Wonders of the Universe

THE CYCLE OF LIFE

Fifteen miles northeast of the Nepalese capital city of Kathmandu, three small streams come together to mark the beginning of one of the holiest rivers in the world. At its source the Bagmati is a fast-running mountain stream, but by the time it winds through the Kathmandu valley and enters the great city of the Himalayas it has become a wide and majestic river.

In the eastern part of the city, where the river’s mythical power is at its greatest, stands the fifth-century Pashupatinath Temple, one of the most sacred sites in the Hindu world. Pilgrims come from all over India and Nepal to worship there and pay their respects to the god Shiva.

I have always found the Hindu faith fascinating; it is rich and complex, a disorientating mix of mythology and philosophy, a continual and jagged juxtaposition of temples, holy sites, rituals and everyday life that produces a joyful assault on the senses. Pashupatinath is no exception. It is at once vibrant and ethereal, a place where the colours and noise of India meet the gentle philosophy of Tibet and the hybrid dissolves into the crystal-clear, high Himalayan air in the smoke of a thousand burning bodies on the funeral pyres lit at this holy place. The scent of burning flesh mixes with incense and tinkling bells, and the sound of chanting Monkey Gods continually interrupts the calls of market traders.

A central tenet of Hindu philosophy is the concept of the Trimurti – the triad of the three fundamental aspects of the Supreme Being, represented as the great gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Lord Brahma is the creator of the Universe, Lord Vishnu the preserver, and Lord Shiva the destroyer. Shiva represents darkness, as an angry god who will eventually bring an end to Earth, yet in Hinduism this destruction is seen as an essential part of the cycle of life, because in order for new things to be created, the old order must first be destroyed. Shiva is therefore also a regenerative or reproductive power, part of the endless cycle of death and rebirth that is central to the Hindu belief system. This is why the Pashupatinath Temple and the river it stands beside are revered as places to die.

The Bagmati River is lined with funeral pyres burning the bodies of the deceased.

For Hindus, the passing of a loved one is a stage in the endless cycle of death and rebirth that is central to their beliefs. Cremations are a familiar sight along the holy Bagmati River; the body is dipped in the river three times before cremation, and at the end of the ceremony the chief mourner must bathe in the river’s water, often accompanied by the other attendant mourners.

Hindus believe that the purpose of a soul’s time on Earth is to work through a cycle of rebirth and reincarnation until it becomes perfect. Only then can it be reunited with the Universal Soul and be freed from its material existence. The Bhagavad Gita says: ‘Just as a man discards worn-out clothes and puts on new clothes, the soul discards worn-out bodies and wears new ones’. By having your body cremated on the riverbank beside Shiva’s Pashupatinath Temple, it is believed that your soul will be released from the worn-out body as quickly and easily as possible.

According to the Nepalese Hindu tradition, the dead body must be dipped three times into the Bagmati River before cremation. The chief mourner, usually the first son of the deceased, lights the funeral pyre and must bathe in the waters of the holy river immediately after the cremation. Many of the relatives who join the funeral procession also bathe in the river or sprinkle the holy water on their bodies. This makes the river bank a strange and crowded place. To my British eyes it is somewhat shocking, because death is rarely, if ever, paraded like this; but here in Kathmandu it is not seen to be insensitive to wander between the pyres as the relatives and friends go through their rituals.

In Hindu tradition the human body consists of five elements: air, water, fire, earth and ether. Remarkably, according to modern science, this is overcomplicated, but their belief about what happens to these elements after death parallels our modern understanding of how the world works.

Underlying the cremation ceremony is the conviction that the elements of the body vacated by the soul are returned to Earth to be re-used and recycled. Death is therefore not an end for the immortal soul or the mortal flesh, it is simply the conclusion of one stage of existence and the beginning of another; part of a natural cycle of death and rebirth. As far as the atoms and molecules in our bodies are concerned, modern science is in complete agreement with that idea. When I die my constituents aren’t going to be magically destroyed; they will be returned to Earth and, given enough time, they will become part of some other structure.

Of course, Hinduism isn’t alone in having rich and lyrical stories about the origin and evolution of Man and the Universe. Virtually every society and every religion around the world has at its heart a creation story that explains where we come from, how we came to be here, and what will happen to us when we die. This suggests that curiosity about our origins is an innate, perhaps even a defining part, of the human condition.

Underlying the cremation ceremony is the conviction that the elements of the body vacated by the soul are returned to Earth to be re-used and recycled… As far as the atoms and molecules in our bodies are concerned, modern science is in complete agreement with that idea.

In common with the great systems of thought throughout history, modern science has its own creation story to tell – one based on physics and cosmology. It can tell us what we’re made of and where we came from – in fact, it can tell us what everything in the world is made of and where it came from. It also answers that most basic of human needs: to feel part of something much bigger, because to tell this story you have to understand the history of the Universe. It also teaches us that the path to enlightenment is not in understanding our own lives and deaths, but in understanding the lives and deaths of the stars

The Dunhuang star chart dates back to AD 700 and is the oldest existing star chart. It was named after the place where it was found along the Silk Road trade route in northern China (in the twentieth century) and is now owned by the British Library. It depicts the stars in the sky according to the Chinese constellation tradition.