DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.635#0118
FEAST OF LAMPS ros
along the shore now gleam with rows of lamps which
the pious elders have lighted for their worship. Our
boat drifts slowly down the stream, through the fitful
glimmer of Lakshmi's fragile fleet, which magnifies
the lofty piles towering above the ghats into some
gigantic citadel, built by the Djinns of Eastern
legends. Below the Observatory the lamps get fewer
and fewer, and near Manikarnika the whole scene
fades away, as the lurid glare of the funeral pyres
flashes across the water, amidst the inky blackness
of the burning ghat. Dark figures are crouching on
the great smoke-begrimed piers which flank the ghat,
and demoniacal forms appear moving to and fro
between the flaming heaps. A horrid crackling noise
arises from the burning wood. From the darkness
up above comes the raucous note of a temple conch,
and the booming of drums.
Presently a strangely familiar sound comes floating
on the still night air, like a Gregorian chant with its
slow and solemn cadence. In a distant monastery
high above us the Brahmins are chanting the old
sacrificial hymns, the Sam-Ved, which the Aryan
priests may have chanted here thirty centuries ago—
still held so holy that it is sacrilege for our impure
ears to listen. They are singing the praises of Rudra,
the Mighty, the Terrible, lord of sacrifices, who has
a thousand eyes, and carries a thousand quivers full
of arrows of destruction.
along the shore now gleam with rows of lamps which
the pious elders have lighted for their worship. Our
boat drifts slowly down the stream, through the fitful
glimmer of Lakshmi's fragile fleet, which magnifies
the lofty piles towering above the ghats into some
gigantic citadel, built by the Djinns of Eastern
legends. Below the Observatory the lamps get fewer
and fewer, and near Manikarnika the whole scene
fades away, as the lurid glare of the funeral pyres
flashes across the water, amidst the inky blackness
of the burning ghat. Dark figures are crouching on
the great smoke-begrimed piers which flank the ghat,
and demoniacal forms appear moving to and fro
between the flaming heaps. A horrid crackling noise
arises from the burning wood. From the darkness
up above comes the raucous note of a temple conch,
and the booming of drums.
Presently a strangely familiar sound comes floating
on the still night air, like a Gregorian chant with its
slow and solemn cadence. In a distant monastery
high above us the Brahmins are chanting the old
sacrificial hymns, the Sam-Ved, which the Aryan
priests may have chanted here thirty centuries ago—
still held so holy that it is sacrilege for our impure
ears to listen. They are singing the praises of Rudra,
the Mighty, the Terrible, lord of sacrifices, who has
a thousand eyes, and carries a thousand quivers full
of arrows of destruction.