The Domain of Constant Excess: Plural Worship at the Munnesvaram Temples in Sri LankaThe Sri Lankan ethnic conflict that has occurred largely between Sinhala Buddhists and Tamil Hindus is marked by a degree of religious tolerance that sees both communities worshiping together. This study describes one important site of such worship, the ancient Hindu temple complex of Munnesvaram. Standing adjacent to one of Sri Lanka's historical western ports, the fortunes of the Munnesvaram temples have waxed and waned through the years of turbulence, violence and social change that have been the country's lot since the advent of European colonialism in the Indian Ocean. Bastin recounts the story of these temples and analyses how the Hindu temple is reproduced as a center of worship amidst conflict and competition. |
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... sense of regional religious and ethnic identity. Thus, while orientations to Munnesvaram and its significance vary widely, they all share the sense that Munnesvaram is a temple complex of great importance. The two principal temples ...
... sense, however, for while at one moment the fluidity of social and religious categories appears to be asserted by a unity of purpose in temple worship at Munnesvaram, in the next moment the temples display the fragmentation of different ...
... sense and not simply in the more limited sense of 'command', where power is very simply the power over another.12 Potentiality in my usage relates to the French term puissance in contrast to pouvoir where pouvoir (power, command) is an ...
... sense of the uniqueness of Munnesvaram – a Tamil Saivite temple with a predominantly Sinhala Buddhist patronage in a period of ethnic violence between Tamils and Sinhalese. I am also concerned to show how Munnesvaram survives and ...
... sense that some practices have greater legitimacy than other practices. The hierarchy of the temples and, with that, the hierarchy of the deities, conveys the sense of how certain features of the sacred enable and thus encompass other ...
Contents
1 | |
15 | |
Chapter 3 Myths and Marginality | 43 |
Chapter 4 Ritual Practices and Religious Identity | 59 |
Chapter 5 The Saivite Temple as a Monumental Architecture | 89 |
Puja and Arccanai | 117 |
Chapter 7 The Presence of Sakti | 133 |
Chapter 8 Guardians Games and the Formation of Power | 145 |
Chapter 9 The World Inside Out | 163 |
Chapter 10 The Domain of Excess | 183 |
Divine Kings and Regal Gods Temples in Society and History | 195 |
References | 213 |
Index | 227 |
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The Domain of Constant Excess: Plural Worship at the Munnesvaram Temples in ... Rohan Bastin No preview available - 2002 |