. Elaine Craddock, Śiva’s Demon Devotee:  Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār (New  York:  State
University of New York Press, 2010), 38.
69. Karen Pechilis, Interpreting Devotionalism:  The Poetry and Legacy of a Female Bhakti
Saint of India (London: Routledge, 2012), 92.
70. Briggs, Gorakhnath and the Kanphata Yogis, 138.
71. Lawrence Babb, Absent Lord:  Ascetics and Kings in a Jain Ritual Culture
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 125.
72. Richard Valantasis argues that Christian monks need demons because they help the monk
perfect his body by locating passions to be controlled, and are the monk’s constant companion
during his life of withdrawal in “Demons and the Perfecting of the Monk’s Body: Monastic
Anthropology, Daemonology and Asceticism,” Semeia 58 (1992): 47–79.
73. John D. Carlson, “Religion and Violence: Coming to Terms with Terms,” in The Blackwell
Companion to Religion and Violence, ed. Andrew R.  Murphy (Oxford:  Blackwell Publishing
Company, 2011), 15–16.
74. Ibid., 17.
75. Karel R.  Van Kooij, “Iconography of the Battlefield:  The Case of Chinnamastā,” in
Violence Denied:  Violence, Non-Violence and the Rationalization of Violence in South Asian
Cultural History, ed. Jan E. M. Houben, and Karel R. Van Kooij (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 250–251.
 Notes 229
76. Jacques Ellul, Violence: Reflections from a Christian Perspective, trans. Cecelia Gaul Kings
(London: Mowbrags, 1969; reprint 1978).
77. René Girard, Violence and the Sacred, trans. Patrick Gregory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1977), 12–13.
78. Wolfgang Palaver, “Mimetic Theories of Religion and Violence,” in The Oxford Handbook
of Religion and Violence, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer, Margo Kitts, and Michael Jerryson
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 534.
79. Ibid., 548. An alternative to Girard’s position is offered by the anthropologist Maurice
Bloch, who claims that Girard assumes an innate human aggressiveness that is controlled by
ritual. Bloch writes, “In contrast I do not base myself on some innate propensity to violence
but argue that violence is itself a result of the attempt to create the transcendent in religion
and politics” in Prey Into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992), 7.
80. Grace M. Jantzen, Foundations of Violence (London and New York: Routledge, 2004),
26–27.
81. Hent de Vries, Religion and Violence:  Philosophical Perspectives from Kant to Derrida
(Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 1.
82. E. Valentine Daniel, “Mood, Moment, and Mind,” in Violence and Subjectivity, ed. Veena
Das, Arthur Kleinman, Manphela Ramphele, and Pamela Reynolds (Berkeley:  University of
California Press, 2000), 350.
83. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Spivak (Baltimore and London: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1976); Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1978), 79–153.
84. Hent de Vries, “Phenomenal Violence and the Philosophy of Religion,” in The Oxford
Handbook of Religion and Violence, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer, Margo Kitts, and Michael Jerryson
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 513.
85. Michel Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” in Michel Foucault:  Beyond Structuralism
and Hermeneutics, ed. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow. 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1983), 220.
86. Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, trans. Seán Hand (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1986), 70.
87. Arthur Kleinman, “The Violences of Everyday Life: The Multiple Forms and Dynamics
of Social Violence,” in Violence and Subjectivity, ed. Veena Das, Arthur Kleinman, Manphela
Ramphele, and Pamela Reynolds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 227.
88. Ibid., 238.
89. Randall Collins, Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton
University Press, 2008).
90. Ibid., 10.
91. Ibid., 25.
92. Ibid., 29.
93. D. Riches, “The Phenomenon of Violence,” in The Anthropology of Violence, ed. D. Riches
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1982), 8.
94. Bruce Lincoln, Gods and Demons, Priests and Scholars:  Critical Explorations in the
History of Religions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 84.
95. Ibid., 88.
230 Notes
96. Ibid., 90.
97. Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God:  The Global Rise of Religious Violence
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), 242. Focusing on the protracted violence in Sri
Lanka between Sinhala and Tamil groups, E. Valentine Daniel stresses the emotional reaction
to violence that overwhelms natives and renders them silent in Charred Lullabies: Chapters in
an Anthropology of Violence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996).
98. Mark Juergensmeyer, “Religious Terrorism as Performance Violence,” in The Oxford
Handbook of Religion and Violence, ed. Mark Juergensmeyer, Margo Kitts, and Michael Jerryson
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 280.
99. Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind, 154, 233. The positions of Juergensmeyer and Lincoln
are criticized by Richard King because of their alleged secularism that derives its values from
the European Enlightenment, their accounts of religion are too narrow, their understanding
of violence suffers from a Manichean style of dualism, and their use of Western social scien-
tific categories. King wants his readers to see the complicity between violence and secular ide-
ologies in the works of Juergensmeyer and Lincoln, and calls for secularism to decenter itself
in “The Association of ‘Religion’ with Violence: Reflections on a Modern Trope,” in Religion
and Violence in South Asia:  Theory and Practice, ed. John R.  Hinnells and Richard King
(London: Routledge, 2007), 214–242.
100. Peter van der Veer, Gods on Earth: The Management of Religious Experience and Identity
in a North Indian Pilgrimage Centre, London:  School of Economics Monographs on Social
Anthropology (London and Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Athlone Press, 1988), 133.
101. Robert Lewis Gross, The Sadhus of India:  A  Study of Hindu Asceticism (Jaipur, New
Delhi: Rawat Publications, 1992), 345.
102. Ibid., 345.
103. Van der Veer, “Taming the Ascetic,” 690–691.
104. McDaniel, Offering Flowers, 124.
105. J. C.  Heesterman, “Householder and Wanderer,” in Way of Life, King, Householder,
Renouncer: Essays in Honour of Louis Dumont, ed. T. N. Madan (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1988),
259–260. Jarrod L. Whitaker calls attention to some problems with Heesterman’s position, asserting
that he did not consult the Ṛg Veda, he relied on later ritual manuals to construct his theory, and the
Vedas attest to little threats of internal violence, in Strong Arms and Drinking Strength: Masculinity,
Violence, and the Body in Ancient India (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 164.

Chapter 5

1. Brian M. Britt, “Curses Left and Right: Hate Speech and Biblical Tradition,” Journal of
the American Academy of Religion 78/3 (2010): 640.
2. Anne Marie Kitz, “An Oath, Its Curse and Anointing Ritual,” Journal of the American
Oriental Society 24/2 (2004): 321.
3. Britt, “Curses,” 636.
4. Sarah Iles Johnston, “Magic,” in Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide, ed. Sarah Iles
Johnston (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), 138–152.
5. M. E.  Combs-Schilling, Sacred Performances:  Islam, Sexuality, and Sacrifice
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1989); Dale Eickelman, Moroccan Islam: Tradition and
Society in a Pilgrimage Center (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986).
 Notes 231
6. For a more detailed discussion of Vāc, see the following: W. Norman Brown, Man in the
Universe: Some Continuities in Indian Thought (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970; W.
Norman Brown, “The Creative Role of the Goddess Vāc in the Rig Veda,” in Pratidānam: Indian
and Indo-European Studies Presented to Francisus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper on His Sixtieth Birthday,
ed. J. C. Heesterman et al (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1968), 393–397; Louis Renou, “Les pou-
voirs de la parole dans le Ṛgveda,” Études védiques et pānineennes (Paris: De Boccard, 1955), 1–27.
7. Robert P. Goldman, “Language, Gender and Power: The Sexual Politics of Language and
Language Acquisition in Traditional India,” in Invented Identities:  The Interplay of Gender,
Religion and Politics in India, ed. Julia Leslie and Mary McGee (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2000), 85.
8. Sally J. Sutherland Goldman, “Speaking Gender: Vāc and the Vedic Construction of the
Feminine,” in Invented Identities:  The Interplay of Gender, Religion and Politics in India, ed.
Julia Leslie and Mary McGee (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2000), 57.
9. Harold Coward, Sacred Word and Sacred Text: Scripture in World Religions (Maryknoll,
NY: Orbis Books, 1988), 139.
10. David J. Kalupahana, A History of Buddhist Philosophy: Continuities and Discontinuities
(Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992), 61.
11. Sheldon Pollock, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and
Power in Premodern India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 53.
12. George D.  Bond, “The Gradual Path as a Hermeneutical Approach to the Dhamma,”
in Buddhist Hermeneutics, ed. Donald S.  Lopez, Jr. Studies in East Asian Buddhism 6
(Honolulu:  University of Hawaii Press, 1988), 33; Etienne Lamotte, Histoire du Buddhisme
Indien, des Origines à l’Ère Śaka, Bibliotheque du Museen, Bd. 43 (Louvain:  Université de
Louvain Institut Orientaliste, 1967), 13.
13. Middle Length Sayings, 1.265; Dialogues of the Buddha (Digha Nikāya), 3 vols., trans. T.
W. Rhys Davids (London: Luzac & Company, 1966–1971), 2:100.
14. Buddhaghosa, Path of Purification, trans. Ñyānamoli; Visuddhimagga of
Buddhaghosacariya, ed. Henry Clarke Warren, Harvard Oriental Series 41 (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), 7.72.
15. Śaṅkara, Eight Upaniṣads. 2  vols., trans. Swami Gambhirananda (Calcutta:  Advaita
Ashrama, 1965, 1966), Taittirya Upaniṣad, 1.7.1.
16. Śaṅkara, The Vedānta Sūtras with the Commentary of Shankarcarya, trans. George
Thibaut, Sacred Books of the East 24, 38 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1968), 1.1.3.
17. Barbara A.  Holdrege, Veda and Torah:  Transcending the Textuality of Scripture
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 129.
18. Phyllis Granoff, trans. The Forest of Thieves and the Magic Garden:  An Anthology of
Medieval Jain Stories (London: Penguin Books, 1998), 1107–108.
19. Phyllis Granoff, “The Biographies of Siddhasena: A Study in the Texture of Allusion and
the Weaving of a Group-Image Part II,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 18 (1990): 262.
20. W. Norman Brown, “The Basis for the Hindu Act of Truth,” Review of Religion 5/1
(1940): 36–45.
21. André Padoux, Tantric Mantras:  Studies on Mantrasastra (London and
New York: Routledge, 2011), 3.
22. Louis Renou, Études sur le vocabulaire du Ṛgveda (Pondichéry, 1958), 11. Mahony insists
that mantra means an instrument of the mind, which expresses the pre-existent word itself;
Artful Universe, 78.
232 Notes
23. Jan Gonda, Selected Studies, vol. 4: History of Ancient Indian Religion (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1975), 260.
24. Ellison Banks Findly, “Mantra kaviśastā:  Speech as Performative in the Ṛgveda,” in
Mantra, ed. Harvey P. Alper (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989), 18.
25. See Jan Gonda, Notes on Brahman (Utrecht: J. L. Beyers, 1950).
26. Śaṅkara, Eight Upaniṣads, 2  vols. trans. Gambhirananda (Calcutta:  Advaita Ashrama,
1965), Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad, 2.2.4.
27. Abhinavagupta, Tantrāloka of Abhinava Gupta with Jayaratha’s Commentary, 12 vols. ed.
Mukunda Rama Sastri and M. S. Kaul. Kashmir Series of Texts and Studies (Allahabad: Indian
Press, 1918–1938), 5.140–41.
28. Mark S.  G. Dyczkowski, The Doctrine of Vibration:  An Analysis of the Doctrines and
Practices of Kashmir Shaivism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 200.
29. Abhinavagupta, Tantrāloka, 32.21; 4.194.
30. Ibid., 4.194.
31. Padoux, Tantric Mantras, 74, 95.
32. Ibid., 7.
33. Loriliai Biernackti, Renowned Goddess of Desire:  Women, Sex, and Speeches in Tantra
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 33.
34. Paul Dundas, “Becoming Gautama: Mantra and History in Śvetāmbara Jainism,” in Open
Boundaries: Jain Communities and Cultures in Indian History, ed. John E. Cort (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1998), 34.
35. Dundas, The Jains (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 72.
36. Ibid., 71.
37. Gonda, Selected Studies, 248; Findly, “Mantra,” 29; See also Staal and his claim that
mantras are not speech acts because they do not involve intention like speech acts do, “Vedic
Mantras,” in Mantra, ed. Harvey P. Alper (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989),
57–58; Gonda says that the mantra frequently expresses the speaker’s intention in Selected
Studies, 271.
38. Harold Coward, “The Meaning and Power of Mantras in Bhartṛhari’s Vākyapadiya,” in
Mantra, ed. Harvey P. Alper (New York: State University of New York Press, 1989), 172.
39. André Padoux, “Mantras—What Are They?” in Mantra, ed. Harvey P.  Alper
(New York: State University of New York Press, 1989),. 295-318.
40. A good example is Hillebrandt, Ritual, 177.
41. Jan Gonda, Rice and Barley Offerings in the Veda (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1987), 125.
42. Jan Gonda, The Indra Hymns of the Ṛgveda (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989), 143; Hillebrandt,
Ritual, 169.
43. Arthur Berriedale Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads,
2  vols. Harvard Oriental Series 31, 32 (Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press; reprint,
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1970), I: 395.
44. Gonda, Indra Hymns, 143.
45. Jan Gonda, Die Religionen Indiens I, 113.
46. Hermann Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta’Sche Buchhandlung
Nachfolger, 1923), 513.
47. Gonda, Die Religionen I, 113.
48. See also TS 1.3.11.1; compare this to AV 19.44.9 and ŚB 3.8.5.10.
 Notes 233
49. Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, 516.
50. Ibid., 517, n. 2.
51. Patrick Olivelle, The Early Upaniṣads: Annotated Text and Translation (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1998), 157.
52. Sarah Lamb, White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: Aging, Gender, and Body in North India
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 63.
53. Ibid., 65.
54. Van der Veer, “Power of Detachment,” 458–70.
55. Gonda, Die Religionen I, 285.
56. Georg von Simson, “Kṛṣṇa’s Son Sāmba: Faked Gender and Other Ambiguities on the
Background of Lunar and Solar Myth,” in Gender and Narrative in the Mahābhārata, ed. Simon
Brodbeck and Brian Black (London: Routledge, 2007), 231.
57. Madhva, Śaṅkaradigvijaya, 14. 51–53.
58. Ann Grodzins Gold, “Awakening Generosity in Nāth Tales from Rajasthan,” in Yogi
Heroes and Poets: Histories and Legends of Nāths, eds. David N. Lorenzen and Adrian Muñoz
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011), 102–103.
59. Minoru, “Losing of Tapas,” 231.
60. Ibid., 235.
61. J. L. Austin, How To Do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967).
62. See also the Mahābhārata 3.110.17–36; 3.1–22, 112.1–18; 113.1–25.
63. O’Flaherty, Asceticism and Eroticism, 87.
64. Gilles Deleuze, Masochism: An Interpretation of Coldness and Cruelty, trans. Jean McNeil
(New York: Braziller, 1971), 20–21.
65. Ibid., 32–33.
66. Ibid., 35.
67. Ibid., 118.
68. Ibid., 101.

Chapter 6

1. Norvin Hein, “Līlā,” in The Gods at Play:  Līlā in South Asia, ed. William S.  Sax
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 13.
2. David Kinsley, The Sword and the Flute: Kālī and Kṛṣṇa, Dark Visions of the Terrible and
Sublime in Hindu Mythology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 74.
3. Walther Eidlitz, Kṛṣṇa-Caitanya Sein Leben und Seine Lehre, Stockholm Studies
in Comparative Religion 7 (Stockholm:  Almqvist & Wiksell, 1968), 69. See also Ananda
K. Coomaraswamy, “Līlā,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 61 (1941): 98.
4. Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution, 573.
5. Peter Berger, Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience (New York,
Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 1997), 13.
6. Bellah, Religion in Human Evolution, 575.
7. Wouter J. Hangeraaf, “ How Magic Survived the Disenchantment of the World,” Religion
33/4 (2003): 357–380.
8. Rosalind Lefeber, “Jain Stories of Miraculous Power,” in Religions of India in Practice, ed.
Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 429.
234 Notes
9. Ibid., 430–431.
10. Glorious Deeds of Pūrṇa, trans. Tatelman, 66.
11. André Droogers, “The Third Bank of the River: Play, Methodological Ludism, and the
Definition of Religion,” in Playful Religion: Challenges for the Study of Religion, ed. Anton van
Harskamp et al. (Delft, The Netherlands: Eburon Academic Publishers, 2006), 81.
12. Phyllis Granoff, “The Biographies of Siddhasena: A Study in the Texture of Allusion and
the Weaving of a Group-Image, Part II,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 18 (1990): 263-264.
13. Ibid., 283.
14. Phyllis Granoff, “Scholars and Wonder Workers:  Some Remarks on the Role of the
Supernatural in Philosophical Contests in Vedānta Hagiographies,” Journal of the American
Oriental Society 105/3 (1985): 462.
15. Stephanie W. Jamison, The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun: Myth and Ritual in
Ancient India (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1991), 169.
16. I  have used the following translation:  Kamasutra, trans. Wendy Doniger and Sudhir
Karkar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
17. See Cox, Feast of Fools, 8.
18. Georges Bataille, The Tears of Eros, trans. Peter Connor (San Francisco: City Lights Books,
1989), 31–32.
19. Ibid., 48.
20. Georges Bataille, Death and Sensuality:  A  Study of Eroticism and the Taboo (Salem,
NH: Ayer, 1984), 17.
21. Ibid., 252.
22. Ibid., 29, 31.
23. Ibid., 130.
24. Ibid., 256.
25. Ibid., 24.
26. Ibid., 83.
27. Randall Collins, Interaction Ritual Chains (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University
Press, 2004), 231.
28. Ibid., 246.
29. Jean-Luc Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon, trans. Stephen E.  Lewis (Chicago and
London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 115.
30. Ibid., 120.
31. Ibid., 130.
32. Ibid., 143.
33. Ibid., 143.
34. Jeffery J.  Kripal, Kālī’s Child:  The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of
Ramakrishna (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 23.
35. Jeffery J. Kripal, Roads of Excess, Places of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of
Mysticism (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 21–22.
36. John Russon, Bearing Witness to Epiphany: Persons, Things, and the Nature of Erotic Life
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009), 31.
37. Ibid. 31.
38. Ibid., 74.
39. Ibid., 78.
 Notes 235
40. Caroline Rhys Davids and K. R.  Norman, trans. Poems of Early Buddhist Nuns
(Therīgāthā) (Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1989), 126–133.
41. Susanne Mrozik, Virtuous Bodies: The Physical Dimensions of Morality in Buddhist Ethics
(Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 85–86.
42. Charles Henry Tawney, The Kathākośa; or Treasury of Stories. Oriental Translation Fund,
new series 2 (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1895), 49–50.
43. Adrian Muñoz, “Matsyendra’s ‘Golden Legend’: Yogi Tales and Nāth Ideology,” in Yogi
Heroes and Poets: Histories and Legends of the Nāths, ed. David N. Lorenzen and Adrian Muñoz
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2011), 115–117.
44. An excellent book-length study of this figure is given by Antonio Rigopoulos,
Dattātreya:  The Immortal Guru, Yogin, and Avatāra:  A  Study of the Transformative and
Inclusive Character of a Multi-Faceted Hindu Deity (Albany:  State University of New  York
Press, 1998).
45. The Cakrasamvara Tantra (The Discourse of Śrī Heruka), trans. David B.  Gray
(New York: American Institute of Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, 2007), 318.
46. This text is cited by David Gordon White, Sinister Yogis (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2009), 175–177.
47. O’Flaherty, Asceticism and Eroticism, 293.
48. Lee Siegel, Laughing Matters: Comic Tradition in India (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1987), 10.
49. O’Flaherty, Asceticism and Eroticism, 9.
50. Lives of Great Monks and Nuns, trans. Li Rongxi (Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist
Translation and Research, 2002), 21–23.
51. Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara, Speaking of Monks: Religious Biography in India
and China (Oakville, New York, London: Mosaic Press, 1992), 25.
52. Hemacandra, Lives, 8.109–131.
53. The History of the Holy Servants of Lord Siva:  A  Translation of the Periya Purāṇam of
Cēkkḻār trans. Alastair McGlashan (Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2006), 34: 2576–2753.
54. Śankaradigvijaya of Mādhavācārya, 3rd ed. (Haridvar:Śrī Śravatanāth Jñān-mandir,
1985), 9.73–109.
55. Rebecca J. Manring, The Fading Light of Advaita Ācārya: Three Hagiographies (Oxford,
New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 92.
56. David N. Lorenzen, “A Parody of the Kāpālikas in the Mattavilāsa,” in Tantra in Practice,
ed. David Gordon White (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 82.
57. Ibid., 89.
58. The Life of Nāgārjuna Bodhisattva in Lives of Great Monks and Nuns, trans. Li Rongxi
(Berkeley:  Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2002), 25. This is a book
within a collection of other short texts.
59. Granoff, Forest of Thieves, 259.
60. Hemcandra, Lives, 2.379–405.
61. Siegel, Laughing Matters, 278.
62. Ibid., 229.
63. Stephanie W. Jamison, Sacrificed Wife / Sacrificer’s Wife: Women, Ritual, and Hospitality
in Ancient India (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 16.
64. Wendy Doniger, On Hinduism (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 51.
236 Notes

65. Bṛhatkathāmañjari of Kṣemendra, ed. Sivadatta and K. P.  Parab, Kavyamala Sanskrit
Series 83 (Bombay: Nirnaya-Sagara Press, 1931), 3.36–55.
66. Sara L. McClintock, “Compassionate Trickster: The Buddha as a Literary Character in
the Narratives of Early Indian Buddhism,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79/1
(2011), 102.
67. Granoff, Forest of Thieves, 144–145.
68. Ibid., 57–60.
69. Muktananda, Play of Consciousness, 111.
70. Ibid., 107.
71. Ibid., 108.
72. Ibid., 109.
73. Siegel, Laughing Matters, 230–231.
74. Ibid., 186.
75. Ibid., 264.
76. Rongxi, Lives of Great Monks and Nuns, 201–202.
77. Hemacandra, Lives, 3.141–147.
78. John Sallis, Force of Imagination:  The Sense of the Elemental (Bloomington and
Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000), 139.

Chapter 7

1. Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture (Boston: Beacon

Press, 1953), 170–171.
2. Corinne Dempsey, “Introduction: Divine Proof or Tenacious Embarrassment? The Wonders
of the Modern Miraculous,” in Miracle as Modern Conundrum in South Asian Religious Traditions,
ed. Corinne G. Dempsey and Selva J. Raj (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008), 3.
Richard H. Davis, “Introduction: Miracles as Social Acts,” in Images, Miracles, and Authority in
Asian Religious Traditions, ed. Richard H. Davis (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998), 4.
3. Mark Corner, Signs of God: Miracles and Their Interpretations (Hampshire, UK: Ashgate,
2005), 5.
4. Aideen M. Hartney, Gruesome Deaths and Celibate Lives: Christian Martyrs and Ascetics
(Exeter: Bristol Phoenix Press, 2005), 121.
5. David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (LaSalle, IL: Open Court,
1988), 149.
6. Ibid., 150–151.
7. David Bassinger, “What Is a Miracle?” in The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, ed.
Graham H. Twelftree (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 24.
8. Ibid., 22.
9. Robert A. Larmer, “The Meanings of Miracle,” in The Cambridge Companion to Miracles,
ed. Graham H. Twelftree (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 38.
10. David L.  Weddle, Miracles: Wonder and Meanings in World Religions (New York and
London: New York University Press, 2010), xii–xiii.
11. Davis, “Introduction,” 5–6.
12. Weddle, Miracles, 1–2.
 Notes 237
13. Ibid., 78.
14. Caroline Walker Bynum, “Wonder,” American Historical Review 102/1 (1997): 3.
15. Ibid., 7.
16. Ibid., 40.
17. Gavin Flood, “Miracles in Hinduism,” in The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, ed.
Graham H. Twelftree (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 190.
18. Rupert Gethin, “Tales of Miraculous Teachings:  Miracles in Early Indian Buddhism,”
in The Cambridge Companion to Miracles, ed. Graham H. Twelftree (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2011), 219.
19. The Vimalakīrti Sutra, trans. Burton Watson, (New  York:  Columbia University Press,
1997), 112–121.
20. The Lotus Sutra, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University, 1993), 6.
21. Alan Cole, Text as Father: Paternal Seductions in Early Mahāyāna Buddhist Literature
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 82.
22. The Śūraṅgama Samādhi Sūtra, trans. John McRae (Berkeley:  Numata Center for
Buddhist Translation and Research, 1998), 13–16.
23. Ibid., 47.
24. André Droogers, “Methodological Ludism, Beyond Religionism and Reductionism,” in
Conflicts in Social Science, ed. Anton van Harskamp (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 53.
25. André Droogers, “Third Bank,” 81, 83, 86.
26. Gananath Obeyesekere, The Awakened Ones:  Phenomenology of Visionary Experience
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 17.
27. Ibid., 110.
28. Ibid., 114.
29. Śūraṅgama Samādhi Sūtra, 78.
30. Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma, trans. Leon Hurvitz (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1976), 300.
31. Journey of the Eminent Monk Faxian in Lives of Great Monks and Nuns, trans. Li Rongxi
(Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 2002), 184.
32. Babb, Absent Lord, 113–114.
33. Ibid., 127, 131.
34. Ibid., 117.
35. Granoff and Shinohara, Speaking of Monks, 25.
36. Ibid., 65.
37. Babb, Absent Lord, 118.
38. Babb, Absent Lord, 121.
39. Granoff and Shinohara, Speaking of Monks, 25–26.
40. Granoff, “Siddhasena Part I,” 340–341.
41. Ibid., 353–356.
42. Śaṅkaravijaya by Vyāsācala. ed. T. Chandrasekharan, Madras Government Oriental
Manuscripts Series 24 (Madras: Government of Madras, 1954).
43. Prapannāmṛta of Śrīmadanantācārya, ed. Swami Rāmanarāyaṇācārya, (Benares:  Śrī
Venkateśvara Press, 1960).
44. Madhva, Śrīsumadhvavijaya with Commentary of Śrīviśvapatitīrtha (Udipi, n.d.).
238 Notes

45. Śiva’s Warriors:  The Basava Purṇa of Pālkuriki Somanātha, trans. Velcheru Narayana
Rao, trans. (Princeton University Press, 1990), 80.
46. Ibid., 106.
47. Ibid., 137.
48. Ibid., 188.
49. Anne Feldhaus, trans., The Deeds of God in Ṛddhipur (New  York:  Oxford University
Press, 1984), 8, 15, 41, 57, 96, 48, 57, 96, 164, 209.
50. Ibid., 4.
51. Stories of Indian Saints:  Translation of Mahipati’s Marathi Bhaktavijaya, 2 vol., trans.
Justin E. Abbott and Pandit N. R. Godbole (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1973; reprint, 1982),
3.245–253.
52. The Hagiographies of Anantadās:  The Bhakti Poets of North India, trans. Winand
M. Callewaert (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000).
53. Christian Lee Novetzke, Religion and Public Memory: A Cultural History of Saint Namdev
in India (New York: Columbia University, 2008), 62.
54. Nābhādās, Śrī Bhaktamāl (Lucknow: Tejkumar Press, 1969), 494. According to Charlotte
Vaudeville, the term sant mat literally refers to the mind or the point of view of a sant in “Sant
Mat: Santism as the Universal Path to Sanctity,” in The Sants: Studies in a Devotional Tradition
of India, ed. Karine Schomer and W. H. McLeod (Berkeley: Berkeley Religious Studies Series
and Motilal Banarsidass, 1987), 21.
55. Winand M. Callewaert, The Hindi Biography of Dādū Dayāl (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1988).
56. Charlotte Vaudeville, Kabīr, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 1.29.
57. Ibid., 25.19.
58. Linda Hess and Shukdeo Singh, The Bijak of Kabir (Oxford, New York: Oxford University
Press, 2002), 102, 75.
59. Vaudeville, Kabīr, 110.
60. Ibid., 8.10, 197.
61. For a lucid discussion of this distinction, see John Stratton Hawley, “The Nirgunṇ/Saguṇ
Distinction in Early Manuscript Anthologies of Hindi Devotion,” in Bhakti in Religion in
North India: Community Identity and Political Action, ed. David N. Lorenzen (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1995), 162–165.
62. John Stratton Hawley, Three Bhakti Voices: Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir in Their Time and
Ours (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), 269.
63. David N.  Lorenzen, Kabir Legends and Ananta-das’s Kabir Parachai (Albany:  State
University of New York Press, 1991).
64. Ibid., 29.
65. James Carleton Paget, “Miracles in Early Christianity,” in The Cambridge Companion to
Miracles, ed. Graham H. Twelftree (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 138.
66. Kenneth G.  Zysk, Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India:  Medicine in the Buddhist
Monastery (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 101.
67. Raoul Birnbaum, The Healing Buddha (Boulder, CO: Shambhala, 1979), 42–45.
68. Wiley, “Supernatural Powers,” 174.
69. Manring, Fading Light, 193.
 Notes 239
70. Ibid., 248.
71. Briggs, Gorakhnath, 70.
72. Feldhaus, Deeds, 284, 285, 300, 8.
73. Tulasi Srinivas, Winged Faith: Rethinking Globalization and Religious Pluralism through
the Sathya Sai Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 182.
74. William S. Sax, “Who’s Who in the Paṇḍav Līlā?” in The Gods at Play: Līlā in South Asia,
ed. William S. Sax (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 131–155.

Chapter 8

1. G. van der Leeuw, Religion in Essence and Manifestation, 2 vols. (New York: Harper &
Row, 1963; reprint, Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1967), I: 42.
2. Ibid., I: 28.
3. Ibid., I:  28. G.  van der Leeuw, Der Mensch und die Religion (Basel:  Verlag Haus zum
Falken, 1941), 40, 102.
4. Mircea Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, trans. Rosemary Sheed (Cleveland: The
World Publishing Company, 1968), 14–15.
5. Ibid., 216.
6. Ibid., 227.
7. Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: The Encounter between Contemporary Faiths
and Archaic Realities, trans. Philip Mairet (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 124, 126. For a
fuller comparison of Eliade and van der Leeuw on the topic on power, see Carl Olson, “The
Concept of Power in the Works of Eliade and van der Leeuw,” Studia Theologica 42 (1988): 39–53.
8. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion, 14–15.
9. Thomas E.  Wartenberg, The Forms of Power:  From Domination to Transformation
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990), 9–31.
10. Ibid., 141–161.
11. Ibid., 183–220.
12. Richard Valantasis, “Constructions of Power in Asceticism,” Journal of the American
Academy of Religion 63/4 (1995): 781.
13. Hubert L.  Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Michel Foucault:  Beyond Structuralism and
Hermeneutics, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 51.
14. Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, 16, 160.
15. Ibid., 170.
16. Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in Language, Counter-Memory,
Practice:  Selected Essays and Interviews, ed. Donald F.  Bouchard and trans. Alan Sheridan
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1977), 146.
17. Ibid., 160.
18. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert
Hurley (New York: Vintage/Random House, 1980), 92–93.
19. Ibid., 90.
20. Dreyfus and Rabinow, Michel Foucault, 184.
21. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 141.
22. Ibid., 98.
240 Notes
23. Ibid., 72.
24. Foucault, History of Sexuality 1: 94–95.
25. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 98.
26. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1977), 223.
27. Ibid., 201.
28. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 52.
29. Foucault, Discipline and Punishment, 194.
30. Ibid., 105.
31. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 119.
32. See John McGowan, Postmodernism and Its Critics (Ithaca and London:  Cornell
University Press, 1991).
33. For a discussion of this pragmatic test, see Carl Olson, The Allure of Decadent
Thinking: Religious Studies and the Challenge of Postmodernism (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2013), 138–139, 147–148.
34. The Vedanta Sutras with the Commentary of Shankaracarya, trans. George Thibaut,
Sacred Books of the East 24, 38 (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1968), 4.1.13.
35. Gold, “Awakening Generosity,” 101–104.
36. McGowan, Postmodernism, 127.
37. Eliade, Yoga, 335.
38. Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, 205.
39. Alan S.  Weiss, The Aesthetics of Excess (Albany:  State University of New  York Press,
1989), 54.
40. Jonathan P. Parry, “Sacrificial Death and the Necrophagous Ascetic,” in Death and the
Regeneration of Life, ed. Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1982), 75.
41. Van der Veer, Gods on Earth, 116.
42. Foucault, Power/Knowledge, 120.
43. Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge, 120.
44. Foucault, “Subject and Power,” 220.
45. Deleuze, Foucault, 70.
46. Van der Veer, 133.
47. Gross, Sadhus of India, 345.
48. Van der Veer, “Taming the Ascetic,” 690–691.
49. Foucault, “Subject and Power,” 221.
50. Edith Wyschogrod, Saints and Postmodernism: Revisioning Moral Philosophy (Chicago
and London: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 234.
51. Charles Taylor, Philosophy and the Human Sciences:  Philosophical Papers 2
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985; reprint, 1993), 167.
52. Jürgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, trans. Frederick G. Lawrence
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), 274.
53. Richard Rorty, Essays on Heidegger and Others:  Philosophical Papers, vol. 2
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 173–174.
54. Taylor, Philosophy and the Human Sciences, 175–176.
 Notes 241
55. My attempt to define power has been informed by my reading of Martin Heidegger,
Nietzsche, vol. 1: The Will to Power as Art, trans. David Farrell Krell (San Francisco: Harper &
Row, 1979).
56. Walter Wink states that power has an invisible and visible pole. The latter assumes the
form of a church, a nation, or an economy, while the former pole refers to an inner spirit driv-
ing forces that it animates, legitimates, and regulates through its physical manifestation in the
world. Both poles come into existence together and cease to exist together, suggesting that nei-
ther pole causes the other in Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 5. Wink never does specifically define power in his book.
57. N. Tannenbaum, Who Can Compete against the World? Power-Protection and Buddhism
in Shan Worldview (Ann Arbor: Association for Asian Studies, 1995), 80.
58. André Droogers views the dynamic nature of power as “moving along a spectrum rather
than taking a fixed position of strength” (27–28) in “The Recovery of Perverted Religion: Internal
Power Processes and the Vicissitudes of Religious Experience,” in Religion as a Social and
Spiritual Force, ed. Meerten B.  Ter Borg and Jan Willem von Henten (New  York:  Fordam
University Press, 2010).
59. Granoff, “Siddhasena Part II,” 276.
60. Nicholas Royle, The Uncanny (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), 1–2.
61. Ibid., 12, 19.
62. Sallis, Force of Imagination, 127.
63. Droogers, “Recovery of Perverted Religion,” 36.
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 Index

Personal names, book titles, locations, and movements

Abhibhu 62 Amaruka, King  157
Abhidhamma  25, 53 American Philological Association  30
Abhijñānashakuntala 129 Ambikā 178
Abhinavagupta  126, 145 Am ṛ tananda 69
Adam 118 Ānanda  166, 176
Āḍ i 97 Ānandamath 94
Ādināth 59–60 Ānandamāyī Mā  47–48
Advaita  158, 186 Anantadās  181, 184
Advaita Vedānta  145, 195 Anantānandagiri 145
Agastya  73, 131 Anasūya 5
Aghori ascetics  44, 197 Anfange der Yoga, Die 31
Agni  123, 127, 135, 147 A ṇgulimāla 105
Aitareya Upaniṣad 38 Anurddha  60, 174
Ājīvikas  28, 36, 41, 106 Āpastamba Dharmasūtra  5, 35
Akala ṅ ka 145–146 Āptamīmāṁsā  65, 901, 123
Ākāṅga Sūtra 49 Aristotle 204
Akbar 93 Arjuna 9
Ākbyānakamaṇikośavṛtti 144 Āryakhaputa 143
Alambusā 136 Āryaśamita 165
Alambusā Jātaka 136 Asita 105
Alter, Joseph S.  13, 21 Aśrama Upaniṣad 13
Amanaskyoga 70 Assaka, King  61

267
268 Index
Assaka Jātaka 61 Buddha  5, 25, 37, 49, 56, 60–62, 64, 72, 85–86,
Assalāyana Sutta 105 103, 105, 121, 143, 152, 155, 161–163, 170–171,
Aśvaghoṣa 103 173–176, 185
Aśvins  95, 143 Buddhaghoṣa  11, 17, 62–64, 85, 121, 174
Atharva Veda  36, 128 Buddhism  14–17, 19–20, 22, 25, 28, 32,
Austin, J. L.  120, 133–134 36–37, 45, 53, 72–74, 79–80, 83–87, 89,
Avataṃsaka Sūtra 65 92, 99, 105, 121–122, 136, 142–148, 152, 155,
Avici Hell  174 160–161, 170, 173–176, 184–187
Ayodhyā 49 Burghart, Richard 228n.  64
Bynum, C.  172
Bali 98
Basava 179 Cain 118ś
Basava Purāṇa 179 Caitanya  146–147, 158, 182, 186
Bataille, George  149–151 Caitanya Caritāmṛta 147
Baul 18 Cakrasamvara Tantra 154
Bāvūri Brahmayya  180 Cakreśvarī Devī  146
Bellah, Robert  142 Campantar 157
Benaras  166, 178 Candraprabha 143
Benn, James B.  92 Cēkkiḻār  83, 104
Bentham, Jeremy  193 Celenā 165
Bhagavad Gītā  9, 71, 205 Chandalas 38
Bhagavadajjukīya 166 Chāndogya Upaniṣad  36, 88, 123, 147
Bhāgavata Purāṇa 68–69 Chapple, Chris  82
Bhagavati Sūtra 106 Chatterji, Bakimcandra  93–94
Bhairava 44 Christianity  1, 73, 170, 184
Bhairuji  132, 196 Citrarathra, King  117
Bhaiṣajyarāja 185 Citta 62
Bhaiṣajyasamudgata 185 Codrington, R. H.  1
Bhaktavijaya  180, 187 Cola dynasty  83
Bharadvāja 154 Collins, Randall  110–111, 149
Bharata 163 Collins, Steven 214n.  49
Bharata, Prince  135 Cullavagga  49, 62
Bhārgava 143 Cyavāna  95, 135, 197
Bharthari 196
Bhikśuka Upaniṣad 13 Dādagurus  143, 176
Bhīma 130 Dadhīca 104
Bh ṛgu  99, 171 Dadhicha  82, 136
Biernacki, Loriliai  126 Dādu Dayāl  182
Bijak 183 Damayantī 123–124
Birch, Jason 225n.  3 Daniel, E. Valentine 230n.  97
Bloch, Maurice 229n.  79 Daoism 2
Bourdieu, Pierre  34 Daśabhūmika Sūtra 65
Boyer, Pascal  75 Daśaratha 134
Brahmā  61, 95–96, 98, 100, 134, 158, 161, 173 Dattātreya 154
Brahmā Samamkumāra  62 Dawn 147
Brahman  120, 122, 125 Day, Matthew 223n.  49
Bṛhadāraṇyaka 35 De Vries, Hent  108–109
Bṛhaspati 99 Dehejia, Vidya  16
Bronkhorst, Johannes  8, 35 Deleuze, Gilles  109, 138–139, 198
 Index 269
Delhi Sultanate  93 Flood, Gavin  6, 173
Der Yoga: Ein Indishcher Weg zum Selbst 31 Foucault, Michel  64, 109, 113, 189–202
Derrida, Jacques  109, 112 method of archaeology  191–192
Devadatta 166 Freud, Sigmund  102, 137–139
Devaśarman 157
Devasomā 160 Gāndhārī 130
Devī 59 Gandharva Tantra 126
Devibhāgavata Purāṇa 95 Ga ṇeśa 166
Dhammapada  9, 17 Ganges River  39, 62, 93, 158, 164, 173, 183, 186
Digambaras  10, 14, 37, 66, 89–90 Garuḍa  97, 161
Digha Nikāya 49 Gauri Ma  47
Dharma Sūtras  38, 40 Gautama 133
Dharmabh ṛ t 135 Geertz, Armin  24
Dharmaśāstra 30 Gerasene demoniac  184
Dharmasūtra of Āpastamba 40 Gheranda Samhita 82
Dharmasūtra of Baudhāyana 40 Ghrtachi 154
Dharmasūtra of Vasiṣṭha 40 Girard, René  108–109, 111–114, 229n. 79
Dhundhu 86 Gironi, Fabio 223n.  49
Digha Nikāya 173 Gitāgovinda 151
Dīpika 69 Gō ḍagūci 179–180
Diti 98 Gonda, Jan  128
Dnyandev 180–181 Gorakhnāth  25, 44, 70, 83, 104, 153–154, 186
Dōgen 65 Gosāla  28, 41, 106
Doniger, Wendy  136 Granoff, Phyllis  25
Droogers, André 241n.  56 Greek 118
Dummedha Jātaka 166 Gross, Rita  18
Dumont, Louis  30 Gross, Robert Lewis  113, 199
Dundas, Paul  15, 36, 127, 227n. 51 Guhakālī 45
Dundubhi 131 Gu ṇḍam Rāül  180, 187
Durgā  98, 143 Gupta Period  136
Durvasas 129
Duryodhana 130 Habermas, Jürgen  200–201
Dushyaanta, King  129 Hacker, Paul 220n.  72
Dvaita 179 Halbfass, Wilhelm 212n.  11
Dvita  121, 134 Hamilton, Sue  17–18
Hanumān  24, 48–49, 56, 153
Ékata  121, 134 Hari 181
Eknath 187 Haribhadra 67
Eliade, Mircea  31–32, 189–191, 197, 210 Haridāsa 158–159
Ellul, Jacques  107–108 Hāritas 125
Harpham, Geoffrey Galt  6–8
Epitome of Queen Līlāvatī, The 67 Harrison, Peter 223n.  49
Eve 118 Haṭhayoga Pradīpika 82
Face of the Dunkard’s Games, The 160 Hauer, J. W.  31
Hausner, Sondra  12–13, 214n. 50
Faxian 167 Hebrew 118
Feuerstein, Georg  32 Heesterman, J. C.  113–114, 218n. 30
Filliozat, Jean  32 Hemacandara  28, 56, 67, 143, 156, 162,
Flanagan, Owen  79 167, 180
270 Index
Hinduism  5, 9, 11, 13, 16, 20, 30, 45, 74, 84, 97, Juergensmeyer, Mark  112–114, 230n. 99
92, 94, 100, 144–145, 154, 157, 170–171, Jumna River  93
178–184, 186, 188, 200
Hira ṇyakaśipu 97 Kabir 182–184
Hobbes, Thomas  107 Kabir Panth  183
Holdrege, Barbara  122 Kabir Parachai  183–184
Holi Festival  142 Kahoḍa 133
Hrāda 97 Kaikeyaī 134
Huizinga, Johan  169 Kaikeyī 135
Hume, David  170, 173 Kālakeya 96
Kālāmukhas 42–44
Indra  81–82, 95, 99–102, 123, 132–133, 135–137, Kalasatri 166
143, 154, 156–157, 184, 195 Kālī 45
Indrajit 96 Kali Age  158
Iroquois 1 Kālidāsa  129–130, 136
Isibhāsiyāim 41 Kalpa Sūtra 49
Islam  1, 73, 170 Kamā  155, 158
Īśvara 73 Kāma  136, 152, 155
Kama Sūtra  139, 148
Jacobsen, Knut  74 Kāmaśāstra 157
Jaimal 182 Kambojas 125
Jaiminīya Brāhmana 121 Kāmeśvarī 45
Jain  5, 20, 28, 36, 40–41, 45, 49–50, 56, 83, Kanakśrī 165
85, 93, 97, 99, 106, 123, 142–146, 152, Kane, P. V.  30
156–157, 160–161, 165, 176–180, Kānphaṭa Yogins  44
184–187, 207 Kanva 129
Jaini 89 Kāpālikas  42, 44, 83, 93, 160
Jainism  10, 14–16, 36–38, 56, 74, 80, 83, 87, 92, Kapila 95
126–127, 144–146, 155–157, 175–178 Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār  103–104
Jajali 195 Kashmir Śaivism  45
Jālapadi 154 Kāsyapa 154
Jamandagri 117 Katcchapa Jātaka 163
Janaka, King  157–158, 207 Kathākośa  145, 152, 178
Jantzen, Grace M.  108–109 Kathāsaritsāgara  160, 166
Jaratkāru 19 Kaula 45
Jātakas  72, 105 Kavirāja  147, 158
Jayadeva 151 Kāvya 99
Jayadratha 86 Keith, A. B.  128
Jayantī  99, 136 Kevadha Sutta 61
Jayasundarī 153 Kevaṭṭa Sutta 173
Jesus  23, 119, 184–187 Khandewal, Meena 220n.  63
Jinadāsa 123 Khecarīvidyā 59
Jinas  143, 161 King, Richard 230n.  99
Jincadrasūri II  106, 176 Kirātas 125
Jincandrasūri 176 Kiṣkindhānkāṇḍa 48
Jindattsūri 176 Kleinman, Arthur  109–110
Jinkuūalsūri 176–177 Koelman, Gaspar  31–32
Judaism  1, 73, 11, 170 Kośa 156
Judeo-Christian 118 Krama 45
 Index 271
Kripal, Jeffrey  150 Mainākinī, Queen  153
Krishna  9, 147, 151–152, 155, 158, 186, 205 Maitreya 175
Kubera  137, 184 Maitri Upaniṣad 38
Kubjikā 45 Majjhima Nikāya 41
Kuleśvara 45 Mahaka 62
Kuleśvarī 45 Mahendravikramavarman 166
Kulōttu ṇga II  83 Maitreya 130
Kumārila 84 Majjhima Nikāya 41
Kumbha 132 Malinar, Angelika 217n.  18
Kumera 137 Mā ṇḍ akar ṇi 135
Ku ṇḍalinī 165 Ma ṇḍana 145
Kuruk ṣetra 130 Mandavya 116–117
Kusika, King  135, 197 Manidhāri 177
Kuvalāśva, King  95 Manimat 131
Kuvalayavali, Princess  166 Manoja, King  105
Manovega 161–162
Lak ṣma ṇa  48–49, 123, 135 Manusmṛti  39–40, 44, 147
Lakulīśas 42–43 Māra 175–176
Lamb, Sara  129 Marett, R. R.  1
Lang, Karen Christina 214n.  49 Mārica  95–96, 130
Lanman, Charles Rockwell  30 Marion, Jean-Luc  149–150
Larson, Gerald  33 Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa  7, 154
Laws of Manu 94 Masquelier, Adeline  11
Life of Nāgārjuna, The 155 Masson, J. L. 225n.  15
Lincoln, Bruce  111–112, 114, 230n. 99 Matanga  86, 132
Lindquist, Sigurd  30–31 Mathurā 161
Liṅga Purāṇa 68 Matsyendranāth  25, 44, 153
Lingāyats 43 Menakā 129
Lorenzen, David B.  184, 220n. 72 Middle Length Sayings  60, 85
Lotus Sūtra  92, 174, 176 Milarepa  50–51, 85–86
Milindapañha 11
McNamara, Patrick  76 Mimāṃsāsūtra 84
Mada  95, 143 Mlecchas 125
Madanakumāna 153 Moggallāna  61–62, 173–174
Madhva  132, 145, 178–179 Mokṣadharma  41, 52
Mādhyamika 161 Morocco 119
Madurai 157 Mrozik, Susanne 213n.  45
Magadha 166 Mudulakkhana Jātaka 155
Magdalene, Mary  184 Muktananda, Swami  50, 100, 165–167
Mahābhārata  7, 19, 41, 43, 48–49, 52–53, 60, Mukunda 123
95–96, 123, 130–131, 134–137, 156 Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad  3, 38
Mahānubhāvas 180 Munigupta 161
Maharashtra  181, 187 Musiḍi 180
Mahāvīra  15, 28, 37, 49–50, 106 Muslim  93–94, 177, 183, 187
Mahāyāna Buddhism  50, 63–64, 85, 92, 155, My Mother 149
161, 174–176, 185
Mahendra Varman I  160 Nābhādās 182
Maheśvaradatta 67 Nāgārjuna  155, 161
Mahipati  180, 187 Nala 124
272 Index
Naḷinkā Jātaka 136 Patisambhidā-magga 170
Namdev 181 Paul 119
Naminandi 180 Pensa, Corrado  32
Nanda 105 Periya Purāṉa 157
Narada 104 Peta 85
Naradapurivrajaka Upaniṣad 13 Phillips, Steven  33–34
Nāradiya Sūkta 35 Pi ṇḍola Bhāradvāja  49, 62
Narasi ṃ ha 83 Pīpā 181–182
Narmadā River  97 Potter, Karl 220n.  72
Nātha 132 Puṉitavati 103
Nāth-Yogins  25, 42, 44–45, 83, 90, 93, 104, 153, Prabhācandra  145, 178
186 Prajāpati  2, 39, 120, 147
Nāṭyaśastra 163 Prapannām ṛ tam 179
Nāya ṇārs 83 Praśna Upaniṣad  36, 89
Nemicandra 67 Pratyutpanna Samādhi Sūtra 64
New York Times 22 Pravacanasārodhāra 67
Nietzsche, Friedrich  191–192, 194, 201 Primitive Culture 1
Niga ṇṭhas 41 Pulkasas 38
Nityānanda 186 Pulomā 96
Purī 56
Oberhammer, Gerhard  32, 217n. 18 Pūr ṇa 143
Obeyesekere, Gananath  15, 32–33, 35, 175–176, Pūrṇāvadāna  75, 143
213n. 35, 213n. 38, 213n. 40, 214n. 57, 228n. 64
Ohmuna, Reiko  17 Rādhā  151–152, 155, 158
Oldenberg, Hermann  128, 211n. 8 Raibhya 81
Olivelle, Patrick  4, 213n. 35 Raidās 181–182
three levels of asceticism 218n.  40 Rāk ṣasa  82, 95–96, 131
Overby, Ryan Richard  31 Rāma  24, 48–49, 56, 96, 104, 117, 123,
134–135, 180
Pādālipta 207 Rāmacandrakhān 159
Padamapada 83 Ramakrishna  47, 71
Padma Purāṇa 99 Rāmānandī  20, 113, 183, 197, 199
Padoux, André  124–127 Rāmānuja 187–179
Pahlavas 125 Rāmāyaṇa  7, 24, 48–49, 53, 95–96, 104, 123,
Pāñcajanaya 7 131, 133–135
Pā ṇḍava 7 Rāmcaritamanas 180
Pā ṇḍu 134 Rāva ṇa  49, 96, 123
Panopticon 193–194 Religion of India, The 30
Parameśvara 180 Reṇuhā 117
Parāvāc 126 Revatī 161–162
Pariksit, King  81 Riches, D.  111
Parjareya 121 Riesebrodt, Martin 212n.  14
Parry, Jonathan  197 Ṛg Veda  101, 181
Pārśvanātha 177 Roman 118
Patton, Laurie 225n.  12 Rorty, Richard  201
Paryusam 87 Ṛṣabha  74, 143
Pāśupatas  2–43, 69 Ṛṣis  41, 130
Patañjali  29–30, 32–34, 38, 51, 53–54, 58–60, Ṛ śyaś ṛ nga  75, 136
68, 70, 79–80, 91, 195 Ruci 157
 Index 273
Rudra  36, 161 Shree Maa  47
Russon, John  150–151 Siddha Kaula  45
Siddha Movement  100
Śabalā 125 Siddhārtha Gautama  28
Sacher-Masoch, Leopold von  137 Siddhāsana 166
Sade, Marquis de  137 Siddhasena  144–145, 177
Sagara 95 Siddhasiddhāntapaddhati 154
Sai Baba  187 Siddhi und Abhiññā 30
Śaiva ascetics  15, 42–45, 172 Sikandar Lodi  183
Saivism  180, 186 Simson, George von  130–131
Śakas 125 Sioux 1
Śakharnāth 187 Sirimā 17
Sakka 62 Sītā  48–49, 96, 182, 187
Śāktas 181 Śiva  25, 42–45, 59, 70, 83, 97–98, 103–104, 113,
Śakti  42, 45, 70, 187 125–126, 137, 152, 154–155, 160, 180
Śakuntalā 136 Śiva Srika ṇtha 43
Saler, Benson 223n.  65 Smith, Barbara H. 223n.  65
Sāman 147 Somasiddhānta 44
Sāmaññaphala Sutta  49, 60–61 Sprockhoff, Joachim Friedrich 218n.  30
Samantabhadra  65, 91, 123, 178 Śrāvastī 161
Ṣamghaśrī 145–146 Śrī Vidyā  45
Saṁkappa Jātaka 72 Srinivas, Tulasi  187
Sā ṃ khya  32, 41, 53, 75, 95 Śrīsumadhvarijaya 179
Samuel, Geoffrey  36 Sṛṇgāva 163
Saṃyutta Nikāya  49, 60 Śṛngin 81
Śa ṅ kara  3, 25, 46, 50, 83, 93, 121–123, 126, 132, Staal, Fritz 232n.  37
145, 157–158, 178–179, 193, 220n. 72 Stausberg, Michael 224n.  65
Śaṅkaradigvijaya 145 Sthūlabhadra 156
Śaṅkaravijaya  145, 178 Subhā 152
Sannyasi Rebellion  93 Śudra 104
Sant 182 Suitable Boy, A 93
Sarada Devi  47 Sujātā 133
Śaradvat 154 Śukra  99, 136
Sarasvati 145 Sulabhā 157
Sarasvati River  136 Suppiyā 185
Sarbacker, Stuart  34, 70 Śūraṅgama Samādhi Sūtra  64, 175
Śāriputra  25, 85, 175 Sureśvara 145
Sarvānbhūti 143 Sūrya 147
Satyasoma 160 Svatmarama 82
Schelling, F. W.  102 Śvetāmbaras  10, 14, 37, 66, 89–90, 143, 176
Schmidt, Hans-Peter 219n.  30
Śesa 186 Taittiriya Upaniṣad 89
Seth, Viktram  93–94 Taksaka 81
Seyyasaka 86 Tannenbaum, N.  203
Shakuntala 129–130 Tantra  18, 44–46, 69–70, 74, 90, 113, 126–127,
Shambuka 105 132, 154
Shantipur 186 Tārā 146
Shirdi Sai Baba  187 Tāraka 97
Shōbōgenzō 65 Tattvāratha Sūtra 66
274 Index
Taves, Ann  75, 222n. 45 Viraśāiva 179
Taylor, Charles  200–201 Viśākha, King  165
Threshold of Religion, The  1 Viśiṣṭ ādvaita 179
Tibet 92 Viṣṇu  42, 83, 95, 97–99, 154, 161, 179, 187
Ṭilā 182 Vissudhimagga 62
Tiruvālaṅkākāṭṭu Mūttatiruppatikam 104 Viṣūcikā 100
Trainor, Kevin 214n.  49 Viśvāmitra, King  72, 82, 125
Trika 45 Vivekananda, Swami  71
Tripurasundarī 45 Vrātyas  31, 36
Trita  121, 134 Vṛddhavādin 144
Tukaram 181 Vṛ tra  101–102, 203
Tuladhara 195 Vyāsa  54–57, 130
Tulsidas 180 Vyāsācala 178
Tylor, Edward B.  1
Walters, Jonathan S. 214n.  49
Ubbarī 61 Wartenberg, Thomas E.  189, 191
Uddālaka 133 Weber, Max  30
Uma  90, 160 Weddle, David L.  173
Umāsvati 66–67 Whicher, Ian  34
Ungemach, Anton  25 Whitaker, Jarrod L. 230n.  99
Upagupta  25, 65 White, David Gordon  73–74
Urban, Hugh 219n.  61 Whitehouse, Harvey  75–76
Urvasī 154 Wilson, Elizabeth 214n.  48
Uttaradhyayana Sūtra 50 Wink, Walter 241n.  56
Wyschogrod, Edith  200
Vāc  120, 124
Vaiṣṇava  42, 160, 178 Yādavas 130
Vajra 56 Yājñavalkya 207
Vajrā ṅga 56 Yakkha 103
Valantasis, Richard  7–8 Yak ṣas 96
Vālin 131–132 Yama  57, 81, 123
Vallely, Anne 220n.  63 Yamunā River  131
Van der Leeuw, Gerardus  189–190, 210 Yavakrita 81–82
Van der Veer, Peter  20–21, 112–113, 199 Yavanas 125
Vārkari sect  187 Yogacara 53
Varu ṇa 123 Yogadṛṣṭisamuccaya 67
Vāru ṇ i 75 Yoga: Immortality and Freedom 31
Vascapati, Miśra  57 Yoga Sūtras  3, 29–30, 32, 34, 38, 51, 60, 68, 70,
Vāsiṣṭha 125 74, 79–80, 91, 169, 195
Vasisthra 82 and powers  52–60
Vaudeville, Charlotte  183, 238n. 54 Yoga Vāsiṣṭha  40, 100, 132
Vāyu Purāṇa  69, 98 Yogaśāstra  67, 143
Vedānta Sūtras  3, 54, 158 Yogavārttika 55
Venus in Furs 137 Yoginī Kaula Krama  45
Vesīyayana 106 Yoginīhṛdaya 69–70
Vidyādhara 162 Yonitantra 18
Vijñānabhik ṣu  54–55, 58 Yudhiṣṭhira  55, 130–131
Vimalakīrti Sūtra 174 Yuvanāśa, King  171
Vipula 156–157
 Index 275

Subject Index
abhiññā  60, 63 and violence
ādesanāpāṭhāriya 173 warrior 92–93
acalā 65 ascharya 169
ACTH 78 asha 2
Ādināth 59–60 ashes  43, 47, 137, 187
ahiṃsā  20, 84, 87. See also nonviolence ashram 47
alaukika 169 askēsis 4
amulet 128 aśoka tree  147
amygdale 78 āśrama  4–5, 19
ānanda 141–142 asuras  95, 143
aṇimā  1, 54, 65, 69 āsvāda 68
animism 1 ātman  3, 89, 126
annam 88 avadhūta-yogi 154
anorexia nervosa  91 avatāra 154
anusāsanīpāṭhāriya 173 avisthita-ugra 90
āpas 88 avyakta prakṛti 75
apsarases  48, 72, 131, 135, 158, 184 āyur-vaśitā 65
ar 119
archaeology 191–192 bahudakas 13
Arhat  38, 64, 127 basal anglia  77
asana 82 begging  13–14, 40, 88
āsavakkhayañāṇa 60 bhattapaccakkhana 87
ascetic  3–12, 71–72, 154–155, 165, 169–171, bhukti 69
195–197, 199–200, 202–203, 208, bhūmis 65
228n. 66 bodhisattva  38, 63, 65, 92, 174, 176, 185, 188
groups of  28 bodhyangas 185
and Indra  137 body  3, 9–21, 40–41, 76, 85–86, 144, 150, 152,
three characteristics 212n.  14 186, 213n. 45, 225n. 15
asceticism  3–7, 26, 32–36, 46, 77, 179, 198, 202, marked 13–21
205, 208–210 powers 55–56
brief history of  35–46 as a symbol  12
classification 13–14 women  17–18, 214n. 48
curse of  118–119, 129–134 brahmacārin 19
economic consequences  5–6 brahmacarya  19, 49
and eroticism  154–159 Brahman  3, 7, 38, 89, 126
false  28–29, 38, 163–165 brain 76–79
and fasting  84–87 buddhi 57
fear of  134–137
female 46–48 caelebs 19
four social functions  9 camār 181
instinct 8 castration  15, 213n. 35, 213n. 40
Jains 65–68 cātuyāmasaṃvara 4
levels 218n.  40 celibacy  4–5, 11, 13, 19–21, 24, 37, 42, 94, 213n.
nature of  4–12 18, 214n. 57
and pain  21–23 and power  21
repetitive nature  6–7 ceropariyaññāṇa 60
and sadomasochism  137–139 charisma  30, 37
276 Index
cit-śakti 4 dynamis 204–205
clothing 15–16 ego 138
cognitive science  75–80, 223n. 65 ek-statis 167
coincidentia oppositorum 149 emic 79
comic  159–168, 202, 207–208 endomorphine 78
and erotic  162–168 endorphins 139
concentration  62–63, 67 energia 204–205
conjunction of opposites 80. See Ereignis 202
also  coincidentia oppositorum erotic  147–159, 207–208
consciousness 62–63 and ascetic  154–159
cortisone 78 and comic  162–168
culture  7–8, 12 and power  152–154
curse  73, 96, 116–140, 156, 197, 204, 206 and violence  148–149
as speech act  132–134 etic 79
eptisme 26
daimon 101 event  202–206, 209
Dao 2 evolution 76
darbha grass  95
darśanā 68 fantasy  78–79, 148
De 2 fasting  13, 50, 84–91, 226n. 21
death  14–15, 39, 57–58, 138, 148–151 female ascetics  46–47
debates 144–147 fire 38–39
demonic  81, 94–106, 114–115, 143, 189, 202, five homages  127
206, 210 five Ms  46
nature of  100–106 flesh  12, 149–150
denial 4 food  13, 21, 88–91
desire 149 four noble truths  61
detachment  4, 16–17, 139
devas 62 GABA 78
dhamma 121 gaṇas 103
dhāraṇi  29, 53, 67 gariman  54, 65
dharma  39, 94, 99, 103–104, 116–117, 173 garuḍa-āsana 82
dhuni fire  113 gender 214n.  49
dhyāna  29, 53, 174 genealogy  192–196, 198, 201
dibbacakkhis 60 God  1, 38, 97, 126, 142–143, 158, 170, 179–181,
dibbasotadhātu 60 205
dike 2 gopī 158
dīkṣa 183 gotra 14
dirt  10–11, 15 graphēin 23
discipline 4 guṇas 57–58
discourse  26, 75, 84, 94, 189, 197–200, 203, guru-avatar 187
206, 208
disenchantment 23 habitus 34
dopamine 77–78 hagiography  23–26, 46, 50, 83, 158, 161,
dorsomedial nucleus  77 168–169, 176, 178–179, 181–184, 187
doṣas 58 hağios 73
doxa 34 hair  13–15, 213n. 18, 213n. 40
drugs 59 hamsas 13
dveṣa 91 harmony 2
 Index 277
hāsya 163 kuticakas 13
haṭha yoga  44, 225n. 3
healings 184–188 labdhis 66
henophobic 200 laghimān  54, 65, 69
heruka 92 lakṣaṇa 123
heterology 207 langoti 24
hexis 34 language  4, 8, 116–139, 202, 204–205
hierophany 190 act of truth  123–124
history 192 laughter  145, 160–161, 163
hormé 204 līlā  141–142, 182. See also play
hypnomantic states  32 limbic system  77
hypnosis 31 liminality  168, 208–209
liṅga  43, 178
iddhipāṭihāriya 173 loka 89
iddhis 61–63 ludic 141–168
iddhividha 60
imagination  78–79, 164, 168 ma’at 2
inginimarana 87 madya 45
interlude 207–208 mahāvākyas 122
īśitirtva 54 mahāvrata 36
isītiva 69 mahimān  54, 65, 69
iśvara 154 maithuna 45
māṃsa 45
japa 126 mana 1
jhāna  61, 63–64, 67 maṇḍalas 46
Jinzū 65 manas 88
mani 177
Kaivalya 58 manitou 1
kalpa 122 mantra  3, 35, 44, 46, 59, 67, 106, 113, 119–120,
kāmāvasyitā 69 122, 124–127, 139, 143, 145–146, 177
kami 1–2 mātṛkā  120, 124
karma  3, 5, 10, 41, 43, 55, 57, 66–67, 87, 89–90, matsya 45
92, 117, 123, 131, 141 māyā  96, 103, 122, 156, 197
kasiṇas 62–63 meditation  40, 42, 63, 73, 77–78
kavi 35 meidian 169
kaya-sadhana 44 melatonin 91
kaya-siddha 44 memory  75–76, 78, 192
keśa-loca 15 mimetic desire  108
Keśins 36 miracles  169–188, 208
Ketamine 78 Buddhist 173–176
kevalin 90 Hindu 178–184
khaṭvaṅga 44 Jain 176–178
khelauṣadhi 186 narratives 171–172
kratophany 190 pattern of  172
kṣamā 2 performative 172
kulas 45 public event  171
kumārpūjā 18 miraculum 169
kuṇḍalinī 70 mlecchas  94, 120
kuśa grass  41 mokṣa 113
278 Index
mudras 45–46 and miracles  169–188, 202
mūlādhāra cakra 100 and power  169–188
repetitive 207
nāga-āsana 82 subjunctive nature of  175
nāma 124 pollution  9, 12, 14–15, 89
nāma-saṃkīrtana 159 power  1–3, 12, 18, 25–26, 29–30, 40, 42–46,
narrative  6, 24–24, 28–29, 38, 48–51, 53–54, 48, 51, 96, 102, 120, 189–210, 214n. 50,
72–74, 76, 80, 84, 93–94, 96, 98–101, 241n. 56
104–105, 107, 114–115, 121, 130–134, 141, and celibacy  21
145, 152, 157, 161, 163, 166, 169, 179, 184, cognitive powers  56–57
197–201, 203, 205–208 and cognitive science  75–80
Buddhist miracle narratives  173–176 control 205
Jain miracle narratives  175–178 dangers  70–72, 189, 203
narrative thinking  24–25 as event  202–203
Medieval Hindu miracles narratives  175–178 excessive 206
and miracles  171–172 force 205
nāstikas 28 and Jainism  65–70
nature  1, 12 and knowledge  194–195
nidhis 184 limits of  70–75
nirguṇ 183 loss of  70–75
nirvā ṇa 122 madness 206
nitricoxide 77–78 magical 30
nivṛtti 94 meaning 203
nokarma-vargaṇā 90 and miracles  169–188
non-self 74 and play  169–188
nonviolence  40–41, 84, 91–92, 107–108, 185, and Purā ṇas 68–69
218n. 30 and religion  210
Novetzke, Christian Lee  181 reflections on  73–75
nudity 15–16 repetition 203
nyāsa 126 and Tantras  69–71
theories of  189–206
obitifrontal cortex  77 time and space  205
orenda 1 types of  52–80
and violence  81–115, 198–199, 201,
pain  4, 21–23, 91, 107, 139 206–208
paovagamana 87 in  Yoga Sūtras 53–60
papa 91 yogic  3, 35–36
paramahamsas 13–14 uncanny 208–209
parittā 185 pragmatic test  189, 194–199
Parkinson 79 prākāmya  54, 69
pēy 103 prakṛti  7, 31, 34, 55, 57
pilgrimage 40 prāṇa 88
pirs 177 prāpti  54, 69
play  4, 9, 141–168 pratibhā 68
and cheating  145–146 pravṛtti 94
and comic  159–168, 202 prema 158
and debates  144–147 pubbrni-vāussātiñāṇa 60
and erotic  202 puṇya 91
interlude 207–208 puruṣa  7, 31, 57–58
 Index 279
Puruṣamedha 83 speech act  24, 133–137, 139
putumai 169 śraddha 38
śramaṇa  36, 38
raga 91 śravaṇā 68
raja-yoga 71 śruti 120
ṛddhis  31, 61, 66 suffering 41–42
realgar 59 suicide 87
repetition  8, 138, 141, 147, 150–151, 203, sukham 41
207–208 superego 138
rokujinzū 65 sutras  29–30, 33, 54–55
ṛta 2–3
tang-tora rite 113
śabdas 122 Tantra 219n.  61
sacred 190 tapas  2–5, 7, 35, 38, 40, 42–43, 59, 71–72, 84,
sacred biography  23 94, 96–98, 104, 113, 129–130, 136–137, 152,
sacrifice  38, 84, 218n. 30 155, 179, 195, 197, 211n. 8
self-sacrifice 82 tat tvam asi 122
saguṇ 183–184 Tathāgata 60
sakāma-rūpita 66 tejas 88
śakti  18, 44–45, 94, 123, 167, 213n. 40 telos 192
sallekhana 87 temporal lobe  77
samādhi  29, 32–33, 53, 70, 166, 195 time  9, 42, 79, 205
samāna 55 tīrthaṅkaras  10, 37, 143, 176, 178
samāpatti 56 totemism 1
samāpattih 32 trickster 164
saṃjñās 90 truth  7, 98, 119, 123–124, 133, 198,
saṃskāras 57 201–202
saṃyama  29, 33–34, 53–54, 57–59 act of  123–124
Sanskrit  3, 19, 44, 120, 124, 145, 160, 177 tulsī 181
sarvauṣadhi 186 tyagis 197
sati 180
sattva guṇa  57–58, 69 udāna 55
satya  2, 133 ugra-ugra 90
schizophrenia 79 uncanny  102–103, 206–208
self 74
semen  15, 18, 21, 24, 45, 155, 213n. 18 vāc 88
serotonin 77–78 vaikhānasa 38
seva 129 vānaprastha  35, 38
sex  19–21, 72–73, 148–149, 151, 154–155, 164 vārtā 68
shabarās 82 vaśitā  65–66, 69
shava sadhana 113 vedanā 68
siddhas  29–31, 33–34, 44, 51, 53, 57, 68–69, 104, veins 86–87
127, 165, 184, 195 Verstehen 201
silence  4, 47, 81, 126, 164 vibhūtis  29, 53
siṃha-āsana 82 violare 107
smi 169 violence  4, 26, 73, 81–94, 104–115, 153, 189, 206,
soma  95, 102, 143 210, 225n. 12, 225n. 15, 227n. 51, 229n. 79,
soul  9–10, 89, 93, 158 230n. 97
spanda 126 countering 104–106
280 Index
end of  112–115 yakṣiṇīs 59
theories of  107–112 yatrakāma-vasāyitva 54
and power  81–115, 198–199, 201, yoga  22–23, 29–34, 38, 50, 52–60, 71, 182
206–208 yoginīs  45–46, 156, 177
and sacred  108 yoni 18
violentus 107 yonipūjā 18
visions 175–176
vismaya 169 wakan 1
viśokā 58 wisdom  3, 35, 49, 168
vispassana 63 women  4, 6, 10–11, 42, 46–48, 219n. 63
viṣṭauṣadhi 186 bodies of  17–18
vratas 18 wonder  170, 172
vṛścika-āsana 82 wrestler 13