From the early nineteenth century, Anglo Hindu law on inheritance, and thereafter the Religious and Charitable Endowments Acts, had enabled the autonomy of maths by classifying them as private religious corporations, not charitable endowments. With this in mind, this paper suggests that contemporary global gurus are some of the most vibrant innovators in the field of Hindu religiosity.įrom the early twentieth century, Hindu socio-religious and political bodies debated the use that maths (monastic establishments) made of their wealth, amassed in large part through dana (socio religious gifts). In many cases, this uniqueness-whether it is expressed through a particular method, product, philosophy, appearance, sanctity, or charisma of the guru- translates into something entirely new.
Csordas describes as the two primary features necessary for the dissemination of a religion into a new environment: a “portable practice” and a “transposable message” (2009: 4).1 In order to develop a following of disciples, gurus must present something to the public that is not available elsewhere, something unique. They spread their religious sentiments around the globe by combining Hindu elements with personal adaptations, actively developing what Thomas J.
The global gurus who emerge from Indic Hindu traditions are highly adaptive religious leaders who tailor their messages to particular times, circumstances, and populations. Despite all differences of appearance and philosophy, at their core, gurus must by definition be teachers, and teachers must speak in language that their students will understand and appreciate (Aravamudan 2006). Instead, global guru movements display multiscalar, dynamic, and multidirectional flows wherein gurus spread their messages beyond India to other territories (T. The field of contemporary gurus who spread their messages beyond India and around the globe provides an alternate narrative to globalization, which has often been imagined as a movement from center to periphery (“the West to the rest”). Keywords: gurus, anti-gurus, gender, containment, devotion, politics, technology, South Asia" The political and governmental functions of guru-ship are also analyzed, with 'guru governmentality' not 'just another' agency of devolved governance in an era of economic liberalization but the retooling of the radical asymmetry of the guru-devotee relationship in order to produce 'humanitarian' or 'developmental' effects, which from devotees‘ point of view could hardly be glossed as 'secular'. Emphasizing the plural forms of guru-ship, we define categories of anti-guru and collective guru while also drawing attention to the guru‘s mimetic proficiency and the complex role of the guru in imagination and fantasy and gender politics. We present the case study of an avatar guru-a particularly prolific 'collector of associations'-who exemplifies the expansive personhood of the guru as an 'inclusive singularity'. We suggest that the multiplicity and diversity of the guru‘s political and economic entanglements point toward a sense of the guru‘s uncontainability, a quality which, in a seeming irony, relies at least in part on the guru‘s ability to contain diverse others (principally his/her devotees and former incarnations). The guru, we argue, is a social form of peculiar suggestibility. The aim is to reassess some of the key existing literature on guru-ship while developing a kind of analytical toolkit in order to aid future studies and stimulate new thought on the phenomenon. "This commentary highlights the diversity of thematics and conceptual schema generated by guru-ship, and its capacity-as a set of principles as much as specific persons-to participate in, and move between, multiple social and conceptual domains.
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