Religious pilgramages united India prior to British rule?

September 6, 2013 6:36 AM

I read an article a few months ago that challenged the idea that British colonization united and created the country of India. Instead it suggested that religious pilgrimages to holy sites across vast distances prior to British rule created a cultural cohesiveness prior to any British involvement. Now I can't find it! I am pretty sure it was on reddit but I can't find it. Please help!
posted by j03 to Religion & Philosophy (6 answers total)

Best answer: This seems like an article on a similar theme, as does this (though not exactly) though if you remember anything else about where it was published or in what kind of publication, that might help narrow it down.
posted by jetlagaddict at 6:47 AM on September 6, 2013

Response by poster: I don't remember where it was published... not a major publication that I would have remembered. I don't think it was quite as formal as those articles though.. it had more of a tone like "Brits think they invented India, here's why they're wrong. India, despite it's varied cultural populations, was united long before the British because the Religious Elders were brilliant geniuses that made their followers travel vast distances to holy sites all over India"

I'm sure it said more to that, but that's what stood out. I just found the idea of religious pilgrimage as culture builder intriguing and was thinking about how on a smaller scale my city could improve it's cultural cohesiveness by encoding or formalizing some sort of pilgrimage.

I just found this quote in the second article: "Gandhi argued that
the practice of religious pilgrimage which involved the visiting of sacred centres
in various parts of India, linked people from many regions into a cultural unity."

That's probably the quote this article was based on so, win!
posted by j03 at 9:39 AM on September 6, 2013

You might also look into the excellent work of Diana Eck, which explores the conceptualisation of India as a more or less unified sacred geography constructed through sites of pilgrimage. For instance her India: A Sacred Geography, reviewed here.
posted by tavegyl at 9:58 AM on September 6, 2013

Best answer: Is it possible this thread (or the comments/discussions linked within it) is the one you had read originally?
posted by jetlagaddict at 10:03 AM on September 6, 2013

I can't help you find the article, but I can comment on the thesis.

Of course India had a kind of cultural cohesiveness before the British arrived, but it was not one unified country in any normal sense. It would be more reasonable to compare it to the entirety of Europe than to a singe European country. For example:

- Many states and statelets, that often had wars with each other
- Varying languages, cultures and religious traditions
- Some shared history through past empires that spanned portions of the subcontinent
- Some shared philosophies, worldviews, myths

To say it was one country would be like saying England and Italy were one country because Alfred the Great spent time in Rome in his youth, or that England and Greece were one country because for centuries Brtiish schoolchidren were taught Classics.

Even today it is helpful for people that don't know much about India to think of it as more akin to a continent than a single country. For example there is no Indian language that is actually spoken by a majority of Indians, and major religious festivals don't happen on the same date everywhere nor are they celebrated in the same ways. (Think Greek Orthodox Christmas versus British Christmas.)

Which is not to say that there was no "Indian-ness" before the British, but it was more like "European-ness" or "Christendom-ness" than like "English-ness" or "French-ness".
posted by philipy at 10:07 AM on September 6, 2013

Response by poster: jetlagaddict gets a cookie.

Thank you all.
posted by j03 at 11:51 AM on September 6, 2013