Why is Manikarnika Ghat called the Mahashmashan (great cremation ground)?

The Kashi Khand (verses 30.103-104) provides a specific etymology for why Manikarnika is called the Mahashmashan. The text explains: Shma means shava (a corpse), and shana means shayana (a bed). When the general dissolution of the universe comes, even great beings sleep here, having become corpses. Thus the shmashana is called great. At the end of the cosmic cycle (pralaya or doomsday), the five great elements that compose the world arrive here as corpses. While the rest of the universe is consumed in the cosmic conflagration, Kashi — and Manikarnika specifically — survives the universal holocaust because Shiva raises the city safely above the destruction on the tip of his trident. This cosmic association, combined with the belief that the cremation fire at Manikarnika has burned continuously for thousands of years (kept lit by the Dom Raja family), makes it the supreme cremation ground in Hindu tradition. It is one of only two places in India (with Rudra Bhumi in Gujarat) where the fire is said to never extinguish.