05. PECU. 2010. Singh, Rana P.B. (Ed.) 2010. Sacred Geography of Goddesses in South Asia. Cambridge Scholars, NC u Tyne UK. 14 essays. xviii + 395pp. ISBN: 978-1-4438-1865-0. (original) (raw)
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This book consists of fifteen essays that deal with links between ecology and shamanism, landscape and nature spirit, emphasising web of meanings imbued in the cultural tradition of portraying landscape as temple and territory as archetypal representation of the cosmos. In view of appreciating the path in this direction paved by David Kinsley (1939-2000, both on 25 April), this anthology is a memorial tribute to him by his students, friends, associates and admirers, including an essay that critically and rationally examined his contributions and their relevance today. Of course, there are books on the thematic or disciplinary-packed orientation, however rarely any interdisciplinary book that narrates many perspectives and facets around sacred geography of goddesses is published. This anthology fulfils that gap substantially, through the essays by scholars from religious studies, geography, anthropology and cultural studies.
The locational arrangement of all goddess places over the map (of India) projects the idea of sacrality with respect to spatiality, symbolism and land affinity in a distinctive and unique manner. On the basis of typological character, two levels may be identified: (1) from local to regional, pan India level and finally the infinity symbolizing ‘march from micro to macrocosmos’; and (2) from pan India to local level― the ‘march from macro to micro cosmos’. These two levels reflect the spirality and circularity of the system. In between these two polarities the structural component of ‘meso cosmos’ is easily perceivable. In this way, the trinity network of pilgrimage system becomes easily perceptible on the map of India. This network and system are regulated, kept active and attractive, pertinent and overall maintained by one of the oldest surviving traditions of pilgrimage which even today make a large number of people move from one place to another. ‘Rivers’, the liquidity of spirit and ‘mountains/hills’, the stability and coverage, association with goddess places are rather intriguing issue (s). In fact, symbolically they represent the feminine and masculine powers, respectively, which unite for the divine process of creation. Keywords. Nature, river goddess, symbolism, historical base, goddess centres, territory, typology, ancient pithas.
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).
The concept of Sacred Natural Landscape, refers to a complex cultural mosaic and network of spatiality of time, temporality of space, sacrality of nature and overall the encompassing manifestation of transcendence of man who since time immemorial is trying to make a strong bridge between conscious mind and super-conscious divine. In Hindu mythologies the idea of Mother Earth and Mother Nature goes back in the Vedic period, ca 1500 BCE that continued in the passage of time and still maintained at different levels, and illustrated in the religious texts. Cult of the Earth goddess (Bhu Devi), and associated symbolism representing her parts of body in 51 places is a representation of imaging India as a whole as Mother Land. The spatial transposition of the holy river Ganga in different parts of India is a process of Gaṅgāization, resulting in making whole India sacred abode of gods. In this purview this essay attempts to present sacrality and natural landscape interfaces in Hindu perspectives, as illustrated in various manifestations of goddess in the form of holy places, rivers, mountains, forests, caves that evolved in the past and continued in the passage of time. It is realised that by developing intimate attachment to these sites and places within the frame of heritage ecology the culture would be advanced in a more harmonious and peaceful way, where dharma (‘religion’ – natural order of moral duties) will play a vital role. Keywords: Sacred sites, Hindu tradition, Goddess manifestation, heritage ecology.
2017
The tīrthas (holy places, sacredscapes) of India provide examples of self-amplifying interactions between people and their cultural landscape. The five pilgrimage routes in Banaras symbolises the manifestation and archetypal representation of five koṣas, the ‘sheaths’. That is how koshas are analogous to the five gross elements of organism according to Hindu mythology. The mythologies give a cosmogonic outline to understand the archetypal nature of earth spirit ― a process making a place sacred and exposed in a frame of cosmic geometry. Born of the earth, of water, of fire, of space, and of air, the Hindu divinities are still here among us, still alive, of course invisible. The geographicality of the sacred territories, the pilgrimages and the related journeys, and experiential feelings of the pilgrims directly correspond to the making of complex web of metamorphosis that converged into sacredscapes and faithscapes of Banaras/Kashi. Banaras is an example of the ‘cosmic whole’, an archetype of ‘body’.
The idea of goddess in ancient Hindu mythologies refers to primordial creative force which in later period eulogised mythologically as the places where Sati’s corpse part fell down. Their numbers are 51 in the Indian subcontinent, which are called as pithas believing that the energy of goddess is possessed therein. Of course in the list of 51 Vindhyāchal is not counted, it manifests all the forms of goddess. The goddess territory of Vindhyāchal marked by the three edges of her shrines together with superimposed triangle of three forms of Shiva, thus evolves the hexagram in landscape. Its central part Ānandamayi Āshrama serves as the navel base, axis mundi. In all the three temples of goddess exist the abbreviated forms of the rest of the two; that is how by circumambulating one of the temples a devotee gets merit of pilgrimage to the whole area. The cosmology and complexity of landscape and mythologies support the characteristics of ‘self-organised principle’ and mesocosmic structure. Key Words: circumambulation, faithscape, manifestation, pilgrimage, sacredscape, territory, transcendent, trikona, yantra.
Contents: Preface and Acknowledgements: xii-xv; Foreword‒ Dallen J. Timothy (USA): 1-4; Sacredscapes & Sacred Places and Sense of Geography: Some Reflections‒ Rana P.B. Singh (India): 5-46; Pilgrimage and Literature‒ Jamie S. Scott (Canada): 47-94; Sufi views on Pilgrimage in Islam‒ Muhammad Khalid Masud (Pakistan): 95-110; The ‘Architecture of Light’: Between Sacred Geometry to Biophotonic Technology‒ Aritia Poenaru & Traian D. Stãnciulescu (Romania): 111-130; Kailash– the Centre of the World‒ Tomo Vinšćak and Danijela Smiljanić (Croatia): 131-152; Rolwaling: A Sacred Buddhist Valley in Nepal‒ Janice Sacherer (Japan): 153-174; Landscape, Memory and Identity: A case of Southwest China‒ Zhou Dandan (China): 175-194; The miracles of Mt. Wutai, China: the ambiguity of Sacred place in Buddhism‒ Jeffrey F. Meyer (USA): 195-210; Sacred Spaces, Pilgrimage and Tourism at Muktinath, Nepal‒ Rana P.B. Singh (India) & P.C. Poudel (Nepal): 211-246; The Mythic landscape of the Buddhist places of Pilgrimage in India‒ Rana P.B. Singh & Pravin S. Rana (India): 247-284; Current Jewish Pilgrimage-Tourism‒ Noga Collins-Kreiner (Israel): 285-300; The road to St. James, El Camino de Santiago: the spirit of place and environmental ethics‒ Kingsley K. Wu (USA): 301-320; Sacred Places of Japan: Sacred Geography in the vicinity of the cities of Sendai and Nara‒ James A. Swan (USA): 321-334; the contributors: 335-336; Index: 337-343; Editor: 344. 26 Jan. 2011, 22x 15cm, ca. xiv + 344pp, 16 tables, 51 figures, <ca. 122,100 words> Hb, ISBN (10): 81-8290-227-4. Rs 1495.oo/ US$ 55. Shubhi Publications, New Delhi.
Timothy Edensor, Uma Kothari and Ares Kalandides (eds.) 2020, The Routledge Handbook of Place. London: Routledge, 2020
The sacred landscape combines the absoluteness of space, the relativeness of places and the comprehensiveness of landscape. Altogether, this constitutes a 'wholeness' that conveys the inherent and imposed spirit of 'holiness', which here we call 'sacredscapes'; these are regulated and reproduced by those of faith and in their sacred rituals. Accordingly, as adherents of faith within sacred space, we form a sense of ourselves and the sense of our-place at varying scales of space-time. We begin from the local scale, and here we may first experience the sacred message through the spirit of place, its genus loci, and the power of place: place speaks, place communicates. In Hindu cosmology, the Matsya Purāṇa (ca. CE 400) enumerates a large number of sacred places with descriptions of associated schedules, gestures, dreams, and auspicious signs and symbols. The seven sacred cities within this schema (Sapta-purīs) are Mathura, Dvaraka, Ayodhya, Haridvar, Varanasi, Ujjain and Kanchipuram. Rather differently, the twelve most important Shiva abodes are scattered all over India and are known as Jyotir lingas tīrthas, with the four abodes of Vishnu in the four corners of India serving as another group of popular pan-Indian pilgrimage places. This chapter will focus on particularly vivid examples, illustrating Hindu reciprocal relationships between sacred places and the faith system. These are illustrated within the taxonomic frame of sacred places, ritualscapes, festivities, sacred water and aspects of spatial transposition that link locality and universality.
The Sacred Landscape of Braj, India Imagined, Enacted, and Reclaimed
The cultural heritage of the sacred Braj region in Northern India is assessed within the framework of phenomenology of place experience in ritual enactments involving visual and haptic engagement with the landscape. The imagined landscape of Braj consists of visualization at the site of imagery centered on the Hindu god Krishna, influenced by representations of the deity in texts, paintings, and popular culture. The experience is enacted via circumambulation wherein places are inscribed in the body in movement and at rest. Two sacred sites in Braj with a significant role in Krishna mythology—Govardhan Hill and Yamuna River—are studied as imagined and enacted landscapes. The environmental degradation caused by disappearing wetlands, neglected water bodies and denuded forest cover is leading to a physical, mental, and spiritual disengagement with the cultural landscape and loss of place-based collective memories. The proposed remediation approach seeks to promote environmental values through restoration of water bodies and groves on the Yamuna Riverfront and Govardhan Hill. INTRODUCTION The sacred geography of the Indian subcontinent is a network of pilgrimage sites where direct and intimate encounter with nature occurs for millions of religious devotees and other visitors. The physical and spiritual engagement with the cultural landscape refl ects traditional practices of nature veneration that can be the foundation for developing a faith-based environmental ethic. Today, environmental pollution, haphazard urbanization, and the depletion of natural resources are major problems in the Indian landscape, including many renowned pilgrimage sites. At these sites ritual enactments of reverential attitudes towards nature and related environmental values are disappearing even as improving economic circumstances allow for greater travel opportunities that increase pilgrimage numbers and frequency. The remediation of sacred rivers and hills and restoration of sacred groves could rekindle a rapidly disappearing cultural landscape with the potential to spur a mass movement for environmental protection and conservation. The sacred landscape of Braj in Northern India provides a suitable and appropriate case study of nature veneration evident in a rich corpus of place myths. The rituals and related enactments linked to those myths are part of a traditional belief system tied to environmental values and suggest sound strategies for landscape reclamation. Although Braj shares many features with other pilgrimage sites across India, the region is unique in its religious-cultural ethos centered on pastoralism and includes a large number of sacred sites located on the Yamuna riverbanks, Aravalli Hills, and other riverfronts and water bodies. While nature and culture once coexisted in harmonious balance in this landscape, insensitive development and the continually increasing number of pilgrims today exceed the sites' carrying capacities. Because needed changes