Roche, papier, relique :  une approche biographique et comparative de la consécration des images de Bouddha en Birmanie
This thesis is about the consecration of Buddha images in Myanmar, i.e. what makes the difference between a « simple image » and an image considered efficient for worship. Through a « biography of things », this research follows the journey of a stone carved Buddha image from the quarry to the shrine. Moreover, a comparative perspective is added to include printed images (stickers, posters, etc.) in order to isolate some relevant variables at stake in the consecration process. The goal is to show that if the ritual consecration is important, it is of tantamount importance to contextualize it in a larger chain of semiotic events. By following the production, the circulation, the trade and the practices involved around these images, some discursive, aesthetic and praxical features have been isolated as participating to the consecration. Hence a processual conception of the consecration is proposed, to complement the more commonly admitted one stating the ritual as sole performative act able to change the status of a Buddha image. The semiotic dispositive that emerged from this analysis is mostly indexical, meaning the character of contiguity, of contact, that a sign (the image) shares with its object (Buddha). It appears then that what gives an image its legitimacy, inside and outside the ritual, is its capacity the beholder has to infer a « vector of proximity » between it and the historical Buddha. This explanation allows us to link the consecration ritual to larger semiotic ideologies about likeness, materiality and performativity.
Materiality Likeness Semiotics Performativity Visual Culture Myanmar Buddha image Object biography Ritual