Jinah Kim, Harvard University, "Pock-marked Demons, Pot-bellied Goddesses: Images of sickness and healing and trans-sectarian development of medico-cultic practices in pre-modern South Asia"

Addressing one of the most pressing human concerns of life and death, a goddess or a god with ability to cure the sick enjoyed immense trans-regional popularity in pre-modern South Asia. Yet, a claim for a specialty against a specific disease is surprisingly rare. In this context, Parṇaśabarī, a Buddhist goddess of healing with a claimed specialty against smallpox, and her association with Hindu smallpox goddess Śītalā, provide an interesting case to understand the changing landscape of healing and medicine in medieval South Asia not only because their appearance helps us discern the historical rise of smallpox epidemics in India but also because their iconographies point to incorporation of ritual practices of tantric and periphery traditions into much wider use. By closely examining the iconographies of these goddesses as represented in surviving images and ritual texts from the ninth through the twelfth centuries, this study suggests that the pattern of iconographic appropriation and adaptation seen in the development of instrumental iconography of healing demonstrates how the interactions between local medico-cultic practices and normative religious institutions informed trans-local understanding of an epidemic disease, which in turn must have contributed to the development of medical discourse and spread of healing strategies in pre-modern South Asia.