अयोध्या-मथुरामायाकाशीकांचीत्वन्तिका, पुरी द्वारावतीचैव सप्तैते मोक्षदायिकाः।

Kashi is one of the seven Moksha-daayika Puris, the other six being Ayodhya, Mathura, Maya (Haridwar), Kanchipuram, Avantika (Ujjain) and Dwaravati (Dwarka). It is believed that at Kashi, Mahadev Himself whispers the Taraka Mantra into the ears of the dying person and grants Moksha to every single person who leaves their mortal coils there. Kashi is also the place where all our Bhagwans reside in one form or the other, which makes it even more special. As a child, I was told that the word Kashi was formed from the words Keshava & Shiva which means that both MahaVishnu and Shiva reside there. Since Brahma’s decapitated 5^th head fell in Kashi, it automatically means that Brahma also resides here. In effect, the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara reside in Kashi. Kashi is also home to a Shakti Peetha (Vishalakshi) and to Mata Annapurneshwari. There’s a story on how the Temples which we see till today, exist in Kashi…

Once, when there was a severe drought in the world, law and order had broken down and humankind was affected, Brahma used his divine vision to find out which king could set things right and zeroed in on Ripunjaya. Brahma approached him and requested that he should rule over Kashi. Ripunjaya agreed but put forward a condition that no Devis or Devatas would interfere in his rule. The Bhagwans agreed and all Gods including Lord Shiva, who loved the city the most, went back to their own heavenly planes. The king assumed the name of Divodasa, started ruling well and soon everybody began to live peacefully and happily. Shiva had left behind a linga in remembrance — said to be the first linga established in Kashi.

Soon Mahadev started missing His beloved Kashi Nagari and He wanted to come back and stay there. He first sent the 64 Yoginis to Kashi to wean away Divodasa from Kashi. Even though they tried for a year, they failed miserably. Not wanting to return to Shiva in a defeated state, they settled down in Varanasi. Then Mahadev sent Brahma to convince Divodasa to leave Kashi. Brahma assumed the form of a wandering Brahmin and convinced the King to organize the Ashwamedha Yagna on the banks of the Ganga. He thought that if Divodasa would be unsuccessful in the completion of the Yagna, then he would leave Kasi and go. But Raja Divodasa readily agreed, for Ten such Yagnas. The site where it was successfully held is today known as the Dashashwamedh Ghat. Thus, having failed in His endeavour, Brahma too stayed on in Kashi. Now Shiva really wanted to come back to His favourite Kashi. So He sent His son Ganesha to convince Divodasa to leave Kashi and let the Bhagwans come back and settle in Kashi again.

Ganesha also took the form of a Brahmin and a Jyotish and met Divodasa. He encouraged Divodasa to embrace Vanaprasthashrama. Soon, Divodasa felt the need to give up Sansarik (worldly) life and enter Vanaprasthashrama and further towards Sanyasa. Ganesha predicted that soon a Brahmin would arrive at his palace and initiate him further. Though His work was done, Ganesha did not return to Kailasa, but divided himself into 56 forms and stayed over in Kashi… till today, people visit Kashi to take Darshan of His 56 forms.

Before long, Vishnu made His appearance as a Brahmin and guided Raja Divodasa to Swarga and Moksha. But even MahaVishnu did not want to leave Kashi after His work was done. He stayed back as Adi Keshav, in one of the oldest Temples in Kashi. Finally, after the Moksha of Divodasa, Shiva came back to His favourite Kashi Nagari. But that was not it! Mata Parvati also resides here. Once, Shiva in His state of Tapas forgot all about the importance of food as a source of sustenance for humankind. To teach Him about its importance, Mata Parvati shifted to Kashi and withdrew all food from the universe. Bholenath couldn’t bear to see His Bhakts suffering from the pangs of hunger and He rushed to Kashi where Maa was serving His Bhaktas bountifully as Annapurneshwari. He too stood in all humility, with a bowl made out of a skull to receive food and Maa served food into His bowl with a ladle and a benign smile.

Kashi is such an important place for Hindus that every practising one long to visit Kashi at least once in their lifetime or at least wants his/her ashes merged into the Ganga there. One finds the names Gupt-Kashi, Dakshin-Kashi, etc. given to various other pilgrim towns which just show the importance of Kashi to the Bharatiya consciousness. People who aspire to be experts in Vedas and other Hindu Scriptures and in Karma-kand, come to Kashi to learn. Every year, thousands of people come to Kashi with their spouses after retirement and renew their wedding vows and also commit themselves to a spiritual life thereon. Saints like Tulsidas ji, Kabirdas and more have added to the spiritual quotient of this oldest living city of the world. Despite all its business, financial and artistic/cultural activities, Kashi remains imprinted in Hindu minds as Moksha Puri, not as Maya Puri.

After Independence from British rule, a very strange incident occurred in 1955. PM Nehru invited the then Saudi King Saud bin Abdul Aziz to India and took him to Varanasi (Kashi). Nehru ordered to cover all the Temples and Vigrahas with curtains so that the ruler of the Islamic world would not get upset on seeing them (Islam is against Idol worship). Not just this, visible Government buildings were apparently painted with the words “Kalma Tayyiba” (‘There is no God but only Allah and Mohammed is his messenger’). Pujas and Aartis were also stopped at temples for the duration that the Saudi king stayed in Kashi. It came as a pleasant surprise therefore when after his win in 2014, Narendra Modi the incumbent PM of India, made it a point to proudly take leaders of foreign nations to Kashi without coving the Temples or Vigrahas and also made them partake in the Ganga Aarti. Hindus everywhere felt that finally, we had a leader who was proud of his heritage and religion. 

Unfortunately this display of pride today seems to have been conditional. Beneath the pride was the feeling of embarrassment about the old-world style of living in Kashi and the narrow lanes and municipal ineptitude of Kashi. I personally feel that this is what made the PM think of the Kashi corridor. He visualized a Temple with modern structures and ample empty space around it. His declaration that one would be able to see the Ganga from the Temple meant that there would be a clear passage from the Kashi Vishwanath Temple to the Ganga. In accordance with this vision, work on the Kashi Corridor started. What commoners and people from Kashi did not realize was that this meant that any structure which came in the way of this vision would be bull-dozed irrespective of whether it was a living Temple or an ancient one. What happened next was a nightmare for the most ancient, living civilization and the most ancient, living city of this world!

We have seen in many Indian films how when a son becomes rich, he builds a big, beautiful, modern house but houses his old parents in a shabby room in that house and either keeps them away from guests or only allows them to interact with them for a minuscule amount of time. He does this because while he is proud of his present affluent state and his spiritually rich past, he is ashamed of the quirks, feebleness and ugliness of his old parents. What is happening in the Kashi Corridor is something similar.

Old structures which should have ideally been renovated, cleaned and spruced up have been demolished ruthlessly, without a care for their ancient past. This ancient past included hundreds of years of worship and added to the spiritual quotient of Kashi and was part of Kashi’s Sthal Puran. It included libraries, ramshackle houses and Dharamshalas where poor beggars, poor pilgrims and travelling Sanyasis stayed for a few days at negligible costs and included heritage structures that were part of the history of the land. Such structures and Temples should have been treated differently based on the utility of the structure and its historicity. Where it was possible to strengthen the structure, it should have not been demolished.

The falling of an ancient tree (Akshay Vat) is reminiscent of the falling of a civilization where the surrounding walls and ground were first dislodged/dugout and the tree was left to fend for itself without any support. It had to fall.

It is said that there are at least 23,000 Temples all over Varanasi. Percentage-wise, one would feel that only a few Temples have been broken down. But the devil is in the details. Those Temples which were mentioned in the Puranas are the ones that matter the most and some of them have been demolished even if they were part of the main Kashi Vishwanath Temple. What is very important to know is that Kashi Kshetra is not like Mathura or Tirupati where One Bhagwan is prominent in that Temple town. Kashi is a Kshetra where All Bhagwans reside with equal importance given to all of them in our Puranas. That is why space is a constraint. Maybe with the passage of time, lesser people visit all these Temples, but that does NOT reduce the importance or the energy of these Temples.

Many people feel that Kashi was never clean and that such an important place needed to be spruced up. They feel that PM Modi has done the right thing by demolishing old structures and that the new buildings which have come up are pleasing to the eye. The new structures will house museums, dharmshalas and marketplaces probably. They will look clean, have a similar exterior and will facilitate easy movement of pilgrims. Maybe true. But such people are forgetting two things:

• Cleanliness and orderliness could have been done without breaking important Temples and their Vigrahas. The need was to enforce accountability with the municipal authorities or administrative authority of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. It is easy to demolish and build new structures on empty land. What was needed however was to preserve and conserve older structures which are a part of our heritage and religious tapestry.
• Shiva, Himself is not Alankara-Priya. Apparent Chaos is part of His identity – if one were to understand the agony felt by the Mother of Parvati on seeing His Baarat (wedding procession of the groom), one would understand this best. He is the only Bhagawan who loves Bhoot, Pishaach, Cremation grounds (!) and every creation equally. For Him, material success and external appearance do not matter – it is all about Bhaav and Bhakti. He allows ‘sparsh-darshan’ which not all other Bhagawans allow for. His Aabhushan is a serpent and His Alankar is Bhasm from the pyre. This is not to say that cleanliness should not have been there – it just means that the ‘aadambar’ of new, uniform structures will not gain any brownie points from Him. He understands our deepest thoughts without being conditional and this Kashi Vishwanath corridor is a statement of Conditional Love for Kashi – the condition being modernity at the cost of the ancient.

A lot of people have been saying that new Temples will be constructed for the dislodged Vigrahas. Sure. But will the Puja rights be given to the same families as before? What about the Vigrahas which have been broken? New Vigrahas may be made but how will the collected energy in the old Vigrahas be transferred now to the new ones? It is an impossible task. Today we see many ancient Murtis being unearthed all over the country and we proudly claim “Our Gods are rising!” Maybe two hundred years from now people will find the remains of the Vigrahas of Kashi from the river beds and they will say the same thing. But will people understand that those which we are seeing today are those buried because our ancestors wanted to save them from Mlechhas but those which we may see 200 years from now are those which were destroyed by our own people who wanted to embrace modernity and outward beauty at the cost of our ancient Heritage?

Today we are at a place where we are giving permission to a Government headed by a Hindu, to break our own heritage structures and Temples. What could be an indicator of Kaliyug and Matibhram more than this?