Pilgrimage : Sacred Landscapes and Self-Organized Complexity
by John Mckim Malville and Baidyanath Saraswati
Author : John Mckim Malville and Baidyanath Saraswati
Publisher : D. K. Printworld Pvt. Ltd.
Language : English
ISBN : 9788124604540
Item Code : DKP004
Pages : 370
Weight : 1.5 KG
Dimensions : 29 X 23 CM
Edition : 2009, B/W & Color Illustrations
Binding : HARDCOVER
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Pilgrimage involves movement 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 sociopolitical 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 amount 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.
J.M. Malville obtained his PhD in astrophysics from the University of Colorado. He has taught in the astronomy departments of the universities of Michigan and Colorado. At Colorado he served as the Chairman of the Department of Astro Geophysics. His research interests have ranged from the physics of the earth’s aurora and the sun’s corona, to the archaeoastronomy of India, American Southwest, Peru, and Egypt. As a visiting scientist at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Malville investigated the connections between astronomy, culture, and self- organized complexity. His is presently Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at the University of Colorado and an Adjunct Professor of Astronomy at James Cook University, Queensland, Australia. His books include A Feather for Daedalus and Prehistoric Astronomy in the Southwest.
B.N. Saraswati obtained his PhD from Ranchi University and specializes in the anthropology of religion and Indian civilization. He is the former UNESCO Professor at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. He was associated with the Anthropological Survey of India, Kolkata, for a decade, and another decade at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla. During this period he did extensive field work in rural India and conducted a detailed study of Varanasi. Most recently he has been drawing out relevant themes from traditional thought and modern science to build up indigenous anthropology from within. He has authored The Sacred Science of Man, Ascetics of Kashi, and The Nature of Man and Culture: Alternate Paradigms in Anthropology, as well as many other books and publications.
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Samanta J.
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John Doe
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