1 00:00:00,792 --> 00:00:03,628 Welcome to the On Paradise podcast series. 2 00:00:03,628 --> 00:00:08,008 I'm Paul Basu, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oxford 3 00:00:08,133 --> 00:00:12,095 and curator of ‘On Paradise: Between Hope and Memory’, 4 00:00:12,095 --> 00:00:16,057 an exhibition featuring the work of the artist Saad Qureshi 5 00:00:16,224 --> 00:00:19,310 at the Schwarzman Center for the Humanities in Oxford. 6 00:00:20,020 --> 00:00:22,731 ‘On Paradise’ is part of ‘Utopia Now!’, 7 00:00:22,731 --> 00:00:25,567 a season of events that asks how we might live, 8 00:00:25,567 --> 00:00:28,862 imagine and create differently, and why 9 00:00:28,903 --> 00:00:32,490 imagining new futures matters now more than ever. 10 00:00:33,450 --> 00:00:36,494 As part of the exhibition, I spoke with Humanities 11 00:00:36,494 --> 00:00:39,831 scholars across the university who in different ways 12 00:00:39,831 --> 00:00:42,917 work on themes relating to Paradise and Utopia 13 00:00:42,959 --> 00:00:45,962 in different cultural and historical contexts. 14 00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:50,592 In this episode, we hear the reflections of Sondra Hausner, 15 00:00:50,633 --> 00:00:54,054 Professor of Anthropology of Religion... On Paradise. 16 00:01:09,027 --> 00:01:10,487 I'm Sondra Hausner, 17 00:01:10,487 --> 00:01:14,115 I'm Professor of Anthropology of Religion in the Faculty 18 00:01:14,115 --> 00:01:17,660 of Theology and Religion in the Humanities Division. 19 00:01:20,914 --> 00:01:22,457 I became interested in 20 00:01:22,457 --> 00:01:26,252 anthropology and religion because I grew up in many places 21 00:01:26,252 --> 00:01:30,006 around the world, most specifically, for much of my childhood, 22 00:01:30,006 --> 00:01:34,886 in Nepal, in the Kathmandu Valley, which is a place 23 00:01:34,886 --> 00:01:39,682 where people are very obviously religious in many different frames. 24 00:01:39,724 --> 00:01:40,892 Certainly when I was growing up 25 00:01:40,892 --> 00:01:45,605 and I think still religion, Hinduism, Buddhism was everywhere 26 00:01:45,814 --> 00:01:49,442 on the streets, in the mornings, in the evenings, all day long, 27 00:01:50,276 --> 00:01:54,072 by the sides of rivers, in temples and landscapes. 28 00:01:54,072 --> 00:01:57,325 So the relationship of landscape to 29 00:01:57,367 --> 00:01:59,160 the practice of religion has always 30 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:01,329 been something that I've researched. 31 00:02:01,329 --> 00:02:05,291 And as a result, the concept of Paradise is very interesting. 32 00:02:05,834 --> 00:02:08,837 The idea of a landscape associated 33 00:02:08,837 --> 00:02:13,049 with morality and possibility. 34 00:02:13,424 --> 00:02:16,010 But at the same time, I'm 35 00:02:16,010 --> 00:02:19,681 very mindful of the dangers of universalizing concepts. 36 00:02:19,722 --> 00:02:22,767 And I'm not sure that the concept of Paradise 37 00:02:22,809 --> 00:02:27,397 actually works in the Himalayan or Indic context. 38 00:02:31,568 --> 00:02:33,945 As an anthropologist, 39 00:02:33,945 --> 00:02:37,866 my overriding concern, my overriding preoccupation, 40 00:02:37,866 --> 00:02:42,036 is to try and figure out where the cultural specificities are 41 00:02:42,287 --> 00:02:47,167 while still allowing - insisting on - the shared humanity. 42 00:02:47,167 --> 00:02:52,797 And figuring out where there's cultural translatability, 43 00:02:52,839 --> 00:02:56,426 and where there isn't, is what I care about more than anything. 44 00:02:59,637 --> 00:03:01,139 I have a sense 45 00:03:01,139 --> 00:03:05,685 that, for many, Paradise has a religious connotation. 46 00:03:05,977 --> 00:03:06,895 For the religions 47 00:03:06,895 --> 00:03:10,273 I work on - Hinduism, and to a lesser degree, Buddhism - 48 00:03:10,940 --> 00:03:15,945 Paradise doesn't really compute as a religious concept. 49 00:03:15,945 --> 00:03:16,821 So I think about it 50 00:03:16,821 --> 00:03:20,950 in literary terms, or I think about it in social theoretical terms, 51 00:03:20,950 --> 00:03:24,996 where I might consider transcendence 52 00:03:25,246 --> 00:03:29,584 a more cross-cultural application of what, 53 00:03:29,626 --> 00:03:34,005 for some, Paradise might be translated as. 54 00:03:37,884 --> 00:03:39,677 When I mention transcendence, 55 00:03:39,677 --> 00:03:44,849 the reason that I do so in the context of Paradise is because I imagine 56 00:03:44,849 --> 00:03:46,976 just from the English usage of Paradise, 57 00:03:46,976 --> 00:03:50,355 and from the way it's understood in various religions 58 00:03:50,521 --> 00:03:53,816 that it's something greater than this world, 59 00:03:53,816 --> 00:03:57,695 something larger than everyday life. 60 00:03:57,904 --> 00:04:01,866 So if I'm thinking about how we could translate that 61 00:04:02,825 --> 00:04:06,955 into a religious frame that doesn't hold up Paradise 62 00:04:06,955 --> 00:04:11,167 specifically as a concept to aspire to, 63 00:04:12,168 --> 00:04:14,170 I come up with 64 00:04:14,170 --> 00:04:18,007 the idea of transcendence, and I'm not coming up with it alone. 65 00:04:18,466 --> 00:04:22,136 Great social theorists have used the concept 66 00:04:22,136 --> 00:04:26,349 of transcendence, or ideology: that which is beyond 67 00:04:27,767 --> 00:04:30,853 the everyday, that which we know, that which we're living, 68 00:04:30,853 --> 00:04:36,693 that which we're doing in a daily, quotidian fashion. 69 00:04:36,734 --> 00:04:40,363 What is it that we collectively or individually or both 70 00:04:40,405 --> 00:04:43,741 aspire to that motivates us? 71 00:04:44,033 --> 00:04:47,662 So Paradise, I think, does have a religious connotation, 72 00:04:47,662 --> 00:04:51,040 as I say, but not for all religions. 73 00:04:51,082 --> 00:04:55,128 If we're then trying to find a way to think about 74 00:04:55,169 --> 00:04:58,381 what Paradise is doing in some religious contexts, 75 00:04:58,881 --> 00:05:02,802 in language that could apply universally 76 00:05:02,802 --> 00:05:06,597 or cross-culturally, transcendence or that which is beyond 77 00:05:06,848 --> 00:05:09,726 seems to me possibly a way 78 00:05:09,726 --> 00:05:12,228 that we can universalize the concept 79 00:05:12,228 --> 00:05:17,525 without losing its ... the valence or the value of Paradise in literary forms, 80 00:05:17,525 --> 00:05:20,903 or in the religions for which it has specific meaning. 81 00:05:24,657 --> 00:05:27,035 When I'm thinking of transcendence, I'm thinking of that 82 00:05:27,035 --> 00:05:30,830 which might be beyond speech, or beyond language, or beyond thought 83 00:05:30,872 --> 00:05:35,001 in an earthly frame, because Paradise 84 00:05:35,209 --> 00:05:38,588 seems to evoke or invoke 85 00:05:39,005 --> 00:05:42,550 some heavenly realm, some place 86 00:05:42,717 --> 00:05:47,347 or landscape or location or sphere 87 00:05:47,805 --> 00:05:50,016 where we are not constrained 88 00:05:50,016 --> 00:05:53,770 by the social relations or the verbal relations, 89 00:05:53,770 --> 00:05:58,775 or the verbal communications, or the conceptual constraints 90 00:05:58,941 --> 00:06:01,944 that operate in an everyday way. 91 00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:07,950 For all of us mere mortals, it seems to have an inclination or an index 92 00:06:08,159 --> 00:06:12,038 beyond. Something that is ‘greater than’, 93 00:06:12,038 --> 00:06:14,457 something that is able to transcend 94 00:06:14,791 --> 00:06:17,460 able to transcend 95 00:06:17,460 --> 00:06:22,256 that which we're constrained by in our mortal coils. 96 00:06:26,135 --> 00:06:29,055 In the so-called Abrahamic religions, 97 00:06:29,055 --> 00:06:32,809 we do think of Paradise, to the extent that I'm familiar with with them, 98 00:06:32,809 --> 00:06:36,229 with those theologies, shall we say, we do think of Paradise 99 00:06:36,229 --> 00:06:40,775 as like an Eden, an afterlife that has a green 100 00:06:40,775 --> 00:06:44,737 or a lush locational base 101 00:06:45,154 --> 00:06:48,157 in the Indic religions that I'm more familiar 102 00:06:48,157 --> 00:06:51,244 with - Hinduism, and to a lesser degree, Buddhism - 103 00:06:52,036 --> 00:06:56,749 there wouldn't necessarily be a location as such. 104 00:06:57,083 --> 00:07:00,586 The the transcendence that I'm thinking of 105 00:07:00,586 --> 00:07:06,008 is usually cast more frequently as liberation, 106 00:07:06,300 --> 00:07:06,926 a liberation 107 00:07:06,926 --> 00:07:10,930 from suffering, or a liberation from the cycle of suffering, 108 00:07:10,930 --> 00:07:14,892 or from the cycle of life and even the cycle of death. 109 00:07:14,892 --> 00:07:18,771 So in a sense, it's not a location after life. 110 00:07:18,771 --> 00:07:23,943 It's a zone outside of life and death altogether. 111 00:07:23,943 --> 00:07:28,906 Which is why I come back to this concept of of transcendence, 112 00:07:28,906 --> 00:07:32,160 in a sense, in Sanskrit it would be moksha: liberation. 113 00:07:33,911 --> 00:07:36,122 In popular religion, however, 114 00:07:36,122 --> 00:07:38,583 in the way that people practice 115 00:07:38,958 --> 00:07:44,839 conceptual ideas of aspiration, if you like, in an everyday way, 116 00:07:45,673 --> 00:07:48,468 there would be versions of heaven 117 00:07:48,468 --> 00:07:51,637 or visual ideas 118 00:07:51,637 --> 00:07:55,141 of beautiful landscapes, hills, mountains. 119 00:07:55,141 --> 00:07:58,186 We can see it in the images of Tibetan painting 120 00:07:58,186 --> 00:08:00,313 or Rajasthani miniatures. 121 00:08:00,313 --> 00:08:05,651 There are these beautiful images of mountains or streams, jungles 122 00:08:05,693 --> 00:08:09,238 that have an immersion in nature 123 00:08:09,238 --> 00:08:12,241 that one could make a parallel to. 124 00:08:12,658 --> 00:08:15,870 But it's not a concept of the afterlife. 125 00:08:15,912 --> 00:08:18,956 That's perhaps the most significant difference. 126 00:08:18,956 --> 00:08:21,459 It's... 127 00:08:21,459 --> 00:08:23,377 Those images of beautiful, 128 00:08:23,377 --> 00:08:26,547 lush or green landscapes with streams and rivers, 129 00:08:26,547 --> 00:08:29,926 sometimes Himalayan snow caps, would be 130 00:08:31,093 --> 00:08:33,596 ways to direct the consciousness, 131 00:08:33,596 --> 00:08:37,850 if you like, towards transcending it all together. 132 00:08:37,850 --> 00:08:41,979 So you might need those beautiful images of nature 133 00:08:41,979 --> 00:08:46,234 to enable leaving behind the cycle of life and death. 134 00:08:46,817 --> 00:08:50,655 They wouldn't be the destination in and of themselves. 135 00:08:55,326 --> 00:08:56,994 So the 136 00:08:56,994 --> 00:09:00,164 way a landscape encodes 137 00:09:00,998 --> 00:09:04,001 a moral orientation 138 00:09:04,126 --> 00:09:07,505 is key in the anthropology of religion 139 00:09:07,505 --> 00:09:10,925 and the anthropology of of visual materials. 140 00:09:10,925 --> 00:09:13,553 I'm not a visualist, primarily. 141 00:09:13,553 --> 00:09:15,972 I work much more on religious practice. 142 00:09:15,972 --> 00:09:19,100 But I am interested in this series of images 143 00:09:19,559 --> 00:09:23,187 that I've worked on recently that 144 00:09:23,229 --> 00:09:24,939 tell the story of a particular 145 00:09:24,939 --> 00:09:29,026 mythological group of figures called called the Mahasiddhas. 146 00:09:29,026 --> 00:09:36,742 And it's a set of legendary figures, religious practitioners all, 147 00:09:36,742 --> 00:09:42,748 who are known to have been able to challenge the social order. 148 00:09:42,748 --> 00:09:46,752 And as it happens, the natural order as well. 149 00:09:46,919 --> 00:09:49,088 The images are of them 150 00:09:49,088 --> 00:09:52,383 in different configurations, always in the most beautiful, 151 00:09:53,217 --> 00:09:58,723 lush, green, Himalayan, river strewn landscapes, 152 00:09:58,764 --> 00:10:02,977 often under trees or in forests or in groves. 153 00:10:03,144 --> 00:10:07,189 And they are able, by virtue of their greater wisdom, 154 00:10:07,189 --> 00:10:12,403 by virtue of their greater ability to operate 155 00:10:12,403 --> 00:10:17,116 in the social world, to transcend it. 156 00:10:17,992 --> 00:10:22,163 What's even more fascinating to me is that 157 00:10:23,247 --> 00:10:24,498 because they're able to 158 00:10:24,498 --> 00:10:25,833 manipulate the social world, 159 00:10:25,833 --> 00:10:29,545 in the natural world, they’re as mischievous as anything. 160 00:10:29,587 --> 00:10:33,507 They stop the sun from setting, they fly, 161 00:10:34,091 --> 00:10:38,095 they they challenge all kinds of the social order. 162 00:10:38,137 --> 00:10:40,306 They're known to challenge the structures of caste, 163 00:10:40,306 --> 00:10:41,849 for example. 164 00:10:41,849 --> 00:10:45,144 They are not classic ritualists in any way. 165 00:10:45,353 --> 00:10:49,190 So by virtue of challenging the social order, the moral order, 166 00:10:49,190 --> 00:10:51,275 as it's lived in an everyday sense, 167 00:10:51,275 --> 00:10:54,654 they are shown to be able to challenge the natural order. 168 00:10:54,654 --> 00:10:58,032 And yet they're shown in these very beautiful natural settings. 169 00:10:58,074 --> 00:11:01,160 And what's even what's even more interesting? 170 00:11:01,160 --> 00:11:04,080 They're revered for it. 171 00:11:04,080 --> 00:11:07,625 Rather than being dismissed. 172 00:11:07,875 --> 00:11:10,920 You know, they don't understand the social order as it works. 173 00:11:10,920 --> 00:11:13,130 We need to keep our hierarchies in place. 174 00:11:13,130 --> 00:11:16,801 On the contrary, they are able to reveal 175 00:11:16,884 --> 00:11:20,054 that the social order is, if you like, empty, 176 00:11:20,888 --> 00:11:22,973 Should not hold the weight. 177 00:11:22,973 --> 00:11:26,185 The morality lies, that is to say, 178 00:11:26,268 --> 00:11:30,064 somehow in the inversion of standard moral codes. 179 00:11:30,106 --> 00:11:31,315 It's like they reveal 180 00:11:31,315 --> 00:11:34,902 the transcendence within the moral codes themselves. 181 00:11:39,198 --> 00:11:40,866 Twenty years ago, I wrote a book 182 00:11:40,866 --> 00:11:44,870 about the way Hindu ascetics, full time religious practitioners, 183 00:11:45,162 --> 00:11:49,500 engaged with space and landscape as they traversed it. 184 00:11:50,042 --> 00:11:53,045 And I made the argument that 185 00:11:53,921 --> 00:11:55,673 even though they were 186 00:11:55,673 --> 00:12:00,386 individuals across South Asia, India and Nepal, 187 00:12:00,594 --> 00:12:03,597 they viewed themselves as a community, partly because 188 00:12:04,473 --> 00:12:09,019 the way they saw the terrain was as a linked entity, 189 00:12:09,019 --> 00:12:12,022 and that they precisely constructed their community, 190 00:12:12,189 --> 00:12:15,192 their collectivity, if you like, through 191 00:12:15,985 --> 00:12:19,780 what we think of today as a very dispersed area, 192 00:12:20,531 --> 00:12:25,494 because they saw it as a unified spatial location, 193 00:12:25,578 --> 00:12:29,415 including, by the way, the mountains and the seas, etc.. 194 00:12:29,874 --> 00:12:34,587 So the relevance of space, landscape, 195 00:12:36,380 --> 00:12:39,383 and the integrity 196 00:12:39,425 --> 00:12:41,594 of it in South Asia is 197 00:12:41,594 --> 00:12:46,015 is very significant to religious practitioners. 198 00:12:48,017 --> 00:12:50,811 Certainly through the last century. 199 00:12:50,811 --> 00:12:53,522 Now, that has started... not started, 200 00:12:53,522 --> 00:12:58,277 that has continued to have a very charged political resonance. 201 00:12:58,277 --> 00:13:03,866 And indeed, proponents of Hindu nationalism argue for the integrity 202 00:13:03,991 --> 00:13:05,159 of the land of India, 203 00:13:05,159 --> 00:13:06,494 the land of Bharat, 204 00:13:06,494 --> 00:13:09,622 to be the reason that the landscape itself is sacred. 205 00:13:09,622 --> 00:13:14,627 And it can be very difficult sometimes to parse when it's being used 206 00:13:14,627 --> 00:13:15,961 as a political narrative, 207 00:13:15,961 --> 00:13:18,964 and when it's being used as a personal experience. 208 00:13:19,131 --> 00:13:23,302 I think it's critical that we do so, and it's 209 00:13:23,302 --> 00:13:27,431 why these discussions are difficult, because on one hand, 210 00:13:27,598 --> 00:13:31,310 we're talking about genuine lived religious experience, meaningful 211 00:13:31,310 --> 00:13:35,189 to people on the ground, deeply significant to the way 212 00:13:35,231 --> 00:13:38,526 my interlocutors talked about why they 213 00:13:39,860 --> 00:13:42,988 traveled to mountains, why they went up 214 00:13:43,030 --> 00:13:48,327 one bank of a sacred river, holy river to them, and down the other. 215 00:13:48,327 --> 00:13:52,206 Why they would connect twelve temples 216 00:13:52,206 --> 00:13:55,209 that are understood to represent 217 00:13:56,377 --> 00:13:59,046 what I think of as a pilgrimage circuit, 218 00:13:59,046 --> 00:14:02,925 from the political narrative that demands 219 00:14:03,050 --> 00:14:06,387 a certain kind of person have dominance in India - 220 00:14:06,428 --> 00:14:10,182 namely, Hindus have dominance in India - that those Hindu pilgrimage 221 00:14:10,182 --> 00:14:13,644 circuits should have predominance, 222 00:14:13,644 --> 00:14:17,690 when in fact we have a long, many-century history 223 00:14:18,107 --> 00:14:21,110 of a very multicultural society. 224 00:14:24,321 --> 00:14:27,741 Let me talk about my home country. 225 00:14:27,741 --> 00:14:32,246 I grew up in Nepal and the Kathmandu Valley is 226 00:14:33,581 --> 00:14:38,752 known for, famous for, being what anthropologists 227 00:14:38,752 --> 00:14:42,381 sometimes call a place of much... of syncretism, where 228 00:14:42,423 --> 00:14:45,426 Hinduism and Buddhism really are fused. 229 00:14:45,593 --> 00:14:47,469 And we see this in all the temples. 230 00:14:47,469 --> 00:14:51,682 We see this in all the pilgrimage places that are mountains, rivers, 231 00:14:51,682 --> 00:14:53,142 shrines, etc. 232 00:14:53,142 --> 00:14:56,145 And the way it's understood in Kathmandu 233 00:14:56,145 --> 00:15:00,733 is that these locations are what we could translate as power places. 234 00:15:00,774 --> 00:15:03,777 There's something about the landscape or something 235 00:15:03,777 --> 00:15:08,574 about the particular crag in the rock, or fold in the river or 236 00:15:09,742 --> 00:15:12,745 summit of the mountain that 237 00:15:13,162 --> 00:15:17,666 carries with it power that's greater than your everyday location, 238 00:15:17,666 --> 00:15:21,712 and as a result, it becomes a place of pilgrimage. 239 00:15:21,754 --> 00:15:27,843 As a result of the pilgrimage, it accrues yet more power. 240 00:15:27,843 --> 00:15:29,803 So power places - 241 00:15:29,803 --> 00:15:32,681 Shakti Pith, as they are sometimes called, that is, 242 00:15:32,681 --> 00:15:35,684 locations, seats of power, 243 00:15:35,851 --> 00:15:39,355 served to be... to accrue more and more, because the devotions 244 00:15:39,355 --> 00:15:44,818 that we humans give them infuse it with further power still 245 00:15:44,985 --> 00:15:47,196 and in the Kathmandu context and the content 246 00:15:47,196 --> 00:15:50,157 in the context of the Katmandu Valley, 247 00:15:50,324 --> 00:15:54,954 we see power places that do not distinguish between Hindu 248 00:15:55,162 --> 00:15:59,375 Hinduism and Buddhism that are relevant and valuable 249 00:15:59,416 --> 00:16:01,126 to people no matter their religion, 250 00:16:01,126 --> 00:16:05,631 because their power places and they are inherently... 251 00:16:08,092 --> 00:16:10,511 linked to the power of the landscape. 252 00:16:10,511 --> 00:16:14,640 It's often natural places 253 00:16:14,640 --> 00:16:18,352 with a quirk, or with some particular image 254 00:16:18,394 --> 00:16:22,982 that ends up being the destination for pilgrims. 255 00:16:22,982 --> 00:16:27,444 Then, of course, you would build a shrine or a temple which would itself 256 00:16:27,486 --> 00:16:31,740 become the destination for a pilgrimage, or indeed, the whole 257 00:16:32,741 --> 00:16:33,867 village or town might 258 00:16:33,867 --> 00:16:36,996 become a destination for pilgrims. 259 00:16:37,246 --> 00:16:40,582 And sometimes not just Hindus or Buddhists, but pilgrims... 260 00:16:40,624 --> 00:16:41,625 that is to say, people 261 00:16:41,625 --> 00:16:45,796 with religious orientations who want to have access to holiness 262 00:16:45,796 --> 00:16:47,256 or what we sometimes 263 00:16:47,256 --> 00:16:51,051 ought too glibly call sacredness, whatever that might mean. 264 00:16:51,051 --> 00:16:54,346 But the point is, is that there's a draw, an allure 265 00:16:54,888 --> 00:16:58,726 to that location, most often starting with something 266 00:16:58,726 --> 00:17:01,729 in the natural landscape. 267 00:17:04,189 --> 00:17:05,482 So I've researched the question 268 00:17:05,482 --> 00:17:09,445 of how you link the place with the transcendence 269 00:17:09,445 --> 00:17:13,574 that the place is supposed to enable quite a lot, and 270 00:17:15,034 --> 00:17:17,578 repeatedly, what my interlocutors 271 00:17:17,578 --> 00:17:21,206 would tell me - as an anthropologist, I don't come up with my own ideas, 272 00:17:21,206 --> 00:17:24,460 I try to take what people tell me and interpret them - 273 00:17:25,377 --> 00:17:29,715 is that, of course, what we need to recall 274 00:17:29,715 --> 00:17:33,218 as human beings is that plane of transcendence... we need... 275 00:17:33,302 --> 00:17:37,639 You know, the whole point is to move beyond the here and now, 276 00:17:37,890 --> 00:17:42,853 but all we have is the here and now, all we have.... 277 00:17:43,312 --> 00:17:45,564 We want to transcend place. 278 00:17:45,564 --> 00:17:47,775 We want to transcend time. 279 00:17:47,775 --> 00:17:52,112 But all we have access to are time and place. 280 00:17:52,404 --> 00:17:55,991 So the reason that we, as my interlocutors 281 00:17:56,158 --> 00:18:01,455 explained it to me, travel to holy places, the reason that we do 282 00:18:01,497 --> 00:18:04,708 pilgrimages, the reason that we find these 283 00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:07,878 seemingly magical places in the landscape 284 00:18:07,878 --> 00:18:13,467 and undertake the arduous journeys to get there, is because they’re 285 00:18:14,510 --> 00:18:18,555 ways to glimpse what is beyond them. 286 00:18:18,972 --> 00:18:22,976 Yes, of course we know that they are of this earth 287 00:18:23,936 --> 00:18:27,606 the way we are of this earth, and we know that we're attempting 288 00:18:27,648 --> 00:18:30,651 to move in some sense beyond, to transcend. 289 00:18:31,568 --> 00:18:33,612 But we are constrained. 290 00:18:33,612 --> 00:18:37,324 So we, while acknowledging that they are 291 00:18:37,407 --> 00:18:40,410 still earthly places, 292 00:18:41,620 --> 00:18:44,832 they’re ways to move beyond. 293 00:18:44,832 --> 00:18:46,792 They are they enable us. 294 00:18:46,792 --> 00:18:49,002 We know that they are as earthly as we are, 295 00:18:49,002 --> 00:18:52,881 but they enable us at least to glimpse what might be able 296 00:18:52,881 --> 00:18:56,093 to transcend this earth into other planes. 297 00:18:59,721 --> 00:19:02,224 As far as temporality goes, 298 00:19:02,724 --> 00:19:04,768 in classic Indian... 299 00:19:05,102 --> 00:19:08,355 in classic Hindu terms, we're in the Kali Yuga, meaning 300 00:19:10,023 --> 00:19:12,776 the darkest age. Things are... 301 00:19:12,776 --> 00:19:15,154 There's an acknowledgment that this is the period, 302 00:19:15,154 --> 00:19:16,989 - and it's a very long period, by the way, it's 303 00:19:16,989 --> 00:19:19,992 not just the Anthropocene and not just the 20th century - 304 00:19:20,784 --> 00:19:23,745 Nonetheless, in the cyclical view of time, 305 00:19:24,538 --> 00:19:27,666 this is this is the time of ills. 306 00:19:28,292 --> 00:19:32,171 There's certainly no illusion that this is... that all is well. 307 00:19:33,046 --> 00:19:35,257 Having said that, nor 308 00:19:35,257 --> 00:19:40,053 is there an argument that ... 309 00:19:40,095 --> 00:19:45,225 If only we could go back to where we were, things would be improved. 310 00:19:45,267 --> 00:19:46,643 On the contrary, 311 00:19:46,643 --> 00:19:50,856 there's an understanding that things are cyclical and always will be. 312 00:19:50,898 --> 00:19:54,484 So things will always continue 313 00:19:54,484 --> 00:19:58,363 to change, which could be optimistic, I suppose. 314 00:19:59,406 --> 00:20:02,576 But equally, emotions... our individual 315 00:20:02,576 --> 00:20:06,246 human emotions are not what this is about. 316 00:20:06,580 --> 00:20:10,459 The aspiration to transcend everydayness, 317 00:20:10,500 --> 00:20:15,214 if you like, includes the aspiration to transcend one's own, 318 00:20:15,214 --> 00:20:18,634 and maybe especially, the aspiration to transcend one's own emotions. 319 00:20:18,634 --> 00:20:22,554 One's own emotions, including hope, including optimism, 320 00:20:22,846 --> 00:20:25,807 are part of the trouble, right? 321 00:20:25,807 --> 00:20:26,516 It's our... 322 00:20:26,516 --> 00:20:30,979 And this is a Buddhist framing as well. 323 00:20:31,813 --> 00:20:36,652 Our minds are that which are moving through pessimism and optimism. 324 00:20:36,652 --> 00:20:42,074 But ultimately... our minds are what are constructing everydayness, 325 00:20:42,407 --> 00:20:45,535 the festivals, the pilgrimage places, 326 00:20:45,577 --> 00:20:48,664 the social worlds, the suffering. 327 00:20:48,705 --> 00:20:52,292 So this is why I come back to the idea of 328 00:20:52,292 --> 00:20:56,630 of transcendence as cross-culturally applicable, 329 00:20:56,672 --> 00:21:01,677 because that allows us to get beyond the emotions 330 00:21:02,928 --> 00:21:05,847 Everyday hope, of course, is reasonable. 331 00:21:05,847 --> 00:21:06,682 I'm not saying that. 332 00:21:06,682 --> 00:21:09,768 I'm not saying that nobody who would identify as a Hindu 333 00:21:09,768 --> 00:21:13,063 or as a Buddhist would experience emotion. 334 00:21:13,105 --> 00:21:14,147 Of course we all do. 335 00:21:14,147 --> 00:21:16,525 We are human. That's the nature of it. 336 00:21:16,525 --> 00:21:20,612 But as far as the theologies of those religions are concerned, really 337 00:21:20,862 --> 00:21:23,865 what we're perceiving every day and what we are 338 00:21:24,157 --> 00:21:26,910 experiencing every day needs to be 339 00:21:27,953 --> 00:21:28,954 cleared away. 340 00:21:28,954 --> 00:21:31,248 That they're all of that is just obstruction. 341 00:21:31,248 --> 00:21:34,251 All of that is just illusion, actually. 342 00:21:34,793 --> 00:21:39,923 So any kind of lush green Paradise 343 00:21:40,882 --> 00:21:43,885 would be the backdrop 344 00:21:44,052 --> 00:21:47,764 for seeing the clarity 345 00:21:47,764 --> 00:21:51,977 of what is unchanging in a classic Indic frame. 346 00:21:55,981 --> 00:21:58,191 When my interlocutors were talking about 347 00:21:58,191 --> 00:22:01,611 the constraints of living in human bodies 348 00:22:01,611 --> 00:22:05,782 and needing to use them in order to reach beyond, 349 00:22:06,283 --> 00:22:07,409 which is what comes to mind 350 00:22:07,409 --> 00:22:11,371 when we're talking about cross-cultural interpretations of Paradise, 351 00:22:11,371 --> 00:22:14,916 and the ways in which we have to recall that social worlds 352 00:22:14,916 --> 00:22:17,919 are social constructions, are human constructions 353 00:22:18,170 --> 00:22:21,048 that doesn't absolve us of 354 00:22:21,048 --> 00:22:24,593 acting ethically, morally, in an everyday sense. 355 00:22:24,593 --> 00:22:29,389 On the contrary, we are in these bodies and there 356 00:22:29,431 --> 00:22:32,684 and in these societies, and therefore must act 357 00:22:32,684 --> 00:22:36,438 ethically, morally, in an everyday sense, 358 00:22:37,689 --> 00:22:39,900 and cannot rely on 359 00:22:39,900 --> 00:22:42,903 theologies of illusion 360 00:22:43,820 --> 00:22:45,280 to absolve us of that. 361 00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:48,283 No way. 362 00:22:48,909 --> 00:22:50,285 At the same time, 363 00:22:50,285 --> 00:22:53,997 theologies of illusoriness and questions 364 00:22:53,997 --> 00:22:58,043 about how to overcome or penetrate emotion, 365 00:22:58,919 --> 00:23:01,922 how to see through social constructions, 366 00:23:01,963 --> 00:23:02,923 that can be helpful 367 00:23:02,923 --> 00:23:06,593 if we want to accommodate difference, if we want to understand 368 00:23:07,844 --> 00:23:10,806 worlds that seem 369 00:23:10,806 --> 00:23:13,809 other or foreign. 370 00:23:14,017 --> 00:23:17,020 To remember that our own worlds, our own inner worlds 371 00:23:17,020 --> 00:23:20,357 and outer worlds and social worlds are as constructed 372 00:23:20,399 --> 00:23:23,985 as any of those that we come into contact with. 373 00:23:24,152 --> 00:23:25,529 I think that's very powerful, 374 00:23:25,529 --> 00:23:28,573 and I think those theologies can enable us to do that, but 375 00:23:28,573 --> 00:23:31,576 never to otherize. 376 00:23:34,246 --> 00:23:35,330 The question of hope 377 00:23:35,330 --> 00:23:38,959 as a motivator is significant. 378 00:23:40,293 --> 00:23:44,965 The idea that we can affect change is crucial, right? 379 00:23:45,006 --> 00:23:48,009 We're not passive bystanders in this. 380 00:23:48,802 --> 00:23:52,431 But, do we need a vision of utopia to do it? 381 00:23:53,849 --> 00:23:56,852 Isn't it enough to be 382 00:23:58,186 --> 00:24:00,605 conscious that we are in a constructed world, 383 00:24:00,605 --> 00:24:03,608 and therefore able to be agents 384 00:24:04,025 --> 00:24:05,652 within that construction. 385 00:24:05,652 --> 00:24:09,865 If we are agents, as we are fortunate enough to be, 386 00:24:09,906 --> 00:24:13,368 then an acknowledgment of the constructedness of our social 387 00:24:13,368 --> 00:24:16,371 and physical worlds 388 00:24:16,538 --> 00:24:19,875 is sufficient for us to be actors, 389 00:24:20,542 --> 00:24:23,253 ideally to the good. 390 00:24:23,253 --> 00:24:26,256 Utopia, 391 00:24:26,506 --> 00:24:28,592 by its very definition, 392 00:24:28,592 --> 00:24:31,595 sounds like something that's unattainable. 393 00:24:32,137 --> 00:24:34,931 Why not be grounded in what is, 394 00:24:35,182 --> 00:24:38,226 with the knowledge that it's eminently changeable, 395 00:24:39,644 --> 00:24:43,398 In order to be an actor and an agent of that change? 396 00:24:44,024 --> 00:24:47,027 Doesn't seem like you need a utopian vision 397 00:24:47,944 --> 00:24:50,906 to be an agent. 398 00:24:56,828 --> 00:24:59,247 Shangri-La is a great example 399 00:24:59,247 --> 00:25:03,460 of the power of the Himalayan imaginary. 400 00:25:03,543 --> 00:25:07,631 Now, Shangri-La, of course, is not an imaginary that comes from people 401 00:25:07,631 --> 00:25:08,965 living in the Himalayas. 402 00:25:08,965 --> 00:25:11,051 It's precisely an imaginary 403 00:25:11,051 --> 00:25:14,054 about the Himalayas, coming from people who live on the 404 00:25:14,054 --> 00:25:15,305 other side of the world. 405 00:25:17,265 --> 00:25:20,185 In that... in the image of Shangri-La, 406 00:25:20,185 --> 00:25:24,648 it seems to me we have a perfect example of how, on one hand, 407 00:25:25,565 --> 00:25:27,943 we have a real respect 408 00:25:27,943 --> 00:25:30,946 for the unbelievable power of nature, 409 00:25:31,196 --> 00:25:34,950 the Himalayan mountain range and what is possible there. 410 00:25:34,950 --> 00:25:38,537 We can think of the Mahasiddhas, those legendary... those legendary 411 00:25:38,537 --> 00:25:43,333 mythical figures who are capable of more than any mortal could be, 412 00:25:43,375 --> 00:25:47,170 partly by virtue of being generated by the Himalayas. 413 00:25:48,672 --> 00:25:53,301 Shiva. The Hindu god Shiva, is lord of the Himalaya. 414 00:25:54,261 --> 00:25:57,097 The power of the Himal is such that it infuses 415 00:25:57,097 --> 00:26:01,726 those mythical domains with 416 00:26:02,769 --> 00:26:06,022 extraordinary supernatural capacity. 417 00:26:07,315 --> 00:26:10,318 At the same time, the projection onto what 418 00:26:10,318 --> 00:26:14,948 Shangri-La produces and the otherizing 419 00:26:15,198 --> 00:26:21,246 that goes on with ideas of the Himalayas, the Himalayan yogis, 420 00:26:22,622 --> 00:26:24,916 the other worldliness of 421 00:26:26,710 --> 00:26:29,462 human beings who go without 422 00:26:29,462 --> 00:26:33,717 warmth or without shelter, has given over 423 00:26:35,010 --> 00:26:38,013 to centuries, arguably 424 00:26:38,179 --> 00:26:43,935 of an interpretation that ‘they’ - in quotation marks - 425 00:26:43,935 --> 00:26:46,980 are not like ‘us’ - in quotation marks - 426 00:26:47,230 --> 00:26:51,568 and a kind of distancing or making different... 427 00:26:51,568 --> 00:26:53,153 When in fact, it seems to me 428 00:26:53,153 --> 00:26:56,156 that an acknowledgment of difference is absolutely crucial, 429 00:26:56,156 --> 00:27:00,327 but what we need to be operating on, I would think ethically, 430 00:27:00,368 --> 00:27:03,747 is that position of shared humanity. 431 00:27:08,251 --> 00:27:09,961 The concept of Nirvana is why 432 00:27:09,961 --> 00:27:15,258 I wanted to focus on transcendence, because I had an intuition 433 00:27:15,425 --> 00:27:18,970 that the temptation would be strong to make a parallel 434 00:27:19,012 --> 00:27:23,391 between Nirvana and Paradise, and I would argue against it. 435 00:27:24,225 --> 00:27:26,227 Nirvana 436 00:27:26,227 --> 00:27:28,605 is many things, 437 00:27:28,605 --> 00:27:32,192 but ultimately it's that state of liberation. 438 00:27:32,192 --> 00:27:35,945 It's away from earthly phenomena. 439 00:27:36,112 --> 00:27:36,863 Now, perhaps 440 00:27:36,863 --> 00:27:39,157 Paradise is also away from earthly phenomena, 441 00:27:39,157 --> 00:27:40,700 but it still has qualities. 442 00:27:40,700 --> 00:27:44,162 It still has visual effects, 443 00:27:44,162 --> 00:27:47,165 it still has images associated with it. 444 00:27:47,415 --> 00:27:50,460 And this is why when I talk about an afterlife, it's 445 00:27:50,460 --> 00:27:53,755 almost like a place beyond this earthly place. 446 00:27:53,755 --> 00:27:55,465 It's a different place. 447 00:27:55,465 --> 00:27:58,468 It's not an earthly place, but it's a place nonetheless. 448 00:27:58,468 --> 00:28:00,345 Nirvana is none of that. 449 00:28:04,391 --> 00:28:05,350 I wouldn't have thought there 450 00:28:05,350 --> 00:28:08,603 visual representations to Nirvana by definition, 451 00:28:09,688 --> 00:28:12,691 because as soon as you have a visual representation, 452 00:28:13,608 --> 00:28:15,652 you're creating images, you're creating 453 00:28:15,652 --> 00:28:18,947 thoughts, you're creating new constructs, 454 00:28:18,947 --> 00:28:23,076 you're creating representations by definition, and the whole point 455 00:28:23,284 --> 00:28:26,329 of moving beyond representations 456 00:28:27,372 --> 00:28:30,166 is that you can no longer represent them. 457 00:28:30,166 --> 00:28:32,585 The distinction between form and formlessness 458 00:28:32,585 --> 00:28:37,006 is a very classic distinction in in in Indic philosophy, 459 00:28:37,549 --> 00:28:41,052 there's a formal division drawn 460 00:28:41,052 --> 00:28:44,097 between that which has form and that which does not. 461 00:28:44,097 --> 00:28:47,600 And although my interlocutors were not necessarily 462 00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:51,229 some of them were scholars, most of them were not, 463 00:28:51,730 --> 00:28:55,024 but they were using that concept in their own everyday 464 00:28:55,024 --> 00:28:58,611 practice, clearly, and in the way they described pilgrimage. 465 00:28:58,945 --> 00:29:02,407 You use form to attain formlessness. 466 00:29:02,449 --> 00:29:04,451 You have to approach 467 00:29:04,451 --> 00:29:08,121 that which does not have form and is in some sense more real 468 00:29:08,913 --> 00:29:14,169 through the form that we live in an everyday way. 469 00:29:14,836 --> 00:29:15,795 Which is why you have 470 00:29:15,795 --> 00:29:19,758 pilgrimage places, and why places that are soothing to the senses, 471 00:29:19,758 --> 00:29:23,720 and those beautiful images of nature, are as powerful as they are. 472 00:29:23,762 --> 00:29:28,600 They enable us to transcend the realm of form. 473 00:29:33,271 --> 00:29:36,274 Art and creativity are crucial. 474 00:29:36,649 --> 00:29:40,069 It's true that what I'm discussing emphasizes 475 00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:43,698 the importance of going beyond form and beyond speech, 476 00:29:43,698 --> 00:29:48,161 and beyond concept, and beyond representation, in order 477 00:29:48,495 --> 00:29:51,915 - or maybe as a result of - recalling that 478 00:29:51,915 --> 00:29:55,376 all that we are functioning within and through 479 00:29:55,877 --> 00:29:58,129 our social constructions. 480 00:29:58,129 --> 00:30:00,548 Having said that, 481 00:30:00,548 --> 00:30:03,134 we live within and through 482 00:30:03,134 --> 00:30:06,554 and via the social constructions 483 00:30:07,305 --> 00:30:09,933 every day of our lives, by definition. 484 00:30:09,933 --> 00:30:14,395 And, given that, we precisely need to be creating art 485 00:30:14,395 --> 00:30:17,690 and expanding the set 486 00:30:17,690 --> 00:30:18,566 of possibilities 487 00:30:18,566 --> 00:30:21,694 of those constructions through art and through creativity, 488 00:30:21,694 --> 00:30:24,697 and through ethical agency and through action. 489 00:30:24,906 --> 00:30:27,867 We are not constrained. 490 00:30:27,867 --> 00:30:30,954 Or, it's important to recall that we don't have to be constrained 491 00:30:30,954 --> 00:30:32,413 by the construction. 492 00:30:32,413 --> 00:30:35,416 That's where. 493 00:30:35,708 --> 00:30:38,711 The realm of agency lies. 494 00:30:48,388 --> 00:30:49,597 Thank you for listening 495 00:30:49,597 --> 00:30:52,934 to this episode of the On Paradise podcast series. 496 00:30:53,184 --> 00:30:57,730 Please explore other episodes by searching for On Paradise at 497 00:30:57,730 --> 00:31:01,693 podcasts.ox.ac.uk. 498 00:31:01,943 --> 00:31:02,610 Goodbye.