The making of a mahant: a journey through the Kumbh Mela festival

By James Mallinson

Share

Print

Clip

Gift Article

Comments

Email

{"url":"http://w w w

The making of a m

This weekend, Hinduisms greatest gathering draws to a

close. James Mallinson, a Sanskrit scholar, and his friend,
the actor Dominic West, joined the millions who converged
to bathe in the Ganges

Cambridge Jones

Crowds head towards the Ganges to bathe in the holy waters

A final, vast wave of pilgrims will make its way this weekend to Allahabad in
north India, where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers meet, for the closing mass
river bath of the great Hindu pilgrimage, the Kumbh Mela. It is the biggest
gathering of people the world has ever seen: as many as 30 million people are
said to have taken part in the festivals main bathing day on February 10.

More
ON THIS STORY

Video Indias pop-up mega city

beyondbrics Kumbh Mela worth learning from

Pop-up megacity is a lesson for India

Indian pilgrims killed in stampede

Notebook Exasperated India reacts to a tragedy

Sign up now

FirstFT is our new essential daily email briefing of the best stories from across the web

Yet most of the camps set up near the riverbank lie empty at present, deserted
after a deluge last month forced many to cut short their pilgrimage to the twomonth festival. I and my friend, the actor Dominic West, fled too, sheepishly
abandoning our host my guru as water flooded into the tiny tent that had
been our home for a fortnight. Tomorrows closing bath is likely to be something
of an anticlimax: perhaps just five million people will take to the water.
In my academic life, I specialise in Sanskrit texts on yoga. But it was a fascination
with Indias holy men, the original practitioners of yoga, rather than yoga itself
that first inspired my studies two decades ago, and I have always sought to
complement my research with insights from traditional yogis.

<div class="storyvideonojs"><div><p>You need JavaScript active on your

browser in order to see this video.</p><img alt="No video" src="http://im.ftstatic.com/m/img/logo/no_video.gif" /></div></div>
More video

The best place to meet Indias sadhus, or Hindu holy men, is at the Kumbh Mela
bathing festivals held every three years, which rotate through four different holy
riverside sites. The one at Allahabad is the biggest by far, and its Mela (festival),
held once every 12 years, is known as the Maha or Great Kumbh. Sadhus must
attend and their camps, home to hundreds of thousands of them for up to two
months, are the Melas centrepiece. The main events are three days when it is
deemed particularly auspicious to bathe. The sadhus go in procession to the river
watched by millions of pilgrims, who come for the blessings that the sight of the
holy men bestows and to bathe themselves.

Cambridge Jones

James Mallinson is ordained as a mahant by his guru Babaji as Dominic West

(top right) looks on
My first Kumbh Mela was in 1992 and it was there that I met my guru. A series of
haphazard events had my now wife and me staying at the camp of a friendly old
sadhu. As we sat by the fire, Claudia was nudged by another sadhu who pointed
at a rakish holy man walking by. Beware of that master yogi, he whispered. if
he gets inside you he will suck out all of your energy. Id read in Sanskrit texts of
vajroli, the practice of urethral suction. Now expunged from prudish translations,
it was said to be the ultimate technique of yoga. And this charismatic young
sadhu could do it! We found ourselves gravitating towards him. Within a week he
had initiated us into his order and we moved into his tent.
I have stayed in my gurus camp, often for a month or more, at every Kumbh
Mela since, and spent much of the periods in between wandering around India in

his company. But this years Mela was different. Not only was I there with my old
friend Dominic West and a film crew, but I was to be made a mahant, or
commander of the order into which I was initiated 21 years ago.
At the end of 2011 I had taken Dominic to a monastery of tantric yogis in the
Himalayas. Our night with them fell somewhere between The Canterbury Tales
and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Our hosts included Yogi Baba, an ashsmeared chillum-smoking contortionist who threw a sequence of improbable
pretzel shapes to the accompaniment of pounding techno; a dreadlocked ascetic
who spends the nights of winter sitting in meditation while freezing water is
poured over his head; and the fat, shaven-headed abbot who, in between eating
balls of opium, counted the takings sent up from the lucrative fire temple below.
In the morning a priest from the temple fed Dominic the curried flesh of a freshly
sacrificed goat (as a vegetarian I was excused) and hinted, with some pride, that
he and his colleagues indulged in more sordid tantric rites. Dominic was
intrigued not even his Catholic upbringing had prepared him for this and we
vowed to go together to the Kumbh Mela, where the full range of Indias holy men
would be on display. And while there, why not film it? Each time it comes around,
the Kumbh Mela is the subject of more and more media interest but its inside
story has never been told.

Cambridge Jones

Babaji, Mallinsons guru for the past 21 years

Despite my assurances to the contrary, Dominic and the rest of the crew expected
to find, and perhaps to have to adopt, at least some of the trappings of
conventional religion: rituals, rules, dogma and maybe even a bit of yoga. But
there was none of that (at least in our camp) and Dominic was soon won over by
my guru, or Babaji, as I call him. Babajis daily routine consisted of sitting crosslegged at his sacred fire, drinking chai and smoking chillums. For a week none of
us saw him sleep and he barely ate. He would sit there running the show,
attending to our needs, entertaining a stream of devotees and holy men, and
ensuring the security of the camp. After three days Dominic declared that Babaji
should have been the captain of a pirate ship and that he would follow blindly any
charge he led. Id die for him, he said, and we all agreed.

...
Before wed arrived, at the insistence of our producer, Id rung Babaji a couple of
times to confirm the camp arrangements. How many of you are there? he
asked. Seven, I said. The pause before he said that it would be OK was slightly
worrying but I did my best to be more upbeat with the producer.
The tent turned out to be smaller than those laid on for single travellers in the
posh tourist camps on the edge of the festival. But it would have done for 20
Indian pilgrims and having to do a bit of adjust, as they say in Hindi, was a
small price to pay for the privilege of bedding down in the Knightsbridge of the
Kumbh Mela, the camp closest to the confluence.
Babaji kicked out a couple of devotees from Gujarat and we took over the tent,
filling it with all our film gear and leaving Babaji with no refuge from the
occasional rainstorms. The one bed in the tent was covered by Babajis tiger skin.
The skin had belonged to an inmate of Gwaliors royal zoo; when he died, the
queen had given his skin to Babajis own guru. Tiger skins have long been the
yoga mat of choice for Indian sadhus. As the leader of our troop, that was where I
had to sleep. When I voiced my apprehension, Babaji told me not to worry,
adding that if I were lucky it might awaken my Kundalini (energy) or have me
levitate. If it did either, I didnt notice, but I have never slept better, despite the
constant chants blaring out from sound systems all around.

Cambridge Jones

Saris drying after pilgrims took to the waters

The Kumbh Mela is, of course, a religious festival but for the holy men themselves
it is perhaps the most mundane part of their sacred round. As the one time when
they all assemble, it is where organisational decisions, appointments and
promotions are made. There is little time for the spiritual practices they pursue at
their ashrams.

As their regimented camps illustrate, the various holy orders are organised along
military lines. In the power vacuum of 18th-century north India, when the
Mughal empire was fizzling out and the British were yet to take control, various
sadhu orders developed battalions of nagas, or warrior sadhus. At first they
fought over the control of pilgrimage routes and the right to receive alms. Before
long the battalions grew into fighting forces of 10,000 or more naked, ashsmeared mercenary yogis, whose commanders would sell their services to the
highest bidder.
As the East India Company expanded west from Calcutta, its main opposition,
the Maratha armies, was forced to capitulate after the British bought up a
massing force of 16,000 sadhus. Now nothing stood between the Company and
Delhi. But the sadhus had made the wrong choice: the rise of the Raj precipitated
their downfall. Once the British had established control of north India they
quickly quashed the mercenary sadhu armies. The Kumbh Melas had been the
scenes of huge battles in which thousands of sadhus died. The British stationed
armies to keep the peace and the sadhus military displays became purely
symbolic. To this day the layout of the camps and the order of the processions on
the main bathing days remain as they were when the British took charge.
The Raj was also responsible for the Mela taking on its current timetable, despite
claims that it has been going for millennia. While there have indeed been bathing
festivals at Allahabad for thousands of years, it was not until the late 19th century
that the system of triennial Kumbh Melas was established. The British wanted to
halt such festivals, perceiving them as breeding grounds for both disease and
dissent, so the priests of Allahabad, fearing for their livelihood, cooked up a myth
to prove the ancient heritage of the festival.
Despite being deprived of their military role, the naga units were not disbanded.
One morning Dominic and I visited a naga camp and were treated to a desultory
display of swordsmanship, for which a fee was expected. The naga divisions were
set up to defend yogis and ascetics in return for financial support but, with their
raison dtre long gone, they have had to resort to other lines of power-oriented
business to survive. These range from land ownership to politics to out-and-out
racketeering. It is the nagas to whom the government allots the Mela land, which
they then sell on to other sadhus, who also have to pay protection money. Any
sadhu who refuses risks a beating and is barred from bathing on the main days.

Cambridge Jones

Dominic West after bathing

The organisation of the order as a whole is still that of an army of independent
brigades, each headed by a mahant, or commander, who must share resources
with the rest of the order to maintain his position. Babaji is a mahant and I have
always paid for him to throw a small feast at the Mela in order to make my
contribution to the camp.
This time, in return for being allowed to bring in a film crew, we felt we should
feast the entire camp of nearly 1,000 sadhus. When I proposed this to Babaji he
said that throwing such a feast would entitle me to become a mahant. I laughed,
but the film crew was understandably keen. I was uneasy. The sadhus of my order
are men who have renounced the world: they left their families as children and
have lived off alms ever since, devoting their lives to the service of their deities
and fellow sadhus, and undergoing intense austerities and yoga practice in order
to get closer to God. In pursuit of a deeper understanding of the sadhu world I
have adopted their appearance and some of their ways, but I am no holy man. Im
a happily married father trying to make a career as an academic and writer.
I was worried that to become a mahant I would have to pretend to be something I
am not in fact I thought of asking Dominic for some acting tips but my
misgivings were unfounded. The division between sacred and profane is not as
clear-cut in India as elsewhere. I was inducted as a scholar-mahant, not a sadhu,
and to confirm my position several hundred other mahants of the order honoured
me by placing flower necklaces around my neck. I, in turn, honoured them by
touching their feet and giving them money according to their rank. The only
objection raised was from a mahant worried that I would turn up at the next Mela
with a gang of 200 foreigners and set up my own camp.
Far from being the awkward ordeal I feared, the ceremony was a boisterous
celebration and afterwards I felt assured of my position in the community for the
first time. Indeed, I was no longer viewed as an unclean foreigner: even those
sticklers for Hindu purity who had refused to take away my used chai cups
viewed me as one of their own. And I found myself the beneficiary of the financial

reciprocity that sustains the order. As a mahant I was given money whenever
anyone else became a mahant or threw a feast. Three or four times a day sadhus
would accost me and thrust notes in my hand. But they would also remind me
that I am now obliged to throw a big feast at every Mela.
Four days later was the dark of the moon, the day of the biggest bath of the
festival. Indias growing middle class, improvements in travel infrastructure and
increased media coverage of the Kumbh have meant that it has grown massively
over the past few decades. Official state government estimates admittedly
unverifiable and unreliable, as they are the measure for financial support from
central government put the number of pilgrims bathing on the big day at 30
million. Relatively few linger at the festival for more than a day they come only
to see the holy men and bathe. Our camp rapidly filled to bursting point. People
slept wherever they could find space; the eaves of our tent accommodated a
dozen pilgrims. But the organisation maintained order, with crowds flowing
freely through the festival and an army of cleaners keeping the camps
spotless.Tragedy struck at the final hour, however, when a stampede at the train
station led to 36 deaths.

Cambridge Jones

Pilgrims collect holy water from the Ganges

Dominic and I walked to the confluence in procession with the sadhus of our
camp. The crowds certainly felt bigger than ever before and it was with panic and
exhilaration that we were swept towards the water. Dominic had been ambivalent
about bathing; it was why we were there but reports of dangerous levels of toxins
in the water had all of us worried. There was no chance of turning back once we
were in the flow of holy men, however, and I have never felt so much at one with
a crowd. With everyone stripped down to their loincloths, a sense of individual
identity fell away and we surrendered ourselves to the common purpose.

We ran into the shallow, turbid water and dunked ourselves the required three
times, keeping our mouths shut all the while, then joined Babaji and the other
sadhus as they splashed one another and gave raucous cries in praise of Mother
Ganges. The crowd was more chaotic as we fought our way back to dry land, with
files of militant sadhus protecting elderly gurus cutting swaths through our more
ragged troop. Once we had reassembled and checked that all were present and
correct, the relief, the dissipation of tension, was not anticlimactic but
triumphant and buoyed us along through our return to the camp.
The last of the Melas three big baths was five days later, on February 15, the first
day of spring. For many of the sadhus of our camp it also marked the first day of
their fire austerity, in which they sit in meditation surrounded by smouldering
cow-dung fires under the burning midday sun every day of the four-month hot
season. They were relishing a return to structured spiritual discipline after the
hustle and bustle of the Mela. The next day we were due to leave but before we
did so Dominic, taking advantage of the vacancy in his spiritual mentorship now
that the Pope had announced his resignation, asked Babaji to take him on as his
disciple. As Babaji put a necklace with a wooden tulsi bead around Dominics
neck, the heavens opened with a deluge deemed greatly auspicious by the sadhus.
The sky got darker and the rain heavier but Babaji refused to move inside. As we
loaded our kit into our vehicles and other sadhus took to their tents, he sat at his
fire, a blanket over his head doing little to keep off the sheeting rain. Shouting
over the noise of the storm, Babaji harangued pilgrims traipsing past with words
that applied just as well to us: Yes, you worldly people! Thats right, run along!
Gather your things and run home! Go and sort out your problems, your work,
your families! Quick, quick! Everything is falling down! Dont worry about me.
Im a baba. Ill just walk out of here with my blanket and go wherever I fancy. But
you must run. Run! Go! And go we did, promising to be back at the next Kumbh
Mela in three years time.
James Mallinsons books include eight translations of Sanskrit texts. He is
working on Rogue Yogis, about his time with sadhus.
For details of James Mallinsons and Dominic Wests film, visit
www.mountainsgreenpictures.com/dominicwestdocumentary