Pilgrimage

A tīrtha is a ford — a shallow place where you can cross a river. The word comes from a root meaning “to cross over.” A sacred place is a crossing point: where the boundary between this world and the divine runs thin, and a person may cross from one shore to the other. To go there, on foot or by bus or plane, is tīrtha-yātrā, the journey to the crossing.

Why go?

People set out for many reasons, often several at once:

• Darśana — to see the deity in the place where it is especially present, and be seen (see Visiting a Temple).
• A vow — a vrata made in hope or in thanks: for a child, a cure, an exam passed. Many pilgrimages fulfil a promise.
• Purification and merit — the Purāṇas and the long “pilgrimage sections” of the Mahābhārata (the Āraṇyaka Parvan’s tīrtha-yātrā chapters) praise the bath at holy rivers as washing away wrongdoing and earning merit (puṇya).
• For the dead — rites for ancestors at Gayā, Kāśī or a river bank, and the immersion of ashes in the Ganga.
• The journey itself — leaving home, living simply, walking with strangers who become companions. Many pilgrims say the road teaches more than the destination.

A well-known verse names seven cities that grant liberation:

The great pilgrimages

Tap a journey to open it. The list could be ten times longer — every region, every deity, every Malaysian family has its own.

For more on the shrines of Shiva and Murugan, see Shiva (the jyotirliṅgas) and Murugan (the six abodes).

Sabarimala and the question of women’s entry

Sabarimala is open to men of every caste and creed — and, by long custom, has not admitted women of menstruating age, roughly ten to fifty. The traditional reason is that Ayyappa at Sabarimala is a naiṣṭhika brahmacārī, a lifelong celibate, and that the shrine’s rules should be kept. Girls and older women make the pilgrimage.

In September 2018 the Supreme Court of India, by a 4–1 majority, struck the restriction down as discriminatory and unconstitutional; the one dissenting judge, Justice Indu Malhotra, held that courts should not decide matters of religious practice. Large protests followed in Kerala, many of them led by women devotees who supported the custom, while other women campaigned for entry. In 2019 the court referred the wider questions about religious practice to a larger bench, and the question remains contested. This guide records the debate without taking sides: it touches deeply held values on both sides — the shrine’s own tradition, and equal access to worship. The same tension runs through menstruation customs at temples generally (see Visiting a Temple).

A pilgrim’s journey

Whatever the destination, a traditional pilgrimage tends to follow the same arc. Tap each stage:

The pilgrimage within

The tradition has always held a second voice alongside the first. The Mahābhārata’s own pilgrimage chapters say that a person who controls hands, feet and mind, who is truthful and content, already gains the fruit of the tīrthas. And many saints went further, warning that bathing and travel are worthless without an inner change.

The Tamil Shaiva saint Appar (7th century) sang, in a well-known hymn, that bathing in the Ganga or the Kaveri, or travelling to the sacred places, avails nothing for those who do not see the Lord everywhere. In the north, the poet Kabīr (15th century) mocked those who wander from shrine to shrine while ignoring the God within, and Tirumūlar called the body itself a temple (see Temple Architecture). These voices were not rejecting pilgrimage outright — Appar himself walked to temple after temple — but reminding pilgrims what the crossing is for.

Pilgrimage from Malaysia

Community practice For Malaysian Hindus the nearest great pilgrimage is at home: the climb up the 272 steps of Batu Caves at Thaipusam, when hundreds of thousands come to fulfil vows to Murugan with milk pots and kavadi; Penang’s hilltop Murugan temple draws similar crowds. Many families also travel to India — group tours to the six abodes of Murugan, to Tirupati, to Rameswaram and Kāśī, or the Sabarimala season, which Malaysian devotees keep with the full 41-day vow. Temples and community groups often organise these tours, with a guide and a priest.

Practical tips and safety

• Crowds: great festivals draw millions, and crowd crushes have killed pilgrims at several melās and temples. Go at quieter times if you can, keep children and elders close, agree a meeting point, and follow police and volunteer directions.
• Heat and exertion: drink plenty of water, rest in the shade, and take care on long climbs and barefoot walks on hot stone.
• Altitude: Kedarnath, Badrinath and Kailāsa are high mountain routes. Ascend gradually, know the signs of altitude sickness, and see a doctor before going if you have heart, lung or blood-pressure problems.
• Fasting: if you are diabetic, pregnant, elderly or on medication, ask your doctor before keeping a strict vow; children should not fast strictly.
• Practicalities: many great shrines now require online booking for darśana; check dress codes; carry identification; and use registered operators for tours.

Check your knowledge:

Questions people often ask

Key terms on this page

Sources & further reading

• Diana L. Eck, India: A Sacred Geography (Harmony Books, 2012).
• Diana L. Eck, Banaras: City of Light (Knopf, 1982).
• Surinder M. Bhardwaj, Hindu Places of Pilgrimage in India: A Study in Cultural Geography (University of California Press, 1973).
• Kama Maclean, Pilgrimage and Power: The Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, 1765–1954 (Oxford University Press, 2008).
• Indian Young Lawyers Association v. State of Kerala, Supreme Court of India, judgment of 28 September 2018 (the Sabarimala case).
• Indira Viswanathan Peterson, Poems to Śiva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints (Princeton University Press, 1989) — includes Appar’s hymns.
• Mahābhārata, Āraṇyaka Parvan — the tīrtha-yātrā chapters.