Customer Reviews

Journey through the Twelve Forests: An Encounter with Krishna

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Braj (also known as "Vraja") is a region in Uttar Pradesh of India surrounding the city of Mathura, and is considered to be the land of Krishna. This book deals with the author's participation in the Ban-Yatra, a two-hundred mile, barefoot, 22-day pilgrimage around Braj during the rainy season.

This book is very readable, utterly convivial and thoroughly enjoyable: part travel guide, part history book, and part religious textbook.

The book was written by David L. Haberman, the Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University. His writing seems even-handed and scholarly. I assume he is just a mundane researcher and not a Vaishnava (follower of Krishna); but still, in Chapter Five, he reports his astonishing and wonderful vision on the banks of the pond known as Prema Sarovara ("Pond of Divine Love"). The vision left him "shaken", as he puts it... and reading it had the same effect on me.

This book effectively explores the Ban Yatra, a sacred pilgrimage undertaken by Vaishnavas/Krishnaites, and sufficiently uses secondary information to provide the history of the pilgrimage and the modern trends that have emerged. It's a comfortable read about Haberman's personal account of the Yatra and at the same time an academic work that tackles ethnographic, historical, religious issues and customs of Braj. Highly recommend this book to those that want to understand the nature of Bhakti around Krishna and other aspects of Pilgrimages/Yatras in Hindu religious traditions.