CoronAsur: Asian Religions in the Covidian Age 9780824894931

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CoronAsur

CoronAsur Asian Religions in the Covidian Age

Edited by Emily Zoe Hertzman, Natalie Lang, Erica M. Larson, and Carola E. Lorea

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

Open Access edition assisted by a grant from the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. © 2023 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hertzman, Emily Zoe, editor. | Lang, Natalie, editor. | Larson, Erica M., editor. | Lorea, Carola Erika, editor. Title: CoronAsur : Asian religions in the Covidian age / edited by Emily Zoe Hertzman, Natalie Lang, Erica M. Larson, and Carola E. Lorea. Description: Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press, [2023] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023006358 (print) | LCCN 2023006359 (ebook) | ISBN 9780824894924 (hardback) | ISBN 9780824895785 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780824895792 (kindle edition) | ISBN 9780824894948 (epub) | ISBN 9780824894931 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020—Asia—Religious aspects. | COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020—Religious aspects. Classification: LCC BL65.M4 C64 2023 (print) | LCC BL65.M4 (ebook) | DDC 201/.76219624144—dc23/ eng20230510 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023006358 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023006359 The Open Access edition of this book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which means that digital editions of the work may be freely downloaded and shared for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. Commercial uses and the publication of any derivative works require permission from the publisher. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The Creative Commons license described above does not apply to any material that is separately copyrighted. Cover art: Slaying of the Corona Demon. Painting by Shambhu Acharya. Photograph credit: Saymon Zakaria.

Contents

Acknowledgments Note on Online Content Introduction—Asian Religions in the Covidian Age

xi xiii 1

Emily Zoe Hertzman, Natalie Lang, Erica M. Larson, Carola E. Lorea

Section I—Corona Etiologies: How Zoonoses Fit into Theologies, Cosmologies, and Myths 1. Reshaping   Traditional Culture in Bangladesh: The Folklore of Corona Times

35 42

Saymon Zakaria, translated by Carola E. Lorea

2. Monster   for Covid Struggle: The Life of a Japanese Yōkai from Prophecy to Expression

48

Lei Ting and Zhao Yuanhao

3. “Three   Cs” and the Three Mysteries: How Esoteric Buddhism Contributed to the Containment of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan

53

Yijiang Zhong

4. New   Diseases, Old Deities: Revisiting Sitala Maa during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Bengal

58

Deepsikha Dasgupta

5. Turmeric   and Neem: Sacred Plants, Disease Goddesses, and Epidemics in Popular Hinduism

62

Indira Arumugam

6. Saint   Corona, Coronasur, and Corona Devi: Embodied Relationships between Religion and Disease

68

Natalie Lang

v

vi

Contents

7. Why Was Thousand-Hand Guanyin Late for the Meeting?: Implications of Religious Humor during COVID-19

73

Dean Wang

8. Cosmologies, Cartoons, Commentaries: COVID-19, Humor, and the Seventh Lunar Month Festival in 2020 Singapore

78

Esmond Chuah Meng Soh

Section II—Ritual Innovation and New Media: Pandemic Negotiations of Efficacy and Virtuality 9. Puppets Wearing Masks: Fighting with Batara Corona in Javanese Wayang Kulit

83 90

Marianna Lis

10. Catholic Televisuality in the Time of Pandemic: A Philippine Perspective

95

Louie Jon A. Sánchez

11. “Burden Us Not with That Which We Have No Ability to Bear”: Cultivating Endurance through Digital Connection in Ramadan

100

Yasmeen Arif

12. Cyber Dharma: Celebrating E-Vesak in Singapore

106

Jack Meng-Tat Chia

13. Ritual Adaptations on Telok Ayer: Liturgical Negotiations in a Chinese Temple and a Methodist Church

110

Lynn Wong

14. Parsis and Ritual Innovation: Zoroastrian Funerary Practices in Mumbai during the Pandemic

115

Mariano Errichiello

Section III—Viral Sensorium: Embodiment at a Time of Social Distancing

121

15. “We Knew It!”: Caribbean Hindu Responses to Restrictions of Touch during COVID-19

129

Sinah Theres Kloβ

16. A Bread and Wine Issue: “Losing” the Eucharist during the Pandemic Beverly Anne Devakishen

134

Contents  vii

17. Touchless   Technology, Untouchability, and the COVID-19 Pandemic

139

Ankana Das

18. The Sonic and the Somatic: Matua Healing Practices during COVID-19

144

Raka Banerjee, Dishani Roy, Carola E. Lorea, Fatema Aarshe, Md. Khaled Bin Oli Bhuiyan, and Mukul Pandey

19. De-sensorializing   and Disembodying Chinese Religions in Singapore amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

150

Show Ying Ruo

20.  Gods Have Eyes: Praying Online in Singapore

155

Alvin Eng Hui Lim

Section IV—Spatial Sacred Reconfigurations: The “Place” of Religion in the Covidian Age

161

21. The   Disruption of Charisma in Southeast Asian Megachurches

167

Terence Chong and Daniel P.S. Goh

22.  #Minimosque: Cov-Eid as Image, Event, and Archive

173

Faizah Zakaria

23. “All   of Singapore Is Now a Zawiya”: Shadhili Sufism and Sensorial Challenges to Worshiping from Home

178

Muhammad Lutfi Bin Othman

24.  To Go or Not to Go?: Mazu’s Annual Procession in Taiwan 2020

183

Chang Hsun and Lim Peng Chew, translated by Show Ying Ruo

25. COVID-19   and Dao Mau’s Ritual Practitioners: Shaping the Notion of Social Responsibility

187

Tran Thi Thuy Binh

Section V—Old Tensions, New Solidarities: Collisions of Faith and Politics

193

26.  Sonic Fields of Protection in Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 Pandemic

199

Nalika Gajaweera and Neena Mahadev

viii  Contents

27. Seeking   Solidarity: Rethinking the Muslim Community in the Pandemic Era

203

Nurul Fadiah Johari

28. Serving   the Other during the Pandemic: Hindu Nationalist Groups and Covid Relief in India

208

Malini Bhattacharjee

29. Moral   Challenges at the Intersection of Religion, Politics, and COVID-19 in Pakistan

213

Philipp Zehmisch

30. Miracle   Cure for COVID-19 in Sri Lanka: Kali and the Politics behind Dhammika Paniya

218

Catherine West and Kanchana Dodan Godage

31. COVID-19   and the Rohingyas: Islamic Solidarity and Bottom-Up Initiatives in Aceh

223

Nia Deliana

Section VI—Religiopolitical Economies of COVID-19: Between Aid and Loss

229

32. Delivering   from Suffering in the Final Era: Yiguandao’s Response from Aid to Salvation

236

Shen Yeh-Ying

33. The   Performance of Hoa Hao Buddhists’ Charity Kitchens in Responding to the Coronavirus Pandemic in Vietnam

241

Vo Duy Thanh

34. The Cap Go Meh That Never Happened

247

Emily Zoe Hertzman

35. The   Pandemic and Its Effect on the Performance of Hajj Pilgrimage in Malaysia

253

Siti Zubaidah Ismail

36. Buddhist   Temples as Shelters for Vietnamese Migrants in Japan

259

Yuki Shiozaki

37. Who Owns the Temple Gold? Swayam Bagaria

264

Contents  ix

38. COVID-19 and Shifting Practices of Islamic Charity

270

Amelia Fauzia

Epilogue

275

Emily Zoe Hertzman, Natalie Lang, Erica M. Larson, Carola E. Lorea

References

285

Contributors

327

Index

335

Acknowledgments

More than two years since the start of this collaborative project on religion and COVID-19, for the first time all four editors of this book meet in person in Singapore in May 2022. We are immensely grateful that we can sit together in this phase of gradual reopening of some parts of the world and gradual closing of this book project. We would like to express our sincere thanks to all contributors to the CoronAsur blog, from which this volume results. The CoronAsur blog was created by the Religion and Globalisation cluster at the Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore, under the initiation of Carola E. Lorea. We are utterly grateful to the ARI directorship and to our research cluster leader, Professor Kenneth Dean, for having supported the project, hosted the blog, and offered technical support. We are especially thankful to Henry Kwan, Clair Hurford, and Alicia Chan for helping with blog curation, communication, and the online publication process, and to all the members of the editorial board of the research blog, who have generously offered their time to read and review the blog article submissions, particularly Nan Ouyang and Show Ying Ruo. Based on the variety of perspectives gained from the blog, we decided to co-edit the present volume to think jointly about larger ideas about religion and COVID-19 while maintaining the collaborative and multimedia character of the blog. We had to choose a limited number of essays, and we would like to thank all authors who have contributed to the volume in its phygital format for their collaboration. The introduction has been improved by the generous comments we received from Varuni Bhatia, Weishan Huang, and Nurhaizatul Jamil as discussants in a roundtable at the 2022 Association for Asian Studies conference. We also thank the three anonymous reviewers for their encouraging and valuable comments, and our editor, Stephanie Chun, from the University of Hawai‘i Press for her work and support throughout the publication process. Special thanks to the Bangladeshi artist Shambhu Acharya for granting us the permission to use his Coronasur painting as the front cover of this book.

xi

Note on Online Content

This book grew out of the CoronAsur Project and its research blog, CoronAsur: Religion and COVID-19. It is a “phygital” (a neologism for things that have both a physical and a digital aspect) publication that includes additional images and video files from the blog, accessible at https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu /projects/coronasur or using the QR code below. Please note that all figures reproduced in the book and available online are numbered consecutively to underscore the phygital nature of the work and to assist readers as they move between the book and the online content. To facilitate access to additional blog posts and publications from the CoronAsur Project referred to in the text, references to these are hyperlinked and underlined in the digital versions of this book.

xiii

Introduction Asian Religions in the Covidian Age Emily Zoe Hertzman, Natalie Lang, Erica M. Larson, Carola E. Lorea1

Bacteria, viruses, ghosts, holy spirits. A number of invisible entities trespass and spill from nonhuman to human, betraying the precariousness and porousness of the boundaries separating them. The Covidian age has made us more aware of and yet also skeptical about such boundaries, as zoonotic diseases jump from animal to human, from human to human, and across international borders. Relations of “pandemicity” (Richardson 2020)—the social relationship of contagion across humankind and other species—have unsettled the purportedly discrete and self-contained individual, as they act at a global, interconnected, and interbodily scale. For scholars of religion, relations of pandemicity affect/infect not only humans and nonhuman animals but also a wide range of other-thanhuman beings that participate in the cosmos—be it ancestral spirits, sacred plants, immanent energies, or supernatural monotheistic gods. Asian communities have mobilized diverse cultural tropes, narratives, and artifacts, including their repertoires of gods and demons, to make sense of the Covid pandemic.2 A painting by the Bangladeshi artist Shambhu Acharya, discussed in the first essay of this volume and reproduced on the book cover, represents the slaying of the Corona demon (coronasurer bodh). The virus is here portrayed as a mythological villain, an embodiment of evil featuring the traditional iconographic traits of Indic demons: long fangs, sharp claws, bull-like horns, bulging eyeballs, and a remarkable mustache. The arrows that pierce the virus-demon bear the names of the weapons that Bangladeshi citizens have wielded to counter the disease, including Dettol soap, vitamin C, cardamom, cinnamon, holy basil leaves, face masks, and hand gloves. Some of the other arrows suggest Bengali culture, courage, dharma, and love for one’s nation as antidotes to the virus-demon. This arsenal emblematically reflects the eclectic ways in which Asian communities have deployed various kinds of knowledge and authority to understand the coronavirus: their theologies, indigenous medicines, ethical values, biomedical narratives, but also nationalist sentiments. The values evoked in this artwork establish boundaries of exclusion and enclosure. The 1

2  Introduction

ingredients of this composite antidote to COVID-19 incorporate conflicting and yet coexisting epistemologies of health. The invocation of nationalist sentiments reminds us that responses to the pandemic have created solidarity while also exacerbating the scapegoating of minorities. Relations of pandemicity have manifested unequally among humans, claiming victims among marginalized sections of society and rendering certain p ­ eople, types of nonhuman life, and regions disproportionately vulnerable (Duncan and Höglund 2021, 120). At the same time, relations of pandemicity also entail that some people in the Global North have suffered experiences otherwise imagined to be relegated to life in the developing Global South: catching and dying from zoonotic diseases (which disproportionately affect Asian and African populations; Nadal 2020, 4–7), or the lack of mobility and being denied the freedom to travel—already a “normal” experience for racialized citizens or citizens holding passports from Muslim-majority and low-income Asian countries. This volume addresses both aspects of pandemicity—as a social process relationing human and nonhuman beings that inhabit an enchanted Anthropocene, and as a social process relationing humans across asymmetrical power relationships and societies—through the prism of Asian religions. Scientists and climate change scholars suggest that we are witnessing an unprecedented acceleration in the frequency of zoonotic outbreaks as a consequence of human activities like mining, logging, agricultural expansion, and unrelenting urbanization, producing an ever-encroaching proximity to wildlife (Chan and Salzman 2020; Selby and Kagawa 2020, 18). In rapidly urbanizing Asian societies, and in the context of fast-growing economies, the proximity of wildlife to human communities is progressively increasing, and so is the spilling of pathogens between species. To keep the risk of future zoonotic diseases at bay, Hindu and Buddhist leaders have suggested shifting to a completely vegetarian diet to restore collective karma, a call to action not far from what secular voices of scientists and activists have proposed (Boyer 2021). This reminds us that disasters change relationships between human and nonhuman ecologies, in ways that are often informed by religious knowledge. After a disastrous cyclone in Burma, as well as after the 2004 tsunami in Thailand, people temporarily stopped eating fish for fear of indirectly eating parts of human victims. Buddhist environmentalist groups in urban China promote vegetarianism and ethical eating (consuming locally produced food and avoiding gourmet goods transported over great distances) as a symbolic act of repentance during an era marked by natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes, and the Covid pandemic (Yang and Huang 2021). In 2021, Covid vaccine anxieties for many people in Asia revolved around the fear of d ­ irect or indirect contact with parts of pork, cow, or aborted fetal

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   3

cells. These practices and narratives testify to the perceived necessity to “re-establish the respect of the boundaries between nature and culture” (Merli 2012, 54), which are essential for cosmic balance and human well-being. This book provides case studies from Asian religious communities to investigate how ­people are deploying their ritual practices and cosmologies during the Covid pandemic in order to reconceptualize, reiterate, or reinforce such boundaries. At the same time, these case studies remind us that nature itself is co-constituted by religious and c­ultural notions separating human and invisible nonhuman ­entities. In the process, religions emerge as integral in constructing realities and discourses of disease, demonstrating that zoonotic diseases become endemic for reasons that are “as much social, cultural, economic, political, and religious as they are biological” (Nadal 2020, 9). Studying religious narratives, practices, and responses in the Covidian age thus adds not only to our understanding of the specific communities in which they are situated but also to our understanding of the coronavirus, its disputed etiologies, and its culturally contextualized exegeses.3 Employing Asian religions as a ground to examine viral and social dynamics brings us to agree with Rudolf Virchow, who analyzed the 1848 typhus epidemic in Upper Silesia as entrenched in causes such as poverty, social inequality, and maladministration and observed that an epidemic is primarily a social phenomenon that has some medical aspects (Virchow 1849). Academic publications on the impact of and responses to COVID-19 have either barely touched upon or completely avoided the domain of religion.4 ­ Scholarly analysis is necessary to avoid reproducing ill-informed stereotypes and judgmental infodemics that have run parallel with the spread of Covid. In mainstream media, religious mass gatherings of Asian Muslims have been portrayed as infectious clusters, high immunity in the Mekong delta has been attributed to “Buddhist practices” (Statesman 2020), and the worrying rate of infection of Covid cases among South Asian migrant workers housed in overcrowded dormitories in Singapore has been explained with reference to a purportedly cultural habit of “mingling.” Gaining currency through social media and word of mouth, these ideas reiterated well-rooted discriminatory attitudes. Religion is part and parcel of these social constructs because of its identity-making but also exclusionary power. Drawing upon a richness of new empirical evidence, we build a much needed “bulwark against superficial reporting” (O’Brien 2020), and we demonstrate the continued relevance of religion as a resilient and adaptive framework to find meanings, mourn losses, and experience change during a global health crisis. When the coronavirus entered our vocabulary and everyday lives, religious communities and places of worship started to undergo profound changes in

4

Introduction

Asia, as well as in the Asian diaspora. Some have been subjected to fingerpointing as viral super-spreaders (Vermeer and Kregting 2020; Wildman et al.  2020), while others resorted to unconventional solutions and technological innovations to maintain social-distancing norms. Ritual adaptations such as drive-in confessions, Zoom baptisms, and mass gatherings of cow-urine drinking have attracted the attention of sensationalist mainstream media but deserve deeper analysis and systematic documentation. Even when the pandemic comes to an epidemiological end, some of these transformations will likely endure, having entered the “new normal” of lived religion in ways that reflect resourceful and adaptive strategies of reimagining key concepts, such as gathering, ritual, and charity. The CoronAsur initiative that we present in this volume aims to help readers navigate through such sensitive and timely questions. This unconventional volume is envisaged as a “phygital” publication,5 grounded in empirical roots but also in digitally born communication, developed in tandem with the research blog CoronAsur: Religion and COVID-19.6 Rather than a translation of selected blog content into a conventional academic book, this volume is simultaneously a physical item, an online repository of religious responses to the Covid pandemic, and a set of conceptual frameworks to make sense of a digital archive. Adopting a post-secular approach and grounding our project in the field of Asian studies, we pursued documentation and analysis of abrupt societal changes to offer a toolbox to understand current and future pandemic times, while also elucidating the further avenues for research on religion that opened up in the Covidian age. The predominant themes that emerged in the collective enterprise of the CoronAsur project, which we discuss in each section of the book, come to life through thirty-eight short essays based on pandemic research modalities: autoethnography, digital/netnography, collaborative and patchwork “remote ethnography,” phone interviews, pedestrian photo essays, and media analysis. These short contributions, which we have divided into six thematic sections, should be read as field reports and observations from within, aiming at offering fresh empirical insights into sudden changes and impacts in the lives of religious practitioners and communities. Documenting emerging phenomena in real time, the  CoronAsur contributions capture rapidly changing social dynamics on the ground as well as in the cyberscape. Each section is introduced with a preamble by the editors. These six preambles serve the purpose of highlighting common threads and elaborating conceptual backdrops to study the intersections of religion and society during the Covid pandemic in Asia and beyond. Through a bottomup research pattern, we start from diverse ethnographic vignettes and empirical case studies to open up larger questions and address broader theoretical debates,

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age

5

which will be significant over the long term, as different Asian regions navigate various phases of reopening and adopt diverse strategies of herd immunity, zero Covid, or endemic Covid during the ongoing Covidian age. In this introduction, we first describe our project and its methodological premises. Then we offer four key points that condense and traverse the eclectic range of themes and observations emerging from the case studies portrayed in the CoronAsur archive: 1.  The negotiation of epidemic and epistemic authority 2.  The mobilization of receptive cosmologies and adaptive remedies 3.  The enchantment of hygiene and the sanitization of the sacred 4.  The process of pandemicizing enemies and values These four points collectively address a series of questions: What has happened to Asian religious, spiritual, and ritual communities since the beginning of the pandemic? How have they coproduced ways of perceiving and countering the pandemic, and how have they responded to Covid-induced social change? How can a post-secular focus on Asia transcend the lenses of the Global North and contribute to the broader understanding of the Covidian age globally?

The CoronAsur Project and “Blog as Method” CoronAsur is a bottom-up initiative from early-career female scholars. It emerged from a group of Singapore-based postdoctoral and research fellows interested in Asian cultures and religions, whose personal and professional lives span countries, contexts, languages, and religious affiliations. We navigate complex and hard-to-categorize positions, privileges, and challenges, owing to our gender, career stage, and socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. At the outset of the Covid outbreak in Asia, we realized that our primary modes of knowledge production—such as traveling for ethnographic fieldwork in distant areas, or sharing research findings at international conferences—were about to undergo long-lasting disruptions. With the privilege of financial and institutional support through affiliation with a prestigious research institute—the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore—we had the flexibility and freedom to step away from our respective niches of academic expertise and employ our intellectual tools to study Asian religions during the Covid pandemic. Rather than a threatening disruption, we started to consider the coronavirus as a phenomenon to “think with,” and we discovered that the social and cultural life of a virus has a lot to teach us about the socially visible, the invisible, and power

6

Introduction

inequalities in twenty-first-century Asia. Furthermore, we began to see the possibility for a collaborative, bottom-up project, connecting with colleagues and contacts at universities and in our research sites around the world. The authors of the essays in the volume come from a range of places, both geographical and social; some are tenured faculty members at universities while others are students or community-based researchers. In March 2020, when the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic and Covid increasingly featured in our field notes and observations, we started a research collective called Religious Responses to Covid-19 and Ritual Innovations. As one of our first initiatives we launched the research blog CoronAsur: Religion and COVID-19. Why “CoronAsur”? Asur (Skt.  āsura) can be loosely translated as “demon” in a number of South Asian languages. The concept has been mobilized by several South Asian communities in order to give the coronavirus an indigenous semiotic as well as an aesthetic representation. At the beginning of March 2020, on the occasion of a ritual festival named Halika Dahan, people in Mumbai built and subsequently burned effigies of Coronasur, the infamous SARS-CoV-2 represented with the traditional traits of a demon in Hindu mythology (Lorea 2020a; Shetty 2020). Soon after, we came to know that the community of scroll painters and storytellers called Patua, or Chitrakar, in West Bengal started to represent the coronavirus as a demon in pictorial and sonic ways.7 In earlier painted scrolls, Chitrakar artists had depicted HIV/AIDS as a demon too, and unsurprisingly so, since diseases and demons have a long-entwined history in Bengali culture.8 In the sculptures displayed during the festival Durga Puja, the demon Mahishasur in West Bengal is frequently substituted by representations of social evils like illiteracy, pollution, and corruption; in 2020 Mahishasur appeared with a coronavirus-shaped head, slayed by the fierce goddess Durga in the clothes of a stethoscope-wearing doctor (A. Bhatia 2020). Outside India, many Asian traditions mobilized different mythological frames to understand and represent the virus9—for example, as an ogre, or Koronayaksa, in Javanese shadow-puppet theater (essay 9). These conceptualizations of the virus can help to theorize how the pandemic is being perceived and interpreted across a variety of geographical and religious domains, ranging from social danger to divine punishment, and from collective karma to environmental imbalance. Furthermore, these creative artifacts reveal that COVID-19 is not only a zoonotic disease under the microscope of scientists. It has also entered the fabric of sociocultural ecologies through their traditional understandings of the relationship between human, nonhuman, and disease. Theories of religion in the past fifteen years have been recentered on movement, itinerancy, and transnational religious networks (Lau and Cao 2014), to

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age

7

the extent that religions have been redefined under the tropes of migrancy and crossings (Tweed 2006). The Covidian age unsettles these assumptions. Pandemic religious modalities are in effect the fruit of immobility. While the pre-Covidian age trumpeted global flows of transnational mobility for some populations, the pandemic has broken the illusion that people are free to move, highlighting the structures of patrolling and the inequalities that determine human mobility. Arguably, many of the religious responses to COVID-19 emerged from the necessity to find alternative ways of getting together in the impossibility of physically going to places of worship, engaging in pilgrimage, and gathering as congregations. Numerous ritual innovations re-envisaged togetherness at a time of physical and social distance.10 At the same time, experiencing immobility is not necessarily a new or Covidinduced phenomenon. People with certain disabilities might have experienced more immobility before the Covid pandemic, with the lack of physical access to sacred places, while with pandemic-generated digital innovations, differently abled people found ways of accessing congregations, for example, from their home internet connections. Migrants and refugees did not have to wait until pandemic lockdowns and the closure of international borders to feel stuck and immobile. Legal and economic constraints had already made it impossible for displaced people to participate in important rituals, visit their spiritual guides, or worship in sacred spaces outside their new country of residence. In this sense, religious diasporas are precursors of the kinds of experiences that all religious communities have endured to a certain extent during the pandemic (Mellquist Lehto 2020b; Lorea et al. 2022). Diverse experiences of immobility, whether of migrants, the infirm (essay 10), or those immobilized by lockdowns, underlie the unfolding of the pandemic religious modalities discussed in the CoronAsur project. The CoronAsur project started right before the Pan-Asian series of 2020 lockdowns, when both academic institutions and places of worship closed, suspended their gatherings, or moved their respective rituals online. Studying pandemic responses and ritual innovations while we were (and still are) experiencing a pandemic did not grant us the luxury of detachment and planning that academics usually employ for their studies. Ours was necessarily an investigation from within, with rapidly changing questions, following the dynamics of the global health crisis and its Asian manifestations. Are these ritual transformations mere temporary changes, in response to new hygiene and socialdistancing measures? Can digital arrangements offer provisional surrogates, soon to be forgotten once “normal” ritual performances resume? Or are we witnessing the inception of long-lasting changes that will affect the ways in which

8  Introduction

people engage with their communities, gods, deities, and ancestors? Such new and broad questions called for innovative and broad-scale research methods. The “blog as method” provided the kind of ethos, data collection, and discussion platform we needed. Blogs have been discussed as new sources of data analysis for more than a decade (Jones and Alony 2008), and yet the “blog as method” has remained strikingly absent from the resources on pandemic research modalities shared among social scientists since April 2020 (see Lupton 2020). Bloggers can work faster and communicate in greater depth than regular media, and blogs have the ability to dramatically decrease the power and authority of the traditional intermediaries, like newspapers and magazines (Rosenbloom 2004, 33). Blogs have been discussed as “fluid formats” for participating in the public sphere (Siles 2011) and as low-cost, global, and instantaneous data-collection tools (Hookway 2008; Webb and Wang 2013). We found that academic blogs in particular can challenge or at least complement the power and authority of traditional dissemination venues such as academic journals and university presses. Blogs can help researchers share with others, make them feel connected, and provide room for creativity, which could even be considered therapeutic (Boniel-Nissim and Barak 2013; Kjellberg 2010), particularly in the Covidian times of insecurity, isolation, and confinement. Moreover, blogs are freely accessible, are easily shareable via social media, and can integrate multimedia and audiovisual components. These features might explain why several groups of scholars have inaugurated similar initiatives, from Dossier Corona on Utrecht University’s Religious Matters (2020) website, which hosts the contributions of English-proficient religious studies experts, to the digital archive of Pandemic Religion (n.d.), which is focused on Covid-induced religious transformations in the United States.11 While such resourceful online platforms are based in the Global North, the CoronAsur project, centered on Asia and the Asian diaspora, has proceeded with the goal of representing diverse voices, within and beyond academia. With the CoronAsur project, we have attempted to democratize the scholarship on religion and disease and loosen the canonical boundaries between academic and nonacademic. We invited contributions from specialists, including religion scholars, historians, and anthropologists, but we also welcomed perspectives and reflections from community members, leaders, and activists, to produce an archive that is less elitist and more inclusive than traditional a­ cademic publishing. As editors, we took turns translating from the Asian languages that  we speak, in order to include the perspectives of Chinese Buddhist ­teachers, Bangladeshi folklorists, Indonesian theology lecturers, and many other

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   9

contributors who are not proficient in academic English writing, and whose voices are therefore largely absent from the Anglocentric world of academic publications. We included the contributions of Asian students and early-career scholars from diverse backgrounds, which sometimes required multiple rounds of editing, to allow their experiences and analysis to contribute to the available literature on religions and the Covid pandemic. In the era of social distancing and locked borders, social scientists have to rely upon one another more than ever, engaging in unprecedented patterns of international collaboration, necessarily dialogical, participative, and experimental. The temporality of the Covidian age—sudden, critical, unpredictable— implies that collaborations cannot easily wait to be institutionalized or sponsored as official research partnerships between countries and universities. It also demonstrates the difficulty of addressing contemporary, cutting-edge crises within the timeline of traditional academic publishing. We suggest that CoronAsur, with its multivocal and blended “phygital” format, is not only emblematic of academia in times of crisis, but also a step towards a more inclusive and accessible future for academic practices of knowledge production and dissemination. While the in-the-moment nature of blogging is well suited for a collaborative project to create a living archive, the longevity of online posts can be short, transient, or ephemeral, and online publications tend to be attributed less academic legitimacy for citation than traditional academic publication formats. It is our hope that this “phygital” CoronAsur volume, in conjunction with the blog CoronAsur: Religion and COVID-19, can act as a bridge between these modes of publishing, leveraging the potential positive outcomes that each of these publication modalities can offer. It creates (and is created by) a shifting understanding of how collaboration within the international social research community ought to be. It reflects the experience of an online virtual community that humanizes in a time of isolation, but also relies on bonds that may not be embodied in the current physical world of institutions, grants, and official rankings of academic prestige. The format and the content of this publication are closely connected. Our pandemic research modalities have required spontaneous, informal, immediate responses from active members of the Asian scholarly community in extraordinary times. Accordingly, most of the cases discussed in this book concern religious responses and innovations that are, in a similar way, community-based, swift, and unofficial, acting at the local level while networking and communicating in digital and transnational ways. Six book sections, thematically arranged, include documentation of specific happenings during the pandemic in a wide range of Asian religious traditions.

10  Introduction

Siting/Citing Asia Asia is the starting point for this book. It is the physical, social, religious, and empirical field of study for each of the authors of the essays, who speak from a place of being in, knowing, and empathizing with the people and the locations where they work. Many of the authors are inside members of these communities and speak from their reflexive subjectivity, navigating their positionality and finding a space to establish their legitimate position from which to produce knowledge. As editors, we take up the call for action from Kuan-Hsing Chen’s now famous book Asia as Method: Toward Deimperialization. We provide this collection of essays as an alternative frame of reference both theoretically and subjectively. By focusing on myriad examples of Asian religious experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, we intentionally reorient the production of new knowledge to, from, and for Asia. Because this is a contribution to a field of intentional Asian studies scholarship, Asia acts as our real and imaginary horizon for comparison and inter-referencing (Chen 2010). Asian studies scholars consciously avoid framing Asia in relation to a static and monolithic concept of “the West” or exclusively in relation to experiences of colonialism, imperialism, and the Cold War from the perspectives of the nationalist and ethnonationalist struggles. This is not merely a shift in a rigid and arbitrary geographic focus from “the West” to Asia. The conceptual tools that have been used to analyze Asian societies—the very notions of the nation-state, modernity, the secular public sphere (often juxtaposed with a religious private sphere)—are based on a “Western” philosophical canon that needs to be reworked and retheorized from a new starting reference point: from within those places and societies of study (Chen 2010). As a body of comparative inter-Asian perspectives, this book is built on the methodological premise of parochializing “the West” (see Chakrabarty 1992) and making Asia the axial point from which to understand larger processes at play in religious transformations during the pandemic the world over. Starting from Asia, the CoronAsur archive generates transferable insights and understandings that can be picked up and used to analyze, think with, and make sense of religious processes and social dynamics globally. In other words, the methodological premises of this volume argue that Asian case studies, theories, and authors can create an intellectual springboard from which to theorize more broadly the intersections of religion and society during the Covid pandemic across the world. In Asia, religion plays a central role as an integral part of individual and communal identities and subjectivities. It is an anchor of social organization and  a site of political contestation. The region is religiously diverse, involving

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   11

complex intersections of religion with ethnicity, class, and gender, which are at the center of local politics of representation and recognition. Many societies in Asia are both populous and highly connected via internetenabled cell phone technologies, creating an environment highly receptive to technological developments. As digital culture has entered daily life, digital religion has stepwise grown and spread, becoming one of the most active sites for religious innovation, experimentation, and improvisation (Radde-Antweiler and Zeiler 2018). These technologies reveal the continued nimbleness and adaptability of religion in Asia (Han and Nasir 2016). However, developments in digital religion in Asian contexts are heterogeneous because access to online digital technologies is unevenly distributed. The digital divide in Asia is cut along infrastructural, generational, urban/rural, socioeconomic, but also gendered lines. For example, the use of new online platforms for religious gatherings in rural Bengal, where access to a smartphone with internet data is often a male privilege, can result in the erasure of female ritual authority and agency (Lorea et al. 2021). Studying Asian religions during Covid also helps illustrate this digital divide in specific ways that do not emerge from the abundant literature on religion and media in the Global North. Early on in the pandemic, countries in Asia became subjected to different racist reactions, found in both implicit and explicit narrative constructions in the media. Large religious congregations in Malaysia and South Korea were dubbed super-spreader events, with the result of increasing suspicion and marginalization of religious minorities. Intimately tied to perceptions of cultural and religious difference within Asia and between Asia and the West, the representations and mediatizations of the “Chinese” virus, the “Asian” wet market, and the “Indian” (Delta) variant collectively foster processes of othering and underpin the discriminatory reactions the pandemic has elicited. Alternatively, a number of countries in Asia have been lauded as success stories because of their responses to the Covid crisis, and these successes were also interpreted as due to cultural differences. South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and China, each in its own way and at different points during the pandemic, have been praised for their skills and speed in containing and treating the virus, often with the help of stringent measures, which reinforced the imaginary of Asian states as authoritarian, and of their citizens as obedient and “collectivist” (Jennings 2020). Taiwan implemented a comprehensive monitoring system and a universal healthcare program (Summers et al. 2020); Singapore led the world in contact tracing (Thong et al. 2021), the quality of hospital care, and restricting regional mobility. In Wuhan, where the first cases of COVID-19 were identified, the Chinese government built an emergency hospital, called Fire God Mountain

12  Introduction

( 火神山), in just ten days.12 The Daoist name of the hospital and the images and legends it conjures symbolically insert a traditional cultural and religious element into the country’s swift and authoritative biomedical response (Stanley-Baker 2020b). Meanwhile, the news reports from India and Indonesia, the countries hit the hardest in the second wave of COVID-19 as the Delta variant spread in 2021, reveal a bleaker portrayal of mismanagement, failure, and social chaos. Embracing Asia as “method” and not as “fact” or “object” of study, and as a starting point to think about the global, helps to deconstruct essentialized and reified notions of Asia. This book gives voice to a diversity of experiences and responses, which are multiple and at times contradictory. Based on the grounded field research that appears in the essays in this collection, it is clear that there is nothing quintessentially “Asian” in the way people and religious communities encountered, experienced, or fought the pandemic, just as there is no naturally given entity called Asia beyond historical, cultural, and geopolitical imaginaries.

COVID-19 and the Post-Secular Revelation This book advocates a post-secular lens of analysis in which religion and religious cosmologies and practices are understood as essential in constructing the meaning of the pandemic itself, and not solely in responding to it. The pandemic has brought on a “Buddha moment,” of realization, not only about the ephemeral nature of our neoliberalized world (Chakravarti 2020), but also about the centrality of religious cosmologies, rituals, institutions, and networks in making sense of and responding to disaster across Asia and around the world. Dominant popular narratives of secularization predict and put forth as normative a decline in religious belief and practice alongside the confinement of religion to personal and private belief with increasing modernization, access to education, and technological advancement. These narratives have continued to circulate in popular media, particularly during a pandemic that is supposed to be overcome by pure applications of science and technology. However, the empirical case studies in the volume demonstrate unequivocally that we are not in a secularizing moment, and that religion remains central to how many people are grappling with, experiencing, and responding to the pandemic. We do not employ the term “post-secular” in a temporal sense, as we are ­referring to neither an epoch of religious resurgence (Habermas 2008) nor an assumption that societies are experiencing a re-enchantment after passing through a universal secular trajectory (Taylor 2007). “The post-secular is not situated

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   13

after secularisation” (Kristensson Uggla 2017, 53; italics in the original), and the application of this term in the humanities and social sciences has undergone critical examination. Rejecting the use of the term in an adjectival, descriptive sense, we instead employ it as a frame of analysis intended to transcend the Eurocentric and misleadingly teleological paradigms of the secular. In line with implementing an approach of “Asia as method” and recognizing Asia as an important site of inter-referencing, the post-secular frame is also mobilized with the intent of moving beyond the purportedly secular frame of Global North ­modernities. In resonance with other scholars who adopt the post-secular as an approach aimed at dislodging the European perception of a monolithic and progressively “secular” future for the whole of humanity (e.g., in post-secular literary criticism—see Morrissey 2009, 100, and Mączyńska 2009, 76, in Corrigan 2015), we use the post-secular as an approach that allows us to transcend (i.e., post-) the secularist paradigms that emerge as preeminent and hegemonic in the way the Covid pandemic is publicly discussed. Throughout the case studies in this volume, the authors do not impose a singular definition of “secular” or take its meaning for granted, but rather, approach it in a grounded and empirical manner, demonstrating mutual entanglements of the secular and the religious as well as their changing forms. Some scholars have proposed that this is the most secularized of all pandemics, claiming that compared to the 1817 cholera and the 1918 Spanish flu epidemics, this period is witnessing significantly less conflict between faith and science, because everyone believes in the primacy of the latter, and the dominance of supernatural explanations has declined (Phillips 2020). Others, however, encourage us to “think theologically” with the pandemic and argue that COVID-19 has stimulated a re-enchantment of the world through the cyberscape (Chandra 2020). Anthropologists of disaster have long argued that despite the secularization of catastrophes, symbolic, religious, and mythological explanations of ­exceptional events surface in contemporary societies (Merli 2012). Moreover, ­actual victims of hazards often explain their losses in theistic terms, even in societies where scientific and social interpretations are dominant (Chester 2005, 319). The assumptions of the secularist paradigm have occulted the fact that secularization is neither an encompassing nor a totalizing process. Yet, Western presuppositions about secularization and privatization of religion are still hegemonic, explaining why scholarship on disaster, epidemics, and development has largely failed to take religion seriously (McGregor 2010). In much of the analysis of the pandemic thus far, when religion is considered, it is continually assumed to be either an irrational force or one that only reacts to social change. Even literature that considers religion an important factor in the

14  Introduction

analysis of COVID-19 has primarily sought to understand its importance as a coping mechanism to bring a sense of comfort and to respond to suffering and misfortune by engaging religious theodicies (Molteni et al. 2021) or strictly in a role of collaboration with political authorities to deliver care and communicate directives (Hayward, Karam, and Marshall 2020). Religion has only been treated as an integral force in shaping the pandemic in a negative way, inasmuch as it has encouraged the gathering of bodies in close proximity. Religious bodies, in such mainstream narratives, are viewed one-dimensionally as potential hosts for a virus understood as a strictly biomedical entity. This perspective is only heightened by tendencies to focus on the perceived opposition of religious discourses to biomedical directives related to the pandemic, despite the fact that existing research has established that it is common for individuals to simultaneously engage religious and biomedical understandings of disease and environmental disaster (Merli 2010; Schlehe 2010). Infection and contagion are not exclusively related to discrete biomedical entities such as the coronavirus but are inherently social relationships connecting the human and nonhuman (Lowe 2014). We contend that this relationship is an enchanted one, in which the virus is linked in a zoonotic ecosystem not only physically and socially but also cosmologically and virtually. When people burn face masks for ghosts (Soh 2020) or offer them to temple icons (Arumugam 2020b) in a quest for good health, they point to a (re-)enchanted Anthropocene where human and nonhuman entities (including people, viruses, and deities) are copresent and interconnected. Building on the knowledge that “bodily biologies are linked in some meaningful way to extrabodily ecologies” (Nading 2014, 5), this volume understands religion as central in articulating the ways in which the invisible nature of the virus is experienced, perceived, engaged, and countered. Cultural, spiritual, and religious worldviews not only shape understandings of and responses to the pandemic but are an integral part of diseases (Wolf 2015). In a purportedly secular age where the “buffered self” maintains firm boundaries between self and other, as well as between mind and body (Taylor 2007), pandemic social relationships such as infection and contagion remind us that interbodily and interspecies boundaries are porous and permeable. Therefore, an extrabodily ecology of the coronavirus and its numerous variants must be understood through a postsecular approach, in relation to extrabodily and intersubjective ecologies of faith and community. By adopting this post-secular approach, building on our collaborative research blog, and embracing an “Asia as method” perspective, our analysis has generated four major overarching findings about Asian religious experiences

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   15

during Covidian times. These four broad, cross-cutting points are presented in the following sections.

Negotiating Epidemic and Epistemic Authority The COVID-19 pandemic has made visible a process of complex negotiations between divergent interpretations of the disease and a multitude of articulations about how best to medically, socially, morally, religiously, and ritually address its existence. This includes explanations about what COVID-19 is and why it spreads, involving navigation of preexisting worldviews being reworked in this contemporary moment of upheaval. This complex co-construction takes place in relation to specific material circumstances, local histories, and competing epistemologies. For example, different moral and cultural frameworks present different understandings of the pandemic as a sign of the wrath of God, an imbalance in the cosmic order, the result of collective negative karma, the destructive character of the Anthropocene, and other unethical human behaviors. Analyses of the pandemic are often framed in terms of a schism between biomedical science and religious interpretations of disease (Andersen Øyen, Lund-Olsen, and Vaage 2012; Phillips 2020), with the presupposition that the success of science undermines the authority of religious techniques, leaders, and institutions. Our collection of essays necessarily complicates this dichotomy, showing the ways that exegeses of COVID-19 are plural, contradictory, unequally distributed, and coexisting. Our study of Asian religions during Covidian times illuminates widespread processes of conflict and negotiation between different voices and forms of authority, and different ways of knowing and validating knowledge (hence “epistemic” authority), each of which purports to have a righteous interpretation of the ontology of COVID-19 and methods for handling its menace. These competing voices of authority come from religious leaders and institutions, biomedical scientists, national governments, global or international health agencies, gods and more-than-human entities, idiosyncratic and charismatic traditions and theologies, and charitable organizations. Rather than interacting on an even field, each of these voices of authority attempts to speak to people while seeking recognition in specific politicized contexts. As they vie for power and formal legitimacy in local, national, and international hierarchies, competing authoritative voices may be supported by state governments, national laws, international agencies such as the WHO, or local NGOs, or they may be dismissed, discredited, ridiculed, downplayed, or prohibited. In May 2021, for example, the Thai government asked Buddhist monks in more than forty thousand Buddhist temples across the country to conduct a

16  Introduction

daily ritual using an ancient Buddhist prayer written specifically to prevent plagues by a close disciple of the historical Buddha (UCA News 2021). Within Buddhist praxis, the sound of chanting sacred verses is considered an efficacious method of healing. This announcement provided a powerful legitimization of the authority of Buddhism by the (nominally) secular Thai state towards the Buddhist Sangha Supreme Council as well as millions of lay practitioners, but it was not without controversy, as some dissenting voices immediately criticized the plan as superstitious and unscientific (UCA News 2021). This public debate reveals that modes of prevention of COVID-19 in Thailand are not merely political or health issues, but fundamentally relate to the basis of people’s interpretations of the world and the virus. The controversy surrounding Indian herbal Ayurvedic kits marketed as a therapy for COVID-19, called Coronil, provides another instructive example of competing forms of authority (Menon 2020). The Covid pandemic in India provided the Bharatiya Janata Party–led government an opportunity to continue its enduring majoritarian nationalist project of aggressively affirming Hindu identities. This effort was translated into direct and indirect support for Ayurvedic medicines and practices, and for forms of yoga framed in an exclusively Hindu framework. The herbal Ayurvedic pill Coronil is produced and distributed by Patanjali, a company owned by the Hindu right yoga guru and businessman Baba Ramdev, whose televised classes of yoga asanas and pranayama exercises for a fast recovery from Covid went viral. Initially heralded as a cure for COVID-19, the medicine is now only permitted to be marketed as a health supplement, but its distribution in the Indian market was endorsed by several ministers and approved by the traditional health ministry.13 It has not been approved by the WHO, despite such claims, and no clinical trials have demonstrated its efficacy. In June 2021, permission to distribute Coronil was withdrawn from the markets of Nepal and Bhutan, as health regulatory agencies in those countries worried about its misleading claims. In Nepal, the new government’s reversal of the decision to approve the medicine made by the previous government underscores the political and economic dimension of its validation, as the Patanjali group operates a large production facility in Nepal (Bhattacherjee 2021). The case of regulating Coronil shows different governing and regulatory bodies, including gurus, governments, and transnational corporations, competing for an ­authoritative voice in handling COVID-19 treatments. Largely ridiculed by the Anglophone middle class (Frøystad 2021), the practice of drinking of cow urine and covering the body with cow dung among some Hindus in India as an immunity booster and preventative agent in the spread of COVID-19 was headline news at the onset of the pandemic (Siddiqui 2020),

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   17

when the All India Hindu Mahasabha, a radical Hindu nationalist organization, started to promote cow-urine-drinking parties. In this case the sacred efficacy of cow byproducts, in conflict with biomedical views of hygiene and uses of animal byproducts, reveals another set of negotiations, not only around the authority of different systems of healing, but also around interreligious polarization and the Hinduization of Indian politics. The stakes in this conflict are not merely a question of health, but a question of which belief system can act as an authoritative voice gaining legitimacy in the public sphere. As India was suffering from a devastating second wave of COVID-19, politicians were working in crisis mode, ordering more vaccines from the international market, receiving international emergency aid, drinking diluted cow urine, burning cow dung, and calling for more scientific studies into the efficacy of cow byproducts (Daria and Rabiul 2021), a notion backed by the same voices that marginalized Indian Muslims by banning cow slaughter and were now accusing them of being the main group responsible for the spread of the coronavirus. Along with the examples of Coronil and ancient Buddhist chants used in Thailand, this case illustrates how religious and biomedical interpretations, sometimes based on divergent or contradictory epistemologies, are appropriated by majoritarian forces and negotiated in the public sphere, between government ministries, politicians, their constituents, faith leaders, pharmaceutical and ­alternative medicine companies, medical experts, policy makers, and global health regulators. Despite great effort to be (and appear to be) objective or value neutral, biomedical science also contains its own sacred elements, spiritual metaphors, moralistic scripts, and ritual practices (Edwards 2003; Andersen Øyen, Lund-Olsen, and Vaage 2012). Science’s positivist epistemology, and the hegemony of biomedical sciences in public health sectors and the field of global health (Holst 2020) may lay claim to a universal system, but the production of scientific knowledge is necessarily also shaped by the cultural contexts and subjective positions from which it is formed (Cetina 1999; Lupton 2012; Martin 1991). In most parts of Asia, explanations of the pandemic are not the monopoly of the natural sciences, as many engage alternative hermeneutics based on local religious sensitivities and cultural perceptions (Kemkens 2013). This pandemic, like many previous pandemics (Chandra 2020), reveals the shortcomings and slow pace of biomedical science to provide certainty and cures; in this context, the power of interpretation, rationalization, and moral justification coming from religious leaders and communities is amplified (Lorea 2020b). Divergent epistemologies, or ways of knowing, are competing for legitimacy and seek a role in providing persuasive explanations of this disease and how to overcome it.

18  Introduction

If biomedical thinking tacitly contains elements of the sacred, religious cosmologies also shape people’s interpretations of disease and their scientific thinking. Disease avoidance and health promotion differ depending on different cosmological understandings. In many forms of Buddhism, illness is considered one of the primary forms of suffering that humans face as part of their existential reality (Ashiwa and Wank 2020). Illness, along with living, aging, and death, is an experience of suffering that is inevitable rather than avoidable. Buddhism offers interpretations to understand it and techniques to deal with sickness, including meditation, prayer, mantra, mudra, breath work, and mindfulness (Schedneck 2020). According to traditional Tibetan medicine, pandemic diseases may be interpreted as the result of collective human misbehaviors that destroy nature and upset the “eight classic spirits,” who, in anger, transform into demons and cause climate disasters and illness (Chan 2020). Viruses, including the coronavirus, may be explained by some Tibetans as the lethal poisonous breath exhaled into the sky like clouds by these eight classic spirits, releasing sinbu, or tiny serpentine-shaped beings, into the population (Arya and van der Valk 2020). Doctors of Tibetan medicine prescribe methods of protecting the physiological body from these viruses including enhanced cleaning and selfisolation as well as a range of self-cultivation techniques, including yoga, meditation, and the visualization of the Medicine Buddha and other Tantric deities (Chan 2020). Among the players involved in negotiating epidemic and epistemic authority, religious leaders occupy a unique and strategic position to disseminate information and to shape moral deliberations within communities. They are often tasked with being role models who can provide explanations, guidance, and solace rapidly and creatively. Most governments, public health departments, international NGOs, and agencies like the WHO recognize the important gatekeeping role that religious leaders can play in accessing religious publics and communities. However, not all religious leaders have the same degree of authority or influence. Some may have small followings, lack institutional support or training, work voluntarily, or have congregations or followers who easily move between multiple spheres of influence. This is clearly the case for spirit mediums and other ritual experts of Chinese popular religion and other folk traditions who offer unique, often idiosyncratic interpretations of events and circumstances, including about COVID-19, that do not rely on a single textual or liturgical tradition, but draw widely from myths, stories, impressions, and personal experiences including dreams and divine interventions (Hertzman 2020). Religious leaders’ interpretations include descriptions of what has happened, rationales for why it is

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   19

happening, and at times moral explanations of cosmic causality (essay 1). Religious leaders are also influenced by and contributing to the infodemic that characterizes and accompanies this pandemic, faced with the daily challenge of parsing out facts, fake news, and interpretations and using their specific religiously oriented training and expertise to filter through and make sense of the evolving circumstances. Writing this introduction from the second year of the pandemic, we observed not only conflicting authorities in tension with one another, but also a process of mutual recognition of different authoritative claims to ways of knowing. While these may be mostly symbolic, they indicate the ways that various actors and agencies participate in a politics of recognition (Lindemann and Ringmar 2015; Taylor 1994). For example, in April 2020, the WHO published interim guidance in which it formally acknowledged the important role of religious leaders and communities during the pandemic (WHO 2020a). In May 2020, Pope Francis led prayers to quickly end the pandemic and develop a vaccine (Winfield 2020). More recently he has advocated and prayed for better, faster, and more equitable vaccination coverage (Rocca 2021). In Iran, Grand Ayatollah Sistani declared that medical workers caring for COVID-19 patients during the pandemic are as heroic as the defenders of the nation’s borders and will be treated as martyrs and given great rewards in the afterlife (Shia News Agency 2020). In Sri Lanka, after multiple campaigns of national blessings, a public radio station worked with the India High Commission to allow the Buddhist Ratana Sutta prayer to be broadcast transnationally via transistor radio to Indians suffering from the second wave of COVID-19 (Dutta and Basu 2021). During this pandemic, as in other public health crises, the state is one of the main institutions involved in brokering competing interpretations of the disease—medical, epidemiological, theological, and environmentalist, among others. This has meant providing public health information, instructions, and regulations to citizens, as well as validating certain epistemologies of the virus while excluding others. One common goal in this brokering process is to avoid alienating parts of the population, and particularly parts of the voting public, who are drawing from multiple authoritative voices for their interpretive frameworks. Another goal is to translate received public health messages into locally meaningful registers. The Afghanistan Immunity Charm, although developed before the pandemic, provides an instrumental example of this process of translation. In order to reduce infant mortality and increase standard child vaccination rates in the country, this award-winning social design campaign innovated upon the local custom of infants wearing a charm bracelet to ward off evil. Under this scheme, doctors distribute a vaccination charm bracelet that keeps track of

20  Introduction

each new immunization with the addition of a color-coded bead, thus merging traditional and biomedical approaches to childhood health into a single streamlined practice (McCann Health, n.d.). Given this complexity, we suggest that rather than establishing which authority is most legitimate, sacred, or sovereign, analytic focus should shift toward identifying the processes often entailed in negotiating these various sources and forms of authority. Brent Crosson argues that the coronavirus, which he dubs the “virus with a crown,” ought to be viewed not merely in material terms but as a sacred form. Viewing the sacred as “an assertion about the location of sovereign power . . . which can call a state of exception and supersede codified rules,” he argues that god(s), governments, corporations, and viruses, but also sanctified social and moral ideals, can each manifest sovereign power (2020). COVID-19 interjects its own sovereign power within the religious and political field, in which conflicting assertions about the nature of the world are already circulating and competing. Documenting the negotiations of the different voices of authority in the public sphere as well as at the individual level of everyday practice allows us to understand the ways that different epidemic and epistemic authorities become socially validated or demonized, politically empowered, represented, or delegitimized.

Receptive Cosmologies and Adaptive Remedies Anthropological research on disaster has pointed out the importance of religion and cosmologies in how disasters and post-disaster processes are understood, experienced, and dealt with, although religion remains an underestimated field in risk research and political disaster management (Gaillard and Texier 2010; Merli 2012). The coexistence of scientific and religious explanatory frames in the face of epidemics and other disasters has been documented across places and times. For example, the cholera epidemic in nineteenth-century British India was interpreted as resulting from colonial troops’ violation of Hindu taboos and their intrusiveness into the Hindu cosmos, connected with local histories and the worship of disease deities (Arnold 1986). More recently, in post-tsunami Aceh, individuals interpreted the traumatic event in 2004 through an Islamic lens to process grief and loss, understanding it as a trial of their own faith and trust in God (Samuels 2019). As established previously, we conceive of the COVID-19 pandemic from a post-secular perspective, attributing to religious and spiritual sensibilities a key role in shaping the pandemic as a social phenomenon. This book provides various examples of how understandings of the coronavirus are shaped by religion and cosmologies.

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   21

Many perceive the pandemic as theurgy, a supernatural intervention, which is often linked to theodicies attempting to make sense of why a divine benign power would inflict suffering upon people. Such theological explanations are diverse and grounded in specific local contexts (cf. Isiko 2020; Merli 2010). In Samoa, for example, mainline churches’ interpretations of the tsunami as a punishment for sinful behavior, especially in tourist areas, resulted in calls to return to traditional Samoan culture, while new churches, perceiving the tsunami as a sign of the Second Coming, seized the opportunity as a moment for change, to build churches and proselytize (Holmgaard 2019). While understandings of disasters often reflect Judeo-Christian notions of divine punishment of sinful humans (Gaillard and Texier 2010, 82), such retributive theodicies are only one part of a large spectrum of explanations, including millenarian and eschatological “end of the world” exegeses, but also invitations to conceive of challenging times as occasions for self-improvement or spiritual advancement. Some, for example, suggested seeing the pandemic as a booster sent by Allah for Muslims’ immune systems in both medical and spiritual terms (David 2021). Our focus on Asia and Asian religions widens such perspectives by including diverse religious orientations and various contexts wherein these traditions unfold. Arguments about necessary transformations induced by divine or supernatural powers to change the status quo entail active engagement with the present situation and can be prescriptive and closely linked with political contexts (Revet 2010). Examples of religiopolitical agendas of Covid remedies include Hindu nationalists in India drawing on indigenous medicine and healing traditions, such as cow excretions and yoga (Manna 2020), or the Sri Lankan government supporting a “miracle cure” (essay 30) while Sri Lankan politicians conducted rituals for a goddess mobilized within the frame of Buddhist nationalism and invoked as protectress of the entire nation (de Silva 2021). Cosmologies are receptive to change and can incorporate new developments in their explanatory narratives and mythologies. Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Susanna M. Hoffman noted that “religions and ideologies change to incorporate events, invoke morality, deal with death and point fingers. Cosmologies and symbols readjust to clarify existence” (2010, 4). At the same time, both cosmologies and religious remedies can serve as frames to understand the self and the world in times of uncertainty. Religious communities have drawn on preexisting repertoires of techniques, narratives, and knowledge to make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic and to fight against or coexist with it. Numerous and diverse expiatory, apotropaic, expulsive, protective, salvific, and healing rituals of diverse religious communities provide telling examples of how these repertoires are crucial in understanding and

22  Introduction

confronting the pandemic, even if the pandemic is not necessarily perceived in line with previous threats. For instance, rising cases of infection incited the performance of cleansing rituals like the Buddhist Riwo Sangchö (Mountain Incense Smoke Offering) in the Northeast Indian state of Sikkim, wherein smoke permeates the visible and invisible environment. While recent environmental disasters in the region are ascribed to exploitation by humans having irritated spirits and causing them to leave, the coronavirus is perceived as intruding from outside (Bhutia 2021). Rather than claiming pride in ritual innovations, religious communities often emphasize that they are referring to long-standing traditions. Matua devotees, for example, prescribed daily chanting of the passages from their sacred scriptures where their saint-healer Harichand cured a devotee from cholera (essay 18). More examples of such responsive remedies include Japanese expiation rites (McLaughlin 2020), Buddhist rituals to reduce the risk of suffering from a Covid infection or other misfortunes in relation to one’s Chinese zodiac sign in Thailand (Liu 2021), and Catholic exorcism rituals and dungaw (placing iconographic representations of Jesus, the Virgin, or saints at the door or window looking out of a house or church) telecast in the Philippines (del Castillo, del Castillo, and Corpuz 2021; essay 10). In addition to the performance of rituals, the materiality of ritual objects such as amulets (essay 17; Liu 2021) itself also reflects preexisting ways of conceptualizing the protection and restoration of health, prosperity, and well-being. Those who paint wooden Daruma dolls, traditionally used to protect against the smallpox deity, began to also paint wooden dolls with the Japanese sea monster Amabie to ward off COVID-19 (essay 2), illustrating the turn to and adaptation of preexisting remedies. Furthermore, sacred ethnobotany, or the use of medicinal plants that are inscribed in local ritual traditions, has been mobilized throughout Asia, whether in the secularized form of indigenous medicine or under the frame of religious healing. While South Indian popular responses included sprinkling turmeric water and attaching or even wearing neem leaves (essay 5), Chinese spirit mediums in Southeast Asia recommended the use of  lemongrass and pasak bumi roots (Hertzman 2020), and Bengali popular responses included daily intake of tulsi (holy basil) leaves. These phenomena consolidate the important relation between rituals and healing. Medical treatments, allegedly secular, offer ritual experience and, like rituals, have an impact in alleviating illnesses (Kaptchuk 2011). At the same time, the insecurity triggered by the pandemic calls for ritual practices (Gupta 2020), and new spontaneous rituals have emerged even in presumably secularized societies. From the importance of ritual acts, substances, and objects in dealing with

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   23

the pandemic, and from the ways people have turned to repertoires they are familiar with, it becomes clear not only that cosmological explanations shape understandings of the virus but also that these remedies reiterate and perform cosmologies in their own material and embodied ways.

Enchanted Hygiene and Sanitized Sacred In 2020 Mumbai residents could use an app to get the ritual immersion of their Ganesh idol performed at the back of a pickup truck filled with water instead of traveling to the shores of the ocean (Marpakwar 2020), while Buddhist devotees could pay an online agent to perform rituals on their behalf in a prestigious Thai temple (Liu 2021), and Singaporean Catholics could perform a “spiritual Communion” from home while watching a live-streamed service, in the absence of the embodied Eucharist (essay 16). In these instances of reshaped mediations, traditions are invented while rituals unfold in continuity with established practices. Scholars interested in transcending definitions of religions inflected with post-enlightenment Protestant and secularized biases (e.g., Asad 1993, 27–54; Keane 2007) have proposed to define religion as practices of mediation (Engelke 2010; Campbell 2017; Meyer 2020b). Studying religion and COVID-19 in Asia reveals that particular pandemic religious modalities are shaped by underlying pre-pandemic practices of mediation, horizontal as well as vertical (Thiessen and McAlpine 2013). In other words, the pandemic induced the reshaping of aesthetic and material practices of mediation between individual community members (horizontal), and between the human and the divine or other-than-human (vertical) in ways that are creative and adaptive, but also coherent with their specific religious lifeworld. Rituals constitute practices of mediation par excellence—“between the immanent and transcendent, through which the latter becomes real and tangible” (Meyer 2020b), but also between participants, establishing ties of belonging and providing comfort and stability in times of uncertainty (Xygalatas 2020). Mainstream media during “Corona times” have mainly described rituals as either going online or getting canceled. However, the manifestations of ritual change in Asian communities are multiple, contextual, and sophisticated in the ways they negotiate ritual obligations with preventive measures. The numerous case studies documented through CoronAsur across Asian regions and religions have allowed us to outline patterns of ritual innovation that can help theorize ritual change in times of crisis, disease, and disaster more broadly. Pandemic rituals across Asian communities became:

24  Introduction

1. shortened, simplified, or both—condensed in both duration and sequence of ritual acts; 2. delegated, or performed on behalf of others by a few ritual specialists, whether live-streamed to the public or behind closed doors; 3. rescaled, relocated, or both. With participation limited to a certain number of people, or accessible to endless online participants, the size of ritual performance has changed. With rituals moving online, in the domestic arena, or in streets and balconies, spatialities and temporalities of rituals are also transformed, potentially expanded to global and transnational participation, but also contracted into the simultaneity of live sharing and live-streaming. Ritual innovations in the Covidian age have manifested as negotiations of presence and absence, distance and togetherness, materiality and intangibility. Religious authorities provided dispensations from presence—the dispensation from joining in-person Friday prayers at the mosque, for example—although such dispensations are not coterminous with participation (Parish 2020) and are often understood as exceptions for states of emergency. At the same time, religious traditions have embedded new practices as compensation for absence. For example, an Italian priest printed photo portraits of parishioners and pasted them to the empty pews to make up for their physical absence (Rai News 2020), while in Singapore and Malaysia a still camera projecting the altar of an underworld god began streaming on Facebook to compensate for the distance between worshipers and the deity (essay 20). Religions, enshrining archives of memories of past pandemics (Meyer 2020a), are endowed with strategies of ritual dispensations and compensations to deploy in times of crisis, as the history of previous epidemics clearly demonstrates (Parish 2020). Through the frameworks of enchanted hygiene and sanitized sacred, we postulate that Asian religions under pandemic circumstances have reshaped their mediations along the dialectics of dispensation and compensation, hinging upon mimesis and anticipation. Mimesis entails that pandemic rituals rely upon memories of the past experience of embodied participation and physical space, performing fidelity through mimetic repetition. Anticipation implies that pandemic religious mediations act with the expectation that traditional practices will return, could be restored, or will coexist with newly emerged practices in the near future. A poster from a Thai Buddhist temple on social media advertises face masks inscribed with spiritual incantations (Liu 2021), as Buddhists believe that these sacred inscriptions, together with recitations and amulets, can better protect them from the virus (Salguero 2020). Krishna devotees worldwide have

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   25

embraced the practice of frequent handwashing while “cleansing their hearts and sanitizing their consciousness” with the repetition of the Hare Krishna mantra (P.N. Das 2020). These examples attest that Asian worshipers abide by restrictions and norms in place, while also performing prayers, buying talismans, and “enchanting” medical materials and practices with the powerful tools of their ritual repertoires. Following WHO recommendations and biomedical governmental protocols alone does not suffice: rituals and mantras, empowered objects and syllables, can back up, strengthen, and enhance the efficacy of the biomedical cosmos. Religion and medicine, ritual and healing, are deeply entwined spheres, as “concerns about healing people go back to the origins of religion, and religions have been involved in the training of healers of both body and mind” (Levin 2020). The Covid pandemic has reinstantiated these preexisting overlaps, while stimulating a redefinition of their parameters of encounter. Such instances of “enchanted hygiene,” constituting a red thread throughout the CoronAsur archive, can be read against the grain of the dominant discourse around secularization. Baker and colleagues—among others—suggested that the pandemic may accelerate “trends associated with secularization” (2020, 363). However, the ways in which the coronavirus is understood, placated, and countered in modern Asian societies demonstrates that religion is not contained in its own discrete sphere but necessarily seeps into and overlaps with other social domains, including the assumedly secular realm of global health and new technologies, especially when cultural concerns about ritual purity and pollution serve as an implicit blueprint to understand hygiene and contamination (see essay 4; essay 15; essay 17). Studying Asian religions in the Covidian age highlights the adaptive and dynamic capacities of rituals, theologies, and religious communities. Subject to restrictions and regulations to minimize touch and maintain distance, Asian religious actors have implemented “ad hoc, imaginative alternative liturgical celebrations” (Sheklian 2020) with the tools of “sacred creativity” (Palmisano and Pannofino 2017). These transformations produce new phenomena of religious mediation, which we address under the lens of the sanitized sacred. In response to the pandemic, bottled Ganga water is available online and can be delivered to one’s home in plastic containers to enable quarantined Hindu pilgrims to take a ritual bath without traveling to the sacred river’s shores. To avoid crowds and germs, the meat of sacrificially slaughtered animals (qurban) in Indonesia is now packaged in hygienic and long-lasting cans of ready-made flavored meals (essay 38). The touchless technology of new ritual bells allows temple visitors in South India to produce auspicious sounds and to be heard by the deities without ringing them by hand (essay 17). Innumerable congregations have

26  Introduction

shifted their place of worship from the brick-and-mortar place of physical gathering to cyberspace, where one can perform the ritual bathing of the baby Buddha online—securing karmic merit without engaging with potentially infectious bodily presence (essay 12). As religion is still pervasively assumed to rely upon events, like ritual gatherings and performances (Campbell 2020, 9–14), religion in the Covidian age has been treated as a “high-touch” surface, like elevator buttons and doorknobs: a social viral vessel that needs to be carefully sanitized through specific regulations. Recommendations to cleanse and sanitize hands and high-touch surfaces emerged in parallel with mandates for vacating, cleaning, and disinfecting religious spaces—as the images of the desolated Kaaba surrounded by sterilizing workers can emblematize (essay 35). Community members have been required to revolutionize their embodied ritual participation, staying detached and detouched, bringing their own prayer mat to the mosque, using disposable cotton swabs to apply holy water in the church, abstaining from singing hymns, or having their temperature taken while undergoing spirit possession (essay 24). This social sanitization has affected the field of death and the ways Asian religious communities manage human remains. Some ritual ways of disposing of the dead body have been sanctioned as more hygienic than others in top-down manners that hardly respected the sentiments of the bereaved families of Covid victims. In the first waves of the pandemic, several Asian countries, facing a shortage of burial space, coffins, and crematory chambers, imposed hastily designed measures to manage dead bodies, provoking interreligious tensions and hurting the sensibilities of religious minorities. At the same time, with a bombardment of daily statistics, graphics, and curves displaying the number of national Covid deaths and their projected measures in the weeks to come, death itself became socially sanitized, rationalized in a bureaucratic performance of statistic virtuosity that served the political purpose of displaying good and responsible governance. With places of worship emptied, reconfigured online or in private homes, and sterilized from sacred sound, and with ritual performance cleansed from touch and contact, the sanitized sacred cuts across new pandemic modalities of mediation that utilize technology, space, and the body sensorium in original and yet coherent ways. In the process, sanitization itself emerges not quite as a neutral procedure endowed with scientific universality, but rather as a culturally inflected and governmentally informed practice that applies to different social surfaces in unequal ways. Documenting and analyzing the sanitized sacred reveals that sanitization is a social process, embedded in power dynamics that reinforce dominant epistemologies of healing. It also reveals that the sacred, just

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   27

like the viral, has the transformative capacity to shift and spill, with its variants, into new domains. As in many other parts of the world, the Covidian age in Asia has both accelerated and expanded the use of digital media across religious communities for the performance of rituals, as well as for connecting community members, ­a llowing them to stay “in touch” at a time when touch itself is a health threat. This spike in the ubiquity of digital religion has been covered with a certain sensationalism in mainstream media, contributing to the assumption that religion and new technologies are to be perceived as diametrically opposed (Chia and Yip 2020). The presupposition that science and technology are based on rationality and devoid of cultural bias underlies such narratives, which depict digitized and live-streamed rituals as peculiar novelties. However, the shift to online platforms of mediation should not be considered something extraordinarily new or radically different from other kinds of ritual transformations. Rather, it should be understood “in the light of earlier research on religion and media, paying attention to the ways in which new media are negotiated and accommodated into long-standing practices of mediation between humans and the divine” (Meyer 2020a). It is important to keep in mind that not all religious communities possessed the infrastructure, the capital, and the capability to use digital technologies to face the challenges generated by the Covid pandemic, and it is likely that those religious movements that are less powerful and less institutionalized will also remain less studied, their challenges and voices left unrepresented as they escape the radar of digital and remote ethnographies. Against the prognosis that religions during the Covid pandemic will become increasingly privatized and individualized (Baker et al. 2020), less communal (Musa 2020), and disembodied (Campbell 2020, 57–58), the cases that CoronAsur documents demonstrate that new forms of sacred space and new kinds of community, network, and belonging have emerged, also (but not only) through online collectives and digital place making, which offer accessibility and inclusion to nontraditional publics (Frederick 2020; Zakaria 2020; Fader 2020). Reshaped mediations can simultaneously reproduce and transgress traditional authorities, theologies, or the very concept of a congregation. While giving rise to new religious experiences that might take on a life of their own in the post-pandemic future, these phenomena also testify that the desire to be part of a spiritual or religious community has by no means decreased. Although digital platforms like Zoom, Facebook, and phone apps are often discussed as inherently secular, studying ritual innovation during the Covid pandemic in Asia can demonstrate that these technologies are imbued with considerations of the sacred, to the extent that online televisuality can become itself

28  Introduction

a new pilgrimage route (see essay 10), church website architectures can be understood as “holy infrastructure” (Mellquist Lehto 2020b, 200), and Instagram can inspire impromptu mini-mosques (essay 22). Scholars in the field of religion and media have convincingly argued that theological assumptions about mediation shape the domestication of media technology in religious settings in different ways (Eisenlohr 2009). The framework of enchanted hygiene can help to articulate how religious communities apply ritual considerations and sacred materialities to empower the assumedly secular space of new technology, marking the computer as a suitably sacred space for puja (Karapanagiotis 2010), or investing platforms like Zoom with the ability to mediate the sonic remembrance of Allah (essay 23). While sociologists of religion feared that the pandemic could lead worshipers to “passively consume religious interactions” (Baker et al. 2020, 364) through asynchronous online rituals, the Covidian cyberscape displays new ways of experiencing religion and of establishing a sense of community and togetherness at a time of social and physical distancing. However, the medium is not merely a vehicle, but an agentive carrier, enacting transformation. The medium of online rituals is produced by but also productive of ritual innovations. With online religion going viral during the Covid pandemic, the use of new media transformed the religious experience, sensory engagements, agency, accessibility, and power of ritual performers and their audiences. Under the rubric of the sanitized sacred we consider how the pandemic engagement of religion with new media and social networks shapes both the communication and the message itself.

Pandemicizing Enemies and Values In the Covidian age, existing conflicts—communal and moral—have become pandemicized. By this we mean that tensions have continued but increased in intensity or become subject to newly heightened stakes as a result of the pressure of the pandemic. Despite a “myth of equal vulnerability,” often leveraged for the purpose of solidarity, it is clear that the virus has only further exposed social divisions and tensions along racial, gendered, class, and religious lines (Duncan and Höglund 2021, 117). Practices of scapegoating have increased and existing social inequalities have become both exacerbated and further entrenched. The virus has itself become named as a new enemy in many contexts, with governments turning to wartime metaphors as they put in place lockdown measures, encouraging collective efforts to combat the coronavirus. Slogans like “Together, we can” in Singapore and hashtags such as #kitajagakita (“We look after us”) in Malaysia are meant to engender a sense of social solidarity, lending a facile frame

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   29

in which to understand the virus as the enemy. Yet, the virus still eludes strict categorization, particularly as it comes to be understood within religious frames. For example, in popular Hinduism, viruses are both feared and revered, understood as a manifestation of the mother goddess herself (essay 5). However, the virus also acquires new meanings as it becomes linked with existing others. In the Indian context, for example, the coronavirus started out as a demon representative of evil and became linked through hypernationalism to anti-Chinese sentiment reflective of the biological and political-economic threats the virus poses (Kaur and Ramaswamy 2020, 82). The way in which these power-laden relationships become pandemicized is never far from notions of religious belonging. For instance, Hindu nationalism in India has further exacerbated Muslim exclusion and marginalization during the pandemic (Asif 2020). Historically, pandemics have been used as justification for categorical exclusion and physical and structural violence. The Black Death in medieval Europe was used to scapegoat Jews and unleash an accompanying pandemic of torture (Heschel 2020), and the Spanish flu of the early twentieth century in South Africa contributed to the justification and institutionalization of apartheid (Spinney 2017; Ahmad 2020). In 2020, religious minorities across Asia and across the world, viewed with suspicion as potential viral propagators, have found themselves subject to additional measures of securitization. For example, Muslims came to be placed squarely outside the realm of protection fashioned by the Buddhist nationalist imaginary and ritual practice in Sri Lanka (essay 26). During pandemics, xenophobia is able to masquerade as public health concern, where those who are imagined as infectious and “unscientific” are synonymous with those who are imagined as outsiders, whether in terms of religious, ethnic, racial, caste, or class status. Crises can often lead to measures intended toward the “securitization of minorities” (Carlà 2022), and indeed, the use of technology for contact tracing during the pandemic has also raised concerns about its potential use for the surveillance of religious or ethnic minority populations (Bacchi 2020). New highly cultural and biomedically based ideas of sanitation interlinked with anti-Asian racism in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the early twentieth century, contributing to ghettoization and the use of “public health as a prominent tool of empire” (Risse 2012, 3). Repeated speculations about the origins of COVID-19 in Asian wet markets selling wild animal products in densely populated cities discursively framed life in Asian cities as unhealthy, unhygienic, and even morally dubious. The racist discursive framing of COVID-19 as the “Chinese” virus, made popular by then president of the U.S. Donald Trump, became a new manifestation of a long-standing notion of the “yellow peril,” ultimately disinhibiting the public from racist expressions and

30  Introduction

actions (Yano 2020, 123–124). These forms of discrimination were also operating within Asia, as people of Chinese descent experienced discrimination in the Philippines at the outset of the pandemic (CNN Philippines 2020), and ethnic minorities from the northeast states became victims of racist attacks in major Indian cities (Dasgupta 2020; Singh 2021). Anxieties around the so-called Indian variant (officially known as the Delta variant) in 2021 exacerbated racist sentiments towards the Indian minority in Singapore, giving rise to episodes of ­unjustifiable violence (Kok 2021). Religious difference is often a factor in compounding perceived otherness, used to justify exclusion. Yet, overall, these instances of racism also point to contests over accepted notions of the sacred, where assertions of sovereignty are used to contest dominant social values—a process that is simultaneously religious and political (Crosson 2020). In this context of pandemicizing enemies, it is not only interreligious antagonisms that have deepened or flared, but intrareligious tensions as well (Schonthal and Jayatilake 2020, 268). In South Korea, the Shincheonji Church—widely considered a heterodox religious group—became recognized as a major node in viral spread early in the pandemic. Anxieties about viral transmission subsequently became layered with those about the transmission of cult theologies, and “the proliferating talk of ‘cults’ classify as pathological and viral the social groups of which one must be wary” (Mellquist Lehto 2020a). Furthermore, the relationship between states and religious organizations is also thrust into the spotlight as varying actors seek to impose necessary measures to control the virus and others prioritize the upholding of religious freedom. In Indonesia, where most major religious organizations have cooperated with the state in encouraging members to follow social restriction measures (Suhadi et al. 2020), the government has simultaneously leveraged measures of securitization to prohibit and disband a hard-line Islamic group with links to terrorist networks (Bakker 2021). In China, although religious organizations have been placed perhaps even further under the purview of state authority, the ability of religious networks to fulfill necessary social services has in some cases still allowed them to assume important roles in pandemic response at local, communal levels (Xiong and Li 2021). Existing studies and observations have also shown the way in which the pandemic has exacerbated social inequalities, further entrenching existing marginalization and structures of oppression. This can manifest blatantly on an epidemiological level, for example, in higher infection and death rates among Black people in America (Kendi 2020). In such cases, further analysis based on the intersection of race with religious identity and participation can provide insight into how minority populations are bearing this unequal burden (Boddie and Park 2021). In the United Kingdom, the inability to perform typical funerary

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   31

practices has been found to be heightened among religious minorities (Routen et al. 2021), a difficulty also experienced by the Parsis of Mumbai (essay 14). In Sri Lanka, government requirements to cremate all COVID-19 victims not only conflicted with WHO protocols but also discriminated against the Muslim minority (Human Rights Watch 2021). Given the scale of intra-Asian labor migration, and the fact that many of these communities organize initiatives through their respective places of worship and religious organizations, studying the impact of the pandemic on migrant workers through religious networks is important. For example, Southeast Asian workers in Japan, stranded during the pandemic, have sought assistance from Catholic churches and Buddhist temples, as state policies have failed to adequately address basic needs such as food and shelter for noncitizens (essay 36). Just as existing conflicts and antagonisms become pandemicized, so too do contestations over collective social values, manifesting in different ethical foregroundings of the pandemic itself and different conceptions of the appropriate ways to respond to it. Religious practitioners may face moral dilemmas as they consider their obligation to perform collective rituals, as well as their social responsibility to stop the chain of viral transmission. A famous televised Islamic cleric in Pakistan pronounced that dancing and immodest women are to blame for the pandemic (Aamir 2020), as American fundamentalist Christian groups claimed that COVID-19 is a natural consequence of sexual permissiveness and homosexuality (Dein et al. 2020). Sri Lankan Buddhist monks cited the rise of ongoing environmental degradation as triggers for the global crisis (Schonthal and Jayatilake 2020, 276), not unlike the conclusions made by ostensibly secular French intellectuals about the ecological triggers of the pandemic (Coulombel 2021). These statements point to the primary concerns and paramount values of these groups (Phillips 2020), just as they indicate the tendency to make sense of the pandemic by integrating it into existing cosmological and moral frameworks. Although many religious groups have interpreted the pandemic through the frames of divine punishment for moral deviance or retribution for ritual laziness, requiring a collective reckoning and recommitment to particular values, this has not been universal, a point that becomes clear from empirical case studies. For example, Catholic priests in a community near Wuhan consciously encouraged parishioners to understand the pandemic not as punishment, but as an opportunity to enact their faith (Xiong and Li 2021). Messages circulated in WhatsApp groups among the South Asian Muslim diaspora in the UK during Ramadan 2020 encouraged individuals to think of a Ramadan under lockdown as a blessing, providing time for reflection and the deepening of their faith (essay 11). Some

32  Introduction

religious groups have also pivoted the focus to the importance of responding to the pandemic in a way that aligns with religious teachings, such as among esoteric Buddhists in Japan (essay 3). This response has been an important way for many religious organizations to put religious teachings into practice through the provision of aid and charity through religious networks (see section 6).

Outline of the Book We conceived of this book as a nontraditional edited volume, existing in parallel with an online repository and a research blog, CoronAsur: Religion and COVID-19. The book builds upon a selection of thirty-eight blog posts, updated, revised, and expanded by their respective authors. We selected the blog articles according to recurrent and representative themes, which emerged in different regions and religious traditions and raise important questions in the study of religion and Covid. The book illustrates how scholars can research such a global and timely topic collectively and contribute to both academic debates and wider societal discussions. The four overarching points elaborated in this introduction (navigating epidemic and epistemic authority; receptive cosmologies and adaptive remedies; enchanted hygiene and sanitized sacred; pandemicizing enemies and values) emerged as prominent cross-cutting aspects from our analysis of the empirical data of the CoronAsur archive. These points constitute our theoretical contribution to analyze and understand religion and pandemics above and beyond case studies in Asia. The essays that follow are organized thematically into six sections, and each section begins with a preamble that describes the topic in detail, relates the featured essays to that topic, and brings out the connections, contrasts, and questions that are provoked within that section of the book. Stemming from our commitment to avoiding methodological nationalism and to giving equal importance to institutionalized, noninstitutionalized, and popular religious movements, the book does not divide by region or by religion. The first section, “Corona Etiologies,” asks how the virus is understood and represented in relation to preexisting cosmologies, for example, as demon, monster, or goddess, including in order to be defused via humor. Section 2, “Ritual Innovation and New Media,” interrogates the use of new media and various forms of ritual innovation during the pandemic, highlighting both continuity and change in religious mediations. The changes in embodied practices and engagements of the body sensorium in Covidian forms of lived religion are addressed more specifically in the third section, “Viral Sensorium,” revealing

Asian Religions in the Covidian Age   33

remote, “disembodied” religious practices as sensory experiences in their own right. Section 4, “Spatial Sacred Reconfigurations,” considers the rapid pandemic reconfigurations of sacred space, including the challenges religious practitioners face when religious place making shifts from physical and public spaces to increasingly domestic, private, and online spaces. The essays of section 5, “Old Tensions, New Solidarities,” demonstrate that religious discourses can exacerbate communalism, populist forms of nationalism, conflicts, and inequalities on the one side, while facilitating alternative forms of faith-based as well as interfaith solidarity on the other. Faith-based charity, and the dynamic employment of religious networks to offer aid and relief across religious boundaries, set in relation to the theme of economic loss, is the focus of the final section of essays, “Religiopolitical Economies of COVID-19.” As the temporality of the coronavirus does not allow us to draw a clean-cut perimeter to contain our topic, we added an epilogue to reflect upon the implications of our methodological choices and the four analytical themes we developed as the Covidian age unfolds into new phases since we first submitted this manuscript in July 2021. In particular, we address the question of vaccination and vaccine hesitancy, which reveal the continued relevance of the theoretical framework we developed to examine the relation between the pandemic and religion.

Notes 1 . The names of the authors and book editors (Emily Hertzman, Natalie Lang, Erica Larson, and Carola Lorea) appear in alphabetical order to reflect our equal contributions to this project. There is no main author or secondary authors. We have strived to achieve a fair, equal, and nonhierarchical collaboration and contributed equal amounts of intellectual labor. 2. We use COVID-19 and Covid interchangeably to refer to the coronavirus disease in this book. Our choice to not capitalize all its appearances reflects widespread colloquial usages of Covid as a term in itself and renders the text more reader-friendly. 3. Since the start of this project, we have referred to this pandemic period as the “Covidian age,” recognizing that the events and circumstances warrant consideration as a discrete period of time. We explain further our use of the phrase and the challenges of periodizing an ongoing crisis in the section “Writing in the Present Tense” in the epilogue. 4. The volume The Pandemic: Perspectives on Asia, edited by Chaturvedi (2020), contains an essay on the goddess and the virus and a contribution about Hindu nationalism. The volume Covid-19 in Southeast Asia: Insights for a Post-Pandemic World (Shin et al. 2022) does not include any essay particularly dedicated to religious communities or responses. The new Routledge book series Covid-19 in Asia has thus far not published any study that takes into account responses and roles of religious communities. Some notable exceptions that deserve to be mentioned include Heidi Campbell’s Religion in Quarantine (2020), although focused on

34  Introduction North America; a special issue of Approaching Religion titled “Religious Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic” (Hammer and Swartz 2021); and a thematic issue of the journal Religion (Lorea et al. 2022). 5. This term was used by the Singaporean City Harvest Church in relation to the livestreaming and uploading of the church services: performed physically, on site, and available for remote participation online. 6. CoronAsur: Religion and COVID-19, https://ari.nus.edu.sg/coronasur-home/. 7. The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur has commissioned twenty-two painted scrolls and sixty posters from Patua folk artists in Naya, West Bengal, with the goal of creating an online exhibition to display their artwork on the story of the Corona demon under the project Folk Artists in the Time of Coronavirus, 2020–2022, led by principal investigator Anjali Gera Roy (see Roy et al. 2020). 8. Projit Mukharji (2013) has discussed the evolution of Jwarasur, literally the “demon of fevers,” in popular as well as Ayurvedic sources. Mukharji argues that conceiving of diseases as demons implies their transmateriality as afflictions of the physical body that also represent bodily manifestations of divine beings. Like Coronasur, Jwarasur has a medical exegesis, while being embedded in a religiomoral context (Mukharji 2013, 271–273). 9. In his historical overview of religion and disease, Howard Phillips discusses the cholera epidemics in South and Southeast Asia, stating that besides Hindus, “Buddhists perceived the pandemic as having been sent either by angry local demi-gods and asura as punishment or by malevolent demonic spirits intent on willfully causing harm” (Phillips 2020) and therefore responded by wearing protective amulets and visiting shrines. 10. Lorea et al. (2022) have discussed this specific topic in a thematic issue of the journal Religion titled “Religion and the Covid-19 Pandemic: Mediating Presence and Distance.” 11. To this list one could add the Religious Soundscapes—Pandemic Religion (n.d.) exhibit as part of the American Religious Sounds Project at Ohio State University and the Buddhism in Pandemic online collaborative repository, as part of Jivaka Project (2021), also focused on North America. 12. A time-lapse film of the construction of the Fire God Mountain hospital can be watched online (BBC News 2020a). 13. The Ministry of Ayush (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy).

SECTION I

Corona Etiologies: How Zoonoses Fit into Theologies, Cosmologies, and Myths

 

 

Understandings of disasters and post-disaster processes are often informed in important ways by theologies, cosmologies, and myths (Gaillard and Texier 2010; Merli 2012). Religious traditions archive memories of past epidemics, and people can return to them later to make sense of the current pandemic (Meyer 2020a). Similar to the development of “local seismic cultures” (Helly 1995; Quenet 2010), which incorporate local practices and memories of past earthquakes in their ways of preventing and dealing with new disasters, one may speak of “local pandemic cultures” providing tools, explanations, justifications, and organized resources (rituals, aid, charity, and so forth) to face a pandemic. Adopting a post-secular approach, we are interested in the ways religious interpretations of disasters—and their subversion through humor—contribute to how societies understand and deal with these threats. This section of CoronAsur explores how the coronavirus is understood and represented in different Asian religious and folk traditions. It features embodiments of Corona as a demon, a monster, a goddess, and a saint. The authors of this section take us from the demon Coronasur in Bangladesh, after whom we have titled this book, to the Japanese folk monster Amabie, to the goddess addressed as Sitala, Mariamman, Corona Devi, or Corona Mai in Hindu traditions, and to Saint Corona in Catholic contexts. Strategies of dealing with the pandemic and the measures taken by governments often entail theological concerns; they are linked with and embedded in ideas about how to reach Buddhist enlightenment, how to cool a heating or heated Hindu goddess, how to pay respect to one’s ancestors in Chinese traditions, or how ancestors and divinities themselves might be affected by the virus. In addition to mobilizing religious and spiritual teachings and satire against the pandemic, nonhuman entities themselves can also simultaneously embody and help to overcome the pandemic. The essays in this section include spiritual, demonic, monstrous, divinized, or saintly embodiments of the virus and suggest various ways to approach, destroy, or worship them. Though most of the trends narrated 37

38  Corona Etiologies

in these essays emerged in early 2020, they draw on and are embedded in longexisting traditions of adapting articulations of other-than-human and ancestral entities to understand infectious diseases, prevent them, and make fun of them. Interpretations of the virus often draw creatively on existing forms of artistic expression. The demon Coronasur has inspired diverse forms of art, including dances, songs, and scroll paintings (Lorea 2020a). In this section, Saymon Zakaria writes about how folk singers and folk painters in Bangladesh have integrated the pandemic in their work, spreading awareness about social distancing from their own homes and composing new songs and sharing them on social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube. As Zakaria explains, some songs understand the “pandemic as part of the larger divine game of creation, destruction, and preservation.” A long oral poem narrates the reasons for the outbreak of both previous and current epidemic diseases and recommends “ways to counteract the virus by nurturing purity in mind, body, and social relationships,” reminding us that coronavirus etiologies are rarely detached from questions of morality and understandings of cosmic justice. In several cases, religious iconography and mythological images are used to spread awareness about the virus, as in the painting of the Coronasur demon in Zakaria’s essay, which features multiple antidotes to the virus. This is also the case for the Indonesian wayang kulit puppet of the “Corona ogre,” named Batara Corona or Koronayaksa (essay 9). The Japanese folk monster Amabie (essay 2) appears not only in popular culture but even in the Japanese government’s COVID-19 tracing system. Amabie, a nineteenth-century Japanese sea monster, was known for its prophecies about both good harvests and upcoming epidemics. Amabie eventually became an anime character, and recently the logo of the “Stop COVID-19” campaign promoted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. In addition, during the pandemic, statues of Amabie have been incorporated in Japanese Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples. The mobilization of theological and soteriological notions to spread awareness about the virus takes a different form in Yijiang Zhong’s essay about the “Three Cs” guideline introduced by the Japanese government. Aimed at preventing the spread of the virus by avoiding “close-contact settings,” “closed spaces,” and “crowded places,” the Three Cs were then linked to the homonym sanmitsu, the esoteric Buddhist teaching of the three mysteries. Establishing a connection between reducing the risk of viral infection and practices of the body, speech, and mind aiming at achieving Buddhist enlightenment combines the fields of personal liberation and communal salvation from a viral threat. In some cases, trust in divine protection can influence attitudes towards government-prescribed safety measures, as described in Deepsikha Dasgupta’s

Corona Etiologies  39

essay on the plurality of understandings of the goddess Sitala in relation to the pandemic in Bengal. While some devotees combine the safety measures advocated by the authorities with seeking help from the goddess Sitala in her temple, others classify the face mask as dirty, akin to the footwear one must remove before entering the temple. A mask is viewed as unnecessary in a space where the air is kept clean and safe by the goddess. Dasgupta’s essay is the first of three contributions in this section that approach from different angles how the virus is thought to take various forms in Hindu understandings, including Sitala, Mariamman, Corona Mai/Maa (mother), and Corona Devi (goddess). Conceptualizations that relate the virus to a goddess also entail social-class distinctions. For instance, Indian middle-class urbanites ridiculed Corona Devi worship as backward and superstitious, with middle-class conceptualizations of a nationalist virus-defeating Bharat Mata (Mother India) rather taking the form of paintings and poems outside of ritual contexts of worship (Frøystad 2021).1 In “Turmeric and Neem,” Indira Arumugam shows how neem leaves and turmeric water are used to protect and cure people from infections, and how these usages are connected to understandings of the virus as the goddess. In Tamil Hindu etiologies, the goddess brings disease, such as chicken pox. She is also the disease and the pustules herself, and she can heal people from the disease (Srinivasan 2019). In indigenous medicine, turmeric and neem are understood as having “cooling” effects, whereas the goddess Mariamman is attributed with “heating” qualities. When afflicted by disease, which is understood as the goddess staying in one’s body, one can try to persuade her to leave at the earliest through cooling and pleasing efforts, which involve treating the afflicted person as the goddess herself. The extensive use of sacred plants in South India and among the Tamil diaspora during the pandemic, including wearing masks made of neem leaves instead of surgical masks, illustrates the important connection between disease, ethnobotany, and sacred power, and their shared repertoire of medicinal and ritual substances in Asian religions (Ferrari 2015b; Ferrari and Dähnhardt 2016; Stanley-Baker 2020a). Arumugam locates the significance of such medical theologies in the perceived powerlessness of humans when faced with the awesome power of epidemic diseases and catastrophes. Demonic or divine embodiments of diseases in different parts of the world reveal an intrinsic relationship between religion and disease. In Ghana, the deity Sakpata is smallpox, and priests serving smallpox as a deity can both cause and counter infection (Grossi 2020; Meyer 2020a). The chickenpox-related deity Chankpana in Ghana moves beyond national boundaries like the virus and therefore knows where the coronavirus comes from (Ntewusu and Nkumbaan 2020). The various forms of Amabie in Lei Ting and Zhao Yuanhao’s essay—as a

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Japanese monster or deity, dangerous or empathetic, oddly shaped or cute—as well as Corona Devi, venerated in the form of a foam ball in a shrine in South India (essay 6), illustrate the complex relationship between the divine and the disease. Rather than clearly demarcating positive versus negative moral values, demonic versus divine power, afflicting versus healing power, the essays in this section show ambivalence and leave room for negotiation and transgression of assumed dichotomies. In addition to demons and goddesses, Corona also appeared as a Christian saint. Largely unknown or long forgotten, Saint Corona saw a sudden revival in early 2020. She was prayed to and circulated via social media in Kerala, southern India, and received considerable attention in Germany and Austria, where several chapels are dedicated to her. Tracing the appearance of Saint Corona and setting her in relation to Coronasur and Corona Devi, Natalie Lang’s essay demonstrates how new embodied relationships between religion and disease are created and negotiated by devotees, laypeople, religious leaders, social media users, and scholars, while often remaining embedded in preexisting cosmologies and reflecting epistemic authorities. While folk songs, folk monsters, demons, goddesses, sacred plants, and saints assist in the fight against disease, the virus in turn might also affect the nonhuman world. Observing the practice of providing face masks for Hindu deities, Arumugam (2020b) asked whether the gods have Covid too. In some cases, questions about how divine entities are affected by the virus have been approached through humor. Humor in difficult situations has been observed as offering feelings of solidarity among those who laugh at the same jokes (Morgan 2020). In “Why Was Thousand-Hand Guanyin Late for the Meeting?,” Dean Wang’s analysis of joking memes reveals a combination of tension-releasing humor and emotional support through religion. Humorous takes on Daoist, Buddhist, and Hindu gods and goddesses taking endless time to wash their multiple hands or lacking face masks for their numerous faces have been circulated widely on social media. In contrast to memes challenging religious authority, which nonreligious activists circulated during the pandemic (Richter 2021), the examples in Wang’s essay do not challenge religious authority. Wang suggests that “transcendent empathy” in the sense of compassion for the divinities, especially in relation to their humanlike needs and challenges, fosters even stronger relationships of faith between devotees and gods. Similarly, Esmond Soh’s essay, “Cosmologies, Cartoons, Commentaries,” features humorous takes on how ancestors were affected by the pandemic during the seventh lunar month festivities in Singapore in 2020. Humorous cartoons of spirits having to respect safety measures reflect the perception of the pandemic

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as encompassing this and the otherworld. While some scholars interpret memes that feature apocalyptic ideas or supernatural beings as reflecting the gap between the ancient or mythical world and the contemporary world (Sebba-Elran 2021), Soh suggests that they also reflect how divisions between the otherworld and this world in Chinese religious perceptions are fluid. In this way, they offer possibilities to deal with fear and anxiety in powerful, humorous ways. Collectively, the essays in this section show how religious communities produce an array of artistic expressions and interpretations of infection and healing, including forms of subtle resistance against top-down restrictions, as in the case of entering temples without masks, or making fun of mask-wearing regulations, especially when the government-regulated supply of masks is insufficient. This section also shows that governments borrowed from religious repertories of ideas, images, and symbols and mobilized mythological, spiritual, or religious concepts, as in the case of Amabie in Japan. These differences raise questions about the authority of interpretation and the power of appropriation under the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic. The documented phenomena demonstrate the importance of preexisting theologies, cosmologies, and mythologies in understanding the virus and dealing with the pandemic. The essays exemplify the possibilities for adapting traditional understandings of nonhuman entities to ever new circumstances, showing continuities rather than disruption in the way communities employ and reinforce existing worldviews in order to make sense of a global health emergency. Asian religions and folk traditions, in this sense, emerge as productive meaningmaking repositories, which are constantly expanded but also drawn upon in ­order to understand the past, cope with an uncertain present, and envision a collective future.

Notes 1.  Bharat Mata (Mother India) is a personification and protector of India as a mother goddess.

1

Reshaping Traditional Culture in Bangladesh The Folklore of Corona Times Saymon Zakaria, translated by Carola E. Lorea

In the pathways of history, the people of Bangladesh have gone through natural disasters, political turmoil, and man-made catastrophes. In response, they have fought, resisted, and survived using their resourcefulness. Traditional cultures in Bangladesh have always been used as a way to increase spiritual and mental strength, as well as nourish the resourcefulness needed to face problems in everyday life. The movement to establish Bengali—the regional mother tongue—as the national language from 1948 to 1952 and the war for independence in 1971 remain potent testimonies to this fact (Rana 2009, 54). During those time periods, traditional folk songs were mobilized, and folk singers composed new songs and performed them to feed people’s courage and inspire them to join the struggle (Hoque 2008, 267–268). Almost every year, when swollen rivers break into floods on the chest of this land, traditional songs provide mental strength and resilience to all people in difficulty. Traditional folklore and folk songs have fueled the fight of the common people by providing confidence in the midst of the floods and natural disasters that are part of daily existence in Bangladesh. These songs contain the very instructions that teach how to survive. There will always be folk singers and composers who come forward with their new verses to keep spreading this message of resilience. The time of the COVID-19 pandemic was no exception to this rule. With the coronavirus pandemic came the directive to maintain socialdistancing norms, implemented through a government-mandated lockdown. A massive danger came to challenge the impoverished people living a hand-to-mouth existence, who found it difficult to follow the prescribed medical regulations. For To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/1

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some of these people, even the expressions “lockdown” and “social distance” were foreign and difficult to understand. Equally unintelligible are the convoluted Bengali equivalents for the phrases swasthobidhi mene colun (follow health regulations) and samajik durotva rokkha korun (maintain social distance). In these circumstances, several folk poets and folk artists of Bangladesh took the initiative to spread a message of social awareness from their own homes, composing new songs and recording their performances for social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube. Instead of simply composing poems and reciting verses about disease prevention and safety, some have also started to sell face masks, hand sanitizer, and gloves at street intersections to secure a small source of income. This essay documents some of the transformations brought about by the folk artists of Bangladesh and their creativity. The first case of COVID-19 infection in Bangladesh was registered in March 2020. On April 5, Sonkor Day, a young folk singer and performer of Folk Ramayana (Ramamangala) from the district of Kishoreganj wrote to me. He had composed the lyrics and melody of a new song to spread social awareness about the virus and sent it to me via Messenger, together with a kind request to share the song through the Facebook page of the Bhabanagara Foundation. These are some lines from his song: Stay away from each other please, do not come close together Do not allow the disease to spread by touching hands If you have a cold or cough please go to see a doctor Don’t sit idly at home spreading rumors. Following [Prime Minister] Sheikh Hasina’s request help stop Corona Allah is there above, there is no reason to fear. Do not allow the disease to spread by touching hands No need to go to the tea stall and sit to chitchat Listen, oh Bengali people, listen to Sheikh Hasina’s offering: Nobody will be left starving in our golden Bangladesh. Use Bengali soap to wash your hands properly Don’t ever eat with your unwashed hands, my brother! (S. Zakaria 2020) (web video 1.1) In his words, the artist not only refers to the cultural habits of the Bangladeshi people but also hints at the spread of misinformation around the coronavirus. Stating the initiatives of the government, he infuses courage in people’s hearts. It is important to note that Sonkor Day is a follower of Hinduism, but in his song, in the couplet referring to the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, he says, “Allah is

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there above, there is no reason to fear,” acknowledging the Islamic tradition in Bangladesh. Referring to the ongoing rumors, he alludes to the fact that since the very start of the COVID-19 pandemic, certain groups of people in Bangladesh have been responsible for circulating misinformation. A few Islamic fundamentalists and their followers in Bangladesh started circulating these narratives as soon as the pandemic started. Among others, Mufti Kazi Ibrahim, in the beginning of March 2020 in a public sermon (mahfil), as well as during Friday prayers at the mosque, narrated the visionary dream of a Bangladeshi national residing in Italy, Mamun Maruf, who “interviewed” the virus. The virus revealed to him when and where it would arrive on Earth. These narratives were used to publicize the views of Islamic fundamentalists, who used their coronavirus narratives to make Muslims feel that the coronavirus was a divine punishment for those who did not follow Islam, and for those who they believed to practice a deviant form of Islam, such as the  Iranian Sufi Muslim practice, which they perceived as a reason for the COVID-19 outbreak in Iran. Mufti Kazi Ibrahim mentioned that there would be no coronavirus in Bangladesh (ekhane Corona asbe na) because people laudably followed the religious norms of Islam. In addition, he mentioned that those who did not follow Islam would not be spared by the virus. His sermon was circulated widely through social media and swiftly went viral (Ibrahim 2020a, 2020b) (web videos 1.2 and 1.3). Right after Mufti Ibrahim’s declaration, on March 8, 2020, the first person infected with the coronavirus was identified in Bangladesh. Since then the virus has spread rapidly, and finally, on March 26, the government formally announced a lockdown. For the general public, this meant that they became prisoners in their own homes. On the other hand, for the “cultural workers,” the lockdown signifies a tremendous threat, especially for those whose performance of traditional cultural genres represents their only source of livelihood. Many of these artists continued to be productive during the lockdown. Arif Dewan, whose creativity was not diminished by working from home, resides in the Keraniganj area of the larger Dhaka division. During the lockdown, he composed 375 new songs. In addition to composing the lyrics and putting them to music, he has also performed and shared some of the songs via Facebook and YouTube (Dewan 2020a, 2020b) (web videos 1.4 and 1.5). Among these new songs, some are specifically about the coronavirus outbreak, touching on these three themes in particular: 1. He describes the ways in which practitioners struggled with the impossibility of gathering (sadhusanga) for spiritual as well as music-making sessions

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with their teachers and peers. He sings, “I am imprisoned by this lockdown, I sit at home and cry / When will we meet again in the assembly of sadhus? / Without that feeling of ecstasy, the ecstatic men cannot survive for long.” 2. He strongly condemns groups of dishonest people who plundered the resources that the government deployed as aid and relief during Covid times: “Humans whose actions hurt those who are hungry / Inconsiderate people, these are not humans at all / They mock those who are starving / Digging food out of their mouths / Which kind of political action is this? They have no values or morals / They act out of selfishness only.” 3. He describes the COVID-19 pandemic as part of the larger divine game of creation, destruction, and preservation: “Bringing discipline in a time of injustice and anarchy / Whatever you do, my Lord, is always auspicious / Nature is endangered and humans are devoid of humanity  / Through destruction you bring fulfilment, Lord / Eradicate injustice, and burn like wildfire.” Through his songs, Arif Dewan painted a social portrait of the coronavirus pandemic in Bangladesh that will be an important resource as a historical record for the future. Among the folk poets of Bangladesh, many have composed long narrative poems (punthi) centered around the coronavirus pandemic. For example, a wellknown Sufi practitioner and punthi poet of Manikganj district, Saidur Rahman Boyati (web figure 1.2), has composed an entire epic poem named Virus-nama punthi (Virus manuscript), which narrates previous pandemics and the reasons for their outbreak in a historical fashion. The poem goes on to narrate in traditional metric patterns and verses (poyar, tripodi, choupodi) the rationale behind the attack of the coronavirus on earth and the ways to counteract the virus by nurturing purity in mind, body, and social relationships. Folk artists who produce painted scrolls (patacitra) in Bangladesh also responded 1.1. Composer and folk poet Arif Dewan. with innovations to the challenges imposed Photo credit: Saymon Zakaria.

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by the COVID-19 pandemic. Shambhu Acharya is a famous painter from Munshiganj district (Bikrampur) who is well-known for his painted scrolls of Gazi characters (Gajir pat). In his recent creation, The Slaying of the Corona Demon (Coronasurer bodh), the virus-demon has long sharp teeth and claws, a thick mustache, and wide, frightening eyes, donning horns and a pair of round earrings. The artist used traditional features of Hindu demonic characters to paint the face and the limbs of the demon Corona, pierced by twelve arrows. Each of the twelve arrows bears the name of a potent antidote or ingredient to defeat the ­virus. The painting is aimed towards spreading social awareness. Some of the weapons that have struck the demon-disease are Dettol soap; vitamin C; cardamom and cinnamon; sacred basil leaves; face mask and hand gloves; but also Bengali ­culture,

1.3. Slaying of Corona demon, painting by Shambhu Acharya. Photo credit: Saymon Zakaria.

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courage, and righteousness. Besides these remedies, one of the arrows bears the name Mujib-borsho, the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which fell precisely in that year, 2020. The obser­ vance of this patriotic celebration is one of the arrows that defeats the Corona ­demon, adding an ethnonationalist dimension to the symbolism. The coronavirus pandemic, like catastrophes that have occurred beforehand, triggered complex responses and transformation within the field of traditional cultural production. Artists have used their respective genres to reach the public but have innovated their content to describe and interpret the coronavirus and the challenging social circumstances faced by Bangladeshis during the pandemic. Further documentation and analysis of these novel forms of cultural production are needed in order to understand the long-term impact of the coronavirus on Bangladeshi traditional folk culture.

2

Monster for Covid Struggle The Life of a Japanese Yōkai from Prophecy to Expression Lei Ting and Zhao Yuanhao

This research, though in its preliminary stage, briefly studies the life history of a Japanese yōkai, or mysterious marine monster, named Amabie (アマビエ).1 The authors venture to argue that Amabie as a node in the “yōkai culture network” (Foster 2015, 76) does not only facilitate a reactivation of a folk belief or act as an amulet embedded in a pandemic-related memory, but also represents a process where a cultural representation is incorporated into the authorized religious and government institutions to inform the public. Ever since its sudden popularity in social networking services such as Twitter in March 2020, Amabie has on the one hand elicited various discussions about the many contexts of its resurgence (for instance, Merli 2020), possible reasons for its popularity (Furukawa and Kansaku 2020), and so forth; on the other hand, it reminded us of previous research about this yōkai (for instance, about the categorization of Japanese traditional prophetic yōkai; see Nagano 2005). This article critically engages with the listed literatures as well as other important works about yōkai culture (Foster 2009, 2015; Kagawa 2013) in analyzing Amabie’s image and its various ways of appropriation.

An Authorized Folk Belief As a yōkai documented in the nineteenth century, Amabie suddenly became a phenomenon in cyberspace after the rampant spread of COVID-19 in Japan. As early as February 27, 2020, a Tokyo art shop dealing in hanging scrolls of yōkais declared To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/2

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2.1. Sea monster of Higo Province (picture of Amabie). Collection of Kyoto University Library, “肥後国海中の怪 (アマビエの図)” (京都大学附属図書館所蔵), accessed May 20, 2020, https://rmda.kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/item/rb00000122#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=83&r=0&x ywh=-9851%2C-1%2C29213%2C7622.

that there was a yōkai called Amabie that first appeared in the 1800s, with a folk belief claiming its power of halting diseases. The shop then called upon people to spread the image of Amabie in social networking services to help Japan stop the spread of COVID-19. On March 7, Kyoto University, where the extant painting of Amabie is stored, posted on Twitter the photo of the original painting, or surimono, of Amabie (figure 2.1). Surimono (摺物) refers to one or several sheets of printing used as an unofficial yet popular mass media platform from the Edo period (1603– 1868) to the early Meiji period (1868–1912), to broadcast daily news and events. The lines in this surimono read, “In Higo Province [now Kumamoto Prefecture], a glowing thing appeared in the sea at night. This creature in the picture then emerged when local functionaries went to check. It uttered the following words: ‘Residing in the sea, I am Amabie. Starting from this year, all provinces will have a succession of harvests for six years. Simultaneously, an

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epidemic will spread. Hurry and display my image to the people.’ After this utterance, back into the waves it submerged. The painting on the right was painted by the local functionary and was then transmitted to Edo [now Tokyo].” Although seemingly a folk belief, the way Amabie reappears in the COVID-19 context is quite official. First it is recalled from a written resource created by an Edo period functionary; then its image is backed up by a national university: Kyoto University. Moreover, Amabie also appears in both the national and local governmental disease control systems. For instances, on April 9, 2020, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan announced this mysterious creature as the official logo of the “Stop COVID-19” movement, which was launched by the ministry in order to “inspire the youth” to help halt the pandemic (web figure 2.2). Later in 2020, the Ibaraki Prefecture government launched a Covid infection tracing system, using Amabie’s image as the logo (web figure 2.3), and even applied it to name the system: Ibaraki Amabie-chan. Therefore, it is safe to argue that the revitalization of Amabie, although started from a relatively vernacular context, has been gradually legitimized by the government.

A Fixed Image and Narrative The established interrelation between the name Amabie, its function as a protective figure, and its current image is critical in the folk belief about Amabie’s mysterious power. In the Edo period, when Amabie was born, the idea of yakubyou-gami (疫病神), or “deity of disease,” was well accepted. People also believed that certain images or designs could protect them from deities of disease, representatively the deity of smallpox. Housou-e (疱瘡絵), or “pictures to ward off smallpox,” as well as special objects and toys were popular amulets in the Edo period and are still being produced (see the digital archive of “smallpox paintings” on the website of Japan’s first pharmaceutical museum; Eisai 1996). The case of Amabie is, however, different in that the disease it wards off is not fixed. This allows its appropriation in the contemporary COVID-19 context. For instance, a maker of red Daruma dolls, one of the traditional amulets against the deity of smallpox, started to paint some of his dolls in the shape of Amabie in May 2020 (Jomo News 2020). However, as a popular cultural symbol, Amabie is experiencing another form of fixation from official discourse, or authorization. Specifically, the visualization and characterization of yōkai have always been crucial topics in the history of Japanese yōkai study, as the fixation of a yōkai’s image happens over a period of time and with much effort from scholars, media, and the general public (see Kagawa 2013; Foster 2009).

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In terms of image, Amabie belongs to a group of yōkais embracing various creatures who also appeared around the mid-1800s with very similar legends. Despite the similar legends, these mysterious creatures vary in appearance: from a bull to a two-headed bird, a fish with a woman’s face, and a three-legged monkey-shaped beast. Moreover, Amabie is even considered one variation of Amabiko (web figure 2.4), which was historically recorded in many areas in Japan (Nagano 2005). But as one can tell from web figure 2.4, the image of Amabiko has very little in common with that of Amabie on the surimono. However, when talking about disease-halting monsters, only Amabie, with its current attributes, such as beak and fishtail, enters the state of government legitimization. In terms of narrative, most Amabie-like monsters made their prophecies, announced both good harvests and upcoming disasters, and desired to be exhibited in paintings to help people halt bad luck, be it an epidemic or another calamity. It is apparent that in the current COVID-19-related narrative about Amabie, only the disease-halting part is understandably highlighted and authorized. The dynamics behind Amabie’s relatively fixed image and narrative in contemporary Japanese society are actually complex. Taking Amabie in terms of its current image for a granted starting point of comparative analysis, Merli (2020) and Jiang (2020) both highlight a connection between bird beak and medical protective power, suggesting a similarity with birdlike figures in other cultural worlds. However, it is important to remember that the discussion about pandemic-related prophetic yōkais in Japan involves multiple creatures who share no specific characters or names but are embedded in very similar legends. In other words, to study Amabie as either a sign of mysterious protective power or a folk belief, scholars have to refrain from relying too much on its visual characteristics, as to claim a correlation between its image and function may be problematic. The late Japanese manga artist Mizuki Shigeru, who contributed significantly to molding the images of yōkais in the popular culture of contemporary Japanese society, also creatively reforged Amabie. He painted historically recorded yōkais, including Amabie, in his own way, and his original painting was further developed in 2007 when a prophetic character was needed in the story of the newly produced anime GeGeGe no Kitarō. An Amabie made its debut in the series in the shape and voice of a girl (web figure 2.5). After Amabie’s exposure rose in cyberspace in 2020, some people recalled this girl Amabie, whose character in turn fueled many new imaginings of what an Amabie should look like, including one with pink hair and emerald-green scales (web figure 2.6).

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Between Folklorization and Deification Though one should be cautious in arguing generally that folk “belief” in Amabie’s power has returned through the many Amabie-related vernacular practices, it is clear that there is a general folk appreciation of this revitalized traditional sea monster, as yōkai has always been part of Japan’s everyday cultural landscape and a way of imagining a past and also a present. People have been utilizing, re-creating, and reproducing the image of this creature to express their desire for a life without the pandemic. Amabie’s role as a “folkloresque” element, or “popular culture’s own (emic) perception and performance of folklore” (Foster and Tolbert 2016, 4), has been preserved: a vast range of “informal, vernacular creativity” (Foster 2015, 98) generated by Amabie could be observed in all its forms on and off the internet. On the other hand, Amabie’s emergence and popularity are moderated by a discourse of deification. Similar to the aforementioned authorization of Amabie for use in official campaigns against COVID-19, in the field of religion, this creature has been incorporated into the long-established and privileged religious spaces in Japan as well: some Japanese Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples have started to feature Amabie seal stamps (shuin) and protective charms (omamori) for visitors. Some temples and shrines have even erected Amabie statues. For ­example, on May 25, 2020, a wood-carved Amabie more than one meter in height was set up for people to worship in the Isahaya Shrine, established in 725 CE in Nagasaki Prefecture.

Amabie does not merely help recall the interactions among yōkai, nature, and human beings in a nostalgic past but also links the past and present, official and informal, to collectively create a shared memory of the ongoing pandemic. The belief in Amabie feeds wishes to end the pandemic, an ability to be sympathetic to people’s sufferings, and an appreciation of the government’s endeavor. Like the belief in yōkai, these feelings and thoughts are invisible and hard to describe but are well embodied through the phenomenon of Amabie.

Notes 1.  Both authors have contributed to the project equally in terms of ideas and language.

3

“Three Cs” and the Three Mysteries How Esoteric Buddhism Contributed to the Containment of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan Yijiang Zhong

How does religion make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic and rearticulate its relevance for a society where close-contact social life has been drastically reduced and people primarily communicate by digital means? In formulating innovative ways to engage society during the pandemic, esoteric Buddhism, or Shingon in Japanese, appears more savvy than other Buddhist sects in Japan. Shingon Buddhists grasped a linguistic opportunity in the Japanese language to relate their doctrine to a society under voluntary quarantine. They mobilized a homonym called sanmitsu to reshape the basic esoteric teaching called the Three Mysteries, pronounced sanmitsu and written 三密, in response to the Japanese government’s infection-prevention guideline, called “Three Cs,” also pronounced and written sanmitsu 三密. By so doing, they transformed a doctrine originally meant for Buddhist enlightenment into meaningful and useful advice for life under the new social conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Complex philosophical and religious theories were turned into commonplace phrases and words that make sense for people without knowledge about Buddhist doctrines. It can be argued that by corroborating the government’s call for infection prevention with cultural imperatives that urge maintenance of physical and psychological health, this socialized esoteric Buddhist teaching has to an extent contributed to the successful prevention of large-scale infections of COVID-19 in Japan (until April 2022, when this essay was finalized). In this essay, I first introduce the government’s Three Cs guideline and then examine how esoteric Buddhists, both clerics and lay followers, responded to it by rearticulating their sanmitsu doctrine. To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/3

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The Three Cs The Japanese government announced in late March 2020 the Three Cs guideline as one of its key prevention measures to contain the coronavirus epidemic. The Three Cs refers to “close-contact settings” (missetsu 密接), “closed spaces” (mippei 密閉), and “crowded places” (misshu 密集). The Three Cs guideline was publicized in Japanese as mitsu no mitsu in the first couple of weeks but soon became abbreviated to sanmitsu 三密. People should avoid the Three Cs to prevent infection of the coronavirus (web figure 3.1). Without ever putting the country under forced lockdown, even during the state of emergency periods (April 7–May 25, 2020; January 8–March 21, 2021; April 24–May 31, 2021), the Japanese government continues to urge voluntary prevention by following the Three Cs guideline. On May 4, 2020, it revealed its proposal to shift the society to a “New Lifestyle,” in which humans coexist with the coronavirus (web figure 3.2). The Three Cs has become the most publicized and well-known phrase related to the pandemic and has entered the daily vocabulary of the country. For example, H.I.S., one of the largest travel agencies in Japan, designed package tours to Hokkaido that strictly follow the Three Cs guideline (web figure 3.3).

The Three Mysteries The Three Mysteries of esoteric Buddhism refer to the method for attaining Buddhist enlightenment. Shingon Buddhism in Japan bases its teachings on the timeless and immutable teachings of the Buddha in his dharmakaya, or cosmic body. This buddha, named Mahavairochana, or Dainichi in Japanese, was felt to be beyond all earthly dualism and impurity but at the same instant to be within all things as their buddha nature. In Shingon the realization that one’s own buddha nature is identical with Mahavairochana is enlightenment. This enlightenment can be achieved in this world while possessing a human body. To achieve this enlightened state, however, the aspirant must receive the secret doctrine of Shingon orally and directly from a Shingon master (Reynolds 2021). The truth that the master reveals is founded on the ritual mysteries of the body, speech, and mind—the Three Mysteries (sanmitsu 三密). These mysteries invoke cosmic forces embodied in the buddhas and bodhisattvas with which the aspirant identifies before becoming one with Mahavairochana. The experience of the mystery of the body involves the use of mudra: devotional gestures of the hands and fingers, meditation postures, and the handling of such sacred instruments as the vajra (“thunderbolt” or “diamond”) and the lotus. The

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mystery of speech involves the recitation of dharanis, or mantras, mystical verses and sounds believed to be the essence of the cosmic forces with which one wishes to commune. Attaining the mystery of the mind involves yogic contemplation of and absorption in the buddha Mahavairochana and his attendants (Reynolds 2021).

From the Three Cs to the Three Mysteries From April 2020, about a month after the Japanese government announced the Three Cs guideline, Shingon Buddhist priests, most of them temple abbots, started talking about how the seemingly different Three Mysteries and Three Cs are actually closely related. This newly formulated sanmitsu teaching is popularized by temple abbots on Facebook and Twitter and is also seen on temple websites, on Buddhism-related popular websites (Hotokami 2020; Maitera shinbun 2020), in non-Buddhist mainstream newspapers, and in blogs of various types. It can also be seen on the website of a business (Social Skill Program), a medical doctor (Nagao Clinic 2020), a junior high school (Shiodome Junior High), an elementary school (Miyazawa Elementary School 2020), and a kindergarten (Kotobuki Kindergarten 2020). Sanmitsu teaching can be found on the websites of nine temples: six of Shingon Buddhism, one of Zen Buddhism, and one of Tendai Buddhism. Some examples of newspapers covering this phenomenon are the Tokyo shinbun, the national Asahi shinbun, and Chūnichi shinbun (covering central Japan). The most elaborate version of the sanmitsu teaching is by Matsumura Myōnin, the female abbot of Jutoku-ji Temple in Fukushima Prefecture, who also authored a hard-copy leaflet, which she showed during an interview with the national Asahi shinbun in July 2020 (web figure 3.4). I will briefly introduce her version here as representative of the new sanmitsu teaching (Matsumura 2020). According to Abbot Matsumura, cultivation through body/action, speech, and mind (the Three Mysteries) is fundamentally important for Shingon Buddhism. It can lead to a peaceful mind and a balanced life. This is a sanmitsu that we want to observe for the sake of our heart. However, there is another sanmitsu, that is, the Three Cs, that we want to avoid for the sake of society and our health. What does Shingon Buddhist cultivation mean in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic? asks Abbot Matsumura. In terms of action, we want to adjust our behavior in view of what’s important at this very moment and avoid acting out of self-interest. We should also exercise without pushing too hard, smile once a day, wash our hands and body, and get enough nutrition and sleep.

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In terms of speech, it is important to rectify our own words by not saying negative words about others (including online) or taking advantage of others’ mistakes. It is a good idea to chat with friends online or on the phone to reduce stress, and to rinse one’s mouth regularly. In terms of thinking, we should spend one minute looking at our own heart/ mind and find our true self without letting the amount of incoming information control the heart/mind. We are also encouraged to do what we can to enrich our hearts and relax. Finally, we should breathe deeply to pacify our hearts (Matsumura 2020). This is how Abbot Matsumura brought the Shingon Three Mysteries into relation with the Three Cs guideline. The formulation is creative, natural, and practical, bridging the distinctions between body and mind, and self and others. By redefining the Buddhist goal of enlightenment to be the attainment of a peaceful mind and balanced life, it shows how a doctrine meant first for enlightenment and personal liberation can be reinterpreted as a meaningful model for socialization in a modern, digitized society suffering from an unprecedented pandemic. The truth of the Three Mysteries has become intricately tied to a ­cultural imperative of self-restraint in articulating an appropriate way of life integrated with the need for prevention of COVID-19 infection.

Sanmitsu as the Keyword of the Year and Successful COVID-19 Prevention The widespread circulation of the term sanmitsu in all forms of public discourse and slogans of infection-prevention campaigns earned it such social popularity that in the summer of 2020, Abbot Matsumura contemplated, during the abovementioned interview with Asahi shinbun, that sanmitsu could be chosen as the Keyword of the Year. She was right: on December 1, the publisher Jiyū-kokuminsha announced that it had chosen sanmitsu as the Keyword of the Year (nenkan taishō go). The Keyword of the Year award is given at the end of each year by ­Jiyū-kokumin-sha, a general publishing company in Japan, as part of its annual project of celebrating the term that emerged in the past year that generated the largest impact on social life in that year (Jiyū-kokumin-sha, n.d.). Being chosen as the Keyword of the Year helped sanmitsu accrue even more discursive power, propelling further expansive circulation of the term, mostly as the Three Cs, just as Japan contended with another wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is also, however, an opportunity for people to reconfirm the utility of esoteric Buddhist teaching as cultural justification for the need to observe the infection-preventing rules. For example, Kuroda Mitsuhiro, principal of the

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Yuki Minami Junior High School in Ibaragi Prefecture, posted this on the school website a few days after the award was announced: “Sanmitsu being awarded the Keyword of the Year made me realize the connection between the Three Mysteries and the ‘Three Cs.’ To prevent infection, it is important to adopt new lifestyles to maintain cleanness and be considerate of others.” On January 1, 2021, the abbot of the Shingon Buddhist temple Ryusho-in in Saitama Prefecture, Takano Mitsuyasu, posted his New Year’s greeting on the temple website. He told his readers sanmitsu had been chosen as the Keyword of the Year 2020 and then introduced the two sanmitsu in a way almost identical to that of Abbot Matsumura (Takano 2021). We can find a similar interpretation of the two sanmitsu on the website of the Shingon temple Shinpuku-ji of Nagano Prefecture (Shinpuku-ji 2020). On April 23, 2021, Asahi shinbun again interviewed Abbot Matsumura of Jutoku-ji Temple as part of its project of collecting words and phrases that help people endure the hardship of the pandemic. Abbot Matsumura offered the phrase “(Living through the COVID-19) while seeking the light of hope,” corroborating her phrase with the two sanmitsu teachings she previously elaborated on the temple website (Sakurai 2021). The circulation of the two interrelated sanmitsu promoted by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists magnified esoteric Buddhism’s social profile and increased its relevance to the Japanese society under quarantine. The scientific rationale of infection prevention has been reinforced by a cultural logic of self-restraint, which in turn is bolstered by truth embodied in a centuries-old religious tradition. Esoteric Buddhists issued a religiously verified yet vernacularized call to observe new norms and contributed to the successful implementation of infection-preventing measures that were of widespread cultural resonance and public health significance.

4

New Diseases, Old Deities Revisiting Sitala Maa during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Bengal Deepsikha Dasgupta

“Pandemic,” when translated into Bengali, becomes mahamari. While the first half of the word conveys the prevalence or the extent of a disease, the latter, mari, can roughly mean “death due to pestilence.” Interestingly, it also refers to the pustules on the skin of a person suffering from smallpox (basantarog). Hence, whenever one utters mahamari or speaks of the COVID-19 pandemic, one is bound to evoke an earlier pandemic, which was so horrifying that it demanded a separate deity overseeing it. It is this enmeshed existence of smallpox, the incessant COVID-19 pandemic, and Sitala in Bengal that this article investigates. The goddess Sitala, or the “Cool One” (Wadley 1980, 33), is worshiped by Hindus in several parts of northern India as a controller of illness, protector of children, and bringer of good fortune. The rituals, myths, and practices surrounding the goddess are situated in the diverse corpus of alternative indigenous healing traditions in South Asia. The onset of an infection in the afflicted body is believed to be the “grace” of the mother goddess (mayer daya) signaling her arrival in the household. As her name suggests, she relieves the feverish body with her coolness. Particular customs are prescribed for the smallpox patient and their family. “Heating” activities such as cooking or sex are prohibited in the household, while water from tender coconuts, soaked fenugreek, and turmeric are either topically applied or orally prescribed (Arnold 1993). For a goddess who wields command over illness and epidemics, how has the discourse about the goddess been informed with the outbreak of the pandemic in  Bengal? This essay is an exploration of the religious imagination of devotees To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/4

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towards their goddess as it expands, absorbs, and adapts to changes in their practice of faith amid COVID-19. I have conducted fieldwork around Dum Dum, Kolkata (web figure 4.1), and Hastinapur, Murshidabad, from December 2020 to April 2021. Through in-person and telephone interviews, observations, readings of newspaper reports, and a brief survey of online activities, I have studied these varied responses to the COVID-19 pandemic among the devotees of Goddess Sitala.

“I Did Not Let the Temple Close” Sheema, a staunch devotee of the goddess in her fifties, works as a helper to the priest at a local Sitala temple in Dum Dum. Referring to the nationwide lockdown that was announced by the government to curb the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, she describes how she argued with the police to keep the temple open. “I told them [the police] that if it were not for the goddess we would have perished,” she explains. The priest then went on to remind me, “Why do you think the death toll in India is lesser than that of other countries?” Mounted on a donkey with a broom and a pitcher in hand, the goddess Sitala presides over disease and healing for all her believers in this busy street of the city (web figure 4.2). A devotee at the temple tells me that one is always welcome to weep at her feet if one has nobody to turn to in times of hardship. When asked about the pandemic, she adds, “Sitala is the medicine of all diseases; doctors can help us but the true way can be shown by our mother (maa).” Such unbroken faith in the goddess was reiterated by all my interviewees. With the easing of lockdown guidelines by December 2020, the temple has now resumed having the usual visitors at the compound. A number of the visitors wear face masks, complying with the government protocol, while some do not wear them properly or skip them altogether. Lokkhi, in her fifties, is a regular at the temple. She removes her mask and shoes when she enters the sanctum sanctorum (garbha griha). Hindus traditionally remove their shoes before stepping into a temple or an auspicious place. It is interesting to note how the mask, a precaution against COVID-19, is coded in the realm of dirt and disease alongside shoes. It serves no use inside the temple, as the goddess is believed to neutralize any virus in the air. Lokkhi quickly notices the mask and surgical cap on Sheema and questions the function of them while the goddess is present. Sheema replies, “What if the virus finds a way in?” Lokkhi points to the idol: “But who is sitting in the temple?” Sheema believes that the mask is still relevant and required to keep the virus at bay, although she adds that at the end of the day, we are all at the mercy of Maa Sitala. From above, we witness how the COVID-19 protocol, backed by biomedical understanding, interacts with devotees’ religious responses. Contrary to typical

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assumptions, these protocols are not always in opposition (like for Lokkhi) but can work in conjunction with each other (as with Sheema). It is evident in the way the vocabulary of biomedicine and religiosity is exchanged. Uttam, a fortyfive-year-old priest of a village temple in Murshidabad, West Bengal, explained how the gota sheddho (a vegetable dish), which Bengali Hindus consume on Sheetal Shasti (“the Cold Sixth”; it marks the day in the beginning of spring when Bengalis eat cold and stale food; see Chatterjee 2019), acts as a “vaccine” to prevent pox in the spring. He believes that the “formula” for the coronavirus vaccine can be found in the Hindu texts of Shastras. He attributes the creation of the virus to man, as he believes in the conspiracy theory claiming that the virus escaped from a laboratory (see Nie 2020). Therefore, one must pray to the goddess Sitala in order to destroy the “man-made” virus and save the planet. In his opinion, the “new” virus can be quelled by “old” divinities. Uttam’s village, Hastinapur, worships Sitala, locally known as Basanta Gouri, as one of its village deities. I am told that one must pay one’s respects to the goddess upon entering the village. Her temple is located at the edge of Hastinapur, where the large tracts of agricultural fields give way to houses. The deity is worshiped in the form of a vermillion-smeared stone and the traditional idol is not to be seen (web figure 4.3). The discourse surrounding Sitala is marked by larger debates on “folk” traditions, “classical” Brahmanical traditions, and questions of indigenousness (Ferrari 2015a; Ghatak 2013; Jash 1982; Katyal and Kishore 2001; Wadley 1980). Scholars have placed her as pre-Aryan in origin, with the imagery of Sitala represented by a vermillion-smeared stone argued to be one of her oldest known forms (Jash 1982, 195). My interlocutors inform me that there has been no COVID-19 outbreak at Hastinapur as of April 2020. The goddess has been protective of her devotees. “Masks were only bought to be taken out of our pockets, whenever we were stopped by the police,” fourteen-year-old Alok tells me. His father, Gautam, believes that COVID-19 or tuberculosis presents as fevers to propel the cyclic nature of life. “Fevers restore the balance—it ensures that the daughter-in-law (bouma) becomes the mother-in-law (sasuri),” he remarks. In some places of Bengal, such as Nichupara Basti in Asansol, there were reports of worshiping Corona Mai—the Corona goddess (see Samanta 2020). Women sat in a field with flowers and incense to sing and chant mantras to ward off the virus. According to the women, the virus is a creation of the goddess Sitala herself (Samanta 2020). Hence, they had gathered to pray to her and to a “new” goddess, Corona Mai, until both goddesses were “satisfied.” In an interesting unfolding of devi-asura (goddess-demon) dichotomy, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the iconography of Corona Mai or Mata, as well as Coronasur

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(Corona demon) in Bengal. Several artisans from Kumartuli—the clay artists’ community of Kolkata—made Goddess Durga idols slaying the Coronasur, where Mahishasur (the buffalo demon) gets recast and reinterpreted as a virus demon instead (M. Das 2020) (web figure 4.4). Varied responses have manifested themselves in the heterogenous religious imaginations of Sitala worshipers. Digital spaces open up newer processes of religious practices and interactions while physical distancing and lockdowns impinge on our lives. These possibilities and limitations also emerge in the responses of Sitala devotees on YouTube (web figure 4.5). There are a number of videos (see Das 2017; Kirtan 2020) on the origin story, songs, and narratives surrounding the goddess from the Sitalamangalkabya, a group of religious texts in the form of verses. The poems and saga written in praise of deities like Manasa, Dharma-Thakur, and Chandi comprise the Mangalkabya tradition. These deities are also known as “lesser” or “lower” deities (nimnokoti) by historians because of their absence or less significant position among other divinities in the larger body of classical Hindu Vedic literature (Ghatak 2013). Nupur Dasgupta (2014) writes that the earliest Sitala Mangal was composed around the beginning of the seventeenth century, and that the goddess has gradually been absorbed into the Mangal Kabya-Lokayata (popular) Mother Goddess category since the eighteenth century. The public comments posted on YouTube in response to the videos, in the months since March 2020, often refer to the COVID-19 pandemic. A devotee appeals to the viewers to collectively pray to the goddess as she alone can free the world of the virus. Another writes in praise of the goddess’s glory, appealing to her to “protect the earth’s population from the grips of corona.” Hence, in the possible assurance and security of a vaccinated future, the faith in the “smallpox goddess” arouses similar hopes for a post-pandemic world. To conclude, a plurality of approaches and understandings converge and complement one another in the everyday life of Sitala devotees amid the looming presence of the virus. As the second wave of the virus rages again with an overburdened healthcare infrastructure and shortage of vaccines in India, the ritual system of the “epidemic goddess” becomes a crucial site of anthropological inquiry to study the endurance of humankind and myths, of “new diseases” and “old divinities.”

5

Turmeric and Neem Sacred Plants, Disease Goddesses, and Epidemics in Popular Hinduism Indira Arumugam

In February 2020, as the COVID-19 virus was gathering force in Singapore, huge vessels filled with turmeric-infused water appeared at the entrances to Hindu temples, specifically mother goddess temples. Several neem leaves floated in this golden-yellow liquid.1 At its side was a bunch of neem leaves with their stems tied together. Dipping this neem sprinkler into the basin, devotees could sprinkle the turmeric water over their heads and bodies as they entered or left the temple (web figures 5.1 and 5.2).

Turmeric and Neem: Antiseptic Plants, Prophylactic Powers As the virus spread, turmeric and neem also resonated emphatically throughout Tamil Nadu. Along with, if not more than, handwashing, disinfectants, and masks, turmeric and neem featured heavily in people’s efforts to clean their surroundings and protect themselves from infection (web figures 5.4–5.13). Why do turmeric and neem feature repeatedly in ordinary people’s everyday responses to COVID-19? What is the relationship of these plants to ritual practices and healing traditions? How are these plants part of Tamil Hindu etiologies of epidemic diseases? This requires understanding three points: 1. The attributes and value of turmeric rhizomes and neem leaves in Tamil ethnopharmacology and in Hindu theologies and rituals 2. The framing of epidemic diseases in Tamil Hindu imaginaries, especially in terms of sociothermal idioms of “heaty” and “cooling” (Beck 1969; Daniel 1987) To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/5

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5.3. Neem leaves across a window in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, June 2020. Credit: R. Satish Babu, New Indian Express.

3.  The interactions between disease and divinity, especially the relations among the presence of mother goddesses (specifically Mariamman), viral maladies, and medicine

“Heaty” and “Cooling”: Sociothermal Idioms of Viral Diseases In Indian medical traditions like Siddha and Ayurveda, parts of turmeric and neem plants are valued for their antiseptic properties. Popular home remedies for chickenpox involve daubing pastes made from turmeric and neem onto the skin to soothe the itching and to lessen post-pox scars. This practice is drawn from understandings of turmeric and neem as “cooling” agents. Given the scorching climate of Tamil Nadu, coolness is the most desired attribute and the highest praise in Tamil poetics (Shulman 2016). Heat, h ­ owever, is spurned. This sociothermal idiom applies to epidemic diseases too. Diseases such as the now eradicated smallpox and cholera as well as the still remaining measles, mumps, and chickenpox usually strike in the hot summer months. Along with this seasonal incidence, their symptoms of f­ever, swelling, red rashes, and erupting pustules explain why these diseases are framed as “heaty.” With respect to epidemic diseases, this heaty-cooling dynamic also draws from theologies of divine presence and temperament.

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Sacred Trees, Divine Plants: Embodying the Goddess Being used to embody divine presence also frames turmeric and neem as sacred plants. Turmeric and neem are parts of ritual offerings made to the goddess. More significantly, the goddess herself is made tangible in the human world through these two plants, especially neem. For and during rituals, devotees form the goddess’s body by installing bunches of neem leaves in a pot of water (karagam). While this is further embellished with flowers and ornaments, the goddess’s “skeleton” is the pot, the water, and the neem leaves (Arumugam 2020a). In parts of Tamil Nadu, some thriving neem trees themselves are worshiped as the goddess in a natural, living form. Unlike human-built temples and artisan-carved icons, these aniconic embodiments are the goddess willfully and autonomously manifesting herself (suyambu) in the world. To denote the goddess’s botanically embodied form, the tree is colored with turmeric powder. While the turmeric forms her complexion, the neem tree itself is both her temple and the goddess’s own body (web figure 5.14). Mediating between nature and ritual as well as the material and the spiritual, neem and turmeric personify the goddess as a palpable and living entity. Next, we turn to the Tamil virus goddess herself.

Mariamman (Mother Goddess): Sacred Disease, Divine Presence Mariamman is a goddess worshiped in Tamil Nadu villages (Harman 2004; Younger 1980). Arriving with her migrant devotees, she settled in Southeast Asia from the seventeenth century CE. Like all mother goddesses, Mariamman mediates between life and death, fertility and sterility, and health and disease, as well as fury and serenity. Amman means “mother/goddess,” and mari means “rain.” Dampening summer’s blazing heat with the cooling rains she augurs, Mariamman is seen as similarly dispelling fierce viral diseases with her healing touch. Simultaneously, however, her presence itself (and her fiery anger) is thought to cause these diseases in the first place. Ammai refers to both the pustules (“pearls of poxes”) and the mother/goddess. To suffer from ammai means that the goddess has arrived in person. In Tamil etiologies of epidemic diseases, the associations between Mariamman and the pox take three forms (Srinivasan 2019): 1. The goddess is responsible for the ailment’s occurrence. 2. The disease (specifically the pustules) and the goddess are one and the same. 3. The goddess has the power to alleviate the ailment.

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Given that the goddess is the cause, the condition itself, and the cure, pox diseases are framed as a problem of her presence, temperament, and power. Embodying Mariamman’s presence, not only is the afflicted person sacred, but they are the goddess herself. Ammai means Amman is visiting and inhabiting one’s body. Therefore, people are wary of allopathic interventions that may prevent or disrupt the goddess’s presence. Going against her will might make Mariamman even angrier. The affliction may become even more virulent. Mariamman arrives in and inhabits a body as pox for three reasons (Srinivasan 2019): 1.  She is simply playing. The disease is her sport. 2.  She is testing the depth of her devotees’ devotion only to reward them greatly if they prove worthy. The disease is a sign of her grace. 3.  She is angry about ritual or moral lapses. The disease is a punishment to discipline. It is not simply a matter of her fury manifesting itself as heat and disease. Mariamman’s very being is akin to fire. Her sacrality is unbearable to mere mortals. Even if she arrives in jest or as love, she is simply too much for humans to grasp or even begin to grapple with. Her presence itself is pain, in and for humans.

“Heaty” Goddess, “Cooling” Reverence The only way to get through the disease is to wait until Mariamman decides to leave of her own accord. All one can do is persuade her to “descend” from the afflicted as soon as possible; to cajole and gently so. Treatments are attempts to staunch her fire, to cool her. To cool is to please. Cooling efforts involve treating the afflicted person as the goddess and giving her the respect she is due. All habits offensive to the goddess—such as personal grooming (bathing or combing the hair), diet and cooking methods (nonvegetarian food and oil to sauté or deep-fry), and deportment (sex, boisterous conduct, and vociferous discourse)—are prohibited during the affliction. Oily, spicy, and heavily seasoned food that may further inflame the condition are avoided. Patients are fanned with neem leaves to further cool them. To filter and cool the air that comes into the house (and warn others of the affliction), bunches of neem leaves are hung outside the patient’s house. Patients are fed cooling foods like young coconut water, yogurt, and saffron. Professionals are engaged to sing lullabies and praise songs to the goddess in the afflicted body. Applying turmeric and

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neem leaf pastes is also part of such cooling efforts. Praised, pleased, cooled, and calmed, the goddess then deigns to leave. The disease relaxes its grip, and the person recovers. After their pustules have dried up, the afflicted bathes for the first time since their illness. Termed “pouring water” (tanni-potutal), turmeric and neem leaves are mixed into water and poured over the convalescent. This herbal bath is repeated twice more. To send the goddess away with all the respect due her, people make feast offerings and worship her both at home and in nearby Amman temples. Possession by Amman through epidemic disease is a provisional apotheosis. However, it can become permanent if the sufferer succumbs to pox diseases. Such a death is termed “the disease/goddess has cooled” (ammai/amma kulirntutal). Coolness remedies this heaty disease. However, warmth is also body, blood, breath, and life. Death is (and brings) the cold. Those who die from pox afflictions or divine diseases are never cremated, as per orthodox Hindu customs. Rather than completely perished, these deceased are deemed to be in suspended animation. Not simply sacred, they are the goddess herself. Reheating the body, through cremation, might reignite the goddess’s wrath, which may rebound onto the surviving kin. Instead, these bodies are buried. Their burial sites have the potential to develop into new shrines, temples, and ritual cults. Their cooling into death creates new iterations of the goddess. By d ­ ying of ammai, they too become Amman.

Neem and turmeric are material entities through which to grapple with how virulent epidemic diseases have been framed in Tamil Hindu imaginaries. When there was limited access to allopathic interventions, such diseases were rampant and their consequences horrific. Smallpox and cholera have been eradicated through widespread vaccinations. With these diseases tamed, epidemic goddesses found themselves alienated from their original and constitutive functions (Obeyesekere 1984). Today, allopathic medicine is at the forefront of endeavors to eradicate the coronavirus. Nevertheless, for ordinary people, familiar idioms and vernacular mediums are also part of their grappling with the disease. The prophylactic claims of turmeric and neem have not been scientifically verified. More than their curative attributes, however, the recruitment of primal goddesses to combat a contemporary disease speaks to a sense of awe and terror at the power of

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pandemics to emerge suddenly, spread quickly, devastate extensively, and disappear seemingly mysteriously. At the heart of these medical theologies is the unhappy recognition that for all our advancements, vitality and mortality are not really within our control and remain ultimately mysterious. Puncturing our hubris is the realization that we do not actually govern the essential conditions of our life (Sahlins 2017). Epidemic goddesses are an expression of society’s lack of power in the face of natural catastrophes. “Acts of god(dess)” speak to human powerlessness.

Notes 1.  Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a rhizomatous plant native to South and Southeast Asia. Neem (Azadirachta indica), native to South Asia, is an evergreen tree with extremely bitter leaves.

6

Saint Corona, Coronasur, and Corona Devi Embodied Relationships between Religion and Disease Natalie Lang

Saint, demon, and goddess—we seem to be at the mercy of Corona. Pandemics have marked particular moments of a long-existing intrinsic relation between religion and health. Hagiographic accounts and oral narratives about divine forms from different parts of the world are testimony of this historical relationship, wherein saints and gods often need to adapt their realms of action to new challenges. As an anthropologist with fieldwork experience in La Réunion, where the veneration of saints, gods, and spirits is part of many people’s everyday life, I am familiar with historical developments of saints and goddesses that often seem closely linked to regional circumstances. For example, since Notre Dame de la Salette is said to have protected a parish and ultimately the whole island from cholera in 1859, her annual pilgrimage attracts thousands of people, some of whom associate her with the Hindu goddess Mariamman. Yet, I would not have expected to witness the creation of saints, demons, and goddesses so closely myself as such a fast and global phenomenon in 2020.

Saint Corona In Kerala, South India, in early 2020, images of Saint Corona were circulated via WhatsApp and other social media platforms along with prayers in Malayalam (web figure 6.1). Devotees also wrote prayers to Saint Corona on chalkboards (web figure 6.2). As the journalist G. Ragesh remarked in March 2020 about his conversations with a Catholic priest in Kerala, these prayers to Saint Corona To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/6

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present “popular devotions” initiated by believers rather than being part of the official canon of the Catholic Church. While several representatives of the Catholic Church in Kerala said they were unaware of Saint Corona being a patron of pandemics, the priest’s words left open whether she might become one if venerated and increasingly being associated with the pandemic (Ragesh 2020). One year later, as I revise this article in May 2021 during a devastating wave of Covid in India and many other places, it looks as if Saint Corona received a peak of media attention between March and May 2020. However, this does not mean that she is not worshiped anymore. On her 2021 feast day, May 14, numerous pastoral care institutions in Austria invited devotees to a blessing asking Saint Corona to protect people’s health (ORF 2021). Saint Corona is said to have been removed from the Catholic calendar of saints and forgotten, only to experience a comeback in 2020 since she shares her name with the crown-wearing virus. Saint Corona is sometimes depicted with the two deathly palm trees to which she was tied when they were bent down, only to tear her apart when bouncing up. She became a martyr at the age of sixteen for comforting the soldier Victor while he was tortured because of his Christian faith in places ranging from Syria to Italy, depending on the sources, at an unknown date around the first to fourth century. Nothing about Corona is certain. Elizabeth Harper (2020) traced claims about Corona as saint of epidemics to a controversial right-wing Catholic website in March 2020, which spread to other Catholic and secular media channels in less than a week. Information on Wikipedia added in 2020 remarks that Saint Corona has been worshiped in connection with the pandemic since March 2020, although a sentence about a diocese invoking her for support was removed when I accessed the page again in June 2021, which might have to do with transgressing the limits of what is officially recognized by the church. While Corona shares a Wikipedia entry in English and several other languages with Saint Victor (2021b), she has her own Wikipedia entry in fewer languages, the most detailed one in German (2021a). Saint Corona has received considerable attention in Austria, where three chapels are dedicated to her, and in Germany, where eight chapels are dedicated to her (Grulich 2021). A Corona chapel in the woods near Arget in the south of Munich was given a newly painted icon of Corona (on the left in figure 6.3) by a Greek Orthodox archpriest (Bergold 2020). The painting on the chapel’s shrine in the background also deserves attention. On the 1,004 pages of my late great-grandmother’s book of saints (Bitschnau 1881), wherein I could not find Corona, the saints are depicted with a halo, which they also wear during their cruel processes of dying, and only those of royal blood wear crowns in addition to halos. On the shrine’s painting in the Bavarian chapel, Corona, being attached to the palm trees

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6.3. A newly painted Corona icon (left) in the Corona chapel near Arget, May 2020. Credit: Tanja Bergold.

by two Roman soldiers, does not have a halo. Instead, an angel floats above her with a crown in its hands, which I assume to illustrate one of the two crowns that Corona saw descending from heaven in a vision, for Victor and herself. New devotional creations for Corona also include a novena, a nine-day prayer composed by a priest candidate in Germany (Lehner 2020). And the fascination around Saint Corona reached beyond Catholic devotional interest. Inspired by the cruel myths around Corona and her way of dying, the jeweler and selfproclaimed “atheist and cineast” Jonathan Johnson (2020) in Hamburg created a necklace (web figure 6.4), suggesting that its palm trees also render it a wonderful summer necklace. Saint Corona’s sudden popularity also led to a fast restoration and exhibition of a reliquary shrine in the Aachen Cathedral, which had initially been planned for later summer 2020. Although I went to the cathedral as a child when visiting relatives in Aachen, I only had eyes for Charlemagne, who had been buried there in 814, and I was unaware of a certain Saint Corona at the time. In May 2020, Corona’s story went through German national news and social media platforms. Bloggers and Facebook users discussed the most probable date of Saint Corona’s feast day, doubted the sources that provide historical information about Corona, and were divided about the compatibility of the various realms of action attributed to Corona, which include money, treasure hunting, gambling, and disease. These realms seemed to perfectly fit the close relation between the world health and economic crisis caused by COVID-19. In Sankt Corona am Wechsel, a small municipality in Austria with a parish and pilgrimage church dedicated to Saint Corona, the patron saint was venerated

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in the past to protect livestock from disease. The photographs (web figures 6.5, 6.5a, 6.5b, 6.5c) a dear friend from Vienna kindly took after I raised my interest in the matter, as well as a prayer he found in the church, document that she is asked for steadfastness in faith and in relation to the tasks of everyday life. Past venerations do not assuredly explain the recent veneration of Saint Corona in relation to the pandemic. Instead, Corona exemplifies the possibilities of adapting saints to historical, regional, and global circumstances. She is not the only Catholic saint venerated in the context of COVID-19, as prayers to San Rocco as “patron of epidemics” in an Italian church demonstrate (web figure 6.6).

Coronasur and Corona Devi: Crossing Boundaries Around the same time Saint Corona was circulated via social media in Kerala and connected with the virus on Wikipedia, a demon called Coronasur was burned during the Holi festival in Mumbai in March 2020 (figure 6.7). The personification and depiction of the virus as a demon made of paper and other materials renders the threatening yet invisible coronavirus visible, tangible, and, we can only hope, attackable. Rashmi Shetty (2020) describes the creation of the Coronasur effigies in Mumbai as a double-layered Latourian iconoclash in that it both replaces the traditional Holika demon with Coronasur and then destroys this one too. Whereas Coronasur was burned, goddesses like Mariamman, Sitala, and Sansari are venerated for protection against the virus in different parts of South

6.7. Coronasur effigy in Mumbai, March 2020. Credit: BL Soni, Free Press Journal.

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Asia, some being called Corona Maa/Mai or Corona Devi—the suffixes meaning “mother” and/or “goddess” (essay 4; Samanta 2020; Schlemmer 2020). Hindu goddesses usually have both benevolent and dangerous sides, including perceptions of protective and healing powers (web figure 6.8). Possession by goddesses can be understood both as afflicting with disease and as signs of divine love (essay 5; Ferrari 2010). Even demons are perceived as ambivalent. While they are certainly dangerous, even women who suffered from their affliction may insist that they are not bad (Feldhaus 1995, 126–137). In the post-pox age, the realms of action attributed to goddesses associated with smallpox include new dangers, such as AIDS or city traffic (Ferrari 2010; Srinivas 2020). Such adaptations at once reflect a certain spontaneity and are rooted in long-existing understandings. They can also be intentional, for instance, aiming at spreading awareness (Ferrari 2010). Prayers to Corona Devi in a shrine in Kerala follow such intention (web figure 6.9; India Today 2020). In contrast to illustrations of the goddess Mother India as separate from the virus, indeed vanquishing it (Kaur and Ramaswamy 2020, 81; web figure 6.8), this veneration of Corona Devi in the form of a foam ball (web figure 6.9) also illustrates an intrinsic relationship between the divine and the virus. The turns to Saint Corona, Coronasur, and Corona Devi reveal how religious boundaries are made by practitioners, religious leaders, politicians, social media users, and scholars. Corona, in its viral and supernatural forms, embodies assumed contrastive pairs such as divine and demonic, health and illness, or religion and science, by at once crossing and sometimes reinforcing their boundaries. While social media might democratize possibilities for creativity to a certain extent, examples of social distinction of some Hindus from those who venerate popular goddesses in relation to the pandemic, critics of the Keralese Hindu priest for praying to the goddess in the form of the coronavirus, or the so far limited spread of the veneration of Saint Corona, who is not (anymore/yet) part of the official church canon of saints, also hint at power relations and negotiations around these old and new embodiments. Possible developments from popular to official forms of veneration alluded to by the Keralese Catholic priest, and the extent to which authoritarian institutions, such as medicine, Indian social class, or the Catholic Church, impact the emergence of popular cults, remain to be seen.

7

Why Was Thousand-Hand Guanyin Late for the Meeting? Implications of Religious Humor during COVID-19 Dean Wang

Humor serves to release tension, whereas religion renders emotional support. The global COVID-19 pandemic puts to the test not only the current state of medical science and government effectiveness but also the devotion towards one’s faith. The closure of places of worship and mandatory suspension of religious activities do not put religiosity to a stop, as various online platforms have allowed one to continue to do religion under the new normal. Among the five modalities of “doing religion” that Adam Chau (2011) proposed, the relational modality—emphasizing the relationship between humans and deities as well as among humans in religious practices—is useful in analyzing religiosity in the current COVID-19 situation. In this article, I discuss the online reception of COVID-19 graphics and memes that feature religious humor, and their broader implications for the sociology of religion. By understanding how such visuals (in contrast to scriptures or rituals) reinforce the connectedness between humans and deities as well as among humans, one can also recognize how followers of a particular faith cope with different concerns in life. David Morgan (2020) argues that humor provides benefit to those who are laughing to discover that they are not alone, “but share the unfortunate state they are in and the heterotopia of humor.” Morgan focuses on three visual examples showing different genres of humor—irony, satire, and parody—at work, with each capturing a different perspective on Christianity in view of the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparatively, I will focus on the graphics and memes that are related to Asian religious traditions, and argue that such To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/7

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visual representations feature a form of transcendent empathy that enhances one’s devotion towards one’s faith.

Religious Memes and Jokes on COVID-19 Web figure 7.1, which was created by the famous Taiwanese author Banaishunzi (pseudonym), was widely circulated across several social media platforms around early March 2020. The meme depicts the “Heavenly Pandemic Prevention Meeting,” with a conversation as follows: Jade Emperor: Why have I not seen the Thousand-Hand Guanyin (千手 觀音 Qianshou Guanyin) for quite some time? Gods: Because she is still washing her hands! Jade Emperor: What about the Four-Faced Buddha (四面佛 Simian Fo)? Gods: He is short of a mask, since we are only allowed to redeem three pieces per week! Certainly, gods and bodhisattvas, and for that matter all supernatural beings, are immunized against pandemics and exempted from such restrictions implemented by the government. The secular and empathic depiction of sacred beings, however, served to highlight aspects of their humanity—defined as being compassionate and sympathetic, as well as having the quality or state of being human. “Even the gods are doing it! What excuses do you have?” commented a Facebook user who shared the original post. This meme has inspired a more elaborate joke along the same lines: Jade Emperor: Why is the Medicine Buddha (藥師佛 Yaoshi Fo) not here? Gods: The pharmacists (藥師 yaoshi) are busy selling masks! Jade Emperor: What about the Eight Immortals (八仙 Baxian)? Gods: They are placed on the Home Quarantine Order as they had just come back from overseas! Jade Emperor: What about Sage Lord Guan (關聖帝君 Guansheng Dijun)? Gods: His face is burning-red and he is running a high fever of more than 37.5 degrees Celsius, so he is observing self-quarantine at home! Jade Emperor: Why is Tripitaka also not here? Gods: He is also placed on the Home Quarantine Order as he has a travel history!

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Jade Emperor: Why is Mazu not here? Gods: Her devotees do not maintain the two-meter social-distancing rule, so Mazu cannot leave her house! Syncretism is reflected not only in the integration of Daoist and Buddhist divinities (a characteristic typical of Chinese popular religion) but also in the weaving of secular issues and sacred references into one cultural fabric. Each line in this joke highlights a unique characteristic of the god mentioned, associating it with an epidemic prevention policy implemented in Taiwan. Although the measures that involve the Medicine Buddha and Mazu have to be understood in the local religious context, the measures related to the other gods are easily relatable around the globe. For example, temperature taking before entering places has become a mandatory measure in most countries, while placing travelers in quarantine is also a compulsory regulation despite nuances in duration and criteria.

Reading the Mazu Meme in Context The part on Mazu in the above joke refers to the postponement of the largest annual religious procession in Taiwan, the Dajia Mazu Pilgrimage, which was originally scheduled for March 19–28, 2020 (see essay 24). The chairman of Jenn Lann Temple was initially determined to carry on with the procession as planned, in spite of the calls from medical experts and the general public to cancel it, as he believed that “Mazu and the Jade Emperor will cooperate and stamp out the epidemic in Taiwan and the world” (Taiwan News 2020). This saga inspired another meme (web figure 7.2), which calls for the devotees to adhere to the socially responsible and rational behavior of wearing a mask. “Mazu Wearing Mask” was later re-created as a plush toy by Citian Gong, a Mazu temple located in Taiwan’s Pingtung County (web figure 7.3).

Religious Graphics on COVID-19 The month of March 2020 also witnessed the flowering of other related artistic graphic creations, such as the two paintings of Guanyin in figures 7.4 and 7.5 by Hong Kong artist Tik Ka from East, and two other similar paintings of Guanyin (web figure 7.6) and Shiva (web figure 7.7) by unknown artists. The memes and graphics of the Thousand-Hand Guanyin resonate on the irony that the “Thousand Hands and Thousand Eyes” manifestation of the bodhisattva of compassion was to reach out to all who are suffering, but whose efficacy is now restricted by worldly constraints and precautionary measures.

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7.4. Face Mask Guanyin, designed by Tik Ka from East.

7.5. Washing-Hands Guanyin, designed by Tik Ka from East.

Regardless of their representational mode, the abovementioned memes and jokes exemplify the relational modality of doing religion on online platforms. Sociality, an emphasis of this modality, is expressed through transcendent empathy where the connectedness between gods and humans is established through the humanization of gods via devotees’ secular perceptions. Washing hands and wearing masks are two hygiene measures used during the COVID-19 period to minimize contact between people. While Guanyin does not need to adhere to these measures, regulations to maintain safe distancing have affected religious practices, hence the connectedness between her devotees and her. One such practice would be the commonly seen ritual of drawing divination lots in temples.

Alternatives in the New Normal Jokes aside and drawing attention to Singapore, the famous Guanyin temple ­located at Waterloo Street—Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple—announced on March 21, 2020, that the ritual of divination lots drawing will be temporarily suspended in order to limit contact among devotees. Divination lots serve as a medium of communication between the devotee and the god by facilitating future prediction and providing psychological counseling without self-disclosure

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(Hing 2016). Besides being a major donor to several charitable organizations and education bursaries, the temple is also renowned for its efficacy in addressing devotees’ concerns through divination lots. Hence, prior to COVID-19, visitors to the temple were greeted with the clashing sounds of bamboo slips that flood the main prayer hall daily. As a result of the worsening of the local COVID-19 situation, the temple officially announced its temporary closure for the first time ever since its founding in the 1880s, from March 27, 2020 until further notice (web figure 7.8). These restrictions, however, did not stop devotees from praying outside the temple gates or turning to the online version of Guanyin’s divination lots. The Singapore government announced the gradual reopening of places of worship on June 19, 2020, after a mandatory two-month-long closure during the Circuit Breaker period. Despite the much-anticipated easing of restrictions on temples, zealous devotees were left disappointed as the management of Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple decided to extend the closure of the temple. It was only July 27, 2020, when the temple reopened with existing precautionary and safe-distancing measures in place. Drawing of divination lots, however, remains prohibited until further notice. Ultimately, COVID-19 has taught us that it is not about how the gods can save us (giving a man a fish), but how we can save ourselves by applying religious thoughts, values, and practices (teaching a man to fish) in our everyday life.

8

Cosmologies, Cartoons, Commentaries COVID-19, Humor, and the Seventh Lunar Month Festival in 2020 Singapore Esmond Chuah Meng Soh

Joss paper, as well as paper effigies of goods associated with this world, is an indispensable offering at any observation of the seventh lunar month in Sinophone societies, and Singapore is no exception to the rule. Just before the seventh lunar month in the year 2020, a friend texted me a photograph of a shop that specialized in the sale of prayer paraphernalia. These shops—prevalent within Sinophone communities in general—typically escape the radar, but this particular shop in Hong Kong stood out for its sale of papier-mâché surgical masks (Chalil 2020) (web figure 8.1). This photograph caused quite a stir, since Singapore had required individuals to don face masks whenever they are outdoors since April 2020 (Ang and Phua 2020). Was there a pandemic of similar proportions in the netherworld? Would the deceased know how to use them? How many should we purchase for the dearly departed? Was there a supernatural “Green Lane” that connected the netherworld with Singapore (see Yong 2020)? In this essay, I explore how literal and humorous conceptions of Chinese spiritscapes shaped, and were in turn shaped by, the measures implemented since the second phase of Singapore’s reopening after the April–June 2020 Circuit Breaker period. Since Singapore shares a spiritscape populated by wandering ghosts throughout the seventh lunar month, this assumed and shared socioreligious world provided a common platform for public dialogue and humorous discourse. Drawing on material from meme factories and newspaper comic strips, I examine how these imagined spiritscapes provided a roundabout means of expressing sentiments of fatigue and frustration towards safety measures implemented in Singapore. To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/8

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Literal Readings: Paper Offerings in Chinese Cosmology and Sinophone Societies As many scholars have noted, Chinese religious cosmology is strongly conditioned by this-worldly society. Students of Chinese religion continue to debate Arthur Wolf’s (1974) arbitrary division of the Chinese spiritscape into gods (officials), ghosts (strangers), and ancestors (family). That said, Chinese spiritscapes are porous, and the divisions that separate the three feed into one another, where ghosts can potentially ascend to the position of gods, where strangers to one family serve as the ancestors of another. Robert Weller’s (1987) study of seventhmonth celebrations in Taiwan made this point clear: while ghosts were “outsiders” based on Wolf’s schema, they were also pitied and temporarily hosted by communities over the month. Depressingly, the reverse was also true, where people could also be juxtaposed into the position of ghosts. Observers of the seventh lunar month’s communal rituals in Taiwan, for example, were exposed to the plight of an “increasingly insecure elderly population” who became the “main metaphorical reference for ghosts” (Weller 1987, 85). Novel societal developments— and their corresponding impact upon once-accepted parts of human life—could reverberate and express themselves through otherworldly forms as well. Paper offerings that restore “social distance” (pun intended) between the living and the appeased dead after they are incinerated are not created equal (McCreery 1990, 20). More elaborate and costlier effigies such as iPads, cars, and surgical masks serve to entrench the ties that bind this-worldly descendants with their otherworldly ancestors, whereas more generic offerings—addressed to none—serve to buy off the nameless and unknown “good brothers” (a euphemism for wandering ghosts) (Scott 2007). Papier-mâché products like surgical masks—although condemned by some as ludicrous—testify to the permeability of Chinese spiritscapes, where anxieties present within the now are quickly expressed in rituals and common practices (also see essays 4, 2, and 1). Whether the otherworld is experiencing a similar pandemic, I do not know, but spiritscapes, particularly those associated with the “nameless but active religion” practiced by many Chinese (including me) are malleable and especially responsive to this-worldly conditions and needs (Liu 2003). As the image suggests, imitation surgical masks (given their high cost vis-àvis other typical offerings) were meant to be specially purchased and incinerated for one’s ancestors and were not supposed to be a run-of-the-mill offering for wandering spirits who need to be placated rather than worshiped. While I caution against overreading into the intentions of its buyers and sellers (without firsthand testimonies), a papier-mâché surgical mask, when presented to

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deceased ancestors, serves as an expression of one’s love, concern, and filial devotion to the recipient (see Chan 2019).

Humorous Interpretations: Memes and Newspaper Cartoons in 2020 Singapore Cartoons published by the Chinese press in Singapore throughout the seventh lunar month of 2020 capitalized on similar dialectics between this-worldly experiences of COVID-19 and the otherworld’s receiving of burnt offerings. Jinpei Zhang’s cartoon (web figure 8.2), for example, captures this sentiment of gift giving in a tongue-in-cheek fashion, where surgical masks were considered to be a more thoughtful offering compared to other forms of joss paper (which manifests as legal currency in the netherworld after it is consigned to the flames). While these images were not meant to be taken as representations of reality, their publication must have struck a chord with their readers given their reference to commonly accepted ideas in the Chinese religious mentality. Analogous overlaps between COVID-19’s (imagined) impact upon the otherworld could also be gleaned from similar memes and cartoons that chuckle at the ubiquity of contact tracing and the scanning of QR codes by spirits who visit this world during their “vacation” from hell. The parallels between the power of surveillance and the presence of authorities who have the power to enforce control and discipline in these cases are astounding (web figures 8.3 and 8.4). Conceptions of the Chinese netherworld as a sprawling bureaucracy with kings, courts, and enforcers (inter alia, see Ganany 2015; Orzech 1994; Teiser 1994; Wang 2020)— including dramas set in Singapore (Hello from the Other Side 阴错阳差 2019)— had found ready parallels with the measures implemented to curb the spread of the virus throughout Singapore. Safe distancing ambassadors (SDAs), alongside staff dedicated to the checking of one’s temperature, have their positions juxtaposed against these otherworld environments in many of these cartoons, again indicative of how Singaporeans have started to internalize—albeit wearily—such procedures into their routines. Regardless of their setting—either this-worldly Singapore or the netherworld—memes and newspaper cartoons that revolve around this theme all agree on one point: there are “ghosts” whose movement is constrained by surveillance and detection measures implemented in Singapore to stem the spread of COVID-19, and there is an administrative personality (ghostly or human) in place to enforce these measures. Just as organizations and businesses can refuse entry to patrons who do not wear masks properly or provide details for contact tracing (Choo 2020), wandering spirits are not allowed to holiday in Singapore

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8.5. “The ‘tourists’ are back!” Source: SemiSerious (2020), Facebook photo, posted August 19, 2020. The overhanging title reads, “Singapore.” Ox head 牛头 (featured) and horse face 马面 are the guardians of the Chinese netherworld.

without having their temperatures checked and details scanned (web figures 8.6 and 8.7). Cartoons primarily serve to poke fun at the (wishful?) attempt at controlling the “good brothers” with the disciplinary power of precautionary measures enforced by the state. Yet, the absurdity of these cartoons also provides a safety valve to refract incumbent weariness and anxieties associated with the pandemic’s prolonged uncertainty and sway over daily life (T. Goh 2020; S.H. Lee 2020). Humor—and the assumption that even ghosts must be subject to the same bureaucratic procedures and surveillance—provides a roundabout way for still-living Singaporeans to express and channel similar sentiments of uncertainty (see essay 7).

Chinese religious cosmology, precisely because of its openness, provides a ready platform for practitioners and Singaporeans to address COVID-19’s prolonged impact on their lives. This compressed discussion on how the nexus between

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spiritscapes, the seventh-month festivities, and popular culture in Singapore have been affected by the post–Circuit Breaker measures since June 2020, to be sure, cannot completely do justice to a complicated and variegated phenomenon. The intensity of change and the need to abide by these regulations in Singapore in response to COVID-19’s potential impact on public health represent a rare turning point in human history. Given the prolonged impact of COVID-19 in Singapore and international societies, we can expect similar incarnations of humor and expressions of fatigue to manifest in the upcoming seventh lunar month festivities in August 2021 (see Abdullah 2021). Only time will tell.  

SECTION II

Ritual Innovation and New Media: Pandemic Negotiations of Efficacy and Virtuality

Rituals are often seen as unchanging and ahistorical bearers of long-standing traditions (Pennington and Allocco 2019), stemming from an assumption of religion as a conservative social force. However, as this book demonstrates, ritual is a lively platform for change and innovation in most regions and religions of Asia. This section of CoronAsur shows that the very idea of ritual as conservative and stagnant misreads the history of religion by disregarding ritual’s inherent imaginative potential and its adaptability to new circumstances, particularly during a multifaceted health crisis with far-reaching social implications. In the Covidian age, most religious communities are ready to “bend” the theology in order to “bend the curve,” formulating “ad hoc, imaginative alternative liturgical celebrations” (Sheklian 2020), reshaping their aesthetic practices of mediation among community members and between human and other-than-human entities. This section is focused on ritual innovations and the use of new media to help us understand pandemic religiosity and the potential long-term implications of social distancing and digital mediation on religious practices encompassing prayers, festivals, death rites, purification acts, rites of passage, customary ceremonies, mourning practices, and ancestral worship. From these case studies, ritual performance in Asia appears fluid and constantly evolving, even when places of worship are closed down and practitioners are prevented from congregating. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected and altered most spheres of ritual. The coronavirus itself has become integrated in ritual practices, emerging as a new character in wayang shadow-puppet performances, discussed by spirit mediums during possession, and named in the recitation of healing prayers as well as in the live-streaming of Catholic exorcisms. Living and thinking with this new zoonotic disease, spiritual and religious communities transformed their activities in accordance with public health measures and social regulations. In 2020, ritualized “Catholic televisuality” in the Philippines guided the worshiper/spectator/watcher through a virtual pilgrimage of Marian sites (essay 10). WhatsApp messaging and 85

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exchanges of Ramadan greetings among British Asians co-constituted the understanding of how to respond Islamically to the pandemic-induced lockdown (essay 11). Facebook became a platform where dispersed Buddhist organizations could come together to share their online events, instructing Singaporeans on how to be good Buddhists during the quarantined celebration of (e-)Vesak (essay 12). While digital platforms like Zoom and mobile phone apps are often discussed as inherently secular, studies of ritual innovation during the Covid pandemic in Asia can demonstrate that these technologies are imbued with considerations of the  sacred. As Heidi Campbell suggests, “a religious community’s historical life practice, interpretive tradition, and the contemporary outworking of their values inform their choices about the adoption and adaptation of technology” (2010, 41). At an early stage in the pandemic timeline, the editors of Sociology of Religion observed that “religious groups have used a wide range of technological innovations to fill the void left by in-person gatherings” (Baker et al. 2020, 363; emphasis added). However, the empirical data presented in this section counterbalance these rather pessimistic views about ritual innovation and digital religion. As Tom Boellstorff has argued, the virtual should not be viewed as less than real and is indeed “immanent to the human” (2012, 42). In our case studies, ritual innovations, including those that employ digital technology, are not simply a surrogate for in-person rituals or a poor substitute for “real” interactions. Rather, they show that pandemic forms of religiosity are constituting new ways of experiencing religion and of establishing a sense of community in their own right. The editors of Sociology of Religion also anticipated that “even when congregations do return to face-to-face gatherings, there may be changes to interaction rituals, particularly those involving physical contact, singing, and ingestion,” and they predicted that in the lack of physical proximity, religious communities will emerge from the pandemic weakened and with loosened cohesion (Baker et al. 2020, 363). As these contributions indicate, synchronous or asynchronous communication and online interactions do not necessarily result in loosened ties of belonging and solidarity. To the contrary, they become major mechanisms for maintaining connection not only among religious congregants, but among families, friends, and other networks as well. However, we do share the expectation that the Covid pandemic will have a lasting role in reshaping ritual traditions even in post-pandemic Asia. The examples presented in this section suggest that ritual performance facilitated by new media technologies is not a mere translation of traditional in-person ritual, but rather contributes to new and online emergent practices, particularly in Asian regions where broadband speed is increasing and cell phone devices with inexpensive data packages are proliferating. These innovations emerge from

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a combination of ritual, theological, and digital affordances. Of course, the phenomenon of religion going digital is not as new as it may seem from the perspective of outside observers. If Asian religions were already motivated to conceive innovative ways to perform their ritual functions online, the pandemic has accelerated the shift. Embracing the everyday presence of social media, more ritual communities adopted the use of digital technology, even those that were traditionally suspicious of it from a doctrinal point of view. From this exchange between ritual and technology, digital media emerge as sites of enchantment that potentially contract, expand, reproduce, and multiply the spatiotemporal dimensions of ritual experience (Lorea et al. 2022). Rituals shifted online in nonlinear and unequal ways, following an increasingly marked digital divide (Frøystad 2021) where religious differences and tensions have emerged. Discussing how new religious mediations reenact a sense of presence during lockdowns and physical distancing, the essays of this section contribute to the study of religion and media in Asia today—a field that remains understudied in the context of Asian religions, with some notable exceptions, such as Francis K.G. Lim (2009), Alvin E.H. Lim (2018), Erica Baffelli (2016), and Sam Han and Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir (2016). How do developments in the ritual engagement of technology influence the ways people constitute themselves as social beings, and how does technology shape their experience of the viral, the sacred, and the divine? Conversely, in what ways do religious beliefs and practices shape people’s attitudes towards new technology and its deployment? This section demonstrates that the use of technology affects people’s experience of spirituality and the formation of religious identity and community. Ritual creativity and new mediations are not synonymous with defiance of traditional hierarchies. On the contrary, ritual innovation operates within certain parameters of constraint. Changes are rarely random but rather follow theological concerns, preexisting worldviews, and the boundaries sanctioned by religious authorities. For example, the Singaporean Methodist Church analyzed in Lynn Wong’s essay (this section) commenced live-streaming of Sunday service as early as February 2020, but the uploaded video recordings remained available online only until six p.m., so that church members felt encouraged to worship on Sunday itself. In this way, the media innovation did not disrupt the traditional temporality of pre-pandemic ritual order. The same church embraced the use of Zoom but rejected the validity of Zoom baptism (widely performed in Brazilian evangelical churches during 2020; see De Almeida and Guerreiro 2020) and therefore decided to cancel baptism ceremonies because remote options were perceived as sacramentally inefficacious. As suggested by Bernardo Brown (2020), online religion is not always subversive, innovative, or democratizing:

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“traditional religious authorities have attempted to monopolize the official narrative and define the ‘correct’ interpretation of online religious experiences; often warning against the emergence of alternative viewpoints.” Quite like the proclamations that declared the end of the church with the development of the phonograph, or the decline of the brick-and-mortar church with the rise of televangelism, mainstream media convey the fear that because of COVID-19 and the dramatic rise of online religion, ritual communities will fragment and turn “less communal and more individual” (Musa 2020). Scholars, on the other hand, have observed that this disruption may have been the very trigger needed to ensure the regeneration and longevity of ritual practices in the “new normal” (Frederick 2020). The case studies documented in this section show a range of recurrent features to study ritual change during Covidian times among Asian communities. As outlined in the book’s introduction, pandemic rituals appear simplified or condensed into a few ritual acts that are perceived as indispensable for maintaining ritual form and ensuring efficacy. Rituals have been shortened in duration; rescaled, for example, by limiting the number of people who can enter a sacred place; performed in person by a few ritual specialists, “on behalf” of the quarantined worshipers; or relocated, by shifting the ritual arena online, at home, outside the precincts of the temple, in the parking lot of the church, and so on. All these processes emerge in various combinations, in constant negotiation with multiple parties: the infrastructure of technology at one’s disposal, the local authorities, the state, the surrounding communities, and supranational entities, whether secular (such as the World Health Organization) or religious (for example, the larger Islamic community, or ummah). Doctrinal debates and negotiations with the city authorities animate the question of the disposal of Covid victims among the Zoroastrian Parsis of Mumbai studied by Mariano Errichiello in his essay, “Parsis and Ritual Innovation.” The traditional funerary practice of leaving corpses on top of the Towers of Silence was prohibited by the municipal corporation, which proclaimed in March 2020 that all Covid-positive deceased persons must be cremated. Community members have harshly opposed the decision because fire is thought to be a sacred element whose purity would be contaminated by contact with the dead. When clashing with the ritual practices of religious minorities, governmental orders about the proper disposal of coronavirus-infected bodies became a controversial issue with political overtones in many Asian countries (Qazi and Mushtaq 2020). As we are editing this section, hundreds of corpses of Covid victims are floating down the Ganges waters or receiving hurried sand burials on its holy shores in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, in the traditional

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belief that (affordable) water grave (jal samadhi) arrangements are appropriate for victims of infectious diseases. On May 12, 2021, the state government banned this funerary practice and started offering subsidies to enforce cremation (Pandey 2021). The essays in this section also demonstrate that the use of digital media is creating new gendered publics (F. Zakaria 2020) and religious counterpublics (Fader 2020). These observations about the potential of digital media as a space for religious publics and counterpublics to navigate identities, religiosity, and state health directives are not necessarily new (Jamil 2020). However, by looking at pre-pandemic rituals, rituals under lockdown and through various phases of “unlocking,” post-quarantined rituals, and their transition to a “new normal” ritual life, the essays document transient and abrupt changes in the time of a health crisis while helping us to theorize ritual innovation in broad terms. While some of these might be “ephemeral . . . minor jolts rather than major transformations” (Frøystad 2021, 5), we anticipate that some changes will persist. These emergent practices, such as Facebook consultations with Chinese spirit mediums, Zoroastrian cremation, online bathing of the baby Buddha, and the ­creation of unprecedented religious networks via WhatsApp, require us to envisage new areas of development for social research (and therefore new research approaches) to account for emergent trends and forms of ritual practice.

9

Puppets Wearing Masks Fighting with Batara Corona in Javanese Wayang Kulit Marianna Lis

Performances of the Javanese shadow theater wayang kulit have traditionally been imbued with ritual character. Performances have been shown, for example, at important family events, at local celebrations, or during purification rituals for individuals or entire communities. At the same time, wayang kulit has also been a space for free expression of current problems and challenges, especially those relevant for local communities. As such, wayang has become a source of information for viewers and a commentary on everyday life. The turbulent year of 2020 has brought many changes to wayang. A new kind of wayang—“pandemic wayang”—takes different forms and employs new strategies to talk about the novel coronavirus. Wayang shows, traditionally gathering crowds of viewers during all-night performances, have moved to cyberspace. While this is not the first time that wayang has used new technologies like the radio, television, and the internet (Mrázek 2019), 2020 has increased this usage to a whole new level. The traditional space of an open pavilion (pendopo), in which each of the elements had its symbolic meaning, was replaced by the virtual space of YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. Famous heroes gained new character traits; new opponents, such as Batara Corona, have appeared; and known stories have been reinterpreted, allowing both puppeteers and viewers to find themselves in the world of change and loss (web figure 9.1). Since the outbreak of the pandemic, for the first time in my career as a wayang researcher, I had the feeling that distance was not an obstacle in my research despite being more than ten thousand kilometers away from Yogyakarta and To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/9

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Surakarta, the cities in central Java where the artists come from. Like the rest of the wayang viewers scattered around the world, I sat in front of my laptop screen, turned on YouTube, and moved into the world of wayang—which now offered not only new characters and stories, but also unprecedented ways of building community and new forms of reception, spanning between digital isolation and remote togetherness. One of the first performances shown during lockdown in Indonesia was in March 2020. Puppeteer (dalang) Ki Purbo Asmoro (2020) performed the Sudamala story. He was alone, without the accompaniment of musicians or a choir of singers and amid the absence of a live audience. This unusual one-man spectacle-prayer in aid of the world suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic made use of the ruwatan formula. Ruwatan is a type of ritual wayang performance. These kinds of performances “are never held for entertainment or instruction, but solely to evoke Power” (Anderson 1974, 46). During the ruwatan, the real world is included in the spectacle, and what is shown on the screen reflects what is happening in reality. According to tradition, a ruwatan ritual is performed for the protection and cleansing not only of the soul and body of individuals but also of the entire village and for the restoration of cosmic balance, if this is understood as being disturbed by a violation of the norms of social life, by a violation of rules set by the gods, or by an accident (web figure 9.2). Sudamala is a complex story about the restoration of harmony in a world threatened by evil—here, evil is identified as the COVID-19 pandemic. The goddess of the universe, Batari Uma, under the curse of her enraged husband Batara Guru, takes her demonic form: Durga. A sacrifice is needed to return her to her former self. Durga tries to convince Dewi Kunti to sacrifice her stepson Sadewa, the only person who could free her from the curse. When Kunti refuses, a demon enters her body and Sadewa is tied to a tree for sacrifice. Despite this, Sadewa manages to fight off Durga’s anger and deny her request. His strength makes Batara Guru enter his body, thanks to which he manages to restore the disturbed order. The crisis is averted, and evil is driven away. In gratitude, Sadewa receives a new name—Sudamala. In the Javanese tradition, Sudamala is a symbol of purification, freeing people from sins, misfortunes, and curses.1 Ki Purbo Asmoro viewed the performance of ruwatan as a kind of “prayer for the world” (doa untuk dunia, as he called his performance), as well as a social duty that he could fulfill. Formation and consolidation of a community are some of the main objectives of the wayang. In this case, the dalang was able to engage the community while self-isolating, thus changing the character of the community whereby everyone remained together, as a collective audience viewing the online wayang, despite their physical separation.

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Soon after Ki Purbo Asmoro’s wayang intervention, more and more dalangs began including information about the pandemic in their performances, although shows were still staged solo or accompanied only by one or two other artists (most often from the puppeteer’s family or connecting with the dalang via the internet). The performances created at that time (often in the form of short clips posted not only on YouTube but also on Instagram or TikTok) provided viewers with pertinent information and recommendations about rules to be followed in a pandemic. One such performance was Wayang Jemblung Obat Kangen (Crazy wayang as an antidote for longing) by the late Ki Seno Nugroho, staged at the end of March 2020 (Ki Seno Nugroho 2020). This performance, as the dalang announced before the start, was created out of the need to provide entertainment to viewers who were unable to attend the wayang in a different form, but also to encourage people who were afraid of the COVID-19 pandemic. The performance, like Sudamala, was staged solo, without gamelan and without an audience. Despite its short form (the performance lasted a little over an hour), the dalang combined a story drawn from the traditional wayang repertoire with information about a rapidly spreading virus. The protagonists of these new kinds of performances drew the audience’s attention to the most common symptoms of the new disease, encouraged them to wear masks, taught them to wash their hands thoroughly, and reminded them to keep physical distance. Information about the pandemic appeared not only in wayang kulit performances, addressed to adults, but also in wayang kancil performances, intended for younger audiences (Ki Anggara Sri Wisnu 2020), in which the heroes are animals—including the title animal kancil, the mouse-deer (web figure 9.3). In this case, puppets wearing masks not only conveyed basic information on how to protect oneself and loved ones from a new disease, but also encouraged sharing information with those who might not have access to reliable sources of knowledge. The fight against the pandemic has thus gained a new face—fighting the flood of fake news. In this fight, wayang performances, thanks to the authority dalangs hold in society, have once again been recognized as a credible source of information, one that can reach even more viewers than the official messages issued by national or local authorities. Most of the information related to the pandemic was intertwined into the scenes called gara-gara. Traditionally gara-gara, shown in the middle of the show, depicts a world devoid of inner harmony. With the intermediaries of the punakawan (clown servant) characters—Semar, Petruk, Gareng, and Bagong—the dalang is able to comment on current social and political topics (web figure 9.4). His comments may be entertaining, but they may also contain—as in the case of the “pandemic wayang”—the moral or philosophical message of the entire performance.

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The coronavirus very quickly became one of the characters of these shows. In the performances of such dalangs as Ki Catur Kuncoro (2020), a new figure appeared—Batara Corona, or Koronayaksa (Corona Ogre)—a new (male) puppet that links the coronavirus image with traditional iconography. In these performances, the coronavirus becomes a character that one can talk to and tangibly fight with. The Koronayaksa takes over the features of other ogres known from the wayang tradition. His on-screen appearance did not necessarily have to be accompanied by the dalang’s educational remarks, as was the case at the start of the pandemic. Recognized without any problem by viewers, he has become the main antagonist—the archenemy that the protagonist of the show has to face in order to save his community (relatives, subjects, the whole world—depending on the story) from danger. The threat of a deadly pandemic in the world of wayang is synonymous with a disturbance of harmony in the universe. Thanks to the power, the wisdom, and the skill of using secret knowledge, the dalang is capable of restoring the imbalance and introducing harmony (web video 9.1). In “pandemic wayang” performances produced in the period from March to July 2020, a gradual change in the attitude of dalangs to the pandemic can be observed. The first performances, staged immediately after the lockdown in Indonesia in March 2020, were usually ritualistic and prayerful. The world we all knew changed in a split second: almost every aspect of everyday life turned foreign. Wayang responded immediately by offering support, comfort, and a new kind of virtual community for many who were suddenly devoid of social contact. But as time passed, the pandemic showed no sign of easing, and as it became the reality of a new everyday life that both the viewers and the creators had to grapple with, the coronavirus also became a recurring character in many performances. The protagonists fought Koronayaksa or faced the problems caused by the pandemic—such as loss of jobs and livelihood or insufficient state aid—thus helping to tame uncertainty and alleviate fear of what the future holds. At the end of 2020, dalang Ki Purbo Asmoro performed the story Sengkala Lebur (Calamity extinguished)—another performance-ritual, a spectacle-prayer, performed solo, without the participation of musicians or the physically present, live audience (Ki Purbo Asmoro 2021). In his end-of-year prayer (doa tutup tahun), the character Batara Kala, god of destruction, symbolizing unexpected danger in the Javanese tradition, was blamed for the damage caused by the pandemic. His story is told in the Murwakala (the story of the origin of the humandevouring Kala) performed during the ruwatan ritual. In the spectacle of Ki Purbo Asmoro, after the heroes manage to defeat Batara Kala and force him to leave, Hanuman, Semar, and his sons are ready to welcome a new year heralding a new hope:

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Semar: Let us all pray to He Who Created The Earth that we be shown the light and peace. According to our own belief systems, let us all bring on the new year and wish for all to have only peace and prosperity and wellness.2 Since March 2020, wayang has once again proved itself to be an important living art that can adapt to any situation. Despite “pandemic fatigue,” the dalangs are trying to strengthen and constantly engage viewer communities. Time and again they give hope for a better tomorrow: they motivate people to get vaccinated and provide much-needed entertainment, giving them a moment of respite in the ongoing fight against the pandemic.

Notes 1.  “Sudamala” is derived from the Sanskrit suddha mala and in Indonesia it is used in the sense of “cleansed from impurity,” “purified” (Schaareman 2016). 2.  The performance was broadcast live on New Year’s Eve 2020 and rebroadcast with an English translation by Kitsie Emerson in March 2021, on the anniversary of the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection in Indonesia.

10

Catholic Televisuality in the Time of Pandemic A Philippine Perspective Louie Jon A. Sánchez

Midyear in 2020, at the height of the lockdowns enforced in the Philippines due to COVID-19, I followed the Roman Catholic Church’s turning to social media to nurture the faithful’s spirituality (Sánchez 2020a, 2020b). To this day, “Catholic televisuality,” as I called it, primarily via Facebook and YouTube, continues to foster community spirit and inspire collective support. Catholic televisuality, the use of alternative broadcast technology through internet platforms, has been crucial, especially as the country marked the five hundredth year of the arrival of Christianity in March 2021. With limited TV broadcast resources and facilities even in the past, the church utilized Catholic televisuality to expand its reach. In this essay, I review and synthesize my observations and position myself as a participant in Catholic televisuality. I reiterate an important argument: as the church turned to social media, religious practices were transformed into televisual experiences. I respond to the following: How did the church reach out to its Filipino faithful barred from congregating for Masses? How did it articulate a message of hope and healing? How did it reframe broadcasting into a platform of connection amid physical distancing?

To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/10

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TV Masses then and during COVID-19 Masses and rituals on television are not entirely a new phenomenon in the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic country (Bueza 2015). Sunday TV Masses have been airing on at least three stations, most notably ABS-CBN’s The Healing Eucharist, since the 1990s. Meanwhile, the church itself manages TV Maria, the only Catholic television station in the country, which airs Masses and religious shows in a very limited capacity. A certain kind of Catholic televisuality, then, has long been a norm, one that appears traditionally on free TV and caters mostly to the sick and the infirm, and even Filipinos in the diaspora.1 However, the church in the past years has been seen tapping into social media, Facebook and YouTube in particular, to expand Catholic televisuality. After all, the internet has become a televisual screen extension. Before COVID-19, three popular Catholic shrines in Metro Manila—the Black Nazarene’s Quiapo Shrine, the Redemptorist Shrine of the Mother of Perpetual Help in Baclaran, and the Shrine of St. Jude Thaddeus—had been broadcasting liturgies through Facebook. Other churches and religious orders followed suit when the quarantine began. Collectively, all these became platforms for orienting Catholics to the safety precautions needed during the crisis, as well as popularizing the church-issued obligatory prayer (oratio imperata) against the disease (Paris 2020). Before lockdowns were imposed, the oratio imperata was recited during Masses. Since then the prayer has been amended, thanking God “for the vaccines developed made possible by your guiding hands” (Patinio 2021). COVID-19 has made Catholic televisuality a necessity as more and more parishes tended to their flocks remotely. To sustain faith in the time of pandemic, online church broadcasters offered catechesis, talk shows, musical concerts, and even inspirational content. The Manila Cathedral, seat of the Archdiocese of Manila, has the most polished Catholic televisuality on Facebook. Aside from daily and Sunday Masses streamed in pristine quality, the cathedral Facebook page also features catechesis, among other evangelical videos (web figure 10.1). On an ordinary Sunday during the pandemic, the cathedral Masses yielded close to twenty thousand views. The church Facebook page has grown to more than seven hundred thousand followers over the past year. Another notable Metro Manila church engaged in extensive Facebook broadcasting is the Dominican Santo Domingo Church, home to the miraculous Our Lady of the Holy Rosary of La Naval. The image of La Naval is centuries old and

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10.2. The most moving part of Santo Domingo Church’s daily Facebook broadcast is the dungaw, when the replica of the Virgin of La Naval is exposed to the world as the church front doors are opened. Source: Screenshot from La Naval de Manila (2020).

fabled—its intercession is believed to have brought victory to Spanish and Filipino forces against the Dutch fleet in 1646. Pre-pandemic, the Dominicans had been known for TV broadcasts of Holy Week rituals for many years. In the time of pandemic, they streamed daily Masses, recited the holy rosary, and exposed the Blessed Sacrament in the side altar where the regal La Naval virgin is enthroned. They also broadcast a nightly exorcism rite to “stem the scourge of the pandemic,” framing the health crisis as spiritual warfare. Meanwhile, the church’s most moving televisual spectacle was the exposition of the replica of La Naval. Called dungaw (in Filipino meaning “to look out of windows or doors”), the ritual displayed the image in the main front door of the church, making it appear to look out in compassion. The Dominicans streamed this morning ritual daily on Facebook. The parish Facebook page now has more than eighty thousand followers. For their part, the Jesuits of Ateneo de Manila University had also been ­investing in social media broadcasting for quite a while. The Jesuits used the university’s online Radyo Katipunan to stream Daily Mass for Difficult Times, as well as other programs that enrich the Catholic faith and stir sociopolitical engagement. Using YouTube, the order’s Jesuit Communications TV brought inspiration by way of gospel songs popularized in the country by Jesuit

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composers and musicians, as well as down-to-earth scriptural reflections. The site’s series Kape’t Pandasal2 continues to be very notable for its mass appeal.

Hope and Healing The Catholic Church persevered in spreading hope and healing online, even as the government eased restrictions and allowed very limited in-person church attendance. Parishes across the country engaged in localized streaming of Masses, often utilizing makeshift online broadcast equipment, in adherence to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines May 2020 recommendations (Valles 2020). Such efforts were sometimes coupled with neighborhood or house-to-house visits, where parish priests administered the sacrament of Holy Communion. Some even brought the Blessed Sacrament to localities like the Diocese of Maasin, in the Visayas island of Leyte, which mounted a nightly motorcade, also streamed live via Facebook (web figure 10.3). Other churches also found creative ways to bring rituals and sacraments to people by way of Catholic televisuality. Countless processions of miraculous icons were streamed and viewed, increasing fervor especially in these very difficult times. The Visayan Islands region’s Santo Niño de Cebu—the Christ Child of Cebu, the country’s oldest Catholic icon—was carried through Cebu City to visit neighborhoods and hospitals by a night motorcade. The shrine’s Facebook page streamed the motorcade. Respecting norms of physical distancing, people greeted the well-loved image as they raised their hands or knelt in supplication. As fiestas, local commemorations of feast days, were indefinitely postponed, shrines also used social media broadcasting to bring celebrations to the faithful. The Archdiocese of Caceres in Naga City in the Luzon Island’s Bicol region canceled the annual September fluvial and street processions of the centuries-old miraculous Our Lady of Peñafrancia and the El Divino Rostro (the Holy Face of Jesus). Parishes viewed the nine-day (novena) Masses via online streaming. Meanwhile, nightly recitations of the holy rosary became a permanent fixture in pandemic televisualities. As of this writing, the Manila Cathedral continues to host Healing Rosary for the World, showcasing Marian icons and devotions from different shrines—thus offering a virtual pilgrimage (web figure 10.4).

Catholic Televisuality as Frame Catholic televisuality in the time of COVID-19 became a sustaining frame by which the Philippine Church continued to pursue a narrative of encounter

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despite physical distancing. It may be described, using the words of Pope Paul VI’s 1963 social communications decree, Inter Mirifica, as “among the wonderful technological discoveries” that need to be harnessed and “properly utilized (to be) of great service to mankind” today (Pope Paul VI 1963). Catholic leader Pope Francis himself set an example for its use during his special and unforgettable urbi et orbi (“to the city of Rome and the world” apostolic address and blessing, usually given only on Christmas Day and Easter), delivered on March 27, 2020, as many were being afflicted by the pandemic in Italy. He also celebrated Masses streamed around the world until the Vatican reopened on March 18, 2020. In his January 24, 2020, World Communications Day address, the pope emphasized the importance of storytelling, founded on encounter, as this does not only “make our own the truth contained in good stories” but also enables us “to speak of ourselves and of the beauty all around us” amid “the cacophony of voices and messages that surround us” (Pope Francis 2020). Through new platforms, and a framing that is portable and safer at this time, the church is able to transcend its institutionality, returning once more to its roots of bringing together and mobilizing people estranged by distance and uncertainty. And as people are brought together under the church’s virtual roof, charity, faith, and hope are at once renewed. During the pandemic, Catholic televisuality in the Philippines grew and expanded, going beyond Masses and rituals and fully establishing itself in a sustainable way, using the church’s selected forms of storytelling. Hopefully, it will continue to help the church weave televisual narratives “that can regard our world and its happenings with a tender gaze . . . that can tell us that we are part of a living and interconnected tapestry . . . [and] that can reveal the interweaving of the threads which connect us to one another,” as Pope Francis (2020) himself put it.

Notes 1.  In the Philippines, free TV, or free-to-air television, refers to televisual channels that cater to general audiences and are covered by a congressional franchise from the Philippine government. 2.  A wordplay on the Filipino expression kape’t pandesal (coffee and breakfast bread), with pandesal altered to pandasal, meaning “for prayer,” as it also alludes to Christ’s being the “bread of life”; the title may then be translated as “Prayer that Perks Up.”

11

“Burden Us Not with That Which We Have No Ability to Bear” Cultivating Endurance through Digital Connection in Ramadan Yasmeen Arif

“Ramadan 2020 will be a very different experience as we adapt to changing circumstances during the COVID-19 pandemic,” acknowledged the Muslim Council of Britain in April 2020 (2020, 4). The national lockdown declared in March 2020 had transformed social life and space across Britain. All but essential travel was forbidden, schools and most workplaces were closed, and people were permitted to leave home just once per day for exercise. With mosques closed and interhousehold mixing prohibited, the communal prayer and commensality that usually characterize Ramadan seemed unachievable. The physical isolation engendered by the lockdown, however, was nuanced by net works of digital connection. Among my own social and kin networks, comprised mostly of British Pakistani Muslims from the South Asian subcontinental diaspora, I observed and participated in streamed Qur’anic recitations, online dars (Islamic study) sessions, live-streamed religious lectures, and video calls at the time of iftar to worship and break the fast together (Muslim Council of Britain 2020, 5). I noted an increase in the number of religious messages I received over social media. Although digital dissemination of Islamic imagery and text is not new (Rollier 2010; Schielke 2012), the messages transmitted during Ramadan 2020 felt especially poignant. They enacted ties of relationship that cou ldn’t be realized in person and contributed to ongoing discussions about how to observe Ramadan under pandemic conditions. To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/11

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Achieving Digital Connection during Ramadan Messages with specifically religious content arrived occasionally on my phone, forwarded by family members or friends or through social groups. These messages were made up of text, images, audio files, and videos; they included clips of scholars’ lectures and voice notes of Qur’anic recitations, as well as textual transliterations of du’a (individual or personal prayer) in romanized Arabic. Images displaying ayaat,1 with an English translation accompanying the Arabic text and a romanized transliteration, broke down the distinction between text and image through skillfully rendered fonts and image designs, recalling key elements of Islamicate art (web figure 11.1). The popularity of WhatsApp, with its “relatively anonymous horizontal communication” (Mukherjee 2020, 80), as the medium for these messages meant that their provenance was largely invisible. This offers a marked contrast with the carefully recorded chains of legitimation that characterize traditional transmissions of ahadith (Brown 2007).2 WhatsApp forwarded messages are far more similar to the religious text messages that Rollier describes as popular among Pakistani youth, where “the issue of authorship, traceability and authority seems absent” (2010, 419). The messages I received usually arrived without explanatory context, marked as forwarded only by a small arrow beside the message content and, unlike email chains, with no trace of the path taken to the recipient. Although the lack of accompanying information made the forwarded messages feel rather impersonal to me, their very untraceability rendered them more meaningful to some recipients. My friend Huma, a member of a dars group that met online throughout much of the lockdown, told me that when she received forwarded messages bearing Qur’anic verse, without context or comment, she felt that “it’s like they are being sent from Allah ta’ala (Allah the most high) directly to me.” The invisibility of the path of transmission rendered the messages purer for Huma, facilitating a greater sense of connection with the divine.

“Allah Wants to Know How You Will Respond” Many of the messages overtly addressed the challenge of observing Ramadan during the pandemic. A consistent theme was the importance of responding to the situation with patience, endurance, and faith. “The barakat of jammah [the blessing of congregation] is no longer available to us in Ramadan 2020 . . . yet as sad as this feels, we can’t let this get us down. We have to minimise our losses . . . by replicating this jammah in our home,” advised a video produced by the Australian

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11.2. An image forwarded to the author on WhatsApp, presenting an extract of Surah al Baqarah (Qur’an 2:286) in Arabic, English translation, and transliterated Arabic.

OnePath Network. “Allah is watching; know with all certainty that Allah wants to know how you will respond” (OnePath Network 2020a) (web video 11.1). Even messages that did not directly address the pandemic seemed, in their acknowledgment of humanity’s suffering and requests for God’s mercy, highly relevant to the current moment. Many forwarded messages were of Qur’anic ayaat that acknowledged Allah’s omnipotence and requested his compassion. “Burden us not with that which we have no ability to bear,” read one message, an ayaat from Surah al Baqarah (the second and longest chapter, surah, of the Qur’an), while recordings of du’a acknowledged the helplessness of humans and their dependence on God. One video invoked role models of fortitude in the prophets: Allah tests those whom He loves the most! . . . If you’re stuck with a problem where there’s no way out . . . remember Prophet Yunus (pbuh), stuck in the belly of a whale.

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If you’re ill [and] your body cries with pain . . . Remember Prophet Ayub (pbuh) who was more ill than you. When you can’t see the logic around you . . . Think of Prophet Noah (pbuh) who built an Ark without questioning. (Allah Is the Most Merciful 2019) (web video 11.2)3 By invoking the prophets, the video collapses time and space, drawing on a commonality of experience between the imagined community of prophets in the past and Muslims suffering illness and hardship in the current moment. References to Islamic histories and futures, alongside Qur’anic extracts invoking God’s might, create a sense of the vastness of the divine, beside which worldly events shrink in significance.

“Think of Isolation as a Blessing” Some messages reframed the experience of Ramadan during a pandemic as an opportunity rather than a crisis, a chance to develop one’s faith. News stories with photos of mini-mosques created at home by children, or “Ramadan corners” intended for quiet prayer and reflection, encouraged recipients to find ways to observe Ramadan in their homes rather than to feel that the closure of mosques made religious observation more difficult to achieve (essay 22). Messages advised recipients to utilize lockdown to develop relationships with one’s household, with one’s neighborhood, and ultimately with God. “Think of isolation as a blessing,” encouraged one video. “It was in isolation in a cave that the Prophet, salAllahu alaiyhim wasalam [blessings be upon him and peace], received revelation” (OnePath Network 2020b). While understanding how such messages were individually received was challenging without in-person feedback, the typing of “ameen” comments in response to recorded du’a, and the forwarding of received messages to other contacts, suggested that their content struck a chord for at least some recipients.

“Being in Relationship with the Qur’an” Living under lockdown conditions meant that it was impossible to observe the in-person reception of these images and videos by recipients other than myself. However, phone calls and text discussions with members of my kin and social network helped me to gather a sense of some of the available interpretations. One of my cousins said that she enjoyed receiving the messages because she often learned something new. Another cousin said that sharing the “sermons . . . and

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lectures from scholars we follow as well as snippets of ahadith, texts (even memes!)” on her family WhatsApp group helped her to feel connected with her siblings even under lockdown: “When we next saw each other, we’d weave in bits of what we shared into our discussions and it allowed us to feel that the time away from each other made sitting in each other’s company later on so much more meaningful” (web figure 11.3). Lockdown was often discussed as an opportunity for developing faith. Laura Jones notes that several participants felt the spirituality of Ramadan was intensified by lockdown conditions (Jones 2020), and my friend Zahra felt that “in some ways, this was the most beautiful Ramadan of my life,” because being confined to her home during lockdown had helped her to concentrate on her relationship with God. Zahra’s reflection recalls Shamaila Anwar’s point that “God has a reason for everything and, for me, the reason he provided these Ramadans in lockdown was so I could rediscover its religious roots. This year, for the second year running, I have been able to focus on my self-discipline (engaging in fast and prayer), introspection (my relationship with God), and self-discovery (what I can do without)” (Anwar 2021). As another recipient of these messages, I also attended to my own autoethnographic response in trying to understand their impact. While some messages felt meaningful to me, I found others problematic in their assumptions about Muslim lives. The frequent observation that Muslims would struggle to achieve a satisfying experience of Ramadan without visiting the mosque assumed a male subject whose access to mosques, unlike that of many women and other marginalized groups, had never been contested. Similarly, the injunction to find solace in the family home seemed like idealized heteronormativity, ignorant of gendered inequalities of labor and care that had been exacerbated by lockdown (Women’s Budget Group 2020). I also found narratives of finding meaning in lockdown somewhat distasteful; as Ramadan progressed, the rising death rate from COVID-19 in the UK and the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on minoritized groups felt completely senseless to me, inexplicable by faith. How can we understand the diversity in interpretations of these electronically disseminated messages? Rather than categorizing particular understandings as correct or incorrect in attitude, it is more fruitful to understand the range of responses as symptomatic of the way that mass communication technology enables the individualization and democratization of religious knowledge (cf. Roy 2005). Fragments of text and sound, arriving on electronic devices, carry with them meanings that then interact with the recipient’s biographic and personal context. Recipients might dismiss them, or enter into a thoughtful relationship with them, as the video “Tips when reading the Qur’an”

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(web video 11.3) suggests in its advocacy for ways to build a “relationship with the Qur’an” (Zoud 2020). Rather than viewing the messages as passive conduits of information, we can understand them as agential social actors (Latour 2005), which enter into conversations with recipients and cocreate unique understandings of how to respond Islamically to the pandemic under conditions of lockdown.

Notes 1. Plural of aya, a verse or textual unit of the Qur’an (Rippin 2008). 2. Traditions about the words, deeds, and approved behaviors of the prophet Muhammad (Pavlovitch 2008). 3. Peace be upon him/her (pbuh) is an honorific phrase used by any mention in speech or print of the prophets of Islam.

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Cyber Dharma Celebrating E-Vesak in Singapore Jack Meng-Tat Chia

Buddhists in Singapore, who make up about a third of the population, are the religious majority in the global city-state (Singapore Department of Statistics 2010). Although most Singaporean Buddhists are ethnic Chinese belonging to the Mahayana tradition, Theravada and Vajrayana Buddhist traditions are also present and popularly practiced on the island. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that Vesak is a widely celebrated holiday among the Buddhist community in Singapore. Vesak commemorates the birth, enlightenment, and passing of the historical Buddha Śākyamuni. In 1955, Singapore’s Buddhist community, after several failed attempts, successfully petitioned the then British colonial government for Vesak to be declared a public holiday (Chia 2016, 147). While most Buddhist organizations in Singapore do celebrate the religious festival, their practices and methods of celebration may vary. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Buddhists around the world have turned to the internet for their Vesak celebrations (Lewis 2020). With Circuit Breaker measures in place from April 7, 2020, to June 1, 2020, to preempt escalating COVID-19 infections in Singapore, places of worship were closed and many Singaporean Buddhists had taken to venerating the Buddha online (Tai 2020).1 This essay argues that the pandemic forced Buddhist organizations to go virtual and prioritize thinking about the future of religious activities. On April 20, 2020, about two weeks before Vesak on May 7, some Buddhists in Singapore created a Buddhist United Facebook page to consolidate and publicize online Vesak activities by various Singaporean Buddhist organizations To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/12

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(web figure 12.1). The bilingual Facebook page, which is a play on words of the Singapore government’s “SG United” (2020) slogan to fight the virus, aims to “share information and reach out to the entire Buddhist community in Singapore” to celebrate Vesak on the internet (Buddhist United 2020a). On May 5, 2020, Buddhist United released a prerecorded Vesak Day message featuring prominent Buddhist leaders in Singapore, including Venerable Seck Kwang Phing (Shi Guangpin 釋廣品) from the Singapore Buddhist Federation, Venerable K. Dhammika from the Singapore Buddhist Mission, Chao Khun Rian from Wat Ananda Metyarama, and Venerable Shi You Guang (釋有廣) from the Samantabhadra Vihara (Buddhist United 2020b). The Buddhist leaders urged Singaporean Buddhists to practice the Buddha’s teachings at home, participate in online Buddhist activities, and pray for those who have been affected by the pandemic. On Vesak Day itself, Buddhist United posted a list of ten activities that Buddhists can do to celebrate the religious festival (web figure 12.2). The ten suggested activities were: (1) bathe the baby Buddha, (2) short chanting, (3) eat vegetarian meals, (4) light offering, (5) five-minute meditation, (6) enrich knowledge through Dharma sessions, (7) practice generosity through dana (the act of giving), (8) participate in e-Vesak activities, (9)  be nice to everyone (especially to essential workers), and (10) like and share the Buddhist United page (Buddhist United 2020c). The Buddhist United Facebook page has proved to be a useful resource for me to track down a wide range of activities for the e-Vesak celebrations. It listed the online programs of Buddhist organizations from various traditions, including the Singapore Buddhist Federation (the national umbrella organization for Buddhist monasteries and associations); major temples such as Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery (Guangmingshan pujue chansi 光明山普覺禪寺), Mangala Vihara, Sakya Tenphel Ling, and Wat Ananda Metyarama; and smaller Buddhist groups such as the Buddhist Fellowship, Dhammakami Buddhist Society, and Oxford Buddhist Vihara. Singapore Buddhist Federation (SBF), which had previously produced a series of popular short online videos on frequently asked questions about Buddhism, has been active in using the internet to engage a younger audience (Nyi Nyi Thet 2018). On the day of Vesak, SBF and its SBF Youth group launched a five-hour online program (web figure 12.3) on Zoom and Facebook Live to celebrate the Buddhist holiday (Singapore Buddhist Federation Youth 2020). The celebrations included light offerings and bathing of the baby Buddha rituals led by SBF’s president, Venerable Kwang Phing, talks by monastics and laity, and the screening of prerecorded videos (web figure 12.4). Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery, the largest Buddhist temple in Singapore, was unable to hold its widely attended light transference and “three

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steps, one bow” ceremonies for Vesak this year (J. Lee 2020). Therefore, the monastery introduced an online service for Buddhists to make light, flower, and food offerings (web figure 12.5) to the Buddha on its Awareness Place website. Devotees could select one of four dedication messages when they checked out their e-offerings in the shopping cart: career success; Buddha’s boundless love and blessings; good health and plentiful blessings; and peace and harmony (Awareness Place 2020). Wat Ananda Metyarama, a Thai Theravada temple popular among both Thai and Singaporean Buddhists, held a Vesak blessing service for several hours live on Facebook that started at eight a.m. (web figure 12.6). The temple prepared the Pali devotional passages with English translation side by side. Since most Singaporean Buddhists cannot read Pali, the English translations help them understand the passage they chant (Wat Ananda Metyarama Thai Buddhist Temple 2020). In recent decades, Taiwanese transnational Buddhist organizations—or “mega-temples” as I call them—such as Fo Guang Shan (佛光山), Tzu Chi Foundation (Ciji Jijinhui 慈濟基金會), Dharma Drum Mountain (Fagushan 法 鼓山), and Bliss and Wisdom Foundation (Fuzhi Fojiao Jijinhui 福智佛教基金 會)—have gained a big following among the Singaporean Chinese community (Chia 2015). As I have argued elsewhere, Fo Guang Shan has long been harnessing popular culture and technology in proselytizing to the IT-savvy younger generation in Taiwan and beyond (Chia 2015). Fo Guang Shan Singapore (Xinjiapo Foguangshan 新加坡佛光山), just like its headquarters in Kaohsiung, has been relying on various social media platforms to propagate the Dharma. The organization held a Dharma service on the evening of Vesak using Facebook Live to bathe the baby Buddha and make light offerings (Fo Guang Shan Singapore 2020). More interestingly, a friend shared with me that Fo Guang Shan members were circulating a webpage produced by the Fo Guang Shan headquarters, which allows the public to bathe the Buddha online (FGS 佛光山網頁 2020). To my amazement, the website has been visited more than four million times worldwide.2 A number of recent studies have revealed that Buddhist organizations have begun to rely more heavily on the internet and various social media platforms to propagate the Dharma and engage a younger audience (see Cheong, Huang, and Poon 2011; Huang 2017). The COVID-19 pandemic perhaps has opened up an opportunity, if not a necessity, for Buddhist organizations to enter cyberspace. More research is needed to ascertain the effectiveness of online religious celebrations within the Buddhist community and across other religious communities in Singapore and elsewhere.

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12.7. Bathing the baby Buddha online. Credit: Fo Guang Shan (2020).

Following the end of the Circuit Breaker period on June 1, 2020, places of worship were reopened for small private worship until the introduction of Phase 2, allowing places of worship to resume religious activities with a maximum of fifty people from June 26, 2020 (Government of Singapore 2020b). Subsequently, Singapore moved into Phase 3 in December 2020, allowing congregational and other worship services up to 250 people (Government of Singapore 2020c). After several months of gradual reopening following the Circuit Breaker period, Singapore entered Phase 2 (Heightened Alert)—or semi-lockdown—from May 16, 2021 to June 13, 2021, to curb a new spike in COVID-19 cases (Government of Singapore 2021). With the Phase 2 (Heightened Alert) measures in place, Vesak celebrations in 2021 were scaled down, and there were no mass activities or processions. Buddhist organizations again had to turn to the internet to celebrate the Buddhist holiday (Menon and Yeo 2021). As Singapore gradually exits from Phase 2 in June 2021, many Buddhist organizations have decided to remain closed and continue their activities online for the time being. It will probably take a while before Buddhists can return to their temples and worship together as a community.

Notes 1.  The Singapore government implemented the Circuit Breaker measures in 2020 to preempt escalating COVID-19 infections (see Government of Singapore 2020a). 2.  Fo Guang Shan recently updated the website; however, the web counter is now unavailable.

13

Ritual Adaptations on Telok Ayer Liturgical Negotiations in a Chinese Temple and a Methodist Church Lynn Wong

Telok Ayer, meaning “water bay” in Malay, is the historical shoreline where many early immigrants first landed in Singapore. The voyage at sea was long and arduous, with many dying from illness along the way. As a result, where the immigrants settled, they established places of worship to give thanks in their respective faiths. Although Telok Ayer has been reclaimed since the 1880s, it is still dotted with historic places of worship for different faiths and communities, earning its nickname, “Singapore’s Street of Harmony.” In my capacity as an independent researcher commissioned to work on Singapore Heritage Society’s twenty-one historic places of worship project since 2017, I have had the privilege to interview stakeholders and engage in participant observation to document the intangible cultural heritage at many of these sites. As religious spheres negotiate and adapt to the evolving pandemic since the first announcement of Singapore raising the DORSCON (Disease Outbreak Response System Condition) level to orange on February 7, 2020, I conducted phone interviews with stakeholders to gather their insights. In this essay, I draw examples from two historic places of worship on Telok Ayer.

Siang Cho Keong (仙祖宫) “Palace of the Celestial Patriarchy” The birthday celebrations of Tua Pek Kong (大伯公; loosely translated as “Grand Uncle,” an affectionate reference to the local guardian deity) on February 24, 2020, would have been a bustling event at the 153-year-old family-run Chinese To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/13

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temple Siang Cho Keong. Every year devotees gather in the temple’s small main hall before Tua Pek Kong to present him with individual paper robes and make personal prayers that may last ten to fifteen minutes. The heat and proximity with fellow devotees in the small prayer hall does not seem to bother anyone, for they believe that it is in being physically present in front of the deity that their worship will be efficacious. However, the announcement of DORSCON Orange saw the number of devotees cut in half. With tighter measures (such as the need to maintain at least one meter social distance), the ritual for the presentation of paper robes to the deity ( 献袍仪式 Xian Pao Yi Shi) was forced to become a hasty affair. Instead of collecting the individual paper robes for worship, devotees were told that their names had already been written and affixed onto a large “communal” paper robe hung outside the temple (web figures 13.1 and 13.2). Devotees were also advised to perform their prayers outside the main hall. Those who wished to enter the main hall for prayers could still do so, but they had to adhere to the safe-distancing measures and were encouraged to keep their prayers short (one or two minutes). Interestingly, this practice of presenting a large “communal” paper robe with the names of devotees has been rolled out at the temple for the past couple of years after consultation with the temple’s religious adviser. This ritual adaptation was part of the temple’s efforts to reduce pollution from burning individual paper robes. In the early days, the practice had been one paper robe offering per devotee. In February 2020, the number of individual paper robes purchased by devotees remained largely the same as in previous years, as they were bought by the temple’s usual clientele and arrangements had already been made prior to the abrupt announcement of DORSCON Orange. It remains to be seen if this ritual innovation encouraged by the temple will see greater adoption among its devotees in subsequent festivals. Even as Singapore reopens and loosens its regulations from June 2, 2020, onwards, Siang Cho Keong (web figure 13.3) foresees that all other festivals that year will have to be simplified even if they are allowed to proceed as per usual. This is mainly because celebrations for the temple’s patron deity, Lü Dongbin (呂 洞賓; leader of the Eight Immortals and known for his healing prowess), which were supposed to be held on May 6, 2020, fell within the Circuit Breaker period (i.e., stay-at-home order and tightened measures to break the chain of COVID-19 transmission) and had to be canceled. As the Celestial Patriarch, Lü Dongbin is the highest ranked in the temple’s pantheon of deities, and so the other temple events cannot be organized on a grander scale than those for him. For instance, the usual opera performance for deities during temple festivals may not be staged and food offerings may not be as elaborate. The other temple events in the year

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include the temple’s anniversary (祈福消灾法会 Qi Fu Xiao Zai Fa Hui) and the Lantern Ritual for the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper (北斗七星灯仪 Bei Dou Qi Xing Deng Yi).

Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church The Methodist Church on Telok Ayer did not have many events planned for 2020 because the church had just held its large-scale 130th anniversary celebrations in 2019 and was preparing major renovation work (to create coffee corners) to welcome the public in the Central Business District to use its facilities on lunch breaks. Little did they expect this lack of scheduled events to take on a different form and scale as the COVID-19 pandemic evolved. Several church members expressed health safety concerns after the DORSCON Orange announcement in early February, and a 30 percent decline in attendance for Sunday worship service was observed. In response, the church swiftly rolled out live-streaming Sunday worship services on its Facebook page in parallel to its on-site service starting on February 16, 2020. The church also announced that should any worshiper “feel that they would prefer to stay away from church for a time,” the church will “adopt an understanding approach, and will not judge nor consider it a measure of their faith” (Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church 2020a). A new YouTube channel of animated Bible stories (Bible Storytime, n.d.) was created by the church’s talented pastoral staff on March 17, 2020, to reach out to children. On March 20, 2020, the church announced a suspension of physical church services for two weeks. It is important to note that this was prior to the government announcement for tighter restrictions on March 24, 2020. This fourteenday suspension was executed in the view that this would have allowed for an incubation period to ward off any potential infection and allow the church to “start afresh,” ready for Palm Sunday (April 5, 2020) and the series of events leading up to Easter Sunday (April 12, 2020). Alas, the Circuit Breaker measures were announced even before Palm Sunday arrived. As a result, the Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church’s on-site services came to a complete halt from March 22, 2020. It was only beginning November 1, 2020, that on-site services first resumed, albeit with a cap on the number of on-site attendees and precautionary actions taken (Telok Ayer CMC 2020a). Although worship service went online (see web figure 13.4), worshipers were encouraged to treat it as if it were physical worship in church. For instance, worshipers were advised to dress in their Sunday best, switch mobile phones to silent mode, and physically participate as instructed during the service (e.g., rise to

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sing, close eyes to say prayers, read up during scripture response), even if alone at home. Sunday service streaming videos were also made available only until six p.m. to encourage members to participate in worship on Sunday itself. Many rituals, however, had to be simplified, modified, or suspended. For instance, baptism, which is usually conducted only twice a year (Easter Sunday and Christmas Sunday), was suspended for Easter Sunday. The church views that the declaration of one’s faith in public and the sprinkling of physical water to signify cleansing are key ritual gestures in baptism. As a consequence, church leaders felt that an “online baptism” would be meaningless. They are, however, open to the possibility of having a limited number of candidates at any one time receiving baptism with the physical water and making their declaration in the online presence of other members of the church. One of the rituals that was significantly simplified was the removal of every sacred item on the Holy Communion table (including the pulpit, articles, Bible) on Maundy Thursday (April 9, 2020; see web figure 13.5). Particularly missing on the table were the Holy Communion cups and elements, as the sacrament of Holy Communion segment could not be performed without a physical congregation. The ritual of making offerings in the form of monetary donations is an interesting example of modification. In the Methodist view, making offerings is an integral component in the whole event of worship and thanks to God. Accordingly, the act of bringing physical money and placing coins and notes into offering bags carries that significance. Although the option of making offerings online existed prior to COVID-19, it was used by only a small percentage of the church’s worshipers. With the physical closure of the church, members were encouraged to make online bank transfers for offerings. This, however, proved challenging, especially for the elderly members of the congregation. As a result, the church suggested that members could make offerings by placing money into an envelope and keeping it until physical church services resumed.

Make Digitization Inclusive With COVID-19 set to stay for a while, many places of worship have started looking towards digitization as a long-term solution. Although the trend of moving rituals into the digital sphere may be inevitable, places of worship are asking how they can ensure that the practice is inclusive and humanistic. The approach taken by these two historic places of worship provides food for thought. While the Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church embraces digital technology on various fronts (e.g., holding group gatherings on Zoom), it has tried to bridge the digital divide so that worshipers who are less technology-savvy are

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not excluded. For instance, the church has made available the audio version of its Sunday services in Mandarin and Hokkien via its existing Tinkle hotline. This also allows worshipers without internet access (e.g., seniors staying in hospitals) to continue to worship. For the generations of families who have been visiting Siang Cho Keong, the belief in praying before the deity in person is strong. The temple has always taken a very consultative approach in understanding its devotees’ needs and seeking guidance from the temple’s religious adviser. When the temple reopens, its leaders hope to gather the opinions of visiting devotees about the possibilities of initiating digital rituals. Indeed, high touch (metaphorically) is ever more important in a digital, contactless “new normal.” Religious authorities will have to find the right balance between high touch and high tech in the new negotiations that require digital, contactless modalities of worship, while maintaining their concerns for communal solidarity and sense of belonging.

14

Parsis and Ritual Innovation Zoroastrian Funerary Practices in Mumbai during the Pandemic Mariano Errichiello

The implications of the COVID-19 outbreak for the diverse ethnoreligious communities of India are varied. This essay examines the debates surrounding ritual innovations due to the impact of the pandemic on the funerary practices of the Parsis in Mumbai, India.1 Zoroastrians dispose of the bodies of their beloved ones in circular structures known as Towers of Silence, but they have been forced to change this practice in order to contain the spread of the virus. The Parsis are the descendants of the Zoroastrians who fled to the west of India after the Muslim conquest of Iran in the seventh century CE. Between the eighth and tenth centuries, groups of Zoroastrians settled principally in Gujarat and, from the seventeenth century, a large part of the community was established in Bombay, which was turning into one of the main business centers of India (web figures 14.1 and 14.2). Nowadays, around forty thousand Parsis live in Mumbai (Government of India 2011). Having become a key partner of the European trade companies, the Parsi community progressively gained social prestige and flourished into a wealthy community (Dobbin 1972, 2–3; Metcalf and Metcalf 2006, 44–47). The proximity to colonial power greatly exposed the Parsis to European culture, leading to the appropriation of Western forms of knowledge and customs. Furthermore, during the nineteenth century, Christian missionaries began to attack the Zoroastrians of India by ridiculing their religious practices and sacred scriptures in order to legitimize the biblical message and promote conversions (Hinnells 2008). The extant Zoroastrian corpus that survived until modern times represents just a portion of the original scriptures, making its canonization a difficult To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/14

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14.3. While reciting prayers before the sacred fire, Zoroastrian priests wear the padān, a cloth nose-mouth mask that prevents the saliva or breath from contaminating the purity of the fire. Credit: Mariano Errichiello, 2019.

task and converting orality and ritual enactment into central elements of the transmission of the Zoroastrian religion. As a consequence, the response of the Parsis to the missionaries’ attacks was fragmented and exposed the lack of a normative theology. In this context, the need for understanding what authentic Zoroastrianism was arose among the Parsis, triggering different strategies of canonization and interpretation of sacred scriptures that led to a hermeneutical

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pluralism. Such pluralism prompted heated debates on rituals, including funerary practices, which are still ongoing.

Soul and Body in the After-Death Ceremonies According to the Zoroastrian eschatology, when a person dies, the soul separates from the physical body. At the same time, as death represents the triumph of evil, the physical body becomes polluted. During the three days following the death, the soul remains seated at the head of the physical body; then, on the morning of the fourth day, it begins its journey towards the spiritual realms accompanied by divine entities. A female figure (daēnā) appears to take the soul to the House of Song or House of Lies, depending on the way the departed has conducted their earthly existence. If the departed has followed the religious tenets, the female figure materializes as a beautiful maiden; otherwise, as an ugly woman. At this stage, the soul goes through the Chinvat Bridge, which connects the material world with the spiritual realms (Lüddeckens and Karanjia 2011, 41, 51–58; Shaked 1998, 565–569). The mourners accompany the journey of the soul by performing a set of funerary practices that include the recitation of prayers to aid the progression of the soul of the departed as well as the open-air exposure of the corpse to sunrays and to birds of prey (e.g., vultures). Since ancient times, Zoroastrians have disposed of corpses in raised circular structures called Towers of Silence (dakhmas; Boyce 1993, 279–286). The Mumbai Tower of Silence (doongerwādī) was built more than 350 years ago on an extensive piece of land, fifty-five acres in Malabar Hill, south of Mumbai (web figure 14.4). The top of this tower is open and its walls surround three concentric rows of platforms where bodies of the deceased are disposed of. The bones of the corpses are accumulated at the center of the structure and are periodically vacated (web figure 14.5). While several priests are required to participate in the funerary practices, the pallbearers (nasāsālārs) are the only ones who can work in the proximity of the corpses and handle them (Lüddeckens and Karanjia 2011, 65–87).

Disposal of Corpses: A Long-Standing Issue for the Zoroastrians of India As there is for many other communal issues such as intermarriage or conversions, there is a heated debate among the Parsis about funerary practices. In 1994, the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP), which administers the Mumbai Tower of Silence, distributed a pamphlet named Towers of Silence (web figure 14.6). It contains articles by distinguished members of the Parsi community as well as contributions by

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non-Zoroastrians that endorse the use of the Towers of Silence as the most hygienic method of disposing of corpses. The first edition of this pamphlet was published in 1899, confirming the extent and relevance of the debate on funerary practices for the Parsis from colonial times onwards. During the last few decades, the progressive diminution of the vultures’ population in Mumbai has made the open-air excarnation of corpses more difficult. After proposals to build an aviary for vultures were evaluated and dismissed, the BPP installed solar panels to speed up the process of dehydration of the corpses. However, for some Parsis this solution did not prove to substantially accelerate the decomposition of the corpses, and as a consequence, burial and cremation began to be considered as alternative methods of disposal. Nevertheless, a large part of the community fiercely opposes such adaptation of funerary practices. According to a report published by the UNESCO Assisted Project for the Preservation and Promotion of Parsi Zoroastrian Culture and Heritage in 2004, the Tower of Silence was still the preferred place for disposal for more than 90 percent of Parsis living in Mumbai (Lüddeckens and Karanjia 2011, 11–12). In fact, the vast majority of the Parsi community maintains that burials pollute earth and that cremations contaminate fire. Earth and fire are considered sacred elements of creation, and the rationale behind the use of the Towers of Silence is to keep sacred natural elements pure by avoiding their direct contact with the polluted corpses. Therefore, either burial or cremation of corpses is considered to be heretical. However, in 2015, the Parsi Prayer Hall in Worli, south of Mumbai, was established to provide a place of worship for those opting for cremation.

Cremation: Necessary Evil or Unforgivable Heresy? At the end of March 2020, as part of its measures to counteract the pandemic, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, the governing body of the city of Mumbai, informed the BPP about the decision that all Covid victims must be cremated (Wadia 2020). While the general restrictions have triggered the move of some liturgical activities from the temples to social media channels (Engineer 2020), the imposed cremation of COVID-19 victims unleashed harsh protests from those Parsis who place great emphasis on the after-death ceremonies. The BPP is the main governing body of the Parsi community in Mumbai, and many Parsis were expecting it to adopt an adversarial position in order to negotiate an exemption or a waiver for the community due to the religious implications of cremation. Nevertheless, the BPP decided to assume a mediating position with the government of Mumbai and advised Parsis to follow the proposed measures. The prayers for those who died from COVID-19 are now performed at the Parsi Prayer Hall of the crematorium in Worli. Yet, in order to alleviate the grief caused

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by the forced cremations, some priests decided to introduce the recitation of one of the main prayers of the funerary ceremonies right outside the Tower of Silence. This was considered an unacceptable liturgical innovation by some groups of Parsis who are particularly concerned with the preservation of customary Zoroastrian rituals. The initiative of those priests has therefore raised the level of the debate within the Parsi community. Funerary practices began to be actively scrutinized, in the fear that further initiatives could set precedents for liturgical innovation. On September 3, 2020, following a writ petition filed by the BPP, the Bombay High Court ruled in favor of the Parsi community, granting permission to perform the ceremony for the Day of Remembrance (Fravardian) in the Mumbai Tower of Silence, as long as the norms of social distancing were observed (Kashyap 2020). An important ceremony for the Zoroastrians, the Day of Remembrance consists of annual prayers to be recited in the Tower of Silence for those who have passed away during the previous year. The decision of the Bombay High Court was positively received by the Parsis, who could visit the facilities in groups of fifteen to twenty persons during the ceremony. Yet, the forced cremation for COVID-19 victims remained in place. As the number of cases and deaths from the pandemic in India reached dramatic figures in the first half of 2021, the restrictions have been kept in place and the communal debate has continued. An article was published on May 1, 2021, in Parsi Times, the community’s weekly newspaper, by Vada Dastoorji Khurshed Dastoor, the high priest of Udvada (one of the most prestigious roles in the Zoroastrian priesthood). Given the extraordinary times, the author proposed opening negotiations with the authorities of Mumbai in order to get permission for the burial of COVID-19 victims. In case of a positive outcome, Dastoor proposed allocating a section of the land of the Mumbai Tower of Silence (web figure 14.7) for this purpose (Dastoor 2021). This proposition has raised opposition from a part of the community. For instance, the editorial team of the Parsee Voice, the newsletter associated with the followers of the esoteric group called Science of Bliss (Ilme Kṣnum), promotes negotiations with the city authorities that would prevent cremation of those who died from COVID-19. They suggest, rather, vaccinating the pallbearers operating in the Mumbai Tower of Silence, enforcing new safety procedures, and disposing of the corpses of COVID-19 victims in the unused Towers of Silence covered with a net to prevent birds of prey from entering the facilities and spreading the virus.

Loss upon Loss As COVID-19 forces the world to adapt to new ways of conducting life and work, religious communities are also required to make concessions. Over the years,

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Zoroastrianism has been granted a somewhat privileged status in India, with relative freedom from interference by government authorities. However, COVID-19 has no regard for the delicate balance once struck between state and religion and has created new power asymmetries. This pandemic has certainly changed the way Parsis mourn the deaths of COVID-19 victims; in addition, it has sown further division within the community. Proposals to adapt funerary practices to these unprecedented times have not reached a consensus, but they have endowed the role of priests with a creative element that goes beyond the customary performance of rituals. This newly acquired agency triggered further debates and fragmentation, questioning the sedimented issue of power relations within the Parsi community. Deprived of the customary disposal of corpses in the Towers of Silence and of traditional ways of mourning, the Zoroastrians in India are compelled to find ways around these obstacles to make sense of grief.

Notes   The author is grateful to Fondazione Giorgio Cini, in Venice, Italy, where this article 1.  was drafted during the residential scholarship at the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities in 2021.

SECTION III

Viral Sensorium: Embodiment at a Time of Social Distancing

 

 

The essays in this section document and analyze how the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the ways religions engage the body sensorium. Religions have been primarily studied as “immaterial” and “mentalistic” affairs (Bendix 2005; Meyer 2009), prioritizing scriptures, doctrines, and beliefs as the foundations of religious lives. This section instead takes a material and sensory approach to discuss how embodied, lived religion changed with the impact of the coronavirus and its various avatars. Sensational forms—modes of invoking and organizing access to the transcendental that sustain links between religious practitioners, shaping their sensibilities in ways that are specific to each tradition or group (Meyer 2009)—have undergone profound transformations in Covidian times, due to social-distancing measures, prohibitions to assemble, and unprecedented regulations on singing, touching, shaking hands, sharing food, and many other sensory dimensions that are central to communal religious experience. Jewish practitioners have been discouraged from kissing the Torah, churches have been told to offer disposable cotton swabs for the application of holy water, while choirs and musicians have had to edit their asynchronous performance of a single choral piece while recording from different locations (Frederick 2020). How does it feel to avoid or to re-create these bodily gestures and sensory acts of devotion that lie at the core of ritual life? What is left when smells, sounds, haptic transfers, ingestion practices, and immediate sight are removed from ritual performance? On the other hand, which kinds of new sensory engagements and forms of reembodiment are made possible by shifting communal rituals online? Collective rituals of any community—whether they define themselves as religious or not—have been reshaped, canceled, or newly mediated during this global health crisis. At the same time, ritual communities have continued to engage different sensory modalities of contact with the divine and with the other members of their communities, carefully negotiating the achievement of “presence” (Engelke 2007; Orsi 2016) while maintaining social and physical distance. 123

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Baker and colleagues (2020, 634) suggest that without these somatic, collective engagements through shared music, rites, and rhythms, the cohesion of religious groups is negatively altered. However, this section of CoronAsur provides enough firsthand, ethnographically grounded evidence to suggest that the disembodiment and de-sensorialization induced by the COVID-19 pandemic is not solely a challenge to feelings of connection and belonging, but also a chance to creatively enact new forms of sensuous engagement through the innovative use of spaces and technologies. The exceptional circumstances of the coronavirus pandemic have called for the creation of new “spontaneous rites” that engage the body sensorium—be it clapping hands on French balconies, lighting candles outside Hindu homes, or humming sacred hymns behind face masks (Simon 2020). At the same time, transposing traditional rites onto new digital platforms, spiritual practitioners not only experience sensory deprivation and “a culture of disembodiment” (Willson 1997, 146) but also find imaginative ways to involve their corporeal participation in manners that are materially and affectively significant. Instead of looking at religious responses to COVID-19 as necessarily de-sensorialized, thus posing the realm of new media and virtual mediations in sharp opposition to “real” physical experience, the essays in this section suggest that: – new media produce sensory experiences in their own right and involve the embodied and emplaced religious participants in specific manners; – the use of new technologies, rather than dramatically changing the dynamics of ritual participation, is built upon preexisting values and religiously specific conceptions on the use of sight, touch, sound, smell, taste, and the synesthetic body sensorium. Digital reenactments of rituals demonstrate the “stickiness” of the body sensorium (Lorea et al. 2022), as new forms of mediation stick to pre-pandemic ways of engaging the senses during rituals. By offering empirical detail on how religious groups have mobilized, numbed, or sharpened different sensory modalities of ritual participation in the course of the Covid pandemic, this section contributes to the question of “how living room and cyber-ritual affects the participatory feeling of community” (Kong 2001a) by redrawing community boundaries through technology-mediated communications. It also helps in understanding the relationship between culturally informed sensory epistemologies and the use of digital media. When cameras become extensions of deities’ eyes (essay 20), and headphones become body appendices of techno-spirituality for a sonic act of remembrance of God (essay 23),

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sensuous scholarship on religion has an important role for theorizing the relationships of people with digital technologies (Lupton 2017). From Latin digitus, digitalis—pertaining to fingers—the digital realm is first and foremost a sphere of touch, of hands and fingertips, while only a few decades ago the term “digital” became synonymous with electronic and online technology. Touch, the sense of intimacy and reciprocity, is also a central aspect in most religious modalities of participation. This religious touch is not necessarily enacted through physical contact; for instance, Hindu devotees get “in touch” with the divine energies transferred through the heat of the sacred sacrificial fire by fanning it through hand-waving gestures. In a similar manner, digital platforms can produce contact, and even impart healing touch, without corporeal proximity (see Homewood 2022). The pandemic lockdown “digitized intimacy, generating creative ways of generating closeness without physical touch” (Zakaria 2020). Far from cold and detached, computer and phone screens can be perceived as sensuous when technology facilitates tactile ritual efficacy. In Pentecostal healing rituals performed online “the screens become transformed theologically into prosthetics of the pastor” (Mellquist Lehto 2020b), allowing the “ laying of hands” (Homewood 2022) and the Holy Spirit to be an “embedded presence within the digital infrastructure” (Addo 2021, 41). In Ankana Das’s essay, “Touchless Technology, Untouchability, and the COVID-19 Pandemic,” the technologies of touchless holy water dispensers and temple bells, with electronic sensors capturing movement and delivering participants from dangerously contaminating “touch,” are described as reinforcing the basic tenets that underlie the system of untouchability and casteism. Registers of sanitization and hygiene in this case overlap with traditional and discriminatory registers of ritual purity and pollution. The skin plays a fundamental role in social relations—as the Korean term “skinship” aptly reminds us (Mellquist Lehto 2020a)—and in the construction of the social-spatial sacred, borrowing from Brent Plate’s concept of the skinscape of religion (2012). The skin is a boundary that helps to define the body of the individual while mediating exchanges between bodies, outside the self. Pandemics heighten our attention to our personal boundaries. Our bodies, our skinscapes, become less separable from our environment and from what goes in and out of other people’s bodies, unsettling distinctions between self and other, and what exactly separates the two—a face mask; plexiglass; one meter of space. When we are “in touch,” when we assemble, what exactly is being shared? And what is it that we cannot share when we are “out of touch,” in a contactless congregation? Religious communities that traditionally emphasize the importance of protecting the line between touch/untouch, and pure/polluting have found a new

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sense of pride as registers of viral contagion and ritual impurity overlap. In effect, as Kathinka Frøystad remarks, conservative upper-caste Hindus were already “masters of social distancing” (2021, 11) well before this Covid-generated expression was made popular. High-caste Hindus might have found in the pandemic a reason to relegitimize untouchability as a “scientific” practice (see essay 17). Caribbean Hindus in Sinah Theres Kloß’s essay, “‘We Knew It!,’” are taking pride in the fact that, in pandemic times, traditional namaste greetings with a contactless hand gesture are seen as more hygienic and civilized than the Western handshake (the same has been emphasized on Jain websites and social media; see Maes 2022; De Jonckheere 2022). In their temple rituals, through physical touch, auspicious substances are transferred to all touching parties. Kloß argues that COVID-19 has brought awareness to Hindus and non-Hindus alike that human touch and asymmetrical “regimes of touching” are part of all body politics and have always been relevant to the construction of society and social relationships. Shared experiences of taste, the intake of food and other substances, is a central component of many sensational forms and ritual transactions (Pinard 1991). For Catholic practitioners, ingesting the body of Christ through Holy Communion is a literal, embodied act. Beverly Anne Devakishen’s essay, “A Bread and Wine Issue,” conveys the sense of loss in the absence of the sensory experience of the Eucharist. Watching online masses, the worshipers are encouraged to take a spiritual rather than material Communion. The consequences of such inability to physically come together for robust sacramental life “are not uniformly felt” (Sheklian 2020) among Christians of diverse denominations, as liturgical requirements among many Protestant denominations allow for the practice of the ritual of Holy Communion over Zoom, with participants in some cases eating crackers and drinking grape juice sourced from their own kitchen cabinets. Matthew J. Cressler (2020) reminds us that in Catholic sacramental sensibility the divine can be touched, smelled, and tasted. Covidian regimes of untouchability are thus unequally felt as impediments for one’s ritual life. Far from surrendering to the enforced separation of bodies and senses, during the first Covid-related curfew in India, city dwellers were encouraged to make noise, banging on metal plates and blowing into their ritual conch shells, reproducing auspicious temple soundscapes (essay 17). Sufi dhikr practitioners in Singapore transposed their sonic gatherings onto Zoom, where they learned a new digital-social etiquette to mute themselves while loudly chanting the names of God from the isolation of their shared domestic spaces (essay 23). In a similar way, the Matua low-caste community in India and Bangladesh relies upon

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pre-pandemic techniques of sonic healing to fight COVID-19 through sacred drumming, chanting, and dance. These sonorous rituals are encouraged by spiritual leaders as they are believed to enhance immunity and protect from the viral spread, just like a sonic vaccine (essay 18). During the Covid pandemic, newly mediated rituals are never completely spontaneous inventions; rather, they build upon established conventions and sanctioned sensory modalities in their reenactment of the auspicious use of touch, sight, smell, taste, and sounds, allowing for material and affective exchanges between human and other-than-human. Ritual communities in pre-pandemic times had already developed specific ways of translating ideologies of purity and pollution into the material sphere of technological devices. Orthodox Jewish children are taught in school that “smartphones could pollute or corrupt them, just through touch or even proximity, almost like second-hand smoke” (Fader 2020). Hindu Vaishnavas believe that cyberspace and the computer are problematic places for housing Vishnu, but many have developed “novel ways to mark the computer as a suitably sacred space” (Karapanagiotis 2010). Innovative ritual practices, such as burning incense in front of the computer, relocating it, or clearing the browser history, help to overcome violations of purity. Hence, disembodiment and de-sensorialization are not necessarily a result of the use of new technologies, but rather emerge as social and cultural constructions. Emphasizing this point, Show Ying Ruo’s essay, “De-sensorializing and Disembodying Chinese Religions in Singapore amid the COVID-19 Pandemic,” describes how Chinese religions have undergone a process of legally regimented de-sensorialization since postcolonial times in Singapore, while Covidian forms of religiosity, with their enhanced use of online platforms, presented affordances as well as complications, in the delicate spatial and financial reality of Chinese temples. Internet and social media culture seem to follow an ocularcentric epistemology whereby they engage first and foremost the sensory sphere of sight. This might be the reason why sight-centered engagements with the divine—for example, darshan of a Hindu deity—found on websites and social media a viable place of worship long before the Covid pandemic (V. Bhatia 2020; Scheifinger 2010, 2013). Alvin Lim’s essay, “God’s Have Eyes,” describes PowerPoint projections and live-streaming of rituals for both Christian and Chinese folk religion practitioners in order to discuss pandemic forms of praying online. Temples offered a steady camera pointed at the altar during a two-hour daily live-streaming that allowed visual contact between the quarantined devotee and the tutelary God. This act of praying through seeing the deity on the screen is reciprocal: the worshipers see and offer prayers because they are also simultaneously seen. Lim suggests that in newly mediated prayers through Facebook live-streaming, gods

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have eyes in the form of the technology of the camera, where the camera does the looking, to see acts of digital devotion. Where does the body of the devotee end? Where can the senses of the deity reach? These essays show that religious sensoriums are not circumscribed in a boundary made of skin nor contained in the shape of a material icon, but rather can extend and become augmented through additional limbs, such as cameras and headphones, enabling “cordless” contact without bodily presence. While Zoom celebrations, touchless temple bells, and WhatsApp ritual transactions might be understood as examples of disembodiment by both insiders and outsiders, the essays in this section complicate this assumption and suggest that new mediations of sensational forms are not utilized in a sensory vacuum. Rather, we should sharpen our tools to understand remote forms of religious practice as sensory experiences in their own right.

15

“We Knew It!” Caribbean Hindu Responses to Restrictions of Touch during COVID-19 Sinah Theres Kloβ

On March 16, 2020, I received a message on social media from some of my Surinamese and Guyanese Hindu friends, who shared an image file that commented on the hygienic precautions and regulations enforced in an increasing number of nation-states during the emerging COVID-19 pandemic. The images and backgrounds varied and had been adapted to personal taste, including Hindu symbols such as the aum sign or depictions of Hindu deities. They generally included the following text (web figure 15.1): When Hindus were wishing each other with Namaste—They laughed. When Hindus were washing hands and legs before entering home— They laughed. When Hindus were worshiping Animals—They laughed. When Hindus were worshiping Plants Trees Forests—They laughed. When Hindus were primarily having Veg diet—They laughed. When Hindus were doing Yoga—They laughed. When Hindus were worshiping God and Goddess—They laughed. When Hindus were burning the dead—They laughed. When Hindus bathed after attending a funeral—They laughed. Well guess what?? Nobody is laughing now. So It’s Rightly Said; #Hinduism Is Not A Religion, It Is A Way Of Life (Author unknown) To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/15

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The text and its related images were widely shared on social media, among not only Caribbean Hindus but Hindus worldwide. In India, the text seems to have been shared particularly by Hindu nationalist groups. In the Caribbean, Hindus forwarded the message to show their pride in being Hindu, which has to be seen in light of the fact that they live in post-indentureship societies where, for more than a century, Hindus have been experiencing stigmatization and marginalization as followers of a minority religion.

Caribbean Hindu Claims to Superiority In the predominantly Christian colonial societies of the then British and Dutch Guiana, Christianity was linked to the notions of “civilization,” “education,” and “respectability” (Stoler 1989; Wilson 1969). From the perspective of the colonizers, only Christians were considered “civilized,” while Hindus were regarded as “uncivilized” and “backward” and thus inferior (Kloß 2016; Vertovec 1994; Williams 1991). Consequently, Hindus have been subjected to and concerned with Christian efforts of proselytization ever since the arrival of Indian indentured laborers in the Caribbean between 1838 and 1917; such efforts continued well into the twentieth century. Even today, some express the need to constantly justify and defend their practices and beliefs in light of the dominant Christian ideals. Not all Caribbean Hindus accept this stigmatization, however; some actively challenge it by emphasizing the sophistication and authenticity, and hence superiority, of Hinduism. In their efforts, they are increasingly supported by conservative Hindu nationalist ideologies, promoted in diasporic Hindu communities worldwide. In the Caribbean, discourses of Hindu superiority and the proclamation of “greater” knowledge in comparison to Christianity are commonly used to contest and subvert the local socioreligious hierarchy and notions of ­respectability (Kloß 2017). In this context of marginalization, my Caribbean Hindu friends shared the image files as a comment on COVID-19 measures around the globe in general, but also as a means of claiming (global) Hindu superiority. The message itself listed nine sociocultural norms and practices that are said to be among the central aspects of the Hindu “way of life.” By proclaiming that—unlike Christianity— Hinduism is not a religion, but a way of life, Caribbean Hindus often emphasized the “truthfulness” and “authenticity” of Hinduism in opposition to other “religions,” particularly Christianity. For instance, during my ethnographic fieldwork between 2015 and 2017, many Guyanese Hindus referred to “religion” as a kind of orthodox structure that is imposed on a community and “cast upon”

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people (Kloß 2019). They understood “religion” as something formal and inauthentic. On the contrary, they referred to “spirituality” as a “way of life,” suggesting that it emanates “from within” a group or person. Hinduism, as a kind of spirituality and way of life, was considered more “natural” and “authentic” than Christianity, as it had not been imposed on Indians during colonialism, and affects all spheres of a person’s life. With regard to the “When Hindus . . .” text and images, the statement that Hinduism is a “way of life” thus may be understood as a challenge to Christianity and, more broadly, to the “West,” which Caribbean Hindus often generalized as Christian. It furthermore added to the emphasis pandits usually give to the scientific credibility of Hindu philosophy and astrology, often suggesting that Hindu science is superior to “Christian” or secular science.

Bodies, Touch, and Pollution in Hinduism All practices referred to in the message were related to notions of pollution, (im)purity, hygiene, and touch. While even non-Hindus can easily relate some practices—such as bathing, washing, and the burning of the dead—to “hygiene” or precautions during the pandemic, other references require more contextual knowledge. For example, the practice of “wishing each other with Namaste” refers to the customary Hindu greeting, during which a person presses their hands together, fingers pointed upwards and palms touching (web figure 15.2). During this greeting, no physical contact occurs between the parties involved and the risk of pathogen transmission is minimized. From a Hindu perspective, the polluting capacity of the “Western” handshake is obvious—and not only in times of COVID-19: all bodies are considered to be “polluted” to varying degrees. Additionally, bodies are conceptualized as permeable and open (Böhler 2011; Holdrege 1998), divisible or “dividual” (Marriott 1976). They are perceived as constantly emitting substances, particles, and energies into their surroundings, and as simultaneously receiving substances and energies from other emitting entities. While such transmission may occur without direct contact, physical touch is thought to concentrate the flow of substances and energies, intensifying the exchange. Tactility thus is considered a particularly effective and influential mode of exchange, with either negative (“polluting”) or positive (“purifying”) implications. The message widely shared online suggested that although Hindus have been ridiculed for their greeting practices in the past, during COVID-19 even nonHindus finally realized that the namaste greeting is indeed a “better,” “cleaner,” and “healthier” mode of greeting. By sharing the “When Hindus . . .” text and

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images, Caribbean Hindus challenged the allegedly higher status of Western/ “Christian” practices and knowledge, claiming superior knowledge and status in local and global social hierarchies. In addition to discursive negotiations on a global level, touch continues to be of particular importance in the context of Caribbean Hindu practices. COVID-19 has impacted Hindu ritual practices by increased restrictions on touch and the need to observe social distancing, influencing sociohierarchical contestations within religious communities.

Ritual Touching During ritual veneration of Hindu deities (puja), auspicious energies emanate and spread into the atmosphere from the site where the sacrificial fire burns and the fire offering (hawan kund) takes place. These circulating energies, substances, and blessings enter human and other physical bodies. My Hindu informants explained to me that the closer one sits to the altar and ritual, the more energy one receives (Kloß 2021). The amount received becomes gradually less the farther back one sits in a temple. To receive and spread these energies, people in the congregation raise their right hands and arms during the offering of resin incense (sambrany) and clarified butter (ghee) and fan the air with wavy movements. While every person who is present during puja and sensually involved in the ritual proceedings receives some auspicious energies, the person conducting the offering (jajman), members of the offering unit, and the pandit receive the most blessings. Commonly, the jajman is touched on the shoulder by his or her attending spouse and children. Although energies may be transferred via the atmosphere, touch remains an effective means of intensifying and facilitating interpersonal transfer. This mode of connection ensures that all touching parties involved will receive energy. It is even common during puja for all members of a congregation to move closer to the hawan kund to touch a person in front of them, so that in this way all become physically connected to the ritual agent and form a temporary unit (web figure 15.3). Questions of touch—particularly the question of who may touch whom during the ritual process—have been carefully regulated in Hindu communities and are tacit knowledge among members of the congregation. However, with the increasing restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic, questions regarding the accessibility of temples, particularly indoor temples, have been raised. In the past, “impurity” has been a category of bodies on the basis of which access to temples was denied. People were categorized temporarily as “impure” if they had consumed “rank” (polluting substances including meat, eggs, and

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alcohol) prior to puja, had not bathed and changed into clean clothes, or were menstruating. During the initial months of the pandemic, the number of temple visitors had to be restricted to adhere to health measures and to take into account a heightened risk of “polluted” bodies. In this way, only a select number of people were allowed access to a temple during puja, without the possibility to congregationally touch and form ritual units. Notable exceptions were priests, ritual practitioners, and ritual offering groups, usually consisting of members of one household who were allowed to touch. It is likely that these novel impositions (re-)structured social hierarchies in the religious communities and led to renewed competition to qualify as “deserving” members of a religious community who may still receive auspicious substances and energies via touch (Kloß 2016).

Regimes of Touching Restrictions and regulations of touching and not touching have always been influential and relevant in Hindu concepts, hierarchies, practices, and rituals; one only has to think of the category of the “untouchable” to find evidence of this. But COVID-19 made Hindus and non-Hindus alike drastically aware of the fact that human touch and regimes of touching are part of all (national and local) body politics and are intrinsic aspects of biopower. Touch is always part of the social practices, strategies, and mechanisms through which power relations and power asymmetries are (re-)constructed and redefined. This not only is the case for religious or ritual contexts but also relates to public health and medical practices. One example is the policing of women’s bodies during pregnancy through various modes of touch (from caressing the belly to obstetric violence) and by a variety of social actors, including midwives and physicians, family members, friends, and strangers in public contexts (Foucault 1973; Duden 1993; Lupton 1999). COVID-19 has changed the perception and recognition of the relevance of touch to public health, leading to adjustments of safety measures and modes of surveillance.

16

A Bread and Wine Issue “Losing” the Eucharist during the Pandemic Beverly Anne Devakishen

On February 14, 2020, in an unprecedented move, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore announced that all Masses would be suspended until further notice due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Phua 2020). Catholics were encouraged to watch broadcasts of Masses online, which were mostly posted on YouTube. When Archbishop William Goh, the head of the Catholic Church in Singapore, announced that Masses were halted, he stated, “I invite you to make the greatest sacrifice of all, which is to deprive ourselves of the celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass” (W. Goh 2020). The Sacrifice of the Mass is also referred to as the Sacrificial Eucharist, which Catholics would not be able to partake in when attending online Masses. Receiving Holy Communion has a long tradition as a central part of the order of the Catholic Mass (McBride 2006). As Catholics receive the Communion wafer during Mass, they are remembering an event that was recorded in the Bible as happening two thousand years ago—when Jesus, the night before he died, sat down with his disciples to eat bread and drink wine together. Catholics believe that once the blessings have been given, the Communion wafer and the wine transubstantiate into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The reenactment of a specific historical event—the Last Supper—coupled with the significance of Jesus’s physical form and of his death, make the Holy Eucharist a central part of the Mass. Indeed, the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that “the Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice” (Catholic Church 2012b).

To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/16

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How, then, can Mass be celebrated without the Holy Eucharist during the COVID-19 crisis? In a televised Mass and Eucharistic adoration, Pope Francis proposed that Catholics take part in a “spiritual Communion.” He offered an example of what a spiritual Communion prayer might sound like: “Since I cannot at this moment receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart” (cited in Mares 2020). A spiritual Communion refers to the act of uniting oneself to the Eucharistic Sacrifice through prayer. The idea of spiritual Communion has existed in the Catholic tradition for centuries. Pope Francis revived it specifically for presentday circumstances. In 1700, St. Alphonsus Liguori also wrote a prayer centered around the spiritual Communion, ending it with “Since I cannot receive Communion at this moment, feed my soul at least spiritually. I unite myself to you now as I do when I actually receive you” (cited in Wooden 2020). However, as evidenced by these two prayers, the celebration of spiritual Communion is inherently an acknowledgment of loss, a vacuum that exists in the religious routines of a devout Catholic. While Pope Francis seemed to have offered a temporary solution to the inability of Catholics to receive Communion during the pandemic, he also declared that “online Masses and spiritual communion do not represent the church” and lamented the insufficiency of virtual Mass services (Catholic News Service 2020).

Responses from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore The archdiocese oversees all 360,000 Catholics and thirty-two Catholic churches across Singapore. When the Singapore government rolled out COVID-19 measures, the archdiocese relayed messages to Catholics about how parish members would be affected via their website and their social media pages. Many Catholics would also share the archdiocese’s statements via WhatsApp, widening the circle of communication. On the archdiocese website, there is a section labeled “COVID-19,” where details about the impact of COVID-19 measures on Catholics can be found. Clarifications are also listed under the “Frequently Asked Questions” subsection. The question related to the Eucharist articulates the anxieties around the physical consumption of the Holy Communion: “Aren’t we supposed to receive Holy Communion every Sunday?” The response states that the canonical requirement is only once a year and includes a reminder that some Catholics had already been unable to receive Holy Communion before the pandemic. “Catholics whose state in life does not permit them to receive Holy Communion [e.g., unconfessed mortal sin, irregular marital situation] are still

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welcome at Mass and are invited to make a Spiritual Communion instead” (Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore 2020). By pointing out that spiritual Communion is regularly made by some Catholics regardless of the pandemic, this response attempts to normalize it. However, it also reminds audiences that spiritual Communion is usually reserved for less-than-ideal situations. During in-person Mass, almost every adult in the congregation stands up to queue for Holy Communion. The exceptions are individuals whose “state in life” deviates from certain Catholic norms, including divorcees and remarried individuals; they usually remain seated (Estévez 2006). Their circumstances are often communally known, and their inability to queue for Holy Communion with the rest of the congregation continuously reminds the community that these individuals are considered morally unfit for the embodied consumption of the Eucharist. When Eucharistic celebrations are confined to individuals’ homes, the implications of visibly refraining from receiving sacramental Communion are removed. The pressures of attending Mass in a physical religious space, where deviance from religious norms may be made visible to the community repeatedly, were eased. Another question posed on the archdiocese website reads, “How often can one make a Spiritual Communion?” The reply quotes local priest Father Ignatius Yeo, speaking on CatholicSG Radio: “Spiritual Communion is an expression of our love for God. . . . Spiritual Communion can be done everywhere. Driving to work, on the MRT, everywhere. . . . As often as you wish.” In the statement, Father Yeo tells audiences that they can make spiritual Communion in any environment, even in a highly secular, public space like the metro, without the presence of a community. In the absence of a physical space where Catholics can gather to receive Holy Communion, Father Yeo advocates for sacred acts to transcend the boundaries of a church building, reiterating the archdiocese’s goal of reassuring Catholics that even during the pandemic there are still avenues for them to practice their faith, while cautiously reminding them of the sacredness and irreplaceability of sacramental Communion.

How Do Singapore Catholics Feel about Their Inability to Receive Holy Communion? Within the small group of fellow Singaporean Catholics I have spoken to, the sense of community was singled out by many as an aspect of the Mass that p ­ eople missed, separate from the act of receiving Holy Communion. “I miss the sense of community that you get from just attending Mass—hearing a large congregation singing the Our Father has always been a particularly moving experience for me, and I’ve really missed that,” a young Catholic man stated. For people like him,

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embodied practices, such as singing and receiving the sacraments, gain meaning through the communal experience (web figure 16.1). For other Catholics, the physical act of participating in the sacraments plays a central role in their faith. Theologically, eating the body of Christ is a literal and embodied practice, and it is not meant to be a symbolic gesture that can be separated from physical consumption (Catholic Church 2012a). Both my fifty-two-yearold parents expressed their yearning to receive Holy Communion during the Circuit Breaker period, stating that it is the most important part of the Mass for them. “The physical act of it going into my body makes me feel like Jesus is part of me,” my father said. My mother referred to the sense of renewal she experienced when receiving Holy Communion in Mass because of the physical reminder of the presence of Jesus. “Having the body of Christ in me gives me the strength to be who he wants me to be for the next week,” she explained. For both of them, the literal act of consumption is more than a symbolic transference of the values embodied by Jesus. The tangible feeling of having the Communion wafer, the bread and body of Christ, entering one’s own body is an impactful experience that cannot be practically or theologically re-created during online Masses.

16.2. The author’s brother, mother, and father attending online Mass from her bedroom. Singapore, 2020. Credit: Beverly Anne Devakishen.

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This became more evident when I asked my father’s aunt how she felt about being unable to receive Holy Communion during the lockdown, when the only Mass services available were online. “I can’t find the words to describe the absence of receiving the real Holy Eucharist as we are accustomed to. It’s like taking a virtual shower without getting wet,” she told me. Her unusual analogy reveals a sense of disembodiment, a bodily disconnection that arises from watching a virtual Eucharistic celebration without being able to partake in it. My twenty-year-old brother, on the other hand, has found online Masses to be helpful. He shared that attending Mass online pushed him to rely less on sacramentality and to trust his own spiritual intuition. For him, the process of receiving Communion acted as an affirmation of his sense of connection with God. Attending virtual Masses, without access to the Holy Communion that acted as a bridge mediating between him and God, has helped to strengthen his confidence in his own faith. “I just have to trust that my interpretation of the readings is what God wants me to take away from Mass,” he said (web figure 16.3). My brother echoes sentiments articulated by Matthew Cressler (2020). Theologically, the consumption of Christ’s body and blood is meant to be an embodied and literal activity, and not a symbolic ritual. However, Cressler points out that, with communal consumption of the body of Christ on hold, Catholics must grapple with what is left of Catholicism without sacramentality or embodied practices. In a time when Catholic bodies of authority are suddenly unable to create a uniform experience of the Eucharistic sacrament, individuals must reckon with their relationships to the Holy Communion on their own. The various types of responses to “losing” the Eucharist in Singapore, captured in this essay, demonstrate the diversity of individual ways of understanding and sensing sacramentality. As Cressler (2020) states, “With churches emptied and Catholics receiving sacraments via Zoom, perhaps all that remains is sincere belief.”

17

Touchless Technology, Untouchability, and the COVID-19 Pandemic Ankana Das

As India grappled with establishing measures to combat the spread of COVID-19, the centrality of sociocultural and religious traditions in the country took the shape of special religious adaptations that function as measures for disease prevention. India imposed a nationwide lockdown on March 24, 2020, which caused radical changes in citizens’ everyday lives, including the realm of religious praxis. The Indian government handled the pandemic in a manner that is congruent with Hindu religious sentiments. Just before the lockdown, on March 22, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged citizens to create noise by banging utensils, blowing conch shells, and ringing bells (BBC News 2020b); this was supposed to simulate a cacophony of efficacious sounds usually associated with temple spaces. Later, on April 5, people also lit small lamps in their homes at his urging (Times of India 2020). Alongside these activities, newspaper reports and social media revealed that people from different parts of the country were seeking divine intervention to end the “curse” of COVID-19. People from Bengal, Assam, Bihar, and Orissa took to appeasing a newfound goddess known as Mother Corona, or Corona Devi (Samanta 2020). These worshipers, mostly women, understood coronavirus as a manifestation of the goddess, a reminder that humans are not always in control of their environments and are always meant to be dependent on God. Others used the virus to amplify Hindu theories on impurity, through the register of infection, and degradation by contamination, and saw the coronavirus outbreak as a reminder of the importance of untouchability. Practices such as physical and social distancing and

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frequent sanitization of spaces and bodies became sites for cultivating and reinforcing notions of caste and more specifically notions about untouchability.

Hindu Temple Spaces in the Covid-19 Pandemic In a typical Shiv temple in South Delhi, seventeen-year-old Shivam (a pseudo­ nym) assists his father in his daily temple rituals. He is a devout shiv bhakt (devotee) and says with confidence that his comprehension of the gods’ vocabulary and the religious scriptures is more informed than that of many people who might be more vocal than him on social media. For Shivam and his family, who reside in the temple compound, the pandemic has been an exceptionally difficult time—without the presence of devotees, the temple’s space felt alien to them. From August 2020, the government allowed devotees to visit religious sites, with certain necessary precautions. Devotees must maintain physical distancing and abide by government rules by wearing face masks and frequently sanitizing their hands. Temple gates also sold sanitizer bottles along with bottled water from the holy river Ganga, labeled “Ganga Jal,” and other religious items such as sacred amulets. The faith in religious materiality for good health and safety (as with sacred amulets) is thus mixed with the championing of science and modernity (hand sanitizers). For Shivam, the use of sanitizers was permissible, but only if people also recognized the efficiency of sacred forms of purification, such as the Ganga Jal.

“Natural” Ganga Jal as Sanitizer? The water from the river Ganga has long been considered pure and sacred. However, claims to the purity of the river water have come under serious attack at least since the beginning of the twenty-first century, when polluting runoffs from irrigation projects and industries began to be assessed in terms of their environmental impacts (Kedzior 2014). Regardless, during the pandemic several claims popped up regarding the efficiency of Ganga Jal as a treatment for the deadly virus (Dutta 2020). Couching their argument within the language of science, believers insisted that since Ganga Jal never rots, it can be used as a natural sanitizer. Some devotees even claim that Ganga Jal is more efficacious than any medical treatment. These beliefs also supplement the custom of jal samadhi (water burial), in which corpses are floated on the Ganga following Hindu rituals, a practice that continued into the pandemic. In May 2021 hundreds of corpses, likely of Covid victims, were found floating on the river or half-buried on its shores, leading to mass panic and outrage in the country owing to the flouting of COVID-19 protocols in management of the infection (Singh and Rehman 2021).

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As a high schooler with a keen interest in science and technological inventions, Shivam respects these fields and enjoys opportunities to explain divine interventions through scientific vocabulary. While talking about the efficacy of Ganga Jal as a natural sanitizer (web figure 17.1), he said, “Nah, it might not work as accurately as an alcohol-based sanitizer. Do you even know the amount of pollutants that go into the Ganga?” He then earnestly cited statistics on the number of industries that empty their waste waters into the Ganga, thereby reducing the potency of the revered river. But I asked sarcastically, “Is the Ganga not divine? How can one reduce its divinity by mere mortal acts of polluting it by industrial wastes?” To this, his father, the aged priest Prabhakar, said, “Of course it is divine. But these days the number of nonbelievers have outnumbered believers, therefore creating a disbalance in the harmony between nature and modernity.” Prabhakar further continued. “When nonbelievers get together and disrespect religion, be it by bypassing caste laws or religious deliverance, believers stand at a risk of losing out the relevance of the divine.” Prabhakar also believes that the current virus outbreak is an indication of divine displeasure caused by society’s rampant ignorance of traditions and its increasing reliance on science. Shivam and his father’s engagement with modern science complicates commonplace assumptions by revealing diverse modalities of intersecting religion and science. On one hand, Shivam and his father conflate the natural with the holy, but on the other, they also accept scientific postulates to explain the environment. While science itself has never developed in a void of religious background and cultural assumptions, this essay asks whether scientific and technological innovations can fit into preexisting ritual knowledge systems, implicitly feeding the notions of purity and pollution that lie at the basis of the discriminatory practice of casteism.

Science, Technology and the Question of Caste A Hindu temple in Mangalore was lauded on social media for its installation of an automatic “holy water dispenser” (web figure 17.2) to help reduce the risk of transmitting germs (Saxena 2020). It distributes individual doses of water without devotees having to touch any part of the device. The machine, says its developer, is contactless so that devotees can maintain hygiene while engaging in religious activities. Though this machine works on a very basic mechanism, its presence inside a temple is what has attracted people the most. In another instance, in a temple in South India, devotees can now ring the holy bell without actually making any contact with the bell (web figure 17.3). This

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“contactless bell” is developed in a way so that it can be rung without physically touching it. When religious institutions reopened around June 2020, this particular temple became a popular destination for religious as well as nonreligious people to witness what they called the “automatic bell.” The sensor in the bell allows it to be rung every time a person comes beneath it with folded hands. Both these technologies use electronic sensors to translate the actions of humans towards the divine, capturing human presence via movement and translating it into the performance of a ritual handless gesture. When the idea of ritual performance is embedded with a dependence on the electronic, how can it fit into established codes of caste in Hinduism? How can the “touchless temple bell” or the “automatic holy-water dispenser” help conceptualize untouchability in modern Indian society, where urbane casteism is rampant? Here, with the help of technology, casteism—the ideology that deems touch as ritually polluting—is reimagined on the lines of a logical and rational conception. Technological ritual innovation, in this sense, reinforces existing social barriers and prejudices against lower castes and Dalits by regulating the concept of touch and, further, that of contamination. It validates and facilitates untouchability by making the practice of physical contact mechanical, thereby less stigmatizing on humanistic grounds. One might argue that these technologies lift prevalent ideas of physical touch by making touchlessness universal for all devotees in the temple space, irrespective of caste or religious affiliation. But in Indian cities the spread of COVID-19 has been accursed on Muslim minorities and lowcaste migrant workers (Apoorvanand 2020). We have earlier seen how the priest from Delhi believed that if all persons maintained the caste system, abiding by its laws of purity and pollution, the coronavirus would not have spread so mercilessly. The assumption that improvements in the fields of science and technology will lead to a better world for Dalits seems improbable. It is only likely that the comfort of these technologies might be furthered in other spaces of social contact so as to systematically enforce the logic of untouchability.

The Costs of Touchless Technologies One might argue that touchless technology, instead of furthering caste sentiments, could aid in their dismantling. That is, if “touch” is done away with and democratized into homogeneous “touchlessness,” then perhaps notions of caste will also lose importance in everyday rituals. However, the idea of caste is not simply limited to the physical aspects of untouchability. It is entrenched in everyday values and social perceptions about merit, capability, worth, and authority. To assume that touchless technologies will assist in dispelling caste prejudice by

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extending the stigma of contamination through touch to all temple visitors, ­irrespective of caste, is an overly optimistic way of looking at the problem. Even outside the discourse on caste, if instances of touchless technologies induced by the COVID-19 pandemic expand into other sectors of public life, then we would need to rethink how we envision human touch and contact. The use of touch-free technology—the new gadgets that replace hands and fingertips to push elevator buttons and door handles, for example—inculcate a sense of impurity associated with human touch, where metal, wood, or plastic tools (also presently marketed as “touch-tools”) help maintain a degree of separation between the human body and its surroundings (John 2020). While technology-imbued temple paraphernalia are useful to minimize the potential of contagion, we also need to be wary of the implicit discrimination that can accompany the ideas that these very technologies inadvertently inculcate. What appear to be dystopian assumptions about the connections between these technological inventions and untouchability might not be only speculation. The Indian government’s Technology Vision 2035 from the Department of Science and Technology outlines a technology-driven future where the notion of “human touch” in several public and commercial sectors is discouraged. Also, from fictitious imaginations, a recent commercial TV series, titled Leila, amply explores what a technology-assisted future might look like (Das 2021). Its portrayal of technology-assisted human segregation, perpetuated by an authoritarian government that resonates with popular majoritarian Hindu sentiments, resembles present-day happenings around the country. Amid all these, what we are left with is hope, and our scholarly weapons of engaging with contemporary problems and encountering them academically.

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The Sonic and the Somatic Matua Healing Practices during COVID-19 Raka Banerjee, Dishani Roy, Carola E. Lorea, Fatema Aarshe, Md. Khaled Bin Oli Bhuiyan, and Mukul Pandey

“Buker bhitor koshto hoy” (I feel pain in my heart), shared Masterda, a middleaged Matua singer and practitioner from Bangladesh, explaining the difficulty of adjusting to pandemic-induced restrictions on religious gatherings during a telephone conversation in November 2020.1 The Covid era has deeply impacted the interwoven sonic and somatic healing practices of the relatively little-known Matua religion and its devotees. Since the imposition of lockdown across South Asia, the public life of Matua religiosity that is manifested in vibrant ritual gatherings has retreated to a state of sensory deprivation. The explicit reference to bodily suffering, experienced due to the inability to achieve spiritual ecstasy through Matua ritual practices of singing and dancing, hints at the centrality of sonic and somatic elements in Matua healing. In a world that now seeks healing from the social as well as somatic dangers of the coronavirus, this article chronicles the ways in which the Matua community is adopting new modalities of “doing religion” and responding to the Covidian age, both spiritually and corporeally.

Salvific Sound Connecting the Subcontinent Arising out of a religiosocial movement, the Matuas have historically deployed strategies of healing from social and physical diseases, allaying social wounds like untouchability and displacement, and countering their caste/class oppression. The Matua community emerged in the nineteenth century in the marshy southern To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/18

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area of East Bengal (now Bangladesh). Derived from popular Vaishnava devotionalism, Matua faith also developed as a separate caste-based religious movement to uplift the Namashudra (a lower-caste community), who were previously known as Candal. Its founding saints, Harichand Thakur and his son Guruchand, advocated for a religious practice grounded in samsara—family and worldly duties and responsibilities—emphasizing the dignity of labor. They condemned caste discrimination perpetrated by the high castes against the oppressed and gave importance to unity and education. The partition of India in 1947 disrupted the territorial unity of the Matua community, who are now scattered across the subcontinent after decades of forced migration. There are, at present, about fifty million Matua followers in India and Bangladesh. For this dispersed population, faith is significant in creating a sense of homeland (Lorea 2017, 4), as it is through their cultural traditions, religious festivals, and music performances that these groups deal with their physical and cultural isolation, especially because they had to resettle as refugees in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Matua ritual congregations adjusted to fit the medicogovernmental protocols implemented during pandemic times. Matua leaders limited the use of social space for devotees, who would otherwise have participated in ritual congregations (hari sabha and kirtan) in large numbers. The local festivals (the three-day mahotsab), as well as the annual Matua pilgrimage and ritual bathing, Baruni Mela, have been marred by the uncertainty of the pandemic. Due to the suspension of these mass gatherings in 2020 and 2021, Matuas had to rework their foundational beliefs and devise newer strategies to combat physical isolation while ensuring communal unity. In this essay, we explore the alternatives adopted by the Matuas, especially digitally mediated sonic healing, to experience proximity and divine presence despite the absence of collective religious practices of mediation.

Sonic Healing: Online Aural-Oral Mediations Matuas believe in the sonic potential of devotional togetherness through kirtan sessions and collective repetition of the sacred syllables haribol (uttering Hari, the Lord’s name) during ritual gatherings, accompanied by powerful and loud drumming. Further, Matua leaders and gosains (spiritual healers) have recommended that followers sing kirtan and perform matam (a ritual dance on the rhythm of the sacred drums that is said to impart spiritual and physical strength) to build stronger immunity to prevent the virus. These sacred music and dance genres are performed during weekly gatherings called hari sabha. Since March 2020, prohibitions on gathering produced a shift in congregations like hari sabhas to the online space alongside occasional small in-person meetings (web

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figure 18.1). These online sessions incorporate religious and political discussions, group prayers, and kirtan songs performed by devotees. Participants of these new Matua assemblies and Zoom talk shows are present as co-speakers, singers, or simply audience members, typing in jay haribol (hail to the name of Hari) and prayerful hand emojis in comments and live chats. The need to reproduce connection in the cyberscape is demonstrated by the number of new Matua Facebook pages and groups—including a global platform for Matua migrants settled in thirty-five different countries—that emerged during this period (web figure 18.3). What was earlier a bodily experience of singing, breathing, drumming, and dancing together in local congregations has now

18.2. A male Matua devotee singing a kirtan song during a live Facebook event hosted by the same account. Fellow devotees can be seen commenting by typing haribol in the live chat. Credit: Sri Sri Hariguruchand Bishwa Matua Prachar Taranga, New York, America 2020b.

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been taken up by transnational gatherings on online platforms like Zoom “rooms,” uniting people across space and time. Some gosains have also felt a compelling urge to impart diksha (initiation) over the phone, while preaching organizations (prochar shongho) have created new YouTube channels to upload Matua sacred music. Moreover, by uploading videos of pre-pandemic gatherings on YouTube and Facebook, devotees found comfort in witnessing, although remotely, a nostalgic return to collective rituals. Watching these videos, including Facebook live-streaming of domestic ritual singing, and participating in such modes of online religion open a space for sonic catharsis. This reconfiguration from the physical to the digital space has profound implications for the ways Matuas understand social unity and the collective ethos of kirtan. While the embodied practices “carry an anticipation of others’ bodies” (Downey 2002, in Sarbadhikary 2016, 26), the online space modifies such anticipation and rescales it to accommodate a community of isolated individual users. The moving image on the screen, the resonating sound from the earphones, and the online situatedness spark a visual and sonic unity, whereas touch seems to elude the digital platforms. However, the word “digital” itself is derived from a lexicon of embodiment (the Latin word digitalis, from digitus, meaning “finger” or “toe”). Thus, these digital platforms, however unequal in their degree of access, keep the religious lifeworld at the devotees’ fingertips and help community members to heal from diseases of the body, spirit, and society.

Sonic Cures and Devotional Remedies Matua beliefs interrogate the assumed polarities of body-spirit, individual-­ community, and science-religion, which underlie the dominant discourse of biomedicine. Interlocutors in Bangladesh, West Bengal, and the Andaman Islands are keen to adopt health measures as recommended by biomedical protocols, while maintaining ritual modalities of healing—like using face masks except during matam sessions; following the gosains’ plant-based remedies for illnesses; and performing vows (manot rakha) to ensure a quick recovery for diseased community members; but also using hand sanitizer as advised by medical doctors. The need for gosains’ guidance has increased during the pandemic, according to our interlocutors. They have prescribed a set of remedies against Covid contagion since the start of the pandemic. For instance, the regular performance of kirtan singing, even alone or in small groups with household members; recitation of a particular section of the sacred scripture (Harililamrita; Sarkar 1916) in which the divine founder Harichand Thakur saves one of his close devotees from

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cholera; consuming a pinch of holy soil of Thakurbari (rubbed off the land where the saintly gurus and their descendants have walked) mixed with water; drinking the water consecrated in the ritual pitcher (ghat) or water from the sacred pond of Thakurbari where devotees bathe during Baruni Mela. These measures, in conjunction with salvific songs and the sound of Harililamrita passages, which have helped Matuas get rid of epidemics, like cholera, in the past, are thought to prevent the viral infection of COVID-19 (Jago Matua 2020). Matua gatherings are highly sensory experiences of haptic and sonic communion, where collective crying, hugging, and touching one another’s feet are fundamental ritual gestures. According to Lorea (forthcoming), the soundscape of Matua faith enables a blurring of boundaries as sound penetrates the bodies of the devotees and reverberates across the body of the collective. Therefore, not only do devotees touch one another during kirtan, but it is also the sound that, literally and metaphorically, touches the devotee. In the digital, disembodied versions of Matua gatherings, the bodily manifestations of affective effervescence, like hugging and crying with one another, are absent. For the Matuas, it is the sensuous body, engaged in devotional ecstasy, that rekindles, protects, and heals the spirit of the downtrodden and the ailing. In the absence of this physical communion, the body sensorium experiences a deprivation of the “shared experience of devotion embodied through participation in congregational singing and dancing,” which “creates togetherness, belonging, and networks of emotional support” (Lorea, forthcoming). As an antidote, the Matuas resort to participating in online sessions, where individual speeches of predominantly male members stand in stark contrast to traditional ritual gatherings—physical spaces reverberating with the rhythms of instruments, singing voices, and dancing bodies, where women participate in large numbers. The Matua ritual dance, matam, is essentially performed in congregations and is considered an excellent form of physical exercise or dynamic yoga that helps devotees stay fit, healthy, and single-mindedly concentrated on the divine. It is believed that whoever chants the name of Hari and performs matam will not be infected by COVID-19. The loud sound of the drum and the breath-pacing repetition of haribol create a sonic intensification that is impermeable to any other sound, distraction, or even pathogens (Lorea, forthcoming). Because matam is believed to strengthen the immune system, making the mind calm and absorbed in ecstasy, it acts as a cleansing exercise. In these prescriptions by preachers and community leaders to increase the regularity of matam sessions to counter the pandemic, we find abundant medical jargon. Such is the potential of salvific sound, which not only salvages the devotee’s spirit but also protects the body from contamination and infection. This sound—loud, unmediated, and

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collective—cannot be reproduced with the technologies at our disposal. Not performing matam together, hence abiding to social-distancing regulations, is considered to adversely affect the devotee. For instance, some interlocutors believed that Subrata Thakur, a direct descendant of the founding saints, contracted the virus in 2020 because the members of his family do not perform matam; others assumed that because of his political role as subdistrict chairman he had been exposed to white-collar people from the cities, which is where the virus is believed to belong. For a community that believes in the intersectional dimensions of corporeal, spiritual, and social healing, the COVID-19 pandemic has affirmed their sensory devotional practices, both online and offline, through the perpetuation of salvific sounds. Whether singing and dancing in small groups or live-streaming from their homes, devotees create Matua sounds that amalgamate to usher communal healing and collective well-being by connecting isolated bodies—whether they are isolated because of forced displacement from their original homeland, or locked up at home in Covid-induced seclusion. In this sense, sonic and somatic healing practices become magnified during the pandemic and offer a testimony of the dispersed Matua groups’ resilience and continued use of religion as the thread that binds across social/somatic bodies and traverses international borders.

Notes 1.  This essay is based on the research conducted between September 2020 and February 2021 for the project Religion Going Viral: Pandemic Transformations of Religious Lives and Ritual Performances in Asia (principal investigator Dr. Carola E. Lorea), funded by the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

19

De-sensorializing and Disembodying Chinese Religions in Singapore amid the COVID-19 Pandemic Show Ying Ruo

From April 7 to May 4, 2020, the first round of an elevated set of control measures, known as the Circuit Breaker, was implemented in Singapore to minimize the spread of COVID-19. These measures were further extended to June 1, 2020, introducing stricter controls to curb the increasing number of COVID-19 cases. With phased reopening from June 2, Chinese temples and “vegetarian halls” (web figures 19.1 and 19.2) in Singapore are still coping with multiple challenges induced by the pandemic.1 The willingness of local temples to cooperate with the Singapore government was evident in their fast response to state regulation.

Closing Temple, Breaking Circuit After stricter controls were introduced in Singapore with the Circuit Breaker, Chinese temples, clearly belonging to “nonessential services” under the government’s categorization, were ordered to close. All celebrations, banquets, and Chinese opera performances were postponed indefinitely if not canceled. Chinese temple-goers, usually elderly, were asked to stay at home and no longer pray in the temples or interact face-to-face with their friends in the temples as a leisurely way to pass their time. To mitigate the forced separation of temples from their devotees, temples began to “go digital.” In this essay I describe reactions to COVID-19 in Singapore as a de-sensorialization mechanism, which is, I argue, not entirely a new way of regulating Chinese religions. To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/19

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Online Veneration of Ancestors Qingming, also known as Tomb-Sweeping Day, is an important festival for Singapore Chinese communities. It is the day when ancestor worship is practiced and filial piety emphasized. It is also a period when kinship ties and familial networks are rejuvenated through the collective act and bodily experience of grave cleaning. Amid the heightened uncertainty induced by the pandemic, tomb sweeping in Singapore also went online. Although Buddhist priests conducted related dharma services behind closed doors (bimen lichan 閉門禮懺), their services were live-streamed on Facebook. “Online veneration of ancestors” (xianshang jizu 綫上祭祖) services were particularly appreciated by people during the Qingming Festival. Bigger temples such as Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery (光明山普覺禪寺) and Fo Guang Shan (佛光山) both offered such services to cope with their great number of devotees. The website of Kong Meng San offers an “ancestor-praying package” including two LED lights (as a substitute for candles), one fortune cake (fagao 發糕), one fortune bag (fubao 福包), two oranges, two apples, and a bouquet of flowers, which can be purchased online for forty-eight Singapore dollars (Xu 2020). After payment, temple personnel proceed with the praying services on behalf of the descendants. Although Kong Meng San had already introduced the “Pray to Buddha online” (xianshang baofo 綫上拜佛) service in 2015, the temple expected an increase of six times the number of users in 2020. At Fo Guang Shan temple, demand exceeded supply for the “online veneration of ancestors” service. The temple is considering making the service a permanent one after the pandemic is over (Lianhe zaobao 2020), with long-lasting implications for the structure of traditional Chinese ancestor worship. In accordance with the de-sensorialization mechanism during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore, Chinese traditional funeral services and other rituals were further simplified (jianhua 簡化). Death specialists, such as providers of funerary goods and rites in Singapore, reported that an increasing number of people preferred shorter, simplified funerals during the pandemic (Tan 2020). The demand for faster funeral services, from one to three days rather than the traditional three to seven days, increased by 20 percent, while people who preferred immediate cremation increased by about 15 percent. In some cases, livestreaming of funeral services was made available as an efficient way of presenting condolences, while a growing number of people preferred to send condolences through online messaging. Against this backdrop, the ongoing debates over whether tombs in the historical cemeteries should be kept in land-starved Singapore or exhumed to give way to development have posed serious questions

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about the fate of Chinese rituals in Singapore.2 When simplified death rituals, online veneration of ancestors, and virtual tomb-sweeping become the norm, the function of cemeteries will be inevitably impacted.

Counting Blessings: Bathing Buddha in the Cloud Compared to other Chinese temples, Buddhist associations and monasteries in Singapore were fast in transferring their activities online, sometimes interpreting this as a chance to teach about the impermanence (wuchang 無常) of the sensory world. During this pandemic, the Medicine Buddha has been invoked as the dispeller of diseases and defilements. As a “Vesak Day Special,” Kong Meng San organized an online name chanting of the Medicine Buddha, and recitation counts could be submitted online. The merits of devotees’ chanting are dedicated to the relief of the suffering and ailments of those going through a difficult time. A “bathing Buddha in the cloud” (yunduan yufo 雲端浴佛) service was offered by some temples during Vesak Day. One could perform the popular activity of bathing baby Buddha with just a click. The Singapore Buddhist Federation and the Buddhist Library both introduced an “e-Vesak Day” program (xianshang weisai jie 綫上衞塞節); as Buddhists watched the live-streaming of Vesak celebrations online, they could at the same time bathe the Buddha virtually while staying physically at home (essay 12).

Surviving in the Virtual World In terms of conducting research during the pandemic, the inevitable methodological change from embodied experience of traditional in-person fieldwork to digital ethnography prompts us to rethink the many enduring implications of the process of de-sensorialization and disembodiment of Chinese religion in modern Singapore. Social-distancing measures implemented to contain the spread of the virus disrupted the conventional interaction and mutual obligations between Chinese temples and their devotees. For example, given the constraint on space in Singapore, most religious sites, including Chinese temples, are granted only thirty-year leases, at the end of which they have to either pay to renew the lease or purchase a new site from the government, relocate, and then build a new temple. “Combined temples” or “joint temples” are a new creation in Singapore since the 1980s whereby a few temples pool their funds and collectively purchase a plot of land, where they can construct a building to house their deities. As a consequence, devotees’ donations to temples function not only to please the gods or to

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praise their efficacies, but also to support the temple’s survival and relocation effort. During the pandemic, such donations have decreased significantly as devotees are unable to visit the temples. The same situation applies to smaller Hindu temples in Singapore, as their donations have dried up during the pandemic (Kor and Wong 2020). Technical challenges to set up online donation platforms impacted many Chinese temples during this period. Live-streaming services through Facebook, Skype, Zoom, and other portals pose great challenges for smaller temple administrators who cannot afford a tech-savvy support team to help with virtual temple affairs. They often belong to the older generation of Chinese, who speak Chinese dialects in their daily conversations and have rudimentary English. For Chinese temples with land leases expiring in a year or two, losing several months’ donations is not a small matter. While some established temples, such as the Kong Meng San and Fo Guang Shan, have easy access to technological resources and successfully set up online modalities to receive monetary offerings, smaller temples and family shrines struggle with limited funds. With the cancellation of ritual services and celebratory banquets where fundraising auctions are held, temples are unable to generate income in this period of social restriction. While established temples often have sufficient funds to publish newspaper announcements to inform their devotees about the temples’ situation during this period (sometimes they can even afford to publish notices in both the Lianhe zaobao 聯合早報 and the Straits Times), temples struggling financially in the middle the pandemic cannot afford to do so (web figures 19.3–19.6). The de-sensorialization and disembodiment of Chinese traditional culture did not start with the pandemic: it is a long-term project that started with the postcolonial nation building of Singapore as a modern, plurireligious, multiracial, and sanitized metropolis. Rituals have already been simplified to suit the busy urban lifestyle. Religious sights and sounds have been banned, limited, and constantly regulated in a constrained public space. The devaluing of certain forms of religious authority and the lack of transfer of certain ritual practices to younger generations also pose unprecedented challenges to the continuity of a sensorialized and embodied religious lifestyle in modern Singapore (web figure 19.7). The coronavirus intrusion prompts us to look into the history as well as the urgency of this de-sensorializing mechanism. To re-sensorialize Chinese religions and their access to people, items, and spaces, one has to take a closer look not only at the uneven distribution of resources in the time of COVID-19, but also at the mutually constitutive dynamic between religious experiences and people’s sense of community. What religious rituals are performed in the urbanized world of modern Singapore, and what are

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their functions in this sociocultural context? What are the differences in the sensory and embodied character of Chinese ritual activities in the history of early Singapore and today? What has changed, and what has remained significant? How is the human body involved and addressed virtually during the pandemic? What kinds of sensory engagements are bridged and what are those missing through virtual contacts? In this valuable exercise in digital ethnography, we are reminded to carefully study the sensory registers that are invoked during live-streaming of rituals and virtual sessions to understand whether the new ways to operationalize religion during the pandemic are meaningful and viable. In the middle of the pandemic, the de-sensorialization mechanism once again reminds us of the close connections linking people’s communication, their sense of community, and their religious worldview, tightly regulated and mediated by the official discourse.

Notes 1.  Vegetarian halls (zhaitang 齋堂) are a unique kind of Chinese temple in Singapore. Commonly known as Hall of the Goddess of Mercy (Guanyin Tang 觀音堂), vegetarian halls are a feminized space usually led by vegetarian nuns and their female disciples (see Show 2018). 2.  I am referring in particular to the case of Bukit Brown Cemetery and related discussion (see Han 2015).

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Gods Have Eyes Praying Online in Singapore Alvin Eng Hui Lim

Going to church in the early 2000s, I was used to PowerPoint slides that were projected on a big screen, magnifying long scriptural passages and song lyrics—Arial font size fourteen to sixteen—for the congregation to read. In fact, I had the experience of reading aloud from the Bible, on the pulpit, and behind me was the text of those verses. Even as churches began to embrace live broadcasting and online streaming of their services, the still images of biblical words remain as a mode of presentation. The ubiquitous use of PowerPoint slides (we might also include other presentation software such as Google Slides, Apple EndNote, and Prezi) in a church setting recalls scholarship on the efficacy of PowerPoint and, more broadly, the impact of media on religion and the religion-media interface (Stout 2012, 1). In Mark Ward’s (2015) “The PowerPoint and the Glory: An Ethnography of Pulpit Media and Its Organizational Impacts,” he argues how “the use—or nonuse—of the technology is . . . charged with overtones of how each body identifies and positions itself in the wider religious world” (176). A PowerPoint slide, for that matter, “visibly inhabits the central sacred space of a congregation” and “is integral to members’ central sacred experience” (176). The use of “slides” and technology in general may be driven by a practical reason, to enlarge text and, in so doing, focus on a specific line or passage (often charged with biblical and religious significance) for the congregation. But as David Stark and Verena Paravel demonstrate, the PowerPoint medium has a distinctive morphology. The projection slide, they argue, “could be a persuasive medium when it more fully exploited the given potential to manipulate text, sound To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/20

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and image” (2008, 50). Moreover, “its digital character provides affordances (1) that allow heterogeneous materials to be seamlessly re-presented in a single format that (2) can morph easily from live demonstration to circulating digital documents that (3) can be utilized in counter-demonstrations” (2008, 50). To this list, one might add that the morphology extends to the affordance that allows the preacher or speaker of the text to “pre-form the performance” (Stark and Paravel 2008, 32) and prepare each slide by cutting the scriptural word or biblical hymn into organized blocks of text. This editorial ability does not diminish the religious authority performatively gestured by biblical citation but enhances the experience of viewing it. In fact, within what Stark and Paravel might call the “geography of persuasion” (44), the composed image of the pulpit, with the pastor, the cross, and the PowerPoint Slides before the congregation, can always be potentially multiplied. During an important part of a sermon or when a pastor makes a salient point about the Bible, camera phones are often quickly poised to capture an image of the image. I begin with a look at PowerPoint and its morphology because of how persuasive and persisting a medium it is. The COVID-19 pandemic has since compelled religious gatherings to move to online platforms, and churches that were otherwise resistant to digital means of holding their weekly services have had to adapt and turn to digital technology. Some of these religious groups produced technologically advanced HTML5 websites to host and display their videos.1 Others, such as Grace Methodist Church, turned to Zoom to host their church services. The easy-to-read slides persist, the blocks of text amplified by the “Share Screen” function, the cameras still throughout, and faces of church pastors and worship leaders caught in a grid of sorts (web figures 20.1 and 20.2). This essay briefly examines the implications of composing multimedia in a single (visual) medium during a period of social isolation. Although these media are mostly videos, I observed that live-streaming or broadcasting of religious events such as sermons or temple rituals largely avoided overcomplicating their production and postproduction (editing). The cameras do not move much. There are not many cuts. But the focus remains on capturing some aspect of the sacred and the numinous, and the medium persuades the attendee to see with the sacred and communicate through the gesture of praying online.

The Gaze of the Still Camera: Who Is Looking at Whom? On April 7, 2020, the Daoist Lorong Koo Chye Sheng Hong Temple (新加坡韮菜 芭城隍庙) introduced the “Praying Online” initiative in response to safedistancing measures and the implementation of the Circuit Breaker period in

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Singapore. For two hours a day (ten thirty a.m. to twelve thirty p.m.), devotees can go to the temple’s Facebook page to view the main altar of the temple and pray to the tutelary deity, Qing Xi Xian You Bo Zhu (清溪显佑伯主), flanked by his aides and other deities. Devotees leave online messages and emoticons (🙏), and a monitor screen has been placed in front of the effigy for the deity to view these messages. The camera remains still throughout the online praying, while devotees visit and exit the online interface in that two-hour period. They can also return at another time to view the recording, or come back another day to watch a new live-stream. Christian and Daoist online religious gatherings in Singapore seem to engage the ocular sense in a simplified way compared to their former offline practices. There are fewer things to view. The background is often someone’s room or private space; it can also be a virtual backdrop that creates an illusion of another place. The use of the online platform and the mode of presentation mean that viewers look directly at the screen; the worship team, pastor, or spirit intermediary looks straight at the camera. They all perform for and with the screens. Instagram also shows that church congregations continue to engage with the screens by singing along during the worship segments (web figure 20.4). In the case of Sheng Hong Temple’s online Facebook Live video, the deity— via the effigy—was believed to “see” directly into the screen. Similar to “seeing” offerings by devotees of oranges and flowers placed in front of the altar, deities

20.3. Screenshot of Sheng Hong Temple’s Facebook Live video of the altar in the Sheng Hong Temple Main Hall and devotees’ prayers online, April 21, 2020. Credit: Lorong Koo Chye Sheng Hong Temple 2020.

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could view the devotees and their acts of devotion without the need for them to physically be in attendance. The live-streaming created the effect that the message would be read, in spite of the slight delay in the relay, and the act of devotion could substitute for the embodied practice of going to the temple. From a visual point of view, activities and gestures were kept to a minimal level such that there was still a simple engagement with the deity in the everyday. That sufficed. The simple, still gaze of the camera mediates the devotees’ focus on the stationary deities in the temple; the wide shot of multiple deities represents the deities’ reach beyond the camera and onto multiple screens, alluding to a sense of celestial gaze. In that sense, these technical choices articulate a simple yet nuanced understanding of the duality of gods as being both materially present through their effigies and statues and apart while they reside in their celestial seats. In the Christian context, a different kind of religious expression takes place. During Christian services streamed online, pastors asked viewers to close their eyes to pray, while looking at the camera themselves, and to feel the presence of God.2 This perhaps echoed Roland Barthes’s (1981) notion that “in order to see a photograph well, it is best to look away or close your eyes” (53). However, that is not to say that there is no seeing, or indeed any form of sensorial experience. After all, the Christian God has been described as invisible or having no physical form (Deuteronomy 4:12; John 1:18; John 5:37). The act of closing one’s eyes helps one to reorient towards the other senses in order to sense the presence of an omnipresent God.

The Embodied Practice of Praying Online In the face of social-distancing measures, the use of the still camera and livestreaming technology may very well be the most effective way to replicate the experience of going to church or to the temple. As much as they look “simple,” there is something profound in the proliferation of gods through a still image and the use of slides. They are simple aesthetic choices but they can fill devotees with a nostalgia for the church hall, the temple altar, and the human touch. If anything, the screens, with the camera looking directly at the focal point of devotion and worship, can help the viewer to “look away” in order to see or experience their gods. While they “look away,” the camera does the looking; the screen does the showing. The slides unveil the divine inspiration. In that sense, gods have eyes in the form of technology to see acts of devotion, even in digital forms. The intermediary machine extends the lived religious body, which learns to reorient itself in relation to the medium. This medium in turn evokes a similarly fragmented

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sacred presence, which relies on the machine to direct the viewer’s gaze or attention to an act that can establish a connection with this presence. At least, that seems to be implied by this presence of the camera, and devotees are motivated to repeat similar acts of devotion in the comfort of their homes. They harness technology to return to the essential components of their public worship and to establish their personal relationship with their gods: the gesture of praying. On May 16, 2021, the Singapore authorities tightened measures to curb a new wave of COVID-19 infection, recalling previous lockdown measures, islandwide social distancing, and quarantine during the Circuit Breaker period in 2020. In light of physical isolation, the still cameras, screens, headsets and speakers, and WhatsApp messages remind the devotees that there is still a congregation to return to, a life of worship and devotion that must continue; their gods are still watching.  

Notes 1.  See Victory Family Centre (n.d.) for an example of a website designed by a Singapore church that was one of the first to embrace digital broadcasting. 2.  For an example of a church pastor asking the online congregation to close their eyes before praying, see minute 52:55 of “Sunday English Service (17 May 2020) VFC SG,” streamed by Victory Family Centre Singapore—VFCSG (2020).

SECTION IV

Spatial Sacred Reconfigurations: The “Place” of Religion in the Covidian Age

 

 

Space is one of the most axiomatic aspects of religious traditions, which have, the world over, unique and often elaborate forms of sacred architecture, memorial shrines, and pilgrimage routes and sites. Sacred space is aspirational and built according to cosmological ideas, theological visions, and dictates from more-­­thanhuman entities. At the same time, it is also created through communal practice involving ongoing individual and collective ritual actions, which have their own spatiality and forms of embodiment (Heng 2016). In this section of CoronAsur, five essays explore the changing dynamics of sacred space based on the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The cases presented reveal the importance of communal and social experiences of congregation, prayer, divine presence, pilgrimage, ritual, and manifestations of charisma through religious authorities, each of which takes place in sacred spaces transformed by physical-distancing restrictions, closures, and shifts to online platforms. Collective processes of creating and re-creating ­sacred space are also manifesting, perhaps now more than ever, alongside parallel and intertwined processes of creating secular and sometimes profane space (Kong 2001b), including new religious business and corporate models (Frederick 2020). Across national contexts and religious traditions, a central question regarding spatial transformation emerges prominently: What happens to divine presence when religious spatiality and proximity are altered? The essays in this section take up this question in different ways, illustrating how space is implicated in divine interaction and, in particular, how space acts as an element in creating social, physical, and divine proximity. Sudden closures and restrictions due to pandemic health protocols threw the significance of sacred spaces into sharp focus, as members of religious groups, like their secular counterparts, were disallowed from congregating in large numbers in person and had to adjust their behavior, improvise alternatives, and create new spaces and infrastructures for religious practice (Campbell 2020; Dox 2020). When COVID-19 hit, Daniel Goh and Terence Chong had to abruptly stop conducting fieldwork for their multicountry study of more than forty charismatic 163

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Pentecostal megachurches in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. As these churches closed their physical doors, those with enough resources quickly migrated to Facebook, YouTube, and other online platforms to digitally broadcast services and sermons and distribute other types of religious content and communications. Out of this pandemic-induced spatial shift, several critical questions immediately arose for Goh and Chong. They ask whether digital Christianity can be as meaningful for congregants as its nondigital forms and whether the digital mediation of divine presence leads to forms of inauthenticity within spiritual experiences. The question of digital place making is also taken up by Faizah Zakaria in her essay about the international hashtag campaign inviting Muslim parents to create miniature mosques at home during Eid as a way of creating a joyful and meaningful religious holiday for children, in lieu of physically attending public services in mosques. By documenting the circulation of these images of do-ityourself #minimosques, she asks what they might mean for Muslims as an improvisation of sacred space, but also how the circulation on social media of these images will be interpreted by viewers now and in the future, when these images have an afterlife as an online archive. In this way, sacred space is remade in a double sense during the pandemic, both within people’s homes and within these hashtagged photographs, which are themselves at the mercy of algorithmic determinations and exist at the intersection of public and private space. Transforming domestic spaces temporarily into sacred spaces also requires negotiating gendered and aged divisions of labor, patterns of behavior, and the spoken and often unspoken rules governing domestic spaces, as Muhammad Lutfi Bin Othman documents in his essay about Shadhili Sufis worshiping at home during the pandemic in Singapore. Whereas finding a physical place to transform into a sacred space might be possible at home, filling the air with loud sounds or incense smoke might be more difficult and could disturb other members of the household. Unable to visit their Sufi lodge (zawiya), Shadhili Sufis held remembrances of God in which they recite mystical poems (dhikr) via Zoom sessions despite physical distance and less than ideal sonic experiences. According to one representative of the Shadhilis, the community had an obligation to continue the dhikr and all of Singapore had become their zawiya, a powerful reimagination of the spatial context in which religious worship, ritual, and sacred communion can take place. Similarly, Tran Thi Thuy Binh frames the restrictions on congregating in places of worship around the question of balancing social responsibility with ritual obligation. Her essay documents the process of Vietnamese Dao Mau spirit-possession rituals going underground. She explains how temples were

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closed, sizes of crowds were limited, and spirit mediums urged their patrons not to film or publicize their ritual activities in order to preserve the reputation of the Dao Mau tradition as upholding the nationally mandated temple closures. This reveals the complexity faced by ritual specialists operating underground trying to balance, on the one hand, the social responsibility to abide by broader public health requirements, with the ritual obligations from their possessing gods and goddesses, as well as the spiritual needs of their clients, on the other. Having access to sacred spaces in which spirit mediums can meet with their clients and communicate with more-than-human entities aided by sacred material objects and ritual paraphernalia was disrupted and constrained and, unlike other spirit medium traditions, was not easily re-created online (essay 20). Despite the pandemic, there is a moral imperative to continue to perform rituals in order to properly reciprocate within systems of spiritual exchanges that take place between human and more-than-human worlds. The risk of viral contagion in the public sphere has affected people’s ability to be in their traditional sacred spaces, leading to a series of adaptations in which sacred geographies are being redrawn. There has been a translocation of the place of worship on streets, courtyards, and balconies (Cooper 2021), but also a rise in virtual and virtual reality pilgrimages such as those to Burning Man (Pike 2022) as well as Marian shrines (Diocesan n.d.), and suddenly, Facebook, Zoom, WhatsApp, and YouTube are emerging as sacred spaces that people can access to worship (Campbell 2020; see section 2). The politics of pilgrimage during the pandemic are described by Chang Hsun and Lim Peng Chew, who document the continuation of the annual pilgrimage to multiple Mazu temples in Taiwan. Subjecting oneself and one’s body along with a group of other pilgrims to pay homage to and receive blessings from the goddess Mazu is considered paramount for worshipers, especially those who have received efficacious blessings in previous years. The making and remaking of sacred geographies through the embodied spatial practice of pilgrimage was interrupted by restrictions on the size of crowds, mask wearing, temperature checks, and the forbidding of carrying the sacred sedan chairs. As described in Tran’s case of Dao Mau practitioners, following the COVID-19 regulations is a matter of social responsibility, but Chang and Lim also ask questions about ritual obligation and efficacy. Are the actions of the pilgrims in this year of the pandemic enough to ensure that the goddess Mazu continues to provide them with protection? When the spatiality of religious congregation is altered, the relationships connecting members of the community, religious experts, and the divine are also altered. There is no straightforward translation of face-to-face forms of

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religious congregation into online spaces, because each form of mediation offers different possibilities for embodied and spiritual experience, communication, and interpretation. Each instance of religious (and digital-religious) place making intersects with theologies, ritual practices, and community behaviors and dynamics in different ways. As religious groups scrambled to reorganize themselves without the option of large in-person gatherings, a range of alternative spaces and reconfigurations of communion have been improvised, revealing the creativity and energy with which expert practitioners and laypeople alike create religious practice as a structuring element of social life. At the same time, however, some religious communities, particularly smaller temples and more financially precarious institutions, have struggled to re-create their “places” during the pandemic, which has barred them from their usual “spaces.” Without financial support, but also without digital infrastructures or acumen, some communities have also shrunk in size, lost revenue from donations, and had their ritual capacities reduced.

21

The Disruption of Charisma in Southeast Asian Megachurches Terence Chong and Daniel P.S. Goh

Independent Pentecostal megachurches have been experiencing steady growth in Southeast Asian countries, namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Based in the big cities, these megachurches are recognized for their concert-like worship services where emotional outpouring and expressive bodily movements are pathways to intense spiritual experiences. The pandemic has posed two challenges to the megachurches. The first is a fairly obvious one in which public health measures such as social distancing and lockdowns have prevented churches from congregating physically. This has forced many churches to move their services and gatherings online to dedicated cyber- and social media platforms. The more resourced and experienced churches have been able to transit to online modes of worship and fellowship easily, while others have struggled with the disruption. The second is more profoundly existential. Pentecostal megachurches are defined by the ecstatic spiritual experience brought about by collective worship and Holy Spirit–filled engagement between pastors and members. How did moving services online impact the ecstatic spiritual experiences and the channeling of charisma? Are online rituals and experiences meaningful for Southeast Asian Christians?

Charisma Charisma is the divine power that members believe is conferred by the Holy Spirit and that they experience from engaging with their pastors and the worship practices. It is a concept inherent in the nomenclature, theology, and practices of the global Charismatic Renewal movement that these churches sprang from. It is also a sociological concept that imperfectly describes the enigmatic phenomenon of attraction and power accruing to personalities whose transformative actions change history. The “charismatic authority” the pastors and the churches have over the members is based on what is believed to be divinely 167

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inspired energy channeled via the personality and aura of the pastor and the worship music that elevates the worshiper to a spiritual state of being. However, as Max Weber notes, “by its very nature, the existence of charismatic authority is specifically unstable,” because “pure charisma does not know any ‘legitimacy’ other than that flowing from personal strength, that is, one which is constantly being proved” (1968, 22). How then do the pastors uphold their charismatic authority and the churches channel the charisma if the ­constant proving of personal strength has been disrupted by the pandemic restrictions?

An Unexpected Question We were conducting fieldwork in Surabaya and Kuala Lumpur in early 2020 when the pandemic started. As lockdowns began, many of the churches we were studying turned to social media to hold online services and maintain contact with their members. As we suspended our fieldwork, an unexpected research question arose. Are these Pentecostal churches able to maintain the channeling of charisma through social media? We selected three megachurches in each of the four countries from a pool of around forty churches we had been studying. We chose two churches among the most dynamic and attractive to youth and a third for its more diverse demographic profile, all with prior social media presence. We then studied their social media activities. Pandemic restrictions were introduced in the four countries in March or April of 2020. Our preliminary findings suggest different types of responses from churches across these four countries, which are shaped by the sociopolitical landscapes of the societies these churches are embedded in.

Defensive Virtuality in Jakarta and Surabaya The three Indonesian churches we looked at were Gereja Mawar Sharon (Rose of Sharon Church) in Surabaya, and Jakarta Praise Community Church and International Full Gospel Fellowship in Jakarta. While all three churches moved their services online in March 2020, they preferred to use their own dedicated online streaming channels and YouTube rather than social media channels. One reason for this preference was wariness about the hostile landscape in which they were embedded. These public channels are monitored by conservative Islamic groups, who have actively used social media to mobilize and attack Christian interests in the past. An example of this was the use of social media to

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organize against then Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (aka Ahok), who was a Christian of Chinese ethnic background. Excessive online visibility could also attract unwanted attention, especially after the deadly suicide bombings of churches in Surabaya in 2018, which have caused considerable security concerns for the churches we studied. It is not surprising, then, that these churches have adopted what we call a “defensive virtuality” stance, posting closely controlled and carefully calibrated messages. In the same vein, much of their online content was less theological and had more to do with lifestyle and finances. Jakarta Praise’s YouTube channel carried special series like “True Love Waits” for young people, “Marriage Chat” for married couples, “Wise Parenting” for parents, “A Cup of Wisdom” on business and finance, and “Maintaining a Healthy Lifestyle” for everyone. International Full Gospel’s YouTube channel also saw a similar increase in average monthly posts, with similar video features on managing money, parenting, and biblical crisis leadership posted during the pandemic.

Mixed Messaging in Manila Our Manila churches were Victory Fort Bonifacio in Bonifacio Global City, a wellheeled cosmopolitan district; Victory U-Belt, located in a mall in the University Belt district in the heart of Manila; and Christ’s Commission Fellowship in Pasig City. At the start of the pandemic in February, all three churches actively took to YouTube and Facebook. By mid-March, all three churches suspended worship services and ministry meetings and began live-streaming their worship services on Facebook, with the two large churches, Victory Fort Bonifacio and Christ’s Commission, also live-streaming services on YouTube and their online television channels. All three churches saw a surge in their Facebook postings as Manila went into lockdown. However, Victory Fort Bonifacio and Victory U-Belt began winding down their social media outreach towards the end of 2020 as the pandemic situation improved and restrictions relaxed. Victory Fort Bonifacio discontinued its online services in November 2020 and restarted on-site services with limited registration the following month. Victory U-Belt ended its online sermon series in December and restarted physical services in January. This suggests that the ­social media efforts, for Manila churches at least, were no substitute for the inperson and in-concert channeling of charisma. In contrast, Christ’s Commission has made the opposite decision. In June 2020, as the situation improved, and churches were given the option of restarting physical services, it decided not to do so. On its Instagram, Christ’s Commission

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stated “a fundamental principle: The church is not a building; we are the church,” saying that this truth became “most evident during this time of quarantine, with all of us spending far more time with family at home, listening to and discussing the same messages from God’s word in our families.”

The Local in Kuala Lumpur and Kuching Collective Church is a youthful former affiliate of City Harvest Church in Singapore. While the church’s monthly average postings on Facebook and Instagram declined during the pandemic, Pastor Kevin Loo’s own Instagram page, which has a strong following of close to fifteen thousand, shot up from an average monthly posting of nineteen in 2019 to thirty-one from March to December 2020. At the same time, Esther Shen, Pastor Loo’s wife, reached out through her Instagram account to share local anecdotes such as how she noticed the local community members were looking out for one another despite the anxiety of securing supplies. The content of Collective’s social media outreach was primarily local, ­addressing Kuala Lumpur residents’ concerns over coping with the pandemic. Full Gospel Tabernacle, a community-oriented and place-based church that offers welfare and education services to its members, adopted a similar posture using social media as a stopgap, but with a greater concern for security. Full Gospel’s ­social media presence was very limited before and did not increase during the pandemic. The youthful Sarawak Blessed Church is also a community-oriented church, but it has a more youthful outlook. It is proportionally larger and influential as a megachurch in Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak, East Malaysia. Sarawak Blessed’s Pastor G.T. Lim is naturally social media–savvy given his other career as a pop culture celebrity. The church’s first live online service for its popular nine a.m. Mandarin service on March 22 on Facebook drew almost forty thousand views. However, views dropped steadily and stabilized to eleven thousand views in December 2020, more in line with the church’s local base of followers. The Malaysian cases strongly suggest that the local matters for the channeling of charisma in person and in concert, while online interactions and social media are only stopgap measures or supplements to physical interactions and sociality.

Status Quo in Singapore The three Singaporean churches are the youthful New Creation Church and City Harvest Church, and Faith Community Baptist Church, which is a more placebased church located in two public housing estates.

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All three churches were leveraging their presence heavily on social media and through digital technology long before the pandemic. New Creation was already streaming its Sunday English services before the COVID-19 outbreak, while City Harvest’s savviness with digital technology allowed it to roll out what they called the “‘Phygital’ City Harvest experience,” which blends digital technology with physical presence to provide the best experience for their church family (CHC App 2021). Similarly, Faith Community suspended physical services on February 15, 2020, and live-streamed all its services on YouTube. Faith Community’s average postings on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube declined slightly during the pandemic period compared to 2019. Discipleship in the small groups continued to be the focus of the church, with the use of WhatsApp and Zoom as the prevailing methods of communication and interaction. The three Singaporean churches have maintained some semblance of status quo during the pandemic, instead of moving in new directions. New Creation has returned to its roots, depending on Pastor Joseph Prince’s charismatic performance onstage during services, now broadcast online. Faith Community has retreated slightly from the social media sphere, reflecting its evolution to become more of a community- and place-based church. City Harvest revived its strong social media engagement with members prior to Pastor Kong Hee’s trouble with the law.1 City Harvest may yet be the one megachurch in Singapore innovating its way beyond the pandemic, though its new normal, unlike Christ’s Commission’s embrace of online technologies and the virtual world, is still grounded in the physical world.

Our study suggests that the megachurches are wary of digital Christianity. Despite being a group of the most online-savvy and media-equipped megachurches in the world, local connections, physical interactions, and on-site participation still matter as primary ways for the churches and their pastors to channel charisma in person and in concert. Live-streamed services and online sessions are stopgap measures and supplements to physical meetings; thus, most churches in our study opted to resume on-site attendance of physical services once it was possible. Another sign is that most churches opted to have their services conducted in the familiar settings of their usual auditoriums once it was possible to do so, live-streaming the services to pair the online experience with members’ memories of physical participation.

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These case studies across four different countries suggest that the churches’ digital responses to the challenge of COVID-19 differ according to their broader social context. It certainly does not suggest that digital technology automatically widens the church’s reach or is a panacea to stagnating growth as indicated by other scholars (Grant et al. 2019). There is also a deeper implication to reflect on. This is the question of the problem of presence and issue of mediation highlighted in the anthropology of Christianity (Engelke 2007; Keane 2007). Does the material mediation of divine presence corrupt the latter and render spiritual experiences inauthentic and impure? How about digital mediation? The problem of presence and the issue of mediation are redoubled in the virtuality of live-streamed worship and Zoomed communal prayer. The mobile phone, especially for the churches who have invested in mobile apps to facilitate the channeling of charisma, presents for Christians a new problematic objectmedium through which they construct their spiritual relationships within a pandemic-inflected capitalism. Reminders abound on the social media channels of the churches we studied for Christians to maintain their posture of spiritual ­holiness so that they remain expectant and receptive to the Holy Spirit and Word of God as they participate in live-streamed worship and prayer. But does the Pentecostal Christian, with outstretched arms, look to the heavens or the laptop to receive the Holy Spirit? From whence would salvation appear? With new technologies come new dilemmas.

Notes 1.  In 2015, Pastor Kong Hee, along with other members of the City Harvest Church, was convicted of criminal breach of trust for the misappropriation of church funds.

22

#Minimosque Cov-Eid as Image, Event, and Archive Faizah Zakaria

On the first day of Ramadan, a post about the #minimosque challenge popped up in my Facebook feed. At that time, mosques in Singapore had been closed for more than three weeks. Rather than mourn a space we couldn’t access, why not create one at home? The post was accompanied by a picture of a cozy corner padded with prayer mats against a backdrop of a minaret constructed from cardboard, above which Arabic calligraphy hung. Share the images of your minimosque, the post urged, by tagging #minimasjid. The coronavirus and its quarantine days have often been described as history in the making. They also generate archives in the making, some of which have been organized through projects such as the website Historians Cooking the Past (Zembrzycki 2020) and the Asia Research Institute’s crowdsourced visual archive on pandemic life in Southeast Asia (Asia Research Institute 2021). But most digital artifacts, like these #minimasjid pictures, were floating on the internet, some protected behind private accounts and others circulating in a public setting. Hashtags connected the public and private and anchored an image to this space and time. The anchor was a loose one; a picture could slip out of its moorings and recirculate attached to a different narrative and different security settings. My questions are: How do we read these images, and how will we read these images in the future? Historian Paul Cohen cautions us that history operates in three keys, unfolding simultaneously as event, experience, and myth (1997, 3–14). So too do historical images. A public image is not just an epiphenomenal artifact, anthropologist Karen Strassler’s recent work cogently argues; it sets (political) To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/22

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processes in motion and contributes to ongoing contestations in the public sphere— an image is itself a happening (Strassler 2020, 5–12). Even pictures in more private domains are not detached from relations of power. Family photographs collected in times of violence and crisis can work as a “chrysalis archive,” awaiting a restructuring of power before the private can safely become public (Wexler 2020). At the interface of private and public space is the image as an agent, indexing a space “by which the latent capacity of the image may be stirred into impacting upon the feelings, thoughts and motivation of engaged observers” (Bredekamp 2017, 15). These attentions to power are key as I muse on images of Cov-Eid, a popular term in the Anglophone virtual Muslim community, to denote Ramadan and Eid rituals transplanted from mosque to home during the pandemic. I track the mini-masjid (mosque) and its coda, the home-delivered khutbah (sermon), on the morning of Eid ul-Fitr as an event and an archive that are yet unbounded by narrative. Maintaining religious ritual in the face of a pandemic is challenged by the need for physical distance, as most rituals are congregational; proximity to others in a dense, defined space often lends rituals such as prayers new meaning. To approximate proximity, images—in the form of photographs and videos— circulate among the community to bridge distance. How these images are and will be read depends on contexts of power. What I will show here is that those contexts coalesce as much through the algorithmic determination of the medium as they do through the actual events in the physical world.

Home Mosque with a Hashtag The #minimosque challenge was professionally orchestrated, yet it was unclear precisely who were the progenitors of the effort. The campaign’s official website had no information about the initiative’s founders, centralizing instead its mission to “encourage parents from all over the world to bring joy and happiness to their children by crafting mini-prayer spaces.” The campaign was amplified through partner organizations, mostly Islamic educational enterprises with a global reach. One such partner is the Imam Ghazali Institute, which offered single-day or weekend “traveling programs” led by English-speaking religious teachers and claimed to have served students in places as diverse as the U.S., the UK, Malaysia, Guyana, and Colombia (Imam Ghazali Institute 2020). Sout Ilaahi, another partner, was a Singapore-based enterprise that connected the ­local Muslim community with international speakers “well versed in Islamic ­sciences and contemporary social issues” (Sout Ilaahi 2020). The middle-class, Anglophone character of these partner organizations was reflected in the exemplar images of the mini-mosque in the campaign website.

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Arranged as a collage, one row depicts a man and woman working side by side in a spacious room lined with bookshelves to shift a comfortable brown sofa and create the desired corner. The end nook was bounded by cardboard masjid walls and festooned with chasing lights. Wooden stands were laid on the floor, ready for a child to place his Qur’an and recite. The mini-masjid, as pictured, was simultaneously constructive and constructed. While many Muslim homes already had prayer corners, the rearrangement configures a new space, a microcosm of a congregation that could not gather. As event, the #minimasjid challenge came to reclaim the story of Muslims in the pandemic from its more vexatious iterations in news cycles. Islam’s public face during the pandemic in March and April 2020 was one of presenting annual gatherings (ijtima’) at Tabligh mass prayer events in Malaysia, Indonesia, and India as the origins of massive infection clusters (Reuters 2020; Yasmin 2020; Bisht and Naqvi 2020). In my social media feed during Ramadan lockdown in 2020, the #minimasjid challenge was sandwiched between news posts about such clusters and opinion posts from friends either decrying or defending Tabligh groups. Curated by Facebook based on my personal reading, though, these images of domesticated mosques reflected my own image back to me as part of a Muslim collective relatively invisible in the public sphere: feminine, economically comfortable, and private. In turn, I and others reflected the images back to people outside this collective, resisting the narrative of Islam as fatalistic and superstitious by stirring pictures of creative domesticity. How would a generation not born yet or a researcher of the future encounter these images as an archive? Revising this article now in 2021, I found that the campaign website link no longer functions and my only evidence is the screenshots that I took back in 2020. Many family photographs of the home mosque are locked behind privacy settings, awaiting the security of time and distance before they can be shared and studied. When they eventually emerge, they will be shorn

22.1. Left, clearing furniture; middle, setting up; right, completed mini-mosque. Credit: Faizah Zakaria; collage of screenshots from Mini Mosque Campaign 2020 (website no longer active), taken in June 2020.

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of the algorithmic promptings that placed an image in situ to create diverse narratives. The #minimasjid might then present itself as a picture of domestic construction, as a self-contained story of middle-class resilience and creativity in a pandemic. Gestating in the chrysalis between event and archive, narratives transfigure.

‘Asa on WhatsApp On the morning of Eid ul-Fitr, the mufti of Singapore, Dr. Nazirudin Mohd Nasir, gave a sermon to an empty mosque. In his right hand, he clutched a staff known as the ‘asa. The practice stemmed from a tradition of the Prophet, who reportedly used to lean on a bow, staff, or sword while delivering a sermon during Friday congregational prayers. In the age of coronavirus, the ‘asa gestured toward an invisible congregation watching a simulcast on the YouTube channel SalamSG TV. A 2020 initiative of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore, the YouTube channel was a project fast-tracked by the pandemic in order to cater to the need for a platform for everyday religious leadership at a time when gatherings at mosques were forbidden. With a congregation anxious over the prolonged inability to go to the mosque for Friday prayers, SalamSG TV provided a focal point—a node indexing a networked community space that converged on it for Friday sermons. During Eid prayers in 2020, the mufti led prayers on television (SalamSG TV 2020) to re-create precisely that space. In an empty mosque, the staff was a symbol of authority that distinguished a sermon from a soliloquy (web figures 22.2, 22.2a). At home, families who observed Eid prayers in small groups were led by a male member of the family. Being physically shut out of the mosque generated thousands of “insta-imams,” each with their own ‘asa. As the day wore on, pictures emerged on WhatsApp as the private sharing platform documenting the dislocated ritual. Where the image of the mufti’s ‘asa conferred authoritative solemnity, the ‘asa images of family imams provoked hilarity. I present a collection of such pictures that came my way as a group, arranged by WhatsApp as an unintentional collage. In them, the family “imam” clutched, among other things, a neon fishing rod, a rifle, and an IKEA hat stand, while one picture evokes an invisible imam through a lone microphone stand serving as ‘asa (web figures 22.3, 22.3a, 22.3b, and 22.3c). Were these images spoofs of a ritual, testaments to creative adaptation, or personal enactments whose meanings were reformulated through WhatsApp sharing? By itself, a picture of a Muslim man in traditional garb leading prayers while leaning on a rifle might evoke alarm through the spectral geopolitics of

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terror. Juxtaposed next to a similar man holding a hat stand, the image might instead generate laughs. How such poses are read depends on what other pictures they are shared and re-shared with. The collage, unmoored from place, counters wispy suspicions about Islam without directly addressing political debates about terrorism; a semiprivate laugh at the stereotypes of Muslims out in an amorphous place. The images spoke at and to different spaces, depending on whether they were received singly or in groups. The genealogy and transfiguration of such images were even harder to track on WhatsApp than on Facebook. This chrysalis archive was impossible to preserve. The ease in attaching, detaching, and reattaching component images, coupled with the difficulty in tracing an image’s course through WhatsApp, raised the question of how a collection of pictures come to cohere in the course of sharing. And consequently, once they have cohered, what would it take for the collection to disintegrate? Are these images likely to retain their collocations? The narratives they created were subject to the vagaries of the share button, the power to click an arrow and send a story based on data whose origins are uniquely difficult to retrace.

Pandemic Stories and the Digital Image These digital images of Cov-Eid thus float, get shared, and are linked and hashtagged into multiple narratives. They attest not only to power relations that govern the actors of an event but also to the agency of individual Muslims quarantined without access to sacred prayer spaces. In place of congregational space, new spatialities emerge for a virtual public that interfaces with the social action of private communities. These new spatialities are shaped by the invisible power of the share button and computing algorithms that sort out what we are likely to see in a social media feed, when, and where. These considerations will be crucial as we struggle to make sense of religion moving online in a pandemic.

23

“All of Singapore Is Now a Zawiya” Shadhili Sufism and Sensorial Challenges to Worshiping from Home Muhammad Lutfi Bin Othman

Since March 2020, the members of the Shadhili Sufi order in Singapore have been meeting online for their weekly gathering (majlis), having been kept out and far away from their lodge (zawiya) in Malaysia due to COVID-19 and the closure of the border between the two nations. Every Thursday evening members of the Shadhili order usually engage in gatherings of remembrance (dhikr), including the chanting of God’s divine names and prayers for the Prophet Muhammad. This Sufi order is also known for a practice called hadra, which is a breathing dhikr performed while standing, hands clasped, in a circle while surrounded by singers who sing mystical poems. Some have considered this a dance of sorts, but for the Shadhilis themselves it is considered the act of remembering God with the whole body. The shift from physical practice to religious virtuality has been a spiritually arduous undertaking for a group who typically has such sensorially engaging gatherings. Their congregations are characterized by a seamless, immersive sound world of chanting and singing. Often, it can be loud and lively, involving animated movements of the body, contrasting with the quiet, seated dhikr that you would find in the local mosques in Singapore. Their zawiya would be engulfed in a fragrant haze from the burning of incense. At the end of the gathering, their skin would smell and feel musky from the sweet smoke clogging their pores, forced open by the sweating caused by moving vigorously in the hadra and the tactile companionship of their fellow seekers. Being in the zawiya is an experience that engages the entirety of the human sensorium. Since March 2020, however, this order has been unable to practice in the same way and is left only with online participation, a poor substitute for this visceral sensorial in-person experience.

An Ethnographic Snapshot of an Online Gathering September 17, 2020. Sonically speaking, the quality of the majlis changed significantly once the singers in the group were able to gather again in Phase 2 of 178

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Singapore’s reopening, starting from June 19, 2020. Today, they gathered at the house of Shakur and sat on the floor of his living room. The representative (muqaddam) of the Singaporean Order of Shahdhilis, Abdullah Sufian, is in virtual attendance today, and he sits in his home with his sons beside him. He keeps his camera on, but he is muted. Following his lead, a few others keep their cameras on as well. Perhaps because of all the videos being on, the connection is unstable today and the audio is not always clear. For a moment, the sound spikes and then ducks out. The sound returns muffled momentarily before normalizing again. It happens again a few moments later. Yet, the swaying bodies suggest that the participants seem to be unaffected by the low sound quality, especially Ismail, who looks to be singing enthusiastically at home, behind his muted mic. After the singing, Abdullah Sufian engages with them in spiritual discourse (suhba). At some point in the conversation, he feels moved to remind them, “We need to be doing our dhikr. It is the basic requirement of being on the path. I know there are some of you who are letting go of the daily litany (wird) . . . we need to be disciplined with it,” he stresses. “There is actually a lot of wisdom in this COVID time,” he says. “We have no hadra, we have no zawiya, so the wird is important.” “But look,” he continues, “you are all in your homes . . . we are scattered all around Singapore, spreading the dhikr. Suddenly, the whole of Singapore is now a zawiya. So just dhikr, there is no need to think about where everyone is, where we are. Don’t think about all this: just dhikr.” Just then, sounds of public transport are heard. One of the seekers is watching from a bus, and the soundscape of Singapore’s public transport now seeps into the soundscape of their virtual zawiya. Abdullah Sufian ends the gathering by saying, “We shall meet again soon. We are not far from each other, so don’t feel distant. When you understand this, then you realize that Allah is not distant.”

Sensory Challenges to Worshiping from Home The zawiya is the lodge where Singaporean Shadhilis have made a home for themselves and their weekly gatherings. It is a place marked by Arabic calligraphy, the smell of Arabic perfume and frankincense, and pictures of Sufi saints. The word zawiya translates literally into “corner” (Schimmel 2011, 231), so it would not be inappropriate to describe this place as their “corner of the world,” where they can come together in communion and in the remembrance of God. In this corner, they can be as loud as they want and fill the space up with any

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sensory objects deemed necessary for the creation of spiritual presences. The pandemic deprived them not only of a world of sensory immersion, but also of a space where they can worship in freedom. For Muslims all over the world, individual homes have been transformed into spaces of worship during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Singapore, this was itself the directive of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore in a ruling where they announced that places of worship would be closed and that Friday prayers as well as other congregational prayers in mosques would be suspended (Islamic Religious Council of Singapore 2020). They highlight that this is in line with Islamic teaching. Even the call to prayer (adhan), has a version that reflects domestic worship in perilous times with the added line “pray in your homes” (Office of the Mufti 2020). The masjid, by definition, is anywhere a Muslim makes a prostration (sujood) in worship to God, so much so that individual acts of prayer “create a mosque every time they take place regardless of the availability of buildings created specifically for this purpose” (Khoury 2009, 484). The constitution of the masjid has always been modular and spaces of worship transposable following the direction of a famous hadith, which states that the entire world can be a mosque as long as that place is clean (Khoury 2009, 484). With the claim that “all of Singapore is now a zawiya,” it would seem that the Sufi lodge itself can also be modular. If the masjid is anywhere the Muslims make a prostration, then Abdullah Sufian seems to suggest that the zawiya is anywhere the Sufi performs dhikr. Much like the mosque, during lockdown the individual home is itself the zawiya. Crucially, Abdullah Sufian’s advice for his fellow seekers suggests that the closure of the zawiya as a distinct space of worship should not lead to a dissolution of the activities that are quintessential to these seekers: dhikr. On the contrary, it highlights that the remembering of God can be practiced at any given space. One of the seekers, Ismail, related this to me: “When you do the majlis online, it makes you realize that you can be in any place . . . when it comes to remembering Allah, it can be in an online setting or just you alone at home; the discipline requires you to actually be consistent in remembering Allah. If my thought was I’m remembering Allah only during the Thursday night majlis and the rest of the week I’m not remembering Allah, then that’s definitely not right” (Ismail, interview with the author, February 2, 2021). Yet, the home zawiya is not a space where they can worship without reservation. When individual seekers make adjustments in their domestic spaces to recreate the sense of the zawiya in their home dwellings, this presents challenges to the household, as Ismail revealed to me when asked about his engagement with the online majlis at home: “Normally I would recite it aloud. I’m using my headphones so I will read based on my feeling. I give it 100 percent. . . . There was one

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time when my second child was asleep so when I recited, he actually cried. My wife was like ‘Can you, like, lower down your volume?” (Ismail interview). Another seeker, Naj, described how his brother, a fellow member of the order, prepares for the online gathering by burning incense (like he would do at the zawiya), to the annoyance of the other household members: “For the online ­majlis Hassan would be in his room, closed door, burning agarwood incense (bakhoor) so the whole house would smell, but his room is the source of where it comes from. It’ll be engulfed in smoke! But it has toned down now because of complaints from everyone that the house is too smoky. So, it’s really down to the particular individual to set up how he wants to feel for the particular majlis” (Naj, interview with the author, August 25, 2020). When the sound- and scentscapes of the zawiya permeate their homes, it stresses the difficulty of turning a domestic space into a space of worship. It may not be an issue for the seekers themselves when discordant sounds seep into the soundscapes of the virtual zawiya, but when the sensoryscapes of the zawiya seep into the home, into the ears (and noses) of those who are not accustomed to their gathering, it might, expectedly, lead to some displeasure. Sufism can leave sensory trails wherever God is remembered. While this may not be the point of Sufism, it is often a byproduct of it. For people at home, however, such sensory trails might be noisy and smoky hindrances to peaceful life in shared domestic spaces. What is in its place in the space for worship can sometimes be out of place at home. A huge aspect of living through lockdown is learning to navigate new meanings that are imbued upon familiar spaces: house conference rooms, bedroom offices, and home zawiyas alike. For many, especially women, home can sometimes also be a space of stress and silent suffering as the demands of the upkeep of domestic spaces can often fall to the sole responsibility of wives and mothers. As domestic spaces now take the function of worship spaces, negotiations of home life must be navigated from all angles lest the attitudes of life at home counteract the necessary attitudes of morality, peace, and justice required by worship and the atmosphere of spaces that they take place in. As the pandemic rages on with no clear end in sight and the physical zawiya remains out of reach for at least the foreseeable future, these homebound Shadhilis are forced to continue their worship away from the space allocated for it, navigating the sensory negotiations that their individual circumstances allow. At the same time, it is conceivable to imagine that the largely unmentioned actors in this story—members of the household—are also compelled to negotiate the bifunctionality of the home zawiya that is forced upon them in their own ways. For the Shadhili, worshiping from home means that the opportunity to refine themselves through individual dhikr is still possible. As their guide

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reminds them, when the separated companions are not perceived as distant, then they can realize that God, too, is close and only an act of remembrance away. On the other hand, it remains to be seen what this means for others sharing the space, on a sensorial level but also emotionally. Over time, further research should investigate what the impact of the bifunctionality of spaces that is superimposed onto the boundaries of the home has on domestic relationships.

24

To Go or Not to Go? Mazu’s Annual Procession in Taiwan 2020 Chang Hsun and Lim Peng Chew, translated by Show Ying Ruo

In the first half of 2020, the whole world was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. As strict border controls were imposed, the impact on the daily lives of the Taiwanese was less severe. Chinese folk temples in Taiwan implemented antiCOVID-19 transmission measures, such as taking the temperatures of visitors and enforcing physical distancing. However, the four-day-long holiday during the Qingming Festival (Tomb-Sweeping Day) in April 2020 alarmed the government, which ordered visitors of the ten most popular tourist sites during this period to self-quarantine at home so as to prevent a possible virus outbreak. One of these attractions is the Beigang Chaotian Temple (Beigang Chaotian Gong 北港朝天宮) in Yunlin County, a famous Mazu temple established in 1694. After it was listed as a high-risk site, the Beigang Chaotian Temple increased its pandemic prevention measures by controlling the flow of visitors, requiring visitors to wear face masks, taking visitors’ temperatures, and requiring visitors to disinfect their hands with alcohol. However, there was such a large number of visitors every day undertaking the pilgrimage to offer incense to Mazu that ten noncontact infrared thermometers wore out from overuse. To cope with the crowds during Labor Day, the temple purchased two automatic temperaturemeasuring devices. After mid-May, when no more community cases were reported, incense-offering groups of devotees arrived from different parts of Taiwan in buses. Only twenty passengers were allowed on each of the forty-seat sightseeing buses. All visitors to the temple, whether they were devotees or spirit mediums in trance, had to wear masks and have their temperatures taken. To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/24

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24.1. A spirit medium in a trance having his temperature taken before entering the temple in Beigang, Taiwan. Credit: Chang Hsun and Lim Peng Chew’s student and friend Huang Wei-Ciang, April 2020.

The annual Mazu procession, which traverses four counties in Taiwan over a period of nine days and eight nights, has been described as one of the three biggest religious festivals in the world by Discovery Channel (XinMedia 2021). Various Mazu temples in Taiwan pool their resources to organize this procession. Some, for example, the Baishatun Gongtian Temples in Miaoli County, provide live GPS updates on Facebook for devotees to follow the journey of Mazu as she travels across Taiwan (Baishatun GPS 2021). Every year, on the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, also known as the Yuanxiao (or Lantern Festival), the Dajia Jenn Lann Temple (Dajia Zhenlan Gong 大甲鎮瀾宮) performs a ritual throw of the moon-shaped divination blocks, to decide the date of the procession. This year, on February 8, 2020, the Dajia Jenn Lann Temple announced after the ritual that the procession would begin on March 19. This alarmed some members of the general public, who were worried that the procession might lead to a spike in COVID-19 infections (Taiwan News 2020). On the other hand, some other devotees believed that Mazu would extend her protection, devotees would not be harmed by the virus, and there would not be a spread in the community (Chu 2020). The Dajia Jenn Lann Temple chairman, Yen Ching-Piao, announced that the procession would be

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held as scheduled but would be scaled down. He added that if the central government officially banned the procession, the temple would cooperate. Though an official ban was not announced, on February 26 the temple decided to postpone the procession after consulting experts (Shan 2020). From June 7, the ban on outdoor activities was lifted in Taiwan. The next day, the Jenn Lann Temple sought Mazu’s advice by throwing the divining blocks again, and it was decided that the nine-day, eight-night procession would begin on June 11 (Taiwan Today 2020). The number of participants was smaller this year. Still, at midnight of the procession day, more than ten thousand devotees knelt to send off Mazu on her procession. The Dajia Mazu procession during this pandemic has been seen as another example of Taiwan’s highly effective response in stemming the virus outbreak (Feigenbaum and Smith 2020).

The Importance of Being Present Why is it important to be physically present in the context of incense offering to Mazu? To many devotees, incense offering can be seen as an important rite of passage according transformative opportunities to the advancement of a devotee’s life and social status, by connecting with the divine. Devotees who made vows (xuyuan 許願) to Mazu in the previous year, for example, praying for their sons’ safe return after de-conscription from the army, speedy recovery from illness, or success in investment, are required to repay their vows (huanyuan 還願) should their wishes be fulfilled with the goddess’s blessing. The tribulation of walking through the challenging nine-day procession is a popular form of vow repayment for Mazu devotees. Devotees are also required to complete the entire journey and reach the destination temple in order to witness the ritual of dividing incense fire (gehuo yishi 割火儀式). The whole ritual aims to rejuvenate and empower Mazu’s spiritual prowess. The physical presence in the sacred space is essential for ritual making. During the pandemic, if Mazu devotees are no longer allowed to move forward with the procession and cannot be physically present in the sacred space, and if the ritual of dividing incense fire cannot be fulfilled in its original way, will Mazu still maintain her transformative and efficacious spiritual power? If devotees can no longer repay their vows, and Mazu exhausts her efficacy, devotees are confronted with uncertainties and a sense of crisis that cannot be remedied with their religious piety. Why must devotees travel afar for their pilgrimages? In his work The Sacred and the Profane, Mircea Eliade (1957) and many others (Johnson, Swartz, and Tisdell 2010; Morinis 1992; Zwissler 2011) have described the function of ritual processes conducted in the sacred space built on the symbolic center of the earth.

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In their pilgrimages, devotees witness the renewal of the world and the rebirth of the cosmos. By offering incense collectively, a feeling of what Victor Turner understood as “communitas” (1997 [1969]) is produced, creating a supreme sacredness that is greater than that possible through individual action, and which Emile Durkheim described as the collective effervescence (1995 [1912]). In the Mazu procession, all devotees walk, eat, and sleep together, mutually reinforcing the experience of devotional pilgrimage. In 2021, as a result of the success in curbing the spread of the pandemic in Taiwan, the Mazu incense-offering ceremony was resumed. On April 9, 2021, the Dajia Mazu procession marched to their destination temple in Xingang, and the Baishatun Mazu in Miaoli continued their annual journey to Beigang. It was, however, strictly regulated: all devotees had to be masked and observe social distancing during the pilgrimage. For hygiene purposes, temple personnel forbade devotees from touching the goddess’s sedan chairs or ducking under them for blessings. Devotees were also not allowed to lift the sedan chairs, one of the important vow-repaying rituals. Firecrackers and temple banquets were also forbidden. Instead, lunch boxes were provided to devotees. Throughout the nine days, all devotees who completed the journey went home safely, and no mass cases of COVID-19 infection were reported (GIS FCU 2021) (web figure 24.2). When the coronavirus started to affect the sphere of religiosity in Taiwan, religious actors and authorities participated in the negotiation between the needs of ritual performance and the requirements of COVID-19 prevention protocols. Temples in Taiwan reacted to the social pressure by implementing rarely seen controls, such as compelling spirit mediums to take their temperature, controlling the number of incense-offering groups, and postponing the annual Mazu procession, for only the second time in its long history (the first time also due to a pandemic, of Japanese encephalitis in 1923) (W. Wang 2020). The question lingers for the devotees: Will Mazu continue to protect them from pandemics in the future, and what is their role in securing such salvific power, in a time of social “distance” rather than social “presence”?

25

COVID-19 and Dao Mau’s Ritual Practitioners Shaping the Notion of Social Responsibility Tran Thi Thuy Binh

A twenty-six-year-old spirit medium donning a pair of glasses and a disposable mask knocked on the main gate of an ancient temple in a suburb of Hanoi.1 The temple is dedicated to deities of Dao Mau—the Mother Goddesses of the Four Realms. A few minutes later, the large, thick wooden gate remained closed. The medium, wearing a plum-red handmade Vietnamese jacket, quickly moved to another gate after calling someone with his mobile phone. The gate was opened with just enough space for him to enter and then closed immediately behind him. A group of handsome young guards welcomed him inside the large yard but rejected any stranger accessing the temple. He nodded and walked to the main area of the temple, where the temple manager was performing len dong—a key spirit possession ritual of Dao Mau in which the bodies of mediums are inhabited by male and female deities. During len dong, the congregation believes that mediums, who are seen as the incarnation of male and female deities, can bless their wishes. Normally, photos and live-streams are welcomed during len dong, as they are considered effective communication tools to advertise the mediums’ talent and attract new ritual followers (web figures 25.1 and 25.2). However, on this day, March 26, 2020, the temple manager and his ritual assistants asked the congregation to refrain from filming or taking photographs in anticipation of the nationwide social-distancing regulations starting on April 1, 2020. There have been five large community outbreaks in Vietnam during the pandemic. During the first outbreak, public religious activities continued as normal. During the second, religious gatherings started to be banned in certain provinces, To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/25

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such as Hanoi, Quang Ninh, Bac Ninh, Da Nang, and Binh Dinh. Since the third, religious activities have been restricted across the whole country. On March 27, 2020, the prime minister approved decision no. 15, which forbade religious activities with more than twenty people for a period of two weeks. As a result, all statemanaged temples had to close, and private shrines remained open only to a few loyal followers. During this period, spirit mediums were worried about their own health and safety and were inclined to follow the official instructions. People coming from areas with high infection rates of the coronavirus might not be welcomed at their sacred sites. When Hanoi reported the first COVID-19 cases, a famous master medium bitterly disclosed that a temple manager had refused to meet him, as he came from the capital. Another temple manager in Hai Duong province sent instant messages to her colleagues in Hanoi requesting that they not participate in her annual temple festival in spite of her previous invitations. COVID-19 divides the Dao Mau ritual community in terms of what different groups understand as social responsibility (web figure 25.3). For this reason, I find it useful to analyze the COVID-induced responses of this ritual community through the conceptual lens of responsibility. To serve the benefit of the society at large, a responsible person should follow legal requirements and/or do moral acts to get praised (Roochnik 2007). Responsibility also means accountability and responsiveness. A responsible person is motivated to voluntarily limit their individual freedom in their mind and actions (Ames 2007; Eckel 2007). To protect the health of other citizens, some Dao Mau mediums, including a well-known master medium, Tran Thi Kim Hue (web figure 25.4), and another, Nguyen Tat Kim Hung (web figure 25.5), postponed all their scheduled religious events. They argue that the deities will remain benevolent and continue to provide support to their worshipers even without offerings or pilgrimages. Fulfilling one’s civic responsibilities should be one’s first priority, while fulfilling religious obligations should come second. Yet other mediums, like the aforementioned temple manager, place their religious obligations over social responsibility when they secretly perform muchshortened len dong services and undertake pilgrimages, although with smaller groups than normal. They defend their choice by explaining that deities also need their ritual services. During the fifteen-day social-distancing period (April 1–15, 2020) in Hanoi, a young medium still performed len dong without facing any complaints from her neighbors or local authorities. She interpreted this as clear evidence that her deities support her loyal service. Furthermore, some mediums justify live-streaming their rituals on the grounds that their deities have never blamed them in their dreams or punished them in their daily lives for doing such live-streaming.

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Responsibility has been described as “a matter of causality” (Roochnik 2007, 15). Individuals feel they must publicly oppose negative acts after they imagine the consequences of these acts (Eckel 2007). In spite of rarely expressing his opinions on social media, master medium Nguyen Tat Kim Hung posted a status criticizing public religious activities on his personal Facebook page, with 5,428 followers, on March 29, 2020. “I advise all of you against live-streaming your len dong on social media. If your ritual practice is scheduled, you should do it quietly with few attendees. We should participate in the pandemic control according to the spirit of ‘tot doi dep dao’ [leading a good life in both secular and religious aspects] and governmental norms. It helps the society have a positive view on our Viet beliefs in the Mother Goddesses.” His argument is clear: public gatherings for religious events, and moreover live-streaming these events, is not only inappropriate but also threatens to devalue Dao Mau in the public sphere. Upholding values understood as social responsibility instead is conceived as a sustainable way to protect the dignity and legitimacy of their religion. Live-streaming of rituals has drawn some public criticism, partially the result of long-standing stereotypes that Dao Mau is a religion entrenched in black magic and its mediums are superstitious. Prejudice against Dao Mau runs deep: for the past five centuries, except during the reigns of a few kings, Dao Mau has faced legal sanctions and social stigma (Thinh 2010). From the fifteenth to nineteenth century, state ideology was based on Confucianism, which emphasizes the value and agency of human beings rather than an otherworldly source of spiritual values (Fingarette 1998). The emphasis on both male and female spirit possession in the bodies of mediums regardless of their gender in len dong is particularly controversial because it challenges Confucian patriarchal norms that presume women are subordinates (Dror 2007) and nonheterosexual minorities are evil (Tran and Filax 2018). Accordingly, the state banned Dao Mau practices involving spirit possession. These restrictions were continued under the Communist Party of Vietnam’s rule until the beginning of the twenty-first century because of the fear that belief in Dao Mau might prevent citizens from obeying state policies (Norton 2010). Nguyen’s two-hundred-word post received more than a thousand reactions (including likes, laughs, and loves), 160 comments, and sixty-one shares as of March 25, 2021. Some Facebook followers criticize these live-streams as evidence of some mediums’ selfishness when live-streams are used by social ­media–savvy mediums to enlarge their own circle of followers. Yet they avoid directly naming any colleague whose practices differ from their personal choices. These debates remind us that “responsibility is attributed from the outside” and “decided in a public forum” (Roochnik 2007, 19). When the majority

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shares a similar notion of responsibility publicly, it shapes how practices of ­social responsibility should be performed and then nourishes an expectation to duplicate these practices towards other individuals. Any act going against that notion is labeled immoral. Social responsibility in this case matches religious responsibility, intended as the reciprocal duties and obligations that sustain social relationships binding ritual specialists, devotees, and deities. Reactions and comments supporting Nguyen’s argument shape the moral notion that spirit mediums should sacrifice part of their religious freedom temporarily during the pandemic. Live-streaming of len dong and religious gatherings, on the other hand, might be perceived as an act lacking religious responsibility, as they potentially erode Dao Mau’s public reputation. The lens of responsibility helps us understand the prevalence of online calls for postponing ritual events and the absence of public voices in support of live-streams on relevant social media platforms, such as Dao Mau Vietnam (more than 98,000 followers), Dao Mau va Tam linh Vietnam (Dao Mau and Vietnamese Spirit; more than 26,000 followers), and Clb Dao Mau Vietnam (Club of Dao Mau Vietnam; more than 1,500 followers). COVID-19 motivates Dao Mau mediums to enact their sense of social responsibility through rituals. Buddhist rituals, in particular, have been mobilized for specific purposes during the COVID-19 pandemic. While Dao Mau adherents acknowledge that their deities help them achieve a wealthy and happy life, some mediums believe that Buddhist rituals are more helpful than ever during the pandemic, and to reestablish a spiritual balance, they have incorporated Buddhist rituals into their praxis. With the unfolding of the global health crisis, a twenty-two-year-old medium who has followed Dao Mau for thirteen years felt insecure even though he asked for the blessing of his patron deities at least twice per day. Dao Mau doesn’t have any specific deity who provides protection against disease. Soon after the beginning of the global spread of COVID-19, he started a regular worship of the Buddhist figure of Guanyin. He chose Guanyin because of her popularity in Vietnam as well as the century-long relationship between Buddhism and Dao Mau. Princess Lieu Hanh—the highest Mother Goddess of Dao Mau—followed Buddhism after receiving the support of Buddha in a fight against Daoist mediums. Every day, in his private shrine, the medium prays to Guanyin, whose icon is situated just opposite his favorite seat. He also recites Buddhist scriptures and turns on an electronic Buddhist chanting player. “Before the pandemic, I used to turn on ‘chau van’—a Dao Mau’s ritual singing for len dong—in my sacred site. Now I play a Buddhist chanting prayer every day. You can hear only one repeated chanting ‘Nam Mo A Di Da Phat’ because the player has a technical error.”

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This change in ritual praxis makes him feel secure amid frustration and fears. Similarly, a middle-aged medium with more than thirty years as a Dao Mau practitioner turned on a Buddhist chanting machine as soon as her talented Dao Mau priest advised her to pray to Buddha and Guanyin, seeking salvation for all the Vietnamese people, not only for herself. She feels that even though she cannot possibly pray every minute, the machine helps her to fulfill her prayer obligations. The shrine owner believes in the efficaciousness of Guanyin’s and Buddha’s protection, which will help her and others survive the pandemic in good health. According to the thirty-six mediums and fifty-four Dao Mau followers I have interviewed, daily praying for the well-being of the larger society and the limitation of religious activities are seen as acts of social responsibility that will significantly contribute to mitigating the impacts of the outbreaks. Dao Mau ritual practitioners consider COVID-19 a natural part of the cycle of life and are heedful of their social responsibilities as well as their religious responsibilities. Some spirit mediums combine Dao Mau and Buddhist rituals for daily praying in their religious space. They argue that the practice of social responsibility helps them protect their health, the well-being of others, and the reputation of Dao Mau by performing loyalty towards the national interests.

25.6. After nationwide restrictions on religious activities were lifted in March 2021, Dao Mau believers flocked to Bac Le Temple, March 21, 2021. Credit: Tran Thi Thuy Binh.

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Until the present, none of my ninety interviewees have been infected by COVID-19. Ritual practitioners identifying themselves as children of Mother Goddesses highlight this fact as evidence of the spiritual power of Dao Mau.  

Notes 1. I express my sincere gratitude to my doctoral supervisors, Dr. Caroline Blyth and Dr. Christine Dureau of the University of Auckland. I am indebted to my research participants and my family. Funding for my research comes from the Faculty of Arts Doctoral Scholarship and Doctoral Research Fund of the University of Auckland.

SECTION V

Old Tensions, New Solidarities: Collisions of Faith and Politics

 

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare many of the social fault lines that existed prior to this worldwide public health emergency. As vaccine campaigns continue and governments urge their populations to get vaccinated, the Global South lags far behind in vaccination rates, lacking access to vaccines and necessary supplies. Despite the stated conviction of the World Health Organization (WHO) that “everyone, everywhere who could benefit from safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines should have access as quickly as possible, starting with those at highest risk of serious disease or death” (WHO 2020b), the coronavirus has been dealt with in a highly nationalist framework, as borders have been reinstated or fortified and countries impose their own restrictions and policies to safeguard nationalist interests. This section of CoronAsur investigates how religion is entangled with the inherently political and moral challenges posed by the omnipresent yet elusive coronavirus. As the case studies in this section demonstrate, religion has been mobilized to justify exclusivist and populist forms of nationalism, giving sacred legitimacy to long-standing structural inequalities. Yet, believers have also used religious networks and infrastructures to enact alternative forms of solidarity and belonging and have applied religious teachings with the aim of enacting an alternative ethics of care. Even with the existence of supranational structures like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the European Union, and intergovernmental organizations like the WHO, pandemic responses have taken place, for the most part, in narrowly national terms (Casanova 2021). Refugees were refused entry by countries seeking to keep borders secure against the coronavirus, as was the case for Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution in Myanmar, who had been turned away from other Southeast Asian countries before entering Aceh, Indonesia (essay 31). Refugees and migrant workers already within national borders faced rising xenophobia, as a nationalist hashtag in Malaysia meant to encourage solidarity by proclaiming #kitajagakita (we look after us) implicitly excluded these more vulnerable populations (Tayeb and Por 2020, 78). Nationalisms, even those 195

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that claim to be secular or employ a secular framework of governance, are often inflected with religious ideologies, and religious belonging can be fundamentally linked to popular conceptions of national belonging. In Pakistan, for example, performing Islamic public piety is foundational to the national imaginary and striving toward Muslim self-determination, posing particular challenges as the government has aimed to curb religious gatherings for the sake of public health (essay 29). In pandemic times, these identity politics and social divisions can become compounded on multiple fronts, leading to increased social exclusion, economic hardship, and differential health outcomes. Referring to this particular phenomenon in India, Manan Ahmed Asif has argued that there are two concurrent pandemics, one caused by the coronavirus, and another caused by the continued spread of Hindu majoritarian ideologies and institutions that consistently cast Muslims as problematic others (2020, 160). Contributors in this section (essay 26) demonstrate how Buddhist chanting rituals in Sri Lanka are used to form a field of sonic protection against the coronavirus, yet also enact an exclusive citizenship through the populist-nationalist context in which the rituals take place, ultimately contributing to securitization not only against the virus but also against the Muslim minority. An essay in this section from Malini Bhattacharjee also details how a Hindu nationalist group in India, aiming to defy expectations of exclusivism, used the provision of relief under pandemic conditions to acquire legitimacy through alignment with secular values. Religious teachings and the infrastructures of religious networks and communities have also been tapped into during the pandemic, offering potentialities for looking beyond exclusive nationalist frames. Responding to Islamophobic accusations that Muslims were deliberately spreading the virus in India early on in the pandemic, Arab Muslims in the Gulf nations took to Twitter as a space of transnational solidarity, expressing their support for Indian Muslims (Roohi 2021). As Nurul Fadiah Johari outlines in her contribution, COVID-19’s challenge to the ability of Muslims to perform collective rituals offers an important opportunity for rethinking what is meant by the global Islamic religious community, or ummah, and the gendered divisions within it. The case of Rohingya refugees (essay 31) in Aceh offers a concrete example of how a conceptualization of the ummah was invoked by the public, arguing against local government structures and policies in the name of Islamic ethics in order to host and provide for Muslim refugees. In particular, religious charities have been major players in the provision of aid, using established national and transnational networks to assist in provisioning care for the sick and those who have experienced economic hardship

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during this time period. Religious charities have worked within and beyond state structures as they offer provisions for healthcare and programs to deal with economic losses, and in doing so, they offer more than just financial or material support (see section 6). Indigenous medicines, intertwined with religious rituals and practice, have also afforded frames for dealing with the virus other than the dominant Western biomedical model (essay 5). While at times these might represent a popular challenge to government responses, the resistance is not always so straightforward. Catherine West and Kanchana Dodan Godage (essay 30) give one such example of a Sinhalese businessman claiming to provide a miracle cure to the coronavirus. The efficacy is ensured by the power of the goddess Kali, but the legitimacy was also provided by state public health figures who endorsed the product, playing into populist-nationalist sentiments. In the same national context of Sri Lanka, yet through established religious and state authority structures, it is the chanting of Buddhist monks and the wielding of water infused with this chanting energy that offers the sought-after protection from the virus (essay 26). Some groups maintain that the best protection against the virus is increased religious practice, standing up to the trials that God has in store by renewing faith and recommitting to pious actions even if it means defying government restrictions on mobility and assembly. Many of the essays in this section, drawing on case studies in South and Southeast Asia, are set in contexts where there are high levels of distrust in the governmental response to COVID-19. It is important to recognize that this is not uniformly true across Asia, as indeed most of the countries that have been lauded at various points in the pandemic for their swift and effective campaigns against the virus (South Korea, Taiwan, China, Singapore) are in Asia as well. However, in places that have been recognized for their success, as well as those that have been pointed to as failures, religious and moral values have permeated what may seem on the surface to be exclusively political or biomedical decisions. In Japan, teachings from esoteric Buddhism found new broad relevance in their coherence with government guidelines to curb infections (essay 3). However, in South Korea, religious groups—particularly those considered heterodox—became viewed as vectors for disease, their practices “offered as evidence of members’ deviance from the ideal modern Korean subject” and their particular form of religiosity seen as irrational (Mellquist Lehto 2020a). Some contributions in this section indicate cases of religious groups using religious ethics and teachings to challenge government restrictions and mandates. For example, in Pakistan, where there is a deep mistrust of state power (including the public health system) among segments of the population, the

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wrath of the virus is understood as divine retribution that must be combated with increased religious dedication rather than masks and lockdowns. Religious authorities, to respond to the pandemic itself and the forms of suffering it has caused, bring forth religious theodicies to make sense of the pandemic, integrating the virus into recognizable cosmologies that resonate with believers. Doing so enables them to understand and respond to it, yet also ultimately contributes to shaping and co-constructing the phenomenon. While it is perhaps already clear that questions about mask wearing and vaccine composition became politically charged, this volume shows that these concerns never veered far from religious entanglements. In the U.S. state of Florida, a lawsuit claimed that mask mandates violate the free exercise of religion precisely because they make it difficult to carry out typical religious services (Finn 2020). Similarly, vaccines have come under scrutiny not only because of their use of mRNA technology, but also because of questions about their purity in light of religious ethics and obligations. For Indonesian Muslims, anxieties about the ­halal status of the Sinovac vaccine from China, primarily voiced as concerns about contamination with pig products, are compounded by its “imagined links with Communist contagion” (Najmah, Davies, and Kusnan 2021). In addition, in India, some Hindu leaders have asked for clarification about whether coronavirus vaccines might contain cow’s blood (Aggarwal 2020). Furthermore, some Catholics, particularly in the United States, have expressed concern over whether cell lines from aborted fetuses were used in vaccine development, though Pope Francis has tried to reduce fears and has referred to getting vaccinated as an “ethical obligation” (Horowitz 2021). As governments continue to urge vaccination for their citizens, vaccines themselves have become an important site of negotiation of forms of not only political and religious, but also epistemic authority. As the COVID-19 pandemic has been recognized as a phenomenon with long-lasting social impacts, there is no doubt that political responses and handlings of the pandemic will be continually analyzed and scrutinized. What this section and this larger volume attest to is the importance of a post-secular frame in understanding the individual and collective responses it has engendered. Religious rituals, institutions, and teachings have intersected in numerous ways with those of purportedly secular state actors and institutions, warranting our attention and analysis.

26

Sonic Fields of Protection in Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 Pandemic Nalika Gajaweera and Neena Mahadev

Seeking to inoculate the Sri Lankan body politic against the COVID-19 pandemic, Theravada Buddhist monastics launched a series of ritual initiatives. Religious and state authorities extended spiritually protective Dharmic energies to guard against viral contagion, as well as to promote majoritarian notions of national security (rata arakśawa kirīma) through chanting. In addition to fears that social proximity to potential carriers of the virus might ignite clusters of contagion, political, medical, and religious authorities in Sri Lanka have tended to characterize COVID-19 patients as Corona “suspects” (sakakāreyo). They have done so in public discourse in ways that cast suspicion especially upon Muslim minorities. Official constructions of patients as sakakāreyo have seeped into the ordinary discourse concerning the virus and have tended to go unquestioned in major segments of civil society. This is a most troubling feature of the “new normal” that has been inaugurated in Sri Lanka. Comparable phenomena are occurring elsewhere, of course, such as in the U.S., where populist discourses of warfare against the pandemic have similarly exacerbated ethnonationalist scapegoating of religious minorities. Since 2011, politicized subsets of Sri Lankan Buddhist clergy affiliated especially with an organization known as the Bodhu Bala Sena (Army of Buddhist Force) and their lay followers have episodically unleashed vitriol and violence against Sri Lankan Muslims (Haniffa 2016, 2017; Holt 2016; McGilvray 2016). Following the horrific bombings of Easter Sunday 2019, the Sri Lankan state reignited postwar securitization practices with an eye towards preventing domestic terrorism. This policing has targeted Sri Lanka’s diverse Muslim population. After To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/26

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more than twenty-five years of ethnicized war, and just over ten years of a most tenuous peace, the ritual and discursive practices of protection within Sri Lankan Buddhism have again become practically inseparable from nationalistic conflicts perpetuated through the profiling and scapegoating of non-Buddhist others. From her vantage point on the outskirts of Colombo during March and April 2020, Nalika observed how with the onset of the pandemic and a military-led statist response to it, streets and highways normally bustling with tuk-tuks, lorries, and cars competing for road space became desolate. Everything went quiet. But one distinct sound perforated the Sri Lankan soundscape, earworming itself through the streets and living spaces of Sri Lankan households—that is, the throaty chanting of Buddhist monks. The country’s monastic authorities gave local temples instructions to chant pirit (Pali paritta, the practice of reciting certain verses or scriptures as means of protection against danger) every evening at dusk. In that claustrophobic sense of enclosure and heightened anxiety, Sinhala Buddhists coped not only by exploring allopathic and Ayurvedic immunesystem enhancers (essay 30), but also by opening their windows to let the monks’ chanting infuse their domestic airspace. Beginning on March 18, 2020, for twenty-four hours a day for seven days, hundreds of monks from the Asgiriya and Malwatte chapters of Sri Lanka’s Theravadin Buddhist Sangha recited the Ratana Sutta at the Temple of the Tooth Relic (Sri Dalada Maligawa) as a spiritual offensive against the COVID-19 pandemic. Buddhists commonly chant the Ratana Sutta to venerate the “Triple Gem” of the Buddha, Dharma, and sangha. In this exceptional state of Covidianage anxiety, they injected their recitations with the intention of staving off and stamping out the virus. Officiants of the pirit ceremony noted the salience of this sutta by relaying how their Lord Buddha’s utterances cured a plague and a series of misfortunes that had beset the ancient Indian capital of Vesali, suggesting a precedent for their prophylactic incantations. Across Sri Lanka, Sinhala Buddhists tuned in to the live telecast of this recitation (web video 26.1). A week prior to the broadcast, the state had imposed an all-island curfew enforced by the military and the police. At the conclusion of the ceremony, officials took the water infused with the energy of the monks’ Dharmic chantings and dispersed it over the island by helicopter. It is notable how sound is converted— transduced—into materialized blessings through ritual processes. To transduce is “to convert (something, such as energy or a message) into another form; e.g., sense organs transduce physical energy into a nervous signal” (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary 2020). The curative powers of the water were affirmed by a Sri Lankan medical doctor, who publicly validated the idea that Dharmic chanting transforms the water on a molecular level (Rambukwella 2020).

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For Buddhists, the aspiration (prarthanāwa) to achieve viral inoculation through these recitations required a protective field to sonically envelope the chanters and hearers and to channel the Dharmic energies and intentions. The recitations of pirit offer a kind of “sonic protection”—a phenomenon that Jim Sykes (2019) has demonstrated has had a long history that holds ritual and political relevance across a variety of domains in Sri Lanka. Long before the onset of the pandemic, the sounds of religious difference have embroiled different communities in sparring over the sanctity of the soundscape in Sri Lanka (Sykes 2019; Mahadev 2019). Indeed, religious “noise” has often been a profound site of “cultural struggle” (Roberts 1990). When further paired with pandemic-induced nationalistic anxieties, pirit recitations became overwrought by ideas of securitization charged with antipluralistic affects. Statist assertions of Buddhist power are sacralized and, like the sounds, are believed to act like a protective amulet against the threat of a “foreign” virus. Sound, therefore, also has the capacity to produce significant micropolitical conflicts. A decade earlier, during the war’s “final solution” in 2009, then president Mahinda Rajapaksa and defense minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa—backed by trimilitary forces—were credited for bringing a crushing defeat to the LTTE (Tamil Tiger) insurgents. After years in the political limelight for defending Sri Lankan sovereignty, the brothers were ousted from electoral politics for a multiyear stint. But in the aftermath of the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, the politicians won the election on a platform of resecuritizing the nation from foreign threats and by promising Sinhala Buddhist constituents that they would use various measures to protect the majority community from the encroachments of other religions. The discursive tools that state actors deployed to govern under the new “War on COVID-19” shared much in common with the old “War on Terror.” Populist discourse proliferated paranoiacally through the media and rumor with the onset of the pandemic in Sri Lanka. If during Sri Lanka’s protracted civil war years Tamil Hindus and Christians were the ethnolinguistic and religious others who threatened the righteous society of the Sinhalese Buddhist nation-state (Gajaweera 2020), then the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic had produced a renewed discourse of the Muslim other. Within these revised postwar nationalist discourses, Muslims were characterized as super-spreaders of the virus (Silva 2020), much as Hindutva nationalists in India leveled allegations of Muslims’ involvement in “Corona jihad” (Roy 2020). Sri Lankan police arrested somewhere between 22,000 and 60,000 people between mid-March and mid-May of 2020 for defying the nationwide curfew (Chuang 2020). While these authoritarian measures might have appeared to keep infection numbers relatively low in Sri Lanka for a time, they were extended in various draconian ways to impinge especially upon minorities.

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Despite low numbers of infections during that period, the Sri Lankan state placed a nationwide moratorium on funerary burials of deaths caused by COVID-19. Although the World Health Organization did not advise against burials, the government mandated cremation of all those who succumbed to COVID-19 (Human Rights Watch 2020). Government authorities extended this requirement in ways that Sri Lankan Muslims felt as intentionally impinging upon their dearly held sharia funerary requirements for Islamic burial (janazah). Political authorities argued against Muslim petitioners, claiming that the injunction against burials was not discriminatory, but rather had been instituted to stave off infection through groundwater contamination, a claim that experts say is baseless. Sri Lankan Muslims remained unconvinced by the injunction (Silva 2020), sparking protests in various locales throughout the country in 2020 and early 2021. Majoritarian nationalist political discourses construed Sri Lanka’s Muslim populations as a non-native threat to the Buddhist moral moorings of Sri Lanka and to the very existence of Buddhism itself. However, despite overarching inclinations to address religious plurality as a “problem,” and despite the pandemiclike spread of paranoias, segments of the Sinhala Buddhist population do strive to make more careful discernments. For example, in a stretch of coastal villages where Neena has had long-standing associations through her fieldwork, many of her Sinhala Buddhist interlocutors expressed the desire to retain amicable relations with the Muslims who have had an established presence in proximity to their own villages. She finds that some Sinhala people in those rural coastal milieus ordinarily characterize the Muslims who live in their midst as ahinsakay— which is typically translated as “innocent” or “harmless.” The colloquial Sinhala term ahinsakay is derived from the Pali/Sanskrit term ahimsa. Its usage by Sinhala Buddhists in this context implies that they consider “known” Muslims to be, like them, oriented to nonviolence. Building upon such sensibilities, groups of religious leaders coordinate interfaith activities to dissuade Sri Lankans from scapegoating its Muslim citizenry. Even so, in the context of COVID-19 in Sri Lanka there have been strong inclinations towards Islamophobic sentiments that dovetail with the logic of achieving viral protection through Buddhist devotions. Deploying Buddhist sound modalities to guard against viral transmission, we suggest, is implicitly or explicitly extended to guard against incursion by “suspect” minorities who are deemed to be deliberately inviting in contagion to destabilize the nation. Examining the ideas of security (arakśawa kirīma) and national security (rata arakśawa kirīma) brings to the fore projections of a Sinhala Buddhist imagined community that exclusionary statist discourses recurrently fashion as an insular and islanded one in need of protection.

27

Seeking Solidarity Rethinking the Muslim Community in the Pandemic Era Nurul Fadiah Johari

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing safe-distancing measures have taken a toll on the religious lives of Muslims. So many aspects of our religious lives, centered on the very idea of the community, must be readjusted. Nonetheless, physical distancing is not equivalent to social isolation. The task of solidarity building, especially with the most marginalized in our communities, should be continually emphasized as a key aspect of our religiosity and spirituality. In fact, we can also observe new forms of solidarities that are emerging as the task of community building moves further into the online sphere. These forms of solidarity transcend geographical and national boundaries through the exchange of knowledge as well as cultural and sociopolitical expressions. While existing divides may be reinforced in a state of heightened anxieties, this period of social distancing may also usher in the emergence of novel ways of building and sustaining communities.

Rethinking Community A very crucial aspect, and one still lacking in the dominant discussions or responses from religious elites in the Malay world, is the question of community. What constitutes this Muslim ummah (community)? Who gets access to this ummah and who gets left out, especially in this period of social distancing? In mainstream discussions, the notion of the religious community still primarily revolves around the practice of communal rituals, especially the performance of congregational prayers in mosques and other public spaces. This understanding of the community privileges the needs of those (able-bodied men) who get to access these spaces in the first place. While other discussions may address some of the needs of the poor and marginalized, they are still spoken through the language of charity. The deeper questions of how to realize social justice and how religious frameworks could be used to address structural inequalities remain to be addressed. In the Malay world, where the dominant religious orientation points towards the performance of these rituals in a communal setting, the task of physical distancing 203

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feels like an affront to this sense of community building. Mosques and other physical spaces have been closed during the periods of lockdown, much to the dismay of large segments of the community. It certainly is a dramatic shift for many whose sense of being part of the religious community is fundamentally tied to these spaces. This is not to suggest that the community is unchanging or unable to adapt. For instance, a year after the 2020 Circuit Breaker period in Singapore, the Muslim community is easing itself into a new routine of observing distancing measures while attending religious services in public spaces. For example, in addition to completing a booking beforehand, individuals are asked to bring their own prayer mats and shoe bags in addition to wearing face masks (Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura 2020). The recent state of heightened alert, since May 2021, has brought about increased restrictions once again, which have also impacted congregational prayers in mosques. While these are important consequences of the pandemic, there are other aspects of community life that need to be addressed and reflected upon, such as gender roles, social relations, and how to creatively navigate through societal changes in this period of the new normal.

Questioning Gender Roles within the Muslim Community The performance of rituals also entails the ability to socialize, especially for men, whose public participation is more encouraged than that of women. Attending mass prayers in the mosque, especially on Fridays, is a time for men to catch up with friends in the community, an escape from the demands of work and domestic life. In some segments of Malay Muslim society, these restrictions have caused discomfort in men who are suddenly expected to remain in the domestic sphere, seen as the domain of the women in the family. This was noted especially during the earlier stages of the pandemic, in 2020, in personal observations and conversations with Muslim friends. The performance of ritual prayers, also highly gendered, would mean that men would have to take on the role of the imam, or leader in the prayers. For some men, this is a novel experience. For some women, who have been used to leading prayers in the company of other women and children at home, this shift would mean that they now have to assume a secondary role, despite their capability in leading prayers and other religious duties. The question of gender roles, beyond just the performance of rituals, must be addressed from within the Muslim community. In a situation of deep socioeconomic precarity, there would certainly be shifts in gender roles, where men might not necessarily be able to act as the main breadwinners anymore. The importance of the domestic space becomes more pronounced, and if some of

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these roles are not reconsidered, the current conditions may simply reinforce gendered hierarchies. The assertion of male authority may end up pervading other spheres outside economic provision. This is especially so within the Muslim community, where the notion of male authority is legitimized from within the dominant understanding of Islam. As it is, we already see a spike in cases of domestic violence all over the world. Victims are often forced to remain in the same home as their abusers, with nowhere else to go. Given that domestic violence is highly gendered and tied to these gendered hierarchies, how should religious communities address this problem? These are ongoing conversations and pending reflections within the community. Nonetheless, we can observe emerging groups who are engaging with the question of patriarchy in the Muslim community, as discussed in this essay.

Beyond Religious Authoritarianism As many societies went into periods of lockdown or restricted movement, the dominant concerns from the religious elites in this region reflect a ritualistic approach towards Islam. The main areas of concern relate to the performance of rituals and public participation in religious spaces. While such concerns are valid, they may overlook other pressing aspects of the community’s well-being, that is, the lived conditions of the most marginalized in the community. These approaches may also end up perpetuating sociopolitical apathy and paralyzing the moral and political will to address these injustices. There is a need to break away from a religious environment that does not challenge injustices or that uses religion to justify authoritarianism. The current pandemic situation has reinforced political authoritarianism in many societies, and we certainly cannot separate religion from politics. We can often see how religion is operationalized within dominant ideological frameworks in support of the status quo. This includes, for instance, using religious arguments to blame marginalized groups for causing the pandemic, seen as the wrath of God.

Envisioning a New Normal: Emerging Solidarities In a time of greater socioeconomic inequalities, a more socially conscious approach towards religion can not only foster a heightened sensitivity towards the plight of the marginalized but also inspire a thirst for social transformation. Despite the reinforcement of deep societal divides during the pandemic, we can also observe a greater concern towards issues of social inequalities and marginalization. Groups and spaces whose initiatives are driven by a strong sense of social justice have

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emerged. Some examples include creation of various community initiatives to support the poor.1 There is also a greater awareness of the need to address mental health care and, in response, the creation of safe spaces, support groups, and dialogue circles that affirm the voices and experiences of the marginalized. Social media, which often serves as a tool for societal polarization, is also used to promote dynamism in civic participation and a more dialogical approach towards the production and transmission of knowledge through critical engagement. Muslim women, for instance, are stepping up to lead critical conversations on gender and issues such as sexual harassment and domestic violence.2 Such conversations are timely, more so now, especially with increased online participation and forms of knowledge creation and transmission. The narrow confines of ethnic or religious communities are expanding, as more people engage in matters that are crucial to the flourishing of society. Transnational solidarities are also emerging, facilitated by rapid developments in digital connectivity. This means that the exchange of ideas can happen more quickly, and new forms of solidarity can emerge beyond geographical and nation-state boundaries. For instance, regional discussions among Muslims in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore are conducted over online video conferences to address pertinent issues concerning religion and various societal issues during the pandemic.3 Such initiatives are critical for the development of civic participation and knowledge production among Muslim communities beyond existing institutions and governing bodies. There is also greater support for Muslims in marginalized and oppressed situations through various campaigns and other initiatives across the social media sphere. These forms of social consciousness and participation may not always be seen as religious imperatives if our sense of religiosity is reduced to individual piety. Therefore, the push for greater social consciousness should also be accompanied by shifts in the dominant discourse, to not create a false sense of incongruity between one’s religious and social responsibilities. In fact, the struggle for social justice should be promoted as a form of worship or a key aspect of spiritual life as well.

Seeking Hope and Solidarity: The Prophetic Call for Justice Hope cannot thrive if people do not build solidarity beyond the narrow confines of their understanding of community, which may end up perpetuating tribalism and entrenching the existing power structures. We sometimes hear leaders speaking of being patient in times of great turmoil, especially in response to what they view as dissent. However, it is crucial to note that being patient in the face of crisis does not and should not entail inaction and apathy, especially if they are religiously driven.

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It is important to revisit the ways of the Prophet in the struggle for social justice. The prophetic spirit in times of crisis calls for the struggle for social justice, not the reinforcement of the same hierarchies, be they religious, political, or economic. While those in power will clamor to maintain their authority, often using religion as a source of moral compass to justify their authority, we know that this goes against the prophetic call for justice and aligning ourselves with the oppressed. That is how hope flourishes, by promoting the idea not that the world is ending, but that we are also the makers and shapers of the image of heaven within our lifetimes. To do that, we need, more than ever, to allow spaces for our religious imagination to flourish. This is a kind of imagination that is derived from various elements in our traditions and cultures: a kind of collective imagination that is oriented towards collective action. In a time when fundamental and existential questions are being raised within various communities, it is vital that Muslims also do the same, for the sake of our community’s flourishing. That task should no longer fall into the hands of the elites anymore, especially if we are committed to the prophetic call towards solidarity and social justice. This quote by the scholar Khaled Abou El Fadl (2020) in a Friday sermon that he gave on YouTube is a timely reminder: What made the first generation of Muslims such a powerful force? If they were taught to be technical literalists, tasked with figuring out the ins and outs of a text, Islam would have never amounted to anything. The secret power that Islam gave the first Muslims was: first, they were taught their worth as free men and women; that they mattered because God assured them they mattered. And second, they were taught to have a passion for justice and beauty. Approach this Ramadan and this pandemic with the energy of the First of Muslims, not with the energy of today’s broken Muslims who seek the permission of 100 shaykhs before forming their own independent thoughts or sense of morality. (Abou El Fadl 2020)

Notes 1.  These ground-up community initiatives and charities often transcend ethnic and religious differences. These initiatives include Mind the Gap, which disburses donations from the public to poor families, and Free Food for All, which provides halal food to poor families, ­regardless of ethnicity or religion. 2.  Such conversations can be seen in online spaces such as the End Domestic Violence Singapore campaign and Beyond the Hijab Sg. 3.  In 2020, there were discussions involving scholars and activists in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, including cross-national comparisons, sponsored by Iqra.id, a Muslim civil society group in Indonesia.

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Serving the Other during the Pandemic Hindu Nationalist Groups and Covid Relief in India Malini Bhattacharjee

What does it mean for religious and cultural groups to serve the other in times of a pandemic? Is it spontaneous altruism that motivates this service or mere rational reckoning? Or is it a deliberate attempt by groups seeking to construct and project a “secular” image for themselves? The COVID-19 pandemic that has been wreaking havoc across the world since 2020 possibly had its worst impact since April 2021 in India, as the second wave claimed millions of lives owing to shortages of hospital beds, oxygen, and poor public health infrastructure. Throughout this crisis, a wide array of civil society groups plunged themselves into providing relief to the affected families. Among these, religious and cultural organizations emerged as prominent relief providers. From oxygen langars run by Sikh groups in Delhi,1 to Dawoodi Bohra community kitchens in Maharashtra and Gujarat, to the distribution of masks by Tibetan monasteries in Dehradun, to Hindu monasteries (mathas) and churches providing relief kits to affected families, cultural and faith-based institutions have been at the forefront in serving people. Amid the many religious and cultural groups that have participated in Covid relief work in India, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist group, registered its presence quite significantly. The RSS is considered the parent organization of the larger Hindu nationalist movement and the ideological mentor of the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has formed the central government since 2014 as well as several state governments across India. The “Sangh,” as it is popularly known, and its affiliate groups, who are collectively referred to as the “Sangh To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/28

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Parivar” (family of the Sangh), occupy a controversial status in Indian politics and have often been labeled by centrist and leftist forces as being “anti-minority,” “communal,” and even “fascist” for their alleged role in fomenting communal riots. As of June 5, 2020, the RSS had provided relief in 92,656 different locations across India, distributed more than 8.9 million masks, donated more than seven million ration kits, distributed more than forty-six million meal packets, organized 131,443 temporary shelters, and assisted more than two million migrant workers. In the second wave of the pandemic, as of May 15, 2021, the RSS had established more than seven thousand Covid care centers in 118 cities and towns across India, provided more than nine thousand beds in Covid isolation centers across 287 cities and towns, facilitated vaccination drives for nearly 1.4 million people, organized blood donation and plasma donation camps, and helped cremate the dead bodies of Covid victims and organize funeral rites across the country.2 An interesting aspect of this relief program has been that in many cases, the RSS was seen to have provided assistance to Christians and Muslims. This is particularly significant, as the RSS is perceived as the vanguard of the Hindus and often criticized for its alleged anti-minority agenda. In one instance, it helped a Christian rag picker with food and other supplies in Mumbai who had been starving for days during the nationwide lockdown. In another instance, an elderly Christian couple in Mumbai who were unable to procure supplies during the lockdown were assisted by RSS volunteers.3 In Assam, one Muslim swayamsevak (volunteer) had reportedly been serving people across religious lines. Another story reported by the popular press (Telegraph Online 2020) was that of

28.1. RSS volunteers providing food and water to migrant laborers in a railway station in Maharashtra, June 2020. Credit: Vishva Samvad Kendra.

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a Muslim woman in Jammu who donated half a million rupees that she had saved for her hajj pilgrimage to the RSS affiliate Sewa Bharati, as she was apparently impressed by the organization’s work during the nationwide lockdown. Given the mainstream perception of the RSS as a communalist organization, how does one make sense of this act of reaching out to the other in times of crises? A straightforward reading of this exercise may lead to the conclusion that the organization is misunderstood or maligned because of the vested political agendas of its critics and that it is actually not communalist. While that may be a legitimate argument, a more careful analysis of possible motivations behind such “compassionate” acts of service (seva) is warranted (web figure 28.2). While virtually all religious and cultural traditions celebrate unmotivated nonreciprocity as the essence of giving, Marcel Mauss’s influential work reminds us about the impossibility of a free gift. While Mauss acknowledges that material objects still hold sentimental value and that humans possess more than a “tradesman morality” (1990, 83), the gift, he argues, necessarily places an obligation on its recipient to reciprocate. Several studies (Dyahadroy 2009; Thachil 2014) on service rendered by the Sangh Parivar in everyday life have drawn attention to this dimension of instrumentality and reciprocity inherent in the act of giving. Analysts have drawn attention to how the service activities of the RSS and its affiliates have helped them win allies, supporters, and new members, as recipients of service remain obligated and find a way to “return the gift.” A cursory review of the RSS’s activities reveals that service has been a central pillar of the organization’s work since its inception in 1925. From the 1950s onward, a series of affiliates such as the Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram (dedicated to tribal welfare), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (religious wing), Sewa Bharati (service wing), and Vidya Bharati (educational wing) were commissioned by the RSS in order to provide institutionalized and targeted service to Dalits and tribal people. Service activities perform specific political functions, such as offering a counter to Christian proselytizing activities in the tribal areas, assimilating Dalits, indoctrinating children through a parallel form of education, and inculcating values of national awareness and “character building” to create a pan-Hindu unity. The scale of service projects within the Sangh Parivar today is overwhelming; its service activities—mostly in the realm of health and education—were estimated at a total of around 165,000 projects in 2015 (Andersen and Damle 2019, xiv). Several civil society reports (Sabrang Communications/SACW 2002) and stories in the popular press (Reghunath 2014) have alleged that the philanthropy of the Sangh is selective and that it systematically excludes non-Hindus. And yet, one comes across several instances when service was offered to non-Hindus. The

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Charkhi Dadri air crash of 1996 was one such case, where the RSS stepped in to help the relatives of all the dead passengers who were Muslims. While conducting my own doctoral fieldwork, I came across a village named Atal Nagar in Kutch that had been reconstructed by Sewa Bharati after the Bhuj earthquake of 2001, where eight Muslim families had been allocated new houses (Bhattacharjee 2019, 160). Residents of Chaulia, a Muslim-dominated village in Erasama Block, Jagatsinghpur district in Odisha, that had been ravaged by the 1999 super cyclone recounted to me that RSS volunteers were the first to set up community kitchens in their village (Bhattacharjee 2019, 124). To return to my earlier question, what prompts organizations like the RSS to offer aid to members who are typically outside their constituency? If one were to apply the Maussian argument here, then how does one make sense of service rendered to those groups where the “return gift” is least expected? In other words, prudence dictates giving to those from whom the likelihood of gain is higher. What remains underanalyzed in Mauss’s theory, however, is the expectation of an outcome that may not be directly connected to the gift being requited by the recipient. This outcome could be a gain in reputation, the dismantling of an unfavorable image, or the breaking down of a stereotype about one’s image. As Melanie Cammett (2014) has shown in the case of Lebanon, sectarian parties pursuing a state-centric strategy and those that have achieved dominance within their own group are likely to distribute welfare goods to out-group members. The welfare activities of the Gullen movement and Muhammadiyah, Islamic organizations based, respectively, in Turkey and Indonesia, also reflect similar trends where non-Muslim groups are often catered to (essay 38). In this context, one also has to acknowledge that disasters and pandemics create situations that are very different from normal times. For religious and cultural groups in particular, they provide an opportunity to establish mass contact with the community, including out-group members, and demonstrate their secular credentials. For an organization like the RSS, which has been banned thrice by the state and is forever trying to revamp its image as a “secular” entity, inclusive aid giving facilitates the breaking of communal stereotypes that exist about the organization and also embellishes its image as a credible and “selfless” civil society actor. Historically, even though religious and cultural groups have always been at the forefront in providing welfare activities, they have been marginalized quite significantly with the rise of modern states. In colonial India, for instance, British rulers and Christian missionaries denigrated indigenous forms of giving as being “parochial,” “superstitious,” and “non-secular.” One consistent strategy adopted by socioreligious groups, therefore, has been to counter this marginalization

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by adopting “secular” characteristics in order to appear more legitimate. Some of these characteristics, which were popularly adopted by religious and cultural bodies in colonial India, included bookkeeping, documentation, and fundraising through subscription modes that were felt to be transparency-enhancing “­rational” practices. In postcolonial settings, deliberate service to out-group members has been another important hallmark adopted by these groups as a demonstration of their secularity in order to gain more legitimacy. However, I am not trying to suggest that seva rendered to non-Hindus by the RSS is merely a political strategy or a demonstration of the effort to emulate secular organizations. Contrary to a certain imagination, there is a vibrant, rigorous, and living Hindu tradition of service that animates the Sangh Parivar. Moreover, while the space of humanitarianism is messy and essentially political, the motivations for service are complex. There is genuine altruism and love for the nation as much as rational reckoning involved. Political motivations aside, the ongoing pandemic has demonstrated yet again the power and relevance of religious and cultural groups in our societies. The “sacred” seems to be constantly and successfully reinventing itself to embrace the “secular,” while the secular space of humanitarianism gets re-enchanted with greater participation of religious and cultural groups.

Notes 1. A langar is a free community kitchen organized by Sikhs in gurdwaras (places of worship) where food is served to anyone who walks in. As the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic witnessed an acute oxygen shortage in hospitals across India, several gurdwaras have begun “oxygen langars,” where free oxygen is being provided to Covid patients. 2.  All data were collected on May 18, 2021, from a representative of the Rashtriya Sewa Bharati, which acts as an umbrella body for all sangh-inspired organizations engaged in service. 3. RSS swayamsevak (volunteer) based in Mumbai, telephone interview by the author, June 21, 2020.

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Moral Challenges at the Intersection of Religion, Politics, and COVID-19 in Pakistan Philipp Zehmisch

What were the major tensions shaking the political, social, and religious landscape of Pakistan during the pandemic, and how did the people react to them? I argue that the pandemic confronted both policy makers and common citizens with a variety of ethical challenges regarding a host of issues, including the survival of the poor as well as care for those whose lives are threatened by COVID-19. Reacting to the early global spread of the pandemic in March 2020, Pakistan declared a countrywide complete lockdown, which lasted until mid-May 2020. The lockdown was lifted before the Eid ul-Fitr holidays, marking the end of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, in order to encourage consumption and stimulate the economy. This lift caused a subsequent rise of infections, leading the government to declare a partial lockdown before and during the Eid ul-Fitr holidays in 2021. However, due to everyday forms of popular resistance, lockdowns were not as “complete” or even as “partial” as the terms suggest. Shops stayed illegally open, often with only half-closed shutters, and many people resisted the demand for social distancing, continuing to meet for social, religious, and ritual gatherings. Why? Some problems are perceived to be more significant than the risks taken; many ignore the dangers implied in the spread of the pandemic—as long as they are not personally affected. Lockdowns have inhibited major parts of the economy from functioning in the usual, uneven, and unequal ways, driving millions of employees, workers, and daily wage earners in a struggle for survival rife with depression, domestic conflict, and violence. Poor people’s lives are thus constantly and disproportionately subjected to the existential struggle for survival. Since the beginning of the crisis, the numbers of unemployed workers and beggars have increased drastically. Lacking alternatives, many have also returned to their villages in order to engage in agricultural labor or farming as a survival strategy. Hunger, a negative economic side effect of the pandemic, thus seems to be the major challenge for the poor. Since the pandemic started, both public welfare and private charity initiatives have provided some relief to the poor. For example, in March 2020, the 213

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government released a onetime relief package of twelve thousand Pakistani rupees (around sixty-eight euros) per family; however, unregistered subalterns, such as undocumented slum dwellers, have not been able to access these benefits.1 Taking poverty into consideration, one may understand why many Pakistanis have so far not taken the pandemic as seriously as some other populations in the Global North. Only upper classes and elites are able to put the agenda of social distancing into practice. They can afford enough space to live in a separate room when falling sick and can get their food delivered. Social distancing, in turn, is virtually impossible in typically cramped forms of housing practiced by extended families from poorer backgrounds. Hence, solutions to the crisis other than a complete or partial lockdown had to be found. The government of Pakistan decided to replace the strict lockdown with “smart lockdowns,” or cordoning off single areas with high numbers of infections. This strategy seemed to work out quite well, with comparatively low official numbers of new infections during the months before March 2021. However, some critical voices mentioned that during this period, fewer tests were conducted than before, possibly lowering the number of reported infections. Official numbers have presumably been much lower than the actual numbers of infections: a government servant involved in pandemic-related policies assured me that no number regarding infections, recoveries, or death rates would be accurate, as there is no systematic mechanism of thorough data collection and enumeration. Most infected persons in rural areas and urban slums are simply not counted statistically because they have nonexistent or limited access to health facilities. Worrying about the deadly potential of the third wave, which struck Pakistan in March 2021, and with many more viral mutations likely to come, the government cited socioeconomic reasons as one explanation for general reluctance to abide by the mandated lockdowns, social distancing, and sanitary measures such as mask wearing or handwashing. Another may be found when looking at the realm of religion, especially at how notions of “piety” (Mahmood 2012) have informed the particular ways in which Pakistanis are coping with the effects and challenges of the pandemic. The intersecting realms of religion and the notion of the public sphere are linked to the specific conditions that led to the creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan as homeland for Muslims carved out of British India in 1947. Initially, the idea of being “Muslim” in Pakistan was conceived of in a rather secular fashion, as a sociopolitical category marked by civilizational, cultural, and religious difference from Hindus; however, as Pakistani nationalism intersected with notions of Islamic modernity, the idea of Pakistan came to embody

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the notion of Muslim self-determination in a separate territory—a “Muslim Zion” (Devji 2013). In the process of nation building, a more encompassing idea of “Muslim-ness,” implying the display and public policing of piety, came to be inscribed into the very notion of the public realm.2 These dispositions have crucially influenced the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic was dealt with, both by policy makers and by the people. What were the responses to pandemic-related policies, considering that these not only inhibit means of survival and everyday movement, but also obstruct people from fulfilling social obligations and ritual as well as religious duties? Characteristic of a broad distrust of the state and elites in general, religion and urban legends have entered into a lethal mix with various conspiracy theories, which are also circulating with regard to COVID-19 and its treatment and are spread by religious hardliners, among others. As a consequence, one can encounter a popular reluctance toward general health measures and mainstream narratives about them because of allegedly hidden imperialist agendas instituted by the so-called enemies of Islam with the goal of harming the global Islamic community (ummah). In this guise, polio workers are regularly killed because polio drops have been declared a Western conspiracy to cause infertility among Muslims. Similarly, health personnel seeking to test symptomatic persons for COVID-19 have been subject to ongoing attacks. According to a dominant conspiracy narrative, going to hospitals implies the danger of disappearing, with one’s body parts and organs being harvested and sold “abroad.” The discrete and isolated treatment of coronavirus patients makes them easily susceptible to association with malevolent powers and enemies of the state. In 2020, a mob attacked doctors and healthcare workers and vandalized a hospital in Karachi, when doctors kept a deceased patient’s corpse against the will of his relatives in order to wait for the result of a COVID-19 test. Another urban legend in circulation claims that people came to pray at the grave of a COVID-19 victim and that they saw an empty grave, implying that the body had disappeared. Hence, many patients do not report their illness because they fear that once in quarantine, they will not return. Some orthodox religious scholars even claimed that the virus was intentionally created to target Islam and Muslims. In turn, the contention that COVID-19 is a result of God’s anger for the transgression of morals is accepted by numerous individuals in Pakistan. There is a widespread conviction that individual sufferings result from God’s fury. One analyst marked the pandemic as a test for people, guaranteeing that they return to Allah in order to seek absolution for their transgressions. A reporter, while considering the coronavirus an azaab (torment or discipline) from Allah,

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contended that the virus was the direct result of sins committed, such as the enjoyment of sex and infidelity, which implies that the sinner has wandered away from God and turned selfish (Mir 2020). In general, most Pakistanis do not wear masks and do continue to meet others, especially at significant life-cycle rituals such as weddings and funerals as well as religious congregations. The majority attach more value to everyday ­rituals and demands of etiquette, like handshakes and hugs, than to an abstract danger of infection. Maintaining status and social cohesion based on notions of piety and a firm embedding of the individual in larger collectives seem to have more significance and relevance than government-issued public health orders. In 2020, for example, religious scholars insisted on holding Friday prayers against the government’s request not to do so. Furthermore, interlocutors in various rural areas were convinced that the virus would not affect those who live in the countryside, conduct manual labor, and eat healthy food. Such views may be characterized, among others, by a common skepticism towards science, mainstream media, and the government. In the case of the pandemic, a markedly subaltern disavowal of the epistemologies and ontologies of “those who govern” is coupled with the piety and fatalism of “those who are governed” (Chatterjee 2004, 4). For example, one interlocutor opined that God would have already decided who will die and when. As everything would happen according to God’s will, one should calm down and peacefully await one’s fate. However, during a visit in March and April 2021, when the third wave was spreading rapidly, the very same interlocutors admitted that the virus had arrived and caused several deaths in the village. The pandemic had to be proven by unleashing its deadly force. To conclude, Pakistanis face a variety of contested information in their everyday life, disseminated both by state and religious actors. While there is formally a private domain of citizens, from which the government continuously demands individual discipline and responsibility, these globally applied prescriptions prove inappropriate to contain the spread of the pandemic in Pakistan. Here, religion and public morality have come full circle as a result of people’s distrust in science, the body politic, the state, its health system, and its capability to deal with the pandemic. Especially for those who do not belong to the elite, myriads of alternative, most often religiously charged, worldviews and explanations prove most relevant in helping them navigate the disastrous impacts of COVID-19 on their everyday lives.

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Notes 1.  Such arbitrary experiments with the lives of the poor may be productively viewed with Antonio Agamben (1998) as a form of necropolitics, a “politics of death.” Anthropologist Akhil Gupta applied the concept to India, where interactions between “the poor” and state bureaucracies are structured by systematic inequality, arbitrariness, and indifference (Gupta 2012, 22–26). Gupta (2012, 5) estimated that the lack of access to nutrition and medicine causes about two million untimely deaths a year. The current exorbitant mortality in India due to COVID-19 may hence be productively understood as a combination of permanent forms of official neglect towards the poor and immediate failures in policies to prevent the spread of the pandemic. Once a more aggressive virus variant arises, the situation in Pakistan may deteriorate in similar ways due to corresponding dispositions among bureaucrats and policy makers. 2.  Islam is supposed to function as the most common denominator linking large parts of an ethnically, religiously, linguistically, and culturally diverse population to the master narrative of an Islamic nation-state. While this narrative is constantly contested, fragmented, subverted, and undermined because of the sheer diversity of sects and orientations encompassed within the very general notion of Islam, it surely provides a context and a religiously loaded atmosphere that lends religious interpretations validity, often by involving moralizing arguments.

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Miracle Cure for COVID-19 in Sri Lanka Kali and the Politics behind Dhammika Paniya Catherine West and Kanchana Dodan Godage

After months of curfews, lockdowns, and low infection rates, Sri Lanka’s COVID-19 case numbers spiked in October and November 2020. In early December, news emerged about a tonic called Dhammika Paniya that had the power to prevent and heal COVID-19. Though it was initially promoted as an Ayurvedic medicine, its inventor later attributed its strength to the goddess Kali (web figure 30.1). This appeal to the transcendent is not an alternative to biomedicine or Ayurveda but one that is imbricated in the everyday political and social response to the pandemic crisis in Sri Lanka. In the dramatic rise of Dhammika Paniya, we can observe a mosaic of perceptions, anxieties, and hopes that exist in tension with the nation’s well-developed public health system. This article follows the government’s involvement in the Dhammika Paniya story primarily by analyzing mass media coverage over four months, supplemented with interviews and personal observations.

Miracle Cure? On December 3, 2020, the Daily News (2020) headline “Miracle Cure for COVID-19?” was one of the first to raise the hopes of the increasingly worried Sri Lankan public. Dhammika Paniya might have quietly gone the way of other “miracles” except that the minister for health, Pavithra Wanniarachchi (and some of her colleagues), consumed a spoonful of the medicine, and photographs of the event were widely distributed in the media (web figure 30.2). The name of To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/30

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the syrup comes from its main ingredient, honey (paniya in Sinhala), and its creator, a Sinhalese businessman, Dhammika Bandara.

Large Crowds Following these news reports, more than ten thousand people converged at Bandara’s home in rural Hettimulla (about one hundred kilometers northeast of the capital, Colombo). The crowds posed problems for the local authorities, who struggled to enforce social-distancing rules. Initially, public order was the main issue. However, accusations of fraud emerged, along with claims that Bandara was not trained in Ayurvedic medicine. The state minister for promotion of indigenous medicine, Sisira Jayakody, endorsed the tonic, while State Health Minister Sudarshini Fernandopulle warned that it first needed to be tested and approved. President of the College of Medical Laboratory Science Ravi Kumudesh told the Island newspaper, “We have confused people and they are now clutching at straws” (Island 2020).

Dhammika Bandara Gets Loud What Bandara did next is reminiscent of what many Sri Lankan politicians do when faced with trying circumstances: he visited the nation’s most famous Buddhist temples, the Sri Dalada Maligawa in Kandy and the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura. In a personal communication with a Hettimulla resident, the authors learned that Bandara did indeed have political ambitions and that he had campaigned to represent the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (the ruling national political party) in the 2018 local government elections. Our informant said that Bandara was unsuccessful but had plans to try again, and that the fame of Dhammika Paniya might well give its namesake an advantage in joining the ranks of the political elite. Positive media coverage of Bandara’s pilgrimage to the temple at Anuradhapura was derailed when he was refused access to the carefully guarded upper terrace, where the original bodhi tree is said to have been planted in the third century BCE. Instead, he was directed to the adjacent bodhi trees and shrines that are accessible to the public. On December 17, 2020, news stories emerged that Bandara had berated the Most Venerable Pallegama Sirinivasa Thero, the chief monk at the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura. Bandara was captured on video (web figure 30.3) shouting, “I am Kali. I am your mother,” at the chief monk, behavior that most Sri Lankans would consider extremely rude and inappropriate (Sri Lanka Mirror

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2020). This negative reportage might have undermined Bandara’s authority. Yet, it seemed to bring new energy to the reputation of the treatment: audacious, uncontrolled, and demonic, a little like the coronavirus itself. Bandara explained that Kali gave him the recipe for the tonic in a dream, that it derives its healing power from the goddess, and that he was possessed at the time the video was taken. Thousands continued to flock to his property at Hettimulla, which has a bo tree and a Buddhist shrine but is also the site of the Sri Weera Maha Bhadrakali Devalaya, a temple to Kali in one of her fiercest forms. News reports confirmed that Bandara is not an Ayurvedic doctor, but rather a meniyo (spirit medium).

The Buddha, Kali, Power, and Merit Calls for Bandara to cease using Kali’s name in relation to his product were publicly made by a swami from a famous Hindu Kali temple, echoing the widely accepted notion that one should invoke Kali only with great courtesy and caution. In multireligious Sri Lanka, Kali is a Hindu goddess, but she also sits within the Sinhala Buddhist pantheon (where she is associated with another goddess, Pattini). She has many instantiations (including Bhadrakali—see web figure 30.4) and a long association with traders and businesspeople (Bastin 1996), like Bandara. Balachandran (2020) published an opinion piece outlining how Bandara’s invocation of Kali would appeal to a wide range of Sri Lankans. About 70 percent of the Sri Lankan population are Buddhist; 99 percent of the population profess to follow one of the four main religions; and many Sri Lankans have plural religious practices. In Sinhala Buddhism, the Buddha does not intervene in worldly affairs. Conversely, Bhadrakali can accept the pleas of humans and potentially channel her wild destructive power against the coronavirus to accumulate merit. Her power is widely acknowledged. While Buddhists and Hindus might have a more direct historical link to Kali, she is also honored by some Christians and Muslims in Sri Lanka. Of course, all four religious groups contain skeptics, and many Sinhala Buddhists see spirit worship as un-Buddhist, but this opinion can be skin-deep, particularly in times of crisis.

Populism and Pragmatism Sajith Premadasa, the opposition leader, and many other political figures accused the government of using the notoriety of Dhammika Paniya to conceal their inadequate response to the pandemic. Indeed, the efficacy of the treatment was being taken seriously by the pharmacology section of the Ayurvedic Department.

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National Research Council chairman Professor Hemantha Dodampahala said, “The Council is yet to receive the proposal by Mr. Dhammika Bandara and will take immediate action when the proposal is received, to facilitate the trial in (an) advisory and monetary capacity” (Daily Mirror 2020b). One journalist (Ferdinando 2020) speculated about who would be held responsible if the treatment caused problems: The government, Kali, or Dhammika Bandara? Within this flippant musing, there lies a larger point. The nationalism of the Sinhala Buddhist government (and its main opposition) rides on a rhetoric that shuns the modern, secular, urban lifestyle and reifies an idyllic pre-Europeancolonial village society. The success of Dhammika Paniya is based on notions of indigenous superiority (local Ayurveda versus Western biomedicine), similar to what Rambukwella (2020) describes as the “patriotic science” of ritual Buddhist chanting (pirit). However, this logic is not reducible to nationalism, as Sri Lankans of various ethnoreligious backgrounds use multiple methods to address health issues (natural, supernatural, and pharmacological, all mediated through social networks), in sequence or simultaneously (Nichter and Nordstrom 1989). The government’s reticence to reject Dhammika Paniya outright is founded in political pragmatism (by implicitly accepting the simultaneity of diverse health practices), spurred on by nationalist populism.

Secondary Elaboration and Diversionary Tactics Dhammika Paniya continued to make headlines, including opinion pieces from medical professionals, reports of its availability (then withdrawal) from eBay, and speculation about its official approval as a “food supplement.” Bandara gave a television interview (Newsfirst Sri Lanka 2020) during which he affirmed that Kali should receive credit for the medicine and that people in the armed forces and state institutions who had taken it were now “very healthy.” He claimed that  the results of scientific experiments conducted at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura would be released when the government’s trials were complete. In response to his critics, he warned, “We have a government in our country. We have a law. Obtain an order from [the] courts and stop insulting me.” On January 23, 2021, the minister of health, whose consumption of the tonic fueled its meteoric rise, announced that she had contracted COVID-19. Bandara claimed that she had taken an incorrect dose and that he could still cure her. Many more politicians became infected and derisive commentary escalated, with individual parliamentarians describing the cure as sorcery and black magic. By early February 2021, Dhammika Paniya’s fame was eclipsed by news of the government’s vaccination program. Another controversy emerged when the

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government insisted on cremating the bodies of those who died of COVID-19, causing outrage in the Muslim community and gaining international media attention. (The policy was later reversed.)

The Government’s Prescription: Ayurveda, Allopathy, and Kali The rise and fall of Dhammika Paniya lays bare some unspoken elements of the political process in Sri Lanka. Despite the extraordinary circumstances, Bandara’s spiritual, economic, and political actions are consistent with existing patterns of patron-client relations. Critics claim that the government’s support of Dhammika Paniya (through the provision of equipment and scientific testing, and endorsements from medicos and politicians on state media) has caused damage to the health of the nation and eroded the public’s trust in their rulers (Janapriya 2021). Alongside the rise of this “miracle cure,” we see the government combining Western medicine, Ayurveda, and an ambivalent acceptance of spiritual solutions to assuage the public’s fears and the spread of the coronavirus: an approach that corresponds well with the heterogeneous associational health beliefs and practices of the people. Through this technique of trading on nationalist pride and offering disparate solutions, the government has attempted to obscure its policy failures. It has also shown the currency of Kali’s reputation as a supernatural protector, not only against illness, but as a powerful ally for the politically and economically ambitious.

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COVID-19 and the Rohingyas Islamic Solidarity and Bottom-Up Initiatives in Aceh Nia Deliana

Aceh is a region at the northern tip of Sumatra, Indonesia, located in a strategic geographic area where wind directions rule the maritime compass between the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. These environmental circumstances have destined boats of Rohingya refugees to become stranded near Aceh’s coastal areas, as witnessed in 2008, 2009, 2015, 2018, 2020, and 2021. Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous countries tightened their sea-border controls. In mid-April 2020, 382 Rohingya refugees at the maritime borders of Malaysia and Thailand were rejected entry because of concerns regarding the spread of the novel coronavirus. Meanwhile, Aceh Province was under political transition from local governing parties to a national one; Nova Iriansyah, vice governor from the Democratic Party, was appointed acting governor and responsible for the refugee emergency. The boat, which arrived in North Aceh on June 24, 2020, was carrying ninetyfour people: fifteen men, forty-nine women, and thirty children. According to Muhammad Yanis, a member of the nonprofit Geutanyoe Foundation, it was only on June 26, 2020, after Acehnese people insisted that the local district government of North Aceh take charge and allocate care for them, that the regent released a statement that the government would fulfill their needs, treat the sick, and provide measures for an appropriate response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On June 4, 2021, another boat carrying eighty-one refugees arrived after being stranded in the Bay of Bengal for 113 days.

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Bottom-Up Humanitarian Initiatives “We picked them up in our boats. Every fisherman here owns a boat. [We] should not be cruel to our Muslim brothers. We must help them first, before applying decisions based on immigration and international regulations” (Masriadi 2020). This statement was made by fishermen after witnessing a slow response from the local government. When action was finally taken, fixing the boat and returning the refugees to the sea was the first advice proposed by military personnel representing the local government. The decision was met with intense criticism from residents, netizens, and human rights organizations, who were pleading for humanitarian measures (web figure 31.1). Perhaps so as to be seen as compromising with the ongoing pressure placed by the international Human Rights Watch and for the sake of perceived consistency with the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the government conducted large-scale COVID-19 rapid tests for refugees—which in a matter of hours declared all negative results. Thereafter, on June 26, 2020, the military leader of the local government stated that the refugees, who had allegedly originally intended to reach other countries such as Australia, would be provided a new boat for their journey, which incited backlash. In September 2020, the locals and aid organizations continuously called on the provincial government to improve the quality of life of the refugees owing to the ongoing insufficient security and life support (Razali 2020). The Indonesian government has generally been inconsistent about sharing responsibility over the continuous influx of refugees since 2008. Because of international pressure, the provincial government of Aceh has implemented measures to protect the Rohingyas. In 2015, the year when hundreds of Rohingyas drowned in the Andaman Sea, hundreds more successfully disembarked in North Aceh and received organized aid (web figure 31.2). Through numerous international and national human rights organizations, permanent infrastructures were allocated. The refugees were assisted with capacity-building activities aimed for their survival once they found a permanent settlement destination. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, ensuring the rights and safety of the refugees in the long term would have been a serious challenge for a poorly organized province like Aceh (Deliana 2015).

Mindset of Aiding the Oppressed When the Rohingya refugees arrived, Aceh had been witnessing the emergence of COVID-19 cases. The Indonesian government’s approach to the epidemic has

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been uneven, resulting from poor central-province governmental coordination. While the process of COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment in Java has been well monitored, contact tracing and treatment of infections in distant provinces have faced systematic problems. Aceh is not an exception. As a province that ended a bloody conflict between the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka) and the state, the result of economic and political injustices sixteen years ago, freedom from fear to conduct daily activities is what most Acehnese live for. The COVID-19 preventive measures, such as the social-distancing regulations in public and religious places, failed to meet expectations because of hesitant health advocacy from interlinked governmental bodies and an uncontrolled and unverified web of information (and misinformation) about the virus circulating on social media. As a result, most Acehnese are unprepared for the potentially dreadful fate brought by the disease. Furthermore, the disproportionate supply of medical equipment and facilities and the lack of reliable information resulted in nothing but increased hesitancy and distrust towards the already fragile credibility of the state in relation to its COVID-19 policies. Some groups of intellectuals and elites are pointing fingers, blaming a combination of corruption, inconsistency of health protocol procedures, and insensitive religious advocacy in an ongoing push-and-pull rhetoric. But according to a local imam named Muhammad Saddam, for the common people, the quarrels of the elites and the professionals are understood as beyond their jurisdiction. Faith in God is the only path for them to follow, and embracing the situation and living life for one’s family and community are, in their own way, part of their consolation. Thus, increasing numbers of Acehnese rely on interpretations of sacred verses from popular religious leaders to respond to the pandemic. They also lean on the existing social fabric, particularly where the government’s religiopolitical direction has been inadequate (web figure 31.3). Acehnese, whose ancestors lived through wars, have relied on the aid of nonlocal actors, who have frequently aimed at mediating voices of the struggle to reach wider authorities and audiences. This attitude was evident in the involvement of numerous international bodies in peace-building efforts following the end of the thirty-year struggle for independence, which ended in 2004 during the relief and rehabilitation processes following the Indian Ocean tsunami. The impetus to provide aid to the refugees is shaped by previous experiences of oppression, assisted by cultural ethics of empathy towards those of the same faith. The struggle of the Acehnese people involved almost a full century of war and resistance against seventy years of colonialism. In dealing with the current pandemic the Acehnese mirrored the historical response during the colonial

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cholera outbreak, during which the ulamas utilized Islamic verses to legitimize prioritizing the expulsion of the colonial regime over fighting the pandemic. The idea of prioritizing help for the oppressed is historically embedded in the religiomoral context, and it gradually became embedded in the local culture. Thus, refusing aid to the oppressed because of concern about spreading an infectious disease is deemed culturally un-Islamic in Aceh. Although the current regime is no longer officially colonial, the cultural consciousness remains alive. The soft power of the traditional maritime commanding body known as Panglima La’ot also played a role in the treatment of refugees. Panglima La’ot advocates sea and human protection through its persevering and observant ­fishermen. Panglima La’ot is one of the lasting Aceh Darussalam Sultanate navy organs, believed to have existed for centuries. It encompasses security in the sea and guards regulations through its hundreds of chiefs spread throughout the Aceh coastal areas. Since it was allied with the Indonesian maritime watch under constitutional law in 1977, it has remained a key player in negotiating and regulating numerous naval issues, including the fate of the oppressed stranded in the waters of Aceh. Dilemmas over the possibility of viral contamination, or the idea of prioritizing the health of their own people rather than saving the refugees, was unfamiliar to both the local media and public opinion, although anxieties about Covid spread remained among the politicians and elite circles.

Saviors Under Threat Although Aceh acted in a limited capacity with grassroots initiatives, there were increasing expectations that grassroots Islamic activism from Aceh would address broader human rights issues and strive towards a better future for the Rohingyas. The agenda included, firstly, persuading the Indonesian government to act on the revision of the Arakan ethnic constitution; secondly, enacting additional regulations on human rights protection in countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations; and lastly, building stronger protective measures that prevent the expansion of illegal human trafficking through regulated interport networks between Southeast Asian countries (Deliana 2015). These expectations were energetically optimistic under the assumption of autonomous governance at least until 2018, when political developments interfered and led to continuous challenges. The safety and protection of the Rohingyas have yet to be ensured. In June 2020, allegations of fraud and potential human trafficking emerged, intensifying more restrictive measures on dealing with the refugees. In October 2020, six men were accused of human trafficking and

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sentenced to several years in prison for acting as mediators and allegedly scheming to create unauthorized agreements to reunite separated Rohingya families in Malaysia via Medan (Kompas 2020; “Putusan Nomor 24” 2021). In early May 2021, three Acehnese fishermen who had aided the stranded Rohingya refugees in the ocean were each sentenced to six years of jail and a fine of five hundred million Indonesian rupiah (about thirty-two thousand U.S. dollars) on the accusation of illegal trafficking based on Indonesian immigration law (Jafaruddin 2021). The fishermen were punished for providing aid to noncitizens, having failed to confirm their identity status and documentation. Following the process of appeals, as of early June 2021, their jail sentences are now officially five years each. This is despite Indonesia’s agreement as a signatory to the United Nations’ 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ensuring the provision of basic needs, freedom, safety, and protection not only for its own citizens, but also for noncitizens. Under shifting and inconsistent pandemic restrictions, developments towards the betterment of refugees’ lives have not garnered the attention of mainstream media and policy-making institutions. According to a member of Geutanyoe Foundation, almost all refugees in Aceh have now been transferred to Medan, a neighboring province, with the effect of emphasizing the authority of Indonesian immigration laws, while discouraging future Rohingya rescue ventures. The Acehnese grassroots religiocultural humanitarian elements are perhaps the last ray of hope towards the affordance of equal human rights to the Rohingyas. Particularly during this pandemic era of fear and crisis, they remind us of the importance of bottom-up humanitarian initiatives, even when they are at odds with centrally sanctioned powers.

 

SECTION VI

Religiopolitical Economies of COVID-19: Between Aid and Loss

 

 

There is a long-standing connection between religion and charity in theological and practical terms, with religious groups providing aid and support to poor and vulnerable people both within and beyond their religious communities through charitable missions (Baker et al. 2020; Weller et al. 2018). The global COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated this connection by shedding light on the ways that religious groups are rapidly innovating charitable activities with a new sense of purpose defined by the crisis. This section of CoronAsur describes the ways that different religious traditions in Asia have had to contend with increasingly strict national and international health protocols as well as pandemic-related social, political, and economic turmoil in the provisioning of aid. Religious interpretations of the pandemic, often referring to erosion of the communal morality of the human species, combined with the logistical issues of providing assistance in the context of social-distancing measures, reveal multiple ways that religious ideologies, political goals, and charity work are intertwined. While the boundary-defying nature of COVID-19 has, in one sense, had a unifying effect, as is the case for other catastrophes, the worst affected are those who are already the most socially marginalized (Human Rights Watch 2020). As the pandemic makes explicit and amplifies these structural inequalities (see section 5)—something that we call “pandemicizing enemies and values” in the introduction of this book—religious groups are working in various relationships with government, the private sector, and civil society groups to spearhead charitable movements and fill gaps in the provisioning of immediate aid, and in ways that may ultimately be transforming the social assistance aspects of their missions. While emergency aid provision is not new, religious groups found themselves immediately caught up in major dilemmas brought about by the method and rate of viral transmission, which, in the early days of the pandemic, religious congregations felt the lethal effects of firsthand (Baker et al. 2020). Ritual innovations, as discussed in section 2, have been an important site of continuity and change for members of religious communities, but that is not the only source of 231

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innovation. Pandemic times have also been characterized by innovations in the provisioning of aid and social assistance. Sikh communities that have long been known for providing free communal meals (langar) for people irrespective of their religious backgrounds, innovated during the pandemic to create an “oxygen langar” for people waiting for hospital beds (Indian Express 2021). Religious provisioning of emergency aid entails more than material assistance; there are also intangible moral and spiritual exchanges taking place, as well as the negotiation of implicit and explicit political agendas. Long before the pandemic, faith-based organizations were recognized and elevated by national governments and international development agencies as legitimate distributors of aid (Feener and Fountain 2018) and woven into complex relationships with political regimes, NGOs, and global development projects that have “progress,” “improvement,” and “modernization” as goals. While theorization of the religion-development nexus has stemmed from a Western Christian understanding of charity (Feener and Fountain 2018), recent scholarship corrects this imbalance by studying a wider range of places and traditions, including new trends in Islamic charity in Asia (Kailani and Slama 2020), transnational Buddhist social assistance (Huang 2009), possibilities for the emergence of a Daoist charitable civil society (Zhao 2015), and emergency relief aid provision of Sri Lankan Buddhist temples in Malaysia (Samuels 2016). Contributing to this growing literature, the essays in this section document the primacy of religious institutions in providing aid and charity in the context of this global health crisis. In immediate response to the spread of COVID-19, some religious groups began providing emergency aid while at the same time creating opportunities to accrue merit and spread the teaching of their faiths. Yeh-Ying Shen describes the charitable activities of Yiguandao, a Buddhist-oriented Chinese salvationist religion in Taiwan and around the world. Viewing the pandemic as evidence of the “final days,” Yiguandao members were encouraged by the leadership to spread the messages of their faith by praying for all humanity, while also providing donations of hand sanitizer, face masks, and personal protective equipment. Vegetarian food was cooked and offered free of charge not only as a form of immediate aid but also to spread the dharma message of respecting all sentient beings. By linking the zoonotic origins of COVID-19 to eschatology, Yiguangdao practitioners were able to promote vegetarianism—one of Yiguangdao’s central tenets—as both morally and hygienically superior. Vo Duy Thanh also focuses on the charitable activities of a quasi-Buddhist millenarian sect, but in the context of Vietnam. Like Yiguandao, Hoa Hao Buddhists view vegetarian food and volunteering in vegetarian food kitchens as a dharma practice, a prophetic mandate to atone for debts to society accumulated in past lives and a way to accrue

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and spread good karma. With massive unemployment in the Mekong delta during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hoa Hao Buddhists began energetically upgrading their kitchens to an industrial scale in order to provide thousands of free vegetarian meals a day, filling a need left unfulfilled by the national government. Many religious communities and organizations have also been impacted by the economic downturn during the pandemic. While in some cases, this may lead to an increased impetus to provide charity, in other cases, the inability to perform religious rituals has had cascading economic effects for the communities involved. Emily Hertzman describes how the decision to cancel the Cap Go Meh procession during Chinese New Year in 2021 in Indonesia led to a major loss of economic stimulus in the city of Singkawang. Hundreds of spirit mediums and thousands of assistants, musicians, and event organizers could not receive their annual monetary donations and were restricted in their ability to perform the ritual to cleanse the streets of the city of negative spiritual entities. The experience of loss—of ritual autonomy, cultural expression, and social and economic capital flows (see also Yue 2020)—was evident in debates that took place in the public sphere and on social media, where residents voiced their anger and regret, much of which was directed towards government policy makers. Sadness and loss are also the main themes of Siti Zubaidah Ismail’s essay, which recounts the impact of the closure of the hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia during the pandemic for Muslims in Malaysia. As one of the five pillars of Islam, performing the hajj is often considered spiritually and socially essential. It is a major milestone in one’s life, connected to local economies of social status, prestige, and religious membership. For those who were poised to depart on the hajj in 2020, who had saved money for years via the national hajj savings scheme, the sudden closure of the pilgrimage for foreigners was a momentous disappointment. Saudi Arabia lost twelve billion U.S. dollars of revenue by canceling the hajj for international pilgrims, but the emotional effects were felt globally as the personal narratives in Ismail’s essay illustrate. As COVID-19 rapidly spread around the world, immobility suddenly became a reality for many different groups of people, not only those preparing to perform the hajj. Yuki Shiozaki’s essay points the spotlight on one such group of people: Southeast Asian migrant workers in Japan. During the economic fallout of the pandemic, thousands of Southeast Asians suddenly found themselves unemployed, socially isolated, unable to return to their origin countries, and ineligible for government social assistance. During this emergency, several Buddhist temples spontaneously adopted civil society roles, opening their doors to Southeast Asian migrant workers by providing food, shelter, winter clothing, a social space, and access to Buddhist teachings and meditation.

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Shiozaki’s essay raises questions about who is responsible for providing aid to whom during a global crisis and shows how religious groups can position themselves in a void left by inadequate national and transnational social protection schemes (Gray and Levitt 2020). In the next essay, Bagaria provides the example of another problematic issue related to filling a void in government assistance. Using the example of a debate that arose early on during the pandemic about a possible short-term solution to the economic downturn, Swayam Bagaria discusses the (quickly rejected) proposal to borrow gold reserves from Hindu temple trusts to prop up the national economy and generate funds for emergency aid. While viewed by economists as “dead wealth” for its lack of circulation and growth, gold, Bagaria illustrates, is a potent token with multiple meanings and types of efficacy that exceed its market or commodity value. For Hindu temples, gold can mediate their institutional status as collective owners of resources, adding to their legitimacy and centrality as social organizations, although the process of allocating or converting this gold wealth is complex and fraught. As one of the five pillars of Islam, zakat—a form of almsgiving—is a longestablished charitable practice but during the pandemic took on new significance, undergoing several innovations in Indonesia. In the final essay in this section, Amelia Fauzia describes changes to the system of collecting and distributing donations during Ramadan, showing how Islamic charities, regulating organizations, and government bodies under pandemic conditions successfully promoted widespread “digital zakat” fundraising, generating more than thirtynine million U.S. dollars. Her analysis of twenty organizations reveals other innovations as well, including efforts by entrepreneurial Islamic charities to process and package the sacrificial meat (qurban) from Eid ul-Adha in order to have a greater impact on poverty reduction and food security throughout the year. Other organizations chose to extend zakat distribution and other charitable services to non-Muslim Indonesians, opting for an inclusive and nondiscriminatory approach to giving, challenging more traditional and orthodox interpretations of what constitutes proper Islamic charity practices. Collectively, the essays in this section describe many of the ways that religious groups have used theological understandings and charitable imperatives to provide aid during the pandemic in order to attend to the needs of both their religious communities and other members of society, often in novel ways. While much of this aid is material in nature—for example, the distribution of essential food and medical supplies—these charitable missions reveal the exchange of intangible entities as well, including goodwill, good karma, blessings, social and psychological support, status, prestige, validation, and recognition. The absence of this support (for example, the cancellation of the international hajj and the

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temporary suspension of hajj savings accounts in Malaysia; and the cancellation of the Cap Go Meh ritual in Singkawang, Indonesia) is directly experienced by religious practitioners and illustrates the ways that these systems of exchange are entangled within local, national, and international politics. By charting pathways through these political entanglements, different religious traditions throughout Asia are innovating ways of acting as charitable social organizations, potentially leading to longer-lasting changes in their identities, structures, and epistemologies. As pandemic-induced innovations in charitable activities and economic dynamics in Asian religious traditions adopt more institutionalized forms and formats (for example, when “digital zakat” becomes mainstream practice) in post-pandemic society, we will necessarily need to ask further questions about the dynamic relations between these innovations and the theologies, cosmologies, and moral frameworks on which they are based.

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Delivering from Suffering in the Final Era Yiguandao’s Response from Aid to Salvation Shen Yeh-Ying

Originating from mainland China, Yiguandao (also known as I-Kuan Tao) is one of the Chinese popular religious movements that regard the aggregation of the Three Teachings (Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism) as their religious core. Yiguangdao has been developing in Taiwan for more than seventy-five years, since 1945, the year when the first missionary, Chen Wenxiang (陳文祥 1906– 1988), arrived from mainland China. Yiguandao is now one of the main religious groups in Taiwan. The ability to keep abreast of modern developments is one of the factors contributing to its flourishing and has allowed it to successfully spread to more than eighty other countries (Chung 2014; web figure 32.1). Its responses to the COVID-19 pandemic mainly demonstrate this in two directions: the internal flexibility of operation and the charity outreach to provide social assistance.

The Internal Flexibility of Operation The Chinese New Year was not yet over when the first outbreak of COVID-19 happened in 2020. The General Association of Yiguandao, ROC (Zhonghua Minguo Yiguandao Zonghui 中華民國一貫道總會), quickly responded by calling upon all divisions (zuxian 組線) to pray for the best interests of the world by continuously chanting the True Scripture of Maitreya Buddha (Mile Zhenjing 彌 勒真經), one of Yiguandao’s most important scriptures for relieving the pain of the needy and the distressed. Divisions chanted this scripture while kowtowing

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(koushou 叩首), with the hope that the adverse effects of the pandemic could be minimized by recitation. Aside from the usual chanting and kowtow familiar to devotees, online group meetings implemented by some divisions in February 2020 were rapid and timely measures to keep pace with developments. In fact, utilizing new media technology to present and reconstruct religions is not a new phenomenon. In a recent publication, several scholars have documented multiple ways that religious traditions employ new media to amplify modern religious practices (Lim  W.-P. 2018). The increasing use of teleconferencing software also applies to religious groups. With prior experience from the break in religious cultivation resulting from SARS in 2003, this time Yiguandao was able to shift its regular doctrine-advancement programs to online classes, given the more adequate social environment and resources. This enabled devotees to continue their religious learning during the pandemic. From February 1, 2020, divisions and temples of Yiguandao in all countries began to halt their upcoming large-scale events under an urgent appeal from the General Association of Yiguandao, ROC. Some divisions with better resources were able to bring their large-scale transnational group meetings online, with lectures conducted from the mother temple of Yiguandao in Taiwan through either live-streaming or prerecorded videos. As for the daily routine of presenting incense and worshiping (xianxiang 獻香), which is performed before three meals, many Yiguandao devotees are able to carry on, as they have their own domestic altars (jiating fotang 家庭佛堂), which are distinct from public temples (gonggong fotang 公共佛堂). The establishment of domestic altars is one of Yiguandao’s significant traits (Lim 2012). During the current pandemic, the domestic altar has gained prominence for its flexibility since people cannot gather, either in public or in private, when lockdowns are implemented. The devotees could still approach their belief and feel relieved by maintaining their worship practice at home. Since its conception, Yiguandao has demonstrated its identity as having strong responsibilities towards the salvation of all people of the world (jiudu zhongsheng 救渡眾生). In its eschatological teachings, the present is considered the final era (mojie 末劫) of the world, and it is an imperative to rescue people from suffering through transmitting the Dao (chuandao 傳道). The pandemic is regarded as one of the calamities of the final era, thus Yiguandao leaders have seized this opportunity to strengthen the core faith in salvation. The way to practice the core faith in salvation is to invite people to go through the initiation ritual (qiudao 求道) at public temples or domestic altars. Accordingly, when the pandemic was mitigating in some areas, Yiguandao launched proselytizing activities immediately. For instance, one of Yiguandao’s main divisions, Fayi Chongde (發一崇德), announced the launch of the holy summons (haozhao ling

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32.2. Reciting the holy summons in Kuala Lumpur. Credit: I-Kuan Tao General Association, ROC.

號召令), a scripture written by means of spirit writing, in August 2020 for encouraging devotees to proselytize actively. This is done by inviting people to receive the Dao, challenging followers to become vegetarians, and consecrating domestic altars (Fayi Chongde 2020). Other divisions have also dedicated themselves to proselytizing since the middle of 2020.

The Charity Outreach After modifying the internal operation of temples at the beginning of the pandemic, some divisions also initiated outward-facing charitable activities. Yiguandao values charitable acts as part of self-cultivation. In its early days in China, Yiguandao founded a number of charitable associations, offering free medical consultation and treatment and helping the poor and orphans (Chung 2015, 29). Today, Yiguandao divisions have established charitable foundations around the world, offering emergency relief and education and promoting the reading of Chinese classics for moral education. While preaching the cultivation of the Dao (xiudao 修道), Yiguandao also seeks to benefit humankind and do good to society. This is evident in the current response of Yiguandao to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the outset of the pandemic in 2020, when Taiwan experienced a shortage of disinfectant alcohol, Yiguandao volunteers helped to distribute hypochlorous acid donated by large corporations. The Yiguandao association in Indonesia

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initiated the sending of daily necessities to needy families around their temples who were impacted economically. Face masks and vegetarian meal boxes were also offered to medical workers in Jakarta (web figure 32.3). Of their own accord, devotees in Thailand donated five thousand hand-sewn face masks to nineteen clinics and hospitals (Pin Jiang Magazine 2020). The donation of face visors and protective coverall gowns in Malaysia and the donation of five tons of rice to needy families in Cambodia were timely help during the first wave of the pandemic (I-Kuan Tao General Association 2020; I-Kuan Tao 2020). The General Association of Yiguandao in Taiwan also called for the donation of face masks to the government of New York City to help alleviate the severe situation during the first wave of the outbreak. Masks were also made available to the general public who requested them, even if they were not followers of Yiguandao. Until July of 2020, masks were sent to the U.S., Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand (Pin Jiang Magazine 2020). I was told by a leader of a temple in Taiwan that the donation of face masks can be understood as an “online dharma session” (xianshang fahui 線上法會), the purpose of which is to form good affinity with people all around the world.

32.4. Face mask distribution in Los Angeles. Credit: I-Kuan Tao Andong Division.

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Advocating vegetarianism is one of the chief teachings of Yiguandao. As seen from the internal doctrine, the manual of catechism of Yiguandao (Yiguandao yiwen jieda 一貫道疑問解答), vegetarianism is a means to preserve pure innate nature and to avoid killing: “Vegetarianism is of utmost importance. The innate nature of the Prior Heaven realm (xiantian zhi xing 先天之性) is of pristine quality, the quality of which is not to be polluted by filthy energy (qi 氣). If mixed with filthy qi, humans are confused in their pursuit of the inner truth.  .  .  . Moreover, the virtue of Heaven is compassion, those cultivating the Dao have to abide by Heaven’s will and should not kill sentient beings in order to satisfy one’s appetites (Shizun 1988, 39). As the COVID-19 pandemic was imagined to be caused by consuming wild animals, Yiguandao undoubtedly took this opportunity to promote vegetarianism. A video encouraging vegetarianism titled “One Vegetarian Meal Each Day” (I-Kuan Tao General Association, ROC 2020) was a collective effort produced by the mother temple in Taiwan and other international general associations of Yiguandao (web figure 32.5). Some divisions also provided cooking videos and online recipe books to extend their core beliefs to a wider audience through the use of new media. The aforementioned charitable acts and promotion of vegetarianism have actually drawn some attention. More people can come into contact with Yiguandao and may attempt to participate in philanthropic activities and change their mindset towards the pandemic, which is the turning point for selfreflection rather than fear. Taken further, the participants would have the chance to accept the core of salvation and to go through the initiation ritual. The crisis of this pandemic is considered a turning point of awakening. Yiguandao members find pride in asserting that they are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic with a rational approach that copes constantly with the changing world. In the course of this pandemic, which is thought to coincide with the end of times, Yiguandao enacts religious goals by mixing with society and providing access to the path for salvation.

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The Performance of Hoa Hao Buddhists’ Charity Kitchens in Responding to the Coronavirus Pandemic in Vietnam Vo Duy Thanh Hoa Hao is a millenarian Buddhist sect that emerged in the Mekong delta of Vietnam on the eve of the Second World War. Hoa Hao Buddhists, whose doctrine combines elements from Buddhism, Confucianism, ancestor worship, patriotism, and humanism, undertake charity in keeping with a prophetic injunction to repay existential debts, be meritorious, and thus save the world from the apocalypse. The Hoa Hao prophet emphasized that people were born indebted to society and they should be mindful of, and work to pay back, four multidimensional debts. These debts must be paid to the nation; parents and ancestors; the Three Jewels (Buddha, Buddhist law, and the Buddhist community, or sangha); and fellow members of humankind. The socially engaged aspect of Hoa Hao Buddhism focuses on how to materialize the condition of indebtedness in practice and thereby create a moral infrastructure for a secure society through generous acts of giving (Vo 2020). Members of the sect anticipate the impending destruction of the world and seek refuge provided by faith (Taylor 2001a). They believe that providing aid to the needy and less fortunate is a better practice than funding lavish temple construction, expensive religious rituals, or costly food offerings for gods (PGHH 2013, 223–225). The Hoa Hao sect has been described in the scholarly literature as parochial, conservative, insular, mystical, localist, and disengaged from mainstream society and historically was seen as in opposition to or conflict with different successive states (Chapman 2013; Fall 1955; Tai 1983; Marr 1981; Woodside 1976). Given that the sect was repressed under the postwar context To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/33

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after 1975, several scholars had reasonably predicted that such a millenarian sect would not thrive under a secular state like the Communist regime (for a review of such views, see Taylor 2001b). However, the powerful resurgence of Hoa Hao charitable practices to fill the gap left by the state in social welfare provision throughout the Mekong delta, which has occurred in the context of Vietnam confronting the novel coronavirus pandemic, confounds such expectations. During the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, many local enterprises and small businesses in the Mekong delta closed, causing thousands of people in this region to be temporarily unemployed and without an alternative source of income. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic had a negative impact on the food supply chain, including food production, processing, and distribution, stemming from the closure of food production facilities and the restrictions on people’s movement. Thousands of urban people have experienced food insecurity during the pandemic since they have lost daily income while they have to deal with increasing food prices. Although the central government has introduced several stimulus packages to help the most affected people, many others living on the margin, especially the urban poor, have not received adequate support. Hoa Hao Buddhists have identified and responded to this urban need for social welfare by upgrading many existing charitable rice kitchens on an industrial scale so that they can now feed thousands of impoverished people amid the COVID-19 crisis (web figure 33.1). Beneficiaries are mostly migrant workers, street vendors, poor students, rural outpatients, and urban lowincome families, to name a few. They are seen as the city’s most vulnerable residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. These people are less able to make a living during the lockdown period, and they lack access to public social services, especially food. The quick response by Hoa Hao Buddhists helped urban disadvantaged people to have consistent access to enough food during the pandemic. An unemployed brick builder stated that he had received necessary support from the urban Hoa Hao Buddhists, as did his neighbors, relatives, and friends in his home village. The Hoa Hao charitable rice kitchen has provided enough food to feed himself and his children. Besides the free meal, he would also bring home lunch boxes for his mother and children and disabled neighbors who are unable to visit the kitchen during the pandemic. He asserted that what he has gained was not only the money saved on food costs, but also the love, care, and compassion of Hoa Hao Buddhists, who have assisted his family and neighbors in overcoming their distress.

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Modernizing Charity Kitchens for Large-Scale Feeding One of the most intriguing characteristics of the Hoa Hao religion is that the sect’s followers are able to adapt to new social conditions in a contemporary urban context. During the pandemic, the Hoa Hao Buddhists modernized the rice kitchens’ infrastructure to increase the charitable food supply for a greater number of urban needy. In the course of my observation of a charitable rice kitchen in Long Xuyen, one of the biggest cities in the Mekong delta, during the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, I noted that there were more people coming than before the pandemic, and expectant diners stood in a long queue in front of the rice kitchen. The kitchen manager told me that this charitable rice kitchen was established in 2012 and aimed to provide free food for the street vendors and poor river porters around the marketplace. Soon after the pandemic started in 2020, the manager realized that many other people around the marketplace, whose livelihoods relied on a very meager income, also needed charitable food. The need for such assistance was increasing, partly as a result of the rising number of people who lost their jobs or encountered financial problems during the pandemic-induced lockdowns and the restrictions on the economy. Hence, the kitchen manager decided to upgrade the scale of kitchen services, increasing the feeding capacity to twelve hundred meals a day.

33.2. Hoa Hao Buddhists feeding the needy in Long Xuyen City during the COVID-19 pandemic, March 25, 2021. Credit: Vo Duy Thanh.

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To accomplish this goal, key members of the kitchen have sought to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of food distribution by modernizing and redesigning the kitchen’s infrastructure and facilities, together with its human resources. For instance, the steam rice cooker, which used wood and charcoal, was swapped for an electric rice cooker that could steam up to one hundred kilograms of rice at a time, enough to feed about five hundred people. The new cooking equipment also helped to alleviate the burden of labor by making cooking more convenient and less labor-intensive for kitchen volunteers.

Rationally Organizing the Kitchen’s Human Resources to Increase Feeding Capacity Another remarkable feature of Hoa Hao Buddhists is that they managed the charity kitchens to operate their food supply activities very quickly and timely, to adapt to the industrial working schedules of urban people on a large scale. Kitchen volunteers start cooking in the early morning so that hot meals are ready to be served from ten a.m. to one p.m. every day. Each voluntary group is registered to work in the charitable kitchen for one week and then rotate. At the end of the week, each group moves to cook in another charitable rice kitchen or goes home to rest, and another group replaces them. Each group comprises about ten to fifteen members, with most being retired farmers, teachers, traders, or elderly businessmen, who commit significant amounts of their time and labor to the volunteer cause on a daily basis. To increase productivity and serve a massive number of beneficiaries during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hoa Hao Buddhists have organized the kitchen’s human resources structure to parallel a commercial enterprise. Kitchen laborers in each group were separated by specialized tasks. Volunteers were assigned different components in order to increase overall efficiency. A traditional gendered division of labor was employed. The male staff were primarily responsible for physically taxing tasks such as collecting, transporting, and storing kitchen materials, including rice, vegetables, fruits, and cooking oils donated from local traders each day. On the other hand, female volunteers handled cooking activities (web figure 33.3). Vegetables were peeled and washed the previous evening to make sure that they were ready for cooking early the next morning. The manager usually oversaw the task of passing the food trays to the diners. Young volunteers, mostly female students, were responsible for serving food and drinks, while the male students cleaned the dishes and kitchen floor at the end of each day.

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This organization and division of labor helped the charitable rice kitchen increase the number of offered meals to nearly double during the coronavirus crisis. The human resources were mobilized from voluntary Hoa Hao Buddhists in inner cities and highly populated Hoa Hao Buddhist localities in the Mekong delta.

Secular Compliance with Public Health Standards In order for the rice kitchens to remain open during the pandemic, Hoa Hao Buddhists were required to follow the state’s hygiene and food-safety regulations as well as comply with COVID-19 social-distancing rules. The kitchen’s head chef had to regularly attend training courses organized by the Department of Food Safety on how to process, cook, and store foods in a proper way. This basic knowledge was then shared among the kitchen staff. Their understanding of food hygiene and safety helped minimize the chance of food contamination or food poisoning, as well as prevent the spread of coronavirus and thereby protect both the diners and the reputation of Hoa Hao charitable rice kitchens. After collecting vegetables donated by market traders from the marketplace, volunteers carefully checked all cooking materials before they were used. Based on the available vegetables donated during the day, the chef would design a specific menu for the following days. The usual routine was to cook white rice, combined with one or two savory dishes and one vegetable soup, considering how to combine different kinds of vegetables into healthy meals with many different ­v itamins and nutrients. Furthermore, Hoa Hao Buddhist volunteers are required to participate in various training sessions about COVID-19 infection control measures organized by the Department of Health. While cooking and serving food, the volunteers must adopt infection prevention and control strategies, using necessary personal protective equipment such as gloves and medical masks provided by the kitchen manager.

Vegetarian Food Charity for Good Karma All the meals served by Hoa Hao Buddhist charitable rice kitchens are vegetarian. Not only does the food charity of Hoa Hao Buddhists fulfill the official public health requirements, but it also meets Hoa Hao ethical obligations. Hoa Hao Buddhists embrace a religious ethic of avoiding taking the lives of other sentient beings. A charitable kitchen chef told me that providing charitable food for the impoverished is considered a meaningful act for Hoa Hao Buddhists. However, if

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a massive number of animals are killed to have meat for the needy to consume every day, charitable volunteers might generate new sins, and this act might also add new bad karma to the needy diners. Hoa Hao Buddhist philosophy conceptualizes vegetarianism as a way to develop humane compassion and to respect the life of other sentient beings as one’s own life. Followers of this religion also believe that poverty in one’s present life is a consequence of the bad karma generated from the past or in past lives, and the present sickness affecting human individuals (including the coronavirus pandemic) is also connected to karmic causes and consequences. Hence, providing vegetarian meals for the underprivileged during the COVID-19 pandemic is believed to bring good fortune to the volunteers and charitable donors in the next life. Vegetarian food could also help the poor to purify themselves by abstaining from meat, so that the recipients can accumulate good karma by consuming vegetarian foods. Hoa Hao Buddhists believe that religion is not only about belief, but that merit is maintained only by doing social service and charity work (web figure 33.4). The charitable practices of Hoa Hao Buddhists described in this account are informed by moral sentiments that compel charitable donors to give in order to alleviate the suffering of the poor and needy. As shared by Hoa Hao Buddhists, such sentiments are rooted in an ethical worldview that emphasizes a common ground for humanity. The giving that occurs in keeping with these sentiments is methodical and calculated to assist the poor to recover from their hardship in a comprehensive and precise manner. And yet, somewhat contradictorily, it also is informed by an apocalyptic worldview that sees, in the suffering of others, signs of irreversible decline in human well-being. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which millenarian Buddhists perceived as a sign of the approaching end of times, the only meaningful attainments are spiritual rather than worldly. The peculiar combination of compassion, apocalyptic thinking, and methodical ethical action is visible in both Hoa Hao doctrine and charitable activities. Hoa Hao Buddhists have identified and responded to social problems in the contemporary urban context during the coronavirus pandemic. The charitable food supply operated by Hoa Hao Buddhists during this crisis has been remarkably responsive and effective, helping to fill the gaps in state service provision in the Mekong delta. Despite experiencing very tight control under the secular state, Hoa Hao Buddhists have positive agency that cannot be reduced to the capacity to resist or critique the state but instead consists of a significant capacity to coexist with the state and participate autonomously in development. For this reason, the Hoa Hao sect could be perceived as one of the most socially engaged Buddhist faiths in contemporary Vietnam.

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The Cap Go Meh That Never Happened Emily Zoe Hertzman

Cap Go Meh (CGM) is the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and in the city of Singkawang, it is the occasion of an enormous spirit medium procession. It is an extremely busy three-day event involving hundreds of spirit mediums and thousands of assistants, spectators, and out-of-town tourists taking part in ritual activities and cultural performances at multiple temples. During the main ritual, hundreds of possessed mediums perform exorcism rituals that chase away evil spirits and cleanse the streets of the city for the coming year. While it is primarily a Chinese religious ritual, it also has a long regional history and now increasingly involves participation from members of all ethnic groups. As a major annual event, it provides an essential economic stimulus and acts as a powerful form of collective identity expression in the city (web figure 34.1). In early 2021, Singkawang was declared a pandemic “Orange Zone”: the city had a small COVID-19 cluster outbreak, which could grow into a larger cluster outbreak (Tamtomo 2020). As a result, the governor of the province issued a circular restricting the celebration of CGM (Gracellia 2021). The circular stated that “every person, community group, business actor, manager, organizer or individual responsible for public places and facilities is prohibited from carrying out CGM celebration activities in 2021, such as dragon or spirit medium parades and the like which invite a crowd, with the exception of religious rituals.” Given the pandemic situation, the circular was not surprising, but the exception clause immediately caused confusion and controversy, leading to different interpretations of what constitutes culture versus religious ritual. To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/34

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In response, the city government convened a meeting to discuss explicitly whether CGM in Singkawang is best defined as a cultural tradition or a religious ritual. The Singkawang branch of the Indonesian Confucian Council (Majelis Agama Konghucu Indonesia) considered it a local cultural tradition, whereas the Three Teachings Family (Keluarga Besar Umat Tridharma) insisted that it was a religious ritual. The stakes of this definition were clear: if it is a religious ritual, it could be carried out in a limited way following COVID-19 health protocols; if it is merely a cultural tradition, it would be prohibited. The attempt to disentangle and differentiate the “traditional/cultural” from the “religious/ritual” may appear impossible and artificial, neither a reflection of the multifaceted nature of the event nor constitutive of emic categories in which people understand their actions. However, these distinctions reflect the ontological difference between culture (budaya) and religion (agama) constructed in the Indonesian context. This debate also reflects the need to uphold freedom of religion, enshrined in the constitution, while maintaining public health. As the debate about how to define CGM continued, the city government convened a larger meeting, which was attended by the mayor, Tjhai Chui Mie, and members of the legislative council, the military, the police, religious leaders, community leaders, spirit mediums, temple committees, and members of the CGM organizing committee. The result of the meeting was a decision to allow only some of the ritual aspects to take place, but with a few major changes: 1. Each spirit medium group could include only two people, the medium and one assistant. 2. Spirit mediums would be prohibited from using props, including palanquins, and playing musical instruments. 3. Spirit mediums would be prohibited from performing any “attractions” or doing anything that could draw a crowd. 4. Temporary three-level altars would be restricted to places of worship only, prohibited on the street. This marked a major change in the way CGM had been held over the past fifteen years, in which spirit mediums are carried on palanquins by six to ten bearers followed by musicians and others who carry flags and holy water, producing a large and boisterous procession (web figure 34.2). Removing these elements substantially alters the possibility and potential efficacy of the ritual and led some spirit mediums and other lay practitioners to question these regulations, which interfere with their spiritual autonomy and ability to perform exorcist rituals at a time when they are most needed.

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With no procession to organize, the task of CGM volunteers was simply to decorate the city. All other activities—cultural festivals, lantern parades, dance competitions—were canceled. It was a major disappointment to many individuals and groups. As a symbolic gesture, the previous year’s CGM organizing committee distributed prayer packages of candles and incense to spirit mediums who usually join the event, a very small contribution compared to the three hundred U.S. dollars they would normally receive (web figure 34.3). Decisions to forbid communal events are related to the articulation of religion, politics, and security in Indonesia. There is currently a small but vocal radicalism movement led by the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI; Front Pembela Islam), and the FPI leader has been arrested as a suspect in a case of creating a crowd (CNN Indonesia 2020).1 In its movement, FPI frequently uses “Chinese issues” to create negative sentiments, with the goal of reviving discriminatory New Order propaganda against Chinese citizens. CGM, as both a Chinese event and an event that attracts huge crowds, is at risk of being caught up in this kind of politics, in which prohibitions made in the name of public health and safety also correspond to pressure from radical organizations, such as FPI, which seek to restrict Chinese cultural spectacles in Indonesia in their pursuit of an exclusivist vision of a puritanically Islamic society. The government and religious councils involved in organizing CGM understand the sensitivities of holding this event, which often stem from the politics of publicly financing this polytheistic and exorcist Chinese religious ritual in a majority non-Chinese and Muslim country. But the pandemic has added a new level of complexity. It is a dilemma; because it is a religious ritual, there is an imperative to carry it out for at least two reasons: first, from a ritual perspective, because it is significant to the ritual specialists and their followers, who see this annual event as purification and protection from potential dangers and calamities; and second, from the perspective of religious freedom, to prevent setting a precedent by banning the rituals of one religion whose freedoms are enshrined in the constitution. However, from a public health perspective, the crowds could be a dangerous site of viral transmission in a city already identified as an Orange Zone. If CGM is crowded, the Chinese community could be blamed for not being able to control “its” people and for fueling viral transmission, which could feed interethnic tensions still haunted by Suharto-era discrimination. The prohibition of CGM thus became a legal matter, with possible police intervention and possible imprisonment of spirit mediums if they engage in “attractions” (read: self-mortification rituals) that invite a crowd. Finally, there are economic considerations. Every year CGM contributes substantially to the local economy through travel, food, and hospitality services.

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There is also a system of fundraising and financial redistribution in which money is donated by wealthy locals and Jakarta-based Singkawang businesspeople, administered through the CGM committee, to pay for spirit mediums and the event infrastructure. With the city already experiencing a major economic depression due to the pandemic, the loss of the primary annual period of economic stimulus is significant. The provincial circular explicitly names business actors in the list of those prohibited from participating in CGM, possibly in recognition of their ongoing role in sponsoring these activities, which are seen as meaningful ways to contribute socially and invest in cultural preservation in one’s hometown (Hertzman 2017). As the date got closer there was a feeling of confusion and sadness. Some spirit mediums were content to abide by the temporary rules, while others vocally opposed them on social media (web figure 34.4), heightening the general anxiety about what could happen. In light of this, the police were also preparing to intervene in crowd control. On February 21, 2021, the final meeting between the Singkawang city government and the religious councils regarding CGM was planned. That meeting got postponed by a day because the mayor went to Jakarta to receive an award for Singkawang from the Setara Institute for being the second-most tolerant city in Indonesia (Hasanuddin 2021). During the meeting, all the major Chinese religious organizations signed a collective agreement restricting activity during CGM 2021, the terms of which essentially matched those proposed in the earlier meeting, but with an added stipulation forbidding all music and sound. Given the ambiguous and multidimensional nature of CGM as a public ritual and cultural performance (Hertzman 2021a), the collective agreement acted as a temporary legal compromise. But the tricky issue of the role of sounds in ritual quickly emerged. From the perspective of an outsider, the soundscapes accompanying spirit medium rituals might appear to be merely embellishing elements. However, as many spirit mediums and ritual specialists explain, music and sound are not simply for entertainment but are an essential form of sacred communication that calls the gods into a place. Prohibiting the use of drums, cymbals, bells, and gongs in the collective agreement was an affront to many spirit mediums, including two leaders of well-known spirit medium associations, who complained vocally on Facebook about this prohibition. In response, the police began to informally investigate these dissenting individuals, adding to an already anxious atmosphere in the lead-up to this event—a further layer of fear and uncertainty regarding how ritual activities would take place and be policed. On February 25, 2021 (the fourteenth day of the first lunar month of 2572), which is the main day spirit mediums perform the ritual cleansing of the city streets,

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one group of spirit mediums, led by one of the dissenting voices, conducted rituals using sound and music. Although no large crowds formed, the police were promptly informed and proceeded to give warnings. On February 26, after months of anticipation, the city was quiet. There were no signs of an enormous spirit medium procession. A few individual spirit mediums walked around the city on foot, without an entourage; a handful of them were ringing bells in minor violation of the collective agreement. In two separate locations, there were incidences of spirit medium “attractions” involving loud music troupes and ritual acts of self-mortification. Although noisy, these incidents did not attract crowds and were tolerated by police. This year also produced a dilemma for me as an ethnographer who has been documenting CGM for a decade. I had to balance the desire to witness and document the event with the imperative to not inadvertently contribute to crowding or put myself and others at risk. I chose to go out for an afternoon walk, with no particular destination, deciding that if I witnessed anything, I would record it, but I would not attempt to visit places that could be crowded (web figure 34.5). I felt surprised, a bit sad, and also relieved that members of the Chinese religious communities strongly adhered to the collective agreement. As I wove

34.6. Spirit mediums on the street, Singkawang, February 2, 2021. Credit: Emily Zoe Hertzman.

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through the small side streets of the city, I was struck by the quiet and the sense that this was just like any other day. It was a stark contrast from other years, in which CGM created the tightest, hottest, loudest, smokiest, and most crowded streets. At dusk, I saw a group of people scattered around a temple courtyard waiting for the arrival of spirit mediums. One entranced medium began to dance and drag blades across his arms. Motorcycles stopped to witness. A crowd started forming in a circle around him, and many people began recording with cell phones. Seeing how quickly the crowd formed, I was reminded of the importance of being present to witness something, which is one of the backbones of anthropological methodology, and is as significant for local Chinese folk religious practitioners. This witnessing is a major pastime for the local Chinese population, acts as a powerful legitimation of the presence of their gods in local communities, and helps produce the sacred geography of the city (web video 34.1). CGM is usually the most intense annual ritual in which Chinese and hybridethnicity deities are “presenced,” embodied and called into being in time and space. This year that presencing also never took place. Along with locals, I witnessed and felt the absence of that monumental moment of sacred activation of space and community in relationship with the gods. The following day the police chief made a statement expressing gratitude to worshipers for successfully carrying out the CGM ritual in accordance with the collective agreement. This official statement, and the poster that circulated on social media, gave closure to the event and helped to soften tensions that had mounted surrounding the polemic of how to regulate CGM as either a religious ritual or a cultural tradition (web figure 34.7). The success of this “CGM that never happened” is another example of the practices of politics in the secondmost tolerant city in Indonesia.

Notes 1. After years of debate, FPI was finally disbanded in December 2020 by an official decree signed by six different ministries at the time of the enhanced security measures during the pandemic (Bakker 2021).

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The Pandemic and Its Effect on the Performance of Hajj Pilgrimage in Malaysia Siti Zubaidah Ismail

One of the biggest milestones to be achieved in the life of a Muslim is the performance of hajj, which is the fifth pillar of Islam. Hajj is performed during the month of Zulhijjah, which is the eleventh month of the Hijri calendar. Muslim pilgrims stay in Mecca and Medina, the two sacred places of Islam in Saudi Arabia, throughout the hajj season. International pilgrims usually stay in Mecca from two weeks to forty-two days to complete the whole circuit of activities and rituals of hajj and ‘umrah (pilgrimages that take place throughout the year), as well as visit the Prophet Mosque (Masjid Nabawi) in Medina. Annually, there are about two and a half million Muslim pilgrims from around the world (General Authority for Statistics 2019, 12), and therefore the hajj is one of the largest gatherings of human beings on the planet (Tagliacozzo and Toorawa 2015). The year 2020 marked an unforgettable moment in history, when the Saudi government was forced to cancel the hajj or rather to limit the participation of hajj for that year. International pilgrims were not allowed to enter Saudi Arabia to perform hajj. It was announced in early June that year, and the reason quoted was to curb the spread of the coronavirus, from which Saudi Arabia had not been spared. In June 2020 alone, Al Arabiya news reported that nearly five thousand cases were recorded throughout the country (Serrieh 2020). The high risk of COVID-19 spreading among the pilgrims prompted the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah to make an unpopular decision that would affect the biggest congregation of religious worshipers in the world (web figure 35.1).

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The Saudi government’s decision to prevent foreigners from entering the country was not totally unexpected. Announcing this news, the then minister of hajj and ‘umrah, Muhammed Saleh Benten, was quoted as saying, “Saudi Arabia is fully ready to serve pilgrims and ‘umrah seekers. But under the current circumstances, as we are talking about the global pandemic, the Kingdom is keen to protect the health of Muslims and citizens and so we have asked our brother Muslims in all countries to wait before doing [hajj] contracts until the situation is clear” (Al Jazeera 2020). As a sign of solidarity, Zulkifli al Bakri, minister in charge of religious affairs at the Prime Minister’s Department in Malaysia, sent a letter to the Saudi government expressing Malaysia’s understanding that the decision was made in the public interest, to protect the safety, security, and well-being of the pilgrims. This was done after holding a meeting on June 9, 2020, with the Ministry of Health, Tabung Haji (the government hajj-managing body), and the National Council for Islamic Religious Affairs. In an effort to explain to all Malaysians about this matter, an ebook entitled The Postponement of Hajj 1441H: An Explanation (Penangguhan Ibadah Haji 1441H Suatu Pencerahan) was issued (Al-Bayan 2020).

35.2. Muslim pilgrims in Al Haram Mosque Makkah performing Tawaf while maintaining social distance during the COVID-19 pandemic, August 2020. Credit: Leo Morgan. Source: Shutterstock.

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Soon afterwards, a modification was announced by the Saudi government allowing one thousand people to perform hajj in 2020, but this was restricted to  locals and foreigners residing in Saudi Arabia, while Muslims from other countries were not allowed to enter the country. As a consequence of this cancellation, it was reported that Saudi suffered a loss of an estimated twelve billion U.S. dollars in revenue—typically expected from one hajj season every year (TRTWorld 2020). As for Malaysians, Tabung Haji has also ensured that all costs taken from the depositors’ accounts will be reimbursed to their hajj saving accounts under Tabung Haji in full and the interest amount will be calculated and made eligible for profit and dividend for the current year.

Hajj Management in Malaysia In Malaysia, matters pertaining to hajj are managed by the Hajj Savings Board (Lembaga Tabung Haji). Hajj Savings (Tabung Haji) is the government body tasked with overseeing the affairs of hajj management of the country under the purview of the Prime Minister’s Department (Tabung Haji n.d.). It is hailed as the best hajj operator by the Saudi government for its efficiency and systematic management of pilgrims. Those who want to perform hajj have to register with Tabung Haji and open an account where deposits for hajj expenses can be made. The eligibility to perform is based on the principle of first come, first serve. It is reported that there are about nine million depositors with Tabung Haji, and more than three million of them have registered for hajj. Each year Malaysia can send only around 31,600 pilgrims to Mecca, and therefore it is no surprise that some will get their turn only after 150 years. Those numbers represent 0.1 percent of the total hajj quota for Muslim countries set by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries since 1988. All depositors have the facility of THiJARI, an online platform and app for financial services provided for customers to manage their accounts (THiJARI 2020). Tabung Haji plays an important role in ensuring the proper management of the hajj process, making sure that preparations are done effectively as early as possible. From the registration process to the departure to and return from Mecca, accommodation, transportation, baggage arrangement, and so on, all must be organized properly in advance. The entire hajj management processes consist of approximately twenty activities carried out throughout the year. Tabung Haji also allows the registered Muslims to choose hajj packages offered by travel agencies, which are approved and licensed by Tabung Haji. Those opting to go to Mecca through these commercial hajj packages can expect higher costs than those offered by Tabung Haji itself. The higher cost usually covers the

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specific facilities offered, such as hotels closer to the Grand Mosque, dietary selections, higher hotel rates, and smaller group tours. To date, there are only twenty-two hajj pilgrimage operators (pengelola jemaah haji) for hajj season 2021 (1442 Hijri). All operators are subjected to regulations provided under the 1995 Tabung Haji Act. For example, they are not permitted to advertise their services or accept deposits without receiving prior permission from Tabung Haji. These regulations have been put in place to avoid incidents of false advertising, corruption, and mismanagement of hajj funds. Looking back on 2020, it was the news of a lifetime for Mr. Saroni Raop, age seventy-three, when he received a letter from Tabung Haji in February informing him that he was selected to perform the hajj. He felt elated by the prospect that it was his time to make the spiritual journey of his lifetime, to spend time in the holy place of Mecca, to be closer with Almighty God. The fact that he and his wife were selected to be among 31,600 Malaysians eligible to perform hajj that year felt like a true blessing. It took Wak Roni, as he is fondly known, many years to ensure that his savings with Tabung Haji would be enough to sustain his time, nearly forty-two days, in Mecca and Medina. The cost set by Tabung Haji for first-time pilgrims that year was 22,900 Malaysian ringgit (approximately 5,500 U.S. dollars), but it was announced that for 2021, the cost would be increased by 8 percent to 25,000 ringgit (6,020 U.S. dollars). However, of that price increase, pilgrims would only have to pay 9,980 ringgit (2,500 U.S. dollars), while the rest would be covered by Tabung Haji. As a villager who leads a life dependent on income from hard labor in a rural area, it took Wak Roni years to save enough money to be eligible to perform the hajj, making news of this extra financial contribution even more welcome. Finally, he was able to deposit another 3,000 ringgit (750 U.S. dollars) that he received from his children, friends, neighbors, and well-wishers. As a preparation, he also underwent the preliminary hajj course set up by Tabung Haji. However, with the coronavirus spreading all over the world and the World Health Organization declaring the situation a pandemic, all his preparations came to an abrupt halt when Tabung Haji announced that all matters pertaining to performance of the hajj would have to be postponed. What first felt like a blessing suddenly became a huge disappointment. At the time of this writing, Wak Roni and his wife are hopeful that they will be given priority to perform hajj in 2021. Now that the 2020 hajj season is over, Saudi Arabia is looking forward to receiving international visitors for ‘umrah starting from October 2020. ‘Umrah is a shorter version of hajj, usually conducted in ten days, that can be done throughout the year after the hajj season. To give a sense of the scale, in 2019

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Saudi Arabia received nineteen million visitors for ‘umrah throughout the year. In 2020, however, strict health procedures will have to be followed in order to avoid a rise in COVID-19 cases, including limiting the number of visitors. Many new apps have been developed to assist modern-day pilgrims. Among the apps launched recently by the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah is Eatmarna. This app aims to facilitate and enforce health standards and safety protocols for pilgrims during the pandemic period. Not only will it assist in booking transport and accommodation; it will also facilitate the sequencing so that the number of pilgrims can be limited to prevent overcrowding. The chief planning and strategy officer of the ministry, Dr. Amr al-Maddah, has reportedly said that this will prevent the overcrowding of the holy site and limit the spread of the virus among pilgrims (Thaqafi 2020). According to Arab News, the ‘umrah service will be reopened in four phases. In the first phase, only 30 percent or roughly 6,000 pilgrims per day will be allowed. In the second phase, the capacity will be increased to 75 percent, estimated at around 15,000 pilgrims, and 40,000 worshipers will be allowed starting from October 18, 2021. Only during the third phase will international visitors be allowed to perform ‘umrah. This amounts to 20,000 pilgrims and 60,000 worshipers per day. During the fourth stage, the Grand Mosque will be opened to its maximum capacity, but only once the risk of COVID-19 infection is deemed over.

Unexpected News in 2021 At the time of writing this in 2021, Malaysia waited anxiously for the announcement that Hajj 2021 would take place while adhering to all safety and precautionary measures. Since early 2021, Tabung Haji has been gearing up towards initiating the necessary procedures and has taken a few steps to prepare for administering the hajj pilgrimage once again. This includes reminding those offered in 2020 to register for COVID-19 vaccination and to receive the compulsory meningococcal immunization. Saudi Arabia has announced that those with complete COVID-19 vaccinations won’t need to go through the seven-day quarantine period. Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry is also set to assist with the coordination of affairs involving Malaysian hajj pilgrims if the Saudi Arabian government allows foreign pilgrims to perform hajj this year (Star 2021). However, as new variants of COVID-19, which are even more contagious and lethal, are identified, and infection rates are still escalating in many places, the fate of the hajj plans for this year remain uncertain and leave the spiritual plans of many potential hajj pilgrims on hold. Then in mid-June 2021, an unexpected announcement was made, similar to the 2020 pronouncement, that hajj will only be performed by those already in

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Saudi Arabia. This time, the Saudi government will only allow a maximum capacity of 60,000 pilgrims, from within the country. Application to perform hajj, it stipulated, could only be made from June 13 to 23, 2021, through the local hajj registration e-gate. It was reported that within twenty-four hours of this announcement, approximately 450,000 online applications were made (Khudair 2021). The cost of the pilgrimage packages when booked through the registration e-gate is between 12,000 and 16,000 Saudi riyal (3,200 to 4,300 U.S. dollars) (web figure 35.3). Overall, approximately two batches of 2020 and 2021 hajj aspirants amounting to 72,000 Muslims are supposed to be on the waiting list for next year. With all the uncertainties, it seems that this list will be longer and the expected year of their hajj will be postponed even further. To the best of his ability to understand the matter, Wak Roni can only be receptive to the news and believe that there is a blessing in disguise for this episode in his life. He and his wife hope they will live longer and will still be able to make the hajj before their health starts declining.

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Buddhist Temples as Shelters for Vietnamese Migrants in Japan Yuki Shiozaki

When Japan faced an economic depression in 2020, one of the most affected groups in society was foreign workers. Shrinking economic activity resulted in layoffs, and foreign workers were the first employees to be dismissed from companies. Migrant workers have vulnerable employment status (Suzuki 2021, 56– 58), so this economic slowdown was disastrous for the 880,000 Southeast Asians residing in Japan. For those without access to public aid, religious institutions provided a critical social safety net. As in other societies, the COVID-19 pandemic intensified prejudices against minorities, especially migrant workers. They were frequently assumed to be the source of infection, despite a lack of evidence. At the same time, many Japanese people also considered places of worship to be dangerous, especially after it was reported that Christian churches in South Korea and mosques in Malaysia had become clusters of infection. As a consequence, the religious facilities of the immigrant workers were regarded as potential sites of contamination and contagion and the workers were forced to refrain from their religious activities. Japanese society has become—at least on the surface—increasingly secular. The role of religious institutions in social life is now largely limited to the provision of rituals such as funeral services. During the COVID-19 pandemic, few Japanese appealed to Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines for divine protection or intercession. Most citizens felt that the government and scientists were best equipped to handle the pandemic. Temples and shrines downsized or canceled ceremonies and rituals under the COVID-19 distancing measures. There were also transitions to To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/36

259

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Nationality

Number of Registered Residents

Vietnam

420,415

Philippines

282,023

Indonesia

66,084

Thailand

53,344

Myanmar

33,303

Cambodia

15,656

36.1. Residents from member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Japan in December 2020. Credit: Statistics of Foreigners Residing in Japan, Ministry of Justice, Japan.

online platforms in the form of online praying, distribution of virtual amulets, and online access to devotion objects (Cavaliere 2021). However, the situation differed among Southeast Asian migrant workers. In many cases, they were abandoned by their employers and the government. While most religious institutions were forced to curtail their activities, with a corresponding dip in revenue, some religious institutions accrued their value in terms of social recognition and cultural and symbolic capital by catering to the needs of migrant workers.

The Rapid Expansion of Southeast Asian Communities in Japan Because Japanese industries have increased their reliance on foreign workforces since the 1990s, as of 2020 there were more than 1.5 million foreign workers in Japan. They are mainly from China and Southeast Asia, including approximately 400,000 people from Vietnam, 300,000 from the Philippines, and smaller numbers from a few other Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia and Thailand. Even though foreign workers’ period of stay is limited to several years, a regular influx of migrant workers has changed the demographic social and multicultural landscape of certain areas in Japan. Newly established religious facilities are now part of the social and physical landscape and are often perceived as unusual or exotic. Filipino churches, Indonesian mosques, and Vietnamese Buddhist temples have been established, especially in the areas

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around Tokyo and Nagoya. They function as community centers for Southeast Asian nationals. Among immigrants from Myanmar in Tokyo, ethnic minorities such as Chin, Kachin, and Karen also assemble at their own Christian churches. The churches are not only places for worship and rituals, but also social spaces of community building and affiliation where immigrants can sustain languages and identity (Hitomi 2012, 40–49). The ethnicity-based churches and temples are crucial sites for the ethnic communities from Myanmar and other Southeast Asian countries, although they lack extensive connection with the surrounding Japanese society. Under the state of emergency, they required partnership with Japanese counterparts for effective relief work.

Religious Facilities as Hubs of Aid Distribution Since the state of emergency was declared by the Japanese government in April  2020, these religious facilities had to implement curbs on their normal ­activities to manage the risk of infection. Congregational prayers and religious celebrations were of particular concern. The closure of the religious facilities to the public often meant the loss of a communal space for Southeast Asians, compounding the social isolation they were already experiencing. Even though the functions of religious facilities were restricted under the state of emergency, places of worship became the last refuge for many jobless Southeast Asian workers and even students. Foreign workers, especially those left without jobs and fixed addresses, did not qualify for public aid. Repatriation flights were canceled or became too expensive for them. Many of them were absorbed into underground communities or criminal syndicates to survive. Some of the dismissed foreign workers without means of sustenance found help through religious groups, which opened access to places of worship and even provided basic necessities and shelter for them. The Catholic Church became the central node of a support network for Filipino and Vietnamese Catholics in Japan. In many Japanese Catholic churches, especially in urban and industrial regions, Filipinos and Vietnamese migrants have come to constitute the majority of worshipers. Japanese Catholics were estimated to number 440,000 in 2020, which is not too far from the number of Southeast Asian Catholics in Japan. The Catholic churches in areas where Southeast Asian Catholics were concentrated became sites for the collection and distribution of relief supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic (Terasawa 2020). Prefectures around Tokyo, especially Gunma and Saitama, have become temporary residences for unemployed Vietnamese workers in recent years. In

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depopulated areas of these prefectures, there are significant communities of jobless Southeast Asians, mostly Vietnamese. Because they have limited means to survive once they have been dismissed by their employers, and they can fly under the radar of government administration and authorities, their presence has become a serious concern in these areas. In Saitama, among 433 foreigners arrested by the police in 2020, 221 were Vietnamese. Most of them were arrested and charged with larceny, including theft of livestock and agricultural products from local farms (Kurado 2021). Large-scale theft of food from farms in the nighttime became a problem on the outskirts of Tokyo, as unemployed foreign migrant workers attempted to feed themselves. A Buddhist temple, Daionji, has played an important role in aid distribution during the pandemic. The temple was established by a Vietnamese nun in Saitama in 2018. When the Vietnamese community in Japan expanded rapidly in the 2010s, there was also an increasing demand for Vietnamese Buddhist temples as places for communal gathering and religious rituals such as funerals. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Daionji provided shelter for jobless and homeless Vietnamese. Dozens of young Vietnamese resided in

36.2. Vietnamese staying at Daionji with relief goods. Credit: Reverend Thích Tâm Trí.

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the temple. Their foodstuffs and living expenses were supplied by the Vietnamese community and Japanese Buddhist devotees. Another Buddhist temple in Nagoya, Tokurinji, also provided shelter for dismissed Vietnamese workers. Most of the Japanese Buddhist temples are financially sustained by local communities and only open for community members. Tokurinji was an exceptional case: the Japanese priest of this traditional Zen Buddhist temple accepted dozens of young Vietnamese. The temple transformed into a community to live, work, and study in while the Vietnamese waited for opportunities to return home (web figure 36.3).

Religious Facilities as a Distinctive Form of Social Capital in a Secular Society For most Southeast Asian migrant workers who lost their jobs in 2020, there were few options other than being absorbed into underground communities of other workers overstaying visas. Japanese institutions had little interest in them and little intention to support their difficult conditions with the use of public money. Only some Buddhist temples and Christian churches provided unconditional aid to migrant workers, despite their limited capacities and illegalities. Although thousands of Vietnamese had nowhere to go, each temple and church could take care of scores at most. In epidemiological terms, however, it was too risky to simply abandon thousands of dismissed migrant workers. The costs—in the form of further COVID-19 outbreaks—would be borne by the Southeast Asian community, but also by the Japanese society at large. The temples and churches played a significant role as mediators between the forsaken Vietnamese migrants and the Japanese society (web figure 36.4). Although the majority of Japanese religious facilities only served local communities of native Japanese and ignore the plight of the foreign migrants still today, the contribution of some Christian and Buddhist communities and institutions shows that religious facilities can provide significant and much-needed social capital, particularly when it is not provided by the Japanese government.

37

Who Owns the Temple Gold? Swayam Bagaria

The impact of the Covid pandemic has been acutely felt in India, a country that is already stratified by high degrees of social and economic inequality. A recent report by researchers at Azim Premji University (2021) shows a sharp rise in economic informality and poverty rates in India, ultimately placing the number of people who have fallen below the poverty line above 230 million. While the responsibility of providing urgent economic assistance falls on the shoulders of the government, its limited effectiveness led to an increase in the types of actors who have participated in the work of providing aid to the millions of affected people in India. Among others, this has included religious organizations, nongovernmental organizations, private enterprises, and international humanitarian networks. Even if their participation in the social and public sphere is often lumped together generally and described as “relief work,” there are important organizational and institutional differences between them and the donative activities that constitute their charitable outputs. For example, while it might make sense to say that a private entity “donates” a portion of wealth they ultimately possess, it is not so straightforward to assert that a temple trust can dispense the wealth given to it by the devotees. Embedded within such differences are a bundle of further questions about the type of property under consideration, limitations on the right to use or dispose of these goods belonging collectively to an organization, boundary rules and norms that include and exclude people and deities, and the terms through which organizational membership is decided and regulated. While it is not possible to delve into all the subissues that constitute the multidimensional To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/37

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idea of “charity,” this short essay elaborates on a version of this discussion that arose in the early months of the pandemic on the possible use of wealth stowed in many Hindu temples in India towards alleviating some of the economic distress caused by the national lockdown. In late April and early May 2020, when the plight of the urban migrant workers walking back to their villages had already painted a sordid picture of the Indian government’s botched handling of the national lockdown, a few public personalities floated a possible “solution” for a partial economic rescue plan. M.K. Venu, a founding editor of the online news and opinion website the Wire, and Prithviraj Chavan, a senior minister in the Indian National Congress, separately proposed that the Indian government should convert the gold deposited in the thousands of Hindu temples into bullion (web figure 37.1). This could be done either by borrowing the gold deposited in the Hindu temples through gold bonds at a low interest rate or by persuading the temple authorities to lend gold to the Reserve Bank of India, which could then monetize and lend the money to the central government for emergency expenditure. Even though the shelf life of this suggestion was short, it caused enough of a public stir for one of the government bodies, the Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department, to issue a circular that would enable the transfer of 10 crores (100 million) rupees from the state-administered temples to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. The opposing counsel, led by T.R. Ramesh, head of the Hindu Temple Worshippers Society, challenged this order on the grounds that it bypassed all the necessary governmental checks and balances, which included publishing such a request in order to seek feedback from the devotees of those temples from which the funds would be transferred (Madras High Court 2020). First, there is the serious issue of treating the value of temple gold as raw metal rather than sacred objects that were devotionally offered. An equivalence of relata, in this case the gold deposits in the temple, is clearly not the same as an equivalence of relations, in this case the trajectory of the path and sense through which the gold was deposited by a devotee as an offering that could potentially be stowed in perpetuity (Kockelman 2020, 27). Furthermore, the knotty and anomalous involvement of the state governments, particularly the Tamil Nadu government, in the managerial affairs of places of religious worship, particularly Hindu temples, is no secret. Expectedly, this was framed as an issue of selective government intervention into the institutional space of the Hindu temples and why their holdings were being uniquely targeted as opposed to those of mosques or churches. According to the respondents, monetizing the unused lands of the latter could equally well generate the revenue required for discretionary emergency spending.

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While the framing of the problem as an issue of unequal degrees of religious freedom is significant and its discursive effects for contemporary Indian politics is salient, there is a further issue which, to my mind, better illuminates the ­dynamics of contemporary Hinduism and its role in providing for the larger ­society. This issue has to do with the role of the temple as a central organizational node in the systematic consolidation of a national and modernized Hinduism and, more specifically, its function as an economic proctor of welfare and delivery distribution to the larger population of devotees. It is here that the place of gold as a canonical offering in the temple becomes important, and it is to this aspect of the debate that I want to briefly turn. It is a well-known fact that India is one of the largest importers of gold in the world. It is another well-known fact that most of this gold goes into serving the massive jewelry industry, with the Reserve Bank of India holding merely 3 percent of the total gold deposits in its reserves. Compare this to the 16 percent of the gold that is held by temples and the remaining 81 percent held by private households (Afonso and Sanjai 2020). Given the enormous amount of wealth that goes into buying gold in India, there has been a sustained attraction of successive Indian governments for marshaling this gold into a collective national resource, especially in times of emergency. One can trace this government ­attraction to as far back as 1962, when the depletion of the gold reserves in the aftermath of defeat during the Sino-Indian War resulted in the then Indian government attempting to convince citizens to deposit gold in banks in exchange for bonds. Another example comes from 2013, when the value of the rupee was fast depreciating and the current account deficit had ballooned. The Reserve Bank of India had then requested that several prominent temples allow them to inventory their gold holdings, a request that was also blocked. More recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a Gold Monetization Scheme in 2015 that would offer an option to resident Indians to deposit their precious metal and earn interest of up to 2.5 percent. Additionally, a program called the Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme allowed investors to earn 2.75 percent interest per annum by buying paper gold (Mahesh 2015). In short, several governmental schemes and policies have been implemented over the years to enable temples to swap gold deposits for other investment instruments. However, even the little effect that such schemes have had is often attributed to overt governmental pressures on the temples under their jurisdiction. These efforts are not unique to India. One could think of the national goldcollection campaign in South Korea in the aftermath of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. More than a quarter of the population of South Korea gave away their

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personal gold as part of a mass donation campaign to save the nation from an economic crisis. This gold was collected, melted into ingots, and then sold in the international market to begin paying off the country’s debt of 58 billion U.S. dollars to the International Monetary Fund. India, on the contrary, has never quite succeeded in inspiring a national sentiment even though the desire has always persisted. The efforts to bring gold into public circulation have a rationale. In the jargon of economics, gold is a “dead investment,” a pure store of value that only leads to hoarding. If we couple this particular assessment of gold with the absolute centrality and pervasiveness of gold offerings in the ritual and devotional life of Hindu temples, then it becomes clear that the temple becomes perceived as a place for constricting rather than facilitating the flow of wealth. This is redolent even in the regularly expressed astonishment about the wealth of temples in India, a country that is otherwise still afflicted by widespread poverty. However, such an account flatly collapses the diversity of ways in which the value of gold is imbricated in practices of devotional exchange. Attraction to gold as a unique form of sacred offering is not merely restricted to its function as a store of value but includes a range of other attributes that treat it as a token rather than a commodity. This can include aspects that are indexed by its unique metallic properties or “qualisigns” (Chumley and Harkness 2013), its references in the scriptural canon of Hinduism, or its continuing status as a material sign that offers a more concrete encapsulation of value, as opposed to promissory paper currency (Ferry 2016). Its presence and circulation continue and will continue to encapsulate all the terms of exchange, including those associated with gambling, speculation, hoarding, faith, and usury. Tracking how the yellow metal becomes efficacious in all these different ways offers a more disaggregated and inclusive proposition for a theory of value, rather than trying to collapse all these aspects into a single metric of monetization (Maurer 2002). To return to our discussion of the Hindu temple, gold, then, is not merely a means to evaluate the monetary capacity of a temple but a substance that mediates the temple as an institution with a specifiable format of resource allocation and distribution. But what type of institution is this? Here, I want to suggest that the entire debate instigated by Chavan and Venu’s intervention indicates that the public assertion of the ownership of the goods of a Hindu temple is an increasingly significant concern for communities of devotees, who now seek legal and extralegal help to substantialize these social positions into a more formal status. These include retaining or regaining the right to determine the internal goods as being excludable and the right to determine or restrict their patterns of distribution. Among other things, this can involve

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liquidating their stores of gold only on a voluntary and emergency basis. This is perhaps the reason why Chavan and Venu’s suggestion did not get any traction. It was based on a spurious understanding not only of religious freedom, but of the salience of the Hindu temple as a sacred social institutional site in contemporary India. This concerted defense of the claims to ownership of its assets must not be confused with a disengagement with the mission of providing public provisions in emergency and nonemergency times. Over the years, temples have actually increased their forms of provisioning in the form of club goods as a response to a more pronounced growth of inequality and competition for more clientele (Iyer 2018). While there is not enough data on the charitable efforts of the temples, news reports have documented the specific roles that some of them have played during the pandemic (OpIndia Staff 2020). What is clear is that all these accounts translate to an understanding of the Hindu temple as a common pool of resources that should exclusively be managed by the associated Hindu community even if there is not yet a systematic set of rules and graduated sanctions through which the mechanisms of this control are implemented (Ostrom 2010). No doubt the pandemic is a situation of unparalleled emergency, and no doubt all possible resources must be channeled to ameliorate the urgent distress it has caused in large swathes of the world population. But if the pandemic is a catalyst, it is also a precipitant. In some cases, the pandemic catalyzes urgent actions on the part of entities such as the government that can take the form of various kinds of fiscal and monetary stimulus; in other cases, it starkly reveals that no amount of economic or social urgency can dislodge the evolving trajectory of certain cultural movements and drives. The failed attempt at mobilizing the resources of the Hindu temple only revealed the deep significance that the reclamation and ownership of the Hindu temple and all its pertaining resources have for the future direction of Hinduism. One may also notice this aspiration reflected in two significant resolutions that transpired during the pandemic. First, the Supreme Court restored the management of one of the richest temples in India, the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, to the royal shebait—the servant of a Hindu god who administers the deity’s properties. Second, the prime minister presided over the inauguration ceremony of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, a decision that came at the back of one of the most bitter and prolonged disputes ­between the Hindu and Muslim communities of India. It is worth paying attention, in these times of uncertainty, to the streamlined ways in which mainstream religions are uncompromisingly doubling down. The

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conversation that never happened after Chavan and Venu’s cursory remarks means that the Hindu temple, as a political, social, and economic institution, is incontrovertible and here to stay. It also means that in the more extended temporal and eschatological arc of Hinduism, the pandemic will hardly be the end of the world.

38

COVID-19 and Shifting Practices of Islamic Charity Amelia Fauzia

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a shift in the practices of Muslim communities and Islamic charitable organizations in Indonesia. The pandemic not only has forced them to improve their fundraising methods but has also encouraged a jurisprudential review in charitable management and distribution to follow a more effective, safe, and beneficial strategy in mitigating the spread of COVID-19. The practices follow a trend of not only Islamization but modernization (Fauzia 2017) and NGO-ization (Borchgrevink 2017) as well. The current pandemic has caused traditional practices of charity to shift toward more humanitarian intentions rather than religious ones, placing greater emphasis on the broader interests of society and humanity. Indonesian Muslim charitable organizations have responded by intensifying their use of digital technology especially for fundraising and aid distribution programs. Some organizations have quickly realized the need to provide assistance for anyone affected by the pandemic regardless of religion and beyond their own Islamic congregations (web figure 38.1).

Revisiting Practices, Encouraging Innovation The pandemic has provided charitable organizations an opportunity to review their practices and programs, including their Islamic jurisprudential foundations. The need for urgent action to prevent the loss of human lives as well as to prevent further deterioration of the state of the economy has become more than sufficient justification to adopt practices that are regarded as controversial and To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/38

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are unpopular among some congregants. For example, using funding from zakat (annual compulsory almsgiving for able Muslims) that involves non-Muslim beneficiaries remains a challenge in Indonesia, despite already being common internationally. If it were not for the pandemic, organizing the spraying of disinfectants within public spaces and houses of worship, including churches and Buddhist temples, would have been received with scrutiny from some Muslim Indonesians, due to a feeling of entitlement to gain full access to Muslim aid. One organization that is prominent in adopting these broader-based charity activities is Lazismu, a zakat and charitable body under Muhammadiyah, Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organization. Within the last few years, Lazismu’s religious board has outlined that the distribution of its zakat and sedekah (voluntary charity) should be nondiscriminatory and inclusive, as there is no regulation in the Qur’an that limits charitable services to Muslims. During the pandemic, Lazismu’s nondiscriminatory policy was even more visible and public. Executive Director of Lazismu Edy Suryanto mentioned that Lazismu’s COVID-19 prevention programs included the sanitization of mosques, churches, and temples, as these places had the potential of spreading the coronavirus. He explained that the programs have been executed in a number of provinces, especially in Central Java, East Java, and eastern Indonesia. Lazismu also provided a large number of hazmat suits for hospitals that treat anyone regardless of their religion (web figure 38.2). One innovation addresses the narrow time period by which zakat fitrah (zakat during the Eid ul-Fitr celebration) is given to the needy. Usually, the distribution of fitrah is organized before the Eid prayer in the morning. However, given that the majority of fitrah payments are done the night before Eid, it is very unlikely that the money would be distributed to the needy by the seven a.m. prayer. How could people distribute millions or even billions of rupiahs within such a short period to the needy while also adhering to social-distancing measures? As Lazismu receives 70 percent of fitrah payments on the eve of Eid, the organization improvised a creative solution by extending the distribution period to six months, which provided sufficient time for the aid to reach the needy. This innovation will possibly lead to a long-term change within Lazismu and other Muslim charitable organizations. The Covid pandemic also accelerated efforts to review and innovate qurban (the tradition of animal slaughtering during the Islamic celebration Eid ul-Adha) for the long-term benefit to the poor. Even before the pandemic, large organizations such as Dompet Dhuafa, Rumah Zakat, and Lazismu have been trying to find a way to empower cattle and goat farmers, as well as preserve the meat of the slaughtered animals in canned food packaging so that it can last for a longer period. During the pandemic, more organizations have stepped in to redirect the conventional qurban into slaughterhouses and package the meat into ready-to-eat meals.

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38.3. An image of canned qurban meat on East Java Lazismu’s website (Lazismu Jawa Timur n.d.). The tagline reads, “Real form of progressive sacrifice.” Credit: Lazismu.

A charity organization called Sedekah Harian started a program called Smart Qurban. It promotes a smart way to perform the ritual qurban during a pandemic, which includes avoiding crowds and hygienically packaging and preserving the meat. In this way, the organization fulfilled a twofold purpose, reshaping qurban as both a sacred offering and part of a food security program. Its director, Abdul Azis, explained that his organizations have had a conventional qurban program for years, but due to the pandemic, they decided to provide a new option by canning the qurban meat (Abdul Azis, text communication with author, July 19, 2020; web figure 38.4). In addition to encouraging a shift toward canned qurban meat, Lazismu has increased promotion of cash donations for the people affected by COVID-19 in lieu of qurban. It follows Muhammadiyah’s circular, which says that “giving something which is more beneficial for the public good is a priority . . . the law of Qurban is sunnah muakadah [voluntary act of worship] for any Muslim who has the ability to do it. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused social and economic problems and increased the number of poor people. Therefore, we suggest that Muslims who have the ability to perform should prioritize giving donations in money rather than giving sacrifice by slaughtering animals” (Central Board of Muhammadiyah 2020).

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Embracing Innovation in Zakat Payment The fasting month of Ramadan is the time when the majority of Muslims pay zakat. Some give it directly to the poor and needy, and some give it to mosques, local zakat collectors, or Islamic charity organizations for redistribution. Largescale government social restrictions stopped the activities of some zakat organizations, especially those that relied on face-to-face collection of the donations. Some organizations that lacked the know-how, the infrastructure, and the human resources to innovate, including some state-based organizations, were inactive during the first year of the pandemic. However, the pandemic conditions pushed the majority of zakat organizations to go online and embrace this opportunity to change and innovate. According to Nana Sudiana, secretary of the Zakat Forum, the number of members of the Zakat Forum association that used online zakat collection increased from 75 percent in 2019 to 87 percent in 2020. By 2021 it had increased to over 90 percent. He also stated that zakat organizations had no choice but to switch to online collection. According to my interviews and surveys with twenty Islamic charitable organizations within the forum, 50 percent of these organizations intensified their online zakat activities and other online initiatives (such as webinars, online concerts, and digital fundraising events) because of the pandemic. Despite the COVID-19 restrictions, there was actually an increase in zakat donations during Ramadan 2020 and 2021. Islamic charitable organizations still worked to collect zakat, endowment (waqf), and many other types of donations incorporating digital zakat services. The National Zakat Agency (Badan Amil Zakat Nasional), one of the largest state-based Islamic charitable organizations, showed an increase of 56 percent in zakat collection during Ramadan 2020. Solo Peduli, an Islamic charity NGO, experienced an increase of about 340 percent in zakat collection, from 279,941,519 rupiah (19,300 U.S. dollars) in 2019 to 952,326,252 rupiah (65,800 U.S. dollars) in 2020. During Ramadan 2021, the Initiative Zakat Indonesia experienced an increase in zakat collection of about 25 percent from 2020 figures. Sixty-seven percent of Islamic charity organizations showed an increase in fundraising during the pandemic period. My survey finds that these increases were due to their pandemic response programs and the use of online or digital fundraising. The Zakat Forum reported that from March to August 2020, 167 of its organization members collected a total of 39 million U.S. dollars. The promotion of online zakat started gradually from websites, blogs, and social media accounts. Large zakat organizations now offer various ways to make zakat payment ranging from bank transfer to credit cards, PayPal, QR code, crowdfunding, e-wallet, and zakat apps (web figures 38.5 and 38.6).

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There is neither a big theological nor jurisprudential problem in adopting zakat online, even for traditionalist Muslims. Lazisnu, a charity organization under Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Muslim mass organization, not only allows online zakat and an e-wallet, but even allowed zakat in the form of bitcoins during Ramadan 2020.

Muslim Response to the Innovations of Zakat Organizations Before Ramadan 2020, religious authorities, such as the minister of religious affairs and Indonesian Ulama Council, appealed to the Muslim population to accelerate their zakat payment in March and April to help the people affected by COVID-19, particularly those economically impacted (web figure 38.7). The Islamic charity organizations that I interviewed assume that their fundraising success was due to a combination of “the Ramadan effect” (the tendency for Muslims to donate more during Ramadan) and COVID-19 goals. Eightyeight percent believe that the appeals from the religious authorities have had a significant impact in persuading Muslims to pay their zakat earlier. Distribution of fitrah in 2020 started earlier than usual, in the first and second weeks of Ramadan, for 44 percent of the organizations. However, paying online zakat is not easy or accessible for all people in Indonesia. An estimated 61 percent of Indonesians do not have access to bank accounts (Kementerian Koordinator Bidang Perekonomian Republik Indonesia, 2018). For them, paying and receiving zakat and other donations usually takes place face-to-face via local zakat collectors and mosque managers. During the pandemic, this process involved the necessity to comply with health and safety measures such as wearing face masks, maintaining distance, and avoiding hand shaking (web figure 38.8). Overall, the COVID-19 pandemic has become both a pressure and a motivation for charitable organizations to revisit and pursue innovation while also reviving the discussion surrounding religion and humanitarianism. The Indonesian Muslim communities have mostly welcomed much of this innovation, which shows that Islamic practices have the ability to adapt and follow the changes in society.  

Epilogue Emily Zoe Hertzman, Natalie Lang, Erica M. Larson, Carola E. Lorea

In Jakarta, on the eve of the holy month of Ramadan, April 3, 2022, as we are writing this epilogue, Indonesian Muslims (like many other Muslims around the world) are gathering in person for the first time in two years to hold Tarawih prayers. Some are wearing masks and checking in using contact-tracing apps, but mosques are back at full capacity, and worshipers are returning to experience the kind of exuberant pre-pandemic religious gatherings involving physical proximity that are so central to Islamic practice. Elsewhere in Asia, local ritual communities have already or are now experiencing various stages of reopening. Religious institutions cautiously navigate intermediate phases of a return to “normality” and recalibrations of physical distancing. In Singapore, the iconic Sultan Mosque and other historical mosques have reopened, but visitors are required to perform the wudu (ablutions) at home and bring their own prayer mats (web figure 39.1). Gurdwaras are now physically accessible to the devotees, and yet a plexiglass screen separates the kirtan singers from their audience (figure  39.2). This moment marks a new stage, or perhaps a turning point, in the pandemic, allowing us to look back and reflect on the conditions within which this edited volume has been created, the themes that it comprises, and those which we hope will be addressed in the future. Several developments since we began the process of publishing this volume provoke important practical and theoretical questions, which should be considered in light of the earlier observations about the appearance of the coronavirus and its emplaced and culturally contextual manifestations. At the start of this project, the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic were very different than they To access additional resources for this essay, scan the QR code or go to https://manifold.uhpress.hawaii.edu/projects/coronasur /resource-collection/39

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39.2. Gurdwaras in Singapore allow in-person worship, but a glass partition has been installed to separate the kirtan singers from the visitors. Picture sent via WhatsApp on May 6, 2022. Credit: Darshan Singh.

are now. It was a time when the death toll and burden of the disease globally was still shocking populations and healthcare systems around the world, and there was an international race to develop and distribute COVID-19 vaccines. Now, more than two years after the onset of the pandemic, there are nine different COVID-19 vaccines available and hundreds more undergoing clinical trials; roughly 67.6 percent of the world’s population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine (Holder 2022); death rates have fallen in most places; and, as a result, many countries are easing health protocols, safe-distancing measures, and travel restrictions and generally moving towards an endemic, or “living with COVID-19” model. Such are the conditions in Singapore in May 2022, and at the Asia Research Institute, where we, the editors, are finally able to work together on this volume in the same room, with some of us meeting in person for the first time ever. Since the initial compilation of this manuscript, vaccination has emerged as a major public health strategy towards limiting the spread and severity of COVID-19. While we are unable to outline all the issues related to vaccines and religion during the pandemic here, we turn to this topic precisely because several developments regarding vaccination strongly relate to the main points outlined in this volume’s introduction. Further contributing to understandings of epistemic authority, religious communities have been extremely important globally in shaping perspectives on immunity and attitudes towards vaccination (Marshall 2021). Many are quick to point out that conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated news, but also a

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wide range of idiosyncratic and alternative interpretations of COVID-19 vaccines, have the possibility, like the virus itself, of going viral on social media in ways that are historically unprecedented. This is what some have referred to as the COVID-19 “digidemic” (Østebø, Tronvoll, and Østebø 2021). In this context, the authority of religious leaders certainly has the potential to shape attitudes about the vaccine and the pandemic but is also subject to competing voices and interpretations. For example, as a result of the collaboration of the royal government with the Zhung Dratsang, the country’s central monastic body, Bhutan became the fastest country in the world to inoculate nearly all its adult population, in just a few weeks (Rocha 2021). Consulting religious specialists, the Buddhist country decided on the most auspicious day for the launch of the vaccination rollout in accordance with the ritual calendar and selected the first person to be vaccinated in accordance with Buddhist astrology, and biomedical notions of vaccination were accompanied and supplemented with the chanting of the Sangay Menlha, a mantra believed by many to be a powerful prayer in warding off diseases. Religious and state authorities in Asian societies play diverse roles in the process of “enchanting hygiene,” for example, by presenting vaccination as inscribed in ritually sanctioned structures and calendars. During the monthlong Hungry Ghost Festival in 2021 in Malaysia, a news story narrated the case of the “hell Covid vaccine,” or how joss paper injection kits started being produced as a means for the families of COVID-19’s many victims to burn a new type of ritual item and console their loved ones in the afterlife. The offering of papier-mâché COVID-19 jabs can be read as an expression of Chinese filial piety for one’s ancestors who died of COVID-19, providing them with a commodity that they could not access during their lifetime, but it also reflects criticism about how the pandemic was handled in Malaysia and increasing dissatisfaction with the country’s political chaos (Soh 2021). In short, religious leaders, institutions, and practices have significant influence in the ways people understand and access vaccination, just as they have had diverse roles in maintaining community networks, cosmological visions of the world order, and coping strategies throughout the most critical and traumatic parts of the pandemic, as the essays in the book describe. In the Buddhist republic of Myanmar, public health vaccination campaigns have been extremely challenging because the healthcare system is deeply politicized by the military leadership, which took power by coup during the pandemic. Healthcare workers, who occupy positions on multiple front lines as they care for sick people, deal with political instability, and are responsible for rolling out vaccination campaigns, are themselves hesitant to be vaccinated, along with citizens who protest the unlawful ascent of the military junta. Even in non-pandemic

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times, and times of relative political stability, religious and political authority is negotiated through public institutions, including healthcare systems. The eroding public trust in the government and the public institutions that have been seized undemocratically further exacerbates and confounds the structures of trust that could potentially make mass vaccination possible and effective (Nachemson 2021). One public health strategy in Thailand, started in May 2021, has been to invite groups of the estimated 200,000 Buddhist monks (and other temple workers) to be inoculated against COVID-19, so that they may resume public prayers and receive alms (Jiraporn and Kuhakan 2021). This targeted campaign took place amid growing frustration over governmental handling of vaccine production and distribution, coinciding with public protests and a broader crisis of legitimacy impacting the monarchy. In Southeast Asia, AstraZeneca vaccines are produced by Siam Bioscience, a company owned by the Thai royal family, but failed to reach production quotas, leaving the country initially undersupplied. Once the country was able to procure sufficient doses of the vaccine, pockets of the southern provinces with a sizable Muslim population with some separatist aspirations recorded higher rates of vaccine hesitancy (Tan 2021), revealing the entanglement of public health and vaccine nationalism with other political, religious, and social structures. Increasingly, conversations on the interplay of religion and disease focus on the distinct concept of “vaccine hesitancy,” which the World Health Organization had already identified as one of the ten biggest challenges to global health before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic (WHO 2019). There are many earnest attempts to understand the sociology and psychology behind vaccine hesitancy, particularly in the field of global health and usually with the practical goal of overcoming hesitancy in promotion of vaccination (Dubé et al. 2021; Machingaidze and Wiysonge 2021). Responses to public health interventions, including resistance to Covid vaccines, should not be simply dismissed as ignorance, lack of discipline, or noncompliance, but rather may reflect different concerns about achieving immunity while preserving religious lifeworlds (Kasstan 2022). The reasons behind resisting vaccination involve multiple factors, as both religious and nonreligious groups integrate understandings of ­vaccination and immunity within existing worldviews, cosmologies, and structures of trust. Investigated mostly in European and North American contexts, reasons for refusing vaccination might include “newly formed millennial-­ conspiracist narratives draw[ing] from evangelical millennialism, the anti-­ vaccine movement, New Age, left wing and right-wing conspiracism” (Sturm and Albrecht 2021, 124). The case of American Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem analyzed by Kasstan (2021) reveals that non-vaccination can be articulated as an act

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of bodily devotion. Analyzing these particular understandings of health and immunity in relation to religious practice and worldview in Asian religions will be important in following patterns of vaccine uptake and hesitancy. As the circumstances of the pandemic continue to evolve, we maintain that applying a postsecular lens and using grounded case studies from Asia provide a platform for understanding the Covidian age globally. The fault lines of these debates about anti-vaccination or vaccine hesitancy among religious individuals and groups are mostly focused on the need to balance freedom of religion, on the one hand, with public health mandates, on the other, reflecting dominant concerns from a Western, secular, and biomedical perspective. Accordingly, much of the scholarship has focused on cases from the United States and Europe (Jones 2022; Rocha 2021), where some members of Christian sects oppose vaccination because of the possible links to fetal stem cell lines (Runwal 2021), yet there remains significant variation in attitudes towards vaccination within and among religious communities (Funk and Gramlich 2021). Religious leaders and communities have also been supporting and organizing vaccination drives (Straits Times 2021) by issuing both formal and informal statements about their religious stance either in support or critical of COVID-19 vaccines (BBC News 2021). Vaccine hesitancy among Asian religious communities is an area of discussion that most clearly overlaps with the themes generated in this volume, although none of the contributions take up this question directly, simply because vaccination campaigns had not yet started at the time this manuscript was composed. In Pakistan, rumors circulating about COVID-19 vaccines as a plot to make Muslims infertile (Kanozia and Arya 2021) shape perceptions of risk involved in both becoming infected with the coronavirus and getting vaccinated. Neither of these examples, however, detracts from the necessity of understanding what the circulation of these ideas and interpretations can tell us about people’s anxieties, social position, and feelings of trust or lack of trust (Obadare 2005; Enria et al. 2021) in the structures of authority that hold the responsibility of providing for public well-being. Inayat Ali (2021) describes how aggressive state policies in Pakistan meant to contain the virus, the bodies it kills, and the emotions of those mourning for the “dead viral body” enact authority and values, invoking religion and science to justify the governmental response to the pandemic. These national “rituals of containment” (Ali 2021) include manipulation of the number of infections and Covid deaths to display governmental success, and contested vaccination campaigns to contain the viral impact. Members of Asian religious groups discussed in this book are interacting with multiple voices of authority to understand contagion, disease, and the body. Religious

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leaders, as well as the opinions of other congregation members, are important and influential sources of information. The tension between biomedical normative governance and divine governance over the body is part of what we identified as the processes of negotiating epidemic and epistemic authority. As one of the four overarching themes of this book, we have also emphasized the ways that people draw on receptive cosmologies and produce adaptive remedies, which originate from within their religious traditions but also change and incorporate new ideas, technologies, and ritual practices. In the drive to appear universal, scientific, and modern, several religions have proclaimed that Covid norms prescribed by supranational authorities such as the WHO were in fact already present in seed form in the original doctrines and practices of their ancient religious knowledge. Jains, for example responded to the official measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus by framing WHO recommendations as essentially Jain; practitioners drew parallels between Jain principles and Covid prevention guidelines, finding resonance and mutual corroboration between the muhpattī (face cloth) worn by Jain ascetics and the face mask, or between the digvrata (a Jain vow of restraint) and social distancing (Maes 2022). In a similar manner, young Indonesian women enrolled in Islamic universities and influenced by Salafi movements seized the official regulations about face masks as an opportunity to begin wearing the cadar face covering even beyond pandemic times (Rusli 2022). Vaccination can also become integrated within existing religiously inflected understandings of immunity. Missing from conversations about vaccine hesitancy are more fine-grained analyses of the relationships between theological assumptions, concepts of immunity, and structures of trust in a given society. This may include a wide range of ideas about immunity, not merely biomedical, but also related to sacred and spiritual protection and cultivation. Several essays in this collection begin to explore these themes, such as the notion of sonic immunity among Matua practitioners (essay 18) and the uses of neem, turmeric, and other items of the sacred ethnobotanical repertoire in combating contagion (essay 5). The process of “pandemicizing enemies”—one of the major conceptual lenses we identify in the introduction of this book—is clearly at play in some of the dynamics surrounding vaccination campaigns. Within the region of Southeast Asia, no country has been able to develop its own vaccine, making the region dependent upon vaccines developed by countries in the Global North, or those from China, Russia, or India (Tan and Lim 2021). Epidemiologists, economists, and political scientists have begun to track the political economy of vaccine development and distribution (Kaplan, Lefler, and Zilberman 2022; Suzuki and Yang 2022). Just as social fault lines were further exacerbated by the public health emergency, so have global inequalities related to vaccine production and distribution, as new forms of

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soft power in international relations based on vaccine diplomacy (Leng, Rajah, and Lemahieu 2022) and vaccine nationalism emerged (Katz et al. 2021; Santos Rutschman 2020). These concerns and inequalities can become entangled within understandings of religious belonging. In Indonesia, debates among Muslims about whether vaccines are considered halal are partially about the potential use of animal byproducts. However, they are also related to suspicion of China, distributor of the Sinovac vaccines, which are most widely used in Indonesia, and “imagined links with Communist contagion” (Najmah, Davies, and Kusnan 2021). Existing conflicts—communal and moral—have increased in intensity as a result of the pressure of the pandemic, which escalates the degree of scapegoating taking place as well as rates of social inequality. Conspiratorial blaming and scapegoating during the pandemic can be understood as an extension of pre-pandemic animosities, fears, and anxieties that take on exaggerated proportions in the face of greater uncertainty and the unequal burden of the pandemic impact on vulnerable sections of society, nonhuman life, and regions. As vaccination efforts continue across the world and new rounds of booster shots are recommended, the range of compliant and dissenting voices and responses to vaccination initiatives generates new sets of questions. In what ways do different conceptualizations of personal and collective responsibility towards COVID-19 resistance reflect forms of epistemological authority that come from collective religious, nonreligious, and spiritual traditions in Asia and globally? How are notions of immunity culturally constructed and socially shaped through processes that involve not only governmental mandates, but also the intertwined spheres of cosmology, medicine, ritual, and health? Which people and players can participate in negotiating understandings of disease, contagion, and immunity, and how do their voices interact? These broad questions could stimulate further research while building on the main findings of the book’s introduction. While writing this epilogue and thinking about the ways we can apply our insights to new developments that are currently taking place or have taken place over the course of the publication process, we reflect on what it means to write from within a pandemic.

Writing in the Present Tense As a documentation of people’s lives and experiences during the first (roughly) eighteen months of the Covid pandemic, the essays contained in this volume provide a circumscribed ethnographic history of the Covidian age. While we envisage our theoretical insights as transferable and reapplicable, the particular evidence offered by each of the volume’s essays remains local, synchronic, and situated, which makes them an invaluable resource for future historians of

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supralocal and diachronic processes. Keeping in mind critiques of ethnography’s systemic timelessness (Thomas 1996), the temporality of these essays is clearly defined. We are convinced that these snippets of pandemic life from contextual cultural milieus in specific times and regions will be instrumental to draw the contours of a popular and cultural history of COVID-19 that could widely differ from historical narratives based on the evidence provided by official statistics, governmental reports, and conventional archives. Since the start of this project, we have referred to this pandemic period as the “Covidian age,” with the intuition that the events and circumstances warrant consideration as a discrete period of time. However, this decision raises questions about the consequences of attempting to periodize an epoch that is ongoing and might not have a clear ending. Early on in the pandemic, many imagined that the social disturbances caused by the new virus would disappear as quickly as they arrived. This imagined “clean” end to the pandemic, in which countries might declare victory in vanquishing the coronavirus, stands in stark contrast to the ongoing waves of the pandemic as they have seemed to undulate across the globe, and the decisions of many countries in Asia to eventually phase out restrictions and define a “new normal.” While this general direction of movement characterizes many countries’ approaches towards COVID-19 in mid-2022, China remains a notable exception, not wavering in its zero-Covid policies and still implementing lockdowns in Shanghai as of May 2022 (Van Fleet 2022). From the diverse and quickly evolving approaches nation-states pursued when dealing with the pandemic, it seems that, in addition to the apparition of the virus and the development of its variants, periods of the pandemic are to a large extent human and government made. Indeed, the larger patterns since the first observations of the virus in 2020 (which were later traced back to late 2019), to the WHO declaration of the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic in March 2020, then diverge locally and temporally. In each context, these temporalities used to mark the phases of the Covidian age depend on the rise and fall of caseloads, different rates of hospitalization and death, phases of government health measures, lockdowns, vaccinations since 2021, and the stops and starts of reopenings. The different phases reveal how what we term epidemic and epistemic authorities were under negotiation from the start, changing rapidly with new virological research findings and people’s experiences of the virus. These include early assumptions that the virus was mainly transmitted through touch, which in some cases resulted in widespread usage of hand and floor sanitizers in places of worship. Religiously grounded arguments for touchless greetings (essay 15) and the invention of touchless ritual technology (essay 17) exemplify what we have termed “the sanitized sacred.” Touchless communication and hand sanitization remained relevant alongside the

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wearing of masks long after virologists found out that the virus was importantly transmitted through droplets and aerosols. Even though rituals and gatherings have resumed in their intercorporeal and embodied form, several communities are maintaining the Covidian habit of offering a live-streaming or a broadcast version of the event to enable remote participation. The Covidian age might be the tip of the iceberg of a distinct planetary epoch that political ecology scholar Jude Fernando has termed the Virocene: an epoch produced by extractive capitalism and its exploitation of people, land, and multispecies life, but also “a battleground for social and ecological justice” (Fernando 2020, 635). The essays in this volume have shown that religious communities in Asia, with their ritual tools and receptive cosmologies deployed to restore the disruptions in the relationship between humanity and nature, have provided theoretical and practical strategies to address such a battleground. However, the risks of periodizing something that is ongoing are both the possibility of incorrectly explaining a trajectory and perhaps not accurately anticipating its long-term impacts. Given this possibility, we choose to present these contributions collectively as an important viewpoint from within Covidian times in order to make available to others case studies from various places and religious traditions in Asia, allowing for continual interpretation and reinterpretation of changes over time. While the book as an item has a beginning and an end, reflecting not only its own chronology but also the logistics of the academic publishing process, the blog CoronAsur: Religion and COVID-19 remains open-ended and continues to host new contributions that reflect on recent developments and emerging debates. Time will act differently on these formats, and as the phygital book will age and circulate in its current state, the blog, because of its own nature, might mutate or migrate to a digital archive. As the periodization of the Covidian age shifts, so does our perspective, exemplified by the very process of editing this manuscript. Most of the contributions to this volume were initially written in the present tense, from authors immersed in the very situations that they documented and analyzed. Some of the contributors, during the process of revising, decided to shift the tone to a more distanced past tense. As editors, we had to face the challenge of theorizing “from within” during an ongoing and unfolding global crisis, without the privilege of distance and the much sought-after academic “detachment.” While we are still immersed in the continuously changing phenomenology of the Covid pandemic and recognize that its effects are unevenly distributed, we can provide provisional definitions of what we felt deserved the title of “Covidian age.” Even though several cases described in this volume highlight continuity with pre-pandemic forms of religiosity rather than abrupt change, our choice to refer to a Covidian age gives emphasis to the out-of-the-ordinariness of these pandemic times.

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The exceptionality of what we termed the Covidian age lies not only in the novelty of the novel coronavirus but most importantly in the forms of governance and the digital affordances that have been mobilized in response to its spread in a highly connected and unequal, globalized world. Collectively, our essays underscored that COVID-19 has been lived and interpreted as a breaking point with pre-pandemic forms of mediation, religious experience, religious networking, and ritual performance. We have argued that in Covidian times most religious communities have bent their theologies in order to “bend the curve,” revealing flexible and imaginative ways of coping with newly enforced preventive measures, for example, through an accelerated use of technology and a creative reconfiguration of sacred space. The essays have shown that communities have experienced diverse degrees of loss, absence, and separation, while looking for innovative ways to congregate and mediate presence, and that Covidian regimes of social distancing have been unequally felt as impediments to one’s ritual life. While some scholars of religion have postulated that ritual conservatism prevailed and that most changes to religious practices were merely passing responses (Frøystad 2021), we have shared our expectation that the Covid pandemic will have a lasting role in reshaping religious communities and ritual traditions even in postpandemic Asia. Writing from a temporality conjugated in the present tense, we are not in a position to assess what the “new normal” will look and feel like for Asian religious communities. However, we are interested in observing how Covidian changes are upheld, transformed, or internalized in the near future, keeping our ethnographic eyes and ears open. While interrogating the speed at which religions went digital during the Covid pandemic, we are also interested in assessing the longue durée of these transformations, after the resumption of in-person activities. Whether or not ritual communities maintain digital or at least “phygital” aspects of their pandemic religiosity in the upcoming years, some have already proposed the need to theorize less triumphantly about religions going online, arguing that the “forced digitization” of religion has not only solved the problem of sanitizing the sacred but also created major conflicts and internal differences (Kühle and Larsen 2021). Many contributors have asked, in the present tense, what these rapid shifts online are doing to the substantive sacred elements of these traditions (essay 21). In documenting emerging trends and ritual adaptations during the first stages of the pandemic, we hope that this volume has indicated several fruitful avenues of further research in the fields of religion and society in global Asia. The documented phenomena and the conceptual frameworks that this book has offered will provide the basis for a continual reinterpretation and for comparative studies on the interplay of religions and pandemics.

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Contributors

Fatema Aarshe is an MSS student currently studying in the Department of Anthropology, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is interested in labor studies, political ecology, urbanization, class-based social inequality, and public health. Yasmeen Arif is a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral research focuses on the experiences of women living alone in Pakistani cities. Her previous research explored urban environmentalism in Pakistan and British Muslim responses to racialization and anti-Muslim prejudice. Indira Arumugam is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore. An anthropologist whose research interests ­include rituals, indigenous deities, and popular Hinduism, she has published ­extensively on the gift, animal sacrifice, and kinship. Her monograph Visceral Politics: Intimate Imaginaries of Power in South India is forthcoming. Swayam Bagaria received his PhD in cultural anthropology from Johns Hopkins University. His research is on the relation between popular Hinduism and political populism in contemporary India. Raka Banerjee holds a PhD in women’s studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Her doctoral thesis, “Adrift in the Bay, at Home in the Island: Post-Partition ‘Settler Women’ in Neil Island, Bay of Bengal,” is an interdisciplinary study incorporating island studies and partition studies, through the lens of gender, to explore the identity making of Bengali settler women in the Andaman Islands. Malini Bhattacharjee works as assistant professor at the School of Policy and Governance at Azim Premji University in Bangalore. Her research revolves 327

328  Contributors

around issues of religious nationalism, the politics of disaster relief, and the intersections emerging between religion, development, and public policy in contemporary India. Her recent book, Disaster Relief and the RSS: Resurrecting “Religion” through Humanitarianism (2019), examines the political implications of the humanitarian work of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Md. Khaled Bin Oli Bhuiyan received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in anthropology from Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is particularly interested in the interplay of colonial hegemony and biomedical discourse in the construction of the body, and he strives to develop analytical skills to understand health, society, and culture. Chang Hsun is a research fellow and director of the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. She obtained her PhD in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley. She has been conducting research on folk religion and folk medicine in Taiwan and China since 1990. Jack Meng-Tat Chia is assistant professor of history and religious studies at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Monks in Motion: Buddhism and Modernity across the South China Sea (2020), as well as articles in Asian Ethnology, China Quarterly, Contemporary Buddhism, Critical Asian Studies, and History of Religions. Terence Chong is director (research) and deputy chief executive officer at the ISEAS—Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore. He is a sociologist whose research interests include heritage, arts, and cultural policies in Singapore, and new Chinese migrants and Christianity in Southeast Asia. Ankana Das is a PhD student in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, India. She studies religious consciousness, transformation, and transgressions, looking at how caste, class, and political influence permeate layers of religious meaning making. Her work involves situating syncretic religion in the neoliberal market space and the broader Hindutva politics in the context of Bonbibi veneration in the Sundarban delta. Deepsikha Dasgupta is pursuing a master’s degree in sociology at South Asian University, New Delhi. Her research interests include religion, medical anthropology, cultural studies, and gender. For her undergraduate dissertation, she

Contributors  329

worked on exploring the interface of the COVID-19 pandemic, biomedicine, alternative healing practices, and Sitala worship in Bengal. Nia Deliana holds a PhD from International Islamic University of Malaysia. Her expertise revolves around Acehnese historical transboundary relations in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean. She has written more than seventy opinion pieces independently for printed and digital publications in Indonesia and Malaysia. Beverly Anne Devakishen is a researcher in media studies, specializing in the impact of digital media on democracy. She has a master’s degree in Southeast Asian studies from the National University of Singapore and is hoping to go on to a PhD in media and communications in the near future, focusing on the Southeast Asian region. Mariano Errichiello is a PhD candidate at SOAS University of London. His research focuses on contemporary Zoroastrianism in India and its related languages. Mariano’s interests include colonial and postcolonial history, anthropology of ritual, sociology of religion, and sociology of organizations. He is particularly interested in Zoroastrian esotericism and its theoretical formulation. Amelia Fauzia is professor and head of Magister Program in Islamic History and Civilization, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Syarif Hidayatullah Islamic University, Jakarta. She is also director of Social Trust Fund UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta. Nalika Gajaweera is a research anthropologist at the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California. Her specializations are in the anthropology of religion, with a specific interest in the intersections of Buddhism, race, ethnonationalism, and gender. She has studied these issues in the context of Sri Lanka and the United States. She received her PhD from the University of California, Irvine. Kanchana Dodan Godage is a political scientist currently teaching at the Open University of Sri Lanka, Nawala, Colombo. She is interested in the electoral process, levels of government, and exploring how ethnic diversities interact and influence different layers of policy making and implementation. She received a BA and an MA in political science from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. She

330  Contributors

also has an MA in public policy and governance from North South University, Bangladesh. Daniel P.S. Goh is associate professor of sociology, associate provost (undergraduate education) and vice dean (special programmes) at NUS College, National University of Singapore. He is a comparative-historical sociologist who studies state formation, postcolonialisms, race and multiculturalism, urbanisms, and religion. Emily Zoe Hertzman is a sociocultural anthropologist whose research focuses on Chinese Indonesian mobilities and identities. She received a BA and MA from the University of British Columbia and a PhD from the University of Toronto (2017). She joined the Asia Research Institute as a research fellow at the National University of Singapore in 2021. Siti Zubaidah Ismail is associate professor at the Shariah and Law Department, Academy of Islamic Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia. Her interest is on Islam as a way of life while pursuing academic endeavor on the implementation of Islamic law and the interaction between Islamic law and society. Nurul Fadiah Johari is a research associate at the Social Service Research Centre in the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include the interplay of power and ideology in the construction of dominant narratives on socioeconomic issues, as well as the intersection of socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and gender in the shaping of policies and their impact on marginalized communities. Sinah Theres Kloß is leader of the research group Marking Power: Embodied Dependencies, Haptic Regimes and Body Modification at the Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies, University of Bonn, Germany. She holds a PhD in social and cultural anthropology from Heidelberg University. Natalie Lang is a research fellow at the Centre for Modern Indian Studies, University of Göttingen. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, and an associated junior fellow at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, University of Erfurt. She is the author of Religion and Pride: Hindus in Search of Recognition in La Réunion (2021). Erica M. Larson is a research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She holds a PhD in cultural anthropology from Boston

Contributors  331

University. Her research examines the intersection of education, religion, ethics, and politics in Indonesia, and her monograph, Ethics of Belonging: Education, Religion, and Politics in Manado, Indonesia, is forthcoming with the University of Hawai‘i Press. Lei Ting is a PhD candidate at the University of Tokyo. Her research field covers folkloristic study, vernacular art, and representation and self-expressions of rural populations in China, especially Jinshan peasant painting in Shanghai. Alvin Eng Hui Lim is a performance, religion, and theater researcher. He is assistant professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the National University of Singapore. His first monograph, Digital Spirits in Religion and Media: Possession and Performance (2018), studies how lived religious p ­ ractices in contemporary Singapore perform in combination with digital technology. Lim Peng Chew graduated from the Taiwan National Tsing Hua University with a master’s degree in anthropology. His research field is Chinese folk religion. Currently, he is a PhD student in the Faculty of Education at Taiwan Tsing Hua University. His research topic is educational anthropology and cultural heritage education. Marianna Lis is a scholar interested in contemporary wayang, theater, and music in post-traditional Indonesia. She received her PhD in theater studies at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw in 2017. Her monograph Wayang. Jawajski teatr cieni (Wayang. Javanese shadow puppet theater, 2019) focused on contemporary wayang, summarizing nine years of her research in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Carola E. Lorea is a scholar interested in oral traditions and popular religions in South Asia. She was a senior research fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore before starting a professorship of Rethinking Global Religion at the University of Tübingen. She received research fellowships from IIAS, Gonda Foundation (Leiden), and SAI (Heidelberg) to study traveling archives of songs in the borderlands of India and Bangladesh. Her monograph (Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman, 2016) discusses the intersections of religion, displacement, and sacred sounds through the lens of performance. Neena Mahadev is assistant professor of anthropology at Yale-NUS College. Her research in Sri Lanka, Singapore, and inter-Asian linkages focuses on the

332  Contributors

interplay between Theravāda (Pāli) Buddhism, Pentecostalism, and Roman Catholicism, and the innovations that arise within agonistic milieus. Her religion and COVID-19 research was supported by the Yap Kim Hao Fund. She serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Global Buddhism and New Direction in the Anthropology of Christianity (Bloomsbury). Her first book, Of Karma and Grace: Mediating Religious Difference in Millennial Sri Lanka, is forthcoming. Muhammad Lutfi Bin Othman is a PhD candidate in ethnomusicology and sound studies. His thesis focuses on Sufism in Singapore and the links between sonic performances and experiential knowledge. He is also interested in the transnational solidarity between members of global Sufi orders and Muslims in Singapore and the role that sonic performances and audiovisual material play in fostering such relationships. Mukul Pandey is pursuing a PhD in sociology of conservation and sustainable agricultural practices. His research interests lie in the intersections of agrarian studies, sociology of science and technology, and ontologies of development and sustainability. Dishani Roy is currently pursuing an MA degree in sociology from Presidency University, Kolkata, India. Her research interests include religion, caste, and medical anthropology with a specific focus on the mind-body continuum. At present, she is working on the Caste Project at the Centre for Regional Research and Sustainability Studies. Louie Jon A. Sánchez is associate professor of broadcast communication at the College of Mass Communication, University of the Philippines, Diliman. He teaches communication, television, and teleserye (Filipino TV soap operas) studies. He is associate editor of Suvannabhumi, a multidisciplinary journal of Southeast Asian studies, Korea Institute of ASEAN Studies, Busan University of Foreign Studies. Shen Yeh-Ying is a sociocultural anthropologist who obtained her PhD in Chinese studies from the National University of Singapore in 2019. She has published several works on religious movements among overseas Chinese communities and women in Chinese religions, in particular Yiguandao. She is an adjunct lecturer at the School of Humanities and Behavioural Sciences, Singapore University of Social Science.

Contributors  333

Yuki Shiozaki is an associate professor at the School of International Relations, the University of Shizuoka, in Japan. He studies Islam in Southeast Asia. His research interests include historical interactions between Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. He has published articles on Islamic scholars, Islamic literature, and religious interactions in Southeast Asia. Show Ying Ruo is research fellow at Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She is a historian of modern China and holds a PhD in Chinese studies from the National University of Singapore (2017). She has published works on women and gender in Chinese Buddhism, women’s religious networks, Chinese diaspora, and Chinese religious texts. Esmond Chuah Meng Soh is an independent researcher who has just completed his master of arts (history) degree from the Nanyang Technological University, School of Humanities, Singapore. His research interests include the history of religion, diasporic Chinese religion, and the history of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Tran Thi Thuy Binh, a PhD candidate at the University of Auckland, conducts research on gender, religion, and sexuality. Her primary research interests are rituals, LGBTQIA movements and queer people, and Dao Mau—the Viet beliefs in the Mother Goddesses of the Four Realms. Vo Duy Thanh is a cultural anthropologist whose studies primarily focus on contemporary Hoa Hao Buddhist charity in southern Vietnam. He holds a PhD from the Australian National University. He has been working as a researcher and lecturer at the Climate Change Institute, An Giang University—Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City. Dean Wang is an adjunct assistant professor of Chinese studies at the National University of Singapore. He has recently completed his PhD dissertation on the worship of underworld gods in Singapore. Dean specializes in the research of Chinese religion, interfaith studies, and popular culture. He is currently researching local Hainanese Daoist altars in Singapore. Catherine West recently completed a PhD at Deakin University, Australia. Her thesis looked at the postindependence transformation of Colombo, Sri Lanka, in terms of the urban environment, social formation, and religion. Catherine shares her time among anthropological research, consulting in the social services sector, and running a small French bistro.

334  Contributors

Lynn Wong is an independent researcher and filmmaker in a race against time to document and revive disappearing foods, festivals, and heritage in Singapore. Her research focuses on the Chinese diaspora and their involvement in historical places of worship, clan associations, and everyday customs. Faizah Zakaria is assistant professor of history at Nanyang Technological University, specializing in religion and ecology in modern Southeast Asia. She holds a PhD in history from Yale University. Her first monograph, The Camphor Tree and the Elephant: Religion and Ecological Change in Maritime Southeast Asia, is under contract with University of Washington Press. Saymon Zakaria is a writer, researcher, and deputy director of the Bangla Academy, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is internationally recognized for his ethnographic field surveys that relate to intangible cultural heritage. In English, he authored Pronomohi Bongomata: Indigenous Cultural Forms of Bangladesh (2011). He was the recipient of the Bangla Academy Literary Award 2019. Philipp Zehmisch is a social and cultural anthropologist working at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University. He observed the unfolding of COVID-19 in Pakistan while teaching anthropology at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. His contribution is based on observations, conversations, media reports, and online classes with undergraduate students. Zhao Yuanhao is a postdoctoral fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He holds a PhD in Near Eastern languages and cultures from Ohio State University. Zhao’s field of interests includes narrative culture, material culture, death anthropology, and life history. He has been conducting fieldwork among the Chinese Hui ethnic minority. Yijiang Zhong is professor in Japanese history and religion in the Faculty of Intercultural Communication, Komatsu University, Japan. His research interests include religion, secularity, modern state, the Japanese empire, and history of space and nature. He published a book on Shinto and is working on his second book project, tentatively titled “The Backside of Japan: An Imperial History of Space in Northeast Asia, 1868–1984.”

Index

Aceh, 20, 195–196, 223–227 affect, 124, 201; affectionate, 110; affective, 127, 148 agency, 11, 19, 28, 120, 177, 189, 246, 273 aid, 17, 32–33, 37, 45, 91, 93, 117, 142, 157, 196, 211, 224–227, 231–232, 234, 236, 241, 259, 261–264, 270–271. See also relief Allah, 21, 28, 43, 101–103, 179–180, 215 altar, 24, 96, 127, 132, 157–158, 237–238, 248 Amabie (sea monster), 22, 37–39, 41, 48–52 amulet, 22, 24, 34n10, 48, 50, 140, 201, 259 ancestor, 8, 37, 40, 79–80, 151–152, 225, 241, 277 Anthropocene, 2, 14–15 anthropology, 172; anthropological, 20, 61, 252; anthropologist, 8, 13, 68, 173, 217n1 anxiety, 41, 170, 200, 250 apocalypse, 241; apocalyptic, 241, 246 app, 23, 27, 86, 172, 255, 257, 273, 275 archive, 4–5, 8–10, 24–25, 32, 37, 50, 164, 173–177, 182–183 art: artist, 16, 34, 43–47, 51, 61, 75, 90, 92; artwork, 1, 34 Asia as method, 10, 13–14 aspiration, 163, 201, 268, 278 assistance, 31, 209, 231–234, 243, 264, 270; government, 234; social, 231–233, 236 asynchronous, 28, 86, 123 audience, 28, 91–93, 107–108, 136, 146, 225, 240, 275 authentic; 116, 131; authenticity, 130; inauthentic, 172; inauthenticity, 164 authority, 1, 8, 15–18, 20, 39, 41, 80, 92, 101, 138, 142, 159, 176, 186, 207, 220, 225, 227,

277, 279–282; authoritarian, 11, 72, 143, 201, 205; authoritative, 12, 19; charismatic, 167‑168; city, 88, 119; epidemic, 5, 15, 18, 20, 32, 280, 282; epistemic, 5, 15, 18, 20, 32, 40, 198, 276, 280, 282; government, 120, 202, 262; local, 15, 88, 92, 188, 219; male, 205; monastic, 200; national, 92; political authorities, 14, 202, 278; religious, 24, 40, 87–88, 114, 153, 156, 163, 186, 197–199, 274–275, 277–278; ritual, 11; state, 30, 197, 199, 277; temple, 265; traditional, 27 Ayurveda 34, 63, 218, 221–222; Ayurvedic, 16, 200, 218–220 Bandara, Dhammika, 219–222 Bangladesh, 37, 38, 42–45, 126, 144–145, 147; Bangladeshi, xi, 1, 8, 47 baptism, 87, 113; online baptism, 113; Zoom baptism, 4, 87 Batara Corona (ogre), 38, 90, 93 Beigang, 183–184, 186 Bengali, 1, 6, 22, 42–43, 46, 58, 60 Bharatiya Janata Party, 16, 208 Bhutan, 16, 277 Bible, 112, 113, 134, 155, 156 Blessed Sacrament (Christian), 96, 98 blog, xi, xiii, 4, 5–6, 8–9, 14, 32, 55, 70, 273, 283 body, 14, 16, 18, 25, 26, 32, 34n8, 38, 39, 45, 54–56, 58, 62, 65–66, 88, 91, 103, 115, 117, 123–126, 128, 131–133, 137–138, 140, 143, 144, 146–149, 151, 154, 155,

335

336  Index 158, 165, 167, 178, 179, 187, 189, 209, 215, 222, 278, 279, 280; bodily, 1, 14, 26, 34n8, 123, 128, 138, 144, 146, 148, 151, 167, 279; of Christ, 126, 134, 137–138; cosmic, 54; goddess’s, 64; politics, 126, 133, 199; sensorium, 26, 32, 123–124, 148. See also Communion; embodiment; Eucharist bottom-up, 4–6, 223–224, 227 Britain, 100; British, 20, 86, 100, 106, 130, 211, 214 Buddha, 12, 16, 18, 26, 54–55, 74–75, 89, 106–109, 151–152, 190–191, 200, 220, 236, 241; Mahavairochana (buddha), 54–55; Medicine Buddha, 18, 74–75, 152 Buddhist, 2, 3, 8, 15–16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 29, 31, 32, 34n9, 37, 38, 40, 52, 53–57, 75, 86, 106–109, 151–152, 190–191, 196, 197, 199–202, 219–221, 232, 233, 241–246, 259–263, 271, 277, 278; community, 106–108, 241, 263; Hoa Hao, 232–233, 241–246; organizations, 108–109; rituals, 22, 190–191; Shingon, 53–57; Theravada, 106, 108, 199; traditions, 106; Vajrayana, 106; Zen, 55, 263 byproducts, 17, 281 Cambodia, 239, 260 Cap Go Meh (CGM), 233, 235, 247–252 care, 11, 14, 69, 104, 195–196, 206, 209, 213, 223, 242, 263, 277 Caribbean, 126, 129–132 caste, 29, 126, 140, 141–145, 328, 332 catastrophe, 13, 39, 42, 47, 67, 231. See also disaster Catholic, 23, 37, 69, 70, 95–99, 126, 134–138, 198, 261; exorcism, 22, 85; priest, 31, 68, 72; saint, 71; televisuality, 85, 95–96, 98–99. See also church Central Java, 90, 271 chant, 16, 17, 22, 60, 107, 108, 126, 127, 148, 152, 178, 190–191, 196–197, 199–201, 221, 236–237, 277 chaos, 12, 277 charisma, 163, 166–172

charitable organizations, 15, 77, 270–271, 273–274 charity, 4, 32–33, 37, 99, 203, 213, 231–234, 236, 238, 241, 243–246, 264, 270–274 Chavan, Prithviraj, 265, 267–269 China, 2, 11, 30, 197, 198, 236, 238, 260, 280, 281, 282 Chinese: ancestor worship, 151; cosmology, 79, 81; folk religion, 127; netherworld, 80–81; popular religion, 18, 75; religion, 41, 79, 127, 150, 152–153; ritual, 152, 154; tradition, 37, 151, 153. See also spirit medium; spiritscape; temple Chinese New Year, 233, 236 cholera, 13, 20, 22, 34, 63, 66, 68, 148, 226 Christian, 21, 31, 40, 69, 73, 115, 126, 127, 130–132, 134, 157–158, 167–169, 201, 209–211, 220, 232, 259, 261, 263, 279; Christianity, 73, 95, 130–131, 164, 171–172; digital Christianity, 164, 171 church, 26, 155–156, 208, 259, 265, 271; Catholic Church, 31, 69, 72, 95–98, 134–135,137–138, 261–262; evangelical church, 87; Filipino church, 259; megachurch, 167–172; Methodist church, 87, 110, 112–113, 156–158 Circuit Breaker (Singapore), 77–79, 82, 106, 109, 111–113, 137, 150, 156, 159, 204 citizen, 2, 11, 20, 31, 138, 188–189, 196, 198, 202, 213, 216, 227, 249, 254, 259, 266, 277 civil society, 199, 207n3, 208, 210–211, 231–233 class, 11, 16, 28–29, 39, 72, 144, 174, 176, 214 Colombo, 200, 219 Communion (Christian), 23, 98, 113, 126, 148, 164, 166, 179. See also Eucharist compassion, 40, 74–75, 97, 102, 210, 240, 242, 246 Confucianism, 189, 236, 241, 248 congregation, 7, 11, 18, 25, 27, 86, 101, 109, 113, 125, 132–133, 136, 145–146, 148, 155–157, 159, 163, 165–166, 174–176, 178, 180, 187, 203–204, 216, 231, 253, 261, 270, 280. See also gatherings conspiracy, 215; conspiracism, 278; conspiracy theory, 60, 215, 276

Index  337 contact tracing, 11, 29, 80, 225, 275 Corona Devi (goddess), 37, 39–40, 71–72, 139. See also Corona Mai/Maa Corona Mai/Maa (mother), 37, 39, 60, 71–72. See also Corona Devi Coronasur (demon), 1, 6, 32, 34n7, 34n9, 37–38, 40, 46–47, 60– 61, 68, 71–72. See also Batara Corona; Koronayaksa CoronAsur (project; archive; blog), xiii, 4–5, 7–10, 23, 25, 27, 32, 34, 37, 85, 124, 163, 195, 231, 283 corpse, 88, 117–118, 119, 120, 140, 215 cosmos, 1, 20, 25, 186; cosmic balance, 3, 91; cosmic causality, 19; cosmic forces, 54–55; cosmic justice, 38; cosmic order, 15; cosmology, 3, 12, 18, 20, 23, 37, 40–41, 79, 81, 198, 235, 278, 281; receptive cosmologies, 5, 20–22, 32, 280, 283 Covidian age, 1, 3–5, 7, 9, 24–29, 33n3, 85, 144, 161, 200, 279, 281–284 cow, 2, 4, 16–17, 21, 198 creativity, 6, 23, 25, 43–44, 52, 56, 72, 87, 98, 120, 125, 166, 175–176, 272, 284 cremation, 66, 89, 118–119, 151, 202 crowd, 25, 54, 90, 165, 183, 219, 247–252, 272 culture, 3, 42, 51–52, 82, 108, 115, 170, 207, 226, 247–248; Bangladeshi traditional folk culture, 47; Bengali culture, 1, 6, 46; cultural expression, 233; culture of disembodiment, 124; European culture, 115; digital culture, 11; Parsi Zoroastrian culture, 118; popular culture, 37–38, 82, 108; Samoan culture, 21; social media culture, 127; traditional Chinese culture, 153; Yōkai culture, 48–51 cyberscape, 4, 13, 28, 146 cyberspace, 26, 48, 51, 90, 108 Dalits, 142, 210. See also untouchability dance, 38, 127, 145, 148, 178, 249, 252 Daoist, 12, 40, 75, 156, 157, 190, 232; Daoism, 236 Daruma dolls, 22, 50 death, 18, 21, 26, 58, 64, 66, 117, 134, 151, 195, 217n1; death rate/toll, 30, 59, 104,

214, 276, 282; death rites, 85, 117, 151, 152. See also funeral Delhi, 140, 142, 208, 328 demon (Corona demon), 1, 34, 46, 47, 61; demonic, 34, 37, 39, 40, 46, 72, 91, 119. See also Coronasur; Mahishasur de-sensorialization, 124, 127, 150–154 Dharma, 1, 54, 61, 151, 200, 232; cyber Dharma, 106–108, 239 dhikr, 126, 164, 178, 179–181 diaspora, 4, 7–8, 31, 39, 96, 100 digital: digitization, 113, 184; divide, 11, 87, 113; mediation, 18, 54, 107, 233; religion, 11, 27, 86; ritual, 114; technology, 86–87, 113, 156, 171–172, 270, 331. See also Christian: digital Christianity; ethnography: digital disaster, 12, 13–14, 20, 23, 37, 42 disembodied, 27, 33, 148. See embodiment disembodiment, 124, 127, 138, 152–153 displacement, 7, 144, 149 distance (physical), 92, 123, 164, 174; social distancing, 4, 7, 9, 38, 42, 75, 85, 119, 121, 123, 126, 132, 139, 149, 152, 158–159, 167, 186–188, 203, 213–214, 219, 225, 231, 245, 271, 280, 284 distrust, 197, 215–216, 225 eating, 2, 43, 60, 108, 126, 134, 137, 186, 216, 272 economy, 213, 234, 243, 249, 270, 280; economic capital, 33; economic downturn, 233–234; economic loss, 33; economic precarity, 204; economic stimulus, 224, 247, 250 Eid ul-Adha, 234, 271 Eid-ul-Fitr (Eid), 164, 173–174, 176–177, 213, 271, 274 embodiment, 1, 37, 39, 64–65, 72, 123, 147, 163; disembodied, 27, 33, 148; disembodiment, 124, 128, 138, 152, 153; embodied, 9, 23–24, 26, 27, 32, 40, 52, 54, 57, 64, 68, 123–124, 126, 136–137, 138, 147–148, 152–154, 158, 165–166, 252, 283, 330 enchantment, 2, 5, 12–13, 14, 23–26, 28, 31, 87, 212, 277

338  Index endemic, 3, 5, 276 entertainment, 91, 92, 94, 250 environment, 2, 7, 11, 14, 19, 22, 31, 126, 136, 141, 205, 223, 237 epidemic, 3, 5, 13, 15, 18, 20, 24, 32, 34, 38–39, 50–51, 54, 58, 61–64, 66–67, 69, 71, 75, 148, 224, 280, 282 epistemology, 2, 15, 17, 19, 26, 124, 127, 216, 235, 281 eschatology, 21, 117, 232, 237, 269 ethics, 195–198, 225, 331; ethical, 1, 2, 15, 31, 198, 213, 245–246 ethnicity, 11, 126, 252, 261, 330; ethnic group, 247; ethnonationalist, 10, 47, 199; ethnoreligious, 115, 221 ethnography: auto-ethnography, 41; digital, 152, 154; ethnographer, 151; netnography, 4; remote ethnography, 4 Eucharist, 23, 96, 126, 134–138. See also Communion evil, 1, 6, 19, 29, 91, 117, 118, 189, 247 exorcism, 22, 85, 97, 24 Facebook, 24, 27, 38, 43–44, 55, 70, 74, 81, 86, 89–90, 95–98, 106–108, 112, 127, 146–147, 151, 153, 157, 164–165, 169–171, 173, 175, 177, 154, 189, 250; Facebook Live, 107–108, 127, 147, 157 face masks, 1, 14, 24, 39–41, 43, 46, 55, 59–60, 62, 74–76, 78–80, 90, 92, 116, 124–125, 140–141, 147, 165, 183, 186–187, 198, 203–204, 209, 214, 216, 245, 274–275, 280, 283; distribution of, 208, 232, 239 faith-based organization, 33, 208, 232 fitrah, 271, 274 Fo Guang Shan, 108–109, 120, 151, 153 food, 45, 60, 65, 108, 111, 113, 123, 126, 209, 214, 216, 221, 227, 233–234, 241–246, 249, 262, 271; food kitchens, 232, 242–245; food security & insecurity, 234, 242, 272 foreigners, 233, 253, 255, 260, 262 fundraising, 153, 212, 234, 250, 270, 273–274 funeral, 129, 151, 209, 216, 259, 262; funerary practice, 88–89, 115, 116–120; funerary rites, 151, 209

gatherings, 3–4, 7, 11, 26, 86, 113, 126, 144–145, 147–148, 156–157, 166–167, 175–176, 178–179, 187, 189–190, 196, 213, 253, 275, 283; congregational, 109, 133, 148, 174, 176–177, 180, 203–204, 261; mass gatherings, 3, 4, 145, 175, 204. See also congregation gender, 5, 11, 28, 89, 100, 104, 164, 189, 196, 198, 204–206, 244 generation, 11, 88, 108, 114, 153, 175, 207 gesture, 54, 113, 123, 125–126, 137, 142, 148, 154, 156, 158–159, 249 Geutanyoe Foundation, 223, 227 gift, 80, 210–211 Global North, 2, 5, 8, 11, 13, 214, 280 Global South, 2, 195 goddess, 33n4, 37, 39–40, 58–63, 66–68, 71–72, 91, 129, 139, 165, 185–187, 197, 218, 220, 333 gods, 1, 8, 15, 34n9, 40, 68, 74–77, 79, 91, 127, 140, 152, 155, 159, 165, 241, 250, 252, 333 god’s wrath/anger, 15, 64, 66, 91, 205, 215 government: central, 208, 242, 265; city, 248, 250; governmental policies, 31, 189, 195, 196, 214, 225, 266, 279, 282; governmental protocols/mandates/ health measures, 25, 31, 37, 38, 42, 50, 53, 59, 88, 112, 135, 140, 145, 189, 202, 216, 222, 273, 281, 282; governmental response, 197, 279; local, 196, 219, 224; national, 15, 89, 232, 233; state, 15, 89, 208, 265. See also assistance; authority Guanyin, 40, 73–77, 154n1, 190–191 Gujarat, 115, 208 gurdwara, 212n1, 275–276 hadra, 178, 179 Hajj, 210, 233, 253–258. See also pilgrimage halal, 198, 207n1, 281 Halika Dahan (festival), 6 harmony, 91–93, 108, 110, 141 hashtag, 164, 174, 195 healing, 16, 17, 21, 22, 25, 26, 40, 41, 58, 59, 62, 64, 72, 85, 95–98, 111, 125, 127; practice, 144, 149, 329; sonic healing, 145–149

Index  339 healthcare, 11, 61, 197, 215, 276–278 heaven, 70, 172, 207, 240 Hindu community, 130, 268; Hinduism, 29, 43, 62, 129, 130–131, 142, 266–269; Hindu nationalism, 17, 21, 29, 33n4, 130, 196, 208; Hindu ritual, 132, 140; Hindus, 16, 34n9, 58–60, 72, 126, 129–132, 201, 209–210, 212, 214, 220, 230; Hindu temple, 62, 140–141, 234, 265, 267–269 hospital, 11–12, 34n12, 98, 114, 208, 212n1, 215, 232, 239, 249, 271, 282 humanitarian, 224, 227, 264, 270, 328; humanitarianism, 212, 274, 328 humanity, 13, 45, 74, 232, 246, 270, 283 human resources, 244–245, 273 Hungry Ghost Festival, 277. See also seventh lunar month hygiene, 2, 5, 7, 17, 23–26, 28, 29, 32, 76, 117, 125, 126, 129, 131, 141, 146, 232, 245, 272, 277

innovation, 11, 23, 27, 32, 83, 85–89, 91, 111, 115–116, 119, 142, 232, 270–271, 273–274 Instagram, 28, 90, 92, 157, 169, 170, 171 internet, 7, 11, 52, 90, 92, 95–96, 106–109, 114, 127, 173. See also cyberscape; cyberspace; digital; online; social media; streaming interreligious, 17, 26, 30 Iran, 19, 44, 54, 115, 258 Islam, 20, 30, 31, 44, 86, 88, 100, 101, 103, 105, 168, 174–175, 177, 180, 196, 202, 204–207, 211, 214–215, 249, 253–255, 270–271, 274–275, 280; Five pillars of, 233–234; Islamic charity, 232, 234, 270, 273–274; Islamic solidarity, 223–226; Islamophobia, 196, 202. See also Muslims Islamic Religious Council of Singapore, 176, 180 isolation, 8–9, 91, 100, 103, 126, 145, 156, 159, 203, 209, 261

identity, 3, 30, 87, 196, 227, 237, 247, 261, 327 I-Kuan Tao, 236, 238–240. See also Yiguandao immobility, 7, 233 immunity, 3, 5, 16, 19, 127, 145, 276, 278–281 immunization, 20, 257. See also vaccine improvisation, 11, 163, 164, 271 impurity, 54, 94n1, 126, 132, 139, 143 incense, 22, 60, 127, 132, 164, 178, 181, 183, 185–186, 249 India, 6, 11–12, 16–17, 19–21, 25, 29, 30, 39–40, 59, 61, 63, 68–69, 72, 41n1, 115, 117, 119–120, 126, 130–139, 141, 145, 175, 196, 198, 201, 208–209, 211–212, 214, 217n1, 264–268, 280, 327–329, 331–332 Indian Ocean, 145, 223, 225 Indonesia, 12, 25, 30, 38, 91, 93, 120, 164, 167–168, 175, 195, 198, 206, 207n3, 211, 223–224, 227, 233–235, 238, 248–250, 252, 260, 270–271, 273, 274–275, 280–281, 329–331 inequality, 3, 104, 217n1, 264, 268, 281 infodemic, 3, 19 injustice, 45, 205, 225

Jainism: Jain, 126, 280 Jakarta, 168–169, 239, 250, 275 Japan, 31, 32, 41, 48–52, 53–57, 197, 233, 239, 259–263; Japanese, 22, 37, 38, 40, 186 Java, 90, 225, 271–272; Javanese, 6, 90–91, 93 Jewish, 29, 123, 127, 278 jurisdiction, 225, 266 jurisprudence, 270, 274 Kali (goddess), 197, 218–222 karma, 2, 6, 15, 233, 234, 245–246 khutbah. See sermon kirtan, 61, 145–148, 275, 276 knowledge, 1, 14, 15, 21, 53, 92, 93, 107, 115, 130, 131, 132, 141, 203; production of, 5, 9, 10, 206; religious, 2, 104, 280; scientific, 17l; transmission/sharing of, 206, 245 Korea. See South Korea Koronayaksa (ogre), 6, 38, 93 Kuala Lumpur, 168, 170, 238 langar, 208, 212n1, 232 laptop, 91, 172

340  Index legitimacy, 9, 15, 17, 168, 189, 195–197, 212, 234, 278 lockdown, 7, 28, 31, 42–45, 54, 59, 61, 87, 86, 89, 91, 93, 95, 96, 100–105, 109, 125, 138, 139, 144, 159, 167, 168, 169, 175, 180–181, 198, 204, 205, 209, 210, 213–214, 218, 237, 242, 243, 265, 282. See also Circuit Breaker Mahishasur, 6, 61 majlis, 178, 180–181, 204 Malaysia, 11, 24, 28, 164, 167, 170, 174–175, 178, 195, 206, 207n3, 221, 223, 227, 232, 233, 235, 239, 253–257, 259, 277 Manila, 96–98, 169 mantra, 18, 25, 55, 60, 277 marginalization, 11, 17, 29, 30, 130, 205–206, 211; marginalized groups/communities, 2, 104, 203–206, 231 Mariamman (goddess), 37, 39, 63, 64–65, 68, 71 masjid. See mosque mask. See face masks mass (Catholic), 95–99, 126, 134–138 Matua, 22, 126, 144–149, 280 Mazu, 75, 165, 183–186 Mecca, 253, 255–256 media: mainstream media, 3, 4, 23, 27, 88, 216, 227; mass media/communication, 49, 104, 218; mediation, 23, 25, 26, 27–28, 85, 124, 145, 164, 166, 172, 284; multimedia, xi, 8, 156; new media, 27, 28, 32, 83, 85–86, 124, 137, 240. See also digital: mediation; social media; spirit medium medicine: allopathy, 65, 66, 200, 222; biomedicine, 1, 12, 14, 15, 17–18, 20, 25, 59–60, 147, 197, 218, 221, 277, 279–280; indigenous/traditional medicine, 1, 16, 17, 21, 22, 39, 197; Western medicine, 222. See also Ayurveda meditation, 18, 54, 107, 233 migration, 31, 145; migrants, 7, 64, 146; migrant workers, 3, 31, 142, 195, 209, 233, 259–263, 265. See also displacement; mobility; refugees

minorities, 29, 20, 104, 189, 201, 202, 209, 259; religious minorities, 11, 26, 29, 31, 88, 199 mission, 107, 174, 231, 234, 268; missionary, 115, 116, 211, 236 mobility, 2, 7, 11, 197 modernity, 10, 140, 141, 214; modernization, 12, 232, 270 Modi, Narendra, 139, 266 monastery, 107–108, 151–153, 208 monks, 15, 31, 107, 197, 199, 200, 278; monastic body/authorities, 200, 277 moral, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 28, 29, 31, 40, 65, 92, 136, 165, 188, 190, 195, 197, 202, 205, 207, 213, 232, 235, 238, 241, 246, 281; morality, 21, 38, 181, 207, 210, 216, 231. See also ethics mortality, 19, 67, 217n1 mosque, 24, 26, 44, 104, 173–176, 180, 204, 253–255, 257, 274, 275 Mother Corona. See Corona Devi; Corona Mai/Maa mother goddess, 29, 58, 61–62, 64, 41n1, 190 Mumbai, 6, 23, 31, 71, 88, 115, 117–119, 209, 212n3 music, 44, 96, 124, 145, 147, 168, 248, 250, 251; musicians, 91, 93, 97, 123, 233, 248. See also kirtan Muslims, 3, 17, 21, 29, 44, 100, 103–104, 164, 175, 177, 180, 195, 196, 198, 199, 201–202, 203, 206–207, 209, 211, 214–215, 220, 233, 254–255, 258, 271–274, 275, 279, 281 Myanmar, 195, 260, 261, 277 Nagoya, 261, 263 nationalism, 10, 16, 17, 27, 29, 32–33, 33n4, 39, 130, 195–197, 200–202, 208, 214, 221–222, 278, 281; ethnonationalism, 10, 47, 199; majoritarian nationalism, 16, 202; nationalist sentiment, 1–2, 197 nature, 18, 20, 45, 52, 54, 60, 64, 141, 168, 231, 234, 240, 248, 250, 283; natural disaster, 2, 42 neem, 22, 39, 62–66, 67n1, 280 netnography, 4. See also ethnography

Index  341 networks, 6, 12, 28, 30–33, 86, 89, 100, 148, 151, 195–196, 221, 226, 264, 277; kin, 100, 151; religious, 6, 30, 31, 32, 33, 89, 195, 196, 284; social, 28, 221 new normal, 4, 73, 76, 88, 89, 114, 171, 199, 204, 205, 282, 284 NGOs, 15, 18, 232, 270, 273 nonhuman, 1–3, 6, 14, 37, 40, 41, 281. See also other-than-human offline, 149, 157 online: banking and donations, 113, 152, 153, 273, 274; interactions, 56, 86, 170, 206; masses and services, 108, 134–138, 168–170; meetings, 178–180, 237, 239; platforms, 8, 11, 27, 73, 76, 127, 156, 157, 163, 164, 255; prayers, 155–158, 168, 259; rituals, 7, 23, 24, 26–28, 87, 88, 100, 106–108, 112, 123, 125–126, 152, 167; spaces, 33, 91, 96, 145, 147, 165, 166, 266n2; television, 27, 169; veneration of ancestors, 151–152 on-site, 112, 169, 171 other-than-human, 1, 23, 38, 85, 127 Pakistan, 31, 100–101, 196–197, 213–216, 217n1, 279 pandemicity, 1–2 pandemicizing, 5, 28, 30, 32, 115, 117–119, 231, 280 paritta. See pirit Parsis, 31, 88, 115–120 pastor, 69, 112, 125, 156–158, 159n2, 167–168, 170–171, 172n1 Patua (artist), 6, 34n7 performance, 7, 22, 24, 26–27, 43–44, 52, 85–86, 90–93, 111, 120, 94n2, 123, 142, 145, 147, 149n1, 150, 156, 171, 186, 203–205, 241, 247, 250, 253, 256, 284 personal protective equipment, 232, 245, 249 Philippines, 22, 30, 85, 95, 98–99, 99n1, 164, 167, 260 phone, 4, 11, 27, 56, 86, 101, 103, 110, 112, 125, 127, 144, 147, 156, 172, 187, 212n3,

252; cellphone, 11, 86, 152; telephone interviews, 59, 212n3 phygital, xi, xiii, 4, 9, 171, 283–284 pilgrimage, 7, 28, 68, 70, 75, 85, 98, 145, 163, 165, 183, 186, 188, 210, 219, 233, 253, 256–258; pilgrims, 25, 165, 233, 253– 258 pirit, 200–201, 221 place making, 27, 33, 164, 166 plant, 1, 22, 39–40, 62–64, 82, 129, 147, 174, 219 plurireligious, 153, 220 poem, 38–39, 45 policy, 31, 75, 185, 189, 195, 196, 214, 215, 217n1, 222, 225, 227, 266, 271, 279, 282; policy maker, 17, 213, 215, 217n1, 233 politics, 17, 19, 126, 133, 165, 193, 196, 201, 205, 209, 213, 217n1, 218, 235, 249, 252, 266; political agenda, 21, 210, 232 pollution, 6, 25, 111, 125, 127, 131, 141–142; polluted, 117–118, 131, 133, 240 Pope Francis, 19, 87, 98, 99, 134–135, 198 populism, 220–221; populist, 33, 195–197, 199, 201 positionality, 10 postcolonial, 127, 153, 212 post-disaster, 20, 37 post-pandemic, 27, 33n4, 61, 86, 235, 284 post-secular, 4, 5, 12–14, 20, 37, 198, 279 poverty, 3, 214, 246, 264, 267; poor, 86, 142, 178, 203, 206, 207n1, 208, 213, 214, 217n1, 224–225, 231, 238, 242–243, 246, 271–273; poverty reduction, 234 power: empower, 25, 28, 185, 271; power relations and inequalities, 2, 6, 29, 72, 120, 133, 174, 177, 207; protective/ healing power, 51, 72, 186, 200, 218; sacred/divine power, 21, 39, 40, 49, 64, 167, 185, 197, 220 PowerPoint, 127, 155–156 pox, 39, 60, 63–66, 72; smallpox, 22, 39, 50, 58, 61, 66 prayer, 16, 18–19, 24–26, 44, 68, 70, 71–72, 77–78, 85, 91, 93, 96, 100, 101, 103–104, 111, 113, 116–119, 127, 135, 146, 157, 163,

342  Index 172–178, 180, 190–191, 203–204, 216, 249, 261, 271, 275, 277–278 prejudice, 142, 189, 259 presence, 24, 26, 34n10, 61, 63–65, 80, 87, 113, 123, 125, 128, 136–137, 140–142, 145, 152, 158–159, 163–164, 168, 170–172, 180, 185–186, 202, 208, 252, 262, 267, 284 procession, 75, 109, 183–186, 233, 247–249, 251 progress, 115, 117–118, 232, 272 prophet, 102, 103, 105n2, 176, 178, 207, 241, 253 prophetic, 48, 51, 206–207, 232, 241 proselytize, 21, 108, 130, 210, 237–238 protection, 22, 29, 38, 71, 91, 165, 184, 190–191, 196–197, 199–202, 226–227, 249, 259, 280 proximity, 2, 14, 86, 111, 115, 117, 125, 127, 145, 163, 174, 175, 199, 202, 275 public: aid, 259, 261, 268; counterpublics, 89; public health, 18–19, 29, 57, 82, 85, 133, 165, 167, 195, 197, 208, 216, 218, 245, 248–249, 277–278, 280; religious, 18, 89; space/place, 33, 136, 153, 164, 173, 174, 203, 204, 247, 271; sphere, 8, 10, 17, 20, 33, 153, 165, 174–175, 189, 203–204, 214, 233, 264, 271; worship/ritual, 24, 159, 164, 187, 189, 205, 237, 250, 278 puja, 6, 28, 132–133 punishment, 6, 21, 31, 34n9, 44, 65 purification, 40, 49, 85, 90–91 purity, 25, 38, 45, 88, 116, 125, 127, 131, 140–142, 198 Qingming festival, 151, 183 quarantine, 25, 33n4, 53, 57, 74–75, 86, 88, 89, 96, 127, 159, 170, 173, 177, 183, 215, 257 Qur’an, 100, 101–102, 103–105, 105n1, 175, 271 qurban, 25, 234, 271–272 race, 2, 28, 29, 30, 153, 276; racism, 11, 29–30 Ramadan, 31, 86, 100–104, 173–175, 207, 213, 234, 273–274, 275

Ratana Sutta, 19, 200 recitation, 24, 55, 85, 96, 98, 100–101, 117, 118, 119, 147, 152, 164, 175, 180, 181, 200–201, 236 refugees, 7, 145, 195–196, 223–227 relief, 33, 45, 152, 196, 208–209, 213–214, 225, 232, 238, 261–262, 264–265 religion: and disaster, 12–14, 20, 37; lived religion, 4, 32, 123, 158; and politics, 205, 213, 249; religious experience, 10, 14, 27–28, 88, 123, 153, 284; religious freedom, 30, 190, 248, 249, 266, 268, 279; religious ideology, 21, 196, 231; and science, 12–13, 15, 17, 27, 72, 131, 141, 147, 221, 279; and society, 4, 10, 284; theories of, 6–8, 232, 284. See also networks: religious remedies, 21–23, 47, 63, 66, 147; adaptive, 5, 20–23, 32, 280 remote, 4, 27, 33, 34n5, 87, 91, 128, 283 repository: online, 4, 32, 34n11 resilience, 42, 149, 176 restrictions, 25, 41, 74, 77, 97, 112, 118–119, 129–133, 144, 163, 164, 165, 168, 169, 189, 191, 195, 197, 204, 227, 242, 243, 273, 276, 282 ritual: adaptation, 4, 110–111, 284; collective/communal, 31, 79, 123, 145–149, 163, 196, 203–204; communities, 5, 88, 123, 127, 145, 188, 275; efficacy, 25, 87–88, 125, 165, 248; innovation, 6–7, 22–24, 27–28, 32, 83, 85–89, 111, 115, 142, 231; obligation, 23, 31, 164–165, 190, 215; specialists, 24, 88, 151, 165, 190, 149, 250. See also online: ritual Rohingya, 195, 196, 223–227 rural, 11, 202, 214, 216, 219, 242, 256 sacrifice, 91, 134, 190, 272 safety, 38, 39, 40, 43, 78, 81, 96, 112, 119, 133, 140, 188, 224, 226, 227, 245, 249, 254, 257, 259, 274 Saint Corona, 37, 40, 68–72 Saitama Prefecture, 57, 261–262 salvation, 38, 172, 191, 232, 236–237, 240

Index  343 sangha, 16, 200, 241 sanitize, 26, 125, 140–141, 153, 271, 282; sanitized sacred, 5, 23–28, 32, 282, 284; sanitizer, 43, 140–141, 147, 232, 282 sanmitsu (three mysteries), 38, 53–57 satire, 37, 73 Saudi Arabia, 233, 239, 253–257 scapegoating, 2, 28, 29, 200, 202, 281 screen, 91, 93, 96, 107, 125, 127, 147, 155–159, 175, 275 scripture, 22, 73, 113, 115, 116, 123, 140, 147, 190, 200, 236, 238 secular, 2, 4–5, 10, 12–14, 16, 20, 22–23, 25, 27–28, 31, 37, 69, 74, 75–76, 86, 88, 131, 136, 163, 189, 196, 198, 208, 211–212, 214, 221, 242, 245–246, 259, 263, 279; secularization, 12, 13, 25 senses, 124, 126, 128, 158; body sensorium, 26, 32, 123, 124, 148, 178 sensorialized, 124, 153; de-sensorialization, 124, 127, 150–154 sensory experience, 33, 124, 126, 128, 148 sermon, 44, 103, 156, 164, 169, 174, 176, 207 service (charitable activities), 30, 87, 98, 135, 138, 155–156, 158, 159n2, 164, 167–171, 188, 198, 204, 208, 210–212, 234, 242–243, 246, 249, 255–257, 259, 271, 273; seva, 210, 212 service (rituals), 34n5, 108–109, 112–114, 150–153 seva. See service seventh lunar month, 40, 78, 77–82 Shadhilis, 164, 178–179, 181. See also Sufi Shincheonji Church, 30 Shinto, 38, 52, 259 Sikhism, 207n1, 208, 232 sing, 60, 65, 113, 145, 178; singer, 38, 42–43, 91, 144, 146, 178, 275–276; singing, 26, 86, 123, 136–137, 144–149, 157, 178–179, 190; song, 38, 40, 42–45, 61, 65, 97, 117, 146, 148, 155. See also chant Singapore, xi, 3, 5, 11, 24, 28, 30, 40, 62, 76–78, 80–82, 106–109, 110–111, 109n1, 126–127, 134–138, 149n1, 150–154, 154n1, 155–159, 159n1–2, 164, 167,

170–171, 173–174, 176, 178–180, 197, 204, 206, 207n2–3, 275–276 Sitala, 37, 39, 58, 59–61, 71 social distancing. See distance social media, 3, 8, 24, 38, 40, 43–44, 68, 71–72, 74, 87, 95–98, 100, 108, 118, 126–127, 129–130, 135, 139–141, 164, 167–172, 175, 177, 189–190, 206, 225, 233, 250, 252, 273, 277 social responsibility, 31, 164–165, 187–191 socioeconomic (background), 5, 11; socioeconomic precarity/inequality, 204, 214 solidarity, 2, 28, 33, 40, 86, 114, 195–196, 203, 206–207, 223, 254 somatic, 124, 144, 149 sonic, 6, 28, 124, 126–127, 144–145, 147–149, 164, 196, 199, 201, 280; immunity, 280; vaccine, 127 soul, 91, 117, 135 sound, 16, 26, 104, 124, 127, 135, 139, 144, 147–149, 153, 155, 164, 178–179, 181, 200–202, 250–251 soundscapes, 34n11, 126, 148, 179, 181, 200–201, 250 South Asia, 58, 71, 67n1, 144 Southeast Asia, 22, 31, 33n4, 34n9, 64, 67n1, 167, 173, 195, 197, 226, 233, 259–263, 278, 280 South Korea, 11, 30, 125, 197, 239, 259, 266 sovereignty, 20, 30, 201 space, 10, 26, 38–39, 54, 90, 100, 103, 124–127, 139, 147, 153, 157, 173–177, 179–182, 196, 200, 205; digital/online, 33, 61, 89, 90, 108, 147, 207n2; physical, 24, 136, 148, 204; public, 33, 136, 153, 203–204, 271; sacred, 7, 26–28, 33, 52, 136, 139–142, 145, 155, 185, 191, 205–206, 252, 284; secular, 28, 136, 212; social, 233, 261; spatiality, 163, 165 spirit medium, 18, 22, 85, 89, 165, 184, 186–188, 190–191, 220, 233, 247–252 spirit possession, 26, 72, 85, 164, 187, 189; len dong, 187–190 spiritscape, 78–79, 82

344  Index spiritual: Communion, 23, 126, 135–136; exchanges, 165, 232; experience, 144, 164, 166–167, 172; power, 185, 192; practitioners/communities/traditions, 27, 124, 127, 281; spirituality, 87, 95, 104, 124, 131, 203; spiritually, 135, 144, 178, 199, 233 Sri Lanka, 19, 21, 29, 31, 196–197, 199–202, 218–222, 232 state: authority, 19, 30, 88, 197, 199, 216, 217n1, 219, 225; government, 15, 89, 208, 265; nation-state, 10, 129, 201, 206, 227n8, 282; policies/regulations, 31, 81, 89, 150, 189, 200, 202, 211, 279 stereotype, 3, 177, 189, 211 streaming: live-streaming, 24, 34n5, 85, 87, 112, 127, 147, 149, 151, 152, 153, 154, 156, 158, 169, 171, 188, 189, 190, 237, 283; online, 98, 155, 168 success, 11, 15, 53, 56–57, 106, 108, 153, 185–186, 197, 212, 221, 224, 234, 236, 241, 252, 274, 279 suffering, 14, 17–19, 21–22, 52, 56, 58, 75, 91, 102–103, 144, 152, 181, 198, 215, 236, 237, 246 Sufi, 44–45, 126; Shadhili Sufi, 164, 178–181 super-spreader, 4, 11, 201 superstitious, 16, 39, 175, 189, 211 suspicion, 11, 29, 177, 199, 281

57, 107–108, 219, 232–233, 259–260, 262–263, 271, 278; Chinese, 110, 127, 150, 152–153, 183, 189; Hindu, 62, 141, 234, 265, 267–269 temporality, 9, 33, 87, 282, 284 terrorism, 32, 177, 199 Thailand, 2, 16–17, 22, 223, 239, 260, 278 theodicies, 14, 21, 198 Theravada. See Buddhist Tibet, 18, 208 TikTok, 90, 92 togetherness, 7, 24, 28, 91, 145, 148 Tokyo, 48, 50, 55, 261–262 touch, 25–27, 43–44, 64, 114, 123–129, 131–133, 139, 141–144, 147–148, 158–186, 282 traditions/traditional, 1, 6, 8–9, 12, 15–16, 18, 20–24, 27, 32, 37–38, 41–42, 44–49, 50, 52, 57–63, 71, 73, 85–88, 90–93, 96, 101, 106–107, 105n2, 123–126, 135, 139, 141, 145, 148, 151–153, 163, 165, 176, 207, 210, 212, 226, 231–232, 234–235, 237, 244, 248, 252, 263, 270–271, 274, 280–281, 283–284 transnational, 6–7, 9, 16, 24, 108, 147, 196, 206, 232, 234, 237 tsunami, 2, 20–21, 225 turmeric, 22, 39, 58, 62–66, 67n1, 280 Twitter, 48–49, 55, 196

Taiwan, 11, 74–75, 79, 108, 165, 183–186, 197, 232, 236–240 Tamil, 39, 62–64, 66, 201, 265 Taoist. See Daoist technology, 12, 25–29, 34n7, 86–88, 95, 104, 108, 113, 124–126, 128, 139, 141–143, 155, 158–159, 171–172, 198, 237, 270, 282, 284 television, 90, 95, 99n1, 169, 176, 221. See also Catholic: televisuality temple, 14, 25, 39, 41, 52, 55, 57, 59–60, 62, 64, 66, 75–77, 88, 107–112, 118, 125–128, 132–133, 139–140, 142–143, 150–152, 154n1, 156, 158, 164–166, 183–188, 200, 219–220, 237–241, 248, 252, 261, 263–270; Buddhist, 15, 23–24, 31, 38, 52,

U.S., 29, 174, 198–199, 239 UK, 31, 104, 174 ummah, 88, 196, 203, 215 ‘umrah, 253–254, 256–257 untouchability, 125–126, 133, 139–140, 142–144. See also Dalits vaccine, 17, 19, 60, 61, 96, 195, 198, 276–281; anti-vaccination movement, 278–279; anxiety, 2; campaign, 195, 277, 279–280; hesitancy, 33, 278, 279–280; joss paper, 78, 80, 277; nationalism, 278, 281; resistance toward, 278; sonic, 127 vegetarian, 2, 107, 150, 154n1, 232–233, 239–240, 245, 246 vernacular, 50, 52, 57, 66

Index  345 Vesak, 106–109, 152; e-Vesak, 86, 106–107, 152; online Vesak, 106 Vietnam, 187, 190, 232, 241–242, 246, 260; Vietnamese, 164, 187, 190, 191, 259–263 virtual, 14, 86, 99, 106, 138, 152–154, 157, 171, 179, 210, 214, 259; community, 9, 93, 174; Mass, 135, 138; mediation, 124; pilgrimage, 85, 98, 165; public, 177; space, 90; virtuality, 83, 168–169, 172, 178 virus: “Chinese” virus, 11, 29; as demon, 1, 46, 61, 71; epistemology of, 19; as goddess, 39, 72; interpretation of, 38; understanding of, 23, 29, 32, 37–41 vitamin C, 1, 46 volunteer, 209, 211, 212n3, 232, 238, 244–246, 249. See also aid; charity; relief wayang kulit, 38, 90, 92 WhatsApp, 31, 68, 85, 89, 101–102, 104, 128, 135, 159, 165, 171, 176–177, 276 women, 31, 60, 72, 104, 139, 148, 181, 189, 204, 206–207, 223, 280

World Health Organization (WHO), 6, 195 Wuhan, 11, 31 xenophobia, 29, 195 Yiguandao, 232, 236–240 yoga, 16, 18, 21, 34n13, 55, 129, 148 yōkai (mysterious marine monster), 48, 50–52 YouTube, 61, 90–92, 95–97, 112, 134, 147, 164–165, 168–169, 171, 176, 207 zakat, 234, 271, 273–274; digital, 234–235 zawiya, 164, 178–181 Zen. See Buddhist Zoom, 4, 27–28, 86–87, 107, 113, 126, 128, 138, 146–147, 153, 156, 164–165, 171–172 zoonotic disease, 1–3, 6, 85 Zoroastrian, 88–89, 115–120; eschatology, 117; priest, 116, 119; religion, 115; Zoroastrianism, 116, 120, 329