PATRA; PATRI

[Frank Conlon]

I too cannot recall the festival or deity, but a scholar at Michigan some 
years back had shot film of a group of middle class brahman women in 
Bombay conducting the festival.  The sense I had was that the 
"possession" might be related to hyperventilation.

Returning to Patri, the matter about a Greek reference to Tulunad was 
included in B. N. Saletore's book _Ancient Karnataka_ (sorry to be unsure 
about the title, I am away from my library.

Frank Conlon

On Tue, 19 Sep 1995, ALLEN W THRASHER wrote:

>           RE: Patri 
>            
>           The prima facie derivation would  be  that  he  is  a "vessel" of 
>           divine influence.  In  Pune there is  a festival in which brahmin 
>           women become possessed after blowing vigorously over  the  mouths 
>           of pots as  in  the  US  we would over  the mouth of  a bottle; I 
>           forget the name of the festival and the deity; perhaps one of our 
>           Maharashtrian  members  can   supply.    Is   this  technique  of 
>           possession used elsewhere,  and  in  particular  by  the  patris? 
>           (Would however a pot, with a constricted neck, count as  a patra? 
>           Intuitively I think of a patra as a plate, dish, or bowl.) 
>            
>           Allen Thrasher 
>           Libarry of Congress                                               
>  
>