Religions· 2026Q1
Thick Signs: Amplifying God-Sensation in Vrindavan
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- 2026year
Short summary
An elaborate sign economy in Vrindavan generates 'thick signs'—dense, weighty visual, aural, and ritual forms—that translate intangible God-sensation into palpable, earthly manifestations of Radha-Krishna.
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Key points
- A sign economy in Vrindavan translates intangible God-sensation into tangible, earthly forms.
- Three domains of sign generation are identified: visual, aural/verbal, and ritual/performative.
- 'Thick signs' are described as indelible, weighty, and dense sign-forms.
- These signs imbue the physical world with divine currency, intensifying God-sensation for devotees.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
The divine currency of Radha-Krishna, the couple god, travels across the sacred geography of the Braj in northern India via a robust sign economy. In this article, I draw from my ethnographic narratives to demonstrate three domains of sign-form generation of the name-words of Radha-Krishna: visual, aural/verbal, and ritual/performative. I argue that an elaborate sign economy is required to sustain an intangible God-sensation by translating it into palpable, mundane, earthly forms. Not only does the sign-form thrive as a fusion between the real and the sign, but it also strengthens and comes to mirror the God-intuition in the hearts of the devotee public. This endless, repetitive, creative sign economy constitutes what I call “thick signs”: indelible, weighty, dense, sticky sign-forms that imbue the physical world with a significant layer of divine currency that forms a pathway for intensified God-sensation that keeps God alive in the mundane, earthly world.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Religions, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Religious studies
Religious studiesArts and Humanities