Ritual Disintermediations: Tradition and Transformation of Sati Worship
This article examines the consecration and transformation of the customary practice of sati (widow burning) in the aftermath of a violent case of immolation in 1987 in Rajasthan, India. Focusing on debates around a penal law that was subsequently passed to criminalize all “glorification” of sati, I...
| Published in: | Material religion |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Taylor & Francis
2021
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| In: |
Material religion
Year: 2021, Volume: 17, Issue: 3, Pages: 381-404 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Rajasthan
/ Marwaris
/ Sati
/ Rito
/ Cambio social
/ Cambio religioso
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism KBM Asia |
| Further subjects: | B
Activism
B legal regulation B Sati B Ritual B Semiotics B Marwaris B disintermediation |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article examines the consecration and transformation of the customary practice of sati (widow burning) in the aftermath of a violent case of immolation in 1987 in Rajasthan, India. Focusing on debates around a penal law that was subsequently passed to criminalize all “glorification” of sati, I follow how the material substrate of the practice of worship got implicated in rivalling forms of adjudication. I draw on my historical and ethnographic research on the eponymous Rani Sati Temple in Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, to disentangle the overlapping discourses of civil activism, legal intervention and ritual practice through which the specific offering of chunari (red veil) became available for signification and intervention. The article advances the concept of disintermediation to understand the shifting semiotic trajectory of the custom as it gets reflected in the changing discursive fate of this one offering. |
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| ISSN: | 1751-8342 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Material religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/17432200.2021.1915532 |