Toerke

A visit to Pashupatinath is a strange experience. It’s not every day that you walk through the smoke of burning bodies. This is Nepal’s holiest place for hindus. Who dies here and is cremated here can break through the circle of rebirth. Along the river the dead of Kathmandu Valley are cremated on stone platforms. There’s a hierarchy in everything that takes place here. The higher the caste, the closer the platform is situated near the holy temple. But even in the five elements there seems to be a hierarchy. Water is inferior to fire and so the leprosy dead, who obviously have to pay for a bad karma in a former life, are not allowed near the flames but are flung into the river with a stone round their legs (or what’s left of them). Quite a new look on the laws of bacteriology if you ask me.

I’ve been known to show the occasional morbid interest and so I can report following facts: an average cremation takes 4 to 5 hours; the process is quickened with the use of sugar, oil and coconuts; the eldest son is bestowed the honor of lighting dad’s fuse; the last born son must grill mommy. After the cremation the actual mourning process can start, again following certain rules and regulations. Sacrifices are made, men shave all (!) their body hairs and wear the mourning color white during one year. Women, of course, have to wear this until the end of times. The young generation tends to bend this last rule a little and is known to remarry before they draw their last breath.

At this holy place there are also the holy men, the so-called saddhus. The ones we had the honor of meeting seemed to spend their days in the shade near a little transistor radio, newspaper in hand, taking on an impossible yoga posture for the curious cameras and shaking the collection box for copyright rupees. One lives on a cow’s milk diet. The other swears by his chillum, psychedelic highway to nirvana. Yet another tames the lusts of his eleventh finger by dragging along a heavy stone attached to the above mentioned organ.

Pashupatinath startles you. One thing is quite clear to me: religion cannot be explained (bacterio)logically.