Zotter, Christof
Asketen auf Zeit: Das brahmanische Initiationsritual der Bāhun und Chetrī im Kathmandu-Tal
After its integration into the series of life-cycle rituals (saṃskāra) in the first millennium BC, the Brahmanical initiation (upanayana) underwent continual revision and reinterpretation. Today it is performed during a ritual complex called vratabandha, in which it is conducted together with three other saṃskāras, the whole set being embedded in a preliminary and framing ritual.
For the present volume, a combination of textual studies and fieldwork was employed to examine the principles by which a particular Vedic school (the White Yajurveda) and a concrete context (the vratabandha of Nepalese Bāhuns and Chetrīs) combines and adapts elements of different types of ritual (saṃskāra, pūjā, homa, etc.) in order to accommodate itself to changing times and circumstances.
The detailed formal analysis provides a key to interpreting the meaning of the whole complex of acts that constitute a vratabandha, in which the initiate temporarily becomes an ascetic in order to be initiated into his future householder role as a ritual practitioner.
Book reviews
Review of Christof Zotter, Asketen auf Zeit: Das brahmanische Initiationsritual der Bāhun und Chetrī im Kathmandu-Tal. Heidelberg: CrossAsia-eBooks, 2018. Reviewd by Andrea Wollein (University of Toronto) in: International Journal of Hindu Studies 26 (2022).
