Varanasi, known during the British period as Benares, is the most sacred city of India for the simple but perhaps remarkable reason that it lies along the Ganges at the one point where the river flows north and where someone sitting on the bank can therefore see the sun rise over the water. Although Muslim iconoclasts made sure that few buildings in the city are very old, the city has been a religious center since the fifth century B.C., when the historic Buddha set out to preach.
Morning prayers at one of the many ghats or steps that line the river's edge. The flotsam is disgusting to a few, trivial to the many.
Ritual bathing.
Morning hygiene.
The Ganges bank here is privately owned and densely built-up; there aren't many points of public access.
The best known is the Dasasvamedh Ghat, where Brahma is said to have sacrificed ten horses for King Divodasa. (The name is strictly literal: *das *for ten, aswa for horse, *medh *for sacrifice.)
The river's edge from midstream.
Boatloads of firewood heading to the cremation ghats.
Stacked and ready.
Behind the ghats are the densely crowded pukka mahals, "fine houses" separated by the narrowest of alleys.
There are many truly fine houses here, but access is tricky and with inescapable squalor.
The important temples are off-limits to non-Hindus, but here's an exception: the Vishvanath Temple on the campus of Benares Hindu University.
Pushpa, or flowers, are a common temple offering. Here they are offered for sale.
And here.
A European city has been grafted onto the old one, and a few streets have been cut through the pukka mahals. This one cuts through to the Dasasvamedh Ghat.
European it may be—but new or in good shape it isn't.
One of the best-preserved buildings of European vintage us the Benares Sanskrit University, originally called Queen's College.
Plaster peeling from the brick tower of the St. Thomas Church.
Tombstone at St. Mary's church. The inscription states that Rev. Brocklesby Davis (1825-1897) "Came to India 1859, Laboured in Allahabad from March 1861 till 1878 and in Benares as Principal of Jay Narain's College from 1879 till death."
