Whosoever Succeeds In
Throwing Himself First Into The River, At The Appointed Day, Hour
And Moment, Will Not Only Expiate All His Sins, But Also Have All
Bodily Sufferings Removed.
This zeal to be first is so great that,
owing to a badly-constructed and narrow stair leading to
The water,
it used to cost many lives yearly, until, in 1819, the East India
Company, taking pity upon the pilgrims, ordered this ancient relic
to be removed, and a new stairway, one hundred feet wide, and
consisting of sixty steps, to be constructed.
The month when the waters of the Ganges are most salutary, falls,
according to the Brahmanical computation, between March 12th and
April 10th, and is called Chaitra. The worst of it is that the
waters are at their best only at the first moment of a certain
propitious hour, indicated by the Brahmans, and which sometimes
happens to be midnight. You can fancy what it must be when this
moment comes, in the midst of a crowd which exceeds two millions.
In 1819 more than four hundred people were crushed to death. But
even after the new stairs were constructed, the goddess Ganga has
carried away on her virgin bosom many a disfigured corpse of her
worshipers. Nobody pitied the drowned, on the contrary, they were
envied. Whoever happens to be killed during this purification by
bathing, is sure to go straight to Swarga (heaven). In 1760, the
two rival brotherhoods of Sannyasis and Bairagis had a regular
battle amongst them on the sacred day of Purbi, the last day of
the religious fair.
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