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E.-M. Glasbrenner, The Gommatesvara Mahāmastakäbhişeka Ritual 337
differentiated from the term esthetics of religion, that customarily refers only to the artistically esthetic perspective.
Aisthetics of religion for a deeper study of Indian ritual
This new research perspective, by some authors even described as separate "discipline", of aisthetics of religion" can have a new impact on Indian ritual studies by means of its focussing on perceptive categories - not only the visual one but also the acoustic perception, olfactory components and haptic components. I wish to exemplify the wider spectrum of this by applying the method of aisthetics of religion on the Mahamastakäbhişeka ritual, the impressive large-scale religious ritual performed in honour of Bahubali, the mythological Jaina king, who became an ascetic and is said to have reached liberation (moksa) as the first person in this cosmic world age. There are several huge monolithic Bahubali statues in India, most of them concentrated in South Karnataka. But the oldest and most important one is located at a place called Shravana Belagola.
In Jaina literature Bahubali is known to be one of the 100 sons of Adinatha, the first Tirthankara in this cosmic cycle. When Adinatha or Rṣabha decided to become a wandering monk, he divided his realm among his sons in equal parts, of whom Bharata and Bahubali were two. Bharata desired kingship of all the world, and he sent all his brothers the message that they should subordinate themselves to him.
15 As Klaus Hock describes anthropology of religion (Religionsethnologie) not as an independent discipline but rather a branch of religious studies with an eminent position ("Sonderstellung, p. 111), I would prefer to see aisthetics / esthetics of religion as a new and wider, because more holistic, perspective within the possible approaches of research and reflection on religious phenomena and research methods within the science of religion. Cf. Klaus Hock, Einführung in die Religionswissenschaft (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2002). In his chapter on Religionsästhetik he stresses the analysis of the perception and the production of signs (Zeichen) as subject of esthetics of religion (pp. 152-154), hereby referring to one of the important contributions to the discussion, the essay "Religionsästhetik" by Hubert Cancik and Hubert Moh. in: H. Cançik, B. Gladigow and M. Laubscher (eds.), Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe (HRGW). Band I (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1988), pp. 121-156. The term "Religionsaisthetik" is preferred by the following authors: Anne Koch, Körperwissen. Grundlegung einer Religionsaisthetik. Unpublished thesis, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München 2007, p. 116; Daniel Münster, Religionsästhetik und Anthropologie der Sinne. Münchener Ethnologische Abhandlungen 23 (München: Akademischer Verlag - Edition anacon, 2001), p. 13; Jürgen Mohn, "Von der Religionsphänomenologie zur Religionsästhetik: Neue Wege systematischer Religionswissenschaft", in: Münchener Theologische Zeitung 55, München 2004, pp. 300-309.
16 Both the Digambaras as well as the Śvetambaras have their versions of the Bahubali myth, that differ only in details. Bahubali is first mentioned in the sixteenth chapter of the Adipurana (Adipurāna of Acharya Jinasena. Part I. Edited and Translated by Pannalal Jain. New Delhi: Bharatiya Jnanpith, 2004". (Sanskrit text with Hindi translation)); the story of the duel is related in chapters 35 and 36 (Adipurāna of Acharya Jinasena. Part II. Edited and Translated by Pannalal Jain. New Delhi: Bharatiya Jnanpith, 2002). A Śvetambara version is found, for instance, in the commentary by Amara Muni on the Kalpasūtra of Bhadrabahu, a Sthanakavāsī edition of the Prakrit original with translations in Hindi and English: Shri Amar Muni (ed.), Sacitra Shri Kalpasutra. Delhi: Padam Prakashan, 1995, p. 198.
