Imagining the Fetus the Unborn in Myth, Religion, and Culture

by Sasson, Vanessa R; Law, Jane Marie

• ISBN13: 9780195380040
• ISBN10: 0195380045
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-12-12
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

In contemporary Western culture, the word "fetus" introduces either a political subject or a literal, medicalized entity. Neither of these frameworks does justice to the vast array of religious literature and oral traditions from cultures around the world in which the fetus emerges as apowerful symbol or metaphor. This volume presents essays that explore the depiction of the fetus in the world's major religious traditions, finding some striking commonalities as well as intriguing differences. Among the themes that emerge is the tendency to conceive of the fetus as somehowindependent of the mother's body -- as in the case of the Buddha, who is described as inhabiting a palace while gestating in the womb. On the other hand, the fetus can also symbolically represent profound human needs and emotions, such as the universal experience of vulnerability. The authors notehow the advent of the fetal sonogram has transformed how people everywhere imagine the unborn today, giving rise to a narrow range of decidedly literal questions about personhood, gender, and disability.

Table of Contents

Restoring Nuance to Imagining the Fetus	p. 3
The Story of Samkarsana's and Krsna's Births: A Drama Involving Embryos	p. 11
The Great Men of Jainism In Utero: A Survey	p. 33
A Womb with a View: The Buddha's Final Fetal Experience	p. 55
Life in the Womb: Conception and Gestation in Buddhist Scripture and Classical Indian Medical Literature	p. 73
Philosophical Embryology: Buddhist Texts and the Ritual Construction of a Fetus	p. 91
Tibetan Buddhist Narratives of the Forces of Creation	p. 107
Female Feticide in the Punjab and Fetus Imagery in Sikhism	p. 121
Embryology in Babylonia and the Bible	p. 137
The Leaping Child: Imagining the Unborn in Early Christian Literature	p. 157
"Famous" Fetuses in Rabbinic Narratives	p. 185
A Prophet Emerging: Fetal Narratives in Islamic Literature	p. 203
The Colossal Fetuses of La Venta and Mesoamerica's Earliest Creation Story	p. 223
Out of Place: Fetal References in Japanese Mythology and Cultural Memory	p. 259
Seeing Like a Family: Fetal Ultrasound Images and Imaginings of Kin	p. 275
Index	p. 291
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