Masked Ritual and Performance in South India: Dance, Healing, and Possession

by David Dean Shulman (Editor), Deborah Thiagarajan (Editor)

Contents:
Toward a new theory of masks / David Shulman --
Death and the mask / Don Handelman --
Mask and face in Sinhala exorcism / Bruce Kapferer --
Masquerading death : aspects of ritual masking in the community theaters of Tanjavur / Sundar Kaali --
Donning the Vē ṣam in Kaṭṭaikkūttu / Hanne M. de Bruin --
The face and the mask : expression and impersonation in Kutiyattam, Krishnattam, and Noh / Sudha Gopalakrishnan --
Shifting forms of the wandering yogi : the Teyyam of Bhairavan / John R. Freeman --
Kali and Kuli : female masquerades in Kerala ritual dance / Sarah Caldwell --
Masks and associated mythical beasts / Edwin Gerow --
The masques of gods and demons / Wendy Doniger --
Postlude : toward a braiding of frame / Don Handelman.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published August 28, 2006

About the author

David Dean Shulman is an Indologist and regarded as one of the world’s foremost authorities on the languages of India. His research embraces many fields, including the history of religion in South India, Indian poetics, Tamil Islam, Dravidian linguistics, and Carnatic music. He is also a published poet in Hebrew, a literary critic, a cultural anthropologist, and a peace activist. He has authored or co-authored more than 20 books on various subjects ranging from temple myths and temple poems to essays that cover the wide spectrum of the cultural history of South India

In 1967, on graduating from Waterloo high school, he won a National Merit Scholarship, and emigrated to Israel, where he enrolled at Hebrew University. He graduated in 1971 with a B.A. degree in Islamic History, specializing in Arabic. He gained his doctorate in Tamil and Sanskrit. Shulman is a peace activist, and member of the joint Israeli-Palestininian 'Life-in-Common' or Ta'ayush grass-roots movement for non-violence.