The insensitive remarks by Dhirendra Shastri, who runs a religious congregation in Madhya Pradesh and others, that those killed in the Kumbh stampede last week would receive salvation was an attempt to downplay the tragedy. At least 30 people were killed and scores injured in the pre-dawn crowd surge on January 29. Such remarks are based on superstition, which over centuries has become a tradition to some. Though largely extinct, the practice of associating death by suicide at holy spots with salvation has ancient roots.

The insensitive remarks by Dhirendra Shastri, who runs a religious congregation in Madhya Pradesh and others, that those killed in the Kumbh stampede last week would receive salvation was an attempt to downplay the tragedy. At least 30 people were killed and scores injured in the pre-dawn crowd surge on January 29. Such remarks are based on superstition, which over centuries has become a tradition to some. Though largely extinct, the practice of associating death by suicide at holy spots with salvation has ancient roots.

It is difficult to identify when in history dying at holy spots, usually by a holy river like the Ganga, became associated with achieving Moksha, which itself has more than one meaning. The most common understanding is that it means liberation from metempsychosis or the endless cycle of birth and rebirth, but others believe that dying at places like Prayagraj (earlier called Allahabad), and Kashi could mean a good rebirth as a richer, more powerful person. There’s the hope that either you can escape rebirth or at least be born in better circumstances next time. Since it all happens after one’s death, we don’t know more.

The earliest historical reference to people dying by suicide at the Sangam or confluence of the Yamuna and Ganga is present in Chinese traveller and Buddhist monk Xuanzang’s record of his visit to Kannauj where he was a guest at King Harshvardhan’s court for nearly two months. During this time, he attended a great Magh festival where Harshvardhan and other kings distributed massive amounts of wealth to ascetics, holy men, and the poor. The grounds where the festival took place were considered a highly charitable space, and “this spot had come to be known as the “Arena of Charitable Offering”, wrote RS Tripathi in his work, History of Kannauj.

Xuanzang recorded the practice of suicide. He wrote: “The water is sweet and fine grains of sand come down with the current. According to local popular records, this river is known as the Water of Blessedness and one’s accumulated sins can be expiated by taking a bath in it. Those who drown themselves in the river will be reborn in heaven to enjoy happiness, and a recently deceased person whose corpse is thrown into the river will not fall into the evil state of existence in his next rebirth. By raising waves and blockading the current the souls of the dead will be saved”

On the same visit, the Chinese monk also witnessed an ancient version of an anti-superstition programme. “At the time when all the people, men and women, old and young, assembled at the banks of the river, raised waves and blockaded the current, Deva Bodhisattva (a priest from Sri Lanka) mingled with them to draw up the water and lowered his head to push the current in the reverse direction, counter to the efforts of the other people. A heretic said to him, “Why are you doing it in a strange way?” Deva Bodhisattva said, “My parents and other kinsfolk are in the country of Sinhala and I fear that they may be suffering from hunger and thirst. So, I am trying to send this water from afar to save them.”

The heretic said, “You are mistaken. You did not consider the matter well and behaved erroneously. Your home country is far away, separated [from here] by big mountains and rivers. To agitate the water here with the hope of saving those who are hungry there is like someone who goes backwards in order to advance. This is unthinkable !” Deva Bodhisattva said, “If sinners in the nether world can be benefited by this water, why could it not also save the people separated [from here] by mountains and rivers?” The heretics then realised their fault and acknowledged defeat,” Xuanzang, a Buddhist himself, records in his travelogue.

When Al-Biruni, the great Khwarazmian Iranian scholar visited India as part of Mahmud Ghazni’s courtly entourage in the 11th century, he too described the prevalence of death and suicide practices at the Sangam. Al Biruni composed many seminal works, two of them on India, and has been described as the father of comparative religion, and Indology. Biruni wrote: “At the junction of the two rivers, Yamuna and Ganges, there is a great tree called Prayaga, a tree of the species called vata… here the Brahmans and Kshatriyas are in the habit of committing suicide by climbing up the tree and throwing themselves into the Ganges”

Later chroniclers such as Al Badaoni in the 16th century wrote in his work, MuntikhabuTawarikh, “The infidels consider this a holy place, and with a desire to obtain the rewards which are promised in their creed, of which transmigration is one of the most prominent features, they submit themselves to all kinds of tortures. Some place their brainless heads under saws, others split their deceitful tongues in two, others enter Hell by casting themselves down into the deep river from the top of a high tree.”

The continuity of the holiness of the site as well as of superstitious beliefs can be seen here, the custom of jumping off a tree too seems to have lived in the 6th century.

Another account is that of Mahmud bin Amir Wali Balkhi who travelled to Allahabad in the 17th century (1624-25) during the reign of emperor Jahangir. Iqbal Husain quotes from Balkhi’s book Bahrul Asrar, in Irfan Habib (ed.), Medieval India: Researches in the History, Balkhi wrote, “I reached the said place [the Sangam] and began to enjoy the scene. My colleagues, other travellers and those present at the place tried to precede each other in getting their hair, beard and moustache shaved. Traders and rich people threw considerable sums of money, amounting to twenty thousand rupees, into that vast river. Due to this undesirable act, I lost my patience and began to speak mockingly with Narayan Das, one of the Sannyasis with whom I had developed closer intimacy than with the others. Thereupon, he became exceedingly annoyed and said, 'Of what value is wealth at this sacred place? This is the place where people wish to die.' For some time, he burnt with much rage, walking slowly as he went, and then he sat beneath a heavy dagger which was set hanging. He beckoned a Brahman so that he may perform his prescribed duty. Without hesitation, the Brahman drew the dagger and drove its point into that arrogant one's breast so that it pierced his body right through”.

Iqbal Hussain asserted that “there is no confirmation of such a method of sacred suicide ever having been practised at the Sangam, but this is a matter of enquiry into local traditions”.

In the 18th century, Joseph Tiefenthaler, a Jesuit priest and geographer too wrote about a huge axe hanging near the fort for conducting ritual death by suicide.

Chroniclers have left records of this morbid and unscientific custom but clearly, it has no place in modern times. Talking about the Kumbh stampede, self-appointed gurus glossed over the fact that those who died in the stampede did not wish to die; theirs was an ‘akasmik mrityu’ or sudden death. Such irresponsible statements also trivialise the inner conflict, which drives individuals to even think of killing themselves. As Jonathan Parry writes in his seminal work on dying in Banaras: “By contrast with the controlled and voluntary release of life which is the idea; a bad death is an uncontrolled and involuntary evacuation of the body.”

HistoriCity is a column by author Valay Singh that narrates the story of a city that is in the news, by going back to its documented history, mythology and archaeological digs. The views expressed are personal.