Barbara A. Holdrege & Karen Pechilis 
Refiguring the Body [EPUB ebook] 
Embodiment in South Asian Religions

Refiguring the Body provides a sustained interrogation of categories and models of the body grounded in the distinctive idioms of South Asian religions, particularly Hindu and Buddhist traditions. The contributors engage prevailing theories of the body in the Western academy that derive from philosophy, social theory, and feminist and gender studies. At the same time, they recognize the limitations of applying Western theoretical models as the default epistemological framework for understanding notions of embodiment that derive from non-Western cultures. Divided into three sections, this collection of essays explores material bodies, embodied selves, and perfected forms of embodiment; divine bodies and devotional bodies; and gendered logics defining male and female bodies. The contributors seek to establish theory parity in scholarly investigations and to re-figure body theories by taking seriously the contributions of South Asian discourses to theorizing the body.

Table of Content

Introduction: Body Matters in South Asia


Barbara A. Holdrege



Part I. Material Bodies, Embodied Selves, and Perfected Embodiments



1. Perfected Embodiment: A Buddhist-Inspired Challenge to Contemporary Theories of the Body


Michael Radich



2. Body, Self, and Embodiment in the Sanskrit Classics of Āyurveda


Anthony Cerulli



3. Bodily Gestures and Embodied Awareness:
Mudrā as the Bodily Seal of Being in the Trika Śaivism of Kashmir


Kerry Martin Skora



4. Bodied, Embodied, and Reflective Selves: Theorizing Performative Selfhood in South Indian Performance


Harshita Mruthinti Kamath



Part II. Divine Bodies and Devotional Bodies



5. Observations on the Bodies of the Gods in the Mahābhārata


Kendall Busse



6.
Bhakti and Embodiment: Bodies of Devotion and Bodies of Bliss in Kṛṣṇa
Bhakti


Barbara A. Holdrege



7. To Body or Not to Body: Repulsion, Wonder, and the Tamil Saint Kāraikkāl Ammaiyār


Karen Pechilis



8. Bodies of Desire, Bodies of Lament: Marking Emotion in a South Indian Vaiṣṇava Messenger Poem


Steven P. Hopkins



Part III. Gendered and Engendering Bodies



9. Defining Women’s Bodies in Indian Buddhist Monastic Literature


Carol S. Anderson



10. Murderer, Saint, and Midwife: The Gendered Logic of Engendering in Buddhist Narratives of Aṅgulimāla’s Conversion


Liz Wilson



11. Fruitful Austerity: Paradigms of Embodiment in Hindu Women’s
Vrat Performances


Tracy Pintchman



Afterword: Bodies of Knowledge


Karen Pechilis



Contributors

Index

About the author

Barbara A. Holdrege is Professor of Religious Studies and Chair of the South Asian Studies Committee at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her books include
Bhakti and Embodiment: Fashioning Divine Bodies and Devotional Bodies in Kṛṣṇạ Bhakti and
Veda and Torah: Transcending the Textuality of Scripture, also published by SUNY Press.
Karen Pechilis is NEH Distinguished Professor of Humanities in the Comparative Religion Department at Drew University. Her books include
Interpreting Devotion: The Poetry and Legacy of a Female Bhakti Saint of India and
The Embodiment of Bhakti.