Partying at Shivratri Mela

Meditation, processions, chanting, chillum-smoking and money-making accompany the annual Shivratri Mela aka Bhavnath Fair near Junagadh in the Indian state of Gujarat when hundreds of saffron-clad and ash-powdered naked Shaivite sadhus set camp in the vicinity of Mount Girnar. It’s a boisterous five-day festival, held every year on the 14th day of the Hindu calendar month of Magha, culminating with the full-scale worship of God Shiva at midnight of the Maha Shivaratri which is thronged with naked sadhus aka naga sadhus offering their prayers at the temple. Many of the Shaivite devotees believe that God Shiva himself visits the shrine here on this holiest day.

By the way, the Bhavnath Fair is the backbone of the economy of Junagadh, as more than one million pilgrims who visit the fair generate a revenue of c. 250 million Indian rupees (c. 4 million US$) in only five days...

"There is one thing the photograph must contain,
the humanity of the moment."
(Robert Frank)

More portrait photographs with Shaivite devotees in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2017-02b Partying at Shivratri Mela

Flickr Album 2016-02b Rambling Around Arunachala Hill

Flickr Album 2011-04a Depicting Tamil Nadu's Sadhus

Yellowing the Forehead

Many sadhus and Hindu devotees prefer to wear sandalwood tilakas on their foreheads. The area in which the yellow paste is applied is between and above the eyebrows, called the third-eye chakra aka ajna chakra. While a person's two eyes see the physical world, the third eye is believed to reveal insights about the future. The ajna chakra is the area that most schools of Hinduism consider the entry and exit point of the soul aka jivatma, and the brain area for thinking, concentration and memory. Applying sandalwood paste aka chandanam here has supposedly a cooling effect, aids concentration, and increases mind power. The soothing and antiseptic sandalwood paste connects the sadhus to their intuitions, gives them the ability to communicate with the spiritual world, and helps them receive messages from the past and the future...

The preparation of the sandalwood paste is a sacred duty fit only for the pure, so it is entrusted in temples and during ceremonies only to Hindu priests aka Brahmins. The paste is prepared by grinding wood by hand upon granite slabs shaped for the purpose. With the slow addition of water, a thick paste results, which is mixed with saffron or other such pigments to make chandanam. Chandanam, further mixed with herbs, perfumes, pigments, and some other compounds, results in javadhu. Both chandanam and javadhu are dried and used as chandanam powder and javadhu powder all over the Indian subcontinent.

“In the land of the blind the third eyed man is king.”

(Dean Cavanagh)

Portrait photographs of sadhus from Nepal in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2014-11a Bribing Sadhus from Nepal

Portrait photographs of sadhus from Tamil Nadu in Matt Hahnewald's

Flickr Album 2011-04a Depicting Tamil Nadu's Sadhus

Flickr Album 2016-02a Facing Lively Tamil Nadu