Buddhist Places of Pilgrimage
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Buddhists travel to India and Nepal to visit the places where events in Buddha Shakyamuni's life occurred. Some do it to enhance their understanding of the dharma and to draw themselves closer to him. Many others perform these journeys in the belief that they will accrue merit in this life and ensure an auspicious rebirth in the next.
At holy sites, people circumambulate the shrine doing what in Tibetan is called kora. This is an observance in the ancient tradition called in Sanskrit, pradakshina.
In very remote lands, where there was no possibility of visiting holy sites, the sacred landscape was re-created symbolically. This could result in the "secondary" place's achieving an importance almost as great as that of the original.
