Reading Registers Of Fear And Fervour: A Study Of The Magic And Menace In The Legends /Myths /Folklore Surrounding 64 Yogini Temple Hiarpur Odisha, India

The paper attempts to understand the many stories surrounding the Tantric Buddhist of 64 yoginis in Hirapur, Odisha, India. Taking off from the Brahmananda Purana it is generally believed that if the practices of the tantric cult and its many secret rituals is shared with any a non-initiate, the wrath of the yoginis cannot be avoided. Such stories, myths, legends surround the 64 yogini temples across the length and breadth of India. The stories of the yogini cult provoke the uncanny and resonate with a palpable othering that these goddesses experience at the face of monolithic traditions of worship. The myths chants and rituals then enable to read the element of Uncanny and Undead in the tradition of tantric worship at the temple as reflected in the narratives vis a vis modern day understanding of religion and reader response theory. The paper will explore fear as a phenomenon of fervor while deconstruction tangibility of reading oral narratives in reinterpreting the binds and binaries which these folklores and recounts of memory have suggested in relation to the 64 Yoginis of the Hirapur Temple, Odisha India . The Sociology of fear and its expression will be placed against watershed moments in history such as colonial incursion, ant colonial resistance, nation formation and rise of communal disharmony and peasant movements in the region constating conflating the grand and the micro narrative to tease out the nuances of this narrative of fear.