Sanctified madness: the God-intoxicated saints of Bengal.

In South Asia, the 'saintly madman' appears outwardly like a lunatic but is revered because his disregard for convention stems from heightened consciousness, not incapacity. This paper examines two God-intoxicated saints from Bengal and asks whether 'God intoxication' qualifies as a culture-bound syndrome. The concept of culture-bound syndrome is too narrow to capture the key issues, which concern how cultural practices and models shape mental states—both deviant and normal. All cultures cultivate a limited range of mental states, so questions raised by culture-bound syndromes are part of broader questions about how all mind-states relate to their socio-cultural environment. The conclusion is that God intoxication is a uniquely Bengali mental condition, with variants across South Asia and kinship to other mystical states, but the term 'syndrome' is not useful.

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Abstract

The saintly madman is a familiar character in South Asia. To outer appearances he is no different from a lunatic, but the mad saint comes to be revered because his idiocy is popularly believed to arise from a different cause than ordinary madness. The common psychopath neglects social conventions because his consciousness is dimmed by incapacity; the saintly madman also breaches convention, but does so because his heightened consciousness has liberated him from the bonds of convention that entrap ordinary people. In the terms of Hinduism, he has tasted the divine nectar of God-realization and has returned to the human realm intoxicated by the experience. In this paper two popular God intoxicated saints of Bengal are discussed. The question is posed whether 'God intoxication' can be considered a culture-bound syndrome of Bengal. The concept of 'culture bound syndrome' is found to be too narrow to encompass the most significant issues to arise from reflection on the characteristics of the God intoxicated. These larger issues have to do with the relationship between cultural practices and models and mental states (whether deviant, as implied by the term 'syndrome' although deviance does not always carry the negative connotation implicit in 'syndrome', or normal). It is suggested that all cultures culture a limited range of mental states and thus the questions posed by the notion of culture bound syndromes are subsumed by larger questions about the relationship of all mind-states to the socio-cultural environment which conditions them. The conclusion is that God intoxication is indeed a uniquely Bengali mental condition, with variants throughout South Asia and kinship to other mystical states, but that the concept of 'syndrome' is not useful.