www.culturalstudies.in The difference between a paṇḍit and a wise man: a study of Bengali songs as literature against literature Carola Erika Lorea IIAS Research Fellow, Netherlands carola.lorea@gmail.com ABSTRACT From the 18 th century until present, Bauls and Fakirs of Bengal composed a rich and variegated literary corpus that has fascinated and inspired several Bengali novelists, poets and intellectuals. Nevertheless, Baul and Fakir practitioners hold written literature in very low esteem: written texts are 'just for paṇḍits', while songs represent the only authoritative transmission of knowledge, together with the gurus' speech. Both Baul songs and their gurus' teachings share a similar language, highly polysemic, humorous and paradoxical, characterized by the literary device known in Tantric literature as sandhyƗ bhƗṣƗ. How to study religious texts, when these are represented by a fluctuating repertoire of oral literature, composed by ecstatic saint-songwriters and performed by itinerant musicians? In this paper I discuss my methodological contribution to the study of esoteric literature within and beyond the borders of Bengal, based upon a contextual study of the songs' lyrics implemented through an ethnography of oral exegesis. Adopting a performance- centered approach, by which sacred songs are seen as 'events' rather than 'texts', this perspective integrates within the study of South Asian literatures the dimensions of reception and oral literary criticism. The motionless reality of a printed text is thus brought into life, where it interacts with the dynamism of a living culture, the vibrant rhythm of the performers' ankle-bells and the diverging interpretations of the listeners. Introduction From pre-modern Bengal, a number of unorthodox and non-institutionalized religious movements arose out of the encounter between Buddhist Sahajiya, Nath, Vaishnava Sahajiya and Sufi practitioners. The so-called 'Tantric minstrels' and 'mystic troubadours' of contemporary Bengal emerged from this religious substratum, which is antinomian, esoteric, and essentially Tantric. They are commonly known under the umbrella name of Bauls or Fakirs and their religious beliefs as well as body-centered practices provoke scandal and scorn among the conservative Hindu and Muslim establishments. For instance, Bauls do not recognize any artificial discrimination among men, such as caste and religious identity, and they do not apply the rules of pollution and ritual purity prescribed by the orthodoxy. Their practices involve ritualized sexual intercourse, the intake of bodily fluids for both spiritual and medical reasons and the consumption of marijuana. From the 20 th century, the enormous corpus of literature produced by Bauls became extremely representative of the Bengali culture within and beyond the Bengal borders. The Nobel prize Rabindranath Tagore took Volume - I, Issue - II, June 2017, Page - 1