Varanasi, Holy City on the Ganges

[O]lder than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.  — Mark Twain

It’s so true.  Varanasi may be the most interesting place we’ve visited yet.  For Hindus, this is their most sacred city along their most sacred river, the Ganges.  They believe that bathing in the Ganges washes away sin and that dying in Varanasi confers instant moksha, or salvation from the cycle of reincarnation.

 

According to legend, Varanasi was founded by the god Shiva.  People were living here centuries before the time of Christ, making Varanasi one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.

Varanasi feels completely alien — full of painted holy men, reverent bathers, and cows clustered in the old, narrow lanes.  We took a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges past the ghats, giant concrete steps that lead down to the river.  We passed people doing their morning exercises, playing, selling flower garlands, washing their water buffaloes . . . .  The ghats and the river are the heartbeat of Varanasi; they are public showers, churches, hospitals, funeral parlors, playgrounds, markets, restaurants, laundries, you name it.

By far the strangest thing we passed were the burning ghats, places of public cremation.  The ghat is a great pile of smoking ash right on the river, dogs and cows wandering through, littered with piles of firewood and other debris that I didn’t look at too closely.  After the bodies are cremated, the ashes are thrown in the river.

We saw lots of bathers, but we weren’t among them.  The Ganges is filthy here.  In addition to lots of dead bodies (some cremated, some thrown right in), the river is full of raw sewage, industrial waste,  and other effluent.  We saw people brushing their teeth or doing laundry just a few paces downriver from the burning ghats or pipes spewing untreated sewage.

 

Needless to say, we were very, very careful about what we ate or drank here.  One place that we visited every day was Blue Lassi.  A man in pure white clothes would pour homemade yogurt and fruit into a giant mortar and pestle, pound and stir it to a creamy consistency, and pour it into big clay pots for eating.

 

Even with the ick factor, though, there’s something about Varanasi that is completely compelling.  Its tradition, its history, the way it toes the line between this world and the next . . . we’ve never been anywhere quite like it.