Religious Festivals in South India and Sri Lanka

Guy R. Welbon (Edited by), Glen E. Yocum (Edited by)

9789394262461

Hardback, published 20 November 2024

358 pages
23 x 15 x 1.5 cm, 0.7 kg

Exciting celebrations in special time, religious festivals are more than colourful public spectacles. They are mirrors and windows in and through which a full range of human values and concerns – whether religious, aesthetic, social, economic and political – can be seen.

In this volume, twelve scholars explore various dimensions of meaning in some of the many festivals that are vigorously conducted in South India and Sri Lanka. Approaching their subjects from several interdisciplinary perspectives, the authors base their descriptions and interpretations on primary sources: literary documents, their own first-hand observations, and, frequently, a productive combination of textual and contextual data.

The essays included to unravel the technical intricacies and symbolisms of festival calendars; analyze representative festival cycles; and vividly describe and comment on individual festival performances – from the spectacular Citr? Festivals in Madurai, Mah??ivar?tri, ?sa_la Perahäras at Kataragama and Kandy to less familiar instances of village festivals, temple festival drama, and festive ritual art forms.

Collectively, these essays document some of the richness of festival performances in certain parts of South Asia. Further, through the questions that are posed and the answers that are given in them, they suggest fruitful ways of reconsidering the significance of religious festivals, wherever they are observed.

• Page
• Acknowledgements v
• Preface vii
• Contributors xi ii
• The Hindu Festival Calendar—
  Karen L. illerrey 1
• Festivals in Paticaratra Literature—
  H. Daniel Smith 27
• The Cycle of Festivals at Parthasarath I. Temple—
  lames L. Martin 51 The Canclala's Song—
  Guy R. Welbon 77
• Two Citra Festivals in Madurai—
  D. Dennis Hudson 101
• Chronometry, Cosmology, and the Festival Calendar in the Murukan Cult—
  Fred W. Clothey 157
• Mahagivaratri: The Saiva Festival of Repentance—
  J. Bruce Long 189 The Festival Interlude: Some Anthropological Observations —
  Suzanne Hanchett 219
• The End is the Beginning: A Festival Chain in Andhra Pradesh Jane M. Christian 243
• Kalam Eluttu: Art and Ritual in Kerala—
  Clifford R. Jones 269
• The Kataragama and Kandy Asala Peraharas : Juxta-posing Religious Elemen is in Sri Lanka—
  Donald K. Swearer 295
• An-keliya: A Literary-Historical Approach—
  Glenn E. locunz 313
• Index 331