‘To be happy’: Ritual, play, and leisure in the Bengali Dharmarāj pūjā

Abstract

The study of the various relationships between religion, ritual, play, and leisure has been sporadic over the years; even though one theologian (Miller 1973: xxix) argued over two decades ago that play must be the root metaphor for the study of religion, j However, play as a theoretical concept in ritual studies has received far less attention than the general study of play within the disciplines of anthropology (see, for example, Gorfain 1986; Lancy 1980; Schwartzman 1976) and sociology (Buck 1978; Cohen 1985). Leisure has received even less academic attention than its marginalized ally play. In the domain of India studies, play and leisure are rarely mentioned as important components for understanding the dynamics of religion in everyday life (but see van der Veer 1992). Nevertheless, a fairly large body of interdisciplinary work exists for the study of religion and play, which should spur more attention in regional studies of local religion. ~ Focusing on this issue could enable us to acknowledge and further refine a problem that has vexed scholars ever since the publication of l~mile Durkheim's Les formes dldmentaires de la vie religieuse (1912)--namely, the sacred/profane dichotomy. Setting 'apart' the sacred as Durkheim, and William Robertson-Smith (1889) before him, taught us to do---has led to a general acceptance of dichotomous views concerning religion's relationship to other aspects of culture. 3 Although there has been some recent discussion among anthropologists (for example, Iteanu 1990) and historians of religions (Masuzawa 1993: 34-57) concerning the separation of sacred and profane for functional reasons, the idea still remains a basic categorical imperative and an implicit working model in the phenomenology of religion. Such a genealogy must be traced back to Rudolf Otto's (1982: 44) concept of the sacred as 'wholly other,' a sui generis category of emotion and feeling. Otto's notion is cited approvingly by other early