Mahamastakabhisheka

On a lonely hill near the Indian village of Sravana Belgola, in the state of Mysore, stands a stone statue, 57 ft. high, of a stiffly poised man with a quiet, half-smiling face. The statue's name is Gomateswara, and he is a patron saint of India's Jain religion, an ancient offshoot of Hinduism. Half the population of India were once Jains, but their numbers have now shrunk to a bare 1,500,000. They dwindled possibly because of the ritual difficulties of their religion, which favors a strict asceticism and holds, among other tenets, that a believer must not harm any living thing, even worms or small insects.

Last week, traveling by railroad, buses and horse-drawn carts, 300,000 of India's remaining Jains gathered at the feet of Gomateswara's statue to celebrate Mahamastakabhisheka (the anointing of the head), a festival last observed in 1940. Day & night, pilgrims climbed the hill, chanting Gomateswara's name, and throughout the night floodlights lit up the statue. Jain sanyasis (holy men) were present to sanctify the occasion. Some of them were naked, following Gomateswara's own legendary example, to demonstrate their renunciation of earthly ties.

The Indian government took extraordinary precautions to protect the pilgrims. All of them had to receive anti-cholera inoculations and, despite the objections of the sanyasis, the area around Gomateswara's hill was sprayed with DDT, killing multitudes of living things in the process. Amidst the pious shouts of pilgrims, a public-address system warned: "Beware of pickpockets."

This week comes the climax of the Mahamastakabhisheka. The Jains have prepared a wooden scaffolding around the idol's back and sides. On the last day, hundreds of priests and sanyasis, as they have done for centuries, will mount the scaffolding holding clay pots full of milk and melted butter. To the sound of flutes and drums, they will pour milk and butter over Gomateswara's head. Then, the anointing accomplished, the faithful will scatter back to their homes across the breadth of India, for another 15 years or so, until the next Mahamastakabhisheka.

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