Tantra, ritual performance, and politics in Nepal and Kerala : : embodying the goddess-clan / / Matthew Martin.

• Superior document: Studies in the History of Religions ; Volume 166
• VerfasserIn: Martin, Matthew, 1991-
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden ;, Boston : : Brill,, [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Studies in the history of religions ; Volume 166.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource.
• Notes: Revision of author's PhD dissertation.

In previous studies of South Asian Tantric ritual, scholars tend to focus on one region or context. For the first time, Tantra, Ritual Performance and Politics in Nepal and Kerala: Embodying the Goddess-clan offers a comparative approach to Tantric mediumship as observed in two locales: Navadurgā rituals in Bhaktapur, Nepal, and Teyyāṭṭam in North Kerala. In this book, Matthew Martin advances a new theory of ritual, which spotlights the way dancer-mediums embody medieval goddess-clans and ancestor deities, through offerings of food and sacrifice, that synchronize their denizens with the land in spiralling web-like ritual networks. Uniquely interdisciplinary in style, this study synthesizes cultural history, ethnography, and theory to explore the continuities - historical, societal, and political - that characterize these ritual traditions across the subcontinent.

Table of Contents

Front Matter -- Copyright Page -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations -- Style, Format, and Interview Transcriptions -- Introduction: Methodology and Context -- Case Studies -- Introducing the Southern Case Study-Teyyāṭṭam, Northern Malabar, Kerala -- Introducing the Northern Case Study-Navadurgā, Bhaktapur, Nepal -- Themes -- Dancer-Medium Communities and Ritual Kinship -- History and Assimilation in Tantric Cosmology -- Sacrifice, Earth Cycles, and Self-Reflexive Affect -- Politics, Ritual Performance, and Caste -- Conclusion -- Back Matter -- Glossary of Key Terms -- Bibliography -- Index.