Paper short abstract:

In India's 'holiest city,' in the shadow of some of Hinduism's most important temples, how do diminutive local shrines make Hinduism happen?

Paper long abstract:

In the summers of 2013 and 2015, my team identified over 3,300 temples in the city of Varanasi. Many of these were inconspicuous, diminutive, local temples. While any number of individual major temple complexes and communities have garnered impressive scholarly attention worldwide, my research attempts to assess the impact of the many hundreds of temples in the lives of residents of Varanasi. In addition to considering otherwise neglected sites, this paper also offers a tentative foray into the use of GPS mapping technology and other digital data processing strategies for understanding who Hindus are and how temples make the Hindu world of Varanasi. By identifying the trends in distribution of temples throughout the city, we begin to see in tiny temples a resistance to the power of larger, more powerful temple complexes, in much the same way that de Certeau saw in modern Europe. However, we can also observe an emerging Hindu sense of sacrality of place and space, as well as the changing values reflected in new areas of settlement, as the city expands and new temples are built--or not.