It is 6:00 in morning, and it is just getting light. A middle class Indian couple, who have been staying at the sprawling Shivananda Ashram just outside of Rishikesh in the Indian state of Uttrakhand, make their way from their accommodation to the Viśvanāth temple at the heart of the ashram. They have sponsored a ritual called abhiṣeka. They take their seat immediately in front of the Śiva liṅga and the priest (pūjārī) starts chanting the mantra which will begin the complex one-hour ritual. Later in the day this couple will cross the narrow footbridge over the sacred river Ganges (Gangā) and wander around the statuary of the myriad of Hindu deities in the gardens of the ashram Parmath Niketan and have a special meal at the renowned restaurant Chotiwala, and perhaps buy a pashmina scarf at one of the many small stores in the bazaar. Further down the road dozens of buses are parked in a large open space. There are make-shift shelters and people, young and old are just beginning to wake. A few women are squatting on the ground hunched over small paraffin cooking stoves making the first chai of the day, and kneading the dough for chapattis to feed their families. These are the pilgrimage (yātrā) buses that have been rented by groups of villagers from the rural hinterlands of northern India on a tour of some of the sacred sites. It is a Monday in August, a day associated with Nīlkanth – literally ‘Blue Throated’ a form of Śiva. Later in the morning these villagers, in an exuberant crowd, make their way to the fleet of jeeps that ferry them up 4,000 feet to the small temple in the hills dedicated to Nīlknath. A little distance away a small international group, having read that Rishikesh is the yoga capital of India, have booked on a ten-day retreat at Yoga Niketan, are make their way to the hall, for their first yoga and meditation session of the day. Later in the day they will sit and listen to a short talk on the Bhagavad Gita. A couple of this group will then walk up the path alongside Gangā one and a half miles to Lakshman Jula, where there are numerous cafes catering to the Western traveller. They order pancakes and a mango lassi, and discuss how they will get to Rajasthan after they have completed their yoga retreat. These are just three (hypothetical) examples of the many interpretive communities that flock to Rishikesh. A place is never a one place characterised by a single inherent essence. A place is always polyvalent, as sense and meaning are always constructed through the different interactions with that place. While clearly geographically it is physically located in one place, Rishikesh is also many places that has a different significance for the middle class Hindu, the yatris and the Western yogis. The human geographer Yi-Fu Tan (1977: 9) has argued that a place ‘cannot be known in itself. What can be known is a reality that is a construct of experience’. While experience constructs place, place also shapes experience through what Ron Scollon and Suzie Wong Scollon (2003: 2) have called geosemiotics –‘the material placement of signs and discourses’. The material placements in Rishikesh include a plethora of signs advertising various courses in yoga and meditation, the now semi-permanent wayside shrines that are dotted around the town, and the increasingly large statues of Hindu deities that adorn the banks of Gangā. Discourses about Rishikesh include: references in some of the Hindu literature, the long associations with saints and sadhus, the narrative that indicates that it is the gateway to “the Land of the God”, and the claim that it is the yoga capital of the world and the place where the Beatles stayed with Mahesh Yogi. This chapter will explore how Rishikesh is represented as one place through the geosemitotics and discourses that construct this small Northern Indian town as unique. However, it will identify how Rishikesh may also be considered as many places through the multiplicity of experiences that different interpretive communities encounter. The chapter will be based on my own personal experiences of visiting Rishikesh over a period of thirty five years, both for personal and academic reasons. It has the potential to be richly illustrated as I have an archive of photographs. I would also plan to visit Rishikesh in August for further ethnographic data (and to visit old friends and drink chai on the ghats).

This chapter explores the spatial transformation of Sikh gurdwaras (community sites for faith-based gathering) over the last two decades in the United States. While since their inception, gurdwaras have always been sites of community mobilization and organization, it is hate violence on Sikh buildings and bodies in the post-9/11 period that has pushed mainstream Sikh communities to envision gurdwaras as sites through which to negotiate their racialized existence. Particularly since 9/11 and throughout the ongoing “War on Terror,” gurdwara buildings have been targeted with Islamophobic hate violence due to having similar architectural design features as mosques (namely domes and arches). The 2012 shootings at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin (Oak Creek), the incident in which a neo-Nazi white supremacist took the lives of six Sikhs and injured three others before turning the gun on himself, became a turning point for contemporary Sikh advocacy in North America. While “Sikh advocacy” has a wide range of policy-based meanings in the U.S. context, my focus is on what it means with regard to gurdwaras . Attacks on Sikh buildings have been occurring in tandem with attacks on Sikh bodies, again, both due to the violence wreaked by global Islamophobia. Many Sikh communities have used gurdwara spaces to host various kinds of open house programs to educate non-Sikhs in their respective areas on the Sikh faith. The underlying goal of open house programs is to demystify Sikhi and gurdwara spaces for passersby and neighbors, with the hope that such knowledge will ultimately prevent Sikh buildings being read as Muslim ones and will therefore thwart attacks on gurdwaras. This chapter explores how, in addition to open house programs, gurdwaras become “total sites” through official designation as safe spaces in the events of natural disasters and emergencies, polling sites during elections, community kitchens, medical clinics, and temporary relief shelters. By looking at specific examples, I explore how, in spite of being “total sites” serving their communities at large, gurdwaras are both places of refuge, as well as targets of hate violence. This chapter ultimately explores how gurdwara communities curate a sense of place, a complicated process informed by various forms of social and political displacement.

The roots of philanthropy amongst Jains can be linked to religious values and duties with regard to alms giving. Classically, dān is a disinterested gift, a gift without expectation of return, debt or reciprocity. In a hierarchical order of different types of gifts, a gift to a worthy recipient is the highest form of dān a lay person can make, to the only really worthy recipients, renouncers seeking liberation. In this paper I examine the practice of dān by diasporic lay Jains to a Jain socio-spiritual organisation established by a Jain nun in India. While Jain ascetics are expected to renounce all worldly possessions and focus their life mission to work toward their own internal purification, the Jain nun has reinterpreted this ascetic path and argues that compassion in action practiced through seva is the key message of the Jain tradition. In reinterpreting the ascetic path as seva and creating an institutional organisation through which to fulfil this worldly mission, the nun has allowed for the possibility of dān in the form of private voluntary philanthropy to Veerayatan. I draw on in-depth qualitative interviews with 24 diasporic Jains, in the UK, USA and Singapore, who have engaged in philanthropic giving to Veerayatan for a period of over twenty years to examine whether classical understandings of dān and the ethic of seva or “Western” understandings of giving shape the motivations and sustainability of philanthropic donations to Veerayatan. I contend that their philanthropy merges classical forms of Jain giving and Western ideas of humanitarianism. Veerayatan, the organisation, has become a worthy vessel for receiving dān, rather than the individual nuns that are part of the organisation. Classical understandings of dān also merge with “Western” ideas of giving, as is evident in displays of attachment to and concern for impact of the gifts. Additionally, some regard such philanthropy as an important avenue to transmit Jain religiosity and norms of compassion among Jain children in the diaspora. Overall, my respondents view philanthropy to Veeryatan as enacting Jain religiosity and being Jain in the modern world. I argue that such philanthropy allows diasporic Jains to strengthen ties to co-religionists in India and the diaspora, and facilitates the reconstruction of identities, communities and religiosity.

Aughars provide a very interesting category of ascetic practices in India. Although the Aghor tradition is a very old one, some elements of it can be traced as far back as the Buddha (approximately 5th century BC), they are still often misunderstood because of one major component of their practices – the cremation ground. A majority of the meditative and ritual practices that they have take place either in isolated spots or in the cremation ground. Unlike in Europe where tourists go to visit hundreds of thousands of skulls and bones amassed at the, for example, the ‘Cimitero delle Fontanelle’ (the cemetery of skulls) in Napoli, Italy, or the catacombs in Paris, France, for a Hindu person in India the cremation ground is not a place one visits casually. In fact, most people try to avoid it if they can. They visit it only when they have to, as when transporting a dead body, and when they return home they have to go through a purificatory ritual, or take a bath at the least, because the cremation ground is regarded in the popular conception as an unclean, even inauspicious place. For the Aughars the situation is totally opposite. For them the cremation ground is the ultimate home of all living beings, it is the place of ultimate rest and purity where a very stark but continuous homage of lifeless bodies is offered to the care of the god of fire. This worldview informs their outlook on life in a very different manner, rather, it turns the normal person’s worldview on its head. For them the world of the senses represents a falsehood in that it is transient, while the cremation ground represents the stability of an inalterable truth. In this chapter I take a close look at how the Aghor worldview and their conception of the cremation ground informs their ascetic practice and their way of life.

Kali, the dark Hindu goddess of time and fierce Mother of the universe, has a pervasive global presence. In this study, devotion to the goddess is traced from Her from historical roots in India across borders to temples in North America. Through this analysis, the project highlights the diversity with which devotion to Kali has been localized in different contexts, from radical preservation of conservative Hindu norms to integration into New Age spiritualities. In each of these diverse contexts, the sense of place is revealed as integral to the devotee’s ability to establish a connection with Kali. This essay analyzes the processes by which devotees separate themselves from their mundane reality and enter liminal spaces of worship. These spaces are understood both spatially and temporally and are characterized by devotional sensoriums (fluid networks of interconnected sensory stimulations) which are created and experienced by devotees and serve as gateways to the goddess. Finally, this essay explores the cultural and individual variations in processes of reaggregation, of leaving the limen and re-entering the mundane, where practices of worship and experiences in devotion to Kali are digested and given meaning. It is thus illuminated that the sense of place plays a significant role not only in the act of devotion, but the ways in this devotion is integrated into the rest of the devotee’s life.

There is no knowing or sensing a place except by being in that place and to be in a place is not, then, subsequent to perception … but is an ingredient of perception itself. Such knowledge, genuinely local knowledge, is itself experiential (Edward Casey (1997, p. 18) The rich history and sheer diversity of folk art practices in South Asia is repeated across the many states of India, already well known for its intense saturation of the senses. In particular the state of West Bengal, the onetime seat of British India and the birthplace of Rabindranath Tagore, is host to an array of intangible folk art practices. These practices are often specific to particular regions or even small clusters of villages. In Spring 2011 a group of artists, musicians and dancers from Europe were invited to participate in a ten-day cultural exchange workshop in Calcutta (hosted by the Indian organisation and agent for change, Banglanatak dot com). Working alongside three distinct groups, the Chau dancers, the Baul and Fakir spiritual musicians, and the Jhumur rural singers and dancers, ‘moments of play’ and ‘moments of exchange’ became pivotal points of mutual exploration, thus providing a platform for cultural exchange. Through this encounter a number of themes and questions emerged. A potential consequence of rapid change and globalisation is the loss of heterogeneous cultural and spiritual practices (already being seen in the state capital Calcutta where the practice of throwing figures of gods and deities into the Hooghly river is now actively discouraged). Cultural exchange, however, is not a contemporary phenomenon; witness the meeting of Rabindranath Tagore and WB Yeats in London in 1912 and again in 1913. Tagore credited the “national awakening” of Ireland, as being Yeats’ return to “the ancient poetic tradition of Ireland” and similarly Yeats claimed that Tagore’s poetry was crucial for a “new Renaissance” that had “been born in” India’ (Chakravarty, 1998, p.165). Tagore is a well known figure who was himself inspired by the Baul and Fakirs spiritual songs and practices. During a two-day trip to a Fakir village on the Bangladeshi border, the group were introduced to an extraordinary female Baul, Shubadra Gaan, who played the harmonium and sang of God as ‘Manush who never changes’. In this chapter we propose to reconsider our experience of place through those encounters a number of years ago that still hold clear in our memory. Evenings spent at the Fakir village on the border of Bangladesh are remembered through those cultural encounters as ‘lived experience’ and the spirit of that particular place through to the extraordinary encounter with Shubadra Gaan.

Question: That big stone Bah, why is it standing there in the middle of your field? Answer: That, Kong (madam), is a Ryngkew (guardian deity) – I don’t know it well, but it is said that late at night, it walks to the river to drink water. Among the Khasis of Northeastern India, the construction of sacred places requires the validation of community: it constitutes a physical manifestation of narratives and beliefs, which become relevant within a given community. Places and the meanings they create are interwoven into the fabric of human existence. Place expresses epistemology. In the mentioned quote, the relevance that a particular, “special” stone has within the village is supported by the belief that to the traditional Khasis, each hill, river, mountain or a place with a special geographical feature is the dwelling place of a ryngkew or basa in the Khasi vernacular language. Ryngkew are always associated with specific places. In the rural areas of the Khasi Hills, ryngkew are numerous because of the place–making traditions which necessitate creation of a meaningful place in a location where accidents, bad deaths or religiously significant events have taken place. Non-human entities or ryngkew of place are thus created. In the framework of the set of practices commonly attributed to constitute the indigenous Khasi belief system, place plays a central role. Traditionally, there are cursed places as well as sacred places. Whereas holy places commonly comprise sacred groves and places of dwelling of guardian deities; cursed places are places which invite misfortune of a similar nature. For example, the Mawphlang sacred grove is the most popular and well preserved grove in the Khasi Hills. It has a guardian deity who manifests in the guise of a snake or a tiger. The concept of “sacred” in the traditional Khasi view is not equivalent to “holy” as in Christian understanding. Among the Khasis, “sacred” is associated with places which are free from the influence of tyrut which is a “curse” associated with place. Curses associated with families are called raibi and can transcend generations. Sacred is also connected with a code of conduct to be observed at the sacred space and the consequences of violations against this code. Sacred places are created by their identification as the sites of settlement by non human entities. A cursed place on the other hand, is always connected with misfortune which is recurrent. To exemplify, about six kilometres from the urban city centre in Shillong is a short stretch of road famously named, “Ryndang Briew” or “human neck”. It is located close to the Umiam lake which provides Shillong with electricity and which is also a highly folklorized space in terms of sacred myths, legends and water spirit sighting narratives which circulate around it. Ryndang Briew, is the place that the most number of accidents take place. From data I collected from the Umiam Police Station, I found out that from 2009 until 2011, 13 persons died and 10 persons were injured in four separate road accidents. Numerous reasons are cited as the cause of the accidents that take place here; and yet, having been a life-long resident of Shillong, I will not claim that this area has very special or dangerous geographical features. However, it is a straight stretch which allows vehicles to speed and this perhaps lends some influence on the frequency of accidents occurring there. This article will attempt to show how the place, as a concept, discursively shifts in the new context of Christianity and how Khasi Christianity has to accommodate the Khasi need for “sacred” and “cursed” places to ritualise. Further, Khasi Christianity has served to create binaries in how place is perceived which had hitherto not existed.

Applying core indigenous understandings to sense of place can better our comprehension of native cosmologies and worldviews. Indigenous American quadripartite imagery, from north to south, represents a sense of relational being within space. From a reliance on the sun and directional weather patterns affecting the growth of plants for food, and the animals that feed on them, emerges a web of ideas coalescing into understandings regarding the world and our place within it. This chapter focuses on Mesoamerican perceptions of the environment as experiential and relational. Earth, within these worldviews, is not divided into discrete realms of sky, earthly plane, and underworld but encompassed as one with which one shares corporeal being. Mesoamerican cosmologies concern a social way of life revolving around self, personhood, and sense of place that relate to both the visible and invisible. Mesoamerican place making is conditioned by the quadripartitioning of space through performance rituals focused on the bodily senses of sight, smell, hearing, and touch that create material topographical embodiments. Place-within-space here is linked to the living ancestors as well as socially created kin-like relations with what Westerners typically divide into the natural and supernatural. Mesoamerican cosmologies are not anchored on faith-based beliefs but on practical actions that affect the self, one’s immediate and extended lineage, and social community. Place making here, then, is embedded within meaningful spaces that stir emotions and not based on a binary separation of the objective and subjective but an intersubjective experience composed of connection and interaction.

How might photographic and video practices support indigenous tribal goals for environmental restoration of waterways? This chapter discusses how Ngāti Porou hapū (sub-tribal communities) desires for the environmental restoration of puna wai (freshwater springs) are responded to through photofilmic practices supplemented by archival research. The Waiapu River on the East Coast of Aotearoa is in the midst of a century-long catastrophic environmental disaster due to deforestation. In response, river hapū have identified ‘desired state’ environmental indicators including that ‘Underground springs are used and protected’. Elders speak about times when there was ‘a tuna in every puna’, an eel in every spring to keep the water clean. Assisted by oral histories and land court records. I work with my Te Whanau-a-Pokai hapū to locate ecological microsites to visually record their current state, establishing working methods for using images as tools for inspiration and instigation for protection, and ecological restoration. The scale of the Waiapu River erosion disaster requires many generations of restorative work. Yet commencing healing the tributaries and freshwater springs of the catchment is conceivable in shorter timeframes. Our remaining elders who once used freshwater springs maintaining strict tikanga (protocols), and who can retell the stories, are now in their eighties and nineties. It is imperative to find collective ways to activate change to uplift the mauri (lifeforce) of the water in their lifetimes. Investigating ancestral places associated with water is important because they reveal the cultural and ecological mātauranga-a-iwi (tribal knowledge) of our tīpuna (ancestors), within tribal organizational boundaries marked by genealogies