Creation, Destruction and an Eternal City- Varanasi

 

 

   Creation, Destruction and an Eternal City- Varanasi

The expectant and frenzied denizens – opulent, paupers, devout, seekers and tourists all lined up in the labyrinths of Varanasi to witness the astonishing and stupendous road shows of Shri Narendra Damodardas Modi, prior to the 2017 assembly elections in the most populous state of India, Uttar Pradesh.

 Manic and tumultuous crowds had similarly greeted Shri Modi in 2014, when he was still to scorch the electoral tracks during the epoch-making hustings that year.

 The ancient town of Varanasi is a paramount spot for tourism and the celebrated Ganga – Jamuni culture or tehzeeb. The legendary ancient town is also notable for Raja Harishchandra, the fabled and iconic Indian king, who appears in several texts, such as Aitareya Brahmana, the Mahabharata, the Markandeya Purana, and the Devi Bhagavata Purana.

 The most famous of these stories is the one mentioned in the Markandeya Purana. Legend has it that Raja Harishchandra gave away his kingdom, sold his family and agreed to be a slave – all to uphold a promise he had made to the sage Vishwamitra.

 Myths and history apart, the mellifluous strains of Bismillah Khan’s shehnai, quite similar to that of an oboe and Pandit Ravi Shankar’s sitar still strike a resonant chord with lovers of Indian classical music. Women of all hues, shapes and sizes swarm the ancient town to drape themselves in Benarasi sarees.

 Pilgrims throng the now expanding town to pay obeisance at Kashi Vishwanath, Kaal Bharaiv and Sankat Mochan Hanuman temples to parry all misadventures in life.

 Aeons ago and for several years thereafter, the devout in the Vanaprastha (the third of the four ashramas as per Hinduism) stage of their lives retired to this township to cast away their mortal selves and to seek salvation from the perennial cycle of birth and death.

 The sutra of the Art of Living that opposite values are complementary is ideally epitomized and emblematized at the ghats of Varanasi. As the dead are consigned to the flames at the Manakarnika Ghat, at the other end of the spectrum the high priests of Varanasi chant mantras to invoke the benediction of Lord Shiva and Ma Ganga. This dynamic equation represents the creation and destruction of human life, which a discerning seeker can perceive.

 Some distance away is the pious place of Sarnath. Prince Siddhartha, who metamorphosed into Gautama and upon attaining enlightenment became the Buddha, delivered his first sermon on the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-Fold path to his first five disciples at Sarnath. Buddhism gifted to humanity the Vipassana meditation, a technique to understand the true nature of reality by maintaining sublime silence.

 Varanasi, Kashi or Benares, the bustling town is a cradle of cacophony and symphony. Through continuous creation, destruction and experiencing sublime silence, the human mind is transported from the clangour of modern life to the calm of the sublime.