Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud

by Sun Shuyun

  Nowhere is more congested and noisy than the Golden Temple in the heart of Benares, the holiest of all Shiva shrines. As I neared it, the lane narrowed to hardly more than a metre, and the souvenir shops that crowded it seemed almost to meet over my head. I was barely walking, borne along rather in the press of people and the heady smells of incense and garlands. I could not tell whether the statue of Shiva was as impressive as Xuanzang describes – non-Hindus are not allowed inside. What struck me was the mosque standing behind it, part of the temple site that Xuanzang visited. In the late seventeenth century, the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb destroyed the old shrine, together with almost all the Hindu temples in Benares, and built two mosques. Now guarded by a watchtower and barbed wire, they sit uneasily on Hindu ground.

  What has remained unchanged is that life in Benares converges on the Ganges, as it has done for millennia. Yogendra and I went to the riverfront. It was dawn. The rising sun was reflected in the river and made its rippling surface dance with yellow and orange light. The temples and shrines, ashrams, mosques and pavilions that stretch along the river for over three miles were bathed in a golden glow. The long flights of stone steps called ghats, or ‘landings’, were crowded with pilgrims and locals who could not wait to go into the river.

  Yogendra wanted to bathe too. I left him and boarded a boat which took me slowly up and down. An extraordinary panorama of life unfolded against the backdrop of the grand but dilapidated houses, temples and mosques that lined the riverbank. The pilgrims carefully floated flowers and small clay oil-wick lamps on the water, and then immersed themselves. When they reappeared, facing the sun, they scooped up water in their cupped hands; with a murmur of prayer, they poured it back into the river, as an offering to their ancestors and the gods. When the ritual was over, they remained in the river, talking and laughing like children, before they finally filled their brass vessels and waded back to the shore. At Panchaganga Ghat, the most popular ghat, with its myriad riverfront shrines, a Brahmin priest was blessing a groom, his bride and their large families. Away from the crowds, a man was brushing his teeth and washermen were beating hotel laundry on stones, splashing it with water clouded by droppings that had just been released by five cows a little way upstream. In the less popular ghats, open sewers were pumping into the river the night-soil and waste of the people of Benares, over one million of them, not to mention the pilgrims. At Manikarnika Ghat, the cremation ground, flames were engulfing three funeral pyres while the relatives of the dead watched quietly; more corpses arrived and were left at the water’s edge; and lingering on the surface of the water were ashes from bodies cremated earlier, mixed with wilted flower-garlands. This is where Lord Shiva is supposed to whisper the ‘prayer of the crossing’ into the ears of the dead, and where Lord Vishnu dug a well at the beginning of time. This is the place of creation and destruction, the place of liberation, alive day and night, drawing Hindus from all corners of India.

  ‘It is said in the books of the country that the Ganges is a river of felicity,’ Xuanzang wrote. ‘Those who bathe in it will be purified of all sins; those who wash their mouths with the water will be saved from calamities; those who drown in it will be reborn in Heaven. So men and women flock to the bank of the river.’

  Xuanzang did not believe in the purifying power of the Ganges, and he was not the first sceptic; he told us how Deva Bodhisattva from Sri Lanka showed the Hindus what was wrong with their belief. He walked into the river and started splashing water in a southerly direction. The pilgrims were puzzled and asked him why. He replied, ‘My parents live in Sri Lanka and they are thirsty. I very much want the water to reach them.’ Everyone laughed at him. ‘You are wrong, master. How can you do such a stupid thing? You should use your brain. Your home is a thousand miles away. It is like walking backwards but trying to catch up with the people ahead of you. It cannot be done.’ He nodded and said: ‘The sins in hell are uncountable, and this water is supposed to purify them all. I am only separated from my family by a few mountains and rivers, why cannot they be saved?’ The pilgrims, Xuanzang said, realized the fallacy of their belief and implored Deva Bodhisattva to be their guru.

  It is rare, and refreshing, for Xuanzang to question miracles. But I found him somewhat contradictory here. He was so disdainful of Hindus’ belief in miracles, while he swallowed so many Buddhist ones himself. In every place he visited on his journey he recorded the local legends and myths. I noticed when I read the Record I always skipped the pages covering yet more extraordinary feats performed by the Bodhisattvas, as if I did not want them there. Of course, some stories in his account can be de-mythologized, just as some Christians do with the parable of the loaves and fishes – they say the real miracle was that Jesus encouraged people to share their food, so that everyone was fed. But, as with miracles in general, you just have to accept their veracity or not. Xuanzang obviously believed those of Buddhist origin.

  Most Chinese Buddhists accept them too, as did my grandmother. This is exactly where the Communists went for the kill – if the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas were so powerful, why did they let so many people suffer? When our teacher explained to us that this was all there was to Buddhism, we all agreed that Buddhism was nothing more than superstition. I asked Grandmother once whether her favourite Bodhisattva Guanyin could really deliver all the things she prayed for. ‘If you believe enough and do everything right,’ she said, ‘she can.’

  Only after I had started on the journey did I realize that the Buddha himself did not approve of miracles: they were impediments to spiritual progress and the final awakening. He even dismissed Brahma, the supreme Hindu god of creation, by asking: ‘If no limits can restrain his wide power, why is his hand so rarely spread to bless? Why are his creatures all condemned to pain? Why does he not give happiness to all?’ The story goes that the Buddha once met an ascetic at a river crossing who told him he had achieved such mastery over his physical body that he could now cross the river by walking on the water. The Buddha’s disciples wanted him to take up the challenge and perform the same feat. The Buddha said, ‘Let us take the ferry.’ When they reached the other side he asked the boatman what the fare was. ‘One penny,’ the boatman replied. The Buddha turned to his disciples. ‘That’s how much the miracle is worth.’

  I watched the dense crowd of people in the river, their heads bobbing on the water. Obviously many Indians still believe in the magical power of the Ganges, just as their ancestors have done for thousands of years. I wanted to ask them, as Xuanzang did, about their beliefs. There was no better person to answer my questions than V. P. Mishra. He is the head priest of Sankat Mochan, one of the principal temples in Benares. He is also a professor of hydraulic engineering at Benares Hindu University, specializing in the environmental problems of the Ganges. I left the boat at Tulsi Ghat and found his house perched at the top of the steps.

  Mishra looked fresh and alert, with his thick snow-white hair combed straight back, matching his white dhoti and the spartan white-washed sitting-room where he received me. He had just finished his morning ritual: a dip in the Ganges and praying at his own temple.

  I told him why I was in Benares. ‘Of course Xuanzang could not miss it,’ he said, as if we were talking about a mutual friend. ‘What did he say about the Ganga? I bet it was much cleaner in his time.’ I told him that Xuanzang described the colour of the water as emerald green, extremely pure. I also mentioned what I had seen on the river earlier. Was he not worried when he was in the Ganges?

  ‘I am aware of the consequences of my actions.’ He looked me in the eye. ‘But I must do it. I need it to live and I want to do it until the last day of my life. It is the most important part of Hindu life. That’s why we have to clean up the Ganga.’ He has devoted the last twenty years to the Clean the Ganga Campaign, working with scientists in America, trying to adopt a new organic sewage treatment system. ‘Then our people can be granted the holy water again without the worry of disease,’ he said, his face creasing into a broad, optimistic smi
le.

  Mishra’s temple was devoted to Hanuman, the monkey god from the epie, Ramayana, whose miracles are every bit as exciting as those of our Monkey King, his ‘incarnation’ transported along the Silk Road. But for us Chinese, the Monkey King, no matter how powerful, is only a fictional character; for Hindus, Hanuman is an almighty god, and I had seen temples dedicated to him everywhere. My guidebook has this verse from a prayer to him:

  You perform tasks only Gods can do,

  So what problem of mine can you not set right?

  Come quickly and help me,

  For who in the world does not know your name is Remover of Difficulties?

  ‘But Hanuman seems to be standing by while the Ganges is getting worse and worse. Even priests like you cannot bathe in it safely,’ I said to Mishra, not entirely innocently.

  ‘Hanumanji has inspired me to my life’s work,’ he replied calmly, as if he had encountered such scepticism many times. ‘Isn’t there an English saying, “God helps those who help themselves?” Hanumanji is not going to take the task out of my hands. I have to do the work. But with his inspiration I will do it; I’ll have hundreds and thousands of other people to help me. We will prevail.’

  I told Mishra about the Chinese version of Hanuman. Did he believe his Hanuman actually existed, and was not a fictional creation like ours?

  ‘I know he is always with me, protecting me,’ he said, pointing to his heart. ‘I suppose this is what you call faith. I’m sure your monk had a lot of it.’ I guess I would expect that from Xuanzang. But Mishra is a scientist. How did he square faith with science? Like millions of people, I want to believe what reason supports, what science proves.

  ‘As a scientist, I work to solve problems in this world, the world we understand with our minds and our senses,’ he explained. ‘But there is a spiritual world. I often think of the Ganga as life, with science and faith as its two banks. The banks never meet but the river wouldn’t flow without them. Without science we would be back in the dark ages; but without faith life would be poorer. My campaign to clean the Ganga comes from both. They make me the person I am.’

  Mishra made me think about faith, that faith which moved him to work to save the Ganges, as it moved Xuanzang to embark on his journey, and Grandmother to overcome the pain in her life. If only I could make the leap of faith myself. There is so much in Buddhism that I am beginning to learn, and that I know would help me, as Grandmother had hoped. But something holds me back. I do not know precisely what it is. It lies ahead of me, to be discovered. Perhaps I need another journey, a journey of a different kind.

  From the terrace outside Mishra’s house the great concourse of buildings and the thronging crowds of Benares are not visible, only a huge expanse of water, ending in a faint grey horizon of land, pure light above it. Maybe life, like the Ganges, has its other shore.

  In the afternoon I crossed the Ganges to the far side, heading for the Deer Park in Sarnath, a complete contrast to the teeming crowds and noise of Benares. This is where the Buddha found the five ascetics and told them what he had realized, and he came here again and again for his retreat during the monsoon season. Xuanzang tells us how the Deer Park was given its name: from another Jataka story. The Buddha in a previous life offered himself as a stag in place of a pregnant deer to the King of Benares’ hunting party. The king was so moved he gave up hunting and offered the forest to the deer. The name has lasted all these years.

  As usual, Xuanzang noted down the many sites and legends here commemorating moments associated with the Buddha, in particular the giant Dharmarajika stupa erected by King Asoka to mark the spot where the Buddha gave his first sermon. Not far from it stands a later stupa that Cunningham had drilled through in vain before he had Xuanzang’s Record to guide him. When Xuanzang saw it, it was a lofty monument of over one hundred feet, covered from top to bottom with rare treasures. Today it is reduced mostly to rubble, with little trace of its decorations. Fallen pillars, broken walls and small statues in the niches of the walls are the only remains of a magnificent monastery nearby. Peace permeated the quiet ruins. Three Tibetan monks sat under a leafy tree, their eyes fixed on the ruins, in silent contemplation. Even without its thriving community of 1,500 monks, or its magnificent monastery, here more than anywhere I felt that this was what the Buddha would have wanted, not for us to commemorate him, but to remember his teachings.

  Much of what remains is in the splendid museum near the park. The lion capital from Asoka’s pillar greets you at the entrance. Xuanzang saw it in its original place: ‘The stone is as bright as jade, it is glistening, and sparkles like light,’ he says. It still does. Four lions sit on a circlet that is decorated with an elephant, a bull, a horse and the wheel of law, or chakra, and below that a lotus, the symbol of purity. The lions point in all four directions, proud and roaring benevolently. The message is clear: the Dharma would spread far and wide. And it did. Rule of righteousness, victory by virtue, and a unified country where all people live in harmony – these are Asoka’s legacies; they are also the fundamental beliefs of the founding fathers of the Republic of India, enshrined in the Indian constitution. The chakra appears on the Indian national flag, and the lion capital is the national emblem with the motto: ‘Satyameva jayate’ – ‘Truth always triumphs’. Nehru was even quoted as saying ‘I cannot be a Buddha. But Asoka, I can try to be.’

  Further inside the museum there is one supreme seated Buddha, in front of which I, like everyone else, stopped and stood in humble silence. It is called the ‘Buddha Preaching the First Sermon’, or ‘Turning the Wheel of Law’. It is regarded as the finest of all Buddha statues. Xuanzang was profoundly touched, seeing it in its original setting near the Dharmarajika stupa. Anyone would be. You are drawn first to the head, set against the large and intricately carved circle of its halo. The eyes are almost closed, looking down but somehow at you at the same time. He appears to be smiling but to be elsewhere. As you stand and gaze, you cannot help wishing to contemplate as intently as he does – you are enveloped by his serenity. The rapt features of the face sum up everything the Buddha stands for: selfless compassion, the overcoming of suffering and the achievement of inner peace. Then you take in the lotus and his legs crossed on it, and your eyes move up to his hands, one palm facing outward, the other with a finger pointing to it, symbolizing teaching. Everything is in motion, and everything is still. You know it is stone, but the figure has a luminous softness that is almost alive. Xuanzang loved it so much he had a copy made in sandalwood to take back to China.

  I thought often of that heavenly expression on the Buddha’s face the next day when we were driving to Kushinagar, the place of the Buddha’s death, or nirvana, in the far north of Bihar, near the border with Nepal. It was the longest day’s journey of my Indian trip – one hundred and eighty miles in thirteen hours. We started at dawn and reached Kushinagar in the dark. But I was not upset in the least. That image definitely had a calming effect on me.

  In Kushinagar, I was staying in the Indian government guesthouse, a complex of bungalows, flowering bushes and green lawns. The dining-room was huge, with canteen-like tables, chairs and cutlery. They clearly expected quantities of pilgrims. But only half a dozen people turned up for breakfast, simple fare of lentils, potatoes and rice. I was sitting next to an old Sri Lankan couple: the husband with snow-white hair, white shirt and white dhoti, looking serene, if slightly tired; the wife more robust, asking the waiter to bring hot water to fill their thermos. They had arrived late the night before from Patna after a gruelling journey. It must have been tough for them – even I found it hard going, getting up most days at the crack of dawn, driving on the impossible roads for hours, staying in each place for one or two nights, and then taking to the road again. ‘So you can imagine how difficult it must have been for the Buddha two thousand and five hundred years ago. He was old and he was not well,’ the husband said in his gentle voice.

  With a body he compared to ‘a worn-out cart’, the Buddha sensed that he wo
uld soon pass away, and he wanted to go on a last trip to propagate the Dharma. Outside Kushinagar he took a meal of wild mushrooms, collected from the woods and prepared by Chunda, the local blacksmith. After the first mouthful, the Buddha knew something was wrong and that night he suffered violent pain and dysentery, perhaps food poisoning; but he was more concerned for Chunda – people would say he had poisoned the Buddha. He told Ananda how to console the distraught blacksmith: ‘You have done well, Chunda. You gave the Teacher his last meal, and then he died. There is no greater gift.’ Then the Buddha proceeded to a forest outside the city where he asked to be placed in a clearing in a grove of sal trees. Here, the Buddha preached his last sermon, the Great Nirvana Sutra. And then, with his head pointing north, his face to the west, he breathed his last breath. He was eighty years old.

  Xuanzang tells us how deeply affected the local people were by the Buddha’s death. He gave them these words of mourning: ‘The Buddha has left us and entered the Great Nirvana. Now we have no refuge to seek and no one to protect us. It is like a poisonous arrow penetrating our body and the fire of sorrow burning us up without remedy. To cross the vast sea of life and death, who will provide us with a boat and with oars? To walk in the shadow of a long night, who will henceforth be our guide and our torch?’ It is hard to believe that these plaintive words were not the expression of his own feelings.

  We owe something greater to Xuanzang, nothing less than the rediscovery of Kushinagar. Alexander Cunningham recorded how he read Xuanzang’s description of the temple that marked the spot where the Buddha died. Within it, Xuanzang said, ‘there is a figure of the Buddha. His head is towards the north, and he looks so serene he might be asleep.’ Cunningham sent his assistant Archibald Carlleyle here in 1875 to supervise the dig. It was not easy: the whole place was jungle. Cunningham told him to check the descriptions and distances in the Record again and again, and they pointed to a mound covered in earth and trees. When these were cleared away, the ruins were found ten feet deep in the ground, complete with the reclining Buddha exactly as Xuanzang had described it. Cunningham’s reaction reveals his excitement: ‘To the west of the stupa, we found that famous statue of the Buddha’s Nirvana, as recorded by the Chinese pilgrim. I have no doubt this is the statue that Xuanzang had seen personally, as there is an inscription on the pedestal … of the Gupta period.’ Xuanzang has given us back this place, returning it from the graveyard of history, into the light, into recognition, into worship. It really is an astonishing story. If we owed only Kushinagar to Xuanzang it would be remarkable enough. But I could not get over the fact that everywhere I went in Bihar, it was to him that we are indebted for restoring the sacred Buddhist sites. Every day, Xuanzang’s significance was growing greater in my mind.