The Milk Miracle
The pillars were so tall they seemed to reach the sky. The floor was so shiny that Revati could see her face in it clearly. Between the four pillars was a white marble statue of Nandi, Lord Siva’s gentle bull. The white marble made Nandi’s skin glow, and eight-year-old Revati loved to stand and watch His serence face. The soft gaze of His eyes made her feel secure. The date was September 21, 1995, and the Milk Miracle was about to start right here at this small temple in Delhi. Revati’s story is based on what really happened that day. The miracle quickly spread to temples and shrines all over the world.§
Inside the temple, in the inner sanctum, Revati’s father, the temple priest, was chanting Sanskrit as he performed the puja. Their house was just around the corner and school began at 8:00 am, but Revati never missed the morning worship. The smell of incense mingled with the fragrance of fresh flowers was a delight to the nose. The freshly ground sandalwood paste applied on Lord Ganesha’s forehead was delightful. She could smell it throughout the temple. These sweet scents remained with her all day.§
She watched some people walk into the temple for their morning worship, as usual. Suddenly, a young man rushed in.§
“This is unusual,” she thought. “Why is he in such a hurry? Ganesha isn’t going anywhere, after all.”§
Standing near a pillar, she watched as the man, all out of breath, ran up to the sanctum and called to her father, “Panditji! Panditji! Ganeshji is hungry. He wants milk!”§
A deep frown came over her father’s face. Once the puja had begun inside the sanctum, it was not supposed to be interrupted.§
She wished the young man had waited till the puja was over. But over and over again he kept repeating, “Ganesh is hungry!” She even wondered if the man was a little crazy.§
Her father now showed some interest. Perhaps there was something to this strange request? He stopped his puja, came to the front of the sanctum and asked the man, “Why do you think Ganesha is hungry?”§
“I saw him in my dream. He asked for milk. See, I brought milk with me.” He pulled out a little bottle, poured some milk into a spoon, and before anyone could stop him, entered the sanctum and placed the spoon near Ganesha’s mouth. The oil lamp inside the sanctum flickered for a moment, then started to burn more brightly. “A divine sign?” Revati wondered.§
She stood on her tiptoes and peered closely at the spoon, as did the other devotees. To everyone’s surprise, the milk in the spoon disappeared. Again the man filled the spoon and held it before Ganesha, and again the milk vanished. Her father took the bottle and spoon and gave it a try. The milk vanished.§
Within a few minutes, the news began to spread like wildfire. Those who saw it happen ran to their homes and telephoned relatives and friends all across India, and overseas, too. Revati stayed at the temple, and to her amazement, hundreds of people soon appeared at the gates, each carrying milk for Ganesha. With too many to offer milk to Ganesha, some offered it to Lord Siva, and then to Nandi, and both Deities consumed the milk.§
Revati’s mother, Ambika, also heard the news and brought milk for Ganesha. “Come, Revati! You and I can try it, too!” She held a spoonful before the stone image and giggled as the milk vanished. She had never experienced anything like this before. It was a miracle! As the crowd began to fill and overflow the temple, Ambika said, “We should go now,” and they walked quickly to their nearby home.§
As they walked through the doorway, the phone rang. It was Revati’s uncle, calling from London.§
“Ganesha is taking milk! Ganesha is taking milk!” he yelled into the phone. Well, Uncle always yelled into the phone, as if it was still like the old days when phone connections between England and India were not so good.§
“Really?” Ambika asked excitedly. “He is drinking milk here, too, in our own temple! We just came from there minutes ago. Hundreds of people have come to offer milk. We think the miracle happened here first!”§
Uncle yelled, “I put the spoon up to his trunk, and the milk disappeared. Hundreds of people did it. It’s actually on BBC today.”§
The afternoon newspapers in Delhi were all calling it “the milk miracle.” The reports were sympathetic, though they included comments by skeptics who said it was all some sort of mass craziness.§
“Capillary action, obviously,” said one scientist who had not witnessed it himself. He was talking about how a liquid can move upwards, against gravity. Capillary action is seen when a towel is put in water. The water is drawn up by capillary action. Even the parts of the towel above the water get wet.§
But the doubters were challenged by others, equally qualified, who had offered milk themselves. Aparna Chattopadhyay of New Delhi wrote in the Hindustan Times, “I am a senior scientist of the Indian Agriculture Research Institute, New Delhi. I found my offerings of milk in a temple being mysteriously drunk by the Deities. How can the scientists explain the copper snake absorbing the milk I offered with a spoon kept at a good distance away from it?”§
Revati went to school, but many students and even some of the teachers were missing. They had gone to the temples to offer milk. The entire class was talking about the miracle and not the day’s lesson.§
“Our store is completely out of milk,” said Vikram, whose father owned a big grocery market. “We can’t get more milk anywhere in Delhi.”§
“My relatives called from Mauritius,” said Skanda. “The Ganesha at Tulsi Sham Temple in Beau Bassin is taking milk. My cousin Palani said, ‘I rushed there, leaving all my jobs behind. I took some milk and brought it close to the trunk without spilling any. The milk was taken very quickly.’”§
“My brother called from New York,” chimed in Ganesan. “ ‘The big Ganesha temple in Flushing was still packed with people at 2:00 am, he said. Not only Ganesha but also Siva and Nandi took milk there. His college friend Manisha Lund said, ‘It was sucked up, like someone was drinking it with a straw.’ “§
“Our friends in Los Angeles called us,” pitched in Savitri. “They said even the reporter for the local TV station, Sharon Tae, who isn’t even a Hindu, offered milk and had it accepted. But they said it wasn’t happening at all temples, and some people were skeptical. They didn’t believe it. But many had the milk offering accepted at the Chatsworth temple in Southern California.”§
Revati went home after school to find long lines still outside her family temple. She snuck in to see what was going on. With the hundreds of gallons of milk that had been offered, there should have been milk all over the floor and even pouring out the door. But beyond small amounts spilled here and there, there was very little milk to be seen!§
Finally, by late evening, the crowds started thinning—not because there was any lack of excitement, but because the city of Delhi had run out of milk!§
Father finally returned home early the next morning, many hours after the temple’s usual closing time. Just as he came in, his cousin Jai called from Nairobi in Africa. “Fifteen thousand people belonging to all castes and nationalities—Hindus, Sikhs, Africans and Europeans— made offerings,” Jai reported. “No one here of any religion has ever seen such a thing in their life. It is the same at many other temples here in Kenya.”§
The next day, attempts to give Ganesha milk were unsuccessful, and the Milk Miracle ended as quickly as it had begun. School was closed that day. When Revati’s father awoke, she asked him, “Daddy, why did Ganesha take milk?”§
“I think He wanted us to have more faith in Him and all the Gods. People are just too skeptical these days. Even with this miracle here we had people saying it was ‘capillary action’ and such nonsense. Ganesha consumed hundreds of liters of milk in my temple alone. My brother said one big store in London next to a temple sold 35,000 cartons of milk that day for offering to Ganesha. Where did the milk go?”§
“Have things like this happened before?” she asked.§
“There are many stories of miracles, not only in Hinduism, but in all religions. The closest to the Milk Miracle is the story of Nambi, a South Indian saint who lived a thousand years ago. He offered food to Ganesha and it disappeared, just like the milk yesterday. Nambi was just a boy at the time. Similarly, there are miraculous stories connected with many of our saints.”§
“Well,” Revati sighed, “I will certainly never forget the day Ganesha accepted milk from me! It makes me think: If He can drink milk, what other things can He do?”§
