Search results for " history of religion"
showing 9 items of 9 documents
Le molteplici risonanze di Vāc
2021
introduction to the publication of the works of the conference held on 25 and 26 June in Palermo
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…
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.
Streghe per Covid. Le accuse di stregoneria in India durante la pandemia di Coronavirus
2020
This survey aims to present an initial assessment of the incidence of the phenomenon of witch-hunting in India during 2020, at a particularly dramatic historical moment marked by the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic. The data are partial, but indicative, and have been gathered through daily monitoring of the main Indian newspapers in English and some newspapers (national and local) in Hindi. In India, the belief in witches is a phenomenon that is linked to specific elements both of Hindu cults, whose devotional expressions and folkloric elements are rooted in the Vedic texts, and the belief systems of some indigenous communities. Indeed, although influenced by the expressions of the Hindu …
Aksamala. Studi di indologia
2016
Indological Studies about Vedic and Indian Myths, Anthropology, History of Religions, Philosophy
L'irruzione del corpo femminile sulla scena sacrificale. Tra sessualità esibita e sessualità interiorizzata
2021
A study of women's roles and performances in Vedic rites
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…
Queer types in ancient India. The categorisation and representation of non-heterosexual individuals in some passages of Vedic literature
2022
Vedic culture has used a variety of terms to denote male individuals who do not fit within the canons of the heterosexual norm. Often, in the past, Vedic philology has provided homologating translations of these terms from outdated cultural constructs and imagery, which have often reduced differences to univocal meanings. In order to understand non-heteronormative sexualities and sexual practices, I have adopted in this study an approach based on the idea of the construction of the concept of gender and which aims to describe behaviour beyond definitions. The analysis of the semantic and conceptual domains identified by the different terms within the Vedic texts, as well as of the history o…
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…