deportment. Many pilgrims wear special clothing that
clearly distinguishes them from non-pilgrims. The hi-
erarchical classification of the body according to stan-
dards of purity, with right favored over left and higher
over lower (head/feet), structures much devotional be-
havior, such as circumambulation and offering rituals.
Social hierarchy is present, as well, in the authority ex-
ercised by experienced pilgrims over novices, and by
local officiants and guides who mold the behavior of
the visiting devotees. Hierarchies of purity and sacral-
ity are also commonly reflected in the spatial and ar-
chitectural organization of pilgrimage centers; this may
explain why mountains and other elevated locations
are so frequently the “natural” settings for pilgrimage.
Pilgrimage traditions in some cases also define time,
as well, by their connections with calendars of reli-
gious observance. Many Tibetan pilgrimages operate
on a twelve-year cycle, while visits to a number of Sri
Lankan pilgrimage sites are organized around a cal-
endar of full-moon-day observances.
Contemporary perspectives
Considerable scholarship has been devoted to pilgrim-
age, much of it focused on Christianity. Victor Turner’s
theory of pilgrimage as a “liminoid phenomenon” has
been the most influential general theory of pilgrimage.
Turner asserts that pilgrimage places its participants in
an ambiguous social status that frees them from some
of the dominant social structures of their regular lives
and enables particular kinds of personal transforma-
tion to occur. In part this transformation takes the
form of a heightened group identification among peo-
ple who would normally be socially distinguished. The
“betwixt and between” character of pilgrims’ social sta-
tus also renders them more emotionally vulnerable to
the powerful symbolic systems that dominate pilgrim-
age sites, a vulnerability often heightened by physical
ordeal. This model, which knits together social and psy-
chological factors, and which attempts to take into ac-
count both the cognitive and affective dimensions of
pilgrim’s experiences, is sufficiently flexible to illumi-
nate many specific pilgrimages from various religious
traditions. As many scholars have noted, however, this
approach also emphasizes the commonality of pil-
grims’ experience, and may mask the divisive social and
political forces that often constellate around pilgrim-
age centers.
In Sri Lanka, for example, Buddhist pilgrimage tra-
dition played an important role in the nineteenth- and
twentieth-century Buddhist revival in response to
British colonial rule; it has also heightened conflict
between Sinhalas and Tamils. In Tibet, the pilgrimage
tradition centered on Mount KAILAS ́A (KAILASH),
which identifies it as Mount Meru and S ́iva’s abode,
has long drawn pilgrims from Hindu, Buddhist, and
Jain traditions who venerate it with circumambulation.
In the wake of the Chinese occupation of Tibet, how-
ever, pilgrimage was prohibited for nearly two decades
beginning in 1962; since the early 1990s restrictions
have been relaxed somewhat, and increasing numbers
of Western practitioners of Buddhism are making this
arduous pilgrimage to the “center of the world” as new
Buddhist communities are established in Europe and
North America.See also:Merit and Merit-Making; Relics and Relics
Cults; Space, SacredBibliography
Coleman, Simon, and Elsner, John. Pilgrimage: Past and Present
in the World Religions.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1995.PILGRIMAGE
Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims circle Kailas ́a (Mount Kailash) in south-
western Tibet. © Galen Rowell/Corbis. Reproduced by permis-
sion.