CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PREFACE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

Part I. Orthodoxies, Madness, and Method

  1.    Academic and Brahmanical Orthodoxies

Sanskritic Culture and the Culture of Possession

The Sanskritic Vocabulary of Possession

Problematics of Interpretation

Part II. Ethnography, Modernity, and the Languages of Possession

  2.    New and Inherited Paradigms: Methodologies for the Study of Possession

Classical Study and Ethnography

Definitions and Typologies

The Devil’s Work

Psychiatric and Psychoanalytic Interpretations

Possession as a Form of Social Control

Possession and Shamanism

Possession as Ontological Reality

Śakti, the Localization of Divinity, and the Possessed

Performative and Biographical Context

Conclusions

  3.    Possession, Trance Channeling, and Modernity

  4.    Notes on Regional Languages and Models of Possession

Lexicography, Languages, and Themes

Exorcists, Oracles, and Healers

Reflections on “Folk” and “Classical” in South Asia

Part III. Classical Literature

  5.    The Vedas and Upaniṣads

Embodiment and Disembodiment Among the Ṛṣis

Possession in the Early Vedic Literature

Shape-Shifting and Possession

In the Beginning, God Possessed Heaven and Earth

Transfer of Essence

The Gandharva, the Apsaras, and the Vedic Body

  6.    Friendly Acquisitions, Hostile Takeovers: The Panorama of Possession in the Sanskrit Epics

The Mahābhārata, Where Everything Can Be Found

Notes on Possession in the Rāmāyaṇa

  7.    Enlightenment and the Classical Culture of Possession

Possession as Yoga Practice

Possession and the Subtle Body in the Yogavāsiṣṭha

Śaṅkara’s Possession of a Dead King

Possession and the Body in the Brahmasūtras

Possession in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism

Conclusions

  8.    Vampires, Prostitutes, and Poets: Narrativity and the Aesthetics of Possession

Culture, Fiction, and Possession

Possession in Sanskrit Fiction

Can There Be an Aesthetic of Possession?

  9.    Devotion as Possession

Devotional Possession in the Gītā and Ānandavardhana

Vallabhācārya’s Concept of Āveśa

Śrī Caitanya and the Gauḍīya Concepts of Āveśa, Avatāra, and Multiple Bodies

Āveśa and Bhāva

Āveśa, Bhāva, and Alternative Vedāntas

Part IV. Worldly and Otherworldly Ruptures: Possession as a Healing Modality

10.    Possession in Tantra: Constructed Bodies and Empowerment

Samāveśa as Tantric Realization

Discipline and Enlightenment

Divinizing the Body

Possession in Buddhist Tantras

Tantric Possession and Images of a Multiple Self

11.    Tantra and the Diaspora of Childhood Possession

The Śaiva and Buddhist Tantras and the South Indian Texts

Svasthāveśa and the Prasenā

Epigraphical Evidence for the Practice of Svasthāveśa

The Ritual of Svasthāveśa

Possession Across the Himalayas

Aweishe: The Indic Character of Chinese Possession

Svasthāveśa in South India

The Mantramahodadhhi

The Tantrarāja

Indian Āveśa and Chinese Aweishe: A Comparison

Conclusions

12.    The Medicalization of Possession in Āyurveda and Tantra

Disease-Producing Spirit Possession

Bhūtavidyā: Vedic and Āyurvedic Demonologies

Other Indic Demonologies

Piśācas and the Piśācmocan Temple

Childsnatchers and Therapy to Counter Demonic Possession (Piśācagṛhītabhaiṣajyam)

Healing and the Circulation of Knowledge

Possession and Exorcism in Contemporary Āyurveda

Diagnosing Possession

Conclusions: Notes on the Textuality of Āyurveda

13.    Conclusions: Identity Among the Possessed and Dispossessed

Variation and Vocabulary

Possession and Embodiment

Sudden and Gradual

Questions and (a Few) Answers

Bringing It All Back Home: The Mahābhārata and Traditions of Possession

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX