Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction: Patrick Olivelle and Indology Major Publications of Patrick Olivelle
- I WORD, TEXT, CONTEXT
- II CUSTOM AND LAW
- III BUDDHISTS AND JAINS ASSELVES AND OTHERS
- IV (RE)CONSIDERING GEOGRAPHICAL AND CONCEPTUAL BOUNDARIES
- Spiritual Practice and Corporate Identity in Medieval Sufi Communities of Iran, Central Asia, and India: The Khalvatī/'Ishqī/Shaṭṭārī Continuum
- Digesting the Sacrifices: Ritual Internalization in Jewish, Hindu, and Manichaean Traditions
- The Hindutva Underground: Hindu Nationalism and the Indian National Congress in Late Colonial and Early Postcolonial India
- Marking the Boundaries of a New Literary Identity: The Assertion of ‘Dalit Consciousness’ in Dalit Literary Criticism
- Young Śvetaketu in America: Learning to be Hindu in the Diaspora
- List of Contributors
Digesting the Sacrifices: Ritual Internalization in Jewish, Hindu, and Manichaean Traditions
from IV - (RE)CONSIDERING GEOGRAPHICAL AND CONCEPTUAL BOUNDARIES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction: Patrick Olivelle and Indology Major Publications of Patrick Olivelle
- I WORD, TEXT, CONTEXT
- II CUSTOM AND LAW
- III BUDDHISTS AND JAINS ASSELVES AND OTHERS
- IV (RE)CONSIDERING GEOGRAPHICAL AND CONCEPTUAL BOUNDARIES
- Spiritual Practice and Corporate Identity in Medieval Sufi Communities of Iran, Central Asia, and India: The Khalvatī/'Ishqī/Shaṭṭārī Continuum
- Digesting the Sacrifices: Ritual Internalization in Jewish, Hindu, and Manichaean Traditions
- The Hindutva Underground: Hindu Nationalism and the Indian National Congress in Late Colonial and Early Postcolonial India
- Marking the Boundaries of a New Literary Identity: The Assertion of ‘Dalit Consciousness’ in Dalit Literary Criticism
- Young Śvetaketu in America: Learning to be Hindu in the Diaspora
- List of Contributors
Summary
In the words of Peter Brown, “the emergence of the holy man at the expense of the temple marks the end of the classical world” (Brown 1971a: 103). That classical world extended further than we tend to think. One region of substantial cultural contact included all of the Semitic and Indo-European speaking peoples, who for millennia coexisted and influenced each other in every aspect of life. Certainly, other populations contributed to the mix in various locations within this continuum, but for the ritual development with which we are concerned here, these two major groups provide the essential context. Within this cultural environment, settled life and the rise of states had been closely associated with an organized priesthood and ritual sacrifice that made use of fire on an altar to transmit food offerings to the gods. The holiness of the priest was inextricably tied to his function in the sacrificial ritual. When such holy persons became the center of the ritual, rather than functionaries of it, something fundamental changed in the religious ideology of this world.
While the priest had always been supported by a portion of offerings made to the gods, this remanded or leftover portion was usually distinguished from that transmitted to the gods through the sacrificial ritual. In various places at different times we can observe an erosion of this distinction, by which the meal of the priests becomes conflated with the sacrifice itself, and the traditional place of the sacrificial fire is replaced by the digestive fire of the priest's body.
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- Religion and Identity in South Asia and BeyondEssays in Honor of Patrick Olivelle, pp. 301 - 320Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2011
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