Aghor medicine : pollution, death, and healing in northern India / Ron Barrett ; foreword by Jonathan P. Parry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barrett, Ron, 1963-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Medical anthropology--India--Vārānasi (Uttar Pradesh).

Medical anthropology.

Aghorīs--Rituals.

Aghorīs.

Healing--Religious aspects--Aghorīs.

Healing.

Leprosy--Treatment--India--Vārānasi (Uttar Pradesh).

Leprosy.

Leprosy--Treatment.

Healing--Religious aspects.

India--Vārānasi (Uttar Pradesh).

Physical Description:

xxii, 216 pages : illustrations, map ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, [2008]

Summary:

For centuries, the Aghori have been known as the most radical ascetics in India; they have lived naked on the cremation grounds, meditated on corpses, engaged in cannibalism and coprophagy, and consumed intoxicants out of human skulls. In recent years, however, the Aghori have shifted their practices from the embrace of ritually polluted substances to the healing of stigmatized diseases. In the process, they have become a large, socially mainstream, and politically powerful organization. Based on extensive fieldwork, this lucidly written book explores the dynamics of pollution, death, and healing in Aghor medicine. Ron Barrett examines a range of Aghor therapies from ritual bathing to modified Ayurveda and biomedicines, and clarifies many misconceptions about this little-studied group and its highly unorthodox, powerful ideas about illness and healing.

Contents:

1 The Cosmic Sink 29

2 Fire in the Well 57

3 The Reformation 84

4 The Wrong Side of the River 101

5 Dawa and Duwa 119

6 Death and Nondiscrimination 138.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 199-209) and index.

ISBN:

9780520252189

0520252187

9780520252196

0520252195

OCLC:

85892219