The Sacred Marriage of a Hindu Goddess.
Author | Bolle, Kees W. |
This reviewer is at pains to do justice to a work as rich as The Sacred Marriage of a Hindu Goddess, a creation that is so evidently the result of a superb, scholarly patience. Certainly there has been patience on the part of the people mentioned by the author in his preface - who have been awaiting the book's publication for years - but of course I am referring to the patience of the author himself and his work. Professor Harman has spent a number of years on his subject, and the result merits thoughtful savoring rather than a quick perusal in the midst of so many works on Indian religion and culture.
Harman's Sacred Marriage is an admirable and useful book that will serve Indologists for years to come. Though focusing on one temple tradition, in Madurai, south India, its theme is inseparable from a wide and dense texture that exists throughout the breadth of Indian culture, and furthermore cannot be isolated from sacred marriage elsewhere in the world. The author is thoroughly aware of the fact that the religious theme of the hieros gamos was first singled out explicitly for special attention by experts on the ancient Near East and ancient Greek traditions. The patience of Harman's labor includes his attentiveness toward the intricate cultural and transcultural fibers of his topic. He does not waste time on polemics - which would have been tempting in an area so rife with "methodological" partisanships - but deals with the material before him and in due course, never unkindly, corrects many a generalization about myth and cult in general and Hindu texts in particular. For example, in his chapter IV there is a discussion of ritual acts. In the present melee of theoretical propositions on the subject of ritual, the thought that ritual is meaningless by nature has a certain appeal. The thought, however, is merely a thought of a theoretician who has not considered the people immediately affected by what is going on. Without getting involved in the theories, but focusing on the material before him, Professor Harman notes, ". . . [the rituals'] performance will frequently generate meanings. Observed action elicits interpretation. And it is not always possible to control the interpretation, as many people who serve in public positions, such as politicians, can testify" (p. 69).
The work begins with some observations on the hieros gamos theme in religio-historical, philological, and anthropological scholarship. It points out the striking...
To continue reading
Request your trialCOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.