BENARES, SACRED CITY OF THE HINDUS
Unique among Indian cities is Benares, and for the Hindu the sacred
capital on the Ganges has a significance similar to that of Mecca for
the Mohammedan, and a greater attracting power than Jerusalem has for
the Christian. Benares is the home and shrine of the complex religion
that binds the Hindu nations, and is the very soul and heart of
Hinduism.
No other place where men congregate can compete with deified Benares in
the matter of divine merit that may be conferred on the pilgrim entering
its gates and threading its narrow and filth-smeared streets. There two
hundred thousand people live and fatten upon the half million devotees
coming annually to the idolatrous fountainhead. The sacred city attracts
this tide of pious humanity from all the tribes and nations of
many-peopled India: they journey to Benares brimming with love and
trustfulness, and after a season spent in her temples, at her shrines,
and by her sacred stream, she sends them forth overflowing with merit
and zeal, to carry her fame to the outposts of the faith, even to
Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and to the nomadic tribes peopling Tibet
and other lands beyond the mighty Himalayas.
[Illustration: SCENE ON THE GANGES, BENARES]
Somebody with a gift for nebulous mathematics has stated that more than
two hundred thousand gods of the Hindu religion are represented at
Benares. Whether the count be valid matters little, for the city is
pre-eminent as the special domain of the fundamental god of India's
slavish religion, Siva, whose ensign--a gilt trident and perforated
disk--flashes from the pinnacles of hundreds of temples and palaces.
This uncanny city on the Ganges is naturally the Brahmins' paradise, for
these devotees constitute a governing force in the city's control, and
from this fountainhead spread their influence throughout the land of
Hind. These insinuating men of religion line the river bank, and infest
the temples, sitting like spiders waiting for their prey. Their
emissaries are everywhere in India, promoting pilgrimages, or hovering
about the entrances to the city to make certain of the arrival of the
unwary enthusiast with well lined purse. Rich and poor, high caste and
low, all come to the sacred city. Some travel in state by lordly
elephant or camel caravan, others by railway; but none follow a surer
avenue to eternal grace than those who plod on foot over the Great Trunk
highway, sweeping diagonally across India, after the manner of Kipling's
holy man from Thibet whose footsteps were watched over by _Kim_. The
"business" of Benares being the bestowal of holiness, the manufacture of
brass goods appealing to tourists is incidental in importance and
revenue. No other city of its population can have a more insignificant
trade measureable by statistics.
For three miles the religious section of Benares runs along the brow of
the plateau overlooking the chocolate-hued stream, and every foot of
this distance is curious and interesting. Falling below the disgusting
temple resorted to by pilgrims from Nepal, the Hindu region beyond
India's frontier and "the snows," is the ghat (a ghat is a large stone
stairway descending to the river), where the good Hindu gives his dead
to the flames, and the muddy inlet from the Ganges where this occurs is
dedicated to Vishnu, "the sleeper on the waters," a name singularly
appropriate to a place where the ashes of the dead are consigned to the
bosom of "Mother Ganga."
A visitor observes a number of platform-like structures of masonry that
are decorated with roughly carved figures of men and women standing hand
in hand. Upon these, until British rule put a stop to the custom,
thousands of fanatical wives underwent suttee and were burned alive with
their dead husbands. It is but seldom that a cremation is not in
progress at the burning ghat. From the deck of a native boat moored not
forty feet away I saw in a single hour eight corpses in varying stages
of consumption by fire. The traveler hardened to gruesome spectacles by
much journeying in Africa and Asia experiences but little of the
sickening sensation through witnessing a primitive incineration at
Benares that is caused by a visit to the Parsee towers at Bombay. The
Benares operation is sanitary and practical, and something may be said
on the side of sentimental appropriateness in having a corpse borne to
the riverside by one's relatives and friends, and there consumed by the
burning of a pyre constructed by the hands of these. The dramatic
entities become apparent to every thoughtful spectator, probably.
A clatter of brass cymbals reaches the ear, and a cortege appears at the
top of the ghat, while desultory cries of "_Rama, nama, satya
hai_"--"the name of Rama is true"--are heard. The corpse, fastened upon
a simple bier of bamboo sticks and carried on the shoulders of four
relatives, is swathed in white if a male, or in red if a female. The
bearers hasten almost frantically down the decline and clumsily drop
their burden in the water, feet foremost, and make certain that the
current will have undisturbed play upon the corpse without sweeping it
away. The mourners repair to the place where dry wood is sold and enter
upon spirited bargaining for fuel sufficient to consume their relative,
whose body is being laved and cleansed of spiritual imperfections not a
few rods away by the sacred Ganges. Only six or eight logs are required.
The dealer demands three rupees for them--and the grief-stricken Hindus
offer one. A bargain is finally struck at two rupees, with a stick of
sandal-wood for the head of the pyre thrown in.
[Illustration: BENARES BURNING GHAT, WITH CORPSES BEING PURIFIED IN THE
GANGES]
The logs are quickly conveyed to the burning-ground, a satisfactory
site for the sad office is expeditiously chosen, and the mourners with
their own hands construct the pile. Now sanctified by Mother Ganga, the
corpse is fetched from the strand and placed on the structure, feet ever
directed toward the precious river. The pyre is soon ready for the
torch, and here occurs a curious incident, one that illustrates the
monopolistic importance of a man wearing only a loin-cloth, who has been
taking an indifferent interest in the proceedings from an elevation
close by. He is a Dom, of a caste so degraded that should he
inadvertently touch a corpse it would be contaminated beyond remedy. But
immemorial custom requires that the fire be obtained from him, and he
may demand payment therefor in keeping with his estimate of the worldly
position of the applicants. Ordinarily a rupee is sufficient, although
for a grandee's cremation a fee of a thousand rupees has sometimes been
demanded and paid.
The dicker with the Dom being concluded, the chief mourner lights a
handful of dried reeds at his fire, hurries to the waiting pyre, walks
seven times around it, and with the blazing reeds held in the right hand
lights the mass at head and foot. The mourners then withdraw to a shaded
spot beside a suttee structure, and silently watch the conflagration. In
an hour all is over, and the ashes then are strewn far out on the
surface of the Ganges and are borne from sight by the current.
From ten to fifteen corpses are disposed of at the burning-ghat daily,
and several cremations are usually simultaneously in process. Now and
then there is some demonstration of grief, but not often. I saw two men
wade to a body in the river, when they pulled away the covering from the
face and bathed it with handfuls of water scooped from beloved Ganga,
and their every movement denoted affection. Again, I witnessed a
tottering and sobbing old man place with every expression of tenderness
a garland of yellow and white flowers about the neck of a corpse swathed
in red, and imagined it the last office of love to an idolized daughter.
I also observed the bare corpse of a man who an hour before had died of
plague brought to the ghat by two public scavengers, and committed to
the flames of a few logs much too short, until the slender legs had been
doubled beneath the body. No sandal-wood perfumed this pauper's pyre,
and no interment in potter's field was ever more perfunctory than his
burning.
Social distinctions are as marked at the Benares burning-ghat as in the
modern American cemetery. An hour spent on the Ganges bank supplies
sufficient food to the mind for weeks of serious reflection.
One of the greatest spectacles of India is that of pilgrims bathing in
the Ganges. From several ghats devoted to sacred ablutions numerous
wooden piers extend into the worshiped stream, and these teem with
pilgrims from every section of Hindustan, in every variety of costume,
every stage of dress and undress, there to purge themselves of unclean
thoughts and wicked deeds, and to wash away bodily impurities.
Preaching canopies, shrines for rich and powerful rajahs, and stone
recesses for those demanding solitary meditation, make of the river
front a place literally teeming with humanity. Devotees are everywhere.
Here a pundit is reading the holy law to a half hundred approving
Hindus; there a stately chieftain from remote Kashmir ceaselessly
mutters prayers beneath a huge spreading umbrella of thatched straw,
hired from a Brahmin for an hour; and ten feet away a holy ascetic,
naked in the scorching sun, smears his skin with the gray ashes of
penitence.
Below this grotesque medley is the multitude of men, women and children,
breast deep in the sanctifying Ganges. Thousands have come on foot from
far-away villages of this boundless land of paganism; and from all goes
up a continuous murmur of prayer and adoration, like a moaning wind
emerging from a distant forest. Eye and ear alike are flooded with an
indescribable rush of sensations, and the heart is oppressed with the
august meanings which lie behind the awe-inspiring sight. All the
Hindu-cults are here--the Ganges welds them in her holy embrace. But
conspicuous above all others is the Brahmin priest, attracting annas and
rupees in devious ways from enthusiasts dazed by the realization that
they have bathed in Mother Ganga--some want a certificate of purity,
others want seals placed on vessels of water to be carried to loved ones
suffering from infirmities. The Brahmin gives certificate, places seals,
and performs other acts enabling him to garner a harvest of silver and
gold.
Now and again a moribund believer, whose friends seek for him something
that may be construed as a last blessing, is hurried to the river's
edge. It is a sacrament that cannot be delayed many minutes--and the
Brahmin fortunate enough to be appealed to charges at emergency rates.
When business slackens this harpy composes his nearly-naked body on a
plank overlapping the river, and executes with studied deliberation a
program of purification marvelous in detail. Receptacles of brass and
silver are brought him, and for an hour or longer he rubs his handsome
frame with unguents and perfumes, slowly stripes forehead, biceps and
breast with the ash-marks of sanctity, and places a wafer of his caste
on his forehead. Later he climbs the ghat to his favorite temple,
probably content with the emoluments thrust upon him at the water side,
or may be he goes to the bazaar to learn the latest gossip of religious
and political India. It is in no sense a losing game to be a member of
the Brahministic ring controlling things in Benares, for the flow of
coin from the two hundred million Hindus is ceaseless.
[Illustration: BENARES HOLY MEN]
A curious sight in Benares is the Monkey Temple, a pretentious and not
inartistic structure of carved red sandstone dedicated to Kali, the
goddess wife of Siva. The image of Kali within the temple is a black
fury of hideous countenance, whose red tongue droops to the waist. She
is dripping with blood, and crowned with snakes, while hanging from
her neck is a garland of human skulls. Kali wants blood, and if not
propitiated daily therewith something horrible is expected to happen.
Every Indian town has a temple to this monster; and everywhere
throughout what Kipling calls "the great, gray, formless India,"
sacrifices are made each morning to this ogress with insatiable appetite
for blood.
The entrance to the Monkey Temple is slime-covered and the air heavy
with sickening odors. Through a stone doorway the goddess may be seen
enshrined, grinning demoniacally. Twenty horrible men, harmonizing in
appearance to a reader's conception of thugs, gather in the court, to
give each batch of visitors the performance that most have come to
witness. The frontal region of their heads is shaven smooth, and each
loathsome Indian drools betel-nut saliva that looks like blood. A goat
is led into the enclosure and tied to a stone post, and the evil-looking
men form a circle about the helpless animal. One of them holds the rear
legs of the beast clear of the ground. A chant issues from the
betel-stained mouths, and a human fiend forces through the circle,
brandishing a straight-bladed sword, heavy and keen-edged, that has just
been blessed before the altar of Kali. He is the official executioner.
This functionary makes a sign of readiness, swings the blade at arm's
length for a moment--and lands a blow on the underside of the animal's
throat that severs the head from the body. The gushing blood is directed
to the Siva emblem close by, the head is borne triumphantly to the feet
of Kali, and each thug-looking man smears his face with blood taken from
the Siva symbol, and then dances madly around the carcass. Assuming that
the spectacle has favorably impressed the visitor, the high executioner
begs a donation with which to purchase a goat for a second sacrifice.
You decline, probably feeling that you would subscribe bountifully if a
priest might be substituted for the helpless beast.
On important days in the Hindu calendar many goats and sheep are
sacrificed, and sometimes buffaloes as well. In time of pestilence or
famine it is not unusual to find a child's head deposited in the early
morn at Kali's feet, it is claimed.
The inner court of the Monkey Temple, like the ceremony of the
slaughter, is open to the heavens, and is surrounded by a cloister lined
with cell-like niches for solitary meditation and introspection. On the
terrace, on every protruding bit of architecture, on every window
ledge--wherever foothold may be gained--are monkeys, loathsomely fat,
and made more disgusting from years of pampering than are the human
freaks on the pavement. Great tamarind trees overhanging the temple are
alive with monkeys. They drop to the ground, run between your legs, and
dash before you at every turning. You are entreated to pay for basins of
parched corn thrown to the revolting creatures by your priestly guide,
and do so, but are glad when the monkeys show their appreciation from a
distance. From three to four hundred of these mangy animals belong to
the temple, and are held to be sacred. At Benares everything specially
nasty or repulsive is protected by the cloak of sanctity.
You are glad to get back to your carriage, so thankful that you throw a
couple of rupees to the mob of appealing "priests," in your heart
possibly wishing that the money might be invested in soap and scrubbing
brushes--and in poison for the monkeys. Urging the coachman to drive
speedily for the open space and pure air of Benares cantonments, you
wonder as you proceed what place in religion can reasonably be occupied
by the revolting customs and beings to be witnessed at the Monkey
Temple, and it is with no regret that you learn from eminent authority
that in less than a hundred years every temple and shrine perched on the
brink of the plateau crowning the Ganges will be undermined and its
descent not arrested until the structure reaches the river's bed. Those
responsible for locating Benares on the outer periphery of a great bend
in the Ganges proved themselves to possess no engineering foresight. But
India's controlling religion can receive no setback by the destruction
of a few score tawdry buildings consecrated to its gods, for they will
be replaced by better shrines and temples, rising from places beyond
even the iconoclasm of the sacred Ganges.
Investigation reveals sufficient merit in the religio-philosophies of
Mohammedanism and Buddhism to explain their adoption by teeming
millions. Each faith offers admirable precepts and teachings, and
prolonged study of them produces a feeling of respect for all true
believers. But a season of travel in India, entered upon with the desire
to dispassionately study the Hindu religion in the land of its
overweening strength, produces only bewilderment and mental nausea. The
more determined one may be to lay bare the gems of this faith and its
administration by the Brahmins, the keener will be his disappointment,
for not a redeeming feature will he find, and he may quit India smarting
with regret over wasted time. To such an investigator Hinduism must
forever be remembered as paganism steeped in idolatry. More, its
gruesome sacrifices will provoke only disgust, perhaps equaled by that
called forth by the unspeakably coarse temple carvings and ornamentation
of the cars of juggernaut. I have been acquainted with Indian gentlemen
proud to be known as Hindus, and have been amazed to hear them avow
devotion to the hideous idolatry that absorbs a great part of the time
of two hundred million people in India alone. If the strong arm of
England were not raised over the great empire of the East the suttee
rite and child sacrifice would unquestionably prevail to-day. To a
westerner Hinduism seems the greatest abomination of the earth.
[Illustration: A BRAHMIN PRIEST]