must give up 16 things when he reaches Ganges river, including behavior such as praising another tirtha, striking any one, sexual dalliance, accepting gifts, giving one's used clothing as gifts to others. Kshetra A pilgrimage place or location in some Hindu texts is also referred to as Kshetra (IAST: kṣētra, ), literally any "field, area, tract of land". A kshetra denotes a holy precinct or temenos. Kshetra is also an etymon of the Avestan term Xšaθra "[Desirable] Dominion", which holds the semantic field "power" and is also a personal name for a divinity or immortal who comprises one of the Amesha Spentas of Zoroastrianism. Xšaθra or Shahrevar conquered that which was evil and annexed territory thus won, proffering it to the honest, peaceable and humble. A kshetra often refers to a collection of tirtha locations (temples, river banks) in a certain location, such as Varanasi, Hardwar, Somnath, Mathura-Vrindavan, Ayodhya, Puri and Kanchipuram, are referred to as a kshetra. A kshetra may denote a place where there is a temple or where there is held to have been a person or event of sacred, religious or dharmic importance. The Kurukshetra specifically is the "field" or "precinct" where the Pandavas and Kauravas fought a religious war as told in the Bhagavad Gita section of the Mahabharata. A kshetra need not be distant permanently developed travel site, and refers to any temporary space, such as a wedding area or mandala set up for a worship, that is sacred. Both yantras and mandalas are sometimes referred to as kshetras. Buddhism has two analogues to the kshetra, the Pure Land or buddhakṣetra and the refuge tree. The Vaishnava Puranas enumerates seven sites as the gates of Moksha: Ayodhya, Mathura, Māyā, Kāsi, Kāñchī, Avantikā (Ujjain), Purī and Dvārāvatī. Tirtha monastery The Gosains (Dashnami) credit Adi Shankara for setting up 10 monastic orders in India, of which Tirtha is one and is based in Dwarka, Gujarat in Kalika Matha. The entire list includes Tirtha and Ashrama in Gujarat, Vana and Aranya in Odisha, Giri, Parvata and Sagara in Uttarkhand, Saraswati, Bharati and Puri in Karnataka. See also Kshetram Kshetrajna Pilgrimage (section Hinduism) Hinduism (section Pilgrimage) Theertham Yatra Tirtha (Jainism) References Bibliography External links Sacred of the Sacred by Swami Tripurari Hindu philosophical concepts Hindu pilgrimage sites