Benares

“ Long before Jerusalem and Rome, Mecca and Lhasa, Benares was the home and heart of the ancient religion [Pg 135] of India, and it still is the centre of Brahminism and Hinduism. There are more than 200 millions of Hindus in the world, and the thoughts of all of them turn to Benares. All Hindus long to make a pilgrimage to their holy city. The sick come to recover health in the waters of the sacred Ganges, the old travel hither to die, and the ashes of those who die in distant places are sent to Benares to be scattered over the waters of salvation. ”

“ Benares is the home and shrine of the complex religion that binds the Hindu nations, and is the very soul and heart of Hinduism.
No other place where men congregate can compete with deified Benares in the matter of divine merit that may be conferred on the pilgrim entering its gates and threading its narrow and filth-smeared streets. There two hundred thousand people live and fatten upon the half million devotees coming annually to the idolatrous fountainhead. ”

“ The most conspicuous feature of Benares is the pair of slender white minarets which tower like masts from the great Mosque of Aurangzeb. They seem to be always in sight, from everywhere, those airy, graceful, inspiring things. ”

“ Yes, the city of Benares is in effect just a big church, a religious hive, whose every cell is a temple, a shrine or a mosque, and whose every conceivable earthly and heavenly good is procurable under one roof, so to speak—a sort of Army and Navy Stores, theologically stocked.
I will make out a little itinerary for the pilgrim; then you will see how handy the system is, how convenient, how comprehensive. If you go to Benares with a serious desire to spiritually benefit yourself, you will find it valuable. ”

“ Benares is the largest city in the North-Western Provinces, though it is approached in population by some others, as Delhi, Agra, and Allahabad. It is among the largest purely native cities in India, but it is greatly surpassed in population and wealth by Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, the great seats of British rule, and the great emporia of Indian as well as of European commerce in the East. These cities under our rule have risen to be among the greatest in Eastern Asia. ”

“ If a man wears a flannel belt and thick clothes when he travels by night, and drinks hot tea, he need not fear India.
In all ways, Benares is the type of India; in the Secrole cantonments, you have the English in India, intelligent enough, but careless, and more English than they are at home, with garrison chaplains, picnics, balls, and champagne suppers; hard by, in the native town, the fierce side of Hindooism, and streets for an Englishman to show himself in which ten years ago was almost certain death. Benares is the center of all the political intrigues of India ”

“ He remembered a print of a fakir at Benares, standing in that attitude; and if the stream that flowed into the Avon could be combined with the Ganges, and the garden into the burning ghaut, and the swooping swallows into the kites, and the neat parlour-maid who showed him out, into a Brahmin, and the Chinese gong that was so prominent an object in the hall into a piece of Benares brassware, he could almost have fancied himself as standing on the brink of the sacred river. The marigolds in the garden required no transmutation.... ”

“ Parker says that the lingams in Benares "outnumber the inhabitants."
In Benares there are many Mohammedan mosques. There are Hindoo temples without number—these quaintly shaped and elaborately sculptured little stone jugs crowd all the lanes. The Ganges itself and every individual drop of water in it are temples. Religion, then, is the business of Benares, just as gold-production is the business of Johannesburg. Other industries count for nothing as compared with the vast and all-absorbing rush and drive and boom of the town's specialty. Benares is the sacredest of sacred cities. ”

“ In commerce, as in population, Benares holds a high, but not the highest, place among Indian cities. The district of Benares is not so large as some others in the North-West; but it is very productive, is densely peopled, and the city has on this account a large local business. [Pg 51] Besides, the merchants and bankers of Benares have dealings with the other districts of the province, and indeed with all parts of India. The city has many artificers. It has workers in stone, wood, iron, brass, silver and gold. They produce articles which command a large and profitable sale. ”

“ While in population and commerce there are cities in India which surpass Benares, in Hindu estimation it stands above them all in religious pre-eminence. Perhaps at the present time more eyes are turned reverently towards it than to any city on the face of the earth. ”

“ Although Benares in these respects is the most interesting city in India, and one of the most interesting in the world, it is also the most filthy, repulsive and forbidding. Few people care to remain there more than a day or two, although to the ethnologist and other students, to artists and people in search of the picturesque, it has more to offer than can be found elsewhere in the Indian Empire. ”

“ But with the renaissance that in the last fifty years has so greatly altered life in this great province, many have learnt to discard orthodoxy and with it the traditional restrictions. At Benares, especially, many a Bengali lady can be seen walking openly to the temples and the sacred river. Always she bears a perfect courtesy and a rounded balanced dignity. Of the newer school, too many perhaps have aspirations gleaned from the lighter English novels which they eagerly read—dreams for whose passage the ivory gates of Hinduism were never meant to open. ”

“ In fact, none of the idols in Benares are handsome or attractive. And what a swarm of them there is! The town is a vast museum of idols—and all of them crude, misshapen, and ugly. They flock through one's dreams at night, a wild mob of nightmares. When you get tired of them in the temples and take a trip on the river, you find idol giants, flashily painted, stretched out side by side on the shore. And apparently wherever there is room for one more lingam, a lingam is there. ”

“ Many aged people come from distant parts of India—the greater number, I believe, from Bengal—to reside and end their days in it, that by becoming Kasseebas (dwellers in Kasee) they may when they die become Baikuntbas (dwellers in heaven) .
Though Benares be par excellence the sacred city of the Hindus, strange to say they are proportionately fewer than in ten cities of the North-West. According to the census of 1872, there were 133,549 Hindus and 44,374 Mussulmans: that is, a little more than three Hindus to one Mussulman. ”

“ The greed of the Pundas and Gungaputrs of Benares is notorious. Many a poor pilgrim has suffered from their exactions, and we may suppose that reverence for the sacred city has received a shock under such treatment similar to that which Luther experienced on his visit to Rome. While Hinduism is no doubt greatly strengthened by the resort of the people to Benares, much done and endured there is well fitted to alienate the more thoughtful of the visitors ”

“ Many wealthy natives, stirred up by magistrates, have contri [Pg 386] buted liberally to these improvements. Of late years these works have been carried on with increasing zeal. In 1877 we saw some of the principal towns in Northern India, and were struck with the contrast they presented to their condition during the early years of our residence. The filthiest place in Benares, which almost sickened me every time I came near it, is now a beautiful garden, with a fine town-house attached to it. The very bulls of Benares have been got rid of. ”

“ They form by far the largest portion of the population of India, and to them Benares—or as they delight to call it, Kasee the Splendid, the Glorious City—is the most sacred spot on earth. They say, indeed, it is not built on the earth, but on a point of Shiva's trident. They assert that at one time it was of gold, but in this degenerate age it has been turned into stone and clay. In their belief the Ganges is sacred through its entire course, but as it flows past the sacred city its cleansing efficacy is supposed to be vastly increased. ”

“ In Benares it is rare to have only Hindus for our hearers. We very often have Muhammadans also, and, they are our most eager and bitter opponents. All I can now say about them is that they are bent on entrapping us with questions about the Sonship of Christ, the Trinity in the Godhead, the authenticity of the Scriptures as we now have them, the alleged incompleteness of Christ's prophetic office, as proved, they think, by the promise of the Paraclete as well as by the predictions in both the Old and New Testaments. ”

“ I have myself seen one of them in the streets of Benares, in the middle of the day, when they were crowded with men and women—a man evidently over forty years of age—as naked as he was born, walking through the throng with the most complete shamelessness and unconcern! ”

“ On an open tract of ground in its near vicinity, a series of barracks and small houses were occupied by pensioners of the East India Company.
Benares, viewed from the Ganges, is picturesque, and in some respects38 beautiful. Houses of red sandstone, their fanciful windows, projecting balconies, and flat roofs, giving to them a character all their own. The city extends from the very edge of the river; its numerous temples and ghats—​the latter crowded with devotees and others, wearing garments of many colours, giving the scene a picturesque aspect. ”

“ Of missionaries generally it may be confidently affirmed they have been true men. I have a wide acquaintance with the missionaries of Northern India. During our long residence in Benares we saw many of all Societies, of all Churches, as they travelled up and down. Benares is one of the great halting-places between Bengal and the Upper Provinces, and residence there gives many opportunities for acquaintance with brethren. We have the most pleasing recollection of many we have met, and we have followed their course with deep interest. ”

“ While many go to Benares, we may suppose the great majority, urged by the gregarious feeling so powerful all the world over, happy to find themselves among the multitude, hoping to get some religious benefit, and sure at any rate, as they acknow [Pg 86] ledge, of amusement, we cannot doubt there are among them earnest souls—how many it is impossible to say—who are ill at ease, and have a craving for rest and satisfaction. ”

“ By reason of some subtle and mysterious charm, it has linked itself with the religious sympathies of the Hindus through every century of its existence. For the sanctity of its inhabitants—of its temples and reservoirs—of its wells and streams—of the very soil that is trodden—of the very air that is breathed—and of everything in and around it, Benares has been famed for thousands of years. ... Previously to the introduction of the Buddhist faith into India, she was already the sacred city of the land,—the centre of Hinduism, and chief seat of its authority. ”

“ Benares would be well worth a visit if it were only for its Oriental character. It is peculiarly an Indian city, with every feature of Asiatic and of Indian life strongly marked. Its bazaars are as curious and as rich as any in Asia, with shawls of cashmere, and silks wrought by fine needlework into every article of costly array. It has also cunning workmen in precious metals and precious stones—in gold and silver and diamonds. One special industry is workmanship in brass. ”

“ That 6th of July, 1857, at Benares can never be obliterated from the memory of any one who was there. It makes us understand, as nothing else could do, how much more dreadful a panic is than the most furious combat. ”

“ Facts illustrative of its power over the features, character, and life, not only of individuals but of communities, are patent to all. Whatever heredity can do it does in infusing the spirit of Hinduism into the very blood of the people of Benares, who have been so long dominated by it. The mastery it has obtained over them is shown by the whole tone of their minds and the whole bearing of their life. If sincerity and enthusiasm be the essential requisites in religion, the inhabitants of this city have all they need, for these qualities are possessed by them in a high degree. ”

“ We have had abundant reason to regard them with esteem and love. With many we have had pleasant intercourse, and from our intercourse with some we have received intellectual and spiritual profit. At one time there was a small band of highly-educated native Christians at Benares connected with the different missions. ”

“ His turban is formed of yards of stuff loosely wound round his head, while that of the Hindu is generally tightly wreathed or plaited.
The city of Benares is a "holy of the holies" to the Hindu. Half a million gods are said to be worshipped in [281] the shrines and niches lying in and round about the city for some miles. One thousand temples are within her walls. The streets are full of the aged and dying, brought here to expire, for they think Benares is "the gate of heaven." Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims come annually to bathe in the waters. ”

“ His first design was on Benares, a city which in wealth, population, dignity, and sanctity, was among the foremost of Asia. It was commonly believed that half a million of human beings was crowded into that labyrinth of lofty alleys, rich with shrines, and minarets, and balconies, and carved oriels, to which the sacred apes clung by hundreds. ”

“ India is never too sanitary, except where the English are in their own strongholds, but Benares—at any rate the parts which the tourist must visit—is least scrupulous in such matters. The canonization of the cow must needs carry a penalty with it, and Benares might be described as a sanctified byre without any labouring Hercules in prospect. Godliness it may have, but cleanliness is very distant. The streets, too, seem to be narrower and more congested than those in any other city ”