Krishna's curse

A quick stroll around the narrow lanes of Vrindavan where the pilgrim traffic is most dense makes it clear that guided tours are constantly taking place. Groups vary in size, from a single couple to bigger crowds that have arrived together by bus. These groups are easy to recognize as they are led by a guide telling stories, pointing at objects, shouting for attention, and shepherding people along. Most of these guides are pilgrimage priests. They can be found in clusters, waiting outside temples and key catchment areas where incoming pilgrims are likely to arrive. They approach unescorted pilgrims wherever they see them, offering their guiding services. A central bus parking area is one site where pandas locate potential clients. The more upscale buses transporting either domestic or international tourists, however, often come with a licensed guide, authenticated by the tourism authorities, who confidently brushes away the approach of local pandas. Next to this parking area stands the grand Rangnath temple around which guides wait for incoming clients. When first observing this scene, I started chatting with a shopkeeper who sat at the entrance to the Rangnath temple selling religious artefacts and souvenirs. He told me that there are between 40 and 50 pandas around the Rangnath temple and that their job is to guide. In Vrindavan, he stated, ‘guide and panda is one and the same’ (guide aur panda ek hi hai).

I decided to persuade panda guides to let me join their tours, which turned out to be difficult. They were happy to take me on a tour alone, but less keen on having me join a group of pilgrims and make observations. As I would later learn, pandas do not want outsiders to know their trade secrets or make them public as it could threaten their livelihood. After a number of approaches, I eventually got permission to join a young man and, later, his older uncle who both specialize in Gujarati pilgrims.Footnote ²³ Both have therefore picked up some Gujarati that they mix with their own dialectic variant of Hindi during their tours. They have further established connections with a wide range of travel agencies that cater to Gujaratis. One such company is Paradise Tour and Travel which was bringing in some 40 pilgrims that day. The group arrived in the company bus and was to be guided by the uncle, with me tagging along. The group had arrived on a package tour with an itinerary that had led them to Rishikesh, Haridwar, and the Akshardham complex in Delhi and Mathura in the days before arriving in Vrindavan. Their visit to Vrindavan would consist of the guided tour along with a visit to two of the latest and more spectacular religious attractions in town: Prem Mandir and Vaishno Devi Ashram.Footnote ²⁴ They would then move on to Gokul on the same day, one of the many villages that make up the Braj area that is dotted with stories from Krishna's childhood and youth.

It was 8.20 in the morning when the uncle entered the Paradise Tour and Travel bus to introduce the pilgrims to Vrindavan. At 10.10, almost two hours later, they were back in the bus, having completed their tour. The second group I engaged with was guided by the nephew and consisted of 10 Gujarati pilgrims who had travelled in two separate cars they had hired. They were all in their fifties and sixties and had, like the bus group, travelled to Haridwar and Delhi before their arrival in Vrindavan. Besides making connections with travel agencies, the two pandas also had a network of drivers they cooperated with, the result of which was the opportunity to guide groups such as this one. Their tour was an abridged and concentrated version of the first, lasting for little more than an hour. The two tours were broadly similar, both of them catering to quick visits. The nephew's tour went as follows.Footnote ²⁵

The panda brings us straight to the nearby nineteenth-century temple known as Rangnath. We are only given the name of the temple and assured that he will tell us more after we have taken darshan of various god images (murtis) inside.Footnote ²⁶ After a rather quick tour of various deities, we are seated on the ground right outside the back of the temple as the panda begins his storytelling. To maintain the pilgrims’ attention, he speaks loudly, exhorts the group to stay silent, and, interrupting sections of his narratives, frequently encourages them join in to hail Krishna. The Rangnath temple, we are told, was built by a rich merchant in 1847. Although he was blessed with prosperity, he was not able to have any children. Going to his guru with his troubles, he was told to go to Vrindavan and ask for his wish at the ‘main temple’ (main mandir). With the rosary (mala) he received there, his wish was eventually fulfilled with a miracle (camatkar) and he had two sons. As a thanksgiving he built the temple we are seeing and donated it to his guru. The panda moves on to briefly mention that Vrindavan was nothing but a forest of Tulsi trees 525 years ago. (‘Vrinda’ means ‘tulsi’, while ‘van’ is ‘forest’, hence the name Vrindavan.)

Here we may pause briefly to reflect on the guide's narrative so far. The fact that pilgrims are first led directly to a temple for darshan of the gods indicates that the tour combines religious dimensions (Hindu worship) with elements familiar from guided tours in cultural tourism (interpretations of history and culture). Vrindavan itself, noticeably, is only given a brief introduction at the end, added as a kind of appendix to the main story of the Rangnath temple. The history of the temple is made to revolve around the merchant patron of the temple and raises a set of concerns that will resurface throughout the tour: parenthood, seeking the fulfilment wishes in a ‘main temple’, rosary, and miracles. Having introduced these elements, the panda’s narrative moves directly on to the key story of the tour concerning the meeting of Krishna and Kaliya, the dreadful demon snake.

Variants of the story are familiar to pilgrims and students of Hinduism alike. Once Krishna was playing with his friends when their ball fell into the river exactly where Kaliya was resting. Undeterred by this threat Krishna went in to get the ball. As he entered the water a great fight ensued, but Krishna was victorious. The panda also mentions that Krishna's foster mother, Yashoda, had watched the battle unfold, but was too scared to enter the river to help him. To this rather abridged version, which many Hindus have been told by their grandmothers or seen in comic books and children's programmes on television, the panda adds a new addition to the more standard versions. After he had beaten the snake, the panda explains, Krishna went back to his foster mother Yashoda. She tells Krishna that, while the fight with Kaliya was mere play for him, it was death to her. The panda continues:

There is, to the best of my knowledge, no well-known precursor for this incident. In the authoritative Bhagvata Purana, the aftermath of the fight concerns Kaliya's wives begging Krishna to spare their husband's life, which he agrees to. This new rendition highlights the issue of parenthood rather than Krishna's mercy. It contains a critique of parents who care more for their own lives than those of their children. Because of this fault in Yashoda, Krishna pronounces his terrible curse. The other crucial aspect of the new ending is that it connects these events directly to the lives of the pilgrims since all the pilgrims on the two tours are middle-aged and, more than likely, parents: Krishna's curse is operative in the current age of decay and affects all.

The panda continues the story. Krishna's foster father, Nanda Baba, hears Krishna utter his curse and says: ‘You have such a small mouth, but you have uttered such a big thing. You should find a solution to this.’ Krishna agrees and replies to Nanda that he should go to Vrindavan and donate (dan karna) all his cows in his name. Having done this, Nanda returns to tell Krishna that while he was able to donate cows, people living in kaliyug will not be able to donate even one cow.

At this point, the panda has brought the narrative back to the pilgrims, their presence in Vrindavan, and what they should do now that they have arrived, namely donate rice.

The panda goes on to explain that god (bhagvan) will not eat the rice, hence it is given to the thousands of widows who come to live out the remainder of their lives in Vrindavan. The committee of the temple, he explains, distributes rice to the widows, and ‘donations of rice are made in the name of your sons’ and three options are available—five, 11, and 20 kilograms. For this, one will receive blessed food items (prasad) to distribute to family and friends and the rosary of wishes (manokamna ka mala). If you wear the rosary after washing it in raw cow's milk, the panda explains, god will show his miracle within three months, and your wishes will be fulfilled within one year. He tells us that the ‘main temple’ for donations is here, and that its image of god appeared from the ground after Swami Haridas (a sixteenth-century musician and poet) practised asceticism (tapasya) for 11 long years:

At this point, the panda has introduced the pilgrims to the donations of rice that he suggests they should give in order to escape Krishna's curse. The widows, of whom there are many in Vrindavan, are also introduced for the first time here. The connection between rosary and miracle, first mentioned in relation to the merchant patron of the Rangnath temple, reappears in the narrative. So too the notion of a ‘main temple’, but a connection is now made with the most famous temple in Vrindavan today—the Bankey Bihari temple—since Swami Haridas is believed to be behind the original appearance of the god image there. In other words, the panda is creating the impression that the group will have darshan of the Bankey Bihari temple.

On the way to the main temple, however, we make a stop at a home for widows where the panda tells us that 2,000 of them sing devotional songs (bhajan) and live off of what they receive from the main temple. We pace quickly through the building where a handful of old ladies are sitting and chanting, before we are led to the main temple, which is not the Bankey Bihari. Upon entering we are told that this is the place to worship (puja) and give donations in the name of sons. Before we are made to sit down in front of the main display of gods, the pilgrims are instructed to circumambulate a stone representing the mythical Govardhan mountain while the pandas take down the name of one's parents and guru.

We are then seated in front of a curtain flanked by a priest sitting with his account book. The scene is more or less exactly that portrayed by John Hawley a little over two decades ago.Footnote ²⁹ The temple to which the pilgrims have come is not visited by anyone else other than those brought there by pandas. Locals are aware of these temples and that they are used to make pilgrims give donations of which the pandas get a share, usually referred to as ‘commission’. These donation temples are referred to as ‘Nanda Rai’ (Nanda's house), since they tend to have claimed connections with Krishna's foster father Nanda. There are several such Nanda Rai temples in Vrindavan as we will see below. Some have several chambers, each of which caters to one group of pilgrims. Each of the chambers will have what one might call an accountant priest sitting next to the god images that are hidden behind a curtain. His job is to note down the name of the donor and the sum given. In the tour we are following here, pilgrims are invited to replicate Nanda's donation of cows in the very same temple he did in order to evade the curse of Krishna.

The pilgrims are told that this is the place where rice is donated in the name of sons, and are asked to focus their minds on Krishna. The curtain is drawn back to show a collection of six images, including Krishna in two forms, his parents, brother, and Radha. It is the small black image of Krishna at the centre that is highlighted:

The panda briefly refers to the story of the poverty-stricken Sudhama who once came to Krishna's palace to ask for help. Although he gave Krishna nothing more than a little rice (two fists according to the panda), Krishna nevertheless rewarded him with all the wealth he could have hoped for. But the rice offered here, the panda informs the group, will be given to the widows who will sing devotional songs in the name of the pilgrims’ sons. This is the first time the widows are connected to the curse. It is also at this point that specific donations are mentioned. We are told that we can give five kilograms of rice for 101 rupees; 11 kilograms for 201 rupees, and that those who are making a one-time-only offering should give 501 kilograms. For this, he repeats, they will get a rosary and blessed food items. At this point the panda makes us repeat a short prayer addressing Krishna. He provides it in small sections so we can repeat every word:

The prayer ends by listing various names of Krishna, before the panda instructs those who wish to give offerings to raise their hands, and state their own names and the names of their children.

The final prayer reflects the panda’s effort to define the purpose of coming to Vrindavan for the pilgrims—namely to offer charity, here understood as donations. The actual transaction of money is framed as a donation of rice, which again is presented as a modified version of Nanda's original donation of cows. The cow donation idiom (godan) points to an esteemed ancient practice that is here continued in name. The narratives told by the panda have many similarities with the tour described by Hawley: the philanthropic angle vis-à-vis the widows, the connection with Nanda, set prices for donations, and associating the temple actually visited with Bankey Bihari temple.Footnote ³⁰ However, the emphasis on filial piety, also noted by Hawley, is given much greater urgency here by the curse of Krishna. The panda both suggests that not giving a donation might endanger the safety of the pilgrims’ children, and that this donation is the proper purpose of coming to Vrindavan.

To the disappointment of our panda, however, none in our party was willing to raise their hands and donate. They were clearly not convinced of the urgency of Krishna's curse. They were nevertheless made to sit in front of the images quietly for a few minutes before they were able leave. This part of the tour, however, went down much more successfully for the more seasoned uncle. While the nephew had led a small group of ten pilgrims, his uncle had four times more people in his group. Going to the same places and telling the same stories as his nephew, his tour also included a visit to Nidhivan—the forest area where Krishna is said to dance with the female cow shepherds. This visit meant that he ended up taking the group to a different temple to make donations.

This particular temple's courtyard has a special feature. The tree placed in the middle of the courtyard has two small arms sticking out of its trunk. The panda announces that, by miraculously showing his two hands, Krishna is making an assurance that the sons and daughters ‘will not be eaten by time’. Several of the pilgrims are then made to climb up next to the trunk to test if the hands are real or fake by pushing and shaking them as hard as they can. This creates both wonder and laughter in the group as one after the other goes to test the hands. In the meantime, the panda continues to say that Krishna is asking for two fists of rice so that he will save the children.

Having seated the group in front of the images inside the temple, the panda talks of the widows who will gain from their donation, which can be 350, 450 or 550 rupees. He makes them repeat a prayer similar to the one above. In it, pilgrims are made to ask Krishna to fulfil their darshan yatra of the abode of Vrindavan, and request him thrice to protect their sons from death. Then, instead of asking for donations like his nephew did, he directly asks one of the men in the first row for his name and the name of his children. Their names are immediately recorded in the account book and the panda asks how much he would like to donate. The pressure is clearly on the pilgrim. He answers 600 rupees, and the next four men give the same answer while the panda repeatedly asks if they are giving it happily while stating that there is no pressure. The sixth pilgrim pledges 500 to which the panda mockingly enquires if he should make it less than 500, again asking if he wants to give just 500. The pilgrim finally agrees to give 600. The seventh pledges 300 upon which the panda suggests to make it 350 but the pilgrim resists. The eighth does not give his name, stating that his brother has given, only to be told that his brother has given for his children and that he needs to give for his own. He finally gives 600. ‘You have happily had this written down?’ the panda asks. Then, after five others have given their names and increasingly smaller donations are written down, all are given a receipt of their donation, a little plastic bag with a rosary, and blessed sweets. Finally, the pilgrims are asked to give a small donation at the feet of Krishna's image before they are instructed to go out and circumambulate the tree with the two miraculous arms to complete the tour (yatra).

Historical trajectories

What are we to make of this tour and the curse of Krishna so clearly developed by the pandas to secure their income by soliciting pilgrims to give donations? After a different tour with another panda, I once observed a pilgrim shouting at the bus conductor while we were on the way out of Vrindavan: ‘This was not the main temple!’ he exclaimed, referring to how the panda had repeatedly stated that they would visit the ‘main temple’ but they had clearly not seen the Bankey Bihari temple. The same sentiment is found in accounts published on the widely used travel website TripAdvisor in a thread entitled ‘Beware of guides in Vrindavan’.Footnote ³¹ From the 37 entries (as at November 2015) it is clear that many pilgrims feel these tours are fraudulent. Participating in a one-day excursion from Delhi to Vrindavan (via the Taj Mahal and Mathura), one of my co-travellers summed up the whole experience of being in the donation temple with the proverb ‘paisa phenkh tamasha dekh’ (‘Throw money and see the show’). I tested my newly learned expression on an elderly man who wanted to know what I thought of the tour. ‘So you got the point,’ he replied with a smile.

The dissatisfaction with pandas has not gone unnoticed by the tourism authorities. A 2002 report by the Ministry of Tourism on the future prospects of tourism in Uttar Pradesh where Vrindavan is located mentions that ‘there is a problem of imposing behaviour by temple priests, as perceived by a section of visitors’ in the Mathura-Vrindavan Braj area.Footnote ³² In a more recent brochure from the Ministry of Tourism, outlining a new scheme (Swadesh DarshanFootnote ³³ ) for the development of tourist circuits, there is a reference to touts and ‘lapka culture’Footnote ³⁴ in relation to the planned ‘Krishna Circuit’. While there have been some unsuccessful legal attempts at removing pandas from certain temples,Footnote ³⁵ there are, as a local observer pointed out, three good reasons why nothing has been done in Vrindavan so far: first, the pandas are of the priestly class (Brahman), secondly, they are unemployed, and, thirdly, they can put up a fight. Referring to internal competition and fights among pandas, a seasoned panda concluded that Brahmans are like lions: they do not form agreements to work together, and if they have to, there are bound to be conflicts.Footnote ³⁶

And yet, despite the low regard in which they are held, pilgrims generally accept going along with pandas. The feeling I had as a participant in two day-excursions from Delhi to Mathura and Vrindavan was that no pilgrim really makes the decision to hire a panda. The guided tour is arranged by the conductor and the panda beforehand. Most pilgrims end up going along with the others in the group and whatever appears to be the programme. Ann Gold found that, while Rajasthani pilgrims were bothered by the pushy behaviour of pandas, everyone still insisted that the pandas’ bad behaviour and disposition would not spoil the meritorious nature of donations and offerings.Footnote ³⁷ The feeling that pandas are, after all, priests and hence necessary for the rituals is probably still a widespread sentiment.Footnote ³⁸

It is tempting to assume that the tours described above, shaped as they are by economic incentives, are the result of modern commercialism and moral decay.Footnote ³⁹ As mentioned above, there appears to be no traditional precedent for the story of Krishna's curse. This ‘absence’ appears to make it dubious to some scholars, hence: ‘the canny strategies of [Vrindavan] pandas include setting up spurious sites and claiming their mythical association with various Krishna legends’ (my emphasis).Footnote ⁴⁰ The Vrindavan panda can thus be described as ‘a merchant of the sacred’, telling pilgrims that the temple they are visiting stands where Nanda used to live, even though ‘there is no ancient tradition to support this claim’ (my emphasis).Footnote ⁴¹ The nostalgic notion of a ‘past purity and modern corruption’ is alluring to pilgrims, observers, and scholars alike.Footnote ⁴² The European colonial notion that Hindu priests in general ruined what was once a pristine religion was adapted by Hindu reformers from Rammohan Roy, via the Arya Samaj, to Vivekananda.Footnote ⁴³ These Hindu reformers have certainly helped popularize and sustain perceptions of pandas as greedy and corrupt. Historical studies, however, reveal that commercial interests and Hindu pilgrimage have always been intertwined.

The pandas’ overt attempt to elicit donations in Vrindavan appears to be a deviation from tradition in the eyes of many contemporary observers. However, Knut A. Jacobsen's inquiry into the history of Hindu pilgrimageFootnote ⁴⁴ makes it clear that competition for ritual income and donations by pilgrims have always been important driving forces in its perpetuation. This partly explains the enormous geographical expansion of the pilgrimage tradition,Footnote ⁴⁵ and the continuous focus and emphasis on donations to Brahmans in the Puranic literature on pilgrimage.Footnote ⁴⁶ The proliferation of pilgrimage sites and their promotion through texts indicate that there was a need for Brahmans to expand their client base to maximize income.Footnote ⁴⁷ To attract donors, Puranic literature has always emphasized the easily attainable rewards of visiting pilgrimage sites and invited all sections of society to do so.Footnote ⁴⁸ In this respect these texts could be seen as early forms of advertisements, functioning in some ways like tourist brochures do today.Footnote ⁴⁹ The attempts to elicit donations from pilgrims by the pandas are, in other words, very much in tune with the history of Hindu pilgrimage as a whole. In what ways does the history of pandas and their trade—pandagiri—shed light on the tours described above?

The term ‘panda’ is a generic term used for groups of priests who cater to pilgrims at the numerous Hindu pilgrimage sites (tirthas, dhams, kshetras) in India. Nominally such pilgrimage priests should belong to a caste of the priestly class (Brahman), but the reality on the ground is often more complicated, as we will see.Footnote ⁵⁰ The title ‘tirth purohit’ is sometimes used synonymously, although it may also be used to designate a different type of pilgrimage priest from the panda.Footnote ⁵¹ In contemporary Vrindavan, the priests I spoke to sometimes preferred the tirth purohit title, probably because of the bad press associated with pandas. These priests cater to pilgrims, providing them with ritual services as well as arranging accommodation, food, and other facilities. Besides the ritual services for which they receive a payment and gifts, they might also take pilgrims on guided tours around the pilgrimage site to visit shops, temples, and other sites. ‘Pandagiri’, the term often used for the business of the pandas, sometimes has negative connotations. In Varanasi, the expression ‘contractor of religion’ (dharm ka thekedar) is sometimes used as ‘a phrase which nicely captures his [the panda’s] role as a general “fixer” for both this- and other-worldly comforts of his clients’.Footnote ⁵² A panda ideally refers to a member of a Brahman family which has catered to pilgrims for generations. All members of such a family need not follow this occupation, and many combine it with other jobs or take it up after retiring from another job. Histories of pandagiri at particular sites also reveal that non-local Brahmans and even non-Brahmans can work for a panda, do his job or, indeed, establish themselves as independent pandas.

Some pandas maintain long-term relationships with families of pilgrims whose visits, ritual activities, and donations they note down in a record book (bahi). Such long-standing relationships between pandas and clients are known as the jajmani system,Footnote ⁵³ which refers to the procedure of keeping inherited relationships between a panda and a family lineage. A panda will typically have the exclusive right to serve clients who come from a specific geographical location and belong to certain castes. The jajmani system was well established by the eighteenth century,Footnote ⁵⁴ but a variety of studies from various sites over the last decades indicate that it is declining.Footnote ⁵⁵ What could be the reasons for this decline?

In his historical study of pandas in Ayodhya, Peter van der VeerFootnote ⁵⁶ observes that one might speak of the emergence of a modern pilgrimage market during the nineteenth century because pandas began to sell and sublet three of their key assets: pilgrim record books, stalls along the river, and the rights to serve elite pilgrims. All of these became marketable goods.Footnote ⁵⁷ An important element in this development was the framing of the pandas’ assets as property within the legal framework of the British colonizers.Footnote ⁵⁸ As new infrastructure developed over time and key properties on the riverside became settled, those with the most resources were able to negotiate successfully with the state, employing both legal and illegal means.Footnote ⁵⁹

The jajmani system that was thriving in the colonial period began to decline in importance as the twentieth century progressed. With independence and its associated land reforms, important elite pilgrim patrons such as landlords and royals lost power.Footnote ⁶⁰ From the early twentieth century onwards, successful pandas would have had many agents to conduct and assist their business, often taking care of the direct interaction with pilgrims on site or in the pilgrims’ homes. With the weakening of the jajmani system, many of the pandas’ agents became entrepreneurs on the post-independence pilgrimage scene where the game was all about securing new clients without necessarily forging long-term jajmani relations.Footnote ⁶¹ This climate has led to intense internal (and often violent) competition, with Mafia-like conditions in places like Varanasi and Ayodhya.Footnote ⁶² In 1982, all pandas in Ayodhya were denied access to the riverside by the police for about four months because of violent outbursts between competing panda groups.Footnote ⁶³ According to van der Veer's account, the contradiction between the priestly role and Mafia-like tendencies in pandagiri ‘has to be understood in the light of . . . the emergence of a totally impersonal pilgrimage market, in which the control of the flow of pilgrims came to be dominated by agents. . .’.Footnote ⁶⁴

This historical review reminds us that not only have pilgrimage and commercial paybacks always gone together,Footnote ⁶⁵ but also that the historical trajectory of pandas is in many ways defined by it. In a study of a Maharastrian noble who went on a pilgrimage in the mid-nineteenth century, we find an amusing description of a Prayag panda pressuring the royal pilgrim for donations—a scene not unlike that described above.Footnote ⁶⁶ And it pays off, as the panda receives not only a considerable amount of money, but also a house and a horse in return for religious benefits and protection. In his study of how and why Rajasthani kings in around 1700 attempted to acquire powerful deity statues cultivated by the Vallabha sect, Norbert Peabody skilfully demonstrates how economic relations are integral to pilgrimage, the fate of pilgrimage temples, and, indeed, the fame and perceived potency of deities at pilgrimage sites.Footnote ⁶⁷ This is surely not specific to India and Hindu pilgrimage. As Michael Stausberg reminds us, ‘medieval pilgrimages were not at all the purely pious religious affairs they are often claimed to be’.Footnote ⁶⁸ As Ian Reader points out, the ‘interweaving of commerce and pilgrimage has been a recurrent theme from early times’.Footnote ⁶⁹

The perspective we get from Ayodhya and Banares—and indeed Vrindavan—is that pandagiri is first and foremost a livelihood, a means to make a living.Footnote ⁷⁰ As noted by van der Veer, the ‘pandas are engaged in a daily struggle for livelihood and their actions and orientations are connected with that struggle’.Footnote ⁷¹ This surely sheds light on the story of Krishna's curse and nature of the guided tour during which it was told. The relationship it suggests between panda and pilgrim is quite different from the jajmani system as we tend to understand it. As van der Veer suggests for Ayodhya, the pilgrimage market in Vrindavan has also become highly impersonal, with jajmani relations becoming progressively more infrequent and marginal in the post-independence era. There is, however, one important factor increasingly shaping contemporary pandagiri that the historical studies from Ayodhya and Banares do not mention, namely tourism. The interplay between Hindu pilgrimage and tourism, I argue, will further help us to understand the circumstances surrounding Krishna's curse. But before we return to Vrindavan, it would be beneficial first to look more broadly at how pandagiri in general is affected by tourism.

In his monograph on Haridwar, James Lochtefeld lists a variety of reasons for the decline of the jajmani system, including diminishing faith in the efficacy of rituals, the growth of Hindi as lingua franca, changing motives for travel which indicate a shift from pilgrimage to vacation, better transportation, and improved accommodation.Footnote ⁷² New forms of media, such as newspapers and guidebooks, which spread information about pilgrimage destinations and how to get there, should also be mentioned as a factor.Footnote ⁷³ Barring the two first factors listed by Lochtefeld, the remaining three, along with guidebooks, are intimately connected to the tourism industry.

One important part of the tourism industry affecting Hindu pilgrimage is accommodation and hotels. Many pilgrims who can afford it prefer to stay in hotels and privately run guesthouses rather than traditional pilgrim lodgings or homes of pandas.Footnote ⁷⁴ Some of the more well-off pandas in 1970s Bakreshwar (West Bengal) adapted to this development by joining the tourism industry, establishing and running their own guesthouses and hotels.Footnote ⁷⁵ A similar example from Haridwar is the Purohit Lodge, run by a wealthy panda family. Purohit Lodge has rooms in various price ranges, ‘a restaurant, a tea and cold drink stall, and a store selling woollen goods, brass vessels, and woodwork’.Footnote ⁷⁶

Pandas in Pushkar have been known to protest against tourism in the form of hotels serving alcohol and meat near the lake and the ritual centre of the town, and badly behaved international tourists (for whom they nevertheless perform puja).Footnote ⁷⁷ At the same time, many priests have sold their rights to their traditional Indian clientele to other priests and left their trade to look for jobs in the tourism industry.Footnote ⁷⁸ In response to the decline of clients and ritual income in Haridwar, the pandas have created a visible and public association, the Ganga Sabha, whose aim is, in part, to make sure that the pilgrims continue to use them and their services.Footnote ⁷⁹

The tourism industry has also ushered in new travel practices, referred to in the introduction as the spread of global travel consumerism. In his study of the Bengali pilgrimage site Bakreshwar from the late 1970s, Buddhadeb Chaudhuri noted how highly educated urban dwellers made up a substantial number of the visitors. Many of them reported that they did not come for rituals or religion but simply for pleasure, following an itinerary that included non-religious destinations.Footnote ⁸⁰ A study conducted in the late 1960s found that Hindu visitors at pilgrimage sites self-identified as tourists rather than as pilgrims.Footnote ⁸¹ The contemporary blending of homage and holiday among Hindus in Indian domestic tourismFootnote ⁸² has been an ongoing development that goes back several decades. It is no wonder then that jajmani relationships were seen to be disappearing, while various rituals for pilgrims were increasingly conducted in abbreviated forms at BakreshwarFootnote ⁸³ and other pilgrimage sites. In Haridwar, Lochtefeld points out that both ‘individual pandas and the Ganga Sabha are trying to adapt to the shift from traditional pilgrimage patterns toward a growing stress on sightseeing and tourism—individual pandas by opening tourist-related businesses, and the Ganga Sabha by promoting “first-class facilities”’.Footnote ⁸⁴

The last key aspect of the tourism industry that sustains the new travel practices noted above, and which affects pandas and their trade, is the business of selling travel itself. This business is closely related to two of the factors that have led to a decline of the jajmani system: increased transportation opportunities and the spread of information about sites and how to get to them. Travel agencies make journeys into a consumer product that they package. In this economy, pilgrimage sites are advertised by travel agencies and tourist departments as desirable destinations in various media outlets, ranging from pamphlets to the internet.Footnote ⁸⁵ The virtues of Varanasi and Vrindavan are no longer just eulogized in Sanskrit puranas and shastras, but also in travel brochures, advertisement pamphlets, and guidebooks.

Pandagiri in Vrindavan

Returning to Vrindavan, Kiran Shinde has observed that many pilgrims report that they visit for both recreational and religious reasons, and many report that they would not participate in specific pilgrimage rituals or wait for the communal arati worship at key temples.Footnote ⁸⁶ This is coupled with an increase in day visitors wanting to experience the town's religious sights in a short time.Footnote ⁸⁷ Several of the entries on the aforementioned TripAdvisor thread are indicative of this. One pilgrim describes how they had sought a guide ‘for a quick wrap of 2/3 [of the] main temples in Vrindavan’.Footnote ⁸⁸ Vrindavan's proximity to Delhi means that day excursions can be made by private or hired car. The growth of the Golden Triangle circuit together with the opening of the Yamuna Expressway in 2012, which is adjacent to Vrindavan, also means that the town has a high number of short-stay visitors. Groups of pilgrims arrive by bus, such as the group guided by the uncle above. They are usually travelling on a busy schedule that includes several pilgrimage sites. Hence, Vrindavan can only be given a few hours that tends to exclude ritual bathing in Yamuna but includes a guided tour. One of the most popular day excursions offered by budget travel agencies in Delhi is a trip that includes visits to both the Taj Mahal and Vrindavan. Participating on two such tours, I noted that we spent around an hour in Vrindavan on a trip that started at 6.30 in the morning and only returned around midnight. That hour consisted of a guided tour with a panda and nothing else.

Improved transportation facilities, package tours, and dense itineraries have resulted in an increase in the number of pilgrims staying for short periods. These developments have helped the growth of a large, impersonal, rapid turnover market which contemporary pandagiri attempts to tap into. It is in this context that the guided tour becomes a suitable mode of interaction as it can cover a lot of ground (‘quick wrap’) in a short time.

Guided tours in one form or another have surely always been part of Hindu pilgrimage. Earlier studies from other sites also show how they constituted one part of a longer visit that incorporated various activities.Footnote ⁸⁹ At that time, pandas would offer a guided tour as just one of several other services available to pilgrims. This is no longer the case in Vrindavan as the guided tour often becomes the sole arena for pandas to secure ritual income.

This brings me to a key argument, namely that, for many Hindu pilgrims today, the guided tour is the main arena for interaction with a pilgrimage site. The guided tour, therefore, is crucial in understanding how contemporary Hindu pilgrimage works and has adapted to new travel practices. Pandas, therefore, have adjusted by offering guided tours infused with religious content and meaning. Returning to the story of Krishna's curse, we may recall that the uncle had the pilgrims repeat a prayer before they were asked to give donations. In it, pilgrims are made to ask Krishna to fulfil their darshan yatra. On the one hand, then, the darshan yatra taps into tourism in the form of changing travel patterns and the increase of short-stay visitors. On the other, it draws on the tourism format of the guided tour, while framing it as Hindu religious practice.

Travel agencies in Vrindavan and nearby Mathura also promote darshan yatra as a product that consists of a one-day package tour to the most important villages on the larger Braj yatra. The government's tourism corporation also runs a Braj yatra bus that starts in Mathura, before going on to Vrindavan and four other villages. One of these is Nandagao where crowds of pandas are waiting for visitors to give them a tour on the terrace of the temple and inspire them to give donations. Here too, pilgrims are made to repeat a prayer so that their darshan yatra can be fulfilled. It has been argued that the introduction of package tours in Hindu pilgrimage is indicative of sacrilege.Footnote ⁹⁰ Shinde claims there has been ‘a transformation of pilgrimage into mere “sightseeing tour[s]”’ in Vrindavan.Footnote ⁹¹ Rather than arguing for the collapse of Hindu pilgrimage, the approach suggested here invites us to think in terms of new tourism elements becoming part of the pilgrimage tradition (guided and package tours) and traditional pilgrimage institutions (the pandas) and practices (visiting pilgrimage sites), thus adapting to the changes brought about by tourism.Footnote ⁹² How then has pandagiri adapted to these changes, besides the development of the darshan yatra?

The question takes me to a second crucial argument. While a proper history of pandagiri in Vrindavan—and indeed Mathura and the larger Braj area—is yet to be written (and it would be a fascinating study), it is clear that Vrindavan pandagiri has seen a gradual transition from the jajmani system to the Nanda Rai system over the last five decades. In the latter system, the pandas’ strategy with regard to securing clients and ritual income is no longer to create long-term relationships. Instead, they bring pilgrims to Nanda Rai temples owned by fellow pandas and they get a share of the donations they manage to secure. While jajmani relations continue in certain pockets and among a minority of panda families, the contemporary scene is dominated by the Nanda Rai system. According to a well-informed local observer, the system arrived from Gokul where Nanda's house is widely believed to have been located. A veteran panda also made comparisons between pandagiri in Gokul and Vrindavan, providing another indication that there is a connection between the two places and the spread of the Nanda Rai system.

While groups of pandas operate as guides in other places as well,Footnote ⁹³ the pandas in Vrindavan also saw an opportunity to build their own temples. The ‘main temple’ that the pilgrims were taken to by the pandas referred to earlier was actually a Nanda Rai temple. According to three independent sources in Vrindavan, these Nanda Rais started appearing about 50 years back. Today there are at least ten such temples in Vrindavan, although I suspect there are more. According to one local observer about 200 families are dependent on income raised by the Nanda Rai system. Exactly how the ownership of the Nanda Rai temples is organized and how they cooperate with individual pandas is not clear to me.

Part of the reason why it is difficult to obtain more data on these matters is the secrecy and reported threat of violence that surrounds them. Most pandas are not willing to share information regarding the pecuniary and more business-related aspects of their trade. While talking to a group of younger pandas who were willing to share details about the workings of contemporary pandagiri, one of the older pandas interrupted the conversation, telling the younger men that they were revealing their trade secrets. The recorder had to be stopped more than once. As in Banares,Footnote ⁹⁴ and surely other pilgrimage sites, Vrindavan pandas have developed a secret code so that they may freely communicate about business matters with one another in front of pilgrims.Footnote ⁹⁵ Thus, reportedly, triya stands for yatri (traveller/pilgrim), while netr (eye) means 200 rupees as it refers to a pair. Local people are generally aware of the strategies and conduct of pandas, but keep out of it since public critique can result in violent repercussions. While conducting interviews with the assistance of my colleague Moumita Sen, we were in fact discouraged more than once by pandas. In one case we were questioned rather aggressively about what we would be writing, with the result that we ended our research efforts the day afterwards. As in Banares and Ayodhya, our observations, along with the input from local observers, indicated that contemporary Vrindavan pandagiri has its fair share of rough young men with criminal cases connected to them.

Like the Joshi Brahmins in Banares then, Vrindavan pandas have found short-term relationships to be better suited to continuing their trade while exhorting pilgrims to give as much as possible as in the saying: ‘take[ing] all the golden eggs even if it means killing the chicken’.Footnote ⁹⁶ In this approach, no long-term relationships are developed with a jajman, there is no staying over at the pandas’ residences, but instead guided tours are offered to a growing rapid-turnover market. The guided tour has become increasingly central given the changes in travel patterns over the last decades with a growing number of short-stay visitors. Thus, over time, guide and panda have become ‘one and the same’, as the shopkeeper initially told me. This is also revealed on the business cards of two of the pandas I spoke to, one of them listing ‘Teerth Purohit (Ritual priest, Guide)’ as the profession, the other simply ‘International guide’.

The Nanda Rai system restructures how pandas can secure a ritual income for their sustenance. What then about the strategies for securing clients? Here, I argue that there has been a transition to what pandas colloquially refer to as ‘street pandagiri’ (sarak ki pandagiri), which goes hand in hand with the Nanda Rai system. The owners of Nanda Rai temples can technically sit idly by, waiting for pilgrims to be brought in. Those pandas bringing pilgrims in, however, must roam the streets and wait at strategic points to pursue potential clients. I was not able to decipher the various rules among the pandas as to who is allowed to catch pilgrims where and how they mitigate competition in street pandagiri. In general I was told that they make sure to approach pilgrims one at the time so as to avoid open competition. When offering a local tour, the panda suggests a price based on the financial status he believes the potential clients to have. When someone finally succeeds in securing a customer, he will provide a tour according to the wishes of the client and typically end up by bringing them to a Nanda Rai. Here he will receive a certain percentage of the donation, which, according to several, can be as much as 80 per cent. This is where the recording of donations—which might help boost the pilgrims’ confidence in the temple's management of donations—Footnote ⁹⁷ ensures that the panda can later return and collect his rightful share. Besides donations, pandas also have agreements with local shopkeepers selling religious paraphernalia to ensure that they receive commission from goods purchased by ‘their’ pilgrims.Footnote ⁹⁸

The history of pandagiri in Banares and Ayodhya reveal that in the past railway stations were sites of violent competition as they served as key locations for securing incoming clients.Footnote ⁹⁹ Vrindavan pandas today, however, speak of the importance of keeping up their connections with travel agencies and drivers. Such connections, including contacts with hotel and guesthouse staff, constitute an alternative to roaming the streets to find clients, although it does mean sharing revenue between more people. Travel agencies arrange lodging, vehicles and drivers, itinerary and programmes, and, to some extent, have taken the role of the pandas’ agents in earlier times.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Since they are responsible for bringing many of the more well-off (and hence attractive) visitors, making connections with them can be highly valuable. While some pandas have managed to create connections with travel agencies, more often we found that pandas have come to informal agreements with drivers.

The young man and his uncle conducting the tours described above proudly presented dozens of business cards bearing the names of various travel agencies when my colleague and I went to interview them in their homes. Claiming they had connections with at least a hundred travel agencies, the uncle explained that this is their business secret. The display of business cards came as a response to my question about whether they still keep traditional registers and jajmani relationships. While the answer was in the affirmative, we were first shown small diaries that appeared to contain the contact information of various people, which had not been in use for several years. It seems they had moved from the bigger traditional registers to small, portable diaries before business cards and mobile phones had taken over. Until recently, they had had a very good ‘setting’Footnote ¹⁰¹ with a travel agency connected with the Akshardham temple in New Delhi. They would bring groups from Gujarat on package tours that included New Delhi, Haridwar, and then Vrindavan (and Mathura). Now they predominantly have connections with agencies in Gujarat that sell packaged tours, as the nephew pointed out. The group we met above, arriving on the Paradise Tour and Travel bus that got to experience Vrindavan through the story of Krishna's curse, was one such group from Gujarat. The key to increasing one's connections with travel agencies, they claimed, was to create satisfied customers and thus build a reputation based on good practice (vyavahar). This is surely quite a balancing act given that they simultaneously need to elicit donations, as we saw the uncle do rather successfully.

More direct and immediate contacts are made with those who physically bring pilgrims to Vrindavan, such as bus conductors on day excursion buses coming from Delhi or local taxi drivers. Participating in a two-day excursion from Delhi I experienced how this network functions from the point of view of a pilgrim. Having left from Mathura, we were suddenly, and somewhat unexpectedly, joined by a panda who seemed to come out of nowhere. Without any announcement from our conductor, he appeared in the aisle of the bus, talking and priming us for our visit to Vrindavan and, eventually, the Nanda Rai featuring the tree with the two hands sticking out of its trunk. At the end of the tour, when we were all back in the bus, I spotted the quick and subtle exchange of cash between the panda and the driver. As long as a driver or conductor is happy with his share, the ‘setting’ between them and the panda will continue. It is in forging these relations that we see the latest development in Vrindavan pandagiri.

Along the parking area near Rangnath temple one can find a series of small ‘tour and travel’ offices that carry the names Do Bhai (Two Brothers), Tin Bhai (Three Brothers), and so on, all the way up to Ath Bhai (Eight Brothers). On the surface they look like any other low-budget tour and travel office, advertising various destinations and a taxi service at the entrance. What makes them different from other local tour operators,Footnote ¹⁰² however, is that they have all been set up by groups of pandas within the last 20 years. In fact, by all accounts, these were set up in order to collect and cement as many connections with drivers and travel agencies as possible. One of these companies we spoke to was still mostly preoccupied with drivers, claiming to have between 150–250 individual contacts. The driver will first bring customers to the office. Here, the driver can park his vehicle, relax, and have a lie down under a fan while the pandas do their bit. After the pilgrims have made their donations, the panda will give the driver a share, ensuring that all parties are happy. By the same token, the pandas will also call upon these drivers when pilgrims request a taxi. It is difficult to say how popular this model is, although the creation of eight such firms does speak of some success. The advantage of creating such a firm, the owners stated, is partly that pilgrims are more likely to trust them than street pandas since they have an office where one can complain, and partly that drivers get a place to relax while their group is on their tour. Creating these firms is thus a step up from street pandagiri and an attempt to adapt to the current climate by connecting with both drivers and travel agencies, and mimicking the business model of the latter.

The second company we spoke to had managed to purchase a few cars and could thus arrange for day excursions in the Braj area for walk-in customers. One of the owners here stressed that he was not really engaged in pandagiri, although this had been the profession of his forefathers. He was a ‘travel agent’. While the men we spoke to in the first company generally stated that they provide services for tourists, such as hiring drivers and providing car services, some of them eventually agreed that they also did pandagiri. As one pointed out, they do pandagiri and sometimes arrange for other services. The overall impression is that although these offices take the form of a travel agency, pandagiri constitutes their core activity. Combining priestly and tourist services, they demonstrate the creative ways in which pandas bring together a business model from tourism (travel agency) with Hindu pilgrimage (pandagiri).

In sum, pandas are responding to tourism-related trends that are taking place all over India. In Vrindavan, the modus operandi of contemporary pandas has adjusted to tourism in various ways. By moving away from the jajmani system and favouring the Nanda Rai system and street pandagiri, pandas have adapted themselves to becoming guides who yield religious authority. They further tap into the tourism trade by making connections with travel agencies and drivers. With the darshan yatras and their travel agencies, they have not just adapted to tourism, but made use of formats and models emanating from the tourism trade, combining them with practices and meanings from Hindu pilgrimage. Contemporary Vrindavan pandagiri, then, cannot successfully operate unless pandas tap into and combine resources stemming from both tourism and their traditional trade. Connections with travel agents and Krishna's curse are both necessary in order to secure both clients and ritual income in the age of global tourism.

Acting, cheating, and the necessity of forced donations: pandas’ perspectives on their own methods and the contemporary pilgrim

As a result of the Nanda Rai system, pandas have developed strategies to inspire and convince pilgrims to give donations. While the story of Krishna's curse provides us with an insight into one way in which pilgrims are made to give donations, another popular strategy has been to offer marble plates on which pilgrims can have their names inscribed. This is portrayed in the aforementioned TripAdvisor thread. In the first entry from July 2011Footnote ¹⁰³ the author describes being taken to a temple, made to believe that donations would go to widows, and asked to donate three, six or 12 thousand rupees. For this they would get a receipt and his name and the names of his party would be inscribed on a marble plate to be hung on the temple wall, another practice that echoes an ancient honourable tradition. ‘If you try to talk to each other,’ he adds, ‘he [the panda] will scare you with curses and bad luck.’ Two other contributors mention having given as much as 13,790 rupees for a marble plate. I did unfortunately not get to experience the pandas’ marble plate pitch, though I was shown more than once that foreigners had given donations as the donors’ names and country of residence are listed on these plates.

The term ‘cari’ is reportedly the secret code word for inspiring donations, or making people give donations (dan karvana). The uncle conducting the tour described above proudly explained that they have become masters in categorizing pilgrims according to different types and then approach a given client accordingly: ‘We know what you are thinking,’ he proclaimed. ‘We make some cry and others laugh—they might believe that the god image (murti) is just a stone, so we are the ones that put life into the stone.’ It is clearly in the context of this mindset and the changing conditions for interacting with pilgrims that the story of Krishna's curse has developed. Another panda openly admitted, after some time, that those who know how to put on a great ‘performance’ and ‘do acting’ (acting karna) are the most successful ones. This is now a business, he concluded, a business that provides a livelihood, echoing the van der Veer above.

In this performance to inspire donations, pandas employ various rhetorical devices and narrative strategies. The Nanda Rai in question must be given a history and a special significance so that it makes sense to give donations there. Thus, relatively recently built temples become the house of Nanda, the ‘main temple’ of Vrindavan, with a story behind the appearance of its main image, identical to that of Bankey Bihari, the most famous and popular temple in Vrindavan. And the donations are claimed to be used for the welfare of widows, even though this might not be the case.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ A retired man, operating as a panda only in old age, lamented that the pandas of today have to resort to all kinds of tricks and cheating to inspire donations. Like others, he partly blamed outsiders and non-Brahmans who had entered pandagiri for this development. Yet, as he pointed out, the basic idea of pilgrimage is to give donations to earn merit (punya). And no matter how much pandagiri has become a matter of business, the efficacy of this is not affected. This echoes rural Rajasthani pilgrims’ perceptions as well,Footnote ¹⁰⁵ and is probably part of the reason why many pilgrims continue to employ pandas despite their reputation.

The second part of the panda’s argument was interesting and helps us to understand how they explain and justify their approaches to themselves. He argued that while pilgrims might give donations in a temple like Bankey Bihari, it is the panda’s (or tirth purohit as he preferred) job to inspire donations elsewhere. Since the type of pilgrim has degenerated over time, losing the piety they once had, they now need to be instructed to give donations. In earlier times they did it happily, but today they need to be told. This perceived degeneration in contemporary pilgrims therefore partly legitimizes the methods used by pandas in contemporary pandagiri. It also brings us back to the issue of changing travel patterns. Leaving aside the moral and religious judgements pandas make regarding contemporary pilgrims in Vrindavan, it is clear that they have a very real sense of how Indian travel culture is evolving, with busy schedules and itineraries being important elements that shape their trade.

The same panda further made a very clear distinction between the ‘tourist’ and the ‘tirthyatri’ (pilgrim). Today we have tourists, he claimed, whereas in the past there were pilgrims. The latter came with bhav (a disposition, purpose, emotion) and were interested in giving donations and taking ritual baths. They would donate gold, silver, and freshly harvested grains that pandas would record in their traditional registers and collect in the off-season as per traditional jajmani procedure. They slept on the floor in the pandas’ residences, considered the simple food they received there as blessed food (bhog), conducted the traditional rituals, respected pandas, fed them ceremoniously, and worshipped at their feet. The tourists of today do not have a pilgrim's disposition (tirth ka bhav nahi hai). They come with cars, go on picnics,Footnote ¹⁰⁶ take photos, and are unaware of the importance of Vrindavan. They want convenience (suvidha) and lack the religious spirit (dharmik bhavna). They go to museums, are interested in architecture, and visit for aesthetic reasons.

Other pandas I spoke to did not make a distinction between pilgrim and tourist—‘What's the difference? We say tourist in English and tirthyatri in our language’ (kya farak hai? angrezi me tourist bolte hai, hamari bhasa me tirthyatri bolte hai). Yet, they all presented a broadly similar outline regarding the decline of a jajmani system when things were much better,Footnote ¹⁰⁷ and claimed there had been a religious and moral degeneration among visitors: ‘The new generation has less faith (manna), the older had a lot of faith.’ A recurrent theme is that people today do not have time. The two groups we joined on guided tours above were both making short stops in Vrindavan. As one panda pointed out, people today only stay for two hours before they move on to Agra (presumably to see the Taj Mahal). Hence they do not undertake a pilgrimage (tirthyatra), they only do ‘car yatra’, referring to the contemporary practice of arriving and leaving Vrindavan in cars and completing the traditional pilgrimage of Braj in rented cars.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ They come with girlfriends and boyfriends. They stroll around with their wives, and go shopping and such things (shopping vopping) during their stay. There used to be religious devotion (bhakti) and interest in the stories of Krishna's divine play (lilas), but now people want to see the newest sights (darshan) such as Prem Mandir. (At present this is probably the most popular of the new, modern temples, besides the ISKCON temple. The temple complex has a fast food canteen and utilizes entertainment technology such as a musical fountain with video projection and robotronics.) Today's visitors to Vrindavan, the nephew pointed out, are not ‘spiritual’ but are interested in entertainment and eating snacks and fast food from street vendors. These, then, are the main characteristics of the typical contemporary visitor to Vrindavan according to the pandas. They have made the basis of the pandas’ income precarious, and, as I was repeatedly told, there is no future in pandagiri. The tourism policy documents mentioned earlier, which specifically refer to the pandas as a ‘management problem’, further point to the dark clouds gathering on the horizon of their trade. As more than one panda pointed out, they are living in kaliyug after all.