The last decades of the twentieth century have witnessed an enlarged understanding of the notion of ‘text’ as not only comprising written documents, but also rituals, artifacts and the like. Thereby, ‘texts’ were brought closer to the social, religious or historical contexts that help to interpret texts. Scholars, traditionally divided in different disciplines that deal either more with texts (historians, philologists, etc.) or with contexts (sociologists, anthropologists, etc.), became interested in the methods and perspectives of the other disciplines. This has resulted in a renewed interest in the theoretical issues implied in the notions of text and context. The essays in this volume reflect these debates and show how they influence and enrich research on South Asia. Anthropologists, historians, literary critics, philologists and historians of religion deal with the multi-layered interplay between texts and contexts in past and present Orissa. Orissa, renowned for the cults related to the Jagannatha temple in Puri, is marked by a rich cultural diversity. In dealing with the interdependence between text and context the essays provide fresh insights to the complexity and fluidity of cultural contexts that use text as stable points of reference. The traditions of Orissa are considered in their uniqueness as well as in their relationship to South Asian cultural contexts on a larger scale.
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