Absolute purity rules

As far as it is known nowadays, by the 11th century, there were no Dharmic people employing absolute purity rules. Such rules present the rest of the mankind as those who do not share our identity. The stress of the relative purity rules is on the other specialized groups from the same culture, while the rest of the world (those belonging to other cultures) is something subsidiary, not very preoccupating (the usual historical approach, until now, of the mankind). The identity is only presumed, not defined from the point of view of a multicultural world, by considering the people from the other cultures.

In this sense, the Romani absolute purity rules rather resemble the Jewish purity rules and approach to express the identity. This is also one of the reasons of those who support the idea that the Roma are the descendants of the Ten Lost Jewish Tribes, who allegedly spent some time in the Indian Subcontinent and afterwards emigrated back in the West. Obviously a shallow conclusion, since our worldview is fundamentally Dharmic, just by remembering that our usual approach is by relativization, not by upholding one specific direction, way of action, defined by certain details. Devel is certainly not a jealous God, understanding very well the possibility of an infinity of simultaneous possible ideals. This resemblance at the level of the absolute purity rules is replicated by some Romani groups' individualization of the Zhidova (Jews) as a better defined group among the Gaje (non-Roma).

In fact, in what consists this resemblance? Both of the ethnic groups recognize everybody as a human being with a personal culture, who can be either one of our people (Rom, Jew) or one of the others (Gajo, Goy). They maintain purity rules of the demeanor, also they can live as a minority in a society without losing their identity. They have a clear vision about how one of them should behave. Those who do not conform themselves to the rules may be declared impure (marime, herem) and expelled from the community. In general, the identity is not considered as something obvious, pre-definite, but as an objective fact, very concrete and concerning. It is known that it may be wasted any time if not respected accordingly, generating discussions about the correct ways of expression (materialized in an organized manner of assimilating novelties). As a result of this focus, the creolization, the emergence of regional differences (as the time passes) is relative and also there may be assimilated cultural features from other local cultures without threatening the very identity. On the other hand, groups with separated historical evolutions, if they develop differences in the manner of assimilating novelties, they tend to end up in disputing each other the identity. These resemblances are rather about asserting and keeping alive the groups’ identity in a multicultural world, creating a safe space for its expression, but not really defining what the substance of the identity is.

Then, another question appears: why these two groups have this set of purity rules? My approach was to study the moment of their departure from the homeland, since this seems to be the time when these rules appear. It is not known a similar multicultural vision among the people from the initial areas and, in fact, it is likely that such rules appear when the presence of people belonging to other cultures becomes impressive. However, it was not the first or the last time when a group of people emigrated, becoming a minority in another cultural area. Specific conditions of these two cases were that the homeland was a conflict area, undergoing major political and social changes at the moment of the departure. Thus, in the first case, by history, it seems there were more groups of proto-Jews that left Mesopotamia. Those who knew Abraham as forefather emigrated after the fall of the third Sumerian dynasty from Ur (about 1950 BC). The group Bene Jacob emigrated after the destruction of the Mitanni state (about 1275 BC). They became a marginal population in Canaan, later also in Egypt, known a Habiru (more about this exonym at Names of the Romani people). The proto-Roma left the Indian Subcontinent at the beginning of the 11^th century. In those years the northern part of the Subcontinent was invaded and laid waste by the Muslims under the leadership of Mahmud Ghazni. In this circumstance, various groups of Desis arrived in Anatolia, where they crystallized as the Romani ethnic group.

My preliminary view points out that they came from countries in chaos. A civilization needs a stable political organization to make possible its expression. In this organization the individuals gain a meaning, a value, positive or negative. The war is reserved only for the outsiders or for internal repression. If the political chaos appears, the civilization, its structure dies not disappear, only the external appearance (including the political leadership that previously assured its coherence) becomes disputed, unsettled. However, it remains as potentiality in every individual who grew up in that culture. Then, when the order appears again, usually only some appearances are changed, but the nature of that society remains the same. To put it differently, a former continuity of expression fell, but another “underground”, unnoticed continuity ensures the resumption of a new coherent expression.

In the Romani and Jewish cases, the groups that arrived among foreigners had their culture as potentiality, they did not bring with them a continuity, a stability to relate to, ready to give them a meaning proceeding from the individual’s education. That is why the conditions became unusual for these bearers of a civilization without structured expression. They could not integrate in the new society by dispersion or as an… let’s say “usual” ethnic group, which believes in its own external appearances, thus prone to assimilation as a minority. This is because it could not be a continuity to make the passage between the two ways of thinking. They should create first a stable expression of their worldview, from which it could eventually begin to make an opinion about the people from the local culture, fact impossible at that moment.

It is noticeable that the other “classical” means to relate to the foreigners also could not work:

-they could not integrate them in their own culture, because they arrived on the territory of a complex society, also self-assured and confident in their own achievements: Indian Subcontinent and the Abrahamic (Christian and Muslim) world, Mesopotamia and the Syrian, Canaanite and Egyptian areas;

-they did not have the power to integrate in a military manner the natives in an own structure;

-they could not go home, because at that moment adverse political forces ruled it. In the Romani case, where there is more information, it is possible that they considered themselves as survivors that have to fend for themselves, without a hope to see the revival of their civilization in their homeland. As Alberuni, a contemporary witness wrote, “Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country and performed such wonderful exploits, by which Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions”. It would not have been easy at that moment to foresee the continuity of the Desi culture in South Asia, from the point of view of somebody from North-West.

Therefore they continued to be themselves, they could not cease to be themselves, even when they could not manifest self-confidently in the way viewed as normal by their education. The consequence is the mooting of the absolute nature of the external appearances, they could not identify with them, they could not construct anymore a self-image from them. On the other hand, the substance of the identity, usually the starting point of a new structure when the political chaos ends, is perpetuated as the object of their attention, a radical change in the manner of thinking.

It is revealed the fact that these appearances actually did not have the value ascribed before, only the group gave them that meaning. And, very important, it becomes obvious that the external appearances not stemming from the Ego, those which remain after the collapse of the previous worldview, still have a sense, an internal coherence, as they continue to exist without the former meaning. They are revealed too as external appearances, but also in their case it is clear that they are produced by a background substantial identity, which may be different from the personal one. This includes also other people’s demeanor. It becomes intelligible that their life has a sense in the way they understand it, therefore in the world there are possible more thinking manners. This means that everybody is a civilized human being and the term used for those who have other identity (Gaje, Goyim) recognize structurally the cultural existence of the others.

Then every deed may have more meanings. Therefore, in both cases, the solution was to prescribe purity rules to assure the accomplishment of the deeds through the meaning of the personal culture. From here arise also the other features mentioned at the beginning. Also, if the substance of the identity is the object of the attention and perception, then it results that an assertion of the identity in the broad society cannot be done by the former customs. I remark that at the beginning there was no solution for this. If the rest of the people from the new areas where the Jews and the Roma lived would not have been concerned about the worldview of these two minorities, then this would not have been a problem either. But usually they were misunderstood by the majority, because they did not construct anymore a self-image (in the previous manner) good to present to the others. Hence, the false perception that the Roma and the Jews have something to hide, while in fact it is disagreement with the prevalent manner of self-presentation. Many times, the others, not understanding this fact, unaccustomed with gaps in their worldview and with a multicultural world, tend to caricaturize them malevolently, ultimately to deny their humanity: Nici salca nu e pom, nici ţiganul nu e om (“Neither the willow is a fruit tree, nor the Gypsy is a man.”) or -Pe cine ai īntālnit pe drum? - Un om şi un jidan. (“-With whom did you meet on the road? –With a man and a Jew.”) (1). Many times this denial of humanity was the preliminary step to attempts of filling their gap by exterminating these minorities.

In the meantime, the Jews, with a longer history, found for them a form of expression and assertion in Moses’ revelation, promoting the new idea of the Abrahamic monotheism (later a starting point of Christianity and Islam). Actually, the Roma should be compared with the Jews before Moses, when the communities’ life was focused on the families and the personal relations. The latter is/was the usual source of legitimacy for the affiliation (while in the Jewish case, the Moses’ revelation managed to establish the Jewish identity in a written, objective form, thus broadening its possibilities of expression, beyond the immediate environment, the personal relations that tend to be localized both as a geographic area and as a knowledge field).

Usually, for a group that emigrates from a stable cultural area, the integration goes in two directions, the official one of the person’s/group’s perception of what is happening and the unheeded one of the contact with the reality. The expression manners of the new territory’s natives are included in the immigrants’ thinking proceeding link by link from their initial outlook (the continuity I presented before). Whether these novelties are accepted or rejected an important thing happens: they are known and practiced (voluntarily or involuntarily, in a positive or a negative manner) because the minority status determines them to be part of a society that mostly lives according to these local civilization fundamentals. Since the attention is focused on the external appearances (eventually on their preservation) it is less visible for the immigrants that they change their initial identity with another one. It is not given an answer about what is really my culture and what is not. Because of too much confidence in the external appearances of their identity they don’t see how they gradually lose it.

Then, according as through their deeds they become a part of the local society, all their lifestyle (even if outwardly it may look like in the homeland) is assimilated in the identity of the local majority, it is focused on it and it becomes understandable through it. The attempts of preservation or revival (if they exist) of the original culture’s appearances become less and less vivid, turning towards casteism or sectarianism. For the first generation, who felt at home the meaning that the unheeded identity gave to those deeds, the change may be tolerated by remembrance. But for the next generations, these external appearances gradually become senseless customs. The transformation happened conversely to the case of the Roma and the Jews: there was a continuity of group expressions, but the identity was changed with another one, which did not give them any sense, generating an overlap that could not stand.

I use to compare the two situations with Ferdinand Magellan’s world circumnavigation and a contemporary travel by plane. When Magellan’s crew arrived back in Spain they were surprised to find that their calendar missed a day, it was a day before the European calendar. They did not do any visible mistake, they kept it carefully. However, as in many other cases, not everything that is true locally is true also on a larger scale. They did not notice that moving westward, the more they traveled during a day, the shorter the day was. The decrease of the days being of a few seconds or minutes each, in their three years of journey, they did not become aware that a full circumnavigation westwards supposes losing a day. This may seem illogical form a static perspective, but, if there are static people to compare to, the bigger truth cannot be avoided once undertaking such journey. If there are no comparisons available or they are avoided/rejected, those who traveled may continue to believe in their inaccurate vision about time. A contemporary trip by plane makes obvious that the time zones are changed, it becomes clear from the very beginning what is changing in the personal/group perspective and what not, determining the travelers to redefine themselves according to the more comprehensive truth.

Evidently, without proper historical information or an irrefutable logical conclusion, these presentations of how it happened remain an opinion. But I consider it as a good introduction about what it happened, a more definite issue, because the results, the absolute purity rules as an expression of an “obviously me” approach to identity, can be observed in the contemporary Romani and Jewish populations.

Absolute purity rules may be observed also at the Japanese people, rules that keep the people connected with the real identity beyond any particular details. My preliminary understanding is that the Yayoi culture brought by people from the mainland Northern Asia around the 4^th century BCE imposed easily a different set of externally visible appearances, but they did not really root out the local fundamental social fabrics of the previous Jōmon culture and of the populations emigrating from the Southeast Asia. The witnessing of this mismatching overlapping and of the naturalness of the same external features when employed in the mainland (mostly the state Goguryeo and its offshoot Baekje) changed the vision about the role of any external appearances. The real identity, as compared to the identity of the mainland people became the focus of the attention, subsequently all the deeds being done from its perspective.

There did not appear usual diachronic political threads creating authority from a certain set of details. When the rulers of the Yamato clan started to unify the territory, they knew how to impersonate the very abstract idea of the political Thread beyond any particularities, they filled an indisputable position in the newly created fabric of the Japanese society and, the same as in the Jewish case, as particular events of the history unfolded, they and the people understood more and more the subtleties, the finesses of this social position. The important difference from the Jewish historical experience is that in the Japanese case, as a result of the clear geographical isolation, there was not necessary to clarify publicly “who we are as compared to the rest of the World”. The World is there, the people are always interested in what is going on there, they always make the difference between what stems from their identity and what not, thus assimilating any novelties and not becoming assimilated, but there did not appear a clarification of their position in the World. On the one hand, it did not appear such a meaningful public statement as that expressed by Moses, on the other hand, there were avoided the seemingly inherent self-limitations imposed by any such public statement that aims at a position in a World with a static, localized mindset.

The Imperial House of Japan (together with the spiritual concept of Kami-sama) rather reminds of the Devel of Romanipen, as filling an indisputable position in the social fabric of a certain group of people. However, for those stepping out, they can’t be of much help, both for the Japanese outside Japan and for Roma among non-Roma. Meaningful social relations tend to occur only among interlocutors who know what they are talking about, in the absence of symbols ready to be opposed to anyone. Well, this means also that such communication is not hindered by such self-restrictive subsidiary symbols. In both cases, in the absence of such symbols, there appeared many popular theories (in Japan named Nihonjinron after the Second World War) trying to explain what is special about these people.

As the time passed, it became obvious that there is a difference between authority and power, as the Imperial institution could continue its thread without the latter. The public aspect of this institution expressed also this view, lacking interest in showing-off, while fulfilling the duties of such a social position. The Emperor is the impersonation of the fundamental Japanese identity, he is not addressed by the name given at birth (this is not used), but just as Tennō (translated in English as “Emperor”), the Imperial family has no family name, there are no such details (needless probably to add that there did not occur changes of dynasties as it is usual in other empires or kingdoms). Keeping also in mind that, after the Second World War, according to the Constitution, he is not even the head of the state (but habitually he is treated as such), technically one may think that he is a nobody, while in fact this is the nature of the Japanese social fabric, focused on something invisible from a static, localized view.

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(1) Romanian sayings from Imaginea evreului īn cultura romānă, p. 421, by Andrei Oişteanu, Humanitas, 2004