USHAS – The Dawn - Rig Veda

Ushas Sanskrit for "dawn" is a Vedic deity, and consequently a Hindu deity as well.

Sanskrit uṣas is an s-stem, i.e. the genitive case is uṣásas. It is from PIE *h₂ausos-, cognate to Greek Eos and Latin Aurora.

Ushas is an exalted goddess in the Rig Veda but less prominent in post-Rigvedic texts. She is often spoken of in the plural, "the Dawns." She is portrayed as warding off evil spirits of the night, and as a beautifully adorned young woman riding in a golden chariot on her path across the sky. Due to her color she is often identified with the reddish cows, and both are released by Indra from the Vala cave at the beginning of time.

Usha-Ushas, Sanskrit for "dawn", is a Vedic deity. She is the chief goddess (sometimes imagined as several goddesses, Dawns) exalted in the Rig Veda. She is portrayed as a beautifully adorned, sexually attractive young woman riding in a chariot. She is the daughter of Dyaus "Heaven" and the sister of Ratri, the goddes of night. Twenty out of 1028 hymns in the Rig Veda are dedicated to the goddes of Dawn:

Ushas is invoked as follows:

1.         The radiant Dawns have risen up for glory, in their white splendour like the waves of waters.

She maketh paths all easy, fair to travel, and, rich, hath shown herself benign and friendly.

2.         We see that thou art good: far shines thy lustre; thy beams, thy splendours have flown up to heaven.

Decking thyself, thou makest bare thy bosom, shining in majesty, thou Goddess Morning.

In the "family books" of the Rig Veda (e.g. RV 6.64.5), Ushas is the divine daughter—a divó duhitâ —of Dyaus Pita ("Sky Father"). This is taken literally in the traditional genealogies of Hindu mythology.

In one recent Hindu interpretation, Sri Aurobindo in his Secret of the Veda, described Ushas as "the medium of the awakening, the activity and the growth of the other gods; she is the first condition of the Vedic realisation. By her increasing illumination the whole nature of man is clarified; through her [mankind] arrives at the Truth, through her he enjoys [Truth's] beatitude."[3]

The Goddess is still worshipped in the form of Chhathi Maiya in the popular festival Chhath Puja, held in the Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and the adjoining country of Nepal.

In the British television science fiction series Doctor Who, Ushas is the original name of the Rani, a renegade time lady obsessed with genetic experimentation.

If you catch the light just before the sun appears, early in the morning, be sure to greet her. Her name is Ushas. The Goddess of Dawn.

The night is dark and deep when Ushas rises and her mother, the sky, begins to adorn her. She uses hope to cloth her, life to anoint her with and light for her ornaments. Her sister, the night, lends her the magic while retaining the mystery. Ushas has the magic of looking at everybody at the same time.

It is then that the sun catches sight of her. Resplendent is golden hue, the sun falls in love with this young maiden born anew everyday, keeper of time and youth. As Ushas appears above the sky, riding a hundred chariots, the sun, madly in love with this beautiful maiden, chases her. She spreads her love and his light across the sky bringing a new day for mankind smiling to herself for she knows well that the sun is racing her.
The romance of the day makes the birds chatter, the streams gurgle, the lotus blossom and the bee gets more intoxicated with the nectar he sucks in.

She dances and sings and spreads cheer all around. Darkness runs away and bad dreams die at the opening of the day. Evil spirits rush to hide for all is visible now.

And suddenly the sun catches up with her and holds her in embrace as the day is all light and sunlight to finally surrender once again to the night.

Ushas is a Rig Vedic deity who is the most beautiful maiden personifying the charm of dawn. Since she precedes light, she is also called the Mother Goddess. In the Rig Veda the description of the break of dawn, of the emergence of Ushas, is perhaps the most beautiful passage. She is described as the one who untiringly rises every morning as though born anew to bring life to mankind, to satisfy all their longings and give new strength to every spirit.

The changing colours at dawn are likened to the different robes of a dancing girl while the golden tipped clouds that appear just before sunrise are like bridal jewellery. Ushas is portrayed as a shy maiden, conscious of her beauty but modest and entering society under the protection of her mother. Even mythology is fascinated by the chauvinist model and over thousands of years the readers of the Vedas have drawn great pleasure in imagining the shy maiden being followed by the macho sun and finally her surrender. The story of this romance which all of us see everyday, but often fail to heave that deep sigh of longing, caught as we were in the nitty gritty affairs of the sunlit day, brings gifts for all mankind; wealth for those who seek it, education for those others, contentment to some and salvation to yet others.

In the Rig Veda the goddess Usha is consistently associated with and often identified with the dawn. She reveals herself in the daily coming of light to the world. She has been described in the Rig Veda as a young maiden drawn by one hundred horses. She brings forth light and is followed by the sun who urges her onwards. She is praised for driving away, or is petitioned to drive away, the oppressive darkness. She is asked to chase away evil demons. As the dawn she is said to rouse all life, to set all things in motion and to send people off to do their duties. She sends the curled-up sleepers on their way to offer their sacrifices and thus render service to the other gods.

Usha gives strength and fame. She is that which impels life and is associated with the breath and life of all living creatures. She is associated with, or moves with cosmic, social and moral order. As the regularly recurring dawn she reveals and participates in cosmic order and is the foe of chaotic forces that threaten the world. Usha is generally held as an auspicious goddess associated with light and wealth, and is often likened to a cow.

In the Rig Veda she is also called 'the mother of cows' and like a cow that yields its udder for the benefit of people, so Usha bares her breasts to bring light for the benefit of human kind. Although she is usually described as a young and beautiful maiden, she is also called 'the mother of the gods and the ashwins'. Considered as mother by her petitioners she tends to all things like a good matron and goddess of the earth. She is said to be 'the eye of the gods' and is referred to as 'she who sees all', but is rarely invoked to forgive human transgressions. It is more typical to invoke her in times of need to drive away or punish one's enemies.
Usha is known as the goddess, reality or presence that bears away youth. She is described as 'a skilled huntress who wastes away the lives of people'. In accordance with the ways of Rita she wakes all living things but does not disturb the person who sleeps in death. As the recurring dawn, Usha is not only celebrated for bringing light from darkness, she is also petitioned to grant long life, as she is a constant reminder of peoples' limited time on earth. She is the mistress or marker of time.

The ancient Vedic tradition has viewed Usha as the harbinger of light, awareness, activity. People divided time into the form of day and night. At night all creation rests and in the day the whole of creation is active. The transformation which takes place from night to day is known to be the attribute of Usha, the awareness that stirs up the activity of creation, the light that gives sight to the eyes, that gives power to the senses, that gives power to the mind and intellect, Usha has been regarded as the light, or the dawn of human consciousness.

Usha, the daughter of king Bana-asura.
Usha is also the name of a daitya princess who fell in love with Aniruddha, a prince she saw in her dream. Aniruddha is a tale taken from the Bhagawat: Aniruddha was the son of Pradyumna and grandson of Krishna. Usha, the daughter of an Asura named Bana, saw him in a dream and became anxious to know if there was such a person. Her friend Chitralekha drew the portraits of many gods and men. At last when she drew the portrait of Aniruddha, the grandson of Krishna, Usha recognized him. Chitralekha, by magical powers, set out to bring Aniruddha to Usha and a series of adventures then ensued. At last Aniruddha was kept captive by Banasura who was binding him with serpent bonds. After a fight, Krishna rescued Aniruddha and took him and his wife Usha to Dwaraka.

A.K. Ramanujan "Five Landscapes"

Attipate Krishnaswami Ramanujan (16 March 1929 – 13 July 1993) also known as A. K. Ramanujan was an Indian poet and scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and Kannada language. Ramanujan was a poet, scholar, a philologist, folklorist, translator, and playwright. His academic research ranged across five languages: English Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, and Sanskrit. He published works on both classical and modern variants of this literature and argued strongly for giving local, non-standard dialects their due. Though he wrote widely and in a number of genres, Ramanujan's poems are remembered as enigmatic works of startling originality, sophistication and moving artistry. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award posthumously in 1999 for his collection of poems, "The Collected Poems"

“These poem are ‘classical,’ i.e., early, ancient; they are also ‘classics,’ i.e., works that have stood the test of time, the founding works of a whole tradition. Not to know them is not to know a unique and major poetic achievement of Indian civilization”.

“In their antiquity and in their contemporaneity, there is not much else in any Indian literature equal to these quiet and dramatic Tamil poems. In their values and stances, they represent a mature classical poetry: passion is balanced by courtesy, transparency by ironies and nuances of design, impersonality by vivid detail, leanness of line by richness of implication. These poems are not just the earliest evidence of Tamil genius. The Tamils, in their 2,000 years of literary effort, wrote nothing better”.

Akam (interior) and Puram (Exterior) are not only thematic divisions of the Sangam poems. They are more than that.  The two categories are related to each other by context, and by contrast.

Akam and Puram are very old Tamil words. Akam means interior, heart, mind, self, kin, house, family, inland, settlement, earth, love poems and codes of conduct appropriate to akam.  Puram has opposite qualities to match each of these.

Meaning of Akam and Puram

Akam – interior, Puram – exterior

Akam – heart, mind, Puram – body surfaces & extremeties

Akam – self, Puram – others

Akam – Kin, Puram – non-kin

Akam – house, family, Puram – house yard, field

Akam – earth, Puram – farthest ocean

Akam – love poems & no names or person, Puram – poems about war, kings, people, names

Akam – codes of conduct appropriate to akam poetry, Puram – Codes of conduct appropriate to puram poetry

AKAM THEMES CALLED THINAIS (Landscapes)
Akam is further divided into 5 divisions called thinais. The word thinai means ‘land’. These are Kurinji, Mullai, Pālai, Neythal and Marutham. Each of these have unique characteristics – not just about the tract of land that they are, but also in the people and animals who live there, the plants, trees, flowers and above all the feelings of the characters in the akam poems.
The Tholkāppiyam classified 5 different kinds of land, but did not use the word ‘pālai’ for dry land, since Tamil Nadu does not have real deserts. Instead, the word ‘naduvunilai’ was used, and the author meant that to describe kurinji and mullai lands which were affected by droughts. The word ‘pālai’ was coined by later commentators.

Kurinji : Mountains and adjoining lands. Named after the kurinji flower that blooms once in 12 years in mountain slopes. Kurinji and Kānthal flowers grow in the mountains. Murugan is the god of the kurinji land, and bears, tigers and elephants, monkeys, wild pigs, parrots and peacocks live there. Wild rice, millet, and tubers are grown. Sandal wood trees abound. Honey collection and millet raising is done. Springs and waterfalls abound. Mountain people called kuravars live with their families in huts in small settlements.
The subject of the poems are usually the secret meeting of lovers, which might be at the millet field, or at night when the heroine slips out of the house evading her mother, and the mother suspects that her daughter is up to mischief. The time is daytime or midnight. Lover’s union is the main sentiment in kurinji.

Pālai : Dry wilderness and adjoining lands. Named after the Pālai tree which grows in very dry areas. Kotravai is the goddess here. Tigers, red foxes, vultures, eagles, pigeons and lizards live in this pālai land. Iruppai, omai, and ulignai trees grow here. Revam, kuravam and pāthiri flowers bloom here. Robbery on the roads are common. Water sources are dried springs and sunk wells.
The hero sets out across the wilderness to elope with his beloved, or, if he’s unaccompanied, to make enough money to marry her on his return. Occasionally the hero is married and undertakes a journey for business purposes, or for some god. The time is midday and the season is summer. Separation is the theme of Pālai.

Typical Pālai Thinai scenarios – Separation
The hero leaves, passing the wasteland, to earn wealth (except in Akananuru 255, the only poem in Sangam poetry where the hero goes on a ship)
The hero and heroine elope and go through the wasteland paths
The foster mother goes in search of the heroine
Passers-by give advice to the hero and heroine
The heroine’s mother is very hurt since her daughter has eloped
The hero goes alone in search of wealth, leaving behind the heroine
The heroine is afraid that he has to go through paths with bandits and wild animals
The heroine’s friend consoles her
The heroine is distressed and bangles slip down her forearms
The hero speaks to his heart about his feelings
The heroine’s mother pleads with the crow to caw and bring her daughter back

Mullai: Forest and adjoining lands. Named after the jasmine, and the plant grows wild in forest areas, especially in the rainy seasons. The god is Māyon (the dark one), and cattle, deer, rabbits, and wild fowl live there. Wild grain and millet is grown. Flowers are jasmine and thonral, trees are kondrai and kāyā. Forest streams are active in the rainy season
The heroine waits for her man to return from a journey. Some poems in this category describle union. All concern the fertitility of the rainy season in the forest meadows. Rainy season is the period. The time is usually evening. Patient waiting is the theme of Mullai.

Typical Mullai Thinai scenarios – Patient waiting
The hero has gone on a personal business trip, and is expected at the start of the rainy season
The hero has gone on the king’s business, and is expected at the start of the rainy season
The heroine awaits his arrival when the rainy season arrives
The heroine is upset that the rainy season has started, and her man has not returned
The heroine is in denial that the rainy season has started and blames the trees for showing signs of the season
The heroine’s friend consoles her when she is worried
The hero is anxious to get back home once his business is over
The heroine is upset when rainy season has started and the hero has not returned
The hero talks to his charioteer on his way back
The rains start and forest is filled with kāyā, kondrai, mullai and other flowers
The hero eventually reaches home and tells the heroine how happy he is to be back

Neythal: Seashore and adjoining lands. Named after the blue water lily that grows near the seashore. Varunan is the god. Fish catching and salt making is done here. Blue water lily grows in the ponds. Cormorant is the bird and crocodiles, sharks and buffalo that carries salt bags live here. Screw pine trees grow, water wells and salt water ponds are here. Fishermen community called parathavar live in nearby settlements with their families.
The subject is often separation, during which the unmarried woman believes that her lover has abandoned her. Occasionally, neydal poems concern the journey of the hero along the beach in his chariot as he comes to see his beloved. The time is afternoon, evening or occasionally night. Anxious waiting is the theme of neythal.

Typical Neythal Thinai scenarios – Anxious waiting
The heroine and her friend dry fish on the seashore
Their fathers and brothers go into the ocean to fish
The heroine plays with her friends on the seashore
The heroine waits anxiously for the hero who is away
There is gossip in their settlement when the love affair is known
The heroine’s friend assures her that the hero will come on his chariot
The heroine’s body becomes pale and weak due to the separation
The heroine is unable to sleep at night

Marutham: Paddy fields and adjoining lands. Named after the flowering marutham tree which grows in agricultural areas. Indiran is the god here, white and red rice are grown, Water buffalo is the animal, and lotus and lilies are the flowers. The trees are vanji, kanchi and marutham. Wells, ponds, rivers, and streams are all over the place. The birds here are pelican, waterfowl and swan. People work in the fields planting, weeding and cutting the rice stalks.
After marriage and usually after the couple have a child, the hero leaves his wife and begins to live with courtesans. The time is day. Lover’s infidelity and the beloved’s resentment are the theme in marutham.

Typical Marutham Thinai scenarios – Infidelity and hurt
The hero takes a concubine
The hero plays with his concubine/concubines in the river
The heroine is very sad and hurt
The heroine’s friend accosts the hero
The concubine talks about her feelings
The concubine talks about the heroine
The hero uses a messenger bard to send word to the heroine
The heroine tells the bard about her sad feelings
The heroine tells the hero how hurt she is
The heroine tells the hero about gossips
The heroine tells the hero that he was seen with his concubines
The friend speaks her mind to the bard
The friend refuses the hero entry into the house

The Sangam Age in Tamil Nadu (2nd century B.C. to 3rd century A.D.) was the greatest period of literary outpourings. Tolkapiyam (literally meaning”‘Old Composition”), a detailed treatise on grammar and poetics written at this time, defined the Sangam poetic tradition.

According to Tolkapiyam, a poem either lay in the inner space of love, relationships and feelings (aham) or in the public realm of kings, war and community (puram). The aham poems or poems of the interior grew from the four landscapes of the Tamil country: the mountain region (Kurinji), forest lands (Mullai), the agriculture lands about river basins (Marudam), the coastal region (Neidal) and the parched hill slopes or forests (Palai).

Each of these landscapes with their gods, plants, animals, tribes of people and their occupations, watering holes, drums, and music became a rich repertoire of images, symbols and metaphors. This exterior landscape that mapped an interior terrain of emotion and feeling got associated with a phase of love. Thus a whole world of signifiers in the outer landscape with various living forms and cultural codes signified specific human feelings.

Kurinji landscape, the lush and beautiful land with waterfall and high hills was associated with the burst of passion in the first union of lovers. Mullai, the verdant forest land with the fragrance of wild jasmine, was associated with the patient waiting of lovers before their union in marriage. Neidal, the coastal plain, was inhabited by hardy fishing folk who lived at the edge of life. This landscape was associated with the feeling of anxiety experienced by the lover waiting for her man who has braved the stormy ocean. Marudam, the fertile river plains and centre of urban life, was associated with infidelity and misunderstanding between lovers. Palai referred to the forest land and hillside parched by the scorching heat of sun in the summer months. The bleak and relentless dry lands of Palai were associated with the feeling of desolation experienced by lovers in life’s harsh terrain.

"Earth, The Mother" Atharva Veda

 

The Vedas are a collection of the world's most ancient sacred texts and two of the themes of the Vedas are love of ecology and love of Mother Earth. In the Atharva Veda, this ecological theme is so very clear: "Mother Bhumi (Mother Earth), may whatever I dig from you grow back again quickly, and may we not injure you by our labor." There are hymns to Mother Earth--Bhumi Sukuta: "Earth, in which the seas, the rivers and many waters lie, from which arise foods and fields of grain, abode to all that breathes and moves, may She confer on us Her finest yield."

The Vedic Hymn to the Earth, the Prithvi Sukta in Atharva Veda, is unquestionably the oldest and the most evocative environmental invocation. In it, the Vedic seer solemnly declares the enduring filial allegiance of humankind to Mother Earth: 'Mata Bhumih Putroham Prithivyah: Earth is my mother, I am her son.' Mother Earth is celebrated for all her natural bounties and particularly for her gifts of herbs and vegetation. Her blessings are sought for prosperity in all endeavours and fulfilment of all righteous aspirations. A covenant is made that humankind shall secure the Earth against all environmental trespass and shall never let her be oppressed. A soul-stirring prayer is sung in one of the hymns for the preservation and conservation of hills, snow-clad mountains, and all brown, black and red earth, unhurt, unsmitten, unwounded, unbroken and well defended by Indra. 

The Prithiv Sukta of the Atharva Veda describes the beauty of the earth as poetic, mystical, and very real. Its hymns give praise to medicinal plants, to inter-human relationships, and to Mother Earth. When meditating upon this text, and the striking photographs from around the world that accompany each verse, we witness the Hindu tradition of reverence for nature and all forms of life. This book represents a powerful tradition that needs to be remembered, nurtured, and activated in our contemporary context. The book beautifully combines a new interpretation of the environmentally themed Sanskrit Veda by the celebrated scholars, O.P. Dwivedi and Christopher Key Chapple with stunning photographs by Robert Radin, Todd Mansoor and Shailendra Dwivedi that highlight the environmental message. The Earth Veda articulates the Indian reverence for nature and all forms of life, a tradition that needs to be cultivated in our contemporary context. In this new translation, the authors carefully selected photographs from around the globe to enhance each verse of their translation. The earth is in trouble. The scientific community agrees that Earth s ecosystems can no longer support the modern, industrial lifestyle and concerned citizens seek an alternative. In Praise of Mother Earth offers the solution in the ancient wisdom of the Earth Verses that implore the reader to live in harmony with Mother Earth. The book holds the ethical position that material prosperity is not an end in itself. The text inspires both global stewardship and an appreciation of our natural inter-relatedness to each other through the sacredness of the Earth.

1. Truth, greatness, universal order (rita), strength. consecration, creative fervour (tapas), spiritual exaltation (brahma), the sacrifice, support the earth. May this earth, the mistress of that which was and shall be, prepare for us a broad domain!

2. The earth that has heights, and slopes, and great plains, that supports the plants of manifold virtue, free from the pressure that comes from the midst of men, she shall spread out for us, and fit. herself for us!

3. The earth upon which the sea, and the rivers and the waters, upon which food and the tribes of men have arisen, upon which this breathing, moving life exists, shall afford us precedence in drinking!

4. The earth whose are the four regions of space, upon which food and the tribes of men have arisen, which supports the manifold breathing, moving thinas, shall afford us cattle and other possessions also!

5. The earth upon which of old the first men unfolded themselves, upon which the gods overcame the Asuras, shall procure for us (all) kinds of cattle, horses, and fowls, good fortune, and glory!

6. The earth that supports all, furnishes wealth, the foundation, the golden-breasted resting-place of all living creatures, she that supports Agni Vaisvânara (the fire), and mates with Indra, the bull, shall furnish us with property!

7. The broad earth, which the sleepless gods ever attentively guard, shall milk for us precious honey, and, moreover, besprinkle us with glory!

8. That earth which formerly was water upon the ocean (of space), which the wise (seers) found out by their skilful devices; whose heart is in the highest heaven, immortal, surrounded by truth, shall bestow upon us brilliancy and strength, (and place us) in supreme sovereignty!

9. That earth upon which the attendant waters jointly flow by day and night unceasingly, shall pour out milk for us in rich streams, and, moreover, besprinkle us with glory!

10. The earth which the Asvins have measured, upon which Vishnu has stepped out, which Indra, the lord of might, has made friendly to himself; she, the mother, shall pour forth milk for me, the son!

11. Thy snowy mountain heights, and thy forests, O earth, shall be kind to us! The brown, the black, the red, the multi-coloured, the firm earth, that is protected by Indra, I have settled upon, not suppressed, not slain, not wounded!

12. Into thy rniddle set us, O earth, and into thy navel, into the nourishing strength that has grown tip from thy body; purify thyself for us! The earth is the mother, and I the son of the earth; Paro-anya is the father; he, too, shall save us!

13. The earth upon which they (the priests) inclose the altar (vedi), upon which they, devoted to all (holy) works, unfold the sacrifice, upon which are set up, in front of the sacrifice, the sacrificial posts, erect and brilliant, that earth shall prosper us, herself prospering!

14. Him that hates us, O earth, him that battles against us, him that is hostile towards us with his mind and his weapons, do thou subject to us, anticipating (our wish) by deed!

15. The mortals born of thee live on thee, thou supportest both bipeds and quadrupeds. Thine, O earth, are these five races of men, the mortals, upon whom the rising sun sheds undying light with his rays!

16. These creatures all together shall yield milk for us; do thou, O earth, give us the honey of speech!

17. Upon the firm, broad earth, the all-begetting mother of the plants, that is supported by (divine) law, upon her, propitious and kind, may we ever pass-our lives!

18. A great gathering-place thou, great (earth), hast become; great haste, commotion, and agitation are upon thee. Great Indra protects thee unceasingly. Do thou, O earth, cause us to brighten as if at the sight of gold: not any one shall hate us!

19. Agni (fire) is in the earth, in the plants, the waters hold Agni, Agni is in the stones; Agni is within men, Agnis (fires) are within cattle, within horses!

20. Agni glows from the sky, to Agni, the god, belongs the broad air. The mortals kindle Agni, the bearer of oblations, that loveth ghee!

21. The earth, clothed in Agni, with dark knees, shall make me brilliant and alert!

22. Upon the earth men give to the gods the sacrifice, the prepared oblation; upon the earth mortal men live pleasantly by food. May this earth give us breath and life, may she cause me to reach old age!

23. The fragrance, O earth, that has arisen upon thee, which the plants and the waters hold, which the Gandharvas and the Apsaras have partaken of, with that make me fragrant: not any one shall hate us!

24. That fragrance of thine which has entered into the lotus, that fragrance, O earth, which the immortals of yore gathered up at the marriage of Sûryâ, with that make me fragrant: not any one shall hate us!

25. That fragrance of thine which is in men, the loveliness and charm that is in male and female, that which is in steeds and heroes, that which is in the wild animals with trunks (elephants), the lustre that is in the maiden, O earth, with that do thou blend us: not any one shall hate us!

26. Rock, stone, dust is this earth; this earth is supported, held together. To this golden-breasted earth I have rendered obeisance!

27. The earth, upon whom the forest-sprung trees ever stand firm, the all-nourishing, compact earth, do we invoke!

28. Rising or sitting, standing or walking, may we not stumble with our right or left foot upon the earth!

29. To the pure earth I speak, to the ground, the soil that has grown through the brahma (spiritual exaltation). Upon thee, that holdest nourishment, prosperity, food, and ghee, we would settle down, O earth!

30. Purified the waters shall flow for our bodies; what flows off from us that do we deposit upon him we dislike: with a purifier, O earth, do I purify myself!

Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life - Giorgio Agamben

Giorgio Agamben

Much of Giorgio Agamben's work since the 1980s can be viewed to leading up to the so-called Homo Sacer-project, that properly begins with the book Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. In this series of works, Agamben responds to Hannah Arendt's and Foucault's studies of totalitarianism and biopolitics.

In his main work "Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life" (1998), Giorgio Agamben analyzes an obscure figure of Roman law that poses some fundamental questions to the nature of law and power in general.

Under the Roman Empire, a man who committed a certain kind of crime was banned from society and all of his rights as a citizen were revoked. He thus became a "homo sacer" (sacred man). In consequence, he could be killed by anybody, while his life on the other hand was deemed "sacred", so he could not be sacrificed in a ritual ceremony.

Roman law no longer applied to someone deemed a Homo sacer, although they would remain "under the spell" of law. Agamben defines it as "human life...included in the juridical order solely in the form of its exclusion (that is, of its capacity to be killed)". Homo sacer was therefore excluded from law itself, while being included at the same time. This figure is the exact mirror image of the sovereign (basileus) — a king, emperor, or president — who stands, on the one hand, within law (so he can be condemned, e.g., for treason, as a natural person) and outside of the law (since as a body politic he has power to suspend law for an indefinite time).

Giorgio Agamben draws on Carl Schmitt's definition of the Sovereign as the one who has the power to decide the state of exception (or justitium), where law is indefinitely "suspended" without being abrogated. But if Schmitt's aim is to include the necessity of state of emergency under the rule of law, Agamben on the contrary demonstrates that all life cannot be subsumed by law. As in Homo sacer, the state of emergency is the inclusion of life and necessity in the juridical order solely in the form of its exclusion.

Since its origins, Agamben notes, law has had the power of defining what "bare life" — zoe (Gk. ζωή), as opposed to bios (Gk. βίος): qualified life — is, by making this exclusive operation, while at the same time gaining power over it by making it the subject of political control. The power of law to actively separate "political" beings (citizens) from "bare life" (bodies) has carried on from Antiquity to Modernity — from, literally, Aristotle to Auschwitz.

Aristotle, as Agamben notes, constitutes political life via a simultaneous inclusion and exclusion of "bare life": as Aristotle says, man is an animal born to life (Gk. ζῆν, zen), but existing with regard to the good life (εὖ ζῆν, eu zen) which can be achieved through politics. Bare life, in this ancient conception of politics, is that which must be transformed, via the State, into the "good life"; that is, bare life is that which is supposedly excluded from the higher aims of the state, yet is included precisely so that it may be transformed into this "good life". Sovereignty, then, is conceived from ancient times as the power which determines what or who is to be incorporated into the political body (in accord with its bios) by means of the more originary exclusion (or exception) of what is to remain outside of the political body—which is at the same time the source of that body's composition (zoe). According to Agamben, biopower, which takes the bare lives of the citizens into its political calculations, may be more marked in the modern state, but has essentially existed since the beginnings of sovereignty in the West, since this structure of ex-ception is essential to the core concept of sovereignty.

Agamben would continue to expand the theory of the state of exception first introduced in "Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life", ultimately leading to the "State of Exception" in 2005. During 2003, he delivered a lecture at European Graduate School at describing the eclipse that politics has undergone. Instead of leaving a space between law and life, the space where human action is possible, the space that used to constitute politics, he argues that politics has “contaminated itself with law” in the state of exception. Because “only human action is able to cut the relationship between violence and law”, it becomes increasingly difficult within the state of exception for humanity to act against the State.

State of Exception (2005)

In this book, Giorgio Agamben traces the concept of 'state of exception' (Ausnahmezustand) used by Carl Schmitt to Roman justitium and auctoritas. This leads him to a response to Carl Schmitt's definition of sovereignty as the power to proclaim the exception.

Agamben’s text State of Exception investigates the increase of power by governments employed in supposed times of crisis. Within a state of emergency, Agamben refers to the states of exception, where constitutional rights can be diminished, superseded and rejected in the process of claiming this extension of power by a government.

The state of exception invests one person or government with the power and voice of authority over others extended well beyond where the law has existed in the past. “In every case, the state of exception marks a threshold at which logic and praxis blur with each other and a pure violence without logos claims to realize an enunciation without any real reference" (Agamben, pg 40). Agamben refers a continued state of exception to the Nazi state of Germany under Hitler’s rule. “The entire Third Reich can be considered a state of exception that lasted twelve years. In this sense, modern totalitarianism can be defined as the establishment, by means of the state of exception, of a legal civil war that allows for the physical elimination not only of political adversaries but of entire categories of citizens who for some reason cannot be integrated into the political system" (Agamben, pg 2).

The political power over others acquired through the state of exception, places one government — or one form or branch of government — as all powerful, operating outside of the laws. During such times of extension of power, certain forms of knowledge shall be privileged and accepted as true and certain voices shall be heard as valued, while of course, many others are not. This oppressive distinction holds great importance in relation to the production of knowledge. The process of both acquiring knowledge, and suppressing certain knowledge, is a violent act within a time of crisis.

Agamben’s State of Exception investigates how the suspension of laws within a state of emergency or crisis can become a prolonged state of being. More specifically, Agamben addresses how this prolonged state of exception operates to deprive individuals of their citizenship. When speaking about the military order issued by President George W. Bush on 13 November 2001, Agamben writes, “What is new about President Bush’s order is that it radically erases any legal status of the individual, thus producing a legally unnameable and unclassifiable being. Not only do the Taliban captured in Afghanistan not enjoy the status of POW’s as defined by the Geneva Convention, they do not even have the status of people charged with a crime according to American laws" (Agamben, pg 3). Many of the individuals captured in Afghanistan were taken to be held at Guantánamo Bay without trial. These individuals were termed as “enemy combatants.” Until 7 July 2006, these individuals had been treated outside of the Geneva Conventions by the United States administration.

The reduction of life to 'biopolitics' is one of the main threads in Agamben's work, in his critical conception of a homo sacer, reduced to 'bare life', and thus deprived of any rights. Agamben's concept of the homo sacer rests on a crucial distinction in Greek between 'bare life' (la vita nuda, Gk. ζωή: zoê) and 'a particular mode of life' or 'qualified life.' In Part III, section 7 of Homo Sacer, “The Camp as the 'Nomos' of the Modern”, he evokes the concentration camps of World War II. “The camp is the space that is opened when the state of exception begins to become the rule.” Agamben says that "What happened in the camps so exceeds (is outside of) the juridical concept of crime that the specific juridico-political structure in which those events took place is often simply omitted from consideration." The conditions in the camps were "conditio inhumana," and the incarcerated somehow defined outside the boundaries of humanity, under the exception laws of Schutzhaft. Where law is based on vague, unspecific concepts such as "race" or "good morals," law and the personal subjectivity of the judicial agent are no longer distinct.

A Nazi officer poses next to dead bodies of tortured Jews in Auschwitz, the German concentration camp

In United States criminal law, people accused of committing crimes cannot be compelled to incriminate themselves verbally, but can be compelled to incriminate themselves physically.” In the process of creating a state of exception these effects can compound. In a realized state of exception, one who has been accused of committing a crime, within the legal system, loses the ability to use his voice and represent themselves. The individual can not only be deprived of their citizenship, but also of any form of agency over their own life. “Agamben identifies the state of exception with the power of decision over life.” Within the state of exception, the distinction between bios (citizen) and zoe (homo sacer) is made by those with judicial power. For example, Agamben would argue that Guantánamo Bay exemplifies the concept of 'the state of exception' in the United States following 9–11.

Agamben mentions that basic universal human rights of Taliban individuals while captured in Afghanistan and sent to Guantánamo Bay in 2001 were negated by US laws. In reaction to the removal of their basic human rights, detainees of Guantánamo Bay prison went on hunger strikes. Within a state of exception, when a detainee is placed outside of the law, he is according to Agamben, reduced to 'bare life' in the eyes of the judicial powers.