From Adam's Peak to Elephanta

by Edward Carpenter

The river-side is certainly a wonderful scene. A mere wilderness of steps, stairs, terraces and jutting platforms, more or less in disorder and decay, stretching for a mile or more by the water. Flights of a hundred steps going up to small temples or to handsome-fronted but decayed palaces, or to the Mosque of Aurungzebe, whose two tall red-sandstone minarets (notwithstanding the incongruity) are the most conspicuous objects in this sacred metropolis of Hinduism; the steps covered with motley groups going down to or coming up from the water—here an old man, a wanderer perhaps from some distant region, sitting perched by himself, his knees drawn up to his chin, meditating; there another singing hymns; groups under awnings or great fixed straw umbrellas, chatting, or listening to stories and recitations; here a string of pilgrims with baskets containing their scanty bedding, etc., on their heads, just emerging from one of the narrow alleys; there on a balcony attached to a big building appear half a dozen young men, stripped, and with Indian clubs in their hands—their yellow and brown bodies shining in the early sun; they are students at some kind of native seminary and are going through their morning exercises; here are men selling flowers (marigolds) for the bathers to cast into the water; here is a yogi squatted, surrounded by a little circle of admirers; there are boats and a quay and stacks of wood landed, for burning bodies; and there beyond, a burning ghaut.

THE GHAUTS AT BENARES.

One morning Panna Lall—who had come on with me from Calcutta—wanted to bathe at a particular ghaut (as each family or caste has its special sanctuaries), so we went off early to the river-side. He looked quite jaunty in his yellow silk coat with white nether garment and an embroidered cap on his head. As it happened, a spring festival was being celebrated, and everybody was in clean raiment and bright colors, yellow being preferred. As we approached the river the alleys began to get full of people coming up after their baths to the various temples—pretty to see the women in all shades of tawny gold, primrose, saffron, or salmon-pink, bearing their brass bowls and saucers full of flowers, and a supply of Ganges water.

The ghauts were thronged. Wandering along them we presently came upon a yogi sitting under the shade of a wall—a rather fine-looking man of thirty-five, or nearing forty, with a kindly unselfconscious face—not at all thin or emaciated or ascetic looking, but a wild man decidedly, with his hair long and matted into a few close ringlets, black but turning brown towards his waist, a short unkempt beard, and nothing whatever on but some beads round his neck and the merest apology for a loin-cloth. He sat cross-legged before a log or two forming a small fire, which seemed grateful as the morning was quite cold, and every now and then smeared his body with the wood-ashes, giving it a white and floury appearance. For the rest his furniture was even less than Thoreau’s, and consisted apparently of only one or two logs of firewood kept in reserve, a pair of tongs, and a dry palm-leaf overhead to ward off the sun by day and the dews by night. I looked at him for some time, and he looked at me quietly in return—so I went and sat down near him, joining the circle of his admirers of whom there were four or five. He seemed pleased at this little attention and told me in reply to my questions that he had lived like this since he was a boy, and that he was very happy—which indeed he appeared to be. As to eating he said he ate plenty “when it came to him” (i.e. when given to him), and when it didn’t he could go without. I should imagine however from his appearance that he did pretty well in that matter—though I don’t think the end of his remark was mere brag; for there was that look of insouciance in his face which one detects in the faces of the animals, His friends sat round, but without much communication—at any rate while I was there—except to offer him a whiff out of their pipes every now and then, or drop a casual remark, to which he would respond with a quite natural and pleasant laugh. Of any conscious religion or philosophy I don’t think there was a spark in him—simply wildness, and reversion to a life without one vestige of care; but I felt in looking at him that rare pleasure which one experiences in looking at a face without anxiety and without cunning.

A little farther on we came to one of the burning ghauts—a sufficiently dismal sight—a blackened hollow running down to the water’s edge, with room for three funereal pyres in it. The evening before we had seen two of these burning—though nearly burnt out—and this morning the ashes only remained, and a third fresh stack was already prepared. As we stood there a corpse was brought down—wrapped in an unbleached cloth (probably the same it wore in life) and slung beneath a pole which was carried on the shoulders of two men. Round about on the jutting verges of the hollow the male relatives (as we had seen them also the day before) sat perched upon their heels, with their cloths drawn over their heads—spectators of the whole operations. I could not help wondering what sort of thoughts were theirs. Here there is no disguise of death and dissolution. The body is placed upon the pyre, which generally in the case of the poor people who come here is insufficiently large, a scanty supply of gums and fragrant oils is provided, the nearest male relative applies the torch himself—and then there remains nothing but to sit for hours and watch the dread process, and at the conclusion if the burning is complete to collect the ashes and scatter them on the water, and if not to throw the charred remains themselves into the sacred river. The endurance of the Hindu is proverbial—but to endure such a sight in the case of a dear and near relative seems ultra-human. Every sense is violated and sickened; the burning-ground men themselves are the most abhorred of outcasts—and as they pass to and fro on their avocations the crowd shrinks back from the defilement of their touch.

We did not stay more than a few minutes here, but passed on and immediately found ourselves again amongst an animated and gay crowd of worshipers. This was the ghaut where Panna wished to bathe—a fine pyramidal flight of stairs jutting into the water and leading up to the Durga Temple some way above us. While he was making preparations—purchasing flowers, oil, etc.—I sat down in the most retired spot I could find, under an awning, where my presence was not likely to attract attention, and became a quiet spectator of the scene.

After all, there is nothing like custom. One might think that in order to induce people to bathe by thousands in muddy half-stagnant water, thick with funeral ashes and drowned flowers, and here and there defiled by a corpse or a portion of one, there must be present an immense amount of religious or other fervor. But nothing of the kind. Except in a few, very few, cases there was no more of this than there is in the crowd going to or from a popular London church on Sunday evening. Mere blind habit was written on most faces. There were the country bumpkins, who gazed about them a bit, and the habitués of the place; there were plenty with an eye to business, and plenty as innocent as children; but that it was necessary for some reason or other to bathe in this water was a thing that it clearly did not enter into any one’s head to doubt. It simply had to be done.

The coldness of the morning air was forced on my attention by a group of women coming up, dripping and shivering, out of the river and taking their stand close to me. Their long cotton cloths clung to their limbs, and I wondered how they would dress themselves under these conditions. The steps even were reeking with wet and mud, and could not be used for sitting on. They managed however to unwind their wet things and at the same time to put on the dry ones so deftly that in a short time and without any exposure of their bodies they were habited in clean and bright attire. Children in their best clothes, stepping down one foot always first, with silver toe-rings and bangles, were a pretty sight; and aged people of both sexes, bent and tottering, came past pretty frequently; around on the various levels were groups of gossipers, and parties squatting opposite each other, shaving and being shaved. Nearly opposite to me was one of the frequent stone lingams which abound here at corners of streets and in all sorts of nooks, and I was amused by the antics of a goat and a crow, which between them nibbled and nicked off the flowers, ears of barley, and other offerings, as fast as the pious deposited them thereon.

While I was taking note of these and other features of the scene, my attention was suddenly arrested by a figure standing just in front of me, and I found that I was looking at one of those self-mutilating fakirs of whom every one has heard. He was a man of a little over thirty perhaps, clothed in a yellow garment—not very tall though of good figure; but his left arm was uplifted in life-long penance. There was no doubt about it; the bare limb, to some extent dwindled, went straight up from the shoulder and ended in a little hand, which looked like the hand of a child—with fingers inbent and ending in long claw-like nails, while the thumb, which was comparatively large in proportion to the fingers, went straight up between the second and third. The mans face was smeared all over with a yellow pigment (saffron), and this together with his matted hair gave him a wild and demonish appearance.