Gada and Jori at the Nag Panchami Festival
Nag Panchami, is also known as the Cobra Festival. This video is my personal interpretation and explanation of events that take place in the Akharas of Varanasi.
Focus on the Gada and Jori Clubs
Concrete and Stone Gadas at Ogornat Akhara
Make your own Gada, click here for free instructions
Kalash Nath Pandey School and Akhara, recently closed
DRUM TRACK used in this video is called Cyrus 58bpm
Nag Panchami Background
But first, here is some background information about the festival. Hindus honour snakes and serpents throughout India during Nag Panchami. The festival is on the fifth day of the bright half of the lunar month, which falls in July August according to the Hindu calendar. There are many legends in Hindu mythology and folklore narrated to the importance of the worship of snakes.
Main Ritual
The main ritual event of Nag Panchami is to offer milk and crystallized sugar to a cobra.
During the festival, snake charmers line the streets of towns and cities displaying an array of snakes. Pythons, rat snakes, and cobras mingle in deep baskets and are brought out, each in turn, to dance to the tune of their charmer’s flute.
Images of snake deities, made of silver, stone, and wood are washed with water and milk and worshipped by reciting mantras (spell).
For example:-
Let all be blessed by the snake goddess, let everyone obtain peace.
Let us all live in peace without any conflict and turmoil.
Offering prayers to snakes on this day is auspicious and will usher good tidings in one’s life.
Avoiding snake bites
Fasting and piety observed on this day, are considered as a protection against the fear of a snakebite.
Nag Panchami is a day to pray to snakes so as to avoid being bitten.
On this day digging the earth is taboo, as it could kill or harm snakes that reside in the earth.
North Western India – Varanasi
In northwestern India in cities such as Varanasi, Akharas are cleaned, repaired and repainted. Walls are decorated with images of snakes drinking milk.
The Akhara festivities do not make reference to the snake, which is generally regarded as the most common and popular dimension of the Nag Panchami celebration.
In Varanasi on Nag Panchami, Akharas put on demonstrations of strength. Wrestlers lift heavy weights and swing large Jori and Gada.
Puja
Priests are hired to perform a special puja or ceremony at the Akhara. The ritual puja is not directed at any deity in particular but at the wrestling pit.
Wrestler Development
Nag Panchami is an occasion for everyone to see how much a wrestler has developed and improved over the previous year.
A wrestler eats, exercises, and practices for a full year and then puts himself on display to bear witness to the virtue of his endeavour.
Competitions are held in wrestling, dumbbells, Gada and Jori swinging.
A Fresh Coat of Paint
All training equipment namely, Dumbbells, Gada, Jori and everything else is freshly painted in the chosen colours of each Akhara identifying their equipment.
Freshly painted Thin & Fat Jori at Shri Shri Hanuman Ji Vyaayaamshala Akhara
Freshly painted Jori at Ogornat Akhara
I followed this idea after my first visit to India and painted all my Gadas reads it is the traditional colour of Hanuman, the God of strength.
Lord Hanuman
Gada – Mace
The Gada is constructed from clay, cement, stone with a bamboo pole over a metre long inserted into its centre.
For many centuries the Gada was used as a weapon and it became a training tool that mimics a wrestlers arm throw or head throw.
A Gada is a Mark of a Wrestler’s Prowess
Given the abundance of phallic symbols in the Akhara and the general shape, swinging a Gada has clear symbolic overtones, of sexual potency and virility, as each time the Gada is swung, it is brought to a balanced position, erect from the wrestler’s waist.
In shape, a Gada resembles the churning stick used to make butter and buttermilk.
By swinging the Gada one might say that a wrestler is churning his body to increase his store of semen. Sexual energy through churning.
The Gada comes in two Formats
The first with a smooth surface on the head. The second with nails and other sharp objects protruding from the surface. Tough love training.
For the record, the steel Mace (gada) which is so prevalent in the west is relatively unknown in India.
Nail Gada
Jori
The proximity of India and Persia created an exchange of cultures. History draws many parallels with Jori Clubs and Persian Meels.
Jori Clubs
Persian Meels – I purchased the Meels on the right and use the regularly
It takes great skill and coordination to swing Jori clubs, and they are a great favourite in competitions. There are three styles of Jori, thin, fat and with nails like the Gada.
Jori weigh between 10 to 50 kgs per club
Jori are often decorated with colourful designs and many Akharas have special pairs which are brought out only on such occasions as Nag Panchami.
The Gada has clear phallic qualities,
Jori symbolise breasts
- Jori swung from an inverted position with the athlete holding firmly onto the TIT like handles as though he were milking a cow or buffalo.
- Swinging a Gada is the symbol of churning butter, milking (buffalo) is associated with swinging a pair of Jori.
- Milking itself is referred to as an exercise by many young men who brag that they can milk ten or fifteen buffalos without tiring.
- In this instance, the concept refers to milk as a female substance, which contributes to the development of male semen.
Jori Handle
Dairy Farmers
Most of the wrestlers in Varanasi are dairy farmers, and so the concept of milking and churning is particularly appropriate.
To conclude, in Varanasi, Nag Panchami is not only a public display of wrestling as a way of life but also a general celebration of exercise, physical fitness, strength and virility.
Very informative article
Hi Pratyay, Thank you, I feel that I have only just scratched the surface in this post.