There is a place in India at all ardent devotees of Hinduism in its many manifestations come to celebrate the end of his life. Called Varanasi (Sanskrit, Varanasi) and is at the confluence of the rivers Varuna and Asi, along the sacred Ganges.

Photography by David S. Lowry

At the site there are hundreds of sadhus (Hindu priests), sick and elderly who are on the last leg of its existence that sojourn in the same direction, to make their final prayers and ablutions in the sacred waters of Mother Ganga, between cows , buffalo, dogs, goats, monkeys, fishermen, women doing laundry and children laughing and playing happily while bathing in the river, apparently oblivious to everything going on around them.

Varanasi:

Varanasi is the oldest city in India and boasts of one of the most ancient of the world. It has been speculated even saying that the waters of the Ganges as it passes through the city with one of the highest rates of pollution per cubic meter and not suitable at all for the bathroom, and is across the water, a fully opaque background is populated by hundreds of corpses dumped into the river daily from the city crematorium.

Varanasi is a magical city at night, when hundreds of small offerings in the form of candles floating lotus flowers around them glide smoothly and they are drawn by the power of the sacred Ganges, while the priests held their rituals in honor of Shiva, the God of Destruction who lives across the city, the songs are sacred and mystical gifts of fire. By day, the picture becomes overwhelming, when the light of the spectacular sunrise over the Ganges reveals the real function of bonfires and transforms them into authentic burial placed outdoors, where they can still be seen the remains of the bodies which continue to burn between embers from the night before.

Photography by archer10 (Dennis)

Offering lotus:

If the traveler stays Manikarnika beside the ghat, where this dismal show takes place 24 hours a day. Know that this so close to the burial place the smell of burnt bodies overnight slips through openings in the windows of the rooms, being quite disturbing and it’s hard to sleep.

Photography by Ajay Tallam

No city in the world with death daily lives so closely. Nor does it seem possible that all stomachs are able to resist the overwhelming vision of walking through the narrow side streets and infest the bodies, while the overwhelming force called life continues to beat with more intensity if it is the other side as sellers Silk and pashmina, rickshaw drivers and all kinds of street food places with local specialties such as samosas, thalis, chapati and fermented milk. The mixture of odors is indescribable.