The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Religion and Materiality, 2020
Across time and place, the idea of prasāda, translated provisionally here as ’grace’, connects a ... more Across time and place, the idea of prasāda, translated provisionally here as ’grace’, connects a vast range of intangible and material things that, in Hindu terms, are deemed to be beneficent, superabundant, and endowed with blessing. In this chapter, I explore one of the most significant subsets of prasāda, ‘grace as sustenance’, in Hindu food systems, paradigmatically understood as blessed, sacred food. I begin by introducing the contexts that give prasāda its meaning, the rules that govern its creation, times when food may be considered prasāda, and times when it is not.
In an increasingly global world where convenient modes of travel have opened the door to internat... more 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 from Manipur to Maharashtra.
From the end of the nineteenth century onwards in North India, modern māhātmya literature has hel... more From the end of the nineteenth century onwards in North India, modern māhātmya literature has helped to make pilgrimage centers accessible destinations for new publics, particularly those travelling by rail and road. Iterations of modern māhātmyas are now found for sale at Hindu pilgrimage centers far and wide. In contemporary Uttarakhand, modern māhātmyas are a nearly ubiquitous commodity in the bazaars of the state’s temple towns, such as Haridwar and Rishikesh, where eponymous site texts appear prominently among the stock items for sale at religious souvenir stalls. In this chapter, I consider change in Himalayan pilgrimage through the lens of modern māhātmya. I first introduce readers to modern māhātmyas of Uttarakhand by recalling the classical Sanskrit literary genre of māhātmya, or religious encomium, as the basic source of inspiration for the modern genre, and then turn to the hybrid content of the modern ones, with their distinctive style of imbricating Hindu scripture with travel ephemera. I then consider three accounts of changes in the 4-Dhām pilgrimage, in approximately thirty-year intervals, beginning with the pilgrim’s diaries of Sister Nivedita (1928) in 1896 and Swami Tapovanam (1925, 1930) (Tapovanam Maharaj 1971), and concluding with Vishalmani Sharma Upadhyaya (c.1965) as an exemplar of modern māhātmya writing on Uttarakhand. In reflecting on modern māhātmyas of Uttarakhand, I show how these texts invite readers to personally “pocket” the Himalayas, through domesticating the mountains and representing the “land of the gods” as an accessible destination for pilgrims travelling by train, motorcar, and other modern means.
More than 800 years ago—at approximately the same time as the founding of the first European univ... more More than 800 years ago—at approximately the same time as the founding of the first European universities—the renowned monastic institution known as the Nālandā Mahāvihāra disappeared from historical records. Since 2006, a transnational Asian initiative to revive ancient Nalanda as ‘Nalanda University’ in Bihar, India, has been embraced at the highest government and philanthropic levels by a consortium of South, Southeast, and East Asian nations. Nalanda, described as an ‘icon of Asian renaissance’, and the issues surrounding its revival raise important questions about how a new interest in ‘pan-Indo-Asianism’ and a newly imagined vision of ‘Asian’ education are seen as converging to promote Asian interests. First, I consider the ambivalent relationship of the revival and its pre-modern namesake against the Nālandā Mahāvihāra's known history. Then I characterize two kinds of discourse on the contemporary project: one that is ‘pan-Indo-Asian’ and frames the revival as serving transnational Asian goals; and another that is Indic and imagines Nalanda as advancing Indian national concerns. While, for the various stakeholders, serious fissures are evident in the symbolic values of Nalanda—as an exemplar of Asia and of India—both types of discourse, taken together, reveal important insights into the development of an alternative model of education that is both modern and ‘Asian’.
How and under what conditions is knowledge about religion produced? This special issue on religio... more How and under what conditions is knowledge about religion produced? This special issue on religious studies in Asia presents work by scholars who examine the discipline of “Religious Studies” — resisting the temptation to preconceive exactly what that means — in four modern Asian settings: India, China, Thailand, and Singapore. The authors provide genealogical reflection on and historical analysis of the conditions under which the academic study of religion arose in each nation.
International Journal of Hindu Studies 17, 3 (2013): 231–262, Dec 2013
The most important Indian Himālayan pilgrimage circuit, the 4-Dhām, or ‘Four Abodes’, is located ... more The most important Indian Himālayan pilgrimage circuit, the 4-Dhām, or ‘Four Abodes’, is located in Uttarākhaṇḍ, a region known as ‘Land of the Gods’ (Devbhūmi). Most tourists to the sites are domestic pilgrims from non-Himālayan regions. One of the most important media that interprets the region to this audience is the mass-produced and inexpensive pilgrims’ literature known as māhātmyas, a modern successor to the genre of Sanskrit encomium that extolls deities and sacred sites. First, I ethnographically describe how these texts are consumed as religious commodities; I then present selections of 4-Dhām māhātmyas that reveal the changing concerns of māhātmya publishing in Uttarākhaṇḍ over the last fifty years (1955–2006). In doing so, I argue that the texts’ imbrication of Hindi commentary with Sanskrit scripture promotes a dynamic reading of the pilgrimage as both mythological and modern, and promotes a unique cachet for the region as a contemporary sacred place that offers real-world access to the legendary past of Hindu antiquity.
International Journal of Hindu Studies 17, 3 (2013): 223–230, Dec 2013
How is Indic Hindu antiquity made relevant to an India that is rewriting itself? The contribution... more How is Indic Hindu antiquity made relevant to an India that is rewriting itself? The contributions in this special issue take a trans-regional and multi-disciplinary approach in order to suggest some junctures between India's heritage, its temporally complex present, and its trajectory for the future through the medium of "Hindu texts." This project has connected philologists, anthropologists, historians and geographers, as well as performers and practitioners. Our aim is to arrive at a holistic interpretation of "the classical" in contemporary Hindu India and, thereby, at an appreciation of continuities and disjunctures between contemporary and classical sources in ritual and textual contexts. Viewing Hindu scripture in such terms allows us to consider texts as entities used by actors, as abstract entities with cultural force, and also as actors in ethnographic play with those who use them.
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Volume 36, Issue 4, 2013 (pp. 554-570), Jun 2013
The growing popularity of ‘guru-devotion’ centres as pilgrimage destinations is an important phen... more The growing popularity of ‘guru-devotion’ centres as pilgrimage destinations is an important phenomenon that occupies a central place in contemporary religious practice in India. In this study, we consider how Shirdi, the epicentre of the global Sai Baba movement, is undergoing rapid transformations in its emergence as a destination for religious tourists. Sai Baba, a twentieth-century Maharashtrian saint, resided in the village of Shirdi for more than sixty years, from 1858 until his death in 1918. Since then, Shirdi has grown from a rural hamlet to a bustling town of approximately thirty thousand permanent residents with an estimated annual influx of eight million short-term visitors. Through focus on Shirdi as a pilgrimage centre associated with ‘guru-devotion’, we examine how socio-spatial transformations have created a new mosaic of ‘regional pluralism’ at the site. While the separate co-existence of different communities is one of the hallmarks of religious pluralism in India, we argue that the ‘complementary compartmentalisation’ of co-religionists hailing from different regions is a significant outcome of rapid urbanisation at pilgrimage sites, particularly those associated with guru-devotion.
In its material instantiations, prasāda is found
in an infinite variety of forms according to
d... more In its material instantiations, prasāda is found
in an infinite variety of forms according to
differing regional, sectarian, and individual contexts.
The concept of prasāda is common to Sanskrit,
almost all modern South Asian languages,
and some Southeast Asian languages (e.g. Thai)
in orthographically modified forms. Looked at
broadly in Hindu and Indic civilizations, prasāda,
or the “sacred share,” has multiple levels of meanings.
While no treatment of prasāda can ever
be comprehensive, I take a multidisciplinary
approach in this article to highlight some contexts
for prasāda that are widely applicable to many of
the literally infinite forms that it can take.
Underlying practices of material religion, the abstract senses of prasada provide a logic for mat... more Underlying practices of material religion, the abstract senses of prasada provide a logic for material exchanges in South Asia, as any material object that is desired, requested and perceived as granted by an extraordinary being may be consequently expressed as "prasada". As such, "abstract" prasada may be understood as an unfailing means of soteriological uplift, a disposition of divine generosity, an expression of gratitude for favour received, and so on. Prasada's abstract senses are most fully articulated in the Sanskrit record but are also the common property of modern South Asian languages, including Tamil, Bengali, Marathi and Hindi. Collectively considered from a philological perspectice, prasada is
revealed to be a core cultural category related to gratitude and beneficence that is characteristically South Asian in outlook. Taken here at the centre of analysis, study of prasada provides an opportunity to integrate insights from philological and ethnographic research on topics ranging from Hindu food and Hindu sectarian traditions, to aesthetic response theory and soteriological uplift.
Review: Modern Ladakh: Anthropological Perspectives on Continuity and Change. Edited by Martijn van Beek and Fernanda Pirie. Leiden: Brill, 2008. x, 314 pp. $147.00 (cloth)
How is Indic Hindu antiquity made relevant to an India that is rewriting itself? The contribution... more How is Indic Hindu antiquity made relevant to an India that is rewriting itself? The contributions in this special issue take a trans-regional and multi-disciplinary approach in order to suggest some junctures between India's heritage, its temporally complex present, and its trajectory for the future through the medium of "Hindu texts." This project has connected philologists, anthropologists, historians and geographers, as well as performers and practitioners. Our aim is to arrive at a holistic interpretation of "the classical" in contemporary Hindu India and, thereby, at an appreciation of continuities and disjunctures between contemporary and classical sources in ritual and textual contexts. Viewing Hindu scripture in such terms allows us to consider texts as entities used by actors, as abstract entities with cultural force, and also as actors in ethnographic play with those who use them.
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Writing by Andrea Farran
centers far and wide. In contemporary Uttarakhand, modern
māhātmyas are a nearly ubiquitous commodity in the bazaars of the state’s temple towns, such as Haridwar and Rishikesh, where eponymous site texts appear prominently among the stock items for sale at religious souvenir stalls. In this chapter, I consider change in Himalayan pilgrimage through the lens of
modern māhātmya. I first introduce readers to modern māhātmyas of Uttarakhand by recalling the classical Sanskrit literary genre of māhātmya, or religious encomium, as the basic source of inspiration for the modern genre, and then turn
to the hybrid content of the modern ones, with their distinctive style of imbricating Hindu scripture with travel ephemera. I then consider three accounts of changes in the 4-Dhām pilgrimage, in approximately thirty-year intervals, beginning with the pilgrim’s diaries of Sister Nivedita (1928) in 1896 and Swami
Tapovanam (1925, 1930) (Tapovanam Maharaj 1971), and concluding with Vishalmani Sharma Upadhyaya (c.1965) as an exemplar of modern māhātmya writing on Uttarakhand. In reflecting on modern māhātmyas of Uttarakhand, I show how these texts invite readers to personally “pocket” the Himalayas, through domesticating the mountains and representing the “land of the gods” as an accessible destination for pilgrims travelling by train, motorcar, and other modern means.
in an infinite variety of forms according to
differing regional, sectarian, and individual contexts.
The concept of prasāda is common to Sanskrit,
almost all modern South Asian languages,
and some Southeast Asian languages (e.g. Thai)
in orthographically modified forms. Looked at
broadly in Hindu and Indic civilizations, prasāda,
or the “sacred share,” has multiple levels of meanings.
While no treatment of prasāda can ever
be comprehensive, I take a multidisciplinary
approach in this article to highlight some contexts
for prasāda that are widely applicable to many of
the literally infinite forms that it can take.
revealed to be a core cultural category related to gratitude and beneficence that is characteristically South Asian in outlook. Taken here at the centre of analysis, study of prasada provides an opportunity to integrate insights from philological and ethnographic research on topics ranging from Hindu food and Hindu sectarian traditions, to aesthetic response theory and soteriological uplift.
Papers by Andrea Farran