The most feared and the most respected clan of Sadhus or ascetics of India, the Aghori sadhus are notorious for their uncommon and grisly rituals they perform as a part and parcel of their religious routine, enough to arouse curiosity and awe among the public.
Aghori Sadhu is associated with cannibalism, rituals using human skulls and making love to corpses. But is there more to them then what meets the eye?
Dark skinned Shiva followers dressed in black clothes, with long black hair, are easy creatures to spot. They are so obviously drunk and drugged that they can barely stand, yet their eyes seem calm and sober. Besides living by ritual burning areas, Aghoris also live in remote places far from the public: in the cold caves of the Himalaya, in the jungles of Bengal where tigers reign, or in the bare, empty, hot deserts of Gujarat where no living creature survives.
Aghoris worship Shiva or Mahakala - the destroyer, or its female manifestation: Shakti or Kali, the goddess of death. According to what Aghori Meronath from Varanasi told photographer and writer Davor Rostuhar, "Each deity in Hinduism is just one manifestation of the same God. Different orders worship different deities, thus satisfying all manifestations of God. But what Shiva and Kali demand from their followers is not acceptable to most people. Thus Aghoris are the only ones willing to please them. "
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