Mountains, Wilderness, and Transformation
This project brings together a natural resource social scientist from the Parks and Recreation Management Program, School of Community Resources & Development, with a Religious Studies scholar from the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies. The results promise to expand understandings of the complex meanings associated with wilderness and other natural places of religious significance. In addition, our project is centrally related to the theme of Utopias/Dystopias and Social Transformation. In the United States, wilderness and other natural areas have come to represent utopian settings that one escapes to for religious transcendence, contemplation, relaxation, rejuvenation, and ultimately personal transformation. Contemporary scholars such as Ramachandra Guha argue that the transfer of the American concept of wilderness to countries such as India is harmful. If wilderness is a utopia in India, it is one that is contested and fast disappearing (hence one that is ever more “nowhere”), one whose very attraction to people bears the seeds of its own destruction.
The study will focus on mountains, which in India are the epitome of wilderness. They are the abode, and sometimes an embodiment, of the ascetic god Shiva, whose locks of matted hair are sometimes identified with the forest vegetation on the mountainsides. Other gods too, and especially goddesses, dwell on mountaintops, in temples whose sacrality is enhanced by their remoteness. Much of the remaining forest land in India is mountainous, and mountains are the preferred goal of many weekend trekkers. Hence, mountains are an especially appropriate site for a study of the meanings of wilderness in India.
Megha Budruk, School of Community Resources and Development