Bhakti, Sank̇ir̄tana and Gaudiya Vaisnavism

The thesis investigated the socio-theological complexity of medieval Gaudiya Vaisnavism and its current development, the Hare Krishna Movement. The study was simultaneously critical and emic. It (1) uncovered medieval concepts not found in contemporary literature; and, (2) developed pathways through which religion can be sociologically and psychologically elucidated and clarified.

Indicating Commitment: The Notion of dépense in the Study of Ritual and Religion

By analysing two cases from the recent history of Vaishnavism (a temple festival in Vrindavan; the development of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON), this paper shows that the notion of dépenseas developed by Marcel Mauss, Robert Hertz and Georges Bataille can be applied as an analytical tool in the study of rituals and religion as an indicator of religious commitment. At the same time it is possible to show that, by constructing a kind of macro-economic theory that includes religious behaviour, recent theories of religious economics are part of, and reproduce, a modern discourse of rationality that rules out, rather than understands, forms of irrationality such as unproductive expenditure (dépense).