Encyclopedia of Buddhism

image enshrinements; some were associated with the
presence of previous buddhas, as well. As many schol-
ars have noted, there was a close relationship between
the development of a comprehensive Buddha BIOGRA-
PHY, which was not a part of the earliest tradition, and
the emergence of pilgrimage sites.

Buddhism was first transmitted into China around
the beginning of the common era. Beginning around
400 C.E., we find the earliest surviving accounts of Chi-
nese Buddhist pilgrims to India. These testify to the
emergence of major pilgrimage routes, extending
through CENTRALASIAand northwest India into the
Ganges basin, which attracted pilgrims from distant
lands. Among the most prominent of these monk-
pilgrims were FAXIAN(ca. 337–418) and XUANZANG
(ca. 600–664), each of whom traveled to India through
Central Asia and spent many years collecting texts and
visiting important religious centers throughout the In-
dian subcontinent and beyond. Faxian’s account testi-
fies to the great proliferation of places that had come
to be associated with events in Gautama Buddha’s life,
particularly those of a miraculous character, and to the

number of relic monuments attributed to As ́oka’s great

relic distribution.

Faxian also spent two years in Sri Lanka, and he

mentions the tradition that Gautama Buddha visited

the island in order to pacify the nagas residing there,

a tradition narrated in detail in the monastic histories

of the island (e.g., Dlpavam
sa, Mahavam
sa). On one

of his sojourns, the Buddha is said to have visited and

consecrated a number of different locations around the

island and these form the nucleus of what was even-

tually defined as an authoritative list of sixteen Sri

Lankan pilgrimage sites. Narrative traditions of a sim-

ilar character later developed in Southeast Asia, link-

ing the movement and enshrinement of relics and

images with locations in the region already sacralized

by legendary visits of Gautama Buddha.

As Buddhist traditions spread throughout Asia and

became institutionalized through royal patronage and

popular support, the network of Buddhist pilgrimage

expanded in two senses. On the one hand, monks and

nuns throughout the Buddhist world traveled back to

PILGRIMAGE

Husband-and-wife pilgrims praying on their way to a Nichiren temple in Japan, around 1925. © Hulton Archive by Getty Images. Re-
produced by permission.