The 'Guest as God' and the 'God' as Host: Interminglings of Economy and Religiosity in Indian Temple Tourism

This thesis demonstrates how and to what effect social structures of religiosity and economy coexist and coalesce at Tirupati Temple, a popular pilgrimage and tourism centre in South India. The Temple functions as a sanctum for both ritual devotion and touristic pleasures; accordingly, networks of commerce and commodities interlace with structure of piety and ritual. This thesis illustrates how the Temple’s enduring religious traditions are facilitated by modern capitalist logistics, and the resulting processes of commodification offer new meaning to the participants of this site. For example, in e-commerce platforms for religious donation, pre-booked tickets for pilgrimage, and sanctification of hotel chains. The unity of religion and market seems, at first, uncomfortable and often raises questions of authenticity and integrity in sites of religious and touristic appeal. To respond to this widely discussed tension, this thesis offers ethnographic analysis based on participant observation and unstructured interviews in Tirupati Temple and its urban surrounds. These empirical findings show how the mass performances of ritual piety in the Temple is underscored by the protocols of modern global capitalism such as standardised arrangements of time, space, and demand. I offer an empirical perspective on theorised analytical categories which are often dichotomised in scholarly literature, such as that between ‘economic’ and ‘non-economic’; this broad category is embodied within those such as ‘pilgrimage’ and ‘tourism’, ‘gift’ and ‘commodity’, and ‘sacred’ and ‘commercial’. In Tirupati, these categories work in interdependence to embody the meaning-making experience of the Temple’s visitors and facilitate the religiosity of the masses. With a contemporary empirical understanding Tirupati’s religious and touristic functions, this thesis demonstrates close inter-relations between culture and economy which are essential in the nuanced understanding of modern social systems