13: Varanasi

‘In this holy city, humanity exists at its most intense. The noise is unceasing, the traffic rages day and night, and pollution sits heavy over the city streets’- Stuart Butler in the Geographical.

We knew from our research that visiting the holy city of Varanasi (also called Benaras or Kashis) would be an intense experience and it proves to be the case and then some.

Varanasi is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world; for Hindus it is the holiest of their seven sacred cities and Buddhism was founded at nearby Sarnath around 582 B.C. so it’s spiritual credentials are second to none!

The main focus of the city is centred on the 84 ghats (stone steps) leading down to the holy waters of the Ganga (Ganges), also known to Hindus as Ganga Mata (mother) revered as a goddess and venerated for her ability to purify the soul.

Our first hotel is no good - and certainly the view’s not great!

It’s a long way from the old city and the ghats that we want to explore and there’s noisy building work going on in and all around the hotel. We decide to bail out - but it’s a bit of a case of out of the frying pan into the fire!

Our new hotel is right on the banks of the Ganges and looks fine from the outside… BUT!

…our room faces a mucky wall about a foot away, there’s no restaurant and there doesn’t seem to be anywhere around to eat - we feel really fed up.

Thankfully the proprietor shows us a better room with a river view that we can move into tomorrow.

We can’t sit around moping so we go out for a walk along the river and discover that the ghats start really nearby and we’re in time to see the nightly performance of the Aarti ceremony at Assi Ghat.

The Aarti or Ceremony of Lights is a sacred rite in Hinduism which involves the waving of lighted lamps in front of images of gods and carries great spiritual significance.

The Ganga Aarti is carried out in three holy cities along the Ganges.

The ceremony is full of theatre, there are lights and music, the blowing of conch shells, much waving of incense in elaborate patterns, banging of drums and singing and the seven young pandits wave lighted lamps in perfect unison.

Crowds sit on the steps of the ghat and gather on the river bank - the river is pretty low at the moment and there’s lots of room for the onlookers.

There’s a festival atmosphere with food and drink for sale as well as various illuminating toys and flowers and candles for the faithful to send sailing off down the river.

Nick takes part and thankfully manages not to fall in the river in the dark!

It is undoubtedly a spectacle but a spiritual experience? For us the answer is no, it is too much of a theatrical extravaganza to be deeply spiritually significant but wow what a spectacle, we love it!

Today we set off in the morning to walk along as many of the ghats as we can manage.

It’s a lot more humid here than we’ve experienced so far and the pollution casts a pall over the city. We’d been told that it wouldn’t be too bad in Varanasi, but to us, it’s very noticeable. It’s a shame, as we imagine the views could be impressive.

The ghats aren’t what we expected at all. We had both imagined that each would be quite separate from its neighbour but it isn’t like that, the steps are more or less continuous and each ghat runs into the next, it’s impossible to see where one ends and the next starts.

Along the way we see bathers, holy men, people doing their laundry, people doing yoga; there are artists and hawkers, people selling boat rides, offering hand massages and even offering to clean out our ears… all for a fee or course!

There are many women and children begging and there are lots of tourists, though most are Indian.

Of course we’ve heard of the two burning ghats of Varanasi where bodies are cremated. These ghats operate 24 hours a day burning a number of bodies at a time.

The first one we come to is Harishchandra Ghat which is a much smaller operation than Manikarnika Ghat. We reach the latter via the narrow alleyways of the old city as we’d strayed away from the river briefly in search of a coffee (which is a much more difficult proposition than it sounds but that’s another story).

We know we’re on the right track as some men push past carrying at shoulder height, a body on a sort of bamboo stretcher. The deceased is covered in a shroud covered all over with marigolds except for their feet which are poking out.

We reach the ghat which has two floors of burning bodies. A priest shows us around and takes us to the upper level where about half a dozen bodies are in various stages of cremation.

Each body is first carried down to the water’s edge to be purified in the holy waters. In practice what this means is that the whole thing, stretcher, body, shroud and flowers is dipped into the water.

For each body there is a shallow trough dug into the earth covered with wood onto which the body is placed, still on the stretcher and covered with the shroud and flowers. Wood is then carefully stacked on top and then set on fire.

The provision of the wood is an industry in itself. It is delivered by boat…

and then taken to the upper stories of an adjacent derelict building. Men then chop the wood into the appropriate sizes and throw it down to be stacked in the street below.

The family of the deceased can also buy various items from a stall on site, these include sandalwood for its scent and ghee to help the flames to take hold.

The whole place is a frenetic hive of activity.

The eldest son shaves his head and wears only a white robe .

He is given a bundle of straw which he takes to a fire that has been burning continuously for 3,500 years. He sets the straw alight and holds it to the funeral pyre.

The priest tells us that it takes 2 hours for the body of a woman and 3 hours for the body of a man to be reduced to ash which seems astonishingly quick. They don’t cremate holy men, pregnant women, children under 12, or those who have died of a cobra bite, we are told that these corpses are simply placed in the river and sent on their way which is quite alarming to us westerners!

It feels really uncomfortable to be here right in amongst the dead and the mourners; not because we are squeamish but because it feels voyeuristic, we are intruding on other people’s intensely personal experiences to satisfy our own curiosity.

No one seems remotely bothered that we are there though and the whole thing is far more informal than we had expected. We’d thought there would be a solemn procession, perhaps led by a priest and that there would be prayers and chanting. We didn’t see any of that, it was a very strange experience.

We decide we need some air and a bit of peace; the best and indeed the only, place there’s any chance of getting it is out on the water.

Rather than one of the noisy motorboats, we decide to take a rowing boat as the slow pace and the quiet seems best suited to appreciating this majestic river.

The Ganges flows for 1,560 miles or 2,525 km which isn’t actually that long as rivers go; it rises in the Himalayas and meets the sea in the Bay of Bengal. It has the most densely populated river basin in the world - over 650 million people!

The waters of the Ganges are considered to be among the most polluted in the world - along with bodies, untreated sewage and chemical waste being dumped in it there’s also pesticide run-off from fields.

In addition, damming throughout its higher reaches has disrupted its natural flow; removal of huge amounts of water for farming and the monsoon rains becoming more unpredictable have reduced the once magnificent river to a shadow of its former self.

Certainly the water seems to be very low. Through the gloom we see on the opposite river bank, boats being unloaded and camels transporting the cargo across a 1km expanse of dried mud - a desert-like flood plain to the town beyond.

Our boatman shows us the high water level which is a world away from where the river is now.

It is lovely to see the ghats from the river, it allows for a wider view and polluted though it is, we still see a kingfisher!

Another unexpected sight is that of the shiva temple at Scindia Ghat which lies at a jaunty angle, partially submerged as it has sunk into the mud, a victim of its own great weight.

We finish our boat ride as the sun sets and wander slowly back towards our hotel along the ghats.

Things are busy during the day but in the evening everything has a renewed burst of energy .

We are exhausted this evening, too tired even to go for dinner, goodness knows what Varanasi will have in store for us tomorrow!

Today we visit Sarnath, a Buddhist pilgrimage destination with modern temples and ancient ruins. This is such an ancient place. In about. 530 B.C. Buddha gave his first sermon here which Buddhists believe, set in motion a new cycle of reincarnations that will ultimately lead to enlightenment for everyone.

Although Buddha lived a peripatetic life, he and his followers retreated to Sarnath in the rainy season and a religious community flourished here, reputedly there were 30 monasteries accommodating 3,000 monks.

Firstly we visit the Wat Thai Temple which was established by Thai dignitaries in 1971. In the grounds is a towering statue of Buddha which is just over 80 m in height.

The temple is very modern and feels a little lacking in character. Other than the usual golden Buddha statues, there’s not too much to see.

The temple is set within well kept grounds with some attractive lily ponds - this place is nice enough, mainly because it’s away from the frenetic activity on the street outside, but it’s nothing really to write home about.

The main archaeological site at Sarnath is also set in manicured grounds where we see the remains of what was clearly a huge religious complex.

We learn that Sarnath thrived until the 12th century when it was invaded by the Mughals and destroyed. The site lay in ruins and was plundered for any valuables including large numbers of the bricks it was built with.

It wasn’t until 1835 that Alexander Cunningham, a British Army engineer carried out the first systematic excavation and conclusively established Sarnath as the location of Buddha’s first sermon.

Thankfully, Sarnath’s huge importance has now been recognised  and it is included on the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites of outstanding universal value to cultural heritage.

The Dhamek Stupa dominates the site standing at 39 m high and 28 m in diameter.

The Dharmarajika Stupa houses a green marble casket that apparently contains some of the cremated remains of Buddha himself.

We buy tickets for the museum for the princely sum of 5p each! It displays some exquisitely carved statues and other masonry from the Sarnath site .

We’re interested to see that the mediaeval pieces are far more primitive than those carved in the 3rd century - like this four headed lion statue.

Most are of a standard which we, with all our technology today, couldn’t better in our modern world.

While we are there we are tickled by the huge numbers of children brought to the museum on school trips.

They are organised by their teachers into single file and processed round the museum at high speed. They don’t look at the exhibits at all (we are far more interesting!). The teachers’ instructions not to touch make touching the exhibits irresistible and a couple of cheeky boys receive a whack round the head as a consequence!

Varanasi has proved to be entirely different from anywhere we’ve been in India on this trip, although very similar in many ways to the India we visited together 20 plus years ago.

The poverty here is much more visible with people having to live under flyovers and many, many beggars; life seems to be more precarious here.

Its roads are chaotic like everywhere else in India. Cycle rickshaws are still common here although we’ve not seen them anywhere else.

We’ve also had lots more hassle here, not just from beggars but from ‘guides’ and people trying to sell us things and who won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

The noise and constant busyness has been very wearing to be honest especially as our hotel isn’t that great. There’s nowhere to go for a bit of respite, you can’t even get a beer easily as it’s a ‘dry’ city!

We wouldn’t have missed Varanasi for the world but a couple of days has been enough; we’ll treasure our memories but we’re looking forward to Darjeeling.