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places where countless pilgrims had 
worn stones smooth as they wor- 
shiped. He discovered bells, outside 
the cave and inside the temple, and 
he rang them with exuberant joy. I 
discovered an unexpected natural 
shrine. Years before I had been enor- 
mously impressed by the hot springs 
that gush out of the rock, forming 
a little caldron in which potatoes and 
rice can be cooked in minutes; and 
I had been less impressed by the pools, 
lower down and less hot, in which 
pilgrims bathed. But I had not bathed; 
an Oxfordian prudishness has always 
made me nervous about nudity. 
This time, however, while the food 
we had been given in the cave was 
cooking, Mohan Kumar said he was 
going to take a ritual bath, and from 
where we were, Lai Bahadur found 
that to get to the main temple, in- 
conspicuously buried in the rock face, 
he had to go through a steaming pool. 
Suddenly I too was standing stark na- 
ked in the icy wind, and all three 
of us plunged into the hot water. We 
totally submerged ourselves, as much 
to unfreeze our noses as because it 
is ritually correct. When we came up 
for the third (ritually correct again) 
time, there was the disciple of the 
holy person of the cave, standing in 
the temple at the edge of the pool. 
With song and incense he was blessing 
us, blessing the water and the pine 
forests, blessing the whole world — 
including the card-playing tourists, I 
am certain. And there were the three 
of us, a Hindu Brahman, a Nepali 
Buddhist, and an Anglo-American ag- 
nostic, all equally naked and all 
equally blessed. The exhilaration was 
more than just the combination of al- 
titude (about 11,000 feet), cold air, 
and a steaming-hot outdoor pool pro- 
vided by nature. The nakedness had 
something to do with it, banishing the 
last illusion of distance and difference. 
Mohan Kumar and Lai Bahadur did 
not come with me to Gangotri. The 
temples there had all been closed for 
the winter, and neither of them wanted 
to face the long walk beyond, to the 
face of the glacier from which the 
great Ganga pours, a place known as 
Gaumukh. 
Gaumukh is probably the most in- 
accessible and the holiest of India’s 
sacred natural places. The trail 
quickly climbs above the tree line. 
Suddenly, the massive snowy moun- 
tains that seem so remote when seen 
rearing up above the dark green pine 
forests are no longer remote; the snow 
is all around and there is nothing but 
rock and snow between you and the 
top of the world. The gorge, rising 
sharply, becomes an open, windy, shal- 
low valley, with the river tumbling 
over rocks and boulders, the spray 
freezing as it lands. 
The trail disappeared into a mass 
of enormous boulders, the size of two- 
and three-story houses, and the last 
mile took more than an hour of painful 
scrambling through the moraine, 
guided only by the sound of the river. 
Then, quite abruptly, the blue ice face 
of the glacier was right in front of 
me, and there was Gaumukh, the 
“mouth of the cow,” a gaping black 
hole with stalactites and stalagmites 
of ice forming jagged teeth. Or was 
it, as some say, the head of the god 
Siva, the river pouring out of his tan- 
gled hair? In midstream a saffron flag 
had been erected on a pole wedged 
into the rocks. Having come this far, 
and too cold to be afraid, I made 
my way out. Reaching the rocks by 
the flagpole, I squatted down and 
dipped an enamel mug into the water, 
which if drunk at this place is said 
to give eternal life or release from 
it, whatever you choose to think. By 
the time I got the mug to my mouth 
the water had frozen inside it, and 
my fingers had frozen to the handle. 
A second dip, quicker this time, al- 
lowed me a couple of swallows, and 
the pilgrimage was over. 
Except, of course, that it was not. 
Like tourists, pilgrims have to make 
their way home, be it from the 
crowded streets of a pilgrim resort 
such as Badrinath, from the cave of 
Bangali Baba at Jumnotri, or from 
the total solitude of Gaumukh where 
the rest of mankind has been left some- 
where far below, far behind. And, also 
like the tourist, the pilgrim is not the 
same person that set out. For each 
there is a measure of transformation, 
intended and unintended. Something 
happens to both voyagers, largely to 
the extent that they are willing to 
let it happen, something that does 
more than rejuvenate, something deep 
and enduring. For each, one step fur- 
ther has been taken on the road to 
self-discovery, and the self is that 
much enlarged. 
Colin Turnbull, formerly associate 
curator of African ethnology at the 
American Museum of Natural His- 
tory, is visiting professor of anthro- 
pology at George Washington Uni- 
versity. 
22 
