Viṣṇu As a Hunter: Pāñcarātra Saṃhitās on Hunting Procession/Festival
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12797/CIS.21.2019.02.02Keywords:
Pāñcarātra, mṛgayotsava, mṛgayātrā, royal hunt, Vīralakṣmī, mahotsavaAbstract
Viṣṇu As a Hunter: Pāñcarātra Saṃhitās on Hunting Procession/Festival
The paper examines Pāñcarātra prescriptions pertaining to a hunting procession/festival (mṛgayātrā/mṛgayotsava), chiefly as held on two main occasions: on the 8th day of mahotsava and on the vīralakṣmyutsava, the latter corresponding with vijayadaśamī which concludes mahānavamī/ navarātri. Through equating the god with a hunter, a ritual hunt displays strong associations with royal power. However, these two occasions of sending the deity for hunting seem to deal with different models of a ruler and his relation to his realm: a ruler who enjoys it (as in terms of a hunting game in a garden) and a ruler who subjugates it (as in terms of new territories traversed while hunting in a forest). As I argue, a key issue in discerning those models appears to be an event of crossing the border of a domesticated space, which also makes the presence of Viṣṇu’s wives on his side impossible.
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Narodowym Centrum Nauki
Grant numbers 2018/29/B/HS2/01182
