kinship metaphors in the hindu pantheon: Śiva as brother-in-law and son-in-law

American Academy of Religion

Kinship Metaphors in the Hindu Pantheon: Śiva as Brother-in-Law and Son-in-LawAuthor(s): William HarmanSource: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Sep., 1985), pp. 411-430Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1464419 .

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Journal of the American Academy of Religion, LIII/ 3

KINSHIP METAPHORS IN THE HINDU PANTHEON:

GIVA AS BROTHER-IN-LAW AND SON-IN-LAW WILLIAM HARMAN

Christians and Hindus frequently use kinship terms to talk about divinities. In both traditions we find descriptions of divinity as father,' mother,2 spouse,3 or even son4 and daughter.5 These terms tend to do two things. First, they serve as devotional models for how worshippers may regard their deities. If the divine is praised as a father, for example, the devotee assumes the point of view of a dependent child. Second, these terms help devotees understand or posit relationships among various facets of the divine. For instance, the relationship between God and Jesus is described as that between father and son. In Hinduism, giva and Parvati are husband and wife, just as Ganega and Murugan are elder and younger brothers.

This essay examines two unusual kinship terms found in the Hindu tradition, particularly in the Tamil-speaking South of India. They are "in-law" terms, as we would call them in the West, and they are predicated on the existence of a marriage. In fact, a marriage generates them: giva is referred to as a son-in-law in his relationship to devotees and as a brother-in-law in his relationship to the other important deity in the Hindu pantheon, Visnru.

William Harman is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana 46135-0037.

1 More often used to refer to God in Christianity, but also used to describe giva in Hinduism.

2 Used to describe the virgin Mother of God in Roman Catholic Christianity and the Great Goddess in Sakta Hinduism. See also McLaughlin.

3 Used in Christianity in reference to the Church as the Bride of Christ, and to Christ as the bridegroom. Note also that the Latter-Day Saints speak of God as having a wife. In the case of Hinduism, nearly every male deity has a spouse: e.g., giva has Parvati; Vi?nu has Lakshmi; and Brahma has Saraswati.

4 Used to refer to Jesus in Christianity and to such deities as Kr.na,

Gaxega, and Murugan in Hinduism.

5 A more obscure kinship term, but found, for example, in the Christian Shaker doctrine of Mother Anne as Jesus' female counterpart and in the Hindu, gaiva tradition in reference to such goddesses as Mariyamman, Manasa, Miuatci, and Santoshi Ma.



412 Journal of the American Academy of Religion

HINDU MARRIAGE AND TWO KINDS OF KINSHIP

Few would disagree that in India the most important social and religious occasion in a person's life is his or her marriage. At the beginning of Part 4 of his 7-part film documentary entitled Phantom India, the incisive director and narrator, Louis Malle, observed, "Everything here seems to begin and end with marriage." More seasoned observers of India have confirmed Malle's impressions with carefully documented ethnographies.6 While there are disagreements about the traditional Hindu sarnskara-s, or "life-cycle rites,"--disagreements about how many there are, when they should be performed, and for whom it is appropriate to perform them-there is remarkable unanimity that marriage is one of them and, by far, the most important. Even in a society where celibacy is a religious virtue, it is clear that to become a celibate ascetic without first having experienced marriage and parenthood is contrary to social and religious norms.7

In fact, marriage is so important that the decision to marry is rarely entrusted to the individuals involved. Marriage "arrangements" and "negotiations" are sub-castes and lineage concerns. "Love marriages," those in which a man and woman decide to marry indepen- dently of family consultation, are regarded as anti-traditional and even dangerous (Fruzzetti: 10-12). When a couple marries, their union is not one of individuals, but of families. Each marriage must be arranged in reference to rather strict rules of exogamy and endogamy, for each marriage is a public statement of a lineage's and a sub-caste's social and ritual status. In short, every marriage constitutes a public act whereby a lineage and the sub-caste of which it is a part defines its formal relations with other lineages and sub-castes. An act of marriage is an act of choosing kinsmen. Or, perhaps more accurately, to marry is to choose certain people who will fit into the categories defined by kinship terms.

In this sense, kinship terms serve to organize relationships, and, therefore, responsibilities and entitlements, in a society. "At a general level, kinship defines the basic patterns of social inclusion and exclusion with respect to obligations" (Cordell and Beckerman:3).

6 See, for example, Dumont (1965: 93), Beck (1972: 229), Orenstein (70) and Yalman (349).

7 One of the clearer enunciations of the injunction to marry before living the ascetic life occurs in the Garuda Purana 88.2-90.7. (Dimmitt and vanBuitenen: p. 340) in which Ruci, the ascetic, is finally accosted by the spirits of his departed ancestors who suffer because he has not married.

8 The term "subcaste" is ambiguous--even in India-but its Tamil equivalent would be vakaiyara. For an explanation of the Tamil conception of "subcaste" see Fruzzetti, Ostor, and Barnett (15).



Harman: Kinship Metaphors 413

Kinship terms locate us in a social universe by providing us with a ready-made set of expectations and with an etiquette, an explicit as well as a tacit set of standards for what constitutes acceptable or unacceptable behavior in our selective dealings with others. These terms define for us the people for whom we have in some sense a responsibility, those on whom we can depend, and those from whom we can expect helpful or indifferent behavior; they supply us with norms for interpersonal relations. As Roger Keesing has pointed out, "Kinship [in many societies] . . .is the ultimate and ultimately ines- capable moral imperative, the quintessential social bond" (31).

Generally, anthropologists speak of two kinds of kinship: affinal and consanguinal. For our purposes, consanguinal relations are what we in the West call "blood relations"; they are determined by a shared parentage or ancestry. Consanguinal kin would include a person's biological parents, siblings, and children. Those related by blood to a person's parents would also constitute consanguinal kinfolk. Relation- ships among deities or between deities and devotees are usually represented by consanguinal kinship terms.

By contrast, affinal relations are created by and based upon the marriage relationship. Though uncommon, affinal terms are not un- known in Western religious traditions. For example, female religious in the Roman Catholic Church understand themselves to be "brides of Christ." Little has been said about what it means to describe a person's relationship to Jesus in this way, but it is clear that the terminology has limitations. Indeed, to refer to a nun as "God's daughter-in-law" would be silly, if not meaningless. The reason lies in the ambiguity of the category "daughter-in-law" in Western kinship systems. Western society tends to be vague about the duties and expectations of in-laws; the determination of proper conduct between them is largely left to the interpretation of the actors. But this Western pattern is not universal. In the kinship systems of India's southern, Tamil-speaking regions, to which we now turn, the responsibilities, privileges, and rights of in-laws are explicit.

DEITY AS AFFINAL RELATION IN TAMIL RELIGION

The Tamils of southern India speak a very different language from that of the majority of Hindus, but that is not what concerns me here. For our purposes, what makes the Tamils unusual is their kinship system. Unlike the majority of Hindus in the Indian subcontinent, they prefer matrilateral cross-cousin marriage.9 To marry your

9 All references to cross-cousin marriage hereafter will be to matrilateral rather than patrilateral cross-cousin marriage. Although some Tamils practice patrilateral cross- cousin marriage, it is by no means the preferred form.




matrilateral cross-cousin, if you are a male, is to marry your mother's brother's daughter. If you are a female, it is to marry your father's sister's son. This, at least, is the preference, although often there is no marriageable person who fits the proper category.

Marriage throughout India is regarded as a way of forging formal alliances with kinsmen who will come to your aid at the time of need. But the cross-cousin marriage does more; it reestablishes alliances formed in previous generations. When a person marries a cross- cousin, s/he marries someone to whom s/he is already related. A new alliance is not created: an old one is reaffirmed.

In general, the northern, Indo-Aryan, and non-Tamil marriage patterns of India have been described as "complex," while those of the South tend to be "elementary." The difference, according to L6vi-Strauss, is that societies practicing elementary structures of kinship are more prescriptive about whom one should marry. In such societies, ideally, one must marry a certain category of relative. All of society is defined as relatives, and these relatives are divided into two categories: possible and prohibited spouses. Whom one should marry is narrowly dictated.

In northern India, the system is different, and marriage to anyone closer than third cousins is prohibited. But in practice, marrying even a third cousin is unwise and quite uncommon. The more widely accepted practice is to marry someone who is at least seven generations removed in terms of kinship ties. This so-called"Aryan system of marriage" is a system that seeks to expand the alliance network as far as possible in order to create " .., a confederation of families allied by the ties of marriage" (Karve:85). The Northern preferences for marriage, then, exclude those who are even remotely related: marrying a first cousin is unthinkable.

?iva as Brother-in-Law

In the southern part of India, uniquely, giva and Visnu are regarded as brothers-in-law.1O They become so, says tradition, by virtue of the fact that 8iva is married to Visnu's sister, Parvati.11 The locus and origin of this tradition will probably never be known, but it is preserved in a variety of ways. In folklore, for example, a common and uniquely Tamil term for Visnu is "Murugan's uncle." Murugan is giva's younger son, and to refer to him as ViSiu's nephew is an indirect way of positing an in-law relationship between giva and Vi4nu (Beck, 1974). More formally, the literatures and the rituals of

10 One of the earliest and best descriptions of this relationship occurs in Hudson (1977). 11 See also references to this in Biardeau (11) and Moffat (249).




some of the most prominent temples in the South take this family relationship between Siva and ViSnu for granted. The two temples with which I am most familiar are the 8aiva Mi

.tci-Cuntaricuvarar Temple of the city of Madurai and the VaiSnava AlakarkOvil Temple, 12 miles north of Madurai. Each temple has a sacred, written, local history, called a "stalapurana," which tells how that temple was founded. And each temple traces its founding to a member of the

Pn.tiya dynasty of kings that once ruled the Madurai area.12 The

VaiSnava temple history presents a case for the descent of the founder of the royal dynasty from Visnu and out of a Vai?nava sacrifice (Hudson, 1982:121). A consanguinal kinship relation is thereby posited between Vi4nu and the

P.ntiya kings. The sacred history of the

Madurai temple seems to take this state of affairs for granted, but never makes it explicit. While it varies on some specific details it corroborates the basic story of how Siva entered into a kinship relation with the Vaisnava

Pnitiyas and, therefore, also with Viniu. A highly

abbreviated rehearsal of the basic story, as it is presented in the most famous example of this literary genre, "The Story of the Sacred Amusements,"'13 reads as follows:

King Malayattuvacca Pd.itiyan,

the son and royal heir of the founder of the city of Madurai, was childless. He desperately needed a male heir to whom he could hand over his throne when the time came for him to retire. Finally, out of a "son- producing" sacrifice emerged, to everyone's surprise, a three- breasted daughter. The king reared her as his male heir, and she became one of the mightiest Piipiya rulers ever, conquer- ing even minor deities. But when she faced giva in order to conquer him, her third breast disappeared, and giva took her for his wife. The great wedding, described in extraordinary detail in the text (and ritually recelebrated every year in the Madurai temple for at least the last 200 years), made Siva the husband of Madurai's queen, and therefore the city's king. He becomes, as the text so clearly states, the "son-in-law" of the retired male Madurai monarch. The extraordinary thing is that during the marriage ceremony, it is Viniu who gives the bride to iva.

Why does Vin.u

give away the bride? We in the West and Hindus of northern India would expect the father of the bride to perform the ritual. Indeed, religious texts of northern, Sanskritic origin, contain descriptions of giva's marriage in which the father of the bride, Himavat, gives her away. In southern India, however, it is common for the elder brother of the bride to give her away in marriage. The

12 An excellent summary of these founding events in both temple histories appears in Hudson (1982: 101-156). 13 See especially chapter 5 of the

Tiruvilaiydtarpurd• am.




relationship between brothers-in-law in the South is functionally equivalent to that between father and son-in-law in the North. For this reason, it would be unthinkable in northern India either to worship Siva as a son-in-law or to regard 8iva and ViSnu as brothers-in-law. To understand this, we need to consider some of the finer features of this "elementary" and southern kinship system.

The logic is as follows. Where cross-cousin marriage is predominant-as it is in the South-brothers have a claim on their sisters' children. That is, a brother may demand that his sisters' sons marry his (the brother's) daughters. While the brother may not always press this claim, his rights tend to make him an active partner in any discussions about whom his sister's children should marry (Yalman:152). Thus, a man must make the arrangements for the marriage of his children with the advice and consent of his brother-in-law, that is, of his wife's brother. A brother-in-law is thus given remarkable power in deter- mining the future of his sister's children, for in this part of the world marriage arrangements are a crucial statement of a family's social and ritual status in the community.

But it is even more complicated; in both North and South India, female hypergamy is the ideal. That is, a woman should marry a man whose social and ritual status is higher than that of her own family: a woman "marries up" and a man "marries down." When this occurs, it means that a man's wife's brother (a man's brother-in-law) is regarded as ritually and socially inferior.14 In the South, this makes for an ambiguous relationship between a man and his brother-in-law. On the one hand, his brother-in-law is socially and ritually inferior. But this inferior has a right to determine in some part the marriage arrangements of his superior's children; he has a right to help determine the ritual and social status of his brother-in-law's children.

In the North of India, where cross-cousin marriage is not the norm, the brother of the bride has nothing like this kind of power. There, he is both socially inferior and relatively powerless. The two qualities together consign him to relative insignificance in the eyes of his sister's husband. Not so, however, in the South; there, the wife's brother is both inferior and the rightful exerciser of considerable power. This contradiction makes him much more difficult to deal with: he is not to be taken lightly. Levi Strauss puts it succinctly:

Wherever a simple method of direct or indirect exchange (of women) is practiced, the brothers-in-law relationship has an importance characterized by an acute ambiguity. The brothers- in-law depend on one another in a truly vital way, and this mutual dependence can create alternatively, and sometimes

14 See for example, Gough (841); Yalman (180); and Beck (1972:255).




also simultaneously, collaboration, confidence, and friendship, or else distrust, fear, and hate. (436)

Because a groom's brother-in-law will be the more powerful representative of the bride's family in years to come, the brother-in- law assumes the right to give his sister away on the occasion of her marriage. The husband will have to turn to his brother-in-law rather than to his father-in-law when matters of mutual concern arise in the future.

Because the pattern of cross-cousin marriage prevails exclusively in the southern, Tamil sections of India, the relationship between brothers-in-law is extremely important there. This is not the case in the North. Thus, only in the South, one of the more vivid ways to speak of a relationship that involves two males who are dependent on each other, and yet between whom there is bound to be a certain amount of conflict, is to talk about the relationship as being similar to that of brothers-in-law. To speak of giva and Visnu, the two deities, as brothers-in-law is to speak of them as having such a relationship. There is ambiguity in their relationship characterized by close dependence and competitive tension.

Therefore, to describe the relationship between Visnu and giva as that of brothers-in-law in southern India is to employ the kinship system of the South in a figurative way that accurately captures the relationship the two deities seem to have in the larger context of the Hindu pantheon. To fully appreciate the Tamil evidence, we need to recall that there is a form of Hinduism common to both the North and the South of India.15 According to this nationwide Hindu tradition, the two most prominent forms of divinity are giva, the deity of the Saivas, and Visnu, the deity of the Vaisnavas. gaivas and VaiSnavas have not always been fond of each other. In fact, there is a tradition of acrimony that is reflected in theological polemic, in mythological depictions of battles or shouting matches between giva and Visnu, and even in occasional communal violence between adherents of the two deities. Nevertheless, the two are still the major Hindu deities, and while they are often at odds in their separate mythologies, we also tend to find eventual resolutions to the literary portraits of the conflicts between them. Such resolutions often end with the declaration that while the two deities tend to be different manifestations of the divine, they are a part of the same divine source, the One.

Similarly, use of the term "brothers-in-law" seems to describe rather well the relationship that exists between gaivas and Vaisnavas. Both are Hindu communities, but the tension between Saivas and Vaisnavas is quite real, and is reflected in general practices of ritual

1~ It has been termed "Pan-Indian Hinduism" by M.N. Srinivas.




and social avoidance. And while relationships between giva and Visnu (as well as those between gaivas and

VaiS.iavas) seem to be

rather similar in both the North and the South, it is significant that to describe the two deities as brothers-in-law in the North would make no sense.

Another very important thing needs to be said about the context in which giva and Visnu are known to be brothers-in-law. That part of the Tamil South in which such a relationship is posited tends to be where the gaiva religion-where the worship of giva-is predominant. In other words, it is primarily among gaivas, or in regions where Saivas are predominant, that giva and Visnu are regarded as brothers- in-law. In any southern brothers-in-law relationship there is always a superior and an inferior. According to the southern Hindu tradition, giva receives his wife from Visnu. This means, in the South at least, that giva is superior, and for this reason the worshippers of giva are much more interested in promoting the use of this kinship term to describe the Siva-Visnu relationship. Vaisnavas living in Saiva- dominated areas tend to acquiesce to the term as an accurate description of the way things are. However, predominantly

Vais.nava com-

munities reject the term altogether.

?iva as Son-in-Law

Southern Saivas use a second affinal term to describe Siva. He is referred to as a "son-in-law" in his position as lord and king of the Madurai kingdom. The title itself is used primarily in the well known eleventh century text, the Tiruvilaiydtarpuranam in which Siva is worshipped as the gracious, benevolent marumakan (son-in-law), but it is a title which makes sense and fits the circumstances in other temples of southern India. As David Shulman (138-140) has pointed out, the common pattern in the majority of Tamil temple histories is to trace the origin of gaiva temples to the arrival of giva in the particular place where the temple is located. And in most cases, giva is attracted to the site by a local, autochthonous goddess, a "daughter of the soil," so to speak.16 There are two such occasions, for example, in the Madurai temple history: in one case giva marries the daughter of the local

P•n.tiya king, mentioned briefly above. In a second, he marries

the daughter of the king of a fishing community on the coast. In both cases he appears as a superior son-in-law who deigns to marry a local female luminary, a "favorite daughter" of the locale. In contracting this marriage, in being drawn to that particular spot and that particular bride, giva is entering into a formal, deliberate, covenantal relation-

16 Other examples mentioned by Shulman include Saivite temples at KIficipuram, NikapattiUam, TiruviTaikkd, and Annamalai (p. 139).




ship with his new bride's "people," who are the local folk. He then assumes both the responsibilities and privileges which are incumbent on the good son-in-law in his relations with his wife's kin. In both instances mentioned here, he saves the community governed by his new wife's father or lineage from certain disaster, bestows on the family of his wife special, divine blessings, and guarantees his future assistance when circumstances require it.

What might this image of Siva as son-in-law mean for devotees? What implications might it have for the sort of devotional models a person might adopt? The term has at least 6 implications for deity- devotee relations.

First, given the traditional framework for Hindu marriage arrangements, it is important that parties to the marriage arrangement have choices. Indeed, typical of Hindu marriage negotiations is their tentative, fragile character; any inadvertent slight or misunderstanding can endanger them.17 For this reason, to describe a devotee's relationship to a deity as an in-law relationship is to assert that there are choices involved on both sides. It is one way to represent the notion that devotees choose their deities by selecting from among the pantheon of millions of divinities their own iSta deva, their "preferred deity." Similarly, deities also select those devotees to whom they choose to reveal themselves.

Second, the term suggests a long-term contractual alliance between 8iva and the local populous, the sort that would assure people of 8iva's help whenever he is needed. Just as any good son-in-law in the South is expected to be a reliable ally during times of trouble, the local temple histories (talapurdnta-s) of several Tamil temples portray 8iva in precisely this way. Absent (or at least less visible) during times of prosperity, he appears dramatically when trouble is brewing, such as when neighboring enemy kings become too aggressive, local kings become too complacent, or vicious Jain heretics invade the country- side.

Third, the relationship is formal: the in-law term allows for contractual clarity between devotee and deity. To become an in-law with a deity is to enter into an explicitly covenantal relationship with that deity. The covenant is unwritten, it is true, but that is because its stipulations are a matter of common knowledge and agreement. The "in-law" relationship implies a much less direct emotional attachment than does a relationship that addresses the deity either as "Father" or "Son." As Hindus of the Tamil South can attest, emotional involve- ment with a deity-as with a human-involves a certain amount of

1' This is true of marriage of humans (Fruzetti, 1982: 29-34) and of deities (eg. ?iva Purana 111.48.49).




risk. It can be dangerous, and for many is rather unappealing. In some cases, it means forsaking all other emotional attachments for the price of a loving relationship with the Lord (Ramanujan: 11-14). In a land where one of the words for "religion" is matam, a term which also implies "madness," "possession," and "intoxication," it would not be difficult to find devotees who prefer to seek models for devotion other than those inspired by such great, but excessively eccentric figures as Manikkavacakar.18 It is easier, and more appealing for many, not to be too closely related to the divine.

Fourth, in any Tamil in-law relationship there are clear understandings, and one of these is that in exchange for the son-in-law's (or deity's) constant willingness to assist in times of trouble, his wife's family (or devotees) owe him significant reverence and respect. This respect begins at the time of the wedding, when even the human son-in-law is literally worshipped as a god. The bride's family wash his feet with solemn devotion, offer him dratti, the lamp-waving ceremony most commonly performed as a part of temple worship for deities, and he receives from his new in-laws madhuparka, a sweet mixture normally presented to the deities (Srinivas: 72 and 74; Orenstein: 50; and Gupta: 88). After the wedding, a man's in-laws are obligated to make occasional visits to his home and to offer special gifts of food. In a religious sense such obligations would be met by the visits of Siva's kin to his local temple where he is offered four times a day, during the puja ceremony, special gifts of food and money by his devotees, his figurative "in-laws."

Fifth, seen as a son-in-law, the deity can be regarded with some sense of mutuality. He is far more approachable, and therefore far more understandable. The son-in-law is younger, and, in this sense, inferior to his parents-in-law. But he is socially and ritually superior, given the normal rules for female hypergamy. Social and ritual status usually outweigh the age deficit to render the son-in-law superior. But at least he may be reckoned with more easily than might a stern male parent. He can be prevailed upon, argued with, even occasionally abused a bit, or ignored. Consistent neglect or abuse would, of course, be dangerous, as many of the episodes from the temple histories make clear. But neglect will rarely mean disaster, and "family feuds" of this sort can be repaired over time.

Finally, to place oneself in a parent-in-law relationship to the deity is to make significant claims for one's own high status and acceptability. True, "wife-givers" are inferior to "wife-takers" in the hierarchy of kinship exchange, but "wife-givers" cannot be too far inferior: when a caste or a sub-caste desires to improve, by changing,

18s About whom the definitive English-language work is probably Yocum (1982).




its social and ritual status, one of the most acceptable and effective ways to do so is, " ... by giving daughters as brides ... to the men of the next higher caste or sub-caste" (Karve: 7). Giving a daughter to a deity, a member of the "next higher" caste is clearly a public statement about one's own social and ritual status. Thus, to regard a deity as a son-in-law is to assume divine airs, but it is to do so in full recognition that there are clear obligations and responsibilities on each side.

I noted earlier that Hindus of northern India-none of whom practice cross-cousin marriage--do not comprehend how the term "brothers-in-law" might be an apt description for the relationship between giva and Vi su. In northern India a man's brother-in-law is not especially significant. Not much notice need be given him. However, those same Hindus represent giva's relationship with certain other deities as that of son-in-law to father-in-law: giva is portrayed in several texts as son-in-law to Himavat in his marriage to Pdrvati, Himavat's daughter (Vamana

Purdn.a 26. 52-53 and ?iva

Purdna 111.23), and as son-in-law to Dakqa in his marriage to Sati, Dakea's daughter (Kurma Purdna 1.14.4-97). But in each of these marriages there is considerable animosity and tension between giva and his father-in-law. giva rudely insults Himavat and his wife at every opportunity, and he ends up beheading Daksa. The northern kinship system provides a context for understanding what this impu- dence and violence are about: the cordial but formal relations we find among in-laws in the South do not seem to exist in the North. Northern in-law relations are very strained, for they are not characterized by the continuing system of marriages whereby family alliances tend to be reaffirmed by repeated unions of cross-cousins.19 To speak of a deity as a son-in-law in northern India would make no sense unless you wanted to speak of that deity in unambiguously adversarial terms. And this is precisely what happens in the northern and Sanskritic mythologies of giva's marriages to the daughter of Himavat in one case and of Daksa in another. In each, the family of in-laws is portrayed as having Vaisnava preferences. Indeed, in the North

Vai•.avas tend to be predominant, and giva is regarded--especially

in the literature--as an irresponsible, philandering, pot-smoking ascetic.

KINSHIP TERMS AS METAPHORS

I have tried to demonstrate how a particular sub-group (most Saivas of southern India) within a larger community (Hindus through-

19 This may explain why the recently reported murdering of newlywed brides by their in-laws is a practice largely confined to northern India. See Broder.




out India) might generate affinal kinship terms for understanding the divine, terms that depend upon a kinship system not shared by all Hindus, or even by all Gaivas. Those familiar with the intricacies of the Dravidian, cross-cousin marriage alliance will understand what it means to speak of giva and ViSnu as brothers-in-law and to speak of giva as son-in-law in relation to his devotees. Folklore and common usage bear out the contention that giva and ViSnu are brothers-in-law. Classical Tamil texts praise 8iva as the magnanimous "son-in-law" to whom is due worship and respect.

Yet, some who know southern India well may find it difficult to believe that Saiva devotees really think of giva as a son-in-law. I could only agree that probably not very many southern gaivas actually pray to or worship 8iva, addressing him as, for example, "O Great Son-in- Law!". They would certainly understand the common devotional poetry which addresses giva this way, and they would not think the term at all unfitting. Still, the term would not be used in everyday devotional language. To refer to giva in this way would be about as appropriate for the average devotee as it would be for the Roman Catholic nun-having become a "bride of Christ", and having adopted a wedding ring as the outward symbol of her commitment- to pray to "Jesus, My Husband."

This is because kinship terms used in reference to deities are metaphors, and, as such, they may be sustained only so far. In the paragraphs that conclude this essay I want to suggest (1) how kinship terms for the divine may be construed as metaphors and (2) how some recent discussions of metaphoric language might help us understand more about the way kinship metaphors work in Hinduism.

Metaphors are not simply decorative images. They make sense and they have meaning. A metaphor proposes certain analogies between the normal context of a word and a new or different context. Thus, a metaphor is a transaction between contexts, encouraging us to discover how the two contexts can illuminate each other in new and sometimes unexpected ways.20 In asserting that kinship terms are metaphors when they are used to describe the divine, I am saying that the reference to 8iva as, for example, "son-in-law" proposes a juxta- position between two contexts. On the one hand, we have the context of divinities and of actions as well as relationships attributed to them. "Son-in-law," on the other hand, is a term normally attributed to a relationship between human beings. Kinship terms used for deities, 20 For this understanding of metaphor, see Barbour: 13. See also Black; Berggren:

237ff; and McFague: 14-20. Gerhart and Russell (120) have put it this way: "A change has occurred because a newly structured world of meanings causes us to see the world through new 'spectacles.' "




then, invite us to think about divinities in terms of the way we normally think about human beings.

Further, if metaphors do have meaning, they are not necessarily true in the literal sense. Consider this example: a married couple recently published their first co-authored book, and announced to their friends that the book was their first child. The announcement made figurative, though not literal, sense. The metaphor they used juxtaposes two contexts: that of parenthood on the one hand and of academic publishing on the other.

One of the characteristics of metaphor is its open-endedness. It can be sustained: the contexts which it juxtaposes can be further explored, and new insights or understandings may emerge. In this sense, the metaphor creates new perceptions of reality (Tracy: 104; Lakoff and Johnson: 139-146). In the example above, we are encour- aged to see both authorship and parenthood in new ways. Parenthood can be regarded as a careful, deliberative endeavor in which attention to detail and the willingness to be self-critical are extremely important. Authorship can be regarded as an enterprise involving coopera- tion, passion, love, and sensitivity in which the product eventually takes on an independent life of its own, quite apart from the lives of its authors. In this way, metaphors may be sustained: if not ad infinitum, at least ad nauseum. The suggestion that doing footnotes constitutes the diaper-changing of authorship might be just such a case. However, there is a point beyond which metaphors do not work well: they may be too systematically, too literally sustained. When we take the reference to 8iva as "in-law" in Tamil 8aivism out of the context of poetry and seek to analyze it carefully, we risk misunderstanding it by virtue of our careful analysis. It is the nature of religious metaphor to resist an overly literal interpretation of the contexts it juxtaposes. It is sufficient to demonstrate that it makes sense to Tamil Hindus to refer to 8iva as a brother-in-law or as a son-in-law. What sense this makes has to be understood in the context of an unusual complex of marriage alliances and the emotional bonds these alliances tend to generate. Understood apart from these alliances, the kinship metaphors have little meaning. Similarly, articulated to the point of a literal or an exclusive understanding, the metaphors tend to lose their vitality and the evocative quality so typical of devotional religious imagery. These in-law terms, then, need not be used literally or descriptively. They are suggestive and even playful. For the Tamils they are significant ways for understanding divinity, but they are neither exhaustive nor normative.

Another characteristic of metaphor is that it both reflects and generates a sense of community among those who share it (Cohen). The more obvious it is to juxtapose two specific contexts, the larger




the community of understanding which the metaphor reflects. For instance, native English speakers will normally understand me when I complain, "My foot has gone to sleep." But not all people whose English is excellent will understand me. This is because the statement is what linguists call an idiom. The native Tamil speaker whose English is excellent may prefer to express the same physical state by saying, "My foot has turned into wood," for this physical state is described in his native language precisely that way: "Idil marattu p6yirru." However, some native Tamil speakers will know precisely what I mean when they hear me talk about my foot being asleep. And if they do, with respect to this utterance, they are more a part of the English-speaking community than their compatriots who mistake my meaning. This metaphor, then, delineates certain parameters of a community, even though most people in it have no idea that they are a part of a community that understands what it means to speak metaphorically about sleeping feet.

Religious metaphors usually appear in religious myths, that is, in narrative accounts that tell us what deities do, among themselves and in their relationships with humans. Often, these metaphors suggest analogies between human experience and divine acts or attitudes. God can be referred to as Shepherd, King, Father, and Son21-all in what devotees perceive to be a coherent body of mythology. Used together, these metaphors are not necessarily perceived as contradic- tory. A good example would be the images of 8iva presented in the Sanskrit puranic tradition. He can be, depending on the circumstances, a celibate ascetic, a happily married man, and an erotic seducer (O'Flaherty). Often, particular sub-groups within a tradition will focus on certain of these metaphors, relegating others to positions of lesser importance. When devotees focus on one metaphor, it is not uncommon for them to sustain that metaphor in such a way that new insights or images emerge. Occasionally, a metaphor may be sustained so that it is uniquely associated with a particular community of devotees, an identifiable sect, or even a separate tradition. The Christian and the Judaic traditions, for example, speak of a supreme deity who is male. But when it comes to sustaining the metaphor, and

21 Note that the written English language-unlike such languages as Tamil or Sanskrit, where there are no upper- and lower-case distinctions between letters-allows for the possibility of metaphor which is both textual and visual. When I write, "Our father helps us," I am speaking in the context of a human, biological relationship that involves siblings and a parent. But when I write, "Our Father helps us," the word "Father" with the first letter in the upper-case--clearly refers to no human or biological father. The context changes completely: a transaction between the human and the divine contexts is suggested. A metaphorical reference is posited: two otherwise identical sentences take on radically different meanings.




to talking about the deity as father and son, the two traditions part company. Within the Christian community, there are those who choose to sustain the kinship metaphor even further. Roman Catholics speak of Mary as the Mother of God and take her as an object of religious devotion. By refusing to revere Mary as the Mother of God, Protestants set themselves apart from the Roman Catholic tradition.

The use of certain metaphors, and the inclination to sustain them, are often indications of the parameters of a community of understanding,22 whether that community be religious or not. In Hinduism, we have seen that the use of "in-law" metaphors among Tamil gaivas indicates the parameters of that particular subgroup of Hindus. And we have seen that in order to understand the metaphors, individuals must share certain assumptions about kinship relations, responsibilities, and obligations.

Finally, it seems likely that just as a community sustains specific metaphors, those metaphors serve, in turn, to sustain the community. They organize perceptions and suggest ways of seeing which give that community an identity. A devotional text that praises God as a son-in-law leaves Westerners puzzled. It makes more sense to Hindus of northern India, but they, too, could not understand devotion to a son-in-law: contempt, perhaps, or even disdain, but not devotion. Only among Tamils who practice cross-cousin marriage would this make perfect sense. For Tamils, living with the awareness that the divine is at least as accessible as one's own son-in-law is to live in a cosmos that is reasonably secure. It is a cosmos in which the divine is no less comprehensible-and, alas, no more-than the people with whom we live and deal, and upon whom we depend, every day.

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kinship metaphors in the hindu pantheon: Śiva as brother-in-law and son-in-law

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