Tonsure Pilgrims: Where God and Globalization Meet

Briar Smith sends along this story about the Tirumala Venkatesvara temple in the Tirapati-Tirumala Hills of Andhra Pradesh, one of the richest temples in south India. Its prosperity comes from the sale of human hair offered to Venkeswara, an avatar of Vishnu, in the performance of samskara by millions upon millions of pilgrims to petition for divine protection. This form of samskara is called cudakarma. Some 500 tons of hair are said to travel from this temple each year to commercial processors who make it into hair extensions for a waiting Western world. Here are some accounts by devotees who have made the Tirumala trek.

This is wild. The self-mortification of the vanity of the faithful feeds the vanity of the secular; in the global circuit, enlightenment serves illusion. What does Venkatesvara think, I wonder.

It should be said the nearly $21 million annual revenues from 'temple hair' goes to the support of schools, medical centers and food for needy pilgrims, though it appears many donors are unaware of the ultimate disposition of the hair.

There are other distinctive forms of devotion at Tirumala, detailed here. They include walking up the long hill to Tirumala (a two and a half hour trek), lying prostrate and rolling around the temple chanting in gratitude for the protection of Venkatesvara (aftera preliminary purifying bath), offering one's weight in coins, candy, or something similar to the deity (this one often done by children), and giving to the deity the ornaments one is wearing at the time one takes a vow to the deity.