The Bathing and Burning Ghats 



127 



selves in fresh saris and drop the wet ones 

 to the steps without once uncovering the 

 face or exposing more than the feet and 

 hands. They scour their brass lotas with 

 Ganges mud, they wash their hair with 

 sacred muck and fill the jars to take 

 home at the very mouths of the city sew- 

 ers. The devotees show no fastidious 

 choice in dipping the water they drink. 

 All is Ganges water and all is sacred, 

 even when the surface is afloat with city 

 refuse discharging from the drain pipes 

 at their very elbows. At some sewer 

 mouths the fanatics even seem to stand 

 thickest and sip the sewerage most as- 

 siduously, praying to the gods meanwhile 

 to protect them from plague and all dis- 

 eases. The British government has fur- 

 nished a model water supply and sanitary 

 sewerage, but the Hindus prefer Ganges 

 filth to municipal drinking fountains, and 

 there is no way to make them do other- 

 wise. 



THE BURNING GHAT 



The cremation ground is only a waste 

 space of grimy sand and gravel between 

 two stone terraces, a neglected bank gul- 

 lied by rains, with pyres, building and 

 half-consumed, scattered irregularly, and 

 ghouls poking among the ashes for coins 

 or jewels. More systematic ghouls carry 

 pans of ashes to the water's edge and 

 wash this pay dirt like any placer miner. 

 Alongside this revolting sequel to yester- 

 day's burnings, lie fresh bodies, wrapped 

 in white sheets and garlands of mari- 

 golds. The bodies are dipped in the 

 Ganges and laid in rows, witli the sacred 

 stream laving their feet and profane 

 ghouls washing pay dirt from yester- 

 day's pyres between and beside them, 

 shaking grime and cinders over the hap- 

 less, flower-wreathed bundles. 



This rude, open-air crematory is the 

 monopoly of the domri, lowest caste of 

 all peoples, who charge extravagantly for 

 their services, for the wood, the oil, and 

 the flame which lights the funeral torch 

 for touching off the pyre. The earlier 

 in the morning the burning occurs, the 



greater merit and certainty of paradise 

 for the dead one ; and the domri' s charges 

 run from extravagant sums for burning 

 the rich and noble at sunrise, and de- 

 crease toward noon and afternoon, when 

 the very poor and the jail criminals are 

 hurriedly burned, or half-burned, for a 

 few annas, and the rubbish and bones 

 shoveled down the bank. Only the 

 highest-caste Brahmin priests and the 

 holy fakirs escape the torch. These ex- 

 alted beings are supposed to be so holy in 

 life that fire is not needed to purify them. 

 The flower-garlanded fakirs are rowed out 

 to mid-stream and committed to Mother 

 Ganges to carry them down to the sea — if 

 alligators do not first consume them. 



As the sun mounts and the air grows 

 golden and softly warm, and the people 

 finish their orisons, the river bank hums 

 and buzzes with the great social ex- 

 change. All Benares strolls along the 

 ghats in mid-morning, as all Atlantic 

 City troops to the boardwalk, all Nice to 

 the Promenade des Anglais. Big, flat, 

 palm-leaf umbrellas are tilted against the 

 too warm sun, saris and garments are 

 stretched out to dry, and the carrying of 

 water for household use, the washing of 

 pots and clothing and vegetables sets 

 tongues wagging as at any village tank. 

 Belated Brahmins keep on praying and 

 performing their rites and gestures, 

 while their next neighbor on the over- 

 hanging platform shampoos his head or 

 brushes his teeth ; and the "Sons of the 

 Ganges," a band of robust Brahmins 

 whose specialty is prayer for the repose 

 of the dead, bellow the merits of their 

 particular intercessions above all the din. 

 Then the fakirs wail and shake their ash- 

 smeared heads, hold their shriveled arms 

 the more conspicuously in the ten-year 

 poses of rigidity, and stretch themselves 

 more ostentatiously on the beds of nails. 

 Snake-charmers are there, dancers and 

 jugglers, and everywhere among the 

 noisy crowds the sacred cows push their 

 way, nosing into grain sacks and rice 

 bowls unhindered, and stately Brahmins, 

 painted in geometrical devices of the 



