INDIA Member of the Hindu Aghori cult was filmed on video allegedly consuming human flesh. Although it is not clear from the video that the meat was actually human, he pulls a piece of roasted meat from a fire and, while eating it, comments that it is a human leg. As the video began circulating, it attracted the attention of police, who tracked him down and subsequently detained him. The outcome of the investigation, however, is unknown.
The Aghori are an extremely ascetic Hindu religious tradition primarily associated with the god Shiva. Its followers seek to transcend social taboos and the boundaries between what is considered pure and impure, and are therefore associated, for example, with staying at cremation grounds, meditating near the dead, and ritually using human remains. In some accounts of the Aghori tradition, the consumption of parts of human remains is also mentioned, symbolically representing the overcoming of fear of death and the material world.
