Any visual of Kanwariya brandishing sticks and swords and indulging in violence, as witnessed recently on several occasions, defies all that religious pilgrimages have been traditionally known for. The holy month of Shravana signifies the arrival of the monsoon season. Rains placate the parched land. And Kanwariyas start their journey. The pilgrims collect water from the Ganga and carry it in a palanquin to a sacred place to offer it to Lord Shiva. It is believed that offering water to Shiva is most pleasing to him as it cuts down the bitterness of poison that the god has been carrying since samudra manthan.
Romanian scholar of history of religion Mircea Eliade considers pilgrimage as an act or a journey towards transformation, in quest of a higher order of the sacred, away from the everyday world of the profane. Humans have the tendency to come close to what he calls Axis mundi, or the centre of the world or a point where heaven and Earth connect. These moments are represented through sacred events, places and journeys. Eliade considers these experiences as hierophanies or the appearance of the sacred in the world of everyday, which are universal across societies and cultures. Pilgrimages are moments of hierophanies.
Kanwariya pilgrimage has had a rich, profound and ancient past. In Delhi, it perhaps arrived much later. Baidyanath Dham or Baba Dham of Bihar, now in Jharkhand, is world-renowned for its great Kanwariya tradition. In Shravana, pilgrims rush to Sultanganj in Bihar, where they take a bath in the Ganga, take water from the sacred river in pitchers and start walking barefoot to Baidyanath Dham, known for its ancient temple of Lord Shiva. They are popularly known as “Bam”. In fact, they address each other as “Bam”. One of the popular and regular chants during the journey happens to be “Bol bam, bol bam; Bol re bhaiya bol re didi bol bam” (Chant o’ sister, brother, chant O’ bam). Typically attired in saffron clothes and carrying decorated palanquins of all sizes and colours, these bams keep walking through the day and night, navigating difficult hilly terrains and sometimes muddy trenches. The whole journey brims with the fervour of camaraderie and fellow feeling. More special and distinguished among the bams are those who walk non-stop and are known as daak-bam. People will make way for them, and they will be treated with utmost reverence. All the ordinary barriers of profanities, of castes and class, would evaporate amidst this bonhomie of faith. All one could hear were stories of support and gestures of sacrifices and help, for instance, when a stranger helped an elderly bam by carrying her on his back for many kilometres. People returned home having experienced not just divinity and communitas but also lessons in fellow feeling and togetherness.
Two distinct childhood memories, in particular, remain etched and indelible. Once, an elderly aunt, in her 60s, returned from the Kanwar yatra. She looked weak. Her feet were heavily swollen and bruised because of continuous walking. The whole family and neighbourhood in the village came to tend to her feet and seek her blessings. It was believed that the blessings that she earned in the pilgrimage would pass on to those who served her. The gains of pilgrimage were transmissible to the deserving and eligible. The opportunistic profane in these occasions saw some possibilities of proximity to the sacred. One learnt the profound lessons of humanity in these moments: Any attempt to achieve higher goals must necessarily celebrate the pain and suffering of the process.
Onset of rain and the beginning of Shravana since then have also been about the memory of the frenetic dance of the saintly fellow who would come visiting every household in the village, seeking alms to undertake the Kanwariya pilgrimage to Baidyanath Dham. His devotional songs were melancholic in tone and left a deep impression. That he came from the outskirts of the village made no difference whatsoever. People watched him perform in awe and reverence. Two lines that he repeated often — “Baba ho virage Odiya desh me. Bolo bhaia Ram-e- ram” (Lord Mahadev who belongs to Odiya Desh, let’s all chant the name of Ram) — continues to resonate, reminding us of a time perhaps when Odisha and Bihar were part of the Bengal presidency and a world where religion organised societies. Then, people used to communicate through profound symbolic meanings of religion. Today, are we even listening to our gods and what they signify in essence? Religion without its core of compassion loses its profundity, and thus, its soul.
The writer teaches Sociology at Dr B R Ambedkar University, Delhi. His latest book is The Deras: Culture. Diversity and Politics (Penguin/ Viking). Views are personal
