The ‘Vijaya Dashami’ ritual

Abstract

This article is based on a short ethnography conducted on the 10the day of the Hindu festival ‘Vijaya Dashami’ in Nepal. Although, symbolism is important, I use a phenomenological approach to demonstrate that this ritual shows reverence not just to religion but social order and kinship. In doing so, I discover that it is ‘disorder’ or the unconventional aspects of the ritual, that make the ritual a ritual. I hope this article encourages a move away from bounded definitions of rituals and ritual ‘order’, towards fluid understandings of ritual as ‘self-organised’ and entangled with society and culture, whilst adding to anthropological debates around theory and practice.