Written by Derek Mitchell: May 8, 2003

   The establishment of Hindu religious life in the diasporic setting has often involved a degree of unification, summarization, and adaptation. By this I mean that as Hindus set up temples and societies in the diaspora many have felt the need to make their institutions as inclusive as possible. One manifestation of this inclusivity can be found in the placement and choice of deities in new temples; as John S. Hawley points out about the large variety of images found at Divya Dham in Queens, New York, ‘The generous array of deities one sees here would be unusual in India, but it is a familiar feature of the Hinduism on display in American temples…In diaspora, after all, there is far more need to summarize than in the homeland.'[1] The incorporation of many different deities and forms of worship within one temple and the tensions created by these adaptations have been noted by numerous studies of diasporic Hinduism.[2] Because the Hindu tradition has no central governing body with the power to standardize doctrine and practice, individual temples can be flexible and innovative in how they approach Hindu life in the diaspora. It is true that many temples in the United States are affiliated with large temple-institutions in India, such as the association between the Ganesh temple in Queens and Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam in Andhra Pradesh, but most have still taken liberties with their interpretations and presentations of Hinduism to reflect the diasporic condition.

            Prema Kurien has studied Hindu organizations in the United States that have been formed to appeal to specific Indian regional communities (such as Tamil Brahmans, or Malayalam speakers); the efforts at inclusivity seen in some of the larger Hindu establishments are not as apparent in these more regionally-focused Hindu settings. She notes, however, that in these smaller, regionally-orientated organizations, modified forms of worship and innovative interpretations of Hinduism are common.[3] These features of Hindu life in diasporic settings can be regarded as common to both the regionally-focused and broader-based Hindu settings. Yet the innovative and ecumenical ways of conceiving of diasporic Hinduism might, at first glance, seem to have little saliency for certain sectarian forms of Hinduism that have become popular throughout the diaspora. I am interested in this essay in what the diasporic condition means for members of a sectarian Hindu organization. What does the maintenance of close ties with governing bodies in India mean for modification and innovation within a tradition? How do members of a sectarian Hindu organization mediate between their sectarian identity and a more generalized Hindu one? What role does regional identity play in the maintenance of a sectarian organization’s insularity? I will approach these questions and examine their implications through the results of my field work at the Vaishnav Temple of New York in Holliswood, Queens. The temple is affiliated with the Pushtimarg devotional sect, a sampradaya[4] founded by Sri Vallabhacharya in the sixteenth century.[5] This temple’s location in Queens, where a number of Hindu temples exist, presents an ideal setting for comparing ecumenical and sectarian forms of Hinduism in the diaspora.

 

Pushtimarg in Queens

            The Vaishnav Temple of New York is situated in a residential middle class neighborhood of Queens, just off busy Hillside Ave. The building itself could easily be mistaken for another house in the neighborhood as little on its exterior hints that Lord Krishna resides within. The only indication that it is a house of worship is the sign, next to a crumpled American flag, that reads in Gujarati script, ‘Sri Govardhan Nathji Mandir,’ the temple of the Lord of Govardhan. This is a way of referring to Krishna as the lord of Mt. Govardhan, the sacred mountain located in the Braj region of Uttar Pradesh.[6] My first thoughts as to why the temple’s identity was so outwardly inconspicuous was that it wanted to keep a low profile in this residential neighborhood; perhaps zoning laws or complaints about a Hindu temple moving into the neighborhood had forced the temple founders into adopting a more modest exterior. When my field partner asked the head of the youth committee why the exterior of the building was not made with ornate designs and shikharas,[7] he responded that the temple is in fact a haveli, a mansion-like house, where Krishna resides. The temple’s outward appearance as a residence was explained by this member of the community as consistent with what an abode for Krishna should be like.[8]       

            The entrance to the temple is through an unmarked brown door on the first floor. Just inside the entrance is a place for removing shoes and a short corridor with announcements in Gujarati about coming events, the various temple committees (youth, senior, executive), and pictures of past festivals. At the end of the space is a poster of Srinathji where prasad, food blessed by Krishna, is offered.[9] To the left of the poster is a picture of Sri Vallabhacharya and then the entrance to the temple itself. Inside the carpeted room, which is no more than 15 ft. by 25 ft. large, is an open space for devotees. When the room is filled to capacity, I have seen around one hundred gather there to take darsan of the Lord. Two of the walls are covered with posters of Srinathji or Krishna’s lila (play) in Braj; some depict his dances with the gopis, others show him as a child, balkrishna, but the pictures are often changed. There are also images of Sri Vallabhacharya and Yamunaji, the goddess of the river that runs through Braj.[10] The space in front of the devotees is separated from them by a railing, beyond which is the garbha grha, the inner sanctum, where Krishna resides. I have never seen anyone but the priest of the temple enter that space. Doors in front of the garbha grha are shut except during the periods when darsan is being offered; usually the temple is locked during such times. I came to discover that these darsan periods are timed with extreme precision; arriving even a few minutes late means finding the doors firmly shut. Much of the ritual activity in a Pushtimarg temple, such as dressing the Lord, laying out food for him, or preparing him for his naps, is conducted by the priest when the doors of the garbha grha are closed. Only during brief moments of Srinathji’s daily routine are devotees allowed to peer into his world.

The image of Srinathji within the garbha grha stands no more than three feet tall and is made of a black stone that comes from Govardhan mountain.[11] When I first saw him he was ornately dressed, in a manner that befits the winter season, with an elaborate turban placed on his head.[12] Before taking up residence at the Vaishnav temple of New York, this image of Srinathji was in the possession of Goswami Sri Indira Betiji, one of the female descendants of Vallabhacharya living in Vadodara, Gujarat. One devotee told me that Indira Betiji had a dream that Srinathji wanted to live in the United States. Soon after she was approached by Pushtimargis living in New York to enlist her help in the construction of a Vaishnav temple in Queens. She continues to be one of the principal spiritual advisors for this temple.

The primary activity that happens in the temple is darsan. According to the temple’s web site, darsan is offered six times a day for one half hour periods. The first time I attended a darsan, at 6:30 p.m. on a Sunday, there were roughly twenty people scattered about the room, both men and women were mostly in Western clothing, and all Indian. They sat cross-legged and gazed at Srinathji or prayed to themselves. Some older people (~50-60s) sat in the front and sang kirtan, devotional songs, to Srinathji. Occasionally I could make out Sanskrit slokas but usually I could not understand the language of the singing’I thought that it might be Gujarati or Braj Bhasa.[13] The singers had before them a number of books that some seemed to follow as they sang. Soon after my arrival the priest appeared in the sanctum, placed a number of objects near Srinathji, and then fit a flute into the Lord’s hand. The priest was dressed in a dhoti and kurta and walked barefoot on the white marble of the sanctum. As he appeared one of the older women stopped singing and got up to strike a gong. The priest then stood erect before the deity, with his elbows resting at his side and forearms extended, and began waving an oil lamp (arati) in a controlled, precise manner. When I saw him perform arati on a later occasion he did it in what appeared to be exactly the same way. While the priest performed arati for 2 or 3 minutes, some of the devotees clapped, the people in the front sang kirtan, and the striking of the gong continued. After it was over, people chatted for a moment, gave donations, and soon after began filing out to get prasad.

            When I visited the temple for darsan at 12:30 p.m. on a Sunday there were nearly one hundred people present. We had been told by one of the temple’s vice-presidents that this is the most well-attended darsan of the week. Unlike my previous evening visit, many of the women were now wearing Indian clothing and people seemed to be both taking darsan and chatting among themselves. Holi season had begun, so when I arrived the priest was creating a picture of what looked like a house around Srinathji by throwing vermilion powder at screens behind the svarup. After finishing the image, he threw different colored powder out at the devotees and then performed arati. At this darsan, nearly everyone stood up for arati and some clapped rhythmically. After the priest finished, almost everyone chanted a Sanskrit sloka in unison and then prostrated themselves or bowed their heads. Shortly after the arati and chanting the priest shut the doors to the sanctum’Srinathji only grants darsan for short periods.

            The second time that I visited the temple at 12:30 on a Sunday there were far fewer people in attendance, roughly thirty. At this darsan, those singing kirtan were accompanied by hand cymbals and a keyboard. When arati began, only one or two older men stood up and most did not clap; it appears that there is no fixed way for people to react to the arati being performed. A feature of this darsan that I had not previously seen was that after the priest performed the arati he took a large swath of orange cloth that had been placed before Srinathji and draped it over the heads of a family huddled together in front of the sanctum. When I asked one of the temple’s vice-presidents why that family had the cloth placed over them he said that it was a way of blessing them for sponsoring that arati.[14]

            In addition to the darsan periods, large numbers of devotees congregate at the temple for satsang.[15] Satsangs are monthly opportunities for devotees to gather in the temple’s upstairs meeting hall and sing bhajans, religious songs, together. When I attended a satsang most of the devotees were seated on the floor cross-legged, but some of the older women sat in chairs. Everyone faced an altar where pictures of Srinathji, Vallabhacharya, and Yamunaji had been placed; next to the pictures popcorn had been offered as prasad. Unlike the darsan periods, men and women sat separately at the satsang and most children sat with the women. At the front of the room was a small group of musicians who played a keyboard and shook tambourines while one older man sang. After the older man sang a verse, everyone congregated would repeat it. Occasionally someone among the congregation[16] would come to the front and lead everyone in a bhajan. At one point an elderly woman (60s-70s), full of rasa,[17] got up and led the congregation in a jubilant bhajan that had some people standing and rhythmically clapping. She would point to the image of Srinathji and then urge the crowd to sing louder and louder until everyone seemed to be in a playful mood. One man next to me commented that by singing the bhajans, everyone feels like they are the gopis playing in the ras lila with Lord Krishna.[18] The season of Holi had just started so some members of the congregation threw red powder at the pictures on the altar and others smeared powder on each others’ faces. After two hours or so of singing bhajans everyone went downstairs for darsan and arati. At this point there were well over a hundred people present. After the priest finished arati and closed the doors to the sanctum everyone filed back upstairs for a communal meal of Gujarati food.

            Darsan and satsang are the two most common events to bring devotees together at the temple. Less common, but often drawing many more devotees, are the temple’s celebrations of festivals. According to the temple’s website, the major festivals celebrated include: Bhagwat Gyan Yagna, Gita Gyan Yagna, Giriraj Mahotsav, Phag Khel (Holi), Janamashtami (Krishna’s birthday), Nand Mahotsav (morning after Janmashtami), and Shri Mahaprabhuji Prakotsav (Vallabhacharya’s birthday).[19] These are only a few of the many festivals and events listed on each month of the temple’s calendar. Some of the summer festivals include the Rath Yatra (procession of Krishna through the streets), Hindola (rocking baby Krishna in a swing), and Hariyali Amavasya (celebrating the coming of the rains). All of the festivals celebrated at the temple focus on Krishna; even Divali, a festival commonly associated with Ram and Sita, is followed on the next day by Annakut, a celebration of Krishna raising Govardhan mountain over Braj. Members of the temple have told me that hundreds attend the major festivals like Janmashtami and Holi.

            I was present at the temple for the celebration of Sri Vallabhacharya’s birthday in April, 2003. The day began with a yatra, a procession, of Sri Vallabhacharya’s picture in a chariot, through the streets of the temple’s neighborhood. Seventy to one hundred people gathered to accompany the chariot for the half-hour procession. A number of the men, many of whom wore Indian clothing and saffron fabric around their heads, pulled the chariot, played drums, and clashed small cymbals. Many women, dressed in saris, held pots on the their heads and sang bhajans as they followed the chariot. At one point, when the procession stopped for a moment, the women formed a circle around the chariot and began singing and dancing. One of Sri Vallabhacharya’s descendants accompanied the procession and, later in the day, delivered a discourse in Gujarati. As the chariot returned to the temple, devotees bid on who would get to perform the puja for Sri Vallabhacharya once the picture was back inside. After the procession, the children of the temple enacted the ras-lilas, danced to bhajans, and told the story of Sri Vallabhacharya’s birth in a cultural show. By the time the guru-descendant then spoke, there were over two hundred people present in the temple’s upstairs meeting hall. The evening ended with a massive offering of mahaprasad for all present.

            The guru-descendants of Vallabhacharya play a number of vital roles in the Vaishnav Temple of New York beyond delivering philosophical discourses and presiding over festivals.

The guru’s visits are the only opportunities for new devotees in the United States to become initiated into the Pushtimarg’only a descendant of Vallabhacharya can initiate a new devotee by administering the brahmasambandha mantra. Many aspects of the temple life such as consecrating the svarup of Srinathji also require the support and presence of a guru. Maintaining this connection to one of the gurus is vital for temple life. The guru-descendant Pujyapad Goswami 108 Shri Mathureshwarji Mahoday of Surat, Gujarat is a permanent member on the Board of Directors of this temple.

            Mathureshwarji’s primary role in the Vaishnav temple of New York is to be the advisor on all spiritual matters that are beyond the purview of the resident priest. His instructions were recently required on how to move the statue of Srinathji in a ritually correct manner. The temple building is going to be expanded and so the need has arisen to move the garbha grha temporarily upstairs; moving the image of Srinathji requires meticulous attention to ritual details, however. Spiritual direction on such matters is required from a guru-descendant living in India, but the actual administration of the temple is controlled directly by members of the New York temple.

The highest level of administration is the Board of Trustees. Their primary tasks include handling financial matters, outreach and growth. Beneath them is first the Executive Committee that executes the Board’s decisions, and then the youth and senior committees. The youth and senior committees perform tasks like sending out temple mailings, tidying up the temple, and providing entertainment at events (e.g., dance performances). At one of the youth committee meeting I attended a number of the members were complaining that the seniors volunteered to perform duties before the young people even found out about them. They joked at how many more tasks the older people complete. Throughout the youth committee meeting I attended, the chair, a man who looked to be in his late twenties, tried to encourage the people younger than he to volunteer more at the temple. The ten people he spoke to on the other side of the table ranged from about twelve to early twenties in age. None seemed very enthusiastic to be there and, despite complaints about seniors taking all the tasks, they were not forthcoming when the chair and his brother asked them to volunteer for coming events. After pushing and pushing the young people to do some kind of creative performance at a coming event, one finally volunteered to dance; for the rest of the meeting they singled her out as an example who the others should follow.

            I asked myself during the meeting whether the young people’s reluctance to become more involved in temple life was a result of their not having internalized the importance of a Pushtimargi’s constant seva (service to Lord Krishna). Many of them had been initiated into the Pushtimarg through brahmasambandh, so those young people were likely to be aware of the responsibilities that a devotee must take on after initiation. Yet the low numbers of young people present at youth committee meetings and the lack of enthusiasm in those who were there indicates a clear gap between adult and youth involvement at the temple. It has been apparent at every event I have visited at the temple that there are not many young people above the age of ten who regularly attend. Seniors and middle-aged devotees are most common at the temple but there are also quite a few small children running about during darsans and satsangs. I do not think I have seen more than five people who looked like teenagers in the entire month and a half that I have been visiting the temple. Even at the birthday celebration for Sri Vallabhacharya there could not have been more than ten teenagers present throughout the day.

One reason for this dearth of young people may be the almost total use of Gujarati as the language of the temple. The young people at one youth committee meeting I attended explained that they do speak Gujarati at home but they cannot read it. Some complained that they couldn’t find out more about Pushtimarg because everything about it is written in Gujarati. Though kirtan and bhajans at the temple are more often in Sanskrit and what I believed to be Braj Bhasa, Gujarati is the language of all of the temple’s literature and oral proceedings. I’ve come to find out that nearly everyone who attends the Vaishnav Temple of New York is Gujarati; the only non-Gujarati I have met there is the priest, who is from Rajasthan. The temple seems to conceive of itself as being regionally-oriented toward Gujaratis, as all of the newsletters about coming events, which go out to 3,500 people, are printed in Gujarati. Similarly, the announcements in the temple’s entrance area, the temple’s sign on the façade, and most of the books in the temple’s library are written in Gujarati. In regard to the administration of the temple, one of the members of the Executive Committee told me that most of its proceedings are in English but those of the Board of Trustees tend to be in Gujarati. According to Hasmukh Shah, a member of the Board of Trustees, he and many of the members of the temple are members of the Gujarati Samaj of New York, though a formal association between the temple and the Samaj does not exist.[20] The chairman of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Arvind Shah, was once a president of the Gujarati Samaj. Whenever I have heard of non-Pushtimargis, such as Jains, coming to the temple for darsan of Srinathji they have all been Gujaratis. Just as the temple is solely oriented toward Srinathji as the divine, so it is entirely oriented toward devotees who are Gujarati.

The temple is clearly aware of how the overwhelming use of Gujarati in temple life can create obstacles for the second generation’s participation. Efforts seem to be made to include the second generation by holding weekly Gujarati classes on the temple premises, conducting youth committee meetings in English, and including more English in the temple’s newsletters. From the comments of some devotees, it seems clear that, as time goes on, the temple’s literature will increasingly be available in English and Gujarati to accommodate the second generation.[21]

Another pattern that I have noticed among the temple’s members is that nearly every young man I have met there is involved in business, and most in information technology (IT). When I asked the youth committee chair about the sorts of jobs the older people on the committee have (mid-twenties and thirties), he realized after answering me that they have enough business specialists among them to start a small IT business themselves. Among the older people at the temple now involved in IT, those who I spoke to studied engineering in India and learned their computer skills after migrating. The temple seems to be encouraging its members to become skilled in information technology as we were informed that a number of computers had been donated and computer classes would soon be started. It appears that many members of the senior committee were interested in acquiring basic computer skills and that members of the youth committee would volunteer to teach them. Interestingly, those who seem to be considered the most distinguished in the community, such as the chair of the Board of Trustees and the president of the Executive Committee, are medical doctors. The Pushtimarg community in New York, at least among regularly attending men, could also be a considered a community of ‘professionals’ and entrepreneurs. The demographics of the New York temple have, as I will demonstrate in the next section, been carried over in multiple ways from the Pushtimarg community in India.

 

Pushtimarg in India            

Many aspects of temple life at the Pushtimarg temple in Queens correspond to the practices and beliefs maintained by devotees at Pushtimarg temples in India. For my discussion of Indian temple life I will rely on Bennett, who studied the Pushtimarg temples of Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh.[22] Like at the temple in Holliswood, the principal daily activity of Indian Pushtimarg temples is darsan of Srinathji. Because Srinathji only grants darsan for twenty or thirty minute intervals throughout the day, worship has a ‘congregational appearance’ in both Indian and North American temples.[23] The timings and number of darsan periods at the Holliswood temple are different from its counterparts, however; whereas Bennett writes that there are seven or eight darsan periods at temples in Ujjain, the first beginning at 5 or 6 a.m., at the Pushtimarg temple in Queens there are six darsan periods and the first begins at 8 a.m.[24] The daily ritual activities conducted by a temple’s priest, like arati, do not appear to differ significantly between the Pushtimarg temples in Queens and India.

It is interesting to note the similarity between Bennett’s description of Pushtimarg temples in India and the appearance of the New York temple:

Initiates of Vallabhacarya Sampradaya stress that strictly speaking the word mandir, the normal word for ‘temple’ in north India, is inappropriate when applied to their own places of worship; instead they prefer the word haveli…Viewed from the outside many havelis are deceptively inconspicuous as temples; architectural embellishments such as typify the Hindu temple style…are absent. Visitors enter through unpretentious doorways…Judging by the extravagant character of worship inside the haveli, it would be wrong to assume that its plan façade reflected an inner spirit of puritanical austerity.'[25]

Both Barz’s and Bennett’s books on Pushtimarg stress the lack of ascetic tendencies in this sampradaya. There are no renunciant orders in the Pushtimarg sampradaya; Vallabhacarya was instructed by Krishna to marry and have children, an act, according to Barz, that would serve as an example to all later Pushtimarg devotees.[26] Bennett explains that because the performance of ascetic acts is intended to build personal spiritual merit and eventually lead to moksa, liberation from rebirth, some Vaishnavs consider it selfish in nature.[27] The primary way to gain spiritual merit in the Pushtimarg sampradaya is to perform seva, selfless service, for Lord Krishna. This service must be done for no reason than the desire to serve; the desire for spiritual merit or the fulfillment of any kind of personal wish cannot be the object of this service.            

Bennett describes three primary kinds of seva: ‘tanuja-seva, or service rendered by means of body; the second is vittaja-seva, or service rendered by making offerings of wealth; and the third is manasik-seva or mental service.'[28] The first two kinds of seva are considered the easiest for most to practice as the last kind can only be sincerely performed by those whose inner state is completely attuned with the desire to serve Krishna. Service rendered by the body includes singing kirtan in the presence of the Lord’s svarup, adorning his form according to the season and time of day, and offering foods to the deity.[29] All of these services for Krishna are performed either for an image at the temple or in an individual’s home, but the temple worship is understandably much more complex than that performed in the home. Once Krishna has been invited to reside inside an image, that svarup requires regular attention from the devotee.            

Singing kirtan for Srinathji is clearly one of the primary forms of worship at the Vaishnav temple in Queens. The prevalence of this practice corresponds to the emphasis placed on kirtan and hearing the events of Lord Krishna’s life in Vallabhacarya’s writings and in bhakti literature in general. Barz notes that the first and second steps of bhakti in Rupa Gosvami’s Bhakti Rasamrta Sindhu are shravana, ‘hearing or listening to accounts of the life of Sri Krishna’ and kirtana, ‘the singing aloud of the names and the virtues and the events in the lilas of Sri Krishna.'[30] As at the temple in Queens, when Pushtimarg devotees in India sing kirtan to the Lord they sit during darsan periods in the front of the temple, just before the doors to the garbha grha. Satsangs are also opportunities for devotees in India and Queens to sing kirtan; according to one devotee in Queens, however, every Pushtimarg temple in India does not hold satsangs, some satsangs may gather in peoples’ homes, and some may be more frequent than the monthly satsangs in Queens. This is an aspect of Pushtimarg devotion that is left up to devotees to organize, sustain, and regulate. The kirtan that devotees sing often come from the padas, poems, of the poet-saints who were devotees of Vallabhacharya and his son Vitthalnathji. In addition to kirtans, devotees in New York participate in the shravana aspect of bhakti when guru­-descendants from India come to tell kathas, stories of Sri Krishna’s life, and relate them to the lives of the devotees. As at the temple in Holliswood, darsan and kirtan/bhajan singing are the primary ways that devotees at Pushtimarg temples in India worship Lord Krishna.            

The other principal way of expressing devotion at Pushtimarg temples in India and in Queens is through monetary donations or vittaja-seva. Procuring wealth is not looked down upon by Pushtimargis so long as everything that one earns is dedicated to Krishna. When a male devotee takes the brahmsambandha mantra he says, ‘I now, to the Lord Krishna, do dedicate my bodily faculties, my life, my soul, and its belongings, with my wife, my house, my children, my whole substance and my own self; I am thy servant.'[31] Accordingly, when darsan periods end at the temple in Queens, men go to the temple manager, whose desk is next to the entrance, and make donations. This practice of giving is also practiced, as I saw at a 12:30 p.m. Sunday darsan, by a family sponsoring the arati. Moreover, when devotees bid for the ability to do the puja to Sri Vallabhacharya at his birthday celebrations, the individuals present saw it not as a competitive, worldly way to participate in the event but as a playful means of expressing devotion. One devotee at that event was quick to point out to me that there is no compulsion for Pushtimargis to give fixed amounts of their income to the temple. For giving to be an expression of bhakti, the donation must carry with it the whole-hearted desire of the devotee to dedicate his or her wealth to Krishna seva.

The possession and accumulation of wealth, procured for and dedicated to Lord Krishna, is an example of Pushtimarg’s departure from traditions of asceticism. As one devotee in Queens, Hasmukh Shah, writes on the temple’s website, ‘a devotee is never advised to abandon his family or his basic worldly responsibilities.'[32] Bennett notes that by ‘dedicating all of one’s efforts and gains to the service of Lord Krishna means that both the activity of acquiring wealth and wealth itself are rendered sacred by a process of consecration.'[33] Accordingly, many members of the New York Pushtimarg community are involved in business ventures and come from urban business caste families in Gujarat. The ‘symbiotic’ relationship between the Gujarati urban business castes and Pushtimarg began when Vallabhacharya’s son, Vitthalnathji, ‘toured Gujarat six times between 1543 and 1581 with the intention of raising money to fund the luxurious programme of devotional worship he had introduced in his temple on Govardhan Hill in Braj.’ [34] Today, donations from this group of Gujarati businessmen and others around the world have made the haveli in Nathdwara, where the first svarup of Srinathji resides, the second richest temple in India. From early in the history of the Pushtimarg sampradaya, monetary support has been one of the fundamental ways of performing seva for Lord Krishna.

 

The Sampradaya as a Sectarian Form of Hinduism

My examination of the relationship between the Vaishnav Temple in New York and the Pushtimarg community in India can help to provide answers for why the Holliswood temple considers itself part of a sampradaya. Approaching this question will, in turn, illuminate some meanings of the term sampradaya. I have attempted to demonstrate that many of the ritual practices, manifestations of seva, and demographics of the Vaishnav temple in Queens correspond in numerous significant fact ways to Pushtimarg temple life in India. Though differences in when darsan occurs, for example, or how satsang is organized do exist, devotees in India and New York profess many similar beliefs about how Srinathji is to be worshipped and what the ideal devotee should be like. These correspondences demonstrate that a unique system of teachings, first promulgated by the guru-founder Vallabhacharya and later built upon and institutionalized by his son Vittalnathji, holds a powerful influence over the devotional expressions of Pushtimarg Vaishnavs all over the world. The teachings attributed to Vallabhacharya unite this world-wide group of devotees and give them their specific, Pushtimarg identity within Hinduism.[35] These teachings are in turn sustained and passed on by the guru-descendants, who initiate devotees into the path and sanctify events with their blessings and discourses. The preservation, reinforcement, and transmission of the guru‘s teachings, which maintain the connection between guru and devotee, comprise some of the central features of an organizational structure called the sampradaya.

The term sampradaya has often been translated as ‘sect’ in scholarly writing about the followers of gurus like Ramanuja, Caitanya, Vallabha, etc.[36] ‘Sect’ is also given as the translation for sampradaya by some devotees at the Holliswood temple. As both Barz and Bennett point out, however, certain common connotations of the term ‘sect’ do not entirely accord with the meaning of sampradaya. Foremost among the differences in meaning is that ‘sect’ often implies some kind of secession from a wider organized group or church;[37] sampradaya, on the other hand, primarily signifies the channels through which the teachings of a spiritual preceptor are passed on. Bennett provides a comprehensive definition of sampradaya that is clearly illustrated in the context of Pushtimarg in New York:

The sampradaya is conceived as a vehicle for the continuous transmission of sacred tradition from generation to generation. The tradition includes esoteric knowledge revealed to the founder by a divinity, along with scriptures, devotional songs, ritual paraphenalia, styles of worship, and so on, while its transmission through time and space is effected by a line of preceptors serving as a channel for the preservation of the means of salvation and reproducing over and over again the unique spiritual personality of the founder.[38]

The Pushtimarg sampradaya came into being not when Vallabhacharya produced the esoteric knowledge that comprises Pushtimarg doctrine, but when he had children. Vallabhacharya’s son Vittalnathji, and his descendants, provided a vehicle by which the teachings of the guru-founder could be authentically transmitted. Sampradaya can also be glossed as ‘lineage,’ often referring to a lineage of gurus, each building on the previous guru‘s teachings. This translation is applicable to the Pushtimarg sampradaya in so far as this sampradaya does have a lineage, based on birth, of gurus going back to Vallabhacharya. But these descendants, with the possible exception of Vittalnathji, have served to maintain and transmit the first guru’s teachings rather than build on them. The guru-descendants reproduce for later generations the consecration and blessings that the first Pushtimarg initiates received in Vallabhacharya’s presence.

The gurus’ roles as sanctifier and spiritual guide were in full evidence when one of the guru-descendants visited the Vaishnav Temple of New York for Vallabhacharya jayanti this year. His presence in the yatra served to sanctify the event and his discourse to reinforce the guru-founder’s teachings. Maintaining and transmitting Pushtimarg tradition also, of course, depends on the devotional involvement of members of the sampradaya themselves. Their faith in Pushtimarg teachings and desire to perform seva are indexes by which to judge the well-being and vibrancy of the sampradaya. In presenting cultural shows, for example, at the Vallabhacharya jayanti, stories about Krishna and Vallabhacharya’s life were passed on to the second generation. From a very young age, the children of Pushtimarg devotees receive instruction from their parents in the significance of seva to Srinathji. The Gujarati classes, youth committee meetings, and festivals are all venues for the transmission of tradition to the next generation (as to whether the second generation accepts and internalizes that tradition is another matter). Pushtimarg devotees have extended the sampradaya to New York by maintaining their belief in the traditions and doctrines of Pushtimarg and nurturing a context where the teachings of the guru-founder can flourish.

Barz and Bennett both point out that in addition to signifying ‘a vehicle for the continuous transmission of a sacred tradition,'[39] the term sampradaya, in the context of Pushtimarg, also carries with it ‘the sense of an exclusive body separated from other groups that is so fundamental to the meaning of ‘sect’ in English.'[40] This aspect of the Pushtimarg sampradaya has been amply apparent in both my textual and observational studies and has led me to conclude that the term ‘sect’ can be appropriately used as a translation for sampradaya. A principal example of exclusivity and separation in Pushtimarg can be found in the significance of the initiation ceremony to join the sampradaya. In Vallabhacharya’s thought all jivas are contaminated by dosas, impurities, during the Kali Yuga and can only purify themselves by completely surrendering to Lord Krishna.[41] This dedication of one’s self and possessions to Lord Krishna is ritually enacted through reciting the Brahmasambandha mantra in the presence of a guru-descendant. After undergoing this rite of initiation, the devotee’s jiva is considered purified and, therefore, ‘fit for communion with Krishna.'[42] The initiation marks the beginning of the devotee’s attitudinal shift from the laukika‘all that is associated solely with the profane, superficial world’to the alaukika, that which is transcendent, sacred, and filled with an awareness of Sri Krishna.[43]

Vallabhacharya considered the devotee’s desire to receive the Brahmasambandha mantra, a manifestation of Krishna’s will. Only those whom Krishna chooses to enter the sampradaya will feel the desire to perform seva to him and seek out a guru to receive initiation. Mrudula Marfatia calls Vallabhacharya a ‘thorough Predestinarian’ because he believed that it was only Krishna’s grace and will, not the actual efforts and inclinations of the prospective devotee, that determined an individual’s fate.[44] For this reason, a Pushtimarg website writes that ‘anybody can be admitted in to Pushti Sect but not everybody.'[45] By this they mean that people of any sex, caste, or nationality can join the sampradaya, but only those who Krishna has chosen to join will feel the desire to seek initiation. Salvation is, in other words, only available to a select, pre-determined group of individuals. When I addressed this matter with Hasmukh Shah and other devotees at the Vaishnav Temple of New York, they affirmed the view and reiterated that if one feels the desire to join the sampradaya, then he or she has been chosen.

The distinction that Pushtimarg doctrine makes between those jivas outside the sampradaya who are still contaminated by dosas (impurities) and those within whom Krishna has chosen to be purified, gives rise to the sampradaya‘s self-designation as a satsang, or ‘society of the righteous.’ [46] Barz’s study of traditional Pushtimarg doctrine leads him to conclude that ‘Vallabhacharya’s movement in particular did not look favorably upon the ordinary world…the sampradaya became a fortress inside of which the seva of Sri Krishna, the dharma required of all jivas, was practiced…Ideally, the sevakas of Vallabhacharya would not even associate with the members of other bhaktimargi sects.'[47] This separation between the Pushtimarg community and the outside world is reflected in the cosmological conception of the haveli as ‘the threshold between two contrasting worlds (loka). Outside is the ordinary, mundane (laukika) world populated by souls which are spiritually ignorant, whereas inside is the sacred (alaukika) other-world where Krishna performs his eternal lila, a refuge for divine souls (daivi jiva) enlightened by the grace of Krishna.'[48] The Pushtimarg satsang is conceived by the sampradaya‘s literature as an exclusive community of divinely chosen individuals who should ideally fraternize and worship with like-minded sevakas of Lord Krishna. At the Vaishnav temple of New York, however, I have not heard the term satsang used to mean the wider Pushtimarg community; it has only been used to refer to the monthly gatherings for singing kirtan mentioned above.

The distinction made in the sampradaya‘s literature between the alaukika Pushtimarg satsang and the laukika outside world extends to how Krishna is perceived among the multiple gods of the Hindu tradition. After a someone is initiated into the sampradaya, Krishna is ideally the only god who is to be worshipped. Some have called Vallabhacharya a monotheist because of his complete focus on Krishna as deity. One devotee at a satsang in New York told me that Srinathji is like the Father of Christianity and Allah of Islam. This form of monotheism, however, is not equivalent to that of Mosaic religion. Vallabhacharya identifies Krishna with Param Brahman and all of the other gods of Hinduism as parts or aspects of his all-encompassing being. The Pushtimarg view of gods other than Krishna is not that they do not exist but that they are inferior to and dependent on Lord Krishna’s existence. One devotee at the Pushtimarg temple in New York told me that if the divine is compared to a tree, then gods like Shiva and Ganesh would be the leaves and Krishna would be the roots. He said that because he wants to direct his bhakti straight to the source of the divine, watering the roots of the tree, he only worships Krishna. Vertovec observed a similar reaction to Hindu gods other than Krishna among Gujarati Pushtimargis in Wandsworth, London. He found that ‘strict Pushtimargis would not visit the Radha-Krishna temple because of its attached Ambamata-Shiva temple, which the Pushtimargis consider inappropriate or even spiritually rather base.'[49]

Following from this conception of Krishna’s relationship to the other gods, Pushtimarg doctrine makes a distinction between the way that members of the sampradaya worship Krishna’ seva‘and the Maryadamarg (Path of Rules) way of propitiating the other Hindu gods, which is puja or karmakhanda. Bennett describes how Pushtimarg devotees he interviewed considered puja to be ‘bound by formal rules and regulations whereas seva is the spontaneous outflowing of love for Krishna which transcends all concern for proper ceremony.'[50] This explanation is interesting considering that the Pushtimarg worship I observed in Queens can be exceedingly ritualized and methodically regulated. Bennett’s interviewee appears to assume that though there are prescribed ways to perform seva, the attitudes and motivations brought to the performance of seva and puja differ. When I asked a devotee in Queens about the seva/puja difference, he also said that seva is distinguished from puja by the prema, love, that fills the Pushtimarg devotee’s worship of Krishna. The sampradaya‘s focus on Krishna as Supreme God and the numerous distinctions made between the alaukika satsang and the laukika world that is beyond, emphasize the sampradaya’s exclusivity and sectarianism within Hinduism. Devotees at the Vaishnav Temple of New York have, to a certain degree, preserved these features of the Pushtimarg sampradaya, and therefore, constitute a sectarian form of Hinduism in the North American diaspora. The members of this temple are actively engaged in the transmission of sacred tradition by performing seva to Lord Krishna and believing in the sectarian doctrines attributed to Vallabhacharya, while also, though I will examine this in more detail in the next section, negociating boundaries between themselves and the wider Hindu community of New York. In the next section I will turn to how Pushtimarg devotees navigate these boundaries and how porous or rigid they are considered in the context of New York Hinduism.

 

The North American Hindu Diaspora, Ecumenicism, and Sectarianism

In this last section I will examine the relationship of the Vaishnav Temple of New York with the ecumenical, trans-sectarian forms of Hinduism that have become dominant in many North America Hindu temples. Furthermore, I will investigate how regional identities relate to questions of sectarianism and ecumenicism in the Hindu diaspora. A number of scholars of diasporic Hinduism have noted that as many Hindu communities in North America organize themselves into trusts and construct temples, one of the guiding principles of their efforts is inclusivity.[51] In decisions about the principal deity to be enshrined in the temple, the language of the temple’s proceedings, and the cultural presentations offered, the foremost concern of Boards of Trustees in temples all over North America is how to appeal to as many different kinds of Hindus as possible (across divisions of caste, region, language, and sect). A form of Hinduism that many consider unique to America, an ‘ecumenical Hinduism,’ has resulted and has come to be prevalent in some of the major temple complexes of North America (e.g., the Ganesh Temple of Flushing, Divya Dham, the Hindu Temple of Ottawa, The Shiva-Vishnu Temple of Livermore). Raymond Brady Williams provides a definition for this ‘ecumenical Hinduism:’

An ecumenical Hinduism is developing in the United States that unites deities, rituals, sacred texts, and people in temples and programs in ways that would not be found together in India. In temples and centers created on an ecumenical model, emphasis is placed upon an all-India Hindu ‘great tradition,’ on devotion to major deities, and upon some elements of the Sanskrit tradition…Languages used are Sanskrit for rituals and English for instruction, commentary, and business.[52]

This fusion of many different elements from the disparate conceptions of Hinduism all over India is intended to create a more unified sense of community among those living in the North American diaspora. Radhika Sekhar describes how the drive for inclusivism led the founders of the Hindu Temple of Ottawa to decide that ‘although regional variations would be accommodated ‘within reason,’ it was to be a ‘joint temple,’ eventually unifying Ottawa Hindus in a single temple culture. ‘After all,’ it was argued, ‘We are all Hindu’ and the temple brochure proclaims in musketeer like fashion: ‘One in All and All in One.”[53] The urge to appear as one culture and one community has led to innovation and modifications in how Hindus worship and how they re-create their religious identities for the diaspora.

A major context for the application of inclusive principles in the construction of North American Hindu temples has been in the selection of a central deity(ies) for the mulasthana (inner sanctum). John Hawley notes that Ganesh was chosen as the central deity at the Ganesh Temple in Flushing, in part, because he ‘is a trans-sectarian figure worshipped by Hindus of many inclinations, and therefore ideally suited to a temple intended, at least in its origins, to appeal to Hindus whose religious backgrounds might have separated them back home.'[54] By selecting Ganesh as the central deity, the leaders of this Hindu temple found a way of providing something for everyone in the figure of one deity. Another approach to creating a more catholic space in temples all over North America, including the Ganesha temple, is to establish shrines within one temple for deities that would traditionally not be found together in India. One common form of this approach has been to bring Shaivites and Vaishnavs together by constructing temples with both Shiva and Vishnu as the central deities. Major examples of such temples include the Shiva-Vishnu temples of Washington, D.C. and Livermore, CA. Vasudha Narayanan has noted in her article on the Penn Hills Sri Venkateswara temple that though this Srivaishnav temple does not have an image of Shiva or Devi (their is, however, an image of Shiva’s son Ganesh), other Sri Venkateswara temples in America, such as those in Malibu, CA and Arora, IL, have incorporated Shaiva elements.[55] This Shaiva presence would, so far as I know, not have a similar prominence in the Sri Venkateswara temples of India like the Tiru Venkatam Temple in Andhra Pradesh. By providing for the devotional and ritual needs of numerous kinds of Hindus, many North American temples are actively engaged in fashioning a Hindu tradition that can respond to the exigencies of the diasporic condition.

The creation of inclusivist forms of Hinduism in North America has not come without much argumentation and compromise among temple founders. Radhika Sekhar describes in her study of the Hindu Temple of Ottawa that once the members of the Temple Board had worked out what deities would be featured in the temple, conflicts then arose over the materials out of which they would be sculpted, whether they could be adorned in luxurious garments, and what rituals could be performed for them.[56] On such matters the Board would split between those with a more rationalist temperament and those inclined toward bhakti, as well as along regional lines. As this temple is controlled entirely by lay members, there is no higher religious authority to which they can appeal. Sekhar writes that in such a setting, ‘very often adjustments in Hindu practices are affected by the need to compromise rather than due to theological computations.'[57]

Some have come to feel uncomfortable in these environments where adjustments must be made for Hindus of many different kinds to assemble. The tensions created by regional ties in pan-Hindu settings have led some, such as the founder-president of the Hindu Malayalee group that Prema Kurien has studied, to form Hindu groups based on regional affiliation.[58] Even groups with a more regional focus, however, must negotiate divisions of caste and sect. When Kurien asked a founding member of the Organization of Hindu Malayalees about the choice of Aiyappa as the group’s central deity, he said, ‘we picked Aiyappa since it was the least controversial choice. He is the one deity that everyone in the group could agree on. Aiyappa worship is a unifying factor in the group since there are Vaishnavites and Shaivites and members of different castes.'[59] Moreover, the congregational forms of worship in the satsang and bala vihar that Kurien studied were new to many of the South Indian immigrants who attended. Though they may not have practiced Hinduism in this manner back in India, the members appreciated the sense of community that the congregational form of worship fostered among Los Angeles Malayalees. In both the pan-Hindu and more regionally-oriented settings, the North American context has created the need for innovative and inclusive re-interpretations of the Hindu tradition.

I have described a number of the trends in the formation of Hindu temples in North America to establish the wider context of diasporic Hinduism within which the Vaishnav Temple of New York exists. It should be clear from my presentation of these trends that temples affiliated with a sampradaya vastly differ from those taking on a more ecumenical model. As a sampradaya is a vehicle for transmitting the specific teachings of a guru-founder, many of the decisions that have had to be made by Temple Boards across the country were not a part of the creation of the Vaishnav Temple of New York.

At the Pushtimarg Temple in Queens, there has never been any need for the Board of Trustees to argue and compromise on what deity(ies) would be placed in the garbha grha. A temple would not be part of the Pushtimarg sampradaya if the central deity was not one of the svarups of Krishna that have been in the sampradaya since Vittalnathji’s time. The connection of the temple in Queens to the wider Pushtimarg sampradaya led to a religious authority (a guru-descendant), Sri Indira Betiji, providing them with the svarup for the temple’even in the case of which svarups should be chosen there was no conflict for the Board as such decisions were made by those who possess higher religious authority.

The members of the Board of Trustees at the Vaishnav Temple of New York all share a devotion to a single tradition, which would rarely be the case in many of the more ecumenical temples of North America. All of the members of the Board would have received brahmasambandha and, therefore, have a commitment to Srinathji, Vallabhacharya, his teachings, and his descendants. Even on the matter of which house (gaddi) should provide spiritual guidance to the temple, there has not been, so far as I know, any contention as Sri Mathureswaraji has been the temple’s spiritual advisor since its inception. Moreover, a situation, like the one Radhika Sekhar describes, where ritual procedures are decided upon by ‘compromise’ rather than ‘theological computations’ would never arise in the Vaishnav Temple of New York because such decisions would always be referred to either the priest or to Mathureswaraji. When I mentioned to a Pushtimarg devotee that questions of ritual procedure and theology are addressed by the Boards of some temples in the U.S., he immediately contrasted this to theVaishnav (Pushtimarg) temple, where such questions would always be referred to a religious authority. It is true that, just as at the Penn Hills Ventakateswara temple that Narayanan has studied, adjustments have been made in the daily Pushtimarg worship routine and festivals are celebrated to suit the secular calendar.

Nevertheless, these changes constitute some of the most notable departures from what I have been able to ascertain about Pushtimarg temple life in India. There is a strong continuity in ritual practice between Indian Pushtimarg temples and the one in Queens; modification and adaptation in practice and belief can only occur to the extent that they still remain true to the sampradaya. Temples affiliated with sampradayas represent a form of diasporic Hinduism that sharply contrasts with the ecumenical modes of worship that have become prevalent in many of North America’s major temple complexes.

The Pushtimargis in Queens are not a homogeneous community, but there is among them a certain degree of uniformity in caste, region, and theological-orientation. Gujarati can be used for temple proceedings rather than English because there is an assumption that everyone hails from Gujarat (though of course this is presenting itself as a problem in the case of the second generation). The use of Gujarati in temple life is not, however, as strictly maintained as it would be in a Swaminarayan setting as Vallabhacharya was not from Gujarat, nor did he write in that language. But, like in a Swaminarayan setting, food at the mahaprashads will almost always be Gujarati (with popcorn perhaps counting as an excpetion) and many women wear Gujarati dress. A more or less uniform regional affiliation at the temple fosters, from what I have observed, a closer and more comfortable sense of community than would be the case at a temple like Divya Dham. In addition, a degree of insularity’from non-Gujarati Vaisnavs, for example’certainly results from the temple’s regional focus.

The inclusivism of many Hindu temples in North America and the exclusivism of doctrinal Pushtimarg clearly account for differences such as what deities are represented in the respective temples. The Pushtimarg’s exclusivism and concept of satsang should also extend into how members of the sampradaya relate to the wider Hindu community around them. Bennett reminds his readers, however, that the conception of the Pushtimarg sampradaya as a satsang, and all the exclusivist implications of that designation, is an ideal form and should not lead one to attribute an ‘exaggerated sense of homogeneity and discreteness’ to the sampradaya.[60] Using his ethnographic research in India to build on Barz’s textually grounded statements about satsang and exclusivism, Bennett writes that Pushtimarg ‘members perform varying roles outside the sectarian domain which are not necessarily abandoned on entering the temple…devotees are also heirs to a wide variety of traditions in Hinduism…which incorporate rituals which have no place in Pushtimarg and yet which are not regarded by devotees as contradicting, obstructing, or denying the approach to Krishna via the Path of Grace.'[61]

In my studies of Pushtimarg in Queens, I have found both the satsang understanding of Pushtimarg and a more porous conception of boundaries between the sampradaya and the wider Hindu community. While it is true that as a part of the sampradaya, the Vaishnav temple itself must maintain strict boundaries between itself and the wider Hindu world (in, for example, the deities represented in the temple and the rituals performed), this does not necessarily mean that members have no sense of pan-Hindu identity.

            In order to arrive at some kind of understanding of how Pushtimarg Hindus in New York mediate between their sectarian identities and their more generalized Hindu ones, I asked nearly everyone I encountered whether he visited temples other than Pushtimarg ones in the U.S. I have found, as I noted earlier in the paper, that some do not visit other temples, but they were definitely in the minority among those I spoke with. Most said that they do go to other temples, especially the Ganesh temple in Flushing, though they all had different ways of expressing this fact to me. Some said without any hesitation that they visit other temples with some frequency. Others paused, and then told me that they do, on occasion, go to other temples, while others said they go very infrequently. When I asked one gentleman this question, he paused and then gave a response that seems to explain the hesitation with which some devotees answer this question. He said that he does visit temples like the Ganesh Temple in Flushing, which is near his home, but he recognizes that not everyone agrees that this is permissible for a Pushtimargi. There is clearly a tension regarding this issue among some of the devotees. In one fascinating case of someone trying to reconcile his Pushtimarg identity with a more generalized Hindu one, a devotee at Vallabhacharya jayanti told me that he does go to the Ganesh Temple in Flushing, but when he bows to Ganesh he says, ‘Jai Sri Krishna.’ He clearly meant in saying this that he can bow to Ganesh and refer to him as Krishna because Ganesh is a part of Krishna’s all-encompassing being. All of these devotees are clearly trying to balance the exclusivist aspects of Pushtimarg doctrine with a desire to be a part of the wider Hindu community of New York.

I decided to get a sense of whether Pushtimarg devotees in Queens visited other temples when they lived in India by first finding out if they were in the Pushtimarg sampradaya back in India and then asking about temple-going. Almost everyone that I questioned came from Pushtimarg families and a number of them said they did visit non-Pushtimarg temples in India. I speculated that perhaps because many of these devotees had come from Pushtimarg families, they felt less compelled to maintain a literal interpretation of doctrine, in the way that a recent initiate might. Their patterns of temple worship in New York and India appear to parallel Bennett’s finding that ‘for Pushtimargis [in Ujjain], it would be fair to say that most tend to have regular recourse to Lord Krishna, and yet visit other deities on occasions.'[62]

The male devotees of the Vaishnav Temple of New York with whom I spoke clearly conceive of themselves as both Hindu and Pushtimargi. Even a gentleman who told me that he only worships Krishna told me that Pushtimarg is a part of Hinduism. The difference between Pushtimarg devotees appears to be in how porous they conceive of the boundaries between different approaches to the practice of Hinduism. There is certainly a tension among devotees on how exclusivist and how inclusivist each Pushtimargi can be within his or her own conception of Hinduism. Some might say that Hinduism can accommodate all different kinds of paths to God, while others might believe, as Pushtimarg doctrine stipulates, that only those within the sampradaya will achieve salvation. One young devotee told us at the ‘Hinduism Here’ conference that he feels more oriented toward the jnana marga, but still considers himself a Pushtimargi.[63] Someone rigidly following Pushtimarg could not make such a statement because Pushtimarg was created in opposition to jnana marga groups like the Advaitins.

The way that devotees among the second generation incorporate within themselves both a Pushtimargi and a more generalized Hindu identity will certainly involve a good deal of innovation and adaptation. The question is whether, as Williams has noted in the context of Swaminarayan Hinduism,[64] this innovation and adaptation can occur in the diaspora without evolving away from the sampradaya‘s roots. The next step for this project would be comparative studies of the commitment and sense of bhakti that the second generation feels in Pushtimarg, Swaminarayan and other sampradayic forms of diasporic Hinduism. Bhakti in the Pushtimarg sampradaya is the foundational element in seva to Krishna. It is dependent on attachment to the deity, love for the deity, and faith in the devotional path to God. Bhakti must be inspired in the individual and sustained by religious authorities who know how to touch the devotee’s heart. It remains to be seen whether second generation Pushtimargis will continue to respect the descendants of Vallabhacharya, to look to them for spiritual guidance, and continue the transmission of tradition that is so fundamental to the survival of a sampradaya.

 

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Bennett, Peter. The Path of Grace. Delhi: Hindustan Publishing Corporation, 1993.

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Diaspora: Global Perspectives. ed. T.S. Rukmani. Montreal: Concordia University, Chair

in Hindu Studies, 1999.

Hawley, Jack. ‘Global Hinduism in Gotham,’ in Asian American Religions: Borders and

Boundaries, eds. Tony Carnes and Fenang Yang. New York: New York University Press,

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Kurien, Prema. ‘Becoming American by Becoming Hindu: Indian Americans Take Their Place

           at the Multicultural Table’ in Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the

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Marfatia, Mrudula. The Philosophy of Vallabhacarya. Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1967.

Narayan, Vasudha. ‘Creating South Indian Hindu Experience in the United States’ in A Sacred

Thread: Modern Transmissions of Hindu Traditions in Indian and Abroad. ed. Raymond

Williams. Chambersburg, PA: Anima Publication, 1992.

Sekhar, Radhika. ‘Authenticity by Accident: Organizing, Decision making, and the Construction

of Hindu Identity’ in Hindu Diaspora: Global Perspectives. ed. T.S. Rukmani. Montreal:

Concordia University, Chair in Hindu Studies, 1999.

Vertovec, Steven. The Hindu Diaspora. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Williams, Raymond Brady. Religions of Immigrants from India and Pakistan: New Threads in

the American Tapestry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.