Being a Kanwaria - A Journey of Faith and Self-Realization

By T. V. Sinha
Aug. 28, 2008

Shiva is one of the most popular gods in the Hindu pantheon. One can find a Shiva temple or at least a Shiva Chabutra (platform) in almost every village of India. According to legend, when gods churned the ocean, alongside many good things, Garal or poison also appeared. This started to cause widespread destruction. To save the earth, Shiva consumed the poison, thereby earning the name Neelkanth ( the Blue throated god). As a result, he felt a lot of heat. It is a tradition to offer water to Shiva in the month of Shravan (July - August) to cool him down. As it is also believed that Ganga emanates from the locks of Shiva and is his daughter, Gangajal (Ganges water) is considered the most appropriate offering to him. Legend aside, water offering makes it possible for all – rich and poor alike – to offer it to him and seek His blessings.

The offering of Gangajal to Shiva at the popular shrine of Vaidyanath Dham at Deoghar in Jharkhand in Shravan takes the form of a month long fair called Shravani Mela. Ganga is some 110 km away at Sultangunj in Bihar. But the pull of faith brings hundreds of thousands of devotees every year. The saffron clad pilgrims called Kanwarias collect water from the banks of Ganges at Sultangunj and carry it all the way to Deoghar on foot to offer it to Baba Vaidyanath, the form of Shiva which is curer of diseases.

As a child, I had seen the multitudes of saffron clad Kanwarias at the Patna Junction railway station. I had read about it in the popular Hindi magazine Dharamyug during my school days in 70’s. But beyond that, it was a world quite different from my world.

I belong to a typical Indian middle class family. The stress during school days was on studies and other intellectual pursuits like elocution and debates. I was above average in studies. As if to make that up, I was consistently below average in all forms of sports with the possible exception of Chess. I tried to pay some attention to sports while doing engineering, but a nagging back problem put paid to all such plans. Now, at a forty plus age and employed in a software company, I lead a fairly sedentary life. So to think of taking up the physically demanding Kanwar yatra is not exactly routine for me.

My school friend Sanjay Sinha, a native of Bhagalpur, had been writing about his annual Kanwar pilgrimage. What struck me was his description of the simplicity of life and the quiet divinity of the environment and I decided to experience it for myself. To be honest, I did not even check the Internet to find about the hardships. I did not do any preparation by way of physical conditioning or buying special provisions. I just decided to undertake this journey and landed up at Patna from Mumbai.

Mine or my family’s familiarity with things Kanwaria was so meager that it took quite a bit of search to locate a shop selling the saffron clothes needed for the journey: given the popularity of Kanwars in Bihar, it should not have been. I, in fact, decided not to buy the Kanwar, the bamboo stick used to carry the water at Patna but rather to buy it under advice from Kanwar mates at Sultangunj.

Next - Road journey to Sultangunj =>>