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At the Shrine of the Pir: India's Healing Saints
| Article
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17040 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1990 |
2,299 Words |
| Author
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Jane Schreibman
Jane Schreibman is a freelance photojournalist based in New
York. |
Scattered throughout the Indian subcontinent are innumerable small shrines, each dedicated to a pir (venerated one) and blessed with miraculous healing powers. These shrines are the focus of a remarkable intermingling of Muslim and Hindu laity in a common religious practice and belief.
Islam was introduced to India during the eight century, when virtually all Indians adhered to firmly established polytheistic beliefs. The Muslim invaders promoted monotheism. While some Indians could accept this notion, other required that the concept be modified. New Muslims who felt impelled to worship many gods found an outlet in the worship of saints, for whom they erected shrines all over the India. After a few hundred years, a history of miracles accumulated around certain pirs and their shrines, and a unique practice of healing gradually developed.
The term pir is used to describe certain holy men, both living and deceased, who have not necessarily been canonized by any authority but are local heroes worshiped as saints by the population. The saints have often achieved their title by virtue of descent from a precious pir. Some of their shrines are actual burial sites and others are cenotaphs - monuments dedicated to people buried elsewhere.
Although the saints and their worshipers are usually Islamic, Hindu saints are also included in the assemblage, and Hindus (and adherents of other religions) worship at the shrines. At first, the saints were simply the descendants of the original Muslim invaders, but, over the course of time, those venerated or enshrined have come to represent all traditions and backgrounds.
The choice of locations for the shrines vary. They can be where the saint lived, where he was buried, where the body was temporarily held while awaiting its final resting place, or where the saint is said to have performed certain miracles. According to Hindu practice, the deceased are cremated. However, if it is recognized at the time of someone's death that he has performed miracles, cremation can be bypassed in the belief that the deceased has attained divinity and his body therefore does not need to be submitted to the purifying powers of fire.
The cult of the saints has taken on the form of a syncretic folk religion in India; many of the illiterate or religiously uneducated participate in this saint worship, unaware that their practices were contrary to the orthodox doctrines of their primary
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