Change In Plans

Greetings, again, from Kathmandu.  We have had another unbelievably full day of exploring the Kathmandu Valley.  This post is about the most interesting part of that day, watching the rich pageant of life (and death) from the banks of the Bagmati River, next to the Pashupatinath Temple.

BODHA STUPA FROM MONASTERY ROOF DECK

We started the day by visiting the ancient Bodha stupa, which used to be a simple, enormous white dome in the shape of Buddha’s inverted begging bowl.  It now has a bronze superstructure, and prayer flags attaching to its steeple from all directions.  The stupa area is surrounded by pilgrims’ rest houses (some converted into shops and hostels), so it is completely cut off from the noise and activity of the streets.

As we looked out at the stupa from the sunny roof deck of an adjacent monastery, we could hear prayer music and the ring of prayer bells.  We saw and smelled hundreds of yak-butter candles and lamps, and watched Buddhist devotees worship and spin prayer wheels.  I was overcome with a great sense of tranquillity and happiness.  This is exactly what I would have hoped to find in Kathmandu.

After leaving the stupa, we went back toward the Pashupatinath Temple, where we had the sunset walk on our first evening in Kathmandu.  This time, we approached the temple from its western side, walking up a long hill and through an ancient deer park.  We descended steeply toward the holy Bagmati River, walking through a group of orange-clad old holy men, lazing in the sun.  It was hard not to stare at the leprous sores and the lost fingers and toes on some of these ash-covered sadhus.  

We walked down a long set of broad stone steps, and stopped when we were still about 20 meters above the river.  This put us at about the same height as the temple gates, across the narrow valley.  There was so much to look at and think about that we sat for almost an hour, and could have stayed all day.  Here is what we saw:

• Directly beneath us, on our side of the river, a three-year-old girl was having her head shaved with a straight razor by her parents.  They were sacrificing her hair to some deity. Tallulah told me several times, “I do not want you to shave my head.”  She did tell me that it would be OK if we shaved Zola’s head, however.

 NEWLY SHORN THREE YEAR OLD GIRL

• One level down from the barbering family, construction workers were hand carrying load after load of rebar to a construction site at the river’s edge.  Amidst all of the other action, they weaved gracefully through a small crowd of Nepalis and foreigners.
•  Just below the crowd and construction site, the Bagmati River itself flowed gently by.  It is shallow enough that a man with a rake was pushing charred wood, waterlogged flowers and other post-cremation detritus into the downstream current.  The river is considered very holy by Hindus (it is a tributary of the Ganga), but has gotten so polluted that the Nepali government has banned all bathing in it.  
   
• Although Nepalis seem to be obeying the bathing ban, an enthusiastic group of Indian pilgrims was not deterred.  They showed up suddenly on the steps (ghats) of the far bank, and jumped in the water.  Men in loincloths, and women in sarees, scrubbed themselves thoroughly and drank from the river. 

 ENTHUSIASTIC INDIAN PILGRIMS

• Only five meters downstream from the happy pilgrims, a mourning family sat on the steps next to a flower-bedecked corpse. The departed had already been through the pre-cremation rituals at the riverside: face and mouth washed with river water, feet washed, rewrapped in a sheet daubed with red vermilion, and covered in chains of marigolds.  Now the family was waiting for an “auspicious time” to start the actual cremation.  A pyre had already been built on one of the cremation ghats a little further downstream.  Unlike what we saw at Varanasi, women were mourning at the cremation site, and it seemed acceptable to cry.

 MOURNING FAMILY AND RECENTLY DECEASED

• Farther downstream, there were already two cremation fires burning on the ghat platforms.  A third fire was burning smokily, right at the river’s edge, but that was to dispose of accumulated rubbish from recent cremations.  These cremation ghats are relatively far from the temple steps, and until recently would have been used only by lower-caste Hindus.  The ghat nearest the temple was reserved for royalty, with the next nearest for Brahmins, and the next nearest for Kshatriya, etc.  Now they are allocated on willingness to pay.

CREMATION GHATS IN USE

• One level up from the bathing and cremation ghats, there is a kind of hospice, with multiple doors leading right out to the river.  ”Breathing your last” by the Pashupatinath Temple is supposed to absolve you of all sins in this life, and increase the chances of going directly to Nirvana.  As we watched, medical personnel dragged an oxygen tank down the temple steps and into the hospice area.