Sacred Places

Sacred places are locations that give religious meaning and identity to communities and individuals. While some have been constructed as ritual arenas, others have been selected from nature and are associated with the history and myths of a religion. Indeed, the great religious traditions display a wide variety of sacred places, varying in shape, location, and purpose. A sacred place can be an entire land, such as India, or a city such as Jerusalem; or it can be a sanctified structure such as the Kaabah in Mecca; or it can be a natural site such as a mountain, lake, or river, such as the Ganges, that is believed to have special qualities. Sacred places concretize a religion, giving it a material and earthbound feature. Although many sacred places are ancient and historical religious shrines, others such as the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City are of more recent existence. This entry discusses the functions of sacred places; institutionalization, protection, and access to sacred places; and conflict over sacred places.

According to the historian of religion Mircea Eliade, sacred places fulfill three primary functions for believers: first, they act as places in which worshippers can communicate with the divine, whether through prayer, ritual, or contact with an image of God. Second, sacred places contain a permanent divine presence that draws people, with the expectation of receiving blessings, healing, forgiveness, spiritual merit, or salvation. Third, the layout and design of sacred places in terms of the art, architecture, music, and drama represent an ideal of a particular religion in its purest form. In identifying these functions, Eliade's theory brings out three different attributes of sacred places: behaviors attributed to gods, the behavior of the worshippers at these sites, and the physical design of these sites. From this angle, sacred spaces can be defined as religious centers at which the heavenly and earthly meet, where sites act as bridges between the human and divine worlds.

Sacred places provide the opportunity for worshippers to communicate with the divine, receive gifts, and gain insight into greater meanings and, as such, become religious centers for many believers. The Himalayan Mountains and Ganges River, for example, are sacred to Hindus. Mount Kailash in the Himalayas is sacred to Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains. It lies near the source of several of the most sacred rivers in the region and is believed to be the home of the God Shiva and his consort Parvati. Mount Kailash is believed to be too sacred to climb, but the area around it is a major site for a holy pilgrimage. Similarly, Mount Gerizim is sacred to the Samaritans, and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is holy to the Jews. These are all historical, spiritual, and cosmological centers and are associated with the act of creation, the beginning of time, or the end of days. Pilgrims who journey to such sacred places therefore travel toward the center, seeking in the sacred space the microcosm both of the universe and of the specific religion it represents.

Places of worship, such as temples for Hindus and Buddhists, gurdwaras for Sikhs, synagogues [Page 1110]for Jews, churches for Christians, and mosques for Muslims, are considered sacred places. Yet these places of worship are often not the primary sacred places of a religion. In fact, many sacred sites that constitute a central aspect or component of the religion stress links with the founder or other important figure in the history of the religion. At such sacred sites, believers hope for the clearest and most direct exchange with God. Mecca (Makkah), for instance, is a historically significant sacred place for Muslims, whereas the mosques where they worship on a day-to-day basis have a different level of significance, despite the fact that all worship takes place facing Mecca. Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, is the birthplace of Prophet Muhammad. It houses the great Masjid al-Haram and is the holiest city in Islam and a place of pilgrimage for Muslims all over the world. The Jewish tradition of placing notes with prayers between the stones of the Western Wall in Jerusalem rests on the belief that this wall, which is a retaining wall of the former temple, contains remnants of the shekhinah, which is the divine presence that once resided in the temple. The construction of the Sikh shrine in Amritsar is believed to have been started by Guru Amar Das. The pool in Amritsar has been a sacred place from antiquity and is believed to have been visited by the Buddha; it is also believed that the Hindu deity Ram and his sons fought at this site. Such sacred places carry a much higher level of reverence than other places of worship that have been consecrated in more recent times.

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