PILGRIMAGE, a journey undertaken, from religious mo tives, to some place reputed as sacred. These journeys play an important role in most pre-Christian and extra-Christian religions: in the Catholic Church their acceptance dates from the 3rd and 4th centuries.
The Pilgrimage in Pre- and Non-Christian Religions.—To the Germanic religions the pilgrimage is unknown. On the other hand, it is an indigenous element, not only in the creeds of Asia, but in those of the ancient seats of civilization on the Mediter ranean. The fundamental conception is always that the Deity resides—or exercises a peculiarly powerful influence—in some defi nite locality; and to this locality the devout repair, either in rev erence of their god, or in quest of his assistance and bounty.
One of the oldest homes of the pilgrimage is India. There the army of devotees tends more especially to the Ganges—the hallowed river of Hindu belief. On the Ganges lies Benares, the
holy city of Brahmanism: and to look on Benares, to visit its temples, and to be washed clean in the purifying river, is the yearning of every pious Indian. Even Buddhism—originally desti tute of ceremonial—has adopted the pilgrimage; and the second ary tradition makes Buddha himself determine its goals: the place where he was born, where he first preached, where the highest insight dawned on him, and where he sank into Nirvana.
The habit of religious expeditions to sacred places took deep root among the Egyptians, the Jews, and the Greeks; but the pil grimage attained its zenith under Islam. For Mohammed pro claimed it the duty of every Mussulman, once at least in his life, to visit Mecca; the result being that the birth-place of the Prophet is now the religious centre of the whole Mohammedan world. (See ISLAM ; CARAVAN ; MECCA.)