Archaeologists are usually more comfortable studying ritual than they are studying religion. The reason for this is straightforward. Drawing from modern anthropological understandings of the dialectic, most archaeologists view ritual as a form of human action that leaves material traces, whereas they view religion as a more abstract symbolic system consisting of beliefs, myths, and doctrines. Since symbols are intellectual constructs rather than material realities, archaeologists feel that claims about them are always less certain. Many archaeologists, myself included, have criticized those archaeologists who focus on symbolic and structural analyses of religion for this reason (Fogelin 2007a; Howey and O’Shea 2006; Insoll 2004; Renfrew 1994; Walker 1998). I now believe that I was mistaken in many of my earlier criticisms. Rituals do, at times, enact structural religious beliefs through complex symbolic actions. If religion and ritual truly inform one another, archaeologists can only benefit from investigations into both sides of the dialectic. Where written sources describe religious beliefs, mythologies, and symbolism, a structural approach to ritual is fairly straightforward. However, there is no reason, a priori, to assume that archaeologists cannot study ancient symbolism and belief in purely material contexts. The question remains, however, how best to study symbolism within the material confines of archaeological research.
If symbols are organized in complex systems, as Geertz (1973:90) argues, then knowledge of some aspects of the symbolic system could be used to infer other parts. Archaeologists might even identify a key symbol (Ortner 1973), one that serves as a central element of ancient ritual practices. Furthermore, studies of ancient symbolism need not focus solely on the symbols themselves but can infer the meaning of symbols from their material context. If iconography depicting a ruler is consistently associated with an image of an eagle, for example, it is likely that the eagle is itself a symbol of royalty. With that insight, it might be possible to examine other contexts in which eagle iconography exists to further elucidate the symbolic meaning of eagles and royalty. In the same way, it is possible to examine the material context of Buddhist symbolism (e. g., stupas and Buddha images) to gain insight into their meaning and function that goes well beyond what is reported in Buddhist texts.
There are many excellent approaches appropriate to the anthropological and archaeological study of religious symbolism (e. g., Levi-Strauss 1963, 1983; Eliade 1961). With the exception of the insights of Victor Turner (1967), Mary Douglas (1966), and Clifford Geertz (1973), I do not employ these symbolic or structural approaches in my analysis of Indian Buddhism to any significant degree. I have no doubt that the application of these approaches could work, but in my symbolic analyses of Buddhism I primarily rely upon the semiotic perspectives of Charles Sanders Peirce (1931-1958, 1992, 1998). While Peirce was a contemporary of Durkheim and Weber, sociocultural anthropologists only rediscovered his work in the last thirty years (Mertz and Parmentier 1985; Silverstein 1976; Singer 1978) and archaeologists in the last decade (Bauer 2002; Fogelin 2012; Preucel 2006; Preucel and Bauer 2001).
Charles Sanders Peirce and Semiotics
The scope of Peirce’s philosophy is vast, with critical contributions to epistemology (see Fogelin 2007c), formal logic, and semiotics (see Preucel 2006). In his work on semiotics, Peirce developed a complex theory concerning the relationship between people, signs, and the objects to which signs refer (e. g., the relationship between the word “stupa,” the sensual perception of the structure to which the word “stupa” refers, and the person thinking about a “stupa”). Peirce defined signs as “something that stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity” (Peirce 1931-1958:vol. 2:228). Among the key elements of this definition is the emphasis placed on the role of people thinking (interpretants) about sign/object relations. For many anthropologists and linguists, the inclusion of interpretants in Peirce’s formulation of semiotics is critical to its value for anthropological interpretation (Bauer 2002; Daniel 1984; Keane 1997; Parmentier 1997). Whereas the structural anthropology (e. g., Levi-Strauss 1963, 1983) inspired by Saussure’s (1983) semiotics has been criticized for downplaying social agency (Bourdieu 1977; Giddens 1984), Peirce’s semiotics allows for human agency, even if it does not explain it particularly well.
In Peirce’s semiotics, interpretants play an active role in interpreting signs vis-a-vis objects. This does not mean that objects and interpretants are synonymous with physical objects and people. Peirce’s categories are abstract and of the mind. An object is not physical, but rather the sensual perceptions of the physical mediated by how a person thinks about it. Similarly, interpretants are not people. Rather, the ways people think in relation to signs and objects are interpretants. It is the relation between signs, objects, and interpretants that Peirce emphasizes, rather than any inherent qualities of signs, objects, or interpretants.
Peirce’s tripartite division of signs, objects, and interpretants was only one of many tripartite typologies he created. Among the most important of these is his “doctrine of categories.” This doctrine states that there are three different overarching categories of human experience: firstness, secondness, and thirdness. Peirce defined firstness as the conception of irreducible being or existence—something is. Peirce describes “redness” as an example of firstness (Peirce 1931-1958:vol. 1:25). The experience of redness consists of “unanalyzed, instantaneous, raw feeling” (Preucel 2006:52). Secondness refers to our experience of otherness, our perception of signs and their interdependence with other signs. For example, recognition of a father requires the existence of a child. Finally, thirdness involves intellectual thought or argument—for Peirce, prediction—about the world around ourselves. Broadly speaking, these three categories progress from the immediate and necessary to the intellectual and abstract. Socially speaking, there is power and importance in each category. Raw emotion has its own value, distinct and different from the value of intellectual insight.
The concepts of firstness, secondness, and thirdness matter for archaeology because Peirce directly relates them to a typology of signs consisting of icons, indexes, and symbols (see Table 2.1). The underlying principle emphasized in this latter typology is the manner in which an interpretant links signs to the objects to which signs refer. Icons, which
Peirce largely associates with firstness, promote an immediate feeling or emotion. Icons achieve this by sharing an innate connection to an object. A portrait, for example, is an icon of the person being depicted. Icons are often identified in terms of visual resemblance between a sign and its object, but the resemblance can also be exhibited in other senses (smell, taste, etc.) or qualities of the icon. Indexes, in contrast, emphasize secondness or otherness by their very construction. Indexes indicate the status of a sign by a necessary relation to another sign. Classic examples of secondness include a weathervane indexing wind, or a bullet hole indexing the passage of a bullet. A bullet hole is not a bullet, but the existence of a bullet hole necessarily implicates the passage of a bullet sometime in the past. Symbols, in Peirce’s terminology, denote an object through convention. A stop sign (a red octagon and the word “stop”) is a symbol, understood only because people have been taught its significance. Symbols are most closely related to the category of thirdness. In terms of Peirce’s doctrine of categories, icons, indexes, and symbols exhibit greater and lesser degrees of firstness, secondness, and third-ness, greater and lesser degrees of emotional immediacy and intellectual abstraction.
It is important to note that Peirce did not see any of his categories or typologies as clearly distinct. Rather, he viewed the world from the perspective of synechism—that the world is characterized by continuous variation. Within a semiotic perspective, signs are never simply icons, indexes, or symbols. Signs have elements of each, and the potential for multiple meanings. The same sign can be an icon, index, or symbol depending on the interpretant, but that is only part of the multivalent nature of signs. Even for a single individual, at a single moment in time, signs have multiple valences. The American flag, for instance, is a symbol of the United States, but could also be an index leading soldiers to safe ground during wartime. Peirce is explicit that signs are constantly in flux. Semioticians see the malleability and multivalency of signs as central to their investigations of language, art, and human cognition.
Signs have real social impacts on the people who use them. Semioticians can employ Peirce’s theories to identify the social significances of different signs in different social contexts. The most powerful or socially meaningful signs would be those that forcefully project all elements of all of these categories simultaneously. That said, different cultures might place different value on icons, indexes, and symbols. Daniel (1984), for example, argues that in Tamil society in India icons are considered to be the most fundamental or powerful type of sign. This stands in contrast, Daniel argues, to the Euro-American emphasis on indexes and symbols. When examining the social implications of Peirce’s typology of signs, we must always be aware that different cultures may assign value differently.
The most developed aspect of Peirce’s semiotics is his sophisticated understanding of signs—his tripartite typology of signs and their relationship to firstness, secondness, and thirdness. He pays less attention to objects and interpretants. Peirce’s semiotics contains no theory to explain the independent motivations of interpretants or their actions, except in reaction to signs and objects. Peirce’s semiotics also ignores much that can be said of objects. By defining objects as of the mind, Peirce under-theorized the ramifications of the materiality of objects. In many cases, signs are material objects. The medium of their construction affects their meaning (Eco 1976:267). Different media have distinct physical properties and are governed by physical laws that cannot be changed. Smoke may be a potent sign for an interpretant, but it cannot be made into a statue in the same way stone can. Different media have different potentialities for expression. Artists can do things with oil paints (e. g., color) that they cannot do with charcoal, and vice versa. Further, interpretants commonly ascribe different meanings to different media (e. g., charcoal is more proletarian, while oils are more bourgeois), but portraits in both media could be icons of the same individual.
While not all signs are material, for archaeologists material signs are the focus of research. As such, semiotic approaches must be tempered with theories of materiality. While semiotics is more structural and materiality more agent oriented, nothing in either theory necessitates the complete rejection of the other. Semiotics and materiality are not contradictory, but rather complementary. Both are necessary for a comprehensive understanding of the long-term symbolic development of Indian Buddhism. Where semiotics can inform on the significance and meaning of Buddha images, for example, materiality provides a way to understand Buddha images as material things constructed in specific places, at specific times for specific purposes.
World History
