Holy Benares

A street in Benares

What shall I say about Benares? It is an eternal city pulsating with life that is invisible to a Westerner's eye. What can I, who spent there just ten days, say about it? I saw just a few street scenes, nothing more.

One thing has to be explained: the phallic imagery is not mine. This is Hinduism – it may be true that Sanskrit works of philosophy are studied in Benares but an average pilgrim does not know about them any more than an average pilgrim to Lourdes knows about st. Thomas Aquinas. On the other side for a modern Hindu believes that the Luminous Penis of Shiva pierces the Earth in Benares is just as obvious – and just as incomprehensible for a non-believer – as the Christian belief that a little white wafer is the Body of God to be eaten by the faithful.

1. Benares. The air is full of smoke from funeral pyres, smell of cow dung, dust of unpaved streets. Shiva temples are everywhere and only a few are dedicated to Vishnu, mostly modern ones, Like the temple of Tulsi Manas, where a plastic figure of a Bramin animated by an electric engine incessantly turns pages of a book and sings:

Devotion to Rama is for the faithful Tulsi Das like the rainy season for the rice fields; but the two glorious consonants in Rama's name are like months of Sawan and Bhadon. Two sweet and gracious syllables, the eyes as it were of the soul, easy to remember, satisfying every in this world and felicity in the next; most delightful to utter, to hear or to remember; as dear to Tulsi as inseparable Ram and Lakshman. My love is inflamed as I speak of these mystic syllables as intimately connected as the universal soul and the soul of man...

A worsipper of a Shiva phallus

Tulsi Manas is a new temple, its floors are smooth and clean, its walls of white marble. In a corner by the altar of Rama a little crowd of people, women in white saris, men in white dhotis, shout in excitement, buy tickets for a few rupees and give them to a man standing two metres away, by the door where the pilgrims enter. There is a pilgrim attraction there, Ramayana Pauperum, modern and animated: a sequence of 3D scenes behind glass where rivers flow, monkeys wag their tails, human figures move their hands, jump up from under the surface of the earth and then disappear under it again. Pilgrims look at all this with amazement, their mouths gaping, noses pressed against the glass.

2. At the street market in a narrow alley between grey houses brown-skinned traders sit cross legged on their tables, heaps of greenery on both their sides. The smell of the fresh leaves is mixed with the smell of rotting stuff below, of cow dung, human urine, strong sandalwood incense. A noisy crowd of people moves slowly between the stands. White cows form part of that crowd, one can feel warmth of their bodies, they chew leaves and banana skins picked up from the floor. At one end of the market, in a niche in the wall, a betel nut seller sits in half lotus, his bald forehead painted in yellow ochre, in front of him several little piles of bright green leaves. Some men standing next to him spit every so often a mouthful of red saliva.

Farther down the alley there is a Shiva temple painted red from top to bottom. The main object of veneration there is a stone figure of the penis of Shiva immersed in the vagina of Parvati. A girl in a colourful sari throws flowers on the figure and bows deeply with her hands folded, then she picks up a copper pot and pours Ganges water on it.

Far far away on the holy Mount Kailas Lord Shiva sits with his dreadlocks covering his back and shoulders, the third eye in the middle of his forehead as bright as lightning, he holds a big iron trident in his hand. Holy Ganges flows from his penis and fertilizes the earth so it can bring forth life.

Washing sins off in Benares

3. Manikarmika Ghat is the place where bodies of the dead are cremated, the air here is always filled with clouds of blue smoke. Here one can usually see a pile of wood with flames starting at the bottom and then consuming the whole thing including a human shape laid on the top. All this turns into a heap of ashes with some bones and a skull half buried in it, everything is later taken into an urn which is then emptied in the middle of the river, a handful of flowers is sometimes thrown on the water as well. Boats filled to the brim with firewood approach the shore, their patched sails bulging in the wind.

The shore is steep, a narrow alley leads up to the town. Sacred cows wander there, gaze far into the distance. The alley is paved with cracked slabs, a stream of brown water flows between them towards the river. The stream washes away all the smells of the city, most of all the smell of urine.

The holy water of Ganges carries with it yellow mud of Himalayas, trees torn out with their roots, human ashes, human urine, flowers.

4. Dashasvameth Ghat is the place where pilgrims come to the waters to wash off their sins. They go into the water fully clothed, men in white dhotis, women in colourful saris, first they stand knee deep repeating formulas and then immerse themselves completely three times. After the ablution women change their saris on the shore, first they put the dry one on and then they take off the wet one from underneath, they do it with admirable skill, never showing too much of their bodies. Fat bramins sit under parasols of plaited palm leaves and for a few rupees say prayers over heads of pilgrims. Traders have their wares spread under trees: copper jars with holy Ganges water, tiny brass penises of Shiva, bundles of ganja leaves, chilum pipes made of red clay to smoke that ganja in.

Itinerant sadhus sit under the eaves of a red sandstone temple of Shiva that stands on the shore. They wear nothing but red loincloths, their hair are tangled dreadlocks, three horizontal lines are painted on their foreheads. They have brass begging bowls and iron tridents and the red chilums in which they smoke the holy herb. They always smile. Sweet smoke of hashish surrounds them like blue mist.

Wood for funeral pyres

5. Holy Benares at dawn: reddish sun rays blow away the blue mists from the alleys between the sandstone temples. Here the sound of jingles and bhakti-yoga pierces the morning silence. Here the road-and-rail bridge pierces the line of Ganges. Here the Luminous Penis of Shiva pierces the surface of the earth.

You will find this story, and many others, in my book "ASK A GLOBETROTTER".