Durga and the King: Ethnohistorical Aspects of Politico-Ritual Life in a South Orissan Jungle Kingdom

Schnepel, Burkhard

doi:10.2307/3034233

Cited by 26 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Other interesting examples of Dasara come from the 'jungle kingdoms' of Central India (Gell 1997;Schnepel 1995Schnepel , 1996. 3 Alfred Gell (1997) has demonstrated an interesting politico-religious relationship between the Hindu king and his 'tribal' subjects in the celebration of Dusserah in Bastar.…”

Section: The Multidimensionality Of Public Ritualmentioning

confidence: 99%

Princely India Re-imagined

Ikegame¹

2013

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The princely states of India covered about 40 per cent of the Indian subcontinent at the time of Indian independence, and they collapsed after the departure of the British. This book provides a chronological analysis of the Princely State in colonial times and its post-colonial legacies. Focusing on one of the largest and most important of these states, the Princely State of Mysore, it offers a novel interpretation and thorough investigation of the relationship of king and subject in South Asia.The book argues that the denial of political and economic power to the king, especially after 1831 when direct British control was imposed over the state administration in Mysore, was paralleled by a counter-balancing multiplication of kingly ritual, rites, and social duties. The book looks at how, at the very time when kingly authority was lacking income and powers of patronage, its local sources of power and social roots were being reinforced and rebuilt in a variety of ways.Using a combination of historical and anthropological methodologies, and based upon substantial archival and field research, the book argues that the idea of kingship lived on in South India and continues to play a vital and important role in contemporary South Indian social and political life.

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Section: The Multidimensionality Of Public Ritualmentioning

confidence: 99%

Princely India Re-imagined

Ikegame¹

2013

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“…The ethno-historical aspects of the politico-ritual life of South Odissan kingdom as reflected from the worship of Durgā by the king have been studied by Schnepel. 2 That this pūjā has contributed to the new forms of mytholozization was brought out by Ghosh 3 in her essay that reflects another contemporary thought on the Durgāpūjā. Bandyopadhyay 4 has pointed to the cultural industry 5 that emerged through multiple cultural productions and re-invention of folk life during Durgāpūjā celebrations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(1) Durgāpūjā is only the beginning of a sequence of worship that extends through the following weeks, during the period when the gods are supposed to be sleeping. (2) The curious idea that Durgā must be awakened for worship is examined for what it says about the religious history of Bengal. (3) The structure of rural society that was enacted in the autumnal sequence of rites in 1970 was a pale reflection of the old order, which I call sacrificial polity, but it was significant as an indication of what Durgāpūjā once meant in sociological terms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Case Study of Durgāpūjā Festival of the Bengali Hindus

Bandyopadhyay¹

2017

Anthropol Open J

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Durgāpūjā is the largest popular public event in Bengal. It has also become a feature of identity of the Bengali Hindus. The complex form of divinity with the goddess Durgā at the centre with her 10 arms holding different weapons respectively and slaying the buffalo demon invokes a deep sense of devotion and condenses many symbolic meanings. The author, an insider of the Bengali culture describes in brief the contemporary practice of worship of the goddess in Bengal. Then he passes on to uncover the multiple layers of meanings and functions of Durgāpūjā in Bengali culture with a substantial review of a large number of previous works on this topic. At the end he has tried to understand why Durgāpūjā has become the most important festival of the Bengalis. He attributes this to the semiotic association between Indian categories of culture and the worship of the goddess with an emphasis on collective ethos of life. The study links the post-modern and post-colonial theoretical understanding of space, power, authority, identity, culture industry, public sphere, public and popular culture, simulacra with the more traditional understandings of the economy, polity, hierarchy, Mauss' total prestation and Durkehim's idea of religion.

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“…This shamanistic capacity, which is crucial to the ruler's legitimacy, is expressed in his relationship with the forest and his ability to enter into a relationship with (or subdue) a local forest or nature spirit, which will then act as the guarantor of the prosperity and even the continuance of his kingdom. 27 These spirits are the real owners of the soil and especially the land on which the ruler has built his palace, and their consent and cooperation is essential in founding a state to begin with (see Falk 1973, Schnepel 1995. Without these, such efforts were bound to fail.…”

Section: The Sacred Grovementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, we are placing the old information in the new context presented by studies on spirits and courts in South and Southeast Asia (Chambert-Loir & Reid 2002, Tannenbaum & Kammerer 2003, Schnepel 1995, Falk 1973, believing that, in the process, we can shed some new light on the problem posed by Van Hoëvell. The questions that we will address concern the relationship between the Urang Kanekes and the old court(s) of West Java, including their position in Banten and the conflicting claims that they were either refugees from the onslaught of Islam or some kind of court functionaries. Relevant to these points are their claim to be preserving the center of the world, the place where the earth came into being, and the ritual duties that they perform in order to carry out this task.…”

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confidence: 99%