2. introduction
own (see figure 1). As they watched, a little gondola made its transit across a high
metal scaffolding so that priests could deck the deity with jewels and garlands. The
widespread worship of Hanuman, especially in monumental representations such as
this, is one of the most striking developments in Hindu practice over the past sev-
eral decades. Sure enough, Bangalore ’s Hanuman was carved out of a huge slab of
stone only in 1976. The rock, standing erect like a sentinel on an empty hill, had long
been venerated, almost as if it had been waiting for its inner identity to be re-
vealed—as part and parcel of the new Bangalore. In similar fashion, many people
think Bangalore itself is a harbinger of the India yet to be. (See figure A at the Web
site http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/vasu/loh.))
Hanuman’s crowds were substantial, but they were dwarfed by those that pressed
in on another temple in the neighborhood. This was the “temple on a hill,” inaugu-
rated in 1997 by ISKCON, the International Society for Krsna Consciousness, the
organization popularly known in the West as the Hare Krishna movement.
ISKCON traces its lineage to the Bengali ecstatic Chaitanya (ca. 1500), whose full
name, Krishna Chaitanya, means “consciousness of Krishna.” ISKCON insists it is
also heir to a Vedic past that stands at the horizon of humankind ’s historical mem-
ory. But ISKCON’s own founding event transpired only much later, when a Cal-
cutta businessman named Abhay Charan De, soon to be called Bhaktivedanta
Swami Prabhupada, landed on the Lower East Side of New York City in 1965 and
began to dance and sing. In those days of spiritual searching and disaffection with
the Vietnam War, he quickly attracted a following; ISKCON was incorporated as a
storefront mission near Tompkins Square Park within a year. Coincidentally, this
was also the time when American immigration laws were revised, and substantial
numbers of highly educated Indians began settling in the United States. ISKCON
temples in New York and elsewhere quickly became shared East/West space: where
else could the new immigrants gather to see the images and sing the songs that pro-
vide so much of the vocabulary of Hindu life?
Prabhupada thought the movement ought to be not just east-to-west but west-to-
east, and in that regard the temple on “Hare Krishna Hill” in Bangalore is one of his
followers’ most impressive accomplishments. Its upscale patrons are definitely
local—they’ve had to fight off denominational leaders based elsewhere in India to
protect their autonomy—but their inspiration is global. It shows in their ahead-of-
the-curve architecture and Web site (www.iskconbangalore.org), and in the elabo-
rate crowd-control systems that funnel visitors toward an auspicious vision of
Krishna and his beloved consort Radha deep in the sparkling marble South
Indian–style temple. A maze of metal bars and covered aerial walkways guides