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Home , Hindu pilgrimage sites, Pilgrim, Pilgrimage

and practices

Pilgrimage in , as in other , is the practice of journeying to sites where religious powers, knowledge, or experience are deemed especially accessible. Hindu pilgrimage is rooted in ancient scriptures. According to textual scholars, the earliest reference to Hindu pilgrimage is in the (c. 1500 BCE), in which the “wanderer” is praised. Numerous later texts, including the epic (c. 300 BCE–300 CE) and several of the mythological (c. 300–750 CE), elaborate on the capacities of particular sacred sites to grant boons, such as health, wealth, progeny, and deliverance after death. Texts enjoin Hindu pilgrims to perform rites on behalf of ancestors and recently deceased kin. Sanskrit sources as well as devotional literature in regional vernacular languages praise certain places and their miraculous capacities.

Pilgrimage has been increasingly popular since the 20th century, facilitated by ever- improving transportation. Movement over actual distance is critical to pilgrimage, for what is important is not just visiting a sacred space but leaving home. Most pilgrimage centres hold periodic religious fairs called melas to mark auspicious astrological moments or important anniversaries. In 2001, for example, the in was attended during a six-week period by tens of millions of pilgrims. Because of shared elements in , a from western Rajasthan does not feel alienated in the eastern pilgrimage town of , even though the spoken language, the landscape and climate, the ’ names and appearances, and the food offerings are markedly different from those the pilgrim knows at home. Moreover, pilgrimage works to propagate practices among diverse regions because stories and tales of effective and attractive acts circulate along with pilgrims. Pilgrimage sites are often located in spots of great natural beauty thought to be pleasing to deities as well as humans. Environmental activists draw on the mythology of the sacred landscapes to inspire Hindu populations to adopt sustainable environmental practices. The Sanskrit and Hindi word for pilgrimage centre is , literally a river ford or crossing place. The concept of a ford is associated with pilgrimage centres not simply because many are on riverbanks but because they are metaphorically places for transition, either to the other side of particular worldly troubles or beyond the endless cycle of birth and death.

Rituals, Social Practices, and Institutions

Sacrifice and worship

Although the Vedic fire rituals were largely replaced in Puranic and modern Hinduism by image worship and other forms of devotionals, many Hindu rites can be traced back to Vedism. Certain royal sacrifices—such as the rajasuya, or consecration ritual—remained popular with Hindu kings until modern times. Other large-scale Vedic sacrifices (shrauta) have been regularly maintained from ancient times to the present by certain families and groups of . The surviving rituals from the Vedic period, however, tend to be observed at the level of the domestic (grihya) ritual.

Domestic rites The Vedic householder was expected to maintain a domestic fire into which he made his offerings. Normally he did this himself, but in many cases he employed a officiant. In the course of time, the family priest was given a large part in these ceremonies, so that most have employed Brahmans for the administration of the “sacraments” (samskaras). The samskaras include all important life-cycle events, from conception to cremation, and are the main constituents of the domestic ritual.

Samskaras: rites of passage

The samskaras are transitional rites intended to prepare a person for a certain event or for the next stage in life by removing taints (sins) or by generating fresh qualities. If the blemishes incurred in this or a previous life is not removed, the person is impure and will not be rewarded for any ritual acts. The samskaras sanctify critical moments and are deemed necessary for unfolding a person’s latent capacities for development. In antiquity there was a great divergence of opinion about the number of rites of passage, but in later times 16 were recognized as most important. In modern times most samskaras—accept those of prenatal initiation, marriage, and death—have fallen into disuse or are performed in an abridged or simplified form without Vedic or a priest.

Prenatal rites such as the punsavana (begetting of a son), which is observed in the third month of pregnancy, are still popular. The birth is itself the subject of elaborate ceremonies, the main features of which are an oblation of (clarified butter) cast into the fire; the introduction of a pellet of honey and ghee into the newborn child’s mouth, which according to many authorities is an act intended to produce mental and physical strength; the murmuring of mantras for the sake of a long life; and rites to counteract inauspicious influences. There is much divergence of opinion as to the time of the name- giving ceremony; in addition to the personal name, there is often another one that should be kept secret for fear of sinister designs against the child. The defining moment comes, however, when the father, the mother, or a family elder utters the name into the child’s ear.

A hallmark of childhood samskaras is a general male bias. In the birth ritual (jatakarman), the manuals direct the father to breathe upon the child’s head, a practice transparently designed to supplant the role that biology gives to the mother. In practice, however, the mother may join in this breathing ritual. There is also an array of regional life-cycle rites that focuses specifically upon the lives of girls and women. In some communities in southern , for instance, one finds an initiation rite (vilakkitu kalyanam) that corresponds roughly to , the male initiation, and that gives girls the authority to light oil lamps and thereby to become full participants in proper domestic worship. Other rites celebrate first menstruation or mark various moments surrounding childbirth. Typically women act as officiants. The important upanayana initiation was traditionally held when a boy was between the ages of 8 and 12, and it marked his entry into the community of the three higher classes of society; in contemporary Hinduism this can be done at any time before his wedding. In this rite he becomes a “twice-born one,” or . Traditionally, this was also the beginning of a long period of Veda study and education in the house under the guidance of a teacher (). In modern practice, the haircutting ceremony—formerly performed in a boy’s third year—and the initiation is usually performed on the same day, the homecoming ceremony at the end of the period of study being little more than a formality. Wedding ceremonies, the most important of all, not only have remained elaborate— and often very expensive—but also have incorporated various elements—among others, propitiations and expiations—that are not indicated in the oldest sources. Already in ancient times there existed great divergences in accordance with local customs or family or caste traditions. However, the following practices are considered essential in the performance of the wedding rite in most communities. The date is fixed only after careful astrological calculation; the bridegroom is conducted to the home of his future parents- in-law, who receive him as an honoured guest; there are offerings of roasted grain into the fire; the bridegroom has to take hold of the bride’s hand; he conducts her around the sacrificial fire; seven steps are taken by bride and bridegroom to solemnize the irrevocability of the unity; and both are, in procession, conducted to their new home, which the bride enters without touching the threshold. The fire is considered to be the “eternal witness,” and texts on insist upon the essential nature of the fire in Hindu weddings. However, it is not used in the wedding ceremonies of many communities in and among Coorgi Hindus.

Of eight forms of marriage recognized by the ancient authorities, two have remained in vogue: the simple gift of a bride and the legalization of the alliance by means of a marriage gift paid to the bride’s family. In the Vedic period, girls seem not to have married before they had reached puberty. Child marriage and the condemnation of the remarriage of widows, especially among the higher classes, became customary later and have gradually, since the mid-19th century, lost their stringency. There are many variations of other types of rituals as well. For example, the traditional funeral method is cremation. is reserved for those who have not been sufficiently purified by samskaras (i.e., children) and those who no longer need the ritual fire to be conveyed to the hereafter, such as ascetics who have renounced all earthly concerns. Members of the Lingayat (also called Virashaiva) community, however, do not practice cremation but instead bury their dead. An important and meritorious complement of the funeral offices is the shraddha ceremony, in which food is offered to Brahmans for the benefit of the deceased. Many people still perform this rite at least once a year, even when they no longer engage in any of the five obligatory daily offerings discussed below.

Pilgrimage, a journey undertaken for a religious motive. Although some pilgrims have wandered continuously with no fixed destination, pilgrims more commonly seek a specific place that has been sanctified by association with a divinity or other holy personage. The institution of pilgrimage is evident in all religions and was also important in the pagan religions of ancient and .

General Considerations

Great centres of pilgrimage attract visitors from widely dispersed cultural backgrounds and geographic locations, often enabling them to commemorate the origins of their particular . Since the 2nd or 3rd century CE, Christians have traced the events of the Bible, including the life of Christ himself, through visits to the . is revered by as the dwelling place of Adam after his expulsion from paradise and as the birthplace of (570–632), the prophet of . According to Hindu tradition, (Benares) was founded at the dawn of creation and is the earthly home of Lord .

The Christian does not specifically enjoin believers to go on pilgrimage, but sacred texts in other religious do. A (formal pilgrimage) to Mecca is one of the five Pillars of Islam. According to the Bible, immediately after he was given the Ten Commandments, the Hebrew prophet Moses received instructions on Mount Sinai that required the Jewish people to appear before the Lord three times a year. The Mahabharata, an important Hindu epic dating from the 1st millennium BCE, recommends visits to many holy places in India, mentioning in an order corresponding to the Sun’s movement across the sky. The Buddha himself prescribed certain places of pilgrimage, choosing sites linked with key events in his life.

Meaning and Motivations of Pilgrimage

Given its presence in so many different cultural and historical contexts, no single meaning can be attributed to the act of pilgrimage. Structural similarities are discernible, however, across disparate traditions of sacred travel. Pilgrimage usually entails some separation (alone or in a group) from the everyday world of home, and pilgrims may mark their new identity by wearing special clothes or abstaining from physical comforts. Frequently, link sacred place with sacred time. The hajj always occurs on the 8th, 9th, and 10th days of the last month of the Muslim year. Historically, would visit the temple of during three annual festivals, as prescribed in Deuteronomy: (in remembrance of the beginning of the Exodus from bondage in ), (marking the giving of the Law to Moses), and Sukkoth (recalling the temporary shelters used by the Israelites who fled from Egypt). Hindu pilgrimages mark particular phases of the life cycle of the individual and often occur at points in the year identified as auspicious by astrological calculations.

Apart from involving movement across physical and cultural landscapes toward a sacred goal, pilgrimages frequently involve ritual movements at the site itself. Performing the Stations of the Cross, which reenact the events of Jesus’ Passion, is a frequent activity at Roman Catholic shrines. Muslims walk seven times around the Kaʿbah, or central cube-shaped , at Mecca. Buddhists circumambulate dome-shaped called stupas. Among Hindus, perhaps the ideal pilgrimage would involve a journey around the four most sacred sites in India (the dhamas), covering the country in an auspicious clockwise direction.

A further common feature of pilgrimages is the availability of small —, containers of holy water, icons, and so on—that allow the sacredness of a shrine to be transported back to the pilgrim’s home. Finally, pilgrimage sites tend to have a material focus, even though the nature of that focus varies according to the assumptions of the . Muslim and Jewish sites avoid iconic representations of divinity, but images are important in Catholic and Orthodox Christian sites. Statues of gods are central to Hindu worship and necessary for darshan, the beneficial gaze that passes between pilgrim and . Numerous factors determine the location of sacred sites. Shrines memorialize some great miracle or divine appearance from the past but may also appropriate the places that are holy to an older or rival faith. Thus, as was established as the dominant religion in , deities associated with indigenous traditions were subordinated to those of the new religion, just as sacred spots such as Mount Kailas (in the Kailas Range) were turned into Buddhist pilgrimage sites. Similarly, the missionary efforts of colonial powers in Africa and Latin America led to the creation of modified religious landscapes, often combining pagan and Christian imagery and myth, as is evident in the case of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico. Pilgrimage centres are frequently situated in striking and remote geographical areas. In Hinduism ritual bathing often takes place at the confluences of rivers, which are imbued with sacred meaning. The is regarded as the holiest Hindu river because it is believed to issue from the very locks of Shiva’s hair.

Hindu pilgrims bathing in the Ganges River A factor that unites pilgrimage locations across different religions is the sense, variously expressed, that a given place can provide privileged access to a divine or transcendent sphere. This idea is well expressed in the Hindu concept of the tirtha, a Sanskrit term encompassing the notion of a ford or intersection between two realms. The same word is used by Jains for any site where a prophet was born or died.In all religious traditions, hierarchies of sites are evident, as some places are regarded as more sacred than others. For Hindus, Varanasi, one of seven especially holy , has the power to bestow , or freedom from the cycle of . For the medieval Catholic, a visit to Jerusalem or Rome would have gained more remission of sin (through the granting of ) than a journey to a lesser place. In North Africa, marabout shrines, consisting of the tomb of a holy man, lack the pan-Islamic status of Mecca or but provide access to sacred figures, living or dead, who mediate God’s grace (baraka) to clients. Motivations for pilgrimage vary, within as well as between traditions. Sacred travel is frequently linked to a pious search for ultimate but can also be prompted by more earthly aims, such as gaining miraculous cures, fulfilling vows, or doing for wrongdoing. In medieval times the English shrine of Walsingham, associated with the Virgin Mary and the Annunciation, attracted women seeking solutions to problems of lactation and infertility and may have encouraged self-identification with the Holy Mother. In addition, pilgrimage has frequently been linked to, and sometimes explicitly combined with, travel for overtly secular purposes. From the earliest times, the hajj was an annual fair as well as a religious activity, and it had important commercial functions under the rulers of the Ottoman dynasty. A Muslim pilgrim might well have financed the journey to Mecca through trade, and over many centuries annual caravans to the benefited from the relative security available to large groups of travellers. The cultures of and Rome did not establish boundaries between religious ritual and the secular world in ways evident in the modern West, and festivals easily combined celebration of the gods with urban commercial activities. The Crusades initiated by Pope Urban II in 1095 allied elements of pilgrimage with chivalry and the gaining of booty. Before the final armed assault on Muslim-controlled Jerusalem in July 1099, the crusaders fasted and walked around the city. Priests carried relics and preached to the military pilgrims on the Mount of Olives.

Pilgrimage and The World

Just as the purposes and motives of pilgrimage vary, so do the relationships between pilgrims and political rulers. Many institutions connected with sacred travel have been controlled or sponsored by such authorities, who gain further legitimacy by association with transcendent realms. The pilgrimage of St. Helena (c. 248–c. 328), mother of the Roman emperor Constantine, to the Holy Land was probably an adaptation of the traditional imperial through the provinces. Helena’s personal journey, during which she discovered the True Cross, was also a public event and coincided with the emperor’s extensive building programs on sacred sites. Many centuries earlier, in the 3rd century BCE, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, who had converted to Buddhism, visited many of the important sites of the Buddha’s life. In common with Helena, he combined piety with astute imperial patronage.

Pilgrimages have also prompted behaviours that have proved deeply threatening to political and religious authorities. As a practice that involves the search for divine favour, temporary release from everyday life, and the potential for mass movement of populations across the landscape, pilgrimage contains volatile cultural and social elements. In medieval England fears were raised over false and disorderly pilgrims as well as over the possibility that apparently pious travellers were abandoning their families for selfish reasons; after periods of plague, restrictions on movement were extensive. Pilgrimage sites often juxtapose orthodox and more popular perspectives on worship, resulting in conflicts between elites and the masses.

Many important sites are sacred to more than one denomination or even religion, with competition and conflict arising as much as cooperation. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem was constructed by Muslims on the site of the Jewish Temple in the 7th century. It could thus be interpreted either as expressing Islam’s continuities with its Jewish roots or as physically effacing from a sacred centre. Also in Jerusalem is the of the Holy Sepulchre, enclosing the traditional sites of Christ’s crucifixion and burial. Even today, different Christian denominations look after separate parts of the church and maintain different areas of worship. Pilgrimage has had its opponents in all of the world religions. Pilgrims have been accused of placing too much faith in images and particular places (as opposed to trusting in the omnipresence of God), of becoming distracted by the temptations of travel, and of seeking purely material rather than spiritual enlightenment. Within Islam, some mystical Sufi traditions have emphasized the importance of inner inspiration over that of journeying to Mecca itself. In the 16th century, the Protestant reformers and John Calvin argued that papal granting of indulgences and credulous in miracles reflected the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. The emergence of Protestantism in Europe saw attacks on many pilgrimage shrines and images. (1469–1539), the founder of Sikhism, maintained somewhat ambivalent attitudes toward pilgrimage. He traveled extensively and visited many sacred sites during his life but remained opposed to the use of images in worship as well as to empty formalism in religion.

Yet the power of pilgrimage as a metaphor may be retained even in contexts apparently unfavourable to its practice. In The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678), the Puritan John Bunyan (1628– 88) translated the physical act of journeying and the search for salvation into an allegorical struggle with the self. His central character, Christian, moves through much travail from the City of Destruction toward the Celestial City.

Modern Developments

In the present day, pilgrimage has maintained and even increased its appeal around the world. Travel is easier, cheaper, and safer than ever before. Growing levels of literacy and access to communications technology have increased knowledge of and curiosity about distant places. The industry has continued to grow since the 19th century and represents an activity that is often combined with, or even shades into, pious journeying. In some cases, pilgrimage has assumed the role of defending religious conviction against the incursions of atheism. Thus, the many sites dedicated to the Virgin Mary that have emerged in Europe over the past two centuries bear witness to a continued faith in miracles as opposed to the seemingly cold rationality of the natural sciences. Although the church initially treated it with skepticism, the famous site of in southern France, where Bernadette of Lourdes experienced visions of the Virgin Mary in 1858, became a powerful example of supernatural intervention for French ecclesiastical authorities to cite as they defended the Roman Catholic faith against proponents of secularism. In the early 21st century, Lourdes attracted millions of visitors each year.

As populations continue to move around the globe, pilgrimage to newly founded sites has provided a way for migrant communities to retain contact with their homelands. For instance, the proliferation of new in North America and Europe demonstrates the flexibility of pilgrimage as an institution. Pittsburgh, Toronto, Houston, and other major cities contain important temples that indicate the enduring ability of an ancient religious landscape to be translated into new social and cultural territories.