Visnu's Children

The ritual occasions represented on this DVD are enactments of the prenatal life-cycle ritual visnubali, "the offering to Visnu", which is specific to the Vaikhanasas, a group of South Indian Brahmin priests in Visnu temples. This ritual is performed in the eighth month of pregnancy. It enacts and marks a transformation of the unborn child. Visnubali, "the offering to the god Visnu", makes the unborn a Visnu devotee, and confers on it its future right to act as a temple priest in South Indian Visnu temples. The ritual is understood as a prenatal initiation, performed by the god Visnu himself: Visnu transforms the unborn into his own child.

The DVD cannot be run on a stand-alone NTSC DVD player. Original sound with English subtitles.

This DVD is also available as part of the book publication:

Hüsken, Ute: Visnu's Children. Prenatal life-Cycle rituals in South India. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009. ISBN: 978-3-447-05854-4