Can Tantra Make a Mat ¯ a Middle-Class?: Jogan ¯ . ¯ ı Mat ¯ a, ¯ a Uniquely Gujarati Chinnamasta
Journal Title: Religions - Year 2017, Vol 8, Issue 8
Abstract
The Gujarati mat ¯ a¯s, village goddesses traditionally popular among scheduled castes and often worshipped through rites of possession and animal sacrifice, have recently acquired Sanskritic Tantric resonances. The contemporary iconography of the goddess Jogan. ¯ı Mat ¯ a, for instance, ¯ is virtually identical to that of the Mahavidy ¯ a Chinnamast ¯ a. Yantra and mantra also feature ¯ prominently in Jogan. ¯ı worship, which has begun to attract upwardly mobile urban middle-class devotees. Drawing on ethnography from three Jogan. ¯ı sites in and around Ahmedabad, this paper identifies a tendency among worshippers and puj ¯ ar ¯ ¯ıs to acknowledge Jogan. ¯ı’s tantric associations only to the extent that they instantiate a safe, Sanskritic, and Brahmanically-oriented Tantra. The appeal of these temples and shrines nonetheless remains the immediacy with which Jogan. ¯ı can solve problems that are this-worldly, reminiscent of the link identified by Philip Lutgendorf between Tantra and modern Indians’ desire for ‘quick-fix’ religion. This research not only documents a rare regional iteration of Chinnamasta, but also speaks to the cachet that Tantra increasingly wields, consciously or ¯ unconsciously, within the burgeoning Gujarati and Indian urban middle-classes.
Authors and Affiliations
Darry Dinnell
Keywords
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- EP ID EP25739
- DOI https://doi.org/10.3390/rel8080142
- Views 323
- Downloads 11
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