Based on three case studies taken in the Hindu context of the Tamil region, in South India, this article defends the idea and the legitimacy of a social geography of religious phenomena. It shows on the one hand that Hindu religious spaces (shrines and religious circulations) inform about the society which produced them, about its stakes and dynamics, and on the other hand that the account of distinction, domination, exclusion and competition helps to fully understand the spatial forms of religion in their complexity. The article first expounds the linkages between ritual spaces and social spaces in a Tamil village, and the relations of domination they betray. Then it deals with the power relations expressed through the geography of the main Tamil pilgrimage, leading to the holy city of Palani. Finally, it shows how, during the 20th century, the regional worship of Murugan and its geography provided arguments for the Tamil territorial ideology, based on social struggles and political competition. Thus, spatial forms of Hinduism in Tamil country appear, on the local and regional scales, as phenomena expressing different social relations, and always changing under the effects of social dynamics. In this way the article testifies to the capacity and legitimacy of social geography to deal with religious phenomena.
