Re-imagining Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage culture in India

Kalmar, Brigitta

Re-imagining Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage culture in India

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Date

2017

Authors

Kalmar, Brigitta

Publisher

ISASR in association with the Study of Religions, University College Cork

Abstract

This article explores how Tibetans have defined India, the birthplace of Buddhism, as a space for themselves and hence created, re-created and reinvented their ancient pilgrimage destinations and rituals there since the middle of 20th century. I begin this paper by introducing the historical development of pilgrimage in the Buddhist tradition and mapping the sacred Buddhist geography of India. In the second part, I explore the development of pilgrimage traditions in Tibetan Buddhism and the network of sacred sites used by pilgrims. In the third part, I introduce some of the Tibetan inventions and reinventions of the pilgrimage tradition over an extensive period of time, between the 12th and the mid-20th century. Finally, partly based on my fieldwork findings, I examine how the Tibetan diasporic community in India has maintained and reinvented its pilgrimage culture and what possible changes have occurred subsequently.

Keywords

Buddhism , Pilgrimage , Tibetan , India , Tibetan , Buddhism

Citation

Kalmar, B. 2017. 'Re-imagining Tibetan Buddhist Pilgrimage Culture in India', Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions 5, pp. 40 - 68.