HARIDWAR, INDIA, July 2012 (bbc.co): Genealogy is big business these days, much of it internet-driven, but as the BBC’s Anu Anand discovered in Haridwar, if you are from a Hindu family tracing your roots in the traditional manner can prove a little more demanding. By day, thousands of Hindu pilgrims come to wash away their sins or to perform last rites with the ashes of their deceased loved ones. My own pilgrimage to Haridwar is for a different reason.
I grew up in the southern United States, where the past can be carefully unearthed through public records. But my own past was a mystery. Neither my parents nor I possessed birth certificates. My mother did not even know her real date of birth. Like many of her generation, it had simply been concocted when officialdom required it. It was only when I moved to India in my 20s that I heard of the existence of a unique, ancient Hindu genealogical tradition – a tradition that I had finally come to see for myself. When Hindus make a pilgrimage to a holy place, they also reconnect with their personal family priest, and record births, marriages and deaths on long paper scrolls.
The earliest records, written on palm leaves, have been lost to the elements, but there are sites across India where such records can still be found, and Haridwar remains the most comprehensive and well-preserved repository. Today there are some 300 hereditary priests, or pandas, still at work. Hindu family history scrolls have been held in Haridwar for centuries The only trouble is, in order to find your family historian, you need to know something of your family’s history.” Without computerized records or even a local registry, the search for the right priest could take weeks.
In desperation, I phoned my father in Florida. He had met our family panda once, after my grandfather died. Perhaps he would remember where. “All I remember is a giant tree in a courtyard,” he told me. A local man overheard my entreaties and tapped me on the shoulder. “I know this tree,” he said. A few minutes later, he unlatched heavy double doors into a hidden courtyard, and right in the middle was one of the thickest banyan trees I have ever seen. Inside the courtyard was Mahendra Kumar, a round, jovial man. Moments later, as my eyes watered with delight he unravelled two scrolls, going back to the early 1800s. They contained entries written in the hand of my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfathers – going back a staggering ten generations. Mr. Kumar then invited me to make my own entry in our family scroll. Under the date, I put my name, as well as the names of my English husband, and our two children.