The Vedamūrti: Embodying the Veda in Contemporary Maharashtra

In this paper I explore how Vedic textual heritage is appropriated and
performed in contemporary Maharashtra. I will revisit the concept of the
Vedas as the cornerstone of Brahmin identity and how this identity is
constructed through a system of formal education and through different
modes of socialization, ritual in particular. In doing so, I will highlight
the relevance of the Vedas as embodied texts in the figure of the Brahmin
male. I will present here examples of pre-modern discourses on the orality
of the Vedas as an intrinsic value linked to the social and cosmic order
and how these continue to circulate and solidify in current practices in
the Vedic schools of India. With this, I hope to show discursive continuities
between the past and the present that have contributed to shape current
practices and ideologies in the Bråhma~ical transmission of knowledge.
The material presented here is based on the study of traditional Vedic
schools, or vedapå†haçålås, of the state of Maharashtra.