The Journal

Issue date: 8/30/07 Section: Lifestyle

Intersecting rivers are recognized around the world as sacred, with spiritual significance given to the convergence of many major river-ways. Nowhere is this more apparent than in India, where the spiritual gathering outside the city of Allahabad draws more than 80 million Hindu pilgrims annually. The Pilgrims come together to "immerse themselves in the holy mother and purify themselves of their sins," according to the descriptive pamphlet accompanying the showing.

Michael Putnam's "Pilgrim India" captures this event. The exhibit features a collection of pieces that spans four decades of Putnam's work, from 1966 to 2007.

These pictures are a portal into the world's largest spiritual gathering, which occurs at the convergence of two of the most sacred rivers in India, the Ganges and the Yamuna, and the location of the invisible river Sarasvati River, according to Hindu mythology.

The gathering has been taking place since at least the seventh century, when the first recorded gathering brought together Hindu pilgrims traveling alone or accompanied by entire villages to wash themselves in these sacred waters.

Some carry the bodies of their dead relatives to be washed in the purifying waters. Putnam's images strike the viewer with the urgency of death. A man carries his linen-wrapped loved one to be placed in the waters. Two more images taken from an aerial view above the waters are almost angelic in their perspectives. They show lone bodies lying in the water.

"I went to India first in the early '60s, and the Ganges was something that interested me," said Putnam when asked about his initial inspiration. "The idea of purification through the waters and that vein, and the idea of pilgrimage was very interesting, so that's what really started me."

He said there are approximately 30 million people at these spiritual gatherings, and pointed out a photograph taken from above the masses of people, in which the land is sheathed into the misty horizon by human bodies.

"It's the largest religious festival in the world," Putnam said as he described the sheer immensity of the spectacle as "larger than Mecca."

The photographs show a range of people and activities from young, smiling girls, to old, solemn men. A picture of hundreds of naked, hairy men waving swords catches the attention of anybody passing by.

"Everybody attends these gatherings," Putnam said, explaining the diversity of the audience. "Rich, poor, but the mass of the people are villagers, the poor, simple people."

Continued...

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