Pilgrimage Space, Hinduization of Space, Hindutva Politics of Space, and the Case of Ayodhyā as a Religious and Religiopolitical Hotspot

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9206300
AutoresKnut A Jacobsen (0000-0001-8725-4756, Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen Bergen Norway, autor correspondente)
Ano2023
Volume70
Fascículo1
Páginas95-112
Data de publicação2023-01-03
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoNumen (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0029-5973 • E-ISSN: 1568-5276
EditoraWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/15685276-12341677
OpenAlexW4313555908
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas14

In this article I analyze aspects of religious geography in the mobilization by Hindu nationalists in India in the 1980s and 1990s and how Hindu nationalism and Hindu religious geography were merged in the case of the Ayodhyā conflict. Ayodhyā was consciously changed from a pilgrimage center ( tīrtha ) of diminishing religious importance into a religiopolitical hotspot by political forces. The potential for a Hindu–Muslim conflict and for mobilizing support for their vision of a Hinduized India was probably what made the place attractive for Hindu nationalists. The article argues that Hindu nationalism exploited the views of territoriality of traditions of pilgrimage and salvific space and merged these with their political nationalist agenda, and that it was this blending of views of space from the pilgrimage traditions, ideas of national territory, and Hindu nationalists’ ideas of a homogeneous Hindu nation with aggressive political agitation that turned Ayodhyā into a religiopolitical hotspot

Ancient history · Communalism · Hindu nationalism · Hinduism · Hindutva · Nationalism · Pilgrimage · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies · Religious Tourism and Spaces · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies