Rituals and Why We Perform Them: Offering Hair at Tirumala Venkateshwara Temple

Thala Neelala Samarpamam or the offering of hair at Tirumala Venkateswara Temple

        
    Recently I had a friend who happens to have a significant following online visit Tirumala with his parents. As an offering to Venkateshwara, the ancient god on the hill, he performed Thala Neelala Samaramam; he shaved his head and offered the hair to Srinivasa. Upon posting pictures online, it surprised me how very quickly the pictures lost any spiritual significance, and people could only comment on how “cute” or how “hot” the individual looked after shaving his head.  
        

    In many cultures and religions, our hair is associated with either our pride or dignity; stories throughout history reveal this distinctly. Western audiences would be most aware of the biblical tale of Samson and Delilah; Samson, upon cutting his hair, would lose his great strength until he prayed to the biblical god to give him his strength back in one tremendous and terrible display that would destroy his enemy in completion. In Asia, and India in particular, the same can be true, but the loss of pride is viewed in a far more positive light. Buddhist monks shave their heads in a ritual of purity and loss of ego; Hindus of certain sects and specific communities keep only small tufts of hair on certain areas of their heads as marks of faith or tradition. 
           
  Why, then, has a particular temple become so famous for offering hair as a ritual? Two reasons can be given, the first being in imitation of the goddess of Neeladri hills actions. Neeladri Devi, who, upon discovering a sleeping Venkateshwara and seeing a balding patch on his head from a wound given when defending a cow, plucks her own beautiful locks of hair and fits them to Perumal’s head. The second, while still may be in imitation of the story told above, is also a personal rite to remove all pride, making us humble before climbing the hill visiting the sacred shrine of Venkateshwara. This is but one of several preparatory rituals that should be done before entering the temple.

     What happens to the hair offered and how it is used for the temple is a complex and political discussion that I will write a more detailed post on.
          

  Upon seeing my friend's online post, I realized how little the greater populace understands why we do these rituals and the deeper, more esoteric reasoning behind them. Many of the rituals we follow today have become only boxes to check off for either our older family members or the community at large. Over the next series of posts, I will try to cover the reasoning, both practical and esoteric, for why these practices are followed. I hope, knowing and understanding the meaning of each ritual will reinvigorate us to perform them. 

NOTE* Some pictures used from online and I cannot claim copyright. 

A short prose I had written after my first visit to Tirupati Venkateswara Temple..

  The bus rumbled slowly up the hills of Tirumala, the sun just beginning to rise above the landscape pierced the thick mists that had formed on the holy mountains. The air was electrified with devotion; my first sight of the holy temple of Tirupati was of a giant Shank and Chakra glowing in the morning on the peak of the mountain. My heart accelerated its pace and my mind leaped into a frantic want to see that most ancient image of god.

          

     We entered into the temple after an eternity of waiting. My heart and mind were exhausted but I still ached to have darshan of the lord. Before entering into the inner-sanctum I made the simple prayer and hope that I would be able to see the lord properly. The crowd behind and in front of me were relentless… the pushing was almost frightening. One could be caught and pushed in any direction without discretion and the simple mass of bodies all clamoring for a simple look into the golden doors was vast.

I entered the inner-sanctum and came face to face with the image of my lord. Balaji had heeded my prayer and I was pushed into a pocket directly in front of the ageless Srinivasa. Reality and time slowed to a stop, all noise for me was lost and nothing existed except for Venkateshwara and myself. I stood in awe of the grandness, the beauty and grace of the lord. It almost felt as if he was staring back at me, deep into my soul. With that single glance of the Lord my mind was in absolute bliss and I felt as if so many questions, so many confusions I had were all answered in that momentary look into the face of god. My mind was quieted and my heart beat with sheer adrenaline.

          
   After the darshan, that for me lasted an eternity, I was pushed from the face of my lord. I craned my neck for even one tiny look more into that most holy of holies. I exited the temple in complete calmness with the only aspiration of coming to see my lord again. I realized that tears had been flowing down my cheeks as I felt my face wet; I circumbulated the temple in parikrama, the names of God swirling in my mind. Everything, all I have ever wanted or thought suddenly made sense... all questions were answered leaving me with the memory of my visit to abode of Sri Srinivasa.

Varaha- The Avatar that Saved Modern Vaishnavism As We Know it

Varaha- The Avatar That Saved Modern Vaishnavism As We Know It

Indeed our religion has changed and developed greatly over the years to accommodate stresses and pressures involved from the contemporary culture of the day. Perhaps this ability to change is what has allowed Hinduism to survive the test of time when all of the religions which existed at its earliest beginnings have long since passed on into myth with the cultures they once serviced. There was at one time a real danger, and indeed the ripples are still being felt in the areas that were affected, of the end of not only Vaishnavism (the worship of Lord Vishnu and his Avatars) but of all Hinduism. This was a time of invasion, destruction and a time when one of the great Avatars of Vishnu once again rose to protect our way of life.

 The year was 1001 A.D. when Mahmud of Ghazni first entered India. In his eyes was the gleam of greed for all the riches held within the temples of western India. Gold and jewels, fine clothes, spices like pepper that were even more costly than precious metals were all given in these great temples. Under the guise of conversion of the heathens he pillages and ransacked the great temples. Destroying the great temple of Somnath in Gujarat and thousands of other pilgrimage sites he carried back the gold and jewels for himself and the broken idols to buried beneath the steps of the Kaaba in Mecca. This was only the first of the conquests into India that would take it’s toll on the religious and scientific cultures of the areas destroyed.

After several hundred years Turks and Afghans entered India to rule. Taking Delhi as their capital they extended campaigns ever further southward. Destroying the great Vishnvanath temple in Banaras and the temple to Sri Rama in Ayodhya that had existed since time immemorial. The Muslim armies finally came within sight of the richest and grandest of the great temples. The southern Dravidians had temples that stood so large they were as fortresses of stone; bound in gate after gate and covered in intricate carvings. The greed of the Sultinate was almost too much when they could almost taste the massive amount of precious things that dripped and gleamed in these places that honor gods they considered blasphemous.

  The famous hill shrine of Tirupati Venkateshwara stood shining atop the Saptagiri like a white pinnacle of Ivory. The only way to reach this temple was to climb the seven peaks of the Saptagiri range using the Alipiri footpath that is even today used by pilgrims. In the climb the armies left a swath of destruction until finally reaching one of the seven great doorways upon which was carved a great boar. Varaha, Vishnu's avatar who saved the earth on his tusk from a demon. Seeing what they considered an unclean beast the armies dared not cross the gateway and fled the temple gates in the process saving the temple and all preserved within.

  This story is common to many of the great temples in the south of India. If you hike to these areas you can see the broken carvings and walls until you reach an image of Varaha after which it seems nothing had ever taken place. No war, no destruction, and no loss of culture or knowledge.

 In modern times you can see a marked difference between the regions affected by these conquests. In areas most heavily affected like the states of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, etc etc, much of the lost knowledge has yet to be reclaimed. The general state of Hinduism for most locals there has become more of a superstition, even literacy is at an all time low in these places. In places like the south or in Bengal and Maharasthra where these conquests were fought against and pushed away it is easy to see the difference in even today's culture. In literacy, culture, knowledge of “Sanskaar aur Sanskruti” as well as why we actual perform certain acts is common knowledge.

   In writing this I do not mean to place judgment on modern Muslims nor on Hindus living in the states affected by the ancient conquests. I simply enjoyed the tales so commonly told in India and of the boogeyman still feared in much of Gujarat; the dark and frightening pillager that began it all, Mahmud of Ghazni and of that great Avatar that saved us yet again; Varaha, the great boar.