Medusa's Hair An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience

Name: Medusa's Hair An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience
Price: 3.68 USD
Availability: InStock
ISBN: 9780226616018

ISBN-10: 0226616010

ISBN-13: 9780226616018

Edition: 1981

Authors: Gananath Obeyesekere

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Description:

The great pilgrimage center of southeastern Sri Lanka, Kataragama, has become in recent years the spiritual home of a new class of Hindu-Buddhist religious devotees. These ecstatic priests and priestesses invariably display long locks of matted hair, and they express their devotion to the gods through fire walking, tongue-piercing, hanging on hooks, and trance-induced prophesying. The increasing popularity of these ecstatics poses a challenge not only to orthodox Sinhala Buddhism (the official religion of Sri Lanka) but also, as Gananath Obeyesekere shows, to the traditional anthropological and psychoanalytic theories of symbolism. Focusing initially on one symbol, matted hair,…

Book details

List price: $28.00
Copyright year: 1981
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 9/15/1984
Binding: Paperback
Pages: 232
Size: 5.51" wide x 8.50" long x 0.51" tall
Weight: 0.638
Language: English



Preface


Introduction



Introduction Private and Public Symbols


The Problem Female Ascetics and Matted Hair Three Female Ascetic-Ecstatics



Karunavati Maniyo



Nandavati Maniyo



Manci Nona The Meaning of Hair


The Yogi and the Monk: Siva and the Buddha: Matted Hair and Shaven Head Social Institutions and the Unconscious Matted Hair and Shaven Head: Two Kinds of Pscyhological Symbolism Conventionalization of Personal Symbols



Introduction


The Dark Night of the Soul: Illustration and Psychocultural Exegesis



Pemavati Vitarana Juliet's Dilemma: Buddhist Asceticism or Hindu Devotionalism



Juliet Nona The Symbolization of Guilt The Symbolic Integration of Personality



Introduction Interpersonal Interaction and Personal Symbols



Munasinha Beauty Silva Myth Models Communication and Estrangement Networks of Meaning Ghosts, Demons, and Deep Motivation



Introduction Descent into the Grave



Sirima Hettiaracci Subjective Imagery


An Interpretation of Sirima's Case History Tryst with the Black Prince


Incubus and Fire Walker A Hook Hanger at Kataragama



Tuan Sahid Abdin Comment on Abdin's Ritual Activities Abdin's Descent into the Grave A Ritual for Kali Abdin's Tongue


An Interpretation Fantasy and Symbolism in the Integration of Personality with Culture Fantasy, Personal Symbols, and Subjective Imagery


A Metapsychological Excursus



Introduction Subjective Imagery and the Invention of Culture Culture and the Unconscious


The Case of Contemporary Iconography The Model for the Myth


Epilogue: The End of the Beginning


Notes


Glossary


References


Index