The Challenge of Chronotopicity: Female Co-Cremation in India Revisited in the Light of Time–Space Sensitive Ritual Criticism

Autor: Albertina (Tineke) Nugteren
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: Religions, Vol 11, Iss 6, p 289 (2020)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2077-1444
54986427
DOI: 10.3390/rel11060289
Popis: Rituals are embedded in a particular time and space, and so are their objects and meanings. The ‘chronotope’ we focus on here is the occasional—partly self-chosen, partly societally forced—ritual death of Hindu widows along with their deceased husbands. Although never widely practiced, widow-burning caught the imagination of Europeans as illustrating both Hinduism’s ‘barbarity’ and its ‘high conjugal ideals’. Although satī had been outlawed since 1829, in 1987 a new case inflamed opposing sentiments. In 2002, in a passage called ‘Ritual Criticism and Widow Burning’, Ronald Grimes drew attention to it as a rite of passage that calls for normative comments and ritual criticism. Since then, in circles of ritual studies Hindu, widow-burning has occasionally been repeated as one of the ritual practices in need of condemnation. In order to put this rare practice, banned since almost 200 years ago, back into a proper time–place perspective, both its ritual details and its sociocultural contexts are revisited. Finally, we propose some case-specific factors that could serve as retrospective ritual criticism. We conclude with a plea for time–space sensitivity.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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