SIGNIFICANCE OF THE GANGA AS ONE OF OUR HOLIEST RIVERS

WITH the spotlight on Kashi for reasons we all know, it's interesting to look again at its cultural significance. Some come to Kashi to die a 'holy death' with the surety of salvation. Death itself is known as 'Kashi Labh', the 'Profit of Kashi', while Kalbhairav, the city's fierce guardian deity, is addressed as 'Kala-kala', the 'Death of death', like his master Shiva.

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For at least over three millennia, every Hindu pilgrim to Kashi carried away a small sealed copper pot or two of Ganga water to his far corner of the sub-continent. The pot is kept in his prayer nook or room. Every time there is a death in the family, the seal is broken and a few drops of Gangajal are poured into the dying person's mouth for his or her salvation. The pots have been steadily replaced by each generation, so the Ganga may literally be found in every Hindu home across India.

No wonder there were salty local sayings about this never-ending ebb and flow of humanity in Varanasi. The modern satirical poet 'Bedhab' Banarasi joked, 'Bedhab kabhon na chhodiyo aisi Kashi dham/Marne pe Ganga miley, jeete langra aam.' 'Never leave a place like Kashi, Bedhab, where dying, you have the Ganga, and alive, langra mangoes'.

When in Kashi, this rush of associations made me run impulsively to the Ganga's sandy edge across from the ghats and wade in deeper and deeper until I could swim a few strokes. My modest cotton tunic and pants ballooned comically in the water and a few people in wooden boats some distance away looked at me for a moment, but only for a moment, since Kashi has seen everybody and everything. A soft plop to the other side made me turn my head swiftly. A small, sleek brown body dived down and I was just in time to catch that veriest glimpse of a Gangetic dolphin.