On Varanasi’s Tiny Temples

Haskett, Christian

doi:10.4000/samaj.4524

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 15 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…(Larios & Voix, 2018, p. 8;cf. McLain, 2018, p. 228) There are also very committed devotes, often from the neighborhood, who regularly service a shrine to keep it clean, replace old gifts with fresh offerings, and perform rituals (Haskett, 2018;Osterberg, 2018). Women from conservative families take advantage of shrines or temples to have a legitimate reason to leave the house and linger in public, an activity usually frowned upon (Phadke et al, 2011).…”

Section: Minor Religion and The Making Of Shrines And Templementioning

confidence: 99%

“…When asked about the significance of such places, worshippers give formulaic responses, saying that the sites are old and powerful, the result of a deity’s self-manifestation. The phenomenon is not unique to Bhopal and a series of recent publications on small shrines demonstrates that the minor rituals at small sites is indeed part of what one might call a mainstream urban Hindu tradition (Eck, 1983; Haberman, 2013; Haskett, 2018; Kent, 2018; Owens, 1995; Sekine, 2006). Hindu deities seek residence in the world and do so by magically appearing at certain sites.…”

Section: Minor Religion and The Making Of Shrines And Templementioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Making Informal Sacred Geographies: Spiritual Presence, Sensual Engagement, and Wayside Shrines in Urban India

Rao

2022

Space and Culture

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Inspired by recent debates in material religion, and using the example of the central Indian city of Bhopal, this article characterizes an informal Hindu religious geography that flourishes in the interstices of India’s planned urbanity. The small wayside shrines that dot Indian cities usually arise spontaneously, created by believers who discern divine manifestations and begin to worship these. Traces of ritual activities animate others to follow suit and express their devotion, thus reinforcing the sites’ sacredness. The daily repetition of myriad minor ritual gestures maintains a dynamic religious geography, which in a recursive mode ties together devotees in an anonymous ritual community, whose members share a visual language and are inclined to take seriously the desire of deities to live among humans. With a focus on minor religion, and by concentrating on the social life of a cosmos of informal shrines, the text highlights a less-studied dimension of urban religion. It draws attention to the cumulative effect of lived practices and human–material entanglements, and complements discussions that frequently engage with omnipresent politics of formalization as well as competition of communities for attention and recognition in multireligious spaces.

show abstract

Section: Minor Religion and The Making Of Shrines And Templementioning

confidence: 99%