Picnics and
Pilgrims, Poses and Prayers: Sanctification, Desanctification and
Resanctification at Elephanta Island Karline McLain, Bucknell University Elephanta Island,
off the coast of Mumbai, is home to Hindu cave temples that were
carved during the 5th-8th centuries. Dedicated to Shiva, these
sanctified caves were places of active pilgrimage for centuries.
With the colonial occupation, the caves were desanctified, becoming
the site of legendary British picnics. Today, the caves are
Mumbai’s premier tourist attraction, drawing 2 million visitors
annually. For Mumbaikars, Elephanta is a destination for family
getaways and romantic outings. Although they may speak of the
caves’ majesty, their body language suggests the colonial legacy of
desanctification continues: The statues are sites for families to
pose for snapshots around, rather than bow in prayer to; children
climb the statues for the best family photos. Yet the body language
of international tourists suggests they often perceive the caves,
perhaps subconsciously, as sacred sites: They stand in awe, eyes
lingering on the statues, whispering about their potency. Since
1987, when Elephanta was declared a World Heritage Site,
conservators have worked to “Save the Caves” from the vandalism and
pollution that accompanied their desanctification by actively
resanctifying Elephanta. In this paper I draw upon several “texts”
to analyze the shifting nature of Elephanta as a sacred site and to
theorize the reasons for the limited success of ongoing
resanctification efforts: the ethnographic text consisting of my
interviews with visitors to Elephanta in 2001-2 and 2007; the
pictorial text consisting of my photos of visitors at the site; and
the written text consisting of colonial and postcolonial travel
writing.
The Body in Jain Meditation Sunil Goonasekera, Bowdoin College Terapantha Jains have developed a meditation
technique which they call Preksha Dhyan. The theory of Preksha Dhyan
employs two images of the body; one cultural and the other physical.
The cultural image of the body derives largely from the body image
in Kundalini Yoga and Jain soteriology. The image of the physical
body comes from modern biology and Jain religious aesthetics.
Terapantha monastic meditation experts theorize on how to harness
the processes of the biological body for soteriological purposes
which, in turn, affects the biological body and beautifies the
cultural body. They redefine anatomy and physiology by giving them
religious meanings which are then aligned with another set of
definitions associated with Jain ideology of celibacy and Jain
aesthetics. On the other hand they give biological meanings to
religious processes in order to show the scientific character of
certain Jain concepts. By means of these ‘translations’ and
juxtapositions they hope to gain scientific recognition of the
merits of Jainism in general and their meditation technique in
particular. The result is a discourse on the status of Jainism in
the contemporary world.
Imagining the Body in Parts: Yoga in
English in Tamil Nadu Laurah E. Klepinger-Mathew, Syracuse University In the last fifteen minutes of any class in the
international Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres (SYVC), the teacher
guides the students through a process called “Final Relaxation.” The
process begins with the teacher directing students to “tense” or
“squeeze” different parts of the body, one by one, and then in a
silent process called “auto-suggestion,” the instructor asks
students to mentally repeat each in a string of commands, such as “I
relax the feet and ankles,” and “I relax the spine and brain.”
Taking up with performance studies and linguistic anthropological
theories as well as recent anthropological approaches to the body,
this paper examines the body in linguistic interpellation, arguing
that the application of language (and its inherent traces of
understanding) to the body – the naming of parts and pieces – is a
powerful process that touches and transforms bodily experience. In
as much as the body is never a body alone, but is deeply tied to a
phantasmatic experience of that body, how a body is called –
specifically the language of its interpellation, has the power to
make and unmake “the body” in the image of a particular cultural
imagination.
This paper traces
through the process of Final Relaxation in a Sivananda Yoga class in
Madurai, Tamil Nadu, and argues that the impact of a relaxation
process in English is bound up with several interweaving historical
legacies, that can be read through a close analysis of the words
themselves. The paper is concerned with articulating these legacies,
including the popular invocation of Yoga as “ancient Indian
science,” while imagining alternative conceptions through Tamil, of
this relaxing body. A performative paper, it also moves and touches
the bodies of its listening interlocutors, invoking the spoken
monologue of the yoga class.
Elephanta Island,
off the coast of Mumbai, is home to Hindu cave temples that were
carved during the 5th-8th centuries. Dedicated to Shiva, these
sanctified caves were places of active pilgrimage for centuries.
With the colonial occupation, the caves were desanctified, becoming
the site of legendary British picnics. Today, the caves are
Mumbai’s premier tourist attraction, drawing 2 million visitors
annually. For Mumbaikars, Elephanta is a destination for family
getaways and romantic outings. Although they may speak of the
caves’ majesty, their body language suggests the colonial legacy of
desanctification continues: The statues are sites for families to
pose for snapshots around, rather than bow in prayer to; children
climb the statues for the best family photos. Yet the body language
of international tourists suggests they often perceive the caves,
perhaps subconsciously, as sacred sites: They stand in awe, eyes
lingering on the statues, whispering about their potency. Since
1987, when Elephanta was declared a World Heritage Site,
conservators have worked to “Save the Caves” from the vandalism and
pollution that accompanied their desanctification by actively
resanctifying Elephanta. In this paper I draw upon several “texts”
to analyze the shifting nature of Elephanta as a sacred site and to
theorize the reasons for the limited success of ongoing
resanctification efforts: the ethnographic text consisting of my
interviews with visitors to Elephanta in 2001-2 and 2007; the
pictorial text consisting of my photos of visitors at the site; and
the written text consisting of colonial and postcolonial travel
writing. 
Terapantha Jains have developed a meditation
technique which they call Preksha Dhyan. The theory of Preksha Dhyan
employs two images of the body; one cultural and the other physical.
The cultural image of the body derives largely from the body image
in Kundalini Yoga and Jain soteriology. The image of the physical
body comes from modern biology and Jain religious aesthetics.
Terapantha monastic meditation experts theorize on how to harness
the processes of the biological body for soteriological purposes
which, in turn, affects the biological body and beautifies the
cultural body. They redefine anatomy and physiology by giving them
religious meanings which are then aligned with another set of
definitions associated with Jain ideology of celibacy and Jain
aesthetics. On the other hand they give biological meanings to
religious processes in order to show the scientific character of
certain Jain concepts. By means of these ‘translations’ and
juxtapositions they hope to gain scientific recognition of the
merits of Jainism in general and their meditation technique in
particular. The result is a discourse on the status of Jainism in
the contemporary world. 
In the last fifteen minutes of any class in the
international Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centres (SYVC), the teacher
guides the students through a process called “Final Relaxation.” The
process begins with the teacher directing students to “tense” or
“squeeze” different parts of the body, one by one, and then in a
silent process called “auto-suggestion,” the instructor asks
students to mentally repeat each in a string of commands, such as “I
relax the feet and ankles,” and “I relax the spine and brain.”
Taking up with performance studies and linguistic anthropological
theories as well as recent anthropological approaches to the body,
this paper examines the body in linguistic interpellation, arguing
that the application of language (and its inherent traces of
understanding) to the body – the naming of parts and pieces – is a
powerful process that touches and transforms bodily experience. In
as much as the body is never a body alone, but is deeply tied to a
phantasmatic experience of that body, how a body is called –
specifically the language of its interpellation, has the power to
make and unmake “the body” in the image of a particular cultural
imagination.