Envisioning Identity: Deity, Person, and Practice in the Kathmandu Valley

Abstract

Through an analysis of diverse accounts offered by those who perform "god's work" for a large religious festival in the Kathmandu Valley, I argue that the oppositional frameworks typically used to understand divergent perspectives are inadequate to understand the multifocal polyphony that these accounts (as well as most other ethnographic settings) present. The terms of argument upon which conflicting accounts agree suggest that esoteric concepts of visualization (sadhana) resonate with popular modes of constructing identities of gods and selves and that this shared understanding helps account for the reproduction and transformation of the many dimensions of contestation that have characterized this festival for centuries. [Nepal, Newar, hermeneutic contestation, multifocal polyphony, identity, religion, ritual, tantra]

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