Journey through the Twelve Forests: An Encounter with Krishna

by David L. Haberman

The first thorough study of its kind, this is 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, Bengali-many untranslated and unstudied in Western languages-and a wide range of secondary literature, Haberman places the pilgimrage in its cultural and historical context, interweaving his account with retellings of the tales of Krishna around with the journey revolves.

Genres: Religion, Nonfiction, India

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 28, 1994

Reviews

[Meagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

i like any book dedicated to me.
he makes really floppy pancakes and likes cream in his coffee.

[Maxwell Foley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first full-length book I've read about Hinduism, and I have to say that it makes the religion itself seem really alluring. It's a bit of a cliche when talking about India, but the people Haberman describes in this book seem to live their religion in a very active, engaged way, integrating it entirely with their life. The followers of Vishnu who Haberman travel with spontaneously break out into rapturous religious chants and songs as they walk, they're always stopping to do little things like ritual bathing or smearing ash on their face, and every landmark they come across seems to be identified with some mythological act or spiritual signifier. At the same time, they seem to take a very flexible attitude in regards to what it means to "believe" in their religion - they all seem to sort of understand that the things they are doing and grounds they are worshipping are just semi-arbitrary symbols, but this has no effect on their level of devotion.

Haberman makes a lot of emphasis on the fact that his is an unusual sort of pilgrimage. A more typical pilgrimage involves one traveling to a specific sacred zone which is held to be a central point, or an axis of the world, or an area highly imbued with spiritual power - and then going back, satisfied at receiving a mere glimpse of the divine. The pilgrimage of Braj which Haberman describes, instead, involves one traveling in a big circle in a forest in which Krishna was - basically - said to have had a lot of sexual escapades with the Hindu equivalent of nymphs (gopis). Krishna's playful and flirtatious nature in this mythological setting is an allegory for the fact that life is a playful game which becomes saturated with beauty and spontaneity if one simply approaches it as such. (It's a bit deeper than that too - I'm summarizing.) The circular nature of the journey is meant to symbolize the fact that life has no "point" per se, and is just a game - as well as an attempt to avoid a dualistic distinction between sacred zones and secular zones, since all of life becomes sacred when you approach it as such.

This is a nice, life-affirming attitude I suppose, but I think I personally would prefer to go on a more traditional type of pilgrimage - "life has no point and is really a meaningless game" seems to me like an attitude more likely to engender despair than contentment, and "all the world is sacred if you approach it as such" has never really worked for me, since it's hard to constantly maintain this attitude, and some parts of life really do just fucking suck. Haberman also didn't really make the case for the pilgrimage he went on (not that he was trying to) - after pages of pages of suffering and blistering feet, he eventually saw the beauty of the natural landscape and of the spontaneous, accepting attitude towards life Krishna's devotees espouse - but it didn't necessarily seem like a change resulted in his fundamental spiritual orientation deeper than one of a secular strenuous backpacking trip. The person who recommended this book to me told me that it was a "cliche kind of book" where the scholar sent to study a native religion ends up converting at the end, so I was kind of excited to get to that part, but this didn't really happen except for in maybe a very limited way in the sense that he ended up appreciating the "message" of the pilgrimage. That being said this book definitely made me want to visit sacred sites India someday, just maybe in a less physically demanding way.

[Allen Bolinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting read. My son attended one of the author's classes on Eastern religions at Indiana University. He described him to me. I thought he sounded like an interesting fellow. So, I bought this book. I feel it has valuable lessons for readers regardless of their personal religious or philosophical views.

[Renate · Rating 5 out of 5]

very readable account that balances theology, stories from the srimad bhagavatam, history and modern bhakti traditions

[Lolovesbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was fascinating, probably one of the most pleasurable for-class reading I did in college, about a first-person narrative of one man's pilgrimage. I read this for a broad "Religions of the World" class, and it was a great perspective to peek on.

At times, this book is overwhelmingly dense, especially when recounting history. I think I struggled at times especially due to the language and culture differences from what I'm used to.

I definitely recommend this read, it's a fascinating culture read, and a great story to boot!

[Joo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting that his religious experience differed from the indian pilgrims.
But him keep complaining about his feet annoyed me