The Concept of Tīrtha in Indian Tradition: Custom and Practice

Abstract

One of the oldest thread of the Indian tradition is the locative strand of Hindu holiness, godliness and goodness. Its traditions of ritual and respect are linked primarily to place-to peaks and rock outcroppings, to the headwaters and flowing together 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 Indian tradition, these places, particularly those associated with waters, are often called as tīrthas, and pilgrimage to these tīrthas is 
one of the oldest and still one of the most well-known features of Indian religious life. A tīrtha s 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, tīrtha has come to refer to these places of pilgrimage, where the 
crossing might be safely made. In this paper an attempt is made to study the meanings of the word tīrtha in its Vedic and later Purānic literature and the elaboration of the concept of tirtha in the locative ritual traditions of Indian custom and practice also.