Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Ashram. Also knows as "Chaurasi Kutia" or "The Beatles Ashram" was abandoned in 1997 and now is the property of the Indian Forest Department.
The Beatles travelled with the Maharishi to Rishikesh in February 1968 to practice transcendental meditation. It has been speculated that Maharishi's influence helped wean the band off LSD and inspired them to write many of their later songs. The location and its surrounding area offer a journey into the past.
Near the entrance is a cluster of what looks like stone igloos. These are the “caves” or “pods”, where ashram devotees meditated. One is called “The Beatles Cave”, in the belief that the group used it. These caves are well-preserved. Other buildings on the site, however, are in dank decline, their concrete black and crumbling as a half-century of monsoons has taken its toll. Some are overgrown by peepul, banyan and fig trees, like a lost city in the jungle, an Indian answer to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat.
Previously, the walls of the ashram were painted on as part of an art project before authorities shut it down in 2012. “It was obvious to me that people wanted to claim this space and commemorate the legends that walked these grounds,” street artist Pan Trinity Das, who worked on the walls, told CNN. “Almost everyone who enters the space is dumbfounded that such a historical and spectacular site was falling into ruin.”
The Beatles wrote many songs during their visit to Rishikesh: 30 by one count, 48 by another. Lennon said: "We wrote about thirty new songs between us. Paul must have done about a dozen. George says he's got six, and I wrote fifteen. And look what meditation did for Ringo – after all this time he wrote his first song." Many of the songs became part of the White Album, while others appeared on Abbey Road in 1969 or on solo records. ✨
