Why Kashi Is Called the Gateway to Moksha

Varanasi is called the gateway to moksha because the tradition holds that Shiva whispers the taraka mantra to those who die here, releasing them from rebirth. That single belief is why the city’s economy, its ghats and its daily life are organised around death in a way no other Indian city’s are. If you are coming to perform final rites, our Asthi Visarjan in Varanasi page sets out what we arrange.

What moksha means here

Moksha is release from samsara, the cycle of birth and death. Most of Hindu practice treats it as the work of many lifetimes. Kashi is the exception the tradition allows: the Kashi Khand of the Skanda Purana holds that death within the city’s bounds grants it regardless of the life that preceded it.

That is a considerable claim, and the city rests on it. It explains the hospices, the continuous cremation at Manikarnika, and why families carry ashes here from across the world.

The city of light

Kashi means the luminous. The city is among the oldest continuously inhabited places on earth, and it has been a centre of learning as long as it has been a place of pilgrimage. Shiva is held to be present in the city rather than visiting it, which is the distinction that matters: Kashi is not a shrine Shiva attends, it is understood as his dwelling.

The Ganga, flowing north

The Ganga runs broadly east across the plain, but at Varanasi it turns and flows north for a stretch, back towards its source. The ghats are built along that bend. The tradition treats the northward flow as the reason Kashi holds the standing it does for final rites: the river carries the departed upstream rather than away.

The ghats

Eighty-odd ghats line the bend, and they are not interchangeable. Two are cremation ghats and the rest serve bathing, worship and daily life.

• Manikarnika. The principal cremation ghat, where fires have burned continuously for centuries. Its myth is in our Manikarnika guide.
• Harishchandra. The older of the two, named for the king who kept his word at the cost of everything. See our Harishchandra guide.
• Dashashwamedh. Where the evening Ganga aarti is performed.
• Assi. The southern end, quieter, where the Assi meets the Ganga.

Kashi Vishwanath

The Vishwanath temple holds one of the twelve jyotirlingas and is the city’s principal shrine. It has been destroyed and rebuilt several times across its history, most recently reconstructed in the eighteenth century by Ahilyabai Holkar. Families performing rites usually take darshan either before or after.

How the rites developed here

Antyeshti, the last sacrifice, is the final samskara in a sequence that begins before birth. At Varanasi it acquired a form shaped by the city itself: cremation at the river, immersion in the Ganga, and the subsequent offerings performed within sight of the same water. The Doms, the community who tend the cremation fires at Manikarnika, have held that role across generations and the practice has continued without interruption through every change of ruler the city has seen.

Why people come here to die

Hospices for the dying have operated in Varanasi for generations, taking people who have come to spend their last days within the city’s bounds. It is not morbid to those who do it; it is the logical consequence of the belief. We cover it in our note on the Varanasi death hostel.

The city today

Varanasi is a working city of around a million and a half people, with a university, a weaving industry and traffic. The ghats are not a museum. Cremation at Manikarnika is continuous and public, the lanes behind are narrow and crowded, and the sensory weight of it is considerable for a family arriving for the first time while grieving. Knowing that beforehand helps.

Performing rites at Kashi

• Asthi Visarjan. Immersion of the ashes in the Ganga, from a boat at midstream. From ₹5,355.
• Pind Daan. Offering of pinda to named ancestors, from ₹7,100.
• Tarpan. The water offering, performed alone or as part of the above.
• Tripindi Shradh. For ancestors whose rites were never performed.

Common questions

Does moksha require dying in Varanasi?

No. The tradition treats Kashi as granting it to those who die there, but moksha is not held to be available only that way. Rites performed at Kashi for someone who died elsewhere are entirely standard.

Is it respectful to watch a cremation?

Observing quietly from a distance is accepted. Photographing the pyres is not, and you will be asked to stop.

Can rites be performed for someone who died long ago?

Yes. There is no point at which it becomes too late, and families regularly perform them for ancestors several generations back.

Coming to Kashi

Tell us which rite your family needs and when you can travel, and we will confirm the pandit, the ghat and the total before anything is paid. Everything is on our Asthi Visarjan in Varanasi page.