Pilgrimage, Infrastructure and Cyber-network:

This paper examines the folk religious practice re-formed in Tibet as a peripheralized land in modern China, which is undergoing transitional modernization under the communist regime.<br> On the contemporary Tibetan Plateau, the “Development West” project that started in 2000 has continued now for over 15 years. Thereby, the infrastructure network comprising huge dams, the power network supplied by hydroelectric power stations, highways, and airports, the Qinghai-Tibet railway, and the 3G broadband networks are widely covering the Tibetans’ rural communities. The complex of modernity spread by this state-led development has an extensive influence on the holy places in Tibet that were previously isolated from society by being located in inhospitable natural environments. Such entangled situations where religiosity and modernity are deployed intricately in the physical space of a holy place cannot be sufficiently grasped by the traditional Buddhism-centered approach, which has analyzed the structure of the holy place by examining the cosmological framework given to its natural space.<br> In this paper, after acknowledging the fundamental fact that the holy place is a physical space, I examine how the structure of the holy place that was materialized by interpreting “natural space” as “pure land” is influenced by the modernity that pervades the holy place from the outside. My observations are based on concrete research data on an actual pilgrimage site in the northeastern part of Tibet.<br> The focal point of my research is a snowcapped holy mountain called “Amnye Machen” (rma chen gangs ri), located in Golok Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, occupying the southeastern part of Qinghai province. This mountain entered the sexagenary-cycle pilgrimage year in 2014, the horse year, and a huge number of pilgrims flocked to it throughout the year. The distance of the pilgrimage circuit is 180 km, and pilgrims can walk around the entire mountain in 5–7 days. This great holy mountain is characterized by the various myths centering on one of the most famous mountain gods in Tibet, Machen Pomra, and is also famous as a powerful place since numerous yogins and lamas had visited for meditation practice. <br> In this paper, I adopt a detailed viewpoint based on the latest fieldwork data of the intensive interviews with local traders, monks, developers, etc. in order to scrutinize the various people in this holy place who gain economic profits and other types of benefits by utilizing the venue’s value in belief as a “commercial resource.” Moreover, since their field for development activities physically covers the entire pilgrimage route, the traditional religious activities cannot help but be influenced by their economic practices.