The 'Guest as God' and the 'God' as Host: Interminglings of Economy and Religiosity in Indian Temple Tourism
Abstract
This thesis demonstrates how and to what effect social
structures of religiosity and economy coexist and coalesce at
Tirupati Temple, a popular pilgrimage and tourism centre in South
India. The Temple functions as a sanctum for both ritual devotion
and touristic pleasures; accordingly, networks of commerce and
commodities interlace with structure of piety and ritual. This
thesis illustrates how the Temple’s enduring religious
traditions are facilitated by modern capitalist logistics, and
the resulting processes of commodification offer new meaning to
the participants of this site. For example, in e-commerce
platforms for religious donation, pre-booked tickets for
pilgrimage, and sanctification of hotel chains. The unity of
religion and market seems, at first, uncomfortable and often
raises questions of authenticity and integrity in sites of
religious and touristic appeal. To respond to this widely
discussed tension, this thesis offers ethnographic analysis based
on participant observation and unstructured interviews in
Tirupati Temple and its urban surrounds. These empirical findings
show how the mass performances of ritual piety in the Temple is
underscored by the protocols of modern global capitalism such as
standardised arrangements of time, space, and demand. I offer an
empirical perspective on theorised analytical categories which
are often dichotomised in scholarly literature, such as that
between ‘economic’ and ‘non-economic’; this broad
category is embodied within those such as ‘pilgrimage’ and
‘tourism’, ‘gift’ and ‘commodity’, and ‘sacred’
and ‘commercial’. In Tirupati, these categories work in
interdependence to embody the meaning-making experience of the
Temple’s visitors and facilitate the religiosity of the masses.
With a contemporary empirical understanding Tirupati’s
religious and touristic functions, this thesis demonstrates close
inter-relations between culture and economy which are essential
in the nuanced understanding of modern social systems.