ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the Internet can be viewed as yet another marketplace where puja things are advertised, available for purchase by consumers/devotees and indeed bought and sold. It focuses on the supply end of a virtual marketplace for puja items, and the analysis offers glimpses into the production and distribution dimensions of online shopping. The dramatic growth of online shopping and the dominance of the Internet as a marketplace in the last decade have been registered powerfully by economists, sociologists, service providers and online businesses. The interface of religion and commerce and the predictable entanglement of religion with consumerist and commodification processes have engaged scholars across a range of social science disciplines. Research from media studies scholars, religious studies researchers, sociologists and anthropologists in the world of religious e-commerce is needed to nudge toward ethnographically grounded and theoretically informed responses to these questions.
