Carguío, Transporte y Colocado

In his ethnography on Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka, Carrithers (1983) portrayed monastic life as a process of self-liberation through a path to purification (the

Visuddhimagga). According to Carrithers’ research, personal reformation that takes

place as a testing period in the forest19. A general motive for becoming a hermit in the forest was ‘economic deprivation’: ‘[...] they left the world because of disillusionment [...] in this view, renunciation is the height of moral purity, an estate unequivocally more exalted than any other’ (1983: 13-15, 23). Carrithers was careful to say that ‘the monks do invariably base themselves on orthodox models, and these models are indeed ancient, but they are by no means unitary’ (1983: 8). Here the praxis in the cleansing process of personal reformation is defined as in-between the ideal (‘ancient orthodoxy’) and the real (‘orthopraxy’), contextualizing the various cleansing practices as

alternative ways of liberation from worldly ties.

The Buddhist path to salvation has many phenomenological similarities to Christian monasticism (although in a very different context, since Christianity promises heaven and Buddhism focuses ‘around the doctrine of rebirth’, Morris 2006: 70). Still, both Christian and Buddhist forms of asceticism are pragmatic in the sense that they prepare the body at the present time for a transformation in an afterlife (either Christian heaven, or as rebirth on earth: karma). Furthermore, the asceticism in both religions is seen as a way of self-liberation. For instance, Ortner’s (1989) ethnography of Sherpa Buddhism in Nepal, portrayed Buddhist monastic life as a form of liberation from existing

19 _{The ‘path to purification’ denotes movement from the material world inwards the self, without}

however meaning that the monks are separated from the same world they morally and practically denounce (see for example his chapter on ‘Asceticism in the Streets’ 2003: 155-174).

hegemonic social constraints; first by enabling a ‘transformation of social status’ of the monk to a ‘higher’ level, and second, by operating outside the existing social order allowing the monks to be critical of the status quo; they may be critical because they are independent, not having to work for a wage (1989: 175-201). In this way Ortner formulated a historiography of the changes in Sherpa monastic life, aiming to show ‘how people can be both created and creators, products and producers, symbols and agents, of that world’ (1989: 3).

In a more recent context, Gombrich and Obeyesekere (1988) observed changes in the values and practices of Buddhism in Sri Lanka in the 20th century, within the process of rapid urbanization and changes in economic structures: as people became poorer, and collective rites unaffordable, and as life became alienating in the big city, it was inevitable that practices also became more individual (i.e. ‘Protestant’), rather than ceremonial and collective. The writers applied Weber’s concept of rationalization20, whereby, a young man turns into an ascetic as a way of ‘comprehending it (the meaning of the world) in the rational form of renunciation, in order to reach the state of grace [...] through his rational actions in this world he is personally executing the will of god’ (Weber 1968: 280, ‘grace’ is translated in Greek as ‘charis’, root to the word

‘charismatic’)21.

In the Christian context of salvation, the breaking away from secular bonds was seen as self-liberation. In Verdon’s (1988: 488-505) history of ideas about virginity and

chastity in the fourth century and their contribution to the formation of European kinship systems, Verdon argued that monastic life offered the means to escape from forced marriages within their kin, and thus, the message of chastity was a ‘liberating message’, as the women ‘had at least a Church to rely upon, to oppose their kin and affines’ (1988: 504). In exchange, the Church acquired more property from young girls

20 _{Here by ‘rationalization’ I refer to ‘the increasing systematization of religious ideas and concepts, the}

growth of ethical rationalism, and the progressive decline of ritual and “magical” elements in religion”’ (Morris 1987: 69, my emphasis)

21 _{Weber defined ascetics as ‘men of vocation’ (1968: 279) because they hear the voice of god. In the}

Christian sense, the ascetic ‘calling’ is not a choice; it is the Holy Spirit that invites them to become monks: an inner voice they cannot resist (see chapter 4). Here by ‘rationalization’ I refer to ‘the increasing systematization of religious ideas and concepts, the growth of ethical rationalism, and the progressive decline of ritual and “magical” elements in religion”’ (Morris 1987: 69, my emphasis), and particularly to the institutionalization of ascetic life on the Mount into Royal monasteries (see also Introduction, and Papachrysanthou 1992).

and widows. Thus the liberation of the women from their secular past and families has economic implications regarding monastic life.

The importance of movement in the spiritual reproduction of brotherhoods, and its economic implications, was one of the themes highlighted by Forbess (2005) in her research on Romanian nuns. Forbess re-adopted the concept of ‘charisma’ as the ability to creatively stand in between innovation and tradition (a ‘charisma’ as defined by Feuchtwang and Ming 2001), and [...] the ability to travel (‘hitchhiking nuns’ and ‘charismatic super-monks’) and ‘to mobilise resources outside the convent’ (2005: 152), which highlights the interdependence between the internal world of the convents and the external conduct of ‘charismatic’ nuns and monks. In this context, the term responds to Weber’s definition of ‘charisma’ as a kind of ‘entrepreneurial calling’ (as in Goldman’s reading of Weberian ‘charisma’, 1991:30). In their travels inside and

outside Athos, charismatic monks attract more young into monastic life, while also ‘mobilis[ing] resources outside’ the monasteries (Forbess 2005: 152).

Marina Iossifides (1990 and 1991) also explored the life of convents as a way of escaping from the structures of Greek family life, which placed women within the private sphere. Iossifides followed du Boulay’s monograph of the Greek village Ambeli (1974, 1984: 533-556) in which she disputed that the bonding of kinships needs a biological basis. Instead, in the convent, the association of ideas, and the traditional symbolisms of the Greek Church, are sufficient for kinship. Non-biological kinship can also be shown to form socially, such as the koumparia (‘best men’)22. Iossifides also argued that: ‘In the village this kinship (“true kinship”) is created by blood, whereas in the convent it is held to be spiritual unity. Spiritual fathers, it will be recalled, are better, more truly fathers, than secular fathers could be’ (Iossifides 1991: 154). As Iossifides has shown, ‘spiritual relationships’ are not limited in the convent but expand outside, revealing the interdependence between the internal regime of the monastic institutions and public life. For Iossifides, the ‘spiritual kinship’ and traditions of the nuns depend on the material world outside the monasteries as ‘the nuns have contact with and knowledge of the world beyond their convent walls. By looking at the life of

22 _{Another form of non-biological kinship is male friendship, as discussed for example by Papataxiarchis}

in terms of male bonding: ‘as a sentimental alternative to maternal love and the amity of kinship, distinguishing its egalitarian and ‘anti-economic’ (informal) character ‘from economic and political exchange and its dependence from kinship’ (1991: 158).

convents, Iossifides highlighted the effect of the increase of religious tourism in Orthodox monasteries, in the context of the transformation of the economy of the monasteries from agricultural (associated with the ‘local economy’) to a ‘capitalist global economy’ (Ibid: 136, 137).

On Athos, in the absence of women and biological forms of reproduction, charismatic monks have to travel outside monastic borders to the ‘world’, in order to gather groups of novices; these novices follow the elder into Athos to repopulate or increase the population of monastic settlements. This results in changes taking place in the internal life of the monasteries, as the young ones bring with them their knowledge, skills, and experiences from the ‘world’ into the traditional monastic setting, consequently resulting to change in ideas and practices. Furthermore, in their trips outside Athos, monks represent the monastic institutions in negotiations and dealings with external ‘cosmopolitan’ institutions and influential individuals, as well as form the vocation of each monastery in the Orthodox world.

These approaches to monastic life cast a light on Durkheim’s definition of monasticism as a ‘sacred’ way of life (see quote above 1995: 37). Durkheim argued: ‘To be sure, this

prohibition cannot go so far as to make all communication between the two worlds impossible, for if the profane could in no way enter into relations with the sacred, the sacred would be of no use’ (Durkheim 1995: 38, my emphasis). By portraying

monasticism as an ‘escape’, Durkheim implies movement rather than a static and rigid separation of the ‘sacred’ land from the ‘profane’ world (as also shown by Turner’s application of his Durkheimian notion of ‘communitas’, the unifying movement of pilgrimage, 1974). Accordingly, the ‘sacred’ monastic life comes in contact with the secular ‘world’ from which new monks arrive, bringing with them new forms of knowledge and technologies, thus, making ‘the communication between the two

worlds’ possible (as in Durkheim, Ibid). The perception of a static, eternal, and ‘sacred’ way of life (the ideal) manifested as the concept of ‘sacred tradition’ (iera paradoseis) and the value of virginity that support its ideal and moral disconnection as an

engendered space (from which females are prohibited) contradicts the material and historical reality of the movement of monks inside and outside Athos: The monastery has a material dependence on the population and economies of the ‘cosmopolitan world’; the monastery also exerts its own affect on public life outside Athos. In the

thesis, I shall show how biological means of reproduction are replaced by spiritual ones based on the monks’ movement inside and outside the borders of Athos. By looking at both the esoteric, personal, and spiritual movement of each monk in his journey to heaven, in complementary relation to the historical movement of individuals, and how groups of monks carry with them changes into the monasteries, my aim is to portray monastic life as a form of liberation, rather than submission to a spiritual authority. My further aim is to investigate how traditional monastic values are applied and changed (in terms of aims, moral priorities, and adoption) in everyday life, and in connection to the ‘materialist world’ (illistikos kosmos), from which they are conceptually disconnected.