Emergence of Spiritual Tourism: Exploring Contemporary Trends in Religious Practice Among Jains in Jaipur

This paper aims to explore the intersection of religious sites, tourism, and Jains in Jaipur to demonstrate the emerging trend of spiritual tourism within contemporary Jainism. While both religion and tourism have independently flourished in Jaipur and have been extensively studied across various contexts and methodologies, their symbiotic relationship remains relatively underexplored. Drawing from my fieldwork in Jaipur and building on the works of anthropologist Lawrence Babb, this paper proposes to discuss “spiritual tourism,” a third ideology. This ideology motivates an increasing number of Jains to engage in religious practices and its growing significance in the social, devotional, and economic lives of the Jains in Jaipur. Through this investigation, the paper also seeks to underpin the impact of such phenomenon on the individual and collective identities of religious groups within the broader framework of South Asian traditions.