Travel2Kashi

09/03/2019

Travel to Varanasi, a mystical land dedicated to Lord Shiva on the Western bank of Ganga in Uttar Pradesh in India!

09/03/2019

In one Purānic māhātmya, Shiva says, “Because I never forsake it, nor do I let it go, this great place is therefore known as Avimukta.”

Travel to Varanasi, a mystical land dedicated to Lord Shiva on the Western bank of Ganga in Uttar Pradesh in India!

08/03/2019

We have not understood our scriptures well-
Just a small analogy On Mahabhartha from myside:-

DhristRashtra : - A blind nation
Dhushashan : - Wrong Governance
Dhuryodhana : - Ill gotten Money - In fact Many places it is referred as SUYODHANA in the scriptures- Not as bad as we perceive from the TV Serials that we see!

So we had a blind nation with bad governance with people having ill gotten money and women were disrespected which lead to the complete annihilation of that civilisation. SO RESPECT WOMEN !

Rest all is Politics

HAVE TIMES CHANGED YET ! 😊

25/01/2019

Vārānasī is also an ancient name, found in both the Buddhist Jātaka tales and in the Hindu epic, the Mahābhārata. From the Pali version of this name—Bārānasi—comes the corrupted name Banāras, by which the city is most widely known today.

In both Muslim and British India, the city was “Benares,” but in independent India, Vārānasī has been revived as the official name of the city. Any resident of the city will readily explain that Vārānasī sits between the Varanā River, which flows into the Ganges on the north, and the Asi River, which joins the Ganges on the south.

Vārānasī stretches along the river between the two. According to the Padma Purāna, “The Varanā and the Asi are two rivers, set there by gods. Between them is a holy land [kshetra] and there is none more excellent on earth.” And in the Kūrma Purāna, we find it simply put: “Vārānasī is the city between the Varanā and the Asi.” It is likely, however, that the city did not receive its name from these two rivers, but rather from the single river that bordered it on the north, known to early literature as the Varānasī River, not the Varanā. It is clear from archeological excavations and from old descriptions of the city that ancient Vārānasī was situated primarily in the north, on the high Rājghāt Plateau.

It might be added that the Asi, the alleged southern boundary, hardly merits the status of a river except during the rainy season. It is little more than a rivulet, and one Purāna rightly calls it the “Dried-Up River.” While the popular derivation of Vārānasī is probably a false etymology, it is nonetheless extremely important for our discussion.

What interests us in the name is not only that from which it really derives, but rather that toward which it points in helping us understand what Hindus have commonly understood by the name Vārānasī. The rivers are the boundaries of this sacred zone; they define and protect the city. According to the myth, the two rivers were created by the gods and placed in position to guard against the entrance of evil. One river was named “The Sword” (asi) and the other was named “The Averter” (varanā).

In the Vāmana Purāna, the two rivers are said to originate from the body of the primordial person, Purusha, at the beginning of time. The Varanā issued from the right foot of the cosmic giant and the Asi issued from its left foot. “The tract of land lying between them is the best place of pilgrimage in the three worlds and is potent enough to destroy all sins. Its peer does not exist in heaven, earth, and the netherworld.” In the Jābāla Upanishad, the two rivers are described not as geographical rivers, but interior rivers, the mystical veins of the body’s subtle physiology: “It is called Varanā because it obstructs [vārayati] all sins of the senses. It is called Nāsī because it destroys [nāshayati] all sins of the senses.”

When the seeker asks where this place between the Varanā and the Nāsī is located, the sage replies: “It is the place where the nose and the eyebrows meet. That is the meeting place of heaven and the world beyond.” Here Vārānasī is given an esoteric interpretation. It is the highest of the six chakras, the “circles” of power in the yogic anatomy. It is the place of the eye of wisdom.

25/01/2019

Places to visit and things to do in Kashi

22/01/2019

KĀSHĪ: THE CITY OF LIGHT This name is the most ancient. It was used nearly three thousand years ago to refer to the kingdom of which this city became the capital. In time, the name came to refer to the capital city as well.

It was to the outskirts of Kāshī that the Buddha came to preach his first sermon in the sixth century B.C. The somewhat later Jātaka tales of the Buddhist tradition speak of the “town of Kāshī.”

As for its etymology, it has been suggested that the name Kāshī comes from Kāsha, the name of an ancient king, whose dynasty later produced the famous legendary King Divodāsa of Kāshī, or that it comes from kāsha, the name of the tall silver-flowering grass which grows wild along the riverbank. Most commonly, however, it is said to derive from the Sanskrit root kāsh, “to shine, to look brilliant or beautiful.” Kāshī, sometimes called Kāshikā, is the shining one, the luminous one, the illumining one.

Its most famous māhātmya, the Kāshī Khanda explains: “Because that light, which is the unspeakable Shiva, shines [kāshate] here, let its other name be called Kāshī.” The wordplay of Sanskrit continually underlines the relation of the City of Light to the light of enlightenment. For example, the city is called “City of Light, which illumines liberation”—moksha-prakāshikā Kāshī.

The legend of the Jyotir Linga: the Linga of Light, is one of the most enduring myths of the Puranas and is told many times in various settings.

It recounts the appearance of the first Shiva linga which pierced the three worlds as a brilliant shaft of light and was witnessed by Brahma and Vishnu

One day Brahma and Vishnu were quarreling. Brahma claimed, ‘I created the world. I must be God.” Vishnu retorted, “That you seek validation means you cannot be God, “ Then who is God?’ Brahma demanded to know.

As he spoke, a huge column of fire split the earth between them and blazed up through the sky to pierce the highest heavens. Astounded, Brahma and Vishnu decide to determine the source and extent of this brilliant pillar of light. Vishnu became a boar and burrowed deep into the netherworlds. Brahma mounted his goose and flew as far up as the heavens reach.

But even after thousands of years they could not find the bottom or the top of the shaft of light. When they finally give up and returned to their starting place, Shiva emerged from the light in his partial bodily form.

The legend says, the linga of light was the first linga. After that, Shiva vowed that this unfathomable linga would become small so that people might have it as an emblem for their worship.

Wherever, the linga is, there is a tirtha, which in Sanskrit means a shallow ford. Because the linga by nature is a “crossing place” where the worlds are knit together by the shaft of Shiva. ( A tirtha- kshetra means a place of pilgrimage, where one might cross into the other world).

The linga of light is thus the image of the supremacy of Shiva. It is what Mircea Eliade calls the axis mundi or the pillar at the centre of the world, originating deep in the netherworlds, cracking the surface of the earth and splitting the roof of the sky.

In this linga or form, Shiva is not one god among others, but the unfathomable One. This light is the mysterium tremendum which finally cannot be described or comprehended by any or all faces and attributes.

It is believed the pillar of light appeared here in Kashi.

Whatever the scriptures say , whether the light appeared here or not but one thing is clear - It talks about the story of OUR CREATION - the creation of this physical world.