The Death of Sacred Texts: Ritual Disposal and Renovation of Texts in World Religions PDF
Preview The Death of Sacred Texts: Ritual Disposal and Renovation of Texts in World Religions
The DeaTh of SacreD TexTS The Death of Sacred Texts draws attention to a much neglected topic in the study of sacred texts: the religious and ritual attitudes towards texts which have become old and damaged and can no longer be used for reading practices or in religious worship. This book approaches religious texts and scriptures by focusing on their physical properties and the dynamic interactions of devices and habits that lie beneath and within a given text. In the last decades a growing body of research studies has directed attention to the multiple uses and ways people encounter written texts and how they make them alive, even as social actors, in different times and cultures. considering religious people seem to have all the motives for giving their sacred texts a respectful symbolic treatment, scholars have paid surprisingly little attention to the ritual procedures of disposing and renovating old texts. This book fills this gap, providing empirical data and theoretical analyses of historical and contemporary religious attitudes towards, and practices of text disposals within, seven world religions: Judaism, Islam, christianity, hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. exploring the cultural and historical variations of rituals for religious scriptures and texts (such as burials, cremations and immersion into rivers) and the underlying beliefs within the religious traditions, this book investigates how these religious practices and stances respond to modernization and globalization processes when new technologies have made it possible to mass-produce and publish religious texts on the Internet. This page has been left blank intentionally The Death of Sacred Texts ritual Disposal and renovation of Texts in World religions Edited by KrISTIna MyrvolD Lund University, Sweden © Kristina Myrvold and the contributors 2010 all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Kristina Myrvold has asserted her right under the copyright, Designs and Patents act, 1988, to be identified as the editor of this work. Published by ashgate Publishing limited ashgate Publishing company Wey court east Suite 420 Union road 101 cherry Street farnham Burlington Surrey, GU9 7PT vT 05401-4405 england USa www.ashgate.com British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data The death of sacred texts: ritual disposal and renovation of texts in world religions. 1. Sacred books – conservation and restoration. 2. Discarding of books, periodicals, etc. 3. rites and ceremonies. I. Myrvold, Kristina. 208.2–dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The death of sacred texts: ritual disposal and renovation of texts in world religions / [edited by] Kristina Myrvold. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBn 978-0-7546-6918-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) – ISBn 978-0-7546-9621-6 (ebook) 1. Sacred books. 2. Books – religious aspects. I. Myrvold, Kristina. Bl71.D43 2010 208’.2–dc22 2009040968 ISBn 9780754669180 (hbk) ISBn 9780754696216 (ebk) contents List of Figures vii Notes on Contributors ix Introduction 1 Kristina Myrvold 1 accounts of a Dying Scroll: on Jewish handling of Sacred Texts in need of restoration or Disposal 11 Marianne Schleicher 2 relating, revering, and removing: Muslim views on the Use, Power, and Disposal of Divine Words 31 Jonas Svensson 3 a fitting ceremony: christian concerns for Bible Disposal 55 Dorina Miller Parmenter 4 The Death of the Dharma: Buddhist Sutra Burials in early Medieval Japan 71 D. Max Moerman 5 rites of Burial and Immersion: hindu ritual Practices on Disposing of Sacred Texts in vrindavan 91 Måns Broo 6 Is a Manuscript an object or a living Being?: Jain views on the life and Use of Sacred Texts 107 Nalini Balbir 7 Making the Scripture a Person: reinventing Death rituals of Guru Granth Sahib in Sikhism 125 Kristina Myrvold 8 Disposing of non-Disposable Texts: conclusions and Prospects for further Study 147 James W. Watts Index 161 This page has been left blank intentionally list of figures 4.1 Diagram of Sutra Burials in Japan. author’s illustration 75 4.2 Map of Sutra Burial locations. author’s illustration 79 5.1 The Grantha Samādhi in Vrindavan. Author’s photograph 99 6.1 folio from the Kalpasūtra/Kālakakathā manuscript, British library I.o. San. 3177 (dated 1427 ce). reproduced by courtesy of the British library 113 7.1 Agan Bhet Samskar at Goindwal Sahib in 2008. author’s photograph 138 7.2 ritual Structure of human versus Scriptural cremations 141 This page has been left blank intentionally notes on contributors Nalini Balbir is professor in Indology at University of Paris-3 Sorbonne nouvelle and at ecole Pratique des hautes etudes (Section Sciences historiques et philologiques). Her fields of research are primarily Jainism, Theravada Buddhism, and Pali and Prakrit languages and literature. among Balbir’s latest publications are, for example, Catalogue of the Jain Manuscripts of the British Library (2006) and Jaina Studies (2008). Måns Broo received his PhD in comparative religion in 2003 and is currently adjunct Professor of religious Studies at Åbo akademi University. his research interests are directed towards Sanskrit texts and vaishnava hinduism. Broo’s publications include a Swedish translation of the main Upanishads (2005). D. Max Moerman received his PhD in east asian religions from Stanford University in 1999. currently associate Professor in the Department of asian and Middle eastern cultures, Barnard college, columbia University and associate Director of the columbia center for Japanese religion, he is the author of Localizing Paradise: Kumano Pilgrimage and the Religious Landscape of Premodern Japan (2005). Kristina Myrvold is assistant Professor of history and anthropology of religion at lund University. her doctoral dissertation of 2007 focused on ritual uses of texts among the Sikhs in Varanasi, India, where she has conducted extensive fieldwork. Myrvold has published several book chapters on Sikh practices, such as “Death and Sikhism” (2006) and “Personalizing the Sikh Scripture: Processions of the Guru Granth Sahib in India” (2008). Dorina Miller Parmenter is assistant Professor of religious Studies at Spalding University in louisville, Kentucky. She completed her PhD at Syracuse University in 2009 with the dissertation “The Iconic Book: The Image of the christian Bible in Myth and ritual.” Marianne Schleicher received her PhD in comparative religion in 2003. her dissertation, which was awarded the University of aarhus Prize for the best PhD dissertation, was later revised and published as Intertextuality in the Tales of Rabbi Nahman: A Close Reading of Sippurey Ma’asiyot (2007). currently Schleicher holds a position as assistant Professor in Jewish Studies at the Department of the Study of religion, the University of aarhus, Denmark.
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