The Danish-Halle Mission from the Perspective of Embodiment

Communication, Ritual, and the Body in Interreligious Contact

Bibliographic Data

ID9205572
AuthorsErki Lind (0009-0002-6673-961X, School of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Tartu Tartu Estonia, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume72
Issue1
Pages39-65
Publication date2025-01-03
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNumen (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0029-5973 • E-ISSN: 1568-5276
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15685276-07201002
OpenAlexW4406130911
LanguageEN
References cited17

This article studies the role of the body in interreligious contact by looking at the eighteenth-century Danish-Halle mission in South India. The missionaries’ theological arguments were mostly well received by Tamil Hindus, but the bodily lived religion and everyday experience determined the relationship with Christians. It was not only two different theologies that interacted, but two different conceptions of man. The missionaries used verbal communication and sought common ground in concepts, but the article argues that the body also participates in the communication process. The article argues first that the body is a center of relations, and that these relations are created in ritual. Separate rituals not only hold persons in separate networks of relations but create separate worldviews that lay the basis for separate concepts. Second, the body connects the doctrine with ritual and behavior, and the way the body experiences reality forms the basis for lived religion

Art · Common ground · Danish · Doctrine · Epistemology · History of religions · Linguistics · Perspective (graphical) · Sociology · Tamil · Theology · Visual arts · Communication · Gender Studies · Philosophy · Religious Education and Schools · Religious studies · Study and Philosophy of Religion · Theological Perspectives and Practices

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