Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/102

Rh and Julin (isle of Wollin), Stettin, and lastly Arkona in the isle of Riigen, succeeded one another as the chief seat of the worship of Perun, Lada, Bielbog, and other principal Slavic deities, and were necessarily attended by much larger bodies of worshippers than temples of less account, more thinly officered, and inferior in repute for the learning and prophetic powers of their priests. Mexican. Directing our attention to an entirely different region of the world, we learn that in 1519, when Cortes entered Cholula in Mexico, he found it a great resort of pilgrims to the huge temple of Quetzalcoatl, then of unknown antiquity, as founded by a race earlier than the Aztecs, and built upon a colossal mound, vying in dimensions with the largest pyramids of Egypt. And what is yet more curious, besides this principal shrine, there were subsidiary tribal temples in the city, restricted to the uses of the several allied or kindred nations, who desired to have their own sanctuary in the holy city, precisely as churches of different nationalities are found in Jerusalem Peruvian, and in Rome to-day. And similarly in Peru, the great Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, with its encircling girdle of chapels dedicated to minor deities, was visited by pilgrims from all parts of the empire ; nay, it was even regarded as a misfortune to fail in accomplishing the journey. Indian. India, however, is above all others the land of pilgrim ages, for it has observed them during a longer unbroken period than any other country of which we possess sufficient records, and for frequency and multitude it would be difficult to find any parallel. The most celebrated of them are those to the temple of Jagan-nath at Puri in Orissa, Benares, Hurdwar, Ganga-Sagara, Gangotri, Jumnotri, Prayaga (Allahabad), Rameswara, Gaya in Behar, and Ayodhya or Oudh. Apart from the motives, common to all pilgrims, of acquiring religious merit or expiating sins, these Indian shrines are frequented for the performance of sraddha ceremonies in honour of deceased ancestors or as votive acts for the recovery of the sick, or, again, to carry the ashes of deceased kindred to be scattered in the waters of some sacred or purifying river. Every great river in India, with some lakes, tanks, and springs, is regarded as permeated with the divine essence, and as capable of cleansing from all sin. Hence the favourite resorts are river sources and confluences, while Benares, as situated on the Ganges itself, is the holiest spot in Hindustan. The other most frequented shrines are usually associated with the cults of Krishna, Siva, and Rama. All these are exclusively connected with Brahman rites, for the entire extirpation of Buddhism from the Hindu peninsula has prevented any special sacredness from continuing to attach to the scenes of Gautama Buddha s life (though the Buddhists allege that the sanctity of Benares is due to its having been the residence of Buddha himself and the scene of his earliest preachings) ; and it is in Ceylon only that two Indo-Buddhist pilgrimages survive, that of Adam s Peak, and the yet more popular one to the temple of Kandy, where the Dalada Malayawa, or tooth of Buddha, is an object of special veneration. For northern Buddhism the chief shrines are Lhassa in Tibet, the seat of the Dalai Lama, and Urga in northern Mongolia, the seat of the Tesho-Lama or Bogdo Lama. Before the Brahman revolution, which drove Buddhism out of India, pilgrimages to the chief scenes of Gautama Buddha s life were common; and notably Kapilavastu, his birthplace, Benares, where he began his mission, and Kasinagara, where he died, were much frequented, especially by Chinese converts. The narratives of some of these, Fa Hian, Hwai-Seng, and Sung-yun, and Hwen-T sang, the most noteworthy of them all (see vol. xii. p. 418), who fame to visit the holy places and to collect the sacred 1&amp;gt;ooks, are still extant. In China pilgrimages are made to several of the more Chinese, sacred spots both by Buddhists and Conf ucianists. Wutai- shan in Shan -si is the chief resort of Buddhist pilgrims, and Tai-shan, the mountain sacred to Confucius, that of Confucianists (Williamson, Journeys in North China}. In Japan both the older Shinto nature-worship and the newer Japanese Buddhist creed have their several sanctuaries and pilgrim ages. The principal Shinto pilgrimages are those to Ise in the department of Watarai, and to the sacred mountain Fuji. There are two temples at Ise, ranking in sanctity first of all Shinto shrines, and the special seat of the worship of Ten-shoko-daigin, the Sun-Goddess, from whom the Mikado is held to descend. Two great festivals are held yearly at Ise in the sixth and twelfth months, and are known as 0-barai no matsuri, &quot; great purification feast,&quot; being held to effect the purifying of the whole nation from the sins of the previous half year. Tickets inscribed with the names of the gods of Ise&quot;, and especially that of the Sun-Goddess, are issued at the temples and their agencies (being formerly sold by hawkers correspond ing to the pardoners of mediaeval Europe), and are care fully preserved in the domestic shrine of Japanese houses, being supposed to avert all peril for six months, but requiring renewal at the end of that period. The pilgrims to Is6 number many thousands yearly, and are known as they return by bundles of charms wrapped in oiled paper, and hanging from the neck by a string. The pilgrimage to Fuji takes place in summer, and the pilgrims go clad in white, and carrying bells. They ascend the mountain so as to reach the summit before sunrise, when they turn to the east, clap their hands, and chant a hymn to the Sun-Goddess. There are also many local Shinto pilgrimages of less note. Buddhism in Japan is broken up into several sects, having each of them their own pil grimages ; but the most frequented are those of the god Fudo at Narita and the sacred mountain of Oyama, each some 30 miles distant from Tokio. These both belong to the Shingou sect, the earliest introduced into Japan. The Hokke or Nichiren sect make pilgrimages to the monastery of Ikegami near Tokio, and to that at Mount Minobu, about 100 miles to the west, between which two shrines the relics of the founder are divided. Ninety miles north of Tokio are the shrines of Mount Nikko, also a great Buddhist pil grimage, where the shoguns are buried, and where the founder of the Tokugawa dynasty is worshipped under the name of Gongen. So much w r ill suffice to have said concerning the various heathen pilgrimages, and we may now consider those of the Hebrew religion and its two derivatives, Islam and Christianity. The legislation of the Pentateuch is precise in making Jewish, resort to one central shrine a positive and fundamental pre cept, binding on the whole nation, obviously with the double object of cementing national unity and of guarding against the erection of local sanctuaries, which were liable to be diverted to idolatrous cults (see PENTATEUCH). Under the judges and the kings we find many traces of pilgrim age, not only to the sanctuary of the ark at Shiloh, and afterwards to Jerusalem, but to local high places, such as Ophrah, Mizpeh, Dan, Bethel, and Beersheba. In truth, it is not till the post-exilic period that the supremacy of one national sanctuary is assured (though a pilgrimage even after the destruction of the temple is recorded in Jeremiah xli. 5, showing that the mere site was held sacred), for the local devotion of the high places resisted all the efforts of the reforming party under Hezekiah and Josiah even in the kingdom of Judah itself. Since the final overthrow of the Jewish polity by Titus and Hadrian, no effort has been made either to establish a centre of sacrificial worship anywhere outside Palestine (as in the