Page - 67 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/02

Unruly Images | 67www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/2, 55–86 missionary propaganda, with a particular insistence on “strange rites” and various ascetic practices that would naturally make a strong impression on a Pietist audience accustomed to churches where nothing but minimal rituals were performed. The section includes a series of images dealing with hectic rituals and odd deities, although with the surprising absence of satī, a favourite theme of missionary polemics which had horrified western ob- servers since medieval times.33 Here, as in the other parts of the book, the images were not new but had been borrowed from earlier publications. Thus, a picture showing the “extravagant” processions of chariots (tērs) at the Jagannath temple of Puri (fig. 5) is a republication of an engraving which had appeared as early as 1818, in a book about various curiosities of the world considered from a Christian Protestant perspective and entitled The Gallery of Nature and Art. The original image (fig. 4), with a carnivalesque chariot topped by a human 33 Weinberger-Thomas 1999. The absence of satī might have to do with the young audience targeted by the volume. Fig. 4: “The Idol of Juggernaut, in Orissa”, in: Edward Polehampton / John M. Good, The Gallery of Nature and Art: or, A Tour Through Creation and Science, London, 1818, vol. 6, 485. Fig. 5: Bilder-Tafeln, panel 31, “India: religion”, “Heathen carts”, Calw. (© Calwer Verlag)