Banaras- The Atlas of the 21st Century

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Banaras is a very well-known place in the world, for its palaces that are reflected in the waters of the Ganges; for its stone staircases which are a pilgrimage destination; for its funeral pyres that burn night and day; for its thousand-years-old culture in which the whole of India is concentrated.

Yet Banaras is more than Banaras. Next to the material, tangible city, there is a subtle, invisible Banaras. According to the Purana, this is the city of Siva - the linga of Siva, a cosmic place which contains,. as an egg, all the things of the world in their latent form, in their germinal, potential state, at the beginning of their cycle of manifestation. But Banaras is also the place where all the things of the world gather at the end of their cycle, when they are about to dissolve and to be reabsorbed. Now the linga-Banaras is rather a gigantic skull or a "mahasmasana", a "huge cremation land": here the entire world converges when it has become all that it could become, when it survives in the form of residues and remnants.

There are therefore many destinations on a trip, and many places to visit on earth. When, however, all the living forms reach the limit of their expressive possibilities, as happens today; when they become thin and elusive, fleeting and evasive, when exhausted they are disappearing, when their life is that of a residue, as nowadays, their attraction to Banaras is irresistible. They do not have any other destination: they already are in Banaras. The world is Banaras, the only place to be recognized: the Atlas of the XXI Century.

Paulo Barone, born in Rome. Degree in Medicine and in Philosophy. Specialization in Psychiatry.

Jungian Psychoanalyst and Training Analyst (Milan, Italy). HDR (Habilitation a Diriger des Recherches) in Philosophy, Universite Paris 8 (France). Honorary Professor for Sanskriti Sanvardhan & Sanshodhan Pratishthan, Mumbai (India).

Among his books: Eta della polvere (Milan, 1999), Mystical Survival (Varanasi, 2012), Giacometti et la fleur en danger (Paris, 2023), Il bisogno di introversione (Milan, 2023).

Banaras, where "always ready" (Bana) is the "juice of life" (ras)! This "Life-juice" flows in abundance in different colours, tones, multiple textures and layers, diverse situations, contrasting conditions, both sides dark and light, etc. It is the blending or "complex mixing" of these, which makes up the mosaic of the cultural whole known as Banaras (or Kasi, or Varanasi), the City of Lord Siva, where Śiva's liquid energy flows in the form of the Ganga River; He is represented in the iconographic form of the linga. The residents of Banaras believe that Lord Siva and his associates live invisibly in the city's rhythm and that only the enlightened one can experience and reveal this. The present book, Banaras: The Atlas of the 21st Century, diligently attempts to re-connect all such binaries that include contrasts, distinctions, images, manifestations, and their repercussions and present them experientially, phenomenologically, and in different contexts philosophically, too.