Page 169 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

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BCE to create a Buddhist landscape of pilgrimage by in 1984 to the storming of the temple by the army and
improving roads and resting places for travelers. As the the killing of many people, including pilgrims.
religion itself spread, new pilgrimage sites emerged in Pilgrimages have also been attacked from within their
China,Tibet, and Japan. religious traditions, with critics often denying the value
of physical travel or challenging the idea that the divine
Similarities and can be particularly located in a single spot on Earth.The
Differences tenth-century Sufi (Muslim mystic) authority Abu Sa’id
Both in the past and in the present pilgrimage practices enjoined his followers not to undertake the hajj on the
across the world’s religions have appeared to exhibit grounds that they should concentrate on cultivating mys-
some striking similarities: Circumambulation of shrines tical experiences instead.Within Hinduism some writers
and other sacred objects is evident not only in Islam but have argued that pilgrimage implies too much attach-
also in Hinduism and Buddhism, for instance. Pilgrims ment to the material world.A key aspect of the Protestant
also commonly take some material evidence of their jour- Reformation was the iconoclasm that denied the spiri-
ney back home—perhaps a vial of holy water, an image, tual value of the statues and relics in numerous shrines
or a token. However, we should not assume that actions and that attacked the economic corruption in both the
that look similar from the outside have the same mean- guardianship of sacred sites and the selling of “indul-
ing to participants from different cultures and religions. gences”—remissions of punishments for sin that the
Furthermore, pilgrimages have tended to contain within Catholic Church granted in return for pious acts such as
them—even to foster—conflicts between pilgrims sup- pilgrimage.
posedly united by the same religion or between ordinary
pilgrims and shrine authorities. Thus, the famous Pilgrimage in the Future
Catholic site of Lourdes, situated on one of the main Despite some predictions that the world is becoming
medieval pilgrimage roads of southern France and com- more secular, pilgrimage remains a flourishing institu-
memorating the visions of the Virgin Mary granted to a tion. Although it has always been combined with other
young girl during the nineteenth century, is enormously activities, pilgrimage is increasingly being associated with
popular in the present, attracting millions of visitors a tourism, so that sacred travel is often undertaken along-
year. Such popularity inevitably creates tensions over the side other forms of leisure, and pilgrimage sites have be-
varied motivations of the pious, for instance, between the come accustomed to hosting both pilgrims and tourists
desire for miraculous healing expressed by the sick who at the same time. As more people can more easily travel
visit the site and the general emphasis on spiritual rather throughout their own countries or even across the globe,
than physical benefits that is promoted by the clergy. pilgrimage seems likely to become an ever more visible
The religious and often political (and even economic) part of life in the twenty-first century.
power contained in many pilgrimage sites has often led
Simon Michael Coleman
to acute, even destructive, conflicts. Jerusalem is not the
only site of competition between faiths. The pilgrimage See also Festivals; Missionaries
center of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, India, remains a site
of troubled relations between Hindus and Muslims,
resulting not only in violence but also in rivalrous con- Further Reading
struction and destruction of sacred buildings. Elsewhere Bhardwaj, S. M. (1973). Hindu places of pilgrimage in India (A study in
in India, the Golden Temple at Amritsar, holiest of cultural geography). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-
nia Press.
shrines for Sikhs, became the center of conflict between
Coleman, S. M., & Elsner, J. (1995). Pilgrimage past and present in the
religious separatists and the Indian government, leading world religions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.