The peerless ancient centre of Sanatana Dharma, the home of every Sanatana sect, path and school, the repose of all the thirty-three crore deities in the Hindu pantheon, the Maha-Smashana (the Great Graveyard that liberates one from the endless cycle of birth and death) guarded by Mahadeva, the kotwal himself … was now left wholly defenceless. Kashi. Varanasi. Banares. The city that exuded the radiance of the highest, the deepest and the most profound yearnings of philosophy and spirituality. A radiance that was couched in the root of its very name: Kashi, from the Sanskrit root, kash, meaning
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