Em busca de espiritualidade na Índia: os significados de uma moderna peregrinação

Abstract

This study is about the interfaces between tourism and religion, particularly about spiritual search and pilgrimages to India. The main themes approached here are religiosity and tourism (spirituality and travel/pilgrimage, according to the informants). Initially, I studied a type of tourist which seemed connected by a rejection to being classified as tourists or religious . After doing fieldwork with some travellers in India, I analyzed two pilgrimages to India made by a group of Vedanta students from Rio de Janeiro. The main question was to understand the meanings of these pilgrimages and the pilgrims motivations. In the research development process, another question became essential to understand the Vedanta construction as a project, as well as the meanings of the spiritual search for the studied group. This thesis is based upon my travel experiences in India; the interviews with the types of tourist that I met there; the group of Vedanta students and their pilgrimages; and the Vedanta classes I took. One of the most meaningful results was to realize that the pilgrims I studied undertook their trips motivated not only by a religious dimension, but also by the expectations and cultural ideas related to the notions of journey (what provides its experience) and of India (a place seen as the most religious in the world).