Victor and Edith Turner, in their book Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York, 1978), have written that "if mysticism is an interior pilgrimage, pilgrimage is exteriorized mysticism." In the Buddhist tradition, one undertakes a pilgrimage in order to find the Buddha in the external world; one undertakes meditation to discover the Buddha nature within oneself. The internal pilgrimage brings one closer to the goal of nirvāṇa (Pali, nibbāna) than does the external pilgrimage, but the turning toward the Buddha who is iconically represented in the marks of his presence on earth or in relics constitutes an important preliminary step along the path to enlightenment. That the Buddha actually existed in the world, and continues to exist through traces (Skt., caitya; Pali, cetiya), must be acknowledged before one begins to follow his teachings (Skt...