The Powerful Ephemeral: Everyday Healing in an Ambiguously Islamic Place (South Asia Across the Disciplines) - Hardcover

Bellamy, Carla

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0520262808 ISBN 13: 9780520262805

Publisher: California University Press, 2011

Synopsis

The violent partitioning of British India along religious lines and ongoing communalist aggression have compelled Indian citizens to contend with the notion that an exclusive, fixed religious identity is fundamental to selfhood. Even so, Muslim saint shrines, known as dargahs attract a religiously diverse range of pilgrims. In this accessible and groundbreaking ethnography, Carla Bellamy traces the long-term healing processes of Muslim and Hindu devotees of a complex of dargahs in northwestern India. Drawing on pilgrims' narratives, ritual and everyday practices, archival documents, and popular publications in Hindi and Urdu, Bellamy considers questions about the nature of religion in general and Indian religion in particular. Grounded in stories from individual lives and experiences, "The Powerful Ephemeral" offers not only a humane, highly readable portrait of dargah culture, but also new insight into notions of selfhood and religious difference in contemporary India.

About this title

Review:

"One of the best books on possession healing to appear, [and] on the construction of local religious culture in India."--Frederick M. Smith, University of Iowa"Religious Studies Review" (06/01/2012)

"The Powerful Ephemeral is an excellent ethnographic addition to literature on religion, healing and South Asia."--Matthew A. Cook"Contemporary Islam" (08/17/2012)

About the Author:

Carla Bellamy is Assistant Professor of South Asian Religion at Baruch College.

About this edition

• Publisher: California University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0520262808
• ISBN 13: 9780520262805
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 312