well-known spot for this rite is at the city
of Allahabad, at the confluence of the
Ganges and the Yamuna Rivers.
Mauritius
Island nation in the Indian Ocean, 1,200
miles east of the African coast. Mauritius
has a significant Hindu diaspora popu-
lation. As in many other cases, Indians
were first brought to Mauritius as inden-
tured agricultural laborers, in this case
as workers on the sugar plantations.
Currently, they comprise nearly 75 per-
cent of the island’s population, running
the nation’s political system. The Hindus
on Mauritius have transferred India’s
sacred geography to their new land: A
southern lake named Grand Bassinis
claimed to have an underground con-
nection to the River Ganges, and the
lake has become a significant pilgrim-
age site.
Maurya Dynasty
The earliest of the great Indian empires.
At its zenith, the Maurya dynasty ruled
over most of the Indian subcontinent,
except in the deep south. The dynasty
was founded by Chandragupta Maurya
in the fourth century B.C.E., but reached
its peak under his grandson Ashoka,
who reigned from 269–232 B.C.E. The
kingdom was centered in the lower
Ganges basin, with its capital at
Pataliputra, near the modern city of
Patna in the state ofBihar. The Mauryan
empire is the first historically docu-
mented centralized Indian empire; it
was operated and maintained by a large
governmental bureaucracy. Despite its
size and organization, the empire was
short-lived. It began to disintegrate on
Ashoka’s death; fifty years later it had
virtually disappeared.
Maya
ASanskritword. Maya’s literal meaning
is “magic” or “illusion”; the connotation
it carries is a magic show or illusion in
which objects appear to be present, but
are not. In the Hindu philosophical
tradition, maya describes how human
beings become confused about the true
nature of the world and themselves.
Such illusion keeps them enmeshed in
bondage to their desires and continues
the cycle of reincarnation (samsara)
that comes from this; at the same time,
however, such people are unaware that
they are in bondage.
In Hindu theism—in which the high-
est power is conceived as a deity—maya
is generally described as one of God’s
powers, through which the deity can
accomplish his or her purposes; in this
understanding, maya is seen as an exist-
ing entity. The analysis of maya is a little
different in the Advaita Vedantaschool,
which propounds a position known as
monism. Monism claims that a single
Ultimate Reality, called the unqualified
Brahman, lies behind all things. Despite
the appearance of difference and diver-
sity, the only thing that really exists is
this formless, unqualified Brahman. For
the Advaitins, the assumption of diversity
is a fundamental misunderstanding of
the ultimate nature of things. The
Advaita school accepts that God wields
maya as a power, but since God (as a
being with particular qualities) is con-
sidered lower than the highest, ultimate
Brahman, both God and maya are part
this lower reality. Thus, both are ulti-
mately not real. The Advaitins describe
maya as confusion from the lack of
correct understanding; the confusion
disappears when perfect liberation has
been reached.Maya Devi
Local goddessconsidered to be a form
of Durga, whose home is in the northern
Indian town and sacred city of
Haridwar. According to local tradition,
the site where her temple is built is one
of the Shakti Pithas, a network of sites
sacred to the Goddess which spreads
throughout the subcontinent. Each
Shakti Pitha marks the site where a body
part of the dismembered goddess Sati
fell to earth, taking form there as a dif-
ferent goddess; Maya Devi was Sati’sMaya Devi