Retheorizing Religion in Nepal

GREGORY PRICE GRIEVE is Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, USA. He has published articles in Numen, Culture, Theory and Critique, Journal of Material Religion, and Studies in Nepalese History and Society.

"Grieve brings a refreshing new approach to the much-vexed question of the sorts of questions that one can ask of the logic of other peoples' rituals. He approaches the theoretical issues from the bottom up, by going there and talking to people, instead of writing his opinion in response to the opinions of other people here (or, for that matter, there). He has brought a particular inflection to the big generalizations, and this is a great relief. He knows a great deal about Bhaktapur, and his book about it is rich in data and persuasive insights." - Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago, and author of Other Peoples' Myths: The Cave of Echoes "Blending ethnographic detail from the field with critical and theoretically-informed reflectionson the academic construction of the religious, Grieve provides an insightful exploration of contemporary Newar tradition and culture through a detailed discussion of the construction of mandalas. In so doing the author challenges dominant scripto-centric accounts of South Asian tradition and society and seeks toopen up adiscursive space where subalternconcerns and perspectives can be taken seriously. Grieve constructs a scholarly mandala of his own in this work, providing much food for thought and contemplation for anthropologists,specialists of South Asia and scholars of religious studies." - Richard King, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University, and author of Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and "the Mystic East"Everyone in religious studies should find Grieve's contribution highly original and above all thought provoking." - David Holmberg, Cornell University

• Introduction: Preparing the Materials: Prolegomenon for a Study of Prosaic Religion Part I: Tradition, Modernity, and the Challenge of Prosaic Hinduism Framing the Study: Theorizing the Histories of Tradition in Bhaktapur, Nepal Laying Down the Grid: Cosmology and the Place of Tradition in Bhaktapur, Nepal Part II: Prosaic Religion and the Construction of Lived Worlds Sketching the Central Point: Cadastral God-Images and the Politics of Scriptural Mediation Illustrating Samsara: Religious 'Recipes' for Making a Prosaic Lived World Performing Prosaic Tantra: Jhinjan Minjan Danigu's Animating Affect and Social Critique of Religious Experience Bringing a Forged Mandala to Life: The Cow Procession and the Improvisation of Cadastral Generative Matrixes Conclusion: Interrupted by Ornament: Looking Back at Prosaic Religion in Bhaktapur, Nepal