Frederick M. Smith studied Sanskrit for more than a decade in Pune, Madras, and elsewhere in India, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is known for his work on Vedic ritual and the early sixteenth-century philosopher Vallabhacarya, whose work he has been translating. With his work on deity and spirit possession, his interest in Indian religious and spiritual experience has assumed a unique form. He teaches at the University of Iowa.

This comprehensive work should appear on the shelf of every serious scholar of South Asian religion... Essential. CHOICE An important and path-breaking book. -- Alf Hiltebeitel Journal of the American Oriental Society An amazing and essential study for anybody working on deity and spirit possession in South Asia. -- Beatrix Hauser Social Anthropology

• List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Orthodoxies, Madness, and Method 1. Academic and Brahmanical Orthodoxies Part II: Ethnography, Modernity, and the Languages of Possession 2. New and Inherited Paradigms: Methodologies for the Study of Possession 3. Possession, Trance Channeling, and Modernity 4. Notes on Regional Languages and Models of Possession Part III. Classical Literature 5. The Vedas and Upanisads 6. Friendly Acquisitions, Hostile Takeovers, The Panorama of Possession in the Sanskrit Epics 7. Enlightenment and the Classical Culture of Possession 8. Vampires, Prostitutes, and Poets: Narrativity and the Aesthetics of Possession 9. Devotion as Possession 10. Possession in Tantra: Constructed Bodies and Empowerment 11. Tantra and the Diaspora of Childhood Possession 12. The Medicalization of Possession in Ayurveda and Tantra 13. Conclusions: Identity Among the Possessed and Dispossessed Bibliography Index

Frederick M. Smith studied Sanskrit for more than a decade in Pune, Madras, and elsewhere in India, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is known for his work on Vedic ritual and the early sixteenth-century philosopher Vallabhacarya, whose work he has been translating. With his work on deity and spirit possession, his interest in Indian religious and spiritual experience has assumed a unique form. He teaches at the University of Iowa.

This comprehensive work should appear on the shelf of every serious scholar of South Asian religion... Essential. CHOICE An important and path-breaking book. -- Alf Hiltebeitel Journal of the American Oriental Society An amazing and essential study for anybody working on deity and spirit possession in South Asia. -- Beatrix Hauser Social Anthropology

• List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Orthodoxies, Madness, and Method 1. Academic and Brahmanical Orthodoxies Part II: Ethnography, Modernity, and the Languages of Possession 2. New and Inherited Paradigms: Methodologies for the Study of Possession 3. Possession, Trance Channeling, and Modernity 4. Notes on Regional Languages and Models of Possession Part III. Classical Literature 5. The Vedas and Upanisads 6. Friendly Acquisitions, Hostile Takeovers, The Panorama of Possession in the Sanskrit Epics 7. Enlightenment and the Classical Culture of Possession 8. Vampires, Prostitutes, and Poets: Narrativity and the Aesthetics of Possession 9. Devotion as Possession 10. Possession in Tantra: Constructed Bodies and Empowerment 11. Tantra and the Diaspora of Childhood Possession 12. The Medicalization of Possession in Ayurveda and Tantra 13. Conclusions: Identity Among the Possessed and Dispossessed Bibliography Index

Frederick M. Smith studied Sanskrit for more than a decade in Pune, Madras, and elsewhere in India, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is known for his work on Vedic ritual and the early sixteenth-century philosopher Vallabhacarya, whose work he has been translating. With his work on deity and spirit possession, his interest in Indian religious and spiritual experience has assumed a unique form. He teaches at the University of Iowa.

This comprehensive work should appear on the shelf of every serious scholar of South Asian religion... Essential. CHOICE An important and path-breaking book. -- Alf Hiltebeitel Journal of the American Oriental Society An amazing and essential study for anybody working on deity and spirit possession in South Asia. -- Beatrix Hauser Social Anthropology

• List of Illustrations Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Part I: Orthodoxies, Madness, and Method 1. Academic and Brahmanical Orthodoxies Part II: Ethnography, Modernity, and the Languages of Possession 2. New and Inherited Paradigms: Methodologies for the Study of Possession 3. Possession, Trance Channeling, and Modernity 4. Notes on Regional Languages and Models of Possession Part III. Classical Literature 5. The Vedas and Upanisads 6. Friendly Acquisitions, Hostile Takeovers, The Panorama of Possession in the Sanskrit Epics 7. Enlightenment and the Classical Culture of Possession 8. Vampires, Prostitutes, and Poets: Narrativity and the Aesthetics of Possession 9. Devotion as Possession 10. Possession in Tantra: Constructed Bodies and Empowerment 11. Tantra and the Diaspora of Childhood Possession 12. The Medicalization of Possession in Ayurveda and Tantra 13. Conclusions: Identity Among the Possessed and Dispossessed Bibliography Index