Agonistic intimacy and moral aspiration in popular Hinduism: A study in the political

theology of the neighbor

Author(s): BHRIGUPATI SINGH
Source: American Ethnologist , AUGUST 2011, Vol. 38, No. 3 (AUGUST 2011), pp. 430-450
Published by: Wiley on behalf of the American Anthropological Association

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 BHRIGUPATI SINGH

Harvard University

Agonistic intimacy and moral aspiration

in popular Hinduism:
A study in the political theology of the neighbor

ABSTRACT n what ways do potentially hostile neigh

in each
In what ways do potentially hostile other's moral aspirations? Might
neighboring
rations
groups find a place in each other's moral be understood not necessarily as
aspirations? I analyze the arrival tion to the
of a "new" concrete coordinate of the ne
god,
the oral-epic deity Tejaji, in themight
villages of Shahbad
say, is a varying potentiality, neithe
"us."of
(Rajasthan, India) and the modes Inrelatedness
The Neighbor:
this Three Inquiries in Po
Žižek, neighboring
divine migration expresses between Eric L. Santner, and Kenneth Reinhar
tion
castes and tribes. How do we to "love your
conceptualize neighbor as yourself," fir
relations
and
between neighbors? I set out the then elaborated
idea of "agonistic in Christian teachings,
Their
intimacy" as a way of engaging the project is of
copresence both conceptual, "rethinking
(ZizekTejaji
conflict and cohabitation. Placing et al.in2005:3),
relation and ethical, "reanimating
nificance
to longer-term currents of Hinduism, of neighbor-love
I examine the in contemporary
Stealing
conflicts, neighborly relations, their
and shared conceptual problem for my fiel
moral
aspirations that animate this its characteristic
form focus
of religious life. I on localities, anthrop
archive
locate spiritual-moral aspirations among scholarly
not necessarily in disciplines of the di
tween theology
"otherworldliness" but as a political neighbors may take, for good and for
of the
riage (Connolly
neighbor, conceiving of the neighbor as human 2009;
and Das 2010), techniques o
(Nabokov
nonhuman (as deity, spirit, and animal), 2000),
in ways"soul loss" to neighboring el
that widen the definition of varied interactions
"the political" and of described in classic works
examination
"theos." [popular Hinduism, political of ethnic boundaries, E. E. Evans
theology,
cattle anthropology
concept of the neighbor, aspiration, raiding between
of the Nuer and the Din
(1966) analysis
ethics, moral genealogies, Rajasthan (India), of myths as ways of negotiati
boring tribes. A signature concern for anth
divine-human-animal relations]
the "political theology" of the neighbor, alt
theos and political remain open for empiric
Drawing on my ethnographic work on pop
cle I explore a genealogy for the political th
differs from the injunction of Leviticus. Alt
is grounded in ethnographic specifics, the m
ity I follow through myth, ritual, and so
to indicate resonances further afield. I see
ward a widened sense of "theos" that also
the concept of "the political," which, for Ži
Carl Schmitt's distinction between "friend"

AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Vol. 38, No. 3, pp. 430-450, IS

ISSN 1548-1425. © 201 1 by the American Anthropological
DOI:10.1111/j.l548-1425.2011.01315.x

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 Agonistic intimacy and moral aspiration ■ American Ethnologist
politics. The concept of the neighbor, I argue, calls for more
capricious and intricate distinctions than friend-enemy to
enable us to appreciate, for instance, how agonistic con-
flicts may remain copresent with modes of relatedness and
shared religious-moral aspirations. In what ways might an-
thropology offer more pluralized and empirically enriched
terms for understanding how neighboring groups live to-
gether, in conflict and cohabitation? As a contribution to
this puzzle, global and yet intensely local, I approach the
concept of "the neighbor" in my ethnographic milieu.
The ethnographic context and "agonistic
intimacy" as a form of neighborly relatedness
Between 2005 and 2007, I conducted ethnographic field-
work in Shahbad, a subdistrict of 236 villages in southeast-
ern Rajasthan (India). (See Figure 1.) My focus was primarily
on the Sahariyas, arguably the lowest-status group in Shah-
bad, variably classified as a Hindu jati (caste or tribe) and
as "original inhabitants" Adivasi, a Scheduled Tribe (ST) in
government terms.1 This fuzziness of caste-tribe classifica-
tion is a classic question of South Asian anthropology, as
are the modes of ethical relatedness and power between
groups such as the Sahariyas and their neighboring low-
and high- status castes or tribes. As an ethnographic start-
ing point, I briefly outline the socioeconomic coordinates
of the main social groups in Shahbad that compose the mi-
lieu for the human-divine transactions I explore below. The
Sahariyas constitute 34 percent of the population of Shah-
bad (M. L. Verma Institute 2004 [see bibliography]). Other
major groups are the Kiraads (a cultivator caste, 30 percent)
and the Ahirs (a pastoralist caste, 10 percent),2 both gov-
ernmentally classified as Other Backward Castes, to whom
previous generations of Sahariyas served as "bonded" la-
borers, a relation involving intergenerational servitude and
nonnegotiable indebtedness.3 Starting in the 1960s, nation-
wide laws were passed against feudal modes of bonded la-
bor, leading neighboring groups such as the Sahariyas and
the cultivator Kiraads to renegotiate their transactional re-
lations, usually to more temporary, seasonal arrangements.
Alongside agricultural labor, the more long-standing occu-
pation with which the Sahariyas are "traditionally" associ-
ated in Shahbad is the seasonal gathering and trading of
forest produce,4 a life option that has waned since the dras-
tic decline of forest cover in Shahbad in recent decades.5 At
present, most Sahariya families earn their livelihood by cul-
tivating small landholdings assigned to them by the state in
the course of land reforms while also working as agricultural
wage labor on the lands of neighboring high and low castes.
Forms of intergroup separateness are all too visible
in this milieu as are inequalities. For instance, neighbor-
hoods in Shahbad are composed of caste clusters that de-
fine distinct settlements within a village. The Sahariya set-
tlement, for instance, is known as the Sehrana, the Chamar
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settlement the Chamrana, and so on. The "center" of a
village is usually a cluster of middle-caste Kiraad cultiva-
tor and Ahir pastoralist households, along with Brahmin
(priests) and Baniya (traders) households. In considering
the modes of relatedness between these groups, I approach
the concept of "the neighbor." In what ways do we pic-
ture relatedness between neighboring groups? If we de-
sire to give it an affirmative valence, our images of relat-
edness may be prompted by religious-moral aspirations
like neighbor-love or secular democratic ideals such as fra-
ternity and equality. These ideals may be disappointed by
actualities of hostility between neighbors, on varying geo-
graphical scales, national or local, that can attain intensi-
ties inconceivable for outsiders. Michael Herzfeld calls this
proximate hostility "cultural intimacy," a phenomenon he
analyzes at different scales, in masculine relations in Cretan
villages and in discourses of the Greek nation-state, describ-
ing a seeming paradox in forms of "local knowing": "The
very set of concepts that appear to pit Greek against Greek
is at the same time the affective disposition that binds them
together" (1995:133; see also 1988, 2005).
Early on in my fieldwork, Motiji, my primary host and
the founder of an activist NGO in Shahbad, initiated me into
what he and many others saw as a key aspect of the lo-
cal context: "The Sahariyas hate the Kiraads with a depth
you cannot fathom." I was somewhat surprised, then, to
find entire villages in Shahbad, led by Kiraad strongmen,
dancing, fasting, and paying obeisance to a deity associ-
ated primarily with the Sahariyas, as we explore ahead.
And yet these modes of being together do not eliminate
enduring hostilities. In Shahbad, as in most parts of In-
dia, caste identity is a crucial point of conflict in electoral
and everyday politics. As a starting point, I had to con-
sider how to characterize relations between neighboring
groups, even if only in search of coordinates for further em-
pirical analysis, at a historical moment when caste hierar-
chies are present but also contestable within an emerging
democratic culture. These modes of contestation are not
wholly absent within religious "tradition," as I argue be-
low. I sought a term to describe everyday relations between
the Sahariyas and their neighbors that was not overwrit-
ten either with a wholly negative valence of hostile con-
tradictions, such as the well-known scholarly paradigm of
domination-resistance (Miller et al. 1995; Scott 1990), or
with entirely affirmative hopes of trust, community, and
"social capital" (Halpern 2005; Putnam 2004). As a picture
of relatedness, whose coordinates are not predisposed en-
tirely toward either oppositional negation or communitar-
ian affirmation, I offer the term agonistic intimacy (from the
Greek agon, or "contest").
An anthropological concept is perhaps best clarified
empirically. For instance, I noticed that a stock of insults
is often traded in Shahbad. A low-status group like the Sa-
hariyas is an easy target. "Dhori" [Unwashed], a neighbor
431
American Ethnologist ■ Volume 38 Number 3 August 2011

Figure 1. Map of Shahbad (created by Tsering Wangyal Shawa, Princeton University).

may say to a Sahariya man, usually behind his back nowa- quandaries (Berlant 2000) but, more simply, as a form of
days, after nationwide legislation against caste-based in- moral relatedness between potentially hostile neighbors. I
sults. Or a local employer may sigh, "Phat gao kher tau bhaj investigate the arrival of a "new" god, Tejaji, into Shahbad
gau Sehr" [When the kher tree ripens (i.e., a better opportu- through the medium of the Sahariyas and the "theos" of re-
nity comes along), they run off], invoking the "unreliability" latedness expressed by this deity at the level of myth, rit-
of Sahariyas as hired labor in relation to their past as gather- ual, festivity, and shared moral aspirations that move across
ers of forest produce. These insults may index domination neighbors in Shahbad. Describing Tejaji in this light, I am
as expressions of a status advantage. From the perspective led to ask if I am not simply affirming a founding thesis of
of agonistics, however, we may examine a wider traffic of lo- anthropology, set out by Emile Durkheim in The Elementary
cal insults used to characterize various castes, high and low, Forms of Religious Life, of religion as a mode of "social sol-
in "intimate" terms. Say "Bhont" [Dumb bovine] to a pas- idarity" (2001:258). I show how the "theos" of Tejaji is not
toralist Ahir, and you risk injury. A comparably hazardous a stable assertion of human solidarity in two ways: Firstly, I
statement to a cultivator Kiraad is "Saante ki gathan hain" describe forms of instability inherent to modes of religious
[He has a sugarcane stick up his ass], invoking a favored life that include the potential presence of agonistics. Sec-
crop of the Kiraad caste, or to a Brahmin, "Haath sukho ondly, I argue that the movements I describe are not limited
tau bamaan bhukho" [Barely have his hands dried and the to the human (and to human "solidarity"), evidenced by
Brahmin is hungry again], invoking priestly greed as an as- the corporeal and mythological presence of animals as par-
pect of Brahmins' status as a ritual service caste with nu- ticipants in these human-divine movements in ways that
merous daily engagements involving consecrated feeding. expand the idea of the neighbor. In conclusion, I reexam-
An insult may evoke a laugh or a slap in return. It takes a ine the definition of the political theology of the neighbor,
degree of intimacy to know how to injure with words. Ago- in light of Tejaji's local and global resonances. Let us take
nistics and intimacies are not disconnected from relations an ethnographic step toward Tejaji as I encountered him in
of power, a question I return to in the conclusion in recon-Shahbad, in the process considering the forms of moral as-
sidering the concept of "the political." piration his presence invokes for the Sahariyas, which I seek
The central task of this article, though, is to analyze to
a differentiate from the standing ways of conceiving of as-
mode of intimacy conceived not in terms of public-private piration in popular Hinduism.

432

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 Agonistic intimacy and moral aspiration ■ American Ethnologist

Tejaji in Shahbad- religious-moral aspirations weeks into my fieldwork that Tejaji had, in fact, only "ar-
beyond imitation and opposition? rived" in Shahbad in the living memory of older people,
about fifty years ago, moving by spirit possession and the
On the outskirts of most Sahariya settlements in Shahbad
establishment of shrines from one village to another. At the
stands a square platform with a memorial stone depicting
time of my fieldwork, I estimated that nearly half the vil-
a man on horseback being bitten by a snake. (See Figure 2.)
lages in Shahbad had a shrine and an ongoing annual fes-
"That is Tejaji, a devata [deity] who heals snakebites," I was
tival for Tejaji. It seemed that all of this had happened in
told, "Of all the gods, he is the most important to the Sa-
the last 50 years, although some said that Tejaji may have
hariyas. Elsewhere he might possess other communities,
been a forgotten presence who was revived. However, in
but in Shahbad Tejaji only possesses Sahariyas." And why
several villages, people clearly remembered a time when
is he so important to them (among so many other spir-
there was no shrine for Tejaji and his subsequent arrival and
its and deities)? The answers seemed unspecific. "He is a
sthapana (establishment). My closest research associate in
great Shakti [force]," some Sahariyas would say. "But he is
Shahbad, Gajanand, belonged to the low-status Namdev
very strict. If you want to be his devotee you can't have any
"tailor" caste. Now in his midsixties, Gajanand vividly re-
gandagi [dirt] in your body, like meat and liquor." The cen-
membered the excitement of Tejaji's entry into his own vil-
trality of teetotaler vegetarianism to the morality of various
lage, Casba Nonera, roughly forty years ago, when Mathura,
middle- and upper-caste Hindus is familiar to many, per-
a Sahariya man from his village, began to be possessed. The
haps all too familiar. I pressed on. "But the Sahariyas used
deity's arrival was preceded by rumors of an exalted ap-
to be hunters and gatherers of forest produce till a few gen-
proach. Gajanand remembered hearing his father speak in
erations back, so why should there be prohibitions on their
hushed and awed tones about the naye devia (new deity),
eating of meat?" I asked. "Yes, most Sahariyas do 'eat and
Tejaji, who had arrived in Bhawargarh (a border village in
drink,' but if you are possessed by a deity like Tejaji then
the neighboring subdistrict of Kishanganj) and who might
you have to give it up."
come to Shahbad. "Even if you don't pay your respects to
I soon learned of the presence of Tejaji in many other
any other god, at least keep a fast for the new god Tejaji,"
parts of Rajasthan and elsewhere in North India (Gold 1988;
Gajanand's father had told him before he died.
Kothari 1989; Sarrazin 2003). Although Tejaji may be de-
The word in Shahbad for a spirit medium is ghorala
scribed as a "folk" deity (absent from the "classical" canon-
(mount or steed).9 I spent time with seven of Tejaji's cho-
ical texts of Hinduism) with a mainly oral and ritual life, he
sen "mounts," in different villages in Shahbad, including
is important enough to have his own festival, Teja Dashmi,6
Mathura, the spirit medium in Gajanand's village. Most
unlike other minor-regional deities, whose celebration is
mediums had a comparable initiation narrative describ-
unmarked in the Hindu calendar. On the day of the festi-
ing how, as young men, they used to attend Tejaji's an-
val, in melas (fairs) of varying sizes, village-based groups
nual festival at a village some distance away and how they
sing an epic narrating the events of Tejaji's life, leading
went through a period of pagalpan (mental instability) fol-
up to his death, in a musical genre known as khela (liter-
lowed by the onset of possession by an entity other spiritual
ally, play) that accompanies rituals of possession and heal-
adepts identified as Tejaji, to which their village responded
ing.7 The epic, analyzed below, tells us that Tejaji was born
by establishing a shrine and an annual festival. More than
into the Jat pastoral caste in the Nagaur district of western
their initiation, though, the religious and moral discourse of
Rajasthan (600 km west of Shahbad). The Jats are a "middle"
most mediums focused on practices of self-limitation, vary-
caste, usually ascribed a status akin to Gujjars and Meenas
ing regimes of fasting and frugality they exercised in their
(who share a disputed status as pastoral "tribes" and "back-
daily lives, as a precondition of their involvement with Te-
ward castes" in Rajasthan),8 each group well known for its
jaji, widely identified as a "vegetarian" and "teetotaler" de-
powerful political networks throughout present-day North
ity. A turn to vegetarianism with the advent of a new deity
India. Although numerically insignificant in Shahbad, the
or spiritual icon is a common form of religious "conversion"
Jats are the single largest caste group in surrounding
for lower castes and tribes within Hinduism, usually de-
Rajasthan (Sisson 1969). In contemporary India, with hos-
scribed in terms of ascetic norms of frugality or moral lan-
tilities between castes being all but the fulcrum of electoral
guages of "reform." Anthropological explanations of such
politics, it seems almost inconceivable that a deified hero
movements often hinge on either of two relations to higher-
from a specific community would come to be worshipped
status neighbors: imitation or opposition. In the imitative
by other social groups. How did Tejaji's spirit possess the
reading, the Sahariya "adoption" of Tejaji is simply a strate-
Sahariyas? How do such divine movements affect human
relations? gic reproduction of "upper-caste norms" of vegetarianism
and householder asceticism. David Mosse reads the new-
Local historians date the composition of Tejaji's epic to
found aspiration to vegetarianism among the Bhil tribes in
the tenth century C.E. (Rathore and Rathore 2004). Aware
Rajasthan in these terms, calling it a "carefully considered
of his medieval antecedents, I learned with surprise some
contingent capitulation to dominant Brahminical ideology"

433

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American Ethnologist ■ Volume 38 Number 3 August 2011
Figure 2. Tejaji's shrine and icon (all photos by the author).
(2005:98). Such strategizing "imitation" analyses invoke a
founding thesis of Indian sociology set out by M. N. Srinivas,
the idea of religious-moral aspiration as "Sanskritization":
"the process by which a 'low' Hindu caste or tribal group,
changes its customs, ritual, ideology, and way of life in
the direction of a high, and frequently 'twice-born' caste"
(1969:6; see also Srinivas 1952).
The flip side of Srinivas's "top-down" idea of imitation
is the thesis of oppositional identity assertions, as in the
subaltern historian David Hardiman's analysis of the advent
of a "vegetarian" Mother Goddess among tribes in Western
India. Negating any potential for spiritual movements be-
tween rival groups, in what is clearly a mode of religious life
overlapping between neighbors, Hardiman characterizes
the rise of this Mother Goddess as a form of "Adivasi [tribal-
'original inhabitant'] self-assertion" (1987:24). In a resonant
global thesis on popular religion, I. M. Lewis describes the
adoption of "foreign" gods as "an oblique aggressive strat-
egy by the politically impotent" (1971:33). Did the Sahariyas
appropriate the "foreign" Jat deity as an antagonistic strat-
egy against their more proximate higher-status neighboring
groups, such as the cultivator Kiraads and Ahirs? Such a the-
sis would be hard put to explain the respect rural upper-
and middle-caste men and women in Shahbad give to Te-
jaji. At the Teja Dashmi festival, when the ritual procession
of Sahariyas led by Mathura passed through Casba Non-
era dancing to Tejaji's signature syncopated khela rhythm,
434
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seemingly the entire village, led by the village headman,
came out to welcome the deity. Further participation by low
and high castes can take varying forms, such as observing a
fast for the annual festival, contributing grain or money to
the festivities, or taking a relative or even a household cow
bitten by a snake to seek Tejaji's blessings. When a snake
bites a human or a cow in Shahbad, one among the avail-
able healing options (which, in recent years, include a visit
to a health clinic), is a visit to Tejaji. The spirit medium ties
a sacred bandh (a red or black thread) around the arm or leg
of the victim and ritually absorbs the poison, either with his
mouth or with his characteristic accessory, Tejaji's snake-
shaped bailam (staff). (See Figure 3.) The supplicant then
participates in the annual festival, however many months
after the snakebite it may be, at which time the thread is
untied.
What is being expressed here, I contend, in the prac-
tices of ascetic self-limitation by the spirit mediums and
in the rituals of healing and the musical festivities, is not
simply the imitation of preexisting "Sanskritic" norms or
a necessarily oppositional stance to dominant neighbors.
These two long-standing anthropological theses of imita-
tion and opposition both hinge on relatively impoverished
politico-theological ideas of the variability of relations be-
tween neighbors as well as the unidirectional stability of
aspirations. What kinds of moral aspirations and cohabi-
tations are expressed by the animating spirit of Tejaji? In
 Agonistic intimacy and moral aspiration ■ American Ethnologist
Figure 3. Mathura on Teja Dashmi festival day holding Tejaji's staff.
"secular" terms, Arjun Appadurai (2004) suggests that "the
capacity to aspire" is a potential good for the poor. Evaluat-
ing this good, we might notice the richly contradictory spir-
itual and material forms in which aspiration is expressed:
as a spiritual exercise in ascetic self-limitation and frugality
or a festive form of expenditure or a hope for healing and
survival. Let us explore the modes of aspiration and relat-
edness signaled by Tejaji at four distinct but related levels,
those of myth, ritual, social life, and human-animal-divine
relations. Each of these levels offers distinct but related co-
ordinates for the political theology of the neighbor.
The mythic and ritual dimensions of Tejaji- the
pacification of warrior agonistice
Although the length and quality of the musical performance
may vary, a few core details of Tejaji's epic are known, seem-
ingly to everyone in Shahbad and in areas, contiguous and
distant, with active Tejaji shrines. After repeated narrations
in different settings, my research associate Gajanand and I
transcribed the following details as the basic myth of Tejaji.
Vir (brave) Tejaji was a Jat from Nagaur (western
Rajasthan). He was married as a child to Bodhal but
grew up unaware of her existence.10 One day when he
was plowing his field, his brother's wife brought him
food. They had a disagreement, and she insulted him,
saying that he did not even know that he had a young
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wife pining for him. He decided to go to Kishengarh
(near Ajmer, a foreign kingdom at the time, in west-
ern Rajasthan), his wife's home, to bring her to live with
him. He set off on his favorite horse named Leelan. On
the way, he passed a forest that was on fire, in which a
snake was trapped. Using his spear, he lifted the snake
out of the fire. Rather than being grateful, the snake
was enraged, saying that it had been cursed with im-
mortality and had finally been on the verge of freeing
itself in the flames. The snake threatened to bite Te-
jaji. Asking for the snake's forgiveness, Tejaji requested
that he be allowed to meet his wife just once before
he died. He gave his word that, after meeting her, he
would return to let the snake have his revenge. Bear-
ing this promise, Tejaji set off for Bodhal's home. Be-
fore he could meet Bodhal, her close friend Hira Guj-
jari (a girl from the Gujjar pastoral caste-tribe, rivals-
neighbors of the Jats in North India) came running to
Tejaji, saying that she had heard that he was very brave.
She needed his help because a group of Meena men
(the Meenas, also cowherds and farmers, are a "tribe"
in Rajasthan and a "backward caste" in other neighbor-
ing states) had raided her cattle. Riding off on his horse,
Tejaji bravely rescued the cattle. He returned with all
but one of the stolen cattle, a lame, one-eyed calf that
had been left behind. Hira Gujjari was stubborn. She
said the well-being of her entire herd depended on that
one calf. Tejaji would have to get it back. He set off after
the calf, but this time the numbers of the Meenas had
vastly increased. He rescued the calf, but the Meena
435
American Ethnologist ■ Volume 38 Number 3 August 2011

men managed to beat him up very badly. Covered in India (1989), perhaps the best available study of this
bruises, he returned to meet his wife Bodhal and told musical-mythical divine genre, Stuart Blackburn, Komal
her he could not stay with her because he had already Kothari, and other leadings analysts of this genre ask, be-
given his life to a snake. On Tejaji's return, the snake ginning in a specific locality, linked to a particular clan, how
greeted him coldly and said that it was dishonorable to
do such deities attain renown in "foreign" or even in neigh-
bite a body already covered in bruises. Tejaji wanted to
boring areas? They suggest a "three- step ascendancy" from
keep his promise and told the snake that his tongue was
local to regional to supraregional levels by the expansion of
the one place still unhurt. The snake was impressed by
"narrative motifs" (Blackburn et al. 1989; Malik 2005). The
his nobility, and as he bit him on his tongue, the snake
gave him a boon: In return for keeping his promise, Te- first, local, step is a heroic death involving cattle raiding or
jaji would be widely worshipped as a deity in Kaliyug rescue, followed by deification. The second step brings a
(the present degraded "iron" age in Hindu cosmology), partial transcendence by the addition of a myth of super-
with the power to heal snakebites. natural birth, and the third step brings a more complete
transcendence through an association with a pan-Indian
We will return to this myth shortly. In the meantime, as Hindu deity. It is at this final stage that such a deity "at-
my data grew denser, I was led to ask: If the entry of Tejaji is tracts new groups, unrelated by kinship or history" (Black-
relatively recent, what was the ritual mechanism for treating burn et al. 1989:27). Although this thesis may be suggestive
snakebites prior to his arrival in Shahbad? A few geriatrics in some cases, it left me dissatisfied because Tejaji's jour-
remembered a time when "snake-related work" had been ney through Shahbad was not associated with any "higher"
divinity. The three-step thesis leaves open the question of
the domain of the deity Karas, whose name I had not heard
the causes for the initial deification and the links to specific
until that point. When I asked, people pointed to the occa-
animals as well as the widespread identification of the oral-
sional byway shrine: "That is Karas." Most of these shrines
were decrepit, beginning to blur into the landscape. Whichepic deities as vegetarian and teetotaler heroes with major
caste were Karas 's mediums from? "Either Kiraads [cultiva-
lower- and middle-caste followings - in sum, any resonance
or attraction these deities exert in the absence of "higher"
tors], a few Ahirs [pastoralists] ..." And what is the story
gods.
of Karas? Where did he come from? With some difficulty, I I suggest a different set of genealogical steps to under-
stand the theological-moral work undertaken in this corpus
managed to piece together fragments of a song, barely re-
membered by a few old men, of two brothers, Karas and of myths, of which Tejaji and Karas are diverse expressions.
Soorpal, from the Gujjar pastoral caste-tribe, who raided The oral-epics analysts agree that these deities begin at
a "local" point, in the deification of a caste warrior "who
50 buffalo from the neighboring Meena tribe to fulfill the
desire of their sister Illhadi. Among these buffalo was died
one in pursuit of cattle" (Blackburn et al. 1989:26, ПО).
solitary cow, stolen by mistake and thus separated from Given
her the "local" nature of this event, how does the fig-
calf. The calf s repeated cry (rambha) of distress cursed ure
the of the warrior gather such translocal resonance to be-
come worthy of deification in so many localities? What is
brothers, and, after many misfortunes, they gave up their
warlike ways to become ascetics in the Himalayas. "Karasthe theological-moral significance of this event? We might
reinterpret the cattle raid not as a bounded "local" event
came from Bihar" (in the eastern corner of India, the oppo-
site direction from Marwar in the far west, where Tejajibut,
be- rather, by placing it in a global pastoral epic-mythic
context that includes Greek, Irish, Celtic, Iranian, and Vedic
gan), I was told. "There is a neem tree there which is still
worshipped. They pour buckets of milk on it in memory Indian variants, in sum, in an "Indo-European" substratum.
of the buffalo Karas stole from the Meenas in bagar desk Asserting a "global" context for these myths will raise some
eyebrows. In contemporary India, deities like Tejaji are clas-
[the 'uneven country,' in present-day southern Rajasthan].
Thousands worship him." sified and perhaps ossified as "Rajasthani folk culture," ig-
The force of these deities and their movement across noring the possibility that their genealogy may extend fur-
ther, just as their geographical provenance extends well
regions and castes are better understood by placing
beyond Rajasthan. In what directions might these myths
Tejaji and Karas in relation to a broader genre of pastoral
hero gods that scholars of popular Hinduism have called be extended? A term such as Indo-European is not to be
"oral epic" deities (as distinct from those of the classicalunderstood in crude racial distinctions such as Aryan-
Hindu epics, Mahabharata and Ramayana, and the gods Dravidian but, rather, as indexing an inherent mobility,
even of supposedly autochthonous populations over vari-
of the Purana texts), such as Dev Narayan, Pabuji, Gogaji,
Ramdev, and unnamed others, perhaps now forgotten, of- able distances.12 Who are the Jat, Gujjar, and Meena pastoral
ten overlapping between popular Hinduism and Islam.11 communities whom these myths deify? In Pastoralists and
Nomads in South Asia (1975), Sigrid Westphal-Hellbusch
Linked to stories of cattle raiding and war, these deities,
each depicted as a man on a horse, have a diverse pres- observes that ethnic names often do not identify a specific
ence through various parts of India, and each also has racial
a group but, rather, shift over space and time to en-
specific healing efficacy to do with animals. In Oral Epicsfold
in a variety of tribes engaged in similar occupations. For

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 Agonistic intimacy and moral aspiration ■ American Ethnologist
instance, Arabic and Persian references to Jat (or "Zutt")
meant only "migrant buffalo breeders from East of the In-
dus" (Westphal-Hellbusch 1975:121). So, whereas the racial
veracity of these ethnic names is only doubtfully tracked, we
may proceed with the more tentative assumption that these
were pastoral communities, often migrating over large dis-
tances, and that their myths might be open to influences
from a variety of cultures, including those of Vedic and non-
Vedic India, Central Asia, Iran, and perhaps farther off. In
Shahbad, Tejaji is a westerly wind, even if we limit his ori-
gin to western Rajasthan. The question is how much farther
one is willing to let such winds travel in tracking mythic ge-
nealogies. Let us reopen the initial point of deification, the
cattle raid.
In his essay on "The Indo-European Cattle-Raiding
Myth" (1976), Bruce Lincoln isolates two core elements
from endless variations of such myths in Greek, Celtic, In-
dian, Iranian, and German material: first, the slaying of a
serpent and, second, the raiding of a neighbor's cattle. Te-
jaji inverts both of these themes. He is killed by a snake and
retrieves, rather than steals, cattle. We will return to these
reversals. Lincoln (1976:62) links these two elements of the
Indo-European mythical corpus to rituals of warrior initi-
ation, libation, and intoxication to ensure success in bat-
tles, fought most often over the abduction of cattle, which
were the basis of the Indo-European economy. But these
were not necessarily "battles" as we might think of them to-
day, for instance, in the sense of war assumed by Schmitt
in his definition of the "political": as a conflict "fought in
order to preserve one's own form of existence" (Zizek et al.
2005:16). 13 In an article on Greek variants of cattle-raiding
myths in Hesiod and Homer, Peter Walcot (1979:335) clar-
ifies an alternative valence of the term battle as agonistic
contest, a type of initiation game, a youthful and vio-
lent sport of challenges and responses between neighbor-
ing groups. In his study of contemporary Crete, Herzfeld
(1995:135) alerts us to the word kleftes (wily thieves), de-
scribing those who tread a fine line between local rivalries,
boasts, alliances, and heroism.14 As a deification of "ago-
nistic intimacy," a form of "deep play" (Geertz 1973), this
type of battle, the sporting raid (the agon), provides a (more
morally ambivalent?) genealogical coordinate for the con-
cept of "the neighbor" than the injunction of Leviticus.
Moving a step further in this genealogy, we might ask,
how does agonistic intimacy, sporting competition between
neighbors, become less playful? How does play turn into
war? This, we might say, is the crux of the Hindu classical
epic Mahabharata, which describes a prolonged war be-
tween cousins and intimates that begins in a sporting dice
game. How does the agon become antagonistic? Already
in the seventh century B.C.E., Hesiod is declaring that the
Heroic Age is over - the initiatory, sporting value of the cat-
tle raid is under attack, a spiritual transformation is under-
way (Walcot 1979:350). Closer to my ethnographic milieu,
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whatever is going on among the pastoral-epic hero deities,
it is certainly not a "sporting" battle, nor is the accompa-
nying ritual one of warrior initiation or intoxication. What
kind of a transformation has been wrought here? A different
analysis than the one I undertake would examine the his-
torical status of the raid and its demotion in British colonial
legal practice and moral attitudes. Inheriting this moral-
ity, several modern writers, as a habit of thought regard-
less of their nationality, refer to the raids into central India
by the western Indian Marathas in terms of "glorified plun-
der" or "invading Muslim hordes" or "marauding gangs of
Bhil tribes" (Augustine 1986:10; see also Herzfeld 1986). 15
My interest, however, is not in British colonial legal morality.
Rather, I am interested in longer-term moral transforma-
tions, in how diverse theologies worldwide, including the
myths of pastoral deities such as Tejaji, reevaluate warrior
agonistics.
My genealogical claim is relatively simple: Understand-
ing Tejaji and his genre of pastoral hero deities requires
placing them in relation to earlier generations of warrior
divinities. The preeminent divinity in the Vedic epoch of
Hinduism was the warrior god Indra. In his classic thesis
on Indra, Georges Dumézil (1970:151) describes howlndra's
heroic exploits, such as the murder of the serpent Vrtra in
the Rig Veda,16 are understandable in relation to a young
warrior's rituals of initiation. Crucial to this form of reli-
gious life are rituals of sacrifice and libation. The intoxicant-
libation is the soma offered to Indra in the Rig Vedic chant:
"He [Indra] does not ally himself to whoever does not press
the soma, even though he be opulent. He sooner defeats
him, just so, or kills him, rumbling, while to the pious he
gives a share in the cattle herd" (Dumézil 1970:61). Accord-
ing to Dumézil, a crucial theological break with the furor
and unpredictable violence of the warrior ethos occurs in
South Asian religions with the demotion of Indra that de-
fines the movement from the Vedic to the subsequent Epic
period of the Mahabharata and the Bhramana ritual texts,
composed between the fifth century B.C.E. and the fourth
century C.E.
In this reading, the epic Mahabharata presents itself
as a vast series of theological transformations in the redis-
tribution of divine force among what Dumézil called the
"three functions" of priests, warriors, and cultivators.17 The
five Pandava brothers, the heroes of the Mahabharata, re-
ceive their divine inheritances:
Yudhisthira, the eldest is the son of Dharma, "Law,
Order," a rejuvenation of the concept of Mitra [the
sovereign lawgiver], next come two warriors of very dif-
ferent natures, Bhima, son of Vayu, a colossal force, and
Arjuna, son of Indra, a warrior knight [together a more
manageable redistribution of the warrior] ... the group
is completed by a pair of twins, Nakula and Sahadeva,
sons of the twin Nasatya, specialists in the care of cattle
437
American Ethnologist ■ Volume 38 Number 3 August 2011

and horses [representing the third function of agricul-
ture and health]. [Dumézil 1970:74]
In this reorganization, the force of the warrior is redis-
tributed in a more fragmented form among this team of
"functional" heroes, in tandem with the emerging new di-
vinities of the Purana texts, such as Krishna. Aesthetic and
ritual memories of this divine reorganization subsist in
contemporary popular Hinduism, for instance, as part of
the pan-Indian Hindu festival of Diwali, also celebrated in
Shahbad, a key ritual of which is Govardhan Puja (Wor-
ship of Mount Govardhan), that marks the ascendancy of
Krishna and the fall of Indra (Vaudeville 1 980:4). 18 These
theological transformations provide the background for the
medieval-modern experimentation within which Tejaji and
the oral- epic deities find their place.
As a further step in this theological-moral genealogy,
we might ask, what movement of the spirit could provide a
force powerful enough to reorganize the figure of the war-
rior? I take a clue here from Friedrich Nietzsche, whose On
the Genealogy of Morals (2006) maps a "global" transfor-
mation of warrior ideals ("battle" as sport, as raid, as ini-
tiation, as a type of relation between tribes, as a form of
life) with diverse expressions in various religions. In the his-
tory of morality, the countervailing force to the warrior is
what the Genealogy of Morals famously calls "ascetic ide-
als" stressing renunciation, frugality, self-discipline, anti-
agonistics, compassion - a forceful spiritual movement in
South and West Asia, with worldwide reverberations, ac-
cording to Nietzsche. I do not go into the relationship be-
tween Christianity and the ascetic ideal here, as it is de-
scribed in classic texts by Nietzsche (1968, 2006) and Max
Weber (2001). Numerous texts in the anthropology of ethics
and religion describe the centrality of ascetic ideals to Bud-
dhism and Jainism (Babb 1996; Laidlaw 2002). 19 Compara-
bly, Madeline Biardeau (1989) poses a constitutive dynamic
between (warrior) sacrifice and (ascetic) renunciation as
the two poles animating the history of Hinduism from the
Vedic to the Epic-Puranic periods, leading into the two ma-
jor medieval currents of Bhakti (devotional religion, most
often with Krishna or Rama as leading deities), and Shakta
Tantrism (with Shiva and Mother Goddess figures animat-
ing a diversity of spiritual-physical ascetic exercises) that
express varied efforts to modulate the relation between as-
ceticism and everyday life. Popular deities such as Tejaji do
not figure in Biardeau's survey of Hinduism because their
mainly oral tradition and primarily lower-class following
lead them to fall below the radar of textually based Indol-
ogy. Rather than a sharp divide between oral versus liter-
ate (or folk vs. classical, or great vs. little), it is in this shared
problematic, in the appeal of ascetic ideals and the reconsti- Dietz Sontheimer (2004:123) describes "hero-stones" de-
tution of warrior agonistics that I find the theological force picting cattle raids that are found in several parts of India,
that animates deities such as Tejaji, causing them to possess including Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh,
and affect ordinary lives even today.
I contend that the oral epics continue a key moral
preoccupation of the classical textual epics, namely, the
reconstitution of the warrior ideal. Analyzing such trans-
formations, Nietzsche outlines a crucial aspect of the
warrior's "taming" at the hands of the ascetic ideal: the turn-
ing inward of sacrifice. ("Don't sacrifice animals, sacrifice
yourself," as Mahatma Gandhi, a key modern proponent
of the ascetic ideal, famously said.) In the oral epics, this
turn becomes clear in the heroes' deaths that happen either
through self-sacrifice (as with Tejaji), by a transcendence
of the warrior ethic through an ascetic death by samadhi
(as with the deities Gogaji and Ramdev Pir, absent from
Shahbad and this article but with large followings in other
parts of North India) (Blackburn et al. 1989) ,20 or by "retire-
ment" into an ascetic life (as with Karas and Soorpal above).
Alongside a mode of death, the warrior's way of life in these
myths expresses a move away from the furor and intoxica-
tion exalted under the reign of Indra. In this regard, a crucial
aspect of Nietzsche's argument on the disciplining of the
warrior turns on the centrality of the promise ("to breed
an animal with the prerogative to promise," as the Geneal-
ogy of Morals puts it). In this sense, Rama, the central figure
of the epic Ramayana, is associated with a phrase, remem-
bered by most people in India familiar with this epic, that is
meant to summarize an ethos: "Raghu kul reet sadaa chali
aayi, praan jaye par vachan na jaye" [The honor code of the
clan of Raghu (of which Rama is a descendant): You may
give up your life but not a promise once made]. Resonant
with this morality of the warrior's "stability," Tejaji expresses
an aspect of this ethos, giving up his life to keep a promise
to a serpent. Most crucial, though, for the continuing pres-
ence of Tejaji and the oral-epic deities is their specific mode
of deification. It would be wrong to say that the warrior is
wholly annihilated. As Komal Kothari (1989:1 12) points out,
each of these deities is linked to a healing function, relat-
ing in particular to animals that belong to or neighbor the
domestic such as camels, cattle, snakes, et cetera. Following
Dumézil's "trifunctional" thesis, we might say that the war-
rior's force is not destroyed but, rather, redistributed, in this
case along the third "cultivator function" associated primar-
ily with healing and animals. As is clear from the genealogy
above, Tejaji is not disconnected from long-standing spiri-
tual and moral tensions within Hinduism. At the same time,
this variable ethos is not simply an instantiation of fixed hi-
erarchical or "Sanskritic" norms, because the norms and hi-
erarchies of deities have long been in flux.
The theological-moral transformations I have tracked
are further embodied and expressed in ritual terms, for in-
stance, in the specificity of sacrificial substances, key to
ritual thought (Malamoud 1996). In this regard, Gunther-
and Maharashtra. In southern India, the classical Sangam

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 Agonistic intimacy and moral aspiration ■ American Ethnologist
literature, composed between the first and fourth cen-
tury C.E., describes the worship of hero-stones: "Toddy
(an intoxicant) was poured over the stone and a ram sac-
rificed" (Sontheimer 2004:216). In contemporary Maha-
rashtra, Sontheimer describes the rituals of the Dhangars,
a pastoral tribe, who sacrifice "a string of five rams" to the
warrior deity Khandoba in Jejuri. As in many other places
in India and abroad, animal sacrifice has come to be deval-
ued in Shahbad and is mostly performed discreetly, if at all,
even to "terrifying" Mother Goddess figures to whom, tra-
ditionally, blood would have been the appropriate offering.
My interest is not in judging the value of animal sacrifice
but in how moral transformations are achieved, in myth, as
above, and in ritual. In light of the rituals of blood described
by Sontheimer, we can see a very different type of "hero-
stone" worship and healing with Tejaji, though one still cen-
trally involving substances directly procured from cattle, as
is evident in the festivities that we can now turn to.
Tejaji's procession usually carries a white flag with a
serpent insignia. Among the crowd, Tejaji can be recog-
nized by his signature accessory, the snake-shaped bailam
(staff) held by his spirit medium. On the morning of the
Teja Dashmi festival, his shrine is washed and bathed with
milk and redecorated with sindoor (red vermillion paste).
By late morning, village musicians begin singing segments
of his epic. In Casba Nonera, the spirit medium Mathura's
sons form the performance troupe. Tejaji is associated with
a unique and recognizable percussive rhythm, distinct from
those of other deities. The spirit medium takes his place on
the shrine platform. How is the deity invited? Jean-Pierre
Vernant describes the centrality of smoke in Greek sacri-
ficial religion: "The fragrant smoke of fat and bones" that
rises from the burning flesh of the sacrificed animal "opens
the lines of communication between the Gods and the par-
ticipants in the rites" (1987:110). With Tejaji, the smoke,
known in Shahbad as besander, plays a similar role. Ga-
janand explained it to me through an analogy: "The homa
[fire] and besander are like a 'mobile' to the devtas [deities],"
a reference to cell-phones - recent and highly coveted addi-
tions to life in Shahbad. What is the substance that is burn-
ing to call Tejaji, if not animal flesh? Ghee (clarified butter)
is poured over cow-dung cakes and these are lit, giving off
a fragrant smoke. This seemingly minor sacrificial substitu-
tion of cow dung for flesh signals an altered mode of relation
between humans, animals, and gods, a shift in morality I
turn to ahead.21 The smoldering cow-dung cakes are placed
in clay goblets on the shrine platform, and soon the spirit
medium begins to convulse. In Casba Nonera, Mathura's
signature action of possession was to writhe like a snake.
Tejaji has arrived. The crowd begins to chant, "Bolo veer Te-
jaji ki jai!" [Hail the brave Tejaji!]. The drumming reaches a
crescendo. If one listens too closely, one's head may start to
spin, as happens to many. The musicians sing, "Bodhal ke
raja, pharera ude che" [The flag of Bodhal's king-husband
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Tejaji is flying high]. Groups of jatrus (supplicants), usually
those who have been bitten by snakes at some point in the
year, have been arriving all day from this and surrounding
villages. They are organized by Tejaji's shrine assistants into
lines, about fifty at a time, to circumambulate the shrine a
total of seven times. Some occasionally faint in the process.
As the line moves, the medium sprinkles a purifying sub-
stance on the passing supplicants. This, again, is not blood
(or wine-toddy) but a potion considered to be of great heal-
ing significance in this and other parts of India, a mixture
of milk and cow urine (gomutra), usually of a virgin calf.
Along with the circumambulation, the healing process in-
volves bandh katna (cutting the thread): The spirit medium
allows the supplicant to undo his or her bandh, the black
or red thread tied onto the person just after being bitten
to seek Tejaji's protection and to mark that person's life or
death as being in Tejaji's hands. Moving alongside the cir-
cumambulating men and women, one can find an occa-
sional cow, brought along by an anxious householder after
the bovine suffered a snakebite. By early evening, the stream
of supplicants has dried up. Tejaji will return in a year. The
modes of moral relatedness, however, in which Tejaji partic-
ipates, subsist well after this ritual, an aspect of his presence
to which I now turn.
Religious-moral modes of relatedness: The
rigors and pleasures of asceticism
How is desire attracted to frugality? This question about
modes of consumption and aspiration may recurrently re-
animate itself, for environmental or other reasons, as rel-
evant in the United States as it is in presently "neolib-
eralizing" India. The fate of this mode of aspiration, one
might say, in terms of its longer duration, is tied to the
history of various religions and the political theology of
ascetic ideals. A common phenomenon in many parts
of India where ascetic ideals exert an influence is for
a householder to become a bhagat (devotee). Those who
do so alter their way of life significantly through a range
of self-imposed regulations. In his studies of ancient Greek
asceticism, Michel Foucault (1990, 1997) called these spir-
itual exercises "techniques of the self," a concept with
vital resonances in the anthropology of Indian religions
(Laidlaw 2002). In the study of Hinduism in the medieval-
modern period, such ascetic moralities are understood
largely in relation to the two major textually documented
religious currents of Bhakti and Tantrism (as in Biardeau
1989). I propose that Tejaji and his genre of oral-epics
deities, although largely absent from the textual life of Hin-
duism, are a third medieval-modern current, related to but
distinct from other ascetic moralities on the Indian reli-
gious landscape. Acknowledging these wider resonances,
we might ask, what about the specific absorption of Tejaji
by the Sahariyas in Shahbad?
43!
American Ethnologist ■ Volume 38 Number 3 August 2011

Was the "adoption" of Tejaji by the Sahariyas simply a
way of accessing a standing moral universe of "upper-caste
norms" of vegetarianism and asceticism? I gesture above
to the two ways in which such movements of religious-
moral aspiration are understood, either as imitation (of
Brahminical norms, i.e., Sanskritization) or as opposition,
what Hardiman calls "Adivasi [tribal] assertion." The fatality
of these identity-based ideas is that they obfuscate both the
shared inheritance of global moral questions such as sac-
rifice and asceticism and the points of tension within so-
cial groups and selves, not to mention the possibility of a
cohabited future for neighbors and rivals. Contrary to the
imitation of upper castes or to lower-caste or tribal oppo-
recognized the song from his youth: "It's such an old song!
They used to sing it in the early days, when Tejaji had just ar-
rived in our village." Although the theme of approaching a
deity as a "servant" is common to many lyrical traditions,
the specificity of the relation pictured here reveals some-
thing distinctive. What is expressed here is not so much a
desire for "upward mobility" as an invitation to a type of
relation based very much on an acknowledgment of who
one is and what one does, a specific mode of aspiration that
translates, for those more closely involved with this deity,
not into "servitude" or pious submission but, rather, into a
range of spiritual exercises and modes of neighborly relat-
edness.

sition, consider that the appeal of Tejaji is not as an upper- Mathura and other Sahariya spirit mediums described
caste entity but as a deity of a pastoral "tribe" or, at best, their "conversions" to Tejaji in terms of a range of "tech-
a "middle" caste engaged in agriculture. Although Tejaji is niques of the self - dietary (vegetarianism, restrictions on
referred to as a vir (brave warrior), he is often pictured in who could cook the food they eat) and other daily prac-
songs as engaged in agriculture, a detail that agrees with my tices (specific times for waking up, ablutions, etc.). I should
assertion of his employment in the cultivator function. The clarify that I do not see vegetarianism as necessarily "Brah-
following line from a song for Tejaji, from Marwar in west- minical" (several Brahmin subcastes, including my paternal
ern Rajasthan, is a common instance of his agricultural self: family, are meat eaters, following Shakta Mother Goddess
"Tell me mother, how much усишг [sorghum] should I sow? traditions) but, rather, as a specific response in this region
How much bajra [pearl millet] should I sow? Nine mann of the world to the global question of ascetic ideals and its
[40 kg] of jowar you should sow Prince Teja, ten mann of absorption into the everyday life of householders, a theme
bajra you should sow. Bhavaj [brother's wife] bring my food I return to ahead, turning to animals. For Sahariya spirit
soon, and for the cows bring green bajra [fodder] " (Sarrazin mediums, vegetarianism was not a "group" phenomenon,
2003:312). undertaken by an entire clan as a route to greater re-
How did Sahariyas relate to this agriculturalist figure? spectability. To the contrary, it often involved separating
One evening, I was sitting with a group of former bondedoneself from one's community and close kin. In Casba Non-
laborers from Casba Nonera. Aware that I was gathering era, for example, the spirit medium Mathura's father-in-law
material about Tejaji, the oldest among them declared, "I'll was a renowned hunter, Chintu Shikari (Chintu the Hunter),
sing you an old song. Mathura's sons [the singers] are too and Mathura refused to eat food cooked by his own wife
young to know it." The song began "Har pe haali laga le,(Chintu's daughter) for several years. Did Mathura and the
re Jat ke, har pe haali laga le." The translation of this song other mediums gain in social prestige? Certainly, but this
is delicate because it implies an unequal relation (between was more a result of their status as mediums of Tejaji rather
humans and gods and between humans) that is neither re- than of any generalized "imitation" of pious norms. In any
sistance or rebellion nor a defeated submission. The word case, their piety or lack thereof would still not explain why
haali is usually translated into English as "bonded laborer," other groups, higher castes, would be so welcoming, even
although it can also be translated as the Hindi-Urdu word sometimes awed by the "new" god arriving in their midst
naukar (servant), still a common enough occupation in In- through the Sahariyas, who are, after all, among the lowest
dian households. So the line translates, "O Jat! Make me the in status, economically and socially. Why would Gajanand's
servant of your plow." The next lines of the song are "Ladki father, a lower- middle-caste tailor, tell his son to "fast for the
tau laga le re, ek gubra ri ghare. Ко katego jaar, Jat ke, ко newly arrived deity Tejaji if for no one else" and Gajanand
katego jaar. Ко tore roti le javego, ко tore roti." The wife ofreport this to me as all but his dying words? This, it seems to
a Sahariya bonded laborer would often be assigned house- me, has something to do with the allure of the outsider deity,
hold tasks such as the collection of cow dung (gubra), weed- a "new" and promising god, a crucial although almost un-
ing the crop (jaar), and taking food (roti) to those in the noticed aspect of Hinduism. The concept of "the neighbor"
field. So the lines translate, "Make my wife (or daughter) must allow for the potentiality of the outsider, an expression
your servant too and she'll clean your cowshed, weed your of which I posit as an animating factor within Hinduism.
crop, and bring you food." This song, then, is a supplica- Terms such as outsider or foreigner might seem anath-
tion in terms very familiar to Sahariya lives some decades ema to those who have digested the potion of nationalism
back. The song probably fell out of favor in Shahbad as the too deeply. With such terms, I am referring not only to Indo-
form of life associated with this type of haali labor came to European and Central Asian migrations but also to the fact
be legally and morally undermined. My associate Gajanand that, until relatively recently, Kota (the preindependence

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 Agonistic intimacy and moral aspiration ■ American Ethnologist
kingdom to the east, now the closest city to Shahbad) and
Gwalior (to the west, in present-day Madhya Pradesh) were
separate states. In other words, Hinduism was an "interna-
tional" religion until India's independence a few decades
back. In a context reframed as such, the allure of the "for-
eigner" deity is not limited to "low" or local deities. The
outsider appears in many guises. For instance, in describ-
ing the rise of Krishna as a composite deity joining distinct
currents, Vaudeville observes that a crucial part of the syn-
thesis of what became known as Vaishnava Bhakti were the
songs of the Tamil Alvar poets, composers of the classical
Bhagavat Purana text, which gained in eminence over time,
traveling across languages and countries, to become the
most revered text of North Indian Hinduism even today. In
composing this text, the Alvar poets in southern India were
expressing their devotion to Krishna-Gopala, whom they
called "the child from Mathura in the North" (Vaudeville
1975:108). This movement across regions and boundaries is
what I am describing as the force of an appealing "outsider"
as a source of vitality.
So, then, were the Sahariyas receptive conduits for
Tejaji's journey through Shahbad, acting out a general so-
cial obligation to receive new gods? In part, yes. But they
would hardly be expressing an aspiration if they acted only
under the weight of obligation. Living in Shahbad, attend-
ing various festivals, I came to recognize the centrality not
of piety but of pleasure as an aspect of these forms of reli-
gious life. In time, I found another, more ordinary and sub-
lime, reason for the popularity of Tejaji. Studying the mu-
sical genres of Shahbad, I could see how utterly distinct
the rhythms and tones of Tejaji were. In her study of Te-
jaji, the musicologist Natalie Rose Sarrazin describes "a wall
of sound": an entire sensorium of sounds and smells that
has an importance independent of words. Comparing di-
vine rhythms, Sarrazin describes Tejaji as having a "peculiar,
highly syncopated slang style" (2003:227). Moving with this
wall of sound during the festival procession, I began to feel a
bit dizzy. I thought I had maintained my composure, hold-
ing on to my recording device. The next morning, though,
Gajanand was gently mocking: "I didn't know you could
dance so well!" Dance? "Yes, you were mast [totally into
it]. "And I barely realized that I had moved! I would believe
in a God who could dance, as Nietzsche says. In addition to
his moral, ritual, and healing aspects, this is also what Te-
jaji was to the aspirations of the Sahariyas and their neigh-
bors: the absorption of a new tune, a unique and previously
unfelt rhythm, a novel festival, a new day of the year. (See
Figure 4.) Those closer to my "migrating" milieu will under-
stand when I say that the difference between the "old" deity
Karas and the "new" Tejaji is the rhythm and the regions of
intensity that separate a ballad from Goa Trance.22 The typ-
ical beats per minute range of Goa Trance (a musical form
that emerged in the late 1980s) is 130-150. To the best of
my calculations, Tejaji's rhythm, at its strongest during the
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procession, hits a higher range. A few days before the festi-
val, I asked Mathura 's sons to perform parts of their reper-
toire so I could record them. They played for a while but
then stopped, dissatisfied. "This is not it really. You have to
be there for the festival. That day, bhar jaata hai, nas nas
meť [he fills you, enters your every nerve] .
Regarding the question of the "newness" of deities in
Shahbad and in other parts of India, we might ask: Are the
people in these cases "pagans," just waiting to be converted,
ready for any god that comes along? Not quite. An ascen-
dant deity has a particular rhythm, musical, moral, and
temporal. The rise of Krishna took a millennium and some
centuries, that of Tejaji in Shahbad a few decades. A deity
must add something "new" to an ongoing movement of life,
as Tejaji does in replacing Karas in musical and mythical
terms or as Krishna did with Indra in morals and aesthet-
ics. The variations can be major or minor, depending on
the rhythm. These variations notwithstanding, in politico-
theological terms, does stressing moral relatedness trace a
circuitous route back to a basic Durkheimian claim that the
basis of religion is a moral imperative toward social soli-
darity? According to Durkheim, "The basic purpose of the
religious engagement with life is to reawaken solidarity . . .
Religion is not just collective delirium because the cult re-
ally does periodically recreate a moral entity on which we
depend, as it depends on us. And this entity does exist: it
is society" (2001:258).23 Undeniably, Tejaji's rise is linked to
modes of religious-moral, ritual, and festive relatedness be-
tween potentially hostile neighboring groups. And yet this
is not the conclusion of my analysis for two reasons. Firstly,
the forces that compose and participate in Tejaji's spirit are
not limited to the human (or to human "solidarities"), an
issue that leads to a somewhat expanded definition of the
neighbor. As crucially, I argue that, rather than a stable uni-
fying function, certain instabilities are inherent in the theos
of Tejaji, to which I now turn.
Waning intensities of Tejaji
Although I have stressed cohabited aspirations and festive
intimacies in the analysis so far, agonistics too may sur-
face within these forms of religious life, for instance, as a
moral judgment of one's neighbors. Spirit mediums and
devotees would sometimes tell me, scornfully or ruefully in
turn, how Tejaji "won't come to the Jat [pastoralists] them-
selves anymore." Why not? "They barely sing now . . . they
are not shuddh [pure], they don't follow his niyam [rules, a
reference to diet and liquor, also invoking a broader sense
of moral degeneracy]." As crucially, Tejaji and the unstable
variations in divine hierarchies that I have described ex-
press constitutive tensions, for instance, between warrior
and ascetic ideals, and the waxing and waning vitalities of
deities and forms of religious-moral life, rather than per-
forming a wholly stable "unifying" function. Let us focus
441
American Ethnologist ■ Volume 38 Number 3 August 2011
Figure 4. Whirling dancer at Teja Dashmi festival.
more closely on these varying intensities. Relatively brief
though Tejaji's time had been in Shahbad, there was already
a strong narrative of decline surrounding his present status.
In most villages with an active Tejaji shrine, stories of mir-
acles were told around his initial entry. These were in the
genre of parche (proofs) of power, mainly occurring when
a challenge was issued to a specific spirit medium. When
Mathura first began to be possessed, some would joke as
he passed by, "Oh look, its Tejaji!" Gajanand's brother once
went behind his back to fool around with Tejaji's signature
staff, straightening the snake-shaped top bit by hammering
it with a rock. At sunset, after a day of work, Mathura arrived
at the shrine, picked up the disfigured staff, and slammed
it on the ground. Drops of blood trickled out of the staff.
"I shined a torch on it to check," Gajanand told me, "My
brother was so ashamed. I came back the next morning to
check if it really was blood. Only after that and his first few
cures did people begin to take him seriously." On other oc-
casions, people had seen "streams of milk" coming out of
Tejaji's staff. The miracles were within a specifiable range of
Tejaji's powers, to do with snakes and cows, usually hing-
ing on his use of his staff, considered the most powerful el-
ement of the possessed spirit medium.
In more recent times, such miracles had all but ceased.
Instead, I was confronted with apologetic statements of de-
cline regarding Tejaji. "It isn't even 10 percent of what it
used to be," was the common refrain. In some villages, the
scale of the festivities was reduced because of ongoing ag-
442
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onistic tensions, as feuding caste groups decided to hold
separate festivals in their respective neighborhoods. A few
villages had even discontinued the festival. Others contin-
ued the basic healing ritual without the musical accompa-
niment and enthusiasm. Some stressed the inevitability of
this decline. "Initially there were very few fairs so it was big.
A single festival had a circumference of 20 villages, hun-
dreds of people. But then so many people began to get pos-
sessed by Tejaji, one fair for every four or five villages. How
could they sustain that? Enthusiasm declined." To many in
Shahbad, the spirit of Tejaji was undoubtedly on the wane.
Another tell-tale sign was the proximity of the shrine to
the basti, the residential part of the village. Tejaji's shrine
is usually located in a field some way from the village be-
cause the work of healing is sometimes considered danger-
ous and, more practically, because large open spaces are
needed to accommodate the annual festival. A character-
istic symptom of a waning deity (specifically of the public
festival genre, such as Tejaji) is that people begin to build
houses and sheds closer to the shrine, eating into a sacred
space of declining vitality. This was the case in several vil-
lages west of Shahbad, in the neighboring subdistrict of Kis-
hanganj, where Tejaji shrines stood inert amidst houses.
"Tejaji used to come to X's grandfather, but he hasn't pos-
sessed anyone here in a while," I was told. In Casba Non-
era, Mathura was by now aged and asthmatic. "You should
have seen me when I was younger," he told me, invoking a
time when it was said that he swam effortlessly against the
 Agonistic intimacy and moral aspiration ■ American Ethnologist
powerful river current, writhing like a snake with his hands
tied, his long hair swaying in the water. People gasped and
sang songs of Tejaji to call him back. Now he was almost
bald and stood feeble and shivering at the edge of the wa-
ter. Meanwhile, people in Casba Nonera were beginning to
encroach on Tejaji's space. During the festival procession, I
recorded snippets of Mathura's speech. The procession had
stopped outside the village headman's house and most of
the village was gathered around. Tejaji-Mathura spoke:
If we have planted a tree together and cows don't sit in
its shade, what is the use of the tree? Where will people
gather for the festival? I eat sweets and I speak sweetly.
If calling my name stops healing you then forget me.
If things are going well, keep them going. Anyone who
builds there [near my shrine] will suffer great losses.
[Gajanand whispered examples of those who built a
wall or a shed close to Tejaji's shrine and had to repent.]
Who knows how Tejaji came to your village? A space
was made for me, don't let it go. If the basti [neighbor-
hood] remains attentive, everything will go well.
How might we understand these waning intensities? Rather
than processes of "secularization" or "disenchantment," I
contend that there are modes of impermanence internal to
these forms of religious life. In the most characteristic form
of worship in Hinduism, called puja, the deity is treated
as an honored guest with rituals of avaharía (invitation),
svagata (welcome), prasad (offering of food), and ending
with pranama (bow of homage) and visar jana (departure).
In other words, the presence of a deity is regarded as in-
herently impermanent. Tejaji is on his way elsewhere, away
from Shahbad, some suggested. Many pointed to the village
of Kota Naka, east of Shahbad, as the outer boundary of his
present ambit, beyond which there are, indeed, no shrines
for Tejaji at present, as I confirmed. Others added that Tejaji
is making a gradual pilgrimage eastward, singing a line of a
festival song as evidence, "Bodhal ke raja, Ganga gael chalo
che" [Tejaji, the husband of Bodhal, is on the eastbound
road, to the holy river Ganga]. In the meantime, was it mis-
guided of Tejaji (through the medium of Mathura) to re-
quest a longer life in Casba Nonera? Why should anyone be
disappointed with the declining intensity around Tejaji? Do
they not know that deities have ascending and descending
rhythms, that they are "guests"? The deity Karas receded,
making space for Tejaji, and one day Tejaji will have to make
space for another, as yet unknown. In some ways, to retain
an investment in the present and in the future, it is cru-
cial not to know, not to expect religious life to have a stable
unifying function. There is, we might say, a process of "for-
getting" necessary and internal to Hinduism that leaves an
opening for the futurity of aspiration, the not-yet that might
take different forms of intimacy and agonistics. I began to
pay attention to murmurs about a more distant site of pil-
grimage that people in Shahbad were getting interested in.
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"It takes a long time to get there. It's in Runijha (in western
Rajasthan), a big shrine for a god called Ramdev Pir.24 Even
Muslims worship him. You should see the number of peo-
ple there from all over India!" Returning to the concept of
"the neighbor," we might say that, although these political
theologies are embodied in a weave of local relations, they
are also open to an "outside," variously conceived (even as
new intensities "internal" to a milieu), that may provide
new sources of aspiration, for good and for ill. The "out-
side," as I have argued, is not only directed toward the cre-
ation of social unity. Nor, I might add, is it only restricted
to the human. We may extend the concept of "the neigh-
bor" to speak of relatedness between neighboring species
(Ingold 1994, 2000; Kohn 2007), human and nonhuman, di-
vine and animal, an aspect of Tejaji that I cannot analyti-
cally ignore, given the striking presence of animals in his
vicinity, mythological, ritual, and corporeal - in particular,
snakes and cows.
Humans, animals, and gods
In what ways do animals leave their tracks in human-divine
interactions? This question has engaged anthropology re-
cently (Kohn 2007; Nadasdy 2007) and in its earliest avatars,
for instance, succinctly posed by Franz Boas: Why are cer-
tain species of animals sacred and others not? (Shanklin
1985:391). I leave aside the "commonsensical" answer relat-
ing to the economic or calorific value of animals, a sugges-
tion that has been offered within and outside of anthropol-
ogy. If economic value were the key to the sacred complex,
then the chicken would be by far the holiest of creatures,
since this species constitutes the largest group of domes-
ticated animals in the world. The expressive value of cer-
tain animals, such as snakes, also has something to do with
the force and vitality exerted by those particular species
on the human imagination. Returning to Tejaji, we might
consider two answers among others offered by anthropol-
ogists to the question of the expressive and moral value of
animals. Lévi-Strauss offers a provocative suggestion in his
analyses of the role of myth and totemic animals in North
and South America. On his account, as parts of a larger
world-ordering classification, animals provide a conceptual
support for social differentiation, the ways in which neigh-
boring tribes relate to one another. As humans attribute
distinguishing characteristics to animals, they also "create
differences among themselves," as Levi-Strauss famously
argued (1966:108), a theme resonant with Mary Douglas's
(2002:51) analysis of food taboos.25 If this is too intellec-
tualized or nonvisceral for some, then a second, quite dif-
ferent answer is that provided by Evans-Pritchard (1962),
who describes the centrality of cattle raiding to the relation-
ship between the neighboring pastoral tribes of the Nuer
and the Dinka in southern Sudan. A Nuer boy is gifted an
ox as part of his ritual of initiation into the adult world
443
American Ethnologist ■ Volume 38 Number 3 August 2011

(Evans-Pritchard 1962:252). The types of emotional attach- For now, I turn to the place of the cow in Tejaji's deifica-
ments that develop between the Nuer and their cattle, ac- tion. In Shahbad, as among the Nuer, perhaps, I noticed nu-
cording to Evans-Pritchard, "are what psychologists would merous attachments. Rather than "identification," I would
term as 'identification'" (1962:24). In giving up his ox for describe such attachments as the traversal of affects. For in-
sacrifice, the Nuer boy is submitting to the deity that which stance, one afternoon, Gajanand's household cow was lost.
is dearest to him. Evans-Pritchard (1962:260) names this Standing in Gajanand's courtyard was the lost cow's calf, a
the "equivalence" between men and cattle, a relation that few months old. Despite our best attempts to offer it the
creates the possibility of sacrificial substitution, in which choicest fodder, the calf refused to eat, and we could see
the sacrificer and the victim are "fused" by the act of con- tears streaming from his eyes. Gajanand's daughter used to
secration. So, we inherit two distinct ideas emerging from cook for Gajanand and me and eat after we had. Late that
anthropology: animals as differential conceptual operators, night, I noticed that her dinner plate was still untouched.
on the one hand, and "psychological identification" and I asked why she had not eaten. "How can I eat when he
human-animal "equivalence," on the other. Returning to hasn't?" she asked, pointing at the calf and beginning to
Tejaji, we will see that both of these ideas are useful, al- sob, her tears joining his. The next morning, Gajanand and
though I am also drawn to a third option to character- I had to suspend our transcription session because he had
ize human-animal relations, that of "becoming-animal," a not slept well all night, troubled by bad dreams about his
signature concept of Deleuze and Guattari (see also Kohn lost cow. "I told Tejaji," said Gajanand, "your festival is com-
2007:7). 26 ing soon. You brought Hira Gujjari's cows back, please bring
With Tejaji, we might notice a continuum: The animal mine too." He left me to chat with Mathura's sons and swam
deifies the human. The two crucial animal vectors of the across the river to look for her. When she was found, it
snake and the cow lead in somewhat distinct directions. It
turned out that Gajanand's cow and her mother had sepa-
may be tempting to analyze this divergence in oppositional
rated themselves from the herd and couldn't find their way
terms, with the snake leading "downward" toward aborigi- back. Such intergenerational relations within and across
species certainly seem significant. In the myth I recount
nal or "folk" religion and the cow leading "upward" towards
Brahminical Hinduism. Let us instead move closer to Te- above, the receded deity Karas was cursed for separating a
cow from her forlorn calf.
jaji. The death-dealing snakebite is the reason for his de-
ification. For spirit mediums, the snake-shaped staff is of-I contend, however, that these affective human-animal
relations are only a minor factor in the theological signifi-
ten their most crucial healing accessory, as the instantiation
of the transference of power from the snake to Tejaji (Sar-
cance of the cow. A more crucial aspect of the cow is its rela-
razin 2003:261). Appearing in oral and textual traditions,tion
the to the theological-moral transformation of the warrior
and the rise of the Hindu version of the ascetic ideal. In their
snake figures widely in classical Hindu and Buddhist texts
food-related studies, R. S. Khare (1992) and Marvin Harris
as a source of life-giving power.27 Further afield, the snake-
shaped staff of the Greek deity Asclepius is the symbol (1992)
of date the rise of vegetarianism and the related pro-
the medical profession in many parts of the world. I am hibition on cow slaughter to the post-Vedic period of Hin-
not concerned, however, with what this symbol "means." duism (second-tenth centuries C.E.). In more recent cen-
My question is somewhat different. How would we under- turies, historians of colonial India describe the emotional
stand the spirit medium Mathura's writhing like a snake fervor
on among Hindu groups around the figure of the cow
(Pandey 1983). Why should the cow generate such affects?
Tejaji's festival? One could say that it is an example of what
Evans-Pritchard calls "psychological identification." But Is this
is a nationwide process of "identification"? Not exactly.
Rather, I contend that the cow is a marker of the peculiar
Mathura really saying, "I am a snake"? Or does his writhing
body express something else? In Deleuze and Guattari'sresponse
ac- in this region of the world to the global moral
problem of the ascetic ideal, its absorption into the every-
count, becoming is not imitation; it is, rather, "an alliance,
an unnatural participation" (1987:237). What becoming day ex- life of householders (through vegetarianism, teetotaler
presses is "the incredible feeling of an unknown Nature practices,
- etc.), and the turning away from human-animal
affect" (Deleuze and Guattari 1987:240). So what is occur-sacrifice. What would be an analogous example? According
to Nietzsche, Christianity also expresses a turn away from
ring here is not necessarily "identification" but the traversal
of affects that move through Mathura, through Gajanand's sacrificial religion. This transformation is realized in West
father, Gajanand, and many others in Shahbad. As Deleuze Asia by a remarkable sacrifice, that of the son of God him-
and Guattari put it, "Blocks of becoming travel throughself,epi-in light of which all future sacrifice (the give and take
demic, contagion" (1987:241). Does this seem like a seman-between humans and gods) is revalued. So we might say
tic differentiation of identification, imitation, and becom-
that in this (proximate and distant?) part of southern Asia,
ing? I return to this point in conclusion, in consideringthe
thecow represents something akin to the body of Christ in
implications of "becoming" for ideas of aspiration. marking a resonant turn away from sacrifice.

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 Agonistic intimacy and moral aspiration ■ American Ethnologist

The prohibition on killing does not necessarily mean itation of or opposition to neighboring groups. We might,
that cows, as one's immediate neighbors and relations, are instead, conceive of aspiration as a mode of "becoming"
more "humanely" treated. Not killing a cow may mean only (see also Biehl and Locke 2010), becoming- animal, as I ges-
a slower, more torturous death. A cow that ceases to be ture to above, as a mode of becoming deified, say, as for
productive is often just left to pasture, and one can see Mathura the spirit medium, whose body then becomes a lo-
numerous stray cows dolefully ambling about the lanes of cus of relatedness between neighboring groups. These rela-
Indian villages and cities, competing with stray dogs for tions and aspirations might be thought of as myriad ways of
nourishment in trash heaps. The "high" status of the cow, becoming human. Becoming, though, is not only or wholly
its centrality as a neighboring and related species, however, an "affirmative" ideal. We often aspire precisely in compe-
is marked in several ways in ritual. For instance, if some- tition with or by negating a concrete neighbor, who may
one in a household in Shahbad dies, the family does not also thus spur us on. That intimate agonistics is then our
celebrate the annual cycle of festivals that year. However, if mode of relatedness, which may vary for good and for ill. In
either a human or a cow in that family gives birth, festivi- other words, aspiration and modes of becoming enfold both
ties are permissible again. Tejaji, in his ritual, mythical, and threats and possibilities. What implications might be drawn
spiritual-moral relation to cattle, is one among other deities here for an anthropological understanding of the political
that mark an invitation to this ethic, one that is not to be theology of the neighbor?
understood as emanating from any one upper-caste group Anthropologists often discover that relations between
(although as officiators of the sacrifice, Brahmins may, in- neighboring groups in their ethnographic milieu are "com-
deed, have been the first to respond to the ascetic provo- plex and contradictory," a commonplace scholarly phrase
cation) but as a response to the conflict between ascetic that expresses a thought despite its vague generality. I have
and warrior ideals. The prohibitions around the cow are tried to offer a conceptual possibility to hone the specificity
a provocation that extend into the generalized idea of the of such ethnographic findings through the idea of "agonistic
doash (blame) of jeevhatya (murder of life), a term used in intimacy," which invokes the copresence of conflict and co-
Shahbad and elsewhere in India to denote a pacified rela- habitation, the particular modes of which remain open for
tion to various neighboring life-forms, through which social investigation in different milieus. I have also sought a co-
groups distinguish themselves from one another in ways ordinate for the political theology of the neighbor different
involving what might be called "bloodless" agonistics. In from the injunction of Leviticus. We might locate this coor-
conceiving of relatedness, Lévi-Strauss (1966:108) offered dinate in Tejaji's myth, which preserves politico-theological
this suggestion: Neighboring tribes distinguish themselves traces of the deification of "wily theft," a form of reciprocal
in ways linked to how they differentiate between animals. raiding found by anthropologists in many parts of the world
The Hindi word jati is used in several parts of India to de- that might be taken as a signature mode of agonistic inti-
scribe a "social group." It is usually translated into English macy ("We steal to befriend," as Herzfeld's [1988:163] infor-
as caste. I opt to translate it as species since that is also its mants in rural Greece put it). In Tejaji's mode of deification,
conceptual import and occasional popular usage.28 People as I have argued, these forms of warrior agonistics are un-
in Shahbad sometimes say that parrots are the most sama- der pressure from pacifying ascetic ideals, understood not
jhdaar jati (intelligent species), causing the least harm to as "otherworldly" but in relation to modes of moral, festive,
life and to one another. If only we humans were so capable, and ritual relatedness between neighbors.
some sigh. As crucially, in understanding modes of relatedness, I
have sought to renegotiate the concept of "the political,"
contra Schmitt, because ethnographic investigation usu-
Conclusion: Agonistic intimacy, moral
ally leads to more intricate distinctions than friend-enemy,
aspiration, and the political theology of the
neighbor variable differences of degree such as the self-deprecating
and yet potentially hostile forms of localized mutual recog-
I began this article with a question that perhaps every re- nition that Herzfeld (1995, 2005) calls "cultural intimacy."
ligious and secular morality confronts: How should poten- Agonistics and intimacies are intertwined in the often tense
tially hostile neighboring groups live together? The strands maintenance of everyday peace (Ring 2006), which may in-
of Hinduism I have examined here address this question by volve the periodic renegotiation of more delicate degrees
"pacifying" the relationship between neighbors, human and of otherness than self-other, say, in the differentiation of
nonhuman, animal and divine, through modes of mythic, neighbors and strangers (Miller 1999) or in forms of "an-
ritual, and festive relatedness, drawing on shared moral as- tagonistic tolerance" (Hayden 2002). Nearness or intimacy
pirations, the moral dimension of which I traced through does not necessarily betoken peace. Veena Das describes
a genealogy of ascetic ideals. Through Tejaji, the Sahariyas the starkly varying range of proximities in times of collec-
were invited into a particular region of shared theological- tive violence: as a survivor of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in
moral aspirations. This journey is not necessarily one of im- Delhi tells her, "Neighbors did not help since they were

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American Ethnologist ■ Volume 38 Number 3 August 2011

themselves the killers" (2007:156), while, in another block
in the same neighborhood, members of "enemy" commu-
nities protected one another (2007:148). Das (2007:152) de-
scribes how jokes, "intimate" insults, and neighborhood ri-
valries can intensify, gathering deadly force in situations of
collective violence. These playful modes of agonistics may
subsist below the threshold of violence, even as an expres-
sion of cultural vitality, as anthropologists have long found,
from Marcel Mauss's The Gift (1990), a master text of agonis-
tic exchange, to Clifford Geertz's "deep play" (1973), a more
"playful" form of contest culture.29 How does the agon be-
come more or less intimate or more or less violent? This,
I contend, is a question of politics that includes phenom-
ena such as the migration of Tejaji. As mobile coordinates
of difference and relatedness, with a more capricious range
than Schmitťs friend-enemy opposition,30 my definition of
the "political" hinges on these varying degrees and modes
of agonistics and intimacies.31
I might also gesture to a widened sense of theos (deifi-
cation), specific to Tejaji, although here too we cannot ig-
nore resonances further afield. In time, I came to realize
helping me to improve this article to whatever extent I could. Lastly,
I hope my forthcoming book will better express, as this article per-
haps could not, the depth of my gratitude and affection for my
hosts in Shahbad, the NGO Sankalp, and the people I came to know
and learn from in the course of fieldwork.
1. The Sahariyas are classified as a Primitive (forest-dependent)
Tribal Group, a subsection of the ST classification. I take up the gov-
ernmental and social significance of these terms and also a more
detailed rendering of "political theologies" (as a possible alterna-
tive to the religion-secularism dichotomy) that includes concepts
of sovereignty, life, agonistic intimacies, ethics, neighborliness,
and vitality in the book project emerging from this ethnography,
Gods and Grains: On the Political Theologies of Popular Hinduism
(Singh n.d.)
2. In addition to the Sahariyas, Kiraads, and Ahirs, various other
groups of high and low status compose the social fabric of Shahbad,
including the Chamars (low- status leatherworkers turned agri-
culturalists), Sen (barbers), Dimar (fishermen), Namdev (tailors),
Baniya (traders), Brahmin (priests), and numerous other jatis.
3. On questions of feudal "bonded" labor in India and its rela-
tion to contemporary forms of wage labor, see Prakash 1990 and
Breman 2003, 2007. Elsewhere (Singh n.d.), I discuss how modes of
contract shift from "bonded" to "freer" labor arrangements for the
Sahariyas and the difficulties peculiar to older and newer labor re-
lations and forms of livelihood.

that Tejaji was not the only spiritual nomad. Perhaps all 4. For an interesting article on the caste-tribe "confusion,"
wherein the gathering of forest produce is governmentally assigned
gods are migrants. Born in varying moral and mythologi-
a tribal status but is socially seen as akin to a caste occupation like
cal trajectories, they ascend and travel to whatever extent that of barbers, weavers, and so on, see Fox 1969.
they can. How do other (even monotheistic) gods wax and 5. In Singh n.d., I take up competing narratives of culpability that
wane, within and across the milieus they inhabit? That is for assign blame differently to state and social actors for the decline of
forest cover in Shahbad.
others to determine within the political theologies in which
6. Teja Dashmi falls on the tenth day {dashmi means "tenth")
they find themselves enmeshed. The term theos, even in the
of the waning half of the Hindu lunar calendar month of Bhadon
narrow (or potentially plural or infinite?) sense of "god," be- (August-September) .
comes relevant even for the most hardened secularists, for 7. For a detailed and meticulous ethnomusicological study of
instance, in understanding the genealogy of our moral aspi- the Tejaji epic and the khela performance genre in Ajmer district
rations. Dare I define god in words that revealed themselves (Rajasthan), about 300 kilometers west of my field site, see Sar-
razin 2003. The epic, when sung in its entirety, can take up to three
to me? Venturing a definition, I will say that gods are forces
nights to perform. In Shahbad, the musical forms accompanying
and intensities, human and nonhuman, through which the Tejaji's festival are organized far more informally than in the con-
human animal is bred and tamed and learns to aspire to and text Sarrazin describes and consist of village groups singing a far
to live with others, in conflict and cohabitation. Even if the more truncated narrative, or even just a few lines in varied com-
divine element recedes, the genealogies of theos still com- binations, the performance lasting a few hours at best, most often
only for the length of the healing ritual and a village procession. In
pose us. I say this to honor both Nietzsche and Tejaji: God is
many villages in Shahbad, the ritual may carry on even in the ab-
a being to whose tune we humans learn how to dance. sence of musical groups, if such expertise is unavailable.
8. These categorizations are disputed. For instance, the Meena
jati (caste-tribe) is given ST status in Rajasthan but is widely per-
Notes ceived to be "cheating'*1 in claiming this low status, to secure wel-
fare and electoral advantages, in contrast to other groups that are
Acknowledgments. The research for this article was funded by"actually" poor and deserving of this status, such as the Sahariyas.
the IDRF Program of the Social Science Research Council. My ad-These are forms of agonistics and "local knowing" that may not be
visors at Johns Hopkins University, Veena Das, William Connolly,entirely defensible in empirical or analytical terms. The Gujjar caste
Deborah Poole, Jane Guyer, and Hent deVries, were indulgent andin Rajasthan has, in recent years, launched a major political agita-
instructive readers of this article in its earliest form as a doctoral tion, demanding ST status, its members comparing themselves to
dissertation chapter. The enthusiastic reading given to that chapter the Meenas.

by Abhimanyu Singh, Prema Singh, Ankur Khanna, Rana Dasgupta, 9. See Ann Grodzins Gold (1988) for a possession vocabulary
and Ravi Sundaram, spurred me through my dissertation. At ansimilar to that of Shahbad in the context of western Rajasthan: gho-
earlier stage, Sylvain Perdigón pointed me to Dumézil, and Romarala (mount or spirit medium), bhav aana (the "onset" of a spirit),
Chaterji gave me a formidable reading list on popular Hinduism,niyam (rules of conduct for a spirit medium), and parcya (a test or
for which I remain grateful. Michael Herzfeld and Anne Grodzins "proof" of a deity-spirit medium's power).
Gold offered critical inputs as my chapter turned into an article. 10. According to several authors, there are two versions of the
I also thank the anonymous AE reviewers and Linda Forman formyth, different mainly in certain biographical details. One version,

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 Agonistic intimacy and moral aspiration ■ American Ethnologist

which seems to originate in the erstwhile Kingdom of Mewar (in
western Rajasthan), names Tejaji's wife as Pernal, and the other,
originating farther west in the former kingdom of Marwar (also in
Rajasthan), names her as Bodhal (Rathore and Rathore 2004). In
Shahbad, Tejaji's wife is known as Bodhal.
11. For reasons of space, I do not summarize the myths linked
to each of these deities, who are absent from the landscape of
Shahbad. For further material on Gogaji, also a snakebite-healer
deity belonging to a lower-status warrior-caste Rajput clan, see La-
point 1978. For a detailed and admirably conscientious rendering
of the cattle-illness-healer deity, Dev Narayan, belonging to the Gu-
jjar pastoral caste, see Miller 1994 or Malik 2005. On the camel-
"robber" and healer deity, Pabuji, see Smith 1991. For an interesting
overlap between the myths of the oral-epic heroes with popular Is-
lam, see Veena Das's (2010:386) description of a common narrative
surrounding the urs (sacred nuptials) of Muslim pir (saints). Das
recounts the story of Bhooray Khan, a pir spirit in North India, who
is
groups that begin as "war bands" can well morph into large-scale
state formations, as was the case in South Asia with the Mughals
and the Afghan "warlord" Sher Shah Suri. In his analysis of the
kleftes in modern Greece, Herzfeld (1986) describes a resonant but
somewhat different process of discursive transformation by which
the kleftes, situationally defined thieves, were recategorized and
reified by the new nation-state of Greece as heroes, while those
who continued to defy the central authority were reclassified as
"brigands" (listes).
1 6. The Rig Veda is the oldest text of Vedic Hinduism, said to have
been composed between 1700 and 1 100 B.C.E.
17. To put it briefly, Dumézil's "trifunctional" thesis was that
Indo-European myths can most often be read as efforts to express
or to reconcile conflicts between three social functions, those of
priests, warriors, and cultivators. The four- tier Hindu Varna system,
according to Dumézil, of Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Sudra,
was a specifically Indian hardening of the Indo-European system
of three functions.
18. Charlotte Vaudeville describes the classical Hindu text

on his way to his betrothed's house when some village women Visnu-Purana (composed between the first and the fourth centur
plead with him to rescue their cattle from a group of raiding B.C.E.) , in which Krishna exhorts his fellow pastoral tribesmen t
bandits. The handsome young man agrees to do so but dies in give up the worship of Indra: "What have we got to do with Indra
the ensuing fight with the bandits, though he is able to restore Cattle and mountains are our Gods" (1980:4). These theologic
their cattle to the women and is consequently consecrated as transformations are part of common cultural knowledge in a milie
a Pir ... receiving the boon of being able to cure various ail- such as Shahbad. Explaining the various elements of the Diwal
ments. [2010:386] festival to me, for instance, my associate Gajanand described th
significance of the Govardhan Puja, represented by a mound of co
The parallels with Tejaji's myth are, indeed, striking. For an analysis dung collected from the household cattle: "This represents Mount
of a resonant but historically quite differently located Muslim "cow Govardhan, the famous hill where Lord Krishna ordered the wor-
protector" hero, Ghazi Miyan, who also expresses martial, marital, ship of Indra to be stopped. That is how everyone began to worsh
and martyr imagery, see Amin 2002. Krishna."
12. "Indo-European" is a linguistic grouping brought into pop- 19. At the popular level, fragmented memories of the moral
ular currency by the British linguist-administrator Sir William problem of the warrior's "pacification" can still be seen. Most Jain
Jones in 1786. It refers to a prototype of a language group that business clans in Rajasthan, for instance, trace their descent to Ra-
includes Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Persian, Armenian, Baltic, Celtic, jput kings who "gave up war" and the "taking of life" to become
Irish, Norse, and Germanic languages. Earlier generations of ana- traders under the tutelage of ascetics. On the transformation of
lysts were primarily interested in linguistic resemblances. A crucial warriors in Jainism, see Babb 1996:138. Similarly, the Buddha him-
word, for instance, in the proto -Indo -European lexicon is deywos self and many of his renowned early disciples as well as the Jain
for a celestial being or deity, from which the Sanskrit deva, Latin founder Tirthankaras ("passage-makers") were said to be youths of
deus, and Lithuanian dievas are said to be descended. Subsequent "noble" Kshatriya (warrior) caste families who turned away from
generations of writers, such as Georges Dumézil, Stig Wikander, the task of worldly conquest or sublimated martial forces to ascetic
Mircea Eliade, Wendy Doniger, Alf Hiltebeitel, and Bruce Lincoln ends (White 1988:104).
have explored the striking overlaps and variations between Indian, 20. Samadhi refers to a signature ascetic technique for the "con-
Greek, Roman, and pre-Islamic Iranian mythological material. quest of death" or achieving a "good" death. For more on samadhi,
13. Here the difference between the politico -theological concept see Parry 1982.
of "agonistic intimacy" and Schmitt's "decisionism" emerges more 2 1 . Another common sacrificial substitute is coconuts. The word
sharply. For Schmitt, "the exceptional decision to go to war consti- for "coconut" in Shahbad, as in many other parts of India, is khopra,
tutes the purest manifestation of the political as such" (Zizek et al. literally meaning human head. For the festival, sacks of coconuts
2005:15). In my definition, the "decision" is not quite so decisive. are brought to the shrine and smashed at the altar or sent onward
More critical to the constitution of the political are the ongoing ag- as Tejaji's offerings to other village deities.
onistics and intimacies, which may escalate into violence or subsist 22. The specific musical form associated with Karas overlapped
at lower degrees of intensity. with that of several other minor deities. This form, known as the
14. Herzfeld writes that, in Crete, "endemic livestock theft con- gote, which I also recorded as part of my research, is usually de-
tinues to play a significant role in daily social life" (1995:134). scribed in Shahbad as "slower" and more "warlike," with distinctive
The kleftis (theft) is part of an ethos in which "national heroes" tonalities, extended notes, and gradual buildups of rhythm.
are sometimes described as "thieves" (Herzfeld 1995:135) and the 23. This claim regarding the primacy of the social is central to
"theft . . . that begins as an act of violence against another's inti- Durkheim's redefinition of religion (as a social and not a metaphys-
macy becomes instead a claim on that intimacy, an intimacy that ical or supernatural phenomenon) and, indeed, to his vety defini-
is too intense for words" (1995:141). tion of "society" itself, as a kind of moral imperative.
15. The philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari 24. The deity Ramdev Pir is well known in western Rajasthan
(1987:412) describe the source of this global opinion: History as having both Hindu and Muslim devotees, and the concept of a
is on the side of the state. Even in their record of rebellions, "pir" traverses both Hindu and Muslim conceptions of asceticism.
state-based histories cannot grasp the sovereignty of the "war On the Hindu aspects of Ramdev's worship, see Binford 1976. For
band." As they further clarify, this is a delicate distinction because Ramdev's Muslim antecedents, see Khan 1995.

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American Ethnologist ■ Volume 38 Number 3 August 2011

25. In her classic analysis, Douglas suggests that understanding Chantal Mouffe's (2000) notion of "agonistic pluralism," and
animals as conceptual operators illuminates certain food taboos, Bonnie Honig's (1993) idea of "agonism." For an interesting collec-
such as the pork prohibition in Judaism, that are based in the des- tion on the idea of "creative agonistics" in philosophy and litera-
ignation of certain animals as "anomalous" outsiders in a given sys- ture, see Lungstrum and Sauer 1997. Whereas my intervention in
tem of classification. this article has been limited to the discipline of anthropology, in
26. Although he does not approach this concept through future work I hope to clarify my conception of agonistics in rela-
Deleuze, Eduardo Kohn provides a very lively discussion of human- tion to neighboring disciplines as well. In my definition, as a condi-
animal "becoming" as a "transformative process of blurring be-tion of relatedness and of power, agonistics does not signal a level
tween selves" (2007:7). playing field, nor does it tend toward a final equilibrium. We might
27. "Serpent power" is a recurrent motif in classical-textual Hin- extend the potential of this concept into even the most secular of
duism and oral mythology as well as in philosophical accounts concerns, considering, for instance, that an actual and ideal aim
of yoga and Tantrism. For more on this theme, see Vogel 1972. of democracy is not necessarily "equality" (a false utopia of equi-
On the life-giving potentiality of the snake in Buddhism, see Bloss librium?) but, rather, a vital circulation of agonistic intensities. In
1973, who analyzes Buddhist Jataka stories in which a human fig- other words (and this insight helped me to a great extent in un-
ure is often dependent on a snake for strength and authorization. derstanding the range of relations between the Sahariyas and their
The Buddha himself accepts the offer of protection from Nagaraja neighbors (see Singh n.d.)), the opposite of inequality may not be
Muchilinda, the "king of snakes," who becomes the guardian of his equality but, rather, agonistics.
relics (Bloss 1973:49).
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accepted January 28, 201 1
final version submitted February 6, 201 1
Bhrigupati Singh
Weatherhead Center
Harvard University
1737 Cambridge Street
Cambridge, MA 02 138
bsingh@wcfia.harvard.edu

4SB

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