ABSTRACT
We saw in the previous chapter how contemporary dalit empowerment, while entirely historical in its bearing, is rooted in a ground that is in a sense prior to history. More strictly, it returns perpetually to a moment when history itself was instituted (as myth and law, or as caste). How has the dalit tradition attended to this unique instance of memory, which is the memory of an insight into divinity? How is dalit thought a pattern of this return to the past, of this perennial recourse to an ancient discovery? This chapter looks closely at the transmission of that older sapience through dalit speech. The latter is all too often mistaken for a kind of mystic delirium. In reality, it refers us to a form of action closely related to thought and feeling but which nonetheless consists of a “mechanical” retention of the past.
