Embodied Reception: South Asian Spiritualities in Contemporary Contexts, edited by Henriette Hanky, Knut A. Jacobsen and István Keul. Sheffield: Equinox, 2024. viii + 304 pp., £24.95 (pb). ISBN 9781800503533 (hb), 9781800503540 (pb).
This study explores the phenomenon of deity embodiment during the Chaṭha festival, focusing on the transformative religious encounters of the female primary worshippers—the parvaitins. The parvaitin transcends human–divine boundaries through her ritual mastery, ritualization and body techniques, and embodies the goddess Chaṭhī Māī. Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Varanasi, Patna, Munger and Sahibganj during the years 2021–23, the study delves into the ritual practices, bodily techniques and experiences of the parvaitin. It argues that ritual knowledge, competence and body techniques enable the parvaitin to express and experience the deity, creating a vessel for her to manifest. The study elucidates the negotiation, transformation and agency that occur through the rituals, shedding light on how individuals encounter and manifest the divine. Furthermore, it highlights the consequences and effects of these interactions, providing insights into the multifaceted nature of religious experiences within specific cultural and ritual contexts. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of deity embodiment and its implications within religious practices through participant observation, qualitative interviews and analysis of data obtained.
This qualitative study examines the birth and evolution of the Lairam Isua Krista Baptist Church (LIKBK), an ethnically based church founded by the Lai community in the northeast corner of India. The research argues that Christianity, beyond its religious teachings, can be seen as a long struggle for identity and empowerment, akin to an ethno-religious movement. The study investigates the causes, stages, ideology and role of great leadership and the nature and outcomes of the LIKBK movement, thereby revealing a trend in the reform movement that has brought significant cultural, socio-economic and political transformations to the Lai community. The findings conclude that the LIKBK is an operative ethno-religious movement that has positively impacted the Lai community, promoting empowerment and reform.
The Laṭakamelaka (LM) or ‘The Assembly of Rogues’ is a twelfth-century Sanskrit drama authored by Śaṃkhadhara of Kannauj. In the LM, Śaṃkhadhara has focused his energies on satirically deriding religious figures of various sectarian traditions, among whom he attacks a Digambara monk Jaṭāsura for his nudity and despicable sexual misconduct. This paper analyses the narrative tropes and stereotypes used in the LM to satirize Digambara monasticism through the character of Jaṭāsura ̶ who is presented as filthy and despicable to the audience. In this process, I will also present the depictions of Digambara monks in the Āgamaḍambara of Jayantabhaṭṭa (ninth century CE) and Prabodhacandrodaya of Kṛṣṇamiśra (thirteenth century CE) to argue that the stereotypes used in the LM are a part of the wider depiction of Digambara Jains in medieval Sanskrit literature. Finally, this paper will also have a superficial look at the contrasting attitudes towards issues like nudity and bodily hygiene in Brahmanical and Digambara ascetic theologies which shaped the literary polemics against Digambara monasticism in Brahmanical literature.
Devoted to the union of Rāma and Sītā, the Rāma-Rasik sampradāya was founded and developed at the Galtā temple, near Jaipur, between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The visuals associated with this sect were inspired by the vast literature produced by the mahants (priests) of Galtā, which closely followed the model of Kṛṣṇa theology. The priests produced these texts following their meditational practices (dhyān), in which they would see themselves as close female companions of the wedded Rāma and Sītā and would witness the divine union of the couple. The texts describe the couple’s amorous activities explicitly, while the paintings remain subtle. This essay analyses such paintings using a textual lens, and argues that the iconography of Kṛṣṇa was used deliberately in the paintings of Rāma to cultivate the imagination of a rasik for an amorous ‘divine’ act, while keeping the ultimate act hidden from the uninitiated.
Authenticity, Legitimacy and the Transglobal Yoga Industry: A Sociological Analysis of Shanti Mandir, by Patrick S. D. McCartney. Abingdon: Routledge, 2025. 262 pp., £145 (hb), £38 (ebook). ISBN 9781032762357 (hb), 9781003477662 (ebook).
Roberto Morales-Harley, The Embassy, the Ambush, and the Ogre: Greco-Roman Influence in Sanskrit Theater. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2024. 271 pp., £35.95 (hb), £21.95 (pb), £5.99 (epub), free (PDF). ISBN 9781805113621 (hb), 9781805113614 (pb), 9781805113645 (epub), 9781805113638 (PDF).
The pilgrimage to the shrine of Khwaja Mu‘inuddin Chishti in Ajmer, India has been one of the most popular acts of devotion in South Asian Islam for more than five hundred years. Beginning with the reign of Akbar, the pilgrimage to the shrine of Khwaja Mu‘inuddin Chishti became one of the most important expressions of imperial piety and munificence in the Mughal period. Although Akbar’s pilgrimages have been the subject of several scholarly works, Shah Jahan’s pilgrimages and patronage have received far less attention. This study addresses that lacuna. In addition to addressing the public and political benefit that the emperor gained from his presence at Ajmer, this study uniquely examines his personal and spiritual motivations for his patronage based on artistic, architectural and epigraphic evidence. With new insights drawn from the masnavi inscribed on his mosque at Ajmer, I conclude that there is a penitential aspect to Shah Jahan’s pilgrimages to Ajmer beyond the public image of a pious padshah.
Krishna’s Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative, by Sohini Sarah Pillai. New York: Oxford University Press, 2024. 296 pp., £62 (hb). ISBN 9780197753552 (hb).
The Afterlives of the Bhagavad Gītā: Readings in Translation, by Dorothy M. Figueira. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023. vi + 378 pp., £75 (hb). ISBN 9780198873488 (hb).
Rather than focusing on human pilgrims visiting sacred sites, this article inverts the typical approach to pilgrimage studies and considers the movement of Hindu deities as they travel throughout the world extending their sacrality in ever-new forms. As deities like Jagannath (the manifestation of Kṛṣṇa and/or Viṣṇu) leave their sanctuaries and become mobile, they engage with their devotees and the larger world around them. Such travels continue through various replications and reproductions so that the deities’ pilgrimages mirror those of their human devotees. This article emphasizes Jagannath’s material mobility in particular, to make a case not only for his status as a pilgrim, but for his ongoing expansions and transformations as he travels into diaspora. Relying on a number of fields—anthropology, art history, religious studies and theology—in addition to my own autoethnography, I argue that Jagannath’s descent (avatāra) from the heavens into the physical realm only continues as he takes on various forms and the very elements of the places, cultures and times through which he travels.
The sacred geography of India has long captivated scholars, who have emphasized its mythologization and demonstrated how this landscape connects places to deities, saints and heroes, creating a network that links locations and people through pilgrimage. This paper explores a rarely investigated typology of sacred places, the tapobhūmi. Tapobhūmi, the ground (bhūmi) of spiritual power (tapas), refers to a place where someone has performed ascetic practices (tapasyā) to such an extent that the accumulated spiritual power has been transmitted to the area. These places continue to attract ascetics, who, by practising there, are believed to further increase the tapas of the area. India is dotted with numerous sites recognized as tapobhūmis, which can sometimes evolve into pilgrimage destinations, preserving the memory of renowned ascetics who once practised there. By linking the concept of tapobhūmi to that of guphā (cave) as places for ascetic practice, this paper analyses various forms of tapobhūmi. Using visual examples from central and northern India along with ethnographic data, it illustrates how tapobhūmis embody a human rather than a divine or deified endeavour, forming a parallel sacred geography that is primarily transmitted within ascetic circles and operates according to individual or sampradāyic agendas.
Continuing the longstanding association between Religions of South Asia and the Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, this issue of the journal contains reworked versions of papers presented at the 49th Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, which took place at Cardiff University on 19–21 April 2024. The theme of the symposium was ‘Pilgrimage in the Religions of South Asia’; 18 papers were presented, including keynote papers by Max Deeg (Cardiff University) and Catherine Hartmann (University of Wyoming), and six of those papers are presented here as finished articles.
In this paper, I explore the sacred Indian town of Swamimalai, Tamilnadu, as a nexus of religiosity, heritage and commerce by juxtaposing the narratives and aesthetics of these intersecting industries. To unravel these elements, I first examine how Swamimalai is constructed as a sacred place of belonging by two communities who consider it home—temple priests and traditional bronze sculptors. Then I use the case of INDeco Swamimalai, a luxury hotel by the village, to explore how narratives of sacred heritage are appropriated towards aestheticizing a landscape in order to deliver ‘authentic’ spiritual experiences to visitors. The notion of an ‘ideal village’ is instrumental in this production, wherein rural ecology, religiosity and heritage are commingled to furnish a Hindu-coded spiritual milieu. In essence, heritage actors recreate the village as an atemporal idyllic ecological escape from the profane, albeit carefully curated and controlled. As the parameters of this article do not allow for investigating how successful these efforts are, I focus primarily on the service providers.
Caste in Everyday Life: Experience and Affect in Indian Society, edited by Dhaneswar Bhoi and Hugo Gorringe. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. xxvi + 340 pp., £109.99 (hb), £39.99 (pb). ISBN 9783031306549 (hb); 9783031306570 (pb); 9783031306556 (ebook).
Between 964/1556 and 987/1579, Emperor Akbar made 14 pilgrimages to the shrine (dargah) of Khwaja Mu‘in al-Din Chishti, at times travelling barefoot all the way from Agra to Ajmer, with the hope of being granted an heir. Upon the birth of Salim, later Emperor Jahangir, not only was a new political capital constructed around a Chishti site at Fatehpur, but Ajmer, situated on the western frontiers, also continued to receive imperial and sub-imperial attention in the form of architectural patronage aimed at developing it as a spiritual centre of the Mughal Empire. Across multiple generations, however, the tradition of constructing immediately around and extending upon the tomb chamber itself remained the prerogative of the emperors, with only one exception made for Shah Jahan’s daughter, Princess Jahan Ara, likely in the 1050s/1640s. Her act of matronage appears to have been inspired by the personal experience of undertaking a pilgrimage to the shrine in 1053/1643, which is described at length in the Munisu’l-arwah, a hagiography of the Khwaja that she subsequently authored. However, given the predominant focus of Mughal architectural historians on urban, imperial patronage of monumental citadels, mosques and tombs, Jahan Ara’s deliberately minimal yet critical intervention in the provincial dargah, with the introduction of what is only a portico, has received practically no academic attention. With parallel close readings and interpretations of Jahan Ara’s literary and architectural expressions, this article attempts to address this gap. It analyses the phenomenon of Jahan Ara Begum’s pilgrimage to and construction within the dargah as a counter-narrative to mainstream Mughal histories that have promoted the imagination of Mughal women as cloistered individuals devoid of agency. It also examines the making of a space that has sustained its gendering for nearly four centuries—as it continues even today to enable women pilgrims to claim sanctuary within a wider environment designed primarily for men—as a case study in the practice of feminism through religiosity and the demonstration of power through humility.
The Kāliṅgabodhi Jātaka is an often-cited early source in Pāli providing a classification of Buddhist shrines and their worship. It is of particular interest as it lists three specific types of Buddhist sacred structures (cetiya, Skt caitya) purportedly sanctioned by the Buddha himself. Namely, the three are: a cetiya containing bodily relics of the Buddha (sārīrika-cetiya); a cetiya associated with something the Buddha wore, used or enjoyed, such as the Bodhi Tree (pāribhogika-cetiya); and a third ‘indicative’, dedicatory or commemorative kind called uddesika-cetiya. The meaning of the uddesika-cetiya is somewhat unclear, and interpretations and translations of the passage differ, leaving the meaning somewhat undetermined and even contentious. This article revisits the three types of cetiya, proposes a new interpretation of the uddesika-cetiya category and discusses the connections between the three types of cetiya and different modes of pilgrimage. It further argues that such commemorative monuments enabled a practice of ‘pilgrimage from afar’, allowing devotees to recollect the Buddha and gain the benefits of pilgrimage without travel—an innovation that helped Buddhism spread and adapt across regions.
This study explores the phenomenon of deity embodiment during the Chatha festival, focusing on the transformative religious encounters of the female primary worshippers-the parvaitins. The parvaitin transcends human-divine bound-aries through her ritual mastery, ritualization and body techniques, and embodies the goddess Chathi M & amacr;i. Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Varanasi, Patna, Munger and Sahibganj during the years 2021-23, the study delves into the ritual practices, bodily techniques and experiences of the parvaitin. It argues that ritual knowledge, competence and body techniques enable the parvaitin to express and experience the deity, creating a vessel for her to manifest. The study elucidates the negotiation, transformation and agency that occur through the rituals, shedding light on how individuals encounter and manifest the divine. Furthermore, it high-lights the consequences and effects of these interactions, providing insights into the multifaceted nature of religious experiences within specific cultural and ritual con-texts. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of deity embodiment and its implications within religious practices through participant observation, qualita-tive interviews and analysis of data obtained.
This qualitative study examines the birth and evolution of the Lairam Isua Krista Baptist Church (LIKBK), an ethnically based church founded by the Lai community in the northeast corner of India. The research argues that Christianity, beyond its religious teachings, can be seen as a long struggle for identity and empow-erment, akin to an ethno-religious movement. The study investigates the causes, stages, ideology and role of great leadership and the nature and outcomes of the LIKBK movement, thereby revealing a trend in the reform movement that has brought significant cultural, socio-economic and political transformations to the Lai com-munity. The findings conclude that the LIKBK is an operative ethno-religious move-ment that has positively impacted the Lai community, promoting empowerment and reform.
Beginning in the 1990s, several tranches of ancient G & amacr;ndh & amacr;ri texts from Afghanistan and Pakistan came to light, illuminating a Middle Indic literary tradition previously known only from a single copy of the Dharmapada. However, the recently discovered G & amacr;ndh & amacr;ri texts remain a yet untapped resource for the study of early Buddhism within the broader community of wandering mendicants (& sacute;ramanas). The G & amacr;ndh & amacr;ri texts, which date back as far as the second century BCE, hold the promise of providing key insights into the development of both Buddhism and Jainism as & sacute;ramana movements. Their dialect is close to that of the & Amacr;c & amacr;r & amacr;nga S & umacr;tra, the earliest Jain scripture, facilitating comparison between traditions. An examination of the G & amacr;ndh & amacr;ri texts not only helps clarify obscure terms in the & Amacr;c & amacr;r & amacr;nga S & umacr;tra, it also shows that Early Buddhists and Jains shared a common & sacute;ramana ideology, often expressed in identical terms. The common ideology and language most likely date from the formative period of each tradition. Warder's and Lamotte's versions of higher criticism promised to illustrate Early Buddhism before the division of Buddhism into schools, but the inclusion of Jain and G & amacr;ndh & amacr;ri materials helps to illuminate the earliest days of Jainism and Buddhism when they formed as competing & sacute;ramana movements.
