ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relation between the immaterial, mythological time in which Padmasambhava was believed to achieve immortality and the material, perceptual space through which human beings, who eventually will die, can achieve empowerments that bestow them with long life. Karma introduces a third kind of time, namely the circular karmic time of birth, death and rebirth to which all living beings are subject to according to Buddhist belief. By interacting with the material landscape of Maratika, pilgrims negotiate religious ideas about immortality, long life, and their own death; further through various ritual technologies they enroll themselves in the karmic relationality inherent in reincarnation. In this pilgrimage, time on the ultimate scale, the large scale and on a micro scale is connected in the ritual reality at Maratika. The chapter illustrates how pilgrimage landscape functions as a material bridge between mythological time, karmic time and human life time by analyzing how material landscape anchors the immaterial times in material spaces.
