pilgrimage

pilgrimage. Undertaking religious pilgrimage is a seen as a meritorious practice since it focuses the mind on places associated with the Buddha, saintly people, or holy objects. Those undertaking a pilgrimage are believed to accumulate good karma as a result. Pilgrimages are undertaken for many reasons, including to gain merit (puṇya), to ask for a boon, or as the result of a vow. The Buddha himself provides authority for the practice of pilgrimage in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta of the Pāli Canon where he recommends as suitable sites to visit the places of his birth, enlightenment (bodhi), first sermon, and death. He further instructs that his remains should be placed in a stūpa, and states that anyone who pays reverence to a stūpa with a devout heart will reap benefit and happiness for a long time. Sites containing relics of the Buddha, or places associated with his life, are therefore the most important centres of pilgrimage. Included among these are the Buddha's tooth relic at Kandy and his footprints at Mt. Siripāda (both in Sri Lanka). Places where a cutting from the Bodhi Tree is believed to flourish, as in Bodhgayā, are also revered. In China the ‘Five Peaks’ are popular pilgrimage centres, and in Japan the main centres of pilgrimage are Saikōku, where there are 33 temples dedicated to Kannon, and the island of Shikōku, where there are 88 temples associated with the life of Kūkai (774–835).