Religion in Contemporary Asia
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Urban living conditions, increased mobility, high educational standards, and the impact of digitalized communication patterns are reshaping religious life across contemporary Asia. The increased fluidity of established orders of knowledge and social life asks for new, academically rigorous approaches to the Study of Religions. This series brings together aesthetic, material, gender-differentiated and globally embedded perspectives and thus makes a significant contribution to the understanding of contemporary religion in Asia.
Naiṇī (or Nāginā) is the name of nine Hindu goddesses, who rule over nine villages of Pindar valley in the Indian Himalaya. Seven of these goddesses establish the rule over their territory through a half-year-long journey (yātrā), during which they are carried around, embodied in the shape of a bamboo pole. To start such a journey, a Naiṇī has to be literally “unearthed”: a clay pot is taken from under the ground, which means that she is brought up from Nāglok, the underworld of serpent deities.
Through their yātrās, the Naiṇīs re-establish their family ties to the women of their respective village who have married into other villages. The explicit goal of the rituals, festivals and processions devoted to the Naiṇīs is to make them happy and to ease their anger about a lack of worship. Thus, the question what a Naiṇī feels is at the core of their religion. This study approaches this evasive topic from two angles: the emotions named when people tell about her and the feelings displayed in ritual interactions with her. The wide array of feelings "unearthed" in this sense shows that asking about nonhuman emotions can contribute to our understanding of religion in general.
Previous research on Shinto has shed light on the history of female priesthood, provided ethnographies of shrines and documented the persistence of a male-dominated shrine world. However, the experience of women in religious positions in contemporary shrine and imperial court Shinto have received little attention, despite their growing significance as religious successors and leaders in an aging and secularised society. How do they go about their day and navigate this "male world"?
On the basis of extensive empirical research, this study closes this gap, theorizing on the identity and agency of female priests, shrine assistants and palace ritualists, grounded in data from fieldwork, interviews and autobiographical material. It also provides thorough introductions to each position, the socio-political framework and an excursion into the shrine wife’s role. While the task of inheriting and transmitting shrine culture in service of the kami unites all the women under study, the ways they perceive their religious identity and role are distinct in each position and its specific set of (pre)conditions. It is thus the first study in the English language to treat and compare all major positions for women in contemporary, lived Shinto.
