Varanasi is a very important city to the Hindus. The Hindu faith believes in reincarnation, after your body dies your spirit will move on to some other living being. Depending on how good you lived your life, your spirit will go to a higher or lesser being.
Now just as any other religion, the highest achievable is being able to enter heaven, or nirvana as the Hindus call it. This is where Varanasi comes into play; Hindus believe that dying in Varanasi will relieve them from the endless cycle of reincarnation and their spirit can finally be at peace and enter nirvana.
Along the Ganges river bed, in the middle of Varanasi is the place where Hindu's get cremated. Bodies, covered in cloth get carried by family members through the small streets towards the cremation site. All the while chanting (shouting) a certain ritual mantra.
An average cremation can easily cost 8000inr (110 euro/125 USD). Wood needs to be brought in from other parts of the country, making it very expensive. Still there are about 80 cremations every day in Varanasi.
For the tourists (Indian as well as foreign) there is a viewing point above the cremation river bank. It is absolutely fascinating as well as a little horrifying to see the heaps of wood burning, indicating another body is being cremated, especially if the toes are still sticking out... This is one of those moments where you need to turn off your "western way of thinking", you are in India now, this is the Indian (Hindu) way.
Now just as any other religion, the highest achievable is being able to enter heaven, or nirvana as the Hindus call it. This is where Varanasi comes into play; Hindus believe that dying in Varanasi will relieve them from the endless cycle of reincarnation and their spirit can finally be at peace and enter nirvana.
Along the Ganges river bed, in the middle of Varanasi is the place where Hindu's get cremated. Bodies, covered in cloth get carried by family members through the small streets towards the cremation site. All the while chanting (shouting) a certain ritual mantra.
An average cremation can easily cost 8000inr (110 euro/125 USD). Wood needs to be brought in from other parts of the country, making it very expensive. Still there are about 80 cremations every day in Varanasi.
For the tourists (Indian as well as foreign) there is a viewing point above the cremation river bank. It is absolutely fascinating as well as a little horrifying to see the heaps of wood burning, indicating another body is being cremated, especially if the toes are still sticking out... This is one of those moments where you need to turn off your "western way of thinking", you are in India now, this is the Indian (Hindu) way.