Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asia

Contents: Preface. Acknowledgements. Introduction. I. Orthodoxies, madness and method: 1. Academic and Brahmanical orthodoxies. II. Ethnography, modernity and the language of possession: 2. New and inherited paradigms: methodologies for the study of possession. 3. Possession, trance channeling, and modernity. 4. Notes on regional languages and models of possession. III. Classical literature: 5. The Vedas and Upanisads. 6. Friendly acquisitions, hostile takeovers: the panorama of possession in the Sanskrit epics. 7. Enlightenment and the classical culture of possession. 8. Vampires, prostitutes and poets: narrativity and the aesthetics of possession. 9. Devotion as possession. IV. Worldly and otherworldly ruptures: possession as a healing modality: 10. Possession in Tantra: constructed bodies and empowerment. 11. Tantra and the diaspora of childhood possession. 12. The medicalization of possession in Ayurveda and Tantra. 13. Conclusions: Identity among the possessed and dispossessed. Bibliography. Index.

"This book, is a multifaceted, diachronic study reconsidering the very nature of religion in South Asia, the culmination of years of intensive research. Frederick M. Smith proposes that positive oracular or ecstatic possession is the most common form of spiritual expression in India, and that it has been linguistically distinguished from negative, disease-producing possession for thousands of years.

In South Asia possession has always been broader and more diverse than in the West, where it has been utmost entirely characterized as "demonic". At best, spirit possession has been regarded as a medically treatable psychological ailment and at worst, as a condition that requires exorcism or punishment. In South (and East) Asia, ecstatic or oracular possession has been widely practiced throughout history, occupying a position of respect in early and recent Hinduism and in certain forms of Buddhism.

Smith analyzes Indic literature from all ages--the earliest Vedic texts; the Mahabharata, Buddhism, Jain, Yogic, Ayurvedic, and Tantric texts, Hindu devotional literature; Sanskrit drama and narrative literatures; and more than a hundred ethnographies. He identifies several forms of possession including festival, initiatory, oracular, and devotional, and demonstrates their multivocality within a wide range of sects and religious identities." (jacket)