"What motivates someone to embark on a Pilgrimage?"

If you have ever wondered what is meant by a pilgrimage, and why people journey to such places as Lourdes, Kyoto, Mecca, Mount Kailas, Rome, Salt Lake City, Czestochowa, Panharpur, Guadalupe, Jerusalem, then David Souden's book Pilgrimage is a must read.

The author is an established independent television producer and a former Research Fellow in History at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England.

As the author states in the introduction to the book, "Whatever the circumstances, whatever the religion our purpose here is to celebrate pilgrimage as a basic form of human activity that has had spiritual meaning for all manner of people and all varieties of faith now and throughout time."

PILGRIMAGE more than aptly accomplishes its objective in its explicit descriptions of twenty pilgrimages that are illustrated with spectacular photos. The book also briefly introduces us to basic concepts of the many religions of the world such as Sikhism, as well as an understanding of the different native people who inhabit the world, such as Hopi and Zuni Native American groups indigenous to the Southwest.

From the very first chapter pertaining to "The Kumbh (or Kumba Mela)," I was mesmerized. It was "mind boggling" to learn that on February 6th, 1989 three percent of the Hindu population of India or fifteen million pilgrims travelled to Allahabad, in the north Indian state of Pradesh on the occasion of the full Kumbh Mela. According to the Guinness Book of Records this gathering was then the "greatest recorded number of human beings assembled with a common purpose in history." We are further informed that in 2001 when once again this pilgrimage transpired there were probably more than 70 million attendees.

You may ask what motivates people to embark on these pilgrimages? Surely it cannot mean to embark on a sight seeing trip, however, I guess in this age of commercialism there will always be travel companies wanting to exploit them from this angle!

In the case of the Kumbh Mela the author indicates to us "it is to achieve enlightenment and release from the otherwise eternal cycle of rebirths that is one of the basic tenets of Hindu belief."

We are also informed that the English language has only one word-pilgrimage-to describe a specifically religious journey. However, the Portuguese as well the Spanish languages have a variety of words to denote a pilgrimage. For example, in Portuguese the term "romeria" describes a localized event such as a pilgrimage to a local shrine located at the edge of a village. On the other hand the term "peregriciao" would imply a wider regional or national event.

It is to be noted that in Portugal and particularly in the northern half of the country, there is a year-round cycle of celebrations and feasts that are formulated around pilgrimages. In Portugal, as pointed out to us in the book, religion is intertwined with every day life and the saints play an important role within the local communities throughout the country.

In contrast to the many religious pilgrimages, we also learn of the many people who journey to the battlefields of World War I where people still come to honour and wonder in the cemeteries. These journeys may not be religious but nevertheless this does not exclude them from being classified as a pilgrimage.

After reading the extremely well written descriptions of many of the most famous pilgrimages, I would have to admit that I now view a pilgrimage from a different perspective. Thanks and bravo to David Souden!

"Copyright 2002, Bookideas.com. Orginally published at Bookideas.com"

Reviewed by Norman Goldman
Courtesy Bookideas
Posted May 8, 2002