Pehowa: The Tirtha for People Who Died Badly

This needs handling with care, because it touches on real grief and on real harm.

What the tradition holds:

• A good death in the tradition is one that comes at the proper time, at home, with the family present, in awareness, with the proper words said
• Death by accident, violence or suicide is akal mrityu, untimely death
• Such a death is held to leave the departed unsettled, and the ordinary shraddha rites insufficient
• Specific additional rites are prescribed, and specific places, of which Pehowa is one, are held to be where they should be performed
• Only after those rites, in this understanding, can the departed proceed to the pitrus and the ordinary annual shraddha begin

Where this comes from:

• The Garuda Purana, which is the principal text read at Hindu funerals and which sets out the journey after death in detail
• The dharmashastra literature on funerary rites
• Local and regional practice, which varies considerably

What it does for a family. This is the part worth taking seriously.

A family whose son has died in an accident, or has killed himself, or has been murdered, is dealing with a death that they cannot make sense of and that has no place in the ordinary order of things.

The tradition offers them:

• A reason why the death feels different, which it does
• Something specific to do
• A place to go, which requires a journey
• A ritual completion, after which the ordinary annual observance can begin
• A community of others who have come for the same thing

That is a considerable amount of structure to offer somebody in the worst period of their life, and the alternative in most societies is nothing at all.

And the harm. It must be said, because it is real.

• The framework implies the departed is unsettled, which is a distressing thing for a bereaved family to be told
• It can produce a belief that the family is being troubled by the departed, which turns grief into fear
• It can generate substantial expense, and families in grief are vulnerable to being charged for additional rites indefinitely
• Where the death was suicide, the framework can compound the stigma that already attaches to it and to the family

On suicide specifically. This deserves a direct statement.

• Suicide is overwhelmingly associated with treatable mental illness, most commonly depression
• It is not a moral failing, a sin against the family, or a sign of weakness
• India has a high suicide rate and it is a leading cause of death among young people, particularly young women
• The Mental Healthcare Act 2017 decriminalised attempted suicide in India, establishing a presumption of severe stress and a right to care rather than prosecution
• Bereaved families need support, not blame

If you are struggling, the Tele MANAS national helpline is 14416, free and available in multiple languages. Kiran is 1800 599 0019. Speaking to somebody is the thing that helps and it is available.

What a family visiting Pehowa should know:

• The rites are a legitimate part of the tradition and performing them is entirely reasonable
• They are not an indication that anybody did anything wrong
• A person who died by suicide was ill, and the tradition's older language did not have that vocabulary
• Agree the cost in advance and do not be pressured into additional rites
• The completion of the rites is meant to bring rest, to the departed in the tradition's understanding and to the family in fact

If a rite leaves a family more frightened than they arrived, it has been done badly, whatever was recited.

The pandas of Pehowa keep genealogical registers, and this is one of the more remarkable record keeping systems anywhere.

What they are:

• Handwritten registers, the bahi or pothi, maintained by pandit families
• Recording the visits of families who came to perform rites
• Organised by region, village and family
• Each family's entries record who came, when, for whom the rites were performed, and the names of the family members present
• Entries are signed by the visitor
• The registers pass down through the panda's family

How it works when you arrive:

• You tell the panda your village and your family name and community
• They identify which panda holds your family's register, since families are allocated by region
• The register is produced
• Your family's previous entries are found
• You add a new entry, recording this visit

What that produces. A genealogical record for an ordinary family, going back in some cases many generations, held continuously.

Where else this exists:

• Haridwar, at the ghats, where the panda registers are the best known and cover the largest area
• Pehowa, here
• Gaya, Prayagraj, Nasik, Kurukshetra, Badrinath, Rameswaram and other major tirthas
• Each with its own set of panda families and its own regional allocation

Why this matters historically. It is worth stating clearly because these records are genuinely important.

• India has very few continuous genealogical records for ordinary families
• Census records begin in the nineteenth century and do not record individuals over time
• Land records exist but are patchy and are about property, not families
• The panda registers are, for many families, the only written record of their ancestors

What they can tell you:

• The names of your ancestors, in many cases going back several generations
• Where the family lived, and when it moved
• Family events, since visits cluster around deaths
• In some cases, notes on occupation, circumstances or events

Partition. This is where the registers acquired a particular significance.

• Families displaced from what became Pakistan in 1947 lost everything, including documents
• For a great many of them, the only record of their ancestral village and family is in a panda's register at Haridwar or Pehowa
• Descendants have gone to find it, and continue to
• For a family that cannot visit the village it came from, the register is what remains

The condition of the records:

• They are handwritten on paper, in various scripts and hands, and many are old and fragile
• They are held privately by panda families and there is no central catalogue
• Some have been lost, damaged or destroyed
• Digitisation efforts have begun but are partial
• Access depends entirely on the panda family concerned

If you want to look for yours:

• You need your ancestral village, your caste or community and your surname
• Go to the ghat and ask; the pandas will direct you to the right family
• Be prepared for it to take time and to involve payment, which is how the system has always worked
• Take photographs if permitted, since the record is fragile
• Note that the pandas are custodians of somebody's family history and treat them accordingly

A caution. The system involves payment and there is scope for people to be charged a great deal, particularly when they are emotional about finding an ancestor's name.

Agree what you are paying for in advance. The record either exists or it does not, and a panda who finds increasingly elaborate things to charge for should be treated with the same scepticism you would apply anywhere else.

Pehowa holds a Kartikeya temple, and a Kartikeya temple in north India is genuinely unusual.

Who Kartikeya is:

• Son of Shiva and Parvati, brother of Ganesha
• The commander of the divine armies, generated to kill the demon Taraka
• Called Skanda, Murugan, Subrahmanya, Shanmukha, Kumara, Guha and many other names
• Born from Shiva's seed, carried by Agni and Ganga, and nursed by the six Krittikas, the Pleiades, from which he has six faces and the name Kartikeya
• His vehicle is the peacock and his weapon the vel or spear

The great north south asymmetry. This is the interesting fact.

• In Tamil Nadu, Kartikeya as Murugan is arguably the principal deity, with the Arupadai Veedu, the six abodes, drawing enormous numbers, and an entire devotional literature and festival calendar
• In Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra, Subrahmanya is widely worshipped, with major shrines including Kukke Subramanya, Palani and Tiruchendur
• In north India, Kartikeya temples are rare, and he is comparatively marginal in popular worship
• His brother Ganesha shows the opposite pattern to some degree, being universal but with his greatest popular hold in the west and north

Why the asymmetry. Several explanations are offered and none is complete.

• Kartikeya was prominent in north India in the early historic period. Kushana coins carry him, Gupta rulers took names from him, and the Skanda Purana and early sculpture attest substantial worship
• His worship in the north then declined substantially, over a period ending by roughly the medieval period
• In the south he was identified with Murugan, an indigenous Tamil deity of the hills, and that identification produced an enormously powerful synthesis that has continued
• Explanations for the northern decline include the rise of other deities, the absorption of his functions, and changes in patronage

The restriction. At a number of north Indian Kartikeya shrines, including Pehowa, there is a tradition that women do not enter or do not have darshan.

Why. The explanations given vary and are worth stating.

• That Kartikeya is a brahmachari, celibate, in the north Indian tradition, unlike the south where Murugan has two consorts, Valli and Devasena
• That he was angered by something and the restriction follows from it
• Various local stories

How to treat this. Directly.

• The restriction exists at these shrines and visitors should be aware of it
• It is a local custom, not a universal Hindu rule, and the same deity in the south is worshipped by women in enormous numbers
• Restrictions of this kind have been contested in India, including in the courts, and the Sabarimala litigation is the best known instance
• Vandnaa's position is that a woman's access to a deity is not something a guide should defend restricting, and that the south Indian practice, where women are the majority of Murugan's devotees, is evidence that no theological necessity is involved
• What a visitor should do is know the local custom before arriving and decide for themselves

The Murugan tradition in the south, for contrast:

• The Arupadai Veedu, six abodes: Palani, Swamimalai, Thiruchendur, Thiruparankundram, Pazhamudircholai and Thiruthani
• Thaipusam, the great festival, observed in Tamil Nadu, Malaysia, Singapore and wherever Tamils went, with kavadi carrying and body piercing vows
• The Thiruppugazh of Arunagirinathar, one of the great bodies of Tamil devotional poetry
• A living tradition of overwhelming scale

Standing at a small Kartikeya temple in Haryana, effectively unvisited, and knowing that the same deity in Tamil Nadu commands the devotion of tens of millions, is one of the sharper illustrations of how differently a single tradition develops in different regions.

Pehowa is on the Saraswati, and what that means requires explanation.

The Rigvedic Saraswati. Set out at Basara in the Telangana batch, and worth restating.

• A river in the Rigveda, praised as the greatest of rivers, flowing from the mountains to the sea
• Later becoming primarily the goddess of speech and learning
• The river itself is generally understood to have dried up or changed course

The Ghaggar Hakra:

• A seasonal river system running from the Shivalik through Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan toward the Rann of Kachchh
• Flowing strongly in the monsoon and largely dry otherwise
• Commonly identified with the Rigvedic Saraswati
• A very large number of Harappan sites lie along its bed, which is why the identification matters archaeologically

What is agreed and what is not:

Agreed:

• A substantial river system flowed through this region and declined
• Harappan settlement was concentrated along it
• Its decline is connected to the shift of Harappan settlement eastward
• Palaeochannels are visible in satellite imagery and have been mapped

Disputed:

• Whether the Ghaggar Hakra is the Rigvedic Saraswati
• When it dried and whether that predates or postdates the Rigveda
• Whether it was ever fed by Himalayan glacial sources or was always monsoon fed
• What the implications are for the dating of the Rigveda and for the wider argument about Indo Aryan origins, which is where the debate becomes heated

Why the argument is heated. It should be said plainly.

The dating and identification of the Saraswati bear on the question of whether Vedic culture was indigenous to the subcontinent or arrived from outside, which is one of the most politically charged questions in Indian archaeology.

That charge has not helped the science. Positions have hardened, evidence has been used selectively on all sides, and a genuinely interesting set of questions about a river system has become a proxy for something else.

What is at Pehowa now:

• A channel carrying the Saraswati's name
• Water in it, from a combination of monsoon flow and, in recent decades, from channelling and revival efforts
• The Saraswati Heritage Development Board of Haryana has worked on channel revival, and water has been brought to sections including at Pehowa and Adi Badri
• Whether that constitutes reviving the ancient river, or creating a canal along its former course, is a matter of definition

Adi Badri. Worth a note. In Yamunanagar district, at the foot of the Shivalik, is a site identified as the origin of the Saraswati, with temples, and it has been developed as part of the same programme.

How to hold all this at a tirtha. The rites at Pehowa are performed on the Saraswati, and the tradition holds that this is the Saraswati.

What is verifiable is that a channel is there, that it has been called the Saraswati for a very long time, that the tirtha's authority rests on that identification, and that families have been coming here to perform rites on that water for many centuries.

Whether the water in it now is the same water the Rigveda praised is a question for hydrology and archaeology. The rites do not depend on the answer, and never have.

Getting there

• Pehowa, Kurukshetra district, Haryana, on the Saraswati
• About 25 km west of Kurukshetra
• Roughly 185 km from Delhi
• Kurukshetra Junction is the nearest railhead
• Delhi and Chandigarh for airports
• Buses run from Kurukshetra, Ambala and Patiala

When to go

• Pitru Paksha, the fortnight in Bhadrapada or Ashwin, generally September or October, which is the principal season
• Somvati Amavasya and other amavasya days
• Solar eclipse days
• Rites are performed throughout the year and there is no restriction on when a family may come
• October to March for weather

If you are coming for rites

• Bring the details of the departed: name, father's name, gotra where known, date and circumstances of death
• Bring your own village and family details, so the panda can locate your register
• Agree the cost in advance, in full, and in writing if you can
• Bring somebody with you. Do not do this alone if you can avoid it
• Allow a full day
• Understand that the rite is meant to bring rest, and that if you leave more distressed than you arrived, something has gone wrong

If you are looking for family records

• Bring your ancestral village name, your community and your surname
• Ask at the ghat and you will be directed
• Allow time and expect payment
• Photograph what you find, with permission

Practicalities

• Pehowa is a small town with basic facilities
• Kurukshetra has better accommodation
• Cash
• Traditional dress is appropriate

What is in the town

• The ghat on the Saraswati
• The Kartikeya temple, with the restriction noted above
• Several other temples
• The panda establishments
• The Pehowa horse fair, held annually, which is one of the larger horse and livestock fairs in north India and is an entirely different scene from the tirtha

The horse fair. Worth knowing about because it is unexpected.

Pehowa holds a large annual horse fair, drawing traders and breeders from across north India, at which horses are shown, traded and raced. It is a substantial commercial event with nothing religious about it.

That a town whose principal function is funerary rites for the badly dead also hosts one of the region's biggest horse markets is the kind of juxtaposition Indian towns produce constantly.

Combining the visit

• Kurukshetra, 25 km, with everything described in this batch
• Thanesar, Bhadrakali, Jyotisar, Brahma Sarovar
• Kapal Mochan, about 110 km, described in this batch
• Patiala, about 60 km
• Adi Badri, in Yamunanagar district, the Saraswati origin site
• Ambala and Chandigarh, to the north

A closing thought. Most tirthas are for the fortunate: for people asking for something, giving thanks, marking a good occasion.

Pehowa is for the other thing. It is where you go when somebody in your family died in a way that nobody can make sense of, and somebody has told you that there is a place where the rites can be completed.

A town that exists to receive those families, and has done for a very long time, and keeps written records of every family that came, is performing a service that no other institution in the society provides.

Whether the theology behind it is right is one question. That it gives grieving people somewhere to go and something to do is not in doubt, and it is not nothing.