Priestly Class Research Articles

Outside the City Walls: Remarks on 2 Kgs 23,4-20

ABSTRACT The account of Josiah’s reform has raised the interest of biblical scholars over the years. This paper focuses on the pericope of 2 Kgs 23,4-20 and, based on spatial categories, provides a further argument to date the section in the Persian period. After outlining why 2 Kgs 23,4-20 can be considered separately from the rest of the narrative, this paper will focus on the pericope’s passages that, through Josiah’s actions, highlight a tension between the city’s inner and outer. Such a logic of space, absent in the Chronicler’s report and emphasised in the Antiochian revision of the Greek text, functions as a narrative means to promote a theological idea based on the sharp distinction between pure and impure, sacred and polluted, and charges the king with priestly traits. As a result, 2 Kgs 23,4-20 will be argued to be part of a text revision dated to the Persian period, when the ruling priestly class could be interested in loading the character of Josiah with religious prerogatives.

A Study of The Paradigm Shift in The Land Ownership and The Provision of Land Grants in Ancient India

The present research paper deals with the concept and the dynamics of land ownership and the provisions of land grants in Ancient India. The theoretical concept of the ownership of the land and the land grant underwent tremendous changes and transformation in this period. The private ownership of land with rights of alienation in Ancient India secured through land grants was mainly religious in nature and were enjoyed by the priestly class. In course of time the private ownership of the land became an important constituent of the social structure. However, this was not applicable for all the landholding classes. The other sort of assignees was under the strict control of the rulers. Their land was liable to be confiscated and transferred. In the later Gupta age land and the proprietary rights in the land grew in importance and was at the helm of all social, cultural, religious, economic and political activities till the establishment of Delhi Sultanate. The land grants were given to officers and religious groups and establishments in exchange of services rendered to the state which are indicatives of economic crisis in the period on the one hand and on the other denotes that land in this period was a medium of social mobilization and social position. The society became more stratified and complicated. The primary and the secondary sources used in this paper are immense and varied in volume and content. Epigraphs, inscriptions, coins, cowries, texts all have been used to prepare a monograph to shed light on this important aspect which in many ways shaped the social, political, religious and economic history of the country.

Evolution of the figure of the Brahmin in early Muslim writings

When we talk about the caste system today, among other things, we talk about the wily, crafty and the boasting Brahmins who founded and maintained a set of self-serving rules that effectively took the form of the caste system. How do social scientists know about these Brahmins? As a set of new scholars are demonstrating today, the ancient Indian texts - such as the Vedas or the Mahabharata - do not talk about the caste system or the rule-setting priestly class of Brahmins. These texts do not even exhibit an impulse to put into place a system that even remotely resembles the so-called caste system. Whence is this idea of Brahmin then? Ever since Wilhelm Halbfass’s Imagining India (1990), a growing but a small number of Indologists talk about the 11th century Al-Bīrūnī as one of “the greatest scholars ever” to speak about the Indian caste system. There is, however, neither a comprehensive study to show what his contributions measure up to nor any attempt to dig into the Islamic culture that culminates in Al-Biruni’s quite detailed picture of the Brahmin and the caste system. This paper sifts through the earliest available Islamic writings on India, from the early 8th century to Al-Biruni’s time, to chart a genealogy of the figure of the law-making crafty Brahmin that we confront by the 11th century in Muslim writings.

Prevent the rise of a black messiah: Madness or revolution

In the late 1960s, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a United States of America (US) intelligence agency, developed what is famously known as Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO). Its mission was to surveil, misinform, misdirect and subvert or destroy black ‘subversive’ militant groups. The main intention of COINTELPRO was to ‘prevent the rise of a messiah’ who could ‘unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement’. This insight is important as it reveals how those outside of black life (FBI) would invoke biblical language to define the possibility of revolution. This article through Black liberation theology seeks to present the idea of messianism as both an experience of Africans and oppressed peoples in the Global North and Global South. The idea of messianism is part of biblical reception in Africa and the African experience of colonialism. In South Africa, messianism would be observed from the perspective of African Christianity, while another form of messianism would be seen from Nat The Prophet Turner as well as the radical identity of Christ in Black liberation theology. The article will not take lightly the idea of surveillance of black militant groups in the same way as the priestly class surveillance Christ ministry. At the same time, the article would reflect on why lunacy is associated with those that seek to subvert oppression. This article seeks to discuss the role of messianism and militancy in Black or African Christianity and highlighting biblical reception and African affectivity.Contribution: This article explores the imaginative ways the Bible or its themes have been used by both the oppressor and the oppressed, often the latter using the Bible for its prerogative, namely, revolution and liberation.

Երվանդ Վերջինի տոհմաբանության շուրջ

Strabo's message about the Armenian king Yervand the Last, as from the "genus of Hydarnes" refers only to King Yervand, and not to the Yervandid dynasty. In the interval of 200 years between Hydarnes and Yervand, Tiribaz was the last ancestry link on the paternal side. Tiribaz is mentioned in Xenophon's "Anabasis" as a hiparchos (regional chief, viceroy) of "Western Armenia" and close relative of Artaxerxes II: "when he was present, no one else put the king on a horse." This witnesses the fact that Tiribaz was a Persian of high birth. To our firm belief, he was also the High Priest of Armenia. The sculpture of rider on Achaemenid silver rhyton from Arin-berd (Erebuni) depicts him. The headdress of the rider is the same as that of a warrior from the priestly class of the bodyguards of the Persian kings, in contrast to the warrior representing the military class. Xenophon, having relationship with Tiribaz not in religious, but in official affairs, could not know that the name Tiribaz conveyed the meaning of priest, because the first component of the name Tiribaz is the name of the God-priest Tir. Artashes I overthrew Yervand the Last (who was considered an illegal ruler) and restored the legal rule of the Yervandid (from the Haykazuns) dynasty, which is mentioned in the sources from the 6-th century BC. Consequently, from the Hydarnes genus (foreign, Persian origin) was not the Yervandid dynasty, but King Yervand the Last represented by his ancestor, the High Priest of Armenia Tiribaz. According to Movses Khorenatsi, Yervand the Last was from the previous dynasty (Arshakids//Yervandids) not on the paternal, but on the maternal side and Artashes I, on the contrary, on the paternal side. Claims to the contrary are unfounded.

Nature and Extent of Dohli Land Grant and Donations in the Territory of Kota State (1670–1820 CE)

The Hada rulers of Kota state were devout followers of Hindu religion, but at the same time, they demonstrated their spirit of religious toleration towards all the other religions and sects. The archival documents give sufficient data and information that the Hada rulers liberally made land grants as well as cash donations to priestly class people and temples. The grants were liberally distributed by the state for the upkeep and maintenance of temples, the priestly class, intellectuals and Brahmins. The state also constructed temples and maintained and repaired them as per requirement from time to time. Priests, monks, sages and pandits were attached to the temples with financial assistance from the state exchequer. The state also ensured that regularly ritual worship is performed in temples, the lamp is lighted, prasad is distributed, havan ( yajnas) and special poojas are performed on festive occasions, and bhog [food items, sweet meat, coconut, etc.] is offered to the presiding deities of the temple. The state also deployed katha vachaks [preachers] to different villages and urban centres to recite religious texts and stories on the virtues of heavenly gods. This was aimed at preserving and upholding the moral social order in the society and Varnashrama Dharma, which was followed by the Hara rulers of the Harawati region. The percentage of land granted to temples and also for charitable purposes ranged between 3% and 15% in different parganas of the state, which was higher than the land grants made by Mughal rulers.

Nietzsche’s Nervous Ascetics: The Physiological Roots of the Ascetic Ideal

Abstract In this article, I explore Nietzsche’s account of the origins of the ascetic ideal in his Genealogy of Morality (GM). I offer a reading of his claim that this ideal springs from an instinctive response to the sicknesses he describes as “physiological inhibition and exhaustion” (GM III:13), arguing that these sicknesses are primarily nervous conditions found among the priestly class who come up with the ascetic ideal, and periodically among “large masses of people” (GM III:17). The historical frequency of the latter outbreaks accounts for the popularity of the ideal. But the origin story is very much about the ascetic priest, and it is a story Nietzsche tells in bits and pieces over the course of the Genealogy. This article integrates these bits and pieces into one cohesive account. Finally, I consider how the priest’s more innocent ascetic lifestyle suggestions respond to the twin conditions of inhibition and exhaustion.

Prohibited Mixtures: Mixed Clothing and Social Class

Abstract Prohibiting mixed fabric in Leviticus 19:19d and Deuteronomy 22:11 has often been interpreted as maintaining the created order or avoiding a holy mixture. However, weaving together two kinds of cloth does not make a hybrid that disrupts cosmic order. Also, the consecration ritual is the origin of holiness in the priestly clothing. I argue that mixed clothing is prohibited because the priestly class is strictly inherited. I will show how the Israelites must wear the national/ethnic clothing, tassels with a cord of blue, but cannot wear the clothing of the solely inherited class, mixed fabric.

Quarantine

Quarantine Andrew Furman (bio) Tzara’ath, a term one encounters in the Hebrew Bible, is derived from the noun tzara, which, according to the Talmud, refers generally to afflictions of the skin that produce lesions, or eruptions, or sores, or boils, or burns, or bald patches on the scalp or beard, etc. A Jewish man or woman with any skin blemish might be deemed tzara’ath. Further, the Torah associates tzara’ath with unclean, rotted, or blemished garments, houses, and animals. A scrofulous chicken, unfit for kosher slaughter, is tzara’ath. It’s just a little itch, at first. In the crook of my elbow. I can hardly see the bites, or bumps, or welts, or whatever they are. They barely attract my attention. I just scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. The culprit might be sea lice, jellyfish larvae, from one of my recent swims in our overheated ocean. Or it might be one of those oyster plants in my yard, an invasive groundcover that I try to avoid while weeding, though the pinked and purpled leaves insult my forearms with their toxic touch every so often. It might be only dry skin. Scholars who first translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek, around two hundred years or so before Jesus, choose the term lepra when they encounter the untranslatable Hebrew term tzara’ath. No credible archaeological evidence suggests that modern leprosy exists among the Israelites during the time of Moses. I try various moisturizers we have strewn about the house, which don’t work. I try a healing ointment of petroleum jelly, which doesn’t work. I try a triple antibiotic and pain-relief ointment, which doesn’t work. [End Page 158] I try manifold over-the-counter creams, salves, unguents, and poultices —conventional, holistic, and homeopathic. Calamine. Comfrey. Hydrocortisone. Benadryl. Gold Bond. Bee and Rosemary Actives. Apple cider vinegar. Aloe vera gel (wringed from the spiny-ridged leaves of the specimen my daughter planted in our backyard). I try pills. Ibuprofen. Benadryl. Zyrtec. Claritin. Allegra. Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. A Jew suffering from a skin lesion, or eruption, or sore, or boil, or burn, or bald patch on the scalp or beard, or pretty much any visible skin blemish, must visit a kohain (a member of the priestly class) trained to determine whether said lesion, eruption, sore, boil, burn, bald patch, or blemish is tzara’ath. For blemishes on or around the upper extremities, men are inspected while raising their arms as if harvesting olives, women while raising their arms as if weaving or spinning. For blemishes on the legs, men are examined standing as if hoeing, women standing as if rolling dough. Should the blemish be deemed tzara’ath, the kohain assesses the threat of contagion and determines the appropriate confinement period based upon established criteria. Follow-up examinations required. “I can’t really see anything,” my wife says after two weeks of my itching and scratching. To look at it, that is, it still seems like no big deal. Some barely discernible pale pink welts rising from the flesh on my forearm at and around (is it spreading?) the crook of my right elbow. Could mosquitoes be the culprit? Or fleas? Here’s the weird thing: sometimes my arm seems to itch only at night, while I try to sleep instead of scratching, and while my wife tries to sleep instead of listening to her husband scratching. Here’s another weird thing: the only remedy that seems to quell the itch when it really gets going is an ice pack, which I find myself retrieving from the freezer in the kitchen downstairs in the middle of almost every night. A groom suffering from a skin lesion, or eruption, or sore, or boil, or burn, or bald patch on the scalp or beard is exempt from visiting a kohain for inspection until the eighth day after his wedding. The brit milah (circumcision) also takes place on the eighth day. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you. . . . There are eight days of Chanukah. The high priest wears eight vestments, etc., etc. [End Page 159] Another week passes and it still doesn’t look like much. Nonetheless...

Genetic Afterlives: Black Jewish Indigeneity in South Africa by Noah Tamarkin

Reviewed by: Genetic Afterlives: Black Jewish Indigeneity in South Africa by Noah Tamarkin Kimberly A. Arkin Noah Tamarkin, Genetic Afterlives: Black Jewish Indigeneity in South Africa. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020. 280 pp. Noah Tamarkin's Genetic Afterlives: Black Jewish Indigeneity in South Africa is a fascinating exploration of why and how the Lemba of South Africa became interested in and engaged with genetic studies of Jewishness. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Lemba leaders—most particularly the entrepreneurial, unrecognized traditional Lemba leader Kgoshi Mpaketsane and members of the Lemba Cultural Association (LCA)—eagerly agreed to and facilitated testing of male elders. They also celebrated the results of these studies, which documented high incidences of the so-called "Cohen Modal Haplotype" on the Y chromosomes of Lemba test subjects. The high frequency of this haplotype, which got its name from its relative frequency in the genomes of men who claim descent from Cohanim, or the Jewish priestly class, offered a particularly useful kind of "proof" for many Lemba of what they had always already known: they were black Jews. Unlike much of the flourishing anthropological literature on DNA science, Tamarkin is not interested in what happens in genetics labs or in the ways that scientists involved in this kind of research (sometimes inadvertently) naturalize certain kinds of social categories. Instead, he traces out what he calls "genetic afterlives," by which he means the production and circulation of genetic knowledge that happens outside of laboratories and peer-reviewed journals. In particular, he asks how subjects of genetic research make sense of and produce their own stories with genetic research. He writes: [End Page 187] My contention is that there are multiple worlds in play in this kind of genetic research that are not necessarily shared among all actors, and if we focus on the knowledge politics of scientists exclusively, it is at the expense of other, less powerful actors who ultimately must continue to live with genetic ancestry's implications in ways that geneticists are not subjected to (25). And indeed, without attending to these "afterlives," the Lemba's voluntary participation in Jewish genetic research might look like support for the racializing logics behind long-standing European interest in Lemba as Jews. For late 19th and early 20th century colonial researchers who conflated race, place, and culture, Lemba Jewishness solved a particular kind of categorical problem: the existence of a Bantu population with "non-Bantu" cultural practices, including a refusal to eat pork, the practice of endogamy, and a commitment to early circumcision. Jewishness solved this problem by giving the Lemba "extra-African" origins. For late 20th and early 21st century scientists interested in "Jewish DNA," genetic ancestry testing has been a way to document not only the relatedness of (predominantly white) Jewish populations all over the globe, but also the difference between Jews and other "Semitic" populations, most notably Palestinians. Much like its antecedent in the colonial period, this project also seeks to solve a particular kind of problem by offering genetic "proof" of Jewish indigeneity in Israel, exile from Israel, and persistent, distinctive peoplehood in diaspora. But Mpaketsane and other members of the LCA firmly rejected the foundational premises of both of these projects. For many Lemba, genetic Jewishness is not a sign of non-Africanness. Instead, Tamarkin's interlocutors insisted in a whole range of ways that all Jews were originally African and that therefore they were the original Jews. As a result, many Lemba argued against the idea that they were a "lost" tribe with residual Jewish practices. They were also not a victimized population in need of being "rescued" and "returned" to an Israeli homeland. Nor did they need to stop being Christian in order to be Jewish. Furthermore, Lemba cultural leaders insisted that they had always known they were Jewish and had not needed a test to provide this information. So why, exactly, were they eager participants in this research? Tamarkin shows why through a masterful ethnographic exploration of the way scale and context matter in the production of genetic meaning. His first chapter attends to the apartheid history of Lemba engagement [End Page 188] with questions of Jewishness and ancestry. The second chapter...

The Meeting of the Three Temples: Co-celebrating with the Angels in Early Christian Liturgies

A new inspection of the ancient liturgical pattern of praying with the angels unveils that Jewish materials limited it to the priestly class and such legendary figures as Enoch, Abraham, Moses, or Elijah. The classical Christian anaphoras of the third and fourth centuries will extend this pattern to the entire congregation based on the early Christian generalization of the priestly status to all the members of the ecclesia. While shifting the focus of discussion to the concepts of “temple” and “priest,” the study finds that these Christian anaphoras include both the Jerusalem Temple feature of serving in front of God’s descended glory and the Second Temple apocalyptic idea of celebrating in the heavenly sanctuary. The earthly and heavenly temples, therefore, become one liturgical space which also intersects a third temple, that of the human being, within which God also descends, sanctifies it, and receives due worship.

The Brahmin, the Aryan, and the Powers of the Priestly Class: Puzzles in the Study of Indian Religion

The classical account of the Brahmin priestly class and its role in Indian religion has seen remarkable continuity during the past two centuries. Its core claims appear to remain unaffected, despite the major shifts that occurred in the theorizing of Indian culture and in the study of religion. In this article, we first examine the issue of the power and status of the Brahmin and show how it generates explanatory puzzles today. We then turn to 18th- and 19th-century sources to identify the cognitive conditions which sustained the classical account of the Brahmin priest and allowed for its transmission. Three clusters of concepts were crucial here: Christian-theological ideas concerning heathen priesthood and idolatry; racial notions of biological and cultural superiority and inferiority; and anthropological speculations about ‘primitive man’ and his ‘magical thinking’. While all three clusters were rejected by 20th- and 21st-century scholarship, the related claims about Brahmanical ritual power continue to be presented as facts. What accounts for this peculiar combination of continuities and discontinuities in the study of (ancient) Indian religion? We turn to some insights from the philosophy of science to sketch a route toward answering this question.

Changing Status of the Ahom Priestly Class

Human society is the result of a continuous transformation process. In this transformation process religion plays a significant role. In every society customs, beliefs, behaviour, traditions are mostly connected with the religion. So in every society religion and religious traditions became the identity of a society. In case of Assam every tribes had their own priestly class to do priesthood. Similarly the Ahoms had their own priestly class to do priesthood. In this article an attempt has been made to assess the condition of the Ahom priestly class i.e. the Mohan, the Deodhai and the Bailungs

Enforced Loyalties: Caste Panchayats and Caste Politics in India

Enforced Loyalties:Caste Panchayats and Caste Politics in India Anagha Ingole (bio) INTRODUCTION Loyalty is an attitude and form of behavior reflecting one's allegiance to another individual or to a group. I will be concerned entirely with loyalties to a group, and the group that is my particular focus is caste. As we normally think of it, the attitude or actions that get described as "loyal" are agentive—that is to say, they are held and done voluntarily, even when they are done unreflectively. So the word "enforced" in the title might seem, at least at first sight, to be an unusual qualifier of the term "loyalty." Yet we are surrounded by structures of sociopolitical norms and constraints that create visible or invisible enforcement mechanisms, which in turn generate loyalty. Examples abound, ranging from the crude (McCarthyite browbeating into nationalist allegiance) to the more subtle (trade union solidarities that are shaped by, for example, the stigma attached to crossing picket lines). Caste, as a longstanding and entrenched hierarchical social phenomenon in India, may seem an obvious example of such enforced loyalty. Hierarchical systems, quite generally, are preserved by those higher up in the systems, ensuring that loyalty is enforced upon all others. Caste is no exception to this. But my interest is not primarily in the enforcement of caste loyalty on these grounds, persistent though such enforcement may be, despite the relative undermining [End Page 765] of social hierarchies by the development of modern democracy in India. In fact, I will not be concerned with enforced loyalty to the caste system but rather with loyalty to particular castes by caste members; i.e., intracaste loyalty. And I will explore the role of "caste panchayats,"1 or intracaste councils, which enforce such loyalty. With them, too, the enforcement mechanisms range from the crude and violent (such as ordering honor killings of caste members for noncompliance with caste norms) to the more subtle (the use of what has come to be called the method of "social boycott"2). This enforcement of intracaste loyalty and these panchayati agencies of its enforcement present a picture of what caste itself has become in contemporary India. While making these preliminary remarks, let me present in the briefest terms a very general background of the nature of caste and caste panchayats. Since the subject (and phenomenon) of caste is one of the most complex in the social sciences, anything I say is bound to be utterly rudimentary, intended only to facilitate the points of detail and argument that the paper will develop. Caste, as is well known, is a birth-based system of social stratification. It is routinely said to have taken three forms over time. (This taxonomy has not gone without question in the scholarship on the subject, but it is useful to proceed within a short paper, as it gets things very broadly right.) The first form is caste as varna, or the fourfold division of society into the priestly class of Brahmins, the warrior class of Kshatriyas, the traders called the Vaishyas, and the manual laborers known as the Shudras. The varna is a system of graded hierarchy (with Brahmins at the top and Shudras at the bottom) based on principles of "pollution" and "purity." The Untouchables or Ati-Shudras are left out of this fourfold system and are considered to be maximally polluting. This hierarchical classification claims ancient pedigree and a scriptural basis. In the second sense, caste exists as jati, an endogamous subgroup of one or another varna. (Sometimes jatis spanned more than one varna, but this became less frequent as an indirect effect of the classificatory practices of the census introduced by British colonial [End Page 766] rule, which demanded more rigid specifications.) Jati, as a subgroup, is characterized by similar commensality practices in which intermarriage is almost always permitted, while there are complex taboos surrounding marriage and dining across jatis. Much of the enforcement of loyalty within castes is motivated to keeping things in line regarding such practices so as to preserve endogamy. A jati frequently maps onto a particular occupation. Thus, for example, in a given region there might be a jati consisting of barbers or weavers...

The Brahmans of Mithila before the PañjiPrabandha

Genealogies are composed in order to validate the present by confirming the past. The panji Prabandha introduced during the fourteenth century was a landmark in the history of the north Bihar. They contain details on the ancestry of an individual in order to establish his relationship with another person, his association with a lineage, or membership in a particular social group. If we presuppose that Brahmins by registering the ancestries and understanding their past to establish a future plan then how was their condition before its promulgation. The Brahmins of Mithila (Cultural zone in the north Bihar) are one of the five Brahmins in north India (Panca-Gaudas). They are presently the most powerful class in north Bihar and the majority of land is under their possessions. It is also said that it is only in Mithila, the Bhudevas(land owners) and the Bhupalas(land protectors) have combined their power. They were the rulers as well as the priestly class. It is also worth mentioning that till the nineteenth century, Sanskrit continued to be the official language in the courts of Maithili rulers in which these rulers were experts. My paper aims to seek the origin of Brahmins in Mithila before the promulgation of genealogies (the Panji Prabandha).

Colonial State as ‘New Manu’? Explorations in Education Policies in Relation to Dalit and Low-Caste Education in the Nineteenth-Century India

The colonial state always asserted itself as a harbinger of ‘modernity’ and emphasised its role in India as a ‘civilising mission’. The 1811 Educational Minute of Governor General Minto, declared Hindus and Muslims of India as inherently corrupt and insisted on the British role as ‘civilising’. Conventionally the terms ‘modern’ and ‘civilising mission’ have been considered as offensive, and scholars have critiqued them as Eurocentric and racist. However, these terms have not been analysed at the implementation stage in India. The colonial government used these terms to actually strengthen the structures of the traditional hierarchy. When Minto declared that the education policy was to civilise Hindus and Muslims of India, it was through the ‘the dread of their religion in this world and the next’ and through strengthening and empowering the priestly class of Hindus and Muslims (Sharp, 1920, pp. 19–21). The colonial administration regarded this kind of education as the corner stone of its education policy. This article looks at the education policies of the colonial state towards lower castes in the nineteenth-century India and how these policies upheld and reinforced the caste system.

A complex of ritual objects from the elite female burial in Western Kazakhstan

The paper discusses in detail the items from the female burial of mound 6, Taksai-1 burial site, located in the West Kazakhstan Region, Terektinsky District, near the village Dolinnoe. A complex architectural gravestone structure, an accompanying rite of burial with the use of fire, the presence of rich clothing with various decorations, a complex of specific objects found in the pit, testify to the special status of the buried. All archaeological materials from the central pit of mound 6 performed a certain role in the life of the early nomads, composing a complex of ritual things for performing special rites. The functional significance of all the artifacts identified in the grave emphasizes the relation of the buried to the priestly class. In scientific literature there is no consensus about the existence of the priesthood as a profession in ancient times, but the early nomads revered the cult of a woman the ancestor, and the priestesses were guides, keepers of the fire, the Sun, revered the goddess responsible for fertility. The burials of rich priestesses are distinguished by their special pomp of funeral ritual, the presence of gold jewelry and the individual composition of the inventory. All these characteristics are traced in mound 6 of Taksai-1 burial, it is a cult monument confirming the existence of a special priestly status in a social organization of the nomadic society.

Understanding God from the Indian Context in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Understanding God from the Indian Context in the 20th and 21st Centuries

Malayalam (Namboodiri Dialect)

Malayalam ( /malajaːɭam/; ISO 639) is a Dravidian language (Southern branch) spoken by over 33 million people in India, predominantly in Kerala (Lewis, Simmons & Fenning 2013). The language is diglossic, with the formal register used in written media and orally in formal settings. Colloquial Malayalam, for which there is no standard orthography, varies by region and social community (Asher & Kumari 1997). The speech illustrated below is representative of the variety spoken by the Namboodiri subcaste of Brahmins in and around Kochi, a city in central Kerala. The Namboodiri subcaste was traditionally a land-owning priestly class, and until relatively recently, the community was very insular. Consequently, the dialect differed from standard Malayalam as it is spoken today; this is discussed in some detail in U. Namboodiripad (1989, personal communication).

‘Enlisting in the struggle to be free’: A feminist wrestle with gender and religion

This paper looks at the gendered underpinnings of religion using a feminist lens. It names the violence embedded in the gendered notions of religious ideology and praxis and shows how religion can be “injurious” to women’s growth because of the following factors: the hierarchical dualism that alienates them from the Spirit and identifies them with the body while marginalizing them through their positioning on the lower rungs of the hierarchical ladder; the exclusive male imagery of God and its mediation by an all male priestly class and the scriptural injunctions which are inscribed by patriarchal thought and deployed to keep women in defined roles and spaces. Catholic teachings and practices are taken as a case of analysis to unearth the political dynamics by which religion reinforces ‘gendering –women’s exclusion from theological knowledge making spaces and the gendered religious indoctrination which become hegemonic codes that shape women’s consciousness and keep them without grievance in their subjugated status. It shows further how female body and sexuality are major sites of religious gender politics through the strict controls on women’s dress-codes and the sexual servicing expected of them in marriage. Finally, the paper advocates critical thought as a tool for exploding the hardened rock of gendered religious foundations and shows how overcoming the contradictory consciousness and waking up to a critical consciousness becomes imperative for women to be freed of the gender dictates of religion. Key words : gender, religion, theological knowledge-making, sexuality, critical consciusness