Sacred and Profane | Anthropology Optional for UPSC PDF Download

Sacred and Profane
Emile Durkheim understood religion to be two absolutely opposed categories, the sacred and the profane. Both these categories reflect the sort of attitudes human beings have towards these entities. They reflect the classification of human experience, the world, the cosmos and all the entities surrounding them.
The profane is the realm of routine experience. It coincides, to a considerable extent, with what Pareto has called logic experimental experience. The realm of profane deals with the mundane activities and is transcended, by religion. It is the sphere of the adaptive behavior. The sphere of the sacred is entirely other than this utilitarian sphere.
Durkheim states that the sacred is superior to the profane in dignity and expresses a superior seriousness. Thus, he defines religion in terms of sacred objective. The attitude elicited by the symbols that represent the sacred is one of intense respect. It is one of awe. This may be seen not simply in human behavior in the presence of such symbols, but also in the fact that sacred things are always set apart by interdictions and isolated by ritual practice. Durkheim defines sacred things as set apart from the profane and forbidden. The reason lies in the fact that profane entities will defile the sacred if they are allowed to intermingle. In order to approach the sacred entities, one must attain a degree of sacredness. Religious rites, Durkheim further says, are not performed primarily to achieve something but to express an attitude. Thus, there arises in the experience of the sacred an attitude and a set of practices. In the words of William James, religion is a matter "feeling, acting and experience", and out of these, “theologies, philosophies arid ecclesiastic organizations may secondarily grow.
Durkheim regards the sacred-profane dichotomy as of universal validity. In all the religions, certain objects, precepts, maxims and symbols are regarded as sacred. The source of sacredness does not lie in the intrinsic properties of the object. Nor is sacredness a result of some kind of revelation. Sacredness is not imposed on an object because of the exterior dimension but as a result of the "collective conscience". The society attributes sacredness to certain objects. Therefore, the source of holiness of the holy water is not because of the chemical composition of water or because God revealed this fact, but it lies in the fact that holiness is attributed to water by the collective thinking of the people.
Durkheim describes seven additional characteristics of the sacred as something experienced by and affecting human beings.
1. Sacred is an aspect of what is experienced by human beings, involves recognition of, or a belief in power or force. Powers or forces lie at the roots of the religious attitude.

2. Sacred is characterized by ambiguity - it is a matter of ambiguous power of powers. Sacred things and forces are ambiguous in that they are physical and moral, human and cosmic or natural, positive and negative, favorable and unfavorable, attractive and repugnant, helpful and dangerous to man.
3. Sacred is non-utilitarian. Utility and everydayness are foreign to the sacred, while work is the prominent form of profane activity.
4. Sacred is non-empirical in the sense that it is not an aspect of the object but is super-imposed upon it.
5. Sacred, does not involve knowledge. The sacred is not a matter of knowledge based on the experience of the senses.
6. Sacred is supportive and has strength-giving character. Sacred forces act on believers and worshipers to strengthen and sustain them. The religious attitude exalts the believer and raises him above himself.
7. Sacred makes a demand on the believer and worshiper. It impinges on human consciousness with moral obligations.
The sacred in Durkheim’s analysis is radically other than the profane is non-utilitarian and non- empirical does not involve knowledge, but involves power is ambiguous with respect to nature, culture and human welfare; is strength-giving and sustaining; elicits intense respect and makes an ethical demand on the believer.