Articles

Janabai: from a House Maid to Goddess: New Trends in Contemporary Hinduism

Vostok/Oriens '2018, №5

DOI: 10.31857/S086919080001854-6

 
Drawing from the field work in Western India, this paper focuses on modern manifestations of Hinduism testifying to its flexibility in responding to the challenges of current socio-political context. The Indian state Maharashtra is widely known for its god Vithoba / Vitthal / Pandurang, a regional incarnation of Krishna. The main temple of Vithoba located in the town of Pandharpur on the Bhima River is a sacred destination of a grand annual pilgrimage carried out simultaneously by separate processions. One of them is formed around the symbolic pādukās (the footprints of a divine figure) of a medieval poetess whose poems’ final verse acknowledges her authorship by self-introduction with such names as Jani, Jani-maid, Namdev’s Jani etc. By the beginning of the twenty first century, her name became augmented with the spiritual definition of ‘sant’, i.e. an exemplary spiritual individual, and the honorific postposition of ‘bāī’ ‘a woman’. Nowadays, Sant Janabai has acquired individual places of worship and is treated as a genius loci and an embodiment of caste pride.

Keywords: current Hinduism, Vithoba, Janabai, varkari, new cult, les lieux de mémoire, genius loci, caste

Pages: С. 113–124