SARBADHIKARY | The Place THE PLACE OF DEVOTION of Devotion ..... siting and experiencing divinity in bengal-vaishnavism Sukanya Sarbadhikary Luminos is the open access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framework for preserving and reinvigorating monograph publishing for the future and increases the reach and visibility of important scholarly work. Titles published in the UC Press Luminos model are published with the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as those in our traditional program. www.luminosoa.org The Place of Devotion South aSia acroSS the diSciplineS South Asia Across the Disciplines is a series devoted to publishing first books across a wide range of South Asian studies, including art, history, philology or textual studies, phi- losophy, religion, and the interpretive social sciences. Series authors all share the goal of opening up new archives and suggesting new methods and approaches, while demonstrat- ing that South Asian scholarship can be at once deep in expertise and broad in appeal. Series Editor: Muzaffar Alam, Robert Goldman, and Gauri Viswanathan Founding Editors: Dipesh Chakrabarty, Sheldon Pollock, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam Funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and jointly published by the University of California Press, the University of Chicago Press, and Columbia University Press. 1. Extreme Poetry: The South Asian Movement of Simultaneous Narration, by Yigal Bronner (Columbia) 2. The Social Space of Language: Vernacular Culture in British Colonial Punjab, by Farina Mir (California) 3. Unifying Hinduism: Philosophy and Identity in Indian Intellectual History, by Andrew J. Nicholson (Columbia) 4. The Powerful Ephemeral: Everyday Healing in an Ambiguously Islamic Place, by Carla Bellamy (California) 5. Secularizing Islamists? 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The Place of Devotion: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism, by Sukanya Sarbadhikary (California) The Place of Devotion Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism Sukanya Sarbadhikary univerSity of california preSS University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2015 by The Regents of the University of California This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC BY license. To view a copy of the license, visit http:// creativecommons.org/licenses. Suggested citation: Sarbadhikary, Sukanya. The Place of Devotion: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal- Vaishnavism. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/luminos.2 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Sarbadhikary, Sukanya, 1983- author. The place of devotion : siting and experiencing divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism / Sukanya Sarbadhikary.—First edition. pages cm. — (South Asia across the disciplines) Includes bibliographical references and index. iSbn 978–0-520–28771–6 (pbk. : alk. paper) — iSbn 0–520–28771–1 (pbk. : alk. paper) — iSbn 978–0-520–96266–8 (ebook) — iSbn 0–520–96266–4 (ebook) 1. Vaishnavism—India—Bengal. 2. Sacred space— India—Bengal. 3. Anthropology of religion—India— Bengal. I. Title. II. Series: South Asia across the disciplines. BL1284.532.B46S37 2015 294.5’35095414—dc23 2015007907 Manufactured in the United States of America 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of anSi/niSo z39.48–1992 (r 2002) (Permanence of Paper). To the sounds and silences of faith Contents Acknowledgments xi Note on Transliteration xv 1. Introduction: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism 1 2. Discovering Gupta-Vrindavan: Finding Selves and Places in the Storied Landscape 34 3. Imagining in Gupta-Vrindavan: Experiencing the Self and Emotions in the Mind-Heart Landscape 70 4. Bodying Gupta-Vrindavan: Experiencing the Self and Emotions in the Corporeal Space 109 5. Serving Gupta-Vrindavan: Devotional Service in the Physical Place and the Workings of the “International Society” 150 6. Listening to Vrindavan: Chanting and Musical Experience as Embodying a Devotional Soundscape 179 7. Conclusion 214 Notes 225 Glossary 235 Bibliography 239 Index 261 Acknowledgments One can see and smell the flower, but it becomes the most difficult task to discern whether the sunlight, soil, seed, environment, or gardener played the most significant role in giving it its life and breath. Similarly, I believe, writing the acknowledgements for a book is a most challeng- ing exercise since identifying the encouragement, labor, and love of the many people who have inspired it is next to impossible. So whether or not I name them, my most sincere gratitude extends to all those who have loved and taught me, who have unknowingly shaped my thoughts, emotions, and being, all of which have gone entirely into conceiving this book. However, I take this opportunity to thank those who have directly helped me in conceptualizing and writing the book. I must begin with the soul of the book: the people of Navadvip and Mayapur, who allowed me into their rich and sophisticated devotional lives, who taught me that people, their beliefs, and above all their unstinting faith, are greater teachers than books. Their words, worship, songs, and rhythms have transformed me in ways that are irreversible. I have been fortunate to have Susan Bayly as my supervisor in Cambridge. Her utmost sincerity and involvement with this work have sometimes even surpassed my own. I am most grateful to her for our fruit- ful discussions whenever I needed them, and for reading and commenting on various drafts of my PhD dissertation, which forms the spine of this book. She continuously helped me better my articulations of the complex xi xii | Acknowledgments devotional worldviews of my Vaishnava interlocutors. James Laidlaw and Joanna Cook, examiners of my PhD dissertation, have also been inspira- tional figures, whose most careful reading of the work and critical appre- ciation and input helped enormously in reworking the dissertation for the book. My supervisor and examiners were essentially instrumental in nurturing my confidence in the future potential of my research. I thank Trinity College, Gates Cambridge Trust, and Overseas Research Studentship for their generous support during my PhD years in Cambridge. I also thank the Richards Fund, Smuts Memorial Fund, and William Wyse Fund for their additional support during the primary fifteen months of my fieldwork, between July 2009 and September 2010. I thank Ashok Ray and Kalpana Ray for their warmest hospitality during this period of my fieldwork, and during all subsequent visits. Words and gratitude can never be enough to acknowledge the inspi- ration I have been blessed with by Arindam Chakrabarti. He taught me the simplest of truths: that just as smell cannot be understood with- out smelling, faith cannot be understood without believing. My fifteen months in the field, and my work with Vaishnavas generally, consumed my senses, faith, and knowledge. I would not have understood devotion without my ardent teacher. Sibaji Bandopadhyay was the first person to hear about, empathize with, criticize, and refine my initial analyses of the fieldwork material and my conceptualizations