Wild imaginings; French anthropology in the Himalaya

In 1898, a French scholar came to Nepal in order to study ancient monuments, inscriptions, texts and manuscripts. They had been preserved here better than in India, thanks to the mountain climate and benevolent political and religious institutions. In spite of a policy of isolation, the Rana Prime Minister Bir Shumshere granted Sylvain Levi permission to spend two months in the country. S. Levi´s short visit led to the publication, in 1905, of Le Nepal: Etude historicjue d´un royaume hindou (Nepal: A Historical Study of a Hindu Kingdom)..Le Nepal was the first historical synthesis of the country in a European language, based on the works of British officials as well as the author´s own research. This remarkable book is not free from the prejudices of a Sanskritist who looked at Nepal from an Indian perspective, and its forthcoming translation into English will no doubt lead to controversial commentaries. However, Le Nepal may be considered as the pioneering work of French anthropology in Nepal. Because there are now numerous French works concerning Nepal in print, it is worth examining the direction that the research has taken..Levi describes himself as "a philologist in the field (en mission)/ being obliged by profession to go about with princes and pandits, halted at the threshold of the society by tremendous caste prejudices, but who from the outside observes passionately the stream of men and things as if it were the living commentary of vanished ages." For him, "the past remains an incomprehensible enigma if isolated from the present.".Half a century later, when French researchers—institutionally consecrated anthropologists—started visiting Nepal, they took up with Levi´s statement, even if in their approach they inverted the terms of the enigma; the present remains indecipherable if isolated from the past Right from the beginning, these French-speaking researchers in Nepal tended to distance themselves from the positivist and scientific trend that was dominating the theoretical debate in the 1 %0s. The structuralist methods that were flourishing in France at that time did not seem to appeal to them; neither did the quest for formal models and general laws. Most of their work is therefore characterised by an ethno-historical approach.Region of Multiple ContactsWhen in 1973 A.W. Macdonald was appointed to head INAS {now CNAS, the Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies at Tribhuvan University), he stressed the need for students of Himalayan communities to combine ethnography and textual research and to study events that transform structures. Later on in France he would train several students in this perspective. Most of Macdonald´s papers, written between 1952 and 1984, have been translated into English and are easily accessible. The widesweep of the subjects he wrote about, ranging from Southeast Asia to Tibet, from Buddhism to local jhankris, and from the Muhikia in (the civil code of Nepal) to the Tamba Kaiten (a collection of Tamang genealogies, customs and songs), indicates that Macdonald saw the Himalaya as an area of multiple contacts, intelligible only if there searcher is willing to go beyond the small-scale studies and specific research..However, the genre of literature through which nearly all researchers first pass is the monograph, the obligatory beginnings of an anthropologist´s career. We owe the first monographs on the Gurung to Bernard Pignede (1966), on Tibetan speaking communities to Corneille Jest (1974, 1975), and on the Limbu to Philippe Sagant (1976). Gerard Toffin has published two monographs on the Newar, the first one on the material life (1977) and the second on social organisation and religion (1984). In studying non-ethnic minorities, Marc Gaborieau and Veronique Bouiller adopted a more global approach to Nepali society. Gaborieau looked at the society through the medium of Muslims(1976,1994)and Boullier through the Sanyasi (1979)..More recent years have seen a second batch of monographs, which all give greater place to rituals. Brigitte Steinmann is interested in the way Tamang religiosity is rooted in the most prosaic daily practices of the people. Questioning the opposition between the profane and the sacred that underlines the earlier studies, she offers a new approach to the study of religion (1987). Giselle Krauskopff on the Tharu (1989) and Marie Lecomte-Tilouine (1993) on the Magar examine rituals in order to analyse the evolution of the social and political organisation of the communities. This writer has published a monograph on shamanic rituals among the Northern Magar of central Nepal (1991)..Enriched TranslationsOnly the first of these monographs, Pignede´s on Gurungs, has been translated into English (Ratna Pustak, 1993). One wonders whether this is the case because, regardless of its recognised ethnographic value, this work has with time (30years) acquired the quality of a historical account, or perhaps even because the author died shortly after it was written: monographs are usually the first workman an thropologist´s career, and their authors may lack the confidence to put them to the test of translation..Pignede´s translated volume is enriched with the comments that a few learned Gurungs have made on a book made accessible to them in translation. Alternative interpretations are provided concerning the early history of the Gurung that can be read alongside those given by the author. This is an exemplary attempt to confront observers from the outside with members of the observed community. The book is not a precise of Gurung culture raised to the status of dogma, but rather a prelude to further research..Future translations of French monographs into English would become more than the result of an author´s own study and biases if (in the case of some) additions were made from the host community as in the case of Pignede´s book. This would make the translations even more valuable to Nepalis and others..Handbook to a CultureThere is always the danger that the anthropologist´s accounts will interfere in the life of the people who are the subjects of study. Often based on the memories of the most ancient members of the community, these descriptions ten d to be used by younger generations in search of an identity, as a kind of handbook of their own culture. The anthropologists´ wild imaginings or hypothesis, likely to be determined by the theoretical trends in the Western universities where they will eventually be discussed, are adopted sometimes with amazing rapidity by the people whom they concern..The research may actually be presenting, at best, another good story to be included in an ever-receptive folklore. But they can also contribute to the stultification of threatened cultures and even add fuel to the flames of dissension. The dramatic political and social changes which Nepal has undergone over the last five years have engaged certain communities to express their identity more firmly than before. In this process, they see their ethnic traditions, their legends of origin and their language as evidence that the group to which they belong has always been a well-defined and homogenous entity..The unique character of the community is almost conceived of as a "substance" that would be genetically transmitted in a sort of historical isolation. This "substantialist" conception of the ethnic group is not very different from that which pervades the accounts of the 19th century British officials who presented a preliminary classification of the populations of Nepal based on language and legends of origin. Reality is not that simple. Populations migrate, contract matrimonial alliances, and make war. Legends alone do not make history..In point of fact, anthropologists have subjected the concept of ´tribe´ to systematic deconstruction. The concept is now understood as a kind of label that has been imposed from the outside on a set of various groups, or claimed by a community whose heterogenous members are in search of a collective identity. It is to the credit of the ethno-historical approach of French researchers that they have been primarily concerned with tracing back the processes at work in the formation of the communities which they study..Giselle Krauskopff has deepened our comprehension of the Tharu in this respect. The Dangaura Tharu social units, originally unstable, were shaped and stabilised within the frame work of the old Hindu principality of Dang. The traditional Tharu chiefs appear to have been essential links between the king, who exercised economic dominance over the territory, an d the local communities. Moreover, the ancestors of these chiefs were conceived to be spiritually related to the tutelary deity of the country (desa). In spite of the inherent instability of the ruling power (one dynasty gave way to the other), the principality of Dang remained united under the guardianship of its god and centered on the god´s sanctuary..The endogamous area of the Dangaura Tharu, then, is precisely the result of the integration of various groups in a desa which is united under the tutelage of a divinity. There is no ethnic substance to be transmitted.India, Tibet, HimalayaAmong the many articles published by French anthropologists, a fair number are in English. They are, however, scattered in various scientific journals and are often not easily accessible. Many of these works converge on the idea that politics and religion are two faces of the same coin. But the sources providing comparative elements necessary for further analyses differ. Some are tempted to see in Nepal a "India in making", according to the often quoted formula of Sylvain Levi, whereas others turn towards Tibet..In his latest work on kingship in the Kathmandu Valley, from the Malla period to the present day, Toffin considers Nepal as "an exceptional laboratory" in which, the representations attached to Indian kingship maybe studied. This country, the last Hindu kingdom, has never been under either Muslim or colonial rule. Moreover, Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism flourished side by side, a sin medieval India. Toffin´s collection of essays shows how building a temple may be a token of devotion as much as a political act, and how important economic goods were transferred during religious festivals..Against fundamentalist interpretations of both Hinduism and Islam, Gaborieau and Bouiller teach us that renouncers in both religions, sufis and yogis, should not be relegated to the other-worldly sphere. Bouiller, for example, reveals the presence of the ascetic on the side of the conquering king. During the Gorkha conquest, the Kanphatta Jogis played an important political role, combining on the one hand conciliatory missions and matrimonial arrangements, and on the other hand exercising magical control over the spiritual forces of a newly conquered place. This association- of the Kanphatta Jogis with political power that lies at the root of local chiefdoms is a distinctively Himalayan phenomenon..Little has been said here of Tibetologica 1 works that are primarily concerned with the study of texts, although these works provide constant references to the anthropologist. It is from the northern side of the Himalaya that Philippe Sagant draws his inspiration in order to bring out two contrasting political ideologies current in Tibet as well as among certain Tibeto-Burman populations such as the Limbu, According to one of these ideologies, in keeping with non-centralised or non-state societies, the selection of a chief is conceived as being dependent upon the soil or the mountain deity. This deity will show its preference by making the person of its choice successful in various fields of social life..The second kind of ideology goes with political centralisation. Access to political functions is then determined by age and its privileges and by clan affiliation, rather than by personal charisma and high deeds as tokens of divine favour. Here, too, the author shows how the history of a community, along with its values, can be reconstructed from the study of rituals. For a long time, rituals retain the traces of political and social organisation that they have underpinned. To some extent they are for the ethnographer what the written document may be for the historian.Country-in-MakingThe ethnographic experience is far from being the prerogative of professional anthropologists, French-speaking or otherwise. A Nepali administrator, Rudra Bahadur Khatri, was sent in 1930 to the easternmost bounds of the country with the task of settling conflicts between Bahun-Chettris and Tibetan minorities. His diary, translated and commented upon by Brigitte Steinmann in French, is nothing less than a field notebook, The description of the confrontation between these groups over questions of ritual purity and etiquette reveals how deeply religion is rooted in daily life. In the same way, the account of Tamang culture by Santabir Lama, governor of Ham, translated and presented by Macdonald, is effectively a short monograph..These last two works have more than an ethnographic quality to them. They are attempts to reflect on the authors´ own culture and to present it to compatriots. For foreign researchers, whatever their personal involvement may be, the search for indigenous forms of knowledge remains an academic exercise. For those who are themselves part of the subject people, however, it lies at the heart of the creation of one nation out of multilingual and cultural entities. There may exist much more such indigenous research that needs to be discovered and brought out. This non-official literature, so to speak, may be a mine of original information, a valuable part of Nepal´s heritage..Whether it is in a country in the making like Nepal, or in an old nation like France, identity is the subject of a never-ending debate, a debate that may be triggered by the slightest event, and an always complex debate that must remain so. If French anthropologists could contribute to enriching this debate in Nepal, their work will have been more than academic exercise.