Ritual Innovation: Strategic Interventions in South Asian Religion - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1438469020 ISBN 13: 9781438469027

Publisher: State University of New York Press, 2019

Synopsis

Challenges prevailing conceptions of what religious ritual does and how it achieves its ends.

Religious rituals are often seen as unchanging and ahistorical bearers of long-standing traditions. But as this book demonstrates, ritual is a lively platform for social change and innovation in the religions of South Asia. Drawing from Hindu and Jain examples in India, Nepal, and North America, the essays in this volume, written by renowned scholars of religion, explore how the intentional, conscious, and public invention or alteration of ritual can effect dramatic social transformation, whether in dethroning a Nepali king or sanctioning same-sex marriage. Ritual Innovation shows how the very idea of ritual as a conservative force misreads the history of religion by overlooking ritual's inherent creative potential and its adaptability to new contexts and circumstances.

About this title

About the Author

Brian K. Pennington is Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University and the author of Was Hinduism Invented? Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion. Amy L. Allocco is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University.

Edition details

• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Publication date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1438469020
• ISBN 13: 9781438469027
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 308
• Editor: Allocco L. Amy, Pennington K. Brian