From Manhatten to Manikarnika: A Study of the ‘Aghori’ Cult and Its Influence on the Life of Allen Ginsberg

My Paper entitled ‘From Manhatten to Manikarnika’ traces down the history of Allen Ginsberg’s stay in India. It aims to draw parallels between the Beat writers of the apocalyptic 60’s in America and the revered ‘Aghori’ sadhus in India. For an average American in the 60’s, the East, especially India was a queer nation, it was this queerness that fascinated the Beats writers of the 1960's in America. The reverence and reception of nudity, the celebration of the body, the adoration of death, the consumption of hallucinatory drugs for spiritual connection; approval of everything bizarre and gory lured the west to turn to the ‘heathen’ east for spiritual liberation from its constrained, materialistic society. The ‘aghoris’ managed to impress the Beat writers of the west to such an extent that Ginsberg ended up himself being a ‘yogi’ after his visit to India. Apart from Hinduism in general the one aspect that I wish to talk about and study in detail is the influence of the aghor philosophy on the mindset of Allen Ginsberg.