Nine Lives

Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India is a travelogue comprised of ethnographic research and personal reflection written by British journalist William Dalrymple. Dalrymple, an on and off resident of the Indian subcontinent over the course of more than two decades, traveled across the country to profile nine Indians whose lives had been significantly shaped by faith. Published in 2009, this work of nonfiction explores India’s religious diversity and questions whether or not the country’s spirituality differentiates it from the rest of global society, which he views as largely materialist in nature.

The book’s first chapter, “The Nun’s Tale,” tells the story of a Jain nun. Jainism is a sect of Buddhism that practices extreme asceticism, nonviolence, and detachment from mortal concerns. The nun explains that she had a close friendship over the past twenty years with another nun. Like all practicing Jains, as an expression of devotion, the nuns gave up all their worldly possessions and left their families behind. The second nun, when she was struck by a fatal illness, spent her last days gradually starving herself—another Jain ritual. The nun Dalrymple speaks with believes that her distress following the death of her friend is punishment for having broken the tenets of Jainism in forming an attachment to another person.

The second chapter, “The Dancer of Kannur,” tells the story of Hari Das who is a Dalit, or a member of the lowest Indian social caste. During the majority of the year, Das works as a well-digger and part-time prison warden. However, during the holy Theyyam season (December to February) he performs in a dancing and storytelling ritual during which he becomes possessed by a Hindu god. Dalrymple notes that these rituals are a powerful force for dismantling a discriminatory social class system. Even the Brahmins (member of the highest class) show deference to the Dalit dancers during this time, and the performances often contain elements of social critique which encourage the Brahmins to alter their behavior.



The third chapter, “The Daughter of Yellamma,” tells the story of Rani Bai, a devadasi, or young girl who dedicates her life to the service of a deity. Rani, who serves the goddess Yellamma, was committed by her parents to the life of a devadasi when she was only six years old. The devadasis are part of an ancient tradition, as are the hereditary singers Dalrymple meets in Chapter 4, “The Singer of Epics.” Mohan Bhopa and his wife, Batasi, are two of the only remaining singers of The Epic of Pabuji, a long, medieval poem associated with an Indian folk-deity.

Chapter 5, “The Red Fairy,” is the story of Lal Peri, a Sufi Muslim woman who was driven from her home in India, first to Bangladesh, and then to Pakistan due to ethnic and religious persecution. While interviewing Lal Peri in the Sindh province, Dalrymple develops a positive impression of the tolerant perspective of the Sufis and expresses concern of the danger posed to them by the more radical Wahhabi Muslim sect.

In Chapter 6, “The Monk’s Tale,” Dalrymple relates the story of Tashi Passang, a Tibetan monk who resides in Dharamsala—the same town where the Dalai Lama resides since his exile from Tibet by the Chinese government. When he fled his hometown in Tibet for India after the Chinese began to oppress Buddhists there, Passang temporarily gave up his vow of nonviolence to defend Tibet and Buddhism. Passang was trained by India and the CIA but was never given the opportunity to fight for Tibet. Instead, he was a part of a group deployed by the Indian government to defend the newly liberated Bangladesh from Pakistani forces. Now returned to his life as a monk, Passang claims that the violence he saw is not something a Buddhist should ever be involved in.



Chapters 7 and 8, “The Maker of Idols” and “The Lady Twilight,” describe long-standing religious traditions and historical practices. There is Srikanda Stpaty, who can trace her lineage back twenty-three generations to Chola dynasty bronze casters in Tamil Nadu. In West Bengal, in a holy town called Tarapith, Manisha Ma Bhairavi worships the goddess Tara. She explains to Dalrymple some of the practices associated with Tantra, including the tradition of drinking from human skulls. The ninth and final chapter, “The Song of the Blind Minstrel,” tells the story of a group of wandering mystic minstrels from West Bengal. The beliefs of the Baul tradition combine a number of different philosophies and religious sects brought together by this musical tradition.

Dalrymple’s principle takeaway from his travels in Nine Lives seems to be that beneath the “veneer of globalization” and growing homogeneity in India, wide diversity of belief persists all over the country. He concludes that there are many possible ways to reach and understand God. The book was widely praised upon its release and received the Asia House Award for Asian Literature in 2010. However, Hirsh Sawhney, in his review for The Guardian drew attention to a number of blind spots in Dalrymple’s take on Indian religion—such as his failure to address Hindu extremism or Indian Christianity. Sawhney writes, “Such gaps are jarring and inexcusable in a serious study of religion in present-day India.”