Ferrari - Health and religious rituals in South Asia: disease, possession and healing

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 significant to the ethics and politics of responding to health issues. It contributes to a consolidation and promotion of indigenous ways as a method of understanding physical and mental imbalances through diverse conceptions of the divine. Chapters offer a fascinat-ing overview of healing rituals in South Asia and provide a full-length, sustained discussion of the interface between religion, ritual and folklore. The book presents a fresh insight into studies of Asian Religion and the History of Medicine.

Fabrizio M. Ferrari is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies, University of Chester, UK. His research focuses on the study of South Asian popular Hindu-ism and folklore, and subaltern studies and ritual theory.

Routledge South Asian religion series

1 Hindu Selves in a Modern World
Guru faith in the Mata Amritanandamayi Mission
Maya Warrier

2 Parsis in India and the Diaspora
Edited by John R. Hinnells and Alan Williams

3 South Asian Religions on Display
Religious processions in South Asia and in the diaspora
Edited by Knut A. Jacobsen

4 Rethinking religion in India
The colonial construction of Hinduism
Edited by Esther Bloch, Marianne Keppens and Rajaram Hegde

5 Health and Religious Rituals in South Asia
Disease, possession and healing
Edited by Fabrizio M. Ferrari

First published 2011
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2011 Selection and editorial matter, Fabrizio M. Ferrari; individual
chapters, the contributors

Typeset in Times by Wearset Ltd, Boldon, Tyne and Wear Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJI Digital, Padstow, Cornwall

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Health and religious rituals in South Asia: disease, possession, and
healing/edited by Fabrizio M. Ferrari.
p. cm. (Routledge South Asian religion series; 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. South AsiaReligious life and customs. 2. Spirit possessionSouth Asia.
3. Spiritual healingSouth Asia. I. Ferrari, Fabrizio M.

BL1055.H42 2010

ISBN13: 978-0-415-56145-7 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-83386-5 (ebk)

For my brother, Luca:

The more [the yogi] practices, the more visible everything becomes.

(Vedavysa on Yogastra 3.26)

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.

(William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell)

Preface
FABRIZIO M. FERRARI

PART I
Introduction

1 Possession in theory and practice: historical and contemporary models
FREDERICK M. SMITH

2 Is possession really possible? Towards a hermeneutics of transformative embodiment in South Asia
ADITYA MALIK

PART II
Possession from the West

3 Possession in an Islamist valley: spirits, Islamists and love in Chitral, northern Pakistan
MAGNUS MARSDEN

4 Sikh controversies concerning Punjabi pilgrimage sites used for healing and possession
RON GEAVES

5 Ancestors, demons and the goddess: negotiating the animate cosmos of Jainism
ANNE VALLELY

PART III
Possession from the North

6 Disease, the demons and the Buddhas: a study of Tibetan conceptions of disease and religious practice
IVETTE VARGAS-OBRYAN

7 Shamanic healing: ajhkriin the city
DEEPAK SHIMKHADA AND ADAM D. PAVE

8 Calculating fecundity in theKyapa Sahit
ANTHONY CERULLI

PART IV
Possession from the East

9 The whisper of the spirits: shamanic kinship and the cult of the ancestors among the Lanjia Saoras of Orissa
STEFANO BEGGIORA

10 In the shadow of the devil: traditional patterns of Lepcha culture reinterpreted
DAVIDE TORRI

PART V
Possession from the South

Gumg,WizrinandTan-drusth: affliction and healing in Zoroastrianism
RASTIN MEHRI

12 Possession as protection and affliction: the goddess Mariyammans fierce grace
WILLIAM HARMAN

13 The obsolescence of the demons? Modernity and possession in Sri Lanka
EVA AMBOS

Conclusion
FABRIZIO M. FERRARI

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