Prabhavati C. Reddy, Hindu Pilgrimage : Shifting Patterns of Worldview of Shri Shailam in South India

In this study of Shri Shailam, located in Andhra Pradesh, Prabhavati Reddy brings together a variety of historical and ethnographic sources to present a comprehensive account of the evolution of a prominent Shaiva pilgrimage center in South India.The wide arc of materials is crucial to the methodology of the book, which aims to place "texts in an interactive discourse" (15) with each other.The result is an erudite study of several kinds of medieval and contemporary texts (paurik, epigraphic, topographic, and popular stories), although this interactive discourse does not characterize the ethnographic process of the book.The book's authoritative account comes from the author's skillful interweaving of written, sculptural, and archaeological texts rather than from a transparent interweaving of voices of living individuals whose devotions and livelihoods tie them to Shri Shailam.Pilgrimage, for instance, is interpreted as a phenomenon of "experience and consciousness" as imaged through texts rather than constructed through the subjective experiences of pilgrims.In another example (chapter 13), we learn that the major festival of Mahashivaratri at Shri Shailam includes a ritual event in which the outside tower of the main temple is draped in white cloth that is woven by the Devanga (weaver) community.At the time that Reddy witnessed it, the head of a Devanga family performed the draping, climbing the tower in the nude.Reddy interprets the ritual in the light of a wonderful story in the Devanga Pura about the competing devotions of a spider, elephant, and snake for Shiva-a story that may have gained credence during Virashaiva patronage of the temple in the fifteenth century.But it is puzzling that save for a few allusions, voices from Devanga families remain indistinct in this interpretation.The book is organized into four parts.The first part (chapters 1-3) lays out the map of the book itself.A well-grounded description of Shri Shailam, with its older name of Shri Parvata, tells readers that here Shiva goes as Mallikarjuna ("Lord of White Jasmine") and his consort Durga is known as Bhramarambha ("Mother Bee").Mallikar-