Smoking Sadhu
Although Hindu religious texts as well as sadhus themselves
hold varying opinions about drug use as a spiritual practice, it is
important to many sadhus, including the one pictured here. He is
most likely smoking a mixture of tobacco and hashish, or charas,
in a straight clay pipe called a chilam. Because the god Shiva is
admired for his ability to transmute poisonous substances into
harmless or beneficial elements, drug use is seen by many to be
an important spiritual practice unto itself. Shiva is invoked before
the first puff and the intoxicating properties are felt to be the
blessings of Shiva, Lord of Charas, and a means of attaining
divine wisdom and partaking in Shiva’s ecstasy. As a final
gesture of devotion, a sadhu may mark his forhead with chilam
ash. While smoking itself is considered an austerity
demonstrating non-attachment to the body, it also is a
communal ritual between sadhus and devotees.
Bathing in the Ganges at Dawn
Bathing is the first ritual a sadhu must perform
every day, not only to cleanse the body but to
purify the soul in order to prepare for subsequent
ritual and ascetic practices. Ideally bathing should
be done in a sacred river such as the Ganges,
where the sadhu dips three times while uttering
mantras and then invokes deities and his guru
with waterheld in his joined hands. During the
Kumbh Mela festival, millions of people make
make pilgrimage to different sites along the Ganges where it is said that the nectar of immortality was spilled on these sites during an ancient battle between the gods and the demons. Bathing at these auspicious moments washes away sins and purifies the soul, but there is a hierarchy of bathers and auspicious bathing days. The most important are the days for the shahisnan, “royal bath,” in which the sadhus, beginning with the Nagas, go in procession to the river, preceding the lay people and intensifying the sanctity of the holy river water.
Hanuman Das
By looking into the eyes of eight-six-year-old Vaishnava,
Hanuman Das the social function of the sadhu as a
charismatic guru, compassionate transmitter of spiritual energy
and earthly representative of the divine is plainly evident. Like
other magnetic sadhus, Hanuman Das likely receives offerings,
which he either keeps, sacrifices to his deity, or returns to the
devotees as blessed prasad, “food from the gods.” Just as
viewing a consecrated image of a Hindu deity is referred to as
darshan, or a returned divine gaze, so too do sadhus allow
themselves to be looked at as a means of transmitting their
spiritual energy to admiring devotees. As a renunciant, the
sadhu is the exemplar of religious practice and closest to the
divine, therefore he is capable of giving blessings and spiritual
instructions. Darshan may even be given through the
photograph of a sadhu.
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