Pilgrimage: Sacred Landscapes and Self-Organized Complexity

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Pilgrimage involves movements of people, either as individuals or as members of a group, in search of the sacred. Spontaneous behaviour, miraculous events, and/or ecstatic visions of individual pilgrims have often resulted in complexity in ritual, meaning, and movement. Pilgrimages may start with individual ecstatic visions, unusual strange unworldly experiences, which are the experiences of "ordinary" people, certainly not of priests or politicians. Often they are uniquely human experiences which embarrass ecclesiastical authorities.

As a pilgrimage tradition evolves, sacred sites may become formalized in organized socio-political systems with economic overtone. Even in these structured situations, individual people may still have powerful individual experiences. Eventually a pilgrimage tradition may be taken over by religious and political authorities, lose spontaneity, and become frozen in time. But even in these situations, in which large numbers of people may gather, there is a tremendous among of "primal" energy in which innovations and visions may be evoked.

Using case studies from pilgrimages around the world, the volume explores the ways many of these traditions have started and evolved. A common perspective is that of self-organization of complex structures in space and time.

The variety of pilgrimage described in the book is remarkable. The subcontinent of India is the location of many sites such as the temples to the nine planets in Tamil Nadu, the pilgrimage circuits of Varanasi, early Buddhist pilgrimages in Sanchi and Bodh-Gaya, the great ruined city of Vijayanagara, those associated with the Ramayana, and the death ceremonies at Gaya. Beyond India, the self-organization and stability of pilgrimage systems are analysed for pilgrimages in Nepal (Kathmandu), Japan, Mexico, the Caribbean, Peru, Norway, and the US.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Baidyanath Saraswati

Baidyanath Saraswati, Unesco Professor, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, was associated with the Anthropological Survey of India, Culcutta, for a decade, and another decade with the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. During this period he did extensive fieldwork in rural India and conducted a detailed study of the sacred city of Varanasi. As a Professor of Visva-Bharati University, Ranchi University and North-Eastern Hill University, he taught anthropology in a highly unconventional style. For the last twelve years, he is drawing out relevant themes from traditional thoughts and modern sciences to build up an indigenous anthropology from within. His research opens up new possibilities for non-Western anthropologists to imagine a future for themselves. He has authored The Sacred Science of Man, The Sacred Science of Nature, as well as other books and articles.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR John McKim Malville

Prof. John Mckim Malville: Professor of Astrophysics, University of Colorado, USA, has received international recognition for his work in the fields of solar astronomy, archaeoastronomy, and geophysics. He is the author of numerous research papers as well as three books: A Feather for Daedalus: Explorations in Science and mythology; Prehistoric Astronomy in the south-West; and, Time and Eternal Change, published by IGNCA.

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Bibliographic information

Title
Pilgrimage: Sacred Landscapes and Self-Organized Complexity
Author
Edition
1st ed.
Publisher
ISBN
8124604541, 9788124604540
Length
x+359p., Col & B/w Plates; Figures; Maps; References; Index; 29cm.
Subjects