An impressionistic vision of ritual life on the Ganges. Director Robert Gardner first came across the Great Cremation Ground at Benares, India, ten years ago. Like a vast football terrace wedged between the banks of the Ganges and some of India's most monumental classical architecture, this is the place where priests perform age-old rituals, cremating the corpses of devout Hindus and scattering the ashes on the sacred river. The images in this film are haunting: sunrise over the Ganges, a shrouded corpse afloat in the sacred river, a field of marigolds, and a monkey ringing a bell in a temple lit by flickering fires.