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 river bed. This entire area of the Ganges
riverbank is a jumble of temples and ashrams of all sizes which 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 fifty feet high and three hundred feet wide. The bandh began at
the ancient fort with seventy-five foot high sandstone walls on the bank right
at the intersection of the Ganges and Jumna. The bandh ran for about 3 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. I immediately thought of another
Paramanand, my brother disciple and Gurujii’s only American initiate into the
orange robed swami order. At Paramanand’s temple we went through the wrought
iron gate to a small courtyard. Paramanand’s disciple and Gurujii 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. His disciple explained that
the first thing he had done in the early morning was to fold the body 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 so there would be no smell of decay. I never detected
that this was done. Gurujii is sensitive to 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 other 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 people 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 in India 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 and got me 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, myself and Swami Sevanand arrived at
Paramanand’s small temple only a small crowd of perhaps 10 or so had gathered.
I presumed a much larger crowd would be here for the ceremony.
Paramanand’s body was seated on a large high back wooden chair and tied to
the chair at the feet, waist and chest with strips of orange cloth. Long bamboo
poles were lashed to the chair legs for the bearers. We set off on the mile
walk toward the confluence 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 and 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 created
a long comet shaped throng of young boys and ambulatory beggars following
behind us, much increasing the apparent number of mourners.
We reached the riverbank after about forty-five minutes and negotiated
for a large flat bottomed boat to take us out to the exact meeting place of the
muddy Ganges and the clear blue Jumna. This spot is called Tribeni and 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
west 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 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 leaning 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 a loose hem of his orange
robes flickered in the sun shafts in the 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 and tied in to the many other boats. 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 eighty-three 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. 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. He pressed me a bit with an unspoken but clearly intelligible ‘this
might be the only way you can get saved’. Remembering the terrible earache I
had gotten some years before and the slight chill of the wan late afternoon sun,
my mind scrambled for an out. I had a sudden insight and asked Gurujii, “How
much water does it take to be saved?” He reflected for a moment 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 Swami Sevanand
and sank it in the sacred Tribeni. I did bathe in the river that time.
