Varanasi Quotes

Enlightenment, and the death which comes before it, is the primary business of Varanasi.

The history of sex is the history of glimpses: first ankles, then cleavage, then knees. More recently, tattoos, navel rings, tongue studs, underwear…” (p. 92).

(a preliminary study hints that Varanasi may be as old as the Harappan cities).24

People say it's not what happens in your life that matters, it's what you think happened. But this qualification, obviously, did not go far enough. It was quite possible that the central event of your life could be something that didn't happen, or something you thought didn't happen. Otherwise there'd be no need for fiction, there'd only be memoirs and histories...

Imagine all the sadhus and priests of Varanasi. More than all of their devotion put together, that's how much I loved her.

[On the cities of Venice and Varanasi] Everywhere you look there is evidence of the enchantment of decay, of a kind of beauty that can only be revealed by a long, slow fading.

May in Varanasi. 25° and wet. It's like the 6th circle of the inferno here, Edith - where they flail the arses off the howling heretics and the men who fuck marine life etc. NATO's stomping on the Balkans while India and Pakistan threaten one another with nukes. "Dead From the Waist Down" on MTV. The humidity's making me horny and mad. I miss Robin. In his new book, Ken Wilbur calls it "skin hunger". I feel like I'm building up a charge. Monsoon's on its way.

It occurred to Jeff that he had entered the vague phase of his life. He had a vague idea of things, a vague sense of what was happening in the world, a vague sense of having meant someone before. It was like being vaguely drunk all the time.

For, to be woken up at five in the morning by the devotional treacle of Anup Jalota, Hari Om Sharan and other confectioners, all of them simultaneously droning out from several different cassette players; to be relentlessly assaulted for the rest of the day and most of the night by the alternately over-earnest and insolent voices of Kumar Sanu, Alisha Chinoy, Baba Sehgal singing 'Sexy, Sexy, Sexy', and 'Ladki hai kya re baba', 'Sarkaye leyo khatiya' and other hideous songs; to have them insidiously leak into your memory and become moronic refrains running over and over again in your mind; to have your environment polluted and your day destroyed in this way was to know a deepening rage, an impulse to murder, and, finally, a creeping fear at one's own dangerous level of derangement. It was to understand the perfectly sane people you read about in the papers, who suddenly explode into violence one fine day; it was to conceive a lasting hatred for the perpetrators, rich or poor, of these auditory atrocities. (on why he left Varanasi after a few days)

If Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, one day favours me bountifully, Oxford is fifth on the list of cities I would like to visit before I pass on, after Mecca, Varanasi, Jerusalem and Paris.

VARANASI TRAFFIC is shambolic. It’s a humbling reminder that the British drive on the left side of the road and we (Indians) drive on what’s left of the road. “The traffic is not terrible at all,” wrote novelist Geoff Dyer. “It is beyond any idea of terribleness. It is beyond any idea of traffic.

It occurred to Jeff that he had entered the vague phase of his life. He had a vague idea of things, a vague sense of what was happening in the world, a vague sense of having met someone before. It was like being vaguely drunk all the time.

Today, not being forced to see corpses is a privilege of the developed world. On an average day in Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges in India, anywhere from eighty to a hundred cremation ghats burn. After a very public cremation (sometimes performed by young children from India’s untouchable caste), the bones and ashes are released into the waters of the holy river. Cremations do not come cheap; the cost of expensive wood, colorful body shrouds, and a professional cremationist adds up quickly. Families that cannot afford a cremation but want their dead loved one to go into the Ganges will place the entire body into the river by night, leaving it there to decompose. Visitors to Varanasi see bloated corpses floating by or being eaten by dogs. There are so many of these corpses in the river that the Indian government releases thousands of flesh-eating turtles to chomp away at the “necrotic pollutants.

THE FOUR TRUTHS OF SUFFERING Over 2,500 years ago, seven weeks after attaining enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, the Buddha gave his first teaching in the Deer Park outside Varanasi. There he taught the Four Noble Truths. The first is the truth of suffering—not only the kind of suffering that is obvious to the eye, but also the kind, as we have seen, that exists in subtler forms. The second is the truth of the causes of suffering—ignorance that engenders craving, malice, pride, and many other thoughts that poison our lives and those of others. Since these mental poisons can be eliminated, an end to suffering—the third truth—is therefore possible. The fourth truth is the path that turns that potential into reality. The path is the process of using all available means to eliminate the fundamental causes of suffering. In brief, we must: Recognize suffering, Eliminate its source, End it By practicing the path.

Varanasi is the holiest city in Hinduism in India, which is a very unique city in india. The land of Varanasi (Kashi) has been the ultimate pilgrimage spot for Hindus for ages. Often referred to as Benares, Varanasi is the oldest living city in the world. Ganges in Varanasi is believed to have the power to wash away the sins of mortals. Ganges is said to have its origins in the tresses of Lord Shiva and in Varanasi, it expands to the mighty river that we know of. The city is a center of learning and civilization for over 3000 years. With Sarnath, the place where Buddha preached his first sermon after enlightenment, just 10 km away, Varanasi has been a symbol of Hindu renaissance. Knowledge, philosophy, culture, devotion to Gods, Indian arts and crafts have all flourished here for centuries. The holy city has many other temples also. The Tulsi Manas mandir is a modern marble temple. The walls of the temple are engraved with verses and scenes from Ramcharitmanas, hindi version of Ramayana, written by Tulsidas ji who lived here. Varanasi has produced numerous famous scholars and intellectuals, who have left their mark in respective fields of activity. Varanasi is home to numerous universities, college, schools, Madarsas and Pathshalas and the Guru Shishya tradition still continue in many institutions. The literary tradition of languages, dialects, newspapers, magazines and libraries continue to even this day. In varanasi one must have to do Boat Ride.

Shreeom, the supreme God Vishnu, is currently regarded as the most exalted and supreme incarnation on earth. SriOm shares love with Mahalaxmi. He himself, Shreeom, is now considered the most sublime incarnation of God Vishnu. In the state of Nepal, in places like Butwal, Palpa, Triveni, Syangja, Prabat, Pokhara, Baglung, Damodarkund, Koshi Tatt, Kranali, Nagarkot, Kathmandu, Devghat. In india Rishikesh, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Rajasthan, Haridwar, Delhi, Varanasi, Badrinath, Kedarnath, and places outside Nepal like New York in America, Brunswick, Portland, Yetland, Boston, Lisbon in Portugal, Belgium, Norway, France, Germany, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, Netherlands, he displayed his miracles. In Triveni of Nepal, Shreeom, the sage of self-knowledge, gave the vision of his vast form to the saints at Koti Hom Ashram. Shreeom displayed countless faces of various Bhagawans within his body and encompassed the entire vast universe within himself. The sage of self-knowledge beheld the immensely vast body of Shreeom, witnessing the entire universe illuminated within it, the name of the Sant is Aatmagyani. Thus, Shreeom, with his four arms, held the conch, discus, mace and lotus.

After we came back down to India from Nepal, we watched a man sit cross-legged on a ledge by the side of the Ganges river in Varanasi, saffron adorning his forehead and white markings on his arms. Around him, women in shimmering orange and pink saris washed and chattered, and boys jumped into the river from a bridge, their legs and arms wheeling, shrieking with laughter. Burning oil lamps scented the air, which was filled with the sound of brass bells and Sanskrit chanting. When Michael put his arm around me, I closed my eyes and leaned into him. ‘I’m trying to pretend,’ I said, ‘that nothing is going to change.

There was a moment of shocked disbelief and then, almost immediately, the idea of a glass costing eighty euros began to be assimilated. Dostoevsky might have had these glasses, these prices, in mind when he defined man as a creature who got used to things.

Regions and Kings Eastern King Samrat Western King Suvrat Northern King Virat Southern King Bhoja King of middle country Raja   Important Ratnins/Officials in Later Vedic Period Purohita Chief Priest, in also sometimes referred to as Rashtragopa Senani Supreme Commander of army Vrajapati Officer-in-Charge of pasture land Jivagribha Police Officer Spasas/Dutas Spies who also sometimes worked as messengers Gramani Head of the village Kulapati Head of the family Madhyamasi Mediator on disputes Bhagadugha Revenue collector Sangrahitri Treasurer Mahishi Chief Queen Suta Charioteer and court minstrel Govikartana Keeper of games and forests Palagala Messenger Kshatri Chamberlain Akshavapa Accountant Sthapati Chief Justice Takshan Carpenter   Kingdoms in the Later Vedic Age Kingdom Location Gandhar Rawalpindi and Peshawar districts of Western Punjab Kekaya On the bank of River Beas, east of Gandhar kingdom Uttar Madra Kashmir Eastern Madra Near Kangra Southern Madra Near Amritsar Kushinagar Nothern region of modern Uttar Pradesh Panchal Bareilly, Badayun and Farrukhabad districts of modern Uttar Pradesh Kashi Modern Varanasi Koshal Faizabad region of today's Uttar Pradesh

Yoda Sutra # 32

They have been fed various heroic tales of the BJP heavyweight dating back to his childhood ever since he became Gujarat’s chief minister some thirteen years ago. Some of these tales have become part of Modi mythology, such as the story of the teenaged Narendra’s escape from the jaws of a crocodile in the nearby Sharmishtha Lake, which is fed by water from the river Kapila known to nourish the earliest settlement in this region. The story of Modi’s escape from a crocodile echoes the childhood experience of Jagatguru Adi Shankaracharya, the great Hindu seer who lived and died in Varanasi.

Winter turns my mind to journeys those taken and those never done. Especially to a fantasy one I have always wanted to make: along the Grand Trunk Road from Calcutta to Peshawar. For the Road is a river. It may not be as sacred as the Ganga, which it greets at Kanpur and Varanasi, but it is just as permanent. It’s a river of life, an unending stream of humanity going places, intent on arriving and getting there most of the time. A long day’s journey into night that’s how I would describe the saga of the truck driver, that knight errant, or rather errant knight, of India’s Via Appia. Undervalued, underpaid and often disparaged, he drives all day and sometimes all night, carrying the country’s goods and produce for hundreds of miles, across state borders, through lawless tracts, at all seasons and in all weathers. We blame him for hogging the middle of the road, but he is usually overloaded and if he veers too much to the left or right he is quite likely to topple over, burying himself and crew under bricks or gas cylinders, sugarcane or TV sets. More than the railwayman, the truck driver is modern India’s lifeline, and yet his life is held cheap. He drinks, he swears, occasionally he picks up HIV, and frequently he is killed or badly injured. And we hate him for hogging the road. But we cannot do without him.

Unless you become conscious of your consciousness, unless you become aware of your inner light, in illusions you go on living.

Of the moment, be. In the moment, live. The art of remaining in the present, learn. Neither the past nor the future exists.

Truth is not a question of knowing, a question of being it is. How much you know is not the question, how much you are is the question; it is about your consciousness, but not about your mind.

At Varanasi, according to Ferishta, Muhammad of Ghor and Qutb-ud-din Aybak demolished the idols in a thousand temples and then rededicated these shrines ‘to the worship of the true God’.

Yoda Sutra # 9   That which is, see you do not; that which you want to see is that which you see. Not seeing, merely projecting, you are.   Yoda Sutra # 10   Projecting your fantasies, dreams, expectations on life — stop. Forget that completely. One and single has to be the whole effort, and that is: how to be awake?

So great life is, to finish it no way there is.

Only in deep humbleness, to the Master you come, because only in deep humbleness is learning possible. To learn, come you have — not to show who you are.

A particularly elaborate version of such an aswamedha is commemorated in the heart of Varanasi (Benares), otherwise the City of Lord Shiva and the holiest place of pilgrimage in northern India. Legend has it that Shiva, while temporarily dispossessed of his beloved city, hit on the idea of regaining it by imposing on its incumbent king a quite impossible ritual challenge, namely the performance of ten simultaneous horse-sacrifices. The chances of all ten passing off without mishap could be safely discounted and thus the king, disgraced in the eyes of both gods and men, would be obliged to relinquish the city. So Lord Shiva reasoned and, just to make sure, he also arranged for Lord Brahma, a stickler for the niceties of ceremonial performance, to referee the challenge. Shiva failed, however, to take account of King Divodasa’s quite exceptional piety and punctiliousness. All ten aswamedha were faultlessly performed. The king thereby gained untold merit and favour; Brahma was so impressed that he decided to stay on in the city; and Shiva slunk away to fume and fret and dream up ever more ambitious schemes to recover his capital. Thus to this day, when approaching the celebrated river-front at Varanasi, pilgrims and tourists alike get their first glimpse of the Ganga and of the steep ghats (terracing) which front it from ‘Dashashwamedh’ ghat, the place of ‘the ten horse-sacrifices’. And the merit of this extraordinary feat, it is said, continues to attend all who here bathe in the sacred river.

some of the Vedic jana, like the Yadavas, are thought to have been of dasa origin. Hence too the clearly -dasa names of Su-dasa, a Bharata chief who scored a notable victory over ten rival ‘kings’, and Divo-dasa of the ten horse-sacrifices at Varanasi.

Make me strong. Not to be superior to others. To fight my greatest ennemy. Myself.

canals—Savatthi, Saketa, Kosambi, Varanasi, Rajagaha, and Changa—were becoming centers of industry and business.

That there is a strange kinship between Venice and Varanasi has often been noted: both cities are like portals in time; they seem to draw you into lost ways of life. And in both cities, as nowhere else in the world, you become aware of mortality.

If in one area you see a pyre being lit, a little away you’ll see an infant undergoing a ritualistic tonsuring. Barely 100m away a newly married couple will be offering prayers to the river, while further away you’ll find children playing cricket on the banks of the river close to an elderly man who is deep in thought silently watching the Ganga flow by. Nearby, people will be feeding the fish, while some distance away little girls in brightly coloured skirts and tops play hopscotch on the steps leading to the river. In essence, the cycle of life is quite literally unfolding before your eyes," Irfan Nabi

The Buddha was born in Kapilavastu (on the Indo–Nepal border) but he attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya, just south of the old Magadhan capital of Rajgir. However, he did not deliver his first sermon in Bodh Gaya, the nearby towns and villages or even in the royal capital of Rajgir. Instead, he headed west to Varanasi (also called Kashi). Why did he go all the way to Varanasi to spread his message? According to historian Vidula Jayaswal, this was a natural choice since Varanasi was an important place for the exchange of both goods and ideas because it stood at the crossroads between the Uttara Path and a highway that came down from the Himalayas and then continued south as the Dakshina Path. In some ways, this remains true to this day as the east–west National Highway 2 meets the north–south National Highway 7 at Varanasi” Excerpt From: Sanjeev Sanyal. “Land of the Seven Rivers A Brief History of India's Geography”. Apple Books.

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Varanasi is God's own creation, where life and death are both subjects of celebration.

Varanasi (UP) Ganga

ATHMAHANA! Even while you are alive, saying “YES” to death, is “Athmahana”, hell. Even during the so-called death, saying “YES” is liberation, enlightenment. Varanasi stands for that principle, principle of saying “YES” to life even when it presents death! Listen! Saying “YES” to life even when it presents death! Saying “NO” to life in any form is “Athmahana”,

Had supposed India was essentially unfathomable: it was too fast, too swiftly changing to yield to any categorisation. In Varanasi, however, I found a city whose spirit seemed to denote the whole.

Every fire on this ghat is lit from a dhuni (sacred fireplace) that has been burning continuously here since Satya Yuga. It is not for anyone to bring their own matchbox!

Traditionally it is only children, holy men or the victims of snakebite who forgo the cleansing flames of the burning ghat, but with the city now so overcrowded, some simply carry the body to the river, find a convenient point and cast it in. Many horrified tourists, afloat on the river for a view of the waterfront, find themselves agape at the sight of a distended human corpse. All of this adds, too, to the rising pollution of the Ganga, whose waters only the most devout would now consider pure.

When my feet first touched Indian soil in 1986, I felt as if I had finally found my home. Since that time, my destiny has led me back to India time and time again, first to study sitar in Shimla, then to study Sanskrit in Varanasi and then to live here continuously from 2001 until 2010. These trips etched in my heart and mind images, feelings and ideas which shaped my world view and the subsequent pattern of my life.

Role of “sacredscapes” in Indian culture The key is a small thing, really, but its power is great. The key is genius loci. To every place, there is a key – direct communication with the inherent meanings and messages of the place. When the key is lost, the place is forgotten. Mythologies, folk tales, continuity of cultural traditions, the quest to understand what is beyond – all are the facets of crossings. In Indian culture the crossings are the tirthas (‘sacredscapes’) where one transforms oneself from the physical to metaphysical. To cross is to be transformed. On the ladder to cross from one side – physical – to the other end – metaphysical – the sacred places serve as rungs. The setting of the proper ladder relies on a secret principle – that the vertical can be attained only by strict attention to the horizontal. The ladder provides the way of ascent through care and deeper quest. A spiritual walk is the ladder, sacred ways are the steps, and human understanding is the destination.