Paper short abstract:

The idea of deification is a commonplace in South Asia as elsewhere. But how should we characterise deification? The paper approaches deification through three dimensions, all of which can be understood as interrelated: emotions, emotional community and material culture.

Paper long abstract:

The idea of deification is a commonplace in religion and is not therefore restricted to the Hindu realm. But how should we characterise deification in the sense of a human becoming a god? Deification in the area of study that the paper is concerned with is reflected in oral tradition, performing arts, social practices, rituals, festive events, and forms of knowledge. It is a living idea, both traditional and contemporary at the same time, which has found different strategies to survive in a globalised world. One prominent example of the powerful influence of deification is in the field of healing and counselling.

The paper will seek to identify problems to which deification offers or contributes to a solution. It will further ask: What role do emotions and materiality play in deification? And how do deification, materiality, and emotions influence and affect one another? Faced with such questions relating to the popular Hindu realm, the paper aims to show the interpretative potential of emotions and material culture and how the two perspectives illuminate and communicate an essential message of deification.

Paper short abstract:

The Rg-Vedic hymn to Vasistha is the oldest Indian case of a formal divinization, germ of a tradition whose flowering would characterize classical Hinduism. Vasistha became a star but came too early to graduate to full Hindu godhood.

Paper long abstract:

In Indian literature, the hymn to Vasistha in Rg Veda 7:33 is the oldest attested case of a formal divinization. It literally shows the germ of a tradition whose flowering would characterize classical Hinduism. Vasistha himself came too early to graduate to full godhood as understood in classical Hinduism, i.e. as an object of temple worship. However, he earned a place in heaven and thereby enjoyed the original Pagan form of divinization, cfr. Greece and Ugarit. He got identified with the star Mizar in the Saptarsi constellation (his wife Arundhati with its twin star Alcor, symbolizing the marriage ideal). Vasistha would remain a remarkable mythological figure around whom stories were woven in the epics, the Puranas and the astrological classics. His legendary ownership of the wish-fulfilling cow forms a link between an ancient Indo-European theme (cfr. the Germanic cow Audhumla) and the very Indian divinization of the cow. Though there is no indication that Rama's guru was the same person (Vasistha came to serve as a family name), the rsi's aura certainly attaches to the guru, making him also the central character of a medieval yoga classic, the Yoga Vasistha. We will show that effective divinization was not yet part of the Vedic worldview and belongs to the revolution that generated classical Hinduism with its temples, inviolable cows, belief in reincarnation and celebration of celibate monkhood.

Paper short abstract:

Focusing on the earliest texts of the Tamiḻ Śaiva philosophical tradition—the twelfth-century Tiruvuntiyār and Tirukkaḷiṟṟuppaṭiyār—this paper examines the conceptual and poetic shift in speaking about Śiva from the first text to the second in light of the evolving practices of temple Śaivism.

Paper long abstract:

Focusing on the two earliest texts of the Tamiḻ philosophical tradition known as the Śaiva Siddhānta (Tamiḻ caivacittāntam)—the twelfth-century Tiruvuntiyār and Tirukkaḷiṟṟuppaṭiyār—this paper examines the profound conceptual and poetic shift in ways of speaking about Śiva from the first text to the second, particularly in light of the evolving practices of temple Śaivism during this period. While the Tiruvuntiyār poetically frames its theology by envisioning Śiva playing a game akin to badminton with his devotees—the second and third line of each stanza end with the joyful refrain to the shuttlecock and devotee to "rise up and fly" (untī paṟa)—the later Tirukkaḷiṟṟuppaṭiyār appears to retreat altogether from further consideration of Śiva's divine play or līlā (Tamiḻ viḷaiyātal). Rather, the text envisions its lord as ultimate teacher or guru: beyond play, beyond words, beyond any human conceptualization. Philosophical speculation in the Tiruvuntiyār presents itself as an emotion-laden, experiential exercise, a discourse not of truth-statements but of imperatives to think, to see, to engage in the game of the lord and thus fly upward to his heaven. In the Tirukkaḷiṟṟuppaṭiyār, the call is instead to sober reflection on the distance between devotee and lord, and the critical role of the teacher in bridging that distance. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which these two texts—and the theological distance between them—shed new light on the development of ritual practices, institutions, and patterns of patronage in the twelfth-century Tamiḻ-speaking region.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines a number of abducted-male scenarios in the myths of the adult Krishna and his male relatives of the Vrishni clan. Here, forms of sexual aggression configure Krishna and his kin both as gods enacting a divine plan and as virile males establishing and defending a patriline.

Paper long abstract:

South Asia's most beloved tale revolves around an abducted female and the war fought to recover her. Sita's seizure, captivity and rescue in the Ramayana have proven to be an inexhaustible fount of inspiration for the arts of South Asia, not least on account of the social and sexual values at stake in its narrative. Less famous, however, is the image of the abducted and captive male. This paper examines a number of abducted-male scenarios which form a pattern in the myths of the adult Krishna and the male relatives of his Vrishni clan: his father Vasudeva, brothers Samkarshana and Gada, sons Pradyumna and Samba and grandson Aniruddha. All of these figures participate in a larger mythic framework of divine descent and incarnation which maps divine identities onto the heroes, all of them nonetheless taking birth within and defining a human vamsha or lineage on earth. In the Vrishni captive-male narratives of the Mahabharata and Harivamsha and their appendices, and subsequently retold in various Sanskrit Puranas and kavya works, a set of inversions of sexual aggression and "conquest" function to configure Krishna and his kin both as gods enacting a divine plan and as virile males establishing and defending a patriline. The "abducted male" motif thus partakes of a popular and powerful dynamic widely recognized in brahminical myth and storytelling, but is deployed, I argue, in a unique way by those seeking to define the divinity and humanity of Krishna and his Vrishni fellows.

Paper short abstract:

Siva and Dharma cults in 18th century Bengal reflect how agricultural mass constructed their divine. Mangal-kabya texts, and painful Gajan rituals and ceremony showed how change in land settlement was manifested in the imagination, characterization and worship of the divine.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will discuss origin and genesis of Siva and Dharma cults in 18th century Bengal. I will discuss the nature of worshipping , social composition of worshippers, their religious ideology , difference with Brahmanical order .I intend to explore the link between change in land settlement, (Mal-zamini system ) and religious imagination of agricultural mass and "degraded" communities . Discussion will be based on Mangal-kabya religious texts, and Gajan ritual.

This study will be contextualized in early18th century Bengal which was systematizing and regularizing land revenue extraction and brought a new land settlement, highly hierarchical in character. This period experienced expansion of agricultural frontier, in forest and waste lands. The tillers were subjected to torture and exploitation by landed hierarchies for more revenue. Tribals, marginal of village society were used as labourers in expanded agricultural tracts. A simultaneous attempt by Hinduism of shaping and changing the religious philosophy of marginal people was reflected in Mangal-kabyas, written by Brahmins.

Construction of divine by toiling mass was reflected in Gajan, which emphasized on pain, imitating landlord's coercion. Main theme of Songs and enactments of Gajan were - Siva's cultivation, and his household. Siva was conceptualized as beggar turned lazy peasant and Dharma, a benevolent king, healer of wounds. Gajan reflected the philosophy of the marginal, which Brahmanism couldn't change.

Paper short abstract:

This paper proposes to reflect on the nature of the self (its emotion and consciousness) that is constituted in the processes of possession rituals in Tamil Nadu, South India.

Paper long abstract:

The request that deities (or/and demons) dance and incorporate themselves in human bodies is the basic goal of many of the rituals (exorcism, sacrifice and so on) I have documented in rural Tamil Nadu (South India) since 1990. Trance-possession becomes the means by which ritual participants assimilate these good (and bad entities) into their persons. "Who are you?" is the question that is then asked of the possessing powers. The question belongs to the world of public, external, and fixed identities, and eventually "dancing" gods (and demons) do reveal who they are and what they know, think, feel, and want. Communicating through the voice of their human mediums, they prove to be "persons" one can know, argue with, and urge to stay or scram. This paper proposes to reflect on the nature of the self (its emotion and consciousness) that is constituted in the processes of Tamil possession rituals. It documents how the fusion of cosmology (possessor) and psychology (possessed) effected by means of trance results in a complexification, or "enlargement" of the gods (and demons), but a simplification, or reduction, of their human hosts. It argues that the appropriation of fixed or typical, even archetypal, names and identities is the culmination of Tamil rituals of spirit possession, their raison d'être.

Paper short abstract:

The Garo community religion, generally perceived as a religious tradition in its own right, encompasses a broad array of divinatory techniques. The most important of these serve to identify causes of illness. What are sources of authority that these techniques cater to?

Paper long abstract:

Divinatory techniques are an important element of the community religion of the Garo of upland Northeast India. For Songsarek, the followers of this community religion, illnesses can have many causes. The most 'traditional' of these are unseen entities, mostly deities, who have an inclination to deplete people of their life force. In addition, illness can have causes that are apparently a spill over from adjacent ideological domains, such as 'Hindu' evil spirits, or a 'Christian' disease such as pneumonia. Among Garo, religious conversions to Christianity are common, and most Songsarek Garo live in environments that have a strong Christian presence. Historically and currently, Hinduism and Islam are sources of religious inspiration as well. The Garo community religion lacks professional religious specialists. Perhaps consequently, the techniques that it provides are open to eliciting whatever unseen entities present themselves, and not limited to those that belong to the Songsarek realm. Rather than legitimizing the divine, the diagnostic practices that I am focusing on in my paper have an inherent openness to elicit various sources of spiritual, ghostly, demoniac or divine power. I am proceeding from video recordings of a divination that I have made during ethnographic fieldwork. I explore and contextualize the event filmed, and show that the analysis of divinatory techniques can provide valuable insights in the changing religious landscape of the region concerned.

Paper short abstract:

The living goddess Kumari, as a form of the tutelary deity of Malla kings, played a legitimating role for the Nepalese monarchy. A case that brought the Kumari before the court emphasized the humanity and the rights of the child. What is left of her divine status and role in the secular republic?

Paper long abstract:

Worshipping virgin girls as the goddess Kumari has long been symbolically central to the culture of Newars of the Kathmandu valley, Nepal. This cult has also served to legitimating Hindu kings: mythological accounts relate the origin of Kumari as a form taken by Taleju, the tutelary deity of the ancient Malla kings, to maintain a relationship with the king. This relationship was appropriated by the subsequent Shah dynasty. Despite the demise of Shah monarchy in 2006, the Kumari did not lose her status under the new secular republic: since 2009, the Kumari has regularly blessed the President during her main festival. The Kumari tradition is challenged by modernization and secularisation, and in 2005 was confronted by a petition from a human rights lawyer, who brought Kumari before the court as a human child deprived of her rights. The verdict in 2008 gave primacy to legally defined human rights over traditional divine status. The paper will respond to the question whether Kumari has lost her status as a powerful goddess after this case and will show how her divine nature has been negotiated inside and outside the court.

Paper short abstract:

In Northwest India the worship of young girls as goddesses is widespread. The paper will describe and analyze the various forms of this ritual, known as kanyā pūjā, in Himachal Pradesh focussing especially on the fact that the divinization of the girls is only temporary.

Paper long abstract:

In Hinduism there is no clear dividing line between the divine and the human realms. Gods may be imagined as humans and humans may be deified and worshipped like gods. Most widespread is the divinization of ancestors, including satīs, but living persons, too, may be treated as divine beings; pertinent examples are gurus or persons believed to be possessed by a deity.

Another example which will be discussed here seems to be the worship of young girls who are said to embody a goddess. In Northwest India this ritual act is known as kanyā pūjā. A public version is to be found at goddess temples where small unmarried girls (kanyās) hold themselves ready on festival days to be worshipped as devīs by visitors, that is receive sweets, coins and other items and have their feet touched. Kanyā pūjās in private settings are usually much more elaborate; they are performed for instance at the opening of a new house or at the conclusion of the navaratras rites whereby up to nine girls, representing the nine goddesses, may be honoured.

The paper will describe and analyze the various forms of kanyā pūjā as observed by the author in the Southern part of Himachal Pradesh focussing especially on the fact that the divinization of the kanyās is not permanent. They seem to be only temporary embodiments of goddesses, devīs "on demand".

Paper short abstract:

This paper studies the conceptualization of the divine in Radhasoami and seeks to explore divinization in this tradition, as represented by the notion of guru-bhakti and by elements of Radhasoami religiosity.

Paper long abstract:

This paper studies the conceptualization of the divine in Radhasoami and seeks to explore divinization in this tradition, as represented by the notion of guru-bhakti and by elements of Radhasoami religiosity which invite the devotee to long for the sacred sight of the guru and encourage followers to mediate on him.

The Radhasoami is a reform movement that originates in India at the end of the nineteenth-century. It challenges and transcends orthodox Hinduism by rejecting the caste system and endorsing women's education. The Radhasoamis see their tradition as the perfect manifestation of Sant mat (the teachings of the Sants) and consider themselves a part of the Sant parampara, the nirguna bhakti tradition of Sant poets such as Kabir and Nanak. They believe in one non-manifest formless God, in the supremacy of the guru and in the spiritual community of the sants, the satsang. Similar to the other sants, the Radhasoamis see external forms of ritual and murti (image) worship as irrelevant. However, their teachings require that a guru be alive and present for the devotee, and they regard the living guru as an incarnate form of the Absolute. The devotees long for the darshana of their guru and they believe that it has healing powers. Moreover, the disciples are encouraged to direct their loving devotion to the guru. Thus, Radhasoami can be seen as guru-bhakti. Thus, we may state that the 'saguna' form of the divinized human guru seems to compensate for the 'nirguna' form of the divine.

Paper short abstract:

This paper attempts to understand the divinization process of Sree Narayana Guru (1856-1928) in Kerala and highlight socioreligious efficacy from bhakti perspective.

Paper long abstract:

Sree Narayana Guru (1856-1928), a member of the Izhava caste (a lower caste), and a product of colonial time period in Kerala, critiqued and refuted some of the customary practices within the caste oriented society of early twentieth century Kerala and pioneered socioreligious reform movement. In 1903, he founded the Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), based on his manifesto, "One caste, one religion, one God for mankind." Guru moved away from ritual worship of Hindu deities as he established a mirror, symbolic of self-reflection, and a lighted lamp signifying illumination, in two temples, respectively. Though, he himself taught the significance of self-realization and consciousness and dissuaded image worship of Hindu deities, by the late twentieth century, people in the community recognized him as a spiritual and social leader as he becomes the object of reverence and common pride. More significantly, he was deified and worshiped (and still is worshiped) throughout Kerala.

Based on field work in Kerala, hagiographies, and historiographies, this paper engages and suggests possible answers to the following questions: (1) What factors contributed towards the divinization process of Guru and does it legitimize the social, religious, and political identity of Izhavas in contemporary Kerala? (2) What types of rituals are performed for Guru and how do his devotees perceive him? (3) What insights from such divinization process of the Guru can aid in our understanding religious pragmatism among Izhavas and does it reinforce aspects of medieval bhakti saints in India?

Paper short abstract:

Through a close reading of the Ramakatha tradition and its re-visioning by Muslim writers in recent times, this paper locates divinization of Rama in narratives which exist in a state of constant negotiation or tension with the brand of Hinduism scripted under Hindutva ideology..

Paper long abstract:

During the 1980s, Rama, from the pantheon of Hindu gods, was chosen as the presiding deity of Hindutva politics and an imagined Hindu community in India. In contrast to the large body of scholarship on Hindu nationalism and the appropriation of Rama by Hindutva politics, this paper is an attempt to locate divinization of Rama in narratives which exist in a state of constant negotiation or tension with the brand of Hinduism scripted under Hindutva ideology. Specifically through a close reading of the Ramakatha tradition and its re-visioning by Muslim writers in recent times, this paper elucidates the aporias of Hindu-Muslim divide within the context of communal politics in contemporary India. I argue that these writers posit alternative modes of Rama Bhakti and, in the process, decenter conceptions of an exclusionary Hindu community. These contemporary Ramakathas illustrate how Bhakti is already contaminated with the presence of the other in the affective relationship between devotees and God, and how the community that arises from this communion between the human and divine always demands the erasure of self. By locating Ramakathas in the interstices of Bhakti and Sufi tradition, these writers highlight the role of Islamic religiosity in the formation of Bhakti movement and the futility of corporeal violence in getting rid of this epistemic contamination.