There is a popular story in Hinduism about the childhood rivalry of two deities, Ganesa and Karttikeya, both considered as the sons of Paravati and Shiva.
The symbolic vehicle of the elephant headed Ganesa is tiny mouse. Karttikeya, on the other hand, is represented as a handsome boy whose symbolic mount is the swift and colorful peacock. To test their prowess, they are assigned the task to circle the earth, and return as quickly as possible.

Karttikeya, promptly mounts his peacock and proceeds to circle the earth, leaving behind Ganesa with his tiny vehicle, and a major dilemma. While Karttikeya is flying at breakneck speed to circle the earth, the wise Ganesa ponderously, but cleverly, circumambulates his mother, thus symbolically circling the earth far ahead of the exhausted, and vanquished Karttikeya. Pradakshina has a powerful symbolic value in Hinduism.

Stoddard (1994: 18) identifies four key elements of pilgrimage: destination, movement, magnitude. and motivation. Preston (1992) adds "spiritual magnetism" to these critical components of pilgrimage. The most important component, of course, is the motivated pilgrim.

Circumambulation or Pradakshina involves all these elements, but it is the movement around, not toward a center.

It is a movement encompassing an object :  a temple, a holy site, a sacred mountain, a tree, a lake, a river, a city, and even includes circling around oneself. A circumambulating pilgrim recognizes the controlling power of the center and tries to remain in its orbit.
Recently, Coleman and Elsner (1994:32-33), and Malville (1995) speak about the phenomenon of circumambulation.

Coleman and Elsner view circumambulation from the perspective of comparative religions.
Malville, on the other hand, posits that pilgrimage (and by derivation circumambulation) is an example of self organization within complex systems. It should be noted, parenthetically, that the Hindus circumambulate their sacred spots apparently in tune with the solar system, In the language of the Chaos Theory, we may say that the circumambulating pilgrim is constantly influenced by the "attractor", be it a point, an area (ksetra) or a linear object (for example, the Narmada river).

Circumambulation (pradakshina) is imbued with deep meaning for the devotee. In the Encyclopedia of Religion, Diana Eck lists several meanings of circumambulation. Included among them are: honoring, centering, bonding, setting apart, and reaffirmation of the sacred territorial claim (Eck 1987: 509-511). Additionally, I believe, circumambulation symbolizes the fluidity of meaning characteristic of Hindu thought, such as: completeness yet continuity, fulfillment and quest, contentment and pursuit, comprehension and mystery. The pole star, for example, is the epitome of firmness in the Indian cosmology (Eliade 1987, 4:110), yet the Hindu cosmos pulsates; it dissolves and re-emerges.

The local geometry of circumambulation is, roughly circular but not necessarily a strict circle. Over thirty years ago, while trying to reconstruct pilgrimage topography described in the Great Hindu epic Mahabharata, I was struck by the directionality of the "Grand Pilgrimage of India" (Bhardwaj 1973: 44). No single authority, sacred or secular, structured this grand pilgrimage of India, yet it has become structured over many centuries. The pilgrimage started importantly from Pushkar (in Rajasthan), the sacred place of Brahma, the progenitor, and roughly following sun's direction the yatra encompassed virtually the entire Indian sub-continent (Figure 1). The significance of Pushkara as a starting point is asserted in the Mahabharata: "Just as Madhusudana is the beginning of all the Gods, so is Pushkara said to be the beginning of all the fords." (van Buitenen 1975:374)

In effect this grand pilgrimage was not only a long yatra in India, but was also a circumambulation or parikrama of the Hindu cosmic axis. As the sun circled the sacred mount Meru of the Hindu cosmos, so did the pilgrim always follow the path of the sun. The significance of the sun in Hindu religious astronomy has been brought out by Singh and Malville (1995:69- 88). Centrality of sun in Hinduism has ancient roots, going back at least to the Rig Vedic times. Although, as Singh and Malville observe, the significance of sun iconography is now limited in modern Hinduism, it is still deeply embedded in many critical rituals of life cycle, such as upnayana and marriage. The Mahabharata (vanBuitenen 1975:372) places much emphasis on making a sunwise tour of the earth to visit the sacred fords.

Interpreted in Eliade's terms (Eliade 1959: 39) the grand pilgrimage of India, by encompassing the country, perhaps reaffirmed India as a consecrated territory. Maybe such cultural encoding is a reason why in spite of the vast regional, linguistic and cultural differences, Hindus consider India as a single spiritual realm.

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