Traveling

Varanasi

Varanasi is the oldest living (Indian?) city- I think people have been living there for over 5000 yrs... my facts are always a little iffy- sorry.

This is my favorite place in India. Yes, I have had some amazing experiences and there are other places that i really enjoyed, but there was smthg about Varanasi that was very very different.

Hindus believe that if they die in Varanasi they will immediately achieve 'moksha' which could be translated into enlightenment- but actually means that that they will be freed from their body. Hindu religion believe in reincarnation, right, so they must keep returning to bodies until they achieve moksha, where they can then be freed to live in heaven for eternity, fully enlightened.
(Apparently, for a soul to reach the human level it has to go thru smthg like 8.4 million species).

People come to Varanasi for their children to be blessed, for marriages to be successful, for death. There are celebrations constantly going down the streets. These entail many different things, but they must absolutely have a trumpet, a drum and a group of men dancing like wackos with their hands in the air. I absolutely love the dancing, but women are not allowed to dance. i was told the other day that when Indians see women dance they think " Oh that is a baaad woman". ;)
The celebrations move down the street, men dancing, music blaring, tempo double speed super upbeat, with people carrying lamps on the heads and generators being pulled behind.

Varanasi winds around and around, where there would have been no way for me to find my way anywhere without our little guide Ravi. He just liked hanging out with us and we liked hanging with him so we did. he brought us shopping in the alleys, and showed us a couple of temples, but most importantly, he brought us to the burning ghat. This is the place that people are cremated.

Let me set it up for you.

1st of all, women are not allowed to be on the level of the river or the funeral pyres, bc often grieving widows would jump onto their dead husbands pyre- so this is just supposed to protect us. Ravi brought us up to the roof of a nearby ghat (temple) so we could see down onto the funeral pyres. So we are sitting up with the birds and monkeys.
Every once in a while there is a loud popping type noise. There is a guide type guy who explains to us about the burning ghats.

We hear some chanting coming from down the street, it gets louder and the men show up carrying a body, wrapped in bright red and yellow silks, ebing carried on a bamboo support. The men walk down to the Holy Ganghes (Ganga) and put the body in the water for it's last bath. The body is then brought onto the beach, the silks are taken off and only a white shroud is left wrapped around the body. At one time there are usually about 5-9 bodies being cremated. When a place is free and there has been sufficient firewood heaped up, the body is carried over and placed on top. Sandalwood powder is sprinkled on the body, along with some butters and other holy things. (If the family is rich enough, they will have the body burnt entirely with sandalwood, but it is obscenely expensive). So once all the prayers have been said, and powders sprinkled, goodbyes said, the body is set on fire. It is started from below, and also above- there is firewood piled on top of the body also. It was very surreal to see a man on fire. You don't really see the person- but I do have his feet forever etched on my brain. At the same time that all this was going on, there was another funeral being prepared. Certain people can not be burnt. They are not yet ready to achieve moksha for one reason or another. Among these people are pregnant women, children, sadhus, lepers, people bitten by snakes, and a couple of others. Because these people can not be cremated on the pyres, they are dumped into the Ganghes. The body was wrapped in bright orange and there were about 5 men that walked around it several times. They then tied it up and strapped it to a boat. The men all got into the boat and rowed to the middle of the Ganghes. ONce there, they just tipped the body over the side (it's weighted down with the a rock). After tipping it in, they threw water at the place it sunk down and rowed back to the shore.
It was really weird to watch someone being dumped into the middle of the river. So final. that doesn't sound right, but I can't explain the feeling. Then to look back from that funeral, hear another procession coming down the street chanting, and to look back to the mans feet still burning.
It takes about 5 hrs for a body to fully burn, and even then the body doesnt fully burn- the chest of men and the hips of women don't break down fully, so after the required amount of time, the ghat supervisor decides to stop the fire. The holy person goes down to the Ganghes with a terracotta pot, collects some water and throws it onto the pyre. The pot is then thrown on the pyre, broken and at this moment the family is supposed to let the grieving end and realise that the soul has been enlightened and is in heaven. The ashes are then gathered along with the bones that didn't burn and thrown into the Ganghes.
An interesting part about the burning ghats is that the bodies don't smell. You would expect it to be a horrible stench, but it doesn't smell at all. The ashes float into the air so you have to cover your face, unless you want to inhale some persons ashes, but other than that.. nothing.

All that being said, people come to Varanasi to bathe in the Great Holy Ganga River. I can say from experience that there are many other places to bathe in the Ganga that are much cleaner but it is holier here- bc Varanasi is such a holy city, I suppose. But not only is it holy, it is also severely dirty! Just downstream from the burning ghats, and the bones that come along with them, and the bodies that are decomposing at the bottom of the river, there are people bathing, brushing their teeth, swimming, whatever you can imagine. When I asked our guide why people were not scared to get sick, there is obviously much dirt in the water, he replied, straight faced "The Ganghes is holy- it is our Mother. A Mother would not hurt her children, and so the Ganghes will not hurt us." He was completely serious. The most scientific answer I have ever received I believe. I suppose not everything can be explained.

posted by jjoollee @ 3:01 AM