STORIES, FOLKLORES ART OF EXPRESSION THROUGH WORDS

HERITAGE WEEK: 18th to 24th November, 2021

Day-2: Kashi and Sarnath

Part-1: ‘Kashi Karvat Temple’

Living in India and not taking a pilgrimage to Kashi is often considered an incomplete life. We take birth live our several dreams and then we go back to universe as one part of it. Kashi symbolises that spirit of human innate life and its subliminal connections with the universal cosmos. From the ‘Assi Ghat’ of beginning where saint poets like Kabir, Tulsi, and many more gave spiritual sermons of life and its many facets. Thereafter, in the same passage of 86 ghats we come across Harishchandra Ghat and Manikarnika Ghat where we see the temporality of life, when human life forms take the transition of karmic cycles of death… the corpses are burnt in pyres with sacred funerary rituals and solemnly sought blessings from Mother River Ganges so that the karmic balance may give the passing soul blessings to give solely the righteous karma henceforth.

In the passage of these life and death and transition of soul of this sacred city… we have the ‘Kashi-Karvat Temple’, there are many legends associated to the history of this temple. For its hard to ascertain the absolute truth. Nor the documents nor the orality can tell us fully what was there in past, which brought us to the present state of events and truths. Therefore, to my understanding I will go with the legend of ‘Matru-Rin Temple’ (Mother’s debt temple). According to folkloric tradition, one of the contingent ‘cavalry soldier’ of Raja Mansingh, was asked by his mother that its her wish that a temple of ‘lord shiva’ ‘also known as Ratneshwar Mahadev’ to be constructed besides river Ganges in Kashi. The ‘cavalry soldier’ son took his mother’s words with serious note and constructed the temple, however, in elated pride he started saying around, that he gave back his mother’s debt by constructing the temple. As we know, mothers are the ultimate giver, and no one can ever pay back their debt to mother’s. This made the temple start to lean, eventually, soldier repented, and temple came to be known as ‘Kashi Karvat Temple’; ‘Which means Kashi turning temple’. The temple has a leaning of 9 degrees which is more than the leaning tower of Pisa. During monsoon the temple remains almost half submerged in the river Ganga.

Definitely, as we visit the heritage city of Kashi, we experience the solemn essence in this city through this temple.

Part-2: ‘Dhamekh Stupa’

The essential spirit of India is co-existence of different philosophies together. Therefore, in the oldest city of Indic philosophy neighbours the Buddhist philosophy and its genesis. As we intensely delve into grounding spirit of life and death in Kashi, hardly ten kilometres from there we come across the ‘Dhamma-Chakra Parivartan’ foundation grounds. Almost 2800 years ago, in the land of Sarnath Lord Buddha went and gave his first sermon of Buddhism. Thereafter, five of his first disciples followed him with his teachings. In the same land of first sermon, later in 250 B.C. onwards emperor Ashoka the greatest follower of Buddhism constructed the Dhamma chakra Parivartan Stupa, which eventually known as ‘Dhameka Stupa’. What is calming about this place is…its serenity. The peace reverberates in this place, with message of Buddhism.