Hindu Deities in the Flesh

"Hot" Emotions, Sensual Interactions, and (Syn)aesthetic Blends

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3321044
AutoresGerrit Lange (0000-0001-5674-9633, Department for the Study of Religions, Philipp University of Marburg, 35037 Marburg, Germany, autor correspondente)
Ano2022
Volume13
Fascículo11
Páginas1045
Data de publicação2022-11-02
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoReligions (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
EditoraMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel13111045
OpenAlexW4309090575
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas24

In Hindu practices and narratives, otherworldly and nonhuman beings appear with nonhuman and otherworldly bodies and feelings. In this article, I draw from ethnographic fieldwork as well as from philology to outline the widespread perception of divine presence or emotion as "heat". This embodied idea or multi-sensual "aesthetic blend", as I propose to call it, can be found in very diverse cultural and historical traditions of South Asia. It is more than a concept, a "mapping" or a metaphor, insofar as it informs how people not only think of, but sensually encounter the bodies of goddesses and gods. By adding this new term to the vocabulary of the Study of Religions, I intend to build upon the focus on embodied, enacted and situated religion, as it has become prominent within the discipline, to see the seemingly disembodied texts and stories in a new light. Does, in the end, the way divine bodies are imagined feed back into how humans conceptualize and feel their own bodies

Aesthetics · Art · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Ethnography · Feeling · Hinduism · Linguistics · Literature · Metaphor · Narrative · Perception · Situated · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Philosophy · Religious studies · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies