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Festival of Indra

Innovation, Archaism, and Revival in a South Asian Performance

Häftad, Engelska, 2023

AvMichael Baltutis

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Details the textual and performative history of the South Asian festival of Indra and its role in the development of classical Hinduism.The Festival of Indra details the textual and performative history of an important South Asian festival and its role in the development of classical Hinduism. Drawing on various genres of Sanskrit textual sources-especially the epic Mahābhārata-the book highlights the innovative ways that this annual public festival has supported the stable royal power responsible for the sponsorship of these texts. More than just a textual project, however, the book devotes significant ethnographic attention to the only contemporary performance of this festival that adheres to the classical Sanskrit record: the Indrajatra of Kathmandu, Nepal. Here, Indra's tall pole remains the festival's focal point, though its addition of the royal blessing by Kumari, the "living goddess" of Nepal, and the regular presence of the fierce god Bhairav show several significant ways that ritual agents have re-constructed this festival over the past two thousand years.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2023-12-02
Mått152 x 229 x 18 mm
Vikt390 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SerieSUNY series in Hindu Studies
Antal sidor284
FörlagState University of New York Press
ISBN9781438493329

Tillhör följande kategorier

Hinduism inom Filosofi och religion
Asiens historia inom Historia och arkeologi
Antropologi inom Samhälle och politik

List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction: The Archetypal Indra Festival1. The Early Medieval Indra Festival2. The Journey from the Forest3. Preparing, Entering, and Establishing the City4. Nepali Chronicles and the Living Goddess Kumari5. The Construction of the Indra Festival in Nineteenth-Century Kathmandu6. Sacrificing (to) Bhairav: The Resurrection of a Local Himalayan King7. Tantra, the Mahābhārata, and the Iconography of IndraConclusion: Violence, Politics, Danger, and Ritual ChangeNotesWorks CitedIndex

"This valuable and ambitious work covers an important and understudied ritual form that has a long South Asian history, the Indra Festival. This festival is particularly interesting historically, since it falls between the Vedic sacrificial models of ritual in the earliest period and the image‐puja models of later temple Hinduism. Baltutis approaches the topic as an Indologist, historian, and ethnographer, and the resulting book represents a significant contribution to South Asian religious studies." — Richard H. Davis, author of The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography