I thought I had read all of my favorite travel-writer William Dalrymple's books from India. From which book is this Rick ?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "Rick Archer" <rick@...> wrote: > > This was written by William Dalrymple, A British writer who lives in India > and has written several award winning books about India. > > > Source of the Sacred Ganges > > "If you think it is cold now," said the holy man, "you should see it > in winter." Ram Sarandas and I were standing on the edge of the > Ganges, not far from its source high in the Himalayas, near the > Indian-Tibet border. > > It was May, but while in the plains the mercury > was hitting close on 48 degrees, here at Cheerbasa a chill wind was > blowing down from the snow peaks and I was shivering in my thermals. > Ram Sarandas, however, was naked but for a saffron loincloth, and > seemed completely immune to the icy winds. He stood in front of me > smiling broadly, skin oiled and supple, his hair tangled in a mass of > knotted dreadlocks. > > "But even you can't live here in the winter," I said looking at the > glacier glinting in the sun, only a mile down the valley. "It must be > completely cut off." > > "It is," said Ram. "From November to May the road is closed. Some > years we get fourteen feet of snow here. So I stay in my hermitage, > praying to Mother Ganga." > > "Do you have electricity?" > > "Of course not. Just a petromax lamp. I eat dried fruit and in > summer > > I dry green leaves and eat them as well. For sixteen years I have > lived liked this." > > "But what if you fall sick?" > > "In all these years I have never had any serious cold or fever." > "Don't you feel the cold?" > > "Yes! But I am used to it like the creatures and other wildlife > here. > > I do my yoga for fourteen hours a day. But first, I take a dip in the > Ganges, normally at 5 am. This sets me up for the day." > > "A dip ? Even in winter? But isn't the Ganges frozen over?" > > "Yes, sometimes. But we cut a hole. The cold is good: it helps you > concentrate more on what you want to achieve. It leads you more > brightly into the path ahead." Ram paused and considered for a > second. > > "Only occasionally I have problems," he added. "But then I am looked > after." > > "What do you mean?" I asked. > > "Once or twice I have taken a dip in the freezing waters, and I have > stuck there, frozen to the ice. But something extraordinary happens: > I have felt myself lifted by the waters. I was in the arms of the > Mother Ganges, and it was Ganga herself who pulled me out, just like a > mother. All the sadhus up here report the same thing. The River > Goddess: she looks after us like a mother looks after her child." > > What Ram Das said was something I had heard again and again on my > journey up the Ganges last summer to make a series, Indian Journeys, > for the BBC. For Indians revere their rivers like no other nation, > and of all river they revere the Ganges. > > According to Hindu theology, the Goddess Ganges - or Ganga as she is > known in India - is the Mother Goddess of the whole Subcontinent. She > is tangible, approachable and all accepting: distilled compassion in > liquid form. As well as Ganga, Hindus have given the Goddess 107 > other names: Daughter of the Himalaya, Cow Which Gives Much Milk, Having > Beautiful Limbs, Eternally Pure, Light Amid the Darkness of > Ignorance... > > Being brushed by a breeze containing even a drop of Ganges water is > said to erase instantly all sins accumulated over a hundred > lifetimes. > > According to the Agni Purana, written about 1,000 B.C, bathing in the > waters of the Ganges is an experience similar to being in heaven. To > die while being immersed in the Ganges results in moksha, final > spiritual liberation. > > For this reason, Hindus from all over India try once in their lives > to visit the Ganges and bathe in her waters. But the more hardy and > devout make one more effort still. Although the entire river is held > to be sacred, Hindus believe that its source is of an extra special > sanctity. According to Hindu cosmography the source- the Cow's Mouth > which lies hidden high in the Central Himalayas- is the most sacred > place on earth. To visit it is the most auspicious act you can > perform. > > So every summer, as the sun dries and desiccates the white-hot > plains of India, a stream of pilgrims leave their farms and villages, pack > their belongings into bound-up cloths, and plod their way up to > Hardwar, where they bathe in the river. Most then return home. But a > few, mainly sadhus (or wandering Holy Men), press on into the cool of > the High Himalayas, taking the old pilgrim's route across the > mountains to Gaumukh, the Cow's Mouth. > > The closer you get to the source, the more you find yourself > surrounded by these sadhus. For years I had seen the holy men in my > travels all over India and found them slightly menacing figures. But > it was only seeing them in such numbers up in the wild Himalayas that > made me realise quite how many of them there are, and how many > different forms they take. Some are freelance wanderers, moving from > town to town; others live ordered monastic lives in ashrams, dividing > their day according to strict rules and performing severe penances. > Most fascinating of all are the naked naga sadhus like Ram Sarandas. > > I had always assumed that most of the Holy Men I had seen in India > were from traditional village backgrounds, and were motivated by a > blind and simple faith. But my assumptions were corrected when, one > morning, I fell in with Ajay Kumar Jha. When I had hailed Ajay he had > replied in fluent English, and as soon as we began talking it became > apparent that, though he looked indistinguishable from any of the > other sadhus, he was in fact highly educated. > > Ajay and I walked together along the steep ridge of a mountain, > alone but for the great birds of prey circling the thermals below us. I > asked him to tell me his story and after some initial hesitation, he > consented: > > "I have been a sanyasi [wanderer] only for two and a half years," he > said. "Before that I was the sales manager with Kelvinator, a Bombay > consumer electricals company. I had done an MBA and was considered a > high flyer by my employers. But one day I just decided I could not > spend the rest of my life marketing fridges. So I just left. I wrote > a letter to my boss and to my parents, gave away my belongings to the > poor, and took a train to Benares. There I threw away my old suit, > bought these robes and found a guru." > > "Have you never regretted what you did?" I asked. > > "It was a very sudden decision," replied Ajay. "But I have never > regretted it for a minute, even when I have not eaten for several > days and am at my most hungry." > > We had now arrived at the top of the ridge and the land fell steeply > on every side. Ajay gestured out over the forests and pastures laid > out at our feet, a hundred shades of green framed by the blinding > white of the distant snow peaks: > > "When you walk in the hills your mind becomes clear," he said. "All > your worries disappear. Look! I carry only a blanket and a water > bottle. I have no possessions, so I have no worries." > > He smiled: "To walk every day is a good life. But to walk in the > Himalayas thinking of God: that is the best life. Men feel good when > they live like this." > > Two months earlier my journey had begun at Hardwar, the gateway to > the Himalayas, where the Ganges debouches into the plains. From > there, we headed on up into the hills, winding our way up the narrow gorge > of the river valley. It was a terrifying road, narrow and precipitous, > and the government had littered the way with warning signposts to try > and curb the enthusiasm of the more excitable drivers. Those near > Hardwar were fairly light-hearted: > > NO RACE, NO RALLY, > ENJOY THE BEAUTY OF THE VALLEY. > > But as we approached the roadhead, the tone was verging on the > morbid: > BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. > LIFE IS SHORT: > DO NOT MAKE IT SHORTER. > > At Gauri Kund the tarmac road finally came to an end. From here, we > followed the polished cobbles of the ancient yatra route, passing > along a pilgrimage route that has been trodden by wanderers, holy men > and pilgrims for over three thousand years: one of the most ancient > sacred routes in the world. > > It is this stage in the pilgrimage - across some of the highest > ridges in the world - that separates the real devotees from what > Hindus sometimes call dongi sadhus: hollow holy men. Apart from a few > foresters and shepherds no one lives on these high passes at all. > Here, it is said, Shiva can sometimes be stumbled across in the form > of a goatherd. It's very wild country and after nearly one hundred > kilometres of this, the track arrives at Gangotri, the last staging > post on the journey. > > When a temple was first built here, perhaps some two thousand years > ago, Gangotri was actually the source of the Ganges. But since then > the glacier which feeds the river has retreated some twenty miles up > the valley, and the source is now a day and a half's trek up from the > temple. It's another measure of the sheer antiquity of this > extraordinary religion: as if Hinduism is a faith whose history is to > be recorded not in human but in geological time. > > The final stage of the trek is through an almost symbolic wasteland: > an inhospitable high-altitude moonscape, twelve thousand feet high, > burningly hot by day, icily cold by night, as one approaches the last > ring of high Himalayan mountains which guard the source. > > Early one morning, at the end of my trek, I slipped down the far > side of these peaks, and emerged onto what appeared to be a kind of pebble > shore. I focused my eyes through the mist. As I looked indistinct > shapes slowly resolved themselves into solid objects, revealing a > sight so strange that it seemed at first as if we had stumbled onto a > film set rather than a natural panorama. Ahead, rising perhaps 400 > metres into the air, was a solid wall; at first I took it to be rock, > but gradually it became clear that it was in fact a crystal > amphitheatre of ice. The haze hung like a sheet just above the > pointed peak of this ice wall; another thinner line of haze hung over the > water at its base, so that the whole glacier appeared somehow > disembodied by the vapour, suspended, as it were, between two clouds. > > Stranger still, the Ganges flowed directly out of the glacier, > emerging not - as most rivers do - as a small stream which gradually > gained volume as it flowed seaward, but rushing from the ice as a > fully-formed river, a wide grey swathe of snowmelt, thirty metres > across. > > You don't have to be a Hindu to feel that this is one of the > most extraordinary places on the face of the earth. No man-made > shrine or structure breaks the solitude; no priest intercedes between God > and man: the ice wall is the shrine. Only when you see such a sight in > the pre-dawn glimmer of a sub-zero Himalayan morning can you really grasp > how easy it is to deify such a river. > > As we watched one sadhu , pulled off his shoes, stripped off his > clothes and jumped into the freezing water, standing there stark > naked amid the bobbing ice floes, eyes shut, hands cupped in prayer. The > sun was now risen and the mist had begun to clear. At the two great > boulders that form the natural gateway to the Cows Mouth, I paused > for a last look. The naked sadhu was still praying waist-high amid the > ice floes of the freezing water; many other holy men were standing as if > transfixed on the bank. I felt a tinge of satisfaction at having > finally reached this most remote of places; but as I headed back down > the valley, I also felt strangely sad that however far I travelled on > this globe, I would probably never again see so strange and > otherworldly a place. >
