Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the meaning of devotional practices called sravanam (to hear) and kirtanam (to speak or sing) among Hare Krishna devotees in Mayapur, West-Bengal. I will argue that these practices have a transformative capacity to generate an aesthetic and affective atmosphere of bhakti.

Paper long abstract:

This paper describes how Krishna devotees in Mayapur, West-Bengal, rely on certain sonic and linguistic acts to transform the urban space into an affective atmosphere of bhakti, devotional love of God. The city of Mayapur is considered a dham, a sacred place, where the Lord himself appeared in the 16th century. This narrative accounts for an increasing number of Hare Kirshna devotees to settle in Mayapur. However, the rapidly growing city and rising property prices has also resulted in a rise in corruption, crime, and questions of safety and well-being.

For Krishna devotees, sravanam (to hear) and kirtanam (to speak or sing of the glories of the Lord) are considered the most important processes of developing bhakti. I will show how particularly nama kirtan, focusing on the Lord’s names, aims to tune devotee’s sensibilities towards an aesthetic experience in a ’perfection of perception, the perception of the unity-in-multiplicity of sensible qualities’ (Baumgarten1750; cit. Howes 2006). I will argue that by specific linguistic and acoustic means, Krishna devotees design the affective state in which they feel Krishna’s presence in His holy name and ultimately in everything they perceive. They learn to use the sound of the holy name as a medium to transcend the experience of the noisy city into a perceived reality of bhakti. I will illustrate my argument with various sonic examples from my field recordings.

This presentation makes the case for a performative approach towards sacred places, which takes into account sonic and linguistic practices, the relationships they generate, sensuous experiences, and inner states of well-being and belonging. The sonic and linguistic object, in this context, presents itself as an opportunity to assess and render the ephemeral qualities of the sense of sacred, well-being, and the environment.