With a foreword by R L Hangloo; viii, 240p, Bib, Index, 23 cm.
CONTENTS
DESCRIPTION
Supernatural powers have been considered with reverence and fear ever since the inception of human society. Things like epidemics, natural calamities, sickness and death have been viewed with much interest and enthusiasm. Man tried to explain away these things by way of rituals, customs and propitiatory rites: Jatara, human sacrifices, kanumari, kavu ritual, notitalalu, sigamugadam and sidi vrelatam. One of the remarkable features of these rituals is that they were very popular among the lower and depressed castes and they took a leading part in these rituals, because they not only increased their world options they also made sense theologically. In India, early Aryans invested divinity to the forces which they could neither control nor understand and these natural forces were personified as male and female Gods and Goddesses. Later when Sufism entered the land, a lot of Dargahs and Khanqas became important centres of worship and pilgrimage, irrespective of caste, creed and race. Because Sufi saints were believed to possess supernatural posers: granting children, curing diseases of men and cattle and to overcome vicissitudes of every sort. Even medieval states appropriated these popular religious practices for their legitimate existence. In this book the author has succinctly depicted as to how people of both higher and lower orders thought about these supernatural phenomena and tried to manipulate them accordingly to their benefit. This book will fill the gap which exists in the cultural history of medieval Andhradesa. It will make a useful companion for the historians of medieval and modern Andhra, Anthropologists and Sociologists. Even general readers will find this book interesting.
