James G. Lochtefeld
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195386141
- eISBN:
- 9780199866380
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195386141.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
Pilgrims are Hardwar’s religious consumers, whose money sustains the city economically and whose reverence and piety help to sustain it religiously. Pilgrims come to Hardwar for many different ...
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Pilgrims are Hardwar’s religious consumers, whose money sustains the city economically and whose reverence and piety help to sustain it religiously. Pilgrims come to Hardwar for many different reasons, such as the desire to bathe in the Ganges and gain religious merit (punya); the desire to perform life-cycle rites (samskaras) for birth (mundan), marriage (suhag-pithari), or death (asthivisarjana); the desire to come in contact with resident powers (both human and divine); or the desire to find peace in Hardwar’s beautiful natural environment. The chapter’s latter part does case studies on two particular pilgrimages: the Kanvar Mela, in which pilgrims take Ganges water from Hardwar to their homes as an offering to Shiva, and a twelve-day package tour to the four most important Himalayan pilgrimage sites (char dham): Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath.Less
Pilgrims are Hardwar’s religious consumers, whose money sustains the city economically and whose reverence and piety help to sustain it religiously. Pilgrims come to Hardwar for many different reasons, such as the desire to bathe in the Ganges and gain religious merit (punya); the desire to perform life-cycle rites (samskaras) for birth (mundan), marriage (suhag-pithari), or death (asthivisarjana); the desire to come in contact with resident powers (both human and divine); or the desire to find peace in Hardwar’s beautiful natural environment. The chapter’s latter part does case studies on two particular pilgrimages: the Kanvar Mela, in which pilgrims take Ganges water from Hardwar to their homes as an offering to Shiva, and a twelve-day package tour to the four most important Himalayan pilgrimage sites (char dham): Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath.
Nayanjot Lahiri
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190130480
- eISBN:
- 9780190993870
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190130480.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Indian History, Social History
This chapter examines the most interesting as also the least known event of the 1970s when Chandi Prasad Bhatt, pioneer of the Chipko Andolan and M.N. Deshpande , as director general, collaborated to ...
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This chapter examines the most interesting as also the least known event of the 1970s when Chandi Prasad Bhatt, pioneer of the Chipko Andolan and M.N. Deshpande , as director general, collaborated to save the Hindu shrine of Badrinath. In 1973, the Birlas, through their charity – the Jayshree trust – had begun constructing a cement and steel structure around the traditional architectural form of the temple. By July-August 1974, because of Bhatt’s intervention in Lucknow and in Badrinath, this work came to a halt. A high powered government committee carefully examined the Badrinath makeover by the Birlas and Deshpande became the man whose report provided a hard-hitting indictment of what the temple had been reduced to. For Chandi Prasad Bhatt, safeguarding the Badrinath temple’s traditional form mattered as much as saving trees. It was a vision that Deshpande shared. Once construction work halted there, Deshpande practically took over matters hand and eventually, it was his planning and foresight which resulted in ensuring that a historic temple shrine was not converted into a kind of Birla temple.Less
This chapter examines the most interesting as also the least known event of the 1970s when Chandi Prasad Bhatt, pioneer of the Chipko Andolan and M.N. Deshpande , as director general, collaborated to save the Hindu shrine of Badrinath. In 1973, the Birlas, through their charity – the Jayshree trust – had begun constructing a cement and steel structure around the traditional architectural form of the temple. By July-August 1974, because of Bhatt’s intervention in Lucknow and in Badrinath, this work came to a halt. A high powered government committee carefully examined the Badrinath makeover by the Birlas and Deshpande became the man whose report provided a hard-hitting indictment of what the temple had been reduced to. For Chandi Prasad Bhatt, safeguarding the Badrinath temple’s traditional form mattered as much as saving trees. It was a vision that Deshpande shared. Once construction work halted there, Deshpande practically took over matters hand and eventually, it was his planning and foresight which resulted in ensuring that a historic temple shrine was not converted into a kind of Birla temple.
