By Raymond Brady Williams
Sahajanand Swami, who took the name ‘Swaminarayan’, has been called the last of the medieval saints and the first of the modern saints. He came into the area of Gujarat in 1802 following a period of itinerant wandering and established a new sampradaya by initiating religious reforms. Until he died in 1830, his work coincided with the establishment of control over Gujarat by the British East India Company and resultant political and social changes. The religious reforms of Vaishnava doctrine and social conduct of both sadhus and householders paralleled some of the changes that accompanied British control in the Bombay Presidency and India.
The British were agents of modernisation in Gujarat as in the rest of India. The major Western intellectual and economic developments that gradually influenced India during the 19th and early 20th centuries included: (a) intellectual influences of the Enlightenment; (b) economic influences of capitalism and the industrial revolution; and (c) the political impact of colonialism. Swaminarayan Hinduism grew and prospered during this period and emerged strong from the period of the British Raj. An old saying captured the association: ‘The topi of the British came for a while and departed, but the Swaminarayan tilak came and remains’. This history is instructive because the countries of our focus—UK, USA and India—are, in the first part of the 21st century, in the midst of analogous changes at breakneck speed. It seems that we are moving ‘post-everything’: (a) enlightenment principles and ideals have been critiqued in post-modern intellectual and political circles; (b) the digital revolution has transformed technology and communication; and (c) new transnational migrations and networks have replaced the colonial movements from West to East. The modern guru-based sampradayas that we explore in this volume have adapted to these rapid changes in a number of ways, and the Swaminarayan sampradaya is a particularly good example of such successful adaptation.
What follows are reflections on some aspects of Swaminarayan representation of Hinduism in the modern context: (a) the human face of divinity in Swaminarayan representations; (b) representations in Swaminarayan temples, festivals and their use of new media; (c) identity formation and rhetorical sophistication in this organisation; (d) its ecology of transnationalism; and (e) contemporary challenges it faces.
One reason for the contemporary success of the Swaminarayan sampradaya is that it presents a human face of the divine. Sahajanand Swami was a sadhu who extolled Krishna, the most important representation of the deity in Gujarati Vaishnavism. Prior to his death in 1830, Sahajanand Swami came to be worshipped as the highest manifestation of the supreme reality (purushottam). He took the name ‘Swaminarayan’, and his images were placed in the temples for worship. A wooden image from that period in the Nar Narayan temple in Ahmedabad is reputed to be an exact likeness. Swaminarayan is the human face of the divine and receives appropriate worship. His theological and ethical teachings are preserved in the sacred texts of the sampradaya. Devotees worship the deity in human form. Vaishnava theology, indicating that the divine manifests in time of social turmoil and religious decline, provides the template for interpreting Swaminarayan’s reforms in the 19th century.
Two models of contemporary mediation of the human face of the divine in acharya and guru are represented in the two most important and successful Swaminarayan organisations: (a) the Ahmedabad diocese that leads the International International Swaminarayan Satsang Organisation (ISSO); and (b) the Bochasanwasi Akshar Purushottam Sanstha (BAPS), arguably the most successful of modern sampradayas.
Swaminarayan appointed two nephews as acharyas over two dioceses—a northern diocese in Ahmedabad and a southern diocese in Vadtal—and established a hereditary lineage that continues in the Ahmedabad diocese. The acharya thus holds traditional hereditary authority in the sampradaya. Tejendraprasad Pande (b. 1944), the previous acharya now retired, established the ISSO to provide some administrative unity for Swaminarayan temples and centres abroad. His son, Koshalendraprasad Pande (b. 1972), now occupies the gadi (seat) in Ahmedabad and exercises the acharya’s role to initiate satsangis (householder devotees) and sadhus (ascetics) and to appoint mahants (priests) of temples in his diocese. The grandson, Lalji (Vrajendraprasad, b. 1997), is being prepared to become acharya in due course. The acharya’s wife is religious specialist for women, including both householders and female world renouncers. This sacred lineage of householders, while not considered divine, is revered as the family of Swaminarayan, and their hereditary authority strengthens their religious and administrative role in the sampradaya.
The BAPS was officially incorporated as a separate institution in 1907 after Yajnapurush Swami (now called Shastri Maharaj) left the Vadtal temple because of ethical, theological and administrative issues. In response to the perceived immorality of the Vadtal acharya and sadhus, he stressed strict observance of the rules found in the Shikshapatri. The theological basis of the new group is the belief that the chief devotee of Swaminarayan, in the person of Shastri Maharaj and his successors, is the akshar, the second eternal principal as the abode of purushottam. The guruparampara of BAPS continues in the life and work of Narayanswarup Swami (called Pramukh Swami), who is worshipped as the chief devotee and abode of Swaminarayan. The administrative result is that Pramukh Swami exercises charismatic authority and has absolute control of theological and administrative structures of BAPS. The more he demonstrates his devotion to Swaminarayan, the more he receives adulation and worship from the devotees and the more authority he has to direct the affairs of the sampradaya. Administrative control is centralised in the sadhu, not in the householder.
Devotees consider sadhus of the Ahmedabad diocese and BAPS to be sacred, albeit not divine, and manifest their devotion in many gestures of respect. In 2009, the Ahmedabad diocese had 506 sadhus (including 14 brahmans) and 90 parshads (lower-level initiates), and the Vadtal diocese had 1,049 sadhus (including 22 brahmans) and 383 parshads (personal communications from Tejendraprasad Pande, 29 October 2009). Their recruitment and training continued in the traditional manner of instruction by senior sadhus who continued to exercise authority over cohorts of disciples after initiation. They live in the major temples and travel to villages to visit temples and satsangis, who also visit their gurus when they visit the larger temples. The acharya of Ahmedabad oversees a school in Jetalpur where some of the sadhus of the diocese receive training. The Ahmedabad diocese has also 440 female ascetics who serve in separate shrines for women, perform initiation for female devotees and conduct some religious discourses for women. The Vadtal diocese has 115 female ascetics. An adaptation in the past quarter century is that sadhus from the Ahmedabad diocese reside for extended periods in temples in Britain and North America.
The sadhu corps of BAPS is more unified and all are recruited, trained and serve under the direction of the current guru, Pramukh Swami. Growth in the number of BAPS sadhus parallels the growth of the sampradaya: six sadhus in 1907, 50 in 1951, 150 in 1971, 200 in 1980 (joined by over 200 initiated in 1981 at the bicentenary of the birth of Swaminarayan) and more than 800 in 2009. The growth since 1950 is largely due to the success of Pramukh Swami’s predecessor in attracting a group of well-educated and competent young men, some from East Africa, to become sadhus. Several of them have directed aspects of recent growth and are now referred to as ‘senior saints’ and act as an advisory group to Pramukh Swami. They receive special recognition in the major temples and in international gatherings.
Pramukh Swami’s predecessor personally trained his small group of sadhus-in-training as they toured Indian villages under his leadership. Pramukh Swami established a more formal sadhu training school at Sarangpur in 1981. He explained: ‘I cannot take a coach-load of sadhus with me as I travel through the villages. The villagers could not cope with large numbers’ (personal conversation: Swaminarayan Hindu Temple in London, UK, 14 August 1990). Young men now study at Sarangpur for four or five years in a set general curriculum and advanced specialist training for sadhu tasks, including preaching, leading youth activities, administration, acquiring proficiency in different languages, as well as skills in music, cooking and performing rituals. Generally, Pramukh Swami selects those to be initiated at his birthday celebration each year. He then assigns each sadhu to tasks in the temples. A number of sadhus come from Britain, East Africa and the United States following a baccalaureate degree and, in some cases, graduate study. The prestige and effectiveness of the BAPS organisation, especially outside India, are the result of the commitment and hard work of this corps of well-trained and highly skilled Swaminarayan sadhus operating in a range of modern transnational contexts.
The levels of representation of the human face of the divine from Swaminarayan to acharya/guru, to sadhus, to satsangis represents a strength of the Swaminarayan sampradaya in the contemporary transnational context, especially in the West, where other representations of divinity have been relatively uncommon. On the one hand, the traditional authority system represented by the Ahmedabad diocese and the ISSO is more dispersed and decentralised and slower to adapt to rapid mobility and communication. The charismatic authority in BAPS vested in Pramukh Swami as guru and sole administrative head has, on the other hand, led to centralised authority and rapid institutional decisions and action. The administrative structure of BAPS combines sadhu leadership with a strong householder organisation, including a women’s wing, often led by volunteers who have attained significant accomplishments in their secular employment. Until recently, before sadhus resided in temples abroad, both BAPS and ISSO were established and flourished under the leadership of entrepreneurs from East Africa in Britain and Indian immigrants in the United States. Today it is understood in Swaminarayan circles that Pramukh Swami has already selected his successor and that the selection will be made known when he dies and the council of senior sadhus meets to confirm that appointment. Tejendraprasad has retired as acharya, and his son, Koshalendraprasad, has assumed the gadi of the Ahmedabad Diocese and leadership in the ISSO.
Contemporary representation of Swaminarayan Hinduism flows on a continuum with temples and festivals at one end and new media at the other. Swaminarayan initiated a policy of constructing large, ornate temples in Ahmedabad, Vadtal and other strategic locations. These temples are residences for the deities, acharyas and sadhus, and they are centres for outreach into surrounding villages. Many have extensive guesthouses (dharmashalas) for pilgrims and volunteers. Today, the Ahmedabad diocese has more than 45 domed temples and over 2,000 smaller temples (including 12 temples in Britain and 22 in the United States). The BAPS has 700 temples and 3,300 centres (including six temples in Britain and 60 in North America). The increased wealth of satsangis has funded rapid growth in the numbers and opulence of temples built in the past quarter century.
The BAPS has been very active in establishing temples, and Pramukh Swami is noted in the Guinness Book of World Records for building the largest Hindu temple in the world and for dedicating over 700 temples.1 All the temples are messages in wood and stone that seek to represent Hinduism by presenting doctrine, world view, discipline and sacred objects. Temples contain relics of Swaminarayan, and Tejendraprasad Pande is constructing a modern museum in Ahmedabad to house special relics from the family’s treasury. The elaborate temples and havelis (elaborate meeting halls) carved from marble, sandstone and wood in London, Chicago, Houston, Atlanta and Toronto are regional centres that attract satsangis for worship and outsiders for tours led by trained guides. Thousands of school children visit these temples for introductions to Hinduism, and over 17,000 people visited the Toronto temple during a two-day open house in May 2008. These temples, and news articles about their activities, are primary resources that attract support from Hindus and convey information about Hinduism to outsiders.
The BAPS has further consolidated its prominence in Gujarat and on the Indian national scene with two major monuments and theme-park-like complexes. Akshardham in Gandhinagar, the state capital of Gujarat, and Akshardham in Delhi on the bank of the Yamuna River are major statements about the wealth, prestige, political power and message of BAPS. Akshardham in Gandhinagar was the site of a terrorist attack in 2002. Akshardham in Delhi has already become a major tourist/pilgrimage site that attracts more than 100,000 people a week with a museum, theatre, boat ride through history, restaurants and park.
Festivals are analogous to temples in representations of Swaminarayan Hinduism. Hindu sacred calendars and sacred geographies overlap, but the festivals and pilgrimages are unique to individual sampradayas. Swaminarayan instructed in the Shikshapatri:2 ‘My wealthy satsangis shall organise celebrations of great religious festivals in temples and shall give various kinds of alms to deserving Brahmins.’ The Ahmedabad diocese and BAPS sponsor mega-festivals that are important to the growth of the sampradaya and represent Hinduism to larger constituencies. The mega-festivals, some claiming more than 8 million visitors, were held in Ahmedabad on the bicentenary of Swaminarayan’s birth (1981), at Alexandra Palace in London (1985), in Edison, New Jersey (1991), at the opening of Akshardham, Gandhinagar (1992), in Ahmedabad on the 25th anniversary of Tejendraprasad’s acharyaship (1994) and in Mumbai on the 75th birthday of Pramukh Swami (1995). Dr K. C. Patel, the first and long-time President of BAPS in North America, suggested that such festivals are worthy of study because they increased visibility and provided major impetus for growth of the sampradaya (personal communication, 13 October 1992). Three aspects of these festivals made them effective: (a) they helped in identifying and mobilising volunteers; (b) enabled outreach to constituencies; and (c) promoted Hinduism generally, and the Swaminarayan sampradaya in particular, to ever-larger audiences.
Launching these festivals required significant administrative and organisational skills on the part of volunteers. What remained after the festivals ended were clearly identified cohorts of talented and competent leaders for the sampradaya. Charitable contributions of satsangis and other interested persons, as well as fund-raising events such as charity walks and aluminium can collection by children, helped support the festivals. The bonding of volunteers and the enthusiasm of satsangis resulting from the success of the festivals propelled forward movement and the eager anticipation of future events. Mircea Eliade (1959: 69) indicated the backward-looking character of festivals, but the primary impetus of these festivals is forward through secular time towards another sacred time.
The BAPS began in the United States in 1971 when Dr K. C. Patel was given 28 names of Swaminarayan satsangis thought to be in the country. The task of identifying and reaching what in secular terms would be called ‘the market’ was daunting. Festivals have provided occasions for extensive efforts to reach the market. For example, in preparation for the festival in New Jersey, volunteers set out two by two to visit every Gujarati family in the New Jersey/New York catchment areas to invite them to attend and support the festival. The public relations effort in support of these month-long festivals generated effective media coverage for Gujaratis and the public at large.
These mega-festivals in Britain and the United States also provided the first opportunity for the general public to learn about Hindu culture. An effort was made to include Indian cultural and religious elements in the design of temporary structures and in the artistic and cultural performances. The mega-festivals displayed the visual and artistic representations of Swaminarayan doctrine, world view, discipline, rituals, arts and deities present in the major temples in India. Moreover, they were more accessible to outsiders than temples are considered to be.
Presentations made possible by electronic media and the Internet are extensions of the temples and festivals—but not the same. All Swaminarayan groups now use digital media and the Internet to extend their reach, but BAPS has been most successful in harnessing these resources, in part because of the number and technical skill of the young volunteers. The BAPS has a sophisticated and centrally directed Internet site (www.swaminarayan.org). The prominence of scientists and computer specialists among immigrants and the growth of the information technology industry in India create sophisticated sites for the transmission of tradition, presentation of revised forms of religious teaching and devotion and assistance in identity formation, especially for children and youth. Primary mediation of religious material moves into the hands of technologically skilled editors of Web pages and those who gain their allegiance and service. Technological modernisation and free access to new modes of communication mean that religious knowledge is no longer mediated or controlled by parents, teachers, priests or gurus—this results in what is often referred to as ‘disintermediation’. A television series on the life of Swaminarayan is on Viacom TV sponsored by the Swaminarayan Gadi, a separate subgroup. Videos about Swaminarayan affairs regularly appear on YouTube and other such sites. This process of disintermediation changes the nature of authorisation and control of information and thereby increases tensions between internal and external, authorised and unauthorised and scholar and practitioner, often resulting in tension and dispute over who controls information.
All representations of the sampradaya are rhetorical acts that present the movement to audiences/viewers, both internal and external. The messages vary according to sectarian and other contexts and the particular profiles of audiences/viewers/participants. Knowledge and understanding of nuances and participation in rhetorical acts are essential to identity formation and preservation, especially for those in the midst of rapid changes in India and those experiencing the disorientation caused by migration. Diverse, evolving contemporary transnational contexts require sophisticated and complex rhetorical strategies. The rhetorical presentations must be sufficiently dense to shape personal and institutional identities.
Hindu and Swaminarayan identities are at risk because migration always involves threats to plausibility structures that support traditional knowledge, commitments and identities. Immigrants move from India where they were surrounded by cultural and religious institutions and practices that made a Hindu world view—and in some regions a Swaminarayan world view—part of the accepted plausibility structures that were taken for granted. These traditional identities and world views are sometimes at odds with dominant British or American culture, the dominant western religions and the plausibility structures that support them. Indeed, earlier models of modernism stress the power of secularisation and individualism to mute traditional ethnic and national identities supported by religion. Parameters are in constant flux.
Formation and preservation of religious and ethnic identity are at one level rhetorical moves. Modes of dress, language or accent, cuisine, calendar, gesture, art and ritual communicate intricate messages that a group transmits to itself and to the wider world. These constitute the ritualising of personal and group identity—if one accepts Edmund Leach’s (1968) definition of ritual as the communicative aspect of customary behaviour. The audience for such rhetorical acts is the group itself as well as those outside. Socialisation and individuation for new residents and those in the settled population, especially the youth, require increased facility in verbal and non-verbal communication in rituals and language newly created or refined to enable understanding between individuals and groups. Dangerous and potentially fatal mistakes result from communication failure, so the challenge and responsibility are significant, and can weigh heavy on the shoulders of leaders in education, politics and religion.
My colleague, Stephen Webb, notes that such rhetoric has a narrative element; it is an ongoing story that needs conflict and climax in order to sustain the kind of drama that makes group identity valuable. It also has a hermeneutical dimension in that it is a way of interpreting or juxtaposing events in the larger world and filtering those events so that they do not fundamentally challenge or destroy group loyalty (personal communication, 20 November 2006). The rhetoric of representation preserves distinctions within society as well as essential unity, and is refined, with sharper ability to reveal nuanced differentiations and finer distinctions. In the use of such refined rhetoric, a society develops greater sophistication in interpersonal and group relations. Individuals are able to express a range of identities and loyalties in a wide variety of contexts and among different groups. Both individuals and groups are able to position themselves with greater clarity and to greater advantage among diverse groups. Such sophistication contributes to the orderly and creative development of society. Those who identify themselves as Swaminarayan Hindus shape their world view and identity in new rapidly changing contexts, and they must assist their children, as well as their neighbours, in understanding new vocabularies and images as part of an expanded civic discourse.
The Swaminarayan sampradaya has benefited from an ecology of transnationalism, which began at the end of the 19th century with migrations to East Africa, and has rapidly expanded in the last half of the 20th century and into the 21st century. In East Africa, construction workers and entrepreneurs established successful businesses, Swaminarayan temples, strong institutions and networks of communication with temples, gurus and institutions in India. Letters, occasional visits to East Africa by sadhus, especially from the Bhuj temple in Kutch, and rare pilgrimages back to India helped maintain these networks. A relatively small group of migrants from India and East Africa moved to England in the 1950s for schooling or to work in the reconstruction following the Second World War and then stayed on. A larger migration created by the exodus of Asians following the independence of East African countries strengthened Swaminarayan institutions in Britain. One impetus for the success of the Swaminarayan sampradaya in Britain was the arrival in the 1960s and 1970s of hundreds of leaders from East Africa who had experience of leading the sampradaya in rapidly changing, multicultural contexts. The ‘brain drain’ from India to the United States created by the 1965 changes in American immigration law completed the basic tripod of Swaminarayan transnationalism.
Migrants carry their gods on their shoulders. Rapid mobility and immediate communication create transnational families and religions and call for a new transnational approach to the study of migration and identity formation. Studies examining transnationalism shed light on the experience of immigrants in maintaining multiple associations spanning several societies, developing identities in new host cultures and maintaining communication with social networks that connect them with two or more societies simultaneously (Glick Schiller, Basch and Blanc-Szanton, 1992: 1–24). Indian migrants establish themselves in several countries, and along the networks they maintain a range of items for travel, including, for instance, marriage negotiations, economic transfers, new ideas and customs, legal and moral obligations as well as religious values, practices and often innovative methods of representing and transmitting tradition. ‘Transnational’ is a better term for describing this phenomenon than ‘global’ because the networks are discrete.
The expansion of transnational Swaminarayan networks was facilitated by highly skilled professionals, whose education was often supported by Swaminarayan institutions. Following Indian Independence, Swaminarayan schools, colleges and hostels gradually supplemented or replaced Christian schools and colleges. Thus, whereas both Tejendraprasad and Koshalendraprasad of the Ahmedabad diocese were educated in Jesuit schools and college, young Lalji (Vrajendraprasad) is attending a Swaminarayan school established recently by his grandfather. The satsang supports hostels with resident sadhus at some Gujarati universities. Temple youth programmes provide extensive assistance to people preparing for examinations in secular subjects, and some temple guesthouses provide rooms for university students. The Swaminarayan school near the Neasden temple in London claims high marks in standardised examinations. Many graduates go on to become leaders and generous donors in India and abroad. The initiation of sadhus from East Africa, who have assumed positions of leadership in India, Britain and the United States, has enabled BAPS to sustain and further its transnational growth. Regular visits by acharyas and gurus, and the relatively recent appointment of sadhus to reside in BAPS and ISSO temples abroad, further strengthen transnational ties.
Transnational networks of both families and Swaminarayan institutions are ecologically useful because the values for survival of the transnational networks are many. As the strength of a family or the Swaminarayan sampradaya wanes in one location—for example, in East Africa, especially Uganda—the increased strength in other locations effectively covers that deficit. The network provides support, in some cases substituting for family or caste, as satsangis move from one location to another for greater security and/or professional, economic or educational opportunities. Multiple locations facilitate the adaptation of resources—personal, financial and material—to meet needs within the transnational networks. Although the transfer of wealth along these religious networks is very difficult to trace, the evidence is that the transfer is significant, especially from Western countries to India. Electronic communication and rapid mobility across transnational networks enable almost immediate response to episodes of crisis, as has been demonstrated more than once in the way BAPS Care in Western locations has responded to humanitarian crises and disasters in India.
All religious organisations face challenges created by modern and transnational pressures. The array of challenges is contingent upon the unique situation of each group, but some of the more widely shared concerns within the Swaminarayan sampradaya relate to issues of: (a) language and communication; (b) generational differences; (c) identity mutability for individuals and institutions; (d) gender; and (e) economies of scale.
The Swaminarayan sampradaya is Gujarati at its core. Communication in meetings is in Gujarati, and the arts, customs and rituals arise from Gujarati religion and culture. Migrations to other countries and even changes in India increase the influence of English and Western customs that challenge traditional patterns and require adaptation by Swaminarayan leaders. For example, classes for children and youth in BAPS centres in the United States are in English, but meetings for adults are conducted in Gujarati, which causes difficulties for those inept in the language. The challenge is transnational and becomes more complex as the sampradaya grows. Responses include preparation of educational materials in several languages, language training of BAPS sadhus to serve in diverse language areas, the creation of Internet pages in different languages and the provision of Gujarati language and culture classes for children at the temples.
Retention of youth is a major challenge. Differences in facility in Gujarati language use and familiarity with Gujarati cultural norms are indications of differences between the generations. The Ahmedabad diocese and its international organisation established a youth programme directed by Koshalendraprasad Pande (before he became acharya upon his father’s retirement) in order to address the problem of youth retention. The BAPS has an extensive educational programme for children and youth that includes an annual graded examination system administered through all its centres around the world. The BAPS sadhus are specially trained to oversee youth programmes.
Individuals and institutions have many components in their potential identities, for example, Indian, Swaminarayan, Gujarati, British, Londoner and an infinite number of other possibilities from which an identity is cobbled together. Migration, modernisation, Western individualism and the free marketplace of religions and ideologies enable individuals to adapt very rapidly to changing circumstances and opportunities. Fortunately, individual identities are mutable. Institutions, however, are much slower than individuals in creating and/or revising identities and in deploying the communication syntax that is essential to a revised identity. As a result, the tensions between there and here, then and now, traditional and modern, however defined, are exacerbated in institutional contexts.
One of the most vexing challenges facing the sampradaya relates to its practice of strict gender segregation and its separation of men and women. Women are separated from the men in temples and meetings. Sadhus are prohibited from direct contact with women, that is, from speaking to women, viewing women or coming within a certain distance of women. Women are not allowed to give speeches, give artistic performances or lead rituals in Swaminarayan meetings where men are present. Hence, the public presentation of Swaminarayan Hinduism is largely male; whereas both sadhus and householders agree that women are the most devoted followers of Swaminarayan. The rationale for the separation in the 19th century is the ‘uplift of women’, and leaders point to aspects of discipline for both sadhus and householders for support. The Ahmedabad diocese and the ISSO value the traditional role of the acharya’s wife as the religious specialist for women and point to the temples restricted to women and special programmes as showing the leadership of women. The BAPS has an extensive women’s organisation, headquartered in Ahmedabad, that oversees programmes conducted exclusively for and by women. The BAPS does not have female ascetics but devout women, some of whom have become life volunteers and are greatly respected and honoured.
Rapid growth at the turn of this century creates a challenge of balance in economies of scale. The Ahmedabad diocese and its international organisation experienced recent expansion in geographic spread and in the numbers of temples and centres. The BAPS has seen even more dramatic growth in temples and centres, the number of sadhus and lay devotees and the extent of its financial and other resources. All this requires an extensive network of support and administration. Pramukh Swami curtailed the construction of temples for a period until sadhus were recruited and trained to lead them. It takes hundreds of volunteers each day to run each Akshardham centre. Maintaining the supply of money, sadhus, volunteers and other services needed to sustain the current institutions and enable any future growth is a major challenge for what has become a major transnational enterprise that equals multinational corporations in its size and scope.
My first book on the Swaminarayan sampradaya (Williams, 1984) ended with these observations:
Religions are intimately associated with the cultures in which they are at home. Disembodied religions do not exist…. The origin and growth of the Swaminarayan religion as a reform movement coinciding with the social and political changes brought by British rule is an example of the parallel developments in religion and culture. Until now the Swaminarayan religion has been intimately associated with Gujarati culture even among the immigrant communities. Whether the sect can continue to grow and expand in an interethnic and transcultural context remains to be seen.
A satsangi in Chicago took that as a criticism, and each time he sees me, he issues a gentle challenge, ‘How are we doing?’ I generally respond, ‘So far, you are doing very well, indeed!’
Eliade, Mircea. 1959. The Sacred and the Profane. New York: Harcort, Brace.
Glick-Schiller, Nina, Linda Basch and Christina Blanc-Szanton, eds. 1992. Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 645, New York: The New York Academy of Sciences.
Leach, Edmund. 1968. ‘Ritual’, in David L. Sills and Robert King Merton (eds), International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, XIII, p. 240. New York: Macmillan.
Williams, Raymond Brady. 1984. A New Face of Hinduism: The Swaminarayan Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1 See http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/Search.aspx?q=largest+hindu+temple (accessed 28 April 2012).
2 See http://www.shikshapatri.org.uk/~imagedb/hms/home.php?publiclogin=1 (accessed 28 April 2012).