{"title":"From demon to deity: Forging a new iconography for Mahishasur","authors":"Moumita Sen","doi":"10.1177/13591835221116708","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article focuses on the forging of a new iconography for Mahishasur, a ‘demon’ in Hindu mythology who was reclaimed by indigenous communities both as a ‘god’ and as a champion of their political autonomy. The public political ritual of venerating Mahishasur was deemed blasphemous by the Hindu nationalist party in power. Among clay-modellers of Bengal, the dominant ‘demon’ image of Mahishasur embodies the highly-valued skill of Naturalistic sculpture; but the movement needed a new benevolent image. Through interviews with image-makers and organisers of this political ritual in several villages of West Bengal, I will show how local aesthetic ideals of masculinity, virtue, and political ideology are expressed in the new aesthetic form(s) and iconographies of this emerging hero of Indian politics.","PeriodicalId":46892,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Material Culture","volume":"28 1","pages":"106 - 130"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2022-08-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Material Culture","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13591835221116708","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
This article focuses on the forging of a new iconography for Mahishasur, a ‘demon’ in Hindu mythology who was reclaimed by indigenous communities both as a ‘god’ and as a champion of their political autonomy. The public political ritual of venerating Mahishasur was deemed blasphemous by the Hindu nationalist party in power. Among clay-modellers of Bengal, the dominant ‘demon’ image of Mahishasur embodies the highly-valued skill of Naturalistic sculpture; but the movement needed a new benevolent image. Through interviews with image-makers and organisers of this political ritual in several villages of West Bengal, I will show how local aesthetic ideals of masculinity, virtue, and political ideology are expressed in the new aesthetic form(s) and iconographies of this emerging hero of Indian politics.
期刊介绍：
The Journal of Material Culture is an interdisciplinary journal designed to cater for the increasing interest in material culture studies. It is concerned with the relationship between artefacts and social relations irrespective of time and place and aims to systematically explore the linkage between the construction of social identities and the production and use of culture. The Journal of Material Culture transcends traditional disciplinary and cultural boundaries drawing on a wide range of disciplines including anthropology, archaeology, design studies, history, human geography, museology and ethnography.
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