Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0041/00414.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob00414}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Nepal
Chapter 10.   Social Values}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{George L. Harris}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{caste
knowledge
social
buddhist
hindu
status
family
nepal
values
buddhists}
$Date{1973}
$Log{}
Title:       Nepal
Book:        Nepal, Bhutan, Sikkim, An Area Study: Nepal
Author:      George L. Harris
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1973

Chapter 10.   Social Values

     Social values vary from group to group in the multiethnic society of
Nepal. The Buddhist farmer and stockbreeder of the high Himalayas and the
ricegrowing Hindu peasant of the Tarai differ not only in language, customs
and environmental circumstance but in their conception of the nature of
reality and in what they regard as normal and abnormal, desirable and
undesirable in human affairs. Even within a single ethnic group, differences
in respect to urban and rural residence, economic status and education carry
with them diverse ways of thinking and feeling, and such differences have been
sharpened in the local and regional isolation created by mountainous terrain
and poor communications.

     Uniformities and elements of integration, however, are not absent. Most
Nepalese, for example, are subsistence farmers, and through their cultural
differences run the common denominators of village life and the agricultural
round. The political ferment of the 1950s and the continuing impact of a
central government under a monarch determined to rule directly and vigorously
have produced the beginnings of a public sense of national identity and
shared goals. Only a minority as yet enjoy the advantages of formal education,
but an expanding public school system is gradually disseminating basic
elements of knowledge and common attitudes throughout the country. Hinduism
and Buddhism are sharply contrasting religious dispensations, but in Nepal
they have largely submerged an old substratum of highly varied shamanist
belief. Moreover, certain shared concepts in the two religions reveal both
their common Indian origin and their extensive mutual borrowing and
interpenetration.

     Most broadly, Nepalese social values can be seen in terms of one major
contrast and a number of shared orientations. The contrast is between the
values associated with Hinduism and Indian-derived culture patterns and those
associated with Buddhism and Tibetan cultural connections. The shared
orientations are reflected in certain values characteristic of the Hindus
or the Buddhists, or common to both. Such an approach reveals little of the
actual variation of values in Nepal's pluralistic social setting. It does
suggest something of the range of variation and indicate some general value
orientations.

     The contrasts between Nepalese Hinduism and Buddhism tend to be softened
by the ways in which each has been influenced by the other. The Buddhists, in
particular, have accommodated to the numerically and politically dominant
Hindus, assimilating Hindu deities to the Buddhist pantheon and adjusting in
various ways to the caste system. Both religions accept the notion of a cycle
of reincarnation or rebirth in higher or lower forms depending on merit gained
or lost in earlier existences and, for those who have acquired sufficient
merit, ultimate release from rebirth and union with the infinite. For Hindus
and Buddhists alike, charity, honesty, moderation and abstention from taking
life are prime merits. The two sectors differ significantly, however, in the
way in which each has translated these and other general ideals into a pattern
of individual feeling and conduct and group relations.

     The Hindu caste system stratifies the community on a scale of ritual
purity. Theoretically, each caste is a hermetically sealed compartment, shut
out from those above whom it would pollute, and shutting out those below who
would pollute it. The system in India, and especially in Nepal, has fallen
short of this logical rigor, but it has had definite consequences in the
realm of social values. Thus, the Hindu preoccupation with trespass against
a multitude of ritual boundaries has tended to overshadow moral principles
with legalistic rules. The standard of right and wrong is not universal but
relative to status, and the same act may be good or bad, depending upon the
caste of the person involved. Concern is with the social rather than the
personal effects of conduct. Ritual pollution, for example, is contagious, the
violator of caste rules transmitting his impurity to all who come in contact
with him. The family finds protection by subordinating its members to the
family head and, in effect, alienating their individual ethical competence
to him.

     Within limits, caste boundaries are, in fact, overlooked in the daily
intercourse of all but the most orthodox, and there are other rungs on
the status ladder than those of caste. In tendency, however, the system
blocks upward movement in the community with hereditary impediments, while
leaving open the way to the loss of status through ritual pollution. The
outcome in terms of value orientation and temperament has been a defensive
concern for status, an indifference to the affairs of those outside one's
immediate circle, an impersonal quality in dealing with others, and a
pervasive pessimism. In the Hindu tradition the only real escape from caste
is in renunciation of the world for the ascetic life of the holy mendicant
(sannyasi). This alternative, however, involving, as it does, withdrawal
from the responsibilities of family and caste elicits only ambivalent
approval.

     The Buddhists are ethnically even more varied than are the much more
numerous Hindus. Some, like certain Bhote groups in the North do not differ
in culture from Tibetans across the adjacent frontier. Others-especially
the Buddhist section of the Newar-have developed highly distinctive patterns
of their own. Through all this variation Buddhism impart conditions and
in part corresponds with a value complex which, in contrast to that of the
Hindus, owes more to Tibet than to India. The Buddhist communities-again with
the exception of the Newar-are not organized on caste lines, and the absence
of this elaborate and rigid compartmentalization of society has favored the
acceptance of certain basic Buddhist principles. In place of the exclusiveness
of caste, for example, there is the universalistic Buddhist belief in the
brotherhood of man and a concept of right and wrong which is independent of
social status. All act is judged to be good or bad without regard to the
social position of the one who commits it. Hospitality, kindness, and respect
for others are held to be meritorious in all circumstances, and the estranging
idea of ritual pollution is absent.

     Moral worth for the Buddhists tends to be an attribute of the individual
rather than of the group, and responsibility to be personal rather than
collective. Value focus shifts accordingly. Buddhists and Hindus alike
accord considerable importance to the efficacy of prayer and ritual acts in
the acquisition of merit, and both formally acknowledge largely the same
cardinal virtues. However, whereas the most fundamental obligations of
the Hindu are dictated by caste status and family affiliation, the Buddhist
is expected to be guided by universal principles applicable in the relations
of all men, irrespective of birth. The contrast is between Hindu
particularism, collective responsibility, concern with group status and
emphasis on enforcement of roles, on the one hand, and on Buddhist
universalism, individual responsibility, concern with personal relationships,
and emphasis on internalized sanctions, on the other. In terms of emotional
texture of cummunity life, the difference in these two value configurations
seems to be reflected among the Buddhists in less formality and tension, in
an emphasis on restraint over assertiveness, in a more sanguine and cheerful
outlook and in a greater readiness to form new friendships.

     A central point of value in literally all groups is knowledge. Formal
knowledge, traditionally associated in Nepal with Hindu and Buddhist
scriptures, has acquired for the Nepalese a sacred quality. Not only was
the pursuit of knowledge virtuous, but its possession brought power. These
two attributes still strongly adhere to knowledge-secular as well as
religious-but with an apparent difference of emphasis in the Hindu and
Buddhist sectors of the society.

     The Buddhist disposition is to treat knowledge as virtue. The sanctity
of the Lamaist monk is enhanced by learning, and, although there are many
poorly educated monks, the ability to read and recite the sutras is a
prestigious mark of the religious vocation. The end of knowledge is seen
to be virtue and spiritual enlightenment, and, while it is held that
knowledge is not the only or even sufficient path to these, means and end
have in effect come to be identified. Something of this attitude carries over
into the respect in which modern learning is held and accompanies the
practical motives in the eagerness of parents to obtain an education for
their children.

     Knowledge for similar reasons has a connotation of virtue among Hindus,
but for them it has no less clearly an attribute of power. This perception
of knowledge no doubt owes something of Tantric influence, which in Nepal
has penetrated both Hinduism and Buddhism. In its more esoteric forms,
Tantrism claims a body of occult knowledge capable of releasing great
cosmic and psychic forces. Knowledge as power, however, would seem more
importantly to result from caste-defined Brahman domination of orthodox
religious learning and of the high castes' general monopoly of the secular
and religious knowledge needed to rule. Knowledge, in effect, became
not merely a benefit of birth and wealth but a hereditary asset, vital to the
preservation of high status, like ritual purity itself, and not to be shared
with those below or with potential competitors lest the advantage be lost.
This attitude was reflected in the antipathy of the Ranas to the development
of popular education. The policy changed with the fall of the Ranas, and
public schools have increased rapidly. The old attitudes, however, have not
altogether disappeared, and the evaluation of knowledge as power still
carries with it the tendency to hoard it as alienable treasure.

     Hierarchy and authority stand out in the pattern of Nepalese social life.
The caste system carries the hierarchical principle to an extreme, and only
in modern times has an absolutist tradition of public authority encountered
an opposing concept of popular and private right. The hierarchical and
authoritarian emphasis is greatest in the Hindu sector of the society,
but in lesser degree it is also present among some Buddhist groups in an
hereditary division of the Tibetan type between aristocrats and commoners
and in the penetration of Hindu influence.

     The hierarchical ordering of all the most important relationships in the
Hindu community has given special importance to formal attitudes and types
of social behavior calculated to recognize and preserve a wide range of
status difference. The appropriate postures in the dealings of superiors
and inferiors are dignity and distance on the part of those above, and
respect and submissiveness on the part of those below. This pattern finds
expression within the family circle itself, all members of which are
expected to subordinate themselves to the final authority of the male
head and to be governed in their relations with each other by an order of
precedence which ranks males above females, age above youth and lineal
above affinal kinsmen.

     The formalization of individual and group relations within the
restrictive hereditary structure of caste has made for certain conflicts
between the real and the ideal. In the traditional ideal, the individual
accepts without complaint or envy the place to which he had been born.
Actually, a frustrated preoccupation with status appears to be general. It
has evidently been sharpened by the fact that the nature of the caste
system tends to restrict opportunities for advancement to competition
for relative position among one's peers. The less privileged constantly
seek ways of advancement, and, although they have little hope of being
assimilated into groups above them, they adopt their ways as far as possible
to display superiority over their fellows. Wealth is no doubt desired
for the security and comfort it can bring, but a central motive appears
to be elevation of social position. Even the semblance of wealth is prized,
and people will entertain lavishly and mark family occasions with expensive
ceremonies at the cost of mounting debts.

     Unquestioning obedience to authority is also a qualified ideal not only
because of the impingement of modern influences but because of an apparent
traditional factor. The characteristic relationship between persons of high
and low caste has been that of patron and client. Service and obedience were
expected of the client, but the patronage he received came less as a right
or a reciprocal favor than as an alms-like bounty. The pattern gave little
reinforcement to the motive of loyalty between superior and subordinate,
and such relationships have tended to be unstable. The result has been that
while the principle of authority has been strongly upheld, there has been
little compunction about ignoring or avoiding its commands.

     A warrior tradition has given value to courage and strength among the
Nepalese, especially the hill peoples. The kingdom was won by the military
prowess of the Thakuri and Chetri castes of Gorkha, and the more or less
Hinduized ethnic groups of central and eastern Nepal subsequently created
a legend in the ranks of the Gurkha battalions in the service of Great
Britain and India. The high Himalayas have also provided the setting for
a hardy mountaineering tradition. The "Tiger" Sherpa is a man with the
distinction of having served as a porter at elevations about 24,000 feet.
Not only men, but women, take pride in their ability to carry heavy loads
over steep and often dangerous mountain trials.

     Contact with the outside world and a planned program of domestic
development are beginning to affect the traditional scheme of values. Such
changes as are observable are most apparent in the few urban centers, and
notably the Katmandu Valley, but there are indications that new material
expectations, social wants and political goals are penetrating the rural
areas as well. The impact of change is differential also in that it is
felt first by men and young people. Frequently, the old and new concepts
come into conflict within the same household, the older women clinging
to tradition, while the young people and men whose contacts reach outside
the household, begin to accept newer ways.

     Western influence entering Nepal through motion pictures, radio, printed
matter and Nepalese who have traveled abroad and resident foreigners is
affecting traditional concepts of family and caste. More and more frequently
sons are setting up their own households before the death of their father,
and even though brothers may continue to live in their father's house,
they are less apt than formerly to pool their earnings in the joint family
purse. Western notions of courtship and marriage are beginning to compete with
the traditional concept of family-arranged matches.

     Caste rules are also loosening, and the penalties for intercaste marriage
have been abolished and discrimination before the law on the basis of caste
banned. As family and caste traditions are challenged, the existing forms of
status become less satisfying. Recognition of the material abundance of other
countries can be expected to give a new significance to wealth and to
stimulate the desire for economic advancement and for the knowledge and the
social and political institutions with which to achieve it.