Disenchantment and Re-enchantment: Naturalizing Caste; Sacralizing Class

This paper draws upon temple-based ritual veneration of Shani, a Hindu planetary deity traditionally associated with misfortune. I argue that Shani temple ritual, while appearing to conform to the abundance-based economy of Hindu temple ritual, actually enacts a ritualization of the neoliberal market manipulations known as hedges. I show that these rituals, while couched in the language of devotional religion, are predicated on commodification, such that the exchange between devotee and the divine becomes a transaction that ensures prosperity. I suggest that the outward-directed flow of Shani temple rituals and his new association with a class of objects understood to ward off the evil eye consequently collapses boundaries between the sacred and the secular such that rituals performed in the temple sacralize class and conceal, but sustain, logics of caste hierarchy. As such, this new temple-focused veneration of Shani raises questions about Weber’s assertions about rationalization and secularization.