The Glory Of Badrinath - Part -1

Verità e Bellezza’. Essays in Honour of Raffaele Torella, 2022

Entry in the Springer Encyclopedia of Hinduism and Tribal Religions

Pilgrimage has been one of the strongest traditions in Hindu religion since the Vedic time. In the course of time, Varanasi has been eulogized and accepted as the most sacred city in Hinduism. By the turn of the 13th century, many pilgrimage circuits and spatially manifested holy sites and shrines developed in Varanasi. The re-establishment of important pan-Indian holy sites in Varanasi makes this city a microcosm of India. Many cosmological symbols also occur, such as the 56 Vināyaka shrines representing a multiple frame of eight directions and seven layers of the atmosphere. Similarly the five most popular pilgrimage circuits represent the five gross elements making life, according to the Hindu cosmogony. All these pilgrimage circuits are associated with the shrines referring to numerical symbolism. The pilgrimage journeys are described according to months and seasons for which specific shrines or holy spots are prescribed. To engage in the special ritual honouring the patron deity, Vishveshvara or Vishvanātha, is the purpose for about sixty percent of the pilgrims to Varanasi; and the sacred journey around his temple is known as the “inner sanctum” route of the city. In geographic symbolism, the three forms of Shiva (with the respective segmented circuits Omkāreshvara, Vishveshvara, and Kedāreshvara) make the shape of a trident, which is why the city is perceived as lying on Shiva’s trident. The sacred topography of the city shows one of the best known examples of mesocosm (earthly) representation interlinking macrocosm (heavenly bodies) and microcosm (individual being or deity, or inner sanctum of a temple). Key words: cosmology, circumambulatory circuits, pilgrimage, Varanasi, Shiva.

Power, Presence, and Space: South Asian Rituals in Archaeological Context, 2021

Patterns of ritual power, presence and space are fundamentally connected to, and mirror, the societal and political power structures in which they are enacted. This book explores these connections in South Asia from the early Common Era until the present day. The chapters in the volume examine a wide range of themes, including a genealogy of ideas concerning Vedic rituals in European thought; Buddhist donative rituals of Gandhara and Andhra Pradesh in the early Common Era; land endowments, festivals and temple establishments in medieval Tamil Nadu and Karnataka; Mughal court rituals of the Mughal Empire and contemporary ritual complexes on the Nilgiri Plateau. This volume argues for the need to redress a historical neglect in identifying and theorising ritual and religion in material contexts within archaeology. Further, it challenges existing theoretical and methodological forms of documentation to propose new ways of understanding rituals in history. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian history, religion, archaeology and historical geography.

The deeper sense of geographic concerns employ to investigate the inherent power of sacred places by searching cosmic geometries embedded in ritual landscapes and the spatial orientations towards astronomical phenomena. Such sacred cities can be considered to be a mesocosm, geometrically linking the celestial realm of the macrocosm with the microcosmic realm of human consciousness and cultural traditions of text, tradition, and rituals. The Hindu literature, both the classical and modern, is full of reverence for ‘Mother India’ (Bhārat Mātā) and ‘Mother Earth’ (Bhū Devī). The ‘land (and the earth)’ is personified goddess. This image, as described in literary tradition, is conceptualised by relating all geographical features as lived and imagined landscapes, viz. mountains, hills, rivers, caves, unique sites, etc. to the mother earth and in that sense those sites and places automatically becomes part of the sacred geography of ancient India (cf. Eck 2012: 11). Every region or place has its own sacred geography where humans meet with the divinities and ultimate emerged the microcosmic web which are always regulated and expanded by the continuity of rituals, festivities and celebrations. Better known expression of the Nature-Man interfaces through spirituality is presented in the form of sacred geometry and maṇḍalas (i.e. geometric arrangements of esoteric symbols or symbolic representations of the abodes of various deities). The sacred landscape combines the absoluteness of space, relativeness of places and comprehensiveness of landscape; thus altogether result to a ‘wholeness’ carrying the inherent and imposed spirit of ‘holiness’, which is to be called ‘sacredscapes’. In Hindu tradition this is called ‘divya kṣetra’ (a pious/ divine territory).

智山学報（Journal of Chisan Studies）, 2003

The ‘Sacred’ Hill in the Eyes of the Āḻvārs and the Śrīvaiṣṇava Commentators., 2015

This article is about the importance (or lack thereof) of the Govardhana hill in the Tamil Vaiṣṇava literature.