India's "Tīrthas": "Crossings" in Sacred Geography

Abstract

One of the oldest strands of the Hindu tradition is what one might call the "locative" strand of Hindu piety.Its traditions of ritual and reverence are linked primarily to place-to hilltops and rock outcroppings, to the headwaters and confluences of rivers, to the pools and groves of the forests, and to the boundaries of towns and villages.In this locative form of religiousness, the place itself is the primary locus of devotion, and its traditions of ritual and pilgrimage are usually much older than any of the particular myths and deities which attach to it.In the wider Hindu tradition, these places, particularly those associated with waters, are often called tirthas, and pilgrimage to these tirthas is one of the oldest and still one of the most prominent features of Indian religious life.A tZrtha is a "crossing place," a "ford," where one may cross over to the far shore of a river or to the far shore of the worlds of heaven.Hence, tirtha has come to refer to these places of pilgrimage, where the crossing might be safely made.This is a study of the meanings of the word tirtha in its Vedic and Sanskrit usages

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 101 citations exist upstream.