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Writing the Body: Cosmology, Orthography, and Fragments of Modernity in Northeastern India
- Anthropological Quarterly
- George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research
- Volume 82, Number 1, Winter 2009
- pp. 129-154
- 10.1353/anq.0.0047
- Article
- Additional Information
This article looks at the orthographic debates within Meitei society, and shows how the cultural ideology of the sacred body was the pivotal factor by which the Meitei community made its orthographic choice. The article further elaborates on the importance of the human body image in Manipuri society, and how the body philosophy pervades different areas of life. It also examines how the philosophy of the sacred body is now secularized in children's alphabet books in order to be taught in the modern nation-state.