Where does the stay-at-home pilgrim go? Pursuit of a Bhāvayātrā

The paper examines how, for Śvetāmbara Mūrtipūjaka Jains, a tīrthayātrā (pilgrimage) can be performed through bhāva ('cultivated action-disposition') without visiting a physical tīrthakṣetra—a practice called bhāvayātrā. This is often undertaken using a tīrtha paṭa, an abstract cartographic map of pilgrimage places. The paper explores the semantic and phenomenological dimensions of bhāva. It particularly examines how bhāva operates as an enabler of learning, cultivation, and dispositional transformation in practice and how it constitutes actions. It also examines how tīrtha paṭa allows realisation of place without physical presence. Analysing the Caityavandana Sūtras, contemporary Gujarati Jain texts, and practitioners’ oral histories to frame bhāvayātrā, the paper challenges reductive translations of bhāva as ‘emotion’ or ‘feeling’ and reconstrues it as ‘cultivated action-disposition’. It argues that bhāvayātrā enables pilgrims to reconfigure their dispositions towards the qualities of tīrthaṅkaras, foregrounding bhāva as a generative category for understanding tīrthayātrā in the Śvetāmbara Mūrtipūjaka Jain tradition.