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Re-Examining Ecological Aspects of Vrindavan Pilgrimage

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Re-Examining Ecological Aspects of Vrindavan Pilgrimage See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285516569 Re-examining Ecological Aspects of Vrindavan Pilgrimage Article · April 2014 DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-2932-2-7 CITATIONS READS 4 312 1 author: Joshua Nash University of New England (Australia) 66 PUBLICATIONS 128 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Vrindavan and Indian environmentalism View project Norfolk Island placename research View project All content following this page was uploaded by Joshua Nash on 02 February 2017. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. Chapter 7 Re-examining Ecological Aspects of Vrindavan Pilgrimage Joshua Nash You have seen the forest fi lled with fl owers glowing with the rays of the full moon; Made beautiful by leaves of trees, playfully shimmering from the gentle breeze off the river Yamuna Schweig ( 2005 , p. 31) Pilgrimage is a journey made to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion. A prominent and creative activity in many religions, it is one of the oldest forms of travel. Pilgrimage is already a statement or action of fl ows of faith through travel within, beyond and across borders. It shows how beliefs can be moved, altered and managed to meet the differing needs of pilgrims and the pilgrimage destination. The process also illustrates how pilgrimage can go wrong; different priorities and foci produce different necessities and concerns. These are often exacerbated where vastly dissimilar cultures are in contact and where important yet disparate religious, social and ecological issues are at play. In pilgrimage, boundaries and borders are created, invented and reinvented, pushed and sometimes broken. This chapter pres- ents a situation where the physical, spiritual and ecological aspects of a specifi c pilgrimage location are pushed to their limits and how modern precedents such as those enabled by modern transportation and religious tourism meet traditional religious and ecological values. Perspectives in religious anthropology, religious tourism and pilgrimage studies have witnessed dramatic change over the last few decades. These have occurred in parallel with changes in other modern technological contexts. Internet pilgrimage (Hill-Smith 2009 ; MacWilliams 2002 ) , science fi ction pilgrimage (Porter 2004 ) and amusement park pilgrimage (Hendry 2007 ) all reinterpret the Durkheimian notion of the sacred as ‘non-ordinary’ experience (Durkheim 1965 ; Turner 1986 ) . These approaches introduce a movement away from a pilgrimage invented and warranted by religion to one borne of fresh hi-tech ideals and industrialized journeying. Recent J. Nash (*) Discipline of Linguistics, University of Adelaide, Australia e-mail: [email protected] L. Manderson et al. (eds.), Flows of Faith: Religious Reach and Community 105 in Asia and the Pacifi c, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2932-2_7, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 106 J. Nash volumes in anthropology chronicle this break from the traditions and habits of clergy-based and conventional travel to holy sites for emancipation, redemption or salvation (Badone and Roseman 2004 ; Kitiarsa 2008 ; see also Chap. 8 by Pacey, Chap. 6 by Millie and Chap. 2 by Reuter in this volume ). These works have com- monly evolved and arisen out of similar contexts to this volume – scholars meet to discuss topical issues, share personal experiences, collaborate and work together. Such intellectual situations can themselves be interpreted as pilgrimage encounters. The days are gone where travel to a remote ashram was essential and even a pre- requisite for enlightenment and progress on one’s chosen path. Although contemporary interpretations of belief systems representing idealized and symbolic rather than actual representations of place employ prevailing forms and norms such as megachurches (Chin 2008 ) and the merchandizing of religious paraphernalia to distant diaspora (Sinha 2008 ) , the traditional method of physical movement to a sacred place is still the most common and instinctive of all pilgrim- age processes (Coleman and Eade 2004 ; Coleman and Elsner 1995 ) . Basso ( 1996 ) proposes a method to arrive at an understanding of place, its meaning and its spiri- tuality, by being refl ective and tapping into the relevance and vibration of the place names given by the original inhabitants. By observing the natural and divine prac- tices of the Western Apache and reinterpreting how they relate to their land through language and inherited wisdom, he suggests being slow, introspective and open to listening to the ancestors who knew the land intimately. Similarly, in their volume dedicated to the ethnography and practice of walking, Ingold and Vergunst ( 2008 ) depict the pilgrim both as ‘impressionable’, i.e. being open to receiving the sense already present in a space-place and ‘impressioner’, one who impresses something of the sacred onto the space-place by dint of their contemplative presence where they walk and think. Thinking and feeling are also more subtle and abstract views and interpretations of pilgrimage (Hill-Smith 2009 ; Shinde 2008 ) where a degree of knowing of the sacred is achieved through direct connection with the place we traverse and upon which we meditate. I explore this form and approach to pilgrimage, which I term ‘traditional pilgrim- age’, in this chapter. I aim specifi cally to contextualize a signifi cant body of litera- ture dealing with ecological and theological aspects of the Krishna cult and incorporate this with a personal process of pilgrimage. As a secondary aim, I explore whether scriptural descriptions are playful analogies and metaphors describing what once was (or might be imagined), or whether they are tools that can be utilized to provide a reinterpretation of understanding the (potential) effects of modernization and its infl uence on the state of religious pilgrimage in Vrindavan. Vrindavan: The Divine Forest Grove Vrindavan, northern India, the medieval Hindu pilgrimage town associated with the legend of Radha and Krishna, is a pertinent and illustrative case study for observing and understanding literal and metaphorical notions and concerns of modern 7 Re-examining Ecological Aspects of Vrindavan Pilgrimage 107 pilgrimage. My initial attraction through pilgrimage to Vrindavan was personal, not as a pilgrim alone, but as an environmentalist – pilgrim. In 1998, I travelled to Vrindavan to work on World Wide Fund for Nature – India’s (WWF-India) Vrindavan Conservation Project (VCP) (see Nash 1998 ) . But what began as an environmental interest became a philosophical passion. While the work of WWF- India has concluded, my involvement with the area is ongoing and personal. The project was headed by noted local ecologist Sri Sevak Sharan, with whom I have continued to collaborate since the winding up of the VCP in late 1999. Our collabo- ration has focused on the development of a philosophical precept which we term the ‘Vrindavan environmental concept’. One of our major tasks is to document the history and theory behind Vrindavan conservation, of which the VCP is one major chapter, and to synthesize and present a concise method of sadhana (spiritual practice) based on the lessons which have arisen out of the successes and failings of Vrindavan conservation. The signifi cance of Vrindavan as a place of cultural and spiritual signifi cance has rendered it a dham , a highly charged place of divine congregation within Indian religion, thought and folklore. In past practices such as temple visitation by locals, chanting and donor seeking, and contemporary practices such as encouraging both domestic and international devotees, Vrindavan illustrates the environmental and sociological effects and impacts of the massive movement of people on remote and ecologically sensitive places. Modern Vrindavan dham has not lived up to the descriptions of well-known medieval saints of the divine forest groves (Goswami 1991 ; White 1977 ) . Open sewers, waste mismanagement, governmental corruption and sporadic development have rendered Vrindavan an ecologically disturbed and unhygienic place to live. Over the last 30 years, the outskirts of Vrindavan have been sub-divided into several housing colonies; the circumambulation path surrounding the town has been sealed, leading to increased vehicle traffi c and the deforestation of previously remote areas. The recent construction of a transportation bridge over the Yamuna river has been perceived locally and internationally as unprecedented in its developmental and ecological harm. 1 The effect of this increased human load on Vrindavan provided the impetus for the development of an approach to environmentalism in Vrindavan, which has focussed on the preservation and reforestation of the sacred groves of the town. This philosophical perspective and environmental approach specifi c to Vrindavan is detailed below. Re-examining the processes of pilgrimage (Coleman and Eade 2004 ) in light of current general theory and thought in Indian environmentalism (Chapple 1998 ) helps explain the reasoning behind Vrindavan environmental perspectives. Approaching Vrindavan pilgrimage and its related ecological aspects anthropo- logically demonstrates, fi rst, the relationship between visitation to the pilgrimage location as a goal on the path of devotion and salvation (Haberman 1994 ) and the divine symbology of the pilgrimage location. Second, it highlights the mismatch between the ancient scriptural depictions
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