Kashi: The Valiant History of a Sacred Geography

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Aditi Banerjee is a bestselling author based in the US. Her debut novel, The Curse of Gandhari, was published by Bloomsbury India in 2019 and her second, The Vow of Parvati, came out in 2022. Her third book, Hindu Love Stories: Dharmically Ever After, is a collection of stories from Hindu literature and history. She co-edited Invading the Sacred: An Analysis of Hinduism Studies in America in collaboration with Rajiv Malhotra and has authored several essays in publications such as The Columbia Documentary History of Religion in America Since 1945 and Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs in America: A Short History. Her articles have appeared in Outlook magazine and other publications. She is a devout Hindu and frequently writes about Hinduism and the Hindu-American experience.

Aditi is a practicing attorney at a Fortune 500 financial services company in the US and a member of the Indic Academy. She completed her executive MBA programme from Columbia University, New York, and earned a juris doctor from Yale Law School. She is a magna cum laude graduate in international relations from Tufts University, Massachusetts.

Seven years ago, I visited Kashi. It was a halt on the way to the Himalayas, where I travel most frequently. Pilgrimage is my favoured form of leisure, and it is, of course, the duty of every Hindu to visit Kashi, the holiest of holy cities. Most destinations are for the living, but Kashi is where Hindus go to die to spend their last days or perform the last rites for and cremate their loved ones. Kashayam maranam mukti, it is said 'To die in Kashi is to attain liberation.'

I did not have high expectations from my trip. I prefer the mountains and the oceanside to the city, and I merely booked a two-day stay. Yet, the experience left an indelible mark on me.

I remember being whisked away in an auto-rickshaw from my luxury resort on the outskirts of the city to a rowdy traffic intersection. There, my guide and I had to descend on foot to make the rest of the way to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

Kashi Vishwanath is the holiest temple in the city. The vigraha at Kashi Vishwanath is one of the twelve jyotirlingas. Jyotirlinga literally translates to a pillar of light, and these twelve pillar-shaped vigrahas of Shiva are said to be swayambhu, or self-manifested. Shiva is one among the cosmic trinity of Hinduism, consisting of Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (often referred to as the destroyer, but more precisely, the one who prevails over the dissolution of the universe, ushering in a new cycle of creation).