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
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.