Pilgrimage Essay ⋆ History Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

From time immemorial religious people have believed that certain places are more sacred than other places. They have made it a practice to visit these places, believing that they can obtain special advantages in so doing. The journey to such a destination is called a pilgrimage. Archaeological remains and epigraphic evidence abound for the ancient practice of pilgrimage. Usually the destination of pilgrimage had been set apart a long time before any particular religion had chosen it. What often distinguished the site were things like natural elevation, a grove of trees, a freshwater spring, or a sheltering cave, and then in the religious narrative about the place, some divine appearance or visitation marked the location.

Delphi And The Greek Gods

Such a case in point is Delphi, the place where the usually aloof Greek god Apollo made himself known. At the foot of Greece’s Mount Parnassus, wooded enough to be cool and high enough to give a commanding view of the sea below, Delphi was thought by Greeks to be the center of the Earth. Pilgrims had been coming here for centuries to drink from its sacred spring and to worship the serpent daughter of Mother Earth, Python, who was believed to live in a nearby cave.

When the Indo-Europeans migrated to Greece and prevailed with their pantheon of gods, Delphi became the site where Apollo slew Python and established his summer home. They built a temple to him over the ruins of the earlier cult, and inside they erected a pockmarked stone that they said was the actual navel (omphalos) of the Earth. Beginning around the eighth century b.c.e. pilgrims began to flock to Delphi to seek advice from the priestess there who was known as the Delphic oracle. Other pilgrimage places sprouted up throughout the ancient world. Oracles and healing shrines (such as the Asclepion) drew thousands of tourists, devotees, and needy people, making pilgrimage something of a factor in economic prosperity and international relations. Pilgrimage sites could both keep the peace and bring prosperity and provoke religious wars and economic hard times.

The Ark Of The Covenant

For the people of the Bible many of the same elements constituted the pilgrimage experience. Naturally endowed places and previous religious sites had drawing power, but more emphasized was a sense of divine visitation, or theophany. For example, the father of the 12 tribes of Israel, Jacob, had some kind of physical struggle with Israel’s God on his way to Haran. This place (called Bethel, “house of God”) then became a sacred place where an altar was set up and periodic worship conducted. The Ark of the Covenant later became a focal point of the religion of Israel, and wherever it was, the people would go to seek divine assistance. Eventually, Jerusalem outweighed all the other pilgrimage spots, for here is where the Ark was sheltered and where Israel’s God chose to dwell. As with Delphi, the pilgrimage site became the source for both unity and peace among the 12 tribes.

The pilgrim of the Jewish Bible would go to Jerusalem for the three feasts: Passover, Pentecost (Shavu‘ot), and Tabernacles (Sukkot). Though not every male could fulfill this annual duty, the prominence of Jerusalem and the Temple united the people and centralized much of the common life. Even after the Temple was destroyed in 70 c.e., Jews continued to keep pilgrimage for many years and even later observed pilgrimage customs in rabbinic Judaism. The Western (Wailing) Wall of Herod’s reconstructed Temple became the last vestige of the pilgrimage destination up until the present day.

Christian And Jesus’s Pilgrimage

The Christian people departed from their Jewish forebears in one respect: Pilgrimage was not a duty for them but an

advantage for spiritual growth. Christians believed that some places were “holy” and worthy of pilgrimage, but they felt that Jesus (Christ) of Nazareth had already fulfilled the obligation of pilgrimage through his final journey to Jerusalem and its Temple, just before he died. Christians would imitate their savior by pilgrimage, but their motivation would be for reasons of personal piety. The church instead taught that there are two ways that a pilgrim grows devotionally: First, the pilgrim relives the life of Jesus through visiting the places where he lived. This sense is liturgical and is related to the Hebrew word connected with pilgrimage, hag (“keeping festival,” or literally, “going in a circle”). Second, the pilgrim metaphorically demotes this temporal life and promotes the spiritual life when he or she cuts off ties to ordinary life (home and family). This sense is related to the other Hebrew words connected with pilgrimage, gur and yasab (“sojourn” and “live as a stranger”).

The first sense led to an influx of pilgrims to the Holy Land in the first few centuries of the Common Era. The names of those who journeyed include such luminaries as Melito of Sardis (160), Basil the Great of Caesarea (351), Egeria (361), the Desert Fathers and mothers (fourth century), and Jerome (386), to name a few. Such pilgrims wanted to walk in the steps of Jesus, and this motivation later made the Christian Church connect its Sunday liturgies to specific events in the life of Jesus and corresponding Bible readings. It induced the liturgies to involve marches and processions, which became important in later Byzantine and Latin worship. Finally, the following of Jesus’s steps persuaded Constantine the Great and his mother, Helena, to embark on a program of church and monument building that resulted in even a higher regard for the Holy Land. The second sense however became the core of asceticism and monasticism. When the persecutions of the church ended with Constantine’s Edict of Toleration, Christians took up such spiritual exercises to remind them that all of life is a brief pilgrimage and that the final destination is heaven. As Bernard of Clairvaux famously put it: “Your cell is Jerusalem.” Ironically, when the Holy Lands were closed, due to Islamic restrictions, the monks became a new attraction for pilgrims who wanted to walk in their steps.

Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist Pilgrimages

Though Islamic pilgrimages fall outside the framework of this section, it is necessary to point out two relevant facts. First, hajj is related to hag, and thus it is based on the same liturgical walking in the steps of religious heroes. All of the religious sites of hajj commemorate in ritualistic fashion key events in human salvation history. Mecca is the site of divine, angelic, prophetic, and auspicious human activity since the beginning of creation. Second, it is clear that the high regard for Mecca is based on pre-Islamic reverence for such places as Arafat, Muzdalifah, Mina, and the Kaaba. All of these sites are connected with celestial and mountain deities.

Two other pilgrimage groups have ancient roots: the Hindus and the Buddhists. One cannot speak about Hinduism without mention of their many holy sites in the land of India. The Sanskrit word for pilgrimage place is tirtha (water-crossing place, or ford). This word has important historical overtones, for it explains why the ancient Indus civilization sites such as Mohenjo-Daro and the Harappa are also religious pilgrimage sites. The ancient Vedic scriptures cite this river and seven other Punjab “mother rivers” in northwest India.

The Hindu classics of the Bhagavad Gita, the Mahabharata and Ramayana, also detail places of religious veneration, including the Ganges River valley, that go back before the Common Era. The most popular site for Hindus unto this present day is Banaras, a northward bend in the Ganges River, where the largest concentrations of tirthas are found. It is said that a devotee is certain of moksha (liberation) if he or she dies at Banaras. Nonetheless, the Hindu mystics have tried to deemphasize pilgrimage by saying that “the true Ganges is within.” Though Buddhists stress that nirvana (liberation) is achieved internally and outside of time, there is a history of pilgrimage in the religion. As far back as Ashoka, the Buddhist Indian king (270–232 b.c.e.), Buddhists were erecting stupas (shrines) to attract converts. It was felt that ultimate deliverance came from within, but interest in the religion could come only from without.

Buddhist shrines tried to entice worldly people to consider religion. Ashoka’s own chronicles confirm that he made several of his own pilgrimages and sponsored the building of stupas to increase his subjects’ interest. Undoubtedly he traveled to Bodh Gaya, the place where Gautama Buddha first achieved enlightenment (sixth century b.c.e.). This place is the most important pilgrimage site for Buddhists in India. Another important voice comes from the Chinese traveler Fa Xian (Fahsien), whose fifth-century b.c.e. journey to India testifies to the popularity of Buddhist pilgrimages.

Eventually, as Buddhism fell out of favor in India and Hinduism continued its dominance, pilgrimage sites were found in other Southeast Asian lands. As Mahayana Buddhism blossomed in China, Mount Wutai attracted many pilgrims as the place where a famous bodhisattva (angelic intermediary) figure, Manjusri, had his home. Even here, however, Buddhists built upon the residual Daoist belief that Mount Wutai was already holy.

References:

Hitchcock, S. T., and J. L. Esposito. National Geographic Geography of Religion—Where God Lives, Where Pilgrims Walk. Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2004;
Ousterhout, Robert, ed. The Blessings of Pilgrimage. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1990;
Wilkinson, John. Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades. Warminster, UK: Aris and Phillips, 2002.

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