A Social Anthropological Study on Goddess Cults in South Asia

本研究旨在：(1)分析斯里兰卡和印度女神崇拜的第一手资料；(2)考察南亚女神崇拜的历史和人类学文献；(3)从更广泛的角度分析宗教与性别/性行为之间的关系。关于第一个目标(1)，我们运用结构分析来理解在斯里兰卡和印度南部观察到的几种女神崇拜。主要标准是有关女神的自治程度，以及邪教中反结构因素的程度。通过将女神崇拜映射到矩阵中，表面上不同的崇拜与社会因素（如参与者的地位）的关系在视觉上变得可以理解。对于第二个目的(2)，文献中发现的其他女神崇拜也采用了同样的方法。最后，本文尝试运用阿尔都塞的意识形态分析，在更理论化的框架中理解复杂的女神崇拜。

The present study aims to ; (1) analyze first-hand data on goddess cults in Sri Lanka and India ; (2) examine historical and anthropological literature on goddess cults in South Asia ; (3) analyze the relationships between religion and gender/sexuality in a more general perspective. Regarding to the first objective (1), a structural analysis has been applied to understand several goddess cults observed in Sri Lanka and southern India. The main criteria are the degree of the autonomy of concerned goddesses, and the degree of the anti-structural elements in the cults. By mapping the goddess cults in the matrix, the seemingly various cults become visually understandable in relation to social factors such as the status of participants. As for the second aim (2), the same method has been used to other goddess cults found in the literature. Finally a tentative effort was made to understand complex goddess cults in a more theoretical framework, applying Althusser's analysis of ideology.