Manikarnika

Well into the evening we sat, Dr. Singh and I, sharing histories and sipping chai.

Dr. Singh, former Fellow of the Indian Council of Historical Research and Culture.

Dr. Singh, renowned professor of Hinduism and Buddhism at Banaras Hindu University, now retired and owner of the Anand Kanan.

Dr. Singh, storyteller:

Before there were steps to the river, there was Kashi, the Luminous, resting upon the trident of Mahadeva. He had never come there, for he had never left. He abided as the great stillness, the witness of all that moves and does not move.

Shakti came as Sati, desiring to behold the place where consciousness shines without veil. Seeing the river flowing like time itself, she said, “Here let us remain, where life and death drink from the same water.”

She began to dance, and Shiva opened his eyes. From his matted hair the Ganga fell in streams of light. He answered with the tandava, the drumbeat of creation, the fire of dissolution, and they danced together on that ground by the river until there was no two.

In that moment the jeweled ornament loosened from her ear and fell into the earth, and the place was marked forever, Manikarnika, the crossing-place of light.

There the fire was kindled that never goes out. There the five return to the five, and it is said that at the final moment Mahadeva bends close and speaks the liberating sound into the ear.

For this is Avimukta, the place never forsaken.

When the worlds are dissolved, Kashi remains.

The river still flows, the fire still burns.

Whoever comes there has come before.

Whoever dies there does not die.

And so I visited Manikarnika the hour before dawn on my last day in Varanasi.

Where wood is gathered,

for the building of pyres,

and the feeding of fires.

For those in grief,

and those gathered to mourn.

They say the fires never die at Manikarnika.

That daily the cock crows,

and the sun always rises.