By Bruce Kapferer
The Sinhalese exorcism rituals are might be the main complicated and the main terrific in functionality nonetheless extant. For this moment variation, the writer has written a brand new preface and advent within which he argues that the options of therapeutic in Sri Lanka and the aesthetics of this therapeutic can't be diminished to Western psychoanalytic or psychotherapeutic phrases, and develops new and unique techniques to ritual and the classy quite often.
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Additional resources for A celebration of demons: Exorcism and the aesthetics of healing in Sri Lanka
Example text
An understanding of such a process is important for it is through the command of central Buddhist institutions like the temple that Sinhalese Buddhist religion and culture became, and continues to be, both structured to the relations of class and ideologically reformed as a culture of class. I describe a community dominated by the karava caste and take it as an example of general social and political processes which have shaped the class structure of many urban communities within Sri Lanka. " The history of local urban communities varies according to the way their members were positioned within processes established under the conditions of colonial rule and according to the way such factors as caste rank, the principal economic activity of caste members, and ethnic religious allegiances affected the degree of control which their members could exercise over the basic circumstances of economic and social reproduction.
The Far Eastern trade was the more profitable, as a relic room inside the temple testifies; it is packed with Buddha statues sent home from all parts of Asia by the successful traders. After the Second World War, trading in East Africa came to an end, and today none of the Gangarama temple dayakas engage in foreign trade, although some owe their present social positions to forebears who did. The families who supported Suddhammarama temple reestablished trade in Asia after the war, and Asia continued to be a major source of income for the community until the late 1950s.
Foreign visitors were interested in curios, and the karava became the entrepreneurs for such objects as tortoiseshell combs, wooden carvings, and gemstones. There was great demand for the celebrated "Galle lace," which karava women had learned to make as servants in Dutch households. Indeed, there is still a small factory, which trains young girls in the craft, in the neighborhood. Operators of large fishing craft (maha oru) assisted with off-loading, loading, and revictualing of the trading vessels.
