Search Results (16)

Votive offerings are one of the most common devotional practices in Hindu temples of Kerala and are today resorted to by an ever-growing number of worshippers seeking divine help in times of need. As this article will show, these offerings are deeply embedded in the logics of the hyper-personalized and unmediated devotion that characterizes popular Hinduism in this part of India. They are also markers of the recent opening of religion to individual contribution and intervention, as well as active tools for the intimate worshipper–deity relationship. Ritual arts conducted as votive offerings allow us to dive even deeper into these considerations and open up new alleys of analysis, for they connect public and private worlds in specific ways and introduce unique aesthetic and transactional dimensions. This article draws on extensive ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the south Indian state of Kerala, with particular focus on the ritual performing art muṭiyēṯṯu’, which is mainly conducted as a votive offering in high-caste temples devoted to the goddess Bhadrakāḷi. It pulls together anthropology, performance, and religious studies to analyze the current grassroot-level realities of lived popular religion through the prism of votive offerings in general and of ritual performing arts conducted as votive offerings in particular. Full article

The cultural renaissance in 20th-century India has fostered an aesthetic integration of contemplative mysticism with popular religious practices, influencing various artistic and theological movements. This paper examines Christian artist Joy Elamkunnapuzha’s use of Indian classical and mythical elements in his religious artworks, particularly in two North Indian churches. These intercultural icons, which incorporate symbols from Hindu traditions like mandalas and mudras, have been central to the worship practices of local Catholic communities for over three decades. Through ritual ethnography, the study reveals how these visual representations mediate ritual affectivity and communal imagination, impacting identity formation and spiritual engagement in a multi-religious context. Respondents—including worshippers, ministers, and religious students—attest to the transformative impact of these images, as they negotiate between Christian metaphors and Hindu aesthetic traditions. The research is grounded in practical theology, liturgical theology, and ritual studies, contributing to the works of Indian Christian cultural activists like Jyoti Sahi. By exploring the creative dynamics of visual approach, visual appeal, and visual affinity within worship spaces, the study elucidates the complex processes of meaning making through symbolic mediation in interreligious environments. Full article

Music has played a central role in Indian religious experience for millennia. The origins of Indian music include the recitation of the sacred syllable OM and Sanskrit Mantras in ancient Vedic fire sacrifices. The notion of Sound Absolute, first in the Upanishads as Śabda-Brahman and later as Nāda-Brahman, formed the theological background for music, Sangīta, designed as a vehicle of liberation founded upon the worship of Hindu deities expressed in rāgas, or specific melodic formulas. Nearly all genres of music in India, classical or devotional, share this theoretical and practical understanding, extending to other Indic religions like Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. What is less documented is how rāga music has been adopted by non-Indic communities in South Asia: Judaism (Bene Israel), Christianity (Catholic), and Islam (Chishti Sufi). After briefly outlining the relation between religion and the arts, the Indian aesthetics of Rasa, and the basic notions of sacred sound and music in Hinduism, this essay reveals the presence of rāga music, specifically the structure or melodic pattern of the morning rāga known as Bhairava, in compositions praising the divinity of each non-Indic tradition: Adonai, Jesus, and Allah. As similar tone patterns appear in the religious experiences of these communities, they reveal the phenomenon of “shared religious soundscapes” relevant to the comparative study of religion and music, or Musicology of Religion. Full article

In this article, author and artist Meena Murugesan analyzes their creative process and research in the making of Dravidian Futurities, a multi-channel video installation with live performance. Methodologies of auto-ethnography, visual aesthetics, embodied movement practices, Tamil historiographies, queer futurities, caste analysis, and poetics are applied to treat the issues at hand. Dravidian Futurities draws connections between communities of South Indian and Sri Lankan Shudra and Dalit caste backgrounds, Dravidian, and Afro-Indian peoples, depending on the historical era examined. As someone of the Shudra caste, the author draws connections between agriculture, land, and earth, as being rooted in Shudra identities, and in opposition to brahminical systems. Therefore, the movement forms of somatics, improvisation, and nature-based embodiment practices are investigated as possible embodied inroads to grapple with caste within brahminized bharatanatyam. Notions of futurity and place-making are unearthed from the depths of the Indian Ocean with a hypothetical sunken landmass called Lemuria or Kumari Kandam that might have once connected South India, Sri Lanka, and Madagascar. Dravidian Futurities also dreams into existence this speculative landmass as a possible utopia we might co-build, similar to that which Dalit mystic saint Guru Ravidas imagined five hundred years ago with Begumpura (“land without sorrow”) as a casteless, stateless utopia. Full article

To the Academy is a multi-media performance work that makes poignant and humorous commentary about education, common paradigms of diversity, and the oppressive nature of institutional labor. Created through a dialogue between myself, an Indian American with training in various forms of physical theatre and Indian dance, and Guyanese-Canadian actor Marc Gomes, it has been performed at several universities and arts centers since 2015. In this essay, I will interrogate the ways in which we place select elements of “Indian tradition” at the service of the piece’s overarching theme of histories of European domination, asking whether making these cultural materials subservient to our political agenda constitutes a form of appropriation. I examine three components of the work: the character of the classical Indian dancer who appears in the first section of the show, the explicit references to the ancient Sanskrit treatise on performance, the Natyashastra, and the framing of both these elements within our adaptation of Franz Kafka’s story, “Report to an Academy,” about an ape who learns to impersonate humans. In so doing, I explore the ethical responsibilities artists of color have in working with intercultural aesthetics. Furthermore, I assert the inevitably ambivalent nature of activist performance, even if artists aim to resist hegemonic structures. Full article

Plastic debris is a significant problem aesthetically, environmentally, and across food chains. Hence it is important to increase understanding of the mechanisms of how this debris is distributed and potentially managed, especially in areas such as Africa with relatively large populations and poor infrastructure. Debris can be derived from local sources (such as the resident population) or from further afield via wind or ocean currents. We investigated these by systematically measuring debris density in sites on land and on coastal sites in three regions around Africa (Cape Town, Durban and Mombasa), and compared these between and within regions. We then compared them to simulated flows of debris on currents in the surrounding ocean to hypothesize likely sources of debris. Comparisons of relative quantity and makeup of inland and coastal debris suggested different patterns at different sites. We expected the Agulhas Current (coming from Indian Ocean and east coast Africa) to be a strong source of debris and therefore have a strong effect on the arrival of debris in eastern coastal sites, and the Benguela Current (from the southern Atlantic Ocean) to have a weaker effect. However, the evidence collected here seemed mixed in support of this and was greater in support of debris coming predominantly from local sources. Full article

S. Shankar’s 2018 Tamil language science fiction film 2.0, the stand-alone sequel to his 2010 blockbuster Enthiran, presents a bleak vision of a near-present time when obsession with technology has led to deteriorating human relationships as well as destruction of the natural world. The film articulates a posthuman dharma founded on the understanding that humans have an ethical obligation towards all living things, not merely other humans. The film posits the individual as fractured and unstable but valorizes the interconnectivity of humans and non-humans, which is underscored by the film’s innovative evocation of the rasas of classical Indian aesthetics in the context of non-human agents. This essay argues that 2.0 presents a Hindu-inflected ecological posthumanism as the only viable alternative to a dystopian future. Full article

Study Design: Descriptive cross-sectional. Objective: To establish anthropometric norms and test the validity of four neoclassical canons among Kenyans of Indian descent. Methods: Using direct anthropometric landmarks, 3 vertical and 4 horizontal measurements were made on the faces of 130 adult Kenyans of Indian descent. The mean of each anthropometric measurement was calculated and a student t-test was used to identify significant gender differences. These results were compared to four neoclassical canons and the percentage of each canon and its variants were recorded. A chi-square test was then performed to assess any gender differences between these findings. Results: When comparing sexes, the anthropometric means of males were larger than those of females except for eye fissure length. In addition, only the upper third displayed sexual dimorphism. As for the neoclassical canons, the orbital canon was found to apply to 20.0% of males and 21.6% of females, followed by the naso-oral canon found in 16.4% of males and 17.6% of females, and the orbito-nasal canon present in 14.5% of males and 18.9% of females. The vertical canon was not found to be applicable to any participant. Conclusion: The facial morphometricmeasurements in this population differ from the described neoclassical canons since they do not apply to the majority of these individuals. Therefore surgeons should be guided by the observed populationspecific differences during reconstructive and facial aesthetic surgery. Full article

How does the local raga-based music setting of Psalm 24:7–10 become associated with Christian identity in an Islamic context? How does Psalm 24 strengthen the faith of the marginalized church and broaden messianic hope? In what ways does Psalm 24:7–10 equip local Christians for missional engagement? This paper focuses on the convergence of the local raga-based musical concept of sur-sangam and the revealed text of Punjabi Psalms/Zabur 24:7–10. It argues that while poetic translated text in Punjabi vernacular remains a vital component of theological pedagogy, local music expresses the emotional voice that (re)assures of the messianic hope and mandates missional engagement in Pakistan. Throughout the convergence, musical, messianic, and missional perspectives are transformed to a local phenomenon and its practice is perceived in a cross-cultural connection. Furthermore, examining the text and tune of Punjabi Zabur (Psalms) 24:7–10 in the Indo-Pak context may stretch the spectrum of religious repertoire in the contemporary intercultural world. Full article

The carnivorous snail Clea (Anentome) helena (von dem Busch, 1847) (Gastropoda: Nassariidae), commonly called as the “assassin snail” is sold worldwide including India for aesthetics and the ability to kill pest snails in aquaria. Assuming invasion as a fair possibility, the predation potential of C. helena on seven native freshwater snails was assessed. The exotic predator consumed all the native snail species provided in the experiment and prey consumption varied with the prey species identity, the prey density and the prey size class. Future colonization and establishment of C. helena in Indian freshwater ecosystems may reduce the abundance of the native gastropod snails, in absence of suitable intervention. Full article

Disgust occupies a particular space in Buddhism where repulsive aspects of the human body are visualized and reflected upon in contemplative practices. The Indian tradition of aesthetics also recognizes disgust as one of the basic human emotions that can be transformed into an aestheticized form, which is experienced when one enjoys drama and poetry. Buddhist literature offers a particularly fertile ground for both religious and literary ideas to manifest, unravel, and entangle in a narrative setting. It is in this context that we find elements of disgust being incorporated into two types of Buddhist narrative: (1) discouragement with worldly objects and renunciation, and (2) courageous act of self-sacrifice. Vidyākara’s anthology of Sanskrit poetry (Subhāṣitaratnakoṣa) and the poetics section of Sa skya Paṇḍita’s introduction to the Indian systems of cultural knowledge (Mkhas pa rnams ’jug pa’i sgo) offer two rare examples of Buddhist engagement with aesthetics of emotions. In addition to some developed views of literary critics, these two Buddhist writers are relied on in this study to provide perspectives on how Buddhists themselves in the final phase of Indian Buddhism might have read Buddhist literature in light of what they learned from the theory of aesthetics. Full article

What are paintings? Is there a distinctive mode of experience paintings enable? What is the value of such experience? This essay explores such questions, confining attention for the most part to a few distinctive moments in Indian Buddhist texts. In particular, I focus on invocations of painting in figures of speech, particularly when paintings are invoked to make sense of events or experiences of particular importance. The aim is not to be exhaustive, but to suggest a meta-poetic orientation: On the basis of moments where authors think with figurations of painting, I want to suggest that in Buddhist texts one begins to find a growing regard for the possibilities of re-ordering and transvaluing sense experience. After suggesting the possibility of this on the basis of a preliminary consideration of some figures of speech invoking painting, this essay turns to the reconstruction of what I call aesthetic stances to make sense of the idea of new possibilities in sense experience. I derive the concept of “aesthetic stances” on the basis of a close reading of a pivotal moment in one Buddhist narrative, the defeat of Māra in The Legend of Aśoka. Full article

Beauty. Christopher Alexander’s prolific journey in building, writing, and teaching was fueled by a relentless search for Beauty and its meaning. While all around him the world was intent on figuring out how to simplify, Alexander came to embrace complexity as the only path to his goal. The Beauty and life of that which he encountered and appreciated—an Indian village, a city, a subway network, an old Turkish carpet, or a campus—lay in its well-ordered complexity. As a designer and maker he found that simplicity came from choosing—at every step—the simplest way to add the necessary complexity. The failure of so much of our modern world, in Alexander’s eyes, was oversimplification, wantonly bulldozing context, misunderstanding the relationships of part and whole, ignoring the required role of time in the shaping of shapes, and ultimately dismissing, like Esau, our birthright of Value in favor of a lentil pottage of mere Fact. Ever elusive, Beauty demands of her suitors a constant return of attention to see what might be newly revealed, and Alexander duly returned again and again in pursuit of the mystery. In this essay—essentially biographical and descriptive of one man’s endeavors—we examine the full arc of his work from dissertation to most recent memoir. We don’t shy away from his failures, and we don’t simplify his journey. We leave work done by other scholars for another day. We reach no conclusion, rather, we invite readers to reflect on what Alexander’s lifelong effort suggests to them about their own path, their own sense of aesthetics and order, innate cognitive shortfalls, and professional blind alleys. Full article

This article is about sahaja-jñāna, or ‘innate intuition’, as a form of Brahmo and Vaiṣṇava epistemology—a foundational invention within the development of modern Hinduism. I examine its nineteenth-century intellectual history in Bengal in the works of the Vaiṣṇava theologian Kedarnath Datta Bhaktivinoda (1838–1914) and trace it back to two of his contemporaries, Keshub Chandra Sen (1838–1884) and a senior leader of the Brahmo Samaj whom they both knew, Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905). This relatively understudied yet epistemologically significant term within modern Hinduism has its roots in the pre-colonial sahajiyā movements and bears a conceptual resemblance to the idea of pratibhā in ancient Indian aesthetics, philosophy, and grammar. The idea of sahaja is key among the sahajiyā Vaiṣṇavas, a so-called heterodox group that Western-educated, middle-class Bengali bhadraloks, including Bhaktivinoda, vehemently disassociated themselves from due to the social stigma attached to its sexo-yogic practices. Furthermore, I argue that Bhaktivinoda’s concept of sahaja-jñāna departs significantly from both sahajiyā and Brahmo versions of sahaja-jñāna and represents an innovation within the ambit of Vaiṣṇava Vedanta, which accepts verbal testimony (śabda or śāstra) as the only valid form of epistemology. In documenting the intellectual history of a significant idea, I contend that the bhadralok Bengali Vaiṣṇava leaders arrogate, desexualize, and Vedānticize a term as a form of experimentation during the construction of modern Hinduism. Full article

This essay explores the relationship between the U.S.-based Beat literary movement and the Hungry Generation literary movement centered in and around Calcutta, India, in the early 1960s. It discusses a trip Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky took to India in 1962, where they met writers associated with the Hungry Generation. It further explains how Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of City Lights Books in San Francisco, was inspired to start a new literary magazine, City Lights Journal, by Ginsberg’s letters from India, which included work by Hungry Generation writers. The essay shows how City Lights Journal packaged the Hungry Generation writers as the Indian wing of the Beat movement, and focuses in particular on the work of Malay Roy Choudhury, the founder of the Hungry Generation who had been prosecuted for obscenity for his poem “Stark Electric Jesus”. The essay emphasizes in particular the close relationship between aesthetics and politics in Hungry Generation writing, and suggests that Ginsberg’s own mid-1960s turn to political activism via the imagination is reminiscent of strategies employed by Hungry Generation writers. Full article