Introduction

The study of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) has historically centered on its early North American communities. However, the most sustained growth of this transnational religious community over the past few decades has been in India. This book offers an account of one vibrant ISKCON community in the megacity of Mumbai, at the Radha Gopinath temple in Chowpatty. The introduction situates ISKCON’s formation in urban India in relation to Hindu transnational networks, religious globalization, and the city of Mumbai itself. This lays the groundwork for analyzing ISKCON as a form of Hindu religious modernity. Devotees draw on discourses of revivalism to promote a model for revising religion that shifts their relationships to families, inherited religious traditions, and their own local cultures. Building on Thomas Tweed’s theory of religion, this focus on revision emphasizes devotees’ experiences of crossing into new identities and fashioning novel forms of community and home within the city

Humanities · Novelty · Traditionalism · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · South Asian Cinema and Culture