Ákos Östör writes:

Lina Fuzzetti and I first went to Bishnupur in 1967 and we have been going back ever since. Between 1967 and 1973 we spent about 4 years studying the rituals and festivals, kinship and marriage, bazaars and politics, the Hindu majority and the Muslim minority. Since 1982 we have added ethnographic documentary filming to our fieldwork in the town and the region. We have published numerous books and articles and made several films based on our studies.

This website presents aspects of our work in the novel way made possible by new technology. Our aim is to provide materials toward an ethnography of the town ranging from primary sources to anthropological interpretations. It is of necessity incomplete yet it represents elements of our studies over a 35-year period. The web allows a more multi-dimensional and much layered, interlinked presentation than either books or films. It is less circumscribed by boundaries and not as unidirectional as other media of communication. It allows many linkages, multiple directions, cyclical and spherical connections. For our purposes it is a congenial way to represent the different and pluralistic realities of the town, cyclical and linear time, the various and layered domains of social life which participate in each other. At the same time we are able to give an account of our own life in the town, linking work and life, ethnographers and written/filmed ethnographies.

 

About the site:

The first installment of the project visits the Bishnupur town in the late 1960's and early 1970's, entering the social domains of sacred rituals and festivals, bazaar and markets, marriage rites and kinship relations, celebrations of death there are, as well, accounts of the temples, music, arts and crafts, local history. We endeavor to give internal views of using the concepts and categories employed by the townspeople themselves in ordering and comprehending their own lives, and in addition, we provide anthropological analyses here and interpretations based on the field research.

We chose to organize the site in terms of time and space. Cycles and cyclical time are still central to the ritual, family and economic lives of the town. Rpaid changes are transforming Bishnupur, so the second installment of the project will concern the transformations that have occurred between 1967 and 2003.

The notion of cycle is linked to that of space: segments of the circular plane of the calendar and signs on the map refer to each other just as a stroll through the town evoke time based events than and now. Cycles and maps link localities, festivals, social groups, exchanges, and bring the past to the present within the year and the whole of human life.

 

Organization and use of the site:

Festival and Ritual are organized around the 4 major cycles of celebrating divinity. Krishna and Radha (as well as Vishnu and Lakshmi), Durga and Shiva; the gods of the earth (or gods of the people) and household rituals throughout the year. Each of these segments encompasses the ritual observation of dozens of deities while also presenting unifying notions of god (Bhogaba) and creation (sakti/prakriti).

The Life Cycle comprises rituals and social relations attending birth, death, and marriage.

Culture and Society contain segments called Legend and History, Locality and Kinship, Markets and Economy, Administration and Politics, Temples, Music, Arts and Crafts.

We devote a separate section to Islam and the Muslim minority of the town. Here the rituals and social practice among the Muslims are provided in image and narrative.

Finally, Context refers to the fieldwork, filming and research as well as anthropological theory and method.