Hindu Context Research Articles

Serving toward Release

Abstract Autonomy is not universally considered the basis of agency in all cultural and historical contexts, nor is it always seen as a prerequisite to “freedom” and “liberation,” standing in conceptual opposite to coercion. In Caribbean Hindu contexts, the notion of service (sevā) as a form of (religious) work is aimed at decentering and dissolving the self for ultimate release from worldly suffering. Historically, regarding post-indenture Suriname and Guyana, some social actors understood godnas—the tattoos of especially senior Hindu women who identified as descendants of Indian indentured laborers—as a means of capacitating women and female bodies toward this goal by allowing them to conduct religious work. Some women with these tattoos considered godnas as voluntary and enabling. Their interpretations diverged from contemporary discourse, which links these tattoos to a presumed compulsory Hindu tradition that subjugated wives to husbands and in-laws. These varied assessments along a continuum of coercion and voluntariness highlight a continued focus on the conceptual binary that (un-)freedom obscures other relevant aspects of the (indentured) workers’ experiences. It runs the risk of reproducing Eurocentric notions of freedom, coercion, and work/labor, shrouding the pertinence of spiritual capital and (religious) rewards in analyses of coercive practices and structural violence.

Śravaṇ Kumār: Rethinking a Cultural Ideal for Indian Youth

Myths and mythological figures serve as cultural symbols that people live by and emulate. Śravaṇ Kumār is one such mythological figure. He carried his blind parents on his shoulders and, with great hardships, tried to fulfil their wish for a pilgrimage. However, before he could complete the journey, he met a tragic end at the hands of Prince Daśrath. Due to his devotion to his parents, he is revered as an ideal youth in the Indian Hindu context. One wonders what values are conveyed about a society that has, for centuries now, idealised the tragic mythical figure of Śravaṇ Kumār? What could be the underlying fascination with the tragic story of Śravaṇ Kumār, his parents, and the guilt-ridden prince responsible for their tragic deaths and the subsequent ordeal the prince’s son Rām had to endure in accordance with a curse? This paper reinterprets this myth and examines its relevance in contemporary times. The reinterpretation of the myth is further discussed in connection with the relevant psychoanalytic identity development theories, keeping in view the adolescents in the urban metropolitan context in India. The paper concludes by discussing the significance of having relevant mythical and cultural ideals for the identity development of youth.

The genesis and evolution of church-planting movements missiology

While the dramatic growth of church-planting movements (CPMs) in non-Christian contexts around the world provides ample opportunity to explain their emergence and significance, a missiology of these movements is struggling to keep pace. This article argues that CPM is a unique feature in the field of mission studies that emerged in the later 20th century. Although it shares some of the same characteristics as the early Church Growth Movement discourse, CPMs today are a specific type of movement occurring mostly in least-reached Muslim and Hindu contexts. CPM missiology contains a number of features and unknowns which demonstrate that the discourse is both evolving and invaluable for how the global church understands mission.

Indian Hair-Wringing Apsaras and her Discriminating Goose

The present study investigates depictions of the Indian apsaras wringing water from her hair in monumental religious iconography. It demonstrates the migration of iconography and transformations of meaning from the northern sources to other areas of India and ultimately to parts of southeast Asia. I examine ancient literary and visual sources of the hair-wringing apsaras, mediator of the life-giving celestial waters, and the goose that drinks her hair-water in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain artistic contexts, demonstrating expressions of abstruse theological concepts. The salient virtue of the mythic hamsa (migrating goose) was its ability to separate milk from water (nira-ksira-viveka). This discrimination, already mentioned in Vedic and later sources, was appropriated as a metaphoric image in moral, didactic, theological and philosophical contexts. Connotations implicit in the myth of the potent water that passes through the apsaras’s hair are compared to those of the rejuvenating waters that flowed through Siva’s ascetic locks in the myth of Gangadhara.

Exploring and Applying a Socially Progressive Hermeneutical Lens in Hindu Thought

Hermeneutics is the theory and methodology of interpreting texts. In this paper, I describe and explore the implications of a hermeneutical lens that was utilized by the Caitanya Vaiṣṇava theologian A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda (1896–1977 CE). My aims in doing so are to (1) contribute toward inter-religious reform within the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), which Prabhupāda founded in 1966, and to (2) further develop Hindu conceptual resources that can inspire societal change. I also apply Prabhupāda’s hermeneutical lens to one narrative within the Bhāgavatapurāṇa (c. 9th to 10th century CE) and show how reading this narrative through this lens can de-emphasize certain patriarchal attitudes that are found within Hindu universes. Moreover, I demonstrate this lens’ applicability within ISKCON. I conclude by showing how this lens can also be applied in some other Hindu contexts.

Cultivating emotion and the rise of the vernacular: the role of affect in ‘early Hindi-Urdu’ song

ABSTRACT This paper explores the role of emotion in relation to the medium of expression. Starting with an investigation as to what feelings are named and foregrounded, the paper looks for shifts in affect as the medium changes from cosmopolitan to vernacular. It studies scenarios of evoking and cultivating emotions to determine to what end they are mobilized and how this stimulates the formation of new emotional communities through songs of ecstasy. This broader frame is approached through case studies of songs in ‘Early Hindi-Urdu’ with earliest evidence datable from the 15th and 16th century. The first section provides analysis of ‘yogi songs’ that feature the affect of satire and spiritual awakening (śānti), exemplified by the fifteenth-century Kabīr. The second section revisits the question of why the vernacular is used for Sufi songs, foregrounding the rhetorical device of familiarization. The example here is Abdul Quddus Gangohī, whose Early Hindi-Urdu poems are sometimes interpreted as translations from Persian. Next follows an analysis of transcreations of Sanskrit scripture in the Braj devotional milieus of the first half of the sixteenth century, foregrounding synaesthetics. Examples here are the songs of intimacy of Harirām Vyās. Songs by that same author also provide evidence for the next section on devotional community formation, complemented with the hagiographical literature of the eighteenth-century Nāgarīdās. The final section analyzes sentiments that run the range from embarrassment and complaint to shameless surrender in adaptations of folk genres (focusing on the theme of ‘the woman at the well’) in diverse Hindu and Sufi contexts.

HARNESSING THE HEALING POWER OF WESTERN AND NON-WESTERN HEALERS: IMPLICATIONS FOR SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

Non Western therapies have played a vital role in dealing with a variety of crisis such as physical, emotional and existential over the last few centuries (Ejaz, 2000). Since the introduction of Western medicine in India as early as the eighteenth century, the two systems of medicine have coexisted and influenced each other. Mutual recognition of the therapeutic values of the two systems was further bolstered when American medicine recognized the role of alternative therapies as viable option for healing in the early eighties. The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles two kinds of healers (western and non- western) play in the Asian Indian Hindu context. For this qualitative study, 30 physicians (trained in Western medicine) and 5 sadhus (holy men) were interviewed in the city of Allahabad, during the Kumbh Mela. Open ended questions ranged from: a) field of practice (physicians), sadhus (mystics), b) years of practice, c) number of patients/followers, d) treatment offered (physician –surgery or medications), sadhus (prayers, fasts, charitable donations), e) adverse reactions. In-depth interviews were recorded and transcribed by two researchers from Hindi to English and coded into themes. Results indicate that about a quarter of Western trained physicians not only sought assistance from the sadhus for their emotional/spiritual issues, but also referred patients with terminal disease. Besides individual consults, the mystics conduct lectures on climate change, on holistic diet, meditation, yoga practices, and healing. Social workers need to assess the value Hindu immigrant families in United States attach to Non-Western therapies.

Reclaiming Ravana in Sri Lanka: Ravana’s Sinhala Buddhist Apotheosis and Tamil Responses

This paper considers the appropriation of Ravana, the demon-king antagonist of the famed Ramayana epic, as a Sinhala Buddhist cultural hero in the context of twenty-first-century, post-war Sri Lanka. We highlight the irony of the recent Buddhist appropriation of Ravana as a signifier of indigeneity and sovereignty, given that he has already been employed in this capacity in the Tamil Hindu context for nearly a century. We note several convergences between the ‘Sinhala Ravana’ phenomenon and its Tamil counter-narrative, including a shared archive of textual material invoked as evidence, the introduction of alleged physical evidence as proof of Ravana’s historicity, and a sympathetic outlook on Ravana’s character, emphasising his qualities as a learned and righteous king.

Smritichitre: The Memoirs of a Spirited Wife

This article reviews a new translation of a classic work of Marathi literature, the autobiography of Lakshmibai Tilak, which tells the story of her life with the great Christian poet Narayan Vaman Tilak. Three English translations of the autobiography are compared, and the story of the Tilaks is summarized. The meaning of discipleship to Jesus in Hindu contexts is explored. The challenge of translation is apparent, and appeal is made for further mining of Marathi original writings to bring out in yet deeper ways the genius and significance of Tilak.

The ‘Inexhaustibility’ of Jalaram Bapa

Food miracles permeate the historical and contemporary Gujarati Hindu landscape, from the homeland to East Africa and throughout the wider diaspora. However, approaches to food miracles differ from one tradition to the next, and approaches to the divine or the saint can often have a direct impact upon a tradition's ethical approach to wider society. This article considers food miracles as they are more widely understood in the Hindu context, especially in the Hindu diaspora, but with a specific focus on the Jalaram Bapa tradition. By engaging both spiritually and physically in this relationship, food miracles offer a direct and personal experience of Jalaram himself. Furthermore, this presence promotes an ethical framework that draws directly upon the narratives that speak of his life, namely that of seva for all, regardless of social status or religious background.

‘She Doesn’t Need Mutiyettu’ There’

The selection of Bhadrakali shrines of central Kerala (South India) in which the ritual drama mutiyettu' is conducted as an offering is restricted by religious considerations surrounding the personality of the goddess: performances can only be safely and efficiently given in shrines housing a deity who is in the right mood and has the appropriate nature for being able to be pleased by them and derive benefits from them. Drawing from data primarily gathered in the context of mutiyettu', this article highlights the role played by dramatic offerings in the management of a deity's temper. By discussing issues pertaining to the fields of both performance anthropology and religious studies, it sheds some light on the popular conceptualization of the Hindu goddess, the logic behind the composition of her worship, especially in terms of performing arts, as well as the active power assigned to drama within the popular Hindu context.

Rangda and the Goddess Durga in Bali

This article examines Rangda and her role as a chthonic and mythological figure in Bali, particularly the way in which Rangda’s identity has intertwined with that of the Hindu goddess Durga— slayer of buffalo demons and other creatures that cannot be bested by Shiva or other male Hindu gods. Images and stories about Durga in Bali are significantly different from those found in Hindu contexts in India. Although she retains the strong-willed independence and decision-making capabilities prominently associated with Durga in India, in Bali the goddess Durga is primarily associated with violent and negative attributes as well as looks and behaviours that are more usually associated with Kali in India. The reconstruction of Durga in Bali, in particular the integration of Durga with the figure of the witch Rangda, reflects the local importance of the dynamic relationship between good and bad, positive and negative forces in Bali. I suggest that Balinese representations of Rangda and Durga reveal a flux and transformation between good and evil, not simply one side of a balanced binary opposition. Transformation—here defined as the persistent movement between ritual purity and impurity—is a key element in the localization of the goddess Durga in Bali.

Religion, ‘nature’ and environmental ethics in ancient India: archaeologies of human:non-human suffering and well-being in early Buddhist and Hindu contexts

ABSTRACTThis paper assesses archaeology’s contribution to debates regarding the ecological focus of early Buddhism and Hinduism and its relevance to global environmentalism. Evidence for long-term human:non-human entanglement, and the socio-economically constructed element of ‘nature’ on which Indic culture supposedly rests, challenges post-colonial tropes of India’s utopian, ‘eco-friendly’ past, whilst also highlighting the potency of individual human:non-human epistemologies for building historically grounded models of Indian environmentalism. For early Buddhism, I mediate between two polarized views: one promoting the idea of ‘eco-dharma’ as a reflection of Buddhism’s alignment with non-violence (ahiṃsā), and the alleviation of suffering (dukkha); a second arguing that early Buddhist traditions have been misappropriated by western environmentalism. I argue that the latter view subscribes to canonical models of passive monks removed from worldly concerns, despite archaeological evidence for socially-engaged monastic landlordism from the late centuries bc. Others cite this evidence only to negate Buddhism’s eco-credentials, thereby overlooking the human:non-human entanglement theme within modern environmental discourse, while the predominant focus on non-human suffering overlooks convergences between modern and ancient ecological ethics and environmental health. Case studies include examples of Buddhist land and water management in central India, set within discussions of human v. non-human-centric frameworks of well-being and suffering, purity and pollution, and broader Indic medico-ecological epistemologies, as possible models for collective responses to environmental stress.

A call to multiple arms! protesting the commoditization of hindu imagery in western society

ABSTRACTOver the past two decades, with the explosion of all things yoga, Hindu imagery has become part of an “Indo-chic” marketing trend, which has seen the mass production of henna, bindis, yoga mats, and “sari-esque” merchandise for Western consumption. Lunch boxes, nightlights, and T-shirts with the likeness of Hindu gods are popular sellers. While the appearance of these products is somewhat problematic due to their decontextualized nature, these commodities are not considered inherently disrespectful to the Hindu community. It is the emergence of Hindu imagery on other types of products—objects considered polluting in certain Hindu contexts—that has been significantly more disconcerting. This essay highlights the connection between an asserted globalized Hindu community and Hindu imagery. It further explores how Hindu images are signified through the discourse of protest generated by diasporic Hindus in reaction to the representations of gods and goddesses on commodities—in the North American, European, and Australian context—that are deemed ritually impure. By examining the discourse of protest and the consequent apologies issued by the offending companies, this essay argues that new rituals and regulations for the appropriate usage and placement of divine Hindu images and symbols are established.

Hindu Perspectives on Evolution: Darwin, Dharma, and Design

Hindu Perspectives on Evolution challenges some of the myths associated with the debate of creationism and evolutionism in the Hindu context by focusing on the Hindu religion's take on the question of evolution and design. The major aim of the book is to critically engage the notion of the natural coexistence of Hinduism and science. The principal argument of the book is that, “while those Hindus who denied and continue to deny Darwinism outright were and are relatively few, the apparent historical ease of assimilating modern science and evolutionary theory on the part of Hindus is misleading—indeed, an illusion” (5). The author engages with different schools of thought and periods to illustrate this. Part 1 of the book deals with how different classical Hindu schools and traditions responded to the question of creationism and design. It has a rich discussion of various classical Indian philosophical traditions such as Advaita Vedanta of Sankara, Nyaya-Vaisesika of Udayana, and Visistadvaita Vedanta of Ramanuja. The author argues that even though some of the ancient Hindu traditions like Carvaka have a rich tradition of materialism, in general, other schools tend to give importance to Brahman/Atman. For them, consciousness, or atman, is superior to matter. This section invites the reader to think about the discourse of creationism beyond the Western imagination. The discussion on Carvaka and Samkhya problematizes the orientalist understanding of the East as a spiritual land. This section is rich in its philosophical discussion, which makes it difficult for those not familiar with classical Indian philosophy to comprehend.

Dark Shades of Power

The crow is subject to intricate symbolism in religious traditions worldwide. In mythology, crows are very often understood to be wise and cunning on the one hand and dangerous and inauspicious on the other. This highly ambivalent character dominates the crows' representation in South Asia. But while crows as birds only play a secondary role in classic Hindu mythology, they are of particular interest in Tantric narratives and Tantric rituals. In the general Hindu context, the crow is often stereotyped as inauspicious and its role limited to that of vahana (vehicle of a deity). Conversely, in Tantric ritual manuals, the crow's sphere of influence is based on a broader concept. Such scriptures imply ominous and 'dark' aspects of agency in crows, but they do so in a strikingly different way than Hindu classic mythology. Tantra emphasizes an ambivalent potential in crows as beneficial to certain rituals and occasionally incorporates a 'crow potency' in ritual instructions. This article discusses the role of the crow in certain Tantric rituals and mythologies and analyses its relation with inauspicious, ominous, deities

Divine Intersections: Hindu Ritual and the Incorporation of Religious Others

This article throws the study of multireligious sociality in Western contexts into sharp relief by examining the case of India. Much of the current scholarship of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism tends to assume that religious beliefs, practices and spaces make the respective religious communities close entirely in upon themselves. While this assumption may hold true for most of the Western settings we study, it does not necessarily give an accurate description of the conditions for multireligious sociality in other parts of the world. In India, for instance, religious boundaries still display signs of malleability despite the religious politicization and occasional interreligious violence of the past decades. Drawing on recent anthropological research, this article shows that people of different religious denominations still visit Sufi shrines, that Hindus still incorporate ritual elements and divine beings from the religious traditions of their Others and that they exercise a wide personal choice in terms of spiritual activities, thus enabling spiritual paths that cross in and out of Hinduism. In a Hindu context rituals do not necessarily have an insulating effect; they may also provide points of intersection that open up toward the Other, thus fostering familiarity and recognition. Similar arguments have been made for Buddhist settings. The question is thus whether the current scholarship of cosmopolitanism may entail a certain monotheistic bias that needs to accounted for, something that is of particular importance when theorizing in ways that make universal claims.

Attitude toward religion and happiness: Exploring the link among Hindu Bunts in South India

Working within Christian and Jewish contexts, a series of recent studies has demonstrated a link between a positive attitude toward religion and happiness. In order to examine whether this finding also held true in a Hindu context, a sample of 100 Hindu affiliates from the Bunt caste in south India completed the Santosh-Francis Scale of Attitude towards Hinduism alongside the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire. The data demonstrated a significant association between happiness and a positive attitude toward religion, after controlling for individual differences in age and sex. On the basis of this finding, it is now possible to claim empirical support for the positive link between attitude toward religion and happiness in a Hindu context, as well as in Christian and Jewish contexts.

A Sense of History and Apologetics in a Hindu Context

Apologetic discourses will have to be contextual if they are to be meaningful. The communication of the historical Jesus in a Hindu context stands to benefit from bearing in mind the Hindu sense of history. With this in view, the article delineates a Hindu sense of time/history and outlines how it has been confronted by the modern understanding of time. Highlighting the tensions between a cyclic and a linear sense of time and between history and myth, this article brings out the challenges that the Hindu worldview presents for Christian apologetics.

Fierce Words: Repositionings of Caste and Devotion in Traditional Śrvaisnava Hindu Ethics

In the 13th and 14th centuries CE the Śrvaisnava Hindu community of south India struggled to integrate the traditional values of the older brahmanical hierarchical system with the devotional egalitarianism that had come to the fore with fresh force in the Tamil vernacular tradition in the 7th and 8th centuries and thereafter. One of the most vexed aspects of this integration pertained to caste, and whether devotionalism foreclosed a continuation of traditional caste distinctions: do divine love and grace mandate radical egalitarianism? Śrvaisnava theologians were divided on the issue, some more conservative, some more radical in their rhetoric about continuity and change. Yet, as this essay argues, none were willing to go to the extremes either of dismissing caste structures entirely or of entirely subordinating devotion to caste. New values were to take primary place, while old norms were to be reinterpreted and given new meanings. Analyzing well–known examples from the tradition they argued instead a balance between norms and exceptions, treating violations of caste as occasions to glorify the power of devotion but without predicting the end of caste altogether. Attention to this case sheds light on caste and devotion in the Hindu context, the nature of ethical debate in India, and consequently too ways in which rhetoric functions more widely in ethical analysis.