Asia > India > Gujarat > Junagadh > Articles > Gods and Girnar

"Well, just how many steps are there to the top?" I asked. The first had said two thousand, the second four and now a third too was having a go. "Ten thousand...only" he beamed cheerfully. Only?

I was in Junagadh, a small town in India's Gujarat state that has not quite hooked travellers' widening nets. Just beyond stands Mt. Girnar, a kilometre-high extinct volcano sacred to Hindus and especially Jains for at least 2000 years. Day in, day out, hundreds if not thousands of pilgrims walk, stagger or are even carried up 6843 (I didn't personally keep count) steps to a cluster of serene temples and shrines that look out over the plains far below.

It also holds great allure for ash-caked sadhus and wandering ascetics, whose attraction was my interest. So here I was at dawn, full of expectancy at the foot of this hulking holy mountain.

A pungent aroma of dung fires mingled with incense tickled my nostrils whilst the melancholic hymn of harmoniums and chanting wafted from a dharamshala, pilgrims' rest house. Naked sadhus, still as idols, sat cross-legged by whitewashed shrines. A shadow here, a long shaggy beard there, sustained tenuous modesty. Whilst hawkers sold garish pictures of gods and saints, men squatting by velvety mounds peddled pinches of scarlet, vermilion and indigo powders.

With the sun just up over the ridge, I downed a cup of sweet reviving tea, biscuits and crunchy snacks from one of fifty or so rickety little stalls that dot the route. Definitely mass rather than class catering; everything, even water, must be carried up and I soon credited those straining, trembling porters as heroes of the hill.

So fuelled, the air veined with smoke and plaintive murmurings, we commenced the two-hour climb. A pair of 'dolis' with staffs and poles sidled up. "Come on up!" they chorused; for 1000 rupees I could be balanced on a crude seat hung from a pole between two thin, reedy men and jolted to the top. Clearly a trade-off between exhaustion and discomfort, it seemed only rich (and so usually overweight) Indians could afford the rough ride.

We emerged from a thin forest out onto a barer slope angling towards a worryingly sheer hump of rock. Unburdened dolis pelted back down at breakneck speed whilst we passed countless groups of pilgrims, many elders bent double, huffing and puffing their way up. They were mostly simple country people: women with plastic bangles and cheap day-glow saris, men in brilliant white dhotis and black plastic shoes.

It was a cheery, chatty atmosphere tempered with solemnity at each and every shrine where offerings were made. The men's white robes rejoiced in accumulating sticky, ochre, passport-style stamps and they proudly sported these pious badges.

The trail narrowed, weaving round giant boulders and overhangs of smooth rock. Soon we had gained Girnar's shoulder and beyond an imposing gate lay the largest cluster of Jain temples in chessboard courtyards of black-and-white marble.

The Neminatha and Mallinatha Temples date from 1128 but with long lives of repair, restoration and extension, little of the originals remain. But they are far from disappointing. Mosaic patterns gild their pillars, domes and towers; with seemingly endless rows of colonnades and cloisters, they're a delight through which to wander. The Jains have a deserved reputation for cleanliness - regulation barefoot means clean-foot even after a thorough exploration - and the cool marble exudes a Spartan opulence.

A feature of these temples is the hundreds of statues of cross-legged tirthankaras or deified Jain teachers. Historically there were twenty-four and, though each is replicated many times, they all look virtually indistinguishable. In the gloom of a grey chamber or some ornate niche, their little gleaming-glass eyes peer out at one and you never seem quite alone.

We climbed on to Gaumukhi Ganga where a spring spouts from what is alleged to resemble a cow's mouth; no ordinary water, though, but the holiest Ganges herself somehow defying physics, geography and all the rest. It is a favoured spot to bathe and give alms. Nearby, overgrown tea-houses mushroom around the Hindu Amba Mata temple, a must for newlyweds who come up all this relationship-challenging way for matrimonial invigoration.

For many, this marked the end of their exertions. The plains spread out below beyond waves of barren ridges and Junagadh, too, was clearly visible. Each year in winter there is a four-day parikrama or ritual circumambulation of the mountain by thousands of pilgrims who visit sites of myth and legend. It looked an exhausting prospect and so appropriate to a country where faith knows few bounds.

Higher up Mt. Girnar, faith can be beyond belief. On its distant, furthest peak, ascetics are said to enact their own funerals and smear themselves with funeral-pyre ash. This macabre detail was the single most compelling reason for our visit but there was little evidence of these bizarre men.

We climbed further where the acolytes of some guru - his beaky, bearded portrait was propped against a wall - endeavoured to enforce a kind of spiritual toll on all who passed. The country bumpkins offered least resistance. My companion obtained her one and only ochre stamp by producing her passport, which was minutely examined and earnestly discussed, then bashed with an illegible, circular chop.

With sheer drops on one side, then the other, we snaked our way across the ridge, dipping down steeply and then up once more. Now it resembled a low fortress wall with blocks of stone evenly cut and dressed, and white lines to guide devotees on moonless nights. At Gorakhnath Peak, the highest point, an eyrie of a shrine atop a pyramid of rock marks the spot where its eponymous pilgrim counselled a group of kings.

It's a stupendous, uncovered perch with white marble tiles and the reputed footprints of Gorakhnath, a couple of bells, rung without exception by all who clambered up the last few steps, and idols stained with vermilion sindur paste. A priest shattered coconuts with a huge cleaver, their sticky milk spraying the sanctuary in sweet reverence, and we sat for an hour watching pilgrims come and go.

Perhaps those wild, aberrant ascetics were languishing on a further, lower peak but there was no obvious path and I was told they would only be there in a few weeks' time with Spring's Shivratri festival.

Departing India some months later, an immigration official was mystified by Girnar's stamp in my companion's passport. For an absurd though tense instant he thought we had left and re-entered the country by some quaint, dubious route... But it seemed to me, pulling ourselves up Girnar's relentless steps that long strenuous day, we had never been more in India.

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