The critic in the Occident . Ganges and to offer up prayers at the manyholy shrines in the citys temples. Benares is sacred because here Buddha first madehis residence. The place that he selected was ancientSarnath, six miles from Benares, which is now a heapof ruins, in which British government experts aredelving for remains of the great city that was foundedsix centuries before the Christian era. At SarnathBuddha built a great temple and founded a schoolfrom which his disciples spread to all parts of after 750 Buddhism disappeared graduallyfrom India, and Hindooism took its pl
The critic in the Occident . Ganges and to offer up prayers at the manyholy shrines in the citys temples. Benares is sacred because here Buddha first madehis residence. The place that he selected was ancientSarnath, six miles from Benares, which is now a heapof ruins, in which British government experts aredelving for remains of the great city that was foundedsix centuries before the Christian era. At SarnathBuddha built a great temple and founded a schoolfrom which his disciples spread to all parts of after 750 Buddhism disappeared graduallyfrom India, and Hindooism took its place. The finetemples that now line the Ganges for three miles werebuilt by Maratha princes in the seventeenth also built the scores of bathing ghats that nowfurnish one of the most picturesque spectacles thatthe world affords. A ghat in Hindustani is a stonestairway that leads down to the water, and Benareshas a succession of these magnificent stairways lead-ing down to the Ganges, overlooked by palaces of[100]. Hindoos Bathing in the Ganges at Benares. This is a View of the Dasaswamedh Ghat, the Most Popular Bathing Place in the Sacred City. Note the Holy Men Under the Umbrellas, Who Take Tribute of All Bathers Bathing and Burning the Dead many Maharajas and temples built by rulers andpriests. No sight more splendid could be conceivedthan that of these domes and minarets flashing inthe rays of the early morning sun while thousandsof devout believers crowd the bathing ghats andoffer prayers to Vishnu, after they have bathed inthe waters of the Ganges; and mourning relativesburn the bodies of their dead after these have had thesacred water poured over their faces. The visitor who wishes to see the pious Hindoosbathe in the Ganges goes to the river in the earlymorning soon after the sun has risen. He descendsone of the large ghats and takes a boat, in which hemay be rowed down the river past the bathing ghatsand the one ghat where the dead are burned. Thescene is one
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidcriticinocci, bookyear1913
