Unhiding Hirapur: A case study in cultural heritage tourism development

How does an insti­tu­tion of the Min­istry of Tour­ism, Gov­ern­ment of India trans­form under­ap­pre­ci­ated cul­tur­al her­it­age into a tour­ism attrac­tion? Ady­asha Das offers this “Good Tour­ism” Insight. 

[Thanks to “GT” Part­ner the World Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation for Cul­ture and Her­it­age (WTACH) for invit­ing Dr Das to write this “GT” Insight. You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

Through my research, travels, and cul­tur­al exper­i­ences, I have developed a deep interest in the sim­il­ar­it­ies and dif­fer­ences between soci­et­ies, par­tic­u­larly their cul­tures and her­it­ages. Glob­al­isa­tion has cre­ated new per­cep­tions and inter­pret­a­tions of social and cul­tur­al spaces and this has spurred my stud­ies, start­ing with the hid­den and for­got­ten aspects of cul­tur­al her­it­age in my home state of Odisha, India. 

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Odisha’s cul­tur­al her­it­age is mag­ni­fi­cent, volu­min­ous, and diverse. Its pop­u­la­tion boasts extraordin­ary artist­ic skill and crafts­man­ship reflec­ted in its temples, as well as deep his­tor­ic­al mari­time links with for­eign coun­tries that have inspired dif­fer­ent forms of art. 

Hidden Hirapur

The Chausathi Yogini temple of Hirapur lies only 15 kilo­metres from the state cap­it­al Bhubaneswar. Hirapur dates back to the 8th/9th cen­tury and is renowned for its pan­theon of 64 Yogini deit­ies. (Chausathi Yogini temples are scattered across cent­ral and north­ern India. Chausath, चौसठ, is Hindi for 64. Yogini is a form­al Sanskrit term of respect for female Hindu or Buddhist spir­itu­al teach­ers. Yogi is for male teachers.)

Yet des­pite its prox­im­ity to Bhubaneswar, and its his­tor­ic, cul­tur­al, and archi­tec­tur­al grandeur, Hirapur was, until recently, rel­at­ively unknown in Odisha let alone else­where. Not only did it require aggress­ive pro­mo­tion to tap its tour­ism poten­tial, loc­al people also seemed quite ignor­ant of that poten­tial for their nearby vil­lage, also named Hirapur, and the employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies tour­ism might gen­er­ate for them. 

In 2012, a team from the Indi­an Insti­tute of Tour­ism & Travel Man­age­ment (IITTM) of which I was a part, con­duc­ted an impact assess­ment study for the imple­ment­a­tion of tour­ism train­ing in the village. 

The object­ives of the study were to ascer­tain oppor­tun­it­ies for:

1. The gen­er­a­tion of employ­ment through tour­ism devel­op­ment, and 
2. The con­ser­va­tion of cul­tur­al her­it­age through com­munity participation.

Community consultation

We vis­ited Hirapur vil­lage sev­er­al times, inter­ac­ted with rep­res­ent­at­ives of 100 fam­il­ies, and held dis­cus­sions with a focus group. Ini­tially, it was dif­fi­cult to con­vince the vil­la­gers to par­ti­cip­ate in the dis­cus­sions. Not only were they dis­in­ter­ested, they also objec­ted to the idea of tour­ists vis­it­ing their “vil­lage temple” as they called it. 

Nev­er­the­less, we found that around 45% of vil­la­gers felt the need to pre­serve and pro­mote the unique temple for tour­ism. They also expressed the need for train­ing in order to take advant­age of the employ­ment oppor­tun­it­ies that would come from tourism. 

We formed a small group of volun­teers and went door to door, con­vin­cing many oth­ers of the poten­tial bene­fits of tour­ism and the safe­guards that would be part of any tour­ism devel­op­ment strategy. 

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“Com­munity-based tourism”

Accord­ingly, IITTM designed a guide train­ing pro­gramme encom­passing a wide of range of skills and top­ics, includ­ing com­mu­nic­a­tion, etiquette and groom­ing, mar­ket­ing and pro­mo­tion, and even the sociocul­tur­al ele­ments of tourism. 

Some 50 inhab­it­ants of Hirapur vil­lage suc­cess­fully com­pleted the first run of the pro­gramme. There­after, train­ing pro­grammes have been con­duc­ted peri­od­ic­ally, with fol­low-up assist­ance provided to gradu­ates seek­ing employment. 

Many trained guides at the des­tin­a­tion today obtained their cer­ti­fic­a­tion from IITTM.

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The hypaethral (open air), ancient temple of Hirapur was to be the primary attrac­tion for vis­it­ors to the area, of course, but a small group of priests posed a big hurdle by protest­ing the guide train­ing. They res­isted the entry of the guides to the site, per­haps because they used the temple pre­cinct as their home.

How­ever, it turned out that even they were ill-informed about the his­tory and her­it­age of Hirapur. After fre­quent vis­its and talks, they too enrolled for the training. 

Now, many of the priests live nearby and have set up shops in close prox­im­ity to the temple, selling crafts, souven­irs, food, tea, and reli­gious items for worship.

Recommendations & reconnections

Our research team made fur­ther recom­mend­a­tions that we sub­mit­ted to the Odisha State Tour­ism Depart­ment with ref­er­ence to the following:

• Con­struc­tion of a crafts vil­lage to show­case the products of loc­al artisans;
• Con­struc­tion of recre­ation facil­it­ies and a cafeteria;
• Reg­u­lar guide train­ing pro­grammes for vil­lage-based and rur­al tourism;
• Sens­it­isa­tion pro­grammes for vil­la­gers centred on her­it­age con­ser­va­tion and pro­mo­tion; and
• Capa­city-build­ing train­ing pro­grammes for the youth.

Bey­ond simply mak­ing recom­mend­a­tions, IITTM has also played a part in real­ising these ini­ti­at­ives. Indeed the Cul­ture and Her­it­age Club at IITTM con­tin­ues to con­duct train­ing pro­grammes on a range of skills, such as devel­op­ing her­it­age walks, storytelling, itin­er­ary pre­par­a­tion, etc. For example, the Ancient Temple Walk and Her­it­age Walk, which were developed with the Club’s input, are explor­a­tions of the treas­ures of Hirapur, giv­ing vis­it­ors an oppor­tun­ity to recon­nect with the tem­ple’s his­tory and cul­ture, and mar­vel at the sig­ni­fic­ance of its sac­red spaces.

I have also had the priv­ilege of rep­res­ent­ing IITTM in lead­ing walks through the site, such as ‘The Divine Fem­in­ine Her­it­age Walk’ that was part of the 4th India City Walks Fest­iv­al in Novem­ber 2021.

Unhidden Hirapur

Today, Hirapur is a pop­u­lar des­tin­a­tion in the niche cul­tur­al her­it­age tour­ism segment. 

Foot­fall has increased stead­ily since IITTM’s inter­ven­tions, as bet­ter pro­mo­tion and doc­u­ment­a­tion of the his­tory and myths asso­ci­ated with the site have increased its attrac­tion. Bet­ter access roads, sig­nage, clean­li­ness and san­it­a­tion, as well as a cor­di­al host pop­u­la­tion, have also helped embolden Hirapur’s place on Odisha’s tour­ism map. 

The annu­al Chausathi Yogini Mahot­sav, a three-day fest­iv­al of cul­ture and arts held at Hirapur, first emerged in 2010. (Mahot­sav, महोत्सव, is Hindi for ‘fest­iv­al’.) More recently, in 2019, it became an inter­na­tion­al event show­cas­ing clas­sic­al music and dance forms as well as pan­el dis­cus­sions about the mys­ter­ies and untold legends of the Yoginis. 

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Based on my research and read­ings on the Chausathi Yogini temple at Hirapur, I wrote a book entitled The Chausathi Yoginis of Hirapur — from Tan­tra to Tour­ism. It was motiv­ated by my desire to delve deeply into the tan­tric roots of the Yogini cult and con­nect them to the cul­tur­al tour­ism poten­tial of Hirapur.

The pulse of this sac­red space can be felt as one walks towards the power­ful dan­cing Yoginis. When one vis­its this sol­it­ary spot on a serene day, one feels as though the Yoginis are telling the story of their long-lost leg­acy; the past join­ing the present in a loop of time.

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Fea­tured image (top of post): Tour­ism schol­ars and pro­fes­sion­als with the Yoginis at Hirapur, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. Top image via Odisha Tour­ism. Group photo sup­plied by the author.

About the author

Ady­asha Das is an Asso­ci­ate Pro­fess­or at the Indi­an Insti­tute of Tour­ism & Travel Man­age­ment (IITTM), Bhubaneswar.

A mul­tiple award-win­ning research­er, writer, and travel blog­ger from Odisha, Dr Das has received the Shri­ram Travel Grant and is the Akshar Writer in Res­id­ence hos­ted by Sahitya Aka­demi, India and the Goethe Found­a­tion, Germany. 

Ady­asha’s major pub­lic­a­tions focus on the top­ics of her­it­age and cul­tur­al tour­ism, human resource man­age­ment and tour­ism, and the psy­cho­logy of tour­ist beha­viour. She has presen­ted papers at sev­er­al uni­ver­sit­ies and pro­fes­sion­al train­ing insitu­tions through­out Asia, Europe, and North America.

Thanks to “GT” Part­ner the World Tour­ism Asso­ci­ation for Cul­ture and Her­it­age (WTACH) for invit­ing Dr Das to write this “GT” Insight. You too can write a “GT” Insight.