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<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n. I skimmed the pages of her book in preparation for my own journey there and found a few passages well worth sharing. As she\u00a0writes, \u201cTo linger in Ban\u0101res is to linger in another era, an era which one cannot quite date by century.\u201d And, \u201cBan\u0101res is a magnificent city, rising from the western bank of the River Ganges. where the river takes a broad crescent sweep toward the north. There is little in the world to compare with the splendor of Ban\u0101res. seen from the river at dawn. The rays of the early-morning sun spread across the river and strike the high-banked face of this city, which Hindus call K\u0101shi\u2014the Luminous, the City of Light.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<\/p>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\nAre there not many holy places on this earth?<\/span><\/div>\nYet which of them would equal in the balance on speck of K\u0101sh<\/span>\u012b<\/span>\u2019s dust?<\/span><\/div>\nAre there not many rivers running to the sea?<\/span><\/div>\nYet which of them is the River of Heaven in K\u0101sh<\/span>\u012b<\/span>?<\/span><\/div>\nAre there not many fields of liberation on earth?<\/span><\/div>\nYet not one equals the smallest part of the city never foresaken by Shiva.<\/span><\/div>\nThe Ganges, Shiva, and K\u0101sh<\/span>\u012b<\/span>: where this Trinity is watchful, no wonder there is <\/span>found the grace that leads one to perfect bliss.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\u00a0(K<\/span>\u0101sh<\/span>\u012b<\/span> <\/span>Khanda 35. 7-10 \u2013 from the Skanda Purana<\/i>, a Hindu Holy book)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/a><\/div>\n
Sunrise over the Ganges. <\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nIn discussing past visitors to the city, Eck ponders:<\/p>\n
How are we to understand this place, these religious acts, these people? Since most of these early visitors, Arnold being an exception, knew little of Hinduism but what presented itself to the eye, they were unable to broach these questions. Ban\u0101ras was somehow too much for the mind to comprehend, and their writings are replete with expressions of speechless amazement. They had few interpretive resources with which to make sense of what they saw. <\/p>\n
Some tried to understand Ban\u0101ras by comparison with something cornparable in the West. Fran\u00e7ois Bernier called it the \u201c.\u2018the Athens of India,\u201d and Edwin Arnold called it \u201cthe Oxford and Canterbury of India in one.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And in the journal of Count Herman Keyserling, Eck recounts: <\/div>\nBenares is holy. Europe, grown superficial, hardly understands such truths anymore\u2026. I feel nearer here than I have ever done to the heart of the world; here I feel every day as if soon, perhaps even to-day, I would receive the grace of supreme revelation. . . The atmosphere of devotion which hangs above the river is improbable in its strength: stronger than in any church that I have ever visited. Every would-be Christian priest would do well to sacrifice a year of his theological studies in order to spend this time on the Ganges: here he would discover what piety means.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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\u00a0A young Brahmin priest performs Adhi Puja at the Ganges.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
One employee of the London Missionary Society, James Kennedy, presents a wholly different picture: <\/p>\n\u201cEverything you see here is wild, grotesque, unnatural, forbidding, utterly wanting in verisimilitude and refinement, with nothing to purify and raise the people, with everything fitted to pervert their taste and lower their character.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n