Hare Krishna - The Biocultural Evolution of Mantra-Chanting
Many religious traditions evolved techniques of chanting specific texts, which sometimes induced religious experiences and trances. Although Christianity and Islam had evolved their own forms (i.e. Catholic rosary prayer or Sufi dhikr, often accompanied by the use of prayer beads), Hindu chantings of "Hare Krishna. Krishna Krishna. Hare Rama. Rama Rama." became a huge success in the 60s and 70s among young seekers in Western countries.
Daniel Böttger, whom I am glad to have worked with as a student in my seminaries at the University of Leipzig, amazed many of us by his magisterial thesis: A brilliant study about the biocultural evolution of this feature. He had pondered and explored whether there would be a feedback between facial expressions while chanting light or dark vowels and emotional experiences. Would it make a difference to chant i.e. "Horu Kroshnu", "Uvo Morio" or "Bosmolloh rohmonu rohum" instead of the historic, established forms of Hare Krishna, Ave Maria or Bismillah rahmani rahim?
As anyone may discern just by trying, Daniel was able to show empirically in a study featuring two diverse chanting groups: It makes a lot of a difference! It's no coincidence that light vowels evolved to be the central pillars of most ritual chantings abroad.
See Daniels Video on the study:
At my opinion, this is a remarkable case study of the feedback among biological bases and cultural forms - and thus an outstanding contribution to the evolutionary studies on religion(s)! And it sure seems to be a wise choice to memorize Daniel Böttgers Name and Homepage. :-)
And if someone would say that spontaneous chanting wouldn't work in "modern pepople" anymore, you maybe advice him to take a look at that one:
In the Scilog "Natur des Glaubens" (German): Das Hare-Krishna-Mantra als Beispiel biokultureller Evolution von Religion.
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That was a fun post. I can honestly say I have never before considered the vowel use of mantra's before :-)
I enjoyed Daniel's video too, and think he did a good job. However, to the end of the video, he states that "rituals that are pleasant[..] could be evolutionary advantageous." That sounds like a huge leap of faith to me. Do you think such a conclusion is merited?
As a biologist, these things just bug me :-)
Hi Corneel,
thanks for your post! And, yes, I loved Daniel's creative study from the first moment, too!
You had a question:
However, to the end of the video, he states that "rituals that are pleasant[..] could be evolutionary advantageous." That sounds like a huge leap of faith to me. Do you think such a conclusion is merited?
As a biologist, these things just bug me :-)
I think, it is perfectly right to assert that the pleasantness of the induced experiences is advantageous on the cultural side of evolution. It may also have helped to support religious teachings, build stronger communities, psychosomatic well-being etc.
Whether health benefits of religiosity should be considered as advantageous in the biological sense is constantly debated - especially as we see different effects of different religious traditions.
http://www.uni-marburg.de/...ticles/chang_2009.pdf
Personally, I adhere to the position that health or survival benefits of the traits may be of importance to the evolution of genetic sequences only insofar as they effect the relative, reproductive success of their phenotypes and/or close kin.
http://www.scilogs.eu/...tural-history-of-religion
In these debates, I like to point out that having children is often detrimental to the health of the parents itself!
Are you talking about memes? Or am I confusing things here?
I can see that things that are both pleasant and advantageous will be reinforced, but I don't believe that pleasant rituals are necessarily advantageous in themselves. It may be hard to prove the link with community structure and social effects that you are proposing.
Thanks for your time answering my questions, and I am sorry for being a pain in the butt ;-)
Thanks for your questions, Corneel!
Are you talking about memes? Or am I confusing things here?
No, I am definitely "not" talking about memes. I am talking about the interdependencies of biological and cultural evolution, as i.e. visible in Homo Sapiens developping tools affecting survival and reproduction, lactose-tolerance in those populations having herded cattle for a longer time or the darker skin color of Inuit as they get their Vitamine D from their specific diet etc. If we speak about the evolution of tool-making, language, music or religion, there are no spheric entities as "the tool", "the language", "the music", "the religion", but concrete products of cultural development and transmission (Clothing, Nets, French, Chinese, Jazz, Heavy Metal, orthodx Judaism, Jainism etc.) effecting the evolutionary fitness of phenotypes. We have, i.e., religions endorsing very high birth rates (Amish, Hutterites etc.) and others forbidding sexual reproduction at all (Shakers). So to work in these interdisciplinary fields, it is important to discern the interdependencies very carefully and often on a combined basis of empirical data and case studies.
I can see that things that are both pleasant and advantageous will be reinforced, but I don't believe that pleasant rituals are necessarily advantageous in themselves.
Yes, I agree (as written). For example, the chanting of "Hare Krishna" is situated in a completely different setting as the Catholic "Ave Maria", leading to very different results i.e. regarding family life. To my knowledge after years of work in the field, no aspect of religious life seems to be "advantageous in itself", it's always realized as part of a wider, religious system with very different outcomes. It has "the potential" to be advantageous. (The same is true for language - many have suffered for speaking out, didn't they? ;-) )
It may be hard to prove the link with community structure and social effects that you are proposing.
I don't propose a one-way link but a potential that is easily observable i.e. in the early formation of the Western Krishna-Movement, it's Sankirtan-tours etc. See i.e. Kimmo Ketola "Cultural Evolution of Intense Religiosity: The Case of Sankirtan Fever in the Hare Krishna Movement", in: Bulbulia, Sosis et al. 2008, "The Evolution of Religion. Studies, Theories, Critiques", Collins 2008, p. 87 - 92
Thanks for your time answering my questions, and I am sorry for being a pain in the butt ;-)
You are very welcome! And I promise to do a special post on biocultural evolution (or Gene-Culture-Coevolution) in the near future! :-)