• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.223-262
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• 2010

This paper has been written to find facts about the image of earth goddess broadly found in the Southeast Asia. The research findings are as follows: Firstly, the image of earth goddess wringing her hair is phenomenally discovered in both Buddhist temple murals and independent shrines in Thailand. This phenomenon is common in other Indochinese Buddhist countries such as Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. Secondly, the life of Buddha including the story of the victory over Mara is found in such Buddhist canons as Mahavastu, Buddhacarita, Lalitavistara, Nidanakatha and Patamasambodhi. Among the canons, the story of the victory over Mara is described in differently ways. Earth becomes personified as the goddess in later version. The main cause to expel Mara's army also changes from sound to water. Patamasambodhi is most closely associated with the iconography of the earth goddess of Southeast Asia. Thirdly, Vessantara Jataka and Indian ancient customs tell us that a merit maker performs a rite of pouring water on the earth as an evidence for merit-making. This rite is a key to understanding the meaning of the scene where the earth goddess expels Mara's army into the flood by wringing her hair. The earth goddess is personified from the earth upon which the merit water is poured. Water soaked in her hair is the very holy water poured by the Buddha whenever he made a merit in his former lives. The amount of water flowed from the hair of the earth goddess representing the amount of his merit making was so huge and enough to defeat the Mara's army and for the Buddha to reach the Enlightenment. This legend explains the significance of the notion of merit in the Theravada Buddhist countries such as Thailand and Myanmar where the water pouring rites still take place and the images of the hair wringing earth goddess are commonly discovered. Fourthly, the first image of the earth goddess as the witness of merits for the Buddha appeared in some Gandharan Buddhist sculptures in the form of devotional gesture with her both hands pressed together and the upper half of her body above the ground. The appearance is in accordance with the description of her in the Lalitavistara canon. In later periods, the form changed into various types and finally the image of the earth goddess wringing her hair appeared in Southeast Asia around 11 century C.E. Some researchers argue this image form of the earth goddess shows the influence from China or India. However, the arguments are considered to be hypothetical as they have no strong evidence to prove. Finally, the modern image of earth goddess shows richer and more dynamic expression compared with its predecessors. Especially, outstanding is the standing earth goddess images found in the scene of the victory over Mara in many temple murals of central region of Thailand. The earth goddess in her voluptuous body shape is usually depicted as wringing her hair with her arms wide open in a posture of S curve. This appearance strongly reminds us of the postures of Salabhanjika and Tribhanga originated from Indian art. The adoption presumably has been made to signify her fertile and affluent characteristics.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.107-137
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• 2015

This article utilizes interdisciplinary methods in order to critically review the existing research on the Mother Goddess of Champa: Po Inâ Nâgar. In the past, Po Inâ Nâgar has too often been portrayed as simply a "local adaptation of Uma, the wife of Śiva, who was abandoned by the Cham adapted by the Vietnamese in conjunction with their conquest of Champa." This reading of the Po Ina Nagar narrative can be derived from even the best scholarly works on the subject of the goddess, as well as a grand majority of the works produced during the period of French colonial scholarship. In this article, I argue that the adaption of the literary studies strategies of "close reading", "surface reading as materiality", and the "hermeneutics of suspicion", applied to Cham manuscripts and epigraphic evidence-in addition to mixed anthropological and historical methods-demonstrates that Po Inâ Nâgar is, rather, a Champa (or 'Cham') mother goddess, who has become known by many names, even as the Cham continue to re-assert that she is an indigenous Cham goddess in the context of a majority culture of Thành Mẫu worship.

• International Journal of Costume and Fashion
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.1-19
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• 2006

This case study is to embody the birth of a beautiful goddess out of seashells in a contemporary fashion design collection, on the basis of the mythology of The Birth of Venus. The main theme attempts to reinterpret the image of the goddess of love and beauty and express the organic vitality of seashells and oceanic feelings by swirls in motion. To accomplish this, three dimensional silhouette of layered forms of voluminous outer and fitted inner is applied to design ideas with spiral curves. The opposite texture of something sculptural and transparent versus smooth and shiny is used to express the layered structure of seashells with the delicacy of goddess. Neutral colours and different tones of pink appeal to oceanic feelings and feminine emotion in a modern way. Various techniques by the geometric simplicity of flat patterns and pleating with boning are also performed to express the vital movement of organism. Throughout the whole process of this case study, the conceptual idea of Swirls in Motion - a goddess and seashells is reinterpreted to a contemporary fashion by personal and creative design development process. In particular, it is evaluated by the process of primary researches, various design developments and experimentations to the main theme.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.399-414
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• 2014

The Princess Bari, an epic song passed down orally among the korean shamans, describes the process of its heroine's becoming a shaman. The life of a shaman coincides with the image of Mother Goddess that created human beings in that her role was to connect the life here and hereafter in Korea. Princess Bari, an abandoned daughter, experiences the world of death, sacrifices herself completely for her parents, devotes to her husband and gives birth to seven sons. She is a Mother Goddess who embraces fecundity and fertility, creation and destruction, and life and death. Furthermore, she is a "warm-hearted Mother Goddess" who takes the deceased to their last journey with maternal care. The number "seven", known to be a very significant number in human lives and the world after death, symbolizes how princess Bari had to be born as the seventh girl of her parents, not as the fifth or the sixth.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.133-167
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• 2019

The Chinese began migrating to Vietnam very early (in the third century BC) and continuously underwent either mass or small migration afterwards. Their long processes of living and having contact with different ethnic communities in Vietnam made the Chinese worship of Goddess Tianhou change radically. By examining these practices of worship in two areas where the Chinese settled the most, Thừa Thiên Huế province (central Vietnam) and Hồ Chí Minh City (southern Vietnam), this paper aims to understand the patterns of acculturation of the Chinese community in its new land. An analysis of information from both field research and archival sources will show how the Chinese have changed the worship of the Tianhou goddess during their co-existence with ethnic communities in Vietnam. It argues that there is no "peripheral fossilization" of the Chinese culture in Vietnam.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.963-978
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• 2008

This study examined the images and formative features of female characters portrayed in fantasy films. This study aimed at providing an applicable theory to modern fashion by reconsidering the images of women appearing in fantasy films and arranging fantastical features reflected in costumes of female characters. The followings were the results of the study: The first divine nature that human beings discovered was woman nature. The discovered stone worked of the prehistoric age had a meaning of the great mother of universe and expressed a positive image. Such positive images of the goddess were variously differentiated to negative images or reduced in their roles and meanings in the settlement process of patriarchy as well as sociocultural transition. The foremost examples of negative image were expressed as grotesque, destructive, otherness, sensual, and exotic. The positive image of a goddess in fantasy films was not especially emphasized. On the other hand, the negative images of the goddess and the case of costumes were variously expressed as well as emphasized the typicality of the negative image of the characters. It was reconsidered that the typical features of characters in fantasy films were a result of the image of women following sociocultural transition. In addition, it was confirmed that such result was being reflected in film costume.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.51
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• pp.73-101
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• 2018

This essay deals with The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, a aetiological myth about the Eleusis Mysteria. The narrative of the hymn shows how Demeter, the goddess of grain, became the deity of the Mysteria. In the hymn, Demeter is characterized as a mother: She is the mother of Persephone and the motherlike nurse of Demophone. As the mother of Persephone and Demophone, the roles of are nursing and mediating. She care her children and linked the earth and the world below, the heaven of gods and the earth of mortals. Demeter the deity of the Mysteria by a mother. The and the maternity of Demeter is connected with patriarchal politics. Demeter in the hymn is not so much the goddess who derived her character from The Great Mother as the goddess who had been characterized the influence of Greek-patriarchy.

• SUVANNABHUMI
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.37-67
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• 2021

Mazu is considered the famous Chinese Sea Goddess, venerated by seafarers. Mazu belief was conducted in Meizhou County, Fujian Province. Soon worship of Mazu spread quickly to other parts of over the world, especially in Southeast Asia. In China, the Mazu belief was strongly influenced by marine culture, but its marine factors faded when Chinese immigrants had lived together with the Kinh people in Pho Hien (in the north of Vietnam) for more than four centuries. Applying the Acculturation theory, this paper aims to analyze the migration background of the Chinese and their integration into Kinh culture in Pho Hien. It can be said that historical, economic and social context, as well as native government policies have highly affected the manner and the rate of this belief's acculturation. Furthermore, the article explains the reasons for the fading of marine cultural traits and their replacement by the Kinh people's cultural factors in this belief.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Costume
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• v.18
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• pp.351-359
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• 1992

The purpose of this study is to analyze the costume in $\ulcorner$The Goddess Abides$\lrcorner$ of Pearl S. Buck by applying "Dramaturgical Analysis" of Erving Goffman. The frame of analysis is the dramaturgical conception of Goffman that he expressed in $\ulcorner$The Presentation of self in Everyday Life (1959)$\lrcorner$. Among the conception, I analyzed by applying 'performance', 'technique of impression management', 'region and region behavior' which can be used for studying and costume behavior. The following is the summary of my study. First, the performance means the performer's behavior and the procedure of impression management if face to fact interaction, which includes personal front and setting. Setting is mainly a house on the Mt. in Vermont. The time is Winter. The personal front includes appearance and manner. actors and audiences form impression through persional front. And Istudied the performance of the actors (or actress), Edith, Jared, Edmond, Edwin, Amelia, June. As for technique of impression management, I cold observe that a varieth of that were being used, such as the most general one that Edith wants to look beautiful by making god appearance, or she sometimes try not to look beautiful And when Edith meets Jared, sometimes she changed her clothes, but other times she doesn't do that. As for region and region behavior, there appears the distinction of region and a lot of expressions about clothes related to the distinction. I could observe the expressions showing the movement from front to back and from back to front. Especially I could observe the behaviors that can be occured only in back region in everyday life, that is bathing, changing clothes, making up, checking their appearance before the mirror. Like above when I analyzed $\ulcorner$The Goddess Abides$\lrcorner$ of Pearl S. Buck by Goffman's Dramaturgical analysis, I could find out that the theory was very useful to the analysis of the costume behaviors of the characters.

• Acta Via Serica
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.129-140
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• 2019

Nana was an important patron deity in the Kušan Empire and the most important deity worshipped by Emperor Kaniška (c. 127-150 CE). She was the head of the royal dynastic pantheon at this time. The cult of Nana may already have existed in Central Asia prior to the arrival of Indo-Iranians in the region, since she appears on a BMAC seal dating to the early second millennium BCE. Similarly, her cult in Bactria may pre-date her appearance in the Kušan pantheon by over two millennia. The spread of Nana's cult over such vast distances vividly illustrates the cultural connections (presumably stemming mostly from trade) that existed from prehistoric times linking the Mediterranean world to that of Central Asia and beyond, with the Iranian plateau at its center. The prevalence of Sogdian coins bearing Nana's name suggests that she was also the principal deity of Sogdiana. In Bactria, the goddess Ardoxšo (Avestan Aši vaŋ^vhī) was also worshipped by Kušāns and appeared on their coins. Nana, who was associated with war, fertility, wisdom, and water, was also equated with the Iranian goddesses Anāhitā, Aši, and Ārmaiti. The cult of Nana-Ārmaiti was widespread throughout eastern Iran.