For women sadhus at massive Indian festival 'the soul has no sex'

ALLAHABAD, India, (AFP) -Pushpanjali Giri decided to lead the life of an ascetic after running away from home."To tell the truth, we stole away from our houses to become saints," said the irreverent Pushpanjali Giri, speaking in a tent at a Hindu festival in north India about a way of life usually identified with ash-covered naked men.

"After a visit to a temple I sent word with a friend that I was not coming back," said the dreadlocked woman, who went to live in a temple when she was about 14.

Now 25, she said her family tried to persuade her not to join a sect of religious pilgrims as a guru's disciple to become a sadhu, or holy warrior."If you grow a flower in your garden you won't be happy if someone else comes to pick it," she said, explaining the view of her family.

But the family eventually gave in and Giri now sits in a tent at India's Aardh Kumbh Mela, or half pitcher festival, which ends February 19, at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

There were only a smattering of female sadhus visible at most of the holy camps at the festival where millions come in six-year cycles to bathe in a mass purification ritual.

For Indian women it as an unusual path, one that veers sharply from their expected roles as wives and mothers.

But Pushpanjali's friends, and her fellow sadhus, say the relatively small number of women who do make the journey for the festival are free from harassment and fit in well with the men.

"Our gurus will be sometimes men, then we stay with them, or a woman with an all-women tent. But in any tent we are free," said Sadhvi Ahiyalya Giri, in her early thirties.

They belong to the Juna Akhara sect, known for its large number of Naga babas, or naked saints, who have a martial history of defending kings and in which gurus pass down traditions.

"There is no difference between the men and the women. That is the biggest thing about us," said Sadhvi, whose forehead was marked with two vermilion dots and three horizontal saffron-coloured lines.

Sadhvi, who shares the last name Giri with others in the order, underwent her initiation and left her worldly life, which included a degree in politics and a job as a nurse, more than 10 years ago.

The women sadhus laughed, joked and held hands as they described the happiness of their current life, which consists mostly of hours of prayer and meditation as well as pilgrimages.

But both agreed that very few women become Naga mais – Naga mothers – the full-fledged equivalent of Naga babas.
"It takes a lot of power, a lot of strength," said Pushpanjali.

After the Silent New Moon bath on January 19, when new sadhus join different orders, about 70 women became Naga mais in the Juna Akhara, compared to 1,200 men.

The next day, they could be seen parading past the akharas wrapped in simple white sheets, their heads shaved, before entering the camp to perform a fire ceremony.

It is at the Kumbh festivals that disciples of both sexes can ascend the order – hence their importance for the sects."The Kumbh is lovely. You meet other sadhus and also at the Kumbh the gods and goddesses all bathe in the water," said Pushpanjali, referring to a common belief in the importance of the pilgrimage to Allahabad.

The women, like all the other pilgrims, must bathe in public, but although it is a famously conservative country, many say there is no shame during the baths at the festival.

"I forget that I am a woman because the soul has no sex," said hazel-eyed Gauri Puri, originally from Livorno in Italy where she teaches disabled children for six months of the year.

Unlike the two Giris, who wander through the camp fraternising freely with male sadhus over tea and coffee, Gauri, who has been in the Juna order for only two years, consulted with her gurus several times during the conversation. Otherwise she sat in a trance-like state at their feet.

"I was looking for the love of god and I found it," she said. "In Italy there was depression, there was a lot of 'this is mine, that is yours', the mentality was not open."