Dashashwamedh: the ghat of ten sacrifices

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Namaste. Welcome back to our series on Kashi Vishwanath. Last time we stood in the lane outside the temple and heard the name Avimukta, the place Shiva never lets go. Today we walk a little further, down the steps, to the river.

If you leave the temple and follow the flow of people towards the Ganga, you will soon reach the busiest ghat in Kashi. A ghat, as you may know, is a flight of riverside steps. This one is called Dashashwamedh. In the early morning it belongs to bathers. People stand waist deep in the water with folded hands. Flower sellers sit with baskets of marigold and rose. Pandas, the family priests of pilgrims, sit under their wide umbrellas. Boatmen call out softly, asking if you would like to go on the river.

By evening the same steps fill up again, this time for the Ganga aarti. A row of priests raise large lamps towards the river, and people watch from the steps and from boats. Many visitors come to Kashi knowing only this one ghat. But the name itself carries a story, and it is one of the longer stories in the Kashi Khanda.

Dasha means ten. Ashvamedha is the horse sacrifice, one of the great Vedic rites. So Dashashwamedh means the place of ten horse sacrifices. Whose sacrifices? For that, let us go back to the Purana.

First, a word about the rite itself, so the story makes sense. In the old texts the ashvamedha was a grand and costly royal ceremony, which took a long time to prepare and needed many priests and great resources. It was performed by kings, and it was a sign of rule and of prosperity. To perform even one was rare. To perform ten in one place would have been something people spoke of for generations. Keep that in mind as we hear the story.

What we tell now is the Purana's account, from the Skanda Purana's Kashi Khanda. We will tell it simply, and we will keep to what the text describes.

The Kashi Khanda speaks of a time when the world was in trouble and there was no one to rule it well. Brahma, the creator, looked for a king who could set things right. He found a royal sage named Ripunjaya, who was living a life of austerity in Kashi. Brahma asked him to take up the rule of the earth.

The sage agreed, but with a condition. If he was to rule, he said, then the gods should stay in their own heavens and leave the earth to him. He wanted to govern without anyone above him. Brahma accepted. The sage became king, and he was given the name Divodasa.

And here is the difficulty. If the gods were to leave the earth, then Shiva too had to leave Kashi. So Shiva, with Parvati, went away to the mountain called Mandara. The city that is never let go was, for a time, without its lord.

The Purana describes Divodasa as a good king. He ruled with fairness. His people were content. There was order in the city. This is one of the things we find moving about the story. The only difficulty was that Shiva longed for his own city.

So, the Purana says, Shiva began to send messengers to Kashi, one after another, hoping to find a way back. First he sent the yoginis, a group of goddesses. They came to Kashi, saw how beautiful it was, and did not return. Then he sent Surya, the sun. Surya too came, looked for some fault in the king's rule, found none, and chose to stay. The Kashi Khanda says Shiva had asked him to look for a fault, because a flaw in the king's rule would have opened a way back. In Kashi people still point to shrines of the sun on the ghats and link them to this story.

Then Shiva asked Brahma himself to go.

Brahma came to Kashi in the form of an old brahmin. He went to King Divodasa and said that he wished to perform sacrifices, and asked the king to help. The king was generous. He gave everything that was needed. Brahma, with the king's support, performed ten horse sacrifices, one after another, at this very spot by the river.

That is why, the Purana says, the place came to be called Dashashwamedha, the place of the ten horse sacrifices. The Kashi Khanda adds that Brahma, too, was so taken with the city that he did not go back. He stayed, and he established a linga of Shiva there, which the text calls Brahmeshvara.

The story goes on for many chapters after this. The Kashi Khanda tells how Ganesha came to the city, and then Vishnu, each in disguise, and how at last King Divodasa, content and free of any wish to hold on, left for Shiva's own world. Only then did Shiva return to Kashi, and the city had its lord again. We will meet Ganesha's part of the story in our next episode.

When you hear the whole of it, a gentle pattern appears. Everyone who comes to Kashi on an errand ends up staying. The yoginis stay. The sun stays. Brahma stays. The city has a pull that no one can quite explain. People in Kashi say, smiling, that this is still true today. Many came for a week and are still there thirty years later.

We should add one more thing honestly. The Purana's account is how the tradition explains the name. Some historians also connect the name with a line of kings called the Bharashivas, who are remembered in old inscriptions as having performed ten horse sacrifices beside the Ganga. The two explanations come from different kinds of sources. We share both, with respect, and leave them side by side. The ghat carries the memory of ten sacrifices either way.

You may also hear, from pilgrims and priests, that this ghat is one of five great tirthas along the river in Kashi, five sacred bathing places that many pilgrims try to visit. In this local pilgrimage tradition the five are Assi, Dashashwamedh, Adi Keshava where the Varuna meets the Ganga, Panchganga, and Manikarnika. Families follow the round in different ways, and some keep only one or two. There is no single correct way.

Let us come back to the steps for a moment.

If you sit at Dashashwamedh early in the morning, you will see something that has not changed much in centuries. A woman holds a small brass lota and pours water slowly back into the river, facing the rising sun. This is arghya, the offering of water. An old man sits with his eyes closed on the lowest dry step, his feet almost touching the river. Two children are feeding grain to the pigeons. A priest is tying red thread around the wrist of a family from the south, who have come a very long way.

Up the steps, near the top, there is a small shrine of Shitala Mata, whom many families in north India visit. Around it are small stalls selling vermilion, bangles and flowers. The ghat is busy and noisy and full of life, and yet the river moves past quietly, as if none of it can disturb her.

It is easy to be carried along by the crowd here. If you visit, we would suggest one thing. Find a corner, even for five minutes, and simply sit. Watch the water. Let the noise become part of the background. This is the same river beside which, in the Purana's telling, Brahma kindled his fires ten times.

So let us gather what we heard today.

Dashashwamedh means the place of ten horse sacrifices. The Skanda Purana's Kashi Khanda tells of King Divodasa, a fair king who asked the gods to leave the earth, and of Shiva's longing to return to his city. Shiva sent messengers, and each of them chose to stay. Brahma came as an old brahmin, performed ten horse sacrifices here with the king's help, and he too remained, establishing a linga of Shiva. Historians offer another explanation for the name, and we hold both side by side. And today the ghat is where Kashi bathes in the morning and gathers for the Ganga aarti in the evening.

One thing to take with you. In this story, the king was good and the gods were good, and still there was a problem to solve, and it was solved slowly and patiently, without force. The next time you face a disagreement with someone you respect, try to remember Divodasa and Brahma. Be generous first, and give the matter time.

In the next episode we step back up into the lanes to meet the household of Kashi: Mother Annapurna who feeds the city, Kaal Bhairav who guards it, and Dhundhiraj Ganesh, who, in the Kashi Khanda, came searching and stayed.

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• Listen: Dashashwamedh: the ghat of ten sacrifices
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• Next: The household of Kashi: Annapurna, Kaal Bhairav and Dhundhiraj Ganesh
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• All episodes of Kashi Vishwanath: the city of light