Prayers of cowdung: Women sculpturing fertile environments in rural Rajasthan (India)

Abstract

In line with the special issue’s focus on material religion and ritualistic objects, this article focuses on the multi-sensory prayers that certain groups of Hindu women craft in cowdung at the doorstep of their residences during Divali. This yearly ritual of kneading and praying with cowdung is known as the Govardhan puja (worship of Mount Govardhan). It is generally said to be the worship of the popular cowherd god Krishna and the natural environment he inhabits. Ethnographic research into the multiple meaningful layers of women’s cowdung sculptures in the rural villages nearby Udaipur (Rajasthan) reveals the ritual is more than that. The cowdung sculptures not only reflect Krishna’s body and sacred landscape but also the local environment women share with families, animals and (other) gods. Therefore, the article seeks to answer the following questions: how are women’s cowdung sculptures built up as ritual objects, what different images are expressed in it, and what do these images reveal about women’s intimate and gendered connections with their human and non-human environment? To answer these questions the article focuses on the iconography of women’s sculptures, the performance of the ritual, and the doorstep as the location where women’s beautification of the cowdung takes place.