ABSTRACT
A dramatic change took place in the Brahmanical tradition in the understanding of the relationship between divinities and space from the time of the Vedas to the period of the composition of the tirthayatra chapters of the Mahabharata, a text that has been called the religion of tirthas. While Sharma’s interest was the understanding of Indian feudalism, several other Indian historians influenced by R. S. Sharma’s work have applied his ideas in focused historical studies of Hindu pilgrimage traditions. Archaeological evidence shows that Varanasi was in a state of decay in the third to fourth centuries. The earliest epigraphic reference to Varanasi as a tirtha is, according to Arya, in the sixth century. The Puranas are the most important group of texts for the understanding of the expansion of the Hindu traditions of salvific space. In the Puranas, the treatment of tirthas is often in connection with rituals that involve dana to Brahmans.
