DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.635#0147
CHAPTER VIII
THE GHATS----FROM MANIKARNIKA TO BARNA
SANGAM
At Manikarnika we reach the central point of the
ghats—the very pivot of the religious life of Benares.
There is perhaps no more extraordinary sight in the
whole world than this ghat presents any morning in
the month of Kartik, or at the time of a great Hindu
festival. Shrines innumerable, cut in the stone piers and
terraces which project into the stream; temples at the
water's edge, half-sunk in the stream; temples on the
ghat steps; the five-spired temples of Durga crowning
the high ridge above. The burning ghat, black with the
smoke of funeral pyres; corpses laid out by the river
on their rough biers of bamboo. A few yards away,
the women's bathing ghat, glowing like a flower-
garden with the colours of their saris. Further on,
a forest of palm-leaf umbrellas, where men in crowds
are bathing, praying, muttering their mantras, marking
their bodies with the signs of Shiva or Vishnu, or
sitting self-absorbed as if the world and its illusions
had vanished from their eyes. Pilgrims from every
quarter of India, carrying their bundles with them, are
arriving at the sacred well, brought there by the Ganga-
putras to begin their round of devotions, which is
often preceded by clamorous disputes for the fees their
spiritual preceptors demand.
THE GHATS----FROM MANIKARNIKA TO BARNA
SANGAM
At Manikarnika we reach the central point of the
ghats—the very pivot of the religious life of Benares.
There is perhaps no more extraordinary sight in the
whole world than this ghat presents any morning in
the month of Kartik, or at the time of a great Hindu
festival. Shrines innumerable, cut in the stone piers and
terraces which project into the stream; temples at the
water's edge, half-sunk in the stream; temples on the
ghat steps; the five-spired temples of Durga crowning
the high ridge above. The burning ghat, black with the
smoke of funeral pyres; corpses laid out by the river
on their rough biers of bamboo. A few yards away,
the women's bathing ghat, glowing like a flower-
garden with the colours of their saris. Further on,
a forest of palm-leaf umbrellas, where men in crowds
are bathing, praying, muttering their mantras, marking
their bodies with the signs of Shiva or Vishnu, or
sitting self-absorbed as if the world and its illusions
had vanished from their eyes. Pilgrims from every
quarter of India, carrying their bundles with them, are
arriving at the sacred well, brought there by the Ganga-
putras to begin their round of devotions, which is
often preceded by clamorous disputes for the fees their
spiritual preceptors demand.