Anthropology of Religion: Hindu Tradition

To Love Siva is to Know Siva: Reflections on Ciruttontar, "the Little Devotee"

The story of Ciruttontar, the "Little Devotee", is a Tamil account of how resolute adherence to unconditional love and unyielding devotion to Siva leads to an experience of permanent, intimate union with God. >> [more]
By Cameron Freeman,

A Film Critique of Robert Gardner's Video Ethnography: Forest of Bliss

As a video ethnography, Robert Gardner's Forest of Bliss presents the viewer with a rich visual context of Hindu life that is both mysterious and compelling. Gardner's use of film as his ethnographic medium imparts the Hindu world in a visual language of image and sound that is universal, allowing the viewer to embrace a Hindu notion that seeing is knowing. Gardner, by omitting any oral narrative to explain what is happening in the film, cleverly invites the viewer to explore the Hindu world of sense and image by delivering a visual context that forces the viewer to ask questions such as, "What is happening?" and "What does this mean?" Gardner demands that the student of Hinduism lift one's eye from the printed page and engage the film's visual text, placing the viewer in an almost experiential realm where seeing is not passive, but rather, in engaging the mind to touch the Hindu tradition through sight and sound. >> [more]
By Cameron Freeman,