From Brahma to a blade of grass

A L F R E D C O L L I N S

F R O M B R A H M A TO A B L A D E O F G R A S S

Towards an Indian Self Psycholog3'

It is not love for his wife that makes her dear [to her husband]; it is love of the self that makes her dear [to him]. Brhaddranyaka Upanisad, 4.5.6.

It is n o t . . , the child's wish for food that is the primal psychological configuration . . from the beginning the child asserts his need for a food- giving selfobject . . . . Heinz Kohut ( 1977, 81 )

I N T R O D U C T I O N

This essay will pursue the idea of an bMian self psychology. The phrase suggests an effort either to uncover an Indian ethnotheory of the self 1 and self-experience, or to construct a Western (psychoanalytic) account of Indian self-experiences and theories. Our intent is to undertake both these projects, and by confronting their results to reach a deeper understanding than would be possible with either alone. Thus while we will rely on key insights from Heinz Kohut's psychoanalytic self psychology (and at times those of D. W. Winnicott), interpreting the Indian materials in light of them, an equally primary intention is to explicate an understanding of selfhood which is just below the surface of Indian culture and society, and so is, in Kohut's phrase, "'experience near." A. Roland (1989) has per- suasively argued that psychoanalytic theory must be substantially altered to fit the Indian (and Japanese) reality, and even suggests that a psychoanalysis so modified may better accord with certain aspects of Western experience. Following Roland, another aim of this eassy will be to suggest clarifications and changes in Kohut's theory of the self and its selfobjects.

In seeking the Indian self we will make use of a mythic cosmogony already present in the Vedic period (c. 1200 -- 700 BCE) and a continuously fruitful source of speculation in Indian culture down to the present. In this mythic pattern a god or primordial man -- from

Journal of lndmn Phtlosophy 1 9 : 1 4 3 - - 189. 1991 © 1991 Kluwer Academw Puhhshers Printed m tire Netherlcmd~

144 ALFRED COLLINS

"desire" or in order to actualize himself - - emanates, emits, releases, or lets flow out of himself a part of his substance; this self-substance progressively evolves into the world and its creatures, including the human body and mind; finally the emanator may "enter" his world or its constituent parts as their self (&man). The emitted creatures exist to serve, enhance or fulfill the selfhood of their Emanator, being for example his food, sons or wife. Opposing this servant role, however, creatures also replicate in miniature the nature of the Emanator whose self is in them, and seek to emit and use for self-satisfaction their own creatures (for example they desire to have their own sons). Underlying this tension we will find a narcissistic connection between "creator" and "creature" whereby each depends on the other for his nature and being; the personal selves (jivdtman-s) of "creatures" and even the greater selves of the gods exist only in relation to their emanators (e.g., a man's father) and their emissions (e.g., the man's son or the god's world and worshippers). This ~'umbilical" bond (Lipner, 1986) between emitter and emission is the basis for notions such as karma (inherited tendencies towards action) and samsdra (the flow of existence).

We will find that ideal Indian selfhood, as understood through this model, is less an entitative and internal matter (as in the ~'soul" of Western theology, or Kohut's "nuclear self") than an experience of self -- world appropriation or acceptance referred to as '~bliss" (dnanda) and as the "sap" or "flavor" of experience (rasa), an understanding very close to Kohut's '~cosmic narcissism" (Kohut, 1978, 455--457). 2 The ordinary "reality" of self experience, however, is another matter: in the grip of "selfishness" (ahamkdra) rebellious "creatures" typically refuse their roles as adjuncts of their creator, and attempt to hold fast to a sense of autonomous selfhood. The fundamental paradox of Indian selfhood is that to be such a self in one's own right one must first be the product, creature, tool (even the food) of the superior being who is one's emitter, and to whom one owes service. The opposition between the roles of devoted servant and more independent center of initiative (and master of one's own servants) is imaged in the traditional enmity between the law-abiding "gods" (deva-s) and rebellious "'demons" (asura-s), who, appropriately, are brothers? We will also explore efforts to reconcile the claims of "daivic" and "asuric"

FROM BRAHMA TO A BLADE OF GRASS

selfhood, especially the partial solution achieved in the idea of dharma, or code for personal selfhood.

145

KOHUT'S PSYCHOLOGY OF THE SELF

Heinz Kohut's concept of the "selfobject" gives the central role in psychoanalytic theory to an idea that has been a source of creativity and confusion within the field at least since Freud's 1914 paper "On Narcissism," where he first expressed the insight that an "object" (understood originally as something in the environment suitable for satisfying libidinal desires or drives) could also be part of the person himself. One result of this idea was the concept of "internalization" (at least its more primitive forms; cf. Meissner, 1981), the taking into the person's sense of himself of parts of the outside world. The ambiguity of the "ego" as (1) the sense of bodily selfhood and "object" of self preservative and libidinal instincts, and (2) a reality-adapting psychic organ (Laplanche and Pontalis, 1973), has been perhaps the greatest single stimulus to original thought in the field over the past 75 years.

Ego psychology and object relations theories present various solutions to this self vs structure ambiguity of the "'ego" concept, and it could be argued that their resolutions of this ambiguity are at the very heart of each of these theories. Kohut, however, has gone beyond all previous psychoanalytic theorists (excepting perhaps D. W. Winnicott) 4 in seeing the search for selfhood as the fundamental motive of fully human psychic life (as opposed to biological life, or the pathological life of persons unable to be truly human who are motivated by various isolated desires or drives resulting from the breakdown of a fragmented self).

To be a self for Kohut is to live within a matrix of "selfobjects:" primarily other persons who affirm one's own sense of self, allow one to feel one's nature as akin to theirs, or draw one towards merging with ideals which they embody. This triad of selfobjects corresponds to a tripartite organization of the self. Internalization, leading to what Kohut calls a "nuclear self,'" occurs when there is partial and non- traumatic frustration in one's selfobject relationships; these relationships are then turned into psychic structures (ambitions, favored talents and abilities, and ideals) which regulate and motivate one's life

146 ALFRED COLLINS

actions. The "nuclear self" is the organized aggregate of one's ambitions, talents and ideals, and is a sort of blueprint of selfhood across the life cycle. As Kohut makes clear (e.g., 1984, 47), the need for selfobjects is not eliminated by the development of this inner blueprint. Rather the nuclear self makes possible the seeking out and making use of selfobjects which fit the blueprint (match the ideals, talents and ambitions which make it up), and the rejection of those which which do not fit, and are foreign or alien.

While Kohut, as a clinical psychoanalyst, is most concerned with the nuclear self of each particular patient, he does frequently acknowl- edge that the self as such is more than the nuclear self, although the life course is or should be organized around the latter. He speaks of the indefinability and ultimate unknowability of the self, and of its innateness in the person. As he says (1978, 749), the various ambitions, talents and ideals which form the nuclear self do not somehow get woven together to form a whole self; rather they are "built into" a preexisting sense of a whole self. 5 Further, it is this innate self which a child's parent responds to with the famous "gleam in the eye" which expresses her sense of pride, kinship and idealization of the child.

For Kohut, serious or long-lasting disorders of the psyche are all fundamentally the result of deficiencies in the selfobject relationship, either in the present or more commonly in the past, so that an adequate nuclear self either has not formed or cannot be actualized in life. Selfobject relationships are by nature positive (self enhancing) and it is only due to the privatio boni of an unempathic (non-mirroring, "foreign," or unidealisable) environment that failure of the nuclear self program occurs. Because Kohut's theory does not have a place for "good selves" vs "bad selves," or "good selfobjects" and "'bad selfobjects, ''6 his is essentially a deficit rather than a conflict model of psychopathology.

Kohut differs from classical psychoanalysis in demoting the libidinal and aggressive drives (wishes, affects, etc.) from their central motivational role in the psyche. For him, drive objects are sought primarily as selfobjects, and the drives themselves are, in a healthy psyche, felt primarily as a part of the self rather than as autonomous forces to be controlled or satisfied. 7

The metaphors of "emptiness" and especially "fragmentation" are

F R O M B R A H M A TO A B L A D E OF G R A S S 147

frequently used by Kohut to image the self-state of a person whose environment is traumatically out of tune with him, or who is unable through deficiency in his internal nuclear self structure (ambitions, talents, ideals) to organise his experience of environmental selfobjects. A fragmented person falls apart, as it were, into part-functions and drives, concern with particular body parts and their libidinal objects, etc., because he lacks a nuclear self able to hold these things together.

Defensive strategies aiming to maintain an illusion of adequate self- selfobject relationships, or to hide the fact of inadequate or traumatic ones, are the result of fragmentation, or its threat, and are described in detail by Kohut. He also identifies a less pathological solution to self disorder which he calls "compensation," where one aspect of the self takes over for other parts that are hopelessly fragmented (e.g., ideals organise the person's life and ambitions are abandoned).

While early family relationships provide the most important selfobjects, as internalization occurs there is less and less in the nuclear self that directly replicates the flavor or specific quality of the parental relationships, although early experience often does lead to a nuclear self emphasizing one or another of the three constituents of selfhood (ambitions over ideals, for instance), and sometimes to specific contents within each area (e.g., concern with the ideal of human rights). An adult's selfobject relationships therefore are not generally organized around efforts to preserve his sense of early family relations, or of identity with his family's religion or national heritage. In other words, while ambitions and ideals do come more or less directly from family, religion, and cultural heritage, once they are part of the nuclear self the tie to these sources is diminished, and efforts to locate the self within its originating selfobjects are not a high priority within the self's life blueprint. As Kohut states (1977, 243): [the nuclear self] '~having become independent of the genetic factors that determined its specific shape and content, strives only, once it has been formed, to live out its intrinsic potentialities. ''~

India's multifaceted and 3000 year old concern with the self-question is well known, and has recently been the focus of some attention by Western psychologists (Masson, 1981: Roland, 1989: Kakar, 1976: Collins and Desai, 1986). The general ideal of the selfobject was used

148 A L F R E D C O L L I N S

by Collins and Desai (1986) to express the "contextuality" of most experiences of selfhood in India, although the adequacy to Indian experience of Kohut's specific selfobject types (mirroring, twinship, idealizing) has not previously been thematically addressed. We will begin with a prima facie survey of ways in which Kohut's ideas seem to fit Indian phenomena, and then discuss in detail the emanational model of Indian selfhood, showing how it partially accords with Kohut but suggests extensions of his theory. In order to select Indian data intelligently we will view them through a recently developed "ethnosociology" with ethnopsychological implications, that of McKim Marriott.

THE I N D I A N P E R S O N AS " D I V I D U A L : " M A R R I O T T

Probably the most far-reaching effort to analyze how the person (and his world) is understood in India is that of the anthropologist McKim Marriott (1976, 1977, 1989), and his ideas will be helpful in attempting to understand the Indian self, and in reconciling it and Kohut to one another.

Following a Sankhya perspective (Marriott, 1989, 32; see Larson, 1969), Marriott has isolated three constituent processes in the Indian personality, which he also finds widely represented in Hindu culture and society. In Sankhya these constituents are called the three gunas C'strands or qualities"), and in interaction with one another constitute the manifest world. Marriott chooses more abstract English words for these concepts. "Marking" (corresponding to the sattva guna, the quality of "goodness") refers to an assymetrical transfer of substantial qualities ("substance-code") from a higher, more inclusive person to a lower one; "mixing" (rajas, "the passionate") is the active and expan- sive movement of substance-code towards joining with other persons and includes sexual and other desires; "matching" (defined by its opposite, tamas, the "dark") is a condition of stable and appropriate mutual juxtaposition of persons with different but related substance- code. Each constituent exists on a continuum with its opposite ffunmarking," unmixing'" and '~unmatching"). Marriott's theory is monistic: while there are three distinct or "'orthogonal'" processes which govern its movements, substance-code is one, and "'flows'" like a

FROM BRAHMA TO A BLADE OF GRASS 149

more or less viscous liquid through a society and world without impermeable boundaries or absolute distinctions of kind. Each "person" is only a transitory moment in these ongoing quasi- "hydraulic" processes. We will find that Marriott's processes, and the Sankhyan theory which they restate, can be reinterpreted to express aspects of the self-selfobject relationship, but one understood as much more substantial and cosmic than Kohut conceives it.

To understand Marriott's very abstract (at times mathematical) theory it may be helpful to look briefly at how the creation-emanation model sketched above can be represented in it. As we noted, in many Indian myths the cosmos is emitted or emanated from himself by a "creator" god. A good example is the cosmogonic story which begins the Manu Dharma~dstra: the god Narayana releases the cosmic waters, and then an egg, from his body: the egg develops into all the various levels and particular entities of the manifest world. Marriott (1988) notes that in such cosmogonies an "unmarked" Emanator god (Brahma or the Cosmic Man Prajfipati or Purusa) emits a "heavily marked" universe. Marking is a one-way process, "flowing" like water downwards from higher to lower levels of the cosmos, as lower beings receive their natures from higher ones. Once marked into being, the evolutes of Prajfipati, etc. mix (to a greater or lesser extent) with one another, generally uniting evolutes of similar level. Sexuality and eating are only two of the most common types of mixing, which always involves "'warmth." Relatively "'cool" persons and groups tend to minimize their sharings of substance with others. Emitted beings have a limited degree of internal unity, coherence or (self-) "matching," which is called dharma, or (self) "'nature." Because they are only loosely held together, Marriott calls emanated creatures "dividuals" rather than "individuals.'" An optimally well-ordered world is one in which all dividuals act in a generally "'matched" way with respect to one another (i.e., all take their proper places in an organized society and world). ~

While Marriott emphasizes the independence of his three constituent processes, the above example suggests that they can be understood within a single developmental model, which we will argue later is implicit in Marriott's theory (and explicit in many of the Indian texts which he used in developing the theory). 1°

1 5 0 A L F R E D C O L L I N S

K O H U T A N D I N D I A : I N I T I A L O V E R V I E W

1. "Twinship "

Phenomena resembling Kohut's "twinship" or "alter ego" selfobject relationship are common in Indian society, notably in what Roland (1989) calls the "familial self," or "we-self. ''11 His observation is that Indians frequently include family members within their sense of selfhood, n and even place "we-ness" over "I-hess" as the essence of self-feeling. Similarly, Collins and Desai (1986), focusing on the father-son relationship, noted the important Vedic formula calling the son "the [father's] self with the name of 'son'," and pointed to many other ways in which father and son share a common nature and selfhood with each other and with a lineage of "fathers" reaching back to the gods. Note that Indian "twinship" is stronger than Kohut's: in India the original familial selfobjects remain, and are not replaced with more contemporary ones, except as these are also "familial."

Commonality of nature sometimes extends beyond the family. Within caste (j6ti) groups there is a certain shared nature, which is expressed in eating and smoking together, giving and receiving wives only within the caste, etc. Marriott (1976) has pointed to certain jdti-s which extend their sense of sameness with others beyond caste boundaries, in a "horizontal" spreading of alliances. He calls this a "maximal" strategy, and indicates that it is frequent among dominant, land owning, and kingly castes. In his theory of Indian (Hindu) transactions, such widening of the "we-self" is looked at as an instance of the process of "mixing," which generally refers to an easy, warm flowing of substance mutually between persons or groups. While Marriott's is not a self theory, his concept of "mixing" (and also "marking" and "matching") can be interpreted to imply a self-selfobject relationship between persons so related, one of a more substantial character than Kohut's theory suggests.

Another instance of shared natures may be seen in Indian esthetics, where the "appropriate" audience for a performance is called sahrdaya, a person whose "heart" is one "with" the esthetic work or performance, and where the essence of the work is said to be taken in as rasa ("flavor") by the audience who share in it just as caste fellows share a meal. T.his rasa is the very self (dtman) of the work of art, and


in experiencing it the sahrdaya-s share a self with the work and with one another (cf. Muller-Ortega, 1989, 61).

The idea of sharing a self also occurs in the bhakti sects, where the worshippers of the same god (typically Krsna) are encouraged to be one self through the god, and to reject all distinctions which seem to divide them (Singer, 1981; Muller-Ortega, 1989, 61). It is also found among the codisciples of a single guru (Babb, 1986).

2. "Mirroring"

Apparent analogues to '~mirroring," and its internalized counterpart ambition, are also identifiable in India. Examples would certainly include what is Kohut's paradigmatic situation, that of the mother's totally affirming response to her child, although in India this might be more true of the male child, who is seen almost as a god (Kakar, 1981). Indeed, any affirmation of the greatness or glory of a god, king, guru, male infant or Brahman would seem to be an instance of a mirroring' relationship, and the fulsomeness -- to a Western sensibility -- of much Hindu praise (e.g., the mahdtmya or "great self" genre) would seem overstimulating and grandiose directed to any but a divine nature.13

The guru-disciple relationship is filled with instances of mirroring, in addition to the magnification of a guru's greatness through ritual praise, songs, pz-~ja, etc. The practice of darshan, literally "gazing" at the guru for lengthy periods of time, is a universally-practiced way in which he is mirrored by his disciples (Babb, 1981).

3. "Idealizing"

In Kohut's '~idealizing'selfobject relationship, one partially merges one's self-sense in the grander self of an admired superior who allows and even encourages this. There are many Indian situations which correspond more or less to this model. The guru-disciple relationship, besides involving mirroring, also includes an intense idealizing merger of the disciple with his guru (Babb, 1986, 79), and it is common to find disciples whose manner of dress and gesture, not to mention ways of thinking and speaking, are strongly reminiscent of the guru. The prevalence of Gandhi-caps among Indian politicians even today seems a somewhat debased but still genuine example of this sort of merger.

152 A L F R E D COLLINS

Likewise, the relationship of men to the gods is often of an idealizing kind, and men take on the qualities of the gods through eating food that the gods bestow, hearing stories and songs of the gods' lives and great deeds, and witnessing images of the gods in religious ceremonies. This taking in of substance occurs also with gurus (Babb, 1986, 69), and is in a way the complement of dariana: the viewing of the god or guru not only mirrors and enhances the latter's sense of selfhood but also allows "particles" of the god's or guru's nature, as it were, to flow into the worshipper or disciple.

Roland (1989) presents considerable evidence that dependent idealization on a junior's part is felt to be narcissistically gratifying by the superior. This was especially true between father and son in many of his case examples, and was also an important aspect of the psychoanalytic transference in India:

In these h~erarchical relationships there is an unspoken, subtle emotional exchange of dependency needs on the patient's part with narcissistic gratification in the analyst for fulfilling the ego-ideal of the superior who responsibly helps the subordinate. (p. 64)

We will see that what Roland calls '~dependency needs" can be viewed in a Kohutian perspective as seeking an "idealizing selfobject."

M A R K I N G AND I D E A L I Z I N G

Another of Marriott's transactional constructs, '~marking," may shed light on the idealizing sort of relationship, but will also help to point out apparent differences between the Indian examples cited and Kohut's concept, and suggest a modification in the latter. Marking involves the transmission of qualifities from superior to inferior, but is a transmission that also implies a sharing of substance, an idea quite foreign to Kohut. Thus when members of lower castes receive a meal from higher caste persons they also take on some of the nature of the superiors. Typically this is understood to consist of the lower or more impure parts of the superiors. In worship, also, the food taken from the god is considered to be his "garbage" (i.e., leftovers after the god has eaten), but positively transforms the devotees who eat it.

The sharing of substance in marking, then, preserves a hierarchy of rank, with the "marker" remaining higher than the "marked." Father-


son relationships are an example of marking (since the father gives some of his qualities to the son but "outranks" him); marking also frequently occurs between castes, and involves a transfer of substance- code from a higher to a lower caste. In all cases the marked person shares in the marker's nature more than the marker shares in the nature of the marked. Said differently, the marking person has a wider, more encompassing nature than the marked, who is limited to only some (the lower) of the marker's qualities.

This preservation (or creation) of hierarchy found in marking is also present in idealizing, although the point there is (eventually) to become like the idealised person, Kohut's prime example being a son whose father sees him as a "chip off the old block." Furthermore, marking seems, like idealizing, to be a process that enhances the marker's self as much as the marked, since in marking the marker gets rid of his inferior parts and reestablishes his superiority to the marked (that is, the marker becomes "unmarked"). On the other hand, idealizing as a process is apparently initiated '~from below," the child looking up to the parent he wants to become like. While (as in the ~'chip off the old block" example) the parent responds with acceptance of the idealization, he does not create it. In marking, although the marked person often initiates the process by asking or begging for his superior's favor, the actual movement of marking seems to come from above and to be directed downward (the guru bestows knowledge). But the fact remains (unemphasized by Marriott) that being marked by a guru, parent, god or Brahman is often sought by the person to be marked, and the substance received enhances the supplicant; this resembles idealization.

The phenomenon of "guru healing" (mentioned by Desai, 1989) will help us begin to understand this matter. When the guru heals a disciple, it is as if the guru performs a sort of moral "dialysis" on him, taking in his diseased parts and returning them healed. There would appear to be a sort of reciprocity in the marking process here, the disciple's (patient's) inferior marks being taken in by the guru who when "'digests" them and returns them to him as healthy marks (although relatively inferior to the guru's overall nature). The same situation is present in the usual guru-disciple relationship (Babb, 1986, 65--70) where the disciple's (confused) questions are returned as


(lucid) answers, and worship (ptijd) where the worshippers give food to the god and then receive it back as prasdda, auspicious blessings which are nevertheless the god's "garbage." Note that marking in all these instances is initiated "from below."

These observations allow us to strengthen the connection between marking and idealizing, and to minimize some apparent differences. They suggest a relationship between idealizing and mirroring not mentioned by Kohut but plausible, and which constitutes a significant modification of his theory.

Idealizing (always) and marking (at least sometimes) seem to be two stage processes initiated from below, which result in a lower-self- enhancing transmission from above. It is less clear, however, that the idealizer is a supplicant who offers his unworthy (fragmented?) self to the idealized other, and then receives in return a new and higher- valued (more cohesive?) self. Similar ideas are common in psychoanalytic object relations theories, where the term "metabolising" is used for the therapist's capacity to receive and integrate the patient's split off "good" and "bad" self images, and to transmit the more nearly whole -- but predominately good -- self image back to the patient (Langs, 1976). 14 While Kohut does not seem to have discussed the specific nuclear self-state of the idealizer at the beginning of the idealization process, he does characterize states of selfobject deficiency as "empty," which is consistent with viewing the idealizer as a kind of supplicant towards the idealized.

M I R R O R I N G A N D I D E A L I Z I N G : A S Y N T H E S I S

It is possible to integrate the mirroring and idealizing aspects of Kohut's self theory, following the above line of thought. The first half of the two-stage process of idealizing (admiring the idealized person) can be seen to involve mirroring of the idealized by the idealizer. I.e., the idealizer serves as a mirroring selfobject for the idealized, and the latter gains as much selfhood from the relationship as the former. 15 The Indian materials already considered make this mirroring-idealizing integration more plausible than does Kohut's work itself. In p~jd, for instance, the worshipper typically approaches the god both by magnifying the god's greatness and with some deficiency which he


wants filled. In Kohut's terms, the worshipper both mirrors the god and idealises him; it is partly because of the mirroring that the god deigns to be idealised, and thereby to accept and transform the worshipper's deformed or deficient self) 6

To take a common example, a sonless man asking the god for an heir is really asking for his deformed nature, resulting from past bad deeds, to be changed. In Kfilidfisa's Raghuvam.~a, King Dilipa had committed the sin, in a past life, of offending the divine cow Surabhi. This had transformed his nature into that of one who could not himself father offspring. Only through devotion to another divine cow, which goes so far as to offer his own life to protect her, is Dilipa able to win her favor and be changed again, this time to regain his genera- tive potency.

Note that in the example of King Dilipa the "sin" was in effect an affront to the Goddess, whose special province (symbolised by the cow) is auspiciousness, fruitfulness, and the generation of offspring; his misdeed offended her nature. This may be often true in the marking process; i.e., the deformed piece of self which needs to be transformed by the marker may be something that originally or intrinsically belonged to the marker himself, and the deformation may be considered a narcissistic injury to the marker, which must be overcome by a self-enhancing act of mirroring by the injurer.

THE S E L F IN C O S M O G O N Y

It has been noted above that many Indian cosmogonies involve the transformation of a god into a cosmos with which he continues to maintain an intimate relationship. 17 Many of these cosmogonies can be described as "'emanational'" (using the word literally as "flowing out"), which the '~creator" god (often Brahma or Prajfipati) pouring himself into his cosmos, and gradually devolving into lower and more diverse forms. ~a Efforts to renew the world, therefore, also require rehabilitation of the creator god: reintegrating him and reversing the "evil" (pdprnan) into which he (as the world and its inhabitants) tends to fall (Collins, 1976; B. K. Smith, 1989)lU. The degraded state of the god is manifested in the deformed condition of his world, and the two share a common destiny. -'~ In other words, a narcissistic relationship


persists between "creator" and "creation" even after the world has become partially separated from the god who emanated it, and the god continues to be affected by the world's condition.

One way of reversing the god's "decay" is to celebrate or affirm his (pre-emanational) perfection. Worship then involves mirroring the god as whole (or pure, etc.), and results in the (rehabilitated) god making the worshipper whole, etc. Devotional mirroring would thus be a case of unmarking the mirrored person or god, i.e., removing his undesirable marks. 21

In a related context, the disciple's unenlightened condition might be thought of as a narcissistic injury to the guru's enlightenment, which the disciple's devotion allows the guru to overcome, so he can then cure the disciple of his deficiency. The notorious irascibility of sages, seemingly so contradictory to their enlightened state, clearly has a narcissistic quality; thus sages typically become enraged when slighted. It does not seem farfetched to suggest that gurus are generally offended by the pervasive "ignorance" with which they are surrounded. Conversely, by devotion the disciple would "'unmark" the guru of his narcissistic injury (the disciple's own ignorance).

T H E VRA T

The same process can be seen in the contemporary ritual of the vrat,

as described by Wadley (1975) and Raheja (1976). The vrat is a "vow" undertaken by a worshipper asking a boon of a god. Wadley interprets the ritual essentially as an exchange between the faith and devotion of the worshipper and the boon given in return by the god. Raheja, however, finds in the popular texts on vrat-s currently practiced a coherent theory of the person in terms of which the vrat

involves a transformation of the entire person, and not just a specific alteration in his circumstances such as the receipt of a boon. It is clear in her data, although she does not draw this conclusion, that the "emanating" (marking) side of the person is "cured" by acts on the "emanated" (marked) side, which is itself then transformed by being "remarked."

The "'psychology" of the vrat texts is essentially a popular version of Sd~khya, where the differentiated faculties of the person (the sense


faculties of j~dnendriya-s and faculties of action or karmendriya-s, etc.) are evolved forms of a generalized "mind stuff" (antah. k~rana or chitt), which itself has evolved from the three basic constituents (gun. a-s) of nature (prakr.ti or £akti): sattva, the "'good," rajas, the "passionate," and tamas, the "dark." Evolution is from higher and more subtle forms of substance to lower and grosset forms, but there is no essential difference in nature among the evolutes. Indeed, events occurring in the senses directly affect the chitt from which they evolved. The vrat consists of yoga-like "subtle actions" which restrain the senses and therefore alter the state of the chitt. One effect of sense restraint (niyama), etc., is to halt the descent into progressively grosset forms of prakr.ti. By doing this, one makes one's chitt purer.

The process is one of reversing the stream of evolution (nivr.tti), through focussing the mind on the earlier stages of the process. The meditative technique involved is called dhyan (Sanskrit dhydna), and is, as Raheja points out, a "subtle form of dar~an,'" and hence a quasi- perceptual process. This observation suggests that an inward form of mirroring is involved in the vrat, whereby one sees one's higher constituents (chirr, etc.) as more subtle, less tarnished by the vicissitudes of sense. Just as in dargan the worshipper sees the god or guru as, let us say, pure £akti, so in the vrat the sensory part of the "'mind" sees (mirrors or unmarks) the chitt and thereby reveals it as pure gakti; as a result the senses too become purer. This perhaps explains why sattva, the subtlest constituent of the person, is said to "reveal the

~akti": as the mind moves backward into a sattvic state the pure gakti is revealed (mirrored).

While Raheja emphasizes the "psychological" side of the vrat and Wadley the "'devotional" one, our analysis suggests that there is no difference of nature between these, Dhyan, which is an "'inward" process, is frequently applied to one's relationship to a god, while s'rdddha ("faith"), ordinarily a proper attitude towards a god, is essential in one's movement of inversion towards the chitt or sattva. It is as if one worships (a higher aspect of) one's self, while meditating on a god. We conclude that in both processes mirroring of the higher self also transforms the lower.

Because there is no essential difference between ~'mental" and "physical" processes, we may look at the vrat as a flow of subtle

158 ALFRED COLLINS

substance from a lower to a higher place, a sort of "swimming against the current" of samsdra. Marriott (1989) points out that in marking the lighter, more liquid portions of tl~e marker's substance are separated from the heavier, more viscous ones (much like the process of refining crude oil into gasoline and asphalt); as the heavier, more marked "fraction" of the marker's substance sinks into the lower parts of the world his subtler portions "rise": this is the meaning of the "unmarking" side of the process. Note that the process described by Marriott begins with an act by the marker. There is an apparent paradox in this unnoted by Marriott: although it is of benefit to him, the marker would seem to be depleted in the act of unmarking himself.

The unmarking side of the process makes more sense if one assumes -- as Marriott apparently does not -- that it is (at least sometimes) performed by the marked dividual rather than by the marker. But in fact the marking and marked entities are "not two" and have a continuing shared nature. As we have seen, in many creation stories the Emanator god is said to "enter into" his creatures after emitting them, expressing the continuing narcissistic inherence of the Emanator in his world. If unmarking involves a lower dividual "unmarking" a higher one, it would be as if the god who has (previously) entered into that dividual now moves back "upstream" into his Emanator mode, unmarking himself, and thus readying himself for a new (overall less marked) act of Emanation in which he (in the form of the lower dividual) also participates. 22 For Marriott, marking- unmarking is a one-way process initiated "from above;" by viewing marker and marked as "not two" we make it possible for the unmarking process to begin at the bottom, in the marked dividual. In the vrat, as we have seen, the lower faculties unmark the sattva, but are also made more sattvic themselves, through meditation.

BRAHMAN AND SWEEPER

To apply these ideas sociologically, consider a transaction between a Brahman and a Sweeper (remover of garbage, dead animals, feces, etc.). To understand the comparison, one should recall that Brahmans are the human analogues (or metonyms) of the creator god, often


himself called Brahma. In the Manu Dharmaddstra, the four classes of human society are emanated in descending order from Brahma, the Brahman first, and the Brahman is said to be the true owner of everything, other classes receiving shares from him (Manu, 1.100). When the Sweeper removes the Brahman's garbage, he in effect takes on, even in a sense becomes, the Brahman's "bad" (impure, "'pdpman"- filled) side; in Marriott's terms, he "unmarks" him. At the beginning of the transaction, however, the Sweeper is already highly impure, and (following the cosmogonic model just alluded to) already represents the impure part of the Brahman. The Brahman would avoid his touch, and perhaps also his sight and shadow. It is as if the Sweeper, by his very existence, represents a narcissistic affront to the Brahman (reminds him of his impure or fragmented condition), which is partially or temporarily eliminated when the Sweeper removes the Brahman's impure elements.

At the moment of removing the Brahman's impurity, we might say, the Sweeper would treat (view) the Brahman as entirely pure. The Brahman's own narcissistic revulsion towards his impurities would also be removed in that instant, partly through being mirrored as pure by the Sweeper (unmarked), and he would feel himself returned to his "'original" state of perfection, which would be a state of greater fluidity. From our earlier analysis it would follow that this was accomplished through an upstream move by a subtler, more fluid core within the Sweeper's being.

But such a process also has implications for the Sweeper's nature. He receives from the now-perfect Brahman (in the "reemanation" discussed earlier) a substance (the garbage, and also perhaps a meal) which has been transformed in the act of its receipt. It no longer represents just "impurity," and is no longer on the same level as the Sweeper. Now it is higher, or better quality, since it comes from the Brahman's nonfragmented self. The result would be that the Sweeper's nature is also transformed by taking it in, and the Sweeper rises to a higher level (perhaps in a subsequent life). The situation would be exactly parallel to one in which a worshipper is transformed by the god's garbage, if it is accepted that the god's superiority is partly the result of the worshipper viewing him as superior (or increasing his "fluidity": Marriott, 1976, 122: Moreno and Marriott, 1989).


Compare the extremely valuable, selfobject-like service provided by the Sweeper in the foregoing analysis to Marriott's (1976) discussion of the "pessimal strategy" he posits for gudra (and lower) castes. Marriott emphasizes the inability of gudras, etc. to "reciprocate. . . with things of the same value" in their transactions, for example with Brahmans. He further characterizes Sweeper-like castes as ~'masters of negative transformations -- of destruction by contrast with the Brahman's creation." The result, however, of this "destruction" is to return the Brahman, and through him the entire social world emanated from him -- including the Sweeper himself -- to a state nearer "creation". Paradoxically it would seem that the Sweeper actually gives substance of a higher (more fluid) value, while the Brahman gives feces and dirt.

All this becomes more plausible when viewed from the "monistic" perspective (Marriott, 1976). Transactions between guru and disciple, god and worshipper, father and son, Brahman and Sweeper, iakti and senses are all, in a way "internal." That is, guru, Sweeper, etc. are not sharply-bounded ~'individuals" but rather thin-skinned "dividuals" whose natures are completed only in relationships with others. Cosmo- gonic theories where gods emanate the world, or constitute it by themselves falling apart or being cut apart in a sacrifice, show the commonality of nature that obtains among the different parts of society and the world. The Sweeper and the Brahman, for example, are "'not-two,'" and this is why they can benefit one another. 23

M A T C H I N G A N D D H A R M A

So far we have not considered Marriott's third transactional or pro- cessual variable, "matching," although it has been implied in some of the earlier discussion. Matching corresponds to the Sanskrit term dharma, and refers to the cohesive articulation or proper ordering of things, especially human society. For persons, matching seems to be a sort of moral orientation or ~inborn code for conduct" (Marriott and Inden, 1975), where one's nature fits into a particular place in the differentiated world. ~'Unmatching," by contrast, refers to disarticula- tion, including separation from others or parts of oneself (which occurs when Prajapati "falls apart" in ~'creation"). Note the similarity


of the expressions used to describe matching to Kohut's term '~cohesiveness," which describes a desirable state of the nuclear self, and the closeness of some unmatchings to "~fragmentation."

A sense of being oriented in one's social world, of knowing one's proper roles, others" legitimate expectations of one, the significance of one's life in the larger social order, etc., would seem to be a very important constituent of selfhood; indeed the English expression ~'knowing who you are" seems to refer to such things. Although Kohut does not discuss social orientation as an essential aspect of selfhood, preferring to orient life around the projects of an internal nuclear self, it is clear that the nuclear self implies social placement, expectations, etc.

Matching, and the Indian facts which it names, suggest that in India selfhood is organized ~'from outside" and to some extent "inwardly," by dharma. That is, one's selfobject relationships are not given coherence (only) by the projects (markings) of an "interior" self, but by a social order which arranges selfobjects so that each ~'dividual" experiences different sorts of appropriate self-enhancement. Con- versely, when the social order (i.e., the king 24) fails, and one encounters inappropriate or "'bad" selfobjects, the self fragments. This allows us to address from a different viewpoint the multifaceted issue of internalization in India (Roland, 1989; Collins and Desai, 1986). For Kohut, internalization means that selfobject experiences become psychic structures, specifically the nuclear self with its ~'tension arc" directed towards goals to which one is pulled by ideals and pushed by ambitions, in a way, everything that one does, feels and thinks is ~oriented" around this '~blueprint;" likewise, all one's selfobject relationships (wife, sons, etc.). Internalization, in this way, results in an organizing, arranging process quite akin to matching. In India, while internalization within the person does occur (as when the Cosmic Man '~eats" his disjointed parts, Collins and Desai, 1986), a society-wide kind of "internalization" operates through dharma, and organizes the world in a way that is appropriate to the selves that make it up.

In Western selfobject relationships without internalization, one is continually being plunged into experiences of inappropriateness; that is, moments when one is not accurately understood by another, or not sufficiently respected, or can no longer feel drawn to merge with a


formerly idealized figure. Life is quite chaotic under such circumstances, which is presumably why internalization occurs. In India a similarly chaotic state is characteristic of a society without dharma. Such a condition is often described in Indian literature (Gonda, 1966), and indeed it is generally believed that we are now living in an increasingly a-dharmic world. In a world completely without dharma, a Brahman faced with the task of getting rid of his garbage might find no one willing to take it. Instead, the fuctions of the social classes would be confused (varnasamkdra), and the Sweeper might recite the Veda instead of carrying off refuse. In Kohutian terms, the Brahman's experience of adharma might be one of self-disgust at his spoiled condition, narcissistic rage at the derelict Sweeper, or simply confusion at the disorder within and outside himself.

One answer to why India seems to have relatively little internalization (in the psychoanalytic sense), then, might be that Indian society relies for cohesiveness on being "matched" or organized according to dharma. An Indian correlative to the internalization process would be the effort of kings or kingly gods (especially the avatars of Visnu) to reestablish dharma on earth by compelling men to follow it (or transforming their natures so that they can follow it). Dharma might then be considered a social analog of the nuclear self. Just as Kohut is primarily .concerned with self pathology and its cure, India presents manifold examples of failure of dharma, and of markings and mixings that are inappropriate, along with efforts to "cure" these. Successfully achieved social dharma might be looked at as a condition favoring the development of personal dharma-s. In psychoanalytic terms the latter would include an internalized superego, and Roland's (1989) data strongly support the presence in Indian women (at least) of a strong superego.

One result of dharmic "internalization" (at the level of a social whole) is that certain persons or aspects of the cosmos are placed outside it. Collins and Desai (1986) have pointed out how Prajfipati gets rid of his "bad" parts (his pdpman, etc.). Likewise, the Brhaddranyaka Upanisad (1.3.7) talks of destroying one's "hateful enemy," and (1.3.10) placing "evil" beyond the margin of the world. Similarly Roland finds that Hindu women tend to externalize (project) onto other women their own rejected instinctuality, and Raheja (1988)


finds the "making far" (placing outside oneself or one's village or lineage) of "inauspiciousness" to be the major ritual activity of her Gujar village. In Kohut, too, internalization leaves many things outside the nuclear self, and causes a person to avoid many aspects of the world which are incongruent with the nuclear self.

T H E S P L I T - L E V E L SELF

Desai (1980) has developed the idea of "'split level consciousness" to understand the paradoxical phenomenon that Indians are both "object hungry" and also cynical about the possibility of achieving genuine satisfation through objects; because of the cynicism, they often present an outward persona of warm relatedness while hiding a core of bitter resignation and anger towards their human environment.

This state of affairs could be described in self psychological curn transactional terms as a defensive stance that protects a threatened self by withdrawing it from the possibility of traumatic injury by an out-of- tune environment (one felt as adharmic), while simultaneously pretending to hold one's place in a more or less matched social order and so to continue functioning as selfobject in mixing-marking relationships with others. To give up the pretense and withdraw from others (as Indians do for short periods of time when they feel violated by their environments) would be to court much more serious trauma from a society which would experience this withdrawal as itself a traumatic unmatching requiring to be forcefully negated. >

Unmatching in the service of the self does, however, have an accepted place in Indian society, beyond the unmatching from "'evil'" mentioned earlier; it occurs in the institution of renunciation of outward relationships (sann)'dsa), the practice and philosophy of Sfi/lkhya-Yoga (as in the vrat), and in the Vedfintic treatment of dtman as an absolute self which is not implicated in mixing-marking relationships and would not, in Kohutian terms, need selfobjects or a nuclear self "tension arc."26 Beyond these cases, where unmatching from the everyday world is done for the sake of returning towards the unmarked source or Emanator, there are times when severing the tie to (unmatching from) that source is proper.

164 ALFRED COLLINS

SELF-SELFOBJECT STRIFE

In one of the most famous stories in the Upani.sads (Br.haddranyaka Upanisad, 1.4.3--4) the dtman, in the form of Purusa (the Cosmic Man), was lonely, and made himself into the shape of a man and a woman embracing. He divided that double self into a man and a woman. Thus a man is said to be like half of a split pea; his wife is the

other half. In this first externalizing movement of the dtman-Purusa (pravr.tti), the woman is emitted as an "environment" for the Purusa: as such, she mirrors his wishes. The story takes a surprising turn at this point, however. The woman emitted by Purusa tries to run away, refusing further union with him, apparently due to a horror of incest. She turns herself into a cow, but Purusa becomes a bull and mates with her. She runs away again, he pursues her, and in this way all species are produced.

There seems to be, as this and other Indian materials to be discussed will show, an inherent tension in the selfobject relationship between the interests of the self and object sides. To limit the object to fulfilling the wishes or mirroring needs of the self, so that it loses all separateness, leads to revolt or (as in the Upani.sad story) a horror of the incestuous over-closeness. On the other hand, to allow the object to become completely separate (unmatched) is to lose the possibility for self-appropriate mixing and marking, or in Kohut's terms mirroring and idealizing. In the emanational model, the god needs his evolutes as selfobjects, but is usually disappointed or threatened by them at some point because they refuse to behave as selfobjects. Hence his ambivalence about the project of creation (contrast for instance the loneliness of the primordial dtman with his realization that "fear comes from a second.")

This ambivalence, and self pathology resulting from the self-selfobject contradiction, are strongly present in the father-son relationship. Some instances of this were noted in the career of the creator god Praj~pati by Collins and Desai (1986): specifically, Praj~pati's fear of being reintegrated through his son, which could involve, for instance, being eaten by his son or called by his name. The theme of sonlessness, and of the son who must die at birth or adolescence, is

F R O M B R A H M A T O A B L A D E O F G R A S S 165

extremely common in Indian literature and folklore (Collins, 1989), and also seems to reflect an underlying ambivalence about having sons. While Goldman (1978) has interpreted sonlessness as a father's oedipal wish, it can also be understood in terms of self psychology. The old and much-discussed story of guna.hgepa from the Aitareya Brdhmana (c. 800 BCE) will provide a good example of the theme.

g U N A H g E P A

Harigcandra was a king who had no son, though he had 100 wives. Once the king addressed the sage Narada, who lived in his house: "'All creatures, both beasts and men, wish for a son. Tell me, Narada, what fruit is gained through having sons?" Narada answered the king with traditional verses (gathd-s) that tell the son 's value to his father: "A father pays his debt to the gods through his son, and gains immortali ty through him. A man enters his wife as semen and m the tenth mon th is reborn f rom her as the son. Thus in the son the father 's self (dtman) is born f rom the self, and like a well-provisioned boat he carries the father to the far shore (of death). This is the broad, well-trodden road where those who have sons walk free f rom sorrow."

Narada then told the king to beg the god Varuna for a son, promising in return to sacrifice the boy to the god as soon as he was born. Harlgcandra did this, and a son, Rohlta, was born. But instead of sacrificing him the king said to Varuna, "An animal is fit for sacrifice when it is ten days old. Let him reach that age before I sacrifice him to you." Varuna agreed. In this way Harigcandra put off the god again and again until Rohlta had grown and become invested with his warnor ' s armor.

Finally Hamgcandra sorrowfully resigned himself to the sacrifice. He said to his son, "My dear, I will sacrifice you to the one who gave you to me." But Rohita said "'No," took his bow and fled to the forest where he wandered for a year.

Varuna was angry and bound Harigcandra with his noose, making his belly swell with dropsy. When Rohita heard of this he left the forest and went to a village where he met the god Indra in human disguise. Indra told him "There is no happiness for a man who does not roam, Rohita; in society a man becomes a sinner, so wander!"

Rohita therefore wandered in the forest for a second year, after which he entered a village and met Indra again. Indra said, "The feet of the wanderer are like the flower, his soul is the fruit, and all his sins are destroyed by wandenng . Therefore wander '"

Rohita cont inued to wander in this way for five years, each year en t enng a village and being instructed by Indra in the virtues of wander ing in the forest. Dur ing the sixth year he met the sage (.r.st) Ajigarta, who was hungry, in the forest. Rohita offered Aligarta 100 cows in exchange for one of his three sons to serve as Rohita 's substitute in the sacrifice to Varuna. Ajigarta sold his middle son, gunahgepa ("Dog's Tail"), whereupon Rohita re turned home with him

At the sacrifice they could find no one willing to bind the boy to the sacrificial stake His father Ajigarta, however, agreed to do it for 100 cows more. Then no one


would perform the ritual killing. Again Ajigarta volunteered to do it for 100 more cows. Like Rohita, however, gunahgepa refused the role of sacrificial victim and approached the gods to save himself. He honored one god after another, and was set free from the post; at the same time, King Harigcandra's bonds fell away and his belly shrank back to normal size.

guna.hgepa then sat beside the sage Vigvamitra and refused to return to his father Ajigarta, despite the pleas of both his parents, gunahgepa said, "Not even among gudras [the lowest class of society] has anything like this been seen, that you raised a knife against your son. You preferred 300 cows to me!" Ajigarta repented his deed, but gunahgepa stood firm, and accepted Vigvamitra's ofter to make him the "first born" among his own 100 sons. He was given the new name Devarfita ("God Given") by the sage.

Vigvamitra's older sons, on hearing of this, were angry that their father would install a stranger above them. V~gvamitra cursed these sons to have the lowest, outcaste orders of men as their descendants. His younger sons, who accepted Devarfita, were blessed by Vigvamitra: "You will be rich in cattle and children, because you have made me rich in offspring by consenting to my wish." (Aitareya Brdhmana 7.3)

At the center of gunahgepa story is the fact that a father's "other

self," his son, refuses to act as a selfobject for the father; Rohita, and later gunahgepa, refuse to be sacrificed for their fathers. Although Harigcandra has been "bound" by Varuna's noose, and Ajigarta is starving, their sons will not die to save them.

While the story seems to approve the sons" refusal to be sacrificed, each of them is left in difficult straits because of it: Rohita "wanders" in the forest, essentially an outcaste without a father or patrilineage from which to gain a sense of selfhood. ~unahgepa likewise becomes temporarily fatherless. In Marriott 's language, each is seriously "unmatched" from his father; they are too far away from the selfobject. The alternative in each case is essentially to be "eaten" by a father or father figure, and so be overly merged with him. 27 Rohita's fate of being sacrificed to Varuna clearly amounts to being eaten by the god, who is often known as Father Varuna, while gunahgepa was traded for the cattle which were food for his hungry father.

If the sons are caught in a double bind, the fathers' situations are no better: Harigcandra must choose between sacrificing his son at birth and being "bound" with Varuna~s characteristic illness, dropsy; Ajigarta must either sell his son to be killed or himself starve. Ajigarta explicitly must choose between eating his son and himself starving; Harigcandra's choice seems related and is perhaps the same: dropsy


involves a swollen belly, and may ironically connote an inability to eat.

Apparently none of the fathers and sons in "gunahgepa" are on the "'broad well travelled road" of Narada's gdtha-s, which is supposed to take them to the "far shore (of death)." All are caught in a more or less pathological condition, the sons unable to idealize their fathers, or be marked by them as members of their lineages, while the fathers lose the mirroring and orienting selfobject functions of the sons, either by eating (and so destroying) the sons or by themselves starving.

If, as I have argued elsewhere (Collins, 1989), the gunah/epa story and others like it express the Indian father's ambivalence about having a son, the initial ambivalence in this story is the god Varuna's. Apparently he is not willing to grant Harigcandra a son unless the son is immediately returned to him after birth. > The situation parallels the Mahdbhdrata story of the birth of Pa.n.du, who is an incarnation of the Vedic god Dyaus, cursed, like his brother ,~dityas, to be reborn mortal. While Pandu must live out a full term of life as a human, his

• .

brother gods are given birth by the goddess Gaflgfi (the Ganges river), and immediately drowned by her (Dumezil, 1968, 178--82). The career of Prajfipati is also quite similar: after emanating the world from his body, Prajfipati often is said to swallow it up again (Collins

and Desai, 1986). The guna.hgepa story tries to resolve the father-son conflict by

transfering the sons" loyalties from their fathers to the gods, and then back to the fathers (or in gunahgepa's case a father figure, the sage Vigvamitra). This involves unmatching the sons from their natural

fathers, so they can be unmarked and then remarked by the gods. Rohita is initiated into a new status by the god Indra, that of a "'wanderer." This is apparently a transitional state of liminal austerity, and the effort of constantly wandering in the wilderness is emphasized in the story. In his six years of wandering Rohita develops a new or transformed self different from the one he would have had as solely

his father's son, in Marriott 's terms he is "marked" by wandering, apparently as a sage in his own right, i.e., one with access to the gods.

gunahgepa, the son of the starving Ajigarta, is evidently Rohita's alter ego (or his remarked self) and takes up the story at this point in Rohita's stead. In his turn refusing to be the father's sacrifice,

168 ALFRED COLLINS

gunahgepa approaches one after another of the Vedic gods, including Varuna. In each case he "praises" the god, and finally wins release for himself and Harigcandra. In Kohutian terms, ~unahgepa '~mirrors" the gods, and thereby convinces them to allow him an appropriately separate (but still idealizing) existence as their "son," which is expressed in his adoption by the sage Vigvamitra as the latter's "first born" son. In this way he achieves for Harigcandra his initial wish, for now Rohita too can live as a relatively differentiated person and need not be swallowed up by Varuna. The correct selfobject "distance" is achieved for all but Aj~garta, who as odd man out ends the story completely "unmatched" from his son (although well fed with 300 COWS). 29

Finding one's way in a web of selfobject relationships requires penetrating insight. While guidelines exist (Narada's gdthas), and are affirmed in the end, each person must see clearly into the context of the moment and act so as to balance the needs of his self and his obligation to act as selfobject to fathers and gods. 3~ This often involves violating what might seem to be the correct "dharma." In our story, Harigcandra, Rohita, gunahgepa and Vigvamitra each go against what seems their proper nature or duty, and in each case are acting appropriately. 31

The detachment of one's sense of self from involvement in one's given, dharmic life (Desai's "split level consciousness") may not always represent simply a pathological refusal of one's dharma, but rather an unavoidable ambivalence between the claims of the self and those of one's progenitors; in other words between one's own self-projection (need to mark others and be mirrored by them) and obligation as the god's or father's selfobject to mirror him (accept his marks). A way out of the dilemma is suggested by ~unah. gepa: like Rohita, one can retreat from one's immediate selfobject condition (being the father's sacrificial offering) to one's earlier and higher origins (in his case represented by the god Indra)? 2 The result is a capacity for standing outside the selfobject relationships into which one has been cast and viewing them in terms of a higher self-interest, without abandoning them entirely.

Because there is a narcissistic connection between the higher or "'earlier" levels of the person and the later and lower ones (the result


of their substantial interpenetration via marking), it may be possible to

live in the actual, everyday world while also, and without complete

withdrawal, living at the subtler level. In the later tradition, this level is that of the buddhi, or in some forms of Vedfinta the "witness"

consciousness (saksin), and the capacity to balance one's ordinary life

with a "'firm stance" in this level is one of the most highly valued qualities in the Indian personality. Van Buitenen's classic paper on the

Indian hero as vidyddhdra (1959) expresses the matter well:

the preparedness and collectedness of one's faculty of discrimination and dectslon... is what the philosophical psychology calls buddhl, which comprises both the wide- awake vigilance and the capacit) for immedmtely acting upon what comes within its purview. . Seldom does the hero allow his mind to be distracted .

The hero, like the god or guru, lives in his buddhi; in effect this is to

live firmly anchored in his own origins, his own higher and earlier

levels of being.

That these levels are closer to his true nature is suggested by the word sattva, which van Buitenen (1957b) has convincingly shown to

refer to the "initial creative self-recognition" of the original Being. This

self-awareness, which is also the original significance of the term

ahamkdra (van Buitenen, 1957a), is essential to Indian cosmogonies as far back as the R.g Veda (X. 129; cf. Collins, 1975), and represents

both the first stage in evolution and the highest state of the person. Being rooted in the sattva or buddhi level, the hero will not be injured

or distracted by the failed selfobjects of his lower personality and

world, or by excessive "debts" to his immediate superiors. Instead, he will be able to "remark" them, as it were, in a form appropriate to his

higher nature, i.e., a form in which they better match this nature. As

van Buitenen points out (1959), the hero is quite similar to the

enlightened sage who (the Upani.sads say) does not fear anything,

because "he is the self of everything." The same idea is found in the tantric concept of the "living enlightened" (j[vanmukta; see MOiler- Ortega, 1989, 187).

THE PERSON AS PURUSA

We are in a position now to sketch an Indian self psychology, and to

170 ALFRED COLLINS

contrast it to Kohut's theory; we will also reformulate Marriott's monistic theory of Indian "substance-code" to give it a narcissistic dimension.

The person and the cosmos begin with the flowing out and self- recognition of a Person, who may be called Purusa; this self-recognition intrinsically involves a self-marking, or self-qualifying. Emitting part of himself as an object, Purusa desires this object-self as a selfobject; i.e., he wants to find himself, or actualize his evolving needs such as hunger and sex, through the object-self which flows out of him in successively more solid forms. This project more or less succeeds, and Purusa (or his evolutes) pursues himself ("mixes") in manifold particular forms, each of which maintains its substantial and narcissistic relationship to the original Purusa. This stage as a whole may be called pravrtti ("evolution"), and corresponds to Marriott's "marking" and to part of Kohut's "idealizing" (i.e., the idealized selfobject's move of allowing part of his self to be transferred to his son's developing self). Insofar as Purusa's motive for the emanation was to satisfy a lack he felt in himself, the process is one of seeking "mirroring" in the object-self. As we discussed above, this means that Purusa in emanating creatures wanted them to "flow upscream," back towards himself. This, however, does not typically happem and instead life proceeds to go downhill for the god.

After a certain period of time Purusa (and his evolutes) become empty and fragmented because the object-self fails to be a satisfying selfobject. Instead, the object-self has caused Purusa to lose his self, and to "fall apart," become "impure," "deluded," etc. The cure is for the evolute-selves (at last) to turn back towards their origin self (the Purusa), or for the Purusa to "absorb" ("eat," etc.) his evolutes. This stage may be designated nivrtti, or involution. At this time, the evolutes again mirror the more original self (unmark it) and also idealize it (allow it to re-mark them).

On the cosmic plane, both pravrtti and nivrtti are self-limiting. As mentioned, pravrtti ends in disillusionment as the object-self proves unreliable as a selfobject. Nivrtti leads back to the original state where Purusa is filled with desire to actualize himself and so starts the process of pravrtti over again. Similarly, in the person, the original self is lost through seeking itself in objects, but can be regained in nivrtti-


like moves of turning back towards that self. Within the human life-

course, the stage of pravrtti corresponds roughly to the ~'householder"

stage (grhastha), and nivrtti to renunciation (sannydsa). Our Indian self psychology, then, will be a substantial version of

Kohut and a narcissistic rethinking of Marriott. Selfobject relationships are substantial transformations of the person, conceived as a form of Purusa who projects or emanates his self into object-selves in order to mark them and mirror himself, and to achieve an externalizing mixing of himself with like selves in whom he can recognize himself and fulfill his desires (these being the same thing). Following Marriott's ideas,

mixing/matching/marking relationships are intrinsically narcissistic, that is, they are "~motivated" by the self-enhancing needs of a Purusa- like person. At all levels of the cosmos ("from Brahma to a blade of grass" as the Sdtikhva Kdrika, verse 54, has it) the "'person" (~sentient being") doing the mixing/matching/marking aims at satisfying goals he identifies as essential to his nature, just as Purusa does in emanating creatures: also like Puru.sa, the ~'objects'" of the person's mixing/matching/marking share substance with him.

At all levels, the failure of object-selves (we may call jivdtman-s, or "particular selves") to fill the selfobject role for which they were designed is due to their seeking selfobject confirmation of their own selfhood. Selfobjects have begun to see themselves as the self: in Sdtikhya, for example, ~the manifest world appears immediately as if it were consciousness" (Larson, 1969, 181). As in Sunat.l~epa, ~hen Rohita refused to be sacrificed, the object-self "'runs away" from the emanating self and, forgetting its origin, seeks its own selfobjects. From the point of view of an "evolute'" self, the selfobject purposes of higher-level selves are frequently dystonic: thus Rohita does not want to be sacrificed, men often prefer eating to worshipping a god, etc. The evolute selves may resort to separating themselves from their emanators, as in Marriott 's "'minimal" (interaction) strategy, or when a lower caste tries to raise its status by refusing to take food from another (higher) one. In this way the evolute denies its evolved or emanated nature.

Each evolute self thus has a dual and conflicted nature, which can be diagrammed (the persons listed on the first line represent an arbitrary ~'lineage'" of selves):

172 ALFRED COLLINS

god.., father ....... son ........... son's wife

II II ] Self... Selfobject

[=Self] ....... Self object [=Self] ...... Self object

[=Self] . . .

Desai's "split level consciousness" describes moments of extreme division between the self and selfobject status of a given evolute self; diagrammatically:

Selfobject . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (the split)

l---Self l

The approved way of resolving the conflict between earlier selves and their evolutes is by worship or nivrtti whereby the evolute self turns back towards its origins, establishes itself in the viewpoint of the origin (a sattvic state of mind), and denies its "gross" selfobject desires. Through a vrdt, for instance, the person establishes himself in the buddhi , thus transforming his nature, but also fasts, thereby denying his lower forms of self-enhancement. In terms of our diagram (using S for self, SO for selfobject, and numbering the selves and selfobjects):

buddht ...... sensory desires ........ object of desire (e.g., hunger) (e.g., food)

11 (S# 1) ....... (SO# 1)

l=S # 21 ................. (so # 2)

Here a person identi f ied wi th hunger exists as an ~'eating self" when viewed in terms of the S ¢P 2---SO # 2 relat ionship (i.e., hunger--- food). 33 Realizing or accepting that hunger (and his "hungry self") is really an evolute or selfobject of the buddhi, the person now under- stands himself in terms of the earlier S-SO relationship, S # 1---SO # 1 (buddhi---hunger), which is more of a "'whole self" posit ion.

Dharma, or optimal matching, represents a compromise between the ways of pravr.tti and nivrtti. Enough scope is allowed for persons to differentiate themselves from their "'emanators" while not becoming so separate that the emanators lose their selfobjects entirely) ~


A major theme in classical Indian culture will help to image the dichotomy. From Vedic times on, deva-s ("gods") and asura-s

("demons") constantly compete on the cosmic level, but have natures that parallel the two sorts of response to the self-selfobject paradox. 35 The asura-s typically refuse to honor the creators/emanators of the cosmos (Vi.snu, etc.), and separate themselves from their origins, refusing to be selfobjects. As a result they become swollen with pride (aham. kdra), and also refuse to allow their own evolutes to separate from them. One class of demons (raksas-es) are typically man-eaters, and often try to devour the whole cosmos. In Marriott's terms, asura-s

deny their marked condition by unmatching from the world of the gods, and then presuming to the status of the emanator before creation. ~6 In a way, asura-s are negative "internalizers," who refuse to belong to (be "inside") anyone else, but want everything inside themselves. Deva-s, on the other hand, honor the higher gods and work to maintain the cosmos in a well-matched form.

We may call the grandiosity of persons who deny their emanated, selfobject status vis-~'l-vis the gods and higher persons "asuric;" these persons might paradoxically include some of the "'purest" (least mixed) in Hindu society such as Vaigyas and other "semi-renouncer" castes. (Apropos of this, asura-s themselves are some of the most potent ascetic renouncers in Indian literature.) The fact that "cool", "renouncer" castes are often called "left hand" 37 might point to their asuric nature. Even some of the '~gods'" at times manifest disconcert- ingly "asuric" tendencies; for instance, Indra in classical texts is often vain and puffed up with self importance, and the arch Emanator himself, Brahmfi, is often chided for his excessive pride in his creation? s In contrast to this asuric selfhood, persons who accept their selfobject role towards the gods (and gurus, their own higher levels, etc.) may be called '~daivic.'"

The "'moral" of many Indian stories and myths is the transformation of an asuric character into a daivic one; one of the best examples of this is the story of Bali, the asura king who conquered the three worlds only to end under the foot of Vis.nu's Dwarf avatar, rapt in adoration of the god. As "guna.h~epa'" shows, however, it is often appropriate to become somewhat asuric, to decline the role of being a god's (Brahman's, guru's, husband's, father's, etc.) selfobject for the

1 7 4 A L F R E D C O L L I N S

sake of being one's own self. This frequently adolescent quest (cf. Collins, 1989) brings its own dangers to the self (loss of paternal marking, etc.), but is often the only way to achieve the proper distance between self and selfobject to allow the world to go on turning and the jivdtman self to prosper or even exist. 3~

The asuric pride which forgets that the person is ultimately Purusa's selfobject (forgets that his nature is Purusa's mark) divides the cosmos into (relatively) separate beings, each of whom is a Purusa in miniature. 4° Thus while differentiation is understood as ultimately unreal or undesirable in much of the Indian tradition, it is also acknowledged to be absolutely necessary, which is why the asura-s, in spite of many defeats, will never be eliminated. 41

We can summarize the inner conflict of any given lower self (fivdt- man) in the following diagram: here "Devadatta" is the name we will give to our Everyman.

God Devadatta Devadatta's son

S q - - S O

seeks idealizing [=S] --) SO

selfobject seeks mirroring

selfobject

I.e., Devadatta can either focus on his "downstream" selfobject, seeking mirroring by his son (an "asuric" stance of marking one's offspring and asserting relative autonomy vis-d-vis one's divine and human progenitors), or he can go "upstream," in a daivic move of unmarking and idealizing the god, and so remarking himself. The former move involves pravrtti, the latter nivrtti. A dharmic life is likely to involve both, in varying proportions, at different times.

T H E S E L F AS BLISS

Following van Buitenen (1979) we may define the self (dtman), when united with an appropriate selfobject, as the "locus of bliss" (dnanda). We have discovered an Indian archetype of selfhood in Purusa's glorious moment of realizing his "I-ness" (so 'ham dsmiti: "Here am I!", Brhaddranyaka Upanisad, 1.4.1); it is clear that this moment is also


one of blissful joy. The identification of self and bliss is explicit (dnan- das ta dtrna, ~atapdt.ha Brdhrnap.za, 10.3.5.14), and raises the question: How is it that experience of the self "fulfills all desires" (van Buitenen, 1979)?

Our analysis to this point suggests that satisfaction results from the discovery and maintaining of selfobjects that mirror the self back to itself, either by extending its sphere of influence or by removing obstacles to its self-revelation. We have seen that there is no selfhood without selfobjects, even paradoxically when the self realizes its uniqueness and freedom from selfobjects: it is at such moments, typically, that (re-)emanation of the world occurs. 42 In human terms (the realm of the little Puru.sa), we might say that interest in the world arises at the moment of feeling one's I-hess, but also that I-ness is evoked by experiencing the world as selfobject. But what is it about experiencing the world as selfobject that is so exhilarating, so intoxicating, so pleasurable?

Van Buitenen (1979: 1957a) presents a few texts that suggest an answer. The Taittiri~'a Upatzisad (2.8) suggests that ~one human bliss" is constituted by the state of a ~'vigorous, studious, prompt, stable young man," who would be owner of the whole world filled with wealth. The "'blisses'" of higher beings are correspondingly grander, and the ultimate bliss, that of the brahman, is so high that "knowing it one has nothing to fear from anywhere." Ownership, vigor and fear- lessness, then, are essential aspects of having selfobjects. Another text (~tltapdtha BrMmmt.m, 10.3.5.13) employs the metaphor of the wind blowing ~'this way or that" (i.e., as it wishes), as an image for the blissfulness of the self, and adds that the self has all its wishes granted by the gods. Here we note freedom and the power of self-gratification. Many other times ~'knowledge" (~'ijl~tm) is identified with the self's bliss, as are such 'human" wishes as a wife and a son "~in [one's own] image" (Brhaddran)'aka Upanis.ad, 4.1.6). From the previous paragraph we can add a sense of self-efficacy (or generativity) and numinosity or sense of aliveness. ~~

It seems, then, that all human desires belong to the self, and their satisfaction is self-satisfaction. That is, the self-selfobject relationship is inherently a moti~'ational one, which encompasses and is expressed through all the natural desires of man. ~4 Purusa's need to find himself,

176 ALFRED COLLINS

or to be mirrored by his object-self, is expressed in his desires for food, sex, sons and all the other things men and gods seek. Seeing all desires as the essential property of the self, it is easier to see that their fulfillment implies a much more intense emotion than the quiet "glow of joy" which Kohut (1978, 757) finds appropriate to the realization of the purposes of the self; the sews bliss involves pleasure and drive-satisfaction as well as the achievement of one's ambitions and ideals. When desires become separated from the self they become asuric (cf. Brhaddranyaka Upanisad 1.5.21) or incomplete (akrtsna, Brhadaranyaka Upanisad 1.4.7) and bliss departs.

From the viewpoint of the "idealizing" self who is directed "upstream," the selfobject experience involves feeling oneself as the mirroring selfobject of a superior through whose greatness one is remade more or less like him. The self's bliss here is found in being held or "carried" safely (like a kitten by the mother cat, to use a frequent metaphor for the person's relation to god; Lipner, 1986) and also through serving, unmarking or enhancing the superior's selfhood (cf. guru-seva or "service to the teacher"). Idealizing selfhood, being the recipient of marks, is often identified as a particularly feminine way of selfhood, and male bhakta-s do in fact often view themselves as female. It is also appropriate to the second half of life (as it was in the first few years) when the urge to separate from one's emanators and mark others fades.

APPROPRIATENESS

In social life and the physical world, the self's happiness (bliss would be too strong) comes from being well-oriented, or from the sense of knowing one's proper position vis-d-vis others, the seasons and world- regions, etc. This is the realm of dharma. At moments of self-world "appropriateness" (sdtmya), or during the "golden age" (krtayuga) when dharma is perfectly manifest, the threatening or disease-inducing powers of the world are eliminated, and one feels some of the freedom, aliveness, etc. of the primordial dtman.

Probably the most common selfobject concerns in everyday life are such matters of the appropriateness and inappropriateness of his environment to the nature (self-sense) of the person. Such things as "place" (Daniel, 1984), astrological time and its planetary influences

F R O M B R A H M A TO A B L A D E O F G R A S S 177

(Pugh, 1983), season (Zimmermann, 1975), contacts with other persons, foods (Zimmermann, 1987) and other substances, etc., continually mark and affect the self-sense of persons. It would follow from the above analysis of the selfhood of an idealizing self that one's native soil, the planets at the moment of birth, the current season, etc. mark a person in the same way as Purusa marks his "creation", that is, they act as marking persons who find in the person marked a mirroring selfobject. Such extreme and literal personalizing of "nature" seems distinctly odd to a Western sensibility used to a rigid category boundary between the human and non-human; in the context of India's "great chain of selfhood" it is merely logical.

We saw in the analysis of ~unak~epa and in the discussion of daivic and asuric selfhood that it is sometimes appropriate for the object-self of a higher self to reject the selfobject role. Proper "~matching" of the person in his environment is then (from his point of view) a matter of rejecting certain parts of it (certain "markings"), seeking out others, etc. The "person" doing (or attempting) the marking is sometimes obvious (as in food transfers), sometimes only indirectly or distantly related (as in astrological and "place" effects), and sometimes obscure (in the seasons). But if our analysis is approximately correct, all marking and mixing has a selfobject or narcissistic character, and cannot be understood in a quasi-mechanical or hydraulic way. In the hot season, for instance, Prajfipati might be thought to be "cooling his thirst" in sucking away the rasa-s and creating phlegm (kapha) disorders among men (cf. Zimmerman, 1975). While certain men might need to dissociate themselves from this process, decline the honor of being Prajfipati's drink (via ayurvedic remedies, etc.), Prajf~pati's "bliss" in having drunk his fill will benefit these same men a few months later in the rainy season? ~

C O N C L U S I O N S

Indian self theory as sketched in this essay is actually a "self cosmogony" writ small. All inter- and intra-personal relations are reflections and replications of the creative self-recognition of Purusa and the partial refusal of his object-selves to remain only his selfobjects, Beings at all levels, from the Emanator himself to the lowest blade of


grass or rock, are seeking to find themselves mirrored (which is identical to finding their desires fulfilled) in "downstream" selfobjects. Like Purusa, they are frequently disappointed by the disinclination of selfobjects to the mirroring role. Although moments of partial self- satisfaction occur when "willing" and appropriate selfobjects are found, the greatest happiness comes from inversion (nivrtti) towards the emanating self. Paradoxically, through this "upstream" move persons recreate (remark) themselves and their world, making it (once more, and momentarily) an apt selfobject. When one knows oneself as god's selfobject, everything becomes one's own selfobject.

The "trajectory" of the (adult, male) Indian self, then, is somewhat similar to Kohut's "tension arc" from ambitions to ideals. In India the journey is from pravrtti and asuric 46 selfhood, when one marks others and rejects (to some degree) the role of selfobject to another, towards nivrtti and a renewed and daivic acceptance of selfobjecthood and of being marked by the gods (and fathers, etc.)A relatively common phenomenon in contemporary India may illustrate the process; I refer to the mid-life "discovery of India" in Westernized professional Indians who up to this point have rejected their Indianness (at least in certain aspects of the i r lives). 47 Such men (Nehru being of course the epitome of the type) are ironically repeating a pattern that is as old, and as Indian, as Rohita's rejection of his father and later reconcilia- tion with him? 8

A primary difference between Indian selfhood and Kohut's is of course the substantial nature of the Indian self and its world, and the degree to which they interpenetrate. Since every person's self is a part or evolute of the divine self which emanated the world via substantial self-recognition, the personal self is narcissistically involved in the entire cosmos. This may not be recognized in early adult (and adolescent) life when one is full of one's self, and seeks the mirroring fulfillment of one's desires. Failure of this project leads to a kind of internalization, i.e., the reintegration of one's asuric drives, faculties, body parts, etc. which have declared independence from the higher (sattvic) parts of the "dividual" self, just as that self declared its independence from gods and fathers.

In internalizing one's drives, therefore, one is partially merging oneself into (idealizing) the earlier self (~tman, buddhi, gakti, etc.)


from which one came. The second half of life thus tends to be much more "cosmic" than the first, and the person's view of his life is similar

to Kohut's "cosmic narcissism," although the latter is metaphoric whereas the Indian view is quite literal. It is significant that, in a personal or asuric sense, the Indian self becomes less internalized with age, as it allows itself to be internal to the greater (dtman or Puru.sa) self. This would seem also to be the case in Kohut, where the nuclear self receeds in importance before "'cosmic" purposes about which, however, Kohut says little. There is in Kohut nothing like the lineage of selfhood which we find in India, and no claim that to have selfobjects one must first be one.

An apparent difference between our Indian theory and Kohut's involves the relative status of the parties to mirroring. For Kohut,

mirroring seems typically to proceed from parent to child (or analyst to patient, etc.), while in India we have seen that mirroring goes in the opposite direction, from lower person to higher (for instance from worshipper to god). That this difference is only apparent is suggested by the fact that for both Kohut and the Indian psychology mirroring tends to stimulate the self to a certain amount of pride or grandiosity. One of the primary recipients of mirroring in both theories is the human infant, and it is not clear even in Kohut (or the Western experiences he bases himself on) that the baby is simply inferior to the parent. We have noted that the male child, at least, in India is treated almost as a god, and in the West too we may recall Freud's remarks about "his majesty the baby." We may conclude that mirroring always

involves a "looking up to" the mirrored person, even (as in psychoan- laysis) when the mirrorer seems clearly to be in a "one up" position.

Perhaps the most important clarification of Kohut's theories suggested by the Indian cosmogonic model sketched in this essay is that the self is intrinsically motivated to seek its actualization through selfobjects, and that it does this via every modality of desire, and not only through the achievement of the nuclear self's ambitions and ideals. As the epithet from Kohut at the beginning of this essay shoa s, this idea is present (and developed over time) in his work. Neverthe- less Kohut's emphasis on the nuclear self and its few overriding goals prevented him from emphasizing his theory's logical implication that all desires which are realized as "my own" fall within the self-selfobject

180 ALFRED COLLINS

nexus. Thus at times he separated the aims of the whole self from those of particular drives, body parts, etc. On the other hand, Kohut equally often emphasized that split off drives (like hunger dissociated from the buddhi) result from the fragmentation of the self.

The Indian theory suggests a different way of viewing the Kohutian internal self structures (ambition, etc.) which replace (outward) selfobjects that prove frustrating. As Marriott and others have very clearly shown, "psychological" structures are viewed in India as part of the substantial, material world, and are not segregated into a separate "mental" realm. 49 There is no difference in principle between a delimited ("matched") segment of the "outer" world (such as a father) and an "inner image" (such as the ~tdealized parental imago", Kohut, 1971). Our analysis establishes that the dividing line in the person (on whatever level) is between the self and selfobject aspects or parts, not between "inner" and "'outer." Thus there is no essential difference between seeking the mirroring of one's grandiosity via sons (or other "external" selfobjects) and striving for the fulfillment of one's ambitions via the self-affirming approval of the ego-ideal or other internal '~structure." In both cases the self's "environment" is structured so as to ensure an adequate level of mirroring (or its "'internal" equivalent). In India this would be called following one's dharma within a dharmic social order; in Kohutian psychoanalysis it would be termed actualizing one's "nuclear blueprint." In the end, dharma and the nuclear self are homologous concepts.

Our reinterpretation of Marriott's ideas is similar to Kohut's of classical psychoanalysis; beyond the "hydraulic model" of the drives Kohut posited an encompassing motivational dimension in the self. Drives do not exist as wholly independent forces unless the encompassing self structure has broken down. In the normal personality, desires are part of the self, and their satisfaction is fundamentally self satisfaction. Likewise in viewing Marriott's transactional constructs as inherently narcissistic we are locating them within an encompassing dimension of selfhood. Because selfhood in India is understood in substantial terms, Marriott's categories work well as descriptions of it, or of the actions which make selfhood up. But marking, mixing and matching (or the gut.la-s: sattva, rajas and tamas) cannot be understood simply in their own terms: they contain no ("final cause")


motivational principle to explain why they occur or to judge when they occur appropriately. 5° Cosmogonic selfhood, and its reflex in "persons" from the highest to the most lowly, can explain why ('ffor the sake of whom") Marriott's transactions occur. To paraphrase the Upani.sads: it is not for the sake of the son that the father marks the son, but for the sake of the self that he marks him. 5~

N O T E S

"Self'" clearly is a multwalent and highly "loaded" term. While we will not attempt an mmal definition, the phenomenology of self experience has been well laid out by Erik Erikson (1981), following William James (1890). The basic problematic of the 'T' and the "'me" which they discuss will be at the center of our concerns. Our hesitation to define the self is related to the nature of the beast, and was shared by Heinz Kohut: the author of %elf psychology" never at tempted to define "self," and explicitly stated that it cannot be defined (Kohut, 1977, 311). In the end, the British psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott put the matter best: "We can use words as we like, especially artificial words like "counter-transference. ' A word like 'self ' naturally knows more than we do, it uses us, and can command us" (Winnicott, 1965, 158). 2 For a scathing but tendentious analysis of Indian "'narcisstsm," and Kohut's, see Hanly and Masson (1976); the theme is elaborated in Masson (1980). Although the self is ultimately not a "thing,'" the processes in which selfhood mamfests are entirely substantial, and there is no concept of a "category difference" between the mental and physical realms. Rather than a mind-body conflict, we will fred an opposit ion -- which coexists with the mutual dependence just described - - between the needs of the Emanator and those of his creatures.

The opposition is also imaged and conceived in many other ways, for example in the myth of the yuga-s (cosmic ages), where "'selfishness" is more or less confined to the later stages of the cosmic developmental process, and in philosophical "two truth" theories where ahamkdra is limited to the lower level of reality. 4 Obviously we are excluding C. G. Jung from this discussion, although his ideas regarding the self (Self), especially as reinterpreted by Michael Fordham (1985), deserve careful consideration.

Winnicott makes the same point, echoing the Bhagavad G[td: "Instinctual gratifica- tions . . become seducnon~ unless based on a well-established capacity in the individ- ual person for total experience. . . It ~s the self that must precede the sews use of instinct; the rider must ride the horse, not be run away with." (1971, 116).

"Good" vs "bad" self and object tmages are fundamental in object relations theories such as Melanie Klein's (Segal, 1964). Among more recent theonsts cf O. Kernberg (1976). The "bad" selfobject concept, while not stated in Kohut 's writings, is lmphcit m places, especially in his discussion of aggression (Kohut, 1978, 615--658). For example, a non-mirroring other ma~ be experienced as an all-powerful, sadistic attacker, thus being experienced with a sort of negative idealization (Kohut, 1978, 643n).

Kohut's thought developed steadily towards the posmon stated m this paragraph, but even at the end of his life he diwded the psychological domain into two aspects or


levels: that of "Guilty Man," where the drive conflict of the oedipus complex takes place without explicit consideration of the self, and that of "Tragic Man," where oedipal objects are felt as aspects of the self (Kohut, 1977). The relationship between the two is one of encompassment, and is analogous to that of Newtonian and Relativistic mechanics: the drives can be considered without the self which has them, but only within a restricted realm of experience, namely when there is a secure and undisturbed sense of self (nuclear self structures are intact). It is clearly implied, however, that drive conflict in a person with a healthy self is mild and transient, and Kohut even suggests (1977, 246--248) that oedipal neurosis is itself the result of self pathology. More recently, authors within self psychology have attempted to understand the oedipal issues simply as an aspect of the development of the nuclear self (Terman, 1985). 8 Kohut's last theoretical reformulation might seem to change the s~tuation somewhat. The addiUon of the "twinship" or "alter ego" aspect of the selfobject relationship makes similarity or kinship with selfobjects a central concern of the nuclear self. However, even here no special role is given to the selfobjects of childhood, which must fade into a nuclear self that henceforth will seek its alter egos in contemporary persons who need not evoke the images of childhood.

Dharma as the nature or "'duty" of a dividual and dharma as the order of society are thus distinguishable but closely related: one refers to "internal" matching, the other to "external." lc) For the prehistory of the cosmogonic developmental model which has become substantialized in the guna theory, cf van Buitenen, 1956, 1957a, 1957b. 11 The term "we-self" was suggested by Collins and Desai, 1986, as a substitute for Roland's concept previously called "'self-we regard:" Roland, 1981. 12 Cf. Inden and Nicholas, 1977 for perhaps the best account of this famihal self, discussed in terms of a body shared between the family and its "creator" (Kartd). 13 The "'Thousand Names of Vl.snu" (Vis.n.u Sahasrandma), for example, is a popular devotional chant which praises the god Vi.s.nu by addressing him with hterally one thousand "'names," most of which celebrate one or another of his great deeds. 14 In object relations terms, the question would be whether the idealizer is "pro- jectively identifying" his defective self into the idealized person. The concept of projective identification is central in the Kleinian branch of psychoanalysis (cf. Segal, 1964), and often involves the attempt to master a "bad" piece of the self (dissatisfac- tion or hostility, etc.) by putting it into another person, who is then used or controlled by the projector. As Langs and others have shown, there ~s an ambivalence in a patient using projective identification m the psychoanalyuc relationship. On the one hand, he is trying to make the analyst "bad" in order to relieve his sense of being "bad" himself: i.e., he is trying to get rid of his "badness '" On the other hand, he seeks the "metabolizing" of his "badness" by an analyst who can contain it, work it over, and return ~t to him transformed; in this way the patient is trying to regain or reintegrate the "'bad" parts of himself after they have been made no longer "'bad." It is plausible that a "good enough" parent (Winnicott, 1971) would do something like the latter for a child who idealized him, and a "good enough god" for his worshippers. The dangers to the idealized person and to the god of taking m the child's/worshippers' "'unmetabohzed badness" are made more clear by the Klelnian comparison. 15 Enkson (1981, 330) makes the point in everyday language: "'The beginnings of the sense of I . . . can olaly emerge m a newborn out of the counterplay w~th a sensed You in the maternal caretaker -- whom we shall call the Primal Other: and it seems


of vital impor tance that this O t h e r . . . m turn experience[s] the new being as a presence that heightens [her] sense of I.'" x" For the guru 's hesi tancy to accept disciples' offerings see Babb, 1986, 66. *" The god's creation of his world is essential to his selfhood. Compare this with Winnicott ' s description of the infant 's experience of the mother ' s breast: "The breast is created by the infant over and over agam out of the infant 's capacity' to love or (one can say) out of need." (1971, 13). That is, the baby experiences the mother ' s breast as if it were part of himself which he "externalizes" or "projects" to satlsfy his hunger. > For examples of Vedic emanat ional cosmogomes see Varenne (1982), Edger ton ( 1965 ), Kuiper ( 1975), Brown (1942), Collins and Desal (1986) and Smith (1989). A m o n g many other places one may cite ~atapatha Brdhnlana 6.1.3.1--6, "Prajfipati alone was all this (the proto-cosmos); he desired 'May' 1 give b m h to myself. ' He labored and heated himself (practiced tapas); from him ~ere emitted [root W-] the Water``, from that heated Purusa the Waters were born." There follov, s a sequence of "'heatlngs'" and emissions whereby the Waters evolve Into foam, ~,hlch emits clay, and `ò on to sand, pebbles, stones, ore and gold (each precedmg substance emitting the following one, m a sequence ol increasmg s o l i d w and heawness). For cla%mal cosmogonies see Dlmmet t and van Bmtenen (1978) and O'Flaherty (1975). As noted above, one of the most famous emanat ion s tones begins Manu ' s Dharma~dstra, there the Emana tor again emits the Waters first, and then places himself in the Waters. in the form of a golden egg. The egg divides, forming heaven, earth and the mxd-space, and into this t n p a m t e cosmos the Emana to r releases mind, the senses, egolt~, the material consu tuents of the world, etc. It is clear that even after the e m a n a u o n , cm~ssum the Emana to r maintains an intimate relauonsh~p with his x~orld. For instance, "'when [the Emanator] ,aakes, this world snrs: when he sleeps peacefully the umvcrse too fall,, asleep" (Manu 1.52). A m o n g the most elaborate and mterestang emananona l cosmogonie~ are those of "Ka{miri galxlsm'" (e.g., Muller-Ortega, 1989), x~here the world emission (vl.surga) Is treated as a phase m an mde``cribably rapid,

ibrator,, movement of externalizing ,' lnternahzing by gl~ a and his femlmne half, gaklk In the Sfiflkhva phllo~oph,v (Lar`òn, 1969) emanat ion is treated as a more "personal" or mmrocosmic event, al though early Sfifikhya speculation (xan Bmtenen, 1957a. lt)57b} also has a "cosmic" aspect. v, Moreno and Marriott (1999) dl``CU``,, the exils into v, hxch two south lndmn deities tall a`` the result ol the inappropr ia teness ("unmatchlng") of their environment`` That humans are part of these e m l r o n m e n t s is clear. Thus "'too man~ worshippers can overheat a dmty by an excess of lo'~e, too few by exciting the dmty's lonely' anger." One mm of the ritual acm'me`` the} discus`` p, to rehabilitate the god', by' modifying thmr environments , and thereby to improve the condition ot the human world. S~gmhcantly, the quahtles reqmred bv the gods" envi ronments may' be lUSt those which are m m e r s u p p l y among men. thu`` by gi~mg "'heat" to Murugan during a cold rime of the year the Traders get rid of their oxen heat, a quality' contrary to their nature. By mdmg Murugan ' s (self) matching, and increasing his coherence, the Trader`` also improve their own tuner coherence. "" "The &sarray and disconnect ion of Prajfipati's creatures and the dissolution of the Progemtor 's body' are two s~des ol the same metaphysical corn "" (Smith, 1989, 61) e~ Moreno and Marriott identify Brahmins" fired offerings to Murugan as unmarkmg the god. We v, lll see that the "upstream" flox~ of ,aorshlp and medi ta tum (darian and dtlvan (Rahe)a. 1976) ~s a s~mflarly hqmd process whereby the emanated creature flox~,, back into h~ `òurce. M~rr(mng the god thu~ both unmark`` him and rinses hp,


"self esteem" and improves the condition of the " 'downstream" side of the ordinary flow of existence (samsdra), 1.e., the worshipper. 22 The atisr.st.i or "secondary creation" discussed by Mus (1962) and Smith (1989, 64) can be unders tood in terms of this flowing ups t ream and re-emission of the cosmos; likewise the boy's "second birth" at the upanayana. 2~ The Brahman-Sweeper sort of commonah ty would obtain between any "master" and "servant," and even withm famlhes where the subordinates "'glorify" the master, and reciprocally gain thmr own status from him. The Vedant in phi losopher Rfimfinula discussed the dependence of the body on the soul (dtman), and of the world on Brahman, m similar terms. "'The body . . . glorifies the self. [Similarly] the born servant, by compliantly accepting his natural servmg-function, and by acting accordmgly, exalts hts master for who he is - - the master - - by funct tonmg as what he is, the s e r v a n t . . , we est imate the worth, i.e., the dignity and status of the servant in accordance with the master's '" (Lipner, 1986, 133). _~4 For the king as the ordering prinmple in society see Gonda (1966). 2~ Split-level consciousness might be thought to contradict Marriott 's model. If mix ing /match ing /mark ing constitute the nature of a person, how can one participate in these things while remaining inwardly unchanged.'? The answer is that doing them outwardly may not be enough; mternal processes are also relevant to marking, etc., and may in fact be even more potent (cf. Raheja, 1976). > Roland 's concept of a "spiritual self" differentiated from his "familial self" would fall within this process of "unmatching.'" -'~ Smtth (1989) discusses Verpoor ten ' s (1977) observauon that the Vedic texts locate all "properly s tructured beings" " b e t w e e n . . . ' two symetrical excesses' ," those of excessive stmilanty or homogenei ty (]ami) and an "excess of differentiation" (prthak). Jamz includes such things as incest and homosexuahty , where there is excessive similarity between the partners in a relauonshlp. It is a state of unproduct ive umon resulting from too little separateness. Prthak connotes excessive ind~vtduahzation, and ts an equally unproduct ive state since there can be no union of things without some stmtlarity. The gunahgepa story begms on the horns of the ]ami-prthak dilemma: the father-son bond Is too close if the father eats the son, too &stant if the son wanders mto the forest never to return. The action of the story tries to mediate these opposttes, and to unders tand the the father-son relationship as involving some subordinat ion of the selfoblect by the self, but also some autonomy. In Louts Dumont ' s (1970) terms, the o p p o s m o n to be mediated ~s that of the "man m the world," whose self is wholly subsumed m his faintly and caste, and the in&vldual= renouncer (gunahgepa wandering in the farest!). > A compar i son can be drawn between Varuna 's des t rucuveness m demanding the sacrifice and Ajigarta 's wtllingness to kill ("eat") his son. When Afigarta's behawor is satd by gunahgepa to be worse than a gudra's , one Is reminded of Marnot t ' s (1976, p. 128) characterization of the castes below gudras as "'masters o f . . . destruct ton by contrast to the Brahman ' s creanon "" Varuna, like the Goddess m later H m d m s m , ~s master of both (see Kutper, 1975). -~ A similar unmatching occurs for the older sons of Vi~vamttra, who are dtsmheri ted by the sage: see Collins. 1989. ~" Ambivalence towards man 's selfobject status vts-fi-v~s the gods is widespread: thus man ts compared to the gods" ' a m m a l "" (Brhad~ran.3aka Upam~ad 1.4.10). O'Flaherty {1976) provtdes an extensive d iscussmn of v, hat she calls "the paradox of the evtl god."


.~l Ironically, Manu argues that Ajigarta was not violating dharma in selling his son for food, since he was starving! (Manu, X.105) 32 Thus a sage realizes "I was Manu and the sun." 3~ Note that on a s t rong reading of Kohut ' s views the "'eating self" would be a self- fragment, or a split-off drive, to the extent that it is not exper ienced as belonging to the whole self. Applying his ideas globally we could say that in India all beings except God are only fragmentary selves, or are split-off parts of a whole self. This is in fact true in the Prajfipati myths, and in many other Indian traditions. ~ In terms of the ]amt-prthak opposi t ion (Smith, 1989), dharma IS a happy medium between one-sided extremes. ¢~ It is interesting to observe that the asuras are close in nature to what Roland (1989) calls the "Individualized self", their "qocus of control" is within themselves, and so they reject the obligations of the Vedic sacrifice, etc. The comctously negative valence of individualization (excluding the "spiritual" sort) in India is very clear here. The gods, on the contrary, are close to Roland 's "familial self"; the)' sacrifice, which is to accept a junior status Vl3-t'l-Vl3 the recipient of the sacrifice. ~" In the .Rgveda the creator god Varuna is called a3ura, and as Kulper (1975) shows, the asura3 are closer to the source of creation than the gods. '~ See Moreno and Marriott (1989). ~ This is of course in the later tradition, when Brahma ' s procreativit) has become merely the "organ" of a yet higher Emana to r god, typically Visnu. Thus the image of Brahma seated on a lotus growing from Visnu 's navel. ~" The individualized, asurtc person is unconsc ious of his deeper layers (earlier, emana to r selves), and so his " 'downstream" selfobject world appears to him as the whole of reality Many Puranic and epic s tones are " 'embedded" in more comprehen- sive (earlier) "frame" stories, and their heroes often realize in the course of the story their "'prehlstory" (often past lives) in the frame story. A number of these are retold by Z l m m e r (1946) and O'Flaherty (1984). One of the most famous is the story of the sage Narada and Vl.s.nu's rndyd (Zimmer, p. 32). In brief, the sage (and the reader) are taught the nature of the god 's rnhy(t (mysterious wor ld-emanat ing and maintaining power) when Vlsnu sends Narada into another life in which he forgets completely who he IS (was). Vl.snu asks Narada to fetch him some water. On the way, the sage forgets his intention and meets a beautiful girl whom he eventually marries. With her Narada has three chldlren, but then after twelve years all are swept away in a flood; his wife and children are drowned, and Narada loses consciousness . As he wakens on a mud bank he hears the god's voice sweetly asking "Where is the water you went to fetch for me'? I have already been waiting more than half an hour." The embedded- hess of selves in previous selves (of which we are unconscious) seems the essence of the idea of karma, as well as mdvd. To be aware of past lives makes it impossible to believe In the ultimate reality of this one; hence those who are priviledged to see visions of their own origin often have the memory erased, otherwise they could not hve their present lives wholeheartedly. An example would be Krs.na's foster mother Ya,;oda after viewing the whole world - - including her own life - - in the baby's mou th (cf O'Flaherty, 1980).

The "individualized," context-forgetful nature of asuric consciousness is exception- all)' clear in Rfimfinuja's Gftdbhdsyd. In van Buitenen 's (1953) translation: [Asuric persons] "den)' that the world is ensouled by Brahman and that it is ruled by God. They deny that the entire creation can be unders tood to originate f rom the association of puru)a and prakrtt, and contend that the world is caused by desire." They are filled


with ~'arrogance, pride, and presumption." They do not sacrifice to the gods, and are "ignorant enough to think that they have obtained all that they possess by their own efforts and not by virtue of an unseen cause ]i.e., the adrsta, or invisible influence of past-life karma]." They believe that "by themselves they are independent and lords over others . . . . Their success is due to themselves, and so are their power, their happiness, their riches, their pedigree. Who in the world, they ask, is my equal . . . . They support themselves by their egoism, power, pride, desire and anger, and therefore they hate God within their own and others" bodies" (van Bultenen, 1953, 156-- 158). Referring to the famous Upani.sadic image of the inverted tree as representing the cosmos (katha upanisad 2.3.1), Rfimfinuja notes that deluded men (i.e., maximally asuric ones) are unable to see beyond the twig upon which they are resting; the tree as a whole is invisible to them. A man of this sort "can only perceive that he is a man, son of so and so, father of so and so, and living in circumstances corresponding to his condition" (van Buitenten, 1953, 151). He is ignorant of his broader cosmic-developmental origins and context. In terms of A. K. Ramanujan's (1989) hngulstic analogy, asura-s and asuric men are "context-free,'" while gods and godly men are "context- sensitive." 4c~ From the viewpoint of any "'little Purusa" wrapped in his own selfhood there is only one "me" (or one "'we" from the mixed, familial perspective), although from an earlier vantage (looking downstream) there is a multiplicity of purusa-s, as in Sfifikhya. The fact of "one self at a time" may be at the origin of India's so-called "henotheism,'" whereby every god when the focus of worship is exalted as the highest and central deity. 41 Following Roland's scheme, we see that the "individuahzed self'" is quite present in India, albeit in an unconscious, tacit or disavowed mode. The phenomenon of the "'ascetic demon" suggests that individuality is most acceptable when sought via the "'spiritual self." 42 This is probably why ascetics, lost in the rapture of objectless selfhood, are notoriously so erotic, their semen so ready to flow at the sight of a yogtni (cf. O'Flaherty, 1973). 43 See Erikson (1981) for a listing of various aspects of I-ness in the context of Jesus' early teachings. 44 Larson's (1969, 183) discussion of buddht comes to a similar conclusion. In translating buddhi as "will" he treats it as the basic motivational principle, or "the source of [man's] fundamental strivings or urges." Note that buddhi, while not the self is the reflection of the self (purusa) in the material world. 45 Rejecting the selfobject role vis-a-vis the gods is frequently a matter of self- preservation; the direct gaze of Siva or the Goddess will burn up or dissolve the dividual blessed by it. Note for instance Daniel's observation (1984, 137) that houses located in the direct "'gaze" of the village goddess are overloaded by her (aktt, and as a result have more widows and strife than other houses. 46 It is significant that the asuras are older than the gods (Kulper, 1975). 47 Roland (1989) presents several case studies of such men. 48 Accepting the role of God's selfobject may be an example of Pierce's "~secondness" as interpreted by Daniel (1984, 269). He gives the example of a pilgrimage where one's pain makes oneself seem the victim of an evil outside agent, it is only a short step to seeing the malevolent agent as the god himself, something that in fact seems to occur at the end of ,the pilgrimage, where the pain is transformed into love (p. 269).


4,, For Sfiflkhya, see Larson 's discussion m Larson and Bhattacarya (1987), 71, 76. s~' Contras t the Sdpikhya, where the three gut.~as (together consti tuting prakrn) are held to act only puru~.drtha, "'for the sake of the self'" (at Sdtikhya Kdrikd 69, for instance, the "arising, existing, and t e r m m a n o n of all beings" are unders tood as purus.drtha). See Larson (1969, 1 8 0 - - t 9 1 ) for a full discussion of the mat ter '~ Rftm~_nuja makes a similar point: "What ~s rejected in the Brahma M-ttras m respect of the principles of being taught by Sfifikhya is only that these p r m o p l e s do not have Brahman for their self (or inner prmople) , not the essence of the system." (,¢r/- Bhdwd~ on II 2 43, translated by J. Lrpner. 19~6, 23).

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