God of Justice Ritual Healing and Social Justice in the Central Himalayas [Paperback]

God of Justicedeals with ritual healing in the Central Himalayas of north India, focusing on the cult of Bhairav, a local deity associated with the lowest castes, who are frequently victims of social injustice. When they are exploited or abused they often turn to Bhairav for justice, beseeching him to afflict their oppressors with disease and misfortune. In order to bring their suffering to an end, the oppressors must make amends with their victims and worship Bhairav together with them. Much of the book focuses on the tension between the high moral value placed on family unity on the one hand, and the inevitable conflicts within it on the other. This highly readable book describes the author's own experiences in the field as well as ritual healing practices such as divination, sacrifice, and exorcism.

This is an extraordinarily fine ethnography, the result of the author's many years of familiarity with the Harijans of Garhwal. It is a classic example of the work of a dying breed of anthropologists. This is a compelling book, dealing with a deeply moving human situation and bringing it to the reader in simple, powerful language. --Wendy Doniger, author ofThe Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was

God of Justiceoffers not only a unique ethnographic case study of healing rituals among Dalits in India's Central Himalayas, but an excellent example of an anthropologist's lived multipositionality and reflexivity while carrying out fieldwork. It provides the reader a rare glimpse into what it is like for an anthropologist to engage the cosmology of his informants, while simultaneously attempting to understand what is occurring using the lenses of social theory and the filters of personal experience. Sax's resonance with the embodied experiences of participants is key to his appreciation of how ritual works. He moves the reader beyond the exotic to an understanding of the humanity of the people about whom he writes and their mlƒ>