Question

Research report on sociological significance of festivals nd pilgrimages

Answer 1

~eli~ioh takes birth where man seeks to derive emotional social security not through science and technology but through the Supernatural, the Transcendental and the Otherwordly Power whic he himself conceives and creates. Hence, religion is vitally connected with those elements of human experience which derive from contingency, powerlessness and scarcity as conditions of human existence. If they change, religion also changes. In this connection, your understanding of the distinction between religion and magic, their interrelatedness and intertwined continuum into each other shall be of strategic importance. This is because both religion and magic can also be viewed as a consequence of what Max Weber conceives as 'routinization'. This leads to the institutionalization of norms, values and rituals and also symbols. They enter into social relationships at the individual and collective levels. The collective level manifests itself in suck social spheres as family, caste, community (villagelcity) and at the levels of communal and religious groupings. Social ceremanialization of rituals takes place not at individual but at the collective level. Of course, rituals of black magic are hardly ever collectively ceremonialized. And, to this is added recreation, mirth, merry-making (singing, dancing), tension- management, fast and feasting. Socially, all this remains intertwined with kinship, social stratification, economy, and with the polity of caste and village; and of religious groupings like church, sect and panth. And, thus, is created the realm of religious festivals. The sources for this unit are to be found in Further Reading of the end of the unit. .31.2 SCOPE OF TI3X UNIT [n view of what is stated, in this unit, your learning part is related to two questions: What is%a religious festival? What do we mean by its social significance and how can we comprehend it sociologically ? 12.1 What is a Religious Festival ? 1- Ilerived from the adjective festive (meaning festal, mirthful), festival means joyful txlebration, feast (Chamber's Twentieth Century Dictionary). It also means day or season for public celebrations or merry-making (Oxford Progressive English Ilictionary). Sociologically, too, a jofil public celebration or merry-making on or within a fixed day or season is the essential ingredient of a festival. Usually, such a celebration also includes feasting. Wen because of its association with the Supernatural, a festival also acquires the rites and ceremonies of prayerlpropitiation as a means of salvation from evil, it becomes religious. In India, festi~als~mostly fall on the continuum of religion and magic, some carrying the overtones of religion and some of magic. Mostly, thePLZZ MARK BRAINLIESTBy its very nature, the religious festival gets set in the patterned network of social relationships. This patterning may take place at the level of a society and/or also at the levels of groups. That is, as in our society, 'at the levels of fanlily, caste. village, city, region and religious groupings of various kinds. ' The religious festival is a social expression of what sociologists/ai~thropc.logists conceive as 'religious experience'. Emile Durkheim pointed out that questiofis about all sorts of things which surpass the limits of knowledge are the Gasis of the human social experience we call religion. Let us begin our discussion by taking the follo\ving examples. i) In the celebration of Shia and Sunni Muslilils show a differing network of social relationshps, attitudes and theological ideology. For Muslims, Moharrarn is botl-I a measure of group-identity and intra-group differentiation and conflict. ii) Celebration of Holi does not exhibit the same patterned network of social relationships and religious attitudes at the urban and rural levels. In the