CREATION & CREMATION
ALONG THE GANGA GHATS IN VARANASI
A Miscellany in Four Parts

Robert Moses

From the Forward by Robert. E. Svoboda

Benares (Varanasi) has been a city for at least 6,000 and perhaps as long as 10,000 years. Continuously moving, continuously in flux, even Benares’ greatest temple, the Vishvanath temple, has not remained in one place, but has traveled along, moving as the energies and focus of the city have moved. Even the great śmaśn, the great burning ghāţ of Maņikarņikā has not been in the same place for all these ten millennia of history. What has remained constant, though, is an awareness of the vitality of human life and of the finality and the vulnerability of death. In this sense, Benares is completely unchanged from the moment of its founding.
People come to Benares for many reasons: to study, to obtain knowledge, to visit temples. But there are really only two good reasons to visit Benares. One is to perform sadhana and the other is to die.

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