November 9 Varanasi Evening

Saturday, November 9, 2008

After quite a long travel episode (Calcutta northwest to Delhi, then Delhi southeast again to Varanasi because there IS no direct flight from C to V) we finally arrived mid-afternoon and headed immediately off to the most important place for Buddhists in the world, Sarnath. Sarnath is the city where the Buddha gave his first teaching and for that reason it is considered the "birthplace" of Buddhism. Sarnath is an important pilgrimage destination for Buddhists all over the world.

We also stopped in a small but significant archaeological museum which contained the remains of the top of Ashoka’s Column (approx 230 BC), considered to be the first work of Buddhist art ever made. It’s the first slide of any course on Buddhist art so I was a thrill to see it.

But the real story of the past 24 hours is the somewhat surreal but incredible city of Varanasi and its reason for being, the Ganges River. The Hindu refer to the river as Ma Ganga (or Mother Ganges). Varanasi is a 5,000 year old city and is the most holy city for Hindus (like Mecca for Muslims or Jerusalem for Jews and Christians). It is the center of the Hindu spiritual cosmos.

Hindus believe that if they die in Varanasi they will automatically attain salvation. They also believe that Varanasi is the home of Lord Shiva, the god of dissolution, endings and the promise of new beginnings. So the city is a place of cremation as well as creation. Thousands and thousands of people make pilgrimages each day to Varanasi and Ma Ganga, or are there to cremate the body of a loved one and return it the source of all life.

We went to the river at dusk to witness the timeliness ritual of death and regeneration. It is impossible to describe what we experienced last night but I can say that it was one of the most amazing, memorable and possibly influential experiences of my life. Going to the Ganges along with thousands of pilgrims was like being transported into another time and certainly into another world. There were absolutely no reference points to our familiar world; it was as if we were aliens. To be trite, I felt as if I were in some kind of strange Indiania Jones movie in a scene where he finds himself in the middle of an ancient town or market and is completely disoriented and has to find his way out. Except this was REAL.

We took bicycle rickshaws part of the way toward the river and then walked the rest of the way when it became so crowded with people that the rickshaws could go no further. We boarded boats that took us slowly downstream as the evening grew dark and we arrived near a cluster of funeral pyres where cremations were about to take place. Of course we were only allowed to photograph from a distance. We witnessed family members descend a steep staircase to the river carrying a body wrapped in cloth on a wooden stretcher. They slowly lowered the body into the holy water, which we were told is the first step in the preparation of the body for cremation.

Then we headed upstream to see what is a living symbol of the duality that Hindus believe - there there is a cycle of life of death and that death is no necessarily something to be mourned the way western cultures do - we saw families and priests celebrating life by performing ceremonies of bell-ringing, chanting, singing and honoring Shiva with fire at the water’s edge.

What is so difficult to describe is the way our senses were bombarded by color, light, sound and smell – we were literally engulfed by the event in a way I’ve never experienced before. Just when we thought there could not possibly be anything more to experience, fireworks exploded in the sky, so near our boats that bits of ash drifted down upon us.

The evening was magical, emotional, moving and exhausting. We returned to the hotel and collapsed.