Discourse of sainthood a study of Vivekananda s selected photographs films and biographies

Abstract

The thesis intends to examine the function of discursive structures that actively participate in the production, re-invention, and dissemination of the phenomenon of sainthood. In addition to this, it also investigates the performative aspect of sainthood: it explores how the saintly-self is enacted within specific cultural traditions. It undertakes a critical study of the discursive formations of modern Indian sainthood with a singular focus on Swami Vivekananda, in terms of his representation through photographs, films, and biographies. The study maps the cultural shifts in projecting Vivekananda as an icon in the national imaginary, through the analysis of select primary and secondary resources verbal and non-verbal. Underlining the relationship between Indian nationhood and its unrelenting discourse of spirituality, the thesis examines the figurations of Vivekananda, his claims to sainthood and divinity through various representational paradigms. Examining the photographic portfolio of Vivekananda, the study explores different stages of his saintly evolution and the modalities through which photography provides an unprecedented leap in configuring Vivekananda as a saint in the public domain. Further, exploring the textual repertoire of the biographical accounts, the study argues that these portrayals display a transition in his persona from being a manifestation of the divine to a saint who was also a human, to begin with, in the corporeal and material terms. Finally, through analysing the celluloid portrayal of the monk, the study indicates how the production, distribution, and circulation of visual imagery provided an entry point into Indian national symbolic , and how this catalysed the ideologically driven discourse of sainthood. Forging themselves as a functional unit, different representational paradigms actively participate in constituting the idea of sainthood, which is a fairly cultivated discourse that cannot be divested of its material, political and aesthetic dimensions. newline