Christianity and Belonging in Shimla, North India: Sacred Entanglements of a Himalayan Landscape

Cover page
Halftitle page
Series page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
1 Sita’s Red Dress: Introduction
	i) The mystery of the Cathedral on the Ridge
	ii) Sacred landscapes and material culture
	iii) Postcolonial life in the Land of the Gods
	iv) From academic ancestors to a discordant ethnography
	v) Sita’s tears: disrupting academic authority
	vi) Substance of the book
2 Christ in the Land of the Gods: Context
	i) Searching for Mount Meru: the sacred centre out there
	ii) Saffron priests and Christian Sadhus
	iii) From East to West: the Christian Maharishi
3 Recreating Mount Olympus: From Shymla to Simla
	i) Dùthchas, rain and replication
	ii) White robes and riding dresses: material religion in Simla
	iii) Living in a ghost town: the materiality of spirits in Shimla
4 Churchscape, Landscape and Material Religion
	i) Displaced sacred space and implicit mythology
	ii) The centre of the spiral: a key myth
	iii) The materiality of myth in the Shimla Hills
5 Worshipping with Ghosts: Implicit Mythology in the Shimla Hills1
	i) Worshipping beyond the boundaries of faith
	ii) Engaging with the material trace of past worship
	iii) Churchscapes, material religion and ghosts
	iv) Ghosts, ancestors and myths of becoming
	v) Beyond binaries: landscapes, myth and history
6 Materiality, Heterodoxy and Bonding at The Hidden Cathedral
	i) Cathedralscapes1
	ii) In search of The Hidden Cathedral
	iii) Heterodoxy and harmony in the Cathedralscape
7 Ritual, Materiality and Skill
	i) Skilful worship
	ii) Weaving material religion
	iv) Becoming one with the landscape
8 Pipe Organs and Satsang
	i) Tensions, tears and ruptures in the landscape1
	ii) Landscapes of group expansion and group maintenance
	iii) Hindu and Christian or Jesu Bhakti
9 The Salt in the Stew: Conclusion
	i) Prophetic anthropology and the wisdom of the hills
	ii) Christians and the Cathedralscape
	iii) Salt, sugar and dilithium crystals
	iv) Developments and future areas for exploration
Notes
References
Index