- Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Geografiche e dell’Antichità (DiSSGeA)
Università degli Studi di Padova
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MA programme in Religious Studies: an academic partnership between the University of Padua (Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and the Ancient World ) and the Ca'Foscari University of Venice (Department of Asian and North... more
MA programme in Religious Studies: an academic partnership between the University of Padua (Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and the Ancient World ) and the Ca'Foscari University of Venice (Department of Asian and North African Studies).
Research Interests: Christianity, Hinduism, Comparative Religion, Arabic Language and Linguistics, Chinese Religions, and 15 moreShamanism, Sanskrit, Islamic Studies, Old Norse Language, Latin Language, Judaism, Biblical Hebrew (Languages And Linguistics), Religious Studies, Ancient Greek Language, Syriac, Classical Tibetan Language, Religions of Japan, Anthropology of Religion, Classical Japanese Language, and classical chinese language
Laurea magistrale interateneo: Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Geografiche e dell'Antichità (DiSSGeA), Università degli Studi di Padova e Dipartimento di Studi sull'Asia e sull'Africa Mediterranea (DSAAM), Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia.
Research Interests: Storia delle Religioni, Ebraismo, Alchimia, Magia, Storia del cristianesimo, and 11 moreStoria della medicina, Sciamanesimo, Religioni Del Mondo Classico, Buddismo, Induismo, Buddhismo, Antropologia Delle Religioni, Filosofia islamica, Storia dell'Islam, religioni della Cina, and Religioni del Giappone
«Ogni viaggio è la negazione della precedente visione del mondo come della sua geografia fisica e umana» — afferma Paolo Scarpi in La fuga e il ritorno. Il presente volume intende esserne testimone, attraversando epoche e mondi, i più... more
«Ogni viaggio è la negazione della precedente visione del mondo come della sua geografia fisica e umana» — afferma Paolo Scarpi in La fuga e il ritorno. Il presente volume intende esserne testimone, attraversando epoche e mondi, i più diversi, per ripensare il presente e le sue traiettorie, ripercorrendone miti e storie. Gli autori dei saggi rendono omaggio al settantesimo compleanno di Paolo Scarpi, testimoniando le tracce dei suoi itinerari di ricerca in amici, allievi e colleghi: storici delle religioni, antropologi e sociologi, archeologi e indologi, sinologi e classicisti, iamatologi e filosofi, che hanno avuto con lui l’occasione di percorrere rotte interdisciplinari.
Soulless Matter, Seats of Energy: Metals, Gems and Minerals in South Asian Traditions investigates the way in which Indian culture has represented inorganic matter and geological formations such as mountains and the earth itself. The... more
Soulless Matter, Seats of Energy: Metals, Gems and Minerals in South Asian Traditions investigates the way in which Indian culture has represented inorganic matter and geological formations such as mountains and the earth itself. The volume is divided into four sections, each discussing from different angles the manifold dimensions occupied by minerals, gems and metals in traditions such as Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. The various chapters offer a rigorous analysis of a variety of texts from different South Asian regions from a range of perspectives such as history, philology, philosophy, hermeneutics and ethnography. The themes discussed include literature (myth and epics), ritual, ethics, folklore, and sciences such as astrology, medicine, alchemy and cosmetics.
The volume critically reflects on the concept of “inanimate world” and shows how Indian traditions have variously interpreted the concept of embodied life and lifelessness. Ranging from worldviews and disciplines which regard metals, minerals, gems as alive, sentient or inhabited by divine presences and powers to ideas which deny matter possesses life and sentience, the Indian Subcontinent proves to be a challenge for taxonomic investigations but at the same time provides historians of religions and philosophers with stimulating material.
The volume critically reflects on the concept of “inanimate world” and shows how Indian traditions have variously interpreted the concept of embodied life and lifelessness. Ranging from worldviews and disciplines which regard metals, minerals, gems as alive, sentient or inhabited by divine presences and powers to ideas which deny matter possesses life and sentience, the Indian Subcontinent proves to be a challenge for taxonomic investigations but at the same time provides historians of religions and philosophers with stimulating material.
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Plant life has figured prominently in Indian culture. Archaeobotanical findings and Vedic texts confirm that plants have been central not only as a commodity (sources of food; materia medica; sacrificial matter; etc.) but also as powerful... more
Plant life has figured prominently in Indian culture. Archaeobotanical findings and Vedic texts confirm that plants have been central not only as a commodity (sources of food; materia medica; sacrificial matter; etc.) but also as powerful and enduring symbols. Roots of Wisdom, Branches of Devotion: Plant Life in South Asian Traditions explores how herbs, trees, shrubs, flowers and vegetables have been studied, classified, represented and discussed in a variety of Indian traditions such as Vedism, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, indigenous cultures and Islam. Moving from an analysis of the sentience of plants in early Indian philosophies and scientific literature, the various chapters, divided in four thematic sections, explore Indian flora within devotional and mystic literature (bhakti and Sufism), mythological, ritual and sacrificial culture, folklore, medicine, perfumery, botany, floriculture and agriculture. Arboreal and floral motifs are also discussed as an expression of Indian aesthetics since early coinage to figurative arts and literary figures. Finally, the volume reflects current discourses on environmentalism and ecology as well as on the place of indigenous flora as part of an ancient yet still very much alive sacred geography.
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This volume examines notions of health and illness in North Indian devotional culture, with particular attention paid to the worship of the goddess Sitala, the Cold Lady. Consistently portrayed in colonial and postcolonial literature as... more
This volume examines notions of health and illness in North Indian devotional culture, with particular attention paid to the worship of the goddess Sitala, the Cold Lady. Consistently portrayed in colonial and postcolonial literature as the ambiguous 'smallpox goddess', Sitala is here discussed as a protector of children and women, a portrayal that emerges from textual sources as well as material culture.
The eradication of smallpox did not pose a threat to Sitala and her worship. She continues to be an extremely popular goddess. Religion, Devotion and Medicine in North India critically examines the rise and affirmation of the 'smallpox myth' in India and beyond, and explains how Indian narratives, ritual texts and devotional songs have celebrated Sitala as a loving mother who protects her children from the effects, and the fear, of poxes, fevers and infantile disorders but also all sorts of new threats (such as global pandemics, addictions and environmental catastrophes). The book explores a wide range of ritual and devotional practices, including scheduled festivals, songs, vows, pageants, austerities, possession, animal sacrifices and various forms of offering.
Built on extensive fieldwork and a close textual analysis of sources in Sanskrit and vernacular languages (Hindi, Bhojpuri and Bengali) as well as on a rich bibliography on the struggle against smallpox in colonial and post-colonial India, the book reflects on the ambiguous nature of Sitala as a phenomenon largely dependent on the enduring fascination with the exotic, and the horrific, that has pervaded public renditions of Indian culture in indigenous fiction, colonial reports, medical literature and now global culture.
The eradication of smallpox did not pose a threat to Sitala and her worship. She continues to be an extremely popular goddess. Religion, Devotion and Medicine in North India critically examines the rise and affirmation of the 'smallpox myth' in India and beyond, and explains how Indian narratives, ritual texts and devotional songs have celebrated Sitala as a loving mother who protects her children from the effects, and the fear, of poxes, fevers and infantile disorders but also all sorts of new threats (such as global pandemics, addictions and environmental catastrophes). The book explores a wide range of ritual and devotional practices, including scheduled festivals, songs, vows, pageants, austerities, possession, animal sacrifices and various forms of offering.
Built on extensive fieldwork and a close textual analysis of sources in Sanskrit and vernacular languages (Hindi, Bhojpuri and Bengali) as well as on a rich bibliography on the struggle against smallpox in colonial and post-colonial India, the book reflects on the ambiguous nature of Sitala as a phenomenon largely dependent on the enduring fascination with the exotic, and the horrific, that has pervaded public renditions of Indian culture in indigenous fiction, colonial reports, medical literature and now global culture.
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"Discussions on non-human animals, other-than-human persons and religion originally emerged within the context of Christian theology, eco-theology and Western-based environmentalism. In response to that, and by adhering to post-modern... more
"Discussions on non-human animals, other-than-human persons and religion originally emerged within the context of Christian theology, eco-theology and Western-based environmentalism. In response to that, and by adhering to post-modern discourses on, for instance, indigeneity, mimicry and hybridity, the volume explores South Asian cultural manifestations and aspects of localised knowledge in relation to the construction and the Otherisation of the concept of body and behaviour in non-human animals. The study of non-human animals as other-than-human persons (actual animals, but also animal-spirits, animal deities, etc.) has marked a significant shift in the ethics/politics of the academic study of religion. The chapters in this book investigate how South Asian religions, with their sacred narratives, ritualised practices and popular performances, bear witness to the active presence of non-human animals as both culture makers/bearers and symbols of spirituality. Further to that, with bourgeoning debates on religion, indigeneity, eco-theology and environmentalism, the volume urges for a consolidation and promotion of an analysis of the twofold epistemic violence exerted towards animals as subaltern to human animals and to animals in Western and Christian traditions.
The book is divided into fifteen chapters, each dealing with non-human animals and the concept of animality in different South Asian traditions, or various aspects of the same tradition. The structure of the book reflects that of what is probably the most popular collection of folk tales on animals in South Asia, the Pañcatantra. Like the original text, the volume is divided into five books (tantras) whose single stories (our chapters) act as sub-strings inscribed in larger narrative frames. As in the original Pañcatantra, the principal themes of each book are signalled by key words which provide the link between successive narrative cycles. Such a structural arrangement creates the backbone for the main body of the book allowing for an articulate, clear and reasoned discussion of single themes, such as 1) non-human animals as divine portents in situations of imbalance; 2) non-human animals as restorers of order and symbols of cultural identity; 3) non-human animals as exemplary beings and spiritual teachers in sacred narratives; 4) non-human animals as symbols of love and object of human reverence; 5) non-human animals as portents symbolising the life cycle, including its inevitable end."
The book is divided into fifteen chapters, each dealing with non-human animals and the concept of animality in different South Asian traditions, or various aspects of the same tradition. The structure of the book reflects that of what is probably the most popular collection of folk tales on animals in South Asia, the Pañcatantra. Like the original text, the volume is divided into five books (tantras) whose single stories (our chapters) act as sub-strings inscribed in larger narrative frames. As in the original Pañcatantra, the principal themes of each book are signalled by key words which provide the link between successive narrative cycles. Such a structural arrangement creates the backbone for the main body of the book allowing for an articulate, clear and reasoned discussion of single themes, such as 1) non-human animals as divine portents in situations of imbalance; 2) non-human animals as restorers of order and symbols of cultural identity; 3) non-human animals as exemplary beings and spiritual teachers in sacred narratives; 4) non-human animals as symbols of love and object of human reverence; 5) non-human animals as portents symbolising the life cycle, including its inevitable end."
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""Ernesto de Martino was a major critical thinker in the study of vernacular religions, producing innovative analyses of key concepts such as ‘folklore’, ‘magic’ and ‘ritual’. His methodology stemmed from his training under the... more
""Ernesto de Martino was a major critical thinker in the study of vernacular religions, producing innovative analyses of key concepts such as ‘folklore’, ‘magic’ and ‘ritual’. His methodology stemmed from his training under the philosopher Benedetto Croce whilst his philosophical approach to anthropology borrowed from Marx and Gramsci.
Widely celebrated in continental Europe, de Martino’s contribution to the study of religion has not been fully understood in the Anglophone world though some of his works - Primitive Magic: the Psychic Powers of Shamans and Sorcerers and The Land of Remorse: a Study of Southern Italian Tarantism - have been translated.
This volume presents a comprehensive overview of de Martino’s life and work, the thinkers and theories which informed his writings, his contribution to the study of religions and the potential of his methodology for contemporary scholarship.""
Widely celebrated in continental Europe, de Martino’s contribution to the study of religion has not been fully understood in the Anglophone world though some of his works - Primitive Magic: the Psychic Powers of Shamans and Sorcerers and The Land of Remorse: a Study of Southern Italian Tarantism - have been translated.
This volume presents a comprehensive overview of de Martino’s life and work, the thinkers and theories which informed his writings, his contribution to the study of religions and the potential of his methodology for contemporary scholarship.""
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Drawing on original fieldwork, this book develops a fresh methodological approach to the study of indigenous understandings of disease as possession, and looks at healing rituals in different South Asian cultural contexts. Contributors... more
Drawing on original fieldwork, this book develops a fresh methodological approach to the study of indigenous understandings of disease as possession, and looks at healing rituals in different South Asian cultural contexts. Contributors discuss the meaning of “disease”, “possession” and “healing” in relation to South Asian religions, including Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Sikhism, and how South Asians deal with the divine in order to negotiate health and wellbeing.
The book goes on to look at goddesses, gods and spirits as a cause and remedy of a variety of diseases, a study that has proved significant to the ethics and politics of responding to health issues. It contributes to a consolidation and promotion of indigenous ways as a method of understanding physical and mental imbalances through diverse conceptions of the divine. Chapters offer a fascinating overview of healing rituals in South Asia and provide a full- length, sustained discussion of the interface between religion, ritual and folklore. The book presents a fresh insight into studies of Asian Religion and the History of Medicine.
The book goes on to look at goddesses, gods and spirits as a cause and remedy of a variety of diseases, a study that has proved significant to the ethics and politics of responding to health issues. It contributes to a consolidation and promotion of indigenous ways as a method of understanding physical and mental imbalances through diverse conceptions of the divine. Chapters offer a fascinating overview of healing rituals in South Asia and provide a full- length, sustained discussion of the interface between religion, ritual and folklore. The book presents a fresh insight into studies of Asian Religion and the History of Medicine.
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Guilty Males and Proud Females is the first complete study on the Bengali gajan festival dedicated to Dharmaraj, a village god in the Rarh region of Bengal. The gajan is the dramatic representation of the marriage of a god and goddess,... more
Guilty Males and Proud Females is the first complete study on the Bengali gajan festival dedicated to Dharmaraj, a village god in the Rarh region of Bengal. The gajan is the dramatic representation of the marriage of a god and goddess, and the recreation of the life-cycle of earth. As Fabrizio Ferrari explains one of the most fascinating aspects of the gajan is its approach to gender. The central deity of the gajan is a goddess identified with the earth. To please such a goddess, male devotees must acknowledge the pain they inflict towards the female world and become “ritual women.” Conversely, as part of the festival, women display their generative power and provoke the jealousy of men by ritually mocking conception and delivery. The outcome of the ritual is that their suffering is acknowledged and transformed into power.
Much more than an ethnography of Bengali popular religion, Guilty Males and Proud Females contributes to new studies on gender transformation in the Bengal region and will be of interest to scholars of South Asian religions, folklore, and gender studies
Much more than an ethnography of Bengali popular religion, Guilty Males and Proud Females contributes to new studies on gender transformation in the Bengal region and will be of interest to scholars of South Asian religions, folklore, and gender studies
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Simbolo vivente della religiosità popolare del Bengala, i baul manifestano attraverso i loro canti il desiderio di unione con l'Assoluto che esiste innato in ogni uomo. Essi sono cantori mistici di provenienza sia hindu che musulmana e il... more
Simbolo vivente della religiosità popolare del Bengala, i baul manifestano attraverso i loro canti il desiderio di unione con l'Assoluto che esiste innato in ogni uomo. Essi sono cantori mistici di provenienza sia hindu che musulmana e il loro percorso spirituale è improntato su una filosofia non dualista che affonda le sue radici nelle tre maggiori religioni indiane (induismo, buddhismo e Islam) e nelle scuole esoteriche ad esse collegate. Influenzati dalla produzione lirica propria del sufismo e delle correnti devozionali visnuite, i baul hanno prodotto (e continuano a produrre) mirabili esempi di poesia mistica popolare attraverso l'uso di delicate immagini poetiche.
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The article examines maṛā khelā («playing with corpses»), a ritual dance which signals the end of the Gājan, a major festival of northeastern India. The tradition, which seems limited to a cluster of villages in Pūrba Bardhamān, is... more
The article examines maṛā khelā («playing with corpses»), a ritual dance which signals the end of the Gājan, a major festival of northeastern India. The tradition, which seems limited to a cluster of villages in Pūrba Bardhamān, is dedicated to the gods Dharmarāj or Śiva and requires devotees to dance and play with human heads or with the bodies of children on occasion of the end of the agricultural year and the beginning of Spring. The study is based on an ethnography of maṛā khelā and an analysis of texts in Middle-Bengali. “Playing with corpses” – and more generally the Gājan – is here discussed as a form of Indian Carnival featured by ritual and social inversion. This reading, which moves from a theoretical model applied to the analysis of the crowd in mass festivals, allows a rereading of the Gājan from a little-know, and problematic, ritual performance.
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Ricostruire il lessico anatomico dei testi vedici si rivela un lavoro frustrante. Salvo poche eccezioni, trovare esatte corrispondenze tra il vocabolario utilizzato nel corpus vedico e la terminologia anatomica corrente è spesso... more
Ricostruire il lessico anatomico dei testi vedici si rivela un lavoro frustrante. Salvo poche eccezioni, trovare esatte corrispondenze tra il vocabolario utilizzato nel corpus vedico e la terminologia anatomica corrente è spesso impossibile. Il cuore, e la regione cardiaca in generale, sembra meno problematico dal punto di vista filologico. Ciò nonostante, lo studio delle “malattie cardiache”, vagamente raggruppate sotto i sostantivi hṛdrogá e hṛddyotá, presenta grossi problemi interpretativi. In questo articolo discuteremo come l’infarto acuto del miocardio possa essere riscontrato in almeno un inno dell’Atharvaveda, facendone così una delle fonti più antiche in relazione a tale cardiopatia. Oltre al dato storico, proporremo una riconsiderazione dell’esorcismo vedico come un esercizio nosologico definito da una logica rituale interna e da una grammatica legata a canoni poetici e ideologici, anziché come un mero tentativo di raggruppare una serie di sintomi apparentemente senza connessione alcuna.
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In this article, I will examine the myth of the origin of rice (dhānyer janma) in the texts attributed to Rāmāi Paṇḍit, the first priest of the Bengali god Dharmarāj. The myth, which features a form of Śiva as a ploughing god (kr̥ṣak... more
In this article, I will examine the myth of the origin of rice (dhānyer janma) in the texts attributed to Rāmāi Paṇḍit, the first priest of the Bengali god Dharmarāj. The myth, which features a form of Śiva as a ploughing god (kr̥ṣak debatā), has long been considered a late interpolation following the spread of the Bengali śaiva culture. In fact, the śaiva (nāth) element is earlier than Dharmarāj mythology and, with all probability, originated in eastern Bengal. This thesis will be discussed along a cross-examination Dharmaite literature, Bengali Nāth texts, epigraphic sources, and a historical study of the hydrogeological shift of the Bengal river complexes. In so doing, the paper offers a unique perspective to appreciate forms of mythopoesis and the dynamics of circulation of narratives and rituals in medieval Bengal with respect to agricultural knowledge and the biodiversity inherent to Bengali cereal culture.
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The paper examines how Indian religions have adapted vis-à-vis the insurgence of new pandemics. Moving from a historical reconstruction of the spread of cholera in the Indian Subcontient and an analysis of the rise of Olā Bibi, the... more
The paper examines how Indian religions have adapted vis-à-vis the insurgence of new pandemics. Moving from a historical reconstruction of the spread of cholera in the Indian Subcontient and an analysis of the rise of Olā Bibi, the Bengali goddess who protects from cholera, I discuss ritual, mythological and iconographic features amidst colonialism and indigenous medical systems. The study of Olā Bibi is of the utmost importance in that it gives voice to concerns and expectations of both Bengali Hindus and Muslims, and it appears to be the last documented case of a goddess born in time of emergency. The paper then moves to discuss AIDS-amma and Koronā-mātā, the goddesses respectively in charge of HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. In both cases, as it will be explained, technology and globalisation impact heavily on the stratification of myth and the definition of ritual practice, and eventually prove how the processes required by mythologisation are challenged by the capillary dissemination of scientific knowledge.
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This review starts describing traditional Mediterranean, Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine systems. Then, the “psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology” paradigm is examined and reasons for its increasing popularity in biological and medical... more
This review starts describing traditional Mediterranean, Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine systems. Then, the “psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology” paradigm is examined and reasons for its increasing popularity in biological and medical scientific sciences. In particular, we focus on how this paradigm helps to understand and integrate in a modern view some seminal observations and symbolic languages from the past. Thanks to current technological possibilities, the future challenge will be to conduct medical and biological forefront research, able to successfully integrate traditional medicine into the newest therapeutic schemes. In conclusion, we propose some epistemological considerations based on different examples of therapeutic integration.
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Since the late Vedic period, forms of breath regulation (prāṇāyāma) have been adopted by several ascetic and monastic orders to control mind and body and, at the same time, to destroy diseases, guilt and sins, and eventually to achieve... more
Since the late Vedic period, forms of breath regulation (prāṇāyāma) have been adopted by several ascetic and monastic orders to control mind and body and, at the same time, to destroy diseases, guilt and sins, and eventually to achieve liberation. Despite its popularity, prāṇāyāma – which is attested in ritual, normative and philosophical texts – has been neglected in classical āyurvedic compendia. The article aims at investigating the historical reasons behind such position in light of the contemporary medicalisation of Yoga and the adoption of various forms of meditation, including breath control, within biomedical research.
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Ghaṇṭākarṇa is known as a devotee of Śiva. According to the myth narrated in Harivaṃśa, so great was his devotion that, in order to not even listen Viṣṇu's name, he hanged two huge bells (ghaṇṭā) to his ears (karṇa). The article moves... more
Ghaṇṭākarṇa is known as a devotee of Śiva. According to the myth narrated in Harivaṃśa, so great was his devotion that, in order to not even listen Viṣṇu's name, he hanged two huge bells (ghaṇṭā) to his ears (karṇa). The article moves from this narrative and reconstructs Ghaṇṭākarṇa's origins up to his development in several regional contexts (Nepal, Gujarat, Odisha, Kerala), where he is worshipped as a protector from diseases in general and skin conditions in particular. The second part of the article examines the cult of Ghaṇṭākarṇa in Bengal, where he is attested in three forms: Bhairava-type god, smallpox-destroyer, a role he fulfils along with Śītalā, and folk god deputed to the protection of children from itches and scabies. Ultimately, the parable of Ghaṇṭākarṇa , a god who in West Bengal is being absorbed into the great Śaiva tradition, permits to reflect on processes of transformation in Indian mytholdoy and ritual culture.
Research Interests: Hinduism, Ritual, Indian Mythology, India, Healing and Religion, and 5 moreIndian Medicine, Smallpox, Bengal, Healing, and Śaivism
The plant snuhī- is attested since the first centuries CE in the materia medica of early āyurvedic compendia, where it is used in preparations against a wide range of conditions. Identified with various Euphorbiaceae and commonly known in... more
The plant snuhī- is attested since the first centuries CE in the materia medica of early āyurvedic compendia, where it is used in preparations against a wide range of conditions. Identified with various Euphorbiaceae and commonly known in English as the spurge, snuhī is also described as a lesser poison (upaviṣa-) and is used in alchemical processes to purify metals. Finally, snuhī is present in the worship and mythology of a few gods and goddesses of the non-Sanskritic, or vernacular, tradition, and is employed by folk healers to develop antidotes against poisonous animals or plants. Moving from an analy- sis of the Picchilātantra, a short premodern Bengali śākta ritual manual, we shall in the following examine how snuhī (Bengali sij, siju, manasā gāch) came to be associated with the goddess Śītalā and her cohort in a way that is not confirmed by other textual evidence or current ritual praxis. The study, though based on a minor text, reflects on how scientific knowledge has informed ritual and devotional culture, and on the natural permeability of liturgical praxis in vernacular traditions.
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This chapter offers an overview of the botanical lore in Śūnyapurāṇ, a heterogeneous Bengali text attributed to Rāmāi Paṇḍit. The work celebrates the god Dharmarāj through a lengthy cosmogonic narrative and short ritual tracts, eulogies... more
This chapter offers an overview of the botanical lore in Śūnyapurāṇ, a heterogeneous Bengali text attributed to Rāmāi Paṇḍit. The work celebrates the god Dharmarāj through a lengthy cosmogonic narrative and short ritual tracts, eulogies and an array of legends drawing from Sanskrit Purāṇas and Bengali folklore. Here I analyse the place of flowers and rice in the worship of Dharmarāj. Three sections will be discussed: the plucking and offering of flowers (puṣpatolān); the birth of paddy (dhānyer janma), which includes the popular tale of the farming (kr̥ṣak) Śiva, and the auspicious song of the husking pedal (ḍheṅkīmaṅgalā).
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The paper examines the worship of the cholera goddess Olā Bibi among Muslims of Bengal. Moving from an analysis of iconographic, mythical and ritual material, I investigate how Bengali Muslims have responded to the threat of cholera from... more
The paper examines the worship of the cholera goddess Olā Bibi among Muslims of Bengal. Moving from an analysis of iconographic, mythical and ritual material, I investigate how Bengali Muslims have responded to the threat of cholera from early eighteenth century. The goddess has served as a catalyst to inform local identity and to challenge external agency in matter of disorder and social control. Yet while Bengali culture has facilitated a convergence of visions and programs in time of crisis (cholera epidemics and colonialism), the recent affirmation of militant Islamism has aggressively confronted indigenous healing practices thus causing major internal collisions in matter of community ethos, and a consequential loss of vernacular knowledge.
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Śītalā (‘the Cold One’), a mother goddess worshipped in Northern India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, is traditionally represented as a beautiful young lady riding a donkey. But the ass is a rather marginal character in both oral... more
Śītalā (‘the Cold One’), a mother goddess worshipped in Northern India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, is traditionally represented as a beautiful young lady riding a donkey. But the ass is a rather marginal character in both oral narratives and devotional/auspicious literature. Unlike the majority of divine mounts in classic and popular Hinduism, the animal has no proper name and is speechless. Vernacular and Sanskrit literatures do not indulge in descriptions, nor do they mention its gender. In brief, the donkey is an annihilated mythological character. In this article I will discuss the ass as a living symbol of illness. My analysis will examine narratives in Sanskrit and vernacular (Hindi, Bhojpuri and Bengali) texts where the ass is associated with goddesses of death, disease and misfortune. By reflecting on several years of fieldwork in India, I will then confute past and present readings of Śītalā as a ‘smallpox goddess’ and will explore the role of the ass as a metonym for illness. Rather than being disease per se, Śītalā is a controlling deity, a performance symbolically rendered through riding the ass. Besides shedding new light on the worship of an extremely popular goddess, this article eventually reflects on the origin of mechanisms of cultural blame and pollution originated at the convergence of the praxis and social behaviour of human and non-human animals (as well as other-than-human persons) in Northern India.
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Locating itself amidst current debates on post-modern analyses of mysticism, particularly academic debates on the Bauls of Bengal, this article discusses issues of cultural transformation as a result of gentrifi cation and globalisation.... more
Locating itself amidst current debates on post-modern analyses of mysticism, particularly academic debates on the Bauls of Bengal, this article discusses issues of cultural transformation as a result of gentrifi cation and globalisation. It combines the author’s ethnographic research and a methodology mainly derived from Italian Marxist critique (Antonio Gramsci, Ernesto de Martino, Antonio Negri and Paolo Virno). The article examines the reification
of mysticism and the process of ‘rehab’, as imposed by Bengali bourgeoisie via the Tagorian archetype and the Western show business on the Bauls, to cleanse their image from inconvenient traits. Suggesting an interpretation of radical materialist mystics as ‘multitude’ and viewing professional Bauls as ‘people’, this research explores how the construction of a myth has ultimately penetrated contemporary society at all levels, including academic circles.
of mysticism and the process of ‘rehab’, as imposed by Bengali bourgeoisie via the Tagorian archetype and the Western show business on the Bauls, to cleanse their image from inconvenient traits. Suggesting an interpretation of radical materialist mystics as ‘multitude’ and viewing professional Bauls as ‘people’, this research explores how the construction of a myth has ultimately penetrated contemporary society at all levels, including academic circles.
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The essential traits of the Dharma cult are grounded in the folklore of the agricultural people of Rarh (West Bengal). The annual worship of Dharma, the gajan, is here examined on a gender basis. By considering fertility as the leitmotif... more
The essential traits of the Dharma cult are grounded in the folklore of the agricultural people of Rarh (West Bengal). The annual worship of Dharma, the gajan, is here examined on a gender basis. By considering fertility as the leitmotif of the cult and Dharma worship the masculinization of an ancestral female cult, I shall focus on the presence of blood as the discriminator in ritual acts. I argue that while female devotees foster and care for the deity by virtue of their own body, men are in a position of 'guiltiness' and they must ritually become women. Thus the two intruding acts par excellence (ploughing the soil and sexual intercourse) are ritually replaced by piercing men's flesh. Self-tortures and immolation will be discussed in order to examine the gajan as the dramatic representation of the hierogamy among Bengali agricultural people.
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"The paper describes the concluding rite of the gajan, a major hierogamic celebration of West Bengal. The night before the end of the festival, ascetic devotees dance with rotten human corpses and human heads in honour of Dharma Thakur, a... more
"The paper describes the concluding rite of the gajan, a major hierogamic celebration of West Bengal. The night before the end of the festival, ascetic devotees dance with rotten human corpses and human heads in honour of Dharma Thakur, a local fertility deity. After giving a description of the ritual, I try to enlighten the relation between the fertility leitmotif of the gajan and its climax: the danse macabre (dance of death). The practice of sporting with corpses and their ritual beheading will be analysed by furnishing a psychoanalytical and cross-cultural interpretation. In order to do that, it will be suggested that the
ritual behaviour of Dharma’s devotees is due to the gender modification of the actual recipient of the service. Only if we accept that the object of worship is female (the Goddess, Dharma’s spouse), will it be possible to explain the psychical crises occurring to male devotees and their efforts to become ‘ritual women’. The paradigm of the ‘guilty male’ of agricultural societies will be further analysed by comparing the Bengali mar:a¯ khela¯ (playing with corpses) with similar practices within different cultural environments, including Sanskrit Puranic lore, Greek mythology and Italian popular Catholicism."
ritual behaviour of Dharma’s devotees is due to the gender modification of the actual recipient of the service. Only if we accept that the object of worship is female (the Goddess, Dharma’s spouse), will it be possible to explain the psychical crises occurring to male devotees and their efforts to become ‘ritual women’. The paradigm of the ‘guilty male’ of agricultural societies will be further analysed by comparing the Bengali mar:a¯ khela¯ (playing with corpses) with similar practices within different cultural environments, including Sanskrit Puranic lore, Greek mythology and Italian popular Catholicism."
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Research Interests:
"The essay, which is based on research carried out in the Rarh area of West Bengal, offers an overview of the ritual language of the Dharma Thakur cult. From the liturgical texts of Dharma-ism, namely Sunya Purana and... more
"The essay, which is based on research carried out in the Rarh
area of West Bengal, offers an overview of the ritual language of the Dharma Thakur cult. From the liturgical texts of Dharma-ism, namely Sunya Purana and Dharma-puja-vidhana, to the live religious performances, I present the evolution process of a language that has basically survived as ‘mantric’ in its purposes and meanings. Both Sunya Purana and Dharma-puja-vidhana are written in Bengali but contain large sections in a corrupted form of Sanskrit. Dharma-ism mostly deals with this kind of metalanguage and it is therefore possible to argue the existence of two interrelated languages: one exoteric, the other esoteric. The mantras uttered on the occasion of rituals have to be inaccessible to devotees, yet at the same time – given the low origin of the pandits – they have lost significance for the performers themselves. The paradox of Dharma ritual language stems from a linguistic situation in which fairly widespread illiteracy, the rural environment and possibly past persecutions have determined a general loss of semantic significance, whereas the power of the word, i.e. the mantra, conserves all its ritual strength, even if it is not understood by either devotees or priests. The exoteric language of the Purana, i.e. Bengali, upplies a list of duties aimed at fixing the rules for a correct harma-puja. Although the recitation of Sunya Purana has been almost abandoned in favour of the much more popular mangal-kavyas (auspicious poetries), the religious power of invocations and incantations still remains tightly linked to the liturgical texts."
area of West Bengal, offers an overview of the ritual language of the Dharma Thakur cult. From the liturgical texts of Dharma-ism, namely Sunya Purana and Dharma-puja-vidhana, to the live religious performances, I present the evolution process of a language that has basically survived as ‘mantric’ in its purposes and meanings. Both Sunya Purana and Dharma-puja-vidhana are written in Bengali but contain large sections in a corrupted form of Sanskrit. Dharma-ism mostly deals with this kind of metalanguage and it is therefore possible to argue the existence of two interrelated languages: one exoteric, the other esoteric. The mantras uttered on the occasion of rituals have to be inaccessible to devotees, yet at the same time – given the low origin of the pandits – they have lost significance for the performers themselves. The paradox of Dharma ritual language stems from a linguistic situation in which fairly widespread illiteracy, the rural environment and possibly past persecutions have determined a general loss of semantic significance, whereas the power of the word, i.e. the mantra, conserves all its ritual strength, even if it is not understood by either devotees or priests. The exoteric language of the Purana, i.e. Bengali, upplies a list of duties aimed at fixing the rules for a correct harma-puja. Although the recitation of Sunya Purana has been almost abandoned in favour of the much more popular mangal-kavyas (auspicious poetries), the religious power of invocations and incantations still remains tightly linked to the liturgical texts."
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The construction of a canon of texts and practices is a serious enterprise that requires the work of specialists and interpreters. Religious canons appear rigid and unchanging, and they aim at imposing from above a standard set of beliefs... more
The construction of a canon of texts and practices is a serious enterprise that requires the work of specialists and interpreters. Religious canons appear rigid and unchanging, and they aim at imposing from above a standard set of beliefs and practices. Yet, as J.Z. Smith has suggested, a canon is a quite flexible reality. It is neither entirely dependent upon the culture from which it emerges nor passively subject to external cultural innovations. From Smith's point of view, what is crucial in the construction of a canon is the element of closure, which involves the action of interpreters who open, expand and re-close the canon without interrupting the stream of traditional knowledge. Such interpreters have the difficult task to extend the domain of the closed canon over everything hiding all traces of arbitrari-ness, disruption, and discontinuity. To be in and out of the canon is thus a historical sign of the hidden yet dynamic work of extension of the domain of tradition over new fields, practices and relationships. European philologists received the textual tradition of Indian priestly and scholarly elites through a well-established idea of canon, which they identified with the Vedic corpus of texts. But what " Vedic tradition " has meant in the history of the systematization of sacrificial procedure and techniques as well as textual organization is a question that deserves attention. This session invites scholars to discuss conceptions of literary, ideological and disciplinary boundaries in the making of the Vedic " canon ". This will permit to reflect on how the definition of Veda has resulted from forcing its linguistic identity , vision of the world and scholarly applications in field as diverse as ritual science, astrology, mathematics, medicine, prosody, etymology, philosophy, hermeneutics, law and politics. In particular, discourses on the Vedic canon and its use in and beyond Vedic times should privilege perspectives on rupture and innovation, along with the historical analysis of the exegetical efforts conducted to validate and disseminate new authoritative world-views and approaches. While the overall aim of this session is to answer original questions in relation to " canon-making " in Indian history , contributors are invited to consider Vedic studies not just in relation to Indology but as a way to foster methodological debates within the history of religion at large.