The most peculiar phenomenon occurred on September 21, 1995, where reports started to circulate out of New Delhi, India of Hindu statues drinking milk. A man in New Delhi, India dreamed that Lord Ganesha (the Hindu god of success) craved milk, and after he woke up from his dream before dawn on September 21, 1995, he offered a spoonful of milk to a statue of Lord Ganesha at his local temple in southern New Delhi. Both the man and the Hindu priest who watched reported that the milk disappeared from the spoon. Worshippers were offering spoonful’s as a sacred gift, and the symbolic effigies of Lord Shiva and Ganesha were actually consuming it.
Lines built up around temples, and the local authorities had to increase the city’s milk supply by 100,000 liters because of a shortage. Doubters immediately suggested it was a case of mass hallucination, or that the permeable quality of the statues that created the phenomenon. Other skeptics said that milk was just being spilt, but the ground around the statues did not hold anywhere near the amount of milk that was being offered. The phenomenon happened again in 2006, 2008, and 2010.
Unquestionably, those who came had no doubts that it was a true miracle, and as Indian communities gotten wind of the phenomenon, other reports about similar events appeared all across the globe. By the next day, Hindu worshippers were standing in long lines outside London temples, eager to offer milk to the statues. Anila Premji was a lady who stood in line during the night to attend the Vishwa temple in Southall, London, to offer a spoonful to a figure of Nandi, who was a bull ridden by Shiva. “I held the spoon out, and the milk just disappeared,” Anila said. At the main Swaminarayan temple in London, the situation was so busy that authorities refused entry to people bringing their own milk cartons.
In Canada, Italy, Dubai, Germany, Thailand, Kenya, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Sri Lanka, Trinidad, Denmark, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Nepal, Denmark, Mauritius, Australia, and the United States the miracles continued. Hindu worshipers at Chatsworth Hindu Temple in California also reported milk being accepted by their idols. Stories and articles were run by the mainstream media, and most of the world’s major newspapers such as CNN, Reuters, and the BBC. Despite skeptics writing off the statues drinking milk phenomenon with scientific explanations, the devoutly religious said it was a sign of God. Even those Hindu worshippers who did not regularly attend the temples witness the events and said they felt a reassured sense of an almighty power protecting them. No matter what practical explanations are put forth, sometimes a renewed faith in a divine presence is a great comfort for those who want to believe.
