Pilgrims, Patrons, and Place: Localizing Sanctity in Asian Religions (Asian Religions and Society) - Hardcover

Pilgrims, Patrons, and Place: Localizing Sanctity in Asian Religions is an important marker of the growing awareness in Asian Studies of the significance of `place' as a productive analytical category ... This volume will play a useful role in the scholar's library. -- Frances Garrett * University of Toronto Quarterly, Winter 2004/05 *

UBC Press is pleased to announce a new series in Asian religions.Pilgrims, Patrons, and Place, a Buddha Dharma Kyokai Foundation Book onBuddhism and Comparative Literature, is the first book in this series.Click here to see other titles in this series. This book brings together essays by anthropologists, scholars ofreligion, and art historians on the subject of sacred place and sacredbiography in Asia. The chapters span a broad geographical area thatincludes India, Nepal, Thailand, Indonesia, and China, and exploreissues from the classical and medieval period to the present. They showhow sacred places have a plurality of meanings for all religiouscommunities and how in their construction, secular politics, privatereligious experience, and sectarian rivalry can all intersect. The contributors explore some of the most fundamental challengesthat religious groups face as they expand from their homeland orconfront the demands of modernity. In every case the biography of asaint or founding figure proves to be central to the formation ofreligious identity. Sacred place becomes a means of concretizing theever-expanding sphere of the saint's influence. While somechapters deal with well- known religious movements and sites, othersdiscuss little known groups and help to enrich our understanding of thediversity of religious belief in Asia. The book will be of interest not only to scholars of Asian religionand hagiography, but to others who seek to understand the ways in whichreligious groups accommodate to the challenges of new environments andnew times.