Charismatic mediumship and traditional priesthood: power relations in a religious field

ABSTRACT

In the Indian Himalayas, mediums who operate as channels through which deities can communicate with their devotees, function alongside priests who serve these deities. In this article, we examine the relationship between these two religious roles with regard to the deity Mahāsū. At the individual-personal level we examine how their roles are linked to different sources of authority – whereas the priests’ source of authority is traditional, the mediums rely on charisma. At the societal level, we maintain that their different caste backgrounds are essential for understanding their public role. While the priests are Brahmins, almost all the mediums of Mahāsū are Rajputs. Thus, the medium institution enables the Rajputs, who make up the vast majority of Mahāsū’s devotees, to retain in their hands all decisions pertaining to the public sphere. Hence, they carry more political–social clout than the priests, because they can change the social-religious order or sustain it.

KEYWORDS:

• Mediumship
• spirit possession
• charisma
• Western Himalaya
• Hinduism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Asaf Sharabi is a faculty member in the School of Behavioral Sciences at Peres Academic Center, Israel. His research interests include the effect of modernity on religious life, both in Israel and in India. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Bar Ilan University, Israel.

Hagar Shalev is a Ph.D. student in Indian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her Research Interests are Himalayans’ religions, roots of Yoga, Yogic philosophy, and Modern Yoga research.

Notes

1 In this article we deal with possession of deity. ‘Deity possession’ is a case of a vaster category of ‘spirit possession’, that includes spirits of deities, ghosts, ancestors, etc.

2 He calls them Shamans. Their local name is bāki.

3 The word Caldā in Pahāṛī means ‘the one who moves’. See also (Sax 2002, 167).

4 The word mālī (which is a homonym of mālī ‘gardener’) probably derives from the Sanskrit mahallaka - ‘venerable, old’.

5 The function of mālī is not imposed upon one. A future mālī must work to become a mālī. He must actively determine whether he is indeed a true mālī. However, even if he discovers that he possesses these abilities he is not required to fulfill this role, nor is he obliged to counsel all those who turn to him. His function as a mālī is structured, not spontaneous.

6 Compare it with other places such as Western Nepal, where the medium (dhāmī) has to prove that the deity maṣṭā chose him by performing a miracle (Gaborieau 1976).

7 In other places such as Mandi and Seraj there have been cases in which mālīs who fail to perform their duties satisfactorily, are removed from office by politically dominant leaders and replaced with others till a mālī capable of performing the required duties materializes.

8 In some other cases, described in other parts of the world, a relationship develops between the medium and the spirits, outside of the possession itself (Boddy 1988; Lambek 1981; Masquelier 2002; Pierini 2016).

9 The importance of the medium beyond the aspect of possession is also evident in other parts of the world (e.g. Cline 2010).

10 Another option is to turn to other experts such as astrologers and healers. This can be done independently from appealing to Mahāsū. Sometimes the pujārī also fulfils these functions.

11 The Jāgar, a well-known ritual of possession in nearby areas (e.g. Anand 2006; Krengel 1999; Leavitt 1997), does not take place in Mahāsū’s territory. There is also no practice of written petitions, as in the case of the deity Goludev in Kumaon (Malik 2016, 89–139).

12 In a nearby area (Garhwal), Sax (2009, 54–59) describes a different mechanism that he calls a ‘logic tree’, when at least in the beginning of the conversation there are yes or no questions composed by the medium.

13 Caldā Mahāsū is exceptional to a certain extent.