Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T03:17:33.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Marketplace and the Temple: Economic Metaphors and Religious Meanings in the Folk Songs of Colonial Bengal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2010

Hugh B. Urban
Get access

Extract

The marketplace and the temple: traditionally, Western scholars have been nervous and ambivalent about bringing these two spheres into too close a proximity. On one side, historians of religions trained in the lineage of Joachim Wach or Mircea Eliade have long warned that “reductionism” is the cardinal sin in the study of religion, which is claimed to be a sui generis, or irreducible phenomenon. Hence, “economic reductionism” or “vulgar economism” would be the most heinous crime of all (Wach 1958; Eliade 1958, xi). On the other side, those trained in Marxist and neo-Marxist traditions have typically wanted to explain religious myths and rituals either as ideological screens masking deeper material forces or as symbolic expressions of misrecognized social interests. As Pierre Bourdieu—one of the most sophisticated recent representatives of this tradition—explains his own method, he wishes to “utilize the economic model to extend materialist critique into the realm of religion and to uncover the specific interests of the protagonists of the religious game, priests, prophets and sorcerers” (1990, 107).

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 60 , Issue 4 , November 2001 , pp. 1085 - 1114
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1984. Rabelais and his World. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.Google Scholar
Banerjee, Sumanta. 1989. The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta. Calcutta: Seagull.Google Scholar
Banerjee, Sumanta. 1995. “From Aulchand to Sati-Ma: The Institutionalization of the Syncretist Karta-Bhaja Sect of Bengal.” Calcutta Historical Journal 16, no. 2: 31—59.Google Scholar
Bayly, C. A. 1988a. Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayly, C. A. 1988b. “Rallying round the Subaltern.” Journal of Peasant Studies 16, no. 1: 310–20.Google Scholar
Bhattacharya, Bhaskar. 1993. The Path of the Mystic Lover: Baul Songs of Passion and Ecstasy. Rochester: Destiny Books.Google Scholar
Bhattacharya, Deben. 1969. Songs of the Bards of Bengal. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Bhattacharya, Sabyasachi. 1990. “Traders and Trading in Old Calcutta.” In vol. 2, Calcutta: The Living City, edited by Chaudhuri, S.. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bhattācārya, Upendranāth. 1981. Bānglār Bāul o Bāul Gān (Bāuls of Bengal and Bāul songs). Calcutta: Oriental Book Co.Google Scholar
Bhāver Gīta (Songs of ecstasy). 1882. Ghose, Rameścandra, ed. Goabagan: Aurora Press.Google Scholar
Bhāver Gīta (Songs of ecstasy) 1992. Cakravartī, Śāntirañjan, ed. Calcutta: Indralekha Press.Google Scholar
Bose, Manindra Mohan. 1930. The Post-Caitanya Sahajiyā Cult of Bengal. Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1983. “The Forms of Capital.” In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, edited by Richardson, J.. New York: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Caillé, Alain. 1992. “Esquisse d'une critique de l'économie générale de la pratique” (Outline of a critique of the general economy of practice). Cahiers du LASA 12/13: 109–219.Google Scholar
Cakravartī, Jāhnavīkumār. 1977. “Kartābhajāner Rūpa o Śvarūpa” (The form and nature of the Kartābhajās). In vol. 2, Kartābhajā Dbarmamata o Itihāsa (Kartābhajā religious views and history), edited by Mitra, S.. Calcutta: De Book Stores.Google Scholar
Cakravartī, Sudhīr. 1977. “Kartābhajā Sampradāy: Dharmamata o Sādhanatattva” (The Kartābhajā sect: Religious views and methods of practice). In vol. 2, Kartābhajā; Dharmamata o Itihāsa (Kartābhajā religious views and history), edited by Mitra, S.. Calcutta: De Book Stores.Google Scholar
Cakravartī, Sudhīr. 1985. Sāhebdhanī Sampradāya, tāder Gān (The Sāhebdhanī sect and their songs). Calcutta: Pustak Bipaṇi.Google Scholar
Cakravartī, Sudhīr. 1992. Vrātya Lokāyata Lālan (The outcast atheist, Lālan). Calcutta: Pustak Bipaṇi.Google Scholar
Capwell, Charles. 1986. Music of the Bāuls of Bengal. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press.Google Scholar
Cattopādhyāy, Tuṣsār. 1976. “Ghoṣpāṛār Melā, Kartābhajā o Lālan” (The Ghoṣpāṛā; festival, the Kartābhajās, and Lālan). In Lālan Sāhitya o Darś'ana (Lālan: Literature and philosophy), edited by Hāq, K. R.. Dhaka: Bangla Academy.Google Scholar
Chakrabarty, Ramakanta. 1985. Vaiṣṇavism in Bengal, 1486–1900. Calcutta: Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Kumkum. 1996. Merchants, Politics, and Society in Early Modern India. Leiden: E. J. Brill.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1988. “Caste and Subaltern Consciousness.” In Subaltern Studies, vol. 6, edited by Guha, R.. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chatterjee, Partha. 1993. The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Chaudhuri, S., ed. 1990. Calcutta, the Living City. Vol. 1, The Past. Calcutta: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, J., Hall, S., Jefferson, T., and Roberts, B.. 1993. “Subcultures, Cultures and Class: A Theoretical Overview.” In Resistance through Rituals, edited by Hall, S. and Jefferson, T.. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and John, Comaroff, eds. 1993. Modernity and Its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dās, Advaita Candra. 1983. Ghospārār Kartābhajā Sampradāya (The Kartābhajā sect of Ghoṣpāṛā). Calcutta: Kālī Press.Google Scholar
Dās, Advaita Candra. 1986. Srī Satī Mā Candrikā (Śrī Satī Mā: The moonlight). Calcutta: Firma KLM.Google Scholar
Dās, Motilāl, and Mahāpātra, Pīyūṣkānti. 1958. Lālan-Gītikā: Lālan Śāh Phakirer Gān (Lālan-poems: The songs of Lālan Fakir). Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, Alokeranjan, and Dasgupta, Mary Ann. 1977. Roots in the Void: Baul Songs of Bengal. Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, Shashibhushan. 1968. Obscure Religious Cults, as a Background to Bengali Literature. Calcutta: Firma KLM.Google Scholar
Datta, AksaykumāR. [1870] 1987. Bhāratavarṣīya Upāsaka Sampradāya (Indian worshiping sects). Calcutta: Karunā PrakāsinT.Google Scholar
De, Debendranāth. 1968. Kartābhajā Dharmer Itivṛtta (A summary of the Kartābhajā religion). Calcutta: Jiggasa Agencies.Google Scholar
De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Dimock, Edward C. 1966. The Place of the Hidden Moon: Erotic Mysticism in the Vaiṣṇava-Sahajiyā Cult of Bengal. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Dimock, Edward C., trans. 2000. Caitanya Caritāmṛta of Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja (The nectar of the life of Caitanya, by Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja). edited by Stewart, Tony K.. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dube, Saurabh. 1998. Untouchable Pasts: Religion, Identity, and Power among a Central Indian Community, 1780—1950. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Eliade, Mircea. 1958. Patterns in Comparative Religion. New York: Sheed and Ward.Google Scholar
Garrett, J. E. H. 1910. Bengal District Gazetteers, Nadia. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Stall.Google Scholar
Gartman, David. 1991. “Culture as Class Symbolization or Mass Reification: A Critique of Bourdieu's Distinction.” American Journal of Sociology 97: 421—7.Google Scholar
Guha, Ranajit. 1983a. Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial Bengal. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Guha, Ranajit. 1983b. “The Prose of Counter-Insurgency.” In vol. 2, Subaltern Studies, edited by Guha, Ranajit. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gupta, Mahendranāth. 1987. Śrīṣrīrāmakṛṣṇa-Kathāmṛta (The nectar of the sayings of Śrī Ramakrishna). Calcutta: Kathāmṛta Bhavan.Google Scholar
Haq, Muhammad Enamul. 1975. A History of Sufi-ism in Bengal. Dacca: Asiastic Society of Bangladesh.Google Scholar
Hardiman, David. 1995. The Coming of the Devi: Adivasi Assertion in Western India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Kālakūta, [Samareṣ Basu, pseud.]. 1983. Kothāy Sen Jan Āche (Where is that person?). Calcutta: De's Publishing.Google Scholar
Karabel, Jerome, and Halsey, A. H., eds. 1977. Power and Ideology in Education. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kartābhajā Gīta (Kartābhajā songs). 1821. Bengali manuscript no. 964. Bāngīya Sāhitya Pariṣat Library, Calcutta.Google Scholar
Kelly, John. 1991. A Politics of Virtue: Hinduism, Sexuality, and Countercolonial Discourse in Fiji. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Jhā, Śaktināth. 1995. Phakir Lālan Sāin: Deś Kāl evaṃ Śilpa (Fakir Lālan Shah: His land, time, and art). Calcutta: Saṃvāda.Google Scholar
Larson, Gerald. 1995. India's Agony over Religion. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Mansur Uddin, Muhammad. 1942. Hārāmaṇi: Lok Sańgīt Saṃgraha (The lost treasure: A collection of folk songs). Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press.Google Scholar
Marshall, P. J. 1987. Bengal: The British Bridgehead: Eastern India, 1740–1828. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mccutcheon, Russell. 1997. Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis and the Politics of Nostalgia. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
MiŚra, Manulāl. [1309 Bengali Era] 1902. Sahaja Tattva Prakāśa. Calcutta: The author.Google Scholar
Miśra, Manulāl. 1911. Bhāver Gīta Vyākhyā Saha Sahaja Tattvaprakāśa Vā Sanātana Sahaja Satya Dharmer Ādi Itihās (A commentary on the songs of ecstasy, with the revelation of the essence of Sahaja; or, The fundamental history of the eternal, true Sahaja religion). Calcutta: The author.Google Scholar
Miśra, Manulāl. 1925. Kartābhajā Dharmer Ādivṛttānta Vā Sahajatattva Prakāśa (The essential summary of the Kartābhajā religion; or, The revelation of the essence of Sahaja). Calcutta: The author.Google Scholar
Mitra, Sanatkumār, ed. 1976–1977. Kartābhajā Dharmamata o Itihāsa (Kartābhajā religious views and history), 2 vols. Calcutta: De Book Stores.Google Scholar
Nandī, Ratan Kumār. 1984. Kartābhajā Dharma o Sāhitya (Kartābhajā religion and literature). Naihati: Asani Press.Google Scholar
Oddie, Geoffrey A. 1995. “Old Wine in New Bottles? Kartābhajā (Vaishnava) Converts to Evangelical Christianity in Bengal, 1835—1845.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 32, no. 3: 327–343.Google Scholar
O'hanlon, Rosalind. 1988. “Recovering the Subject: Subaltern Studies and Histories of Resistance in Colonial South Asia.” Modern Asian Studies 22, no. 1 (1988): 189–224.Google Scholar
Openshaw, Jeanne. 1997. “The Web of Deceit: Challenges to Hindu and Muslim Orthodoxies by Bāuls of Bengal.” Religion 27: 297–309.Google Scholar
Pāl, Satyaśiva. 1991. Ghospārār Sātī Mā o Kartābahajā Dharma (Sātī Mā and the Kartābahajā religion of Ghoṣpārā). Calcutta: Pustak Bipani.Google Scholar
Pinch, William. 1996. Peasants and Monks in British India. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rāy, Dāśarathī. 1962. “Kartābhajā.” In Dāśarathī Rāyer Pāñcālī (The Pāncālī of Dāśarathī Rāy), edited by Cakravartī, Haripad. Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall. 1988. “Cosmologies of Capitalism: The Trans-Pacific Sector of the World System.” Proceedings of the British Academy 74: 1–10.Google Scholar
Salomon, Carol. 1991. “The Cosmogonie Riddles of Lalan Fakir.” In Gender, Genre, and Power in South Asian Expressive Traditions, edited by. Appadurai, A. et al. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Salomon, Carol. 1995. “Bāul Songs.” In Religions of India in Practice, edited by Lopez, Donald. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sarkār, Māṇik. 1976. “Kartābhajā Melā o tār Prāṇbhomrā” (The Kartābhajā festival and its participants). In vol. 1, Kartābhajā Dharmamata o Itihāsa (Kartābhajā religious views and history), edited by Mitra, S.. Calcutta: De Book Stores.Google Scholar
Sarkar, Sumit. 1993. An Exploration of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Tradition. Simla: Institute of Indian Studies.Google Scholar
Saṃvāda Prabhākara. [1254 Bengali Era] 1848. 18 Caitra.Google Scholar
Sen, Ksitimohan. 1954. Bāńglār Bāul (Bāuls of Bengal). Calcutta: University of Calcutta Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Nabīncandra. 1974. “Ghoṣpāṛār Mela” (The Ghoṣpāṛā festival). Pt. 5 of “Āmār Jīvana” (My life). In Kabibār Nabīncandra Sen, Granthāvalī (The collected writings of Nabīncandra Sen). Calcutta: Basumati.Google Scholar
Sen, Sudipta. 1994. “Conquest of Marketplaces: Exchange, Authority, and Conflict in Early Colonial North India.” Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Sen, Sudipta. 1996. “Passages of Authority: Rulers, Traders, and Marketplaces in Bengal and Benaras, 1700–1750.” The Calcutta Historical Journal 17, no. 1: 1–39.Google Scholar
Sen, Sudipta. 1998. Empire of Free Trade: The East India Company and the Making of the Colonial Marketplace. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Sukumār. 1977. “Kartābhajā Kathā o Gān” (Kartābhajā stories and songs). In vol. 2, Kartābhajā Dharmata o Itihāsa (Kartābhajā religious views and history), edited by Mitra, S.. Calcutta: De Book Stores.Google Scholar
Somaprakāṣa (The rise of the moon). [1270 Bengali Era] 1864.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri. 1987. “A Literary Representation of the Subaltern: Mahasweta Devi's Stanadayini. “In vol. 5, Subaltern Studies, edited by Guha, R.. Delhi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stark, Rodney and Bainbridge, William Sims. 1985. The Future of Religion: Secularization, Revival, and Cult Formation. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Swartz, David. 1997. Culture and Power: The Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Taussig, Michael. 1980. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Urban, Hugh B. 1996. “The Poor Company: Economics and Ecstasy in the Kartābhajā Sect of Colonial Bengal.” South Asia 19, no. 2: 1–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urban, Hugh B. 1998. “The Torment of Secrecy: Ethical and Epistemological Problems in the Study of Esoteric Traditions.” History of Religions 37, no. 3: 209–248.Google Scholar
Urban, Hugh B. 1999. “The Politics of Madness: The Construction and Manipulation of the ‘Bāul’ Image in Modern Bengal.” South Asia 12, no. 1: 13–46.Google Scholar
Urban, Hugh B. 2001a. The Economics of Ecstasy: Tantra, Secrecy, and Power in Colonial Bengal. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Urban, Hugh B. 2001b. Songs of Ecstasy: Tantric and Devotional Songs from Bengal. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wach, Joachim. 1958. The Comparative Study of Religion. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Ward, Rev. William, . 1811. Account of the Writings, Religion, and Manners of the Hindus. 4 vols. Serampore: Mission Press.Google Scholar
Ward, Rev. William, , ed. 1823. A Brief Memoir of Krishna Pal, the First Hindoo in Bengal Who Broke the Chain of Caste by Embracing the Gospel. London: J. Offer.Google Scholar
Yang, Anand. 1998. Bazaar India: Markets, Society, and the Colonial State in Gangetic Bihar. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar