Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
A journey to Varanasi’s burning ghats — where death is celebrated with fire, ceremony, and joy — transformed how one traveler sees mortality. And life.
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We arrived early morning by rickshaw. The sun was just beginning to cast its gaze upon the night-cooled earth. The pungent smell of incense floated through the morning air, billowing smoke from the small cook fires stung our eyes making them tear, and the loud din of distant chanting echoed through the Ghat. In this city, on this particular morning, as in all mornings, the street was flowing with life: a port in the storm; a resting place; a sacred home to both man and beast. This is Varanasi. In Varanasi, also referred to as Benares, life and death live side-by-side.
As throngs of humanity wove their way toward the banks of the Ganges, sacred cows stood as sentries between the winding alleyways, beggars washed off sleep with water splashed from clay urns, and shopkeepers slowly rolled their awnings in anticipation of another day.
Mesmerized, I stood stock still.
Dating back to the 11th century B.C., Varanasi has long been considered a pilgrimage site for Hindus. Hindus come to bathe, they come to die, their bodies are brought to be cremated. Their ashes are immersed in Mother Ganges for salvation. If a Hindu is fortunate enough to die in Varanasi, it is believed that the river Ganges and her sacred waters offer liberation from the endless cycle of death and rebirth.
Not far from where I landed, a family of ten was solemnly chanting a mantra over a loved one who lay flat to the ground, his body mostly covered with a burnt-orange sari. Abruptly, the dirt-strewn lane became a cacophony of flutes and drumbeats, as an elephant, decorated in garlands carrying a corpse, languidly meandered toward the Ganges. A parade followed. The sick, the infirmed, those a breath away from death itself rest here to wait.
In my world, illness lived in hushed hospital wards or in shadowed bedrooms with curtains drawn. Although it was soon to come, the word death was never spoken out loud.
In Varanasi, to witness death be consciously and ceremonially celebrated was indeed liberating. There were two burning ghats on the river Ganges, both continually operational day and night. The Manikarnika Ghat was the closest and considered one of the most sacred and historically significant. If we followed the smoke plumes and the smell of burning human hair and flesh, we could make our way along the riverbank to the ghat. Respectfully, we often positioned ourselves far above and to the right of the actual ceremony, well away from the prevailing drift of the fire.
In my world, death was always hidden behind the closed lid of a casket, and if by chance, the lid was propped open, death was an impersonal, embalmed replica of the person themselves. Funeral homes were sterile. Burial grounds were cold. Earth scattered upon the casket was final.
What I remember, is the widow’s wail echoing from the ghats and bouncing off the water’s edge: an archetypal cry that resonates with all who have suffered loss. As the body finished its burn and the embers cooled, the ashes were then gathered and placed ceremonially in the Ganges. Family members slowly gathered their belongings and made their way back up the many steps as new family members were soon to take their place at the funeral pyre. Hour after hour, day after day, month after month and year after year, this ceremony, this sacred honoring of life’s passing continues.
In my world, black funeral coaches or hearses with lights shone bright lead the procession of family and friends in their own isolated head-lighted automobiles. A steady line of shrouded darkness snakes its way down highways, streets and through intersections, making quiet landfall at a chosen cemetery.
Our friend, Annand, a Hindu sadhu was at the helm of a rowboat that we had rented for a few rupees. I took the bow. As the oars gingerly sliced the Ganges, a gauze-wrapped corpse bumped the side of the boat. As hard as Annand tried, he could not steer clear: bump, splash, bump, splash. Not all are so fortunate as to be burned on the funeral pyre. Those who have suffered from the bite of a cobra, pregnant women, children, sadhus, and lepers are considered pure in the eyes of God and must be wrapped in cloth and placed directly in the river, allowing the current to gently escort them from this world to the next. On this particular day, we were blessed to escort the corpse as it slowly made its way from this world to the next.
We packed our bags and headed home before the monsoons turned dirt to mud. We soon buried my mother and my father and my aunt and my uncle; the somberness was suffocating. Stiffeled tears wiped dry by handkerchief, shallow accolades spoken from the minister’s podium, “Amazing Grace” sung stoically by the choir, tea and coffee served in the basement church reception. This was to be the world I now inhabited.
The joy, the celebration, the rejoicing in the liberation, the elephants, the wailing, the burning embers, they did not exist on this side of the globe. Sacred India will always reside within me. I will never again view death as darkness or as a final resting place. To me, death will always be considered ceremonial – rich with color, burning with light, and overflowing with all-encompassing love.
You may also enjoy reading Doing Death Differently: Embracing the Home Funeral, by Kelly Notaras.
