“I Am Afraid of Telling You This, Lest You’d Be Scared Shitless!”: The Myth of Secrecy and the Study of the Esoteric Traditions of Bengal

Carola Lorea

doi:10.3390/rel9060172

Abstract

As the verse chosen as a title for this article emblematically shows, esoteric movements have consistently used secrecy as a literary topos in their oral and written cultural expressions for a number of purposes. Scholars of South Asian religions, especially those in field of Tantric studies, have been scrutinizing for decades the need for secretive doctrines and a secret code-language (sandhyā bhāṣā), mostly interrogating textual sources and neglecting the contemporary experience and exegetical authority of living lineages. In this paper, I firstly address ethical and epistemological problems in the study of esoteric religious movements in order to propose innovative methodological strategies. Then, I offer numerous examples drawn from extensive field-work and in-depth literary study of contemporary esoteric lineages of West Bengal (India) and Bangladesh, in order to discuss the local discourse on secrecy. Finally, I review previously assumed notions on secrecy in South Asian religions, and I suggest to take into serious consideration local perspectives on the accessibility of esoteric knowledge, leading to a more nuanced idea of secrecy, constantly subjected to temporal and situational negotiations between silence and disclosure.

Highlights

The somewhat bizarre title of this article is taken from a couplet of the Bhāber Gıta, the repository of the lyrics of the Kartābhajā sect
Statements even more shocking than the one I selected from the Kartābhajā repertoire are quite common among the “obscure religious cults” (Dasgupta 1962) of Bengal, which transmit esoteric teachings and vocally challenge established hierarchies and scripture-based normativity
Some examples can be drawn from the oral repertoire of sayings, songs and oral teachings common among the disciples of Bhaba Pagla: e.g., “Gopane karo. This was the exegesis that I gathered from a circle of musicians/practitioners in Birbhum district

Summary

Introduction

The somewhat bizarre title of this article is taken from a couplet of the Bhāber Gıta, the repository of the lyrics of the Kartābhajā sect. This religious community, whose origins are located in between Vais.n.ava devotionalism and indigenous forms of Islam, has attracted mainly low-caste devotees. It is a widespread opinion among scholars of Bengali literature that the earliest literary evidence of proto-Bengali language is to be found in the Buddhist esoteric songs composed by Siddhācāryas around 10th–12th century These have been collected of the contemporary lineages of Bāuls and Fakirs. The last lines of the song can be paraphrased as such: one who knows which day and which stream the verses are referring to, and one who knows the meaning of these words is a Fakir; the others cannot understand These few verses already provide some important information: the composer is teasing the non-initiate listener, advertising the secret knowledge of Fakirs and giving a privileged status to the holders of the secret (“e kaẏe kathār artha naile, tār habe nā phakiri”). This leads me to argue that secrecy in the Bāul tradition performs an act of communication that addresses multiple dimensions, such as self-defence, ineffability, social empowerment, self-realization through paradox, and the creation of an alternative model of hierarchy

Keep the Mango “Hidden in a Jar”: Secrecy and Self-Protection

The Secret Sādhanā and the Sādhanā of Secrets

Questioning Representations of Secrecy

Findings

Conclusions