compilations of oracles and moral rules—all this was a side effect of
using scripts to store and retrieve data.
But some changes in religious style are also a consequence of the
fact that religious specialists are associated in statewide groups rather
than recruited locally on the basis of personal qualities. The insistence
on abstract gods rather than local ancestors, and the notion of individ-
ual salvation substituted for contracts with ancestors, are not direct
consequences of literacy as such but rather consequences of having lit-
eracy applied to religion by organized groups of religious service
providers. The two factors—literacy and complex polities—are natu-
rally intertwined, since literacy as the specific technology of a whole [281]
group could not develop without complex societies.
Perhaps more important (and in any case more tractable) than the
question of ultimate causes is that of the effectsof literate religion. The
above survey might be misleading in suggesting that there was a clear
cutoff point in human history, when religion was taken away from
local specialists and became the business of an organized group of
scholars, when concepts of local gods and spirits were replaced by
more abstract and coherent versions, and when death was reconstrued
in terms of salvation. Indeed, this is the way religious institutions
themselves often try to present the situation, with a clear-cut distinc-
tion between "before" and "after" their emergence. The real situation
is far more complex.
THE MIRAGE OF THEOLOGICAL
CORRECTNESSHowever great the control religious guilds can obtain through politi-
cal means and a large diffusion of their doctrines, there alwaysseem to
be some nonstandard beliefs and practices left "sticking out." For
instance, many Hindu scholars contrast what they call shastrikele-
ments of the religion, the belief and practices supposed to be the defi-
nition of Hinduism, with the laukik or local, popular and contextual
versions. The shastrikelements should apply everywhere, regardless
of the particular time or place: this is a typical claim for a literate reli-
gious group.^8
People always add to or distort the doctrine. The same phenome-
non is found in Buddhism, where scholars are scandalized by the many
pagan practices they must witness, tolerate and in which they are
WHYDOCTRINES,EXCLUSION AND VIOLENCE?