What do you call this?

[mankak]

What do you call this word? In Hinduism some people diliberately give their body pains to the degree that people are almost hard to endure: lying on the nail plate , striking their back with thorns. I think they are trying to realize the truth or to redeem their sins through this practice.

[Cetti]

It's called flagellation or scourging. Jesus was scourged before His crucifixion as a means of torture, so this is not the same meaning in the Christian faith.

You're right mankak, some faiths do this as an extreme means of self enlightenment, but this is the origin of the meaning from my dictionary :

Flagellate or scourge - One of a sect of fanatics which arose in Italy in 1260 who sought to avert the divine wrath by scourging themselves till the blood ran.

[chakka35]

It's called lunacy.

[jake-the-peg]

I think flagellation and scourging applies specifically to whipping. I'm not sure if there is a specific term that encompasses all of these practices.

Those who do so are often referred to as Fakirs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faqir subtly different to Sadhus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadhu who practice extreme self denial or asceticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascetics.

I did see an interesting program following a group of young Science students touring around India. A lot of people there tend to go to these sort of Holy men for a cure if they get bitten by a snake. The scientists were trying to get people to go to hospitals instead. They found that the best way to do this was to demonstrate that they too could stick needles in themselves, walk over hot coals and lie on beds of nails.

Certainly my old Karate instructor used to do the bed of nails trick having a cinder block broken on his chest with a sledge hammer- and there was certainly nothing holy or spiritual about him!

[mankak]

Thank you very much for your answer ,Cetti.
Yes, whatever the word is, I think, it is an extreme means of self enlightment, which might look eccentric to the ordinary.


Thank you for your answer, jake-the-peg.
Yes, it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whippings.
I am afraid we dont' have an accurate word for it in English.
But I thik scourging could be an alternative.,

[Quizmonster]

'Mortify' tends nowadays to be used to mean 'shame', as in "Oh, I was mortified when he saw the state the house was in!"
However - as its Latin source which means 'causing death' indicates - it was a much stronger word in the past. The noun phrase, 'the mortification of the flesh', originally meant any action, such as self-whipping etc, designed to control the lusts and appetites of the body.

'Mortification' is possibly the best, all-encompassing word for what you describe.

[mankak]

Thank you Quizmonster for your suggestion.
I think mortification is very good word for it..