Religious Journeys in India

Description

In an increasingly global world where convenient modes of travel have opened the door to international and intraregional tourism and brought together people from different religious and ethnic communities, religious journeying in India has become the site of evolving and often paradoxical forms of self-construction. Through ethnographic reflections, the contributors to this volume explore religious and nonreligious motivations for religious travel in India and show how pilgrimages, missionary travel, the exportation of cultural art forms, and leisure travel among coreligionists are transforming not only religious but also regional, national, transnational, and personal identities. The volume engages with central themes in South Asian studies such as gender, exile, and spirituality; a variety of religions, including Sikhism, Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity; and understudied regions and emerging places of pilgrimage such as Manipur and Maharashtra.

List of Illustrations

Introduction: New Motivations for Religious Travel in India
Andrea Marion Pinkney and John Whalen-Bridge

Part I. Constructing Community Spaces

1. Making Sacred Islamic Space in Contemporary India
Carla Bellamy

2. Remaking Thai Buddhism through International Pilgrimage to South Asia
Joanna Cook

3. Augmenting Pilgrimages: A Religious Theme Park in Shegaon, India
Kiran A. Shinde

Part II. Pilgrimage as Paradox

4. Appropriating Ayodhya on “Valor Day”: Hindu Nationalism and Pilgrimage as Politics
Dibyesh Anand

5. Bihar as Christian Anti-Pilgrimage Site: Missions, Evangelism, and Religious Geography
Robbie Goh

6. Seeking the Self in a Land of Strangers: New Religiosity and the Spiritual Marketplace of Rishikesh
Alex Norman

7. Proxy Pilgrimage: Seeing Tibet in Dharamsala, India
John Whalen-Bridge

Part III. Reversals and Revisions

8. The Power of the “Little Hajj”: Memory, Ritual, and Pilgrimage in South Indian Islam
Afsar Mohammad

9. What Are Sikhs Doing at “Historical Gurdwaras” If They’re Not on Pilgrimage? Saints, Dust, and Memorial Presence at Sikh Religious Places
Andrea Marion Pinkney

10. “Reverse Pilgrimage”: Performance, Manipuri Identity, and the RanganiketanCultural Arts Troupe
Rodney Sebastian

11. Imagined Place: Missionary Women’s Journeys in Southern India
Roberta Wollons

Contributors
Index  

Sujets

• Sikhism

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 20 août 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438466040
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Religious Journeys in India
Religious Journeys in India
Pilgrims, Tourists, and Travelers
Edited by
Andrea Marion Pinkney and John Whalen-Bridge
Cover photo of the boat trip on the Ganges courtesy of Joanna Cook.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2018 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pinkney, Andrea Marion, editor. | Whalen-Bridge, John, editor.
Title: Religious journeys in India : pilgrims, tourists, and travelers / edited by Andrea Marion Pinkney John Whalen-Bridge.
Description: Albany : State University of New York, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016040639 (print) | LCCN 2016043152 (ebook) | ISBN 9781438466033 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438466040 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Pilgrims and pilgrimages—India. | Tourism—Religious aspects. | Tourism—India.
Classification: LCC BL2015.P45 R45 2018 (print) | LCC BL2015.P45 (ebook) | DDC 203/.50954—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016040639
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to Nancy J. Ellegate (1959–2015)
Contents
L IST OF I LLUSTRATIONS
I NTRODUCTION
New Motivations for Religious Travel in India
Andrea Marion Pinkney and John Whalen-Bridge
Section I. Constructing Community Spaces
C HAPTER 1
Making Sacred Islamic Space in Contemporary India
Carla Bellamy
C HAPTER 2
Remaking Thai Buddhism through International Pilgrimage to South Asia
Joanna Cook
C HAPTER 3
Augmenting Pilgrimages: A Religious Theme Park in Shegaon, Maharashtra
Kiran A. Shinde
Section II. Pilgrimage as Paradox
C HAPTER 4
Appropriating Ayodhya on “Valor Day”: Hindu Nationalism and Pilgrimage as Politics
Dibyesh Anand
C HAPTER 5
Bihar as Christian Anti-Pilgrimage Site: Missions, Evangelism, and Religious Geography
Robbie B. H. Goh
C HAPTER 6
Seeking the Self in a Land of Strangers: New Religiosity and the Spiritual Marketplace of Rishikesh
Alex Norman
C HAPTER 7
Proxy Pilgrimage: Seeing Tibet in Dharamsala, India
John Whalen-Bridge
Section III. Reversals and Revisions
C HAPTER 8
The Power of the “Little Hajj”: Memory, Ritual, and Pilgrimage in South Indian Islam
Afsar Mohammad
C HAPTER 9
What Are Sikhs Doing at “Historical Gurdwaras” If They’re Not on Pilgrimage? Saints, Dust, and Memorial Presence at Sikh Religious Places
Andrea Marion Pinkney
C HAPTER 10
“Reverse Pilgrimage”: Performance, Manipuri Identity, and the Ranganiketan Cultural Arts Troupe
Rodney Sebastian
C HAPTER 11
Imagined Place: American Women’s Missionary Journeys in Southern India
Roberta Wollons
C ONTRIBUTORS
I NDEX
Illustrations Map 1 Religious journeys in India. Legend of all major sites and states covered in this volume. Figure 1.1 Shrine of Sakina, Husain Tekri (Jaora) Madhya Pradesh, India. Figure 1.2 Husain Tekri, the shrine of ̒ Ali, inner gateway. Figure 1.3 Husain Tekri, the shrine of ̒ Ali, outer gateway. Figure 1.4 Husain Tekri, the site where the miraculous visitors of 1886 are said to have performed namāz . Figure 2.1 Thai Buddhist pilgrims displaying the tour banner in front of a Bhutanese temple in Bodh Gaya, India. Figure 2.2 Mae Chi Mali and the daily schedule of pilgrims to the Wat Thai Magadh Vipassana Centre in Bodh Gaya, Bihar. Figure 2.3 Thai Buddhist pilgrims writing their names and the names of the deceased on a golden fabric banner en route to Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh. Figure 2.4 Pilgrims from Thailand cover the reclining Buddha in Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh. Figure 2.5 The boat trip on the Ganges ( Ga ṅ gā ) at Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Image courtesy of Joanna Cook. Figure 2.6 A group photograph taken in front of the 80-ft. (25 meter) Great Buddha Statue, established in 1989 in Bodh Gaya, Bihar by the Daijokyo (Japanese) Buddhist Temple. Figure 2.7 While visiting a Buddhist shrine in India, Thai pilgrims make cash offerings in their own currency ( Baht ). Figure 3.1 Devotional image of Gajanan Maharaj of Shegaon, linking him in the lineage of Sai Baba of Shirdi as an incarnation of Dattatreya. Figure 3.2 Aerial view of Anand Sagar—a Hindu-themed, recreational oasis in Maharashtra, surrounded by arid farmland. Figure 4.1 Uttar Pradesh State Tourism sign in Ayodhya declares “0.7 km to Ram’s birthplace.” Figure 4.2 Stockpile of building materials intended for the nationalist temple at Ayodhya. Figure 4.3 Temple building materials and equipment ready for construction at Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh. Figure 5.1 Protestant Christian evangelical church facilities under construction, with further tentage under expansion in Motihari, Bihar. Figure 5.2 A prayer service for Christian converts in Motihari, Bihar. Figure 6.1 Visitors to Rishikesh traverse the Ganges ( Ga ṅ gā ) across its famous bridges ( jhūlā ), Lakshman Jhula and, here, Ram Jhula. Figure 6.2 Rishikesh ashrams, such as the Om Anand Swami International Yoga Academy, offer a potpourri of spiritual options, including yoga, astrology, and “consciousness.” Figure 6.3 Foreign visitors to Rishikesh document a snake charmer’s performance outside the Devraj Coffee Corner (German Bakery), Rishikesh, Uttarakhand. Figure 7.1 Tibetan prayer flags at a local café, with Himalayan peaks glimpsed above McLeod Ganj, Upper Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh. Figure 7.2 Near the McLeod Ganj-Bhagsu road taxi stand, Upper Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India. Figure 7.3 Memorial to Tibetans who committed self-immolation, situated amongst prayer wheels and stūpa s along the kora path that surrounds the Dalai Lama’s residence in Dharamsala. Figure 8.1 Inner sanctum of shrine to Baba Fakhruddin, Penukonda, Andhra Pradesh. Figure 8.2 During the month of Mu ḥ arram, thousands of pilgrims pay their respects to Baba Fakhruddin at Penukonda. Figure 8.3 The pīr (saint) house at Gugudu, under expansion, attracts thousands of pilgrims during the month of Mu ḥ arram. Figure 8.4 Pilgrims carrying fāti ḥ a prasādam (sanctified food and drink), here biryani and fruit sherbet, to the shrine in Gugudu, Andhra Pradesh. Figure 8.5 The “shrine of Twelve Martyrs” in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. Figure 8.6 Women exchanging flatbread at Nellore, Andhra Pradesh. Figure 9.1 Visitors at the entrance to the Harmandir Sahib, or Golden Temple (also known as Darbar Sahib), Amritsar, Punjab. Figure 9.2 Takht Sri Keshgarh Sahib, seen from Qila Anandgarh Sahib, Anandpur Sahib, Punjab. Figure 9.3 Pilgrims descending from Gurdwara Sri Hemkunt Sahib, Uttarakhand. Figure 9.4 Bottles of water and bags of food offerings for Bhai Maharaj, at the Bhai Maharaj Memorial, Silat Road Gurdwara, Singapore. Figure 10.1 Traditional Manipuri rāsalīlā performance in the Sri Sri Govindaji temple, Manipur. Figure 10.2 The founder of Ranganiketan, Bhaktisvarupa Damodara Swami, leads a sa ṅ kīrtana performance in an ISKCON temple in the United States. Figure 11.1 “Scene on the Banks of the Ganges” (1898). Western accounts of travels in India emphasized adventure and exotica. Figure 11.2 Mahatma Gandhi’s visit to Christian Medical College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu (1928), with Ida Scudder and women medical students in attendance. Figure 11.3 Ida Scudder with medical students in their sitting room at Vellore Christian Medical College, Tamil Nadu, India (1950).
Map 1. Religious journeys in India. Legend of all major sites and states covered in this volume. Map courtesy of Lee Li Kheng, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore.
Introduction
New Motivations for Religious Travel in India
A NDREA M ARION P INKNEY AND J OHN W HALEN -B RIDGE
P ilgrimage routes, flows of travelers, and sacred sites are imbued with the kinesthetic and transformative possibilities at the core of religious experience. Yet all the instruments agree—such experience is hard to measure: “Pilgrimage may be thought of as extroverted mysticism, just as mysticism is introverted pilgrimage. The pilgrim physically traverses a mystical way; the mystic sets forth on an interior spiritual pilgrimage” (Turner and Turner 2011, 33). In undertaking religious travel, personal motivations for religious travel are complex, contingent, and cover the spectrum from introversion to extroversion, physical travel to inward journeying, and so on. How then shall we separate “religious journeying” from social and leisure travel?
While religious tourism is evidently “motivated either in part or exclusively for religious reasons,” Gisbert Rinschede maintained that religious tourism overlaps with cultural and heritage tourism, typically fulfilling “several motivations and other subordinate goals” (Rinschede 1992, 52). In India, the National Sample Survey Office of India (NSSO) reported the compound motivations of domestic travelers under categories ranked by “leading purpose,” or as the motive “but for which he/she would not have undertaken the trip.” As reported in 2014–2015, the highest-ranking purpose for domestic travel in India is “social” (85.9%), followed by “religious and pilgrimage” (8.3%). 1 In characterizing religious tourism in nations with developing economies, Rinsc