Pilgrimage and the Environment: Challenges in a Pilgrimage Centre

Large scale movement of visitors during pilgrimages has a high potential to influence the environment in sacred sites. In traditional pilgrimage, environmental effects are governed by seasonality and are limited over time and space. This paper argues that significant changes in scale, frequency and character of such visitation over the past few decades reflect new pressures on the environment of sacred sites. Using a case study of the sacred complex of Tirumala-Tirupati, a popular pilgrimage centre in south India, this paper explores causal linkages between different factors that shape the environment in a pilgrimage centre.