title: Performing God′s Body
creator: Sax, William S.
description: Bhairav is the central deity in a cult of ritual healing in the Central Himalayas that is closely associated with the lowest castes. This article discusses his embodied form, arguing that it is intimately related to the bodies of low-caste people, whose oppression and suffering it both reflects and ameliorates. This history of Bhairav's body is captured by in local memory and oral history; and its iconography is revealed in songs and rituals. Ultimately, Bhairav's appearance in the body of a "possessed" devotee is his most important mode of embodiment, and one that tells us a great deal about what it means to be a Harijan.
publisher: de Gruyter
date: 2009
type: Article
type: info:eu-repo/semantics/article
type: NonPeerReviewed
format: application/pdf
identifier: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserverhttps://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/32761/1/10.1524_para.2009.0011.pdf
identifier: DOI:10.11588/heidok.00032761
identifier: https://doi.org/10.1524/para.2009.0011
identifier: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-327610
identifier:   Sax, William S.  (2009) Performing God′s Body.  Paragrana, 18 (1).  pp. 165-187.  ISSN 0938-0116 (Druck-Ausg.); 2196-6885 (Online-Ausg.)     
relation: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/32761/
rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/help/license_urhg.html
language: eng