As described in the essays that comprise this collection, the homa can be performed in a variety of different settings. In one case, for example, it is found as one element within a much larger complex of religious activities, such as the Navarātra described by Nawaraj Chaulagain in his chapter. In other cases, the homa is performed as a stand-alone ritual, such as in the Shugendō saitō goma discussed by Richard Payne. Such wide-ranging differences in the context of a homa performance may raise for some readers categorial concerns—what are we talking about when we say that the homa is a ritual, or that it is an element of a larger ceremonial sequence, or that it is performed as part of a festival? In contrast to some other approaches, we assert that it is not in fact possible to draw clear distinctions between these kinds of activities. While the categories are inherently fuzzy, the reflections of some earlier scholars helps us to discern a conceptual landscape within which to negotiate our path between homa as stand-alone ritual and as element in ceremonies or as part of a festival.10
Raymond Firth, for example, makes the distinction between ritual and ceremonial on the basis of conceptions of ritual efficacy. In his now classic studies of the Tikopia, Firth defines ritual as “a formal set of procedures of a symbolic kind, involving a code for social communication, and believed to possess a special efficacy in affecting technical and social conditions of the performers or other participants.”11 Ceremonial is in his view a subset of ritual, but
the emphasis is more upon symbolic acknowledgement and demonstration of a social situation than upon the efficacy of the procedures in modifying that situation. Whereas other ritual procedures are believed to have a validity of their own, ceremonial procedures, while formal in character, are not believed in themselves to sustain the situation or effect a change in it.12
Elsewhere he notes that such a “compressed distinction is not wholly satisfactory … [as] in practice they may merge into or alternate with one another.”13 Our purpose here, however, is not to develop a definitive way of distinguishing between the ritual and ceremonial, but rather the opposite—to emphasize the complexity of the overlapping categories of ritual, ceremonial, and festival.14 Attempts to formulate classificatory systems, typologies, or taxonomies for such forms of human behavior as ritual, ceremonial, and festival are necessarily stipulative, rather than corresponding to either an objective distinction, or to a conceptual structure that can be reliably applied universally. The utility of such category systems depends upon and is limited to the objects of study. William Sax expresses a similar concern with the category of ritual as such. He describes it as the problem of reifying ritual so that scholars and others “mistake an analytic category for a natural kind.”15
One of the characteristics that many scholars call attention to when identifying rituals is that rituals are performed repeatedly. In addition to being (at least potentially16) repeatable, rituals are contained performances intended to effect some end.17 We take these three characteristics—repeatability, marked limits in space and time, and teleological intent—as a kind of minimalist set of indicators of how we are using the term “ritual” here.
Many scholars have offered more expansive definitions or characterizations. For example, a partial list of characteristics is given by Bruce Lincoln, drawing on Catherine Bell’s work. “Bell identifies formality, tradition, invariance, rule-governance, and sacral symbolism as some of the marks by which ritual is regularly distinguished, and to these we might add repetition, solemnity, and countless factors that vary with cultural context.”18 Similarly, although not offered explicitly as a definition, Sheldon Pollock lists “formalized, conventionalized, ceremonial, and symbolic behavior” as the characteristics of ritual.19 As Lincoln suggests in the quotation above, such a list is not closed, and while the individual items on such a list may constitute elements of a family resemblance, the more strands one attempts to bind together to form a polythetic definition, the more diffuse that definition becomes and the less heuristic value it has. It is for this reason that we prefer a more minimalist approach, which serves the same ends of inclusivity at least as well.
Further, there appears to be no general consensus about the various categories or terminology that may be used in describing other related categories of activity, such as festival, ceremonial, and so on—and perhaps that is just as well. However, what such lack indicates is twofold. First, the categories are reflections of social practices, and second are themselves the product of other social practices. As a consequence, they are formed by existing preconceptions as well as by the fluidities of the objects of study. As social constructs the categories not only do not have, but cannot have clear boundaries. As intellectually satisfying as definitional clarity may be, it is always at best a limited accomplishment, one constrained by some delimited field of inquiry for which such clarity is possible. Beyond that field the categories formed to describe it lose their sharp edges, with marginal cases and increasingly fuzzy boundaries20 emerging. Thus, for example, we find some versions of the homa as examined in this collection to be part of the ceremonies marking a festival. While we can distinguish between them terminologically in this fashion, all three—ritual, ceremony, festival—are mutually implicative. Each category informs the significance of the others, and to these three several others might be added as well.21 Rather than claiming that any specific form or function identifies ritual as a discrete category, or taking refuge in stipulating it as a scholarly category, Catherine Bell’s emphasis on ritualizing points up the fuzzy boundaries and ambiguities of the category. She argues that “ritualization is a way of acting that specifically establishes a privileged contrast, differentiating itself as more important or powerful. Such privileged distinctions may be drawn in a variety of culturally specific ways that render the ritualized acts dominant in status.”22 With this purposely minimalist indication of how we are using the term “ritual,” we can now consider the central theoretical issue for this collection, ritual change.