Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m8s7h Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T16:31:28.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Ritual Drama of the Sanni Demons: Collective Representations of Disease in Ceylon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Gananath Obeyesekere
Gananath Obeyesekere
Affiliation:
University of Ceylon
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In this paper I shall analyse the rituals for Sanni Yaka (‘the demon of Sanni’). Sanni Yaka is also known as Kōla Sanniya and is a pantheistic deity who incorporates eighteen other demons known as Dahaaṭa Sanni (eighteen Sanni) or simply as Sanni Yakku (Sanni demons; Yakku is plural of Yakā). The rituals performed for the Sanni Yakku appear in a large-scale ceremony known as the Sanni Yäkuma, ‘the demon ceremony of the Sanni’. In my analysis I shall emphasize the dramatic aspects of the rituals, where the demons appear on stage in masked representations. In these rituals a great deal of comic dialogue and obscenities prevail. Their significance has been missed by Wirz who describes one of these rituals, the dolaha pelapāliya (spectacle for the twelve gods) in the following terms: ‘This scene is called simply ‘pelapāliya’, which may best be translated as ‘dance suite’, or ‘musical show.’ … In reality, it is only interposed for diversion and has no deeper meaning’ (1954: 59). A highly sophisticated anthropologist presumably refers to similar comic humour when he says that ‘after more hocus-pocus, Riri Yaka is eventually told that by the orders of the Buddha (Budu anin) and the power of the gods (deviyangē balē) he must accept the dola (offering) and remove his curse from the patient' (Ames, 1964: 42). Almost identical words are spoken to Kōla Sanniya in the Sanni Yäkuma ritual, but we shall interpret and unravel the symbolic meaning of these humorous ritual dramas and consider their evolution and social functions.

Type
Healing Rituals
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , April 1969 , pp. 174 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ames, M. (1964), ‘The Budda and the Dancing Goblins’, American Anthropologist, 66, 1 (02 1964).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Culavamsa (1953), transl. and ed. by Geiger, W.. London: Luzac & Co. (for Pali Text Society).Google Scholar
Eliade, M. (1959) Cosmos and History. New York: Harper Torchbook.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E., ‘Some Collective Expressions of Obscenity in Africa’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LIX, 311–31.Google Scholar
Gennep, Arnold Van (1960), The Rites of Passage, transl. by Vizedom, Monika B. and Cafee, Gabrielle L.. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gombrich, R. (1966), ‘The Consecration of a Buddha Image’, Journal of Asian Studies, XXVI, 1 (11 1966).Google Scholar
Gundert, Rev. H. (1872), Malayalam Dictionary. C. Stoltz.Google Scholar
Hocart, A. M. (1927), Kingship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Horton, R. (1960), ‘A Definition of Religion and its Uses’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 90, Part 2 (07-1960).Google Scholar
Law, B. C. (1923), Some Kshatriya Tribes of Ancient India. Calcutta: Thacker Spink.Google Scholar
Leach, E. R. (1960), Pul Eliya, A Village in Ceylon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mahavastu (1949), transl. by Jones, J. J.. London: Luzac & Co.Google Scholar
Malalasekera, G. P. (1960), Dictionary of Pali Proper Nouns, vol. 2. London: Luzac & Co. (for Pali Text Society). Reprint of 1937 edition.Google Scholar
Malinowski, B. (1948), Magic, Science and Religion. New York: Doubleday Anchor.Google Scholar
Murphy, R. F. (1964), ‘Social Distance and the Veil’, American Anthropologist, 66, 6 (12 1964).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nānamoli, Rev. (1960), Minor Readings and Illustrator (Khuddkapatha). London: Luzac & Co. (for Pali Text Society).Google Scholar
Nanavimala, Rev. (1965), Pujavaliya. Colombo: Ceylon, Gunasena and Co.Google Scholar
Obeyesekere, , Gananath, (1963), ‘The Great Tradition and the Little in the Perspective of Sinhalese Buddhism’, Journal of Asian Studies, XXII, No. 2.Google Scholar
Obeyesekere, Gananath (1967), ‘The Cultural Background of Sinhalese Medicine’, Manuscript prepared for UNESCO Symposium in ‘Traditional Science in South Asia’, ed. by Sinha, Surajit.Google Scholar
Obeyesekere, Gananath (1967), ‘Theodicy, Salvation and Rebirth in a Sociology of Buddhism’, to appear in Occasional Papers in Social Anthropology, No. 5, ed. by Leach, E. R.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pujavaliya, (1965), ed. by Nanavimala, Rev.. Colombo: Gunasena and Co.Google Scholar
Tamil Lexicon. (1936), Madras: University of Madras Press.Google Scholar
Wirz, Paul (1954), Exorcism and the Art of Healing in Ceylon. Leiden: E. J. Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar