ABSTRACT
A cause for great pride for India is its ‘living’ heritage, placing it in a category unique and different from the developed Western world. Just what living heritage and, from the point of this chapter, what ‘living heritage sites’ mean, is open to question. It could mean heritage that is alive in memories, re-enacted in rituals and performances, and renewed in skills passed from one generation to the next, categorized as intangible heritage that is not embodied in monumental architecture but in everyday acts and spaces regenerated over time. On a more literal note, living heritage sites are those that are not dead or lost spaces abandoned to the vicissitudes of nature, but are inhabited and valued. This aspect distinguishes the majority of heritage sites in India from those in the developed world; it thus require a different approach in the efforts to preserve them for posterity, which is the objective of this chapter.
