Hindu Ritual Research Articles

St Joseph's Day in Kerala

Acting on a chance comment by an Indian visitor, the author travels to Southern India to see how the Christian community of Kerala celebrates St. Joseph’s Day, expecting to find something similar to the elaborately decorated altars erected in Sicily to honor this saint. Feeding the poor in St. Joseph’s honor has taken quite a different direction in Kerala, however. The author is taken to visit churches where preparations are underway for a ritual meal that will be served to hundreds of parishioners, ensuring them the saint’s blessing for the year that follows. The meal includes payasam, aviyal, and other traditional dishes that she later learns have been borrowed from Hindu rituals. She also participates in a very simple yet moving ceremony in a private home, in which three of the poor representing the Holy Family are fed and given new clothes.

Gengnagel, Jörg, Ute Hüsken, and Srilata Raman (Eds), Words and Deeds. Hindu and Buddhist Rituals in South Asia

Gengnagel, Jörg, Ute Hüsken, and Srilata Raman (Eds), Words and Deeds. Hindu and Buddhist Rituals in South Asia

The Archaeology of Hindu Ritual: Temples and the Establishment of the Gods – By Michael Willis

The Archaeology of Hindu Ritual: Temples and the Establishment of the Gods – By Michael Willis

Performing for the gods? Dance and embodied ritual in British Hindu temples

Recent ethnographic work in Tamil Hindu temples in London has revealed a new display of performed religious expression that ranges from the bodily movements of the priests during ritual to trance dance and classical Bharatanatyam dance performance. This article examines the performativity of such events, looking at their manifestations through the lens of both anthropological theory and that of performance studies. It considers how such embodied practices are ‘performances of faith’, and how this is manifest through the concepts of rasa and darshan, as found in Hindu ritual. The production and confirmation of a specific British Tamil Hindu identity through such performativity is discussed.

Hindu Ritual Dynamics: Case Studies from Contemporary Western Europe: Introduction

AbstractIn the study of religion, Ninian Smart and Kim Knott were among the first to make a plea to investigate 'ethnic minority' or 'migrant' religion, and to indicate trends and patterns. In the 1990s a gradual vocabulary shift, from 'migration' to 'diaspora,' took place, at least in religious studies. Diaspora communities have increasingly become visible in public life, and their places of worship have begun to be recognisable features of the religious mosaic in many European cities. This special issue on Hindu ritual dynamics in western Europe starts with an introductory essay on some of the basic expressions used in the descriptions and analyses by the various authors. The introduction gives the reader a first impression of the ritual space that Hindu communities in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland are occupying today.

Handedness, Hinduism and sculpture: Searching for evidence of lateralisation

The majority of people throughout the world show extreme preference for the right hand. We studied lateral bias depicted in ancient Indian sculptures dating between the 7th and 9th centuries ad. A total of 288 sculptures were selected from various excavation sites/museums and the frequencies were computed on 13 different criteria in order to see the preferential bias for hand depicted in sculptures of male and female figures. The findings are discussed in the light of Hindu mythology and rituals.

‘Indian Art’ in Trinidad? Ethnicity at its Limits

Addressing present day art making in the southern Caribbean island of Trinidad, with specific attention to the notion of a diasporic ‘Indian art’, this article offers a genealogy of some relationships between ethnicity, nationhood and visual imaging. Focusing on the painter and sculptor Shastri Maharaj (b. 1953), who is descended from South Asian indentured migrants to Trinidad, it shows how artists in the Caribbean have negotiated the region's period of strident anti-colonialism to the present. Examples of Maharaj's art comprise works of figuration and landscape, including depictions of local architectural styles and Hindu ritual, as well as more ambiguous and abstract forms, also presented as gallery installations. Paying attention to these the discussion highlights the problematic relations between the exegetical tendency for ‘reading’ such visual materials, and the ambitions of artists seeking to transcend the limits of expectations about ethnicity and cultural difference. In place of those limits it recommends an alternative historiography able to enjoin the critical search among contemporary artists for perceptual and aesthetic agency.

Divine Enterprise: Hindu Priests and Ritual Change in Neighbourhood Hindu Temples in Bangalore

This paper examines the changing nature of Hindu ritual performed in neighbourhood temples in the Malleswaram ‘locality’ of Bangalore city against a background of sweeping socio-economic change driven by globalisation. The investigation points to several ‘accretions of change’ in the embedded and experiential world of popular urban Hinduism. I argue that in the changing, competitive and multi-sectarian field of urban sacred landscapes in India, Hindu Brahmin priests act as ‘religious entrepreneurs’ and agents of change to create ‘dynamic’ adapted rituals that enable innovative approaches in order to expand their devotee base. The restructured and revitalised rituals lead to the invention of a ‘new cultural grammar’ that allows a reinterpretation and contextualisation of the language of traditional Hindu ritual to suit the needs of ‘modern’ devotees. The paper focuses on the nature, performance and experience of ‘dynamic’ ritual in an era of ‘mass customisation’, including three exemplar ‘strategies of engagement’ brought about by the Hindu priests in Bangalore: the incorporation of technology; the language of international imagery; and modern conceptions of hygiene. This paper is dedicated to my father Prof. M.N. Srinivas who was unstinting in his support of my study of the sacred landscapes and Hindu priests of Bangalore, and whose enjoyment of my fieldwork stories kept me going back for more.

The Mythology of Female Sexuality: Alternative Narratives of Belonging

The concept of duty is overrated (Fire) The swamiji's testicles have grown too big for his loincloth (Fire) It's a dyke thing (Junky Punky Girlz) Eswar Allah tero Naam (Junky Punky Girlz) Before ex...

Agency and Affectivity of Paintings: The Lives of Chitrajis in Hindu Ritual Contexts

Numerous roles given to prints, paintings, and photographs in contemporary Hindu religious practices can be traced to changes in the ritual status of paintings. By advocating an ontological shift to a purified non-dualism called shuddhadvaita, the sixteenth-century religious philosopher Vallabhacharya established a new Hindu community who subsequently developed their own elaborate traditions of ritual that allowed devotees to personally interact with live images of Krishna. Within this new ontology of purified non-dualism, paintings were given roles normally reserved in Hinduism for sculptural images of gods and goddesses. This developed into a tradition of caring for and worshiping paintings considered live gods called chitra seva. The “picture turn” created by chitra seva led to other roles being given to paintings, where they were not only allowed agency, but could manifest affective powers within the classical Indian rasa system of aesthetics applied by Vallabhacharya to religious experience.

La civilization la plus antique : Voltaire's Images of India

This article examines the writings of the Enlightenment philosophe Voltaire on India as he situated that land within a global context of history and cultural exchange. It examines the creation of a recognizable entity, "India," in the Western imaginary by studying selected texts and focusing on a romanticized ideal of India as an Oriental paradise. It also examines the reasons behind such creation of India, primarily the Enlightenment attack on the Roman Catholic Church and more specifically Voltaire's claim that many of the most important Christian rituals had their origin in Hindu rituals.

Hinduism. None, one or many?

Caldwell, Sarah. 1999 [Oxford India Paperbacks 2001]. Oh terrifying mother. Sexuality, violence and worship of the goddess Kali. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. xvii + 320 pp. Pb.: 495Rs. ISBN: 019 565 7696.Flood, Gavin (ed.). 2003. The Blackwell companion to Hinduism. Oxford: Blackwell. xiv + 599 pp. Hb.: £85.00. ISBN 0 631 21535 2.Michaels, Axel. 2004. Hinduism, past and present (translated by Barbara Harshav). Princeton: Princeton University Press. xviii + 430 pp. Hb.: £42.95. Pb.: £12.95. ISBN 0 691 08952 3/08953 1.Smith, David. 2003. Hinduism and modernity. Oxford: Blackwell. xii + 250 pp. Hb.: £50.00. Pb.: £15.99. ISBN 0 631 20861 5/20862 3.Anthropologists of Buddhism are familiar with descriptions of Buddhists in which the author wonders whether what they are observing is ‘really’ Buddhism. In the case of Hinduism, confronted close up, the dominant attitude is more likely to be fascination. If observers of Hindu rituals rub their eyes, it is not usually because they are stricken by epistemological doubt about the very status of what they are observing. Scepticism about Hinduism tends rather to be meta-doubt, doubt experienced by theorists trying to grapple with the task of providing an overall picture of Hinduism, doubt about whether there is such a thing as Hinduism in the larger sense at all. In short, with Buddhism the assumption seems to be: it does exist, but village Buddhism isn't really it. In the case of Hinduism the ontology is the other way around: Hinduism certainly exists in villages, but does it exist as an institution spanning millennia and the whole of South Asia? In the past some Panjabis returned their social identity as ‘Hindu Mussalman’ in the census. Many Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains used to be happy to be considered as a variety of Hindu, and some still so consider themselves today. Others describe themselves as ‘secular Hindus’. In other words, Hindu in this sense means approximately ‘Indian’ (though sorting out that historical and conceptual conflation is precisely the problem). Thus some influential scholarly voices have recently argued that really there is no such thing as Hinduism, and that, even if Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and the rest exist as separate religions, Hinduism does not. It contains several religions within it perhaps, but it is not itself a religion.

Chavittunātakam: Music-Drama in Kerala

Following arrival of Vasco Da Gama on Malabar coast on 14 May 1498, Portuguese missionaries who came to Kerala in South India in sixteenth century not only brought Latin Christianity to a region that already had a long Christian tradition--according to local tradition dating back to apostle Thomas (1)--but also were instrumental in introducing forms of religious drama found in their native country. These forms in part grew out of missionaries' perception that South Indian Christianity differed from their own allegedly more orthodox religion, and were related to their program for establishing customs that would ensure exclusiveness of their brand of Latin Christianity. However, dramas were not transplanted in their pure European form, but instead in a region famous for Kathakali dance dramas they merged with local performance modes. (2) The result was a new drama that, performed for local Church festivals along coast from Cochin to Rameshwaram, is known as Chavittunatakam (cavittunatakam). It was a genre that in part was intended to distinguish Latin Christians of this region from St. Thomas Christians, and it also filled a vacuum in cultural life for them since they were totally forbidden to participate in any way in Hindu rituals. (3) Hence we may see plays as an aspect of program of conversion instituted by Latin Christians. (4) A major role was played by Synod of Diamper (1599) in establishing new religious drama that adopted themes, costumes, and conventions that are found in Kerala's Chavittunatakam and Muvarasu Natakam, latter similar to Magi plays of Europe (5) and actually a separate but such a closely allied genre that it can properly be included in my discussion here. The influence of synod was also felt in Goa, where kinds of drama known as Mell, Mando, and Dekhini were established. (6) Chavittunatakam (Malayalam: chavittu [cavittu] = foot stamping, as in dance; natakam = dance drama) as an art form receives its name from emphasis placed on foot movement. In unique ways it brings together indigenous dance forms with imported matter from Europe, (7) and, according to Chummar Choondal, it is further a synthesis of the religious, cultural, social, and artistic aspects of [Latin] Christianity in (8) However, unlike other folk traditions of Kerala, Chavittunatakam attributes great importance to performance text (Malayalam: Chuvati), which is stressed from rituals performed from beginning of rehearsals up to actual performance. These performance texts have not been published. Early plays such as Karalman, Janova, Brasijina, and others from sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may have been written on palm leaves in Vattezhuttu or Grandhaksara, which are earliest scripts of Kerala. The plays mentioned above were probably recorded originally in Chentamil, for texts in circulation at present show a mixture of Tamil and Malayalam. (9) Play texts are nowadays written in Malayalam, but writers still use rhyme schemes found in early texts written in Tamil. The Chuvatis are considered by Asans (Masters) to be their personal property to be handed down by heredity, and hence they are never shared with others or printed. Thus original authorship of early plays and later interpolations must be areas of obscurity. Further, practice of Asans in using same names as those of their own masters prevents scholars from being able to probe further. Names of authors of some early texts seem also in some instances to have been borrowed from catechism books printed by missionaries for distribution (e.g., Chechuthachan = Servant of Jesus; Mariathachan = Servant of Mary). It is also believed that one of authors, Cinna Thambi Annavi, to whom Brasijna is attributed, was a European missionary who was fluent in Tamil. Some of later texts carry reference to Annavi, though this attribution may not be sufficient to establish authorship. …

Rituals between religion and politics: the case of VHP’s 2001-2002 Ayodhya-campaign

The present paper deals with rituals in a political discourse, namely the rituals employed by the right wing, Hindu nationalist movement, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), in its campaign for a Rama temple in the north Indian town of Ayodhya. As is probably well-known, VHP is part of a group of organizations known as the Sangh Parivar, or sangh family, which also includes the presently ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the ultranationalistic organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. The rituals of VHP are instruments of the construction of an ideal Hindu society and part of an encounter between Hindu-nationalist tenets and the secular, political establishment. However, the rituals employed by VHP can not be said to represent a separate ritual genre, since they are not different from similar, traditional Hindu rituals. What makes them different is their context and their motives, the fact that they do not serve ordinary material, eschatological, or soteriological aims, but rather political aims, as well as the fact that the ritual agents in this case do not seem to have a satisfactory juridical legitimacy to perform the rituals.

Caste Politics, Ritual Performance, and Local Religion in a Bengali Village: A Reassessment of Liminality and Communitas

In this paper, I seek to reevaluate Victor Turner's related concepts of liminality and communitas in the context of Hindu ritual. The primary data come from an all-Hindu village named Goalpara, which is located in Birbhum District, West Bengal. The specific ritual in question is an annual three-day event performed for the village's main deity, Dharmaraj, the “king of duty”. Through ethnographic inquiry I argue that the events during the three days seem to reinforce Turner's idea of an actual abolishment of social hierarchy, since low-caste devotees of the deity seem to take on the status of high-caste Brahmans through an initiatory transformation. However, upon closer investigation, the transformation only occurs on the symbolic level. Close observation of the ritual in question suggests that hierarchy is never abandoned. In some respects, it is even reinforced through ritual action. Nonetheless, I argue that the question of a change in social status depends largely on the interpretations provided by part...

Serendib (review)

Book Reviews245 Tiberghien has found her own way through the practice of silent prayer. Her experience may simply broaden the spiritual knowledge of others as they foUow their own paths. She encourages each ofus to seek our destiny, which she defines as "a simple word, asking only that we live each present moment as it comes. It means being who we are meant to be." Reviewed by Mary Isca Serendib by Jim Toner University of Georgia Press, 2000 Cloth, $24.95 War-torn Sri Lanka is an unlikely place for a white, upper-middle-class father and son to come to terms with each other. Nevertheless, the poverty that requires many Sri Lankans to live close to the earth lends Toner and his father the opportunity to return to some emotional basics. Whereas affluent America offers material comforts to distract the soul, Sri Lanka affords no such dubious luxuries. Serendib begins with a telephone call from the author's father, informing his son that his arrival in Sri Lanka where his son is a Peace Corps volunteer is imminent. While Toner worries about soldiers barely out of childhood toting automatic weapons, classrooms without books and the social tensions between the Buddhist Sinhalese and the Hindu Tamals, his father wonders whether he should wear his Hush Puppies or his wing tips. "Listen, I know the Hush Puppies may not be the most practical choice. But they sure are comfortable as sUppers, and my bunions, jeeze, they're acting up these days, and so ... " And so the First World is about to meet the Third World, and a father is about to discover his son who mentally invites his clueless father to "Come, spend seven hundred uninterrupted hours with the last of your seven kids, the one you vaguely know and who vaguely knows you. . . . Come to where every one of your demons is waiting to ambush you." This is not the stuff of which travel brochures are made. In less skiUed hands, this combination of foreign travel and intergenerational rapprochement would muddy up the narrative waters. But Toner manages to weave these two strains together so that they are truly inseparable . His father's reactions to Sri Lanka's poverty, violence and—most importantly —huge generosity, graduaUy brings out a generosity of spirit his son has either ignored, or that has been buried under years of suspicion and 246Fourth Genre privilege. Or both. Toner's recognition of this part of his father leads to a new vision ofwho this old guy in wing tips reaUy is. Toner's father does not immediately adjust to the new landscape, however. It is his transformation from privileged American to adaptable traveler that aUows Toner the opportunity to see his father as a complex individual, and notjust as a figure to be rebeUed against. Serendib is fflled with scenes that both lay bare and redefine the relationship between father and son. Some of the most telling scenes happen early on after Dad arrives in the capital, Columbo. To give his father a taste ofthe real Sri Lanka, Toner takes him from the comfort of his air-conditioned hotel room and Scotch on the rocks to eat at a local kadee. There, five soldiers with machine guns smoke Marlboros at a nearby table and leer at Toner's wife. A beer bottle is thrown. A soldier saunters over and blows smoke in Toner's face. "In the corner his mates whooped and raised their machine guns, and to me this whole scene was descending into nightmare in which we three whites would soon be forced at gun-point to lick a boot." They leave without eating. Toner realizes that his petulance almost caused his wife, his father, and himself bodily harm. He keeps his radar out for the rest of the journey. That radar, too, detects changes in his father, who begins to surprise him. Dad adapts to outhouses without toilet paper, to buses so fuU of passengers they seem to defy certain laws of physics, and to both Buddhist and Hindu ritual far removed from his familiar and comforting Irish Catholicism. Writers worth reading take risks. What Toner risks is sentimentality. This is perhaps inherent...

Constructing colonial Dharma: a chronicle of emergent Hinduism, 1830-1831

The Bengali newspaper Samācār Candrikā from 1830 to 1831 offers a glimpse at the emergence of the Modern, popular Hinduism now evident in Hindu nationalism in India. Preserving orthodox Hindu responses to the reforms advocated by the rational Hindu monotheism of the Brahmo Samaj and evangelical Christian missionaries, the newspaper stressed the unifying Character of Hindu ritual, the spiritual significance of caste, and the traditional gender relations symbolized by widow immolation even after its 1829 abolition. The paper's greatest contribution to historians' understanding of the construction of Hinduism as a coherent entity is its clear testimony to the essential role played by Hindus themselves in that process, often associated with Orientalists and missionaries.

Comparative Religious Architecture: Islamic and Hindu Ritual Space

Comparative Religious Architecture: Islamic and Hindu Ritual Space

Comparative Religious Architecture: Islamic and Hindu Ritual Space

Comparative Religious Architecture: Islamic and Hindu Ritual Space

The Cult of Draupadī, 2: On Hindu Ritual and the Goddess

The Cult of Draupadī, 2: On Hindu Ritual and the Goddess