Slowly Down the Ganges

‘Triyugi is from Treta Yuga.’

‘What is Treta Yuga?’

‘It is one part of Yuga.’

‘What is Yuga?’

‘Yuga is one age of the world. There are four Yugas and each is named after one god. There is Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dwapara Yuga, and Kali Yuga. Age is preceded by period not light, not dark, called Sandhya and after it a further period called Sandhyansa, also not dark, not light. Each is equal to one-tenth of Yuga. Treta Yuga is three thousand years but with not so light, not so dark period, three thousand six hundred years. In Treta Yuga Ganga is most sacred. Altogether Yugas are twelve thousand years.’

‘Twelve thousand years isn’t all that long. The Ice Age was before that.’

‘Yes, but one year of god’s life in Yuga is three hundred and sixty years of man. Whole period is called Maba-Yuga. There are four million three hundred and twenty thousand years in Maha-Yuga.’

‘That’s still not very long.’

‘Ah, but two thousand Maha-Yugas make Kalpa and in Kalpa I am counting eight billion, six hundred and forty million years and Kalpa is only one day and one night of Brahma. After one day of life of Brahma world is consumed, except for wise men, gods and elements. Next day he recreates world and so on for hundred years until he too expires. His daughter is Sandhya, of the not light, not dark period, and with her he has much intercourse and in this way is father of all men.’

‘How long is that?’

‘I am not counting that number of years.’

On the far side of the river, lying on its side on the stones, there was a rusty tin boat. It was sixteen feet long, and the bottom was as full of holes as a colander. It was like a lifeboat thrown up on the shore, the harbinger of a greater disaster. The thought of travelling 1,200 miles down the river in such a craft would have been laughable if any other boat had been available.

‘The contractor says that he will sell you his boat for fifteen hundred rupees.’ This was more than a hundred pounds.

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‘What about the boats upstream?’

‘They only draw one foot but they are too broad and too heavy. Further down the river is very difficult, besides they cannot pass under this bridge.’

‘But you can see the daylight through this one.’

‘The contractor says that he will have it repaired; otherwise, he says you can have one built.’

‘How much will that cost?’

‘About three thousand rupees.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘About a month, perhaps more. It is difficult to say. He is not a friendly man.’

For what seemed hours they haggled with him while he looked with far-away flinty eyes at the disconsolate little party of cowburiers, now specks on the shingle downstream. Finally, due to their pertinacity it was agreed that we should hire the boat to take us as far as Garhmuktesar, a place 100 miles downriver. This, together with the hire of boatmen and a lorry to send the boat back again (apparently it was impossible to travel upstream by boat), would come to more than 500 rupees. If each hundred miles of the journey was going to cost the equivalent of forty pounds in boat hire, we would be penniless long before we reached Calcutta. The alternatives were to buy the boat, abandon the first part of the journey, or walk it – all three were unthinkable.

CHAPTER THREE Life at Hardwar (#ulink_0afd2b41-3364-547b-a319-b332db5f4e50)

For very long time only yogies, holy sages, Richies and munies used to live here for meditation, in order to please almighty, for his mercy for sinners and also for the prosperity of human peace. It is assumed that God was instructing these good men from time to time and was showing light for their guidance. In the past the sages from all parts of the world used to assemble here on certain astronomical stages for the announcement of such directions from Gods side. In fact it was Bradcasting Station of God’s orders for General Public and rulers of the time. These occasions were celebrated at Kumbh Fastival especially held in Basakh or April at the interval of Twelve years. Thus wis real fact of fame of Hardwar. Although now people performe every thing like that but it is for forme actuality.

A Tourist’s Guide to Hardwar Rishikesh

At Hardwara the capital of Siba the Ganges flowed amongst large rocks with a pretty full current.

Thomas Coryate to Chaplain Terry:

A Voyage to East India, 1655

To dispel the memory of this exasperating encounter, we decided to bathe at the sacred ghat. Even G., scarcely dry from his ritual ablutions at the railway station, decided to accompany us; for Hardwar is one of the founts of Hinduism, and one of the seven great places of pilgrimage of Hindu India and the Har-ki-Pairi Ghat is particularly sacred because the footprint of Vishnu is preserved there.

The ghat was at the head of an artificial cut – a remarkable work of nineteenth-century engineering – which diverts the Ganges from its course into the Upper Ganges Canal. Here the stream ran very strongly, compressed between the shore and a small artificial island in the middle of which there was a municipal clock tower presented by an Indian motor manufacturer that looked rather odd at this place where the Ganges enters the plains of India. ‘Tower clock installed by Swadeshi Electrical Clock Mfg. Co.’ said a notice. This was the principal bathing-place. Above it, almost deserted at this late hour and at this season of the year, loomed tier upon tier of meretricious buildings, some of them partly obscured by advertisement hoardings. They included an unspeakable hotel and the palace of the Maharaja of Kashmir. Above these constructions rose the hills of the Siwalik range, uncultivated, almost completely uninhabited, dotted with sal

(#litres_trial_promo) trees, and topped by a white temple, gay with flags.

Down where we were on the waterfront, limbless beggars moved like crabs across the stones; on the offshore island which was joined to the land by a pair of ornamental bridges, non-ritual bathers, intent only on getting clean, soaped themselves all over before lowering themselves into the stream; men wearing head-cloths swept downriver on tiny rafts of brushwood supported by hollow gourds; large, silvery cows excreted sacred excrement, contributing their mite to the sanctity of the place; while on the river front the nais, the barbers, regarded by the orthodox as indispensable but unclean, were still engaged in ritual hair-cutting under their lean-to sheds of corrugated iron, shaving heads, nostrils and ears, preparing their customers for the bath. The wind was still cold; it bore the smell of burning dung, mingled with the scent of flowers, sandalwood and other unidentifiable odours. Everything was bathed in a brilliant, eleven o’clock light. It was an exciting, pleasant scene.

Reluctantly, because it seemed unlikely that we would ever see them again, we gave up our sandals to an attendant at the entrance to the bathing-place, who filed them away out of sight in what resembled the cloakroom of a decrepit opera house, and went down the steps to the sacred pools past touts and well-fed custodians who were squatting on platforms under huge umbrellas which were straining in the wind, and which threatened to lift them and their platforms into the air and dump them in the river. All three of us were wearing the costume of the country; Wanda and myself in the fond hope of diminishing the interest of the inhabitants in us. For G., there was no need of such subterfuge; he was one of them already.

These men were called Pandas. Pandas are debased Brahmans, and other Brahmans consider them to be of low status. Most of them are rich; many are almost illiterate. They perform various functions. Male bathers usually deposit their belongings with them while they bathe, a necessary precaution for anyone who wishes to leave the ghat with any clothes at all. They supply anointing oils, powdered sandalwood and a kind of clay of a pale yellow colour, said to be obtainable only from a tank at Somnath in Gujarat in which some of the 16,000 wives of Krishna drowned themselves after his death. This they grind on damp stones to make a paste with which they make the tilak, the mark on the forehead which is reputed to cool the bather’s brain, if it has not already been frozen solid.

Pandas also inscribe the vital statistics of their clients’ lives in great books: the date of birth, the day of the week, the star under which they were born; the sign of the Zodiac, the hour, and if it is known, the precise second, so that, when the need arises, an accurate horoscope can be cast without delay. For a consideration, which is always exorbitant, they perform the ceremonial worship called the Ganga-Puja. Some of them were engaged in it now; droning on in Sanskrit while the celebrant shivered on the steps: ‘Jambu-Dwipe Bharate Varshe Uttarakhande Pavitra-Ganga-Teera …’ (‘In Jambu-Dwipe,

(#litres_trial_promo) in the northern part of Bharata-Varsha,

(#litres_trial_promo) by the side of Holy Ganges …’ and so on.)

There were two temples at the water’s edge. Both had the curious, pyramidical towers characteristic of Hindu temple architecture. They looked like shaggy caps, the edible fungi that one finds on waste land in England.

The temple on the bank was dedicated to Vishnu and his wife; the other, which stood in the water, to the river. Here the bathers offered small, green, boat-shaped baskets made from stitched leaves, filled with marigolds, rose petals and white sweets which tasted like Edinburgh Rock, placing them carefully in the water. The Ganges whirled them round for a bit in the lee of the temple until one by one they upset and their contents were carried swiftly away.

We dabbled our feet in the water; it was dreadfully cold.

‘Embrace it! Only good can come of it,’ croaked an elderly holy man. He told us that until the previous year he had been a guard on the Metre Gauge Railway. Now having discharged his commitments to his family he had left them and the world to pursue his own salvation. Unlike His Holiness Sri Swami Sivananda who, according to G., had attained Union with the Godhead on 14th July 1963 and is buried upstream at Rishikesh, his salvation will come later after a succession of rebirths.

‘I am going to die by Ganga,’ he said.

There are thousands of old men like him in India. The majority generate no great spiritual force, but they at least receive a little respect. It is a pity that the climate is against such a scheme in Britain. It is better than waiting for the end on a street corner.

The Swami Sivananda at Rishikesh was a remarkable man who could have made his mark in other fields. He was not only interested in his own salvation as his biography shows:

On the 17.2.47 Swamiji saw some printed pamphlets of the society (The Divine Life Society) being thrown in the Ganges by some inmate of the Ashram.

Swamiji: ‘Om Nijabodhaji, I saw the printed pamphlets being thrown into the Ganges. We are sending several parcels daily of books and medicines to several people, why can’t you see that each packet from here carries at least one pamphlet?’

Secretary: ‘Yes, Swamiji, I shall see to it.’

Here is one more instance in which Swamiji corrects his disciples. In December ’46 the winter in Rishikesh was very severe. On 11.12.46 Swamiji saw me taking a hot-water bath in the bathroom attached to the Ashram. After two or three days, when I happened to be in the League-hall, Swamiji began thus and spoke to a by-stander.

Swamiji: ‘People from far and wide come to Rishikesh to have Ganges bath but the Ashramites here who live on the very brink of the Ganges have recourse to hot-water baths and thus lose a fine opportunity given them by God.’