Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case.

by Arjun Appadurai
Review by: Lawrence A. Babb
The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 42, No. 1 (Nov., 1982), pp. 177-179
Published by: Association for Asian Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2055401 .
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BOOK REVIEWS-SOUTH ASIA 177

his sense of failure that goes, "I struggled to paint a tiger but didn't even accomplish
a cat" as "I have laboured since to draw a tiger, painting but a cat" (p. 65).
Interwoven with the problems of excess and distortion is an insensitivity to the
nuance of words in English. One bright cheerful poem about the delights of a spring
day ends in Yuasa's version, "Til gloom buried us at length" (p. 109) when the
original is simply "kono hi kurashitsu," "til the day turned to dusk." In several
instances the choice of vocabulary with distinctly Christian overtones seems out of
place, as, for example, when Ry6kan'sown poems on the wall are referredto as "a few
odes in my saviour's praise" (p. 49).
I should note that one of Yuasa's main concerns in translating was to maintain an
even line length in the Chinese poems, and uneven line lengths of alternating five and
seven syllables for the Japanese poems. This is interesting as an experiment and works
at least on the visual level. But I wonder if concentrating on line length did not lead
him to choose certain expressions simply because they were the right length, thus
sacrificing accuracy in meaning to formal concerns.
Even if these translations as mirrorsare slightly fogged, this is an important work
on Ry6kan. The number and sensitive choice of poems convey the range of subjects
and variety of treatments in Ry6kan's poetry. The praises of the critical analysis and
biographical study have already been sung but deserve reiteration in conclusion. No
other work places Ryokan and his poetry so well in their historical and literary
context.
SONJA ARNTZEN
Universityof Alberta

SOUTH ASIA

Worship and Conflict under Colonial Rule: A South Indian Case. By ARJUN
APPADURAI. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. x, 228 pp.
Appendixes, Bibliography, Index. $34.95 (cloth).
A Sri Vaishnava temple may seem an odd locale for an assault on a "priest-
centered" view of Hindu ceremonialism, but this is what Arjun Appadurai has
undertaken in this outstanding book. To what degree he has succeeded in ejecting the
priest from the temple will be debated by aficionados, but the book will surely, and
rightly, exert a valuable influence on future studies of Hindu institutions. Ostensibly
an ethnohistorical study of conflict in the Sri Partasarati Svami Temple of
Triplicane in Madras City, the book is actually an excursion into some of the most
important areasof current debate among students of Hindu civilization, with special
emphasis on the question of authority. Temple disputes, the author shows, can be
ethnographic revelations. Conflict clarifies, bringing implicit principles into explic-
itness and visibility; temples summarize, being the foci of dense symbolic and
interactional convergences. Thus, an analysis of conflicts in a particular temple
becomes a method of unique value in bringing underlying social and cultural
principles into the light of day.
The study is mainly concerned with how the temple, as a "cultural system," has
interacted with a changing social context, and one of the most important contribu-
tions of the book is an enlargement of our understanding of what temples actually are.

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178 JOURNAL OF ASIAN STUDIES

The deity is a "person" and a "paradigmatic sovereign" with whom worshippers

engage in transactions. The temple is as much a redistributive "process" as it is a
"sacredspace." Worshippers make offerings to the deity and receive his leavings as
"honors." Honors embody the "shares"of individuals and groups in the total process
of redistribution and symbolically reflect, in a restricted domain, relations that obtain
in the wider social order. The king is macro-donorand the recipient of special honors
that define his participation in the deity's sovereignty and justify his rule over men.
The king is "protector" of the temple, responsible for maintaining harmony within
the temple system, but his own authority is always potentially subject to challenge by
other "shareholders"who are also protectors, although in lesser degrees. Here, then,
is a puzzle at the heart of temple affairs: the deity "rules" but (since he is a stone
image) is unable to "protect"; he has the capacity to confer authority, but cannot
adjudicate conflict over the actual distribution and exercise of authority. This is the
cultural field within which temple disputes occur.
Crucial to latterday conflicts in Appadurai's temple are subsectarian identities,
which, he argues, originally acquired political salience as a result of the implication of
sectarian leaders in king-temple transactions. In the period from 1350 to 1700
Telugu warriorslegitimized their rule in Tamil country by using sectarian leaders as
intermediaries in temple donations, and sectarian leaders used this patronage to
achieve control over temples. This was a factor in the hardening of a pan-regional
rivalry between the Teokalai and Vatakalai schools of Sri Vaishnavism, and these
identities became essential elements in the disputes that arose in the Sri Partasarati
Svami Temple during the period of British rule.
Appadurai's account of the evolution of temple conflict under the British is an
absorbing account of cross-cultural misunderstanding. From the start, relations
between rulers and temple were altered; the British never sought authority through
temple donations, and they inverted the older idea of "protection" by engaging in
unkinglike intervention in actual temple management, while seeking to avoid the
traditional kingly role of arbitrating disputes. Complicating matters further, the
British sharply divided traditionally combined judicial and administrative govern-
mental functions.
In this context, the temple became the venue of labyrinthine disputes from the
early eighteenth century on. Accusations of "embezzlement," which were actually
coded challenges in struggles over temple honors, invited British bureaucraticinter-
vention. But bureaucratic control merely exacerbated conflict, and, by the time
control was loosened in the later part of the nineteenth century, disputants had long
since discovered the courts. Ultimately, the Teokalais became defined as something
they had never been before, a local "controlling" constituency of the temple. They
also generated seemingly endless litigation, largely because of baffling difficulties in
establishing, from the standpoint of British legal usage, exactly who they were and
how their will was to be determined. However unwittingly, by introducing legal
principles quite foreign to the earlier tradition of "context-sensitive" kingly arbitra-
tion, the courts encouraged the crystallizing of factional identities, with the result
that authority within the temple has now become highly fragmented. As a cultural
system, the temple remains what it was-a symbolic center of sovereignty and a
redistributional process within which groups and individuals define themselves as
actors on a wider social stage. As a social system, however, it has changed, and in this
it reflects perplexities that have affected, and still affect, South Indian society.
The agenda of this book is rather cluttered; its arguments sometimes seem just a

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BOOK REVIEWS-SOUTH ASIA 179

bit too many for sustained attention. Moreover, I do not feel that I have learned
enough about the actual groups engaged in the struggles that the book describes. One
has, so to speak, met them only "in court." And, of course, it must be noted that
there are vast symbolisms-theological, soteriological, and yes, even priestly-to
which the author gives only passing attention. But to insist too much on the need for
additional contexts would be to dissent from what Appadurai has shown to be a
highly fruitful methodology. He peers through an admittedly narrow aperture, but
he sees dimensions of South Indian ritual symbolism of wide importance that others
have not seen. The result is a contribution of exceptional value to our understanding
of Hindu civilization.
LAWRENCE A. BABB
AmherstCollege

Sanskrit Drama in Performance. Edited by RACHEL VAN M. BAUMER and JAMES

R. BRANDON. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii, 1981. xiv, 318
pp. Photographs, Notes, Glossary, Index. N.p.
This volume is a collection of papers read at the International Conference on the
Art of Sanskrit Drama in Performanceheld at the University of Hawaii in 1974. It
reflects both the current interest in India in reviving indigenous performance tradi-
tions and the desire of Western theater specialists to introduce Asian materials to
their audiences. The intent of the conference was to move away from the study of
Sanskrit plays as literary texts, and to establish the drama instead within the living
theatrical tradition that was well known to such playwrights as Kalidasa, Bhasa,
and Sudraka and "infused and helped to shape every aspect of their dramatic
creativity" (Brandon, p. xiv). The book captures the enthusiasm of its contributors
for the task of reconstructing this lost art. It includes many handsome photographs of
performancesin various styles, with particular attention to the production of Bhasa's
"Vision of Vasavadatta" (Svapnavdsavadattdor SV) staged at the University of
Hawaii during the conference. The editors have admirably summarized the contents
and areas of controversy for each section, lending greater continuity to the series of
papers.
The first section considers how Sanskritplays were performed in ancient India. V.
Raghavan reviews the evidence in Sanskrit texts outside the theater tradition proper,
in the plays themselves, and in the major treatise, Bharata's Ndtyasastra (NS).
Considering the NS a "practicalperformanceguide" (p. 5), he provides a summary of
its contents on the stage, preliminary ceremonies, stage properties, makeup, acting,
and music. Kapila Vatsyayan hypothesizes the omnipresence of dance or movement
techniques in Sanskrit theater, supporting her argument again from the NS. Her
concept of the "grammar of dance" includes the techniques of abhinaya (expressive
hand and facial gestures and body postures) as well as pure movement (nrtta).
The second section focuses on the performance of Sanskrit drama today. Farley
Richmond considers two practical problems for directors: the nature of the perfor-
mance area and the style of acting. He consults the NS, but deems it less descriptive
than prescriptiveand confusing in its instructions;for him, conventionsof Kutiyattam,
Atkiya Nat, Kuchipudi, Indian urban theatre, Peking opera, and No drama are
equally suggestive. He proposes that a director choose either a realistic style with
some stylization or that he imitate a specific Indian folk form, citing Balwant Gargi's

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