image courtesy of Will Tuladhar-Douglas
Shrew or Rat?
How ethnobiology reveals
a god hidden in plain sight
Dr Will Tuladhar-Douglas
University of Aberdeen
While ethnobiology and religious studies might seem to have little to do with each other, I will show that the use of research methods from ethnobiology—and Indology, anthropology, and history of art—reveal a wholly unknown deity with a distinct cult and history in one of the most intensively studied sites in Asia, Kathmandu. Further, the social anthropology of this deity exposes an indigenous critique of the state religion used to control Newar society.
