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This article aims to explore how people make pilgrimages not as a temporary journey but as a persistent way of life, using case studies I collected from fieldwork in Shikoku Island, Japan. The Shikoku pilgrimage is one of the most popular Buddhist pilgrimages, involving a 1,400-kilometre journey, where pilgrims visit 88 temples spread across the island. While previous studies have argued that the tradition of almsgiving helps marginal people such as the poor and those with Hansen’s disease to survive, it is not yet clear how those people, in reality, make a living on alms alone. In recent years, the pilgrimage authority and some of the local people have attempted to regulate begging and exclude “beggars” from the pilgrimage sites, differentiating them from the “true” pilgrims. This article will clarify how pilgrims, nevertheless, struggle to reconstruct their lives and then cultivate the self through their everyday practice of begging.

Case studies of male–female ascetic couples in Haridwar in North India complicate the widespread knowledge that male Hindu renouncers are supposed to observe celibacy. Based on extended ethnographic work, this article investigates specifically how female ascetics tackle the dominant androcentric discourses and practise celibacy from a female point of view, focussing on their practice of sevā or spiritual service. The article argues that while female ascetics do not object to the androcentric ideology of celibacy, they follow it only partly, switching their focus from sexual abstinence to devotional sevā. Doing this, female ascetics value controlling emotion more than controlling sexual desire. Through the practice of sevā, they aim for fostering an attitude of devotion as a feminised manifestation of their efforts towards reaching spiritual attainment.