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Varanasi Diary Vol 1 ( 5 March 2006)

By

Dr Manoj K C

A tribute to human labour

A rickshaw wallah solicits customers in central Lucknow

Our trip to Varanasi was a spiritually enriching experience . But some thing very earthy still lingers with us after the trip and it is the sight of the rickshaw wallahs of Lucknow and Varanasi. While in Lucknow there is a mix of cycle rickshaws and auto rickshaws, in Varnasi it is the domination of the former.
In Varanasi on the way to the famous river ghats , it is steady flow of rickshaws like a stream right from early morning. It is a wonder how these man hauled machines make their way through the crowded streets.
Perhaps some of the finest moments we cherish in the course of our journey can be attributed to these machines... our early morning ride form our hotel in Varanasi to the railway station and then through the crowded market place of Charbagh in Lucknow and even when we had sizeable luggage on our final trip to the Lucknow railway station .. it was right there and the luggage perfectly fitted behind the seat in its open boot.
And they never overcharged .. leaving us wonder if they could meet the expenses with such paltry sum..
Most of these poor human souls are impoverished and do not own their rickshaws and ride them on lease. Cities like Delhi are planning to ease out their miserable existence. In Jaipur organizations have come forward to raise micro credit so that these daily wage earners can own their own machines.
So in Varanasi and Lucknow they will continue to be the cities' life line. I would prefer to call their presence a tribute to human labour.
   

Varanasi Diary Vol 2 ( 12 March 2006)

By

Dr Manoj K C

In the land of Buddha

Buddha idol in the main shrine at Sarnath, radiating a contagious calm.

Our first visit on arrival in Varanasi was the Buddhist town of Sarnath, located about ten kilometers north of Varanasi.
As you approach the place you get the feel of a quiet  reclusive town with Buddhist monks moving about. Its importance in that it is the first place visited by Buddha after his enlightenment at Bodh -Gaya  and he gave his first sermon enunciating the gist of Buddhism to his five disciples, here at the deer park.
Just walk among the remnants of the old Buddhist temples and monasteries ravaged by the Mughal invasion and around the awe inspiring Stupa ( Pillar ) built by emperor Ashoka in the third century BC. But the central attraction is the Mulagandha Kuti Vihara, the shrine built by the Srilankan Buddhists in 1931 as an exact replica of  the original shrine destroyed by the invasion.

Entering the shrine you appreciate the broadness of this tolerant religion-or rather philosophy. Just walk around gazing at the frescos on the wall depicting the whole life of the Enlightened or spend moments in sheer oblivion if front the Buddha idol- with that feminine grace and ethereal halo.

You can find people of all hues, from the different parts of the world here.. with varied approach to this
idol.. some marveling at the sculpture.. some cursory visitors and then a group of deeply religious people standing in reverence and mediating, all under the watchful eyes of a monk with the detachment of a Zen Buddhist Guru but stepping in at the right moment to assert. So when a white lady leaves her juice can on the floor of the shrine he politely but firmly asks her to pick it up to which she obliges with apology.
Perhaps it this tolerance which makes this religion or rather philosophy  great and thrive.
 

Varanasi Diary Vol 3 ( 15 March 2006)

By

Dr Manoj K C

Pillar of faith

The Dharma Chakra Stupa erected by emperor Ashoka is over 2300 years old and has with stood all the ravages of time. The memorial believed to encase the mortal remains of  Buddha is the most imposing structure in Sarnath.
Surrounded by the ruins of monasteries and shrines, this stupa stands as metaphor for the relevance of Buddhist tenets to our troubled times.

Varanasi Diary Vol 4 ( 21 March 2006)

By

Dr Manoj K C

 Palace of opulence

Ornate balcony of the Ramnagar palace that faces the Ganga, basked in evening sun.

On our way back from Sarnath we dropped in at the famous Ramnagar fort, now undergoing hectic renovation works. This was the palace from where the king of Varanasi once ruled. The palace has a wide courtyard where the Ram Lila celebrations are held.

Inside the fort you are impressed by the a vast selection of antique glassware, silk costumes, chandeliers, palanquins and automobiles of the royal days on display. What stands apart are the infinite collection of firearms on display leaving you wonder whether the royalty was obsessed with wars to test out these wares. 

As you decide to walk out in disgust, you find an entrance leading to the balcony. The tract goes all down beneath, giving the feel that you are approaching water. Then suddenly you are in for that surprise

- a balcony so ornate that you end up envying the gentry who were fortunate about a couple of centuries ago  to watch the unpolluted Ganges in all its splendor from this vantage point. This terrace has minor enclosures which enabled the royalty of different grades to watch the sun setting over the mighty river.

At distance form here one can spot the Rajghat bridge spanning the Ganges and down stream are the famous holy river ghats. 

Varanasi Diary Vol 5 ( 23 March 2006)

By

Dr Manoj K C

 Juxtaposition of two times

Another splendid view from the balcony of the Ramnagar palace. A minaret of the balcony is virtually juxtaposed with the mighty Rajghat bridge at a distance, spanning the Ganga river. A  rendezvous of tradition and modernity, but this time in perfect harmony.

Varanasi Diary Vol 6 ( 13 April 2006)

By

Dr Manoj K C

Kashi, the eternal city

The bustling Dashashwamedh ghat, the main ghat in Varnasi, in the early hours of the day. 

Finally we are entering the holiest city in India, Kashi or the luminous city or the city of eternal bliss.

Bound by the rivers Varuna and Assi, the Ganga forms a crescent in Varanasi, where the ghats or the stony embankments have been erected.

It is the only place where people come eagerly to die, for death here brings in salvation with out intermediaries. Nearly forty thousand bodies are cremated on ghats every year. In the final farewells elsewhere, the toll is taken by Chithragupta, accountable to the lord of death,Yama.

But death in Kashi assures direct access to the Rudra  - he descends on you, whispers the Tharaka mantra in your ear to ensure instant salvation from the cycle of births and rebirths.

 A city divided deeply on caste lines, the tension between the upper caste priests, the Pandas and the low caste Dhoms or the chandhalas engaged in burial, dates back to centuries and is still palpable. Perhaps it is said that only three areas are free of casteist domain in Kashi -music, wrestling and of course, prostitution.

So, yes Kashi is the city of death, but its is the city of life as well.A city bustling with life yet so proximal to death. It is perhaps this contradiction that endows this place with an eternal charm.

Well, then what is the logic of instant moksha coming to those who die here?

The best answer to this query has come form a couplet by Kabir Das , the Sufi saint poet who lived in Kashi in the sixteenth century. 

My whole life was wasted in Kashi,

So when death neared, I walked to Magahar.

sang the poet.

Magahar is a stinking Village near Kashi, which is famous for its leather and it is believed that those who die in Magahar will be reborn as donkeys.

Moksha if death in Kashi and rebirth as a wretched animal if you die in Magahar, and the poet preferred the latter.

Perhaps the saint intended not to denigrate Kashi but to drive home the point that moksha comes by one's deeds( Karma) and not his place of death. 

Varanasi Diary Vol 7 ( 28 April 2006)

By

Dr Manoj K C

 Polluted yet pristine

A son performing early morning prayers in the Ganga at Varanasi, watched by his concerned mother. Perhaps it is the faith of millions of people like them that keeps this place going.  

For the believers the waters of Ganga in Varanasi is elixir or amruth,  which brings purity to the living and salvation to the dead. This is in spite of the heavy pollution levels of  its waters. Despite more than two dozen sewers opening to the river and the remains of the holy ablutions and the burnt bodies floating down the waters, devotees find a holy dip here a birth's summation.

The hundreds of pandas( priests) seated below the bamboo umbrellas on the ghats perform the parikarmas for the kin of the devotees. If you are not fortunate enough to die in Varanasi, the soul could be appeased by performing tharpan for your beloved one here.

But our experience in Varanasi showed that the spiritual pollution is far higher than the pollution of the Ganga waters. This was evidenced by our visit to the Golden temple of the Kashi Vishwanath.

It is one of the high security shrines in the country were the devotees are let in only after mandatory frisking. No cameras or mobile phones are allowed inside. At the gate itself we were accosted by a young priest , who identified himself as Raju panda. He led us through the narrow alleys of the temple shrine narrating the legends connected to each place and telling us how fortunate we were on our visit to this auspicious place.

At every point of worship we were accorded special audience to the main priest there, who virtually tempted us with blessings if we paid a higher amount. Before the Annapoorna devi or the goddess of plenteous food, a panda unfolded a five hundred rupee note before us, which he had received from another devotee, making us known that it was the minimum change to get the blessings delivered. Frustrated and suffocated we felt like fleeing the confines of the place which looked more like an auction house.

Back to our place we kept wondering about all these queries.

Does God approve of a mediator for His devotees to reach him?

Could He preaching egalitarianism, ever approve of these categorization based on lucre, with in this holy shrine?

Are all the deprived who seek the blessings with no material offerings condemned to go back burdened with their sins?

Later when the boat man Narayan who ferried us across the Ganga commented that the Pandas or the priests are the most corrupting influence in Varanasi, we could not think to differ with him." Give one lakh rupees to a priest to propitiate the gods for you and he won't be satisfied and give ten lakh to him and then also he won't be satisfied . There is no limit to the greed of the priest folk here..", he added. His words were seething with anger towards the a class who hoodwink the unsuspecting devotees in the name of the esoteric, while people like him has to toil all day to eke out a living.

Varanasi Diary Vol 8 ( 7 May 2006)

By

Dr Manoj K C

 Grandeur of the ghats

Manmandir ghat with its ornate architecture, on the banks of the Ganga.

The Ghats or the stony embankments that lead to the Ganga are the facade of Varansi. From the Adi Keshava ghat in the north to the Asi ghat in the south, there are in total eighty four ghats , each dedicated to a caste, community or princely state. Kings form far south like the Vijayanagar -kingdom came here to construct ghats so they could die in this sacred land. Some of them like the main Dashashwamedh ghat are well maintained while others like the Tulsi ghat dedicated to the sixteen century poet saint, Tulsi Das are crumbling. Each ghat has a presiding deity in its name, thus Dashashwamedh ghat has Lord Brahma as its deity. Two of the ghats- Harishchandra  and Manikarnika ghats are the cremation grounds. While it is inauspicious to have the cremation fields with in the city limits, not so in Varanasi, where the whole city of Lord Shiva is considered a  Mahasmashan or the great cremation ground for the corpse of the entire universe.

Among the various ghats one that stands out for its architectural grandeur is the Manmandir ghat built in the eighteenth century for the Raja of Jaipur.
We asked our boat man cum guide, Narayan, who ferried us across the Ganga, if it is possible to construct a new ghat as we are into sponsorship and corporate culture, these days." Not possible." he said. " there is hardly any space left.." 

Varanasi Diary Vol 9 ( 19 May 2006)

By

Dr Manoj K C

 Death demystified

Funeral pyres burning at the Harishcandra ghat where tormented souls are released from the ceaseless cycle of deaths and rebirths.  

One of the oft repeated quotes from the Katopanishad is the dialogue between Yama, the lord of death and the young Nachikethas, yearning to learn the secret of death.

The lord offers the youngster, sons and grandsons who would live up to a hundred years and all the affluence that a life can afford. "But spare me from divulging the secret of death," tells the lord.

But Nachikethas is not at all impressed.He asks the lord to take back all the endowments." How can we mortals  rejoice in these ephemerals with the face of death looming  large over us?".. he asks.

 Varanasi is a place were death is demystified. No more toll taking by the Lord of death, Yama and his account keeper, Chitragupta. No uncertainty regarding what waits in line for you in the cycle of deaths and rebirths.After a brief period of torment inflicted by Lord Shiva's faithful attendant, Kalabhairav, the Lord himself descends on you to whisper the " Tharaka manthra" the prayer of crossing for the dead in your ear and you attain instant moksha or deliverance from the samsara cycle.

 There are two cremation ghats in Varanasi, Harishcandra ghat and the Manikarnika ghat.

Of the two, the more auspicious one is the Manikarnika ghat. Here the fire that lights the pyres is believed to be form the Manikarnika kund, dug by Lord Vishnu with his discus, at the time of creation.

When Lord Shiva rejoiced , his earring fell in to the kund and hence this name.

The other ghat is the public ghat called the Harishchandra  ghat, where the fire is maintained form the time of King Harishcandra. King Harishcandra served as a chandala under the Dhom King Veerabahu.At these cremation grounds the corpses are dipped in the Ganga in a ceremonial bath and pyres and made according to the size of the body.

The fire for cremation is the right of the Dhomes or the untouchable guardians of these ghats and they charge from few hundreds to thousands, depending on the capacity of the deceased.

On our way back from the ghats, we encountered a funeral procession. A small frail body was being carried on a make shift bamboo frame, with the ceremonial chants. There were grim faces around but no one was obviously grieving. When your dear ones attain moksha and travel to the other world, there is no room for any grief.

Death is not a matter to be mourned in Varanasi.

Varanasi Diary Vol 10 ( 29 May 2006)

By

Dr Manoj K C

 Obeisance to mother Ganga

The evening Ganga arathi at the Dashashwamedh ghat, where hundreds have gathered to pay obeisance to Goddess Ganga.

Every morning and evening, in a spiritually charged atmosphere devotees and visitors gather at the Dashashwamedh ghat in Varanasi to participate in the divine Ganga arathi, conducted under the aegis of a non - governmental organization, Ganga Seva Nidhi, to promote peace, prosperity, harmony and above all to create environmental awareness. Venerating mother Ganga as a goddess, arathi is performed and bhajans rendered. The ceremony holds a mesmerizing charm over its participants. We took part in the evening arathi on two successive days and found the experience spiritually enriching.

The Ganga Seva Nidhi is committed to keep the city and the Ghats clean and eco- friendly and has vowed to promote three gahts- Dashashwamedh, Prayag and the Dr. Rajendraprsad ghats as the ideal ones.

In this land were religious tourism is the main stay of the local population, efforts by an organization to preserve the ecological balance are really praise worthy.

Varanasi Diary Vol 11 ( 12 June 2006)

By

Dr Manoj K C

 Ganga at dusk.

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