The Relationship Between the Divine and Nature in Nepal

Description

Based on the field experiences of Alex Greene and David Gellner in Nepal, I analyze the conception of landscape as a repository of memory and a nexus that unites the divine and the human, as well as the multifaceted uses of religion to challenge human suffering. Greene (2019) tells us how, during his anthropological field experience in remote western Nepal, more precisely in the municipality of Malikarjun, he found himself immersed in an unfamiliar world of deep connections between the environment, people's beliefs and habits. Malikarjun has three distinct but interconnected meanings: it refers to a god, the mountain where the god roams, and the community that worships him (which Greene sees as an expression of the Buddhist Three Jewels: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha). In addition to the legends and myth about the origin of Malikarjun, Greene describes the mountain as a sacred place (like other elements of the landscape, it is seen through the lens of the divine) and a zone of “purity” that no one can invade, except in the two annual occasions when the entire community, “purified” and prepared for weeks, goes up to the mountain cave to visit Malikarjun, venerating a shalagrama and other sacred objects. But the researcher was also surprised: what had initially seemed like a masculine tradition, with male gods, priests and male shamans who worshiped lingas, later turned out to be a synthesis of a rich oral literature and sacred epics, sung exclusively by the oldest women of the community. , sometimes for days, at festivals. Gellner (2020) highlights how religion (religious practices, movements, rituals and feelings) is considered, by the majority of Nepalese, to be a valid and, perhaps, the most prominent way of addressing and talking about the suffering in the world (presenting examples ). I further problematize the experiences of both, linking them to Catholic concepts such as Common Home and Integral Ecology.

Period	15 Nov 2022 → 16 Nov 2022
Event title	Artes, Literatura e Cultura: uma perspetiva religiosa
Event type	Conference
Organiser	Research Centre for Communication and Culture (CECC)
Location	Lisboa, PortugalShow on map
Degree of Recognition	Scientific initiation