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Ritual Competence as Embodied Knowledge
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Ute Hüsken
Published/Copyright:
September 25, 2009
Abstract
The essay “Ritual Competence as Embodied Knowledge” by Ute Hüsken points at the importance of questions concerning the body-mind distinction in a ritual tradition which is usually seen as text-dominated, and strictly rule-governed. The underlying case study is the initiation into priesthood in South Indian Vaiṣṇava traditions, on the basis of both field research among the priests and the analysis of the relevant mediaeval Sanskrit texts. Ritual knowledge, it is argued, is above all embodied knowledge. Even in largely “textual” traditions the bearers ritual specialists have the authority not only to perform the ritual, but also to adapt it to contextual needs.
Published Online: 2009-09-25
Published in Print: 2009-09
© by Akademie Verlag, Berlin, Germany
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Articles in the same Issue
- Rethinking the Body: An Introduction
- A Hindu to His Body: The Reinscription of Traditional Representations
- The Skin and the Self: A Note on the Limits of the Body in Brahmanic India
- God′s Body: Epistemic and Ritual Conceptions from Sanskrit Texts of Logic
- Yogic Rays: The Self-Externalization of the Yogi in Ritual, Narrative and Philosophy
- Body, Breath and Representation in Śaiva Tantrism
- Telling Bodies
- The Indian Body and Unani Medicine: Body History as Entangled History
- Open Bodies
- Untouchable Bodies of Knowledge in the Spirit Possession of Malabar
- Performing God′s Body
- Bodies Filled with Divine Energy: The Indian Dance Odissi
- Ritual Competence as Embodied Knowledge
- Human Body, Folk Narratives and Rituals
- Translating the Body Into Image. The Body Politic and Visual Practice at the Mughal Court During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
- The Multiple Bodies of the Bride: Ritualising 'World Class′ at Elite Weddings in Urban India
- The Politics of the Sensuous and the Sacred Body in India
- Lost in Transition? Managing paradoxical situations by inventing identities
