The Demise of Swami Paramanand

The Demise of Swami Paramanand

Early one morning as Gurujii and I were returning from our usual morning walk a typically scantily clad man came running up to us. He was very distraught and spoke a few rapid sentences in Hindi to Gurujii before bursting into tears. Gurujii turned to me and said, “His guru has died.”  ”Where?” I asked. Gurujii pointed at a small white temple halfway up the slight hill from the now dry Ganges riverbed.

This entire area of the Ganges riverbank is a jumble of temples and ashrams of all sizes that have been built over the past fifty years. The British built a successively higher and larger dike during their years of occupation attempting to thwart the mighty Ganges from flooding the nearby city of Allahabad during the rainy season. The dike or bandh was now 50 feet high and 400 feet wide and began at the ancient fort with 75 foot high sandstone walls located on the river bank right at the intersection of the Ganges and Jumna. The bandh ran for about 2 miles into the small village of Daraganj which stood on a natural bluff overlooking the river.

The now three of us walked slowly up the hill. I asked Gurujii the name of the dead swami. “Paramanand”, he replied. At Paramanand’s temple we went through the wrought iron gate to a small courtyard. Gurujii and Paramanand’s disciple removed their shoes and stooping entered the low ceiling temple. Gurujii soon came back to the doorway and motioned me over with his hand. “Do you want to see the dead body?” “Okay.” Slipping out of the unlaced tennis shoes that I slopped around in, I crawled through the doorway onto the black and white marble floor of the temple.

The air had the sweet smell of temples everywhere, a humid mix of incense, flowers and the accumulated prayers of countless supplicants. Up against the front wall was the usual statuary, flowers and urns and alongside the altar, propped up in the corner in a slumped cross legged pose was Paramanand. Paramanand’s body was small and thin and his disciple explained that the first thing he had done in the early morning upon finding the body was to fold it into the traditional meditation pose before rigor mortis set in. The distraught disciple was very relieved to have Gurujii to consult about the traditions to follow upon a swami’s death. At that time, in the mid 1980’s, Gurujii was one of the two longest lived inhabitants of the bandh area and he had lived in his ashram for over fifty years. Gurujii told Paramanand’s disciple to sprinkle eucalyptus oil on Paramanand’s robes, presumably so there would be no smell of decay. I never detected that this was done. Gurujii is very fussy about odors of any kind and keeps a small piece of camphor with him at all times in one of the small pockets of his orange robes. 

By now several of Paramanand’s devotees had arrived at the temple to pay brief homage on their way homeward from a morning bath in the Ganges. We all gathered outside and Gurujii gave orders to some to go off to the city to summon Paramanand’s followers and to others he gave directions for the ceremony itself which was to be burial in the Ganges.

Hindus traditionally burn the bodies of all who have reached puberty to quickly liberate the soul from its encasement in the flesh. I am certain also that the tradition of cremation developed for health and space considerations, as there is abundant firewood. The Hindu tradition for children who have not yet reached puberty is that their bodies may be thrown directly into the Ganges as children are considered pure and undefiled by carnal desires. Snakebite victims, of which there are many in India, may be thrown directly into the river as its ever pure and sacred waters have reputedly miraculously revived some of these corpses. Although the corpses of swamis are frequently burned, burial in either earth or water, especially the Ganges, is another option. The bodies of the orange robed are considered pure and free from desires. The tangerine orange color of the robes symbolically represents the color of the inner fires of renunciation through which those initiated into the swami order have passed.

With Paramanand’s devotees going off in all directions throughout the city reporting his demise, Gurujii and I completed our walk up the hill and down the dike road the short distance to Gurujii’s small ashram enclave. Since the burial wasn’t scheduled until 2 PM I went about my usual and lengthy morning ritual of meditation, exercises and picking through the dhal removing small stones and then setting it to cook while I stood on my head for a half hour or longer. Just as I finished eating Gurujii came up announcing that the death ceremony was soon to take place. As this was several hours before the previously announced time I wondered if many of Paramanand’s followers would miss the ceremony. When Gurujii, Swami Sevanand, Gurujii’s cook and personal attendant for many years, and I arrived at Paramanand’s small temple only a small crowd of perhaps ten or so had gathered. I presumed a large crowd would be here for the ceremony.

Paramanand’s body was tied at the feet, waist and chest into a large high back wooden chair with strips of orange cloth. Long bamboo poles were lashed to the chair legs. We set off on the two mile walk toward the Ganges with Paramanand sitting almost five feet off the ground in the chair borne by four men. Gurujii soon ordered us all to stop as Paramanand’s head was bobbing around. The chair was brought back down to the ground and a strip of cloth was tied around Paramanand’s neck and then around the back of the chair. We set off again. As I walked along in the warm February sun slightly behind the bier I suddenly heard scuffling and shouting behind me. Looking back I saw a young boy carrying a large water bucket full of 5 and 10 paise coins. The boy would periodically take a handful of coins and scatter them on the ground behind the procession like grass seed. This had created a long comet shaped throng of young boys and ambulatory beggars following behind us much increasing the apparent number of mourners.

Reaching the riverbank after about 45 minutes we negotiated for a large flat bottomed boat to take us all out to the exact meeting place of the muddy Ganges and the clear blue Yamuna rivers. This spot is called Tribeni. Here it is said the unseen river Saraswati surges up from the bottom and these three together create or are absorbed by the mighty Ganges which passes onward to the east to Benares, Calcutta and finally the Bay of Bengal.

About ten of us got into the boat with Swami Paramanand’s chair placed amid ship facing forward, a silent tangerine robed captain. We were rowed the several hundred yards downstream and out to the deepest part of the confluence. At Gurujii’s direction we untied Paramanand’s body from the chair and balanced it on the wood plank boat seat and then we tied bricks into the hem of Paramanand’s robe. With two people holding the bricks in the hem and two others holding the body over the side of the boat and others balancing the boat upright on the opposite gunwale, we all let loose at the same time. The body quickly sank out of sight but for a brief unforgettable moment the loose hem of his orange robes flickered in the sunlit muddy water like a large goldfish. Then nothing.

We ordered the boatman to take us in closer to shore where the water was only knee deep. We tied into the many other boats and everyone except Gurujii and me stripped down to skivvies and jumped overboard to bathe in the river. Gurujii didn’t bathe in the Ganges at all anymore. He was then 83 and hadn’t bathed in the river for some years as it was too cold for him. Sevanand yelled at me in Hindi and Gurujii translated, “He wants to know why you are not bathing in the river.” “Too cold”, I replied. Actually, I was still sick and feverish from my last bout of the recurring illness to which all Westerners in India are subject. I asked Gurujii about bathing right here at the confluence and he said it was the holiest spot and that Hindus believe that to bathe here was to be liberated from the necessity to be reborn. I had a sudden insight and asked Gurujii, “How much water does it take to be saved?” He reflected for a while before giving what I later saw was the only possible answer, “One drop is sufficient.” So I leaned over the side and scooped a little water in my hand and poured it over my head letting it dribble down my face. We rowed back to the riverbank and walked back to our respective ashrams and homes.

The next time I was to take a boat out to the confluence was four years later when six of us took a clay pot filled with the still smoldering ashes of Sevanand

and sank it in the sacred Tribeni. I did bathe in the river that time. Gurujii was so upset he wasn’t able to come with us. He just sat bolt upright for weeks in his high back wooden chair looking straight ahead.

From the Adventures of a Knight Errant

Gurujii – Swami Vishnudevanand Saraswati

reprinted from BIM16, December 1996 with added photographs