Pilgrimage
Past and Present in the World Religions
British Museum Press
Published on 10. April 1995
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-0-7141-1738-6 (ISBN)
Description
Pilgrimage is a feature of all the world religions. The various forms it has taken over its long history reveal much about the basic values of different cultures. At one level the pilgrim makes a physical journey, covering often distant and difficult terrains, at a more profound level, the experience of travelling through a foreign land towards a sacred goal can become a metaphor for the pilgrim's search for his or her religious identity. This book brings together all the major religious traditions, from Classical Greece to the present. It looks at the different practices of the different faiths and asks whether they can be meaningfully compared. Hindus at Benares, Buddhists at Bodhgaya, Muslims at Mecca circumambulate sacred shrines, and Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims and Christians all take tokens back from sacred sites - yet in what sense are they really doing the same thing? The experience of pilgrimage is evoked through a variety of photographs and texts ranging from folk tales to first-hand accounts of modern-day pilgrims, whilst picture sections draw together common themes, from saints and tombs to relics, contested sites and the worship of sacred images.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Illustrations
60 colour and 48 b&w illustrations, bibliography, index
Dimensions
Height: 246 mm
Width: 189 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-7141-1738-6 (9780714117386)
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Schweitzer Classification
Content
Landscapes surveyed. Peity and identity - sacred travel in the classical world; exile and return - Jewish pilgrimage; the centre in the desert - Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca; the Gospels embodied - Christian pilgrimage to the Holy Land; geographies of sainthood - Christian pilgrimage from the Middle Ages to the present day; divinity diffused - pilgrimage in the Indian religions; translating the sacred - patterns of pilgrimage in the Buddhist world. Epilogue - landscapes reviewed.