Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
flows out from the sacred Himalayas, realm of gods and saints, to
sanctify the land on her 1,250-mile journey to the eternal ocean.
Only children under five and saints are not burned. Instead,
they are 'buried' in the Ganges. But a pyre requires up to eight
hundred pounds of sandalwood logs - sold just behind the main
burning ghat - and ghee, clarified butter, is the traditional fuel.
Many cannot afford the cost of cremation. Not only babies and
saints end their days consumed by the element of water rather than
fire. In my experience, wild pariah dogs perform a fair bit of the
water's job now.
A curious calm hung over these burning grounds. Despite the
smoke, the crackling of several pyres, the sparks shooting up to join
the vast skein of stars above us, the
aghoris
- naked ascetics who sit in
meditation near the cremation grounds - and despite ghostly hooded
stokers, there was a resigned inevitability about it all. There is no
real sadness about death in Hinduism, especially death in Benares.
It is part of an endless cycle. The Vedic idea that life implies death -
is life's only absolute certainty - also implies that there is no cause
for grief. For death also implies life.
The eldest son performs the most important task in this final
ritual. He lights the pyre and, when the body has burned, tosses a
container full of Ganges water over his shoulder into the embers,
walking away without ever looking back. For the next month he
performs further rituals, eating only food he has prepared himself.
This final ceremony alone is one reason the Hindu places such
importance on having a son. Those involved with cremation, the
process of destroying all traces of an individual life, are also subject
to dangers.
Aghoris
, sadhus clad only in ashes from the funeral pyres, are
feared as much as they are revered. Their waist-length hair matted
into coils with cow dung, they make no attempt to seem part of our
species. Some Hindus suspect them of diabolical rituals involving
corpses and the souls of the dead. They have no Western equivalent.
One other group involved in these last rites on the banks of the
Ganges are also essential to the rituals' purity, yet are condemned
by the caste system for their involvement in it. The doms are
Untouchables who manage the burning ghats and provide the fire
