Pilgrimage in the Hindu Tradition: Salvific Space

Front Cover
Routledge, 2013 - Religion - 195 pages

Salvific space is one of the central ideas in the Hindu traditions of pilgrimage, and concerns the ability of space, especially sites associated with bodies of water such as rivers and lakes, to grant salvific rewards. Focusing on religious, historical and sociological questions about the phenomenon, this book investigates the narratives, rituals, history and structures of salvific space, and looks at how it became a central feature of Hinduism.

Arguing that salvific power of place became a major dimension of Hinduism through a development in several stages, the book analyses the historical process of how salvific space and pilgrimage in the Hindu tradition developed. It discusses how the traditions of salvific space exemplify the decentred polycentrism that defines Hinduism. The book uses original data from field research, as well as drawing on main textual sources such as Mahābhārata, the Purāṇas, the medieval digests on pilgrimage places (tīrthas), and a number of Sthalapurāṇas and Māhātmyas praising the salvific power of the place. By looking at some of the contradictions in and challenges to the tradition of Hindu salvific space in history and in contemporary India, the book is a useful study on Hinduism and South Asian Studies.

 

Contents

1 Concepts and sources
4
2 Salvific space narrativesand space as divinity
19
3 The origin of the Hindutraditions of salvific space
41
4 The growth andomnipresence of the Hindu traditions of salvific space
71
the example of sage Kapila
96
a pluralistic pilgrimage tradition or whythere is no Mecca of Hinduism
122
7 Contradictions and challenges
146
Notes
171
References
177
Index
187
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2013)

Knut A. Jacobsen is Professor in the Department of the History of Religions at the University of Bergen, Norway. His fields of expertise include Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism in India, and religious pluralism in South Asia and in the South Asian diaporas.