For those looking beyond Indian sources for the motivations and themes of religious cannibalism, you might have a look at Jan Kott's Eating of the Gods. http://www.nupress.northwestern.edu/content/eating-gods

Dan

On Mon, Apr 25, 2016 at 3:51 PM, Dominik Wujastyk <wujastyk@gmail.com> wrote:
On 25 April 2016 at 13:46, George Hart <glhart@berkeley.edu> wrote:
 
​[...] ​
Rather, the purpose is to inoculate the killer against the spirit of the dead person
​[...]

​Any hint of inoculation of course raises the interest of a medical historian :-)  But I am sure you were not speaking technically. ​
 

​This is a fork in the conversation, but there are passages in the ayuvedic literature where the authors worry about the issue of poisonous caterpillars, and how it is that the caterpillars don't poison themselves or their offspring.  It's a good question, I think.

Best,
Dominik


--
Professor Dominik Wujastyk*
Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity
University of Alberta, Canada


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