The River Ganges

Varanasi is one of the most sacred cities in India. When you go there you can actually see millions of people doing what their religions tell them to do. But the most beautiful image you can come across in this city is on the bank of the River Ganges. There two daily rituals that I witnessed while in Varanasi. The putting to sleep and the waking up of the River Ganges. The putting to sleep includes singing by Brahmins  and playing of bells and other instruments. It is believed that this river should be put to sleep each night and woken up the next. This river is very sacred to the Hindus, its water is very precious. The funny side to this is that scientists have discovered it actually has something that constantly keeps the water clean. The river takes a sharp u-turn in Varanasi and that is why these rituals are held in this area. It is also believed that Shiva came down to earth in a fireball in Varanasi. It is every Hindu priest's dream to come to Ganges and wash in its water. That is why every morning you see people wash in its water as the river is being woken up by the Brahmins. During this ritual, the cremation of dead bodies of people that have died during the night takes place. It is quite the thing to see if you are willing to wake up at 5.30 in the morning and getting on a boat to see it.

A woman wishing

The River Ganges flows all the way through India. It is sacred to the Hindus for many reasons. I hopethese pictures will be enough for you to see how much Hindus actually care about this river.

Tourist watching the night ritual

A Brahmin 

Another Brahmin

And more Brahmins at night

Waking up the Ganges

The Cold Light of Morning on Ganges

Cremation

Hinduism

Being in India for a week has opened my eyes to many things that I never knew existed. This entry comprises just a few of these.

Swastika is a symbol most people think is created by the Nazis. This could not be further from the truth. It is Hindu symbol dating back to too long ago. It is a symbol that is quite like the ying-yang. It represents opposites, both sides of one thing: A and Z, life and death, happiness and sadness. It also represents purity. Hitler was trying to achieve purity in the world, he was trying to rid the world of Jewish people in order to achieve this. Therefore it is obvious why he chose this symbol rotated it 90 degrees and brought something so beautiful and meaningful to be the symbol of evil itself in the world. Another reason is that he needed propaganda and that this symbol was quite strong when contrasted with the red and white on the Nazi flag.

Many associate the Star of David with Jews. It may have gotten the name from the David, yes, but the symbol has been in existence for quite some time before David himself. It is another symbol of Hinduism that people actually really value. Like the swastika, it represents the opposites. The good and the bad, life and death. It has two triangles merged together which gives us our opposing entities in the world.

Most people laugh at the idea of the cows being sacred in Hinduism. But do they really know the story behind it? No. It is quite interesting when you know why people value cows so much. It is because in Hinduism, everyone has four mothers: the River Ganges, Bharat Mama, our own Mother and the Cow Mother. Cows are considered real mothers because they are really like our mothers. They give milk, they care for us and they are loving creatures. This was one thing that affected my understanding of Hinduism the most.

Cremation is the most common method of dealing with dead bodies in Hinduism. This is so because people believe only once the body is burnt, then the soul can be released into the world. This is why Hindus that die in the night are kept until morning to be burnt, because the soul can not find its way in the dark of the night, it can only find its way in the morning. So the ones who die at night are cremated in the morning. It is also believed that being burnt near the River Ganges is a very lucky thing. Hindus are so at peace with the idea of death that they do not even cry during the cremation. They do not sing dirges. They simply do what must be done to release the soul in the world and then go on  living their lives. It is truly something to see.

Finally, Hinduism has its many myths and it has its 3 gods. The most important one of these is Shiva the one created this world. There is a myth about him and his wife Parvati that I enjoyed. One day Shiva went to the Himalayas to meditate and left his pregnant wife Parvati at home. Shiva is a God so his meditation take years to perform. So many years later, Shiva comes back home and sees Parvati with this young man in shower with her. He suddenly thinks he is being cheated and chops off the head of the young man asking Parvati how she could do this. Parvati screams "What have you done? That was your son!" So Shiva runs out immediately and cuts the head of the passing elephant and places it on Ganesh, his son's, shoulders. The elephant-headed son of Shiva, Ganesh is believed to be the god of luck and good charm. That is why people pray to Ganesh for good luck.

The Wheel of Life

Halos are one of the things we have talked about in our previous English classes. Using Botticelli's Venus as a starting point (or so I believe) we looked what the halos meant. Now after seeing the artifacts in India, of Buddhism, I understand how far back the halo goes. In Buddhism, there is a phenomenon called "Dharmachakra." "Chakra" literally means means "wheel." And dharmachakra is the "wheel of life." This wheel turning represent the events of life unfolding before us, and the continuation of the events in one's life. After Siddhartha became Buddha and taught people his lessons and preached for many years, Buddhism became quite the thing in India. Many now believed in karma and reincarnation. One of Buddha's teaching was about this wheel of life and he is often depicted in sculptures as turning the wheel by doing certain moves with his hands.
Soon after Buddha died, many artist (even Romans of the Helenistic Period) went on to make sculptures of Buddha. Now since one of the most important things that made life go on according to Buddhism was the dharmachakra, they had to insert it in to the sculptures somehow. There were two ways of doing this, one as I just mentioned, by Buddha's gestures and secondly by inserting a circle circumscribing Buddha's head. Sounds familiar?
Later with the English and other European people coming to the peninsula, this image was stolen, so to say. This round circle was taken from the Buddhists and was integrated into Christianity as the halo that we see in nearly all of the depictions of angels. This quite certainly puzzled me, and reminded me of how religions actually do go hand in hand.

Pigs In Zen

A white cow

A Monkey in Varanasi Airport

Cows on the street

For these past few days I have spent in India since sunday, I have noticed quite significant things. These started with our travel to Varanasi. From the moment I got off the plane, I knew something was different since I saw a monkey roaming the halls of the airport freely. It is not like I see monkeys in enclosed spaces everyday. As the day went on, I also went on to notice many weird things. Cows that block off the roads, stray dogs everywhere (even on piles of garbage) and goats stealing foods from the bazaar. These goats would tend to do the same thing in Turkey, and what would change? They would get kick and maybe even butchered. Here, it is not the same. When kicking goats is    strongly against your beliefs why would you want to do so?

Cows on the bank of River Ganges

Walking down the street to the River Ganges, I noticed that these animals are all peaceful; they are happy. Despite the hunger and the filth on the streets, they like the way they live, solely because humans treat them as they should be treated. Cows have a reason to be treated that way; they are sacred (which is a whole other story) but why treat goats and dogs the same way? Because on the contrary to everyone else in the world, these people actually believe in what their religions tell them to do. (I say religions because there is more than one prominent religion here in India.)

A dog near Buddha's first preaching place

These animals not only made me think, but they reminded me of a song: "Pigs in Zen" by Jane's Addiction. Now the content is not related to this but the name certainly reflects the idea in the India; this is the only place in the world where a pig can be as tranquil, happy and peaceful as a Zen Buddhist. Just as I was thinking of this I saw an image that supported my theory, I family of pigs was lying in the dirt looking around. Now, my mother had told me about these merry animals from her past experiences in India, but I certainly did not expect this. These pigs are truly in Zen.

"The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore" - The Real Ones.

Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are similar in countless ways. They have the same themes, same battle against the evil forces ruling the world, and even the same clueless hero who does not know what he is doing. These facts aside, there is also the wizard with the white beard which (aside from the fact that they are really old) represents wisdom and knowledge. Both these wizards, throughout plots of their own stories, make assumptions or predictions about what will happen later on in the book. Gandalf says Gollum will play a bigger role before everything is over, and so he does. Now, that I don't have problem with. What I am furious about is something disparate.

Let's go back to 1997 when Harry Potter was first published. The first book, Philosopher's Stone, is a great introduction to the world of Harry Potter yet it has so many questions in it that some can only be answered in the seventh book. One of the questions is one that has stuck with me until the end of the series: "Who the heck sent the Invisibility Cloak to Harry and where did he get it?" You know what? turns out Dumbledore was behind it all along. What can that mean for us though? That Dumbledore was nice enough to send Harry something his father owned? No, absolutely not. Dumbledore sending this cloak to Harry simply says that he KNEW about the Deathly Hallows all along. That he knew about the Horcruxes from the beginning of the whole book. He knew Voldemort could come back and he still did not do anything to save anyone from it. He waited until he died and became a talking portrait on the wall of the Headmaster's Office to tell Harry the simple truth. It's not like Harry is untrustworthy, he is not going to simply join Voldemort and tell him Dumbledore's secrets! Dumbledore keeping all these secrets from Harry, is what is actually stopping Harry from being who he needs to be long ago! Some people say that Harry needed to learn it all himself and that Dumbledore was not the chosen one. Who can say that? Everybody who has a little sense in them knows that, deep down inside, Dumbledore has the strength to slaughter Voldemort with the flick of his wand! Who cares about what is written on a doggone piece of parchment paper, that is kept in lock with thousands of others. And what could we say about Dumbledore's knowing that the Triwizard Cup was a Portkey and it would take Harry directly to Voldemort. Why Dumbledore? Why would you send a kid to his death? Why are you so incapable of telling Harry the truth for once that he could finally stop moaning and stand up and fight the lizard-faced man. I simply pity the man who cried after reading the last chapters of the sixth book. If Dumbledore was smart enough his soul would have come back; he died in Hogwarts land did he not? So he is dead - good riddance, maybe Harry can now see the truth and go on killing "You-Know-Who."