Materiality, Devotion and Compromise

A Study of Goddess Films of South India

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4819411
AutoresChitra Sankaran (0000-0002-5200-3153, National University of Singapore, autor de correspondencia)
Año2015
Volumen11
Número4
Páginas443-464
Fecha de publicación2015-10-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaMaterial Religion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1743-2200 • E-ISSN: 1751-8342
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17432200.2015.1103470
OpenAlexW2322949561
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas21

If religions can be considered as "devotional houses," then engaging with their materiality becomes an important way of understanding how people inhabit these houses and live their lives inside them. This is particularly pertinent to Hinduism since the different material cultures that the Hindus have constructed over millennia have helped to keep their belief systems alive. One such contemporary mediation is through films that are seen as disseminating (often distorting) ancient beliefs to modern audiences. It is from this angle that I analyze the goddess films, a fairly popular sub-genre in India, under the category of mythological films. The goddess films are traditionally thought to present the glory and power of the Hindu goddess as divine mother, savior and protector. I will argue that the experience of watching the goddess on screen re-enacts Hindu notions of darśana and hence contributes to the Hindu practice of accessing the "intangible" through material means.Keywords: materialityHinduismgoddesscinemareligion Notes1. Naivedhya, a Sanskrit word meaning supplication, is food offered to a Hindu deity as part of a worship ritual, before eating it. As such, tasting during preparation or eating the food before offering it to God is forbidden. The food is placed before a deity and prayers are offered.2. An interesting parallel study is by Philip Lutgendorf (Citation2003). His essay "Jai Santoshi Maa Revisited: On Seeing a Hindu 'Mythological' Film" explores other aspects of watching a goddess film.3. Also Rachel Dwyer (Citation2006) in her book Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema admits that religious films have a predominantly female audience. See Introduction: 5–7.4. The evolution and shaping of the Dravidian parties has a long and convoluted history in Tamil Nadu. Dravida Kazhagam (DK) was founded by Periyar and formed by the merging of the Self- Respect Movement and the Justice Party. However, DK was conceived as an ideological wing out of which emerged Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or DMK. DK ideologues decided not to contest elections, preferring to remain the ideological fount of the Dravidian movement. However, DMK entered the political fray contesting against the dominant Congress Party. Currently, DMK has fragmented into several factions due to internal feuds, such as ADMK, TMDK. All these minor parties contest the state elections forming coalitions and alliances.5. Telugu is the language spoken by the people of Andhra Pradesh, the state adjacent to Tamil Nadu. Earlier goddess films used to be dubbed into Telugu from Tamil or vice versa. But with the recent advance in technology, the films are released simultaneously in different languages within India.6. Śaktism is the worship of the Hindu supreme goddess, Shakti ("Power" or "Energy"). Śaktism, together with Vaishnavism and Shaivism (which refer to Vishnu and Shiva cults respectively) is one of the major strands of modern Hinduism. Shakti or Goddess Mother is conceived of either as the paramount goddess or as the consort of a male deity, generally Shiva. The roots of Śaktism or the Śaktha cult, a denomination within Hinduism that focuses its bhakthi or worship on Shakti or Devi, can be traced back to India's prehistory – i.e., to Indian Paleolithic settlements more than 20,000 years ago, later through the Indus Valley civilization, through the Vedic period where her powers were partially eclipsed by the male trinity of gods, to modern times.7. Svadha and svaha are two terms that crop up fairly frequently during ritualized prayer ceremonies. Svadha was originally a physical offering, but it subsequently came to be the verbal utterance "svadha" offered to satisfy ancestors. Svaha is a ritual benediction such as "Hail!" offered to deities.8. Such texts abound in Hinduism, since, not being a founded religion and with no central monitoring body, inevitably, there are several texts, both ancient and modern, that profess to be sacred but can be extremely esoteric or frankly eccentric, to which a small cult could subscribe. Some of these texts (as, for instance, gowli panchangam, or gecko astrology, that makes the claim that depending on a gecko's movement one can predict the future) can also be very insistent on rituals that need to be performed in precise ways. For instance, as Sarah Caldwell of Harvard Divinity School remarks, "tantric religious traditions provide specific means for ritual worship of and yogic meditation upon the goddess, directing the worshipper to a state of complete identification and union with her" (Caldwell Citation2000).Additional informationNotes on contributorsChitra SankaranChitra Sankaran, PhD (London) (Department of English Language & Literature, National University of Singapore) works on fiction from South and South-East Asia. Her areas of research interest include comparative literature and feminist theory, including eco-feminism and feminist pedagogy. She has authored research monographs and has also edited books in the fields of Postcolonialism and Comparative Literatures. In 2012, she edited and published with SUNY (State University of New York Press) the first international volume of essays on Amitav Ghosh entitled History, Narrative and Testimony in Amitav Ghosh's Fiction. She has articles in several leading journals including Journal of Commonwealth Literature, ARIEL, Theatre Research International; Australian Feminist Studies, Critical Asian Studies, Studies in South Asian Film and Media. She is currently working on a book on eco-feminism in South and South East Asian Women's fiction

Aesthetics · Art · Glory · Hinduism · Literature · Movie theater · Mythology · Sanskrit · Theology · Worship · Cinema and Media Studies · History · Philosophy · Religious studies · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism · South Asian Cinema and Culture