Ganga Ji and Buddhist Sites

We were up early to board the bus for a return to the River Ganges, this time to the main ghat, or Gaay Ghat (the cow steps) that we couldn't get near the night before. 

Though it was early, this place was alive with activity: people bathing in the river, beggars looking for handouts (our guide arranged a small stack of coins for each of us so that we could gain good karma by distributing to the beggars here), men dressed (undressed?) as Sufis, or holy men, so that tourists would take their photo for a fee (real Sufis don't hang out here, we were told). 

Hindu priests set up shop here by throwing out a rug and sitting under a large orange umbrella. Each priest's spot on the ghat is inherited. Those needing a priest for a ceremony can bargain and shop for the best price for the needed ceremony. Some even had rate cards hanging from their umbrellas.

We walked to the next ghat, just down river, and saw another wooden boat with Overseas Adventure Travel painted on the side -- OAT even owns its own boat here! This one had no noisy engine, just a couple young guys with oars. 

OAT had also hired a Hindu priest, who at one point prepared for us another set of the leaf boats, similar to the night before, except that these were sprinkled with flour instead of holding candles. After distributing one to each of us, he chanted a Sanskrit mantra that went on a rather long time, considering that none of us could understand it. 

The guide explained that this is the chant that is used on the anniversary of a death. We were invited to say a prayer silently for a loved one who had died, and when the mantra ended, to cast our boats on the water.

The boat docked near another cremation site. This one is not considered as holy as the one up river that we had seen the night before, so there was no cremation business going on here this morning. Clearly, there had been cremations here recently, perhaps as recently as the night before. Goats and dogs nosed around in the ashes, and some of the details of the ceremony were explained to us, this time where we could see more clearly. The cremations are orchestrated by the lowest caste of untouchables, who live right at the cremation site. Children were playing in the wood piled for future use. (No photos here.)

We walked on from the river to view Hindu temple in the style of south India. People from all over the country -- and indeed, Hindus from all over the world come here, to this holiest city along the holiest river. Lest the pilgrims or tourists do without something they might want or need to remember the trip, aggressive vendors are always at one's elbow.

Returning to the hotel, we had a mid-morning brunch, as we had skipped breakfast for our early start. After some time to clean up, we were on the road again with the same local guide to visit the deer park where the Buddha preached his first sermon around 600 BCE. There is a temple here that celebrates the life of the Buddha, and a huge stupa, built about 300 BCE, marks the site where the sermon to the five disciples was said to take place. 

There are ruins of many smaller stupas here, as well. The site was excavated by the British to reveal a number of archaeological treasures, many of which are contained in a small museum. [There was some issue with the local guide about walking us through the ruins and around the stupa. He apparently wanted to go straight to the museum and skip that part. Thus, he spent time talking to our tour director, others in the street, and on the phone, leaving us to stand around for 20 minutes or so of wasted time. Then he got short tempered with us when we weren't all together when he finally turned his attention to us, and tried rushing us through the site. He was basically a jerk during this portion of the day.]

The most important piece is right inside the main door (where it gets maximum exposure to the outside air and can deteriorate faster). It is the polished sandstone capital of the Pillar of Ashocka, dating from ca. 300 BCE It features the four lions facing in each of the cardinal directions, which is reproduced on every Indian bank note as the official emblem of the country. It also supported the 24-spoke wheel which is the center of the Indian national flag. It is interesting that these Buddhist symbols are the emblems of a majority Hindu nation. But again, this museum, our guide, and everyone else here wants us to see Buddhism (and Jainism) as merely a sect within Hinduism.

No hearse or funeral procession in India -- we just put you on top of the truck on the way down to the river. We saw lots of these.

This also links to the concept of "Hindu" as an ethnicity rather than (merely) a religion. Our guide emphasized several times that one cannot "convert" to become a Hindu. Even if one practices the religion, one can never become Hindu, one must be born Hindu (much as one is born into a particular caste). Consequently, even by converting to a different religion, one is still Hindu in ethnicity -- a descendent of one who came from Hindustan, which was the name this country was called by its own inhabitants prior to the British.

Breakfast being prepared at a street stand.

The bus returned us to the hotel, which just happened to have a silk brocade shop right next door, which happens to have "a long relationship" with OAT. We got the usual tutorial about silk and silk weaving as a few guys worked on looms in front of us. The new wrinkle was that the loom guys wanted to be paid for having their pictures taken. Then we were taken upstairs, where we were offered tea and soft drinks, while the sales pitch was made by the main guy and his sons/flunkies. Fortunately, the sale was low pressure, so we and several others were able to slip out (of course, others stayed to empty their wallets and take home bags of silk stuff).

Instead, we walked down the main street a quarter mile or so to the shopping mall we had passed on the bus. Rickshaw and taxi drivers lined the streets, as there are many other tourist hotels in this area, and they all thought we needed a ride. Only one guy got it. Instead of trying to get us in his car, he smiled at us and said, "Ah, walking. Very natural. Happy couple." It was a good walk, but there was very little at the mall that was exciting: McDonald's, Pizza Hut, various Western clothing shops, a number of Indian traditional clothing shops, Baskin-Robbins, etc. We walked back the way we came.

Sujay, our tour director, had given instructions that all of the women in the group should come to his hotel room at 4:30 p.m. and that the men were not invited. We guessed that this would be some sort of dress-up deal. Indeed, he had a young woman from the hotel staff bring sarees from the hotel gift shop. So when the women joined us in the 5th floor lounge at the appointed hour, they were all wrapped in 10 yards of cloth, featuring bindies on their foreheads (even the unmarried ones) and attempting to appear elegant. Some actually succeeded. 

Sujay arranged for rum and Coke all around (his favorite). After we settled in with our drinks, we were introduced to a classically trained citar player and his accompanying timba player (drummer) for a brief concert. These guys were good, and clearly very much professional musicians, so it was good music. Many in the group bought the CD (I think the majority of traveling Americans feel compelled to buy anything and everything waved in front of them, from silk, to marble, to Indian classical music CDs that they will likely never play.

We then adjourned to the hotel's kebab restaurant for our official farewell dinner, which wasn't too bad. More Afghan, perhaps, than Indian, but generally good. There was another wedding in the hotel tonight. As is tradition, the groom rides in on a white horse.