Varanasi - City of Enlightenment

 

Hindu temples along the banks of the Ganges at Varanasi

In the pre-dawn light they begin to arrive, shuffling slowly along on foot, pedalled by tireless rickshaw wallahs, pulled along in tongas by mouth-foaming horses, jammed in overcrowded buses or riding leisurely in yellow and black taxis. It matters not their method of transport, all have one objective in mind; the great stepped ghats along the river bank at the end of the grubby, sprawling, narrow streets; for this place is Kashi, and the river is Ganga Mai .

Hindu pilgrims from all over India come to Varanasi at least once in their lives

 

Today ancient Kashi, the place of enlightenment, sacred city of all Hindus, is better known as Varanasi, named after the combination of Varuna and Asi, two minor streams which meet the Ganges here. To the British it was known as Benares, 

As the sunrise devotees immerse themselves in the sacred waters of Ganga Mai

    No one knows how old the city is. That it is very old there is no doubt. Indians say it is the world’s oldest city, and it is certainly mentioned in two of the most famous ancient Hindu epics – the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Although archaeological excavations, both at the ghats and elsewhere in the city, have revealed traces of extremely ancient settlements hardly a building in the present city pre-dates the mid-17^th century. Varanasi suffered centuries of destruction at the hands of the Moslems, beginning with the Turkic Sultan of Delhi, Qutb-ud-Din in the 12^th century and ending with the last great Moghul, Aurangzeb, in the late 17^th century. 

It is an ethereal experience to drift past with bathing ghats on the Ganges in the early morning

Throughout these centuries of destruction and desecration, in which the Hindu temples were destroyed or defiled time and again, the city remained the most important place of Hindu pilgrimage. It is here that the mighty Ganges curves in a huge sweeping bend on its journey from its source, Gomukh (the Cow’s Mouth), an ice-cave in the Gangotri Glacier high in the Himalayas, to its multiple mouths in the Sundabans of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal. The Hindus have likened this great curve to the crescent moon, a symbol of the great god Shiva, and so the city has become ‘the perpetual abode of Shiva and his consort Parvati: every pebble being equal to Shiva.’

The Ganges curves in a big sweeping arc at Varansi

         To many Hindus, Shiva is the most powerful of the Hindu trimurti, or trinity. Although Brahma is the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer, Shiva can take on the aspects of all three. In this form he is known as Vishwanath, Lord of the Universe, and it is in this form that he is worshipped in Varanasi. As god of death, Shiva is also the conqueror of death. Mrityunjaya, the flame of eternal fire which emanates from Shiva’s third eye, consumes all material bodies and Marnikarnika, the great cremation ground at Varanasi is the living symbol of this process. Bodies which are cremated here on the banks of the Ganges are thus freed from the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth.

A portrait of the great god Shiva overlooks a ghat at Varanasi

 It is in the grey light of dawn that the city takes on a mystic appearance, epitomising a holy city. Sari and dhoti clad bathers enter the waters as the first rays of Surya, the sun, break through the early morning mists. Sounds of chanting, praying, and the tolling of bells, interspersed with the lowing of cows, the bleating of goats and the barking of dogs, all sound unrealistically loud at this time.  The devout pray; facing the rising sun they immerse themselves, raising the sacred river water in their cupped hands, letting water trickle through their fingers, sparkling in the early sunlight. In this way their prayers achieve maximum spiritual benefit, and they can return home, souls cleansed. The less devout are content to just wash themselves on the ghats or swim in the river, collecting the holy waters in brass pots before returning home. In the morning there is little activity on the cremation ghat. Perhaps three or four bodies are in the process of being cremated. One or two shrouded corpses may be awaiting the ritual dip in the river before being placed upon the pyre. Later in the day activity will increase, reaching a peak in the late afternoon and evening. During the day it is not uncommon to see bodies of the deceased being transported to the river by rickshaw or motorised trishaw, or even by horse-drawn tongas. Many older people come to Varanasi to spend their last days in the hope that by dying in Shiva’s city and having their ashes consigned to the sacred river, they will achieve eternal salvation, the goal of all mankind.

After completing his ritual bathe in the Ganges, a man completes his morning ablutions

 Although it is mainly the purification of the soul by ritual bathing that draws people to the river, others are drawn for more commercial reasons. Each morning, early, the dhobis come down to the river with their loads of laundry. These are members of the Untouchables, the lowest step in the complex caste system of India. Now called Harijans or ‘Children of God’, a name first coined by Mahatma Gandhi in 1933 who spent much of his life trying to improve their status. These hard working individuals stand for much of the day knee-deep in the brown water furiously beating the day’s allocation of dirty clothes upon flat-stones, specially placed for that purpose. The clean clothes are spread upon the clay banks to dry, before being taken back to town. 

The ghat of the dhobis, or washermen, at Varanasi

Boats are also common on the River, whether just heading downstream, ferrying locals to the flat opposite shore or transporting cords of firewood necessary for the numerous funeral pyres. Silhouetted against the rising sun, afloat on the limpid glass-like waters, these vessels add to the mystique of the early morning river.

The sunrises through the mists of the eastern bank of the Ganges

Vermilion dye salesmen, Varanasi

As the sun rises higher and grows warmer, the pilgrims begin to drift away from the River, into the tangled labyrinth of narrow lanes which make up old Varanasi. Traders open their stores; bureaucrats hurry to their offices, and overloaded rickshaws transport uniformed children to their schools. Throughout the day there is always some activity on the ghats. Sadhus sit beneath cane umbrellas, many deep in meditation but some are available for consultations in the matters of the spirit. Dogs, goats, sacred cows, crows, water buffaloes, chickens, shite hawks and vultures, all fossick and scavenge along the water’s edge. But the devout will be here on the morrow when once again the river will become the spiritually-saving Ganga Mai.

Text & photographs ©Neil Rawlins 

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 https://www.picfair.com/users/Antipodeanneil

My paperback books on my Overland travels in Asia, Europe & Africa in the early 1970s and the experiences of a tour guide on the Asian Overland routes & leading Camel Safaris in Rajasthan in the 1980s are available from Amazon.