A photographer captures the notorious flesh-eating Aghor religion of India
Tamara Merino spent a month in the Holy City of Varanasi
Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s May-Ying Lam and freelance photographer Tamara Merino.
These people eat human flesh.
That is all some need to know about the Aghor religion of India to brand its followers as deranged. But freelance photographer Tamara Merino wanted to know more.
In late 2016, she spent one month taking a deeper look at this small sect of Hinduism in the Holy City of Varanasi. Merino photographed them at their temple and at the ghats on the shores, to which many Hindus travel to die.
“They are people that have so much love and respect for people, animals and nature … it’s just as beautiful as any other religion is,” she said. They worship and hold rituals for their god Shiva, the god of destruction that dwells in the cremation grounds.
The traditions of the Aghor stem from the belief that everything is beautiful and a creation of the gods. So they rail against discrimination and the remnants of the caste system, which historically separated Indians into rigid social strata. Eating human flesh and excrement are also meant to prove that nothing is base.
The Aghor get the flesh from corpses floating down the river, which family members push into the Ganges River if they don’t have enough money for cremation. And under the privacy of the new moon, they chant mantras, make offerings to Shiva, and consume it.
Merino never actually photographed the sacred tradition, but she did visit the Harishchandra ghat cremation ground, which runs 24/7 year-round, and burns around 100 bodies a day.
See more of Tamara Merino’s work, previously featured on In Sight: “Inside the world of Australian opal miners who live underground.”