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Arnal William Edward, Borgeaud Philippe. « Dans l'entre-deux surgit la fiction »: apprendre de Jonathan Z. Smith / « There is Fiction in the Space Between » : Learning from J. Z. Smith. In: ASDIWAL. Revue genevoise d'anthropologie et d'histoire des religions, n°13, 2018. pp. 15-23.

Once every twelve years, when it is thought that some calamity has taken place because of the curse of the goddess Nanda Devi, a four-horned ram is born in the fields of the former king of Garhwal, an erstwhile Central Himalayan kingdom in north India (see map of Garhwal). This four-horned ram leads a procession of priests and pilgrims on the most dangerous and spectacular pilgrimage in all of India: a three-week, barefoot journey of one-hundred and sixty-four miles, during some of the worst weather of the year, at the end of the rainy season. The procession reaches Rupkund, a small pond located at an altitude of more than 5,000 metres, which is surrounded by human­ skeletons, and from there it goes yet further, to Homkund, the ‘Lake of the Fire Sacrifice’. According to the faithful, the four-horned ram leaves the procession at that point and finds its way, unaided, to the summit of Mount Trishul. As its name suggests, the Royal Procession is closely associated with the ruler of this erstwhile Himalayan kingdom: he attends its inaugural rituals, the bones that litter the shores of Rupkund are believed to be those of one of his ancestors, and the chief sponsor of the event is a local ‘Prince’ who is thought to be descended from the first kings of Garhwal. This Prince traverses the domain of his ancestors and thereby lays claim to it in the name of the goddess Nanda, who is not only his lineage goddess but was also the royal goddess of the neighbouring kingdom of Kumaon, in pre-colonial times. Although the Royal Procession ideally fosters social integration, it was disrupted in 1987 by a quarrel between two factions of priests. The goddess’s itinerary, the culminating date of the pilgrimage, the type of sacrifice to be performed, the order of procession, the participation of previously excluded persons, and the competency of certain ritual specialists—all were subjects of heated dispute between the rival groups. What was the reason for this quarrel? The whole idea of the Progress was to create unity, yet in the event they were torn apart by an acrimonious dispute. So why were they quarrelling if it was ‘only’ a ritual, a matter of mere symbols? Although we often distinguish between the realms of ‘politics’ and ‘ritual’, and although many social scientists would balk at the idea that they are one and the same, in many cases – as the author argues in this article – they pervade each other: ritual is politics and politics is ritual.

In this article, the focus is on the question as to what motives the pilgrims may have for performing pilgrimage, and, in doing this, the author deals especially with the Hindu tradition, namely with pilgrimage to Varanasi, Banaras or Kāśī, which is often considered the Hindu sacred city par excellence by both Hindus and Westerners alike.The sacred power of Varanasi has three sources: the eternal presence of Śiva from the time of creation, the cremation ghāṭand the presence of the river Gaṅgā. Furthermore, we found that the most characteristic thing about the power of Varanasi is its connection with death and its power to confer on the pilgrim the fruit of complete release from the circle of birth, death, and rebirth, something which is normally the privilege of the adherents of ascetic and other non-worldly systems. This feature is still reflected in the fact that many elderly people come to Varanasi in order to die and get cremated here, and many people from the surrounding areas still take the bodies of their dead relatives to Varanasi for cremation.

The interpretation of rituals enacted, or represented,in the temples of Egypt is limited by the often sparse survival of evidence; most of our knowledge of the Egyptian temple cult comes from the temples of the Graeco-Roman period. This paper deals with an aspect of ancient Egyptian divine kingship, the divine birth cycle, and the question of its rituality. The focus is on the well-known but somewhat enigmatic event of engendering the divine child (i.e. the king), as depicted during the New Kingdom period. Following the various types of ritual classification, one might be tempted to interpret the divine birth cycle as a political ritual designed to legitimize the pharaoh's rule. At the same time, it coequals with various aspects of religious renewal, such as the annual re-creation, and rebirth of the pharaonic state through its socio-ideological self, represented by the king. In this respect, one might categorize divine birth as a festival or calendrical rite. The purpose of this paper is to explore various ways of interpreting the divine birth cycle as a ritual, or as a religious representation of a different type.

The significance of religious rituals often reaches beyond their strict religious intentions. Specifically a procession, performed in front of the public, is a most effective instrument of disseminating a message to the crowds. Consequently, this ritual, as is well known, has often been used not only in religious but also in secular contexts; a procession under the cloak of religion can even become a politically useful medium to avoid popular disturbances on peaceful terms. This was the case in ancient Ephesus, where Roman power conflicted with Greek culture from the middle of the first century B.C. onwards. In the beginning of the second century A.D. the public religious life in the city of Ephesus was to a great extent characterized by processions relating to the cult of Artemis Ephesia. The one traditionally performed on the birthday of the goddess called to mind the Greek origin of the city; it was strictly associated with the religious sphere bringing about a close relationship between the goddess and her adherents. The other, artificially created by a Roman, was entirely secular, and spread its message every fortnight in the streets of Ephesus. It referred to the political field of action and intended to strengthen the Roman rule over the city. The Greek origin of Ephesian culture was later included in the message of the procession, reminding the Greeks not to rebel against Roman rule.

Although interest has long been shown in the meaning of place-names, place-name research as a methodical study has only a comparatively short history. A favourite topic for several authors has been to describe the history of an area on the basis of its place-names. From among all the names in the district, they would select now one and now another. Sometimes they would add a little non-onomastic source material and gradually they would reconstruct — on an exceptionally fragile foundation — a picture of the cultic past of the region. However, Danish place-names containing pre-Christian elements, in spite of their small number, may form an important source of information about the history of religion.

In the written sources the gods are arranged in a patriarchal family structure with Odin on the top. If we try to rank the gods in order of precedence on the basis of the number of instances in the toponymic material, Odin would be found a good way down the list. Generally, we should expect gods connected with the cult of fertility and the agricultural society to be overrepresented in the toponymic material in comparison with a god of war. If we consider our literary sources and ask which of the goddesses' names are most frequently used as basic words in kenningar for women, we see that many of the more "unknown" goddesses are very well represented in this material. In the toponymic material, it was the leading goddess who was considered to be the leading god's wife, but not necessarily. Both Frigg and Freyja belong to the type of fertility goddess.

The present paper deals with rituals in a political discourse, namely the rituals employed by the right wing, Hindu nationalist movement, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), in its campaign for a Rama temple in the north Indian town of Ayodhya. As is probably well-known, VHP is part of a group of organizations known as the Sangh Parivar, or sangh family, which also includes the presently ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the ultranationalistic organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or RSS. The rituals of VHP are instruments of the construction of an ideal Hindu society and part of an encounter between Hindu-nationalist tenets and the secular, political establishment. However, the rituals employed by VHP can not be said to represent a separate ritual genre, since they are not different from similar, traditional Hindu rituals. What makes them different is their context and their motives, the fact that they do not serve ordinary material, eschatological, or soteriological aims, but rather political aims, as well as the fact that the ritual agents in this case do not seem to have a satisfactory juridical legitimacy to perform the rituals.

The Greek drama can be apprehended as an extended ritual, originating in the ceremonies of the Dionysus cult. In particular, tragedy derived its origin from the sacrifice of goats and the hymns which were sung on that occasion. Tragedia means "song of the male goat" and these hymns later developed into choruses and eventually into tragedy, in the sense of a solemn and purifying drama. The presence of the god Dionysus is evident in the history and development of the Greek drama at the beginning of the fifth century B.C. and its sudden decline 150 years later. Its rise seems to correspond with the Greek polis, where questions of justice and divine law in conflict with the individual were obviously a matter of discussion and where the drama had individual and collective catharsis (purifying) in mind.

The state of the sources of the Old Norse religions presents a great problem. Most of them were written down two hundred or even three hundred years after the Christianization of the North, based on an oral tradition going back to the pre-Christian ages. This situation has led to an intense discussion about the Christian influence or even interpolations in the text or what are genuine proofs of Old Norse religion. The examples represent varying methods of overcoming source problems show that it is necessary to put new questions to the source material such as: What was the purpose of the sacrifice? Who sacrificed and who received it? Which sacrifices took place in calendar rites, in rites of passage or in crisis? And what are the areas of purification or avoidance in the sacrificial situation? A combination of methods encompassing both the comparative and the linguistic aspect provides an opportunity to overcome the difficulties encountered by the students of Old Norse mythology, especially the problems with the sources.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of myth as a foundation for group identity in Germanic societies. Religious foundations of group identity can, in the Germanic field in any case, only be proven with the help of written sources, and at best further confirmed or illustrated by archaeological and pictorial material.

Many articles have been devoted to the Old Norse myth which relates how Odin was hanging from a tree for nine nights without being offered food or drink. The question we are going to investigate here is, as mentioned, whether we are facing a sacrifice or an initiation. Both possibilities have been proposed, and some scholars have even believed that the strophes deal with an exemplary myth which has served directly as a model for some ritual.

What actually happened at the time when Denmark was christianized? An important viewpoint to the topic is the nomenclature, both personal names and place-names. What happened to these in the missionary period? Can they be exploited as evidence about the change of religion? What happened to these and to the naming practices in connection with the introduction of Christianity? These questions are relevant, because several pre-Christian cultic words entered into the personal nomenclature which the Christian mission found in use on its arrival. The fate of the nomenclature in the period does suggest that the change in religion took place reasonably peacefully and gradually. There are, however, certain features about the place-names suggesting that there were local differences in the conduct of the mission.

In dealing with ecstasy in antiquity, scholars usually refer to Euripides' "Bacchanals"' as one of the most reliable sources with regard to this phenomenon. This drama can also be supplemented by vase paintings, which to a great extent deal with motives from the circle of Dionysos. We can observe that the ecstatic experience, as depicted by Euripides contains such psychological phenomena as hallucinations, including optical, acoustic and olfactive delusion, anesthesia, delusion as to one's own strength and possession. Euripides' description can be explained in different ways according to the view taken of religion and its function.

Aeschylus remains wholly within the context of the ancient religion. He forms his dramatical works with stern gravity and deep religiosity, so that a pervading piety is natural and there are no godless people. The archaic attitude of the poet appears not the least in his view of the departed. They are bloodless shadows without emotions or perceptions. But at the same time the murdered ones cry for vengeance, Nemesis rules over all and everything, and Dike looks after the right of the angered dead. The departed, therefore, have a dangerous power. When the earth has drunk the blood of a murdered person there is no turning back, even Zeus himself is then powerless. The entire Oresteia is concerned with the necessity and the problem of blood-revenge, with retributive justice, but also—one must add—with atonement. Even if one may never disregard Aeschylus' historical background and his own particularity, the problems raised by the Oresteia are universally human and timeless. They may be expressed in different words in different times. But they are basic conditions of human existence.

”I overcome Fate (to heimarmenon); Fate harkens to me". In order to understand the tension in this proclamation of Isis, which forms the conclusion of the Isis aretalogy from Cyme, we must make a closer acquaintance with the two dramatis personae. With what right could Isis make a claim like this? How was to heimarmenon understood and experienced in the Hellenistic environment to which the Cyme hymn belongs? This paper considers the Egyptian goddess and her relation to Fate, by pointing out a few `fatalistic traits' in Isis' character. But first we have to ask another question: How did the Egyptians understand Fate in general? What concepts did they use in order to define Fate and its effects? What was the relation between the god(s) and Fate?