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The author analyses the change in the Tamil Śaiva bhakti concept of corporeality showing that understanding the body of a bhakta as the main obstacle to connecting with the body of Śiva based on the attitude of rejecting one's corporeality has much in common with Buddhist and Jain ideas about the body. Therefore, the main task of the bhakta was to liberate from his body, its elimination or transformation (remelting the physical body as an impure body, as an obstacle body on the way to union with God). They solved this task in various ways, including various practices of ecstatic behaviour and self-harm. The concept of kaya siddhi put forward by Tirumūlar is the idea of a perfect body, potentially immortal and homologous to the body of Śiva. He also formulated and developed sophisticated techniques for using the physical body of a sādhaka as the primary tool for achieving liberation based on yoga techniques and working with the mind of an adept. The result achieved was presented in the description of Tirumūlar's own mystical experience. As a result, he achieved the state of the super material body of yoga-deha , the ideal of which is the manifest body of Śiva as Naṭarāja. The new iconography of Naṭarāja formed in the visionary insights of bhaktas, who described their darśans in their hymns. Then it became the basis for forming a new iconology of Naṭarāja and the cult of images of the bhaktas themselves embodied in the intensive temple construction of the Chola Empire. In combination with new ritual practices, the Tamil philosophy of Śaivism had formed as a tripartite religious and philosophical canon of Śaiva Siddhānta. This canon included the poetic canon of Śaiva bhakti (Paṉṉiru Tirumuṟai), the agamic temple ritual, and 14 philosophical treatises of Śaiva Siddhānta (Meikaṇṭar Shastras).

This essay discusses how Orthodox Christianity and Mahāyāna Buddhism understood the acts of both seeing and being seen by the divine, and how such ideas affected the making and use of icons in these two religious traditions. I focus on the visual culture of the Byzantine and Russian Orthodox churches between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries, and that of the East Asian Pure Land and Esoteric schools between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, respectively. I interpret the function of the iconostasis as an enduring remnant of the Jewish veil used to obstruct God's vision. Here, Jacques Lacan's concepts of the gaze and the screen provide a thought-provoking rationale. In turn, I investigate the mandala and icon in Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, in which both seeing and being seen by the divine were deemed spiritual blessings granted by the divine being. This thematic comparison brings to light the less discussed aspects of Christian and Buddhist visual experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the manner in which Lord Shiva and Sri Ram are represented visually on the book covers of Amish Tripathi's commercially successful Indian mythology-inspired novels. Through its focus on the 'Shiva Trilogy' book covers and the first novel in the 'Ram Chandra' series, I argue that despite the presence of the deity on each cover, the opportunity for darśan to be performed is prevented from taking place. The article makes a connection between this non-performance of darśan and the genre of mythology-inspired fiction, arguing that the latter is itself a textual portrayal of the former in that both the visual (of the book cover design) and the narrative content (of the mythology-inspired fiction) connect to and yet break from cultural and aesthetic traditions. The article considers in conclusion how such new modes of portraying deities talk to (and of) visuality and Indianness within the post-millennial Indian moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay demonstrates how public wall art on Tulsi Pipe Road in Mumbai relates to and with its everyday gazers. Through public wall art, Tulsi Pipe Road is readily transformed into a repository of post-millennial societal memory as the white paint is subsumed time and again by colours, bold images and social messaging in English, Hindi and Marathi. The images are transitory, not least because of regular whitewashing by the municipality, a performative and curious mixture of ‘uniform’ beautification, but, equally, a censorship of sorts, for the white tableau of Tulsi Pipe Road calls the people of Mumbai to action. Based on fieldwork from early 2016, this essay explores how wall art interacts with passers-by through social messaging, drawing on recent social memory and calling people to movement. Analysing a recently-installed mural in homage to the late Abdul Kalam and a collection of three panel murals that explore post-millennial experiences of being a woman in India, the essay posits thatdarśan, a mode of seeing usually enacted in sacred realms, is conceivably being invited in non-dharmic and, moreover, apparently ‘secular’ forms of ‘seeing’. The essay suggests thatdarśanis at play in the consumption of the public wall art of Tulsi Pipe Road, and thus explores the implications of how established (Hindu) Indian aesthetics of visuality are shaping the ways in which we see (in) New India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English abstract: Through a presentation and analysis of Ter, a wagon procession which is part of a ten-day temple anniversary festival held once a year among Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus in Denmark, I aim to show the importance and the meaning of procession among Hindus in diaspora. The article will especially take Bernhard Lang’s definition or characteristics of procession into account but will also emphasise the multifunctional character of this procession as well as its importance as religion on public display. The analysis is based on my on-going research on the Sri Lankan Tamil Hindus in Denmark, which began shortly before the first Sri Lankan Hindu temples were consecrated around the year 2000. This has given me the possibility to follow the development of the Ter procession over the years and to notice how it has grown both in size and popularity. I will argue that the procession has become not only a fulcrum for social cohesion and identity but also as a way of communicating belonging, both internally within the group and externally to the surrounding society at large. Dansk resume: I denne artikel vil jeg præsentere og analysere processionen Ter, en vognprocession der er tilknyttet en ti-dages tempelfødselsdagsfest som afholdes blandt de srilankansk-tamilske hinduer i Danmark, og jeg vil vise betydningen af denne procession for hinduer i diaspora. Artiklen vil tage udgangspunkt i Bernard Langs definition eller måske mere præcist hans processions-typologier, men vil lægge vægt på processionens multifunktionelle, performative og offentlige karakter. Analysen vil basere sig på mit løbende feltarbejde af de srilankansk-tamilske hinduer i Danmark, hvilket begyndte før det første srilankansk-tamilske hindutempel var indviet omkring år 2000. Det har givet mig muligheden for at følge udviklingen af Ter-processionen, som er vokset i både størrelse og popularitet. Jeg vil derfor argumentere for, at processionen er blevet helt central for såvel identitet som social sammenhængskraft for de srilankansk-tamilske hinduer her i landet. Processionen kan ved at være offentlig kommunikere et bestemt tilhørsforhold både indadtil og udadtil.

This special issue of Religions brings together a talented group of international scholars who have studied and written on the Hindu tradition. The topic of religious experience is much debated in the field of Religious Studies, and here we present studies of Hindu religious experience explored from a variety of regions and perspectives. They are intended to show that religious experience has long been an important part of Hinduism, and we consider them to be important and relevant. As a body of scholarship, these articles refine our understanding of the range and variety of religious experience in Hinduism. In addition to their substantive contributions, the authors also show important new directions in the study of the third-largest religion in the world, with over one billion followers. This introduction will discuss some relevant issues in the field of Indology, some problems of language, and the difficulties faced in the study of religious experience. It will also give a brief sketch of the religious experiences described by our authors in some major types of Hinduism.

This study reflects on the current “material turn” in religious studies, in particular on the issue of material agency. Some scholars, such as Ingold and Latour, have seen the concept as both a form of naivety and anthropocentrism. On the other hand, exponents of the so-called “new materialisms” have banned phenomenology, understood as the way in which material agency can impact humans, as anthropocentrically biased. Through the adoption of the notion of focal object, as formulated by Morgan (2014) and informed by Merleau-Ponty’s “flesh,” this paper investigates the epistemological implications of a materialist approach to religion. Comparison between Rajasthani folk Hinduism and Byzantine Christianity aims to stimulate a broader reflection on the role of images in regulating the relationship between the worshipper and the holy, which in this paper is understood in phenomenological terms as a mutual exchange of gazes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the Hindu notion of darśan as it plays out in the worship and religious home decoration of Hindu immigrants from India living in the United States. It is also about transnational networks--maintained through physical travel and the Internet--that make it possible for Hindus to decorate their houses in a certain way, either by downloading religious posters through the Internet or through the transportation of objects between the country of origin, India, and the country of residence, the United States. Finally, this article is concerned with the immigrants' visa status and argues that "permanent" and "temporary" residency of the immigrants must be taken into consideration when discussing the types of transnational lives experienced by Hindu immigrants in the United States, which directly impacts the way they decorate their homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of Religions brings together a talented group of international scholars who have studied and written on the Hindu tradition. The topic of religious experience is much debated in the field of Religious Studies, and here we present studies of Hindu religious experience explored from a variety of regions and perspectives. They are intended to show that religious experience has long been an important part of Hinduism, and we consider them to be important and relevant. As a body of scholarship, these articles refine our understanding of the range and variety of religious experience in Hinduism. In addition to their substantive contributions, the authors also show important new directions in the study of the third-largest religion in the world, with over one billion followers. This introduction will discuss some relevant issues in the field of Indology, some problems of language, and the difficulties faced in the study of religious experience. It will also give a brief sketch of the religious experiences described by our authors in some major types of Hinduism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]