Decoding the Pilgrimage to Melukote

Abstract

This study is an attempt to map the pilgrimage trends becoming multi strangled with time due to the arrival of people in thousands and affecting a space which gives birth to evolutions in a lot of directions. Since the earliest times, it has been significant for a lot of people to travel to pilgrimage sites for religious and devotion purposes pertaining to their belief systems and faiths in different idols. Taking the case study of Melukote, a Sri Vaishnava pilgrimage site in Karnataka, the study tries to explicate the various meanings that a pilgrimage could have and how a pilgrimage site signifies certain cultural norms creating a dominant narrative. When people arrive at Melukote, they unknowingly become a part of appropriating the inequalities present there, which they should be made aware of. We can eventually see that pilgrimage has no defined meaning in today’s modern times as it is an ever expanding concept covering a lot of spheres of life like politics, social life and commercialization of religion.