Authorisation by Using ‘the Past’: The Development of the Gayā Pilgrimage Programme

Abstract

In modern Gayā, pilgrims are advised to make a seventeen-day pilgrimage programme visiting forty-five holy spots, which has been regarded as ‘complete (sampūrṇa), most authorised (śāstrika) and correct in view of religious rule (vidhivat) gayā-śrāddha’. In the Sanskrit religious texts, however, you will not find a description of the seventeen days and forty-five holy spots of the Gayā pilgrimage. Beginning with the introduction of modern pilgrimage regulations, this article shows the descriptions in the purāṇas and nibandhas, which are different from the modern ones, and examines the relationship between the descriptions in the śāstras and modern practices. This article illustrates that the origin of the authorised pilgrimage programme can be traced back, not to Sanskrit literature, but to modern regulations that were developed with the help of Sanskrit literature; the rules were defined by Mr Thomas Law, a tax collector, at the end of eighteenth century and a manual written by the priest Mukuṭ Bihārī Gautam in the middle of the twentieth century. The article not only focuses on the changes of the pilgrimage programme itself but also on the interpretation and application of the past by people today. Through these investigations, this article examines how the śāstras, religious authorities and traditions have been created in Hinduism.