The Puzzle of Basil Brides and Canine Grooms On the Material Assemblage of Hindu Folk Rituals, and the Agency of Non-humans

Abstract

This paper begins by looking at the tradition of tulsi vivaha (the wedding for a Basil plant), to ask what happens in rituals where basil plants are cast as brides. The analysis then widens out to compare tulsi vivaha to other types of Hindu folk weddings in which the bride or groom is non-human: a canine or a tree or a fruit or a frog. In each of these cases, the human participants are deploying the ritual idiom of human weddings for what must be entirely different purposes. I argue that the theoretical categories of assemblage and materiality have the capacity to open up new avenues for analysing these kinds of rituals, to better capture the deep and complex humanness of the people who stage them and to invite into the picture the non-human beings being married.