Cultural Markets and Utility Providers: A Study of a Religious Site in India

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ABOUT THE BOOK The entire research study on cultural economics especially emphasizes ont Temple Culture, with reference to a case study of Tarakeswar. It is terminated by giving the conclusion that the socio-economic development of Tarakeswar block as well as municipality is fully dependent upon: the Religious Culture of the temple of Baba Taraknath. The municipal authority, the railway authority and various local hospitality groups at Tarakeswar are socio-economically dependent on the Temple Culture to a great extent. We have summarized the main results in each chapter on the relevant aspects of Temple Culture.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Atanu Sengupta: M: 5 Ph.D. from Indian Statistical Institute, India. He is teaching as an Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Burdwan University, West Bengal, India for 10 years. He has supervised 5 M.Phil. Theses and 10 Ph.D. dissertations. He has published about 55 papers in various refereed national and international journals. He also published 6 books. He was also involved in preparing the UNDP Human Development Report of Burdwan, Purulia and Hooghly He has been engaged with the Sarvya Shiksha Mission, West Bengal as an evaluating officer for three districts of West Bengal His areas of interests are in Econometrics, Financial Economics. Development Economics, Microeconomics and Growth Theory.

Krishanu Nath: M. Sc., Ph. D from University of Burdwan Burdwan, India. He taught as a guest lecturer at Vivekananda Mahavidyalaya, Haripal, West Bengal from 2001 to 2010. Presently, he is teaching as an Assistant Teacher in Shyampur High School, West Bengal, He has published about three papers in various refereed national and international journals. He also published one book. He has been engaged with the Sarvya Shiksha Mission, West Bengal He has taken training on an Orientation Course from "Centre for Cultural Resources and Training" Government of India, New Delhi. His areas of interests are in Econometrics, Financial Economics, Development Economics and Microeconomics.

PREFACE In the modern parlance, livelihood has been defined in a number of ways. However, essentially it measures the income flow and the resilience of the income earner under adversity. In the modern world, livelihood is generated of a wide spectrum of sources some outside the well-defined arena of main stream economics. Often cultural activities generate livelihood opportunity for a number of semi-skilled and un-skilled workers related to it. Here the culture plays a pivotal role creating an income earning space for those who would have otherwise find it difficult to ensure it.

In many sacred centres, people acquire religion in the same way as they acquire other objects of their choice and they also evaluate its costs and benefits and acts so as to optimize its utility. It determines the content of religious commodities and the structure, where religion is unregulated and as a result, a competition among religious firms is pronounced. Here along with considerable portions of the people inside or outside of this centre earn their livelihood by providing different types of secular and non-secular services to them.

In our study, we have selected Tarakeswar-a Hindu pilgrimage site in West Bengal, India-for analysing the socio economic pattern and nature of local hospitality provider is allied with the religious culture. Economic pattern of this sacred centre depends upon the occupational structure, standard of living of the inhabitants of the town, social economic infrastructural conditions, etc. The occupational profile reflects that at Tarakeswer, too, a substantial portion of population earns their livelihood from the temple as well as from the pilgrims and also the nature and extent of dependency vary from one group to the other.

**Contents and Sample Pages**