The Pilgrim Routes and the Practices of Pilgrimage in Nineteenth Century North India

Abstract

Through case studies of three pilgrim tours of late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, this article tries to understand the changing featuresof pilgrimage practices in early colonial north India. The gradual penetration of the British into the sacred geography deeply affected the cultural and economic equilibriums of the pilgrimages. The colonial ambition for gaining profit from all sectors came to be very prominent in the pilgrimage sites. Pilgrim taxes were imposed and pilgrimage routes were cordoned by various restrictions. In the later part of the nineteenth century pilgrim sites were seen by the colonial rulers as suspicious gatherings and sources of epidemics and pestilences. This article deals with the early part of the colonial rule when both the rulers and the ruled were negotiating at the sacred sites and were interacting with each other to produce a new pilgrimage culture.