Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- 1 Living Fossils: Impressions of a Once and Future World
- 2 Spiral Notebooks: A Multi-Local Shaligram Ethnography
- 3 Picked-Up Pieces: Constructing a History of Mustang
- 4 A Mirror to Our Being: Locating Muktinath, Finding Śālagrāma
- 5 A Bridge to Everywhere: The Birth/Place of Shaligrams
- 6 Turning to Stone: The Shaligram Mythic Complex
- 7 River Roads: Mobility, Identity, and Pilgrimage
- 8 Ashes and Immortality: Death and the Digital (After)Life
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - River Roads: Mobility, Identity, and Pilgrimage
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- 1 Living Fossils: Impressions of a Once and Future World
- 2 Spiral Notebooks: A Multi-Local Shaligram Ethnography
- 3 Picked-Up Pieces: Constructing a History of Mustang
- 4 A Mirror to Our Being: Locating Muktinath, Finding Śālagrāma
- 5 A Bridge to Everywhere: The Birth/Place of Shaligrams
- 6 Turning to Stone: The Shaligram Mythic Complex
- 7 River Roads: Mobility, Identity, and Pilgrimage
- 8 Ashes and Immortality: Death and the Digital (After)Life
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Shaligram pilgrimage is both a macrocosm of Shaligram practice and a microcosm of life itself. Mobility is, however, at the core of all aspects of veneration. Shaligram pilgrimage then offers a glimpse into the methods by which people come to identify with certain places, regardless of whether or not they live in those places or have ever visited them before. It also offers insight into how marginalization, militarization, and economic challenges in Mustang have had significant effects on both Shaligram practices throughout South Asia and the world. Furthermore, due to the plurality of sacred spaces in physical locations, such as happens through the dham , Shaligrams become capable of being both from a place and carrying that place with them.
Keywords: pilgrimage, mobility, Mustang, Muktinath, landscape
“There's a place that I travel, when I want to roam
And nobody knows it but me.
The roads don't go there, and the signs stay home
And nobody knows it but me.
It's far far away and way way afar, it's over the moon and the sea.
And wherever you’re going, that's wherever you are,
And nobody knows it but me.”
− Patrick O’LearyJadav Manjhi carefully lifted the teacup from the woven Tibetan rug where he sat with a small plate of dal bhat and a few apples, steadying the tremor in his hands by pressing his elbows onto the tops of his knees. “I first came to Mustang for Shaligram pilgrimage back in 1977,” he began, blowing a strand of his long, grey hair away from the cup. “There weren't many pilgrims back then. It was very difficult to come. You needed special papers and a government official to take you. It's not much better now, sadly. You still need papers, of course, though you no longer need a government man, but it has become so expensive that many can no longer gather the money. Transportation, guides, rooms, food, everything is now focused on Westerners who come to trek, and Westerners always bring a lot of money.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Shaligram Pilgrimage in the Nepal Himalayas , pp. 197 - 232Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020