Making Space: Everyday Remembering Practices at Rupa Goswami’s Memorial Site

This paper draws on ongoing ethnographic research on the samadhi or burial site of Rupa Goswami (1489-1564), a venerated saint belonging to the 16th-century Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition.  It uses observation, interviews, photos, and video to provide a first-hand account of memory-making practices performed by devotees.  Three modes of remembrance will be explored:  kinesthetic, narrative, and material relics.  The paper will seek to argue that a generative link exists between memory and place using the theoretical principles of memoryscape and place-memory drawn from the emerging fields of memory and landscape studies. The significance of this paper lies in advancing the field of samadhi studies and growing our understanding of how guru-centered ritual practices are captured in architectural settings.