Layered Landscapes

This volume explores the conceptualization and construction of sacred space in a wide variety of faith traditions: Christianity Hinduism Islam Judaism and the religions of Japan. It deploys the notion of layered landscapes in order to trace the accretions of praxis and belief the tensions between old and new devotional patterns and the imposition of new religious ideas and behaviors on pre-existing religious landscapes in a series of carefully chosen locales: Cuzco Edo Geneva Granada Herat Istanbul Jerusalem Kanchipuram Paris Philadelphia Prague and Rome. Some chapters hone in on the process of imposing novel religious beliefs while others focus on how vestiges of displaced faiths endured. The intersection of sacred landscapes with political power the world of ritual and the expression of broader cultural and social identity are also examined. Crucially the volume reveals that the creation of sacred space frequently involved more than religious buildings and was a work of historical imagination and textual expression. While a book of contrasts as much as comparisons the volume demonstrates that vital questions about the location of the sacred and its reification in the landscape were posed by religious believers across the early-modern world.