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Sacred Spaces, Spatial Texts and the Religious Cartography of Banaras
The study of the history of South Asian cartography has long been interpreted based on Western cartographic traditions. Maps of the South Asian subcontinent were assumed to be produced by foreigners – not by South Asians themselves. Maps actually produced in South Asia were neglected as a category in their own right. The present study focuses on the religious cartography of the north Indian pilgrimage center Banaras (Varanasi). It deals with visualizations of the sacred topography of Banaras as represented by various kinds of “maps”, including painted pictorial maps, printed pilgrimage maps and simple spatial charts. The introduction to the volume is followed by a study of the textual background of the studied cartographic material. It then presents a nineteenth century debate on the Pancakroshi procession as a case study on the interrelation of maps, texts and pilgrimage practice. The following section presents the first detailed study of four pilgrimage maps produced during the 18th and 19th century. The volume concludes with extensive indices that provide access to the numerous names of gods, places and temples contained in the studied maps, texts and processions.
