Pashupatinath—the oldest Hindu temple in Kathmandu. Many Hindus consider it to be one of the most sacred temples in the world. Opinions differ, but it is inarguably a great confluence of faith and finality.

We approach from the opposite riverbank, feet sloshing in the puddles fed by a steady rain. In front of us, the Bagmati River rushes past, swollen and brown with the rains of the past week. On the opposite bank, clouds of pale grey smoke waft upward into a greyer sky. It is the smoke of burning bodies. The smell is like none other. Behind the flaming funeral pyres, groups of men, many with shaved heads, perform their duties to the recently deceased.

Just up the river on the stone steps leading into the frothing water, children paw through baskets of what looks like yard clippings. We learn that the baskets are full of flowers, fruits and the occasional coin—the remains of vast piles of offerings the faithful have presented in the temple from which non-Hindus are strictly excluded. The luckiest beggar children find a coin or two that has been overlooked and a few fruit pieces they can eat or perhaps sell. A monkey sits alongside, and the children keep him from interfering by pacifying him with the occasional piece of fruit. He gobbles a guava as his lithe toes clutch an apple protectively.

Less than a foot from the monkey lies a man’s fresh corpse. A hospice on the temple grounds provides a place for those near death and ensures they will die near the sacred river and be washed in it. Near the man’s body is a small knot of his relatives, distraught and crying. Tourists blithely take pictures of it all. A little way up the river, a sadhu (holy man) sits meditating in a cave. Across the river, a whole group of sadhus sit in a tiny stone mediation building keeping a sharp eye out for tourists willing to pay for pictures.

It is all a bit much to take in, even after living in a Hindu context for the last seven years. Such an outpouring of faith and offerings from Hindu devotees. Such finality for the bodies being bathed and burned on the banks of the Bagmati. Something about the place brings unbidden to my mind the Bible story of the man who lived among the tombs in the country of the Gadarenes. Sobered and unsettled, I turn my back on the scene and walk away in the pouring rain.

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