3550 Trousdale Parkway, Los Angeles, CA 90089

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The Ise Jingu in Mie, Japan, represents for the Shinto faith, what the Ganga Ghats of Banaras in India represent for Hinduism. In this lecture, Vinayak Bharne (USC) explores these two perceived epicenters of their respective sacred geographies, and how these two ancient places continue to keep alive a cultural thread that binds mythic associations and rituals with contemporary realities and pragmatisms. They are revered pilgrimage centers on the one hand, drawing millions of visitors each year, and complex places on the other, grappling with numerous socio-physical dilemmas that remain crucial to their future.

For instance, at Ise, even as the two shrine precincts of the Ise Guku and Naiku are meticulously preserved, the surrounding townscape is ravaged by rampant sprawl. Additionally, the forests surrounding the shrines that once supplied the timber needed for their twenty-year cyclical reconstruction, do not produce the quality or quantity of timber any longer due to soil contamination. Timber is shipped from distant places for the rebuilding costing vast amounts of money and raising serious questions about the environmental implication of this continuing tradition. Meanwhile, in Banaras, concerns over the pollution levels of River Ganga loom large and consequent health-issues are on the rise. But plans to clean the waters have not found any significant success due to political instability and lack of consistent leadership. Additionally, the city struggles with a crippling water shortage, traffic gridlocks and colossal levels of poverty, even as the municipality is unable to keep the city clean. The future of these two revered “faith-scapes” deserves a serious re-examination as much through their sacred dimensions, as their mundane ones.

In this lecture, Vinayak Bharne will present his independent research and fieldwork on these two revered places, to highlight the complex dimensions and issues surrounding their future. How and by what means can these issues be addressed? How can they be implemented within the social and political realities of Japan versus India? What can the sacred geographies of Ise and Benaras learn from one another? And finally, what do these two celebrated “faithscapes” and their current condition tell us about how we might glean into other sacred landscapes across the world?

 

Vinayak Bharne
Vinayak Bharne
holds concurrent positions as Adjunct Associate Professor of Urban Design and City Planning at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy, Lecturer in Landscape Architecture and Heritage Conservation at the USC School of Architecture, and Associated Faculty at the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religion and Culture. He has been studying the environs of the Ise Shrine for over the decade and is currently directing an ongoing research project titled “The Complete Ise Jingu: Shrine, Forest, River, Town.” He is the editor/author of 4 books: Zen Spaces & Neon Places: Reflections on Japanese Architecture and Urbanism (2013), Rediscovering the Hindu Temple: The Sacred Architecture and Urbanism of India (2012), The Emerging Asian City: Concomitant Urbanities, Urbanisms (2012) and the forthcoming Global Perspectives in Heritage Conservation (2017).

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