Kora (pilgrimage)

Kora (Tibetan: སྐོར་ར, Wylie: skor ra, THL: kor ra) is a transliteration of a Tibetan word that means "circumambulation" or "revolution". Kora is both a type of pilgrimage and a type of meditative practice in the Tibetan Buddhist or Bon traditions. A Kora is performed by the practitioner making a circumambulation a in a clockwise fashion round a sacred site or object, typically as a constituent part of a pilgrimage, ceremony, celebration or ritual. However, in broader terms, it is a term that is often used to refer to the entire pilgrimage experience in the Tibetan regions.

For "pilgrimage", Tibetans generally use the term nékor (Tibetan: གནས་སྐོར, Wylie: gnas skor) "circling around an abode" (Tibetan: གནས, Wylie: gnas, THL: né), referring to the general practice of circumambulation as a way of relating to such places. In the context of kora, the né or néchen (Tibetan: གནས་ཆེན, Wylie: gnas chen) is rendered as "empowered", "sacred" or "holy" place/object, and the né is credited with the ability to transform those that circumambulate it. Aspects of both the natural and the man-made world are also considered to be the né of a wide variety of nonhuman beings such as iṣṭadevatās or ḍākinīs .

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