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In Mountain, Water, Rock, God, Luke Whitmore situates the disastrous flooding that fell on the Hindu Himalayan shrine of Kedarnath in 2013 within a broader religious and ecological context. Whitmore explores the longer story of this powerful realm of the Hindu god Shiva through a holistic theoretical perspective that integrates phenomenological and systems-based approaches to the study of religion, pilgrimage, place, and ecology. He argues that close attention to places of religious significance offers a model for thinking through connections between ritual, narrative, climate destabilization, tourism, development, and disaster, and he shows how these critical components of human life in the twenty-first century intersect in the human experience of place.
Open Access
Mountain, Water, Rock, God Understanding Kedarnath in the Twenty-First Century
About the Book
Reviews
"This book is a very impressive contribution to the growing scholarship on the relationship between human society and nature, not only in the context of the Himalayan region and Indian society, but also more globally."—Journal of Contemporary Religion"Mountain, Water, Rock, God is the first book-length scholarly treatment of Kedarnath, a pilgrimage destination of pan-Indian importance. Accessible and poetically evocative, the work is timely, at times wrenching, and the scholarship is superior, covering important ground across disciplines. No one is better situated to write this study than Luke Whitmore."—Corinne Dempsey, Professor of Religious Studies and Director of Global Studies, Nazareth College
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
Introduction: In the Direction of Kedar
1. In Pursuit of Shiva
2. Lord of Kedar
3. Earlier Times
4. The Season
5. When the Floods Came
6. Nature’s Tandava Dance
7. Topographies of Reinvention
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index