to seek healing in the waters of life. Here, again, is a young
woman, who trips gracefully down the stone steps bearing a water jug
on her head. She wades into the river until the water comes up to her
waist; then she drinks from her hand, sprinkles water towards the sun,
pours water over her hair, fills her pitcher, and goes slowly up again,
while the holy Ganges water drips from the red wrap which is wound round
her body. And all the other thousands who greet the sun with oblation of
water from the sacred river are convinced that he who makes a pilgrimage
to Benares and dies within the city walls obtains forgiveness for all
his sins.

[Illustration: PLATE XIV. BENARES.]

Like the Buddhists, the Hindus believe in the transmigration of souls. A
Hindu's soul must pass through more than eight million animal forms, and
for all the sins he has committed in the earlier forms of his existence,
he must suffer in the later. Therefore he makes offerings to the gods
that he may soon be released from this eternal wandering and attain the
heaven of the faithful. In the endless chain of existence this short
morning hour of prayer on the banks of the Ganges is but a second
compared to eternity.

* * * * *

In the evening, when the hottest hours of the day are past, let us again
take a boat and drift down slowly past the stone steps and jetties of
Benares. Noiseless, muddy, and grey the sacred river streams along its
bed. What quantities of reeking impurities there are in this water of
salvation! Whole bundles of crushed and evil-smelling marigolds, refuse,
rags and bits, bubbles and scum, float on its surface.

Down a steep lane a funeral procession approaches the bank at a quick
pace. The strains of anything but melodious music disturb the quiet of
the evening, and the noise of drums is echoed from the walls of the
pagodas. The corpse is borne on a bier covered with a white sheet, and
men of the caste of body-burners arrange it on the pyre, a pile of wood
stacked up by the waterside. Then they set fire to the dry shavings, and
the wood pile crackles. Thick clouds of smoke rise up and the smell of
burned flesh is borne on the breeze.

The body-burners have been sparing of fuel, however, and when the heap
of wood has burned down to ashes, the half-consumed and blackened corpse
still remains among the embers, and is then thrown out into the river.

THE LIGHT OF ASIA

In the sixth century before