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PHANTOM INDIA
Reflections on a Journey

Wednesday, March 13.

India can sometimes be dizzying.

This man moving through the crowd
with faltering steps under a burning sun

in the midst
of an exuberant religious ceremony

is alone.

He bears a complicated framework

of hundreds of metal rods,
each pressing into his skin.

A long needle pierces his tongue.

He's obviously a yogi
practicing some form of asceticism,

one of the countless cruel methods
to mortify the flesh,

to control and dominate it.

There are thousands like him in India,

fanatics of the Absolute,

determined to escape
the cycle of reincarnation,

to free themselves
from the suffering of endless rebirth.

Saturday, March 9.

Near Mysore,
a colossal statue of Nandi the bull,

the god Shiva's holy mount.

Highly revered, Nandi acts
as intermediary between Shiva and men.

All day long, a steady stream
of peasant families visits the statue.

They perform a puja. :

prayer, offering and ritual ceremony,
all rolled into one.

The children's heads are shaved
according to ritual.

They're taught their religious duty
from infancy.

The sanctuary priests
distribute holy water

and receive offerings.

Even the poorest give money.

I'm always struck by the fanaticism
of the believers, especially the women.

Around Madras, there are huge temples
like this one every few miles.

It's here in the deep south

that one must seek
the living traces of Indian religion.

The heat is scorching.

The faithful nap
in the shade of the columns.

I envy them.

Even when awake,
southern Indians seem to me drowsy,

lifeless, absent.

Perhaps it's the climate.

According to essayist Nirad Chaudhuri,

India's climate, too cold or too hot,

too wet or too dry,
but always excessive,

gave birth to Indians'pessimism,
their rejection of the material world.

If so, the living conditions in India
created the Indian mindset,

and not the opposite.

Wednesday, March 20.

This man, whom we met
on the stairs of the Trichy temple,

offered to be our guide.

He's used to tourists.

He recites his speech by heart,
with expressive faces.

He's a temple employee.

I ask what his job is.

"My job is to draw water from
the Cauvery River below the temple.

The water's used
in the ritual bathing of the gods,

done daily by 18 priests. "

He says he's had other professions.

He traveled across the country,
all the way to Burma.

He worked as interpreter,
accountant and typist.

"This is the cycle of life. :
one day here, another day there.

Today I work carrying holy water.
That's the way it is. "

Is he a Brahman?

Is he a priest,
or what we'd consider a priest?

He wears the sacred thread over his left
shoulder, the sign of the twice-born,

the Hindus of the upper castes.

This thread is magic circle,

protective barrier and divine link,
all rolled into one.

There are dozens like him
in every temple.

The temples are self-managed,
with a board of administrators.

They're generally very rich.
The faithful are generous.

"I'm not asking for a lot.

Give five more rupees.
It's not for me.

I'm still young and can climb
the temple stairs five times a day.

It's for my daughter's schooling.
She's 15 and learning to type. "

We're fleeced like this
at every temple.

The priests'greed knows no bounds.

Tuesday, March 1 2.

We're at the Tirukalikundram temple,

perched on top of a big rock.

Each morning at precisely 1 1.:30 a.m.,

the faithful make
the long and tiring climb

to attend the ceremony
of the white eagles.

Two eagles come to receive rice
from the hands of a priest.

The origin of the ceremony
is unknown.

It's taken place every day for hundreds
of years, always at the same time.

The remaining rice
is distributed among the faithful,

who vie for a few grains.

The priests are given money
in exchange.

Thieving priests,
gullible and generous believers,

hands extended to give and receive -
the same images everywhere.

It's the dark side of Indian religion.

Who profits from this?

The easy answer is the Brahmans.

They're at the summit
of the caste hierarchy,

and their traditional function
is the priesthood.

In reality,
contrary to what I first believed,

priesthood holds no prestige
for Brahmans.

It's even seen as degrading.

Brahmans often occupy
important positions in society.

Those who become priests
are the outcasts,

those who didn't succeed elsewhere,
incapable of anything else,

the poorest
and often the least educated.

Many priests can't read.

They recite prayers in Sanskrit

without understanding
the language of the holy texts.

What's more,
many priests aren't even Brahmans,

especially in the cult of Shiva.

India is complicated indeed.

Seated before the divine altars
like shopkeepers,

priests distribute powder for rituals

and rake in the rupees.

They present the offerings to the gods. :
coconuts, rice,

butter, incense, flowers, camphor.

Southern Brahmans,
whether priests or laymen,

always struck me
with their arrogance.

Haughty with their privileges,
stern, deeply religious,

they're strict vegetarians

and follow, even today,
countless taboos on impurity.

There are special restaurants
reserved for them in the cities,

and poor Brahmans,
if not priests, are often cooks.

In a remote corner
of the Tanjore temple,

far from the crowd,

a believer makes his puja

at a small statue of Ganesh,
son of Shiva.

Far from the priests
and crowds of fanatics,

this solitary believer, lost in devotion,
reconciles us with Hinduism.

I sense his profound connection
with his surroundings,

a peacefulness undisturbed
by our indiscreet approach.

I later learn
he's a minor civil servant

who comes every day
at the same time to pray.

These children, of the Brahman caste
but from poor peasant families,

are destined to be priests.

They learn thousands of verses
by heart from the Vedas,

the most ancient Indian writings.

Tradition says the Vedas
were not written by humans.

They existed before the gods.
They are divinity itself.

The Semitic tradition says,
"In the beginning was the Word, "

and the Hindu responds
that the Absolute is sound.

The Vedas are made
to be recited and listened to.

For a long time, it was even
a sacrilege to write them down.

Monday, March 18.

A ceremony honoring Shiva
at the Tiruvannamalai ashram.

The phallic stone is purified
by dousing it with water, then milk.

It's covered with flowers,
offerings and precious objects,

and just like every morning,
the officiating priest recites

the thousand names
of this many-faceted god.

It's the first time
we've filmed a ceremony like this.

They're performed
in the temple's holy of holies,

usually very dark,
and closed to foreigners.

Shiva is the main figure in the
Indian pantheon, along with Vishnu.

His worship is particularly dominant
in the south of India.

He's a complex god,

with a thousand names
and a thousand faces too,

which I won't attempt to describe.

Essentially, he regulates cosmic order,

simultaneously creator and destroyer.

Through him all beings and things die.

Because he's also
the god of sexuality,

all beings are also reborn through him.

The phallic symbol of Shiva
is called a lingam.

An erect monolith,

its base is surrounded by a yoni,
the symbol of female genitalia.

Shiva isn't an Aryan god.
He's not in the Vedas.

He's a resurgence of the phallic god
of the first civilization in India.

The officiating priest presents
the purifying fire to the faithful.

They draw the ritual symbol
on their foreheads

with a greasy powder
made from sandalwood.

The Tiruvannamalai ashram is
one of the countless retreats in India

where disciples gather
around a spiritual teacher, a guru.

This one is named
after Sri Ramana Maharshi.

He died a few years ago.

This old man was his first disciple.

He explained a few
of the guru's concepts to us in Tamil.

What little I understood
of the English translation

seemed both simple and vague.

"Each of us must understand the Self,
the truth inside us.

We must separate the self from the flesh
in order to reach the Self.

The great teaching of the guru,

and the principal aim
of all the disciples,

is the ultimate knowledge of the Self. "

Thursday, March 2 1.

We arrive at the temple of Madurai,
the most venerated in southern India.

It's immense.
Built in the 1 7th century,

it's dedicated to Meenakshi,
one of Shiva's wives.

There are 1 1 gopuram, or towers,
in the walls girding the temple,

which are also
entrances to the temple.

They're covered with statues
representing mythological stories. :

a prodigious accumulation
of gods, goddesses and animals.

The statues are regularly
repainted in vivid colors,

to the great indignation
of Western tourists,

who forget that Greek temples
and medieval cathedrals

were brightly painted
in their heyday too.

Objections are raised
to our entering with our equipment.

While we wait between
two red-striped walls,

the question is debated
inside the temple.

The administrators
would like to let us film,

but only in the afternoon, when
the monument is closed to the faithful.

They're surprised to learn
we're more interested

in the faithful
than in the monument.

In the end it works out,
as it always does.

It's simply a matter
of time and money.

The temple is most active
in the early morning.

The citizens of Madurai come early,
before the heat becomes stifling.

They mix with pilgrims from across India,
beggars, and hermits,

all those who live outside of time,
without fixed abode,

stopping for several days
or several months at a temple.

This woman sitting between the double
walls was there when we arrived.

Practically immobile, she softly
murmurs some unknown litany.

When we leave in the evening,

she's in the exact same spot,
in the same position,

as if she hadn't moved all day.

The faithful perform
their ritual ablutions in the temple pool.

Indians are obsessed with water.

When we see how relentlessly
they scrub, douse and dunk themselves,

we're tempted to label them
the cleanest people in the world.

But it's not a question of hygiene.

This water is putrid,
swarming with larvae and fish.

They drink it because
it's the sacred water of the temple.

Purification by water
is an essential element of worship

in a religion and culture
principally founded

on criteria of pure and impure.

Rivers are sacred, and daily ablutions
punctuate believers'lives,

from dawn till dusk, birth till death.

Indians scoff at hygiene.

Perhaps they think the Western notion
of hygiene leads to sterility.

Our practice of hygiene consists of killing
life, cutting ourselves off from nature,

isolated in a nice, clean world
all by ourselves.

That's not the way it is here.

An Indian calmly explained that
the water of the Ganges was sacred

and thus posed absolutely
no danger to the faithful.

Yet during our visit,

a tributary near a pilgrimage site
became polluted,

resulting in an epidemic.

This seemed to prove
Mark Twain was wrong

when he declared that
the water of the Ganges was so dirty

that even germs couldn't survive.

Each Indian temple has
a holy of holies, the garbagriha,

a dark, narrow chamber where the image
of the temple's appointed deity is kept.

Non-Hindus are forbidden to enter,

as were Hindus of the lower castes
until fairly recently.

The rest of the temple
is composed of hallways, stairs,

walls, colonnades, pools -

an architectural composite
in the image of this multiform religion,

built by architects
versed in geomancy.

Crowds of believers
and throngs of priests,

countless rituals,
and intense spiritual life -

it reminds us of medieval Christianity
when it was a living religion,

when the house of God
was the house of men,

a refuge, a place of rest,
a free zone.

Atheism doesn't really exist in India.

No one ever asks
if you believe in God.

They ask what religion you are.

When some truckers once gave us
a ride after our car broke down,

they made a quick stop.

It wasn't for a drink, as I'd thought,

but to do a quick puja
at a roadside temple.

The adherence of an entire population
was even more striking

when I realized Hinduism isn't unified,
with no central leadership,

no supreme leader,
like the pope for the Catholics.

The gods, rituals and worship
are infinitely varied,

as are the basic beliefs.

In a village in Rajasthan,

there's a temple
where believers worship rats.

They give the rats
pounds of grain each day,

grain they desperately need
themselves.

Everywhere in the temple,
at the altars of countless gods,

the faithful tirelessly repeat
these strange gestures.

Everyone performs their own puja,

a personal ceremony
to a specific god of their choice.

We stayed there for hours,
leaning against the columns,

watching and filming
without understanding.

These gestures can seem funny,

and we could have easily
exaggerated their comic aspect

and made a sarcastic portrayal
of fetishism and excessive piety.

But we didn't want to.

We show them to you
as we filmed them.

You decide whether
they're ludicrous or admirable.

What I personally found
especially striking here

was each believer's solitude,
which seems so lacking

from social life in India.

Perhaps religion
offers them an outlet,

a chance to finally be alone
through worship.

Perhaps prayer is
their only moment of freedom.

In any case, these southern Indians,
normally so drowsy and dull,

are unrecognizable.

In the presence of their gods,
they become attentive, lively, dynamic.

Perhaps the key is found
in the doctrine of transmigration,

the fundamental belief of India.

After death,
each soul returns to earth

and reincarnates in other bodies
indefinitely.

The ultimate aim of the religion
is to end this eternal cycle,

but failing to end it,

the faithful try,
through devotion and good deeds,

to improve their lot
in their next existence,

for each new incarnation
is a verdict on the previous one.

This belief justifies the caste system.

Everyone has a place in the hierarchy
based on the quality of their previous life,

and therefore, they must accept it.

Saturday, March 30.

We reach Rameswaram,
at the extreme tip of India,

where boats set sail for Ceylon.

This colossal temple,
with its mile-long colonnades,

is dedicated to Rama,
legendary hero of the Ramayana.

"I left my family
and everything behind.

I've been here for three months

to cure myself of mental problems.

I've visited many temples
since beginning my journey.

I plan to stay here
another six months, until October.

I pray to the Lord. When he has
healed me, I'll return home. "

This man, whom we met
in the corridors of the temple,

speaks six languages.

He was a navy officer
and a civil servant on the railroads.

Now he's chosen to be a hermit
and beg for his food.

There are millions like him
throughout India

who, for various reasons,
have left everything behind.

Many of these renunciants
are old men

who married, fathered children
and practiced a profession.

At the end of their lives,
having fulfilled their social contract,

they take to the road,
wanderers until their death.

It's a holy custom.

Even more puzzling are the sadhu,

who, from earliest childhood,
live on the fringes of society.

They're grouped into different sects,
each with precise rituals and customs,

often extremely weird,
a mix of occultism and magic.

This sadhu, whom we met at Tanjore,
recited the temples he'd visited

all across India.

They're bizarre,
sometimes even frightening.

Among them are many social misfits,
unstable and abnormal people,

as if society got rid of them
by sending them out on the road.

And yet the existence
of these millions of renunciants

is an essential aspect of Hinduism. :

the antithesis of the caste system,

a sort of safety valve
for such a restrictive world.

A Hindu living by society's rules
is oppressed.

His life is spent
in a suffocating hierarchy,

a straitjacket of rights and duties.

If he seeks escape,
a freedom no one can deny him,

he becomes a hermit.

He leaves behind society
and its rules

and chooses to undertake
his own salvation.

At the same time,
he risks everything.

By devoting himself to religion,

he attempts to escape the cycle
of reincarnation once and for all,

to never return to this world
of suffering and illusion,

to finally know the ineffable joy
of being one with the universe.

This man was one among
the thousands we encountered.

I don't know where he came from
nor where he's going.

We circled around him
with the camera.

He continued on,
never even glancing our way.

He follows his path, staring
fixedly ahead. He is elsewhere.

At Rameswaram,
at the temple entrance,

beggars wait for the faithful to exit.

Among them are many sadhu
and renunciants.

Begging is a sacred act,
and the faithful are obliged to give alms,

like this fussy believer,

who counts the beggars
before distributing his meager alms.

I've reached a point
where this doesn't shock me.

Maybe it's from seeing
similar scenes so often.

Besides, that day,
I was in no mood to judge.

These beggars,
many who beg voluntarily,

symbolize the renunciation of
the material world and physical reality,

a permanent feature of India.

They're part of a whole one must either
accept or reject in its entirety.

Though we often saw beggars,

we were rarely able to film them.

Someone always intervened,

always someone who spoke English,
an Indian from the city.

The beggars saw no reason
we shouldn't film their everyday life.

But the Anglicized Indians,
who'd learned to think like us,

were ashamed.

Not ashamed that it existed-
because it didn't shock them -

but ashamed we were filming it.

Nearby, this woman
climbs the stairway

of a small shrine
set apart from the main temple.

According to the Ramayana,
the great Indian epic,

this is where
the hero Rama returned to India

with his army of monkeys

after killing the giant Ravana,
king of Ceylon.

A footprint of Rama
is preserved in this shrine.

This woman is 87 years old.

She travels throughout India
from one holy place to the next,

accompanied by her family
and disciples,

who claim she has divine vision,

an intimate connection
with the hereafter.

I no longer know what to think.

At first, I judged
this religion rationally

and saw only fetishism
and exploitation.

Then, gradually,
I started going deeper.

This old woman speaks to the gods -
or believes she does. It doesn't matter.

I look on and listen, fascinated.

Translation by LYNN MASSEY
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