Buddhist confessional poetry: Narratives of self-conversion

[Part 3]

Last week, in discussing the poetry of Theragatha and Therigatha, I raised, what I thought were two important questions - the nature of literary subjectivity emanating from these poems and the way the Buddhist concept of non-self relates to the experiences recounted in these poems. To day, I wish to extend this discussion by focusing on the nexus between self and narrative in these Buddhist confessional poems. During the last two or three decades narratology, as a field of inquiry has grown steadily largely due to the work of theorists such as Todorov, Genette, Barthes; it has become ever more sophisticated, and I should say, complex. One fact that emerges inescapably in these exegeses is the complex ways in which the self is created through narrative. This indeed has great implications for our exploration of the Theragatha and Therigatha as literary texts..

The poems gathered in the Theragatha and Therigatha are confessional in nature, and they are underwritten by a distinctive narrative architecture. Even in the one-verse poems we find this narrative impulse. Let us for example consider the following poem by the nun Mutta.

I a well released
Truly released from
Three crooked things
The mortar, the pestle
And my husband.
I am released from
Birth and death.
The spinner of rounds of being
Has been extinguished

This verse is by Mutta who was born in the land of Kosala as the daughter of an impoverished Brahmin named Oghataka. At the appropriate age, as was customary at the time, she was given in marriage to a hunchback. She told him defiantly that she could not continue with the household existence, and sought his consent to renounce the world. Through resolute mental concentration and discipline and the practice of the teachings of the Buddha she attained spiritual enlightenment. It is her life story that constitutes the background of this brief poem. The poem, which is declarative in nature, is in the form of a dramatic monologue.

In the longer poems, for example by nuns such as Ambapali, Kisagotami Uppalvanna and Isidasi, we observe the way in which the narrative unfolds in a wider representational space. They are long poems that secure their effects through dramatic juxtapositions of situations and conflicting alignments of emotion. In the following poem by the nun Dantika, we see how the narrative energy released is crucial to the meaning of the poem.

Leaving my day time retreat
On mount Gijjhakuta
I chanced to observe an elephant
on the river bank.

It had come there after
Bathing in the water.
A man with a hook in hand said
‘Give me your foot’

And the elephant
Stretched out its foot. Then
The man mounted the elephant

Seeing how the untamed had been tamed
How it had embraced control
I sought to tame my mind.
That was my aim
In going to the forest

In this poem, the nun Dantika relates her story about the decisive incident that triggered her resolve to renounce the world. The story carries symbolic valences, and the self of the nun, reflective, committed, defiant, is constructed through the forward movement of the narrative. That is why the relationship between self and narrative that I wish to explore in depth becomes so important.

Narrative comes from the Latin world ‘narrare’ meaning ‘to tell’, and has a kinship with another Latin word ‘gnanus’ meaning ‘knowing’; both words are derived from the Indo-European root ‘gna’, to know.( The Sanskrit/ Sinhala word ‘gnana’ is derived from this.) As with most words, the etymology of ‘narraive’ too, tells us much about the growth of this word and its dual focus on story-telling and knowledge production.. Indeed, questions of narration and knowing are at the heart of much modern theoretical discussions in the art of narrative. This conjunction of narrative and knowledge is extremely important in understand the purpose and meaning- structures of the poems collected in the Theragatha and Therigatha.

Narrative with its play of desire can be regarded as a basic human urge and a fundamental and irreducible form of human comprehension and representation. Roland Barthes observes that narrative ‘is simply there like life itself----international, trans-historical, trans-cultural.’ Fredric Jameson sees narrativization as the ‘central function or instance of the human mind.’ Hayden White conceptualizes narrative as a ‘meta-code, a human universal.’ while Paul Ricoeur views narrative as ‘a re-description of the world.’ The above formulations by these formidable thinkers underline the salience of narrative in literary analysis.

Narrative is significant because it seeks to order and re-arrange phenomenon in a readily understandable and digestible form. Narrative is vital to human life because, through these ordering, re-arranging, displaying of events, it enables us to acquire a deeper understanding of life and society. When we read the exegetical works of, say, Karl Marx or Sigmund Freud, (places where we least expect to see the hegemony of narrative) we begin to observe how, at the individual, social, historical, levels narrative performs this ordering function- that is to say, the generation of meaning. We need to keep in mind this fact as we seek to comprehend the deeper structures of meaning of these Buddhist confessional poems which are driven by a narrative impulse.

Narrative constitutes a basic and universal human impulse; but at the same time, it is decidedly culture-specific.

The content, form, style, codes and conventions associated with narrative are inextricably bound up with a given culture; they reflect as well as shape the structure of cognition and modes of feeling associated with that culture. None of these items is self-contained; each, in its own way, exemplifies its existence in a given culture. Hence the notion of cultural meaning is central to the concept of narrative. This fact becomes evident when we examine deeply these Buddhist poems.

Todorov is of the opinion that the reconstruction of fictional reference narrative through the process of reading involves two distinct stage; understanding and interpretation. Understanding is gained through a process of signification and interpretation takes place through a process of symbolization.

It is according to Todorov, only through symbolization that the reader’s own world is engaged. What he is saying is that, if I understand him correctly, in reconstructing the world of the narrative, the reader relies on a process of symbolization. It is, according to Todorov, only through symbolization that the reader’s own world is purposively engaged. What he is saying is that in reconstructing the world of narrative, the reader is compelled to resort to a process of symbolization. However, I think that Todorov and others who favor an objective structural poetics seek to draw too sharp a division between signification and symbolization or understanding and interpretation. In the ultimate analysis both strategies rest on the strengths of a mutually shareable cultural world between the writer and the reader. However, the when we read the longer poems in the Therigatha, as for example those by Kisagotami, Ambapali and Isidasi, we see the significance of symbolization in directing the narrative.

Questions of signification and symbolization that I alluded to earlier are intimately linked to issues of culture. How culture shapes, organizes, and activates narrative can be seen in the following example. Here I am using the term narrative to denote oral, written, performative or visually based story-telling. The story of a wise judge who adjudicates between the rival claims of two women to the ownership of a child – one an imposter and the other the real other – is popular in at least four different cultural contexts. In this narrative, as it appears in the Bible, Solomon is the protagonist and he is a legatee of the god. God appears in a vision and confers on him unparalleled powers. The narrative ends with the observation, ‘All Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king; for they saw the wisdom of god was in him, to do judgment.’

This same story is found in Buddhist culture as instanced in the Ummagga Jatakaya. Here the critical powers of the discriminating judge do not emanate from a divine location or a supernatural force, but rather from human reasoning. In the Buddhist story, the judge does not pass a final verdict on the contentious issue, but encourages the gathered audience to arrive at the verdict. A version of this narrative is found in a thirteenth century Chinese play. Here what emerges with great force is the overpowering authority of the civil servant who is adjudicating the issue. Bertolt Brecht, the eminent German playwright, re-interpreted this Chinese narrative in accordance with his own professed socialist views in a highly successful play, The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Here, instead of gods and emperors, we have ordinary men and women; a judge who is a personable reprobate, the working-class strangers who display great motherly emotions than the real mother

What we observe in these four narratives is that despite the fact that all four stories deal with the same defining event, the way the narratives are organized and shaped with their variant emphases and accentuations reflects the shaping hand of the respective cultures. What this example clearly demonstrates is the commanding voice, the meaning—conferring efficacy of culture in narratives. This relationship between narrative and culture is central to a proper understanding of the poetic experiences inscribed in the various compositions in the Theragatha and Therigatha.

Let us for example consider the confessional poem by the nun Ambapali which is full of incisive imagery. She was born at Vesali, in the gardens of the king, at the foot of the mango tree. Hence she was called Ambapali (mango guardian’s girl). The gardeners who found her, took her to the city. She was astonishingly beautiful, elegant and graceful; many young princes competed with each other to marry her. In order to settle the issue among themselves, they resolved to appoint her courtesan. Subsequently, as a result of her firm devotion to the teaching of the Buddha, she built a monastery in her own gardens and handed it to the Buddhist order. She was delighted to hear that her own son, the monk Vimala Kondanna, preached the teachings of the Buddha; she through discipline, meditation and reflection on her ageing body gained spiritual insight. This story is converted into a powerful confessional poem. This is how it begins with sharp contrasts, uneasy alignments, propelling the narrative.

My hair was black,
With curly ends
Mirroring the color of bees,

With the passage of years
My hair is like
Bark cloth.

These, and not any other
Are the sounds of truth.

With fine pins
Decked out in gold
Beautiful with plaits
My hair was dazzling.

With the passage of years
That hair has disappeared
Leaving baldness

The relationship between narrative and self is a fascinating one. In recent times, much useful work has been undertaken on this alliance. The self has to be understood in a context of narrative. Certain critics have argued that during the last two or three decades we have witnessed a narrative turn in the humanities and social studies including legal studies. This is most evident in the field of history. In the Anglo-Saxon world, the writings of Hayden White, Alasdair MacIntyre, Arthur Danto, have had a profound impact. In the work of historians such as Georges Duby and Francois Furet associated with the Annales School have exercised a deep influence.

In terms of our own interest the way the concept of narrative has inflected autobiographies is indeed one that invites closer study. Autobiographies, which are referred to as self-writing, self-narratives, are seen as narrative constructs. Critics with a strong literary interest like William Spengemann, James Olney, Phillipe Lejune, began to examine life-writing as a mode of self-making. Indeed, the idea of self-making through narrative became a sought after optic in humanistic and social scientific study. The idea of narrative has assumed such an importance that it is hardly surprising that an expanded version of narrative studies emerged in the academy. One can usefully draw on this cumulative knowledge of self and narrative in order to explore the deeper contours of meaning in the poems gathered in the Theragatha and Therigatha.

There are a number of features that narratives display in common irrespective of the cultural spaces that they are destined to inhabit. The gap, the disconnection, between what was expected and what actually took place is one such defining feature. A narrative comes to life only as a consequence of something unforeseen, and unexpected driving it. In good stories this sense of unexpectedness is given plausibility., the imprimatur of conviction. When at the end of story the reader is willing to believe in it, and in addition, admits that it contains a great measure of sense, we know that this unexpectedness has been tamed. In the Theargatha and Theirgatha, mostly in the latter, there are numerous narratives which initially engender a sense of surprise in the reader. However, as the narrative concludes and the reader is allowed the opportunity reflect on it, he or she will see the logic of it. Understanding this logic and being convinced by it is necessary for the full participation of the reader in the communicated poetic experience.

Most stories come to life when a breach has occurred in the anticipated pattern of events. Aristotle was very sensitive to this and used the term peripeteia to characterize it. In the Therigatha, for example, some of the nuns decided to give up the comforts of the accepted ways of domestic life and choose the path of renunciation. Clearly, this marks a breach in the standardly expected behavior. What these poems do is to focus on this peripeteia as a way of underlining the importance of spiritual enlightenment. Narratives provide readers with a model of the world and model for the world (to use Clifford Geertz’s famous distinction) and the verses collected in the Theragatha and Therigattha illustrate this admirably.

The eminent literary theorist Kenneth Burke, some six decades ago, asserted that what propels a story forward is the discrepancy among the elements of a pentad; this pentad consists of a an agent who has chosen to perform an action, to achieve a goal, the presence of recognizable setting, and the means to achieve it. It is the mismatch among these elements that drives the narrative. For example, in many of the poems in the Therigatha the nuns decide to renounce worldly life in order to achieve liberation in a setting of quiet and solitude through meditation. However, there are obstacles in the way, creating disjunctions among the elements of the pentad.

As I stated earlier narrative is essential to the constructing of self; self-narration is self-making. It is by telling stories about ourselves that we fashion our selves. We make use of past memories in constructing a narrative about us, and very often, these memories are, consciously or unconsciously, re-shaped to fit the demands of the narrative. And as we pointed out earlier cultural imperatives play a significant role in the construction of the self and hence culturally shaped models of self become guides. As we explore the structure and meaning of the poems in the Therigatha this fact becomes evident. What they tell us is that it is through narrative that we fashion selfhood; it is through the act of narrative that the self comes into existence. Many recent neurological studies have confirmed this fact. These scientists maintain that, ‘individuals who have lost the ability to construct narratives have lost their selves.’

Let us consider a modern poem – a poem titled ‘The Hill’ by the well-known American poet Robert Creeley who has displayed a remarkable ability compose tightly organized poems which display wonderful mastery of syntax and sentence-sounds.

It is sometimes since I have been
to what it was had once turned me backwards,
and made my head into
a cruel instrument.

It is simple
to confess. Then done,
to walk away, walk away,
to come again.

But that form, I must answer,
is dead in me, completely,
and I will not allow it
to reappear -

Saith perversity, the willful,
the magnanimous cruelty,
which is in me
like a hill.

Here, in this confessional poem, we observe how an agonized self moves steadily, if clumsily, towards moral illumination. The self that emerges from this poem cannot be separated out from the energy of the narrative.

Narrative is also a means of imposing cohesion on the myriad and contradictory events that constitute life. In the life of the nuns depicted in these poems it is the desire to achieve spiritual salvation that acts as the centripetal force. These nuns have come from diverse backgrounds and have had diverse experiences; however what gives cohesion to their lives is the power of the determination to renounce household life and achieve salvation.

The narratives contained in these poems can be usefully described as speech-acts. A speech act not only makes a statement but also instigates an action; it has an observable effect. In these poems, the narrative should lead the community of listeners or readers to understand and pursue the teachings of the Buddha with added zest. This speech-act is vitally linked to the production of the self. The intent of the poems is not only to recount the life experiences of the authors but also to lead the listeners and readers towards the path of spiritual growth.

In any discussion of the relationship between the self and poetic narrative, the role of the listener or reader should assume a great significance. Concepts such as ‘narratee’, ;implied reader’, ‘ideal reader’, ‘receptor arch reader, which are widely employed in modern narratological studies, in their diverse ways and with their differing points of emphasis, underline the importance of the reader in the decipherment and negotiation of meaning; they constitute a cardinal tenet of reader-response theorists.. What this line of thinking serves to emphasize is the fact that the production of poetic meaning is a collaborative effort of the writer and the reader .A poem contains not one definitive meaning, but many meanings, depending on the nature of this collaboration. This joint effort of the author and the reader has great implications for the understanding of the poems gathered in the Theragatha and Therigatha. As I stated earlier, there is a vital connection between self and narrative- production of the self and the structuring of narrative – in the poems in the Theragatha and Therigatha. This vital connection gains meaning and significance only in relation to a reader or a community of readers.

Therefore, the relationship between self and narrative has to be extended to cover the activity of the reader as well; consequently the meaning -producing enterprise becomes a function of the relationship between the self, narrative and reader. In these Buddhist confessional poems that we have been considering, the self projected by the narratives comes to full life only in the religiously-attuned imagination of the reader. In that sense, the role of the reader in the production of the poetic self has to be regarded as important as that of the functioning of narrative. As we read, say, the poems by nuns such as Ambapali, Isidasi, Uppalvanna or Subha, we need to keep in mind this important consideration.

( to be continued )