Ujjain : Trikal Bhavanta, a female ascetic, on Tuesday said she is ending her life by taking ‘samadhi’ after the government failed to allocate her an all-women ‘Akhara’ space and time for a sacred bath at the Simhastha Kumbh pilgrimage here.
She has been sitting in a 10 feet deep ditch in which, Trikal Bhavanta said, she would be buried alive.
The police has been trying to dissuade the ‘sadhvi’ (female sage) from committing any such act, Additional Superintendent of Police Amarendra Singh told reporters. “Three policewomen have gone down the ditch to tell her to draw back from taking her life,” he said. Allahabad-based Trikal Bhavanta in 2014 founded the ‘Shri Sarveshwar Mahadev Baikunth Dham Muktidwar’ – known in short as ‘Pari’ Akhara and billed as the first female Akhara in India. She has since been waging a campaign for the ‘Pari’ Akhara to be given the same status as the male Akharas in Kumbh melas. An Akhara is an order of Hindu renunciates who see themselves as defending and protecting ‘Dharma’. They trace their origin to the work of the 8th-century philosopher Adi Shankaracharya. They have always had male members. The ‘Akharas’ are allotted special place and time for ‘shahi snan’ (royal bath) at every Kumbh pilgrimage.The Madhya Pradesh government recognises 13 Akharas — all male — for the purpose of Simhastha Kumbh.
