American Academy of Religion

Hindu Places of Pilgrimage in India: A Study in Cultural Geography by Surinder MohanBhardwajReview by: Victor TurnerJournal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 43, No. 2, Book Review Supplement (Jun.,1975), pp. 348-349Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1461224 .

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JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF RELIGION JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF RELIGION

Part of the inadequacy of McIntosh's interpretation comes from a poverty of categories. Mysticism, if we approach it via German idealism, often involves a withdrawal from the natural scene into the arena of the mind. However, with recent studies on the psychology of consciousness and mystical states, it is becoming clearer that there are at least two forms of meditation that lead to a mystical state. The first is based on the "withdrawal of attention" to the external world. The second is more closely related to daily activity and is an attempt to just see or be "mindful" of what one is doing as he does it. It is not unlike what Thoreau calls "simply seeing" and observing one's presence in the natural scene.

In the "Ktaadn" essay Thoreau is still working with an idealistic bent, but it does not prevent him from reporting and witnessing "what is" in nature. Though McIntosh is right in claiming that Thoreau vacillates in his approach to nature, he is wrong to see his approach only within the framework of a Goethean polarity of idealism and materialism. In this case, mysticism is always skirting withdrawal and does not allow for an alternative form of meditation, that is, to see, whatever the vision. In the 1850's Thoreau develops his mode of "seeing" nature in his life work, the Journal. To eliminate these years from a discussion of Thoreau's relation to nature severely limits one's critical vision.

Cambridge, Massachusetts JOAN BURBICK

RELIGION IN INDIA

Hindu Places of Pilgrimage in India: A Study in Cultural Geography. By SURINDER MOHAN BHARDWAJ. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. xviii+258 pages, maps, graphs, and tables. $12.00. L.C. No. 73-174454.

This is the best general survey of a major religion's total pilgrimage system and the best intensive investigation of one of its subsystems. Doctor Bhardwaj, a geographer, utilizes cultural-historical materials (the Mahabharata, the Puranas, and some later sources, including the narratives of medieval Chinese and Muslim travelers) to give time-depth to his India-wide study of modern Hindu holy places of pilgrimage. And for information enabling him to classify modern Hindu pilgrims into significantly different categories, he uses his own and assistants' fieldwork as a quantitative study of the responses to questionaires of more than five thousand pilgrims in eleven sacred places in Himachal Pradesh and the Himalayan districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Dr. Bhardwaj's historical studies demonstrate the antiquity of many still active centers, their ancient association as a "grand pilgrimage of almost the whole of present India" (p. 56), their "clockwise direction" from Puskara (devoted to Brahma) to Prayaga (now Allahabad), and their association with the early Aryanized North and Dravidian South (sedentary plough agriculture was practiced in both regions) and dissociation from the non-Hinduized "tribal" societies of the central and northeastern forested plateau regions.

His numerical data allowed Dr. Bhardwaj to rank pilgrimage shrines "as a system of nodes at different levels." These were: (1) Pan-Hindu (for example, Badrinath); (2) Supraregional (Hardwar and Ujjain); (3) Regional (Kangra, Jwalaji); (4a) Subregional high (Naina Devi); (4b) Subregional low (Mansa Devi); and (5) Local (Baijnath, Bhagsunag, and Shiv Bari). High-level shrines are visited for general purification; regional, subregional, and local shrines, particularly those with a mother goddess as

Part of the inadequacy of McIntosh's interpretation comes from a poverty of categories. Mysticism, if we approach it via German idealism, often involves a withdrawal from the natural scene into the arena of the mind. However, with recent studies on the psychology of consciousness and mystical states, it is becoming clearer that there are at least two forms of meditation that lead to a mystical state. The first is based on the "withdrawal of attention" to the external world. The second is more closely related to daily activity and is an attempt to just see or be "mindful" of what one is doing as he does it. It is not unlike what Thoreau calls "simply seeing" and observing one's presence in the natural scene.

In the "Ktaadn" essay Thoreau is still working with an idealistic bent, but it does not prevent him from reporting and witnessing "what is" in nature. Though McIntosh is right in claiming that Thoreau vacillates in his approach to nature, he is wrong to see his approach only within the framework of a Goethean polarity of idealism and materialism. In this case, mysticism is always skirting withdrawal and does not allow for an alternative form of meditation, that is, to see, whatever the vision. In the 1850's Thoreau develops his mode of "seeing" nature in his life work, the Journal. To eliminate these years from a discussion of Thoreau's relation to nature severely limits one's critical vision.

Cambridge, Massachusetts JOAN BURBICK

RELIGION IN INDIA

Hindu Places of Pilgrimage in India: A Study in Cultural Geography. By SURINDER MOHAN BHARDWAJ. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. xviii+258 pages, maps, graphs, and tables. $12.00. L.C. No. 73-174454.

This is the best general survey of a major religion's total pilgrimage system and the best intensive investigation of one of its subsystems. Doctor Bhardwaj, a geographer, utilizes cultural-historical materials (the Mahabharata, the Puranas, and some later sources, including the narratives of medieval Chinese and Muslim travelers) to give time-depth to his India-wide study of modern Hindu holy places of pilgrimage. And for information enabling him to classify modern Hindu pilgrims into significantly different categories, he uses his own and assistants' fieldwork as a quantitative study of the responses to questionaires of more than five thousand pilgrims in eleven sacred places in Himachal Pradesh and the Himalayan districts of Uttar Pradesh.

Dr. Bhardwaj's historical studies demonstrate the antiquity of many still active centers, their ancient association as a "grand pilgrimage of almost the whole of present India" (p. 56), their "clockwise direction" from Puskara (devoted to Brahma) to Prayaga (now Allahabad), and their association with the early Aryanized North and Dravidian South (sedentary plough agriculture was practiced in both regions) and dissociation from the non-Hinduized "tribal" societies of the central and northeastern forested plateau regions.

His numerical data allowed Dr. Bhardwaj to rank pilgrimage shrines "as a system of nodes at different levels." These were: (1) Pan-Hindu (for example, Badrinath); (2) Supraregional (Hardwar and Ujjain); (3) Regional (Kangra, Jwalaji); (4a) Subregional high (Naina Devi); (4b) Subregional low (Mansa Devi); and (5) Local (Baijnath, Bhagsunag, and Shiv Bari). High-level shrines are visited for general purification; regional, subregional, and local shrines, particularly those with a mother goddess as

348 348

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REVIEWS REVIEWS

the presiding deity, are visited to fulfill vows inspired by specific personal or material desires, motives, and problems. Visits to high-level shrines maintain "the vitality of a

pan-Indian Hindu holy space." At the lower levels of religious circulation, mundane

aspects of Hinduism and its regional or subregional folk elements find expression. Higher and wealthier castes have recourse to all-India shrines and travel considerable distances to them. Scheduled castes travel shorter than average distances to most sacred places. Cash income and the practice of touch pollution are probably responsible for making high-level pilgrimages unpopular or inaccessible to untouchables. At high-level shrines, Dr. Bhardwaj observed that members of many linguistic groups from all over India were present, but that at low-level shrines pilgrims tended to speak a single language or vernacular.

My own recent researches in cross-religional comparative peregrinology indicate resemblances and differences in pilgrimage systems. Dr. Bhardwaj's "levels" may be distinguished, for example, in Mexico, Ireland, and Brittany in Catholic Christendom, and in Morocco in Islam. But my own investiagions have shown that in both these "religions of the book" class differences do not bulk so large as caste differences in India. For example, few Mexicans, of whatever social status, have failed to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe at least once in their lives. Moreover, villagers travel considerable distances on foot or donkey to visit such major supraregional pilgrim centers as Chalma, San Juan de los Lagos, and Tizimin (Yucatan). Further exploration may reveal further distinctions between social and symbolic aspects of pilgrimage processes associated with various "salvation religions." It may well be that such peregrinal differences are homologous with theological differences.

Pilgrimages have been sadly neglected, as objects of serious study, by theologians and social scientists alike. Yet each year, even today, tens of millions of people take to the road (or travel by sea and air) on pilgrimage journeys. Each pilgrimage system has become, over time, an institutional complex, with way-stations, servicing staffs (lay and cleric), symbolic structures, legendary and historical literature, economic supports, political implications, and a host of other components, attributes, and contexts. Dr. Bhardwaj's book is an important step towards the recognition of a social phenomenon which has for millennia played a crucial role in the integration of religions, nationalities, and international communities. And, not least importantly, it is highly readable.

University of Chicago VICTOR TURNER

Modern Religious Movements in India. By J. N. FARQUHAR. Delhi, India: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1967. xvi+471 pages.

Originally delivered as the Hartford-Lamson Lectures on World Religions in 1913 (and published earlier by Macmillan in 1915), this book deals with the modern religious movements since the effective introduction of Western influence in India, covering the period between 1800 and 1913. More than five decades after its first publication, this first Indian edition points to the continuing interest this survey has retained.

In the historical introduction, "the pitifully backward condition of the Hindus," their "coarse idolatry with immoral rites," and the barrenness of the Muslim period are contrasted to the "great awakening," which the author attributes to the good government of the British in India, the Protestant missions, and the work of the great Orientalists.

the presiding deity, are visited to fulfill vows inspired by specific personal or material desires, motives, and problems. Visits to high-level shrines maintain "the vitality of a

pan-Indian Hindu holy space." At the lower levels of religious circulation, mundane

aspects of Hinduism and its regional or subregional folk elements find expression. Higher and wealthier castes have recourse to all-India shrines and travel considerable distances to them. Scheduled castes travel shorter than average distances to most sacred places. Cash income and the practice of touch pollution are probably responsible for making high-level pilgrimages unpopular or inaccessible to untouchables. At high-level shrines, Dr. Bhardwaj observed that members of many linguistic groups from all over India were present, but that at low-level shrines pilgrims tended to speak a single language or vernacular.

My own recent researches in cross-religional comparative peregrinology indicate resemblances and differences in pilgrimage systems. Dr. Bhardwaj's "levels" may be distinguished, for example, in Mexico, Ireland, and Brittany in Catholic Christendom, and in Morocco in Islam. But my own investiagions have shown that in both these "religions of the book" class differences do not bulk so large as caste differences in India. For example, few Mexicans, of whatever social status, have failed to visit the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe at least once in their lives. Moreover, villagers travel considerable distances on foot or donkey to visit such major supraregional pilgrim centers as Chalma, San Juan de los Lagos, and Tizimin (Yucatan). Further exploration may reveal further distinctions between social and symbolic aspects of pilgrimage processes associated with various "salvation religions." It may well be that such peregrinal differences are homologous with theological differences.

Pilgrimages have been sadly neglected, as objects of serious study, by theologians and social scientists alike. Yet each year, even today, tens of millions of people take to the road (or travel by sea and air) on pilgrimage journeys. Each pilgrimage system has become, over time, an institutional complex, with way-stations, servicing staffs (lay and cleric), symbolic structures, legendary and historical literature, economic supports, political implications, and a host of other components, attributes, and contexts. Dr. Bhardwaj's book is an important step towards the recognition of a social phenomenon which has for millennia played a crucial role in the integration of religions, nationalities, and international communities. And, not least importantly, it is highly readable.

University of Chicago VICTOR TURNER

Modern Religious Movements in India. By J. N. FARQUHAR. Delhi, India: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1967. xvi+471 pages.

Originally delivered as the Hartford-Lamson Lectures on World Religions in 1913 (and published earlier by Macmillan in 1915), this book deals with the modern religious movements since the effective introduction of Western influence in India, covering the period between 1800 and 1913. More than five decades after its first publication, this first Indian edition points to the continuing interest this survey has retained.

In the historical introduction, "the pitifully backward condition of the Hindus," their "coarse idolatry with immoral rites," and the barrenness of the Muslim period are contrasted to the "great awakening," which the author attributes to the good government of the British in India, the Protestant missions, and the work of the great Orientalists.

349 349

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