Religion as cultural artifact

I found an article on the subject just as I was having vaguely similar thoughts.

Roberto de Nobili was a Roman Jesuit who travelled to India in the 16th century and did evangelisation in Goa, Kochi and mostly in Madurai. who used incluturation as a method of evangelisation. The central idea being adopting the customs of th enatives to gain greater acceptance. The underlying assumption being that religion is an anthropological construct and therefore a cultural artefact.

All that I knew about him till now was that there is a theology college in Pune in his name. Now I know that such initiatives have given us the localised customs of the Kerala Christians too. Here is the article...

Religion as Culture:
Anthropological Critique of de Nobili’s Approach to Religion and Culture

Dr.C. Joe Arun SJ

This paper argues that religion is a manifestation of culture of a people and treating religion isolated from culture is unintelligible and, in some sense is impossible. This approach insists on the idea that culture is not merely patterns of human behaviour such as customs, habits and traditions but it is best seen as control mechanisms or programmes that determine, order, and guide human behaviour. Seen from this vantage point religion is not simply metaphysics but it is the ethos of people that is the tone and character of people. This creates indeed a meaningful relationship between values a people hold dear to them and their general order of existence. The ethos is conceived in the form of symbols, dramatised in rituals and re-membered in myths that show a people ways in which they ought to behave. Religion is in some way an expression of the limitedness of human existence in that every time human beings reaches the limit in which they become conscious of a power beyond and realise the need to depend on that power. This powerless is expressed in symbols that are evolved in and through culture. Such symbolic expressions have to be interpreted and understood in relation to the culture that gives rise to the symbols.

Therefore, sacred symbols can not be understood in isolation of the culture from which they come. This approach of relationship between religion and culture argues a case against the approach of de Nobili who believes that religions can enter into dialogue without referring to cultural symbols that might be used in religious rituals. The paper first begins with defining religion and culture. Second, it discusses the close relationship between religion and culture. Third, briefly looks at de Nobili’s view of dialogue between religions without referring to cultural symbols.

Defining Religion and Culture

Before I discuss the relationship between religion and culture I should be clear about the definitions of them that I use throughout this paper. This is important for the present purpose as the whole book focuses on the relationship between religion and culture. In particular, this book addresses the question of how religion could be understood and made use of isolated from cultures. More sharply, this is a discussion on the dialectic of religion and culture. It is hardly possible to provide a comprehensive definition about culture and religion since many authors use different definitions for different purposes. It is the contexts that determine the kind of definitions. But the discipline of anthropology has for long been concerned with religion and culture. Particularly, culture is the single most idea with which anthropology was concerned about among the nineteenth century anthropologists (Barnard and Spencer 2002: 136). Therefore, I prefer to use the anthropological definitions[1].

Culture as a System of Meaning

The concept of culture originates from organic evolutionary process. In agriculture one cultivates a plant in which the land is cultured first and later the plant is brought to the cultured land. There is a deep link between growth and land. From the cultured land comes a healthy plant. In the same way, human beings culture their personality in and through their manipulation of the environment they live in and the encounters they have with other peoples. This is why we can never avoid discussion of nature while we discuss culture. The crucial question is that how far human beings fall into nature and in what ways in which we need to study nature when we study peoples. Every reality and natural environment is unique and therefore every people is unique in the ways in which they lead their lives. Edward Sapir (1985), Alfred Kroeber (1917), Margret Mead (1943), and Ruth Benedict (1934) extended this idea in their works in that although human beings have similar biological qualities all over the world, their cultures are different simply because the environment in which they live are different that has different culture and language. Every people have unique culture that is different from other peoples.
Culture is an integrated system of socially acquired values, beliefs, and rules of conduct which delimit the range of accepted behaviours in any given society. Cultural differences distinguish societies from one another. In material culture that Archaeology, a branch of the broader field of anthropology discusses, we come to learn about the people who lived before from the remains of extinct human cultures such as pottery, art, music and weaponry. Such analysis is particularly useful where no written records exist. The first anthropological definition of the term ‘culture’ was given by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor (1871 Vol I): “Culture or civilisation, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (p.1). In all this they attempt to make sense of their lives. In this sense, culture involves at least three components: what people think, what they do, and the material and artistic products they produce. Mental processes, beliefs, knowledge, and values are parts of culture. This is why some define culture entirely as mental rules that guide human behaviour[2]. Culture also has several properties: it is shared, learned, symbolic, transmitted cross-generationally, adaptive, and integrated.
We need to discuss the nature of culture. Culture is a human ability to classify experiences, encode such classifications symbolically, and transmit such abstractions to others, or to successive generations that give them their uniqueness. It is usually acquired through enculturation, the process through which an older generation induces and compels a younger generation to reproduce the established lifestyle; consequently, culture is embedded in a person's way of life. This is built into subconscious level to the extent that one can not quantify the culture. This is why for a long time anthropologists were apprehensive about studying their own cultures. More sharply, culture is a system that is in and forms a person’s psyche and this can not be studied by universal rules. Every ethnic group has its unique culture. And anthropologists study these cultures from different view points. Symbolic anthropologists study cultures in terms of how people's mental constructs guide their lives. Structuralist anthropologists analyze the human relationships among cultural constructs of different societies, deriving universal mental patterns and processes from the abstract models of these relationships. Therefore, any universal theory or definition will not be helpful in comprehending the nature of cultures; instead every culture has to be studied in its own environment and in its idioms[3].

Keeping this in mind, I would like to look at the definition of Clifford Geertz[4] in detail. Geertz (1993) defines culture as "a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life" (p. 89). In this sense, culture becomes a system of symbols that symbolises the worldview of particular community or groups. It provides a way of looking at the world and helps people organise their life in their environment. This worldview has been produced in course of history and in the lives of many generations to help develop a tradition that guides the successive generations to show them life orientations. This pattern is laid as meaning systems in symbols, what Cohen (1985) calls ‘symbolic gloss’ that can be used by social actors as symbols to communicate and understand each other with personal significance and meaning. In this sense, members of community depend on these symbols to form their opinions and thoughts and express them intelligibly. In this way mostly human behaviour is to be seen as symbolic action that needs to be understood in its culture. This human behaviour is guided and determined by the social structure which was produced by culture. If culture gives a worldview by which one structures his/her behaviour and by which one thinks, feels, and acts, this provides also a system or pattern of social behaviour that controls and guides the social actors. In this sense, caste system in India is a product of culture in which religion is a part. Pure and impure ideas of life are part of the pattern by which an Indian has to live and lead his/her life. This is successively done in the course of history to the extent that it would be hard to effect a change. We shall discuss this theme in detail later when we look at de Nobili’s view on religion. At the moment we should be clear that symbols become the carriers of meaning in one sense that can be read and used by others. Similarly, religion is also seen in this perspective of symbolic anthropology.


Religion as a System of Symbols [5]

As said earlier Clifford Geertz belongs to interpretive anthropology. His approach is mainly concerned with interpreting and providing a "thick" description of cultural systems so that they can be apprehended by those who are not insiders to that cultural system. Therefore, Geertz develops a theory of religion that is based on the view that it is distinctively a part of the cultural system. Geertz emphasises the idea that people basically act according to the system of meanings they have, therefore anthropologists should concentrate on interpret ting these meanings. For Geertz, the system of meanings both act upon and are acted upon by people's actions in and through a continuous dialogue in which cultures shape as well are shaped by individual and collective actions. As in our discussion of culture religion forms a part of culture in the sense that every religion forms its character and grows gradually in culture from which it has sprung. If taken out of that culture the religion loses its original meaning. But the core message can be applicable to or sensible in other cultures, not in its originality. To gain total sense and clarity of the original meaning one has to have a familiarity with the original culture from which the religion was formed. In this sense, Geertz sees religions as a cultural system.

Now let us look at Geertz’ definition of religion. Religion is defined as (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic (Geertz 1975: 90). Let us take each point and discuss it to show how religion and culture are organically related to each other so as to show later in the paper in what ways de Nobili is wrong in separating religion from culture.
First of all, religion is a system of symbols and is a cultural construct, not innate human beings that could be universal to all human beings. Secondly, this system of symbols is the "model" for empirical reality, in two senses. One is that it is a "model of" and "model for" reality. By ‘model of’, Geertz means that it helps us apprehend the nature of true reality by giving us an idea of depiction of that reality. By ‘model for’ he means that that it functions as a tool to determine actually people's actions by providing for the blueprints of how things are ought to be conducted. This is crucial in the sense that gives us the idea of the dialect between structure and actions. Geertz says: "Unlike genes, and other nonsymbolic information sources, which are only models for, not models of, culture patterns have an intrinsic double aspect: they give meaning, that is, objective conceptual form, to social and psychological reality both by shaping themselves to it and by shaping it to themselves" (1975:93).
Secondly, religion forms in people certain mental or psychological dispositions. They do not effect any activities to take place directly, but increases the probability of certain activities or occurrences taking place. There is a difference between motivation and moods. Motivation has goals in mind and they activate the type of activity that could reach the goals. But moods have no ends in conception and they are meaningful depending upon the source of those moods. Goals have no relation to moods. The dispositions that a religion establishes are important in the sense that they control the activities and behaviour of a people. Very rarely intellectual speculations determine actions of social actors; instead emotions guide and determine human behaviour.

Thirdly, religion provides us an order of existence. It gives us a certain confirmation that the life we live is not in disorder but in order and it is comprehensible. In human life there are three areas that human beings have the possibility of losing their life’s core. They are analytic capacities, endurance, and moral insight. The religious systems make sure that these are not made weak or they are not broken and thus life is made meaningful. The analytical capacity accounts for the events that are seen odd and strange; capacity to endure stands for the problem of suffering; moral insight accounts for the problem of evil. In all of them, the key idea is that religion does not try to directly deny the existence or the reality of undeniable problems, but rather that religion merely tries to deny the notion that there is not any way that these problems may be accounted for in some way.

Fourthly, by acting out and participating in religious rituals the participants gain an idea of life they are leading -the model of reality – and realise how they should live their lives - model for reality. In other words, not only religion demonstrates what people already believe, but it also sets model in what to believe in doctrines, enactments and belief systems.

Finally, the fundamental core element of religion is the capacity to act upon and transform people's conceptions of the everyday life. Whatever one sees as a general order should be seen in every day actions of the social actors. If the order is not seen that way the idea remains as theory that has no relation to the order of existence (Goffman 1980). More clearly, the moods and motivations induced by religion become so powerful that believers sense that it is true and once they leave the ritual world they realise their life is in some ways transformed.
Geertz grounds his idea of religion as a cultural process in that religion and culture are intimately related to each other and isolated from each other they lose their original meanings[6]. Both culture and religion provides a system of symbolisation of life and every time these symbols are reactivated in rituals they establish a certain mental dispositions that provide an order of existence and meaning of life. As in the case of culture, religion too is cognitive in terms of conceptions of life, performative in terms of rituals and actual in terms of directing everyday life. This is to emphasize the cultural dimension of religion. Religion is constituted by symbolism that is the essence of culture, and then religion has to be understood in terms of culture. This helps us to look at the lived realities in which symbols become alive. If one wants to study s/he should observe how people talk about themselves and interact in their social relations, perform their rituals, and mythical discourse they have to make sense of their lives.

The Need for Interpretations of Meanings

Since religion and culture are basically a system of symbols they need to be interpreted to participate in the originary experience of the symbols. In that sense, both religion and culture need to be interpreted and their meanings should be understood properly. Interpretations of life people provide for themselves determine their daily actions and by studying these actions of people can provide an entry to the world of meanings. Fundamentally, religion, which is part of a culture, has conceptions about life that are symbolised that form a culture. For Geertz symbols are vehicles for the conceptions – religion as system of symbols that establishes moods and motivations giving an order of existence - which help a society bring their culture into focus. These symbols work in conjunction with one another to create cultural patterns. The ‘models of - models for’ in fact produces a cultural pattern for people to lead their lives meaningfully and this provides them with an identity of their own. This is people’s world view, the ways in which people look at the world and it is the ethos of people, their life style and ways in which they like to do things. The symbol systems – religion and culture - make the ethos intellectually reasonable by being shown to represent a way of life adapted to the worldview, and to make the worldview emotionally convincing by being presented as an image well suited to accommodate such a way of life.

In one sense, religion is and should be a locus of meaning in which people find meaning to their lives and it is part of the culture in which the religion is practised. In this ways there is a deep link between the religious symbols and cultural symbols in the sense that both through their formulations of a congruence between “a particular style of life and a specific metaphysic and so function to synthesize a people’s ethos – the aesthetic style, tone, and quality of their life – their world view, their most comprehensive ideas of order” (Geertz 1975: 95). Basically religious beliefs people have to gain meaning to their anomalous life, to give comprehension to the human suffering and to give an ethical code to explain the reality of how things in life are and how things ought to be (Morris 1993: 313). As said earlier, there are three breaking points where human beings can lose the grip of their lives: analytical capacity, power of endurance, and moral insight. In the reality of pain, conflict, disaster and mystery human beings approach a power beyond their powers. This is put into a pattern of meaning and behaviour that we call culture. We need an interpretation of this not only to understand the life but also to live the life. More than we need to a skill to learn from it about how the life ought to be lived. In this way religion and culture have to be kept within one realm to make sense of our lives. Keeping this in mind we should look at de Nobili’s view of religion and culture in his mission in Tamil Nadu.

Religion as Rationality: de Nobili’s view

As seen in the discussion above, religion is seen as i) a cultural construct, not innate ideas; ii) it deals with moods and motivations, not simply rational categories; iii) it provides a model of reality that gives us a meaning and model for living that motivates human beings for further progress; iv) it gives people an order of existence. Therefore, religion is closely related to culture and it would be hard to understand religion isolated from culture. De Nobili does not share this view. For De Nobili, religion is different from culture and makes clear distinction between what is religious and cultural. For him, religion (cattiya vetam) is concerned with salvation of human beings and the way by which they attain it. In this sense the concerns of religion are universally relevant. Therefore, caste, symbols and race are all particular and relative and they are not object of religion. When one converts to Christianity and learns catechism (nanoupatesam) he does not mean that he belongs to one caste and to one condition of life. Christian religion is a religion for one caste such as Parangis. The object of religion is to reveal dharmadharmam and cattiyacattiyam for salvation. The object of religion is not to talk about social customs and observances of castes. These matters are to belong to the civil society. They vary from caste to caste. The fundamental object (artam) of religion is to show how one needs to be sinless for the attainment of salvation. Christianity shows the path of salvation and a way of being righteous in one’s life. Thus Christianity is not confined to one race and that all races can live in it, and caste is not religion. In other words, one can talk about religion without referring to culture of the people and a Brahman convert can continue his caste practices that are only the signs of ‘a certain social and political rank’ and should not be implicated in ‘idolatry’ (Rajamanickam 1971:103) and certain symbols and signs of Brahmans such as ‘the thread and the tuft are social, not religious, insignia’ (‘Lineam et Curuminum non inter superstitiosa, sed inter politica esse’ and these are not exclusive to one group (Rajamanickam 1971:86–7).

There is a clear abstraction in the position of de Nobili that religion is a meta-thesis that does not need to be empirically connected to cultural conditions. And he gives ‘a norm by which we can distinguish between social actions and the purely religious’ (‘quod regulam, qua dignosci debent, quae sint apud hos Indos politica et quae sacra’ (Rajamanickam 1971:154–5). This he defends strongly by stating the differences between what is religious and what is cultural in his Narratio Fundamentorum (1619). There are three kinds of religious differences found among religions in India. The first is when, in one and the same sect, various modes of life may be found. Thus we have in the Christian religion various Religious families [in una Christiana religione variae Religiosorum virorum familiae]; of course these can use a common symbol of their faith, because they are of one faith [protestativum propter unitatem fidei]. The second is when a sect differs from another in such a way that, although they differ in some essential point, they can still use the same denomination. Thus heretics differ from Catholics, yet they are called by the same name Christian Unity and Plurality 213 [huiusmodi est oppugnantia haereticorum cum Christiana et catholica religione, quibus tame remanet commune nomen Christianum] and use the same Christian symbols such as baptism and the cross. The third is when each sect adores a god peculiar to itself they have their own customs and rituals.
Therefore conducting a dialogue between Christianity and Hinduism becomes easier as one can stand above the cultural categories and use the rational elements that are accompanied by moral truths in religion[7]. What is important in religious dialogue is the recognition of universal moral norms that can be obtained by human reasoning. The combination of reason and moral norms could help the dialogue become fruitful and this can be done by anyone irrespective of his or her caste. We must bear in mind that the community de Nobili addressed is the Śaiva community whose Śaiva Siddhānta theology teaches the idea that we could know some truths by reason. Unlike the Śaivites, the Vaişņavas (who worship Vişņ u - Rāma and Krişņu) could not understand de Nobili in the sense that they believed in knowing about God even before His revelation. And their worship of Rama the divine descent is not to be considered as ‘idolatrous’ but as a grace and opportunity to experience God directly, whereas for Śaivas Rama is an inferior manifestation of the divine. Therefore, de Nobili’s preoccupation was winning the confidence of the Śaivites that went against the other sects. In his The Dialogue on Eternal life he considers some of the Hindu beliefs as erroneous and immoral (Amaladoss and Clooney 2000; cf Clooney 2001: 6ff). In his belief that at the level of reasoning every one from any culture all could interact and share ideas on religion he did not pay attention to emotions of people that are close to their religious ritual. In particular, in his understanding religion from the Thomistic philosophy he failed to be sensitive to the people in Tamil Nadu and his ‘rationalist thesis’ of religion in Tamil country treated as ignorant (cf. Barnes 2002:146). In that sense, even his own universal arguments or what I call ‘meta-thesis’, were unable to applied to the context close to his area of his mission and life. The rational way of approaching dialogue in itself might have some strong points so as to unite many religions in a single line of thought as the object of religion as salvation but fails very clearly to link the idea with local contexts that are crucial to a successful dialogue. From this it is not very difficult to understand why it is hard to set universal norms for any dialogue as every culture has play a part in dialogue as seen with another sect in de Nobili’s life in Madura Mission.

As Clooney (1999:412) believes, I also agree that religious beliefs are concerned with ‘the application of norms’ (intellectual reasoning) that could be applied by any one from any cultures and can not be reduced to ‘one particular culture’. But if we understand the meaning of culture properly we will not make this statement. For culture is not just the symbols and signs and more importantly you can not divorce the symbols and signs from the rationality of a particular people. It is hard to effect the application of moral norms and universal truths without any reference to cultures in which the application happens. The approach of de Nobili is purely rational and speculative that flies in the face of the empirical and ethnographic data we have about the practice of Hinduism. It is not the reason that is central to a belief system but emotions play pivotal role in organising a community around a belief system and they are closely linked to cultures of the believers. To remove the believers from their emotional involvement in their religion is to see them without the functioning heart where you have dead body. Particularly, the conduct of rituals in which a real dialogue should happen evokes emotions that spring from the cultural ethos from which one come from. Ritual, symbol, ethos and emotions that dramatise universal truths and moral norms are clothed by cultural categories. Ignoring these we can hardly understand religion proper.

It is a hardcore armchair theology to think faith is to be approached only by reason and this ignores the cultural roots of the faith. As I understand de Nobili measures Hindu religion with the barometer of modern western understanding of religion that is not sensitive to cultural discourses and practices in relation to religious beliefs. This also leads de Nobili to think about religions that do not follow the norms set by Christianity should be classified as irrational belief systems and these need urgent reformation. To push this argument little further, it was the colonial mind-set that thinks Hinduism is steeped in ancient prejudices and superstitious rituals and this calls for purification or what is called ‘civilisation’.

The nature of indigenous cultures into which their religions are built is ignored in the treatises of de Nobili.

That just ideas about God are sufficient to enter into relationship with another religious group is not sufficient to understand religion and its adherents and one can not separate ideas from the empirical reality from which they have come and which give meaning to human existence. Religion can not be understood as purely immanent development that transcends cultures. Although religion is based on universal truths it is expressed in rituals that are based, what Geertz (1975) calls, on powerful moods and motivations. And those emotions provide a model for how to live and heal the wounds of human limitedness. Similarly, religious forms and symbols arise out of elemental religious experience and must be renewed and transformed by such experience if they are to retain their living reality[8].

Coming from a wealthy and aristocratic family de Nobili felt at home with the South Indian royalty and Brahmins and the royal architecture of Madurai. And he wanted to convert the Brahmins that would have greater impact in the work of evangelisation than the converts from the lower castes (parankis). In doing so, de Nobili adopted the dress, diet, and the ritual of religious practice of the Brahmins. In a way, indirectly he realised and accepted the fact that without the assistance of cultural symbols of the Brahmins he could not enter into their religious world. And it is hard to understand de Nobili who did not see the relationship between the cultural symbols and religious doctrines. More sharply, I am unable to see why de Nobili did not perceive the fact that the mechanism and the dynamics of the cultural symbols were sanctified and approved by religious doctrines that Brahmins considered holy.

Reading through the treatises of de Nobili I realise that he did not have proper understanding of India’s caste system - Varnahsrmadharma. If he had understood the fact that the socio-religious life of Indians was structured by religious principles enshrined in Varna system he would not have separated religion from culture. For the caste system is structured on ‘the fundamental opposition between the ritually pure and the impure’ and the pure occupy the higher positions and the impure the lower in social life and socio-cultural life is shaped and determined by the religious doctrine (Khare 2005: 17). To illustrate this we need to go back de Nobili’s time of Madurai. The break up of Vijayanagara Empire resulted in the satraps forming their own separate kingdoms that were legitimised by Brahmins. For this the Brahmins received lands and control of temples and the remunerative bounty of offerings from devotees and the produce of the lands attached to the temples. In this way the Brahmins shared the political power that sprang from their religious role of sanctifying a rule. This is the way by which military power is translated into ritual prestige and authority (Zupanov 1999). By becoming a Guru (sanyasi) de Nobili acquires power in a Brhaminic way to win the hearts of the Brahmins in his project of evangelisation. In that way, he became a ‘Raja-sannyasi, a high caste holy man’ with the view of making inroads into the Brahminical communities (Barnes 2002: 144). In addition, his interest in taking up to Brahminic life style was to convert the Brahmins to Christianity, not a genuine interest to enter into a dialogue between cultures and religions. In a sense, the life style was a weapon to win the enemies.

In addition, de Nobili should have been aware of the fact that only the Pure could read the Vedas and the Impure were disallowed to education and that led to an ordering of cultural life of individuals in society. As Zupanov (1999) notes, by renouncing polluting substances such as meat and alcohol, distancing from polluting persons such as lower caste people, applying sandal paste on his forehead, wearing the sacred thread across his body and rigorously following rituals of Brahmins, de Nobili entered into Hindu religion through the doors of the cultures. In fact, de Nobili was convinced that in order to enter into the religious world of Brahmins he needed to enter their cultural world and this demonstrates the fact of the unity between of culture and religion. One can not talk of religion and of God merely in terms of syllogisms but it should relate to the culture that help the religion make meaningful statements. In political terms too, religious ritual and political power are inter-related and one can not have proper meaning isolated from the other. To illustrate the relationship between religious ritual and political power we must look at the ritual of horse sacrifice (Asvamedha) in Vedic times. In it, it is said that when a special horse accompanied by a selected band of warriors was allowed to wander at will, the king claiming all the territory over which it wandered. It was clear case of the legitimisation of sovereignty by Brahmanical ritual.

In many ways, de Nobili ignored the fact that the ritual (religion) and the caste system (culture) were organically inter-related, because his aim was evangelisation and conversion. He was not concerned with understanding different religions and cultures but his main aim was to convert as many peoples as possible. In doing so he wanted a sound justification and therefore he artificially delinked religion from culture and he disassociated himself from Gonsalo and his Christians and treated them as inferior and pollutants. By doing so de Nobili himself actualises the unitary relationship between religion and culture in concrete terms. If he wanted to translate his idea of separateness of religion and culture he should have related to the Gonzalo Christians without any discrimination. By not doing so he indirectly agrees that religion can not be separated from culture. In brief, de Nobili failed to understand that the religion of the Hindus was closely related to the Hindu cultural traditions and he ignored the link between ritual and power, religion and caste system, the impure people’s culture and the pure people’s culture, and religion and identity.

The Nobilian Discourse

Finally I want to focus on the discursive formulation of de Nobili. This is important to understand not only what he reasoned as inter-religious project but also the impact it made on the church in Tamil Nadu. Discourse is defined as a relational or differential ensemble of signifying sequences in which meaning is constantly negotiated and renegotiated, with a tacit assumption that every discursive formulation has an implicit power to structure or de-structure a society, or to construct or deconstruct an identity (Torfing: 1999: 85-93). According to Laclau (1993), the concept of discourse has its roots in classical transcendentalism from which theory of discourse he asserts that “the very possibility of perception, thought and action depends on the structuration of a certain meaningful field which pre-exists any factual immediacy” (Laclau: 1993: 431-7)[9]. The discourse, understood as the relational totality of signifying sequences that determine identity, leads to either the construction or the de-construction of meaning. It is often understood as an identity of an object or a person or a community. For Foucault, discourse is a political commodity and the articulation of discourse adds power, that is, a phenomenon of exclusion, limitation, and prohibition (Gordon: 1980: 245). Particularly, power, for Foucault, is not simply an entity that can be ‘held, taken’ or ‘alienated’ but also a problematic of circulation within various channels and networks governed by discursive formulations and relations of power that constitute a social body and “can not themselves be established, consolidated or implemented without production, accumulation, circulation and functioning of discourse” (Gordon: 1980: 93). The discourse that de Nobili uses is formed by his missionary zeal (read power) of converting people by any means and inspired by the medieval Thomistic theology. Conveniently, reasoning religion in terms of universal truths and moral values helps him achieve his goals. He believed that clear reasoning would lead any one to conversion and thus to change of faith. In this sense, the de Nobilian discourse is a political commodity that articulates power that is used to exclude one from something and prohibit one from doing something. And de Nobili believed in his ethnocentric superiority that his way of reasoning (in Thomistic categories) helps him understand the Hindu culture better than the Hindus themselves (cf. Clooney 2001: 4-5).

More clearly the discourse signifies his identity as a man from elite background with elite education that has very little relation to empirical reality and this guides him to construct the meaning of religion in Tamil Nadu. The religious discourse that de Nobili reveals basically his elite background, his training in Thomistic theology and his interest in convert the elites of Tamil Nadu to Christianity. Obviously, the level of thinking and talking about it is abstraction and speculation distancing him from the concrete reality. This led de Nobili, as I understand, to live in an ideal world and engage in dialogue with Hindus in abstract terms. Although one might sympathise with his practical skill to move away from the colonial power and politics and use his opportunity to do in what he was competent, one can not deny the fact that he failed to feel one with the reality in the context of his times, instead he abstracted the Hindu religion from its cultural conditions that indirectly justified the oppressive caste system, which was a meaningless dichotomy. To my mind he could have entered into the world of Hindus by understanding their religion as a part of their cultural traditions and still he could have made significant progress in his mission. In fact, by taking up the cultural life style of the Hindu sanniyasi to enter into their religious world he demonstrates the fact that the Hindu culture is the door to the Hindu religion.