Visnu’s Children

Prenatal life-cycle rituals in South India - DVD

by Ute Husken

Book cover: Visnu’s Children

Publisher: Harrassowitz Verlag

Subjects: Anthropology, Asian/Pacific Studies & Religions

Series: Ethno-Indology

Series volume number: 9.2

Language: English

The ritual occasions represented on this DVD are enactments of the prenatal life-cycle ritual visnubali, “the offering to Visnu”, which is specific to the Vaikhanasas, a group of South Indian Brahmin priests in Visnu temples. This ritual is performed in the eighth month of pregnancy. It enacts and marks a transformation of the unborn child. Visnubali, “the offering to the god Visnu”, makes the unborn a Visnu devotee, and confers on it its future right to act as a temple priest in South Indian Visnu temples. The ritual is understood as a prenatal initiation, performed by the god Visnu himself: Visnu transforms the unborn into his own child. The DVD cannot be run on a stand-alone NTSC DVD player. Original sound with English subtitles. This DVD is also available as part of the book publication:Husken, Ute: Visnu’s Children. Prenatal life-Cycle rituals in South India.

  • By (author) Ute Husken