Adam's Peak, called Sri Pada, "the sacred footprint", is a conical mountain in the highlands of Sri Lanka crowned by a mark in the rock that four religions revere as a footprint, each attributing it to a different holy figure.
The footprint and its claimants
Near the summit is a large depression in the rock, about a metre and a half long, shaped like a footprint. Buddhists, for whom the mountain is most important, hold it to be the footprint of the Buddha, left on a visit to the island. Hindus attribute it to Shiva, and call the mountain Shivanolipatha Malai. Muslims and Christians identify it as the footprint of Adam, set down where, in one tradition, he first stood on earth after leaving paradise. The same mark thus anchors a genuinely shared, multi-religious devotion, unusual in its breadth.
The pilgrimage
Pilgrimage to Sri Pada is centuries old and remains vigorous. The main season runs from the December to May full moons, when pilgrims climb through the night by thousands of steps, the way lit and lined with rest stops, to reach the summit for dawn. A celebrated feature is the shadow the peak casts at sunrise, a near-perfect triangle thrown across the landscape and, in the right conditions, appearing to rise and settle. The climb is undertaken by Sri Lankans of all four faiths and by visitors, and the etiquette of the ascent is shared across traditions.
A shared mountain
Adam's Peak stands as one of the great multi-religious pilgrimage sites of Asia, a place where Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian devotion converge on a single summit without any one tradition displacing the others. It remains an active and physically demanding pilgrimage rather than a monument, its seasons and rhythms set by the religious calendar.