by David L. Haberman (Author)
A lively account of the Ban Yatra, a circular pilgrimage that takes place in the northern Indian land of Braj, this anthropological chronicle offers an appealing mixture of personal anecdote, religious theory, Indian history, and tales of the gods. Basing his work on personal experience in the field, as well as a combination of primary sources in Sanskrit, Hindi, and Bengali-many untranslated and unstudied in Western languages-and a wide range of secondaryliterature, Haberman places the pilgrimage in its cultural and historical context, interweaving his account with retellings of the tales of Krishna around which the journey revolves. The first thorough study of this kind of cyclical Hindu pilgrimage, Journey through the Twelve Forests will interest anystudent of Southeast Asian culture and pilgrimage.