Abstract: The Rām Ramāpati Bank in Varanasi accepts deposits of handwritten repetitions of Rām’s name. Devotees fill notebooks with the divine name and bring them to the bank, where their writing is counted and stored. Drawing on ethnographic research, this talk examines this practice of writing the name (rām-nām) and the particular institution that sustains it. How do devotees understand the relationship between writing, repetition, and religious efficacy? What does the language of banking tell us about the accumulation of devotion? And how does the bank connect a practice often carried out individually with a shared religious place?
The talk will also introduce MANTRAMS, an ERC Synergy project on mantras in religion, media, and society across global Southern Asia. It will give an overview of the project and its three research themes—media, senses, and power—with a particular focus on Task Force 3, which I lead in Vienna and which examines mantra and power. The Rām Ramāpati Bank offers a concrete starting point for these questions: its notebooks draw attention to the written and material dimensions of mantra practice, while the work of writing, counting, and depositing raises questions about bodily discipline, religious value, and institutional authority. Through this case, I will discuss how studying what people do with mantras can bring different disciplinary approaches and kinds of material into conversation.
About the Speaker: Borayin Larios is Associate Professor of Modern South Asian Studies at the University of Vienna and Corresponding PI of the ERC Synergy project MANTRAMS. His research focuses on religion, media, material and visual culture, and lived religious practices in South Asia, particularly Hindu traditions and mantra practices.