A Festival to Worship Machines
For centuries, people of Nepal have worshipped and offered sacrifices to Machines but no one really knows why.
This sounds like a plot from a cyborg apocalypse movie where a small of group people in a remote part of the world knew something strange about the future that no one else knew.
Every September, People across Nepal (and North India) take a day break from work and worship Machines. Some also sacrifice animal as if the they fear these Machines. It is hard to understand a culture with practices centered around a small area in the Himalayas and, with no concrete evidence, anthropologist have been baffled by such strange Human behavior.
“Maybe it is just way to show respect to something that help us survive” Mr Bishnu Raj Pandey, Chairman of Bajrayogini Industry, tells us. Indeed, most Nepalese today think it is in fact a way to show gratitude to Machines. These practices can be traced back to 6th century BCE. For me It is hard to understand the type of Machines that existed back then. Maybe it was just simple Machines and as our Machines evolved so did our culture.
But, Why did it begin in the first place?
According to Hindu mythology, Vishwakarma is the designer of all the the flying chariots and cities of gods and goddess. He is the architecture of every object that exist and his creations have helped humans survive. Vishwakarma is also the god who the Nepalese worship on this day. We don’t really know why this tradition of worshiping machines started. To tell the truth, we, Nepalese, don’t really care. It is a practice which has been passed on for generations.
Did you know?
“Hinduism has more than 3 million gods”
What do people say?
“We are praying for the smooth functioning of the Machines” says Kalinanda Mishra, a employee at Patasi Cashmere “They help us make a living.” May be it is true. There was probably no one from the future who went and warned the people in the past about a cyborg apocalypse. Maybe it is just my wild imagination Nevertheless, it is still an intriguing tradition and hopefully nothing else.