Sri Ramakrishna Math : The Vedanta Kesari, October 2002

Alan Hunter currently works at the Centre for the Study of Forgiveness and Reconciliation at Coventry University, U.K. He was formerly Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at Leeds University. He has contributed articles to The Vedanta Kesari on the Culture and Civilization of various nations. In 2000, Alan and his wife Joy opened a centre known as `Sarada Vedanta Centre' in Coventry." Photographs, courtesy: Mr. Casey Morrison.

Peru has a special kind of grandeur, in its topography, its flora and fauna, its people and their culture. The country is about as large as France, Spain, and the UK combined; more than one third the land-area of India. Yet much of it is still uninhabited, the deserts, high mountains, and dense jungles proving an inhospitable environment for human settlement: the total population is not much more than 25 millions. There are three distinct zones. Along the sea coast, more than two thousand kilometres in length, is a relatively narrow strip of low-lying land. This strip is home to almost fifty per cent of Peru's population and almost all its industrial activity. The area suffers from low rainfall, but is very fertile where irrigated.

Further to the east there is the great mountain range of the Andes, in most respects second in dimensions only to the Himalayas. The highlands form a vast plateau with an average altitude of over three thousand metres. All around, giant peaks rise, several of them over six thousand metres. The whole area is also transversed by giant canyons. One of them has been measured to be 3,350 metres deep, more than double the depth of the famous Grand Canyon of the USA. Other canyons are in such remote locations that they have yet to be properly mapped. The highlands are also home to one of the great mystical cities of the world, Cusco, standing at 3,300 metres, which is likened to an Andean Lhasa. Not far away is one of the world's largest and highest lakes, the mysterious Lake Titicaca, sacred home, in Andean mythology, to the Creator Deity.

Most of the remainder of Peru, to the east of the Andes, is a vast area of tropical rainforest. Much of the jungle is relatively untouched (about five percent of Peru's population live in this area), and some of it is strictly protected: the Manu Biosphere Reserve, for example, is probably the most pristine conservation area in the world. Thousands of square kilometres are still unexplored, home to tens of thousands of species of plants, insects, birds, and mammals.

Contemporary Peru is one of the world's great melting pots of peoples. Research has yet to verify the migration patterns of the earliest inhabitants who settled the jungle and the Andes; possibly they came from northeast or southeast Asia in the distant past. There are archaeological remains of cultural artefacts dating back to about 3000 BCE. By the fifteenth century, these peoples had formed the greatest indigenous civilisation in the Americas, the Inca empire.

The first modern wave of immigrants were the Spanish, who came as invaders in the sixteenth century. Many of them intermarried with the local population. Soon, they also brought over large numbers of black Africans, mainly to work as slaves on plantations. In the nineteenth century, thousands of Chinese and Japanese emigrated to Peru either as bonded labourers or in search of employment and opportunities; they were joined also by numbers of white Europeans who migrated to South America for a variety of reasons. The country has today one of the most diverse populations in the world.

The national language is Spanish, spoken by almost everyone except remote groups in the mountains and jungles who use only their native languages. English is spoken quite widely in the larger towns. Quechua is the inidigenous language of the peoples of the Andes highlands, and was formerly the language of the Inca empire. The language, together with one or two closely related languages, has survived into the twenty-first century, now being spoken by an estimated twenty million people, mainly villagers of Indian descent living in the highlands of Peru and neighbouring countries. The national religion is Roman Catholicism although, as I mention later in the article, the official church forms only one strand of a complex, rich religious heritage.

About politics and the economy, perhaps the less said the better. After various incompetent civilian and military regimes, Peru was almost bankrupt as a nation by 1990. It suffered from widespread hyperinflation, poverty, malnutrition, corruption, high infant mortality, and illiteracy. The controversial President Fujimori initiated some improvements through the 1990s, and the economy has seen growth in the past decade. But recent estimates state that half the population still live in poverty, with 20% classified as being in extreme poverty; over one third of homes have no electricity or clean water; and a third of children suffer from chronic malnutrition.

And yet, almost all visitors to Peru experience a great warmth and hospitality from its resourceful people. They may be poor, but somehow they manage to lead a rather vibrant life, rich at least in religion, culture, and landscape. Of course there is street crime, but in most of the country one feels safe and welcome even as a tourist. In recent years, tourism has contributed to the local economies of many areas of Peru, with growing numbers of visitors from Asia, Europe, and the USA. There is a good tourist infrastructure around all the major sites: one can go trekking in the Andes, find eco-tourism in the jungle, sightseeing of the archaeological sites, walk the trails of the Incas, and learn about the cultural heritage in some of the major museums of South America. Peru also maintains a great tradition of weaving, artisan work in metals and ceramics, music, fine arts, theatre, and dance. Tourism as an industry can be ambiguous. Of course it brings much needed foreign currency and employment. It also can bring inflationary pressures and environmental damage. Some tour operators have tried to cash in on the sale of 'mystic Peru', charging exotic rates for encounters with healers, or participation in ancient rituals; on investigation, the rituals may be staffed by employees enacting recently concocted 'Inca ceremonies'. But perhaps it is all intended in good humour, and both tourists and agencies enjoy the shows.

Peruvians have taken to the internet, and one finds internet cafes all over the country, and widespread in private use. Also, many scholars or interest groups concerned with Peru host their own websites. If the reader would like more information about many of the topics discussed below, a search on the internet may provide helpful.

Last but not least, I was suprised to learn that Peruvians consider their cuisine to be one of the finest in the world, comparable to that of China, France, or India. Many of the local products are not easily available outside the country though. A great variety of fish are found in the sea, and in the numerous lakes and rivers; tropical fruits and vegetables are grown locally, some of them being jungle produce unique to the localities; and in the high mountains one finds unexpectedly, hundreds of varieties of staples like corn and potatoes, which have been grown in the Andes for thousands of years.

So much for the tourist guide. As one might expect, in such a vast country with a rich, turbulent history and mixed population, religious life shows many interesting features. In a short article and with my limited knowledge I can only mention a few aspects which seem particularly significant: the religion of the Incas; traditional beliefs of the Andes; the influence of the Roman Catholic Church; the shamanic tradition; and evidence of deep knowledge of chakras and kundalini from three thousand years ago. Apart from some reading and personal observations, much of the text in the next two sections is taken from explanations by Mr. Alberto Miori of Cusco, who patiently answered my questions. Alberto was a professional mountaineer and has explored much of the Andes on foot; he is also a scholar, anthropologist, and expert on Andean cultural lore; and now runs a specialist tourist agency based in Cusco.

A series of dominant warrior-priestly classes held sway over the central Andes for almost a millenium. The greatest and best-known rulers to emerge were the Incas, who rose to power in about 1200 and sustained their empire for some three hundred years until the Spanish overpowered them in 1538. Their capital city was the high-altitude stronghold of Cusco, but their rule spread throughout the whole of western South America. At its high point, the Inca empire covered an amazing 980,000 square kilometres making it one of the largest centralized empires in history. Inca rule was hierarchical, disciplined, and committed to vast public works of road-building, irrigation, and land improvement. It is thought that pottery, textiles, and sciences like astronomy also flourished.

A curious feature of the era is that despite highly sophisticated technical knowledge, despite a vast administrative apparatus, and a strong heritage in music, dance, and drama, neither the Incas nor their neighbours used a system of writing in the conventional sense known in the rest of the world. Nobody knows why. However, there were various symbolic systems that may remind one of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs or Babylonian cuneiforms. The Mayan civilization to the north had a slightly more sophisticated system of glyphs, but possibly to be understood only by a select few, perhaps the priests. With the Incas themselves, perhaps the nearest approximation to writing was a system of tying knots in lengths of string. The knots indicated numbers (in a decimal system), and the colours and kinds of string held meanings. The strings may well have encoded stories, histories, or technical knowledge. But the strings could not be understood by all; rather there was a special caste of 'readers' whose skill was to interpret the messages on the strings into words. Apparently these readers died out completely as a caste soon after the Spanish invasion, and the entire recorded heritage became indecipherable. Another means of 'written' communication was patterning on items of clothing, which looks so complex in some cases that it must surely convey messages, perhaps about clan or status.

In religion, the Incas were somewhat purist or iconoclastic. As far as we can tell, they used few images, few pictures of people, no anthropomorphic representations of their supreme god. This was a great contrast to previous civilizations in the region, which all displayed a great variety of deities, some of which had characteristics that seem a bit fantastic to us: partly human, part reptile, part bird, fangs of jaguars. As we shall see later, some of these are probably related to concepts of a mystic yogic body, and also probably of shamanic visions. The Incas by contrast had very few totems or icons of their own and the most of these were in abstract or geometrical form: patterns, scaled, diamond shaped, squares, hexagons, reproduced on textiles, rocks, and metal.

It is possible that this purism was an inherent religious development, away from local imagery towards monotheism, or away from the religious imagination and towards abstract concepts. On the other hand, it is also possible that religious icons were the specific target of the Spanish invaders and their priests. Many might have been destroyed through religious bigotry; others stolen for their precious metals.

Besides, the Incas did not completely extirpate the local idolatry and totemic worship but rather subjected it to the state religion. In many cases this was a literal fact. One of the characteristics of the Inca conquest of ethnic groups was the taking of the local totem, idol, icon, as hostage; it was removed to Cusco and sent to 'live' within the grounds of the Temple of the Sun as captive guests of Inti, the sun god. In the case of objects too large to move, such as boulders, or meteorites, many were carved and sculptured with abstract symbolism related to the Inca culture and the state religion.

In the Inca monotheistic religion, then, the Sun displaced all other deities and local idols and totems. The political purpose of this development is clear: the Inca ruler himself was held to be a deity, a descendant and relative of the Sun on earth. His relatives and the aristrocratic clans benefited from the reflected glory of divinity. Like, for example, the Chinese Imperial state, the Inca empire was a theocracy, where political and religious obedience were fused under one authority. This system naturally served the intentions of an imperial state in process of expansion.

As far as we know, concepts like compassion, mercy, love, and of religion itself as a means of achieving a state of grace--be it for Inca or for commoner--never really entered the picture. But scholars have suggested for some time that the Incas were more humane and intellectual than many of their predecessors and neighbours. They, as the ancient Hebrews, substituted animals for humans in many sacrifices, for example. Also, their ritual architecture shows profound knowledge of the movement of constellations and other astronomical phenomena.

The Incas do seem to have had a cult of the dead, although the details have not been ascertained. The mummies of deceased kings were tended, fed, clothed, and sometimes paraded through the cities. Even lesser humans were probably mummified, and formed the object of some kind of worship, perhaps family or clan-centred. The concept of the more humane Incas and the intellectual, humanist aspect of their religion has however in recent years lost much of its credibility with a growing number of discoveries of children--some male but mostly female--sacrificed and left to mummify through freezing on the summits of high peaks throughout the Andes. Most of these findings have taken place only in the last five years. Remains of sacrificed humans are sometimes also found under the foundations and cornerstones of old Inca temples and palaces. Nevertheless, these ritual homicides were very far from resembling the massive daily sacrificial slaughter carried out by their contemporaries in Mexico, the Aztecs. Research on these issues is still being actively pursued, with new archaeological sites opening up from time to time.

Today, Inca ruins have become a major tourist attraction. Indeed, some of them are awe-inspiring sights, comparable to the pyramids of Egypt. One of the finest is Macchu Picchu, an ancient military and religious stronghold, well-preserved amidst steep mountains, which has become a world heritage site (photo at page 390).

The Cusco region does seem to possess a magnetic quality, an attraction of mystical origin. It seems to have been a religious centre for thousands of years, of which the Inca rule was only a small part. The further and higher away from Cusco or the other administrative Inca centres, the less was the imperial control and supervision; and greater was the autonomy of the people to comply with the immemorial requirements of the classic Andean, not Inca, pantheon. Today, many of the ancient symbols and images are still widely known and revered. Some of them have been incorporated somehow or other into the Roman Catholic Church: for example, it is easy to see the continuity between the worship of the Divine Mother, Andean style, and the Virgin Mary (photo, p. 389). Likewise Mount Ausangate was a revered place of pilgrimage since ancient times; it still is, but the pilgrims now go to a church near the mountain, not explicitly to the mountain as deity itself.

First in order of importance was the Divine Mother, called Pacha Mama, Mother Earth. Next came the mountains, the highest and largest peaks being the most important, and various subcategories of mountains and hills followed. These were all known as 'Apus'. Every mountain is an Apu. Each Apu is different, it has a personality, individuality, attributes and defects. Thus Ausangate, the principal mountain close to Cusco is actually called 'Apu Ausangate'. And Cayangate or Campa, which are neighbouring peaks, are correctly known as Apu Cayangate and Apu Campa. Those two, the Apus and the Pacha Mama are the two main pillars of the 'pre-sun worship period'. The Sun and the Moon are there too, but neither holds a position of superiority to the Pacha Mama or the Apus.

Then there are other deities, generally identified with natural features or phenomena. The lightning-thunder-bolt is one of the most respected: its name in Quechua is 'Illapa'. Certain springs or natural fountains, called Puquios, are considered sacred. Likewise are rock formations, and stone amphitheatres which create echoes. The echo is considered a spiritual phenomenon holding magic and divinatory attributes. A given word or mantra, as well as a wish, a question cast, voiced, sung, uttered in one of these echo-chamber rock cirques produces an echo of many repetitions, at times almost endless. The magical reasoning was that the words spoken by the human mouth went forth, as all the sounds we make, into the infinite, dispersed or bound on some endless journey to nowhere, like the radio signals we send nowadays to some nebula millions of year distant. But in the case of the echo, the words spoken actually return from the infinite; having travelled to the ends of the universe they return laden with magic, with meaning.

In Quechua, the word for echo is 'Yachapayac', or 'Yachapay'. It, as many other Quechua words, has several meanings and derivative metaphoric interpretations. It can mean 'he (or it) that imitates (reproduces, responds, learns, teaches, smart, clever, wit, agreeable, gets along, doesn't argue, informs, advises, also mocks, jokes)'. 'Yachay' is also knowledge, information. The Echo itself is not a deity, or an object of worship. It is an instrument of magic.

Continuing the animistic pantheon, there are certain rocks, generally large. They fall in different categories. There are the occasional massive boulders lying out in the middle of nowhere, deposited there in some previous geological era by a glacier or an avalanche. Then there is the occasional meteorite, its provenance alone confirming its 'extra-terrestrial' nature. And there are rocks lying among other rocks on a mountain. This type of rock becomes a symbol for the whole mountain, a focus upon which to concentrate the energy.