The Journal of Hindu Studies Advance Access published October 8, 2012

The Journal of Hindu Studies 2012;0:12

doi:10.1093/jhs/his041

Book Review

In this magisterial work, James Lochtefeld investigates the pasts and presents of
the Hindu pilgrimage place of Hardwar, famous as one of the sites of the Kumbha
Mela. Working with a constructivist notion of place, Lochtefeld argues that multiple narratives (p. 5) about Hardwar must all be considered as clearly and realistically as possible (p. 175). This comprehensive treatment must be carried
through in a manner that is contextual and particular. (p. 173)
True to his word, Lochtefeld precisely controls multiple trajectories connected
to Hardwar from both residents and visitors point of view, making this book a
scholarly achievement of profound and lasting worth. In Chapter 2 he shows how
mahatmya texts reflect contesting concerns. For example, the Haridvaramahatmya
channels pilgrim traffic to sites that Dashanami sanyasis almost certainly controlled. (p. 41), whereas the Mayapurimahatmya seems to have been written as a
guidebook for local Brahmins (p. 42). He also parses the broad importance of the
purificatory power of the Ganga for the Hardwar locale. In Chapter 3, Lochtefeld
charts how changes of political and economic climate (such as the arrival of the
railway) transformed Hardwar from a seasonally important market centre to a site
of year-round importance in which the interests of ascetics, the British colonial
government, and panda associations often came into conflict. Controversy over
new headworks for the Upper Ganges Canal (p. 88), for example, involved both
strategic social concerns about colonial control and religious commitments regarding the freedom of the Ganga.
In Chapters 4 through 7, Lochtefeld applies McKim Mariotts contention that
transactions are at the heart of Indian personhood (p. 104), seconding Marriotts
view that this analytic mode avoids imposed categories such as sacred and secular
(p. 104). He arcs his analysis of daily life in Hardwar, pandas, ascetics, and pilgrims
and visitors through three foci: transactions whose benefits may be tangible and
intangible (p. 104), the environments (p. 104) of these transactions, and the
actors involved. Each of these chapters deftly offers a vignette of immense utility
for advanced undergraduates and non-specialists.
In Chapter 8, Lochtefeld offers a broader set of reflections on the present.
Tourism is changing the region. Journey to Hardwar (and Uttarakhand) is not
understood by all as a pilgrimagefor many it is a tour, a vacation, or an adventure trek. Lochtefeld further observes that the city has become a lodestone for
Hindu nationalist movements, citing the growth in popularity of the kanvar festival
The Author 2012. Oxford University Press and The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. All rights reserved.
For permissions, please email journals.permissions@oup.com

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Gods Gateway: Identity and Meaning in a Hindu Pilgrimage Place. By James G.

Lochtefeld. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-19538614-1, pp. 322. $74.00 (cloth).

Book Review

Luke Whitmore
University of WisconsinStevens Point

Downloaded from http://jhs.oxfordjournals.org/ at Univ. of Massachusetts/Amherst Library on October 14, 2012

and the Bharat Mata Mandir just outside the city. In short, Hardwar is perhaps no
longer a place best described as a site of religious pilgrimage in a traditional sense.
However, this is less radically discontinuous than one might think. Lochtefeld
observes that Although most Hardwar visitors have some sort of religious feeling,
this does not exhaust their possible motives, and this is probably little different from
earlier eras. (p. 226, emphasis added) In an argument that emerges out of his
conversation with Marriott, he asserts that in the pasts and presents of
Hardwar, one finds constructive and creative responses to changing circumstances (p. 224) in equal measure. This is an immensely valuable and mature
insight, a critically nuanced way of understanding the continuities and discontinuities of presents and pasts in South Asia.
The author ends by emphasising that the real meaning of these journeys lies in
peoples individual experiences (p. 228). Here, it is regrettable that we do not have
the benefit of Lochtefelds extended considerations on the role of the body in how
individual experiences and meaning are constructed in the encounter with
place. Overall, however, the authors balanced approach skillfully integrates numerous theoretical and methodological trajectories that intersect in recent studies
of Hindu pilgrimage and place as well as pilgrimage and tourism more generally:
historical anthropological attention to the colonial period, the cross-cultural investigation of religious tourism, cultural geography, and Indological attention to
puranic and upapuranic treatments of sacred place. South Asia specialists, religionists, anthropologists, geographers, historians, and advanced undergraduates
in each of these disciplines will find engagement with this masterful work
generative.