The Anthropology of Eastern Religions

118 Pages·2012·0.78 MB·English

by  Murray J. Leaf [Leaf

The Anthropology of Eastern Religions
The Anthropology of
Eastern Religions
Ideas, Organizations, and Constituencies
Murray J. Leaf
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Leaf, Murray J., author.
The anthropology of eastern religions : ideas, organizations, and constituencies / Murray J. Leaf.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7391-9240-5 (cloth) -- ISBN 978-0-7391-9241-2 (electronic)
1. Anthropology of religion--Asia. 2. Religion and sociology--Asia. 3. Asia--Religion. I. Title.
GN470.7.L43 2014
306.6095--dc23
2014007857

TM
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National
Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO
Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America
List of Illustrations
Preface
This is one of two volumes. Together they make up a comparative
ethnography of the world’s great religions, focusing on the relationships between
their main ideas, their organizations, and their roles in history and world affairs.
It is not an argument in favor of or against any one religion, or religion in
general. As an anthropologist, my interest in this particular type of human
activity is no different from what it would be for any other. The basic questions
are always, “What are they doing, how are they doing it, and why?”
The description has six features that are different from what we usually see
in basic surveys of the world religions. The first is that it is thoroughly empirical.
I do not claim to describe or know about things beyond human experience. It is
therefore also “humanistic.”
Second, I do not start with a definition of religion. One reason is that we do
not need one. The major traditions have identified each other. The other reason
is that such a definition would be distorting. We can see that each of the
recognized religions has its own idea of what religion is in general, and these
ideas are not the same. Yet they all function in the same way. They act like built-
in “mission statements.” They are the way the tradition defines what it should be
doing in general, and against this the tradition then further describes itself as a
way, or the way, to do it. It follows that imposing a general idea of religion on a
tradition that is alien to its own general idea of religion is the same as imposing
an alien purpose or standard of performance on it. It automatically devalues their
own purposes and distorts their ways of accomplishing them.
The third feature is that we recognize that these worldwide religious
traditions have important similarities to a number of other worldwide traditions
that we similarly associate with “higher” society or civilization, including
government, law, military organizations, business, scholarly and scientific
professions, and formal education.
The fourth feature is that I emphasize the interpretation of foundational
texts and textual materials, rather than “beliefs.” There are several reasons, but
the main one is that this is also the focus of the religious professionals.
The fifth is its focus on organizations, which are built from the ideas drawn
from the texts and stabilized by the texts.
The sixth feature is its focus on purposes and strategies. This includes the
purposes of the concerned officers and organizations and the main purposes that
bring adherents or supporters to these officers and organizations.
Taken together, these features let us see religion in its cultural entirety from
production to application and back to production. This in turn lets us understand
it on an even footing with other traditions and organizations of similar
prominence.

Murray J. Leaf
University of Texas, Dallas
Acknowledgments
The major world religions, east and west, all depend on the interpretations
of texts by dedicated and trained professionals. The meaning of a text is partly a
matter of what is “on the page” that anyone might see, but also a matter of what
its interpreters assume and intend. Getting a sense of this personal and social
side of a tradition involves ethnography. It involves talking to people. I have
done so with every tradition I describe here, although of course not every
subdivision. This has involved far too many personal encounters to acknowledge
comprehensively, but it is a pleasure to recognize the most prominent.
For my introduction to Sikhism and Vedanta, I am especially indebted to
the late Sardar Balwant Singh and the late Justice Harbans Singh. For Japanese
religions, and especially Japanese Buddhism, I am particularly indebted to
Toshihiro Yogo, with whom I was associated at the United Nations Center for
Regional Development, in Nagoya, Japan, for several years, and also to Aminta
Lara Peters and Olivia Peters. Michelina Leaf and Alisha Kim provided editorial
suggestions. Phan Thi Cam Anh provided bibliographic assistance. The image of
the proto-Shiva, Figure 2.1, is from Wikimedia Commons and in the public
domain.
Very importantly, I must thank my students over the past thirty years who
urged me to write this and whose many discussions, reactions, and class papers
inform it.
Chapter 1
Introduction
Human society is pluralistic. We have institutions of several different kinds.
These are not mutually compatible: religions, governments, formal education,
economies, militaries, sciences, the learned professions, families and kinship
organizations. Moreover, in every place inhabited by a few thousand people or
more, some of these institutions are unique to that place or nearly so and some
may be worldwide. My concern here is with what are often called the “great”
religions. They are also described as “organized” religions. All of them are now
either worldwide or nearly so. This means they occur in many different
communities around the world, and in those communities they are juxtaposed to
many other institutions of other kinds. The two major questions I address are
“What are they?” and “What effects do they have?”
Since each of these traditions confronts some or all of the others in some
places, misrepresentations and misunderstandings abound—as do actual
conflicts. To understand them on an even footing, objectively, we need to get
beyond first appearances and stereotypes. We also need to put their ideas,
actions, and effects in context. These two needs are closely interrelated. To get
beyond stereotypes we have to see things in context, and in order to see things in
context we have to see them as they are seen by those involved, not through our
own preconceptions. This does not preclude making our own independent
evaluation afterward, but we first need to know what we are evaluating. This is
not easy. We have centuries of mutual misrepresentation to overcome—much
more than with most other worldwide systems.
At a basic descriptive level, this means that I need to answer questions like
“How can they believe that?” At a more conceptual level it means I need to
explain how people actually interpret the ideas and ceremonies of their
traditions. What is a god in Hindu mythology? How do people deal with so
many of them? How many are there? Does it matter? What are the Vedas about?
What is a guru? Why don’t some Buddhist stupas even have interiors? What is
the meaning of that big thing that looks like a gate in Japan? What is God in
Christian or Jewish theory? (Is there just one notion for each, or are there
several, and why?) What is jihad? What is an Ayatollah? Why do Muslim
extremists attack Sufis? What is the authority of a rabbi, a Catholic priest, or a
Buddhist monk? What is Islamic law about? Does Hindu law represent divine
commands? What is the relation between Hinduism and caste? How can
Buddhism be a religion if it is atheistic? Is Confucianism really a religion? What
is the Tao? Why do some religions require exclusive loyalty while others do not?
And so on.
At a still higher and more comparative level it means I need to explain how
to translate the ideas from one system into their counterparts in others or explain
how and why they do not have counterparts. Where are the real agreements and
disagreements, and what difference do they make? What leads members of
different religious communities sometime to live together in harmony and
sometime to divide against one another in murderous conflict?
Still more broadly, it means that I need to explain how all of this relates to
the major institutions of other kinds. How does religious law relate to state law?
What shapes the outcome when there is a conflict between religion and state
law? Does religion in India have the same significance and importance as in the
United States? Are Muslims more susceptible to political manipulation by
appeals to their religion than Christians? Do religions that espouse peace
actually lead to less violent behavior? Is there a natural antipathy between some
religions and democracy? Is there a special antipathy between some religions
and others?
My basic methodological assumption is what anthropologists have
described as the hypothesis of the psychic unity of man. The way to understand a
tradition that makes the most sense is to assume that its spokesmen and
supporters are people like thee and me.
Every current survey of world religions I have looked at treats them as sets
of “beliefs and practices”—what Hindus believe and what their major
ceremonies are, what Christians believe, and so on. As a way to explain human
institutions, this is actually rather odd. What would your reaction be to a
comparison of world governmental systems written this way—or world
economic systems, military systems, or revolutionary movements? The world
religions are no different. In fact, in various places and times most of them have
served as governments, economic systems, military systems or revolutionary
movements.
The world religions are complex social phenomena. They use ideas of
several different kinds. They include substantial systems of physical
infrastructure. They have provisions for economic support. They embody their
own systems of scholarship. They produce propaganda and they are politically