No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Exploring the roots of village Hinduism in South Asia
Abstract
This paper explores the roots of contemporary village religion. The eclectic nature and interaction of both rural and orthodox Puranic Hinduism have made any attempt to dissect the traditions difficult. The question arises as to which had the greatest impact, Puranic Hinduism or the non-Vedic cults, on the development of village religion. To answer this, this article will first establish the principal features of village Hinduism. Because of the constraints imposed by a short paper it will focus specifically on the ritual worship of the goddess in her various forms, through the development of an associated iconography. It will also explore historical continuity, through a study of texts, archaeological materials and evidence from ethno-archaeology. The paper concludes that rural religion represents an amalgam of local superstitions, non-Vedic cultic practice and orthodox Puranic Hinduism, which is itself an assimilation of many of these elements.
... However, recent analysis of Indus terracotta figurines and other female imagery have challenged this assumption by demonstrating significant variation in representation, and by presenting alternative interpretations such as children's toys or decorative items (e.g., Bhardwaj 2004; Clark 2016). Mother Goddess worship continues to be popular across India, and the goddess can take on either fierce or more benign forms (Elgood 2004). Forms of the goddess as the Sapta Matrikas ("seven mothers") may have antecedents in Indus seal imagery, but this connection is tenuous, and there are also suggestions that this divine form originates in popular South Indian traditions (Arya 2016;Bhattacharyya 1974). ...
... Some of these figures, such as the goddess wearing a headdress of weapons (Panchachuda), Lajjā Gaurī, and Gaja Lakshmi, may have been revered, while others may have served talismanic, decorative or other purposes (Agarwal 2009;Ahuja 2001). While many of the forms, such as yakṣas, yakṣinis, and nāgas, are also found in the later iconographic traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, it has also been suggested that many of these early molded figures, which were easily produced and widely distributed, represented an early popular cult that lost public prominence by the 2nd century CE with the rise of a pantheon of deities associated with Puranic Hinduism such Vestiges of this cult may be seen in village traditions across India today, where local deities underwent complex processes of syncretism, incorporation, and influence with Vedic and Puranic deities of Brahmanical Hinduism (Elgood 2004;Shaw 2004). The mass-produced nature of these mold-made plaques present a unique glimpse into household and popular forms of worship (Ahuja 2001). ...
The term “Hindu” derives from Persian expressions coined in the 4th century bce to define the traditions found east of the Indus River. Thus, a common start to the archaeological examination of Hinduism are the prehistoric cults found in various regions of the Indian subcontinent. Some elements associated with traditions from the urban Indus civilization of the 3rd millennium bce have been connected to later Hindu iconography and ideals, but these links remain tenuous. By the mid-2nd millennium bce , the introduction of new Vedic ideologies, so called because the earliest references are found in the texts of the Vedas, ushered in significant transformations in ritual and spiritual life, but left little material trace. However, migrating groups associated with these traditions have been traced genetically and linguistically to the Western Steppes of Central Asia. Over the next two thousand years, Vedic traditions became more elaborate and heterogeneous, merging with popular customs, and generating heterodox schools of thought that challenged both the spiritual and social order of Brahmanical Hinduism, which also took form during this time. The early centuries of the Common Era were witness to additional transformations and adaptations, and it is after this period that various forms of temple architecture, sculpture, and the epigraphic record become a wider body of evidence for study in both South and Southeast Asia. During the 1st millennium ce , Hinduism took on more familiar contours, partly driven by the rise in extant religious, philosophical, and secular literature. Alongside this textual record, a wealth of architectural and art historical sources became available; studies of these sources increasingly look to continuities from earlier eras that are documented archaeologically. Nevertheless, much of this body of knowledge derives from institutional and elite contexts; household-level details remain slim and much contemporary interpretation of past daily worship continues to be inferred from the ethnographic record. During the modern period, Hinduism came to acquire its formal definition as a world religion, and with this came the attempt to delineate Hindu identity for first colonial, and then national ends, often in tandem with the Orientalist archaeologies of the early and mid-20th century. Though the definition of modern Hinduism may be more clearly circumscribed, it is certainly no less varied. Modernity continues to impact the understanding of Hinduism in many ways. Technologies such as DNA analysis have been applied to the study of early societies, with the goal of understanding ancient migrations and the composition of different regional populations. While our understanding of past human movement has increased considerably because of these studies, genetics do not serve as a proxy of culture. DNA evidence can provide some details about the movement and interaction of different populations in the past, but categories like race, language, and culture are as incommensurable as they are artificial, and they should be understood as such. Instead of a match for the textual or genetic record, the archaeology of Hinduism should be considered the material study of a broad amalgam of dynamic beliefs and practices that date back into the eras of earliest prehistory and continue to transform and evolve around the world.
... dóh jYfhka foa j jka okd ms <s n| j mj;a kd fmdÿ ,la IK wkdjrKh lr .kq jia Ndr;S h iudch miq ìï fldg is ÿ lereKq la fIa ;% wOHhkhka ls ys mhlg wod< m¾fha IK ,s ms mßYS ,kh lrk , §' ta w;r Exploring the Roots of Village Hinduism in South Asia (Elgood, 2004) , Village Deities of Tamil Nadu in Myths and Legends: The Narrated Experience (Valk, & Lourdusamy (2007), The Village God of South India (Whitehead,1921), The Suffering Mothers -The Hindu Amman Goddesses as Empowering Role Models for Women (Diesel,2002), The Mariamman Cult of Tamilnadu-A case study in cultural synthesis hk lD;s iy m¾fha IK ,s ms oela úh yel' Y% S ,xldfjys ffYj iïm% odhg wNs fhda . lrñka Ydla ; iïm% odfhys ke.S u Ndr;S h iudchg o fmdÿ ixis oa êhla nj Wla ; lD;s yryd wkdjrKh fldg .; yels úh' fï jk úg ,dxfla h foa j jka okd l% u ms <s n| m¾fha IK is ÿ j we;s kuq ;a ys ka ÿ wd.ñl iïm% odhla jYfhka Ys j foa j weoys ,a , iïnka O kQ ;k iudc ;;a ;a jh ms <s n| m% udKd;a ul wOHhkhla foa YS h m¾fha Ilhka w;s ka is ÿ ù ke;s nj idys ;H úu¾Ykfhka wkdjrKh úh' 3. wOHhkfhys wruq K Ys j jka okdj ms <s n| kQ ;k ck ú{dkh y÷kd.ekS ...
The devotees of God Shiva are present in Sri Lanka from ancient times to the present. The majority of them are Hindus and the rest are Sinhala Buddhists. Due to cultural admixture, it has been a common phenomenon for the followers of other religions to take refuge in Hindu deities since the past. Due to the strong attraction of God built in the human mind, various social tendencies related to divinity also developed over time. The key objective of the research is to identify the expression of people’s consciousness of God Shiva, one of the most significant deities of Hinduism in a context in which the devotions of Gods are very popular in Sri Lankan society. The research problem was whether the Cult of God Shiva had been distanced in the socialization of it as a method of worship. Quantitative data based on statistics were used to identify the number of Hindu temples established in Sri Lanka and their prevalence. But since common people’s religious consciousness is a proposition that is always subject to variation depending on geographical, social, and cultural conditions,
qualitative method was used in the explanation of social attitudes under the stream of ethnological research. This research was conducted in relation to sixteen major Hindu temples selected from eight provinces except the Northern Province of Sri Lanka. The key methods of collection of data were observation and interview. “Mahadeva”, the supreme deity of Hinduism, is a deity of fertility who predominates in the worship of Linga. In local
methods of worship, the expectation of fertility was identified as a major objective of the cult of God Shiva. The research revealed that among the cults of Gods in rural religious beliefs, the cult of God Shiva has become alienated from the general society. According to the data of Hindu temples obtained from the eight provinces which belong to the research sample, the prevalence of Hindu Shiva temples is less than two percent. Cult of God Shiva
is not common for worldly aspirations and problems of daily life. By the research sample, it has been revealed that the cult of God Shiva has been alienated from the public beliefs and worships due to the fact that God Shiva is considered to be a God who is focused on the supernatural conditions and the objectives due to the God’s association with the universal function as the supreme deity of the Hindu trinity, and the fear and reverence for him due to the destructive power built on the concept of the Hindu trinity and the complexity of the physical and non-physical factors related to the Cult of God Shiva.
Keywords: Ishvara, Shaivism, Hierarchy of Gods, Hindu Trinity, Hindu temples
... 12 For the missionaries, however, it was her fierce nature that was paramount, particularly where it was on display in rituals involving blood and bodily mortification, including tīmiti (fire-walking), tīccaṭṭi (the carrying of the fire "Civilizing" the Village v 75 pot), and hook-swinging. 13 In their writings, we can see that the missionaries clearly understood the connection of Māriyammaṉ and disease, but what is not apparent is evidence of Māriyammaṉ's grace, or her "power to heal, grant children, [and] make the village rich." 14 Rather, only her fierce aspects are represented; the devotees' love of Māriyammaṉ is neither expressed nor, it would seem, understood. ...
... Thus, while both non-forested temples and sacred forests are commonly considered the abodes of a deity or deities, the former appears more amenable to urban conditions. Further, we note that "temple Hinduism" is an expression of Sanskritization (Elgood, 2004), 14 and that "temple forests" are distinct from sacred groves (Chandrakanth and Romm, 1991). Sacred groves located in areas of rapid urbanization thus provide compelling settings to study changing conceptions of the relationships between forests and worship sites because variation in preferences for these sites can be analyzed along an urbanization gradient. ...
In India, sacred groves have been considered the forested abodes of one or multiple deities and are often managed by communal governance systems. As land development has progressed, the population surrounding these and other green spaces has changed, and responsibility for their protection has shifted to the bureaucracies that manage urban environments. The sacred grove now means different things to different people, and the value of its protection is increasingly difficult to characterize. In this context, we study individual preferences for sacred groves and non-forested temples along an urbanization gradient –defined by land use– in rural locales near the megacity of Delhi, informed by the theoretical perspective of Sanskritization. We use revealed and stated preference data that includes information on visits to forests and worship sites, weighting for relevant forest characteristics, and socio-demographic factors related to culture. Respondents generally place higher value on sacred groves than on non-sacred green space, but more urbanized and sanskritized individuals exhibit higher valuations for non-forested temples and conservation of urban green space. Taken together, these results suggest a potential increase in the perception of non-sacred and non-use forest value among urbanized respondents.
... Focus upon rural, village or folk religion similarly shows how popular religious practice occupies a space which cuts across and is not entirely locatable within these binaries. Attention towards folk religion illustrates how roots of worship often predate formal religious traditions and have distinctively 'cult'-like practices, oral traditions and ritual devotion, such as phallic worship, idolatry and offerings, and in this sense unsettles any neat categorisation (Elgood, 2004;Oberoi, 1994). Despite this scholarship, studies still become engulfed within the binary-approach in which village or folk religion again is constructed as an opposite to urban, formal religion. ...
This article highlights women's popular spiritual practices in Punjab and examines how spiritual rituals and events performed, largely by women are either conveniently overlooked by religious authorities or seen as contentious by more rigid perspectives on religious belonging. By focusing upon women's participation and worship at spiritual sites and functions, attention is drawn to the continuum of practices that run between life-course rituals and acts of spiritual embodiment and worship, making it difficult to maintain such firm distinctions between cultural and religious practices. By focusing upon examples in Punjab, across India and Pakistan, the article suggests that there is an underlying vernacular spiritual culture in the region within which a cosmology of spiritual acts of belief occupies a central space. The article will draw upon secondary ethnographic studies as well as upon fieldwork conducted by the authors in developing a picture of women's ‘popular’ practices.
When Brahmanism spread from Gangetic basin to different parts of India through Land Grants, it encountered a lot of people who were worshipping different local Gods and Goddesses. Social and religious categories in medieval times were not static but fluid and dynamic. Brahmanas interaction with local people for various economic and social reasons compelled the Great tradition to accommodate many lower castes and tribes of medieval Andhra Pradesh. This necessitated various myths and legends. The present article discusses four popular legends which talk about the process of this integration. It appears that acculturation in Medieval Andhra Pradesh society became possible through these myths as some castes also achieved some sort of mobility.
This article discusses the archaeology of Hinduism. While archaeological analysis of religious belief and practice is never straightforward, the record of that broad and diverse category that falls under the rubric of Hinduism has left us a rich material record. While research has been dominated by the rich iconography and styles of sculptures, bronzes, and other images as well as by the imposing Hindu temples and temple complexes, a great deal remains to be done on the more quotidian remains of personal devotion and practice that are manifest in, for example, household shrines, objects of personal devotion, broad landscapes of fields, villages, and sacred spaces, and even the bodily practices of diet, dress, and family.
Hinduism: The Anthropology of a Civilization Forms of the Goddess Lajja Gauri in Indian Art
- M Biardeau
- Delhi
- Oxford
Biardeau, M. 1989. Hinduism: The Anthropology of a Civilization. Delhi and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bolon, C. 1992. Forms of the Goddess Lajja Gauri in Indian Art. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
The archaeology of Hinduism
- D K Chakrabarti
Chakrabarti, D. K. 2001. The archaeology of Hinduism. In Archaeology and World Religion (ed. T. Insoll). London: Routledge, pp. 33–60.
Yaksas New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Crooke, W. 1894. An Introduction to the Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India
- A K Coomaraswamy
Coomaraswamy, A. K. 1971. Yaksas. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. Crooke, W. 1894. An Introduction to the Popular Religion and Folklore of Northern India. Allahabad: Government Press, North-western Provinces and Oudh.
Hinduization of tribal deities in Orissa: the Sakta and Saiva typology In The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional Tradition of Orissa
- A Eschmann
Eschmann, A. 1978. Hinduization of tribal deities in Orissa: the Sakta and Saiva typology. In The Cult of Jagannath and the Regional Tradition of Orissa (eds A. Eschmann, H. Kulke and G. Charan Tripathi). Delhi: Manohar, pp. 79–97.
Chandraketugarh: A Treasure House of Bengal Terracottas. Studies in Bengal Art Series
- E Haq
Haq, E. 2001. Chandraketugarh: A Treasure House of Bengal Terracottas. Studies in Bengal Art Series, No. 4. Dhaka: The International Centre for the Study of Bengal Art.