Tirtha Yatra (tīrtha-yātrā)

A tirtha is a ford, a crossing place where a river can be forded and, by extension, where the distance between worlds is thin; a tirtha yatra is a pilgrimage among them. The Mahabharata contains one of the earliest surviving guides to the sacred geography of India, as the exiled Pandavas are led from ford to ford by Lomasha, who tells the legend attached to each. Balarama walks the Sarasvati on the same principle during the last day of the war, which is how the epic files a second cycle of tales inside the Shalya Parva.