The practice of religion
The most visible and common way in which religion is expressed on the
subcontinent is in its practice, especially in the form of diverse and colorful
rituals. There are many reasons why ritual is so popular in India today. For
one thing, from the beginning of Indian civilization, ritual has served to
express one’s fundamental place in the social and cosmic order. Ritual acts
out one’s relationship to family and kin, expresses one’s obligations
consistent with dharma, and enacts “tradition” in such a way as to make that
“tradition” accessible to the senses. One can see, hear, taste, even smell the
“tradition”; one can experience “tradition” somatically. One expresses
one’s identity as a member of a particular family or village/city or of a
regional or linguistic matrix. Ritual also serves a pragmatic purpose in con-
temporary life as many see in it a strategy for changing the circumstances of
their lives – the quest for better jobs, educational opportunities, etc. are often
expressed ritually. In a ritual one can negotiate or reflect the various passages
and boundaries that modernity imposes – between global and sub-ethnic
identities; between the past and the contemporary moment; between
generations; between “us” and “them.”
Pilgrimages and festivals
More people have been making religious pilgrimages in India today than
has been true at any other point in history. While classical texts identify
any number of places where a pilgrim may attain special grace, the building
of roads and railway connections, vigorous advertising, and increased wealth
all have made pilgrimage an enormously popular enterprise today through-
out the subcontinent. Sacred places abound: riverbanks and junctures,
hill tops, geographically suggestive landscapes – many have been myth-
ologically enhanced. One or another deity is said to have set up residence
or to have performed a certain act in a specific place. S ́iva, Vis.n.u, or a
goddess are said to have sacralized at least 108 places each throughout India.
The subcontinent itself is said to be sacred land centered as it is by Kailas ́a,
the mountain at the center of the world. A given state can be rendered
mythologically sacred as when Tamil Nadu is said to have six cakrasor sacred
places – sacred, that is, to the Tamil’s favorite god Murukan
̄
. Tamil Nadu,
as a whole, is thereby rendered congruent to the body of a yogin and to the
cosmos and each holy stead of Murukan
̄
becomes a point of access to heaven
itself. Geographer S. N. Bhardwaj has noted that there are several levels of
pilgrimage in the Indian context ranging from the national to the local.^6
There are the national or even international sites, such as Va ̄ra ̄nası ̄, Tirupati,
Religion in Contemporary India 197