If you'd like to know more about Aghors, don't hesitate to enter the skull-mounted gates at the seat of Aughad Kinaram at Krim Kund in Kashi, whenever you're there next. There is indeed nothing to be afraid of
A stone’s throw across the road from the Prime Minister’s three-year old ‘mini-Prime Minister’s Office’ in Varanasi, stands another address that’s been known by name alone for more than three centuries. Upon its open gates are mounted eight plaster-cast human skulls, grinning somewhat, as if knowingly. They scare away many but are not meant to scare at all — for the Aghor-mat abhors fear above all and this hallowed address is, after all, the Aghori headquarters. The skulls are perfect ushers at the entrance, their knowing grins being smiles of welcome, promising wisdom, if only you dare come in.
A shaded public rest area lies on the right of the walkway as you enter the spacious tree-lined quiet of the Aghor Peeth compound. The walkway opens into a large courtyard dotted with small shrines. In front is an elegant baradari — a semi-open hall used for congregations — facing which is a verandah that houses the portraits and memorabilia of the order’s founding abbots, the great Aghoracharya Kaluram and his even greater disciple, Aghoreshwar Kinaram, after whom the place (sthal) is formally named. large, calm black dogs lounge inside; a large, serenely calm Aghori in a white dhoti sits reading. At his feet, in a bowl, is the Peeth’s prasad-ashes from the Akhand Dhuni (unbroken ritual fire) of funeral pyre wood that has burned here for 400 years. You — whosoever you may be — can help yourself to it and ask of Baba Kinaram what you wish. Then give yourself a benediction at vast, sacred Krim Kund, and in return feed its many marvellous fish.
The antiquity of the sect can be gauged by the fact that Kinaram, born in 1601, to Akbar Singh and Mansa Devi, at Ramgarh in Chandauli district of Uttar Pradesh, is considered the founder of ‘modern’ Aghorism. His spiritual praxis began at age 12 in the Vaishnav tradition before graduating to the Shaiva-Shakta at Hinglaj Bhavani (now in Pakistan.) As per lore, the goddess herself, in person, cared for his needs during his sadhana, and on its completion told him that she would be moving back to her home town, Kashi, where he will find her again in due time.
Travelling via Kandahar, Kabul, and Kashmir — chastising kings, blessing prostitutes, defending many a destitute on the way — Kina then arrived in holy Girnar, where Dattatreya initiated him into the Aghor way. Three rather perilous peaks stand in a row there, which are revered even today as eternal seats of Dattatreya, Gorakhnath and Kinaram. In the latter’s biography, his disciple Baba Vijay Ram writes of his guru playfully intercepting from atop the middle peak, a chillum tossed by ‘Datt Guru’ to Gorakh: Datt Gorakh ki ek hi Maya / Beech mey Aughad aay samaya.
later, at Harishchandra Ghat in Kashi, Kina met his guru again in the person of Kaluram, who told him of the goddess residing in yantra form in a cave near Krim Kund. In 1771, when he left the mortal coil, Kina’s body was buried there in samadhi beside her. His 170-year long magical, mystical life — with one full-body kayakalp at age 70 — is too eventful to recount in detail here. Suffice to say that he was to his order what Gorakh was to the Naths, but with a uniquely Aghori sense of humor. My favourite episode is his crashing Kashi Naresh’s ‘Brahmins-only’ jamboree on donkey-back. When the king and the Brahmins challenged him, Kinaram made the donkey recite the Vedas. like Gorakh, Kina’s powers included the ability to walk through the earth, through walls, on water and air, be in several places at once, vanish, and bring the dead back to life. Unlike Gorakh, Kinaram once not only resurrected a dead man but also made the re-animated corpse — Baba Ram Jiyavan Ram — the Aghor Peeth’s chief of administration.
The Nath and Aghori orders too are akin, like their founders. Both reject all discrimination —whether caste, gender or religion-based — and have long provided spiritual and social service to the poorest of the poor. Both use techniques from across the Yogic spectrum, be it Shaivite, Vedantic Gyan Yoga, Vaishnavite Ram-krishna Bhakti Yoga, or the Shakta Kundalini Yoga. Their objective is also the same: Realisation of the self (which the Naths call Jiva and the Aghori, Atmaram) as Shiva, through the raising of one’s Shakti. Both traditions also trace their origin directly to Shiva.
Indeed, ‘Aghor’ is the name of one of Shiva’s five ‘faces’ or aspects — besides Vamdev, Sadyojat, Tatpurush and Ishan — and it is written in the Shiv Mahima Strota of Shiv Purana : “There is no greater mantra than the name ‘Aghor’
But what is Aghor, you askIJ Saroj Kumar Mishra, in his excellent doctoral thesis on the Order, defines it as “the same non-dual, non-discriminatory state of being that is designated Avadhut or Paramhans.” The word means ‘That which is not terrifying or difficult’, but the word is one thing and the path another. Kinaram himself says in his brilliantly philosophical Viveksar: “Kina aughadi sahaj nahi / pag dharte nikle doodh chhatthi ka” (The Aughad way is far from easy/Take a step on it and you’ll see).
Contrasting with the Nath will serve to illustrate this point further, for despite all their ideological and technical similarities, the tactics of the two are as different as those of Infantries from Special Forces. The Naths do Yoga, which is defined as Chitta-Vritti Nirodh, to still the mind via an elaborate physiological siege of bodily processes. The Aghoris, however, mount a psychological surgical strike, meant not to still the mind but to kill it, through sheer force of Will. Kinaram states this as a dictum: “Mann marey, ajara jhare” ('Murder mind, make life’s elixir rain).
like all Shaiva-Shakta sects, Aghor too adheres to the Tantric classification of sadhaks into categories based on their temperaments (Bhav) The lowest of these is Pashu Bhav — virtually the default setting of all ordinary humans — in which the person is yoked and bound like an animal, perpetually inhibited by eight paash, or fetters: Fear, shame, self-doubt, hatred, disgust, modesty, caste and creed. ‘Killing’ the mind is but the cutting of these restraints and riddance from these inhibitions, so the aspirant may rise to Vir Bhav: A hero’s temperament.
The fastest way to make this happen is to directly, repeatedly confront death, danger, dirt and all that ‘civilised’ society considers ‘Ghor’, and that in essence is the reason why trainee Aghoris live in cremation grounds, drink from skulls and ritually partake of all manner of antinomian substances. It was the late, great Avadhut Bhagwanram (1937-1992) —the most accomplished of reformist post-modern Aghoris — who defined this way the best: “That which removes the ‘Ugh!’ is Aghor.”
If you’d like to know more, don’t hesitate to enter the skull-mounted gates at the seat of Aughad Kinaram at Krim Kund in Kashi, whenever you’re there next. Trust me, there is nothing to be afraid of.
(The writer is a logician and a researcher)
