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Distributed for University of British Columbia Press

Pilgrims, Patrons, and Place

Localizing Sanctity in Asian Religions

This book brings together essays by anthropologists, scholars of religion, and art historians to explore some of the most fundamental challenges that religious groups face as they expand from their homeland or confront the demands of modernity. The chapters span a broad geographical area that includes India, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, and China, and address issues from the classical and medieval period to the present. They show how sacred places have a plurality of meanings for all religious communities and how in their construction, secular politics, private religious experience, and sectarian rivalry can all intersect. 

A Buddha Dharma Kyokai Foundation Book on Buddhism and Comparative Literature.


Table of Contents

Contributors

Acknowledgments

Introduction - Pilgrims, Patrons, and Place: Localizing Sanctity in Asian Religions / Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara

1 The Twenty-four Dioceses and Zhang Daoling: The Spatio-Liturgical Organization of Early Heavenly Master Taoism / Franciscus Verellen

2 The Story of the Buddha’s Begging Bowl: Imagining a Biography and Sacred Places / Koichi Shinohara

3 Where Ascetics Get Comfort and Recluses Go Public: Museums for Buddhist Saints in Thailand / Louis Gabaude

4 Paradise Found, Paradise Lost: Hariram Vyas’s Love for Vrindaban and What Hagiographers Made of It / Heidi Pauwels

5 Pilgrimage as Revelation: Sankaradeva’s Journey to Jagannatha Puri / Phyllis Granoff

6 The ‘Early Hindi’ Hagiographies by Anantadas / Winand M. Callewaert

7 Dvaraka: The Making of a Sacred Place  /André Couture

8 Place in the Sacred Biography at Borobudur / Robert L. Brown

9 Ratannath’s Travels / Véronique Bouillier

10 The Interweave of Place, Space, and Biographical Discourse at a South Indian Religious Centre / K.I. Koppedrayer

11 Portratiure and Jain Sacred Place: The Patronage of the Ministers Vastupala and Tejahpala / Jack C. Laughlin

12 Saints and Scared Places in Saurashtra and Kutch: The Cases of the Naklamki Cult and the Jakhs / Françoise Mallison

Bibliography

Index

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