The rich carvings with which the wood-work is ornamented are disfigured with many gross obscenities not usually found in Shivaite temples in northern India. CHAPTER VIII THE GHATS FROM MANIKARNIKA TO BARNA SANGAM At Manikarnika we reach the central point of the ghâts the very pivot of the religious life of Benares. There is perhaps no more extraordinary sight in the whole world than this ghât 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 ghât steps; the five-spired temples of Durgâ crowning the high ridge above. The burning ghât, 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 ghât, glowing like a flowergarden 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 Gangaputras to begin their round of devotions, which is often preceded by clamorous disputes for the fees their spiritual preceptors demand. MANIKARNIKA GHAT 137 Groups of women sitting in circles on the level ground above the ghât steps are performing puja, perhaps that of Prithivi, the earth goddess, or of the holy Ganges, some old grandmother making symbolic figures of clay and directing the ceremonies. Devout widows, their saris stamped with sacred texts, will pause on their way home to watch them and sprinkle flowers and Ganges water upon the charmed circle. Others are making purchases of toys and sweetmeat vessels, which are piled in glittering heaps close by. A lordly bull comes pacing slowly through the crowds, snatching as he passes at garlands of marigolds worn by men and girls, and mumbling the rose-petals strewn on the wayside shrines and sutteestones. Pigeons are fluttering overhead, goats clambering on the cornices of the buildings. Thin vaporous clouds of smoke rise from the funeral pyres. The slanting rays of the morning sun cast long shadows across the ghât, and diffuse a rosy light over the whole picture. (See page 195.) To the Hindu pilgrim the great attraction of Manikarnika is the well, the origin of which is given in the Kâsî - Khanda, the legendary history of Benares. Vishnu, it is said, dug the well with his discus, and filled it with the perspiration from his own body. He then went to the north side of it and began to practise austerities. While he was thus engaged, the god Mahâdeva came and looked into the well. Seeing in it the radiance of a hundred million of suns, he was so enchanted that he began praising Vishnu loudly, and declared that he would give him anything he might ask. Vishnu, much gratified, replied that he only desired that Mahâdeva should always live |