Fra Jagannātha til juggernaut: Billedkult og kristen mission ved den store vognprocession i Puri

English abstract: The Car Festival in Puri, Odisha, is one of the world’s largest religious processions. About one million pilgrims follow the three god-siblings, Jagannātha, Subhadrā and Balabhadra, each seated in their own gigantic procession chariot pulled by hundreds of pilgrims, on their journey from the main Jagannātha temple to the Guṇḍicā temple three kilometers away. The perception of this procession festival by the British missionaries in Odisha during the first half of the 19th century was the background for the linguistic transformation whereby the name of a god, Jagannātha, became the notion of an overwhelming destructive force, ‘juggernaut’. The article examines the history of this transformation by a reading of quotes from foreign travelers to Odisha during the 14th through the 19th century. It also offers a description of the procession rituals, a reflection on the general characteristics of religious processions, and a discussion of the ‘idolatry’ discourse that lies behind the linguistic transformation from ‘Jagannātha’ to ‘juggernaut’. Dansk resume: Vognprocessionen i Puri, Odisha, er en af verdens største religiøse processioner. Omkring en million pilgrimme følger de tre gude-søskende, Jagannātha, Subhadrā og Balabhadra, hver i deres egen gigantiske processionsvogn trukket af mange hundrede pilgrimme, på deres rejse fra det store Jagannātha-tempel til det mindre Guṇḍicā-tempel tre kilometer væk. Opfattelsen af denne pilgrimsprocession hos de britiske missionærer i Odisha i den første halvdel af det 19. århundrede var baggrunden for den sproglige transformation der forvandlede navnet på en gud, Jagannātha, til forestillingen om en overvældende kaotisk kraft, ‘juggernaut’. Artiklen undersøger historien bag denne transformation gennem en række citater fra fremmede rejsende i perioden fra det 14. til det 19. århundrede. Den beskriver vognprocessionens ritualer, foreslår nogle ideer til, hvordan vi generelt skal forstå religiøse processioner og diskuterer den diskurs om ‘afgudsdyrkelse’, som ligger bag forvandlingen fra ‘Jagannātha’ til ‘juggernaut’

Louis Dumont: Verdensforsagelse, hierarki og renhed

English Abstract: This brief article reviews two main contributions by the French sociologist Louis Dumont, his essay “World Renunciation in Indian Religions” and his major work on the Indian caste system, Homo Hierarchicus. Some of the critique of Dumont’s ideas about renunciation, hierarchy and purity is discussed with special focus on three points: (1) The creative role of renunciation in the history of Hinduism; (2) the Indian caste system as a hierarchy regulated according to ritual purity and the alternative model by A. M. Hocart of the Indian society as a ritual organization; and (3) theoretical discussions regarding the need to go beyond the purity-impurity dichotomy and integrate another opposition, that between the auspicious and the inauspicious, in order to develop a more precise analytical tool in the research of Hindu culture. Dansk resume: Denne korte artikel diskuterer to vigtige bidrag af den franske sociolog Louis Dumont, hans essay “World Renunciation in Indian Religions” og hans hovedværk om det indiske kastesystem, Homo Hierarchicus. Noget af den kritik, der blev rejst mod Dumonts ideer om verdensforsagelse, hierarki og renhed, diskuteres med særlig fokus på tre punkter: (1) Verdensforsagelsens kreative betydning for hinduismens udvikling; (2) Dumonts model af det indiske kastesystem som et hierarki reguleret i forhold til rituel renhed og A. M. Hocarts alternative model, der ser hindusamfundet som en rituel organisation koncentrisk centreret omkring kongen; (3) de teoretiske diskussioner om nødvendigheden af at supplere rent-urent dikotomien med endnu en dikotomi, nemlig mellem det lykke- og ildevarslende, for at udvikle et mere præcist analyseapparat i udforskningen af hinduismen

‘Respect Pollution’: Urenhed og renselse i hinduismens rituelle personhierarki

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The American anthropologist Edward B. Harper coined the concept ‘respect pollution’ for a practice where a person shows respect towards another person at a higher level in the Hindu ritual hierarchy by doing something in relation to the latter that would normally be regarded as involving impurity and pollution. That could be touching someone’s feet or foot wear, eating the lefto-vers of others, or getting in physical contact with urine or feces. What would normally be regarded as impure becomes a source of purification or even salvation when it is an index of a ritually superior person, say, a saint or a god, or even, for women, one’s husband. This article explains the background of these practices in the classical rules of purification known from the medieval Hindu law literature with respect to each of these cases, feet, sandals, leftovers, feces and urine, but ex-pands the field by including places of death and cremation. In the second part of the article examples are given of the ways these cases are turned into ‘respect pollution’. DANSK RESUMÉ: Den amerikanske antropolog Edward B. Harper introducere-de begrebet ‘respect pollution’ for en praksis, hvor en person viser respekt for en anden person, der står højere i det rituelle personhierarki, ved at gøre noget i for-hold til denne, der almindeligvis involverer rituel urenhed og besmittelse. Det kan være at komme i berøring med andres fødder eller fodtøj, at spise rester af mad, andre har spist af, eller at komme i berøring med afføring eller urin. Ting, der el-lers opfattes som urene, bliver i en sådan praksis kilde til renselse eller endda frel-se, forudsat at de konkrete urenheder er knyttet personer med højere status i det ri-tuelle hierarki, det være sig en helgen eller en gud, eller, for kvinder, ens ægte-mand. Artiklen forklarer baggrunden for disse praksisser i de klassiske regler for renselse, der er formuleret i den middelalderlige hindulovlitteratur, i forhold til hver af disse eksempler, fødder, sandaler, madrester og afføring, men udvider feltet ved også at inddrage steder, hvor en person er død eller kremeret. I den anden del af artiklen gives der eksempler på, hvordan disse felter transformeres til medier for ‘respect pollution’

Askese som social/politisk mobilisering: Joseph Alters bog om Gandhi, Gandhi’s Body

There are several historical examples of asceticism as a means to social and political mobilization. Gandhi’s use of fasts and sexual abstinence in the larger fight for national independence is a well-known recent example. Joseph Alter’s book, Gandhi’s Body: Sex, Diet, and the Politics of Nationalism from 2000 is a relevant source for such considerations. Alter describes Gandhi’s personal experiments with public health, fast, food, sexual abstinence and both traditional and Western medicine in the perspective of national independence. For Gandhi ascetic practices were at the same time personal and for the sake of the nation. He saw his own success in these practices as guarantee of the necessary social and political changes. ‘Truth’ was the keyword in Gandhi’s thinking because he regarded truth as a transforming power. The non-violent resistance will either force injustice to yield or it will force it to reveal its true, violent face. But to activate truth one has to integrate truth in one’s own being. In this Gandhi was in line with an ascetic tradition that has been described by Peter Brown, Michel Foucault and Talal Asad: By eliminating the private I through awareness of hidden desires and through public confession the ascet-ic reaches a state of transparency where the veil between him-/herself and God/Truth is removed. This kind of socially and politically mobilizing asceticism indicates how the ascetic can be a component in a more collective social dynamics

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Social vrangorden i klassisk bramisk samfundslære

This article is an investigation of the concept of varnasamkara, the mixing of the four orders of the classical Indian social hierarchy. The concept is described as both a fictive 'explanation' of the origin of those tribal castes, which gradually were included in the social system, and as a reflection of an actual practice of sexual relations across the barriers of the orders. Particularly the pratiloma-relations, the hypogamous relations between men of lower orders with women of the upper orders, are brought into focus. These relations in genealogical as well as other sorts of interaction are finally analyzed in the light of Victor W. turner's concept of antistructure to show why the Brahmin householders, who were explicitly engaged in the affairs of the world, showed contempt for these relations, while the world-renouncers, whether Brahmin or Buddhist, viewed them in a more positive light

Renhed, ritual og samfund hos Mary Douglas

“Purity, Ritual and Society According to Mary Douglas: A problematization inspired by some recent post-structuralist critiques”. Mary Douglas’ two pioneering books, Purity and Danger and Natural Symbols, were together a major break-through in the study of religions. Today, when post-structuralist voices are heard more and more clearly, also in this discipline, it is, however, time for a rethinking of her hypotheses. The present article attempts particularly to account for two such critiques. One is the objection against the linguistic paradigm and specially against its separation between thought and act, meaning and ritual. On the basis of the criticisms of Talal Asad, Catherine Bell and others (and referring back to philosophy of language) purity is instead seen as a felicity condition of ritual action, practice or agency. The other critique is based on phenomenology of perception and is directed at the fundamental distinction in Douglas’ social symbolism between an undifferentiated experience and a conceptual ordering. This distinction is a misrepresentation of Gestalt psychology according to Ariel Glucklich who, instead, develops a phenomenological definition of purity as ‘resonance’ between the ritual’s mythical narrative and the sensory experience of its performance