Kashi.
A world within a city.

For devotees, Kashi is Shiva’s beloved city. Kashi Vishwanath stands at its sacred heart, while neighbourhood shrines make worship part of the everyday rhythm of its lanes.[1]

A sacred landscape, beyond one temple

Annapurna, Vishalakshi, Kal Bhairav and Hanuman are part of the city’s devotional life. Pilgrimage unfolds through temples, sacred routes, riverbanks and small acts of service, alongside the work of an ordinary living city.[1]

Kashi also lives in sacred imagination. In the Shiva Purana, the city is upheld by Shiva’s trident even through cosmic dissolution. Avimukta expresses its enduring connection to Shiva and liberation.[2]

Life, death and the meaning of liberation

The city’s association with moksha gives its cremation ghats, including Manikarnika, profound significance for many Hindus. Here, mortality sits close to daily life. These are places of mourning and sacred practice, deserving dignity and care.

The luminous city and Shiva’s trident belong to Purāṇic sacred narrative. They express a sacred geography that extends beyond the visible streets and ghats.[2]

Morning boats, bathing, prayer and evening aarti: the river shapes the city’s sense of time. Its ghats are places of devotion, work and encounter, with each flight of steps opening onto another story.[3]

A living river, a shared responsibility

The monumental ghats line the western bank; across the water lies a low sandy floodplain. Boatmen, priests, vendors, residents and pilgrims all belong to this riverfront world. Reverence also calls for care: for the water, the people who depend on it and the spaces everyone shares.

Nearby Sarnath recalls the Buddha’s first teaching after enlightenment. Varanasi and its surroundings also hold deep Jain associations. Kashi’s wider story includes Sikh, Muslim and other communities, alongside its Hindu traditions.[3][4]

Saints, poets and different ways of belonging

Kabir, Ravidas and Tulsidas are among the voices associated with Banaras. Their poetry and devotional legacies invite questions about faith, dignity and the ways people relate to the divine. The city’s cultural life is richer than any single account of it.[5]

Learning belongs to Kashi’s identity: philosophy, Sanskrit, discussion and the relationship between teacher and student. Its educational life continues through universities, classrooms and conversations that bring inherited knowledge into the present.[1]

From traditional study to modern institutions

Banaras Hindu University, Sampurnanand Sanskrit University and Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith are part of this wider learning landscape. Scholarship and creative practice sit alongside one another, keeping questions alive across generations.[8]

Yoga, akhara traditions and the city’s associations with Ayurveda and healing add further dimensions to its understanding of the body and mind.[1]

Shehnai, tabla, voice and the patient work of practice. Music is woven into Banaras through performance and the guru–shishya tradition. Varanasi has been a UNESCO Creative City of Music since 2015.[6]

Music passed from one person to another

Beyond the concert stage, musical knowledge is sustained through teaching, rehearsals, festivals and close listening. A small baithak can make the connection between performer and audience feel as significant as the performance itself.[6]

A Banarasi textile holds the skill of the people who make it. Silk weaving, brocade and zari are part of a wider craft culture that also includes wooden toys, metalwork and other forms of patient, precise making.[7]

Look beyond the finished object

Behind a pattern are hands, tools, time and livelihoods. The city’s artisans and weaving communities keep techniques alive through daily work. Meeting that work on its own terms reveals another side of Kashi’s creativity.[7]

On Dev Deepawali, rows of diyas transform the ghats. Across the year, celebrations such as Mahashivratri, Holi and Ramlila bring different expressions of devotion and community into the streets.[1][9]

A kulhad of chai. Breakfast at a familiar stall. A bicycle easing through a narrow lane. Between its great sacred stories, the city lives through food, humour, conversation and the warmth of everyday encounters.[3]

Kashi gives Anime Devta a place to listen, learn and create. At the heart of our vision for AD Studio Kashi is a meeting of cultural research, artists and new storytelling tools, bringing Sanatan Dharma’s stories and imagination to a new generation.

Laija, Rudra, Hanu and Bhairu accompany this illustrated journey. The city, its people and its traditions remain the heart of the story.