India is a unique country. Only in this country it is possible to combine the practically incongruous: all the attributes and achievements of modern civilization and ancient religious and cultural traditions, most of which seem to us to be wild relics of the past. We still consider India a backward third world state, although this has not been true for almost half a century. India's economy ranks third in the world, in terms of population, India is second only to China. The country has nuclear weapons and its own space program.
More than 80% of the inhabitants of India profess Hinduism, a polytheistic religion based on the concept of karma. Hinduists believe that the human soul is immortal and after the end of its life path, it migrates to some other living being. With each new rebirth, the soul either improves, improving its karma, or degrades (worsens it).
In addition, the "karmic" worldview is characterized by adherence to such a principle as fatalism. For example, if you were born a poor man, then, alas, nothing can be done - such is your karma, which means that in your past life you did something unworthy and now you must atone for your guilt.
The ultimate goal of the soul is such a level of karma that will allow it to break the circle of endless rebirths and move on to the next stage - the state of mukti, when the soul can freely merge with God-Absolute.
It is this approach that forms the mentality of the majority of Indians. Even the educated and "modernized" members of Indian society are absolutely serious about the principles of this religion and follow it.
In the east of India, the most sacred city for any Hindu is located - Varanasi. It is one of the oldest cities on our planet and the oldest in existence. There were, of course, cities older than him, but he is the only one remaining inhabited in our time.
Varanasi is the center of the most widespread trend in Hinduism - the cult of the god Shiva. In the three highest gods of the Hindus (Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva), the latter performs the function of a "destroyer": it is Shiva who "sums up" any action taking place in the world, it is he who completes any process.
Human life ends in death, therefore, Shiva acts as the one who will help the soul to complete the next life path, so that it will be reborn later … Given the importance of such an event, of course, it is Shiva who is given the most important role, which is why his cult is the most widespread.
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It is believed that a person who died in Varanasi, or at least buried in it, can count on the favor of Shiva and his help in achieving the state of mukti, the very one in which a series of reincarnations breaks off.
And in this very place, religion passes from the field of philosophy to practice. Every year hundreds of thousands of people come to Varanasi to complete their life there. It costs a lot of money, and very often it happens that the family of the deceased spends all their fortune to ensure the fulfillment of his last wish.
Those who cannot afford to die in Varanasi can try a simpler service - a funeral in the holy city. It really costs ten times cheaper, however, and this is not affordable for many people in India. However, funeral rituals in the holy city take place around the clock and last constantly. Hindus either burn their dead at funeral pyres, or simply immerse their bodies in the sacred Ganges.
The scale of the funeral services in Varanasi is amazing. Annually, about a hundred thousand bodies are immersed in the Ganges and about the same number are burned at the stake. The unburned remains also go to the Ganges. Such a funeral makes a very ambiguous impression on a representative of European civilization.
A whole funeral industry is organized in Varanasi: there are a lot of suppliers of firewood for fires, ritual "beauty salons", all kinds of funeral restaurants, canteens, and simple "eateries". In addition, there are a lot of temples and other religious buildings with all the necessary staff. There is even a family of priests, keepers of the funeral fire: it is from him that all funeral fires must be lit. This fire has been burning for several thousand years without extinguishing!
And naturally, such a sacred place could not fail to attract the attention of many researchers of everything inexplicable and anomalous. The Varanasi phenomenon has been studied by representatives of "European civilization" for a relatively short time - about two hundred years. Hindus, with their characteristic philosophical fatalism, practically do not interfere with these people in their studies. The research results are very interesting, if not startling.
The geography of the city is of interest. It is located only on one bank of the Ganges; the other shore is lifeless and deserted - not even animals live there. The Ganges behaves strangely in the Varanasi region: contrary to all the laws of hydrodynamics, it is in this very place that a current exists that directs its waters to the north instead of the southeast. Despite the fact that the city is located in the hot subtropics with a predominance of monsoons, the amount of precipitation in it is only one and a half times more than in Eastern Europe. Such a picture is not characteristic not only of India as a whole, but even of the vicinity of Varanasi.
And one more thing about water. On the embankments of the city live many Hindu holy fools, modern saints, called "sadhi". Most of the time they sit by the funeral pyres and meditate, sometimes sharing their wisdom with the inhabitants around them. So, sadhis regularly bathe in the Ganges, filled not only with decomposed corpses and sewage, but also with industrial waste from enterprises located upstream. Despite such a monstrous unsanitary condition, all sadhis not only do not have skin diseases, but in general are people with simply amazing health!
Varanasi is inhabited by many cows. The idiomatic expression "sacred cow" is just about these animals. They travel freely around the city, and no one can touch them. An amazing fact regarding the cows from Varanasi is that they cannot live anywhere except in this city. When transported to another area, they quickly lose weight and die, although all conditions in this area almost completely repeat the conditions of life in Varanasi.
In general, there are a lot of oddities with this city of the dead. They do not have a pronounced character, but their number and features of manifestation inevitably make you think. One of the first Europeans to see Varanasi was Samuel Putte in the 18th century. This orientalist was immediately interested in the strange customs of the aborigines. The very first data collected by the inquisitive Dutchman made us think: many Hindus who decided to die in Varanasi, but did not do it (for example, because their relatives were forced to take them away from there), brought real misfortune to their families. Putte even tried to explain this "curse of Varanasi" by a special mystical halo that surrounds this place. The traveler spent almost three years in East India, he accumulated a lot of material that he wanted to publish. However, after returning home, he suddenly fell ill,and two days before his death, he destroyed all his manuscripts.
The story of James Foster, a captain in the British army who served in India in the middle of the 19th century, was mysterious. After three years of impeccable service, the captain, having visited Varanasi, radically changed. He resigned and came to the holy city. There he lived for several years among the poor, learned the Hindi language - Hindi, and spent a lot of time in fellowship with local "saints."
What the sadhi taught the former officer is unknown, however, after returning to his homeland, being already a gray-haired old man, Foster became famous in certain circles as a mystic and fortuneteller. He spoke with amazing accuracy about the secret affairs of completely unfamiliar people, predicted world war, indicated the exact date and cause of his death, and much more. And there were many such cases. Many Europeans, having visited Varanasi, change so much internally that they radically change their way of life and worldview.
Currently, Varanasi is one of the centers of tourism in India, standing, according to some, "half of the entire country." The city has a large airport and many hotels. However, despite all this, most of the city is closed to the public. For example, of the 84 ghats (embankments) located on the banks of the Ganges, hardly less than half are open to tourists. Moreover, in some temples (and there are several thousand of them in the city), non-Hindus are generally prohibited from entering. In addition, despite the fact that it was in this city that Shakyamuni became Buddha, Buddhists here, to put it mildly, are not liked, although other religions are not treated in any way.
However, the bans apply not only to visitors. Local residents are also subject to certain "discrimination". For example, the residents of Varanasi are prohibited from participating in drug tests (by the way, this is now a very common profession in India) or filming feature films. The same sadhis cannot leave the city, since it is believed that only in it they possess their supernatural spiritual power.
India will always remain a country that is not fully understood by us. Their customs, culture and religion are the oldest surviving on Earth. On the one hand, this all seems very archaic, but on the other, it commands respect. Because, having withstood such a test of time and practically unchanged, they have proven their worth and relevance.