How to Cite

Hüsken, Ute: Viṣṇu’s Children: Prenatal life-cycle rituals in South India, translated by Will Sweetman, Heidelberg: Heidelberg Asian Studies Publishing, 2023 (Ethno-Indology: Heidelberg Studies in South Asian Rituals, Volume 9). https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1218

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Identifiers

https://doi.org/10.11588/hasp.1218
ISBN 978-3-948791-68-1 (PDF)

Published

05/04/2023
The print edition was published in 2009 by Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden. ISBN 978-3-447-05844-4

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Authors

Ute Hüsken, Will Sweetman (Transl.)

Viṣṇu's Children

Prenatal life-cycle rituals in South India

Ethno-Indology: Heidelberg Studies in South Asian Rituals

The Vaikhānasas, a group of Brahmanic priests in the Viṣṇu temples of south India, can look back on a long and turbulent history, that is characterized by the effort of claiming their status against rivalling priests. Central to this monograph is a controversy, ongoing for centuries, as to what makes a person eligible to perform the rituals in Viṣṇu temples: does birth or an initiation create the ideal intermediary between the god and humans? Since the 14th century CE the discussions in the relevant Sanskrit texs centre around the question of whether the Vaikhānasas priests must undergo an initiation including a branding on the upper arms, or whether their particular prenatal life-cycle ritual viṣṇubali makes them eligible to perform temple ritual. As hereditary temple priests the Vaikhānasas’ own stance is explicit: they are Viṣṇu’s own children, preordained for temple service already before birth. In addition to the textual perspective, three instances of local conflicts from the 19th/20th centuries about the question of whether the Vaikhānasas require an initiation are analysed in their contexts. Furthermore, three examples of present-day performances of the  viṣṇubali ritual are presented and interpreted in the light of the relation between text and performance.

The films, which were originally published on a DVD accompanying the book, are archived in the heidICON multimedia database and can be viewed via the following links:

Ute Hüsken is Professor of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia (Classical Indology) at the South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg. Her main areas of research are Buddhist and Hindu Studies, Ritual and Festival Studies as well as Gender Studies.

Chapters

Table of Contents
Pages
PDF
Title
Contents
5-6
Preface
7-12
Introduction
13-22
1. The Daśavidhahetunirūpaṇa
23-52
2. Rituals in the Daśavidhahetunirūpaṇa
53-142
3. Branding for Vaikhānasas in the 19th and 20th Centuries
143-160
4. Saṃskāra performance in the early 21st century
161-256
5. Variation in life-cycle rituals and the stability of tradition
257-272
Sanskrit texts
273-278
Secondary literature
279-294
Appendix 1
Tabular view of six Guruparamparās
295-300
Appendix 2
Text of the DVD booklet
301-308
Appendix 3
Text of the "Introduction" to the DVD
309-312
Abbreviations
313-314
Index
315-322

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