The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1877-08-16
Scenes ON the Ganges.

4
The great sight Of Benares is the bath
ing in the Ganges. We rose early and
drove down to the river, and, getting 9
boat, were rowed slowly for hours up and
down the stream. 1t is lined with tenn.
pies and palaces, which descend to the
water by flights of steps or ghauts, which
at this hour are thronged with devoui
Hindoos. By hundreds and thousands
they come down 10 the rivers brink,
men, women and children, and wade in
not swimming, but standing in tile water,
plunging their heads and mumbling their
prayers, and performing their libations by
taking the water in their hands and cast
ing it toward the points of the compass as
an act of worship to the celestial powers,
especially to the SUM-
AZ the boatmen rested on their oars
that we might observe the strange scene.
G. started with horror to see corpse in
the water. 1t was already half decayed,
and obscene birds were fluttering over it.
But this is too common a sight in Benares
to raise any emotion in the breast of the
Hindoo, whose PRAYER is that he NAV die
OF the banks of the Ganges. Does his
body drift down with the stream, or be-
come food for the fowls of the air, his
soul floats to its final rest in the Deity as
sure as the Ganges rolls onward to the sea.
But, lookl here Is another scene. We
are approaching the Burning ghaut, and
see piles of wood and burning bodies and
smoke and flame. badc the boatman
draw to the shore that we might have
clearer view Of this strange sight. Walk
ing along the bank, we came close to the
funeral piles. Several were ready, wait.
ing to be lighted. 1t is the custom of
the Hindoos that the nearest male rela-
tive applies the torch. Here was body
just dressed for the last rites. 1t was
wrapped in coarse garments, perhaps all
that affection could give. Beside it stood
q woman watching it with eager eyes,
lest any rude hand should touch the form
which, though dead, was still beloved,
and was soon to be but ashes, aud float
away upon the bosom of the sacred river.
Another pile was already lighted, and
burning fierccly. l stood close to it till
driven away by heat and smoke. As the
flames closed round the form, portions of
the body were exposed. Now the hair
was consumed in flash, leaving the bare
skull now the feet showed from the other
end of the pile. 1t was ghastly sight.
Now horrid smell filled the air, and
still the pile glowed like a furnace,
cracking with the intense heat, and shot
out tongues of flame that seemed eager to
lick up every drop of blood
Perhaps no stranger can enter into the |
feeling with which the devout HindoO re-
CARDS the sacred river. However, we ap-
proach the great river of India, we find a |
wealth of associations gathering around it |
such as belongs 10 no other river on the |
face of the earth. No other is so init.
mately connected with the history and the |
whole lite of people. Other rivers have
poetical or patriotic associations. The
ancient Romans kept watch on the Tiber,
as the modern Germans keep watch on the
Hi khins sos i But shsse ais asaefgfjR M
these respects, the only river in the world
which approaches the Ganges is the Nile.
What the Nile is to Egypt, the Ganges is
to part of India, giving life and verdure
to plains that but for it were desert. As
it bursts through the gates OF the Hlma-
layas, and sweeps along with resisiless
current, cooling with its icy breath the |
hot plains of India, and giving fertility to
the rice fields of Bengal, it may well seem
to the Hindoo the greatest visible emblem
of Almighty power and infinite benlt-
cence.
But il is more than an emblem. The |
ancient Egyptians worshiped the Nile as
god, and in this they had the same feel |
ing which now exists among the Hindoos
in regard tc the Ganges. 1t is not only a
sacred river because of its associations; 1t
is itself Divine, flowing, like the River OF
Life in the Book OF Revelation, out OF the
throne of Goi. 1t descends out OF heaven,
rising in mountains whose tops touch the
clouds-the sacred mountains which form
the Hindoo Kylas, or Heaven, the abode
of the HindOo Trinity-of Brahma and
SILVA and Vishnu. Rushing from under
a glacier in the region Of everlasting
snow, it seems as if it rushed from the
very heart of the Dweller on that holy
mount; as if that flowing stream were the
life-biood of the Creator. When the Hin
doc has seized this idea, it takes strong
hold of his imagination. As he stands on
the banks of the Ganges at night, and sees
its broad current quivering under the rays
Of the full moon, it seems indeed as II IT
were the clear stream flowing from the
calm breast of God himself, bearing life
from him to give life to the world. Hence
in his creed it has all the virtues and the
divine power that belongs in the Christian
system 10 the blood of Christ. 1t makes
atonement for sins that are past. He
that but looks on the Ganges," says the
Hindoo proverb, cor that drinks OF 1t,
washes away the stains of hundred
births, but he that bathes in it washes
away the stains of thousand births. -
Dr.. Henry N. Field, in N. Y. Euanoesist.