Paper short abstract:

Does South Asia have a recognizable history of similarly construed expectations of ritual efficacy with respect to possession and healing practice? This will be addressed utilizing classical and pre-modern (largely Sanskrit) texts, and compare these findings with what we see in modern India.

Paper long abstract:

What is known from classical healing ritual in South Asia, particularly with respect to possession, and what is expected from it? From our reading of explicitly medical and generally non-medical texts, what is at variance with the knowledge and expectations of an individual undergoing healing ritual in modern India, and can we read a discernible history into it? Most of the medical and anthropological literature today pays little (if any) regard to the possibility of such a history. What I hope to do is contextualize present-day experience by examining it in relation to descriptions found inclassical Indian medical texts, the great Indian epic (Mahābhārata), and pre-modern (15th-tth c.) texts on yoga and medicine, the latter of which present a somewhat different perspective from what is found in earlier periods. This is not to argue that these texts influenced popular perceptions or notions of ritual healing except in a secondary or tertiary manner; I am not attempting to construct a top-down argument. But I would like to inquire into the expectation of ritual efficacy as a cultural phenomenon with deep roots.