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SVASTI -Essays in Honour of Prof. Hampa Nagarajaiah
take bow down in front of every pilgrim of his group, symbolically wash their feet and give them a coconut and a tilak. For the girls, it was the first occasion ever that they were honored in this way. In the following and very last ritual of the day, the bahuman, it was now their turn to pay "tribute to the sponsor of the group (sangha pati). In the course of events, the four young women put their worn out garments aside, took a bath and dressed in their best saris or chaniya cholis. As suggested by elderly navanu pilgrims, it was their prominent role to perform an artful stick dance, ras dandia, in front of all assembled lay people of their navanu group. After that skillful performance the same elderly navanu pilgrims, who had to admonish them at the very beginning of the pilgrimage, now praised the young women for having successfully completed all austerities. On a similar occasion Charita from Mumbai, who performed navanu in 2002, expressed her feelings in the following way:
“I feel happy as never before. I feel that I achieved everything in my life. By doing navanu I think I have completely changed my life. In Bombay I never went out without my car. Every day I got up at 12:30 noon! I spent my nights going to the movies. I never went to derasar. I never did pratikraman. [...] My parents got worried. They sent me to US. [...] They wanted me to get interested in something, not to waste my time. I liked to go for outings. I saw the Niagara Falls, Statue of Liberty and so on. But it did not change my life. [...] To send me to Shatrunjaya was my parent's last hope. I am grateful they did it. This place is incomparable. [...] Nobody could believe that I did it [navanu). People said she will never finish navanu! She will be back in five days! They are very surprised now! Now I don't want to go back [...][to Bombay). I want to stay in Palitana for the rest of my life! So people ask my parents: How is it possible? They say it is a miracle. I am indifferent to what they think. I am happy that I did navanu. Now they (my parents) are afraid that I won't marry, but take diksha. I don't want to marry. When I close my eyes all I see is Dada. [...]This place made me change my mind. I want to make use of my time now. When I am back home I will go for derasar every day. I will get up early in order to do so. I will do bhav yatras4 daily.”
In the same year I also met Priya, a 22-year old woman from Ahmedabad, who only two months after completing her navanu pilgrimage spontaneously decided to become a nun and therefore joined a group of 19 diksharthis who took diksha in March 2003.
54 Bhav yatra, the pilgrimage of devotion" is a mental pilgrimage, which is performed in front of an image or model of Shatrunjaya. (For details see Luithle-Hardenberg (in print)).
