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We had planned a day of visiting temples and the ruins of palaces which the area of Hampi has many of. Hampi is referred to as the birth place of the Hindu religion, the previous afternoon we had walked up the 550 stairs past groups of monkeys that led to a temple on top of a hill. This temple was apparently the home of Hanuman the Monkey God a very important figure in the Hindu religion, pilgrims who come to visit and worship at this temple pay homage to the monkeys on the way up the mountain just in case one of those monkeys happens to be the reincarnation of Hanuman. It was a truly wonderful experience especially listening to the monks in the temple singing and chanting in the same way that has been done continuously for hundreds of years. Although when we set out the next day we didn't expect to see that level of devotion we thought we might get a glimpse of what structured people's lives in the past, what we ended up seeing was one of the most moving and powerful events I think I am likely to witness in my life. I don't consider myself to be in any form religious I do however for some reason enjoy the pomp and ceremony that comes with the celebration of devotion regardless of what religion it happens to be.
Having been lucky enough to sit in on a Sunday Mass at St Peters Basilica at the Vatican in Rome and then watch the Pope address the crowd below, I have watched the local Shaman bless the tools ground, tools and the builders of the houses we built in Cambodia, this act even involved sacrificing a chicken and I have also had the chance to be with 4000 other people in the ceremony to open a new Buddhist temple that involved days of celebration, which had Lama's chanting, nightime kick boxing and the giving of gifts. It's wonderful that people gain such strength and a degree of guidance from their beliefs,if it gives comfort and structure to ones life then I'm all for it, in whatever shape it comes as long as it doesnt hurt or supress others. The act that we witnessed the other day makes all of these past acts of worship pale in comparison. This was a ceremony that we happen to stumble across because we happened to take a wrong turn on the way to the temples. We were riding along the road when we passed a large group of people gathered in an area off the side of the road where a small creek ran through, because of the colour and noise we automatically thought that perhaps it was a wedding, so we drove on not wanting to intrude. As we continued on it became obvious that we were going the wrong way so we turned around and headed back the way we came, when we drew close to where all the people had gathered we noticed that the road was blocked by them so we parked the bike and went to take a closer look. There was a man surrounded by priests, drummers and lookers on standing around as the main man was getting a 6-8 foot long spike pushed through his cheeks to create a piercing, This large sharp rod with a trident at one end ran horizontally between his lower and upper jaw, once the spike had been pushed right through both sides of his cheeks the pointy end had limes placed on it to balance it.
The man understandably was given a chair to sit down in. Meanwhile down on the creek bed things started to happen, a man in the crowd signaled to us to go down and take pictures, from his over zealous sign language I gathered there was about to be some more piercing about to happen. The priests. drummers and assistants who had conducted the piercing on the man had moved to the creek bed. The 2 men conducting the whole ritual where wearing head coverings that looked like large beanies made of pretty white flowers, the reason for this didn't become apparent until later on. The drummers where beating up a storm as a group of about 6 young women of around 20 years old prepared themselves to walk up one by one and calmly have a a small 50mm spike pushed through their tongues. The girl would stride up carrying her allotted spike, hand it to the priest/ monk/ shaman who would give it a wipe on a cloth he was holding, the girl would stick out her tongue the priest would then grab a hold of her tongue using the same cloth to gain some grip and and in an instant would drive the spike straight through the other side from top to bottom. Incredibly only one of these young women slightly flinched. They where left unable to retract there tongues or close there mouths, even if they were in great pain they were unable to tell you about it. Standing there trying to grasp what it was we had just witnessed, suddenly there was and older woman standing in front of the priest, off to her side stood a man with another 6-8 foot long spike with a trident on one end, he held it up as the priest pushed through the woman's cheek in the same fashion as the first man, they set about balancing it with limes and she was right to go. Now those of you who know me well enough know that I'm not impartial to a piercing but this really stretched the boundaries of what I considered to be a reasonable afternoons activities. However things didn't stop there in amongst all of these people was a group of young women and a few boys who where now starting to put milk urns on their heads and forming an orderly line, they lined up behind the woman with the trident, meanwhile back at the creek bed the priests that had the flowery hats put urns on there heads, but these ones didn't have milk in them instead they were made of clay full of hot coals and young men stood close buy feeding sticks into them to keep the fires alive. A large man who had been close at hand but up until this stage had not been involve was help to hoist a large heavy basket onto his head he to was now ready to go. Because of the crowd we hadn't up until this point realized that in amongst all these people was a small boy of about 10 who all of these acts revolved around. He looked at ease, he should have, as they had great plans for him. Those involved started to assemble themselves, a water tanker turned up and started to release water onto the road, women followed laying down long lengths of cloth to create a path for the group to follow. The priests with the fire on their heads set off first, followed by the small boy, the man with the basket came next and then the lady with the spike through her face, all the young women and men carrying the milk walked behind across the path of wet cloths laid out before them. They walked of into the distance. Our attention was bought back to the first man we had encounter, while we had been distracted by the to do down on the creek bed this man had had 2 very large hooks pierced through the skin on his back just above where the kidneys would be, the hooks had rope running off them and these ropes where attached to a car. Now it must be taking into account that we are talking about a small vehicle about the size of your average hatch back, but its still a car. I'm pretty sure when the designers sat down and considered the overall weight of the vehicle the last question that went through their minds was " is it too heavy for a man with hooks in his back to drag along" ?. Well they needn't have worried because they didn't create a car that was to heavy to be towed by a man using rope and hooks attached to his back because this man began to do just that. Don't forget this is a man who already has a huge metal rod between his teeth, he would lean forward and with encouragement from the drummer and his cohorts would start moving this car as he followed the procession . Every 10meters or so he would stop and have a break, men would rub his legs, pour water over him and shout encouragement. The road had a slight incline and under normal circumstances it wouldn't even rate a mention, but these circumstances where far from normal, I can only imaging but I would hazard a guess to think and vehicle attached to your back be it big or small would make even the slightest incline feel like the highest mountain. The procession went on, woman came out of their houses and poured water over the participants, men would run up drop to their knees squash a lime in the path of the priests and kiss their feet. All the time sticks are being fed into the fires and the young boy following behind is slowly showing signs of not feeling quite himself. Roughly 2 kms where covered quite slowly in this fashion, no doubt the man pulling the car had the hardest job of the lot but he took it all in his stride so to speak. We learned later that he had lived on only milk for the past 15 days as a form of purification and to bring him closer to his God. He stopped often by he at no stage gave any impression that this was beyond him. Eventually the whole group reached the temple, which you would think would be enough, well if you thought that you would be wrong because to get to the temple the participants had to walk through a pit about 3 meters long full of hot coals. It was astounding every single one of them without hesitation and with a look of determination would step straight into the pit and walk purposefully to the temple at the end. The last one to do so was the man who had just dragged a car up hill for 2 km using nothing but leg power and the hooks through his back, to him walking through some hot coals would probably be a mild relief. Some more rituals where carried out and the spikes and piercings removed, without us being able to see the young boy had become the reincarnation of Murugan, the son of Shiva also known as Ganesha We waited for a while and then the milk that had been transported on the heads of the young was shared with everybody. The following day a chicken and a goat were to be sacrificed and the meat shared with the congregation. We met a young boy who attempted to explain all the aspects and purpose of what was going on for fear of getting the story wrong I'm not going to try and elaborate on why these people chose to do this. The devotion, the enduring of pain and discomfort and the sheer belief that what they were about to undertake was of benefit truly bought tears to my eyes.
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beth
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wtfan amazing story. full onor full power as they used to say when i was in india!