Across the river and beyond the city: at Sarnath the Dhamma was first taught; at Ramnagar the fort still keeps the world’s oldest continuously staged Ramlila. One heritage walk, two worlds.
The Dhamek Stupa — marking where the first sermon was preached — Photo: Hardy Explorer · CC0 · via Wikimedia CommonsMulagandha Kuti Vihara — the modern vihara amid the old monastery field — Photo: Aliva Sahoo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikimedia CommonsRamnagar Fort — the Kashi Naresh’s seat across the Ganga — Photo: K.Venkataramana · CC0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Kashi absorbs its temples the way a forest absorbs trees: into lanes, courtyards, and walls. This album begins our mapping of the city’s temple fabric — the named landmarks first, the lane shrines to follow.
Durga Kund — the 18th-century shikhara over its stepped kund — Photo: Creator:Agnes Morgenstierne · Public domain · via Wikimedia CommonsTulsi Manas Mandir — where the Ramcharitmanas lines the walls — Photo: juggadery · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia CommonsBharat Mata Mandir — the temple whose deity is the map of India — Photo: Manuel Menal · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Every album in the Indic Gallery is a field record: real places, walked and documented. This first album walks the ghats of Kashi — the river-facing stone steps that are the city’s true public architecture, where scholarship, ritual, commerce, and death have shared the same waterfront for centuries.
The ghats at dawn: an unbroken crescent of stone along the Ganga — Photo: Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikimedia CommonsAssi Ghat — the southern gateway, and our own neighbourhood ground — Photo: Akshay8090 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia CommonsManikarnika — the ghat the Kashi Khanda calls the fire that never sleeps — Photo: sunoochi from Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia CommonsThe river’s working life: boats that have ferried pilgrims for generations — Photo: Schwiki · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia CommonsKashi Vishwanath — the axis the whole crescent turns around — Photo: Gannu03 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons