The Darbār, the British, and the Runaway Mahārāja: Religion and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Western India

The Vallabha Sampradāya or Pusti Mārga Hindu devotional community was founded in the sixteenth century by the Vaisnavite philosopher, Vallabha. His successors, known as mahārājas, continued to spread the teachings of the Pusti Mārga and enjoyed much success in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Political and economic patronage by elites of Western India soon transformed these mahārājas into wealthy landlords whose affluent lifestyles would cause much controversy in the nineteenth century. This article uses unpublished documents found in the National Archives of India to detail one of these controversies, revolving around struggles between the Pusti Mārga, the royal house of Mevād., and British authorities for control of the wealth associated with Nāthdvārā, the central focus of Pusti Mārga pilgrimage in Rajasthan. The protracted struggle for the control of Nāthdvārā indicates how Hindu spiritual leaders were far from passive observers of the world who gave themselves purely to the cultivation of spiritual pursuits. On the contrary, this particular controversy is a striking example of how the active engagement of religious leaders in local and regional politics could profoundly affect the existing religious and social structures of their time.