Consciousness, Literature and the Arts

Archive

Volume 6 Number 3, December 2005

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Patton, Laurie L., Bringing the Gods to Mind: Mantra and Ritual in Early Indian Sacrifice, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2005. 289 pages, ISBN 0-520-24087-1, £32.50 Hardback.

 

Reviewed by

Margaret Coldiron

University of Reading

 

This slim but densely-packed volume takes a novel approach to an area of Vedic studies that has traditionally been the domain of Sanskrit scholars and has focused primarily on linguistic analysis and taxonomy rather than the function of mantra and its relation to the human actors in ritual activity. This study takes a phenomenological view and uses tools drawn from performance studies to examine the role of image and imagination in the practice of rituals using mantric formulae.

 

                An excellent introduction sets out the work of the book with great clarity giving a brief outline of the focus of each chapter. The author is at pains to make this difficult material comprehensible even to the non-specialist and one finds that the writing is clear, accessible and refreshingly jargon-free. The book is organised in two parts: the first is largely theoretical, re-examining existing scholarship in the light of Patton’s conception of mantra as a powerful, imagistic and functional tool for directing consciousness in ritual practice. This detailed examination lays the groundwork for her analysis of specific case studies in Part 2.

 

                The first two chapters establish the importance of associational thought (metonymy) as a central feature in the way that mantra functions for ritual performers and participants. The significance of utterance (´sabda), and the sound of the speech act in Vedic practice is, of course, well-known, but the focus here is on the pragmatic and performative use of mantra rather than literary analysis. Significantly, Patton takes issue with the reductive notion of mantra as “magical” formulae and looks deeply into how, through associational thought, mantra engages with the consciousness of the ritual actor bringing symbolic language to life.  Utterance combined with imaginative processes like visualisation (made more powerful by physical embodiment through ritual gestures), and the belief and desire of the reciter all contribute toward the perceived (or actual) efficaciousness of the mantra.

 

                Chapter three presents a detailed discussion of Viniyoga, the practical application of Vedic mantra outside formal ritual sacrifice, particularly in “domestic” ritual situations. Here the imagery of the mantras must be re-interpreted for different settings and circumstances. Patton provides a meticulous linguistic examination of specific mantric formulae in their particular applications finding metonymic connections between language and function and between mental image and the desired ritual outcome. Throughout she takes care to establish connections between the mantra’s linguistic and imagistic content and the human experience of the ritual and the goals of those who undertake it. In this she makes use of contemporary ethnography in order to ground the analysis in the real experiences of ritual performers.

 

                The second part of the book is taken up with exploration and interpretation of Vedic texts and how they are applied in a variety of formal and domestic ritual contexts. Each chapter focuses upon a theme: fire, food, ingestion and digestion; images associated with the “other”--“enemies” or rivals of the ritual actor; the quest for eloquence and “mental agility;” mantras of travel, pathways, journeys and the use of space; and, finally, imagining the world beyond. In each chapter the author engages in detailed analysis, examining the links between the images evoked in the texts and the particular ritual circumstances in which the mantras are employed. It is not only a matter of matching the ritual occasion to the text; Patton illuminates the connections between the performative elements of voice and gesture with the imagistic content of the mantra. The arguments, too detailed to discuss fully here, reveal a profound understanding of the Rg Veda and the vast array of ancient and modern scholarly commentaries on these texts and their use in ritual. More significantly, they also demonstrate the author’s deep knowledge of the physical, philosophic and psychological activities that make up Vedic ritual practice in both ancient rites and contemporary applications. However broad the discussion, analysis always returns to the way in which the imagery of the texts is conceptualised by the ritual participants.

 

                The brief but trenchant concluding chapter clarifies the overarching argument that runs through the finely detailed analysis that has gone before and its historical and hermeneutic significance. Patton contends that through the Rg Vedana commentaries, the Rg Veda is made comprehensible and useful for ritual practitioners who must function in a changing world. The powerful images created by contiguity and metonymy in the poetic language of the texts lend this apparently fixed material a kind of interpretive fluidity that allows them to be adapted to a variety of ritual circumstances. This capacity has made it possible for brahmin priests to maintain their status as repositories of correct ritual knowledge even as historical developments required them to modify their practice. Surprisingly, the interpretive adaptability of the mantras has served to strengthen the perceived power of the canonical texts.

 

                Although this is certainly a book for specialists, Professor Patton presents her complex material in a very clear and comprehensible style. Moreover, her discussion of mantras and their application to private and public ritual ranges far beyond the realms of early Indian sacrifice to encompass even contemporary Judeo-Christian practices, using the “Hail Mary” and the “Song of Solomon,” as examples of functional mantric formulae. There is much here of interest, not only for theologians and Indologists, but also for scholars of performance and consciousness studies, though it is likely to be rather more accessible to those with a thorough knowledge of the Rg Veda and its commentaries.