Pilgrimage and devotion to the divine mother: mental well-being of devotees of Mata Vaishno Devi

Based on a study of 10,354 devotees of Mata Vaishno Devi, a popular shrine in North India, this article focuses on how devotion to the Mata, and undertaking the arduous pilgrimage regularly, contributes to the happiness and mental well-being of her followers. Their scores on the Mature Religiosity S...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Mental health, religion & culture
Main Author: Pandya, Samta (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Taylor & Francis 2015
In: Mental health, religion & culture
Year: 2015, Volume: 18, Issue: 9, Pages: 726-737
Further subjects:B mental well-being
B Mata Vaishno Devi
B Pilgrimage
B Devotion
B Religiosity
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Based on a study of 10,354 devotees of Mata Vaishno Devi, a popular shrine in North India, this article focuses on how devotion to the Mata, and undertaking the arduous pilgrimage regularly, contributes to the happiness and mental well-being of her followers. Their scores on the Mature Religiosity Scale (MRS) were high. Analyses of variance showed that religiosity scores, duration of being a devotee, education and pilgrimage frequency influenced their subjective happiness and mental well-being. Logistic regression models showed that those who had better education, belonged to the higher economic class, were devotees of the Mata since a long time, undertook the pilgrimage annually, had higher MRS and Gratitude Questionnaire scores were more likely to have higher scores on Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale, and hence better mental well-being. This in general corroborates the positive relationship between religiosity, devotion and well-being, and specifically, the literature on well-being promoting potential of pilgrimage.
ISSN:1469-9737
Contains:Enthalten in: Mental health, religion & culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/13674676.2015.1112771