Author: knbuhrow

By Contributing Writer E.L. Meszaros

The concept of “canon” is mired in controversy. Should a canon be defined by the divine author of the component texts, by its continued use as a set of objects of study, or as a prescriptive ruleset? Defining a canon can be problematic, and the results often prove troublesome as well, often perpetuating ideas of white male importance (Black, Reconstructing the Canon).

“Canon” is no less controversial when applied to Mesopotamia, beyond the standard ideas of a biblical or “Western” canon. Scholars debate not only whether this term, which is borrowed from other fields, is applicable to the ancient near east but also its exact definition in this context. Is the Mesopotamian canon defined by the authority of the text, with a divine or legendary author like that required by the biblical canon? Standardization may also play a role in identifying canonical titles, with texts that are widely copied with little variation indicating a general cultural importance.

By looking at these characteristics of a canon in the context of one Mesopotamian text, we can see if there’s any value in borrowing this debated idea within Assyriology. Examining the validity of the concept of a canon within the Mesopotamian world by looking at its application to the exemplar text MUL.APIN allows us to evaluate the future — and necessity — of this concept.

MUL.APIN is a Babylonian astronomical treatise dated to the early 7th century B.C.E. at the latest, though possibly earlier (Watson and Horowitz, Writing Science Before the Greeks, 1). The name comes from the first line of the text, a common practice for Mesopotamian literature, and translates to the name of the constellation “The Plough.” MUL.APIN is customarily presented in all caps separated by a period, as is standard for transliterations of Sumerian logograms. It compiles astronomical information like star lists and astral phenomena of planets, stars, the sun, and the moon, as well as more mundane information on weather patterns and shadow measurements (Steele, Watson and Horowitz, Writing Science Before the Greeks). More than sixty copies of this text have been found as partially preserved tablets from a range of geographical locations (in Babylonia and Assyria as well as into Anatolia) and from different historical periods (from Neo-Assyrian to Seleucid), suggesting its wide use (Steele, “The Continued Relevance of MUL.APIN in Late Babylonian Astronomy” 4).

MUL.APIN is generally presented in two tablets of some 400 lines (Watson and Horowitz, Writing Science Before the Greeks 2). These tablets show a remarkable consistency across the known preserved copies, though some versions appear on one or three tablets and the tablet division is not fixed (Hunger and Steele, The Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN 1). MUL.APIN is a particularly interesting vehicle for examining ideas of canonicity in Mesopotamia given its relatively stable form and long history of continued use.

We can attempt to interpret the unique stability and longevity of MUL.APIN through the lens of the canon to understand whether this framework is useful in the context of Mesopotamian texts. One critical component of canonical works is the authority of the text. Often, authority of a text is based on the authority of its author; in the case of the canon, this is perhaps most frequently associated with divine authorship. When gods are attributed as the origin of a text, the text itself gains authority in turn. This divine origin hearkens back to early problematical definitions of a biblical canon, associating the concept of a canon with divine nature. Despite conflicting ideas for the role of authorship in conferring authority (and therefore canonicity), the application to MUL.APIN is relatively easy as this text has no known author. Regardless of whether divine or historic authors convey authority, MUL.APIN benefits in no way from this.

Authority can be granted to a text by more than just its author, however. Rochberg-Halton (“Canonicity in Cuneiform Texts” 136) explains how antiquity confers authority, claiming that a divine author is no different in ability to establish authority from a legendary or historic author. Divinity does not have to be the focus, then, but rather historicity. MUL.APIN, with its continued use through many periods of Mesopotamian history, seems to be able to lay claim to antiquity even if it has no named historic author. By virtue of continued use over millennia, MUL.APIN becomes a text with authority because of its historic nature and established use over a long period of time.

Authority, however, as established through divine or ancient authorship or by continued use over time, is a problematic way to establish canonicity. The lack of an author for MUL.APIN rules out many methods for establishing the authority of this text. Additionally, membership within the group of texts viewed as “canonical” by this criterion happens over time and not as a result of conscious decision making (Lambert, “Ancestors, Authors, and Canonicity” 9). Thus, the authority of the text is a back-formation and not necessarily descriptive of how a text was used. Moreover, no clear definition of authority seems applicable. A canon defined by authority of texts is therefore problematic, has little explanatory power, and what it can help define can already be taken care of through other means of examination.

One of the most commonly regarded methods of determining membership in the Mesopotamian canon is through the standardization of text. Veldhuis (“TIN.TIR= Babylon, the Question of Canonization and the Production of Meaning” 80) writes that “In Assyriological literature canonicity has almost exclusively been defined in text-critical terms, taking standardization as a near-synonym of canonization.” The more variation found within a text, the less it has gone through the process of canonization. But this definition has its own associated problems in that what it means to be “standardized” is still hard to define. Rochberg-Halton (“Canonicity in Cuneiform Texts” 128) claims that “Exact wording does not seem to have been an essential ingredient in textual transmission,” and that the content of a given text could remain flexible in exact wording or even order, resulting in what she describes as “only a relative stabilization.”

Panorama view of the reconstructed Southern Palace of Nebuchadnezzar, 6th Century Babylon, Iraq

One of the unique characteristics of MUL.APIN is its unusual stability. Steele (“The Continued Relevance of MUL.APIN in Late Babylonian Astronomy” 2–3) writes that “The composition was remarkably stable with extremely few differences between the preserved copies.” Hobson (The Exact Transmission of Texts in The First Millennium BCE 153) claims that in all sources of MUL.APIN there are only around 200 orthographic variants, ranging from missing determinatives and logographic/syllabic spelling substitution (characteristics of the cuneiform writing system), the use of case endings, and changes in grammatical number (Hobson, The Exact Transmission of Texts in The First Millennium BCE 153–155). While many of these variations are particularly minor and agreement between individual tablets is fairly significant, Hobson (Hobson, The Exact Transmission of Texts in The First Millennium BCE 153) also notes that “the rule seems to be that where some sources agree in a particular aspect of their orthography they will disagree elsewhere.” These minimally diverse renderings suggest, not the lack of a definitive version, but rather equal employ of the differing variants. Despite the presence of variations, the number identified is limited and represents a highly standardized text within its cultural context.

Not only is MUL.APIN remarkably standardized, but standardization to this level is unusual in the astronomical texts (Steele, “The Continued Relevance of MUL.APIN in Late Babylonian Astronomy” 13–14). Such stability is not the result of few remaining copies of the text, either; more than sixty copies of MUL.APIN remain to us, fixing the stability of this text over a large number of documents. Our sources also come from wide geographical and temporal spreads, suggesting that the standardization of MUL.APIN survived movement and transplantation from city to city across time (Steele, “The Continued Relevance of MUL.APIN in Late Babylonian Astronomy”).

However, MUL.APIN is a much shorter text than others that have been assigned to the Mesopotamian canon, and often shorter texts display fewer variations. The reduced stability in these other, longer texts that are frequently assigned to the Mesopotamian canon suggests that stability is not a necessary attribute for canon membership. Attributing MUL.APIN’s substantial textual stability to a canon therefore does not explain why this text demonstrates unique standardization and is a trait that does not appear to define canonical texts.

Additionally, standardization can also be analyzed outside of the context of canonicity, as part of the Mesopotamian scribal school or even just in regular textual comparisons. All together, though examining standardization touches on interesting aspects of the MUL.APIN text, treating MUL.APIN as a canonical text in order to examine aspects of standardization is not necessary and does not provide new information.

For an idea that is already cumbersome, burdened by meaning and definitions from outside fields and disputed heavily within Assyriology, a canon provides little new information about MUL.APIN and no new tools for examination. Rather than continuing debate on how to define and delimit a Mesopotamian canon, it seems more productive to set the idea aside entirely and focus on individual components. An analysis of stability and authority outside of the context of a canon proves more useful to understanding MUL.APIN than any attempt to lump these characteristics under one overarching term. If the idea of a canon does not aid in understanding or interpreting, then it’s time to let go of this idea.

E.L. Meszaros is a PhD student in the History of the Exact Sciences in Antiquity at Brown University. Her research focuses on the language used to talk about science, particularly as this language is transmitted between cultures and across time.

By Contributing Editor Kristin Buhrow

Most commonly associated with Medieval Europe, the term “serf” is commonly used to describe a certain type of peasant class with a particular set of living conditions.  From the European Middle Ages, academic discourse in English has imposed the term “serf” onto populations of landless peasants in nineteenth century Russia (Melton, 1987), early twentieth-century East Africa (Huntingford, 1931), and beyond.  This essay will explore the application of the term “serf” to peasants of a particular social and political context: the mi ser class within Pre-Modern Tibet, the political and social effects of the modern use of this term, and the importance of recognizing the politicized use of terminology in academic and political discussions more generally.

 

While each of the cultural contexts mentioned above exhibits a different sort of peasant class affected by unique conditions, resources, and norms, the designation of these as “serf” classes is dependent upon the existence of an interminable relationship with a particular member of the higher class—a “lord”. According to Melvyn Goldstein’s multiple treaties on the application of the term “serf,” a class’ designation as such indicates a “hereditary superordinate-subordinate relationship in which the subordinate possesses a legal identity independent of the superordinate” (Goldstein, 1971 p.522), the subordinate’s lack of legal right to terminate the relationship (Goldstein, 1971 p. 522), and “a degree of judicial control” by the superordinate over the subordinate (Goldstein 1986 p. 82).  Whatever the other conditions experienced by a peasant class, these criteria serve to determine which social classes may be designated a “serf” class (as opposed to a slave or more general peasant class) regardless of culture.

Based on the principles above, some academics and political personages have recognized Pre-Modern Tibet (1642-1959) a culture practicing serfdom.  More complex than a simple array of lord and serf relationships, however, the taxonomy of Pre-Modern Tibetan social classes involves several branches.  Firstly, Pre-Modern Tibet might be divided into two social classes: the monastic population and the laity. Focusing on the laity, this category could be divided into two clear classes:  the landed aristocracy, sger pa, and the peasants, or mi ser^[1] (Goldstein, 1971 p.522-3).  Despite both sger pa and mi ser contributing children to the monastic population, those who remained part of the laity were obligated to fulfill unequal social roles.  Far outnumbering the sger pa, who constituted only about 200-350 aristocratic families, the mi ser were a more diverse population in terms of wealth, lifestyle, and location on the Tibetan plateau.

While responsive to a particular sger pa family, the condition of the Tibetan mi ser diverges with that of other global peasantries classified as serfs with regard to their ability to challenge their social superiors, accumulate resources, and even change locations.  Unlike their feudal European counterparts, Tibetan mi ser were not only able, but publicly encouraged to appeal to other members of the aristocracy and even the central court system to challenge or prosecute nefarious or unjust members of the aristocracy (Goldstein, 1971 p. 523; Bischoff, 2013 p. 12). This access to the court system and the influence of other aristocrats allowed mi ser a more powerful role in their social relationships than “serfs” in other cultural contexts.  In addition to providing peasants with prosecution rights, premodern Tibetan lords were less powerful than their medieval counterparts because they could not unilaterally alter the amount of taxes required or the amount of land serfs held (Goldstein, 1971 p.522), lords often provided minimal oversight so long as corves were met (Goldstein, 1971 p. 526). Perhaps related to a standard of minimal oversight, Tibetan mi ser did not necessarily live in destitute conditions.  The status of mi ser then, were not analogized to serfs because of high levels of poverty or total incapability to challenge the will of their lords; instead, mi ser have been analogized to serfs due to a lifelong bond to the land of one aristocratic family, extending to the lives of their descendants^[2]  for multiple generations.

Within the social category of mi ser is an allowance for an alternative lifestyle which further complicates the discussion of mi ser as land-bound serf: the geographically mobile mi bogs. Translated to “human lease,” mi ser who obtain the status of mi bogs were leased to work on other estates.  This status was usually taken on voluntarily by the mi ser with approval from their sger pa landowner to allow for more freedom as to geographic location as well as the ability to travel.  Some Tibetologists claim that the existence of a status like mi bogs indicates that mi ser were free to travel, not bound to the land of a sger pa family, and therefore not able to be categorized as serfs at all (Alice Travers going as far as to assert that mi bogs were “a masterless sect of people—people without land, without master, and without a servant” [2013 p.151]).  However, while the availability of the mi bogs path does differentiate the experiences of Tibetan mi ser from other groups of “serfs,” it is important to note that even while away, mi ser still had to respond to their original sger pa family’s commands, pay an annual fee to the sger pa, travel where the sger pa commanded, and return home upon his order (Goldstein, 1986 p. 94). As such, even with the allowance of a certain number of mi ser to attain the status of mi bogs and live away from the immediate lands of the sger pa, the social relationship between mi ser and sger pa remained not only extant, but influential.  Even in cases of geographic removal, mi ser were still responsive to the owners of the lands they were obligated to work.  In this context, the term “serf” may render a fairly accurate picture of certain aspects of the lives of mi ser in Pre-Modern Tibet.

Despite its application to the Tibetan peasants of more than sixty years ago, the modern description of mi ser as a “serf” class has functioned in support of a narrative condoning the communist party’s occupation of and Sinicization efforts within Tibet.  Since entry of the communists in1959, Chinese political publications have emphasized the parallels between the mi ser – sger pa relationship and the serf – lord relationship. This emphasis includes making direct reference to the mi ser population as “serfs” in English language publications. Taking one popular example, the word “serf” occurs some thirty-five times in the 2001 edition of the English language Chinese government public relations leaflet “100 Questions on Tibet” (Barnett, 2008 p. 81).  While it is true that some aspects of the Pre-Modern Tibetan peasant experience allow the mi ser to be categorized alongside serfs according to loose, culturally relative definitions, it is also likely that associating Pre-Modern Tibetan peasants with a historical system known for oppression of laborers was a conscious choice by the Chinese Communist Party to illicit support for the seizure and Sinicization of Tibet.

This support from admirers of the Chinese Communist Party and Communists worldwide was sought by appealing to a Marxist perspective of linear societal development.  In the Marxist view, a feudal society is considered less “evolved” than an industrial society; this perspective allows communists to deduce that any cultural operating on a system similar to feudalism is inferior to the more developed China.  While a necessary stepping stone to reach the higher evolutions of social structure, the stark differences between the landed and laboring classes in feudalism render the system, in the Marxist eye, “inseparable from extreme abuse” (Barnett, 2008 p.82). This narrative of Pre-Modern Tibet as a society characterized by violently abusive inequality is propagated to justify its seizure of Tibet and excuse some of the human rights abuses which take place there today.  As noted by Travers in her 2013 article, this Marxist narrative has been reinforced by the Chinese Communist Party and Western observers with communist backgrounds since 1959 (p. 143).  Understanding this politicization of historical social hierarchies, while the term “serf” is technically accurate, its use legitimizes a construction of Tibetan history which marginalizes traditional Tibetan norms and allows the Communist Party to take the role of a savior society.

In the quest for honest and fruitful discourse, it is important that all discussants be aware, not only of the historical realities of the past, but also the political context of the present.  A responsible contributor must therefore be able to earnestly describe the likely difficult conditions for life among Pre-Modern Tibetan mi ser and must acknowledge that mi ser did live within a system which could be easily abused by their sger pa counterparts.  Simultaneously, an informed discussant can not act as if openly associating the conditions of the mi ser with medieval serfdom does not have a history of politicization.  Under conditions such as these, academic and political discussions must remain open, with the choice to analogize the mi ser with serfdom available for those who have no qualms with the modern connotations.  Likewise, the choice to refrain from making the analogy or to argue against the appropriateness of the analogy should be regarded as a form of academic activism by those who wish to knowingly partake.

[1]Other variations on these Tibetan terms include sku drag for aristocracy and smad rigs for peasants (Travers, 2013 p.141).

[2] Descendants of peasants were ascribed through parallel descent, with sons going to their father’s lord, and daughters go to mother’s lord (Goldstein, 1971 p. 522).