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Violence is a characteristic that has somewhat become definitional for the Hindu goddess Kālī. But looking at it through the lens of folk narrative and the popular, devotion-infused and highly personalised opinions of her devotees shows that not only the understanding, but also the acceptance of this violence and the connected anger and bloodthirst that are usually attached to it, as well as the feelings of fear and danger that arise from them on the devotees’ end, are subjects open to discussion. This article, at the juncture between anthropology, performance, and Hindu studies, analyses and compares discourses about her Malayali counterpart, Bhadrakāḷi, drawing simultaneously on various versions of her founding myth of Dārikavadham (‘The Slaying of Dārikan’), ritual routines of her temples in Central Kerala as well as ritual performing arts that are conducted in some of them. The concluding discussion of her alleged thirst for blood and identification of the ’real‘ addressee of blood offerings made to her particularly illustrates how far the negotiation of Bhadrakāḷi’s use of violence and her very definition as violent goddess reaches deep into the worshipper/deity relationship that lies at the heart of popular worship.

This paper investigates the material culture of icons on the International Space Station as part of a complex web of interactions between cosmonauts and the Russian Orthodox Church, reflecting contemporary terrestrial political and social affairs. An analysis of photographs from the International Space Station (ISS) demonstrated that a particular area of the Zvezda module is used for the display of icons, both Orthodox and secular, including the Mother of God of Kazan and Yuri Gagarin. The Orthodox icons are frequently sent to space and returned to Earth at the request of church clerics. In this process, the icons become part of an economy of belief that spans Earth and space. This practice stands in contrast to the prohibition against displaying political/religious imagery in the U.S.-controlled modules of ISS. The icons mark certain areas of ISS as bounded sacred spaces or hierotopies, separated from the limitless outer space beyond the space station walls.

s death) of ideal widowhood, but also deserved to be worshiped by Bengalis along with Caitanya as a divine couple. The article contends that while the ways of biographic imaging of Viṣnupriyā reveals the fissures and frictions within the colonial Vaiṣṇava reform process, it also highlights various continuities with pre-colonial strands of Vaiṣṇava thought. Viṣnupriyā dual worship in the colonial period. It explores the varied ways in which certain segments of educated Bengali intelligentsia actively involved in reassessing Vaiṣṇavism in colonial times disseminated the idea that Viṣnupriyā was not just a symbol of unwavering devotion, of resolute penance, and (after Caitanya&rsquo This article tries to map the gender element in Bengali Vaiṣṇavism by focusing on the evolution of the image of Viṣnupriyā, Caitanya&rsquo s second wife, as it progressed from the pre-colonial hagiographic tradition to the novel theorization of Gaura&ndash

a Mongolian ethnic group settled in Southern Siberia, Northern Mongolia, and North-Eastern China. Both historically and in our time, their traditional sports have been closely linked to shamanic rituals. This paper provides insights into the functions of these sports competitions for Buryat shamanic rituals&mdash constructions of their relationship to their imagined spiritual entities and the corresponding changes in their sports competitions are described. The effects of both economic changes&mdash why they have been, and still are, an inevitable part of these rituals. They are believed to play an important role in these rituals, which aim to trick and/or please the Buryats&rsquo This paper presents the religious aspects of the historical and present forms of the traditional sports competitions of the Buryats&mdash from shamanism to Buddhism and from Soviet Communist ersatz religion to the post-Soviet revival of shamanism and Buddhism&mdash spirits and gods in order to get from them what is needed for survival. The major historical changes in the Buryats&rsquo are described. Special attention is given to the recent revival of these sports&rsquo from predominantly hunting to primarily livestock breeding&mdash and of changes in religious beliefs and world views&mdash prominent role for Buddhist and shamanist rituals.

of Anthony Uzodimma Obinna, an Igbo schoolteacher from the town of Aboh Mbaise in Imo State, and his extended family to Mormonism in southeastern Nigeria between the 1960s and the 1980s, from a historical perspective. I argue that the transition of Anthony Obinna and his family away from Catholicism to Mormonism can be explained by both the elective affinities that existed between Mormonism and indigenous Igbo culture, and socio-economic factors as well. This article bases its conclusions on a close reading of oral histories, personal papers, and correspondence housed at the LDS Church History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah and L. Tom Perry Special Collections at Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. This article analyzes the &ldquo conversion&rdquo

i manner. Read together, these sources present a genuine project and spirit of reform in the ideas, imaginaries, and practices related to death in Vietnam from the 1920s onwards, crystallizing a specific Cao Đà i, we trace the ritual process of funerals from the altar and coffin preparation to the collection of prayers and talismanic rituals conveyed to save souls in a Cao Đà i theology represents both the body and the spiritual components of each individual in the specific millenarian conception of existence that characterizes Cao Đà i religion (or Caodaism), combining both a theological and an ethnographical analysis. After introducing how Cao Đà This article sheds light on the sophisticated funeral process set up by the Cao Đà i identity in Vietnamese and also East Asian redemptive societies&rsquo deathscapes.

landsdalen (1306) and Ylmheim (1321/1323) offer a small glimpse of what may have been a semi-domestic devotional practice related to sculpture, namely the embellishing of wooden sculptures in parish churches with silver bracelets and silver brooches. According to wills from England and the continent, jewellery was a common material gift donated to parishes by women. Such a practice is likely to have been taking place in Norway, too, yet the lack of coherent source material complicate the matter. Nonetheless, using a few preserved objects and archaeological finds as well as medieval sermons, homiletic texts and events recorded in Old Norse sagas, this article teases out more of the significances of the silver items mentioned in the two inventories by exploring the interfaces between devotional acts, decorative needs, and possibly gendered experiences, as well as object itineraries between the domestic and the religious space. Eagerly venerated and able to perform miracles, medieval relics and religious artefacts in the Latin West would occasionally also be subject to sensorial and tactile devotional practices. Evidenced by various reports, artefacts were grasped and stroked, kissed and tasted, carried and pulled. For medieval Norway, however, there is very little documentary and/or physical evidence of such sensorial engagements with religious artefacts. Nevertheless, two church inventories for the parish churches in Hå

The Qing period saw both the flowering of Buddhism in Mongolia as well as the arrival of new infectious diseases such as smallpox and syphilis which had reached epidemic levels by the 17th to early 20th centuries. During that critical period, a considerable number of Mongolian Buddhist scholars produced a substantial amount of works dedicated to the ways of fighting epidemics. This paper explores the efforts of Mongolian Buddhist scholars in countering this new threat, within the unique social and political milieu of the time. Smallpox spread severely reduced the Mongolian population and could have influenced the change of political control in the region, as several prominent Mongolian leaders who fought against Qing domination were themselves victims of smallpox epidemics. Similarly, at the beginning of the 20th century, around half the Mongolian population was infected by syphilis and, as a result, the population further declined in numbers. Tibetan Buddhist medicine, which was introduced to Mongolia from Tibet, was enriched by Mongolian traditional medical practices and fused with traditional Mongolian and Chinese medical knowledge during Mongolian scholars&rsquo search for preventive methods against infectious diseases. This article examines the works of three renowned Mongolian Buddhist scholars who dealt with issues of infectious diseases: Ye shes dpal &lsquo ltim, and Lobsang chos &lsquo byor, Chakhar Gé Lobsang Tsü shé phel.

s Paradise Lost can prove daunting for the average undergraduate reader whose experience of texts has been circumscribed by pedagogical mandates focused on reading for information. While information-retrieval based reading certainly has its place, the experience of reading these longer, more allegorical and symbolic poems can create in the attentive reader a far more valuable kind of learning, understood by Dante and his heirs, all working from Homeric and Virgilian models, as understanding. Each of these long poems pay very close attention to acts of interpretation, foregrounding the experiences of their characters to illustrate the proper way to move from sense, past speculation, to true understanding. Those who heed these lessons, and embrace the experience offered by the poet, find that the daunting task has been outlined as the necessary step to true knowledge rather than mere information. The interpretive challenges posed by dense and lengthy poems such as Dante&rsquo s Faerie Queene, and Milton&rsquo s Inferno, Spenser&rsquo

This article deals with Catholic Charismatics in Italy. The brief description of the case study gives a chance to make some more general comments on what is happening under the sacred canopy of Global Catholicism where the Spirit blows, and furthermore in relation with so-called Global Pentecostalism. In other words, my working hypothesis includes the following statements: (a) Catholic Pentecostalism constitutes a variant of a more global phenomenon, which seems to challenge the organizational model of historic Christian churches. (b) The study of the Italian case is interesting because its story shows the extent to which Pentecostalism questions the Roman form of Catholicism. Elsewhere in the world, the development of the phenomenon has not encountered the same difficulties as it did in Italy. Indeed, in some cases (Brazil and the Philippines), it has been supported and accepted as a sign of new religious vitality. From this point of view, Rome is relatively far away. The Roman&ndash Tridentine model governed by the clergy resists in Italy, while it appears weaker where the Spirit blows wherever it wants. The Charismatic movement was gradually brought back to the bed of ecclesial orthodoxy after a long persuasive work carried out by bishops and theologians towards the leaders of the movement itself. However, despite this ecclesification/clericalization process, the charismatic tension remains, and the expectation for a pneumatic church constitutes an implicit form of criticism of the Roman form of Catholicism.