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.