Religious Heritage and Pilgrimage Routes of Ayodhya: A Cognitive Informatics Perspective

Authors

  • Sarvesh Kumar Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur, UP 273009
  • Rana P B Singh (formerly) Professor (Cultural Landscapes & Heritage Studies), Department of Geography, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

Keywords:

Mapping, Sacred Sites, Cosmogony, Cultural Landscapes, Religious Properties, Pilgrimage, Sacredscapes, Culture, Heritage, Heritage Informatics, Ayodhya, Religious Heritage

Abstract

Maps and other cartographic artifacts, such as panoramic drawings, globes, or relief models, are important parts of cognitive informatics. They are a potential resource of information for the historical past. Maps mirror the historical state of informatics knowledge and the state of contemporary ideology. The holy-heritage city Ayodhya (India) is narrated in ancient epics as the birthplace of Bhagavan (Lord) Rama. Based on that it emerged as one of the seven sacred places in India. Situated on the bank of the holy River Sarayu (Ghaghara), Ayodhya is primarily an ancient tirtha (sacredscapes) and salvific place that records settlement continuity since at least 1500 BC. Ayodhya consists of religious-heritage sites of many religions, of course predominantly Hindus, but also of the Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs, and even Muslims (including Sufis). The eastern side consists of Sarayu’s waterfronts, where the majority of sacred sites exist that are linked to other sacred sites. On the western side exist martyrs and tombs and mausoleums, a tri-gateway, Nawabi period heritage buildings, and gardens. Presently around 1.5 million pilgrims visit Ayodhya every year on various religious occasions. In the frame of spatial and cognitive informatics, the religious landscape of Ayodhya is discussed in this study with stress to conservation and application of informatics for that. 

Author Biographies

  • Sarvesh Kumar, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, D.D.U. Gorakhpur University, Gorakhpur, UP 273009
    Sarvesh Kumar is faculty of the Department of Geography, Deen Dayal  Upadhyaya Gorakhpur University, Uttar Pradesh and Cultural Landscape; Heritage Analyst and Planner. He is a steering committee member of Asian Geographical Association- AGA working group on Cultural Geography and also Life Member of National Geographical Society of India (NGSI-BHU). He is also Joint Secretary, ACLA- Asian Cultural Landscape Association (Korea); life member,Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH); and  Central Zone Representative’ ICOMOS India (an advisory body of UNESCO) and Member of the International Scientific Committee: Places of Religion and Ritual (PRERICO). He has presented papers  at  Bali-Indonesia, Korea, IGU World Congress Beijing, Lampang-Thailand, and Vladivostok- Russia and India.  Has published papers on  Cultural Landscape and Heritage and Tourism. Area of  research specialization include  Human Geography, Cultural Geography, Geography of Tourism and Geographical Thought, Heritage Conservation, management, planning and awareness, Religious pilgrimage/ alternative journey (tourism) and routescapes
  • Rana P B Singh, (formerly) Professor (Cultural Landscapes & Heritage Studies), Department of Geography, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.
    Rana P.B. Singh, the President–of RWYC: Reconnecting With Your Culture (Asia), President–of ACLA: Asian Cultural  Landscape Association, (-- a charter of the Euro. Comm., and a member of UNESCO), Chairman, CIRD (Centre for Informatics Research and Development) - Heritage Informatics Advisory Committee (HIAC), Trivandrum; India; was Professor of Cultural Landscapes & Heritage Studies, at Banaras Hindu University, India. For the last 45 years, he is researching in the fields of Cultural Landscapes, Sacredscapes and Pilgrimage Studies, Heritage Sites & Planning, and did field studies in India, Japan, Sweden, Italy, Korea, and China. His publications include 340 papers and 43 books & anthologies. For the last few years together with Prof. Olimpia Niglio, working on projects related to cultural heritage, RWYC, and deep-rooted education at the global level.

References

Bakker, Hans T. 1986. Ayodhya: The History of Ayodhya from the 17th Century BC to the Middle of the 18th Century. Egbert Forsten, Groningen, the Netherlands.

Chakrabarti, Dilip K. 2000. Mahajanapadas States on ancient India. In: Hansen, Morgens Herman (ed.) A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures (pp. 375-391). Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Copenhagen.

Krygier, John B. 1996. Geography and Cartographic Design. In: Clifford H. Wood and C. Peter Keller, (eds) Cartographic Design: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives (pp. 19-33). John Wiley, Chichester, and New York.

Kunal, Kishore 2016. Ayodhya Reconsidered. Prabhat Prakashan, Patna.

Kumar, Sarvesh 2018. Cultural Landscape and Heritage of Ayodhya-Faizabad: A Geographical Analysis. Unpublished Doctoral dissertation in Geography. Varanasi: Banaras Hindu University [Supervisor: Rana P.B. Singh].

Kumar, Sarvesh 2022. Sacredscapes vis-à-vis Faithscapes: Cultural Landscapes of Ayodhya, a Holy-Heritage City of India. In: Ravi S.

Singh, et al. (eds.), Practising Cultural Geographies: Essays in Honour of Rana P.B. Singh (pp. 111-139). Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements Series (ISSN: 2198-2546). Springer Nature Pte Ltd., Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-6415-1_5

Kumar, Sarvesh and Singh, Rana P.B. 2017. Ayodhya, the holy city of India: Riverfront and a Place of Indo-Korean interfacing symbolic Landscapes. Sthapatyam, Indian Journal of Architecture and Art (ISSN: 2349-2369), Vol. 3, No. 6: pp. 101-116.

Kumar, Sarvesh and Singh, Rana P.B. 2017. Ayodhya, India: Cultural Landscape and Perspectives for Inclusive Heritage Development. Context: Built, Living and Natural [ISSN: 0973-502X; DRONAH, A-258, South city 1, Gurgaon, HA 122007, India], vol. XIII (special issue on ‘Cultural Landscapes’): pp. 21 - 30.

Kumar, Sarvesh and Singh, Rana P.B. 2017a. Rationales for inscribing ‘The Heritage sites, Riverfront and Pilgrimages Routes of Ayodhya’ in the UNESCO World Heritage List. Sthapatyam, Indian Journal of Architecture and Allied Sciences (ISSN: 2349-2369, RNI NO. DELBIL/ 2014/56060), Vol. 3 (9), November: pp. 51-78.

Law, Bimal Churan 1944. Ayodhya in Ancient India. The Journal of The Ganganatha Jha Research Institute (Allahabad), Vol. 1, part 4: pp. 423-444.

Margold, Harlan 1991. The Alchemist’s Almanac. Bear & Co., Santa Fe, NM.

Shaw, Julia 2000. Ayodhya’s sacred landscape: ritual memory, politics, and archaeological ‘fact’. Antiquity, 74 (issue 285), September: pp. 693-700.

Singh, Rana P.B. 2003. Towards the Pilgrimage Archetype. Pancakroshi Yatra of Banaras. Pilgrimage & Cosmology Series: 3. Indica Books, Varanasi.

Singh, Rana P.B. 2022. Communicating Heritagescapes: Paving the path for Heritage Informatics. Informatics Studies: Heritage (ISSN 2320–530x, Centre for Informatics Research and Development, Trivandrum), vol. 9 (no. 2): pp. 3-8.

Singh, Rana P.B. and Kumar, Sarvesh 2020. Holy-Heritage City Development and Planning in India: A study of Ayodhya. In: Rajiv Thakur, Ashok Dutt, George Pomeroy, and Sudhir Thakur (eds.) Urban and Regional Planning and Development: 20th-century Forms and Transformations (pp. 516-535). Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Dordrecht, and New York.

Singh, Rana P.B. and Kumar, Sarvesh 2022. Ayodhya, India: Placemaking and Transformation of Historic Urban Landscape. In:

Singh, Rana P.B.; Olimpia, Niglio, and Rana, Pravin S. (eds), Placemaking and Cultural Landscapes (ca pp. 101-120, chapter 8). Springer Nature Pte Ltd, Singapore.

Singh, Rana P.B.; Rana, Pravin S. and Kumar, Sarvesh 2021. Sacred Water Pools of Hindu Sacredscapes in North India (Sveti vodeni bazeni hinduističkih svetih krajolika u sjevernoj Indiji). Etnološka tribina: Journal of Croatian Ethnological Society (ISSN: Print- 0351-1944, Online- 1848-9540), vol. 51 (no. 44), December, special issue on “Waters of Life”: pp. 12-33.

Downloads

Published

2023-01-28

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 4 (2022): Heritage Informatics

Section

Articles

License

Submission of a manuscript to IS indicates that the work is original, has not been previously published (except as an abstract, lecture, or thesis), and is not under consideration by another journal. By submitting, authors affirm that their manuscript meets the journal’s ethical and editorial standards and that they agree to the terms of copyright and licensing upon acceptance.

Once accepted for publication, authors grant IS the first publication rights to the work. However, authors retain full copyright of their content and remain the legal owners of their intellectual property.

IS provides open access to all published articles six months after the release of the respective volume. Once the embargo period concludes, articles are made freely available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This license allows users to share, adapt, and reuse the work in any medium or format provided that appropriate credit is given to the original authors and the initial publication in this journal.

The journal's delayed open access model supports global knowledge dissemination, ensuring that research is accessible without financial or legal barriers. Authors are also encouraged to archive their published articles in institutional repositories, personal websites, or other platforms, with full citation of the journal version. Pre-print versions posted online should include a citation and link to the final published version in IS as soon as the issue is available; post-print versions (including the final publisher's PDF) should include a citation and link to the journal's website.

All materials published in the IS website are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution license, unless otherwise noted.