2,687 research outputs found
Introduzione a Igor Spanò (a cura di) Il Teatro e la festa. Il tempio, la piazza, la scena
No full textPer tre giorni gli studiosi che sono intervenuti al Convegno hanno riflettuto sul senso e sulle funzioni, sulle pratiche cultuali e rituali, sui luoghi che hanno definito nel corso del tempo i momenti della festa e sulle forme di rappresentazione agonistica (danze, corse, gare, giochi di abilità) o drammatica - di cui erano parte essenziale la musica e il canto - che, spesso intrinsecamente, li accompagnano. L'autore nella sua introduzione esamina le sfumature di significato che racchiude il termine utsava, “festa”, “gioia” in sanscrito.For three days the scholars who spoke at the conference reflected on the meaning and functions, on the cult and ritual practices, on the places that have defined the moments of the celebration over time and on the forms of competitive representation (dances, races, competitions, skill games) or dramatic - of which music and singing were an essential part - which, often intrinsically, accompany them. In his introduction, the author examines the nuances of meaning contained in the term utsava, "feast", "joy" in Sanskrit
Igor Spanò, Dal tempio alla piazza: il Karakāṭṭam o ‘danza della brocca’
No full textIn Indian cultural traditions, dance plays a significant role, closely connected, in most cases, to expressions of cultic and ritual life. In particular, the element of the jug held balanced on the head is present in religious contexts as early as the Vedic period in the description of a dance performed at the end of the mahāvrata ritual by a group of maidens: among the meanings of this performance emerges specifically that related to the promotion of fertility linked to female sexuality. Even in present-day India, several dances in the course of the choreography involve a particular skill on the part of the perfomers, often women or girls, in balancing a jug on their heads, symbolically representing the Goddess. There are notable differences, but also interactions and sometimes forms of symbolic borrowing or appropriation between folk dance forms and those legitimised by the Brahmanical tradition. Such characteristics emerge particularly in a dance belonging to the Tamil Nadu tradition, the karakāṭṭam or karagāṭṭam (the 'jug dance'), of which there are two forms of performance: the first, linked to temple celebrations and called sakthi karagam, is danced on the occasion of festivities linked to the cult of the goddess Mariyamman, the 'Lady of the Rain', and takes on an apotropaic significance aimed at propitiating rain and guaranteeing prosperity; the other, called ātta karagam, is a form of entertainment that constitutes a true expression of street performance today, particularly at folk festivals celebrating the harvest in farming villages. The study of the symbolism linked to the jug in the history of Indian religiosity makes it possible to glimpse a possible process of re-signification and re-use of ancient symbolic elements and to highlight analogies and forms of continuity, despite the changing contexts and the temporal distance that separates today's India from the expressions of Vedic religiosity, with contemporary performances and rituals
In the footsteps of the cows: the ritual of gavāmayana between ancient and contemporary India
No full textCodified in classical Vedic times (8th-4th century BCE), the gavāmayana (‘the cow path’) was a year-long ritual session (sāmvatsarikasattra), which accompanied the succession of months of the Vedic religious calendar and ended with the celebration of mahāvrata (‘the great vow’) during the winter solstice. Marking the conclusion of the arduous ritual journey, it celebrated rebirth and consecrated the beginning of the new year. The book investigates gavāmayana based on a philological analysis of the texts and on a historical-religious and anthropological perspective, focusing on ancient India and some contemporary practices. The mahāvrata, in particular, seems to preserve the memory of very ancient ritual practices, whose representations reveal a complex play of symbolic exchanges linked to the alternation of the seasons and the growth of vegetation, to the myth of generation through
emptying and relocating, within the perimeter of the civilised world and the law, what appears disruptive and anomic (such as sexuality). In the various chapters, not only the intertwining themes of a political nature with those related to sexuality and the promotion
of fertility emerge, but also certain symbolic continuities, whereby changes in the use of cultic and ritual elements do not exhaust their values with the decline of Vedic rituality, but find new meanings in India, albeit in different historical contexts
Witchcraft-related Cases in India during the Outbreak of Covid 19 Pandemic
No full textIn India, the belief in witches is a phenomenon linked to specific elements of both Hindu cults and the belief systems of some indigenous communities. The latter have retained specific characteristics, in which the magical elements and the relationship with evil powers, from which the belief in witchcraft practices derives, are of primary importance. In this paper, I aim to reflect on the historical-religious roots of witch-belief, without neglecting aspects related to the social dimension in which witch-hunting episodes occur. In doing so, I propose to highlight the power relations that are based on patriarchy (or the processes of patriarchalisation that have occurred in recent decades) and the phenomena of Hinduisation and indigenisation. Furthermore, I present an assessment of the incidence of the phenomenon in 2020, at a particularly dramatic historical moment, marked by the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic. The data presented are partial but significant as they are collected through the daily monitoring of India's leading English-language newspapers and some national and local Hindi-language newspapers
Un Churel Mandir in Gujarat. Note sulla diffusione delle rappresentazioni della figura della strega in India
No full textThe churels are figures of the folk imagery of a vast area of South Asia. They, commonly identified with witches, are spirits of women who died during pregnancy or childbirth, and who return to the world of the living, possessing them. The aim of this study is to provide an interpretative analysis of the representations of the churels and of the ambiguous climate that has been created around these figures in recent decades in India. A reflection on the power of the representations of the churels throughout history up to present-day India could be considered a key to penetrating the dense network of relationships and reinventions, but also of divergences and contradictions, sometimes with tragic outcomes, that revolve around the power (śakti) manifested in the divine feminine
Queer Types in Ancient Indian Medicine Texts. The Case of Vārtā and Tr̥ṇaputrika Individuals
No full textBrahmanical culture, which elaborated the idea of dharma (or sociocosmic order) and at the same time claimed to be founded on it, intended to base on this conception the construction of taxonomies through which to classify all reality.
As far as human beings are concerned, they respond to dharmic norms to the extent that they can form pairs (mithunas) capable of generating. In this article, I will explore the case of certain queer individuals, who, as non-heteronormative, escape the possibility of fertile pairings, and are therefore judged as a sterile presence. In order to do so, I will make use of some interpretative devices formulated by Deleuze and Guattari and by Foucault, to highlight how Brahmanical ideology in ancient India intended to classify, represent, control, and discipline people’s bodies from
conception. I will preliminarily focus on the analysis of some passages of texts by ancient Indian grammarians related to the notion of gender, to clarify how grammatical classifications come up against cases in which the grammatical gender does not correspond to the sexual gender exhibited by some individuals. Therefore, I will devote an extensive investigation to excerpts from classical works of Indian medicine, specifically delving into the analysis of two types of individuals, the vārtās and the tr ṇaputrikas, to shed light on how the identity of these individuals was ideologically framed as the result of pathological anomalies that deviate from the perimeter of the notion of dharma
L’inversione (āvr̥tti) dei riti. Aspetti della concezione del calendario rituale nella celebrazione del gavāmayana
No full textThe concept of the year’s bipartition is fundamental to the structure of the Vedic ritual calendar. This division was marked by two key festive occasions: viṣuvat, aligned with the spring equinox, and mahāvrata, aligned with the winter solstice. During the period in which the Brahmans developed śrauta ritual forms, the observances on these days were integrated into the ritual of gavāmayana (literally, “the cow’s path”), a year-long ritual session known as saṃvatsarasattra. The division of the year into two distinct halves appears intricately connected to its representation within this extended ritual cycle, influencing the performance of individual rituals characterized by their “inversion” in the year’s second half. Examining the concept of “inversion” (āvr̥ tti)—understood here as a technical term in the ritual lexicon—proves particularly insightful, especially considering its varied semantic and ritual implications across the
versions documented in Brahmanical literature. These conceptions seem to foreshadow themes that will later receive more elaborate treatment in the Upaniṣadic texts
Recensione di: Come il mondo ha cambiato i social media, di Daniel Miller et alii
No full textReview of: How the World Has Changed Social Media, by Daniel Miller et ali
Ape in India
No full textThe honey bee is mentioned in some ancient Indian religious texts as a symbol of the sacrificial act; it also appears in some myths throughout Indian religious history with meanings partly related to representations of the divine feminine
Queer types in ancient India. The categorisation and representation of non-heterosexual individuals in some passages of Vedic literature
No full textVedic culture has used a variety of terms to denote male individuals who do not fit within the canons of the heterosexual norm. Often, in the past, Vedic philology has provided homologating translations of these terms from outdated cultural constructs and imagery, which have often reduced differences to univocal meanings. In order to understand non-heteronormative sexualities and sexual practices, I have adopted in this study an approach based on the idea of the construction of the concept of gender and which aims to describe behaviour beyond definitions. The analysis of the semantic and conceptual domains identified by the different terms within the Vedic texts, as well as of the history of their use in different contexts, allows us to restore the variety of external manifestations that do not conform to social expectations related to a person’s sex
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