The regional circumambulation of Janakpur. Seen in the light of Vaishnavite tradition

Abstract

The events surrounding the formation of a festival are analysed with a view to understanding both the innovatory role of the ascetic in Hindu society and how he sees himself in that role. The material concerns the regional circumambulation of Janakpur, a Vaishnavite pilgrimage centre in the eastern Tarāī of Nepal. The circumambulation, although ‘ set in motion ’ by Rāmāvat ascetics at the close of the 18th century, was thought by the ascetics to have been always and already there. The circumambulation route was always there in its hidden everpresent form and it was already there in that the route had manifested itself at the time of Rām and Sītā in the Tretā Age but had subsequently disappeared in the Kali Age. By starting up the festival on the lapsed route, the Rāmāvat ascetics understood the formation of the festival as the restoration of something ‘ old ’ rather than as the beginning of something ‘ new ’. The idea of the disappeared place, or the lapsed time, is a key narrative theme in Vaishnavite discourse and it serves not only as the basis of their self-perception as renovators rather than innovators but also as a means of structuring intra-sectarian and inter-sectarian daims.