The 49th Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions (Cardiff University, 19–21 April 2024)
Theme: Pilgrimage in South Asia
[NB This is the provisional schedule and may be subject to slight modification]
Friday 19th April
1.50 welcome
2.00 Keynote: Max Deeg (Cardiff University): ‘Dharmayātrā: from Regional Religious Traveling to Trans-Asian Pilgrimage’
3.00 Daniela Bevilacqua (Centre for Research in Anthropology, Lisbon): ‘Tapobhūmi, when the Spiritual Power Saturates the Landscape’
4.00 tea
4.30 Justin Grosnick (University of California at Berkeley): ‘Jagannath the Pilgrim: Pilgrimage as Envisioned from the Perspective of Sacred Images’
5.00 Elizabeth A. Cecil (Florida State University): ‘Crossing Over: Tīrtha in Early Southeast Asia’
Saturday 20th April
9.00 Keynote: Catherine Hartmann (University of Wyoming): ‘Reading Milarepa in his Footsteps: How a Tibetan Pilgrim Engages the Life of Milarepa’
10.00 Dessi Vendova (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston): ‘Revisiting the Kāliṅgabodhi Jātaka’s Classification of Buddhist Shrines’
11.00 coffee
11.30 Shaashi Ahlawat (University of Pennsylvania): ‘Migrants to Pilgrims: Jains in Medieval Magadha’
12.00 Mrinalini Sil (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi): ‘Imaging Sacred Spaces, Transregional Travels and Religio-Aesthetics of Jain Mercantile Mobility in Early Modern Bengal’
12.30 Umtul Aleem Kokab (Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi): ‘Pilgrimage of the ‘Heretics’: An Ethnographic Study of Jalsa Salana, an Annual Gathering of Ahmadi Pilgrims in Qadian, India’
1.00 lunch
2.00 Michael D. Calabria (St. Bonaventure University, New York): ‘The Path of the Penitent: The Pilgrimage to Ajmer under Shah Jahan’
3.00 Parshati Dutta (University of York): ‘“All the Way to that Blessed and Gracious Place, the Corner of Security”: A Mughal Princess’s Pilgrimage and Matronage in the Sufi Shrine of Ajmer’
3.30 Imran Visram (Oxford University): ‘Pilgrimage in the Didactic Teachings of the Satpanth Ismaili Pirs’
4.00 tea
4.30 Tomoka Mushiga (University of Kyoto): ‘The Development of a Hindu Sacred Site: Change from Śaiva to Vaiṣṇava Affiliation in Gayā’
5.30 Rutika Gandhi (University of British Columbia): ‘Digital Darshan: Reimagining Pilgrimage and Divine Connection in the Age of Social Media – A Case Study of Harsiddhi Mata Temple’
Sunday 21st April
9.00 Aneesh Raghavan (Heidelberg University): ‘Textual vs Tangible: Temples in the Kāñcīsthalamāhātmya’
10.00 Peter C. Bisschop (Leiden University): ‘The Moving and the Immovable: The Pilgrimage landscape of Kālañjara’
11.00 coffee
11.30 Sowparnika Balaswaminathan (Concordia University): ‘Swamimalai Stories: Contemporary Place-Making in a Pilgrimage Town’
12.30 Jim Mallinson (Oxford University): ‘Pilgrimage on the Margins: Hinglaj and Dhinodhar’
1.30 lunch
Registration fee for delegates: £60 full fee (or £30 concessionary fee)
For booking details, contact: Dr Simon Brodbeck (Cardiff University): BrodbeckSP@cardiff.ac.uk