0000000000176102

AUTHOR

Igor Spano

Una forma leggiadra. Simboli sessuali dell'altalena in India nel rito del mahavrata e in alcune pratiche contemporanee

In the grammar of rituals described in Vedic texts, the swing was an object whose meanings referred to the propitiation of fertility and solar symbolism. Although its use remains in various contemporary festive contexts, its meaning has been differently defined. By analyzing the passages from works belonging to the ancient religious literature, this article examines the description of the swing’s construction and the rite performed on it by the officiant named hotr. Such an approach allows us to focus on the symbolic elements related to the swing in one of the focal points of the sequence of the mahavrata ceremony. Through a diachronic investigation and considering the data from the compara…

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Recensione di: Witch Hunts : Culture, Patriarchy, and Structural Transformation di Govind Kelkar e Dev Nathan Cambridge University Press, 2020

Review by: Witch Hunts: Culture, Patriarchy, and Structural Transformation by Govind Kelkar and Dev Nathan

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Recensione di: Madri d'Oriente fra tradizione e dissenso, a cura di Marianna Ferrara e Leila Karami, Jouvence

Review by: Madri d'Oriente fra tradizione e dissenso, a cura di Marianna Ferrara e Leila Karami, Jouvence

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Un Churel Mandir in Gujarat. Note sulla diffusione delle rappresentazioni della figura della strega in India

The churels are figures of the folk imagery of a vast area of South Asia. They, commonly identified with witches, are spirits of women who died during pregnancy or childbirth, and who return to the world of the living, possessing them. The aim of this study is to provide an interpretative analysis of the representations of the churels and of the ambiguous climate that has been created around these figures in recent decades in India. A reflection on the power of the representations of the churels throughout history up to present-day India could be considered a key to penetrating the dense network of relationships and reinventions, but also of divergences and contradictions, sometimes with tr…

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Recensione di: Gṛhastha. The Householder in Ancient Indian Religious Culture

Review by: Gṛhastha. The Householder in Ancient Indian Religious Culture

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Recensione di: Come il mondo ha cambiato i social media, di Daniel Miller et alii

Review of: How the World Has Changed Social Media, by Daniel Miller et alii

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Il corpo della parola. Inni, poemi e performance nell'India antica e contemporanea

Nella storia culturale dell’India la riflessione sulla Parola e sui suoi molteplici significati attraversa ambiti e discipline diversi, intersecantisi a loro volta tra loro, nelle riflessioni che riguardano il mito, il rituale, la poesia, la scienza, la storia, il teatro, in una serie incessante di implicazioni e di allusioni che potremmo descrivere come un albero, le cui vertiginose ramificazioni abbracciano un arco di tempo che si estende dal corpus vedico all’India contemporanea. I diversi aspetti e i vari usi della parola investono sia il contesto pubblico sia quello privato, la sfera politica così come quella religiosa, dove performance, dottrine, riti e speculazioni fissano i confini …

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Ape in India

The honey bee is mentioned in some ancient Indian religious texts as a symbol of the sacrificial act; it also appears in some myths throughout Indian religious history with meanings partly related to representations of the divine feminine.

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