India: A Sacred Geography

567 Pages·2012·5.83 MB·English

by  Diana L Eck

Copyright © 2012 by Diana Eck
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a
division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com
Harmony Books is a registered trademark and the Harmony Books colophon is a trademark of
Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eck, Diana L.
India : a sacred geography / by Diana L. Eck.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. India—Religion. 2. Sacred space—India. 3. Hinduism—India. I. Title. BL2001.3.E25 2011
294.50954—dc22 2011009237
eISBN: 978-0-38553191-7
All photos courtesy of the author, except this page, courtesy of Asian Art Archives, Univ.
Michigan (AAAUM), and this page, Krishna Lifting Mount Govardhan, attributed to Mola Ram
(1760-1833)
Maps by C. Scott Walker, Digital Cartography Specialist, Harvard Map Collection; map, this page, by
Michael Gellatly
Jacket design by Nupoor Gordon
Jacket painting: Detail of Radha and Krishna Walking in a Flowering Grove (recto) © The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Image source: Art Resource, NY
v3.1
TO DOROTHY ECK AND DOROTHY AUSTIN
THE TWO DOROTHYS, BOTH GIFTS OF GOD
C
ONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Note on Transliteration and Pronunciation
1 A S G , A I L
CHAPTER ACRED EOGRAPHY N MAGINED ANDSCAPE
2 “W I I ?”
CHAPTER HAT S NDIA
3 R A I : I L W
CHAPTER OSE PPLE SLAND NDIA IN THE OTUS OF THE ORLD
4 T G R I
CHAPTER HE ANGĀ AND THE IVERS OF NDIA
5 S L L I
CHAPTER HIVA’S IGHT IN THE AND OF NDIA
6 S D B G
CHAPTER HAKTI, THE ISTRIBUTION OF THE ODY OF THE ODDESS
7 V , E D
CHAPTER ISHNU NDLESS AND ESCENDING
8 T L S K
CHAPTER HE AND AND TORY OF RISHNA
9 F R : T R L I
CHAPTER OLLOWING ĀMA HE ĀMĀYANA ON THE ANDSCAPE OF NDIA
10 A P I T
CHAPTER ILGRIM’S NDIA ODAY
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Bibliography
Notes
N T
OTE ON RANSLITERATION AND
P
RONUNCIATION
While Sanskrit is said to be the “perfectly made” and polished speech of
the gods, those of us who are mortal and write in English have to
simplify the transliteration for ease of reading. In this book, I have kept
diacritical marks to a bare minimum, using only the long mark, or
macron, important for the proper pronunciation of short and long
vowels.
a (as allow: Shiva) ā (as in father: Kāshī)
i (as in it: linga) ī (as in magazine: devī)
u (as in put: Upanishad) ū (as in rude: Chitrakūt)
For consonants, I have written both the retroflex “s” (with a dot under
it as in Vi⋅nu) and the palatal “s” (with an accent mark as in Śiva) as
“sh,” since this is basically how they are pronounced. Other distinctions
in this precisely articulated language have also been lost here.
Aspirated consonants (those followed by an “h”) are pronounced as
follows: “bh” as in clubhouse, Bhagavad Gitā; “dh” as in roundhouse,
dharma; “th” as in hothouse (tīrtha). Two-syllable words are usually
accented on the first syllable: Shiva, Vishnu, dharma. In words of more
than two syllables, the penultimate syllable is accented if it contains a
long vowel (Vishvanātha, Purāna) or a dipthong (Kurukshetra).
Otherwise, the accent is on the antepenultimate (third from last)
syllable, as in Ramāyana, Mahabhārata, Amarakantaka, Rāvana,
Lakshmana.
Another issue is that of Sanskrit and Hindi transliteration. The most
noticeable difference between Sanskrit and Hindi words is the presence
of the final short “a” in Sanskrit and its absence in Hindi. For example,
darshana (“seeing” the divine image) becomes darshan in Hindi, Ganesha
becomes Ganesh, Prayāga becomes Prayāg. I have not chosen one form
exclusively over the other, but have tried to be consistent to the context.
For example, if the reference is to a Sanskrit text, I might use
Somanātha, but on the whole I have kept the form in which these words
are most easily recognizable today, which would be Somnāth. (Similarly,
Badrīnāth rather than Badarīnātha, Hardvār, rather than Haridvāra,
Chitrakūt rather than Chitrakūta.) Even when I switch back and forth,
the reader will soon adjust to the fact that this is simply the complexity
of an ancient, yet modern, culture.
Finally, we should note that so many of the major cities of British
India have now claimed official Indian names: Mumbai rather than
Bombay; Chennai rather than Madras; Kolkata rather than Calcutta;
Tniruvananthapuram, rather than Trivandrum. I have used both forms,
since both are still in common parlance. I have not used diacritical
marks on cities, states, common mountain ranges, or other geographical
features, with the exception of rivers.