Search results for " Filosofie"
showing 10 items of 11 documents
Una forma leggiadra. Simboli sessuali dell'altalena in India nel rito del mahavrata e in alcune pratiche contemporanee
2022
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…
Cuando la violencia genera identidad. La guerra en Sri Lanka y la diáspora tamil en Sicilia
2011
Sri Lanka, durante las dos últimas décadas, fue el escenario de una prolongada guerra civil entre la mayoría cingalesa budista y la minoría tamil hindú, que ha defendido su independencia. La primera parte de este artículo muestra que no fueron las diferencias de origen étnico-cultural las que llevaron a la guerra, sino las razones políticas y económicas. La guerra civil ha llevado a una radicalización y cristalización de las diferencias étnicas a través de la manipulación del pasado y del papel político del budismo. La guerra provocó la diáspora tamil en todo el mundo, incluyendo también Sicilia. En la segunda parte del artículo, se presentan algunos puntos del trabajo de campo realizado co…
Il culto dei gatti in India. Continuità ed evoluzione di credenze e pratiche religiose dall’India vedica all’India contemporanea
2019
Cat as an animal is a sporadic presence in Vedic mythology and Brahmanic works on rituals, while it appears in a few cult practices of contemporary popular religiosity in India. This article holds that in Indian devotional practices, the cat is conceived as an animal with an ambiguous nature. It also suggests that the cat cult is linked with the need to tame chaos, violence, and con$ict, and to place them in a controlled, orderly, and pacified cosmos. To understand these phenomena, this article studies, from a multidisciplinary perspective, contemporary religious practices in the light of the Indian tradition, and suggests that the cat cult was subject to substantial Brahmanization.
Aksamala. Studi di indologia
2016
Indological Studies about Vedic and Indian Myths, Anthropology, History of Religions, Philosophy
Introduzione
2005
The Introductory word explains the role and scope of music historiography during the second half of 19th-Century Italy. At that time, historiographers were oriented to discover the value and the ideal place of musical oeuvre, rethinking music periodization through different paradigms and philosophies.
Vr̥kṣa vivāha. Dendrogamie in India fra tradizioni antiche e pratiche devozionali contemporanee
2021
An inextricable tangle of branches and roots arises in many Indian villages in the place where two trees united in marriage (vr̥kṣa vivāha), grow intertwining with each other in an everlasting 'embrace'. This interweaving describes well the complex network of symbols and textual references that are revealed in the relationships that Indian culture has built around a pair of trees: the aśvattha and the śamī. In this paper, I will try to highlight some mythological and ritual aspects related to this pair. The two trees, in fact, although in today's context separately, are the object of rituals that turn out to be true tree marriages. In particular, concerning aśvattha, what is striking is tha…
Un Churel Mandir in Gujarat. Note sulla diffusione delle rappresentazioni della figura della strega in India
2021
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…
Ragazze folli di miele, Il miele e la celebrazione della parola nel rito del mahāvrata
2021
In these pages, we will explore the rite of mahāvrata, a Vedic rite connected to the celebration of the new year, from a study perspective aimed at the performative dimension. Specifically, I will focus on the final scene of the rite, because it is only at this moment that the actors and the ritual dynamics compose a particular scenario, evocative of fertility, in which some maidens, the ritual fire, and honey are the protagonists. The maidens are called upon to dance around the mārjālīya hearth and to intone a chant in which they repeat the word madhu ("honey") in an increasingly frenzied manner. The words spoken, in some cases meaningless formulas, reveal a unitary sense and hint at the f…
In the footsteps of the cows The ritual of gavāmayana between ancient and contemporary India
2022
Codified in classical Vedic times (8th-4th century BCE), the gavāmayana (‘the cow path’) was a year-long ritual session (sāmvatsarikasattra), which accompanied the succession of months of the Vedic religious calendar and ended with the celebration of mahāvrata (‘the great vow’) during the winter solstice. Marking the conclusion of the arduous ritual journey, it celebrated rebirth and consecrated the beginning of the new year. The book investigates gavāmayana based on a philological analysis of the texts and on a historical-religious and anthropological perspective, focusing on ancient India and some contemporary practices. The mahāvrata, in particular, seems to preserve the memory of very a…
Dendrolatrie. Miti e pratiche dell'immaginario arboreo
2021
L’avvento dell’Antropoce, epoca in cui l’essere umano è diventato una forza geologica, scompagina la divisione del sapere tra scienze umane e naturali. Per comprenderlo, è necessario costruire nuove forme di alleanza tra discipline. È quanto invita a fare anche il fe- nomeno delle dendrolatrie. Diffuso in ogni luogo e in ogni epoca, il culto degli alberi testimonia come il mondo arboreo abbia plasma- to modi di vivere e di pensare, venendone a sua volta trasformato. Per scavare nella complessità di questo scambio, il volume racco- glie i frutti del dialogo tra un gruppo interdisciplinare di ricercatrici e ricercatori che esplorano l’immaginario arboreo in tre direzioni: quella degli studi s…