Mark Elmore
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520290532
- eISBN:
- 9780520964648
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520290532.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to tell the story of the arrival and maturation of the idea that Himachal has a religion of its own. The core narrative—which traces ...
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This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to tell the story of the arrival and maturation of the idea that Himachal has a religion of its own. The core narrative—which traces how Himachalis recognized their own beliefs and practices as religious—is energized with stories of the author's own struggle to understand the lived worlds of contemporary Himachal people, which narrate his own process of relating to religion. In bringing his own voice to the text, he hopes to invite the reader to imagine religion not as an object, as an identity one wears like a set of clothes, or even as something that can even be embraced or rejected but rather as an intimate, dynamic process that has no end. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to tell the story of the arrival and maturation of the idea that Himachal has a religion of its own. The core narrative—which traces how Himachalis recognized their own beliefs and practices as religious—is energized with stories of the author's own struggle to understand the lived worlds of contemporary Himachal people, which narrate his own process of relating to religion. In bringing his own voice to the text, he hopes to invite the reader to imagine religion not as an object, as an identity one wears like a set of clothes, or even as something that can even be embraced or rejected but rather as an intimate, dynamic process that has no end. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
