On the western bank of the Ganga in Varanasi — Kashi, the City of Light and one of the oldest living cities on earth — Kashi Vishwanath enshrines Shiva as Vishwanath, the Lord of the Universe, among the holiest of all twelve Jyotirlingas. The Kashi Khanda of the Skanda Purana, a vast section of some thirteen thousand verses narrated by Skanda to the sage Agastya, extols the city as resting upon Shiva's trident and radiant with his own light — the place he never forsakes even at the dissolution of the universe, and so called Avimukta, "never abandoned."
The Shiva Purana describes Kashi as the Lord's nitya vasa, his eternal dwelling, and tradition holds that whoever leaves the body here receives the Taraka mantra from Shiva himself and attains liberation. Priests at the ghats still declare Sarva tirthamayee Kashi — that Kashi contains within it every sacred crossing.
Beside the sacred river, with its lamp-lit Ganga aarti at dusk, a dip in the Ganga followed by darshan of Vishwanath is held to carry unmatched spiritual merit, drawing seekers and pilgrims from every corner of the land.
