The self possessed: deity and spirit possession in South Asian literature and civilization

Abstract

List of IllustrationsPrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionPart I: Orthodoxies, Madness, and Method1. Academic and Brahmanical OrthodoxiesPart II: Ethnography, Modernity, and the Languages of Possession2. New and Inherited Paradigms: Methodologies for the Study of Possession3. Possession, Trance Channeling, and Modernity4. Notes on Regional Languages and Models of PossessionPart III. Classical Literature5. The Vedas and Upanisads6. Friendly Acquisitions, Hostile Takeovers, The Panorama of Possession in the Sanskrit Epics7. Enlightenment and the Classical Culture of Possession8. Vampires, Prostitutes, and Poets: Narrativity and the Aesthetics of Possession9. Devotion as Possession10. Possession in Tantra: Constructed Bodies and Empowerment11. Tantra and the Diaspora of Childhood Possession12. The Medicalization of Possession in Ayurveda and Tantra13. Conclusions: Identity Among the Possessed and DispossessedBibliographyIndex