Ethos, World-View and the Analysis of Sacred Symbols

Author(s): Clifford Geertz

Source: The Antioch Review, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Winter, 1957), pp. 421-437
Published by: Antioch Review, Inc.
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ROOTS OF VALUES

Ethos, World-View and the

Analysis of Sacred Symbols
By CLIFFORDGEERTZ

RELIGION
is never merely metaphysics.For all peoples the forms,
vehicles,and objectsof worshipare suffusedwith an aura of
deep moral seriousness.The holy bearswithin it everywherea sense
of intrinsicobligation:it not only encouragesdevotion,it demandsit;
it not only inducesintellectualassent,it enforcesemotionalcommit-
ment. Whetherit be formulatedas mana,as Brahma,or as the Holy
Trinity,that which is set apartas more than mundaneis inevitably
consideredto havefar-reaching implicationsfor the directionof human
conduct.Never merely metaphysics,religion is never merely ethics
either.The sourceof its moralvitalityis conceivedto lie in the fidelity
with which it expressesthe fundamentalnatureof reality.The power-
fully coercive"ought"is felt to grow out of a comprehensivefactual
"is,"and in sucha way religiongroundsthe most specificrequirements
of humanactionin the most generalcontextsof humanexistence.
In recent anthropologicaldiscussion,the moral (and aesthetic)
aspectsof a given culture,the evaluativeelements,have commonly
been summedup in the term "ethos,"while the cognitive,existential
aspectshave been designatedby the term "world-view."A people's
ethos is the tone, character,and quality of their life, its moral and
aestheticstyle and mood; it is the underlyingattitudetowardthem-
selves and their world that life reflects.Their world-viewis their
picture of the way things, in sheer actualityare, their concept of
nature,of self, of society.It containstheir most comprehensiveideas

CLIFFORD GEERTZ was a member of a researchteam studying Indonesiaunder

sponsorshipof the Centerfor InternationalStudiesat the MassachusettsInstitute
of Technology, 1952-1954, and he is at present in Indonesiadoing further re-
search.He holds a Ph.D. in anthropologyfrom Harvard University.
421

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422 THE ANTIOCH REVIEW

of order.Religiousbelief and ritual confrontand mutuallyconfirm

one another; the ethos is made intellectuallyreasonableby being
shown to representa way of life impliedby the actualstateof affairs
which the world-viewdescribes,and the world-viewis madeemotion-
ally acceptableby being presentedas an image of an actualstate of
affairsof which such a way of life is an authenticexpression.This
demonstrationof a meaningfulrelationbetweenthe valuesa people
holds and the generalorderof existencewithin which it finds itself
is an essential element in all religions,howeverthose valuesor that
order be conceived.Whateverelse religion may be, it is in part an
attempt (of an implicit and directly felt rather than explicit and
consciouslythought-aboutsort) to conserve the fund of generalmean-
ings in termsof which each individualinterpretshis experienceand
organizeshis conduct.
But meaningscan only be "stored"in symbols:a cross,a crescent,
or a featheredserpent.Suchreligioussymbols,dramatizedin ritualsor
relatedim myths, are felt somehowto sum up, for those for whom
they are resonant,what is known about the way the world is, the
quality of the emotionallife it supports,and the way one ought to
behave while in it. Sacredsymbols thus relate an ontology and a
cosmologyto an aestheticsand a morality:theirpeculiarpowercomes
from their presumedability to identify fact with value at the most
fundamentallevel, to give to what is otherwisemerelyactual,a com-
prehensive normative import. The number of such synthesizing
symbolsis limited in any culture,and though in theory we might
think that a peoplecouldconstructa wholly autonomousvaluesystem
independentof any metaphysicalreferent,an ethicswithoutontology,
we do not in fact seem to have found such a people.The tendency
to synthesizeworld-viewand ethos at some level, if not logically
necessary,is at least empiricallycoercive;if it is not philosophically
justified,it is at leastpragmaticallyuniversal.
Let me give as an exampleof this fusion of the existentialand
the normativea quotationfrom one of JamesWalker'sOglala (Sioux)
informants,which I find in Paul Radin'sneglectedclassic,Primitive
Man as a Philosopher:
The Oglala believe the circle to be sacred because the great spirit caused
everything in nature to be round except stone. Stone is the implement of

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 SACRED SYMBOLS 423
destructio.. The sun and the sky, the earth and the moon are round like a
shield, thouLrh the sky is deep like a bowl. Everythingthat breathesis round
like the stem of a plant. Since the great spirit has caused everythingto be
round mankind should look upon the circle as sacred,for it is the symbol
of all things in nature except stone. It is also the symbol of the circle that
makes the edge of the world and thereforeof the four winds that travel
there. Consequentlyit is also the symbol of the year. The day, the night,
and the moon go in a circle above the sky. Thereforethe circle is a symbol
of these divisionsof time and hence the symbolof all time.
For these reasonsthe Oglala make their tipis circular,their camp-circle
circular,and sit in a circle at all ceremonies.The circle is also the symbol
of the tipi and of shelter.If one makes a circlefor an ornamentand it is not
divided in any way, it should be understoodas the symbolof the world and
of time.
Here is a subtle formulationof the relationbetweengood and
evil, and of their groundingin the very natureof reality.Circleand
eccentricform, sun and stone, shelter and war are segregatedinto
pairs of disjunct classes whose significanceis aesthetic,moral and
ontological.The reasonedarticulateness of this statementis atypical:
for most Oglala the circle, whether found in nature,painted on a
buffaloskin,or enactedin a sun dance,is but an unexaminedluminous
symbol whose meaning is intuitivelysensed, not consciouslyinter-
preted.But the powerof the symbol,analyzedor not, clearlyrestson
its comprehensiveness,on its fruitfulnessin orderingexperience.Again
and again the idea of a sacredcircle, a naturalform with a mnoral
import,yields,when appliedto the world within which the Oglala
lives,new meanings;continuallyit connectstogetherelementswithin
their experiencewhich would otherwiseseem wholly disparateand,
wholly disparate,incomprehensible.
The commonroundnessof a humanbody and a plant stem, of a
moon and a shield,of a tipi and a camp-circlegive them a vaguely
conceivedbut intenselyfelt significance.And this meaningfulcommon
element,once abstracted,can then be employedfor ritualpurposes-
as when in a peaceceremonythe pipe, the symbolof socialsolidarity,
moves deliberatelyin a perfectcircle from one smokerto the next,
the purityof the form evoking the beneficenceof the spirits-or to
construemythologicallythe peculiarparadoxesand anomaliesof moral
experience,as when one sees in a round stone the shapingpower of
good overevil.

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424 THE ANTIOCH REVIEW

II
It is a clusterof sacredsymbols,woven into some sort of ordered
whole, which makes up a religioussystem.For those who are com-
mittedto it, such a religioussystemseemsto mediategenuimeknowl-
edge, knowledge of the essentialconditionsin terms of which life
must, of necessity,be lived. Particularlywhere these symbols are
uncriticized,historicallyor philosophically,as they are in most of the
world's cultures,individualswho ignore the moral-aestheticnorms
the symbols formulate,who follow a discordantstyle of life, are
regardednot so much as evil as stupid,insensitive,unlearned,or in the
case of extremedereliction,mad. In Java,where I have done field
work, small children,simpletons,boors,the insane,and the flagrantly
immoralare all said to be "not yet Javanese,"and, not yet Javanese,
not yet human. Unethicalbehavioris referredto as "uncustomary,"
the more serious crimes (incest, sorcery,murder) are commonly
accountedfor by an assumedlapseof reason,the less seriousones by a
commentthat the culprit"doesnot know order,"and the word for
"religion"and that for "science"are the same.Moralityhas thus the
air of simple realism,of practicalwisdom; religion supportsproper
conductby picturinga world in which such conductis only common
sense.
It is only commonsense becausebetweenethos and world-view,
betweenthe approvedstyleof life and the assumedstructureof reality,
there is conceivedto be a simple and fundamentalcongruencesuch
that they completeone anotherand lend one anothermeaning. In
Java,for example,this view is summed up in a conceptone hears
continuallyinvoked, that of tiotiog. Tjotiog means to fit, as a key
doesin a lock,as an efficacious medicinedoes to a disease,as a solution
does to an arithmeticproblem,as a man does with the woman he
marries(if he does not, they will divorce). If your opinion agrees
with mine we tiotiog; if the meaningof my name fits my character
(and if it bringsme luck) it is said to be tjotjog.Tasty food, correct
theories,good manners,comfortablesurroundings, gratifyingoutcomes
areall tiotiog. In the broadestandmostabstractsense,two itemstjotiog
when theircoincidenceformsa coherentpatternwhich gives to each a
significanceand a value it does not in itself have. There is implied
here a contrapuntalview of the universein which that which is

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 SACRED SYMBOLS 425

importantis what naturalrelationshipthe separateelementshave to

one another,how they mustbe arrangedto strikea chordand to avoid
a dissonance.And, as in harmonythe ultimatelycorrectrelationships
are fixed, determinate,and knowable,so religion, like harmony,is
ultimatelya kind of practicalscience,producingvalue out of fact as
musicis producedout of sound.In its specificity,tiotiog is a peculiarly
Javaneseidea, but the notion that life takes on its true import when
humanactionsare tuned to cosmicconditionsis widespread.
The sort of counterpointbetweenstyle of life and fundamental
reality which the sacred symbolsformulatevaries from culture to
culture.For the Navaho,an ethic prizingcalm deliberateness, untiring
persistence,and dignified cautioncomplementsan image of nature
as tremendously powerful,mechanicallyregular,andhighlydangerous.
For the French,a logical legalism is a responseto the notion that
realityis rationallystructured,that first principlesare clear, precise,
and unalterableand so need only be discerned,memorized,and
deductivelyappliedto concretecases.For the Hindus,a transcendental
moral determinismin which one's social and spiritualstatus in a
future incarnationis an automaticoutcome of the nature of one's
actionin the present,is completedby a ritualisticduty-ethicboundto
caste. In itself, either side, the normativeor the metaphysical,is
arbitrary,but taken togetherthey form a gestaltwith a peculiarkind
of inevitability;a Frenchethic in a Navaho world, or a Hindu one
in a Frenchworld would seem only quixotic,for it would lack the
air of naturalnessand simplefactualitywhich it has in its own context.
It is this air of the factual, of describing,after all, the genuinely
reasonableway to live which, given the facts of life, is the primary
sourceof such an ethic'sauthoritativeness. What all sacredsymbols
assertis that the good for man is to live realistically;wherethey differ
is in the visionof realitythey construct.
However,it is not only positivevaluesthat sacredsymbolsdrama-
tize, but negative ones as well. They point not only toward the
existenceof good but also of evil, and toward the conflictbetween
them. The so-called"problemof evil" is a matterof formulatingin
world-viewterms the actual natureof the destructiveforces within
the self and outsideof it, of interpretingmurder,cropfailure,sickness,
earthquakes,poverty,and oppressionin such a way that it is possible
to cometo somesortof termswith them.Declaringevil fundamentally

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426 THE ANTIOCH REVIEW
unreal-as in Indian religionsand some versionsof Christianity--is
but one ratheruncommonsolutionto the problem;more often, the
realityof evil is acceptedand characterized positively,and an attitudc
toward it-resignation, active opposition, hedoniisticescape, self-
recrimination and repentance,or a humblepleafor mercy-is enjoined
as reasonableand proper,givenits nature.Among the AfricanAzande,
where all naturalmisfortune(death, illness, crop failure) is seen as
caused by the hatred of one man for anotheracting mechanically
throughwitchcraft,the attitudetowardevil is a straightforward and
practicalone: it is to be dealt with by means of reliablyestablished
divinationin order to discoverthe witch, and proven methods of
socialpressureto force him to abandonhis attack,or failing this, by
effectivevengeance-magic to kill him. Among the MelanesianManus,
the conceptionthat illness, death, or financialfailure are the result
of a secretsin (adultery,stealing,lying) which has offendedthe moral
sensibilitiesof the householdspirit is coupledwith an emphasison
public confessionand repentanceas the rationalway to cope with
evil. For the Javanese,evil resultsfrom unregulatedpassionand is
resistedby detachmentand self-control.Thus, both what a people
prizes and what it fears and hates are depicted in its world-view,
symbolizedin its religion,and in turn expressedin the whole quality
of its life. Its ethos is distinctivenot merely in terms of the sort of
nobilityit celebrates,but also in termsof the sort of basenessit con-
demns;its vicesareas stylizedas its virtues.
The force of a ieligion in supportingsocialvaluesrests,then, on
the abilityof its symbolsto formulatea world in which thosevalues,
as well as the forcesopposingtheir realization,are fundamentalin-
gredients.It representsthe power of the human imaginationto con-
structan image of realityin which, to quote Max Weber,"eventsare
not just there and happen, but they have a meaning and happen
becauseof thatmeaning."The needfor sucha metaphysical grounding
for values seems to vary quite widely in intensityfrom culture to
cultureand from individualto individual,but the tendencyto desire
some sort of factual basis for one's commitmentsseems practically
universal;mere conventionalismsatisfiesfew people in any culture.
Howeverits role may differ at varioustimes, for variousindividuals,
and in variouscultures,religion,by fusingethosand world-view,gives
to a set of socialvalueswhat they perhapsmost need to be coercive:

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 SACRED SYMBOLS 427

an appearanceof objectivity.In sacredrituals and myths values are

portrayednot as subjectivehuman preferencesbut as the imposed
conditionsfor life implicitin a world with a particularstructure.
III
The sortof symbols(or symbolcomplexes)regardedby a people
as sacredvariesvery widely. Elaborateinitiationrites, as among the
Australians;complexphilosophicaltales,as amongthe Maori;dramatic
shamanisticexhibitions,as among the Eskimo;cruel human sacrifice
rites,as among the Aztecs;obsessivecuringceremonies,as among the
Navaho;largecommunalfeasts,as amongvariousPolynesiangroups-
all these patternsand many more seem to one people or anotherto
sum up most powerfullywhat it knows about living. Nor is there
commonlybut one such complex:Malinowski'sfamousTrobrianders
seem equally concernedwith the ritualsof gardeningand those of
trade.In a complexcivilizationsuch as that of the Javanese-inwhich
Hinduistic,Islamic,and paganinfluencesall remainvery strong-one
could choose any of severalsymbol complexesas revealingone or
anotheraspectof the integrationof ethosand world-view.But perhaps
the clearestand most directinsightinto the relationbetweenJavanese
valuesand Javanesemetaphysicscan be gainedthrougha briefanalysis
of one of the most deeply rootedand highly developedof their art
forms which is at the same time a religiousrite: the shadow-puppet
play,or wajang.
The shadowplay is calledso becausethe puppets,which are flat
cut-outsof leather,paintedin golds, reds,blues,and blacks,are made
to castlargeshadowson a white screen.The dalang,as the puppeteer
is called,sitson a mat in frontof the screen,with a gamelanpercussion
orchestrabehindhim, an oil lamp hanging over his head. A banana
tree-trunklies horizontallyin front of him into which the puppets,
each of them fastenedto a tortoise-shellhandle,are stuck.A perform-
ancelastsa whole night. As the play progresses,the dalangtakesand
replacescharactersfrom the tree-trunkas he needs them, holding
them up in eitherhand over his head and interposingthem between
the light and the screen.From the dalang'sside of the screen-where
traditionallyonly the men were permittedto sit-one seesthe puppets
themselves,their shadowsrising up dominanton the screenbehind
them; from the reverseside of the screen-where the women and

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428 THE ANTIOCH REVIEW

childrensit-one seestheirshadowsonly.
The storiesdramatizedare mostlyepisodestakenfrom the Indian
epic Mahabarata, somewhatadaptedand placedin a Javanesesetting.
(Storiesfrom the Ramayanaare sometimesdramatized,but they are
less popular.)In this cyclethereare threemajorgroupsof characters.
First,there are the gods and goddesses,headedby Siva and his wife
Durga. As in the Greek epics, the gods are far from uniformly
righteous,are markedby human frailtiesand human passions,and
seem peculiarlyinterestedin the things of this world. Second,there
are the kings and nobles, who are, in theory, the ancestorsof the
present-ay Javanese.The two most importantgroupsof these nobles
are the Pendawasand the Korawas.The Pendawasare the famous
five hero brothers-Yudistira,Bima, Arjuna,and the identicaltwins,
Nakula and Sadewa-who are usually accompanied,as a general
advisor and protector,by Krisna, an incarnationof Visnu. The
Korawas,of whom thereare a hundred,are cousinsof the Pendawa.
They haveusurpedthe kingdomof Ngastinafrom them, and it is the
struggleover this disputedcountrywhich providesthe major theme
of the wajang; a strugglewhich culminatesin the great Bratajuda
warof kinsmen,as relatedin the BhagavadGita,in which the Korawas
are defeatedby the Pendawas.And, third, there are those Javanese
additionsto the original Hindu cast of characters,the great low
clowns-Semar, Petruk, and Gareng, constant companionsof the
Pendawas,at oncetheirservantsand theirprotectors.Semar,the father
of the othertwo, is actuallya god in all-too-humanform, a brotherto
Siva,king of the gods. The guardianspiritof all Javanesefrom their
first appearanceuntil the end of time, this gross and clumsy fool is
perhapsthe most importantfigurein the whole wajangmythology.
The types of action characteristicof the wajang also are three:
therearethe "talking"episodesin which two groupsof opposednobles
confrontone anotherand discuss(the dalangimitatesall the voices)
the issues between them; there are the fighting episodes,in which
diplomacyhavingfailed, the two groupsof noblesfight (the dalang
knocks the puppetstogether and kicks a clapperwith his foot to
symbolize the sounds of war); and there are the slapstickcomic
scenes,in which the clowns mock the nobles,each other,and, if the
dalangis clever,membersof the audienceor the local powers-that-be.
Generally,the threesortsof episodesare differentiallydistributedover

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 SACRED SYMBOLS 429

the courseof the evening.The declamatoryscenesare mostly toward

the beginning,the comicones towardthe middle,and the war toward
the end. From nine until midnight,the politicalleadersof the various
kingdomsconfrontone anotherand statethe frameworkof the story-
a wajang hero wishes to marrythe daughterof a neighboringking,
a subjugatedcountrywantsits freedom,or whatever.From midnight
until threeo'clockor so difficultiesof somesortset in-someone else is
bidding for the daughter'shand, the imperialistcountry refuses
freedomto its colony.And, finally,thesedifficultiesareresolvedin the
last section,ending at dawn, inevitably,by a war in which the heroes
triumph-an action followed by a brief celebrationof the accom-
plishedmarriageor the achievedfreedom.Western-educated Javanese
intellectualsoften comparethe wajang to a sonata;it opens with an
expositionof a theme, follows with a developmentand complication
of it, and endswith its resolutionand recapitulation.
Anothercomparisonwhich, offhand,strikesthe Westernobserver
is with Shakespeare's chroniclepla's. The long formal scenesin the
courtswith the messengerscomingand going, interspersed with short,
breathlesstransitionalscenesin the woodsor alongthe road,the double
plot, the clowns speakinga rough commonlanguagefull of worldly-
wise ethics,caricaturingthe forms of actionof the great nobles,who
speakan elevatedlanguagefull of apostrophesto honor,justice,and
duty, the final war, which, like those at Shrewsburyand Agincourt,
leavesthe vanquishedbeatenbut still noble-all these suggestShake-
speare'shistoricaldramas.But the world-viewthe wajang expresses,
despite the surface similaritiesin the two feudal codes, is hardly
Elizabethanat base.It is not the externalworld of principalitiesand
powerswhich providesthe main setting for human action, but the
internalone of sentimentsand desires.Realityis lookedfor not outside
the self, but within it, and consequentlywhat the wajang dramatizes
is not a philosophicalpoliticsbut a metaphysicalpsychology.
For the Javanese(or at leastfor those of them in whose thought
the influenceof Java'sHindu-Buddhistperiodfrom the secondto the
fifteenthcenturiesstill is dominant),the flow of subjectiveexperience,
taken in all its phenomenologicalimmediacy,presentsa microcosm
of the universegenerally;in the depthsof the fluid interiorworld of
thought-and-emotion they see reflectedultimate reality itself. This
inward-lookingsort of world-viewis best expressedin a conceptthe

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430 THE ANTIOCH REVIEW

Javanesehave also borrowedfrom India and also peculiarlyreinter-

preted:rasa.RaPahas two primarymeanings:"feeling"and "mean
ing." As "feeling"it is one of the traditionalJavanesefive senses-
seeing,hearing,talking,smelling,and feeling, and it includeswithin
itselfthreeaspectsof "feeling"thatourview of the five sensesseparates:
tasteon the tongue,touchon the body,and emotional"feeling"within
the "heart"like sadnessand happiness.The taste of a bananais its
rasa;a hunchis a rasa;a painis a rasa;and so is a passion.As "mean-
ing," rasais appliedto the words in a letter, in a poem, or even in
common speechto indicatethe between-the-lines type of indirection
and allusivesuggestionthatis so importantin Javanesecommunication
and social intercourse.And it is given the same applicationto be-
havioralactsgenerally:to indicatethe implicit import,the connotative
"feeling"of dance movements,polite gestures,and so forth. But in
this second,semanticsense,it also means"ultimatesignificance"-the
deepestmeaningat which one arrivesby dint of mysticaleffort and
whose clarificationresolvesall the ambiguitiesof mundaneexistence.
Rasa,said one of my most articulateinformants,is the same as life;
whateverliveshas rasaand whateverhas rasalives.To translatesucha
sentenceone couldonly renderit twice:whateverlivesfeels and what-
ever feels lives; or: whateverlives has meaning and whateverhas
meaninglives.
By takingrasato mean both "feeling"and "meaning,"the more
speculativelyinclinedamongthe Javanesehave been able to developa
highly sophisticated phenomenological analysisof subjectiveexperience
to which everythingelse can be tied. Becausefundamentally"feeling"
and "meaning"areone, and thereforethe ultimatereligiousexperience
takensubjectivelyis also the ultimatereligioustruthtakenobjectively,
an empiricalanalysisof inwardperceptionyields at the same time a
metaphysicalanalysisof outward reality. This being granted-and
the actualdiscriminations, categorizationsand connectionsmade are
often both subtleand detailed-then the characteristic way in which
human action comes to be considered,from either a moral or an
aesthetic point of view, is in terms of the emotionallife of the in-
dividualwho experiencesit. This is true whether this action is seen
fromwithinas one'sown behavioror fromwithoutas thatof someone
else: the more refinedone's feelings, then the more profoundone's
understanding, the moreelevatedone'smoralcharacter,and the more

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 SACRED SYMBOLS 431

beautifulone's externalaspect,in clothes,movements,speech,and so

on. The managementof the individual'semotionaleconomybecomes,
therefore,his primaryconcern,in termsof which all else is ultimately
rationalized.The spirituallyenlightenedman guardswell his psycho-
logical equilibriumand makesa constanteffortto maintainits placid
stability.His innerlife mustbe, in a similerepeatedlyemployed,like a
still pool of clearwaterto the bottomof which one can easilysee. The
individual'sproximateaim is, thus, emotionalquiescence,for passion
is crude feeling, fit for children,animals,madmen, primitivesand
foreigners.But his ultimateaim, which this quiescencemakespossible,
is gnosis-the directcomprehensionof the ultimaterasa.
Javanesereligion (or at least this variantof it) is consequently
mystical:God is found by meansof spiritualdiscipline,in the depths
of the self as pure rasa. And Javaneseethics (and aesthetics)are,
correspondingly,affect-centered without being hedonistic:emotional
equanimity,a certainflatnessof affect,a strangeinner stillness,is the
prized psychologicalstate,the mark of a truly noble character.One
must attempt to get beyond the emotions of everydaylife to the
genuine feeling-meaningwhich lies within us all. Happinessand
unhappinessare, after all, just the same. You shed tears when you
laugh and also when you cry. And, besides,they imply one another:
happynow, unhappylater;unhappynow, happylater.The reasonable,
prudent,"wise" man strives not for happiness,but for a tranquil
detachmentwhich frees him from this endless oscillationbetween
gratificationand frustration.Similarly,Javaneseetiquette,which com-
prisesalmostthe whole of this morality,focusesaroundthe injunction
not to disturbthe equilibriumof anotherby sudden gestures,loud
speech,or startling,erraticactionsof any sort,mainlybecauseso doing
will causethe other in turn to act erraticallyand so upsetone's own
balance.On the world-viewside, there are yoga-likemysticaltech-
niques (meditation,staringat candles,repeatingset wordsor phrases)
and highly involved speculativetheoriesof the emotions and their
relationsto sickness,naturalobjects,socialinstitutions,and so on. On
the ethos side, there is a moral stresson subdueddress,speechand
gesture,on refinedsensitivityto small changesin the emotionalstate
both of oneself and of others, and on a stable, highly regularized
predictability of behavior."If you startoff north,go north,"a Javanese
proverbsays, "don't turn east, west, or south." Both religion and

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432 THE ANTIOCH REVIEW

ethics, both mysticismand politesse,thus point to the same end: a

detachedtranquilitywhich is proof against disturbancefrom either
withinor without.
But, unlike India,this tranquilityis not to be gained by a retreat
from the world and from society,but must be achievedwhile in it.
It is a this-worldly,even practical,mysticism,as expressedin the
following compositequotationfrom two Javanesepetty traderswho
aremembersof a mysticalsociety:
He said that the society was concernedwith teaching you not to pay
too much attentionto worldlythings, not to care too much about the things
of everydaylife. He said this is very difficultto do. His wife, he said, was
not yet able to do it much, and she agreed with him, e.g., she still likes to
ride in motorcarswhile he doesn't care; he can take them or leave them
alone. It takes much long study and meditation.For example, you have to
get so that if someone comes to buy cloth you don't care if he buys it or
not ... and you don't get your emotionsreally involved in the problemsof
commerce,but just think of God. The society wants to turn people toward
God and avoids any strongattachmentsto everydaylife.
. . . Why did he meditate? He said it was only to make the heart
peaceful, to make you calm inside, so you will not be easily upset. For
example,if you're selling cloth and are upset you may sell a piece of cloth
for forty rupiahwhen it cost you sixty. If a personcomes here and my mind
is not calm,well then I can'tsell him anything.. . . I said,well, why do
you have a meeting, why not meditateat home? And he said, well, in the
first place you are not supposed to achieve peace by withdrawing from
society;you are supposedto stay in societyand mix with people, only with
peacein your heart.
This fusionbetweena mystical-phenomenological world-viewand
an etiquette-centeredethosis expressedin the wajang in variousways.
First,it appearsmost directlyin termsof an expliciticonography.The
five pendawasare commonly interpretedas standing for the five
senseswhich the individualmust unite into one undividedpsycho-
logical force in order to achievegnosis. Meditationdemandsa "co--
operation"amongthe sensesas closeas that among the hero brothers,
who act as one in all they do. Or the shadowsof the puppetsare
identifiedwith the outwardbehaviorof man, the puppetsthemselves
with his inwardself, so that in him as in them the visiblepatternof
conduct is a direct outcome of an underlyingpsychologicalreality.
The very design of the puppetshas explicitsymbolicsignificance:in
Bima'sred,white and blacksarong,the red is usuallytakento indicate

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 SACRED SYMBOLS 433

courage,the white purity,the black fixity of will. The varioustunes

played on the accompanyinggamelan orchestraeach symbolize a
certainemotion;similarlywith the poemsthe dalangsings at various
points in the play, and so on. Second,the fusion often appearsas
parable,as in the story of Bima'squest for the "clearwater."After
slayingmanymonstersin his wanderingsin searchof this waterwhich
he has been told will make him invulnerable,he meets a god as big
as his little fingerwho is an exactreplicaof himself.Enteringthrough
the mouthof this mirror-imagemidget,he sees inside the god's body
the whole world, completein every detail,and upon emerginghe is
told by the god that thereis no "clearwater"as such,that the source
of his own strengthis within himself, after which he goes off to
meditate.And third, the moral content of the play is sometimes
interpretedanalogically:the da/ang'sabsolutecontroloverthe puppets
is saidto parallelGod'sovermen; or the alternationof politespeeches
and violentwarsis said to parallelmoderninternationalrelationships,
whereso long as diplomatscontinuetalkingpeaceprevails,but when
talksbreakdown war follows.
But neither icons, parables,nor moral analogiesare the main
means by which the Javanesesynthesisis expressedin the wajang;
for the playas a wholeis commonlyperceivedto be but a dramatization
of individualsubjectiveexperiencein termsat once moraland factual:
He [an elementaryschool-teacher]said that the main purpose of the
vajoang was to draw a picture of inner thought and feeling, to give an
externalform to internal feeling. He said that more specificallyit pictured
the eternal conflict in the individual between what he wanted to do and
what he felt he ought to do. Supposeyou want to steal something.Well, at
the same time something inside you tells you not to do it, restrainsyou,
controls you. That which wants to do it is called the will; that which
restrainsis called the ego. All such tendenciesthreaten every day to ruin
the individual, to destroy his thought and upset his behavior. These
tendenciesare called goda, which means somethingwhich plagues or teases
someone or something.For example, you go to a coffee-shopwhere people
are eating.They invite you to join them, and so you have a strugglewithin-
should I eat with them . . . no, I've alreadyeaten and I will be over full ...
but the food looks good ... etc.... etc.
Well, in the wajang the various plagues, wishes, etc.-the godas-are
representedby the hundred Korawas,and the ability to control oneself is
representedby their cousins, the five Pendawasand by Krisna. The stories
are ostensibly about a struggle over land. The reason for this is so the

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434 THE ANTIOCH REVIEW
stories will seem real to the onlookers,so the abstractelements in the rasa
can be representedin concrete external elements which will attract the
audience and seem real to them and still communicateits inner message.
For example, the wajang is full of war and this war, which occurs and
reoccurs,is really supposedto representthe inner war which goes on con-
tinually in every person'ssubjectivelife between his base and his refined
impulses.

Onceagain,this formulationis moreself-conscious than most; the

averageman "enjoys"the wajang without explicitlyinterpretingits
meaning.Yet, in the same way as the circleorganizesOglala experi-
ence, whetherthe individualSioux is able to explicateits significance,
or indeedhas any interestin doing so, so the sacredsymbolsof the
wajang-the music, characters,the action itself-give form to the
ordinaryJavaneseexperience.
For example,each of the three older Pendawasare commonly
held to displaya differentsortof emotional-moral dilemma,centering
aroundone or anotherof the centralJavanesevirtues.Yudistira,the
eldest,is too compassionate.He is unableto rule his countryeffectively
becausewhen someoneasks him for his land, his wealth, his food,
he simply gives it out of pity, leaving himself powerless,poor or
starving.His enemiescontinuallytake advantageof his mercifulness
to deceivehim and to escapehis justice.Bima,on the other hand, is
single-minded,steadfast.Once he forms an intention,he follows it
out straightto its conclusion;he doesn'tlook aside,doesn'tturn off or
idle along the way-he "goesnorth."As a result,he is often rash,and
blundersinto difficultieshe could as well have avoided.Arjuna,the
thirdbrother,is perfectlyjust. His goodnesscomesfrom the fact that
he opposesevil, that he shelterspeoplefrom injustice,that he is coolly
courageousin fighting for the right. But he lacks a sense of mercy,
of sympathyfor wrongdoers.He appliesa divinemoralcodeto human
activityand so he is often cold, cruelor brutalin the name of justice.
The resolutionof thesethreedilemmasof virtueis the same:mystical
insight.With a genuinecomprehensionof the realitiesof the human
situation,a true perceptionof the ultimaterasa, comes the ability to
combineYudistira'scompassion,Bima'swill to action, and Arjuna's
sense of justiceinto a truly moral outlook,an outlook which brings
an emotionaldetachmentand an innerpeacein the midstof the world
of flux, yet permits and demands a struggle for order and justice

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 SACRED SYMBOLS 435

within such a world.And it is such a unificationthat the unshakable

solidarityamong the Pendawasin the play, continuallyrescuingone
anotherfrom the defectsof theirvirtues,clearlydemonstrates.
But what, finally,of Semar,in whom so many oppositionsseem
to meet-the figurewho is both god and clown, man'sguardianspirit
and his servant,the most spirituallyrefined inwardlyand the most
rough-lookingoutwardly?Again one thinks of the chronicleplays
and of, in this case,Falstaff.Like Falstaff,Semaris a symbolicfather
to the play'sheroes.Like Falstaff,he is fat, funny, and worldly-wise;
and, like Falstaff,he seems to providein his vigorousamoralisma
generalcriticismof the very values the dramaaffirms.Both figures,
perhaps,provide a reminderthat, despite over-proudassertionsto
the contraryby religiousfanaticsand moralabsolutists,no completely
adequate and comprehensivehuman world-view is possible, and
behindall the pretenseto absoluteand ultimateknowledge,the sense
for the irrationalityof human life, for the fact that it is unlimitable,
remains.Semarremindsthe nobleand refinedPendawasof theirown
humble,animalorigins.He resistsany attemptto turn humanbeings
into gods and to end the world of naturalcontingencyby a flight to
the divine world of absoluteorder, a final stilling of the eternal
psychological-metaphysical struggle.
In one wajang story, Siva comes down to earth incarnatedas a
mysticalteacherin an attemptto bring the Pendawasand Korawas
together,to arrangea negotiatedpeacebetweenthem.He is succeeding
quite well, opposedonly by Semar.Arjunais thereforeinstructedby
Siva to kill Semarso that the Pendawasand Korawaswill be able to
get togetherand end their eternalstruggle.Arjunadoes not want to
kill Semarwhom he loves,but he wishesa just solutionto the differ-
ences between the two groups of cousins and so goes to Semar to
murderhim. Semarsays: so this is how you treat me after I have
followed you everywhere,servedyou loyally,and loved you. This is
the most poignantpoint in the play and Arjunais deeply ashamed;
but true to his idea of justice,he persistsin his duty. Semarsays: all
right, I will burn myself. He builds a bonfireand standsin it. But
insteadof dying, he is transformedinto his godly form and defeats
Sivain combat.Then the war betweenthe Korawasand the Pendawas
beginsagain.
Not all people have, perhaps,so well developeda sense for the

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436 THE ANTIOCH REVIEW

necessarynote of irrationalityin any world-view,and thus for the

essentialinsolubilityof the problemof evil. But whetherin the form
of a trickster,a clown, a belief in witchcraft,or a conceptof original
sin, the presenceof such a symbolicreminderof the hollownessof
human pretensionsto religiousor moral infallibilityis perhapsthe
surestsign of spiritualmaturity.
IV
The view of man as a symbolizing,conceptualizing,meaning-
seeking animal which has becomeincreasinglypopularboth in the
socialsciencesand in philosophyover the past severalyears,opensup
a whole new approachnot only to the analysisof religionas such,but
to the understanding of the relationsbetweenreligionand values.The
drive to make sense out of experience,to give it form and order,is
evidentlyas real and as pressingas the morefamiliarbiologicalneeds.
And, this being so, it seems unnecessaryto continue to interpret
symbolic activities-religion, art, ideology-as nothing but thinly
disguisedexpressionsof somethingother than what they seem to be:
attemptsto provide-orientation for an organismwhich cannotlive in a
world it is unable to understand.If symbols,to adapt a phraseof
KennethBurke's,are strategiesfor encompassingsituations,then we
need to give more attentionto how peopledefine situationsand how
they go about coming to terms with them. Such a stressdoes not
imply a removalof beliefs and values from their psycho-biological
and socialcontextsinto a realmof "puremeaning,"but it does imply
a greateremphasison the analysisof such beliefsand valuesin terms
of conceptsexplicitlydesignedto deal with symbolicmaterial.
The conceptsused in this paper,ethos and world-view,are vague
and imprecise;they are a kind of proto-theory, forerunners,it is to be
hoped, of a more adequate analyticalframework. But even with them,
anthropologists are beginningto developan approachto the studyof
values which can clarify ratherthan obscurethe essentialprocesses
involvedin the normativeregulationof behavior.One almostcertain
result of such an empiricallyoriented, theoreticallysophisticated,
symbol-stressing approachto the study of values is the decline of
analyseswhich attemptto describemoral,aestheticand other norma-
tive activities in termsof theoriesbasednot on the observationof such
activitiesbut on logicalconsiderations alone.Like beeswho fly despite

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 SACRED SYMBOLS 437

theoriesof aeronauticswhich deny then; the right to do so, probably

the overwhelmingmajorityof mankindis continuallydrawingnorma-
tive conclusionsfrom factualpremises(and factualconclusionsfrom
normativepremises,for the relationbetweenethos and world-viewis
circular)despiterefined,and in theirown termsimpeccable,reflections
by professionalphilosopherson the "naturalisticfallacy."An approach
to a theoryof valuewhich looks towardthe behaviorof actualpeople
in actualsocietieslivingin termsof actualculturesfor bothits stimulus
and its validationwill turnus awayfrom abstractand ratherscholastic
argumentsin which a limitednumberof classicalpositionsare stated
again and again with little that is new to recommendthem, to a
processof ever increasinginsight into both what valuesare and how
they work. Once this enterprisein the scientificanalysisof valuesis
well launched,the philosophicaldiscussionsof ethics are likely to
take on more point. The process is not that of replacing moral
philosophyby descriptiveethics, but of providingmoral philosophy
with an empiricalbase and a conceptualframeworkwhich is some-
what advancedover that availableto Aristotle,Spinoza, or G. E.
Moore. The role of such a special science as anthropologyin the
analysisof valuesis not to replacephilosophicalinvestigation,but to
make it relevant.

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