Benares, the Holy City of the Hindoos--Its Temples and Worshipers--The
Sacred Monkeys.
Returning from Allahabad I visited Benares, the holy city of India and
the centre of Hindooism or Brahminism, its religion, art and literature.
It is situated on an elevation on the east bank of the Ganges about four
hundred and seventy-six miles from Calcutta. Benares is to the Hindoos
what Jerusalem was to the Jews, Rome to the mediaeval Christians, and
what Mecca is to the Mohammedans, and it is visited by thousands of
pilgrims and penitents every year. The learned men or Pundits of India
have their academies and gatherings there, and many of its princes and
nobles have their costly palaces in which they usually spend a few weeks
every year.
The whole city seems abandoned to sacrificing priests and idolatry in
its most disgusting forms. There are one thousand four hundred temples
for idols, and nearly three hundred mosques, besides hundreds of
shrines, holy graves, wells, trees and other objects of Hindoo worship.
Benares is a very old city; great and renowned when Babylon and Nineveh
were competing with each other; when Tyre sent out her colonists; when
Athens was in her infancy; before Rome existed, and long before
Nebuchadnezzar had carried the Israelites into captivity.
We are accustomed to look at hoary ruins with reverent interest, and it
is no wonder that the first sight of the historical monuments of Benares
made a profound impression on my mind. I felt almost as if transported
to a time far back in the misty past, and found it difficult to realize
that I walked the same streets, lanes and market places where the
Babylonian heralds of war and the ambassadors of Alexander the Great
were received by the same people whose descendants still inhabit the
same city, and have retained the same civilization and the same
institutions through all the intervening centuries.
[Illustration: HINDOO TEMPLES.]
The sun cast its last rays over the memorable city when I had the
pleasure of seeing it for the first time. At a distance of two miles I
could see the palaces and temples with their domes, cupolas, and
minarets merged into a confused mass, and on the summit of the hill
towered the renowned mosque of Emperor Arungzebes with two minarets, the
spires of which rise two hundred and fifty feet above the level of the
Ganges. It was a beautiful oriental picture, the most beautiful I had
yet seen.
The next morning at sunrise a Mohammedan dragoman or interpreter took me
down the river in a boat, and in the course of an hour we passed,
according to the estimate of the interpreter, over twenty thousand
bathing Hindoos. Every two miles are built ghats, or broad flights of
steps down to river, some of these being eighty feet high. Along the
edge of the water Brahmins are squatting about twenty feet apart under
large sun shades made of palm leaves in the form of an umbrella. These
Brahmins have a certain inherited right to these little spots where they
have thus raised their sun shades for the purpose of collecting an
offering from every bather. Men and women bathe side by side. They all
go into the water in their thin cotton suits, and everything is
conducted with order and decorum.
After the bath flowers are offered to the river, and oils and fruits to
the Brahmin.
A short distance above the edge of the water is an open place for the
cremation of the bodies of the dead, and on the river close by are
scores of boats and barges loaded with wood which is cut into small
sticks and is used for the funeral-pyres. We stopped a few minutes here
while three corpses were brought on biers. They were covered by a white
cloth with a red dye-stuff scattered over the chest. The body was first
immersed in the river and then placed on its pyre, which was kindled by
the nearest relative of the deceased. After the cremation the ashes were
scattered on the river by the Brahmin, who, of course, charged a round
sum for these highly important services.
We next went up the high steps and visited several temples and other
objects of interest of which I shall give a brief description.
The Hindoo temples are not so large as our churches, but only from
fifteen to forty feet square, and their style of architecture is
frequently very pleasing to the eye. They contain no seats or pulpits,
and the ceremonies consist exclusively of offerings, prayers, and signs.
People come and go incessantly, there is no silence or devotion, but all
is noise and turmoil. The Brahmins glide quietly around everywhere and
watch closely so that no one escapes until he or she has parted with as
much loose change as possible, and it frequently happens that the
Brahmin and the worshiper get into a loud quarrel about the fee which
the latter is to pay for the benediction.
We ascended an eight-foot-wide street paved with large flag stones,
which were crowded with endless rows of people coming out or going into
the temples on either side. To some of these a few steps led downward,
to others upward.
In some of the nooks and niches formed by the outer walls of the temple
sat peddlers selling ornaments, flowers, fruit, boiled rice, popcorn,
confectioneries, and small idols, of stone, porcelain, or metal.
[Illustration: DYING BRAHMIN.]
We stepped into the so-called golden temple, dedicated to Bishashar, or
Shiva, the most prominent deity of Benares. Like most of the temples it
is built of brick, and has a gray coat of plastering on the outside. It
has three domes which are covered with colored metal, and the interior
is divided into three rooms, in each of which is a stone image
representing the creative principle. The worshipers throw rice and
flowers at these images, and officiating Brahmins continually pour over
them water from the Ganges. Within a separate inclosure is a sacred well
called "Gyan-Bapi," or the well of knowledge, into which the rice and
the flowers from the images are washed by a continual stream of water.
Out of this well rises an intolerable stench from the putrefying mass
which poisons the air in and around the temple, for it is not permitted
to take these offerings out of the well. Around the well is a colonnade
of small beautiful pillars, back of which, on the east side, is a
seven-foot-high stone statue of a bull consecrated to the god of
Mahadeva.
Another temple is divided into stalls which contain well-fed sacred
animals, such as bulls, cows, goats and birds, all of which are objects
of worship of the faithful. This temple was kept more clean than the
former, but the bellowing of the animals and the jostling and crowding
of the worshipers made the visit to those deities intolerable.
One of the finest temples in Benares is called "Durga Kund," and is
devoted to the goddess Durga. It is a large and beautiful pyramidal
structure with a number of towers and steeples of different sizes, and
the whole building is adorned with fine works of sculpture, representing
the sacred animals of Hindoo mythology. Inside the temple, facing a wide
entrance, stands a large stone statue of Durga with the face of an ape,
and in front of this is a well into which the faithful throw flowers.
But the most interesting feature about this temple is the great number
of monkeys which are kept there. A large, square court surrounds the
temple, and in this as well as on the steps, floors, pillars, roof and
walls, inside and outside of the temple itself and in the neighboring
houses, in the trees, on the streets, in the gardens, in short, wherever
they can find a footing, there are thousands of gray, yellow, black,
white and brown monkeys, with all possible monkey physiognomies and
monkey natures, sitting, lying, jumping, hanging and climbing. They are
considered sacred and must not be killed, consequently they are
increasing so fast that if no interdicts are fulminated against them
they will soon become the ruling element in Benares. And so assiduously
is this temple visited by well-to-do and generous worshipers that both
the Brahmins and the monkeys live in affluence and luxury. Incredible as
it may seem, I have myself seen one crowd of people after another enter
this temple and prostrate themselves in worshiping the living monkeys as
well as the ape-faced stone image, and then return home rejoicing
because the Brahmins have assured them that their worship and offerings
have opened for them the gates of heaven.
[Illustration: MONKEY TEMPLE IN BENARES.]
In some temples domestic animals are sacrificed by the servants of the
priests, the blood and the meat being distributed among the priests, the
intestines and other offal among the poor. In others, butter, oils,
sweetmeats and rice are offered by first giving the idols a taste in the
same manner as our children feed their dolls, whereupon the rest is
consumed by the priests and the people. In several temples are Fakirs or
saints sitting in unnatural positions with lean limbs and vacant looks,
and these are also objects of the worship and offerings of the people.
In other temples are even lewd women, who, by their dancing and singing,
act as mediators between the people and their angry gods.
As far as these descriptions go, they may be applied to all temples and
ceremonies, and the chief and absolute universal feature is the question
of money and other offerings to the Brahmins. All the temples are
surrounded with beggars who are as importunate as the Brahmins
themselves, and the whole of it makes the European wish to get away from
the sacred places of the Orient as soon as possible.
Man Modir, is the name of a remarkable astronomical observatory which
towers above the temples on the Ganges, close to the place where the
dead bodies are cremated. It was built two hundred years ago by the
emperor, Jai Sing, and still remains in well-preserved condition as an
evidence of the deep astronomical knowledge of the Hindoos at that
period. It is a large stone building with a flat roof, on which are
constructed astronomical instruments and figures of brick and mortar of
gigantic proportions. As examples I shall mention a quadrant which is
eleven feet high and nine feet wide in the direction of the meridian,
and is made for calculating the altitude of the sun, and another
instrument, thirty-six feet long and four and one-half feet high which
is used in calculating the altitude and distance of a planet or a star
from the meridian.
Descending from the observatory my attention was called to a large crowd
of people on a knoll near the river bank. Going over there I found what
might be called a religious circus attended by thousands of people, in
the midst of which was a group of Fakirs. Most of them were squatting
with crossed legs, one arm extended toward the river, and the eyes fixed
on a certain spot in the water or on the sky. One was squatting on a
plank through which long sharp nails were driven with their points
projecting upward over an inch. I counted eight such nails about an inch
long under each foot. The nails had not caused bleeding wounds, but
simply made deep indentures in the flesh which must have been very
painful, at least in the beginning. One Fakir had suspended himself on
an eight-foot-tall cross, with the head downward, by tieing one of his
feet to the top of the cross by a cord. Formerly they used to suspend
themselves by a big iron hook penetrating their muscles, thus swinging
their bodies back and forth for hours; but this practice is now
prohibited by the English government. An acrobatic Fakir was turning
sommersets on a grass mat, and was considered very holy because he could
twist his limbs as if they had been without bones. Another carried an
iron cage which was forged around his neck, and which he had carried
thus for years in order to mortify his flesh. A loathsome dwarf, kept
in an iron cage, was blessing the admiring crowd, several dancing girls
gave animation to the scene by singing and dancing, some Brahmins were
exhibiting a sacred bull, others sacred monkeys, and liberal offerings
were made everywhere by the enraptured pilgrims. Such are the religious
ceremonies in the sacred city of India.
[Illustration: FAKIR WITH IRON CAGE.]
During my stay in Benares I visited one of the most remarkable ruins in
the world, situated six miles from the sacred city. It is the remnants
of two large and tall towers built of brick and cut stone, about three
thousand years ago. These towers were closely connected with the history
of Buddha, one of them, according to tradition, being his dwelling and
the other his place of worship. This was formerly the site of a great
city, called Sarnath.
[Illustration: TOWER OF SARNATH.]