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The Introduction provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book explores the conceptions and worship of Mount Govardhan and its many stones. Mount Govardhan is a well-known sacred hill located in northern India and one of the most prominent features of Braj, a cultural region associated with the popular and playful Hindu deity Krishna. While describing and examining some of the principal characteristics of the worship of Mount Govardhan, this book aims to reflect on the gap that exists between the sense of reality one experiences every day while living near the sacred hill and the dominant reality experienced in everyday life in the United States, which fosters a portrayal of such worship as absurd, or even worse. The radical difference that exists between these two views creates a fruitful space for thinking about larger, more general issues encountered in the academic study of religion.

This chapter introduces some of the foundational stories related to Mount Govardhan and describes the physical features of the mountain as well as the sacred terrain that surrounds it. For instance, the story of the origin of Mount Govardhan, as told in the Garga Samhita, is a narrative widely known by worshipers of this sacred mountain and central to many theological conceptualizations of its deeper meanings. Perhaps most significant for the latter initiative is that Govardhan consists of the consolidated form of supreme love that emerged out of the bliss-filled hearts of the divine couple Radha and Krishna. There are also stories on how Mount Govardhan came to be situated in Braj. They are narrated in texts and recounted by numerous knowledgeable people residing near the sacred mountain today.

This chapter considers ways of thinking about the challenges of radical cultural difference posed by something like intimate interaction with a stone, and explores the nature of and possibilities within anthropological cross-cultural understanding and interpretation designed to address them. The author claims that, as one who works to interpret, translate, and explain aspects of Hindu religious culture primarily for an American readership, he stands between a rock—Mount Govardhan—and a hard place—American society. For most Americans the worship of stones is hard to understand. This practice is alien, weird, absurd, unreasonable, or silly and childish, perhaps even sinful. Comprehending it in any acceptable manner seems extremely difficult, maybe impossible.

This chapter considers various theological conceptions of the mountain, much of which has never been presented in previous scholarly literature. This also helps illustrate the specific nature of the extreme cultural difference represented by Mount Govardhan. It argues that Mount Govardhan is a mountain of embodied love, and is identified with the very source of all love. Govardhan is a mountainous form of divinity that is said to give love quickly and is readily available for a loving relationship with those devotees who approach it. This goes for every stone on the mountain. In this sense, Govardhan is a mountain of “loving stones.” In return, what the mountain asks for is love. And indeed, Mount Govardhan and its stones are honored and loved intensely through a great variety of forms of worship.

This chapter explores the ritualized ways in which the mountain is honored, specifically its circumambulation (parikrama) and devotional worship (puja). Pious pilgrims have been circumambulating Mount Govardhan for centuries; today, their numbers seem to be rising steadily. Although no official statistical information is available, residents of the five towns around the mountain report swelling crowds of visitors coming to circumambulate the sacred mountain. The routine parikrama draws thousands of pilgrims daily, and these numbers surge considerably on special days. The customary way of performing the circumambulation of Mount Govardhan consists of walking around the hill reverentially in a clockwise direction. All pilgrims are to fix their hearts and minds on this mountain form of Krishna and commune with it visually through sight (darshan) and physically with touch (sparshan).

This chapter focuses on interaction with particular individual stones from Mount Govardhan and the anthropomorphic techniques employed to establish and develop close relationships with these divine forms. It includes a re-evaluation of the nature and function of anthropomorphism in general, something that until quite recently has been regarded with much suspicion within many academic disciplines. Many people who live near the mountain have a home shrine accommodating a Govardhan stone, when they could simply worship the mountain directly. For many, one of the advantages of worshiping an individual stone in their homes is convenience, especially for women often confined to the home throughout the day with household chores and activities. A stone in the home also provides rich opportunity for the loving hands-on activities that generate and nurture a close relationship with the mountain through this particular stone.

This chapter considers major philosophical tenets that circumscribe the particular Hindu worldview which supports and informs many of the conceptions and practices associated with Mount Govardhan—especially non-duality (advaita) and play (lila). It reflects on some of the implications derived from the interrelated concepts of non-duality and play in the context of the worship of Mount Govardhan, particularly as they relate to the possibilities they have to offer to the larger field of religious studies. What might non-dual play contribute to the study of religion that takes difference seriously, and what might be gained from engaging in such an adventure into religious difference? The chapter concludes with an examination of some of the environmental lessons that can be inferred from a study of the worship of Mount Govardhan.