Why Travel So Far? Guru-Bhakti Communities and the Transformation of Buildings in Delhi's Margins into Sacred Abodes of Himalayan Deities
Delhi’s poor peripheries are home to numerous hyperlocal, guru-led Hindu communities that function as alternative socio-political structures, offering welfare, economic support, and a sense of belonging. Each community revolves around the guru’s abode—an ordinary building that serves as a temple, as...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2025
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| In: |
Political theology
Year: 2025, Volume: 26, Issue: 6, Pages: 757-782 |
| Further subjects: | B
hyperlocal religious communities
B urban hinduism B guru-bhakti B Pilgrimage B Sacred Space B Hinduism B urban peripheries |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | Delhi’s poor peripheries are home to numerous hyperlocal, guru-led Hindu communities that function as alternative socio-political structures, offering welfare, economic support, and a sense of belonging. Each community revolves around the guru’s abode—an ordinary building that serves as a temple, ashram, and communal hub. This paper examines how such ordinary buildings, in marginalized urban locations, come to be seen by devotees as sacred and as a potent wellspring of well-being (kalyāṇ). Based on two years of ethnographic fieldwork, the paper argues that the sacredness of these temples derives from their association with distant Himalayan pilgrimage sites, with the founding guru as the focal axis of this spatial transposition—through intimate ties to the deity, migration narratives, ritual practices, material replication, and embodied presence. Sacralization emerges here as a strategic foundation for religious authority and agency, institutional consolidation, and the cultivation of collective care in the absence of formal governance. |
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| ISSN: | 1743-1719 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Political theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/1462317X.2025.2517957 |
