Jasnath ji: Thirty Six Rules and a Fire

The Jasnathi code is a list of thirty six niyams, and the shape of it will be familiar to anybody who read the previous entry.

What is in it

The living beings group

• Do not kill. No animal sacrifice, no hunting
• Vegetarian diet
• Do not cut green trees
• Compassion to all creatures
• Filter water before drinking

The abstinence group

• No alcohol
• No tobacco
• No opium or other intoxicants
• No meat

The devotional group

• Bathe at dawn
• Keep the fire, the dhuni
• Do the jaap and the sabad
• Observe the fasts

The conduct group

• Do not steal
• Do not lie
• Do not commit adultery
• Do not take another's property
• Serve guests
• Give in charity
• Speak gently

And there are purity rules of the period type, including seclusion after childbirth and during menstruation, and the previous entry sets out the honest position on those at length rather than repeating it here: they are period typical, menstrual seclusion has documented harms, there is no medical basis for it, and community practice today varies widely.

The comparison worth making

Two founders, in the same desert, within about twenty years of each other, both from agricultural communities, both producing a numbered list.

Jambhoji at Samrathal in 1485 with twenty nine. Jasnath ji in the Bikaner country around 1500 with thirty six.

And the overlap is heavy: no killing, no meat, no intoxicants, no cutting green trees, filter your water, bathe in the morning, be truthful, do not steal.

What that tells you

That this was a regional answer to a regional problem, arrived at more than once.

The problem was that western Rajasthan is a place where a community can eat its way through its own environment inside one bad decade, and both men produced the same solution: not a doctrine but a rule list, short enough to memorise, enforceable by a village, and binding on everybody.

Which is a different technology from the one most of this series records.

Most of the figures in these batches offer a practice, a name, a text or an experience. These two offer a code, and a code works on a population rather than on an individual, and it is the reason both communities are still identifiable five hundred years later while a great many devotional movements are not.

And a rule list has a cost

It is inflexible.

A list from 1500 contains the assumptions of 1500, including the purity rules, and a community organised around a fixed list has a harder time revising the parts that should be revised than a community organised around a teaching does.

Which is the trade. Codes survive and doctrines drift, and the strength and the weakness are the same feature.

The Agni Nritya is what the Jasnathis are known for outside their own districts, and it deserves a straight account.

What happens

A fire of khejri wood is burned down to embers, spread into a bed, and left glowing.

The drums start, the nagara and the been, and the Siddhs enter, chanting.

And they walk and dance on the embers, barefoot.

They pick up coals. They put them in their mouths in some performances. They lie on the bed. They carry children across it.

The chant is Fatteh, Fatteh, and the whole thing is done at speed and with drums and goes on for a considerable time.

It is not a tourist invention. It is a ritual of the sampradaya, performed at the melas at Katariyasar and elsewhere, by initiated Siddhs, with preparation, and it has been done for centuries.

Now the physics, because a devotional site should say it

Fire walking is survivable and the reasons are understood.

One. Wood embers are a poor conductor of heat. Charcoal and wood ash conduct heat very badly, so although the embers are extremely hot, the rate at which that heat moves into a foot is low. Compare stepping on a metal plate at the same temperature, which would cause an immediate deep burn.

Two. Contact time is short. A walking or dancing foot is on any one spot for a fraction of a second.

Three. The ash layer insulates. A bed of embers develops a surface layer of ash which reduces transfer further.

Four. Feet that walk barefoot are calloused, and thick skin conducts heat poorly and has no nerve endings in its outer layers.

Which is why fire walking exists in many unconnected cultures: the Anastenaria in Greece, theemithi in Tamil Nadu and among the Tamil diaspora, ceremonies in Fiji, Spain, Sri Lanka and elsewhere. It is not a phenomenon unique to any tradition, and the tradition's practitioners are generally not surprised by that.

What the physics does and does not settle

It settles that the embers do not necessarily burn a properly prepared foot moving at speed.

It does not settle anything else.

It does not explain why a farming community in the Bikaner desert has organised its religious life around walking into fire for five hundred years, what that does to the people who do it, or what it means to them. Those are different questions and physics is not the instrument for them.

A reader can hold both. The tradition's own account is about discipline, purification, the dhuni and the Siddh's condition, and nothing in the thermal conductivity of charcoal contradicts any of it.

And now the safety part, which is the reason this section is long

People do get burned.

At organised fire walks worldwide, including commercial and motivational ones, participants sustain burns regularly, and the injuries are real: deep partial thickness burns to the soles, which are slow to heal, prone to infection, and disabling because you cannot stay off your feet.

The circumstances that cause them are known. Standing still. Stopping in the middle. Slipping. Wet or muddy feet picking up embers that then stick. A bed that has not burned down properly and still contains unburned wood or, worst of all, foreign material such as nails or glass. And being an untrained person who was encouraged into it.

So the instructions are simple

Watch. Do not participate.

The Agni Nritya is performed by initiated Siddhs of the sampradaya who have prepared for it. It is not a visitor activity, it is not offered as one by the community, and anybody who invites you onto the coals for a photograph is not representing the tradition.

Do not put children on it. Whatever the tradition does internally is the community's own business; a visitor putting a child on embers is not that.

Burns first aid, which everybody should know anyway

If somebody is burned, at a fire walk or in a kitchen:

• Cool the burn under cool running water for twenty minutes. Not ice, not iced water. Twenty minutes, and it still helps up to about three hours later
• Remove rings, bangles and anything tight before swelling starts
• Do not apply ghee, butter, oil, toothpaste, turmeric, ink, ash or any home remedy. These trap heat, cause infection, and make the wound impossible to assess. This is the single most common and most damaging mistake in Indian households
• Do not burst blisters
• Cover loosely with clean cling film or a clean non fluffy cloth
• Keep the person warm otherwise, since cooling a large burn can drop body temperature

Go to a hospital for: any burn bigger than the person's palm, any burn on the feet, hands, face, genitals or over a joint, any burn that is white, leathery or charred, any blistering burn, any burn in a small child or an older person, and any electrical or chemical burn.

Foot burns need medical care specifically because you cannot keep weight off them and they infect.

Ask about tetanus. Ambulance 108.

On watching respectfully

The fire dance is now also a tourism product, performed for groups at Katariyasar and at hotels and events in Bikaner and Jaisalmer.

Which is not automatically wrong and is a source of income for a farming community.

What is worth doing: ask before filming, pay the performers rather than only the organiser, do not ask for repeats for a better photograph, and if you have the choice, see it at a mela at Katariyasar rather than at a hotel, where it is a community occasion rather than an after dinner item.

Where to go

• Katariyasar, Bikaner district, about forty five kilometres from Bikaner city, with the samadhi, the gufa and the melas
• Panchla Siddha, also in the Bikaner country, a major Jasnathi site
• Mukam and Khejarli, for the Bishnoi material in the previous entry, which is the same landscape and the same argument
• Bikaner itself, for Karni Mata at Deshnok and the old city

A daily practice from this entry

• Fatteh, which is the Jasnathi call, or simply the name in whatever form your household uses
• A lamp or a small fire kept, which is the tradition's central object
• And the code question, which is what these two Rajasthani founders actually contribute: what are the three rules in your household that everybody knows and nobody breaks, and did anybody choose them on purpose

Who: Jasnath ji, roughly 1482 to 1506, founder of the Jasnathi sampradaya of western Rajasthan, born at Katariyasar in Bikaner district into a Jat family, his father Hamir ji and mother Rupade. That is the same social world as Jambhoji's Bishnoi: farming and herding communities in the arid districts, in the same century, facing the same drought.

The short life: he died at about twenty four. The tradition holds that he withdrew into a cave at Katariyasar at around twelve and remained in tapasya for about twelve years, and that the teaching and rules came out of that. So the founder did not build the institution: he gave a body of teaching, a set of rules and a community, and his disciples and their successors built everything that stands now, which is the ordinary pattern and worth noticing because devotional accounts usually credit the founder with the buildings. He left the Jasnathi Sabad, traditionally counted as thirty six compositions, which is also the number of the rules. The Jasnathis call their initiated practitioners Siddhs, and the tradition's vocabulary, the dhuni, the fire, the discipline of the body, sits close to the Nath and siddha world.

The thirty six rules: do not kill, no animal sacrifice or hunting, vegetarian diet, do not cut green trees, compassion to all creatures, filter water; no alcohol, tobacco, opium or meat; bathe at dawn, keep the dhuni, do the jaap and the sabad, observe the fasts; do not steal, lie, commit adultery or take another's property, serve guests, give in charity, speak gently. There are also purity rules of the period type including seclusion after childbirth and during menstruation, on which the Jambhoji entry sets out the honest position at length.

The Bishnoi parallel: two founders in the same desert within about twenty years, both from agricultural communities, both producing a numbered list, Jambhoji with twenty nine in 1485 and Jasnath ji with thirty six around 1500, with heavy overlap. This was a regional answer to a regional problem, arrived at more than once: western Rajasthan is a place where a community can eat its way through its own environment inside one bad decade, and both men produced not a doctrine but a rule list, short enough to memorise, enforceable by a village and binding on everybody. That is a different technology from what most of this series records, since a code works on a population rather than an individual, and it is why both communities are still identifiable five hundred years later. The cost is that a list from 1500 contains the assumptions of 1500 and is harder to revise than a teaching: codes survive and doctrines drift, and the strength and weakness are the same feature.

The Agni Nritya: a fire of khejri wood is burned to embers, spread into a bed and left glowing, the nagara and been start, and initiated Siddhs enter chanting Fatteh and walk and dance on the embers barefoot, picking up coals, lying on the bed and carrying children across. It is a ritual of the sampradaya performed at the melas, not a tourist invention, and it has been done for centuries.

The physics: fire walking is survivable for understood reasons. Wood embers conduct heat very badly, unlike metal at the same temperature; contact time for a moving foot is a fraction of a second; a surface ash layer insulates further; and habitually bare feet are calloused, with thick skin conducting heat poorly. This is why fire walking exists in many unconnected cultures, from the Anastenaria in Greece to theemithi in Tamil Nadu to ceremonies in Fiji, Spain and Sri Lanka. The physics settles that the embers do not necessarily burn a prepared foot moving at speed, and settles nothing else: it does not explain why a farming community has organised its religious life around this for five hundred years, and those are different questions.

Safety: people do get burned at fire walks worldwide, with deep partial thickness burns to the soles that heal slowly, infect and disable. The causes are standing still, stopping, slipping, wet feet picking up sticking embers, a bed containing unburned wood or foreign material, and being an untrained person encouraged into it. So watch and do not participate, since the dance is performed by prepared initiates and is not offered as a visitor activity, and anybody inviting you onto the coals for a photograph is not representing the tradition. Do not put children on it. Burns first aid, which everybody should know: cool under cool running water for twenty minutes, remove rings and anything tight, apply no ghee, butter, oil, toothpaste, turmeric, ink or ash, which is the most common and most damaging mistake in Indian households, do not burst blisters, cover loosely with clean cling film or cloth, and go to hospital for any burn bigger than the palm, any burn on feet, hands, face, genitals or a joint, anything white or charred, any blistering, any burn in a small child or older person, and any electrical or chemical burn. Ambulance 108.