Sacred waters
Varanasi stands as a testament to India’s spiritual heart, where ancient traditions flow as steadily as the sacred Ganges River. This city, believed to be over 3,000 years old, isn’t just a destination – it’s a living, breathing embodiment of Hindu faith.
Legend speaks of Lord Shiva himself founding this holy city. The Ganges, curving like Shiva’s crescent moon, carries a mythological weight few rivers in the world can match. According to Hindu tradition, this celestial river only descended to Earth through divine intervention. When a king sought to purify his ancestors’ souls, he pleaded for Ganga to come down from heaven. Lord Shiva caught her torrential descent in his matted locks,
preventing Earth’s destruction and releasing her waters gradually – a story that perfectly captures the Hindu belief in the balance between divine power and earthly existence.
The city’s spiritual landscape is carved in stone and memory. Despite centuries of invasion and destruction, particularly during the Mughal period, Varanasi’s temples have shown remarkable resilience. When the grand temples fell, smaller ones rose in homes and courtyards, some incorporating ancient stones that date back to 200 BCE. The Golden Temple, recently renovated, stands as a symbol of this persistence, though its modern complex came at the cost of displacing an entire neighbourhood – a stark reminder of how tradition and progress often collide in modern India.
But it’s at the ghats where Varanasi’s soul truly reveals itself. These ancient stone steps, rising from the river, serve as theatres for life’s most profound moments. At dawn, pilgrims descend to cleanse body and spirit in the Ganges.
As evening falls, thousands gather for the Ganga Aarti, where fire and prayer merge in a spectacular display of devotion.
Perhaps most powerful is Manikarnika Ghat, where life meets its final transformation. Here, cremation fires burn continuously, said to be lit by Shiva himself centuries ago. Up to 250 souls per day begin their final journey here, their ashes joining the sacred waters. Even in death, ancient hierarchies persist – different areas of the ghat are designated for different castes, though natural disasters occasionally force a temporary democracy of death.
Navigating to these ghats means threading through Varanasi’s labyrinthine streets – a sensory gauntlet where vendors sell everything from spices to holy water containers, where motorcycles weave through crowds with millimetre precision, and where sacred cows amble undisturbed through the chaos. It’s a place where the modern and ancient, the sacred and profane, dance an eternal dance.
Sacred stone rises at every corner of Varanasi, a city where temples pierce the skyline like countless fingers reaching toward heaven. In the wake of centuries-old invasions, particularly the Mughal conquests that sought to replace Hindu shrines with Islamic architecture, the faithful adapted. They moved their worship indoors, creating a secret tapestry of sacred spaces that ranges from humble alcoves cradling solitary deities to magnificent courtyard sanctuaries. These hidden temples reveal themselves as you wind through the ancient back alleys toward the Ghats, like spiritual treasures waiting to be discovered.
Towering above all stands the Golden Temple, a forbidden jewel that remains the exclusive domain of Hindu worshippers. In a bold move to accommodate the surging tide of pilgrims, city planners carved out a vast modern esplanade from the ancient urban fabric. Satellite imagery tells a poignant story: entire neighbourhoods vanished, families relocated, and centuries-old streets erased to forge this new path to enlightenment. Progress came at the price of tradition, forever altering the face of this timeless city.
To visit Varanasi is to witness not just a holy city, but a place where faith shapes every aspect of daily life, where death is not hidden but celebrated as liberation, and where the waters of the Ganges continue to flow, carrying with them the hopes, prayers, and ashes of countless devotees.