Pilgrimage in Buddhism — Buddhism

What the specification asks for

Paper 2, Section 2, 2.2 (Buddhism). Assessed on AO1 (knowledge and understanding) and AO2 (analysis and evaluation), weighted equally. Incandio is aligned to this specification. It is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson, and it reproduces none of Pearson's indicative content — the point numbers are given so you can check every unit against your own copy.

1 · Understand it

There is no journey any Buddhist has to make. Nothing goes wrong if somebody never leaves their own town, and no penalty follows. And yet thousands of people fly to a tree in northern India every year and sit under it. If nothing is owed and nobody is waiting there to receive them, the interesting question is what they are going for.

What it means

The specification names three sites with their features. Kapilavastu is where the early life as a prince was spent, with the palace site and a stupa complex, and the Kapilavastu Buddha Mahotsav is held there. Bodh Gaya is where the awakening happened, and holds the Mahabodhi Temple, the Great Buddha Statue and the Sujata Temple. Sarnath is the deer park of the first teaching, with the Dhameka Stupa, the Ashoka Pillar and the Chaukhandi Stupa.

A stupa is a domed structure containing relics or marking a sacred place, and it is the oldest form of Buddhist architecture. Pilgrims walk round one clockwise. The Ashoka Pillar at Sarnath is one of the emperor's inscribed columns, and its capital became India's national emblem.

Pilgrimage here is voluntary. There is no obligation comparable to Hajj and no religious penalty for never going, though the tradition does record the Buddha naming places worth visiting. Bodh Gaya is treated as the most significant, because the awakening is what everything else in the religion depends on.

One detail is worth having exactly right: the tree at Bodh Gaya is a descendant rather than the original, propagated from a cutting that had been taken to Sri Lanka. Calling it the original tree is a recorded error and an easy one to avoid.

Why believers hold it

The reason the practice is optional follows from what the sites are. They commemorate events; they do not house a presence. There is no deity there to approach and nothing that confers anything by being stood next to, because the Buddha is in parinirvana and cannot be petitioned. Whatever pilgrimage achieves therefore happens in the pilgrim's own mind.

That is also why Zen can be sceptical about it without being irreverent. If the work is mental, the mind is the same wherever the body is standing, and travelling a long way to a place can look like attachment to a form. This is an objection made on the tradition's own principles rather than against them, which is what makes it the most interesting position in the unit.

The answer to Zen is not sentimental either. Conditions affect the mind — which is why retreats exist at all — so a place chosen for reflection is not obviously different in kind from a quiet room chosen for the same reason. The disagreement is genuine and Buddhism contains both answers, which is exactly what the different-attitudes clause is asking you to notice.

Where it comes from

• The Pali Canon — the Buddha's first sermon — The Four Noble Truths; Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya 56:11) (translated)

  Dukkha; its cause is tanha; it can cease; the Eightfold Path is the way.

  The Buddha's diagnosis: existence is unsatisfactory, craving causes it, the cause can be removed, and there is a method.

  What it is doing here: Are what was first taught at Sarnath, which is why one of the three named sites is a deer park rather than a birthplace or a tomb.

• Buddhist scripture — The Tipitaka (Tripitaka): Vinaya, Sutta and Abhidhamma Pitakas (translated)

  The Three Baskets — monastic discipline, discourses, and higher teaching.

  The Pali Canon's three divisions. The Sutta Pitaka contains the Buddha's discourses, including the Dhammapada.

  What it is doing here: Records the Buddha naming places worth visiting, which is the canonical support the practice rests on despite being optional.

• Buddhist teaching — The Noble Eightfold Path; grouped as sila, samadhi and prajna (translated)

  Right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.

  The fourth Noble Truth in practice, grouped into ethics (sila), meditation (samadhi) and wisdom (prajna).

  What it is doing here: Is the practice a pilgrim is meant to be advancing, and it is the standard Zen holds pilgrimage against when it asks what travelling adds.

Where it bites

In practice: circumambulating a stupa, always clockwise; meditating under the tree at Bodh Gaya, often for long periods; offering flowers, candles and incense; chanting; the Kapilavastu festival. The sites are strikingly international, with Thai, Tibetan, Japanese and Sri Lankan pilgrims practising alongside each other in different languages.

The comparison with Hajj turns this unit into an argument rather than a description. Hajj is owed, and the obligation follows from the act being owed to somebody. Buddhist pilgrimage is owed to nobody, so it could never have been made compulsory — the two traditions have different accounts of what religious travel is for, and saying that is worth more than describing either.

What people get wrong

People think: Buddhist pilgrimage is compulsory like Hajj.

Actually: It is entirely voluntary, and nothing follows from not going. The difference is structural rather than a matter of strictness: there is nobody the journey is owed to, so an obligation could never have been built.

People think: The tree at Bodh Gaya is the tree the Buddha sat under.

Actually: It is a descendant, grown from a cutting that had been taken to Sri Lanka. The detail is small and the examiners record it, and getting it right also makes the point that the site commemorates rather than preserves.

People think: Bodh Gaya is where the Buddha first taught.

Actually: Bodh Gaya is the awakening; Sarnath is the first teaching. Mixing the sites up is the commonest content error in this unit, and each site is expected with its own features.

What the examiner expects you to understand

• Establish that pilgrimage is voluntary early, because every other point in the unit depends on it.
• Learn the sites with their named features; the specification lists them and the four-mark answer is built directly out of that list.
• The different-attitudes clause carries the evaluative marks, and Zen's reservation is the strongest material for it.
• Comparing with Hajj is the sharpest available move, because the difference in obligation follows from a difference in who the act is owed to.
• Do not call the tree at Bodh Gaya the original, and do not put the first teaching in the wrong place.

2 · Grade 9 Notes

Core belief / issue

The specification names three sites with their features: Kapilavastu with the palace site and stupa complex, Bodh Gaya with the Mahabodhi Temple and the Great Buddha Statue, and Sarnath with the Dhameka Stupa and the Ashoka Pillar. It then asks about DIFFERENT ATTITUDES to pilgrimage. Buddhist pilgrimage is voluntary and commemorative rather than obligatory, which is the first thing to establish.

Key terminology

Incandio's mark schemes credit the religion's own vocabulary; spelling variants are accepted, a vague paraphrase is not.

Kapilavastu (also Kapilvastu)

The site of the Buddha's early life as a prince; associated with the palace and a stupa complex.

Bodh Gaya (also Bodhgaya)

The place of the enlightenment; site of the Mahabodhi Temple and a descendant of the Bodhi tree.

Sarnath

The deer park where the Buddha gave his first teaching; site of the Dhameka Stupa and the Ashoka Pillar.

Stupa (also dagoba, chorten)

A domed structure containing relics or marking a sacred site; the oldest form of Buddhist architecture.

Ashoka Pillar

One of the inscribed columns erected by the emperor Ashoka; the one at Sarnath gave India its national emblem.

What Buddhism teaches

• shared — Pilgrimage in Buddhism is voluntary; there is no obligation comparable to Hajj and no religious penalty for not going.
• shared — The traditional sites mark events in the Buddha's life, and the Mahaparinibbana Sutta records him naming places worth visiting.
• shared — Bodh Gaya is the most significant, because it is where the enlightenment occurred and therefore where the whole teaching begins.
• divided — Buddhists differ over the value of pilgrimage, and the disagreement is doctrinal rather than practical.
  • Theravada — Pilgrimage is valued as an aid to devotion and to reflection on the Buddha's life; it earns merit and is not required.
  • Zen — Often sceptical of the value of travelling to a place, on the ground that practice is available wherever the practitioner is.

Why it teaches this

The reasoning is that the sites commemorate events rather than housing a presence. There is no deity there to approach and no relic that confers anything by proximity — the value is in what visiting does to the pilgrim's mind. That is why Buddhist pilgrimage is voluntary, and it is also why traditions emphasising direct practice can be sceptical about it without being irreverent.

Sources of authority

• The Pali Canon — the Buddha's first sermon — The Four Noble Truths; Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (Samyutta Nikaya 56:11) (translated)

  Dukkha; its cause is tanha; it can cease; the Eightfold Path is the way.

  The Buddha's diagnosis: existence is unsatisfactory, craving causes it, the cause can be removed, and there is a method.

  How to use it: It is a diagnosis and a treatment rather than a set of beliefs, which is why Buddhism can answer the problem of suffering without needing a God to defend.

  What it does not settle: It explains suffering's cause without invoking evil or judgement, so it does not answer the theodicy question — it dissolves it. Say that rather than forcing it into a Christian frame.

• Buddhist scripture — The Tipitaka (Tripitaka): Vinaya, Sutta and Abhidhamma Pitakas (translated)

  The Three Baskets — monastic discipline, discourses, and higher teaching.

  The Pali Canon's three divisions. The Sutta Pitaka contains the Buddha's discourses, including the Dhammapada.

  How to use it: Because the canon includes a whole basket of monastic rules, Buddhist authority is as much about how the community lives as about what it believes.

  What it does not settle: Mahayana traditions accept a much wider body of sutras, so 'the Buddhist scriptures' is not one closed list.

• The Pali Canon — Metta Sutta (Sutta Nipata 1:8); the four brahmaviharas (translated)

  As a mother protects her only child, so let one cultivate boundless goodwill towards all beings.

  Metta — loving kindness — extended without limit, with compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity.

  How to use it: Metta is cultivated deliberately in meditation, so Buddhist compassion is a trained capacity rather than a feeling — which explains why meditation is an ethical practice and not just a calming one.

  What it does not settle: It does not by itself prescribe an action in any particular case.

• Buddhist teaching — The Noble Eightfold Path; grouped as sila, samadhi and prajna (translated)

  Right view, intention, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness and concentration.

  The fourth Noble Truth in practice, grouped into ethics (sila), meditation (samadhi) and wisdom (prajna).

  How to use it: It is a path rather than a creed, so the Buddhist answer to 'what is the purpose of life?' is a practice and not a proposition.

  What it does not settle: Emphasis differs sharply between Theravada, Zen and Pure Land practice.

Different interpretations

• Pilgrimage read as merit-making and read as reflection; both are practised, and the second is the reading that survives Zen's objection.
• The sites read as historically significant and read as spiritually potent; Buddhism officially holds the first, and popular practice often behaves as though the second were true.
• The Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya read as the original and read as a descendant; it is a descendant, propagated from a cutting taken to Sri Lanka, and knowing that is a useful detail.

Differences within Buddhism

The sites and their significance are shared; the value placed on going is genuinely disputed, and Zen's reservation is a doctrinal position rather than indifference.

• Theravada — Pilgrimage valued and merit-earning; the four principal sites are widely visited.
• Mahayana — Adds its own sites, including mountains in China and Japan associated with particular bodhisattvas.
• Zen — Emphasises that practice does not depend on location, and is correspondingly reserved about pilgrimage.

Application to the issue

In practice: circumambulation of a stupa, always clockwise; meditation under the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, often for extended periods; offering flowers, candles and incense; chanting; the Kapilavastu Buddha Mahotsav festival; and the international character of the sites, where Thai, Tibetan, Japanese and Sri Lankan pilgrims practise alongside each other in different languages.

Arguments supporting

• Standing where the enlightenment happened makes an abstraction concrete. — Meditating at Bodh Gaya connects a practice to a place and an event. (theravada)
  Answered by: That is a claim about the pilgrim's experience, which varies and cannot be assessed from outside.
• The sites' international character makes the wider sangha visible. — Pilgrims from every Buddhist country practise in the same place. (shared)
  Answered by: Shared space is not shared practice, and the traditions there often keep to themselves.

Arguments challenging

• Travelling to a place cannot advance a practice that is entirely mental. — The mind is the same wherever the body is standing. (zen)
  Answered by: Conditions affect the mind, which is why retreats exist at all, so a place chosen for reflection is not obviously different in kind.
• Pilgrimage is attachment to form. — The Buddha taught non-attachment, including to religious forms. (non-religious)
  Answered by: The tradition itself records the Buddha naming places worth visiting, so the practice has canonical support even where its value is debated.

Evaluation

The hinge: Whether a place can help a practice that happens in the mind. Buddhism contains both answers and the disagreement is genuinely doctrinal.

Defensible conclusions

• Bodh Gaya is the most important site, because the enlightenment is what everything else depends on.
• Pilgrimage's optional status is the key fact: comparing it with Hajj shows two entirely different accounts of what religious travel is for.
• Zen's scepticism is the most interesting position available, because it is an internal objection made on the tradition's own principles.

Not defensible

• Treating Buddhist pilgrimage as obligatory like Hajj.
• Describing the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya as the original tree.

Exam use

• Outline · 4 marks — Outline two practices associated with pilgrimage to Bodh Gaya. Two, each developed.
• Explain · 6 marks — Explain why pilgrimage is important for Buddhists: what the sites commemorate, what pilgrims do there, and why it is voluntary.
• Discuss · 10 marks — 'Pilgrimage is not necessary for Buddhists.' Zen's objection makes this a genuinely open question inside the tradition.

Common mistakes

• Treating Buddhist pilgrimage as obligatory.
• Confusing the sites — Bodh Gaya is the enlightenment, Sarnath the first teaching.
• Ignoring the different-attitudes clause, where the AO2 marks are.

“Muslims perform Hajj at Madinah.” — Hajj is to Makkah, where the Ka'bah stands. Madinah is where the Prophet migrated to (the Hijrah), established the first Muslim community, and is buried.

Write instead: Makkah is the birthplace of the Prophet, the site of the Ka'bah and the destination of Hajj. Madinah is the city of the Hijrah, the first Muslim community, and the Prophet's Mosque. Many pilgrims visit Madinah as well, but that visit (ziyarah) is not part of Hajj — a distinction worth one sharp sentence. (Named in the 2021 examiner report for Paper 2.)

“Buddhists worship the Buddha as their god.” — The Buddha is a human being who became awakened. Buddhist teaching does not present him as a creator or as a god who answers prayer.

Write instead: Buddhists show reverence to the Buddha as teacher and example — bowing, offerings, and taking refuge — without regarding him as a god. Offerings before a Buddha rupa express gratitude and aspiration, not petition. Devotional practice is real and extensive, especially in Mahayana and Pure Land Buddhism where Amitabha is the object of profound devotion. 'Buddhists do not worship' is an over-correction; 'the Buddha is not a god' is the accurate claim.

Grade 9 insight

Buddhist pilgrimage sites contain no deity to approach and confer nothing by proximity — the Buddha is in parinirvana and cannot be petitioned. A Level 4 answer draws the conclusion: whatever Buddhist pilgrimage achieves happens entirely in the pilgrim's mind, which is exactly why Zen can object to it on the tradition's own terms and why Buddhism could never make it obligatory. Compare Hajj, where the obligation follows from the act being owed to someone, and the structural difference becomes an argument rather than an observation.

Carry on through Buddhism

• Previous unit: 2.1 · Wesak
• Next unit: 3.1 · Viharas and monasteries
• Side by side: Pilgrimage across the six religions — Is pilgrimage required, and where do believers go?
• All of Buddhism · Incandio Religious Studies · The 4RS1 specification