Kashi
काशी kāśīThe oldest and most sacred name of Varanasi (Banaras), 'the City of Light', from the root kash, 'to shine'; the holiest city of Hindu India and the city of Shiva, where death is held to grant liberation.
Where this term appears
- The Twelve Jyotirlingas Temples
Kashi Vishvanath stands at Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh ( Kotirudra Samhita 22 to 23).
- What is Tirtha? Pilgrimage in Hindu Life Temples
The Garuda Purana lists them: Ayodhya, Mathura, Maya (the old name for Haridwar), Kashi (Varanasi), Kanchi, Avantika (Ujjain), and Dwaraka.
- Hinduism and the Coming of Islam History
…1679; he is tied to the documented destruction of famous temples, the Kashi Vishwanath at Varanasi in 1669 and the Keshava Deva at Mathura in 1670, with a mosque raised on the latter's ruins; and he had the Sik…
- The Aghorīs Lineages
The Aghorīs are a small Śaiva ascetic tradition of the cremation ground, who worship Shiva in his Aghora, or 'non-terrible,' aspect. Their transgressive practices,…
- The Bhakti Saints Philosophy
The bhakti saints were the poet-saints of the devotional movements that swept India from roughly the sixth century onward. Beginning with the Tamil Alvars (devoted…
- The Indus Valley and the Question of Hindu Origins History
…g Shiva, practising yoga, reading their own liṅga the way a priest at Kashi reads one today, runs far ahead of anything the seals can carry while they cannot be read.
- What happens after death in Hinduism? Essentials
In Hinduism, death is a transition rather than an end: the body dies, but the true self (atman) is deathless and passes into a new life, a process called…
- What is Ayurveda? Essentials
Down the other he teaches Dhanvantari, incarnate as Divodasa, king of Kashi, and the knowledge becomes surgery; its origin story is a god ruling as a king, teaching disciples who ask to be taught the knife.