RT Article
T1 Pilgrimage Space, Hinduization of Space, Hindutva Politics of Space, and the Case of Ayodhyā as a Religious and Religiopolitical Hotspot
JF Numen
VO 70
IS 1
SP 95
OP 112
A1 Jacobsen, Knut A. 1956-
LA English
PB Brill
YR 2023
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1830475363
AB In this article I analyze aspects of religious geography in the mobilization by Hindu nationalists in India in the 1980s and 1990s and how Hindu nationalism and Hindu religious geography were merged in the case of the Ayodhyā conflict. Ayodhyā was consciously changed from a pilgrimage center (tīrtha) of diminishing religious importance into a religiopolitical hotspot by political forces. The potential for a Hindu–Muslim conflict and for mobilizing support for their vision of a Hinduized India was probably what made the place attractive for Hindu nationalists. The article argues that Hindu nationalism exploited the views of territoriality of traditions of pilgrimage and salvific space and merged these with their political nationalist agenda, and that it was this blending of views of space from the pilgrimage traditions, ideas of national territory, and Hindu nationalists’ ideas of a homogeneous Hindu nation with aggressive political agitation that turned Ayodhyā into a religiopolitical hotspot.
K1 religious hotspot
K1 religious geography
K1 Hindu pilgrimage
K1 Ayodhyā
K1 Hindu Nationalism
DO 10.1163/15685276-12341677