"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 an hierogamy the marriage of a god and goddess and a recreation of the life-cycle of earth. As Fabrizio M. 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...
"Guilty Males and Proud Females" is the first complete study on the Bengali "gajan "festival dedicated to Dharmaraj, a village god in the Rarh regi...
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...
Drawing on original fieldwork, this book develops a fresh methodological approach to the study of indigenous understandings of disease as possession, ...