The Late Appearance of the Gṛhastha in the Vedic Domestic Ritual Codes as a Married Religious Professional

The Gṛhyasūtras (rulebooks of household ritual) might be expected to use the word gṛhastha, since it becomes the standard label for a married householder responsible for performing such rites. But in fact, when that role is mentioned, they employ older terms, suggesting that gṛhastha came into use only after the core works of the genre were composed, or that the ritualist authors were slow to accept it. The few occurrences we do find are in restricted contexts in supplementary chapters: in an appended list of penances (a penance for a gṛhastha vidyārthin, “a wisdom-seeker-who-stays-at-home,” Baudhāyana Gṛhyasūtra 4.12.1), and in two appendices that mention a gṛhastha alongside other individuals (including ascetics) worthy to be fed at rituals. This suggests that domestic ritual authorities in the era when the term was coming into use saw it as most applicable for depicting the married ritualist as a home-based religious professional comparable to an ascetic.

Did the Imperially Commissioned Manchu Rites for Sacrifices to the Spirits and to Heaven Standardize Manchu Shamanism?

The Imperially Commissioned Manchu Rites for Sacrifices to the Spirits and to Heaven (Manzhou jishen jitian dianli), the only canon on shamanism compiled under the auspices of the Qing dynasty, has attracted considerable attention from a number of scholars. One view that is held by a vast majority of these scholars is that the promulgation of the Manchu Rites by the Qing court helped standardize shamanic rituals, which resulted in a decline of wild ritual practiced then and brought about a similarity of domestic rituals. However, an in-depth analysis of the textual context of the Manchu Rites, as well as a close inspection of its various editions reveal that the Qing court had no intention to formalize shamanism and did not enforce the Manchu Rites nationwide. In fact, the decline of the Manchu wild ritual can be traced to the preconquest period, while the domestic ritual had been formed before the Manchu Rites was prepared and were not unified even at the end of the Qing dynasty. With regard to the ritual differences among the various Manchu clans, the Qing rulers took a more benign view and it was unnecessary to standardize them. The incorporation of the Chinese version of the Manchu Rites into Siku quanshu demonstrates the Qing court’s struggles to promote its cultural status and legitimize its rule of China.

The Vedic Student

This chapter examines the form and purpose of the Vedic studentship, and the special importance that came to be attached to it as Brahmins sought to reposition their tradition as a basis for establishing religious and legal norms for society. Studentship took the form of a regimen (vrata) of mildly ascetical observances (strict chastity and restrictions on speech, diet, and dress, along with other ritual duties), collectively known as brahmacarya. This regimen, probably at first constitutive of Brahmin status, is extended in the Vedic codes of domestic ritual (gṛhyasūtras) to two other classes of male Āryas as well. The initiation into this observance, symbolically a rebirth through the Veda, becomes in fact the marker of Ārya social status and it provides a template for a multitude of other similar expiatory or supererogatory regimens that structure the life of Smārta Brahmanical piety.

Everyday Practice and Ritual Space: the Organization of Domestic Ritual in Pre-Aztec Xaltocan, Mexico

This article offers new understanding to commoner ritual in central Mexico before the rise of the Aztec Empire through an examination of domestic ritual and everyday practice in Early to Middle Postclassic (AD 900–1350) households in Xaltocan. It also seeks to better understand the ways in which elites negotiate and reinvent ritual traditions to gain and maintain power. In this study, I integrate multiple lines of evidence including ethnohistory, household archaeology and burials to understand the organization, practice and meaning of ritual among commoners before the rise of the Aztec Empire. I argue that pre-Aztec commoner ritual worked to foster solidarity, social continuity and collective memory and was intimately concerned with the protection of household members and the maintenance of household and universal equilibrium. While some of the symbolism and rituals documented in pre-Aztec domestic contexts appear similar to those depicted in Aztec contexts, I argue that state rituals held different meanings as Aztec elites adopted and transformed widely-held commoner rituals and symbols to craft an ideology that promoted their own political agenda. Ultimately, domestic- and state-level ritual should be seen as part of an ever-changing, but necessarily intertwined, historical and political process.