Hindu Pilgrimage

Shifting Patterns of Worldview of Srisailam in South India

Prabhavati C. Reddy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317806301
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Hinduism

In recent years, changes in religious studies in general and the study of Hinduism in particular have drawn more scholarly attention to other forms of the Hindu faith that are concretely embodied in temples, icons, artworks, rituals, and pilgrimage practices. This book analyses the phenomenon of pilgrimage as a religious practice and experience and examines Shrî Shailam, a renowned south Indian pilgrimage site of Shiva and Goddess Durga. In doing so, it investigates two dimensions: the worldview of a place that is of utmost sanctity for Hindu pilgrims and its historical evolution from medieval to modern times.

Reddy blends religion, anthropology, art history and politics into one interdisciplinary exploration of how Shrî Shailam became the epicentre for Shaivism. Through this approach, the book examines Shrî Shailam's influence on pan-Indian religious practices; the amalgamation of Brahmanical and regional traditions; and the intersection of the ideological and the civic worlds with respect to the management of pilgrimage centre in modern times.

This book is the first thorough study of Shrî Shailam and brings together phenomenological and historical study to provide a comprehensive understanding of both the religious dimension and the historical development of the social organization of the pilgrimage place. As such, it will be of interest to students of Hinduism, Pilgrimage and South Asian Studies.

Part I
Exploring Shrī Shailam

Why another book on a Hindu pilgrimage site?

Since I was worshiped with white jasmine flowers
I became known as Mallikārjuna, the Lord as White Jasmine
The way devotees adore you like insects captivated by the sound of bee
you became known as Bhramarāmbha, the Mother Bee.

Shrī Shaila Kshetram¹

On Shiva’s Great Night in March of 2002, the sounds of chanting reverberated throughout Mount Shrī Shailam. Echoes of mantras came from the inner sanctum of the Mallikārjuna Temple, where a group of eleven Vedic pundits recited Rudra-Shiva hymns as the temple’s priests performed the mahārudra consecration ritual to the liṇga, the main object of worship. On this auspicious night of the annual festival, the consecration ritual is performed continuously for four hours – from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. – in celebration of Shiva’s first manifestation as Jyotirliṇga, or the “fiery column of light” on the earth.²

Around 10 p.m. all the lights in the temple complex are turned off, submersing the inner courtyards in swaths of darkness; followed by absolute silence from the anxiously waiting devotees. This darkness was created intentionally to facilitate a special act of worship to Shiva to be performed by a community of weavers. This temple tradition is performed every year by the head of a weaver’s family from a neighboring region. Under the auspices of starlit sky, a nude man carries several yards of white cloth to the rooftop of the Mallikārjuna Temple. This cloth is then draped over the main temple tower and the eight statues of Nandi bulls sitting along the roof’s edge of the front hall. It is woven specifically by a weaver to honor Shiva on the Great Night of the festival.

While these activities were carried out within the temple complex, devotees, who kept an all-night vigil for Shiva, engaged themselves in different forms of devotion and worship. Speakers transmitted hymns to people in every corner of the town, whether they were sleeping, meditating in their tents and hotels, bathing in the river, or singing bhajans. The vibrant atmosphere on the mountain brought the whole town to life as people stayed awake all night. When the lights were finally turned on again at the temple, the main tower and the Nandi Bulls were adorned with the white cloth in a turban-like fashion. Thus, Shiva is worshipped concurrently in two different settings: inside the sanctum by the priests, and outside at the temple tower by a community of weavers. While temple and local traditions may be perceived as dichotomous, the events at the Mallikārjuna Temple represent a fusion of idiosyncratic practices within mainstream Pan-Hindu Brahmanical tradition with the dimension of local conventions at Shrī Shailam – a renowned Indian pilgrimage site and the subject of the present study.

1 Introduction

Shrī Shailam (sometimes still referred to by its pre-medieval name of Shrī Parvata) sits on the south bank of the Krishna River in the midst of the rolling Nallamala Hills against a backdrop of a variegated landscape. At an elevation of 476 meters (nearly 1,600 feet), Mount Shrī Shailam rises out of the earth like a volcanic island due to the generally flat terrain and the natural course of the Krishna River, which meanders in crescent-like sweeps in the northerly, easterly, and southerly directions. The topography of the Greater Shrī Shaila Kshetra with its eight gateway sites – as described in the medieval Sanskrit texts – constitutes a much wider area of 700 square kilometers (270 square miles), extending beyond the rocky terrain of Shrī Shailam and its neighboring plateau. Geographically, Mount Shrī Shailam forms the innermost region of the Greater Shrī Shaila Kshetra and has been the earthly home of Shiva and the Goddess Durgā for many centuries. Atop the mountain, the town of Shrī Shailam spans over ten square miles and consists of the main temple complex, religious institutions, residential settlements, local businesses, hotels, ashrams, museums, and Telugu University. With a population of about 24,000, life in Shrī Shailam revolves around the main temple site, which is situated within a massive prākāra (walled enclosure), standing 20 feet (6 meters) tall and running about 500 feet (150 meters) from east to west and 600 feet (180 meters) from north to south. Travel to Shrī Shailam, can only be done overland from Hyderabad, which is about 210 kilometers (130 miles) from the site. Hyderabad – a city of more than 5.5 million people – is the capital of Andhra Pradesh¹ and is the airport hub used to visit Shrī Shailam for residents of Vijayawada, Kurnool, Tirupati, Bangalore, Chennai, Bombay and Delhi.

Shrī Shailam, or the Sacred Mountain, has been Shiva’s Tīrtha-Kshetra for more than 2,000 years. Locally he is known as Mallikārjuna, or the “Lord as White Jasmine”, and his consort, Durgā, is known as Bhramarāmbhā, or the “Mother Bee.” The site has been acclaimed for its distinctive position as part of the two well-known Pan-Indian traditions that emphasize the theological significance of Shiva and Durgā as manifested divinity. The Jyotirliṅga tradition acknowledges Shrī Shailam as one of India’s twelve sacred Shiva shrines because of the site’s participation in the shared ideology of Shiva’s manifestation in the form of the “liṭga of light” (SP 1.1.8. 1–1). The pilgrimage center has also been a renowned place for representing the two strands of the goddess’s tradition: one speaks of Durgā’s manifestation in the form of a giant bee, the independent patron goddess (SKh Chapters 13–31), and the other links the site with the shaktipītha ideology of the goddess Sati, who is said to have manifested in the form of shakti or energy (Sircar 1973: 5–7). Analogous to the Jyotirlihga of Shiva, Shrī Shailam is also considered to be one of the holiest shaktipīṭha shrines of Sati, the consort of Shiva. This representation of two Pan-Indian traditions of the Shaiva (relating to Shiva) and the Shākta (pertaining to Durgā) has earned Shrī Shailam a distinctive position compared to hundreds of other Hindu pilgrimage places. The contemporary temple practices demonstrate a continuity of the Shaiva and the Shākta traditions in the form of daily worship, liturgy, rituals, and annual festivals; however, these traditions have also been influenced by regional customs in the synchronization of the ideologies of Shiva, Durgā, and her alter ego, Mother Bee.

Figure 1.1 Shrī Shailam in Southern India

The Sacred Mountain was also known for its many intriguing local traditions and popular religious practices associated with different social groups, but over time the belief systems, narrative literature, and religious practices of diverse communities were eventually folded into the larger Brahmanical social structure of the Shrī Shaila Devasthānam. As a matter of fact, the active participation of these social groups only took place during the temple’s annual festivals and chariot processions. However, the activities of Vīra Shaiva social groups are vibrant, as a great number of devotees complete their 40-day vow of the shivadīksha ritual, and the Vīramushṭi groups partake in fire-walking and body-needle-threading rituals with emotional fervor. Also, the demonstration of a variety of joyous cultural performances during the grand chariot processions of deities conveys how different communities come together irrespective of their caste and socio-economic status. It is only during these annual festival processions that I can imagine a Turnerian “anti-social structure” environment exists (Turner 1969), where people can transcend both the caste and social status barriers that are present in daily life. The hundreds of people pulling the chariot on the main streets of Shrī Shailam seem like one enthusiastic, homogenous community of pilgrims and natives. But this communal homogeneity is transitory and brief – lasting only a few hours. Overall, the festivals integrate local conventions and religious practices of community groups within the cultural context of the Hindu Brahmanical temple religion at Shrī Shailam.

Set far from major population centers, Shrī Shailam has always been a remote pilgrimage site, deemed a “center out there.” It has been a pilgrimage destination for devotees, wandering ascetics, religious teachers, Siddha yogis, and traditional medicine practitioners of Āyurveda and homeopathy. In the process of motive-driven pursuits, whether for religious or spiritual reasons, ill-health or other mundane causes, these travelers have had to make arduous journeys, trekking hills and valleys and crossing the Krishna River just to reach Shrī Shailam. In spite of the laborious trip involved, the Sacred Mountain has become an eminent pilgrimage center, attracting pilgrims from many different regions of India. Subsequently three main pilgrimage routes have developed since ancient times, facilitating the journey of travelers from the northern, eastern and western regions.

Numerous literary sources and folklore accounts describe the arduous journeys of pilgrims, saints, and theologians and their experiences traveling to Shrī Shailam. A thirteenth century Telugu work, Mallikārjuna Paṇḍitārādhya Caritra, contains a lively depiction of pilgrims from different regions making pilgrimage to the Mountain. The work refers to Mallikārjuna Paṇḍitārādhya, a prominent Shaiva religious teacher-scholar, who had the vision of Mount Shrī Shailam as the liṇga of Shiva during his pilgrimage (Pālkūriki 1990: 210–283). Some recurring themes in popular folk songs emphasize both the metaphysical aspects of the “other worldly,” such as the strenuous journey and liberation, and the devotional aspects of “this worldly,” such as the worship and fulfilling of vows to Shiva and Mother Bee (B. Reddy 1994). Additional accounts describe the pilgrims’ difficult journeys to Shrī Shailam, which are often compared to strenuous pilgrimages conducted by devotees to Mount Kailāsa, Shiva’s most sacred mountain abode that is located deep in the Himalayas. These travel accounts indicate that the journey experience itself had become a kind of penance and ascetic endeavor for pilgrims of Shrī Shailam, and perhaps such strenuous experiences may be required of devotees, who are, after all, making a journey in the name of Shiva, the paradigmatic, resolute ascetic-yogi.

Modern-day pilgrims and tourist travelers now have it easier as they no longer undergo the difficulties that their counterparts experienced. The construction of a railroad and improvements to public transportation infrastructure has facilitated a more comfortable travel experience. The building of a paved road through the hilly ranges to Shrī Shailam in 1957 and the construction of the hydroelectric dam over the Krishna River in 1981 have also alleviated many of the obstacles of travel and significantly increased the number of visitors to this once inaccessible hill town. What Colin Mackenzie called a sleepy town with a few temples and a priest (Mackenzie 1801:309–314) in 1798 is now abustling residential town that swells to a population of hundreds of thousands during annual temple festivals.

For many centuries, Shrī Shailam has been a living pilgrimage center with a captivating history of sacred geography, narrative traditions of Shiva and Durgā, temple rituals, and annual festivals. During the medieval period, the Mountain became a prominent religious center for the development of the Smārta and Āgama traditions, the Shaiva orders of the Atimārga and the Mantramārga Schools, the Siddha Yoga, and the Shākta traditions.

Apart from its great medieval past, Shrī Shailam also has an interesting modern history filled with stories of revival and transformation. Consequently, the crystallization of Shrī Shailam’s lengthy history is explored from three dimensions. The first aspect focuses on the emergence of the Sacred Mountain as the Greater Srisaila Kshetra with its own sthalamāhātmya literature and pilgrimage traditions, and the development of distinctive sacred geography embedded within symbolic imagery and spiritual meanings. The second aspect explores the complex religious history of the pilgrimage center in reference to various branches of the Shaiva and Shākta traditions from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries. The final and third aspect recounts the modern history of Shrī Shailam from the eighteenth century to the present day, with reference to the custodial authority of religious institutions in colonial times and the prominent role of the Endowment Department of Andhra Pradesh (EDAP) in restoring the pilgrimage center to its former glory in the twentieth century. The three facets of Shrī Shailam’s story demonstrate the processes of synchronization, transformation, revival, and innovation, and exemplify the way human agency in the form of a religious leader, a social group, a sect, or a government organization has played significant roles in the shifting and the shaping of the Sacred Mountain’s history.

2 Theoretical approaches and methods

A substantial amount of ink has been spilled over the application of theoretical issues and theory choices in religious studies. There is no need to further expound upon that literature here, rather I would like to draw attention to some aspects of the approaches that have enhanced my understanding of specific topics about religious phenomena and the historical aspect of such phenomena. For the study of Hindu pilgrimage places, I do think one should apply both historical and anthropological approaches in order to understand the continuing process of living traditions. In this way, one is able to discern the ways in which these traditions have been shaped by different patterns of religious phenomena, as well as determine the role of human agency in the development of religious systems. For a historian of religious studies, investigations should revolve around the linear progression of continuities and changes, and the historical development of religious traditions and communities based on different sources including texts, material culture, and religious practices within a particular temporo-spatial context. An anthropologist, particularly a cultural anthropologist, undertakes the ethnographic study of living religious communities by means of observing different patterns of festivals, ritual performances, and worship practices within a culture-specific context. The understanding of the historical past and living present of a religious tradition or a community can be achieved with these two approaches.

In recent decades, the scholarship with regards to religious studies in general, and Hinduism in particular, demonstrates a noticeable shift from textual studies of scriptures and theology to other forms of religiosity represented by temples, churches, and pilgrimage practices including icons personifying religious ideas and pop cultural images. This change in perspective has been inspired, to a great extent, by theoretical approaches in humanities and social sciences that have called for more scholarly attention to the historical and anthropological study of pilgrimage sites and religious institutions, religious groups, and their practices. As a result, a number of works have been produced in the area of pilgrimage studies, which has developed into a field of study in its own right, within the domains of the history of religions and anthropology. Not only is this move a marked change from text-based religious studies, but it has also revitalized the use of interdisciplinary methodologies in the exploration of world religious cultures.

The interest in pilgrimage studies in Western and Eastern religious traditions rose dramatically during the 1970s when published works in this field demonstrated four major lines of inquiry in broadest sense: pilgrimage as a phenomenon, pilgrimage as a tradition, pilgrimage as a religious practice, and the study of a pilgrimage site. The Turnerian theory of pilgrimage proposes two different concepts of pilg...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Note on transliteration
• Abbreviations
• Part I Exploring Shrī Shailam: why another book on a Hindu pilgrimage site?
• Part II The sacred mountain of Shiva: The place — idealization, materialization, and sanctification
• Part III Religious communities making the history of Shrī Shailam
• Part IV The history and development of the pilgrimage center in the modern era
• Conclusion
• Glossary
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index