7
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N
ing” of tradition, or the “correct interpretation”, see pp.173,231), but in the pre-
sent context, a critical academic study, we must frame these as euphemisms on his
part, and point out that, despite such assertions, he is making some significant
changes (albeit often in accordance with earlier or parallel traditions). These etic
categories allow us to see things that any purely emic approach would miss, and
hence, I would argue, my use of them is justified.
An important etic concept that ties in here is that of “charisma”, rooted in the
ideas of German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920). Whilst Weber’s more gran-
diose ideas (Eurocentric meta-narratives on world-history) have been much criti-
cized
15
, and his specific analytical terms much debated
16
, some of his ideas (like
those of Parrinder etc. discussed in the previous section of this chapter) nonethe-
less retain some utility. “Charisma” is one of these. Edward Shils (1984:228)
writes that ‘Max Weber regarded the charismatic personality as the “specifically
‘creative’ revolutionary force in history”; he regarded him as the breaker of tradi-
tions’, and, as Peter Haley (1980:196) notes:
Weber is fond of quoting Jesus’ phrase in the Sermon on the Mount as evidence of
this revolutionary transformative character of the charismatic: “It is written…, but I
say unto you….”
We will see a number of examples in Sathya Sai Baba’s teachings that (quite liter-
ally) fit the pattern set out in this famous phrase (see, e.g., pp.77,340 below). But,
importantly, as Shils goes on to note, it is ‘necessary to recognize that a tradition
into which a charismatic figure enters does indeed persist’, and Haley too, writing
of Rudolph Sohm—upon whom Weber drew in formulating his concept of cha-
risma—points out that:
Sohm’s charismatics more nearly approximate the idea Jesus expressed immediately
after: “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one Tittle shall in no wise pass from the
law.”
We will see this type of understanding too borne out in Sathya Sai Baba’s teach-
ings—witness the quotation at the head of this section.
Heinrich von Stietencron (2001:18-20) questions how applicable Weber and
Sohm’s formulations of charisma may be to Indian traditions, and writes that:
In the Indian literary tradition, the notion of charisma is first and primarily linked to
the king. …charisma was conceived of as a kind of subtle, luminous substance that
could be conferred on a deserving person by a God or by ritual action. …it described
15
See, e.g., Smith (2003); Frank (1998).
16
See, e.g., Peter Blau (1963); Donald McIntosh (1970); Martin Riesebrodt (1999).
1
1
.
.
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4
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&
&
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7
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7
the faculty to know and achieve what others were unable to know and do, as well as
that golden radiance which can be perceived in a victor or in a powerful, successful
king. …Charisma was thus God-given. …Later Indian mythology also sees royal cha-
risma as a property of the divine, particularly of Viṣṇu. ...the king is represented as
an embodiment of the eight guardian deities of the world and his task mirrors theirs:
to protect the established order of the world. The more famous and slightly later
version of a similar idea of divine incarnation is the concept of prādurbhāva or ava-
tāra, according to which the God Viṣṇu himself ‘becomes manifest’ or ‘descends’
and incorporates himself, or part of himself, on earth. …It is the presence of divine
agency in human form that is common to these concepts.
Given what we saw in Section 1.3 above with Bassuk’s attribution of a “golden
aura” to the avatars (and what we saw of the particular manifestation of this in the
case of Sathya Sai Baba), the reference here to “golden radiance” is interesting, as
is the observation that traditional representations of kingship prefigure the avatar
concept. Indeed, von Stietencron gives ‘tejas’ as one of the traditional terms for
the ‘charisma’ to which he is referring here—we will see that this term is invoked
in explaining extraordinary phenomena surrounding the birth of various avatars
(including Sathya Sai Baba), and David Smith (1985:60) observes that ‘lustre, or
fiery energy (tejas) is a regular attribute of kings’. But this attempt to combine the
etic concept of charisma with emic terms only complicates matters
17
.
All of the above interpretations of “charisma” are important indicators of broad
patterns into which we have seen, or will see, Sathya Sai Baba to fit, but the em-
phasis of Weber’s formulation reflects its relationship to a larger scheme outlining
distinct types of “authority”, and this scheme is more readily applicable to my con-
cerns. Michael Hill (1973:144) writes:
Weber states that the validity of claims to legitimacy may rest on one or a combina-
tion of more than one of three ‘pure types’ of authority:
1. Rational grounds—resting on a belief in the ‘legality’ of patterns of normative
rules and the right of those elevated to authority under such rules to issue com-
17
As Martin Riesebrodt (1999:2) notes, von Stietencron’s definition does accord with one of two dis-
tinct senses in which Weber uses the term charisma. But this sense, I would suggest, is better de-
scribed by the term “mana”—carrying the dual sense of “prestige” and “supernatural power”. The
only problem with this is that the meaning of this term itself is much debated by anthropologists
(see, e.g., Roger Keesing (1984); Pierre Bettez Gravel (1995); Usher Fleising (2001)), and—since, in
any case, it does not, for the most part, seem to have much applicability to my material, I will not
employ it hereunder. In the few references I do make to this “energetic” phenomenon, I will,
rather, as above in commenting upon von Stietencron’s ideas, stick to specific instances that use the
emic term tejas (see pp.175,380ff.)—I will certainly not use the term charisma in this sense, for this
would complicate the other sense of this term that I have outlined. Likewise, I will not much use
“charisma” in the sense indicated by Sohm, for this largely overlaps with Weber’s concept of tradi-
tional authority. On the differences between Weber and Sohm’s views see Riesebrodt (1999), p.7.