The Last of the Naga
Naga Sadhu Prasad lives in Lohajung in Uttarakhand Province in the shadow of Nanda Devi. He was once a Royal soldier in Delhi but he now lives in a small, but relatively dry cave and for the past 30 years has focused his mind on his reflections as a Naga Sadhu for his small community, providing spiritual counseling and guidance for those who seek it. His life is all about meditation, teaching and generally avoiding outside contact. The latter is not hard since only the most adventuresome trekkers would ever even find his cave. It is not close to any popular climbing routes, it is not near any cities and there is almost no commercial activity around it for miles. In other words, to Naga Sadhu Prasad, it is perfect.
The cave is pretty basic. There is a large piece of burlap material for warmth, but the cave stays at 12 degrees Celsius most of the year and the small trickle of water at the back gives the Naga pretty much everything he needs. He has a few pots and a dish, but no utensils, as they are an extravagance to him. He occasionally has to forage for edible roots and leaves, which is a challenge on the barren hillside, but mostly his few students bring with them from town provisions and cooked food offered up by the community and sufficient to provide his meager diet. He prides himself in never having asked for food or help at any time in his life. His needs are insignificant in the cosmic bliss. Some day his students, who most likely take advantage of their affiliation with him in the community, will reach this state of peace.
The Naga dislikes cities of any size as he has not reached a sufficient level of enlightenment to completely ignore the stares and castigations of the young urbanites who see his traditional garb and beliefs as their own unfortunate embarrassment with their cultural heritage. This year he must go to Trimbakeshwar for Kumba Mela, which is his sacred obligation. He goes to purify his soul and to teach several of his followers in the sacred and anachronistic ways of his cult. Prasad has a desperate need to educate and encourage a select few of his faithful and both help with their cleansing, but mostly help get them on the path to being Naga Sadhu themselves.
The Naga Sadhu are monastic, solitary and extremely harsh to even the most devout and traditional Hindus. Between their rejection of clothing, lack of hygiene, hair growth, their ashen poultices and their stand-offish manner, it is little wonder that they cannot easily encourage new devotees. As with most any living creature, it is a priority for the Naga to perpetuate their faith and cult. It is even more so as their severe ways have diminished their numbers to the verge of extinction.
Prasad sits with his students (all two of them) and when he does speak he speaks in obtuse platitudes that an outsider would consider as either a riddle or simply gibberish. His words are opaque and challenging, but his students take great meaning and wisdom from them. My favorite was “The Mountain is the Universe and the Universe flows to the great River. So it has been and so it will always be. We go to the River to find the Universe and in doing so we are one with the Mountain.” This is as deep and as coherent as Naga Sadhu Prasad gets while puffing on his chillum (pipe) and inhaling ganja smoke (a traditional mixture of marijuana flower and leaf).
So it is said and so it shall be and Naga Sadhu Prasad and his two acolytes plan their assault on Kumba Mela. This holiest of pilgrimages is all the Naga holidays rolled into one and it only comes around every twelve years in Trimbakeshwar which seems somehow appropriate for the patient and long-suffering Naga. For Prasad and his fellow Naga tribesmen, the journey to Kumba Mela is as sacred a rite as the actual bathing. In the words of Naga Sadhu Prasad, “We struggle to be worthy and we cleanse to be pure, so to struggle for purity is its own reward, but we need no reward to be in the presence of Shiva.”
The most direct route to Nashik would be to go to Delhi and continue by train, but Prasad knows better. His military training does not allow for fear of the logistical confusion of a modern urban train station, but mostly he seeks to avoid the reprisal and reactions of the urbanites of Delhi that do not always share the ways of his cloth and his traditional beliefs. His atman is in tact and he is enlightened enough to avoid embarrassment, but he spent way too long in the brigade and finds that he can easily move from a state of grace to his old violent sergeant-at-arms.
So Naga Sadhu Prasad boards an old, slightly lopsided, but colorful Tata bus that will wend its way down Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh into Maharashtra to Nashik. They know to take the bus with the religious driver who feels it is a privilege as well as his obligation in getting the Nagas to their destination. The Naga are as free to do as they choose in these northern provinces as the sacred cows are all across India. In fact, most Naga adopt a rather menacing look to add to the concern that if they are bothered, the perpetrator will be at the wrong end of an uncomfortable curse. The trip will take slightly over five days with the Naga and his students sleeping and eating on the bus. A five day stint without bathing or hair care is not a problem for Prasad. His students find the adjustment somewhat more educational and challenging.
Along the way, the rural folk who ride the bus are generally more traditional than not and do not have to be asked for donations, but rather take bowls of food back to the band of pilgrims. The Naga adjust their dress when they are in public places like buses and consider this a mundane but acceptable compromise to keep the peace. For the ritual of Kumba Mela, the Naga must wear all of their symbolic and ritualistic adornment in order to maintain their standing. These are specifically not symbols of material wealth, but rather totems of the richness of their life experience and the spiritual reminders of Kumba Mela gatherings of the past. In much the same way that Westerners exchange pins at Olympic Games, the Naga exchange tokens and hand-made jewelry with one another with a great deal more solemnity. They do so usually with profound words of wisdom (at least by Naga standards) so that the tokens have even more meaning. It should be a zero sum system since the prized tokens are those which have been passed around the most, but the most empirical evidence of the dwindling population of the tribes is that the jewelry has proliferated and any self-respecting Naga has as much as he can wear.
Another ritual that Naga Sadhu Prasad will be sharing with his apprentices will be the informal and generally secretive martial arts contests that go on between the ashrams. Some Naga are like Prasad and are trained soldiers, so the pain and pride of battle are much admired. Naga Sadhu Prasad is old, but tough. His students are young and tougher yet. One tried to become a Kushti wrestler, but lacked the passion to spend each waking hour wrestling and training. The other had a less productive path through the back alleys and streets of Old Delhi where he ran afoul of a policeman, who, like Prasad, had spent his life in the military. The policeman took him to see Prasad out of curiosity of what had become of his old drinking buddy. Finding the cave was only slightly less threatening than what he offered the young tough if he did not stay with Prasad in the cave. Prasad worried about the atman of his acolyte, but such was the recruiting need of the Naga.
And suddenly after five days in the back of a rather bumpy and stuffy bus, Naga Sadhu Prasad and his two young students disembarked to the sight of walls of people calmly walking towards the river. India is commonly noted for the constant stream of apparently aimless pedestrians crowding the sides of streets as cars and trucks honk and rush by. But in Nashik and Trimbakeshwar regions the police have created a 15km “no-vehicle” radius, so for this two months of Kumba Mela, there would be no point in trying to drive anywhere near the river. The throngs are unimaginably dense. It is estimated that 100 million faithful will join in Kumba Mela this year. That is a number beyond the imagination of most Naga, but the scale of the humanity is surprisingly comfortable for these solitary men and women cave and forest dwellers. Individualism is a vanity that does not mesh with oneness of life. So this sea of humanity is just that, an ocean of soul, striving to be cleansed in the sacred river of life. Birth, life and death all take place here at Kumba Mela and all blend into one karmic mass.
The pilgrims at Kumba Mela are more embracing and accepting of the Naga than even the rural folk on the road from Uttarakhand. Many have been before and have seen the Naga. They choose to revere or fear them the way primitive people around the world treat the fine line between sorcerers and priests. Prasad does not try to scare people, but his severe manner and menacing look do the job without fail. His acolytes secretly like this about their guru. It brings honor and respect to them in their simple and somewhat crude world.
And then there are the beggars who mimic Sadhus and even Naga Sadhus as a means of survival and a free ride for a few months. This is perhaps the one thing about Kumba Mela that is very upsetting to Naga Sadhus Prasad. It forces him to question his path and even coming to Kumba Mela. But without Kumba Mela, life would be too monotonous even for a stoic Naga. Social interaction may be a luxury to the Naga, but it is more a necessity of life for mankind. And the Naga, despite their appearance and extremism are part of the humanity that makes Kumba Mela.
Prasad arrived in Trimbakeshwar on July 10th, four days before the first of seven bathing days. They have brought the burlap from the cave and use them as a shelter near a tree next to thousands of other shelters just like theirs. The ground is muddied with everything and anything and yet none of the faithful seem to mind. It is unclear if this is a state of grace or simply an acceptance of their impoverished place in the cosmic order. As for Naga Sadhus Prasad none of it scratches his concentration. He is in a state of pure and utter quiet and oblivious to the masses around him.
The morning of September 13th finally arrives. Bhadrapad Amavasya, the main bathing day, for those Nagas who did manage to sleep, brings a wake up call at 1:30am to prepare for the forty five minute walk to the bathing area in the center of Trimbakeshwar. 2:30am is when the first Nagas plunge into the murky waters. Even though the Nagas arrive well before the other millions of sadhus and pilgrims, the press of flesh on flesh is as powerful as a bulldozer. One must stay upright or risk being trampled and yet another Kumba Mela statistic. His students do a good job of shielding Prasad, but it’s clear they too are somewhat powerless in the face of the horde. As they near the water, the push calms and the local police have seen to some semblance of order as the faithful bathe, pray and move on away from the river in a reasonably orderly manner. No sporting event of this scale would ever be as calm and organized, but the sense that anyone in the throng is only one push away from oblivion is a great leveler. Prasad shows his students the proper ritual at the river and quietly moves on. It is too selfish to spend more time in the holy waters.
Naga Sadhus Prasad stays on at Kumba Mela for another two weeks, talking sparsely to other holy men and eating food from generous and pious pilgrims with plenty. It is time for the bus ride home to the barren north where he is most comfortable. In three years he will go to the Ganges for Kumba Mela, Shiva willing. As he and his student (the Kushti wrestler) board the same Tata bus with his friendly local driver, Prasad settles to the back next to a friendly goat and says a quiet prayer. He prays for the atman of his wayward student who has gone missing and has likely found a different path that suits his temperament better. He prays for his loyal student who he hopes will stay on the Naga path. And he prays for all the Naga, for he sees a great twilight descending on his people.