Hinglaj Devi: Narratives of Identity and Change at an Ancient Temple in Pakistan

Description

Two hundred kilometres west of Karachi, in the desert of Balochistan, is located the shrine of the Hindu Goddess, Hinglaj. Despite the temple’s ancient Hindu and Muslim history, an annual festival at Hinglaj has only been established within the last three decades, in part because of the construction of the Makran Coastal Highway. Now, an increasingly confident minority Hindu community has claimed Hinglaj as their main religious centre, a site for religious performance and expression.

In Hinglaj Devi, Jürgen Schaflechner studies literary sources in Hindi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, and Urdu alongside extensive ethnographical research at the shrine, examining the political and cultural influences at work at the temple and tracking the remote desert shrine’s rapid ascent to its current status as the most influential Hindu pilgrimage site in Pakistan. Schaflechner introduces the unique character of this place of pilgrimage and shows its modern importance not only for Hindus, but also for Muslims and Sindhi nationalists.

Reviews

“Drawing on six years of extensive ethnographic fieldwork and a wide-ranging literary study encompassing histor-ical sources in six languages, Jurgen Schaflechner brings to the forefront a much-neglected area of research, studying the Hindu goddess tradition and pilgrimage site of Hinglaj Devi in Balochistan, Pakistan.” – Fizza Joffrey, Religions of South Asia

“Hinglaj Devi: Identity, Change and Solidification at a Hindu Temple in Pakistan is a valuable scholarly monograph…The book analyzes communities that claim Hi?glai as their ritual space, and shows how the Lohana community and their organization Hinglaj Sheva Mandal have succeeded in the homogenization of the traditions of the shrine. The book is a detailed textual, historical, and ethnographic study of this homogenization process, and is very valuable as a documentation of contemporary developments.” – Knut A. Jacobsen, University of Bergen, Reading Religion

“Because of its great many strengths, this book is essential reading for those interested in Hinduism in parts of South Asia now officially separated from India – namely Pakistan and Bangladesh – and for those interested in sacred sites more broadly. Schaflechner ends his book with the hope that his work will generate interest in, and further research on, Hinduism in Pakistan, and aspects of that nation-state that go beyond well-worn narratives of a failed state. I have no doubt both hopes will be fulfilled.” – Deonnie Moodie, Reading Religion

Author Biography

Jürgen Schaflechner, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern South Asian Languages and Literature, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, Germany.