Naiṇī mātā - Cobra Mum : Unearthing and Enacting the Feelings of Nine Himalayan Hindu Goddesses / Gerrit Lange.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lange, Gerrit, Author.

Series:

Religion in contemporary Asia (Walter de Gruyter & Co)

Religion in contemporary Asia : gender, aesthetics, and global entanglements, 2944-3180 ; 1

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource (XX, 346 p.).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin Boston De Gruyter, [2025]

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

text file PDF

Biography/History:

Gerrit Lange, Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

Summary:

Naiṇī (or Nāginā) is the name of nine Hindu goddesses, who rule over nine villages of Pindar valley in the Indian Himalaya. Seven of these goddesses establish the rule over their territory through a half-year-long journey (yātrā), during which they are carried around, embodied in the shape of a bamboo pole. To start such a journey, a Naiṇī has to be literally "unearthed": a clay pot is taken from under the ground, which means that she is brought up from Nāglok, the underworld of serpent deities. Through their yātrās, the Naiṇīs re-establish their family ties to the women of their respective village who have married into other villages. The explicit goal of the rituals, festivals and processions devoted to the Naiṇīs is to make them happy and to ease their anger about a lack of worship. Thus, the question what a Naiṇī feels is at the core of their religion. This study approaches this evasive topic from two angles: the emotions named when people tell about her and the feelings displayed in ritual interactions with her. The wide array of feelings "unearthed" in this sense shows that asking about nonhuman emotions can contribute to our understanding of religion in general.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Abbreviations and fonts

1 Arrival

1.1 A "longing mother" (tarastī mātā): Research questions

1.2 A very good boy: What brought me to Pindar valley

1.3 āj āī Naiṇī devī - Naiṇī devī has come today

2 itihās: A landscape and its history, a storyand its setting

2.1 Disentangling narrative threads

2.2 Clothed in "myths"

2.3 devbhūmī: The land of goddesses and gods

2.3.1 Piṇḍār valley: Geography, history, and migrations

2.3.2 Kinship: How the the goddesses' human sisters (dhyāṇī) shape their territory

2.3.3 Kingship and queenship: Aesthetics and moods of divine rule in Garhwal

2.3.4 Places as agents and divine bodies

3 sambandh: The web of social bonds,narrative threads and family ties

3.1 Vāsukī kī nāg kanyā: A serpent girl

3.1.1 Krishna, Garuḍa, and the nāgas

3.1.2 nāgas as underground beings and "serpentine natives"

3.1.3 From nāg to kanyā, from serpent hood to womanhood

3.2 Bhagvatī daiṇī: "The Goddess" among multiple goddesses

3.2.1 The mild and vegetarian Naiṇīs and their wild, hot and bloodthirsty cousins, the Chandikas

3.2.2 Mountain daughters: In the shadow of Nanda devī

3.3 ṛṣiyoṃ kī betī: The human brothers and sisters of a "daughter of sages"

3.3.1 The gaṇve pujārī and other priests

3.3.2 Two airvālā "sisters" and four cinvālā "brothers"

3.3.3 Drummers, trumpeteers, and other staff members

3.4 devtāo kī dhyāṃṇ, "sister of the gods": When gods and ghosts join the party

3.5 brahm-bandhan: Materialized bonds and family ties

4.1 Divine bodies: ghaṛā and niśān, aṃśa and visarjan

4.1.1 The bamboo body: Pole and "symbol" (niśān/cihn/pratīk)

4.1.2 The grass body: A rope (śirā), being several snakes at once

4.1.3 Trees and grasses: Plant intimacies

4 avatār: The goddess is present.

4.1 Divine bodies: ghaṛā and niśān, aṃśa and visarjan

4.2 The tenderness of pūjā: Divine senses, ritual substances and affordance

4.2.1 The smell of purity: Motherly love and the five products of the cow (pañcagāvya)

4.2.3 The charm of music

4.3 Signature moves: Possession as divine embodiment

4.3.1 devnāc, the dance of deities through human bodies

4.3.2 Sk. āveśa: Being "entered" or "seized" by emotion

5 "Your sisters' darling": Divine and humanfeelings

5.1 Feeling, emotion, affect: Tentative definitions and their dissolution

5.1.1 rasas and bhāvas

5.1.2 The object of my study: Feelings named, displayed and ritualized

5.2 Naiṇī devī's feelings, as named by villagers of Pindar valley

5.2.1 khuśī, mitratā and prem: Happiness, friendship and love

5.2.2 prakop and nārāzgī: Anger and frustration

5.2.6 raṅge royu: Bringing divine emotions from stories to life

5.3 The emotional reality of goddesses and gods

5.3.1 Divine intentionality, addressability, and the experience of resonance

5.3.2 How to live with a restless goddess: Divine emotions as collective emotions

6 Dancing deities: The dramaturgy of religion

6.1 hāsya nāṭak: Ridiculous gods in a dance battle

6.2 The drama of incarnation: Filming feelings and deities

6.3 Dancing ethnographers: The participant observation of feelings

6.3.1 Knowing the ropes: Do we "grasp" feelings by being "gripped"?

6.3.2 Atmosphere and discharge: Emotion metaphors shared by Hindu practitioners and ethnographers

6.4 śakti or vyakti? Naiṇī devī as impersonal force and as person

6.4.1 śaktitva: The goddess as manifestation and appearence (māyā, kalpanā, rūp).

6.4.2 vyaktitva: The goddess as an (in)dividual self

7 Departure

7.1 Human and divine identities, blending through feeling (bhāv)

7.2 Looking back and forth

7.3 Epilogue: Staying in Touch

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

3-11-163149-4

OCLC:

1535123815