Browse Items (154 total)

This child in her finest dress and blud scarf sits patiently in the metal crate of the balance as she is weighed against the bags of sweetbreads to be distributed to the community. Following a custom widely practiced in all religious communities in…

The child dressed in a beautiful peach dress and blue scarf sits patiently as her weight balances the sweetbreads on the other side, determining the contribution of her familiy to the community. [See cbind0043 for description of this Thanksgiving…

At this shrine, couples pray to the saint, Zar Zari Zar Baksh, for his help in conceiving a healthy child. When the child is old enough, the couples promise tol return and make an offering of thanksgiving. This ritual consists of distributing…

Just outside the entranceway into the dargah, a woman makes and sells flower garlands for pilgrims to offer inside. At the next stall, green glass bangles hung from the roof are sold for the ritual performed at the tomb shrine of the saint's mother.

Just outside the entrance to the dargah, a man sells bright colored cloths some with gold-embroidered prayers Pilgrims have these cloths blessed inside the dargah and then save them to be used as funeral shrouds.

At the Tomb Shrine of the mother of Zar Zari Zar Baksh, women tie glass bangles over the door lintel into the shrine room as symbols of their petitions.

A reminder of the Quranic injunction to pray five times a day. At 4:45 p.m., the next prayer time is posted for 19:00. This prayer, the Maghrib, is the fourth of the day to be performed just after sunset.

Within the inner courtyard of the dargah, just oustide the tomb of the saint, is a mosque where men pray five times a day. This mehrab marks the direction of Mecca, the direction faced during prayer. On the two plates above the mehrab, on either…

The patron saint of this popular dargah, Muntajib al-Din, known best by his epithet Zar Zari Zar Baksh, is said to have come to this area of the Deccan in the fourteenth century at the request of his teacher, Nizamuddin Awliya of Delhi. The Zar Zari…

This standing Buddha figure within a stupa-like structure is placed within a large chaitya hall, a cave where monks gathered for teaching and community ritual practices. The straight, rigid form of this Buddha is reminiscent of figures of Jain…