Composite cultures : Sant Kabīr and Gūgā the Snake God

Abstract

In resent scholarship on Hindu-Muslim composite culture in India much emphasis has been laid on interreligious tolerance and co-existence as the main factor for composite culture to develop and maintain. This thesis takes a critical approach to such an understanding by suggesting a triangular approach based on research on two rather different oral traditions in North India, namely the ones surrounding the figures of Kabīr and Gūgā. Besides examining orally derived texts of these traditions, in form of poetry and epics, I have also conducted a fieldwork in Northern Rajasthan so as to see how a composite cult works in practice. Thereby this thesis crosses over many different layers in South Asian culture. My belief is that the pragmatic aspect of a folk hero like Gūgā in the everyday life of both Hindu and Muslim communities, as well as the total rejection of established traditions as seen in the poetry of the Sants and Kabīr, are strong catalysts for the developments and continuance of composite cultures in South Asia. In scholarship and politics promoting composite culture as the normative better, and as a counterargument for growing communal tension, Kabīr is presented as the ‘Apostle of Hindu-Muslim Unity’, to the extent that he is actually said to have forwarded an agenda to unite these two religious communities intentionally. By taking a closer look into some of the poetry which is assigned to Kabīr there is not much to support such an agenda. Rather his sayings are deeply entrenched with harsh criticism towards the established religious traditions in his surroundings, at the same time as he seems to have used their vocabularies and symbolisms to benefit his positions. The folk tradition evolving around the snake god Gūgā includes an oral epic tradition, which flourishes throughout North-Western India. At a fieldwork conducted at a festival venerating this hero/deity in Northern Rajasthan in August 2009, I soon discovered that the tolerant and normative aspect of composite culture was something that did not concern the average ‘practitioners’ of composite culture. They were rather concerned with the efficacy of Gūgā in mundane matters; that he could cure illness and provide help if they venerated him. I do not claim that tolerance is not present within composite cultures, sometimes it is very much at hand, and sometimes not. Tolerance seems to be of a pre-reflective kind for the average ‘practitioner’ of composite culture; they participated at the festival because of the efficacy of the deity, not for celebration of inter-religious tolerance and togetherness.