A few days ago, despite the monsoon rains, I was able to visit one of the ammonite fossil beds located a few hundred meters above the Muktinath Valley. The layer of fossils, the remnants of an ancient sea floor, sits up around 5000 meters and is slowly eroding out of the mountain to form a large wash of broken stones and fossil shells that extends some 300 meters down the mountain, slowly tumbling en masse towards the Thorong La river (which joins up with the Kali-Gandaki at Kagbeni a few kilometers to the south west). My purpose for visiting this particular fossil bed was two-fold: one, it allows me to observe the earliest geological processes that will eventually result in some of these ammonites becoming Shaligram and two, it gives me a chance to see unmodified structures in the stones that, given an additional few thousand years rolling through river silts, will become the characteristics of deities as read in the stones’ final manifestations. For example, one of my favorite Shaligrams is called Krishna Govinda (Krishna the Cowherder). It’s a typically palm-sized, smooth, and perfectly round black Shaligram which bears a white “cow hoof” impression on one side (an effect created by the breakage of a concentric quartz ring). As luck would have it, I was able to find just such a structure in one of the “raw” ammonites in this particular fossil wash-out as well. Naturally, many photos and comparisons followed.

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At first glance, it may appear that my approach in this particular case is largely a scientific one; replacing religious interpretation with geological analysis; or “cow hoof” for “quartz erosion” to look at it another way. But my intent is not to replace one method of analysis with the other necessarily. Rather, one of the things I find most fascinating about Shaligram stones in general is their capacity to join scientific discourses with religious narratives, as opposed to assuming these interpretations to be mutually exclusive. Shaligram stones are ammonites and their geological history spans roughly 175 million years, through dozens of evolutionary taxonomies, and they provide us with a tremendous amount of information about the early ocean environments of ancient Earth. Shaligram stones are also the direct manifestations of divine movement in the form of deities of the Hindu pantheon, joining a physical landscape to a sacred landscape and linking individuals and families to profound cultural histories and ritual practices that have been in use for at least 4000 years. In other words, not only have Shaligrams passed down through eons of wind, river currents, and tectonic uplift but they have also equally passed down through inheritance, births, deaths, marriages, and pilgrimage. A Shaligram is not a Shaligram absent either one of these threads. In short, Shaligram stones exist at a juncture wherein Science and Religion are having a very fascinating conversation with one another, in particular, a conversation about what it means “to be” something. This is how Shaligrams can be both ammonite fossil and divine manifestations, just as rivers can be both vital economic and social waterways emerging out of the glacial melt and tirthas (bridges) into the sacred world of gods and goddesses.

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Shaligrams are largely venerated by Vaishnava Hindus (devotees of the god Vishnu) and one of the defining characteristics of Vishnu’s story is the theology of the Dasavatara, or the 10 incarnations of Vishnu. In this particular aspect of Vishnu’s lengthy mythological history, is it said that he has appeared on Earth in some form on 10 separate occasions (or will, given that we are currently only up to 9 in the 10 avatar stretch). This does not mean, however, that each avatar was human (or even human-looking); rather each avatar took on a specific form and function designed to accomplish some particular set of tasks necessary for the given time in which the avatar appeared. Given the circumstances of his appearance, Vishnu has manifested as a fish (Matsya), a tortoise (Kurma), a boar (Varaha), a half-man half-lion (Narasimha), a dwarf-man (Vamana), a warrior bearing an axe (Parashurama), Sri Ram the god-king of Ayodhya, Krishna the divine lover and hero of the Mahabharata, the Buddha (depending on what tradition you come from, there is some contention on this one. As some traditions place other famous gurus or teachers in this position), and finally Kalki, the destroyer of the current age who is yet to come. Given all this, one might imagine that becoming a stone can’t really be all that difficult in the grand scheme of omnipotence (though I must save discussion of the many Shaligram origin stories for another post).

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Unsurprisingly, the Dasavatara are also represented in Shaligrams. There are Matsya Shaligrams and Kurma Shaligrams, Ram Shaligrams and Krishna Shaligrams, each appearing according to the characteristics laid out in the Puranas and in the Epic stories of the exploits of the Dasavatara. But what is more, I can’t help but notice that we live in a time where the narratives of religion and science are increasingly at odds, and they are certainly fighting about much more than ammonites. Both religion and science have become a part of the political project, in service to various agendas seeking national or geo-political power. As such, they are pitted against one another as two presumptive sides to the same Almighty Dollar coin. Religion is poised to reject Science, and Science employed to tear down Religion. So the more I think on it, perhaps Shaligrams, just as all the rest of the incarnations of Vishnu, have arrived both as fossil and as deity, in just the right form for what this time needs most.

Another ammonite fossil emerging out of the erosion wash.

A quartz structure in a “raw” ammonite fossil resembling a “cow hoof”

Fossil wash-out near Jhong village.

Hard at Work

Ammonite fossils — Kshetra Shaligram (Mountain-born Shaligram)

I’ll be the first to admit that I am no fan of flying. While it might not rise to the level of phobia precisely, I have had my fair share of white-knuckle afternoons at the hands of an A320-Airbus (Have anxiety, will travel). Therefore, I am sure that it is with no small amount of irony that I chose a profession, and a field-site, which requires days of air travel and at least two small propeller plane jaunts through steep mountain valleys to reach. However, as fate would have it, the monsoon rains here in Nepal have been preventing all flights between Pokhara and Jomsom for days (stages 1 and 2 of my route to Muktinath respectively). Yesterday morning, I sat in the waiting area of the Pokhara Regional Airport, and not for the first time in a string of days at the crack of dawn, waiting to hear if the day’s flights would be able to leave. As it had been for nine days running, my flight was cancelled yet again.

Then I had the fortune of meeting two Hindu pilgrims, just a few seats down, anxiously awaiting the same news. They were originally from south India, they explained, but now resided in North Carolina. What is more, having encountered a box of Shaligram stones just recently in a shop in lake-side Pokhara, the husband (who, for the sake of this entry, I will call Raj), had been suddenly reminded of a number of fond childhood memories involving his father’s and grandfather’s Shaligrams. He had not inherited any Shaligrams, and at the shop-keeper’s behest was left to wonder where the ones in his family had gotten off to. Now, he and his wife Priya were taking a rather spontaneous journey to Muktinath to explore the inexplicable pull of these memories further. Sadly, it looked as though there would be no flights that day and they would not be able to reach Mustang in time for their departure home.

But serendipity works in mysterious ways, and as we chatted there from the discomfort of our molded, plastic, seats a new plan began to take shape. Rather than wait for the storm clouds to finally grant us the blessings of safe passage, we decided to split the cost of renting a Jeep and driver and road-trip our way across the Himalayan foothills to Jomsom. Nine hours and several very sore tailbones later (it is a profoundly rough ride through rocky, narrow, mountain roads!), we made it. Flight time from Pokhara to Jomsom is only about 15 minutes. Our 180km drive lasted from 9AM to 6PM and involved fewer than four total stops: 2 for brief bathroom breaks, 1 for lunch, and 1 to check our permits at the Tatopani police checkpoint overlooking the Mustang border. So while we remained cheerful in each others unexpected but welcome company, it was a long trip on a number of levels. Not to be discouraged though, as I was happy to take Raj and Priya Shaligram hunting on the Jomsom shores of the Kali-Gandaki that evening (wherein a particularly lovely Krishna-Gopala Shaligram was discovered!). A calming end to a challenging day.

Challenging indeed. I have been in the field now just 15 days, but only a week in, I lost my beloved grandmother whose funeral was only a few days ago. I sent a letter to be read at her memorial, but that was all I could do from here. Without a doubt, it has weighed on me heavily. But even as the end approached, she didn’t want me to come. She wanted me here, in the high Himalayas, doing the research I love and working towards the PhD she so proudly spoke about to anyone and everyone who stopped long enough to listen. She kept every article of mine, every academic paper, every mention she could find. And usually multiple copies, since she couldn’t risk lending out her own (it might never come back). Every time I visited, she always wanted to know how much longer until I was a doctor (professor would also do, she used to tell me), and then should would marvel at the years that ticked by faster and faster. 2 years of a Masters degree done. 5 years to the PhD, and then 4, and soon enough 3. Now, only 2 years left.

Such a short distance, but it takes a long time to get there.

Kali-Gandaki on the way to Jomsom

The grant process is finally over and the results are in. While I have not received a major grant (any one of the top 4 or 5 favored in the social sciences), I have successfully cobbled together enough smaller grant funding to carry out the remainder of my dissertation fieldwork in the high Himalayas of Nepal. In addition to this, I have also received the prestigious designation of alternate for the 2015-2016 Fulbright Dissertation Research grant. While this is little help to me in the practical sense (as it does not carry any monetary value) I am pleased that my research among Shaligram pilgrims warrants attention on that scale. It will likely come in handy later.

For those whose impetus is to offer consolation, I assure you there is no need. The nature of my fieldwork requires a high degree of mobility, flexibility, and the willingness to change one’s course at a moment’s notice. By leveraging multiple smaller sources of funding (rather than needing to adhere to the activity requirements of a major granting institution), my adaptability is preserved and I view my ability to maintain control over my movements as the ultimate silver-lining. By the looks of things, not only will my final monograph focus its analytical trajectory on the sovereignty of mobility but I as the ethnographer will embody it as well.

This also means that my final dissertation research plans are remain equally under my purview and I will be able to focus my attention on Shaligram pilgrimage over the course of two more full travel seasons; the first beginning this June when I return to Mustang District and the second beginning in April of 2017, to conclude sometime the following fall. Planning long-term fieldwork in this way has also been helpful in that it is far easier to disrupt one’s everyday life for four to five months at a time rather than twelve or more in a stretch. In the interim, my time will then be best used reviewing and collating fieldnotes, preparing for the last round of fieldwork with revised questions, beginning the introductory portion of the dissertation itself, grant writing, and transcribing.

The easiest way to accomplish all this, as my previous trips have taught me, will be to once again work through a Himalayan trekking agency, whose access to in-country travel resources and capacity to negotiate permits cannot be understated. Already I am looking forward to at least three government permissions, multiple domestic plane tickets, jeep and horse-back travel, and a fair degree of map-assisted walking. Though, this time, I do not plan on hiring a guide to take me around. My earlier experiences in doing so, though they were no doubt the smartest thing to do in an area I was completely unfamiliar with, have convinced me to break with the packaged tour in the strictest sense. Much of Mustang is reliant on trekking and pilgrimage for its economic livelihood and as such, most of the people involved in the travel and service industries take great pains to ensure that their guests’ “experiences” are up to par. I have a hard time convincing them that the “experience” is precisely what I am not after.

Moving from guesthouse to guesthouse in the high Himalayas is reasonably easy once you get a sense of things and I fear that my poor guide, stuck with me for several months on end, would find my repetitive returns to the same temple and pilgrimage sites rather boring as I sit in some out-of-the-way corner to observe ritual practices, chat with pilgrims, interview nuns or sadhus, or draw detailed sketches of sacred stones. Sadly for the pilgrimage economy, outside of food and lodging, the anthropologist makes for a meager consumer.

So now, as I begin to finalize my plans for returning to Nepal in just a few short weeks, I bid the relative stability of my academic life so far adieu. As I prepare to set-off back into the Himalayas to wander the ever-changing paths of the sacred river Kali-Gandaki, I know that I will be taking advantaging of the roads well-trod before me (by pilgrims, tourists, and trekkers alike), but I will always remember that no matter how many times this route has been taken and no matter how carefully others may attempt to manage how I might experience it, there is no telling what I will find. And that is the deepest mystery the spiral can hold.

“While each pilgrimage is an individual affair, even such individual journeys and behavior occur and and are framed within social and group contexts. The Iwaki-kai pilgrims operated within a social framework and set of dynamics that allowed them to be individual and yet operate as an entity that gave them the scope for a highly personalized journey and experience within the comforting setting of an organized tour, in which each participant brought something special and individual to the group. The group was thus a combination of individuals with different views and aims and ideas existing in a temporary community that gave them a sense of identity and purpose and added to their pilgrimages, whose meanings were made within the framework of the social and group contexts in which they were carried out.” — Ian Reader, “Making Pilgrimages” pg.248

In the academic literature, pilgrimage is generally considered a transient phenomenon. For a relatively brief moment in time, disparate individuals from various backgrounds and walks-of-life come together with the aim of carrying out a singular shared goal: to complete the pilgrimage. The group then dissolves and each individual returns to their former place and previous situations. While I tend to agree with the concept of transient communities in spirit, I often find myself at odds with the definition of pilgrimage as a purely ephemeral state-of-being. This is because the fleeting nature of pilgrimage is often located in the identities of pilgrims themselves. In other words, because any one individual is only an actual pilgrim for a short time (while they are actively in motion) the phenomena of pilgrimage itself must be therefore equally fleeting.

The more and more I encounter Shaligram stones, either in the context of research in South Asia or enshrined in residence in temples and homes here in the U.S., the more it becomes clear that these stones are not just the ultimate end goal of pilgrimage to Muktinath temple or the Kali-Gandaki river, but themselves a kind of symbolic perpetual pilgrimage frozen in material form. To understand this, one must understand the link between a Shaligram stone and the life-cycle as it is understood in Hindu and Buddhist practice. Just as the stone is “born” from the womb of the mountain and “birthed” in the flow of the river, so too is a human being born and birthed from their mother’s womb. Just as the stone is picked up in pilgrimage and brought to a devotee’s home for daily care and puja (ritual worship and interaction), so too is a new human being incorporated into the every day life of the family. A Shaligram must be bathed and fed, cared for and often dressed, just as much as any other member of the family. Additionally, Shaligrams are often exchanged during weddings (as one might a bride or groom) and are also given to the dead prior to cremation such that they can then accompany the ashes back into the river in a symbolic death of their own. They will then, one day, presumably reappear within the river they began in and the karmic cycle continues.

If you were to encounter a Shaligram at any one point in this cycle one could certainly take note of its ritual and symbolic importance in the moment. You might also even be able to discuss at length its spiritual properties, social roles, and religious meanings, but without further perspective you will have missed the larger and grander significance of what was taking place. Only by following the entire course of a Shaligram’s “life history” do the multitudes of transient events that comprise its movement in space and time come together in a cohesive narrative; its role in pilgrimage included.

To say that pilgrimage is transient is to imply that other structures of life experience are not. While I take to heart that there are certainly differences between the regular continuities of daily life and the singular event of pilgrimage, what I am getting at here is that Shaligram pilgrimage both contextualizes the actions of pilgrims along the Kali-Gandaki and is contextualized by them in the broader cultural field of symbols and meanings that govern life, death, and rebirth. Pilgrimage, in essence, then goes beyond the actual moment of leaving and returning to form a momentary microcosm representative of the entire journey of life. In short, one is always on pilgrimage.

And this journey is not limited to humans alone. As direct manifestations of divinity (usually the god Vishnu), each Shaligram stone also takes along with it the deity manifested in its form. Additionally, the spiral markings of the ancient ammonite shell mirror religious understandings of the rotation of the cosmos; clockwise in Buddhism, counter-clockwise in Bonpo, and the continuous cycling of the ages in Hinduism. In this way, Shaligram stones concretize the divine movement of the cosmos and give it material form, they reify the proper hierarchical orders of material worlds and spiritual worlds, and cement the belief that movement within and among these things is a constant part of the karmic balance.

For these reasons, now as I prepare to return to the field again in just a few short weeks, I must consider the broader implications of the pilgrimage (in both a physical and research sense) that I am about to undertake for the second time. It will not be enough to distill the moment of pilgrimage down to the events of walking the proper routes, visiting the pre-determined temple sites, or wading into the river en masse in search of Shaligrams. The stage is set, I think, for a new kind of drama; one where the entire course of one’s lifespan can be symbolically reduced to the distances between mountains. Where what is narrated in mythological time becomes remade in geological space. And here it can be worked on, reforged and reimagined, and then carried away back into the “real” world in the form of a strange and mysterious stone always spiraling inward and further and further away.

I encountered my first Shaligram in India during the summer of 2012. Since that time I have searched virtually every library and bookstore from Kolkata to Kathmandu (and spent an equally exhausting number of hours on Google) for any text I might find about the sacred stones of the Kali-Gandaki River Valley. Curiously, once I had managed to obtain copies of the source texts (mainly the Skanda and Garuda Puranas, the Taittiriya Upanishad, and the Brahma Sutras) that mention Shaligram veneration, I could find little else. Other than a few commentaries and pamphlets available in India and Nepal, there didn’t seem to be a published work about Shaligrams that was “about something.” By that I mean, aside from a few passing mentions here and there in the ethnographies of the Himalayas and of Hinduism, I could not find detailed descriptions of Shaligram practices in Nepal or elsewhere, of pilgrimage experiences, or of the history of Shaligrams in South Asia. But my searching did finally pay off in one respect, when I finally purchased a copy of the Salagrama – Kosha at a book market in New Delhi.

Published by S.K. Ramachandra Rao in 1996, the Salagrama-Kosha (trans. Book of Shaligrams) has, thus far, provided the most complete account of Shaligram worship available to interested readership. It explains the physical and textual origins of Shaligrams in the standard theological sense and it also contains a great deal of valuable information regarding Shaligram origin myths and methods of identification. What is more, it points to other possible sources for inquiry, including Anupa Simha’s “Salagrama Pariksa,” the “Salagrama Sila Lakshana Paddhati,” and a number of other manuscripts written in the last 200 years or so, many of which have never been translated or published.

During my time in Mustang, and among Shaligram pilgrims in both Nepal and India, it was interesting to note that the Salagrama-Kosha, along with the Puranas and other Vedic texts, comprised the vast majority of the average pilgrim’s and practitioner’s referential knowledge of Shaligram texts. As is typical in Hinduism, there appears to be no standardized body of texts that specifically direct Shaligram practice (though various texts at various times certainly hold a great deal of influence), just as there is no standardized body of texts that specifically direct Hindu worship in general. But within this complicated tapestry of inter-related threads, the absence of careful research into Shaligram meanings and practices located in place and time has lead to a noticeable gap in the literatures and in understandings of this widespread but strangely invisible practice. After a time, many of the devotees I met and spoke with even articulated similar concerns.

It’s hard to claim, off hand, that this is what I intend to remedy at the conclusion of my field research in South Asia, but it is with a final planned research monograph that I hope to bring together as many of these texts as possible with in-depth ethnographic research into Shaligram practices such as they are today. This means not just ascertaining what sacred texts say about Shaligram stones, but how people actually use them and what experiences they have in the arduous journey to acquire them.

As the Salagrama-Kosha notes, “the Deity is like an ocean of nectar altogether devoid of waves.” And yet, the physical world remains unsettled, battered about by the winds and tides of everyday life. The research process is, unfortunately, not much different. It’s difficult to tell what leads to chase down, what avenues to explore first, and of course, there remains the perpetual worry that something important might be left out. What texts might I have missed? What ritual specialist might I not have spoken to? What temple or pilgrimage site might I have inadvertently walked past?

In the end, with so many possible books filtering down through the hands of academics and pilgrims alike, and so many transient experiences carried off by the high Himalayan winds, and so many silent and contemplative faces moving through the endless streams of the Kali-Gandaki River each year, I can’t even begin to imagine just how many stones have been left unturned.

It has been three months since my return from Mustang, Nepal with a basket of Shaligram stones brought from the Kali-Gandaki River, and I am already planning my return. It is likely that I will be back in the Muktinath Valley sometime around June (funding willing), and undertaking Shaligram pilgrimage again by the time pilgrimage season is in full summer swing. This time, I may attempt the journey beginning in the Damodar Kund (the source of the Kali-Gandaki River in Upper Mustang), moving southward towards Muktinath, and ending in Kagbeni village. Unfortunately, the permits required to access Damodar Kund are quite expensive, must include a guide, and are best undertaken in a group in order to defray costs. Though, I am not the only one who found this troublesome. Unfortunately, many pilgrims I encountered along the way also expressed their concerns regarding the difficulty in traveling northwards along the Annapurna circuit, and with Nepal’s continuing political and economic frustrations it’s hard to predict what complications might still arise. If I am unable to take the pilgrimage route to Upper Mustang, it is likely I will retrace my original steps from Jomsom, to Kagbeni (where the Kali-Gandaki is easily accessible), to Muktinath again. However, this time, my goals are slightly different.

As I continue to work on gathering interviews and data for the book that will inevitably result from this research, I am turning my attention less to the material and spatial aspects of Shaligram practice and more towards the experiences of Shaligram pilgrimage from home to river and back home again. To this end, anyone who is interested in discussing their experiences with Shaligrams is encouraged to comment here or to email me at prolegomenon@gmail.com. I am particularly interested in hearing about personal experiences while on pilgrimage, while finding Shaligrams in the river, or even with Shaligrams kept in home shrines. All responses sent to my email will be kept confidential.

In the end, it is the social life of Shaligrams that holds the most mystery. Even for the ones living here in Boston.

Radha-Krishna Darshan at Home

Shaligrams from the Kali-Gandaki

One of the more interesting challenges I have been tackling since returning from the field is in categorizing my fieldnotes in a usable way. By this I don’t just mean figuring out major recurring themes or breaking down conversations into relevant questions and answers, I also mean attempting to organize categories and photos of various types of Shaligram Stones into some kind of short-hand grid. While variously arguing with Excel or tearing my hair out with Photoshop, it occurred to me that what I might actually be attempting to do is something along similar lines to that of a naturalist’s field guide. And while the relationship between famous naturalists of old and modern-day anthropology is a long and fascinating one, I am also attentive to possible critiques of “butterfly collecting”: a version of social anthropology derided by Edmund Leach (1961) that saw any attempt at creating social typologies or other systems of anthropological classifications as an imposition of the anthropologist upon the culture in question. He made this critique on the grounds that any resulting classification systems made no more sense than, say, grouping all blue butterflies together and pronouncing them the same based on shared color. In more recent anti-colonialist and anti-development literature, classification is also rejected on the grounds that it is a method by which the hegemonic West asserts power over marginalized or “othered” groups.

So how does one deal with the problem of categories in this case, then? Especially since categorization is both still ubiquitous in social science literature and is commonly used among the very people we seek not to categorize by our own standards. For my research, a two-prong approach is best I think. Firstly, I am already leveraging categorizations of Shaligram Stones in use by the people themselves who venerate the stones (many of such categories being drawn from Vedic and other religious texts) and secondly, I am acknowledging that designations and differentiations can be employed to the benefit of research while also addressing possible flaws, over-generalizations, and the problem that all systems of neat categorization tend to erase the fluidity of boundaries and categorical outliers that demonstrate just how problematic believing in this entire process is in the first place.

And yet,”classification is possible because a society is no more just a collection of individual human beings than a house is just a conglomeration of lumber, bricks, and nails (Lewellen, Political Anthropology, 2003).” And it is for this reason, in part, that a field guide to Shaligram Stones will comprise at least one part of my larger research. The second reason is that my interlocutors and informants have already expressed great interest in such a work, one that draws together a wide variety of their current sources into a single, referential, text available to all; and for anthropological ethnography, the idea that your final publication could be both valuable to your discipline and equally so to the people you work with is the finest compliment there is.

A Field Guide to Shaligrams

A Field Guide to Shaligrams