Browsing by Author "Rana P. B. Singh"

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Brahman judges in traditional hindu society
(1985) Bradley R. Hertel; Rana P. B. Singh
In theory and in practice, the classical Hindu system of law has been seen as both logical and irrational (Chaudhuri, 1979: 198 and Glucklich, 1984: 143–144) and principled but inconsistent (Glucklich, 1982: 59). The present study attempts to explain the apparent tendency toward inconsistency in Hindu law by examining not the ancient lawbooks of classical law but the practice of customary law built in large part on those texts and administered by Brahman judges. This study is based on accounts of that system provided by Brahman judges and their clients in northern India. Me conclude that complexities in the Hindu legal system reflect Eichinger Ferro‐Luzzi's (1983‐a) polythetic prototype model in which alternates are associated with a dominant form. This model is shown to apply to Hindu concepts and practices regarding duty, sin, judgement, and atonement and may hold promise for interpreting inconsistencies in the administration of justice in the west. © 1985 Hemisphere Publishing Corporation.
Cultural Diplomacy in India: Dispersal, Heritage Representation, Contestation, and Development
(Springer Singapore, 2021) Rana P. B. Singh; Pravin S. Rana
India (Bhārat), being one of the oldest cultures with continuity of traditions has introduced cultural diplomacy in the ancient past, and constantly followed the path of cultural dispersal as illustrated with the diffusion of Buddhism during the fifth-century BCE—the CE twelfth century in southeast and east Asia. One such example was marriage of princess from Ayodhya (India) to the king of Gimhae (Korea). Of course, the orientation of these diplomacies and uses changed from one dynasty to another. These dispersal and interaction lead to ‘heritage making’ in different parts. With change in ideologies by the present ruling government, representation of heritage is now superimposed by Hindu nationalism, resulting to rejuvenate Hindu temples and converting them as a cultural hub for tourism, replacing spiritual environment and religious identities, as exemplified in case of Ayodhya and Varanasi. Since 2014, the new government under their missions of (i) Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), and (ii) Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (PRASAD), working to strengthen and promote the holy-heritage sites under pilgrimage-tourism in a sustainable way and befitting into the SDGs. However, only the time will give answer to the degree of success. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021.
Ecological Cosmology in Hindu Tradition for the 21st Century
(Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., 2013) Rana P. B. Singh
[No abstract available]
Geography of Hindu Pilgrimage Places (Tīrthas) in India
(Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, 2023) Rana P. B. Singh; Pravin S. Rana
Hindu pilgrimage, Tīrtha-yātrā, is a liminal process that establishes participation in the spiritual realm, associated with the sacred land. It engages with sacredscapes that are partly defined by the material world but rather more strongly by sacred symbols, cosmogonic and cultural astronomy, traditions, festivals, and the belief that these places are spiritual crossing places into the transcendent realms of the divine. India’s geography may be conceived as a ‘faithscape’, a nested series of pilgrimage places and their hinterlands. Topographically, pilgrimage places may be classified into three groups: (i) water sites usually associated with sacred immersion on auspicious occasions, (ii) shrines dedicated to particular deities, which are visited by pilgrims of particular sects or with particular needs, and (iii) Kshetra, sacred territory, usually defined by an archetypal mandala, travelling along which brings special merit. This chapter discusses the functioning, importance, and role of Hindu pilgrimages, concerning historical context (e.g. religious texts and their uses), contemporary situation, and the prospects on the line of sustainability and pilgrimage tourism, initiated by the government, e.g. PRASHAD, ‘Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual, Heritage Augmentation Drive’. This mission aims to fulfil one of the Sustainable Development Goals that refers to the ‘integrated development of pilgrimage destinations in planned, prioritised and sustainable manner’. This chapter synthesises all our previous works (1980–2023) in the systemic form. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Hindu Pilgrimages (India) and Religious Functionaries
(Springer, 2023) Rana P. B. Singh; Pravin S. Rana
The role of Hindu functionaries (‘religious workers’) is of vital importance in maintaining and continuity of traditions through caring, promoting, and sustaining the religious and pilgrimage rituals and associated festivities, which altogether promote pilgrimage and religious tourism. Such groups include a variety and distinctive types of functionaries, specialized in various activities involved in pilgrimages; they are broadly categorized into two groups, i.e., sacred site operators, and pilgrimage operators. At some pilgrimage places, like Varanasi and Gaya, the specialized functionaries deal with ancestral and post-creation rites. A case study of religious trust, specialized in arranging pilgrimage, reveals that faith is the essential part that has developed and continued in the family tradition for generations. Increasing consciousness to maintain Hindu identity, the pilgrimage is becoming more popular, resulting thereby strong acceptability and support to pilgrimage functionaries. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
Hindu pilgrimages: The contemporary scene
(Springer Netherlands, 2015) Rana P. B. Singh; Martin J. Haigh
A Tirtha yatra, Hindu pilgrimage, is a liminal process that establishes participation in the spiritual realm. It is also undertaken as a social duty, a rite of passage and mode of supplication and engages with sacred landscapes that are partly defined by sacred symbols, cosmographic and astrological alignments, traditions, festivals, and the belief that these places are spiritual crossing-places into the transcendent realms of the divine. Hindu holy tirthas topographically may be classified into three groups: (i) water-sites usually associated with sacred immersion on auspicious occasions, (ii) shrines dedicated to particular deities, which are visited by pilgrims of particular sects or with particular needs, and (iii) kshetra, sacred lands, usually defined by a cosmic mandala, travelling along which brings special merit. We explore the Hindu pilgrimage experience and some key pilgrimage destinations including the Kumbha Mela, the world’s largest religious gathering, Varanasi’s Panchakroshi Yatra and the Vraj Parikrama. We also look at the growth of new pilgrimage sites both in India and among the diaspora. With the growth of global tourism and increasing interest in both œseeing culture in the mirror of history and tradition, the survival and continuity of pilgrimage ceremonies that preserve centuries-old human interactions with the earth and its mystic powers are projected in the frames of heritage and eco-tourism. Recognizing the growing complexity of Hindu pilgrimage motivations, we propose a five-layer typology that recognizes: tourists, pilgrims of duty, pilgrims of need, pilgrims of hope and pilgrims of union. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015.
Hinduism and globalization
(Springer Netherlands, 2015) Rana P. B. Singh; Mikael Aktor
Hinduism, a unified religious entity that boasts an extraordinary diversity in its beliefs and customs claims over 1.08 billion adherents (2007) or 15 % of the world’s people. Its diversity has promoted its traditional liberality and its freedom allowed for individuals to follow many different paths in their quest for the divine. In India, Hinduism inhabits three spaces: (1) “Village Hinduism” prevails in rural India (68 % of the population), a set of “Little traditions” combining ritual and shamanism; (2) “Sanskrit, Vedic Hinduism”, the “Great Tradition” preserved by Brahmin priests, pandits, and monastic orders that propagates the ancient scriptures and mythology; and (3) “Renaissance Hinduism,” which is popular among the new urban middle class and associated with the teachings of saints in missionary programs within India and worldwide. Hinduism is a diverse religious and cultural phenomenon which contains several key teachings of value for the modern world. These include: a living belief in the sacredness of the Earth; fundamental belief in the interconnectedness of all life; commitment to dharma, a moral duty for service to the Earth and humanity; belief in karma, the law of consequences; and deep commitment to simple lifestyles and the greater benefit of spiritual than material wealth. Of course, Hinduism also faces many challenges caused by the globalized values of materialism, consumerism and individualism and by the legacies of 700 years of Indian subjugation. Hinduism is also defended from many of globalization’s adverse effects for its open-minded theology and its penchant for absorption and reinterpretation. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015.
Holy-Heritage City Development and Planning in India: A Study of Ayodhya
(Springer International Publishing, 2020) Rana P. B. Singh; Sarvesh Kumar
Religious heritage as religious properties and sacred places can be an integral part of larger ensembles, such as historic cities, cultural landscapes and natural sites. Religion had played a role for controlling power in Indian monarchy in the ancient past, and in contemporary India too it played a role in the formation of religious nationalism and corporate identity of religious heritage, through commonly using processions, pilgrimage, religious assemblies, religious fairs (melā), and visit to sacred places. Situated on the right bank of Ghaghara River (Sarayu), Ayodhya is primarily an ancient tirtha (riverfront sacredscapes) and salvific city that has settlement continuity since at least ca 800BCE. Ayodhya is the sacred place not only for Hindus, but also for other religions of India, like Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhs and Islam (Muslims). In Hindu mythologies, it is described as the birthplace of Lord Rama, a major deity of Vaishnavite group. Ayodhya records many rituals, festivities, pilgrimages journeys and important ancient temples, river ghats (stairways and bathing places), holy tanks, holy wells and holy ponds and their aesthetic qualities and heritage values; those are the representative grandeur of art and tangible and intangible heritage values of the city. Presently around 1.9 million pilgrims pay visit to Ayodhya every year on various religious occasions. Now, most of the religious heritage sites and monuments are dilapidating and are in abandoning condition in lack of rational and viable conservation and preservation strategy, good administration management and lack of people awareness and their involvement. The present paper deals with the historical and cultural development of the heritage-sacred city of Ayodhya and examines the strategies in process for the future development, taking into consideration the National programmes of HRIDAY and PRASAD, and development of pilgrimage sites. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020.
Indian sacred natural sites: Ancient traditions of reverence and conservation explained from a Hindu perspective
(Taylor and Francis, 2016) Rana P. B. Singh; Pravin S. Rana
The concept of sacred natural landscape refers to a complex cultural mosaic of relationships between time and space, sacrality of nature and overall the encompassing manifestation of transcendence of man. Man since time immemorial has been trying to make a strong bridge between conscious mind and super-conscious divine. The idea of nature and human integrity in Hindu thought depends upon ways in which people see and experience themselves, their sense of attachment to nature, and their ways of maintaining this. It is through symbolism, the main expression of mythological understanding, that one can gain insight into the relationships of humanity to nature. © 2016 Bas Verschuuren and Naoya Furuta, selection and editorial material; individual chapters, the contributors.
Making of a Dweller Indian Cultural Geographer: In Conversation with Professor Rana P. B. Singh
(Springer, 2022) Abhisht Adityam; Rana P. B. Singh
Cities in the Global South draw people from their hinterland due to various reasons. Kashi, Varanasi, or Banaras—a few names by which this city is known and addressed, has drawn hundreds and thousands of people, many of whom stayed back and adopted it as ‘their’ place. Everyone has her/his own story and experiences to share and narrate. Rana P. B. Singh, in whose felicitation this volume is published, too came as a postgraduate student (1969–70) herein, Banaras Hindu University, and received his higher education. His academic zeal took him to different places in India and overseas, but he returned to this city and adopted it. Searched and researched, sometimes alone, some other times with collaborators and friends, his ‘co-pilgrims’. He has made this city his home since the late sixties but for some time when he was abroad in different capacities. And, thus spent almost half a century understanding unfolding meanings of different layers of the city as it is said metaphorically that this city is older than history and maintained the path of succession-sustenance-and-sustainability—as to how Rana has narrated in his writings. His committed engagement continues till today when has entered his seventies. This chapter is a little unconventional in the sense that it is based on the narrative put forth by himself describing his journey from the place of his birth, a typical Middle Ganga Valley village, his struggles—psycho-emotional to professional, professional attainments and recognitions, and finally, the future he foresees of his adopted home city and the tradition of Varanasi (Banaras) Studies that he has developed through dedicated work and untiring zeal to serve the cause of it at all forums—local, regional, national and international. © 2022, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
Politics and pilgrimage in North India: Varanasi between communitas and contestation
(Institute for Tourism, 2011) Rana P. B. Singh
The paper examines the merger of Hindu pilgrimages and the pace of religious tourism in India. The interacting and counteracting two sides of human life, sacred and profane, consequently turn into contestation, seduction and difference; however they meet at different levels in the formation of what the author terms 'mosaicness'. Drawing on decades of experience in the heritage and pilgrimage fields, the author begins by showing the ways in which pilgrimage has been utilized by political groups to assert their own power, and argues that the growth and importance of pilgrimage-tourism may be related to an increased desire among Hindus to assert their identity against an ever more visible Muslim population. Despite such divisions, the author then argues that the creation of mosaicness at important shrines nevertheless may foster communitas, as revealed by the failure of terrorist attacks on Hindu temples in Varanasi to incite inter-religious violence. Last, he uses the case study of Sarnath to argue that the greater value accorded to tourism as an avenue for development reflects a perception that the marketing of pilgrimage sites and religious buildings offers a means of preserving and enhancing the value and visibility of the endangered remains of the past, but often it is marked by a low understanding of a site's historical value and its contemporary relevance. While site managers have implemented revenue-raising plans to preserve the archaeological remains of Sarnath, they neglect to consider the contemporary importance of the site to practicing Buddhists. A better understanding of the multiple meanings of sacred destinations, and the conscious implementation of mechanisms to foster mosaicness, is urged.
Professor R.B. Singh (1955-2021), an Icon of Indian Geography: A Passage on the Path of Lineage, Legacy and Liminality
(ACCB Publishing, 2021) Rana P. B. Singh
Professor R.B. Singh (1955-2021) had been the first Indian Geographer to have the dual distinction of holding the position of the IGU Secretary General and ICSU Scientific Committee Member. He was the first Indian and second Asian Secretary General and Treasurer of the IGU (2018-2022). Professor Singh was a distinguished geographer of 21st Century India who had made distinct academic contributions over the last five decades, illustrated with publishing 16 books, 40 anthologies, and around 260 research papers. He has covered and profusely published researches in 11 fields—Environmental Studies, Geoecology; Land resources, Land use/ Land cover; Water issues, Hydrology; Disaster, Natural Hazard; Quality of Life, Livelihood; Climatic Change, Air Pollution study; Urban Environment, Health, and wellbeing; Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); Environmental Monitoring; Geography, Development Studies R-U; Mountain Studies, Forestry, Tourism; and RS, GIS, Recent trends appraisal. He had supervised 39 PhD and 81 MPhil dissertations. This paper presents an appraisal of his life journey on the path of Lineage, Legacy and Liminality—a type of biographical highlights in the frame of his practising geography, while also emphasising various niches, distinctions, networks and collaborative programmes. © 2021 Singh. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Sacredscape and manescape: The sacred geography of Gaya, India
(Foundation Books, 2012) Rana P. B. Singh
Gaya, a city in Bihar, is a famous pilgrimage centre. The literal meaning of 'Gaya', 'let's go to another place', refers to contact with the other realm; it symbolises a destination linking this world of humanity and the world of divinity (ancestral world). According to one of the most authoritative Sanskrit texts on pilgrimage and sacred places, the Tristhalisetu (TS), which means and dates back 'Bridge to the Three Holy Cities' circa sixteenth century, of the three pillars of the 'bridge to the realm of the soul', Gaya is the eastern most. The others are Varanasi and Prayaga (Allahabad), both along River Ganga in the West. The name 'Gaya' was referred to in the earlier Vedic text, the Rig Veda, RV (10.63,10.64), as the name of a sage and writer, while later in the Atharva Veda, AV (1.14.4), Gaya was mentioned as a mystic and sorcerer. The first clear indication of Gaya as a holy place is when it is metaphorically eulogised in the RV (1.22.17)-'Vishnu crossed this and placed his first foot in three ways: the whole of it is encompassed in his steps'. The treatise Nirukta, NrT (12.19), circa eighth century BCE, explains this passage in two ways. The first, according to Shakapuni, refers to the three steps of Vishnu, viz. the earth, the firmament and the heavens. The second, according to Aurnavabha, refers to the three sacred places called Samarohana, Vishnupad and Gayashirsh. © Cambridge University Press India Pvt. Ltd.
Still on UNESCO’s “Tentative List of World Heritage”? Heritage, Tourism, and Stunted Growth in Sarnath (Varanasi), India
(Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI), 2023) Kiran Shinde; Rana P. B. Singh
It is not unusual for a place to wait for years before being inscribed on the World Heritage List, but Sarnath—the place where the Buddha delivered his first sermon—has been on UNESCO’s “tentative list” for close to 25 years. As a sacred place for Buddhist pilgrimages, Sarnath continues to attract thousands of visitors annually and yet, remains under-developed, unlike other pilgrim towns or religious tourism destinations. This paper examines the reasons for the stunted growth of Sarnath. The findings are based on fieldwork conducted in Sarnath in 2019. The analysis of stakeholder interviews suggests several reasons for Sarnath not being able to capitalize on its religious and cultural heritage for tourism-led development. It was found that the protection of the site as an archaeological park by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which has been controlling development surrounding the park as well as prohibiting the performance of any rituals, have been the key endogenous factors that have contributed to the relative under-development of a Buddhist pilgrimage economy in the town. A handful of monasteries are where Buddhist followers stay and perform their pilgrimage rituals, rendering them as enclaves. Private-sector accommodation is also limited to around 15 hotels and guesthouses. Administratively, Sarnath does not have an independent governance structure. It is governed as just one ward (an electoral constituency) by the Municipal Corporation of Varanasi and is, thus, always under the shadow of Varanasi city. Varanasi is one of the most significant Hindu sacred cities and, hence, visitors stay there for much longer durations to soak in cultural offerings, including religious ceremonies around the Ganga River; a visit to Sarnath is secondary and often limited to a half-day tour. Moreover, the archaeological park at Sarnath serves a recreational purpose as a picnic site for domestic visitors. The exogenous factors mean that the interests of Sarnath (as a Buddhist site) are hardly acknowledged by the Hindu city of Varanasi. This paper argues that the multi-layered contestations that exist at the site level, the town–ward level, and between visitors and managers have further contributed to the poor state of heritage and tourism in Sarnath. © 2023 by the authors.
Urban heritage and planning in India: A study of Banaras
(Springer Netherlands, 2015) Rana P. B. Singh
Cultural and natural heritages are increasingly threatened by destruction, not only from natural causes but also as the results of anthropogenic interventions. From India, 32 properties are enlisted in the World Heritage list (2015), but the Ghats of Varanasi have not yet been proposed for inclusion, mostly because of political complexity and the lack of strong movement from the stakeholders. This chapter attempts to critically examine the rationales for proposing Varanasi as a heritage city in the World Heritage list and the problems faced in this process in the past 12 years. In this context, the status of Varanasi on the scale of the UNESCO World Heritage list, the implications of the past and ongoing Master Plans and City Development Plan, the role of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) (Varanasi), governance strategies, and issues of public awareness are critically examined. It is suggested that under the auspices of City Administration a Heritage & Conservation Cell in the Development Authority and Municipal Corporation should be created, and specific by-laws formulated for the development and preservation of heritagescapes with active participation from stakeholders. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016.