Anthropos: Anthropos, 96.2001

Anthropos, 96.2001

Bibliographische Daten

Zeitschrift

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschrift

Werks-URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-714820

Persistenter Identifier:: BV043334262

Titel:: Anthropos

Untertitel:: internationale Zeitschrift für Völker- u. Sprachenkunde

Erscheinungsort:: Fribourg

Verlag:: Ed. St. Paul

Erscheinungsjahr:: 1906

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Wissensgebiet:: Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie > Allgemeines

Zeitschriftenband

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenband

Werks-URN (URL):: https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711750

URN:: urn:nbn:de:kobv:11-711750

Persistenter Identifier:: 1510221856924

Titel:: Anthropos, 96.2001

Erscheinungsjahr:: 2001

Signatur:: LA 1118

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Zeitschriftenheft

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenheft

Titel:: Bd. 96, 2001, Heft 2

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

Zeitschriftenartikel

Strukturtyp:: Zeitschriftenartikel

Titel:: The Structure and Meaning of Daily Worship in a South Indian Temple

Sonstige Person:: Good, Anthony

Sammlung:: Zeitschriften und Zeitungen > Zeitschriften zur Ethnologie

ANTHROPOS 96.2001: 491-507 The Structure and Meaning of Daily Worship in a South Indian Temple Anthony Good Abstract. - At the core of worship in a large Hindu temple is the complex daily liturgy around which all other temple activities are structured, and upon which the order of the cosmos is said to depend. This article, which combines ethno graphic observations with exegeses by local priests and insights from indological studies of Saiva Siddhanta philosophical texts, describes daily worship in the temple of Lord Kalukacalamurtti (a local form of Murukan) in the town of Kalugumalai, Tamil Nadu, South India. It goes on to consider the significance of the principal stages - unction, decoration, food offering, and lamp-showing - in the puja rite which forms the basis of wor ship in Saivite temples. [South India, Tamil Nadu, Hinduism, Murukan, temples, worship, cosmology] Anthony Good, Ph.D. (University of Durham), is Senior Lectur- er and former Head of the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh; for ten years he was also a social development consultant for the UK government’s De partment for International Development. - His research in terests focus on South India and Sri Lanka, with particular e mphasis on Hinduism, kinship, and political asylum issues. He is the author of Research Practices in the Study of Kinship (London 1984; with Alan Barnard); The Female Bridegroom (Oxford 1992); and numerous articles. The central challenge for anyone studying a Hindu te mple is to account for the complex daily liturgy around which all other temple activities are struc tured. After all, the ordering and very survival of the cosmos are said to depend crucially upon it. Tet although there is a substantial literature dealing teith its scriptural basis, the actual practice of this liturgy has received remarkably little attention from writers on Hinduism. Not a single detailed description has been published for any southern temple, and those still relatively few authors who have studied temples through ethnographic field research 1 have tended to concentrate on festivals, while at most merely sketching out the timetable of daily worship. This article, together with a related earlier publication (Good 2000), is meant as a small step towards redressing that imbalance. After describing the liturgy in some detail, using a combination of ethnographic observation, ex egeses by local priests, and indological commen taries on Sanskrit philosophical and theological texts, it proceeds to consider the significance of the principal stages in the puja rite which forms the basic building block of Hindu worship. The Layout of the Temple Kalugumalai lies in the Tuticorin District of Tamil Nadu, a recent subdivision of the old Tirunelveli District. The town is dominated by a 600-foot hill, towering dramatically above the dusty plain of Kovilpatti Taluk. Its southern face is a sheer cliff overlooking the main residential area, at the base of which is the cave-shrine of Kalukacalamurtti, the local form of Lord Murukan, younger son of Siva and a particularly popular deity among Tamils. This cave, which I shall call the main shrine, is man-made or at least artificially enlarged, and is believed by local people to be Jain in 1 For example, Appadurai (1981), Clothey (1983), Fuller (1984), Moreno (1984), Reiniche (1989).

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