Transgender monastic group joins Hindu festival

Prayagraj: The Kumbh is one of the biggest spiritual spectacles in the Hindu religious calendar. Ash-smeared Naga Sadhus, or naked holy men, and other pilgrims participate in ritualistic baths where the River Ganga merges with the River Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati river. And the popularity of the festival and spiritual origins of Hinduism have spread far beyond the borders of India.

Devotees from all over the world have pitched their tents at Prayagraj and are performing traditional rituals like this 'Maha Yagya,' or grand fire ceremony.

Chanting mantras in Sanskrit they throw offerings into a fire pit in a day-long ceremony which they believe helps burn bad karma, or deeds.

'Pilot Baba,' a former Indian Air Force fighter pilot, who turned Hindu spiritual leader, holds yoga seminars around the world, attracting hundreds of new devotees each year. One of his most popular prodigies is Japanese national Keiko Aikawa or, as she is known in India, Yogmata. She believes the high popularity of Hindu spiritualism around the world is because it is "natural."

Transgender people have found a place at the festival this year.

Although hijras - the term Indians use to describe eunuchs, androgynous and transgender people - were an integral part of the ancient Hindu society described in the religion's Vedas scriptures, they have been marginalized in modern India, forced out of their family homes as children and often sold into sex trafficking.

Hindu families have continued ancient practices of paying hijras to dance at births and marriages, considering their presence auspicious, while simultaneously denying them access to these same rites.

Among India's best-known transgender activists, a Bollywood reality TV star and a former Asia Pacific representative to the UN, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi is capitalizing on the ruling Hindu nationalist party's emphasis on the nation's Hindu heritage to claim a place for transgender people among its religious elite, stirring both admiration and controversy.

Her newly formed Kinnar akhara, or monastic order, has set up camp at the week-long Kumbh Mela festival, a series of ritual bathings that rotates among four Indian sites every three years and draws tens of millions of Hindu pilgrims.

Tripathi now spends her time at the Kumbh Mela festival participating in Hindu rituals and setting aside several hours each day to bless devotees and collect cash donations.

Tripathi, born a Brahmin, the highest Hindu caste according to the Vedas, says she was inspired to form the akhara after a 2014 Supreme Court ruling found transgender citizens were a "third gender" due all rights and protections accorded by India's Constitution.

"The dharma, the religion never rejected me. I was always higher (than other genders). The religion placed me in such a situation that people should worship us. And that went missing for centuries. It was only that I asked for my space which was taken away back (sic). Where history and incidents took away my space, which I held in the Vedic times of the religion." she explains.

Unlike other akharas, which are only open to Hindu men, Kinnar, founded in 2015, is open to all genders and religions.

The ashram showcases an art exhibition devoted to the transgender community.

The painting of the confluence of Hindu god Shiva and his wife goddess Parvati aims to show the origin of the revered transgender community in Hinduism.

Elsewhere in the festival site, the Naga Sadhus, the ash-smeared Hindu ascetics and followers of god Shiva from various monastic orders, bring their unique quirks and forms of meditation to the Mela.

It often involves the holy smoke or cannabis smoked through a chillum, a small pipe made from mud or stone.

Mahant Vashisht Giri, a Naga Sadhu who is distinguishable by his crown of prayer beads which he claims weighs 51 kilos, says he became an ascetic because of an epiphany.

Some 150 million people are expected to attend this year's Kumbh, which runs until early March.