person and in return receiving a blessing. There are many social implications of
gift giving in Hindu society and gods who receive gifts, as Brahmans who receive
gifts from a donor, might also be seen to be absorbing the impurity of the donor
(Raheja 1988; Parry 1994; see Quigley in this volume). The god, then, is an
honored guest akin to a king who has the power to absolve the person making
the offering (Fuller 1992: 107). There are principally two realms where pu ̄ja ̄has
been enacted, in the public space of the temple and in the domestic sphere of the
home. The temple as a home for a god developed around 700 ceand temple ritual
became all-pervasive and a marker of social boundaries. Large regional temples
developed which housed great deities such as the dancing S ́iva at Cidambaram
or the form of Vis.n.u, Lord Jaganna ̄th at Puri, and local temples and shrines
housed local deities. Different deities and kinds of substance offered, have been
closely related to social differentiation, with higher castes being focused on the
great deities of the Hindu pantheon and lower castes being focused on local,
often ferocious, deities, particularly goddesses (Babb 1975). While high-caste
deities and temples generally accept only vegetarian offerings, lower-caste deities
at local shrines and temples in order to be appeased often demand offerings of
blood and alcohol as well (see Freeman’s essay on the teyyams of Kerala). Ritual
serves to highlight social difference not only through inclusion, but more
importantly, through exclusion and high caste pu ̄ja ̄in temples has excluded the
lower castes who might, in the eyes of the Brahmans, pollute the sacredness of
the deity’s home.
Along with the shared pattern of making an offering and receiving a bless-
ing, usually in the form of food offered to the deity and received back as blessed
food (prasa ̄da), there is a common notion that sacred power is embodied in par-
ticular, concrete forms (mu ̄rti,vigraha). Furthermore, this sacred power is manip-
ulable by specialists, temple or shrine priests, with the authority to do so. A ritual
of consecration in which the consciousness or power of the deity is brought into
the image awakens the icon in a temple. This consciousness or sacred power can
be transferred; thus it can be temporarily placed in the festival icon (utsava
vigraha) for the purpose of parading the deity for the community to receive the
god’s vision (dars ́an.a, see Eck 1981). Or sacred power can also enter or be placed
in human beings, who become vessels for the god’s presence in the community,
perhaps during an annual festival (see, for example, Hiltebeitel 1991; Freeman
onteyyams in this volume).
Narrative
Closely related but not co-extensive with ritual are the regional narratives in
local languages and transregional narratives of the Sanskritic tradition. The
close connection between ritual and myth is attested in the Veda, which records
some myths and alludes to others, and many of those stories are developed at a
later date. There are two important groups of narrative traditions: the epics
introduction: establishing the boundaries 7