Cycle - L’amour entre norme et transgression : art, histoire, fiction [2014-2018] |
Love, Lyrics, and the Landscape: Aesthetics and Theology in the Rādhāvallabh Samprāday!
Richard David WILLIAMS (Université d'Oxford)
Salle 638, 190 avenue de France 75013 Paris
The romantic trysts of Radha and Krishna in the forests of Vrindavan are a familiar theme in Indian culture, from devotional poetry to Bollywood item numbers. However, in the temple town of Vrindavan itself, this sacred love has been conceptualized differently over the centuries. Poets and theologians from local sectarian communities have focused on different facets of the divine relationship, and formulated multiple paths for devotees to engage with the love between Radha and Krishna, and even to experience it for themselves. This paper explores the place of love in the worship, literature, and music of the Rādhāvallabh Samprāday. The Rādhāvallabhī approach to love was distinctively shaped by the sect’s soteriological interest in an otherworldly Vrindavan, and by their worship of Radha as the supreme being in her own right, rather than as the mortal beloved of Krishna. The corpus of Rādhāvallabhī songs challenges common assumptions about the emotional trajectories of Old Hindi devotional literature: if Radha is no longer an anxious girl looking for her lover, what other emotive connotations did the poets explore? This paper will concentrate in particular on the sung poems of Cācā Hit Vrindāvandās (c.1700-c.1787). By focusing on the sect in the eighteenth century, this paper will discuss how registers of love were developed in courtly and temple settings, and consider how attitudes to the goddess, the body, and emotion changed with time.
Les sites du CEIAS
- SAMAJ | The South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal
- CEIAS - Facebook
- CEIAS - Twitter
- CEIAS - Newsletter
- Le Bulletin de la Bibliothèque
- Régionalisme & cosmopolitisme
- DELI | Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Littératures de l’Inde
- DHARMA | The Domestication of “Hindu” Asceticism and the Religious Making of South and Southeast Asia
- TST | Texts Surrounding Texts
- STARS | Studies in Tamil Studio Archives and Society 1880-1980
- I-SHARE | The Indian Subcontinent’s Shared Sacred Sites
- Sri Lanka et diasporas
- Sindhi Studies Group
- Carnet du Master Études asiatiques
- Master “Asian Studies”
- Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry
- Caste, Land and Custom
- Musiques indiennes en terres créoles
Actualités
Devenir juifs : conversions et assertions identitaires en Inde et au Pakistan
Débat - Mardi 9 mai 2023 - 14:00Présentation« L’an prochain à Jérusalem ! », scande un homme portant une kippa dans une synagogue de Karachi au Pakistan. Ses paroles sont répétées en chœur par les membres de sa communauté, un groupe comptant près de trois cents personnes qui s’autodésignent par (...)(...)
Le Centre d'études sud-asiatiques et himalayennes (Cesah), nouveau laboratoire de recherche (EHESS/CNRS) sur le Campus Condorcet
Échos de la recherche -Depuis le 1er janvier 2023, l'EHESS, en tant que co-tutelle, compte un nouveau centre de recherche né de la fusion du Centre d'études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud (CEIAS - EHESS/CNRS) et du Centre d’études himalayennes (CEH - CNRS) : le Centre d'études sud-asiatiques et h (...)(...)
Centre d'Études de l'Inde et de l'Asie du Sud
UMR8564 - CNRS / EHESS
54 boulevard Raspail
75006 Paris, France
Tél. : +33 (0)1 49 54 83 94
Communication :
nadia.guerguadj[at]ehess.fr
Direction :
dir.ceias[at]ehess.fr
La bibliothèque du CEIAS
Maison de l'Asie
22 avenue du Président Wilson 75016 Paris
54 boulevard Raspail
purushartha[at]ehess.fr