Kanwar yatra concludes for the year: The religious significance of the pilgrimage, steps taken for safe conduct

What is the Kanwar Yatra, and what arrangements were made for its orderly conclusion this year?

What is the religious significance of the Kanwar Yatra?

The Kanwar Yatra is a pilgrimage organised in the Hindu calendar month of Shravana (Saavan). This year, it began on July 4. While traditionally, saffron-clad devotees walked barefoot with pitchers of water to various Shiva temples, the yatra, or journey, is now often carried out in trucks and other vehicles.

In the Gangetic plains, the water is taken from pilgrimage sites such as Haridwar, Gaumukh and Gangotri in Uttarakhand, Sultanganj in Bihar, and Prayagraj, Ayodhya or Varanasi from Uttar Pradesh.

Devotees carry the pitchers of holy water on their shoulders, balanced on decorated slings known as Kanwars. The water is used by the pilgrims to worship Shiva lingas at shrines of importance, including the 12 Jyotirlingas, or at certain specific temples such as the Pura Mahadeva and Augharnath Temple in Meerut, Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi, Baidyanath Dham in Deoghar, Jharkhand, or even in the devotee’s own village or town.

This form of Shiva worship has special significance in the areas around the Ganga. An important festival with similarities to the Kanwar yatra in North India, called the Kavadi festival, is celebrated in Tamil Nadu, in which Lord Muruga is worshipped.

The legend of the ritual goes back to the ‘samudra manthan’, one of the best-known episodes in Hindu mythology narrated in the Bhagavata Purana and in the Vishnu Purana, which explains the origin of ‘amrita’, or the nectar of immortality.

As per the legend, many divine beings emerged from the manthan along with amrita, as well as ‘halahala’, or a lethal poison. Lord Shiva the Destroyer consumed the halahala so it would not spread. As Shiva drank the poison, his wife Parvati grabbed his throat in an effort to contain the poison and prevent it from affecting the worlds inside him. Shiva’s neck turned blue from the effect of the poison, which earned him the name Neelkantha, or the one with a blue throat. But the poison still had an impact, and his body was inflamed. To reduce the effects of that poison, the practice of offering water to Shiva began.

यह ‘पुष्पवर्षा’ आस्था का अभिनंदन और महान सनातन संस्कृति का वंदन है।

हर हर महादेव! pic.twitter.com/3sTL0qglnX

— Yogi Adityanath (@myogiadityanath) July 14, 2023

Another origin story of the Kanwar yatra is linked with Lord Parashuram, a devotee of Shiva. The first Kanwar yatra was believed to have been undertaken by Parashuram. While passing through a place called Pura in present-day Uttar Pradesh, he was struck by a desire to lay the foundation of a Shiva temple there. Parashuram is said to have fetched Gangajal every Monday in the month of Shravana for Shiva’s worship.

What are the pilgrimage centres and yatra routes?

The journey with the Kanwar can potentially extend to over a 100 kilometres.

While those in western UP and states like Punjab, Haryana and Delhi generally travel to Uttarakhand, devotees from Ayodhya and nearby districts go to Sultanganj by the Ganga in the Bhagalpur district of Bihar, from where they take the water and go on a 115-km journey to Baba Baidyanath Dham in Deoghar, Jharkhand, to offer the holy water to Lord Shiva.

Some travel to Baba Basukinath Dham in Jharkhand’s Dumka district.

People from eastern UP come to Ayodhya to take water from the Saryu river to offer it to the Kshireshwar Mahadev Temple in the town.

Others go to Varanasi and offer Ganga water to Baba Vishwanath.

Another important temple where devotees come is the Lodheshwar Mahadev in Barabanki.

In Uttar Pradesh, the Yatra is undertaken by pilgrims especially from the districts of Muzaffarnagar, Baghpat, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr, Hapur, Amroha, Shamli, Saharanpur, Agra, Aligarh, Bareilly, Kheri, Barabanki, Ayodhya, Varanasi, Basti, Sant Kabir Nagar, Gorakhpur, Jhansi, Bhadohi, Mau, Sitapur, Mirzapur, and Lucknow.

A Kanwariya walks with a child amid heavy monsoon rains in the holy month of Sharvan, in New Delhi, Sunday, July 9, 2023. (Photo: PTI)

The important routes used by Kanwariyas in Uttar Pradesh include the Delhi-Moradabad NH-24, Delhi-Roorkee NH-58 via Hapur and Muzaffaranagar, Delhi-Aligarh NH-91, the Ayodhya-Gorakhpur highway, and the Prayagraj-Varanasi highway.

While traditionally, the yatra followed strict rules such as the Kanwar not touching the ground once it is filled with holy water and the Kanwariyas walking to the shrines, these have now been loosened.

What were the arrangements made in UP, Delhi this year?

Though the Kanwar Yatra is an old tradition, its profile has been raised since the Yogi Adityanath government came to power in 2017. And hence, the entire police and administrative machinery in at least 14 west UP districts remains engaged during the course of the Yatra.

The highways are closed. Barricades were put up within towns like Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Shamli, Roorkee and Haridwar for 12 days to ensure that the Kanwariyas can have free passage.

A Kanwariya carries a ‘Shiva linga’ in Haridwar on July 5. (Photo: PTI)

A total of 1,165 routes are used by the devotees to reach Haridwar, and to man these, 243 companies of the Provincial Armed Constabulary(PAC), three of the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and seven of the Central Armed Police Forces (CADF), besides 13 additional SPs,75 Police Inspectors, 244 Sub Inspectors, 1250 police constables, 22 Traffic Inspectors, 150 Traffic constables besides anti-terrorist commandos were roped in from all over Uttar Pradesh this year.

The police force manned nearly 4,159 Shiva shrines in which the devotees pour the holy water.

Apart from police Quick Response Teams, drone cameras and high resolution CCTV cameras kept a watch on 1,056 identified hotspots/sensitive places.

Before the starting of the yatra, district police and commissionerates were issued directives to prepare a plan of traffic diversion, said the UP police in a statement.

In addition, 24 medical camps were arranged, stocked with thousands of snake bite injections,Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) and ambulances.

Arrangements were made for adequate lighting and flood relief. Divers were kept on the ready. Moreover, to prevent overcharging, directions were issued to put up rate lists on hotel and dhabas located on Kanwar routes.

In Delhi, the AAP government set up approximately 200 Kanwar camps in areas such as East Delhi, North East Delhi, and Shahdara, which are the entry points for the pilgrims.

The camps had water-proof tents, furniture, toilets, water supply, medical facilities, and other necessary amenities. The government said the number this year was around two dozen more than last year

Revenue minister Atishi said the government had also issued instructions to all district administrators to be on alert so that Kanwariyas did not face problems in Delhi.

with ENS inputs