Introduction

Younger, Paul

doi:10.1093/0195140443.003.0001

Chapter

Introduction

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https://doi.org/10.1093/0195140443.003.0001

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3–14

Published:

December 2001

Extract

The annual festivals that are a central feature of the South Indian religious tradition are among the largest religious gatherings anywhere in the world. These festivals are held in hundreds of locations, and the important ones attract well over a hundred thousand worshipers. Most of the festivals last about 10 days, some for shorter or longer periods. Most are associated with Hindu temples, but some are linked with Buddhist, Christian, or Islamic centers, and many involve people or symbols from more than one religious tradition. An outside observer might find the many activities of a South Indian festival somewhat chaotic, yet the participants see the activities as the ritual focus of a distinct religious experience and frequently testify that they and their ancestors have found their most profound sense of religious meaning in the activity of a festival.

Despite the festivals' obvious importance in the religious life of many people, they have not received much scholarly attention. There are two interrelated reasons for this neglect. First reason is that Brāhman scholars, and priests within Brāhmanical temples, generally did not understand or value festival religion. Festival religion had its roots within the non‐Brāhmanical communities that were traditionally not allowed to worship within the Brāhmanical temples; in many ways it represents an alternative religious form to that offered within the Brāhmanical temples. Although Brāhmanical temples later developed their own modified festival traditions, the difference in worship style between festival worship and the daily rituals inside the temples is great, and Brāhmans continue to be uncomfortable about festival religion. Second, the festivals have been neglected by scholars because in the nineteenth century when western scholars began the study of Hindu religion, they looked primarily at texts. Judging by the role texts played in the major western religious traditions, these scholars assumed that they would eventually understand what went on in Hindu temples,¹ and in festivals and pilgrimages as well. Only slowly have scholars reassessed these mistaken assumptions and recognized that the literature produced by the Brāhman community was linked to their special concerns, and that many of the most popular religious traditions were not tied to those same concerns. In the case of festival religion, these two prejudices worked neatly together in that Brāhmans were eager to provide western scholars with texts about their own special interests, and even more ready to minimize the importance of festival religion. As anthropological references² to festivals became more rich and interesting a few decades back, students of religion began to reflect on this popular form of religious life.³

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