Dancing the boDy of goD: Rituals of embodiment from the Central Himalayas

Abstract

One of the important and widespread ways in which divinity is manifested in South Asia is through the enactment of religious rituals described in scholarly studies as inducing 'possession' through deities who then speak through the medium of 'possessed' devotees. My intention in this paper is to begin to create a shift in scholarly discourse that describes religious rituals that are conducted in order to invoke the presence of a deity, in terms of the categories of spirit 'possession' or trance, to a notion of embodiment or rather embodied consciousness. In my attempt to create a hermeneutics of embodiment for religious rituals that are commonly analysed in terms of possession, I draw on the Hindu deity Shiva's 'dance of rapture', as well as on the notion of embodiment as being the existential ground of possibility for culture and self. My arguments are based on materials gathered from recent preliminary field research into the narratives and rituals of the Central Himalayan deity Goludev.