“…Those who love India know it: you don’t know exactly why you love it.
Tiziano Terzani
It’s dirty, it’s poor, it’s infected; sometimes it’s thieving and lying, often smelly, corrupt, merciless, and indifferent. Yet, once you’ve encountered it, you can’t do without it. It’s painful to be away from it. But that’s love: instinctive, inexplicable, selfless…”
My dream journey slept there for a long time. It didn’t even know it was my dream! It was something that was there, among the dust and paperwork, among the colored pencils, a few old receipts, a few pictures. India isn’t a destination many choose, because perhaps it’s not the most beautiful, the most immediate, the simplest. It is made of contrasts, of boldness, charged with meaning, overflowing with smells, noise, prayer, temples, hunger. It embodies every aspect of existence and accepts it with impressive ease.
A journey into the soul
India is a journey undertaken first within oneself, peering into one’s soul, to be ready to welcome all that, in its tangible misery, it has to offer. You cannot leave for India without first approaching its deepest concepts, its complex faith transcribed in the Vedas, without understanding how tragic the cycle of Samsara is, without knowing why cows are sacred.
Perhaps I feel so close to it because it is so straightforward and difficult to understand. Because it has no half measures, and those who love it truly love it with all their being. Perhaps I haven’t left yet because when I do, I want to undertake this journey with the emotional baggage that will allow me to do so. I want my eyes to be ready to receive everything. The beauty, the dirt, the light, the colors, the shadows, the smiles, the misery, the hunger. I want my soul to be open to a world so different from the Western one. A world that captures me and gives me the opportunity to grow, to be a better person.
I’m working on it! In the meantime, I’ll tell you something about India and in particular about the destination that would be my journey, when the time comes. The most sacred destination in India, its “omphalos”, its blood, its sacred arteries that start from the Ganges and irrigate the entire country: Varanasi.
Varanasi, India
For every Hindu, it is the sacred place where everything began and where everything ends. In eternal alternation. Texts narrate that the first ray of light fell here, igniting the spark of life.
Founded 3,500 years ago in the state of Uttar Pradesh, it is also known as Kashi, after a herb that grew here, or Benares. It’s one of the oldest cities in the world and is considered the “sacred city” of Hinduism. Its ancient monarchs identified with Shiva, embodying the sacred and earthly powers.
Hindu believers must visit here at least once in their lives to free themselves from samsara, the eternal cycle of death and rebirth.
Immersing oneself in the sacred waters of the Ganges, considered the physical manifestation of the goddess Ganga, has the purpose of purifying body and soul. The bond between the Ganges and Hindus is inseparable, as the river has always been the fulcrum around which existence revolves. Literally, Ganga means “swift flowing.” The Goddess Ganga represents a flow of cosmic waters capable of washing away all impurities, including past sins.
A ritual dedicated to Ganga is celebrated every day at dawn and dusk on the Dashashwamedh ghat, the Ganga Aarti. The name of the ritual is puja (literally, a tribute). It’s a ritual of worship and prayer, accompanied by offerings of food or flowers and the light of oil lamps. The aim is to create a profound connection with the divinity.
Varanasi is a city like no other. Here people traditionally go to die in order to return to life, life and death chase each other. They merge so closely that it is difficult to discern where one ends and the other begins. Smoke, incense, colors, songs, everything comes together, converts, dissolves, changes shape, mutates, transmigrates, passing from one state to another, from one existence to another. A mysticism that permeates everything. A faith lost in the folds of time, balanced between dimensions, and time and space. It bewitches and fascinates, in its teeming spirituality that unfolds on the ghats.
The Ghats on the Ganges
The ghats of Varanasi are the steps that descend sheer to the banks of the Ganges. Here people pray, play, Sadhus (Hindu ascetics) meditate, cows rest, people washes clothes, ablutions are performed, and funeral pyres are lit. The 4 km stretch of the river in Varanasi is home to 84 ghats.
Life and death coexist side by side, brushing against each other, without arousing discomfort or horror. They are the extremes of something that we Westerners imagine as a line, while Hindus imagine as a circle, a natural flow of things.
Every Hindu must immerse themselves in at least five different ghats throughout their lives.
On the Assi Ghat you can see morning ablutions and prayers. Cremation pyres that burn incessantly are on the Manikarnika Ghat, also known as the “burning ghat.” Here, approximately 250 to 300 bodies are cremated daily according to a precise ritual. The deceased’s body is wrapped in an orange shroud for men and a white one for women and children, and carried on a bamboo stretcher. Before cremation on the pyre, the body is immersed in the Ganges to be purified.
The ghats are not simple steps; they take on a divine significance. On the ghats, near the pyres, live the Aghoris. They’re ascetics who worship the God Shiva who practice extreme forms of spirituality. Their name is a Sanskrit term that comes from the words A, meaning negation, and Ghora, meaning ignorance. By practicing asceticism, they distance themselves from what binds man to material life: comfort and luxury. They sleep wherever they can, drink, smoke ganja, even eat garbage and human flesh, sprinkle their bodies with ashes. Moreover, they are famous for their knowledge of magical arts.
Temples in Varanasi, India
Beyond the banks of the Ganges, spirituality extends throughout the city. Here you can find numerous temples, such as those of Vishwanath and Durga.
Kashi Vishwanath is the most revered, dedicated to Shiva, the patron deity of Varanasi. Non-Hindus can’t entry, but it is a spectacle even to observe. Another name for this spectacular building is the “Golden Temple”, for the plating on its spire.
The Durga Temple is entirely red, the color of Hindu women’s saris on feast days. This garments are in honor of the Goddess, a form of Devi, the Divine Mother. Another name is the Monkey Temple and it’s the only temple in India with the shape of an icosagon, a 20-sided polygon.
The city flows between the ghats and temples. A chaotic city with its strong odors and narrow alleys, where you encounter people, animals, tuk-tuks, street vendors, and bazaars teeming with fine fabrics, sacred objects, Indian silks, Kashmiri textiles, incense, and blessed necklaces. You might also come across a curious building: the Mukti Bhavan, the “hotel of liberation”. It’s a sort of “hotel” where Hindus who are about to die and who can afford it go to spend the last days of their lives, awaiting moksha, the final liberation.
Samsara
“Samsara” is a Sanskrit term referring to the cycle of life, death and rebirth in religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Brahmanism. It literally means “flowing together” or “going through.”
Its core is Karma, the principle of cause and effect that governs the moral and spiritual order of the universe. Physical, mental, or emotional actions each of us performs during our earthly existence define it. Positive actions (Punya) foster spiritual evolution, while negative actions (Papa) bring suffering and bondage.
At the moment of death, every soul or Jiva, which according to Hindu philosophy is eternal and indestructible, is destined to reincarnate in a new state, better or worse, determined by the accumulated karmic baggage, in a continuous cycle that continues until the karmic debt is extinguished, with the definitive exit from Samsara through liberation, moksha (Sanskrit for “dissolution”), the state toward which every Hindu strives to free themselves from Samsara, a sort of illusion in which they are trapped.
There are three paths, the Margas, to follow to achieve this goal. The path of gnosis (jnana marga), the path of ritual sacrifice (karma-marga), and the path of loving dedication to a god (bhakti marga).
In Hindu cosmology, the symbol of Samsara is “the wheel of existence”. At the center of the wheel there are the three poisons: greed, hatred, and ignorance. Their representations are a rooster, a snake, and a boar biting each other’s tails. This image means that each poison propagates cyclically. The wheel has then six segments representing the six worlds and held in the claws of Yama, the lord of death.
“…And pronouncing that word ‘immortality,’ composed of a privative a and mrityo, death, I felt the beauty of Sanskrit, which—I realized—has thus given us the word ‘a-more’: that which does not die…”
Tiziano Terzani