The Building of Vṛndāvana: Architecture, Theology, and Practice in an Early Modern Pilgrimage Town(57 Brill's Indological Library)

The small town of Vṛndāvana is today one of the most vibrant places of pilgrimage in northern India. Throngs of pilgrims travel there each year to honour the sacred land of Kṛṣṇa’s youth and to visit many of its temples. The Building of Vṛndāvana explores the complex history of this town’s early modern origins. Bringing together scholars from various disciplines to examine history, architecture, art, ritual, theology, and literature in this pivotal period, the book examines how these various disciplines were used to create, develop, and map Vṛndāvana as the most prominent place of pilgrimage for devotees of Kṛṣṇa. Contributors are: Guy L. Beck, Måns Broo, David Buchta, John Stratton Hawley, Barbara A. Holdrege, Rembert Lutjeharms, Cynthia D. Packert, and Heidi Pauwels.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Introduction  Rembert Lutjeharms and Kiyokazu Okita Part 1: Builders 1 A Sixteenth-Century Testimony on Vṛndāvana’s First-Generation Pioneers  Heidi Pauwels 2 The Hari-bhakti-vilāsa as a Specimen of Early Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavism in Vṛndāvana  Måns Broo Part 2: Building 3 The Gauḍīya Reimagining of Vraja as a Bimodal Domain  Pilgrimage Place and Transcendent Space  Barbara A. Holdrege 4 Building Vṛndāvana as a Locus of Rasa  The Stotras of Rūpa Gosvāmī  David Buchta 5 Building the Spiritual Vṛndāvana  Music and the Rāsa Dance at the Centre of Kṛṣṇa Devotion  Guy L. Beck Part 3: Buildings 6 A Temple of Stone and a Temple of Love  Govindadeva in the Religious Imagination of Early Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇavas  Rembert Lutjeharms 7 Kings of the Mountains  Govardhana-līlā and Kachavāhā Patronage at the Govindadeva Temple in Vṛndāvana  Cynthia Packert 8 The Ideal Real Vṛndāvana of Jayasiṃha’s Dining Room  John Stratton Hawley Index

About the Author :
Kiyokazu Okita, D.Phil. (2011), University of Oxford, is Associate Professor of Hindu Studies at Faculty of Liberal Arts / Graduate Program in Global Studies, Sophia University. He is the author of Hindu Theology in Early Modern South Asia (OUP, 2014). Rembert Lutjeharms, D.Phil. (2010), University of Oxford, is a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and Research Lecturer in Hindu Studies at the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford. He is the author of A Vaiṣṇava Poet in Early Modern Bengal (OUP, 2018).

Review :
"This rich, well-crafted collaborative volume on one of South Asia’s most important pilgrimage sites, the temple town dedicated to Kṛṣṇa at Vṛndāvana draws upon a range of literary, historical, musical and artistic evidence to examine the communities, conceptions and construction of the region of Vraja in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Original, timely and compelling, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of Hindu studies, Sanskrit and Hindi literature, historians of early modern South Asia, including its art and music, and anyone interested in the centrality of place, space and pilgrimage to the religious imagination." - Dr. Crispin Branfoot (Reader in the history of South Asian art and archaeology. SOAS, University of London) "This masterful book immerses the reader in the landscapes, temples, texts, and artistic traditions of early modern Vṛndāvana. A variety of sources and methods are blended seamlessly to paint a picture of this dynamic town, as it grows from a small community to a major center of Kṛṣṇa worship. The introduction provides the most engaging overview of Vṛndāvana's history and theology that I have read. This book is a joy to read, and one that you will return to over and over again." - Prof. Ravi M. Gupta (Charles Redd Chair of Religious Studies, Utah State University)