Destination: India : IN THE SACRED HEART of INDIA : Watching a timeless Hindu ritual along the Ganges, the holy city of Varanasi

It is just before dawn and the wide steps of the Dasaswamedh Ghat leading down to the Ganges are already crowded. Scattered groups swell into masses, and the lowest level becomes a wall of humanity; people from all walks of life, every caste and every part of the country, all crowd down to the river for sunrise. Rudyard Kipling called it “the greatest spectacle in India.”

Saris shimmer as bathers wade out into the swirling water. Others merely splash the sacred waters to their foreheads. From our little rowboat just offshore we watch as dome, cupola, spire and temple catch the first rays of the sun. A temple attendant, reading his newspaper, rings a brass bell.

For the visitor, to boat along the ghats of Varanasi at dawn like this, or walk the maze of the old town, is to be given a glimpse into the fascinating and sometimes exasperating heart of India.

My traveling partner Maria and I have come here--to this town about halfway between New Delhi and Calcutta--for three days at the end of a monthlong trip across India. Since the show begins at sunrise, our days start early. We wake an hour before dawn and dress in loose, light clothing. This is July; the monsoons have not yet arrived, and the day will be humid and hot, close to 100 degrees.

Outside the Hotel de Paris, our quite colonial abode on one of the wide avenues of the area where the British civil servants lived, a group of bicycle rickshaw drivers are asleep on their seats. We choose one and a sleepy 30 minutes later arrive at the top of the Sadawamedh Ghat overlooking the Ganges. This is the most central and most accessible of Varanasi’s 100 ghats (pronounced GAHT), which are wide stone steps leading down the banks to the river’s edge.

Raza, our rickshaw wallah, refuses our rupees, although we say we may not return for hours. In this way he enlists himself as our personal driver for the day. As his first favor, he leads us to a boatman who offers us a tour of the ghats. Many rowboats are tied up at the nearby Dasaswamedh Ghat and immediately a horde of boatmen descend upon us.

In a situation like this it helps if you know what price is fair. The first boatman says the hotels charge 1,000 rupees per person (about $33), but when he sees our expressions he quickly adds that his own price is just 250 rupees each.

I cavalierly offer 150 rupees (about $5)--for both of us. Our boatman refuses at first, but relents after half a dozen others jump at the chance. It’s the usual thing. He leads us down the stone steps, past the priests sitting under their umbrellas offering pilgrim prayers and advice, and we board the sturdy dinghy for our sunrise cruise on the Ganges.

Eighty-three percent of India’s estimated 900 million people are Hindu and for them the Ganges is not just a river, but the goddess Ganga. It is believed that when she descended from heaven her fall was broken and her course determined by the sinuous locks of the god Siva (also spelled Shiva); that whatever her waters touch, from their source in the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, 1,560 miles beyond, becomes absolutely pure.

Varanasi (formerly Benares) is Siva’s sacred city, and this makes the waters here especially powerful. Every Hindu, at least once in his or her life if possible, makes a pilgrimage here. More than a million arrive each year, coming to purify themselves with a dip at dawn in the Ganges.

“I should have been glad to acquire some sort of idea of Hindu theology,” wrote Mark Twain of his visit to Varanasi, “but the difficulties were too great. . . .”

Simply stated, Hinduism evolved from ancient animist cults and believes in a supreme being often represented as the trinity of Brahma (the creator of the universe and chief supreme being), Vishnu (the Preserver) and Siva (the Destroyer).

Hindus also believe in reincarnation: After death, the soul returns to earth in another human or animal body, depending upon one’s past deeds. Praying, fasting or making a pilgrimage shortens this cycle of rebirth. The quickest shortcut, liberating the soul from all further rebirth, is to die in Varanasi and have one’s ashes scattered on the Ganges. Many come here to live out their final days.

Our boat edges past a woman standing waist deep among the water hyacinths, facing east across the Ganges. In cupped hands she raises the holy water to her face and lets it trickle down her body as she prays. She repeats this ritual three times, oblivious to the passing boat. Her whole attention is focused on the orange sun, rising like a fiery lingam (symbol of Siva’s procreative power) out of the horizon.

A young boy sits on a wooden stand over the water, selling flowers and other offerings. A white-haired woman sets a frail leaf coracle afloat, bearing a yellow petal and a bit of candle flame. A portly member of one of the upper castes--known by the white cord across his chest--fills a shiny urn and pours the water over his upturned face. A young woman in a purple sari dips completely under, holding her nose like a child in a pool, and comes up laughing.

From our floating vantage point a few feet from shore, the overall feeling is one of joy, peace, fulfillment and hope. Whatever privation and pain might exist in their lives elsewhere, it is not here, in any of these faces, old or young.

Just downstream from the Dasaswamedh Ghat, a chain of men unload a heavy river barge, continuously replenishing great walls of firewood. Pungent smoke from the cremation pyres fills the air. This is the Manikarnika Ghat--the city’s main crematory and the one most revered by pilgrims--and the pyres here burn day and night. One platform is bright with flames while the smoldering remains on another are being swept into the river. On a third, the funeral pyre has not yet been lit and an orange-shrouded form lies atop a five-foot stack of logs.

Cremation is too expensive for the very poor, yet the Ganges is the final resting place of choice for Hindus. As we row past the ghat, we see a tiny orange-shrouded corpse lowered midstream from a sooty dinghy, a reminder that babies and small children are not cremated.

Manikarnika is also a bathing ghat, the last and most sacred of the five ghats all pilgrims must bathe at successively in a single day. Afterward, these pilgrims will walk the ancient Panchkosi Road--a five-day, 35-mile route circling the sacred city. They will stop at about 100 shrines along the way and sleep at rest lodges where villagers provide free lodging and food.

The sun climbs swiftly, immediately hot. The flowing river, a thing of beauty moments before, now looks brown, silted, unspeakably polluted. Along the shore raw sewage seeps into the river, and yet these waters, for believers, remain sanctifying and pure. Many fill containers with the water for ceremonial use later.

*

Our boat returns to Dasaswamedh Ghat and we walk downriver among the people on the ghats. No one pays us any mind, all are welcome here. Up and down the steps people socialize, children play, men and women do the wash, beating the garments clean, without soap, on ancient stones. Up against the sandstone walls, already rippling with heat, sit sadhus--holy men who have renounced the world. Some will meditate, motionless, all day.

We climb the steps, pass under a tree crawling with monkeys and immediately enter a shady labyrinth of near-deserted alleys, a maze so narrow that only foot traffic can navigate it. This is the oldest part of the city and one of Varanasi’s most fascinating and characteristic features.

We follow dark passageways and explore hidden courtyards and mysterious temples. The lanes are scattered with old stone lingams, set upon a circular base, often bright with flower petals left by pilgrims as an offering. We meander past houses, temples, ashrams and pilgrim guest lodges, whose brick walls, now grown hopelessly askew, tilt weirdly above us, blocking out the sun. Sacred temples push up to the sunlight between the three- and four-story buildings. A couple of cows (revered and never harmed) makes a traffic jam of four; we slip into a doorway to let them by.

Nothing here, except ourselves, seems to be a part of the 20th Century. An ancient gnarled tree harbors a stone bench and we sit down for a few moments to savor the ancient feel of the place. Varanasi has been continuously populated for the last 3,000 years, and has often been called the oldest city in the world. It was the contemporary of Thebes and Babylon.

A growing hunger finally urges us on. Soon we pass scattered stalls, some just large enough for the merchant to sit knees to chin, his goods around him. The stalls coalesce into a narrow winding market, where we find lacquerware, brass pots, silks and fresh produce. Farther on the goods become more religious: beads, lotus flowers, sweet offerings, incense, sandalwood paste, red tilak powder and sealed bottles of Ganges water.

Awnings, arches and canvas umbrellas now span the alley, turning outdoors into indoors, and the air grows sweet with incense and cut flowers. The cobblestones have turned to tiles as we wedge past a slowly advancing mass of fervent devotees bearing offerings.

We are caught up in a swirl of dazzling white cotton, multicolored saris, brass trays, golden urns, flowers and incense. We have reached the entrance to the Golden Temple (Viswanatha), foremost of the 1,500 (according to one count) temples in Varanasi, and one of the leading temples in all of India.

The temple is dedicated to Siva as lord of the universe and open only to Hindus. Pilgrims flock here to worship Varanasi’s most sacred object: a black stone lingam.

This hallowed lingam was hidden in a nearby well and thus saved when the Muslims overran the city in the 14th Century. Although they spared the city, the Muslims destroyed all the Hindu temples (including the original Golden Temple), and those we see today are no older than the 17th Century.

Also popular with pilgrims is the nearby Durga, or Monkey Temple, which takes its nickname from the creatures that live within its finely carved columns.

From here, we follow the traffic noise to the Chowk bazaar and out again into the dusty harsh sunshine. It’s definitely lunchtime by now and we find a restaurant on the second floor of the Sahu Hotel. Both of us are dripping with sweat and we take a table directly in front of the floor fan. The fan does little to cool us off, but it keeps the flies from settling. We order bottled water, rice, vegetables--and beer.

We have finished our meal and two bottles of water by the time the (warm) beer arrives. Our waiter apologizes, saying that as the restaurant (in a pilgrim-class hotel that does not cater to foreign tourists) does not normally offer alcohol, he had to fetch a pitcher by rickshaw. It’s amazing service for a $2 meal.

*

For our last night we treat ourselves to an air-conditioned dinner at the luxurious Asoka Hotel. Afterward, quietly strolling back to the Hotel de Paris, we are set upon by an overly aggressive rickshaw wallah ringing his bell. Our initial “no thanks” only encourages him to make one clamorous pass after another.

Finally, losing my patience, I grab his flimsy vehicle as it lingers alongside and give it a firm tilt. The wiry man scrambles to the high side, putting us face to face. He flashes me a toothy smile and makes one of those inimitable tilts of the head one encounters everywhere in India: half nod and half shake--half yes and half no. “Well,” the speechless gesture seems to say, “no harm done. People get angry. It can’t be helped.”

As I set the rickshaw down a dapper-looking man approaches. “Sir, I must apologize for that fellow,” he said. “But please do not grow angry with them. Life is hard here and they are only trying to survive.” I instantly regret my anger and realize he is speaking for all of India--a country that can take the traveler from complacency to tears, rage, awe, laughter and love all in the same moment.

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GUIDEBOOK: Passage to Varanasi

Getting there: From LAX take connecting flights to New Delhi on Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways across the Pacific; advance purchase, round-trip fares start at $1,500. Or fly through Europe on Delta, British Air or Lufthansa; round-trip fares start at $1,900. From New Delhi take Indian Airways to Varanasi; $160 round-trip.

Where to stay: Asoka, 18, The Mall; rates $35 per night for a single or a double; pool, travel agent and shops; from the United States telephone 011-91-542-46020.

Clark’s Varanasi Hotel, 22, The Mall; rates $60 per night for a single, $70 for a double; recently renovated, pool and shops; tel. 011-91-542-46771.

Hotel de Paris, 15, The Mall, spacious rooms start at $18; colonial-style garden hotel, restaurant; tel. 011-92-542-46601.

When to go: October to March is the best time to visit, when the weather is cooler and drier. During the 10-day Dussehra festival, which varies in time but always occurs in September and October, most of the hotels are full.

For more information: Government of India Tourist Office, 3550 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 204, Los Angeles 90010, (213) 380-8855.

--C.D.