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Foreigners gather at India’s religious mega festival
ALLAHABAD, India, Jan 22, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – At the Kumbh Mela, the world’s
biggest religious event, millions of Indian Hindus are not the only people
bathing in the sacred waters to wash away their sins.
Foreigners too are among the ascetics, saints, sadhus and spectators
thronging the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers
in northern India for what is billed as humanity’s biggest gathering.
Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati grew up in a Jewish family in California but
moved in 1996 to an ashram in Rishikesh — the town made famous
internationally when the Beatles visited in 1968 — and changed her life and
her name.
“I was on holiday with a backpack and when I got to Rishikesh, on the banks
of the sacred Ganges, I had a very very deep, very very powerful spiritual
awakening experience which made me realise where I need to be, where I need
to spend my life,” she told AFP.
The 47-year-old is among the worshippers taking a dip at the Kumbh, which
is expected to attract well over 100 million people over the next seven
weeks.
“The reason we take a bath in the sacred waters is to achieve
immortality… immortality of the soul,” she said.
“It felt amazing, it always feels amazing… Normally only the body gets
wet but here you actually feel like your inner self is getting wet, your
heart, your soul is getting wet, your spirit… The depth of my being is
being touched.”
A record 22.5 million people plunged into the waters on the first day of
the Kumbh last Tuesday, according to local officials.
Nearly 30,000 police helped by drones buzzing overhead have been deployed
to oversee crowds and prevent stampedes.
A vast tent city with restaurants, roads and marketplaces has sprung up
along the river, with pilgrims camped out across a sprawling 45-square-
kilometre (17-square-mile) zone.
Westerners who have immersed themselves in Hindu spirituality include Baba
Rampuri, who claims to be the first foreigner to be initiated into India’s
largest and most ancient order of yogis, the Naga Sannyasis of Juna Akhara.
The surgeon’s son — reportedly born William A. Gans — grew up in Beverly
Hills and moved to India in 1970, and like Saraswati is active on Facebook
and Twitter.
“I am not a great believer in modern technology, or the consumerist
messages being sent out through the medium, but we have to make people aware
that we exist,” he told the Indian Express.
Another is Sir James Mallinson, the dreadlocked fifth baronet of
Walthamstow and British academic ordained as a mahant, or Hindu priest, in
2013. He also runs a paragliding firm in the Himalayas.
Many of the foreigners at the Kumbh are simple tourists though, keen to see
the ash-smeared, pipe-smoking Naga sadhus, naked except for beads and flower
garlands.
One ascetic has had his right arm raised for seven years. Another has been
standing for eight months and aims to do so for another 43 months.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1042 hrs