JAMMU, INDIA, August 15, 2005: Disappointment was writ large on Nirmal Sharma’s face when he returned after prayers at the cave shrine of Amarnath in Jammu and Kashmir – the Siva Lingam or ice formation symbolizing Lord Siva had disappeared. “It was just a wet spot,” Sharma said of the place where the Siva Lingam – a stalagmite formation formed by dripping water in the freezing cave – stood before it melted due to an intense heat wave sweeping the region. Thousands of pilgrims like him had the same regret. They visited the shrine after trekking through daunting mountainous passes at heights of 14,000 feet to reach the shrine with just one dream – to have a glimpse of the natural snow structure at the Amarnath cave. An unprecedented 390,000 people have visited the shrine this year since the pilgrimage began on June 21. The previous highest figure stood at 155,000 in 2004. When the pilgrimage started last month, the Siva Lingam stood at a height of over nine feet and it touched the rocky ceiling of the cave. “It was a great feeling. I thought I was standing before Lord Siva,” said Rohit Bansal, a pilgrim who had then visited the shrine. But the Siva Lingam – which is seen as an icon of Lord Siva – began melting because of temperatures of 35 degrees Celsius, unusually high for this time of the year when the mercury hovers between 25 and 30 degrees. The heat was just one factor. The heavy rush of pilgrims and the extra heat generated by helicopters that ferried pilgrims accelerated the melting process. Pleas that the melting should be halted by stopping the helicopter services and by keeping pilgrims some distance away from the ice formation were not heeded by anyone.
The Shri Amarnath Shrine Board, which maintains the shrine, had wanted to install a cooling device to keep temperatures at zero degree and allow the Siva Lingam to survive the heat. But the state government said this would interfere with religious sentiments and cause an ecological imbalance. The device was not installed. In some previous years, the Siva Lingam was as small as four feet and melted much before the pilgrimage was over. This trend was first noticed in 1994 when the formation melted in the first week of the pilgrimage in July that year. There was a proposal to build a glass safety wall around the Siva Lingam but this was dropped for reasons of religious sentiments of the devotees. While pilgrims are disappointed with the melting of the Siva Lingam, this has also caused a great deal of frustration among businessmen in Jammu, where almost all the pilgrims halt on their way to or from the shrine. “We had anticipated we would get at least half a million pilgrims this year but the numbers did not reach that level. With less than a week left for the pilgrimage (it ends Aug 19), the number of pilgrims going to the shrine has come down to less than 150 a day,” bemoaned Ram Shai, president of the Jammu Chamber of Commerce and Industry.