ABSTRACT
In the preceding chapter, I have attempted to give an overview of motifs used in Maijbhandari songs and explain them by a circular semantic analysis. And, as we have seen, several religious traditions have left their traces in Maijbhandari songs. A historical and philological approach to them shows in which way images, motifs and religious concepts from various sides have found accommodation in this open and popular tradition. It can, however, explain only in part how such conceptual permeability has come into being and is maintained. No doubt, the contemporary ethos of Maijbhandar, resumed and celebrated in the formula dharmajātinirbiśeṣe, ‘irrespective of religion and caste/class’, acts as an over-arching protective ideology for this permeability. It generates a general climate of permissiveness towards a wide variety of religious expression. But no more than this – it does not supply the rationale for understanding and treating such diverse forms of expression beyond preaching a reverent and tolerant attitude towards them. Nor do Maijbhandari theological writings teach their readers how to deal with and how to understand religious concepts, present in the songs, that fall beyond the pale of a generally acclaimed Maijbhandari Sufi canon.
