Abstract
This paper examines the benefits of ethnographic film for the study of religion. It argues that the exploration of gaps between colloquial descriptions of divinities and their practical manifestation in ritual is instructive of the way religious categories are conceptualized. The argument is developed through an analysis of selected scenes from the documentary AVATARA, a meditation on goddess worship (Śaktism) among the Khas ethnic majority of the Hindu Himalaya (Himachal Pradesh, India). Centering on embodiments of the goddess in spirit possession séances, it points to a fundamental difference between the popular depiction of the deity as a virgin-child (kanyā) who visits followers in their dreams and her actual manifestation as a menacing mother (mātā) during ritual activities. These ostensibly incongruent images are ultimately bridged by the anthropologically informed edition of the material caught on camera, illustrating the added advantage of documentary filmmaking for approximating religious experiences.
Highlights
This paper examines the benefits of ethnographic film for the study of Indic religions
The film investigates popular notions and ritual practices associated with the goddess among the Khas ethnic majority of the hilly tracts in Himachal Pradesh, India
The abundant information that these studies hold about the Khas and their highly political form of civil religion provides the context for the investigation of popular belief in the goddess
Summary
This paper examines the benefits of ethnographic film for the study of Indic religions. To the Sanskritized pilgrimage sites of Tantric provenance that are known as sakti pı.thas or “seats of power” (Erndl 1993) While these beliefs are no guarantee for female emancipation insofar as Khas women continue to perform the majority of chores in house and field, they do hint at a consensual reading of the goddess as the ultimate animator of existence and as the most powerful entity in the hills. After this introduction, the first part of this essay reviews the background to the shooting of AVATARA (Harel 2020), the formulation of the documentary’s central research questions, and the historical and cultural characteristics of the area in which it was filmed. The final section takes stock of the different iterations of the goddess in Karsog to reflect on the viewer-researcher’s ability to comprehend Saktism in twenty-first-century Himachal Pradesh through local categories
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