The sun had just risen over the far shore of the great Ganga and rays of heavenly light were painting the legendary ghats of Kashi. The boatman seemed to understand the sanctity of such moments for he fell silent and let the sounds of the river speak instead. The wind-whipped waters of the mighty Ganga soothed my broken heart. Unfolding before me was a surreal tableau of the sacred and the profane. Fellow citizens were washing clothes and spitting into the very waters in which they were having a purifying bath. Plastic litter, rotting offerings, slimy weeds and sundry garbage gathered around the ghats. An old man was saying his prayers, his beard drying in the sun that he was looking up to with closed eyes. A large sewer spewed the filth of a city, like the vile mouth of a modern demon, copiously and ceaselessly. A middle-aged woman was arranging her puja plate, hoping the little mound of flowers would stop the flames of her aarti from being extinguished by the strong breeze. Less than 50 ft away, a naked, unclaimed corpse floated head down, a ballooned and featureless reminder of someone who once was. Close by as well, another of the many boats carried forth a passenger who lay supine, whether in slumber or escape, I could not tell. A section of the high ridge of kankar (lime concretion), which had not been constructed into one of Kashi’s famous left bank ghats, was an open toilet from which descended users who cleaned themselves in the unprotesting river. The happiest, perhaps, were the children who swam, laughed and raced the waters in a morning ritual that knew no rules. The Manikarnika Ghat was laden with organised stacks of wood, and anonymous heaps of soot that lined the river in forlorn supplication; this most famous of Varanasi’s ghats belonged to the dead, who arrived in an unremitting line of swathed biers, on what many believe to be the greatest journey of their life. It was a glimpse of hell, a window to heaven.

It is true that, to begin with, I could not find the grace or the perfect bliss that the Kashi Khanda describes with such simple conviction. I could not comprehend, and still don’t, how we can so brazenly defile the object of our innermost prayers. During my brief tryst with the legendary City of Light, I came to believe that it is not possible to love Kashi as a tourist. Modern-day Varanasi is a seemingly haphazard nightmare of streets and gullies over which buildings and wires careen like a cartoonist’s impression of urban dementia. The supremely holy Kashi Vishvanath Jyotirlinga is to be found in a small temple after negotiating a maze of dirty, narrow lanes and several security checkpoints. Yet, every single day, hundreds of visitors pour into the city, in search of something that cannot be seen nor bought. 

What you see is a place that even the kindest heart cannot call pretty. The only assurance is to be derived from the fleeting images of undiluted piety. My fellow yatris taught me to accept and sidestep the disconnect between expectations and reality. To them I owe an incalculable debt of faith. This does not happen spontaneously or even easily, at least not for the sanitised likes of me. When I finally summoned the will to wash my sins in the sacred Ganga, I prayed she would forgive me for not immersing myself completely in her, symbolically and otherwise. And for walking away without doing anything to stop her abuse.

That morning, I could hold the River of Heaven in my palms. I could see the spires of temples to deities older than time. The Kashi Khanda remains right. The Ganga, Shiva and Kashi have not changed. If only we hadn’t either. 

Legends and mythology
By the banks of the holy Ganga lies the city that Shiva is believed to have made his permanent home on earth. It is also believed that Kashi came into being at the very dawn of creation. The city is also home to the first Jyotirlinga. Shiva, as Vishvanath, is the Lord of All. The Puranas describe Kashi as the centre of the universe, and Shiva is omnipresent here. Of all the holy places where Shiva’s presence is most glorious, the City of Light glows brightest. People in Varanasi say Kashi ke kankar Shiva Shankar hain, that is, every stone in Kashi is Shiva. Indeed, whoever comes here, all the living creatures who call Kashi their home and every speck of dust here is Rudramaya — akin to Shiva or made up of that which is Shiva himself. 

Kashi is the place where Yama, the God of Death, is not feared. The city is also called the Mahashmashana — the Great Cremation Ground. To this day, although the Manikarnika and Harishchandra ghats are considered the most sacred, the whole of Kashi is mythologically one great cremation ground — the Mahashmashana. As the ancient adage goes, Kashyam maranam muktihi  — death in Kashi is liberation.

Another of Kashi’s ancient names is Avimukta — the city that will never be forsaken by Shiva. It is believed that he will hold Kashi upon his trident, above the floodwaters of Pralaya, the periodical, apocalyptic cleansing that presages a renewal of life on earth.

Says the Kashi Rahasya:
Here sleep is yoga, and going about town
is sacrifice.
O Goddess, eating whatever one pleases is the greatest sanctified food — offering to the gods.
One’s play, O Goddess, is a holy act of charity.
Everyday conversation is the repetition of God’s name.
And lying upon one’s bed is prostration.

Such is Kashi’s glory that to achieve the greatest spiritual goals, one only has to be in Kashi.

Architecture and antiquity
For over 2,500 years of recorded history, Varanasi has remained pre-eminent in Indian spiritual thought. The Buddha, Mahavira, Adi Shankara, Ramanujacharya and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu are included in the illustrious list of great gurus who came here. The Jataka Tales have several references to the ‘town of Kashi’, which is described as splendid and coveted. 

At the junction of the northern trading route and the munificent Ganga, Kashi was a principal centre of commerce. Archaeological excavations on the Rajghat Plateau revealed the old city wall, pottery and artefacts dating to the 9th century BCE.  Kashi’s political fortunes were on the ascendant till the 12th century, at which time it was anointed capital of the Gahadavala Kingdom. Inscriptions elucidate how the kings of this dynasty would bathe in the Ganga near where the Adi Keshava Temple stands today. The site was discovered while contractors were digging for a landfill at the time of the reconstruction of the Kashi railway station. Now a grassy stretch, Rajghat was the heart of Varanasi for two millennia. 

An ancient king, Kasha, who is not otherwise remembered anymore, is believed to have given the city its name. In that sense, it’s Shiva who has always reigned supreme here. Kashi’s etymology is also traced to the tall grass that grows by the banks of the Ganga, also called kasha. When  Qutub-ud-din Aibak led the armies of Muhammad Ghori to attack Kashi in 1194, the city was annihilated systematically and completely. A second invasion in 1197-98 destroyed what remained. This period in the 12th century witnessed the devastating end of Kashi as it was then seen. 

The city is as old as Athens, Jerusalem and Peking (now Beijing). But, as Diana Leck, scholar and author of Banaras: City of Light, writes so pertinently, “There is (another) important difference between Banaras and its contemporaries: its present life stretches back to the sixth century BC in continuous tradition. If we could imagine the silent Acropolis and the Agora of Athens still alive with the intellectual, cultural, and ritual traditions of classical Greece, we might glimpse the remarkable tenacity of the life of Kashi. Today, Peking, Athens, and Jerusalem are moved by a very different ethos from that which moved them in ancient times, but Kashi is not.”