The Life of Hinduism

holi. 105 miles away, to child husbands in families that were complete strangers. A tight- lipped young groom would be brought b ...

106. the life cycle two further festivals and many fasts giving it ritual support; and the Holibonfire it- self dramatized the d ...

holi. 107 Nandgaon,” the landlord confided in me, “for Nanda, Krishna’s foster father, must have lived on this side of the Jumna ...

108. the life cycle infant Krishna by giving him to suck of her poisonous mother’s milk. The Putana story could no doubt claim a ...

holi. 109 tivals of this one general character evidently had remained consistently associated with many of India’s complex, cast ...

110. the life cycle Who were those transfigured “cowherds” heaping mud and dust on all the lead- ing citizens? They were the wat ...

holi. 111 strictured youths act the rulers of the republic. The observing anthropologist, in- quiring and reflecting on the forc ...

112. the life cycle Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. Joseph Ward Swain (Glencoe, IL: Free Pre ...

part iv. PERFORMANCE ...

...

8. An Open-Air Ramayana Ramlila, the Audience Experience linda hess 115 This essay was published in an earlier form as “Ram Lila ...

116. performance twelve hours, culminating at dawn. Of course it is presumptuous to say “theaudi- ence experience” in this essay ...

an open-air ramayana. 117 Ramlilas the boys who play the deities are consecrated and worshipped like temple images. But in Ramna ...

118. performance generations. “Feeling, emotion, devotion!” It is repeatedly stressed that these make Ramnagar’s Ramlila special ...

an open-air ramayana. 119 wrapped betel nuts with spices) to the gods to eat. The he took out more panand asked Ram to touch it ...

120. performance ing araticeremony. Every day he and his wife and son made the garlands, at a cost in the 1970s of fifteen rupee ...

an open-air ramayana. 121 It is difficult to convey the intensely physical quality of participation in the Ramlila. It arises f ...

122. performance comes steadily more rural. Roads change from pavement to cobblestone to dirt, houses from plaster to brick to m ...

an open-air ramayana. 123 As darkness thickens we slip and stumble. Finally we arrive at some unidentifi- able spot in the Ramna ...

124. performance lice control and periods when control collapses and anarchy reigns, jostling that sometimes pitches someone off ...