RELG 356 Lecture Notes - Kolam, Jamadagni, Lakshmana

• School: McGill University
• Department: Religious Studies
• Course: RELG 356
• Professor: Davesh Soneji

Document Summary

Brahmanic notions of ritual purity and their implications. Purity = central ideal (purity of thoughts as well as physical purity - not touching/coming into contact with pollutants) Married woman (sumangali or cumnkali) full of saubhagya. Woman examples of contradictions/crossing of the two (auspicious/inausp. ) Menstruation is auspicious in what is signifies however the flow of blood itself is a pollutant. Childbirth itself is wonderful and auspicious however the ritual (releasing of substances, act of giving birth) is ritually polluting. Notion of good fortune; idea that is almost always scripted onto women, women"s status, their actions. Saubhagya works as a kind of power or presence, like karma - it can be accumulated, deployed, transferred. Idea of saubhagya is usually linked to fertility and married state. Married women are thus called saubhagyavati or sumangali (mangala, auspicious , also spelled cumankali in tamil) Saubhagya marked on women"s bodies and lives through their actions.