A palanquin from Kashi to Sarnath: 501 families walk Shiv's baraat past the Mulgandha Kuti Vihar

Fifty-one conches and fifty-one drums announced it before anyone saw it. On Wednesday a palanquin carrying a movable idol of Shiv, with Parvati and the child Prathamesh alongside, was carried out of the city towards Sarnath — Mahadev going to his in-laws' house, as the city tells it, at the close of Sawan. What made this walk unusual was the route. The procession, organised by a city Rudrabhishek peeth together with the Shiv Barat Committee, passed the site revered as the birthplace of the Jain tirthankara Shreyansnath, went by the Chinese temple, and reached the Mulgandha Kuti Vihar, the Buddhist heart of Sarnath. A Shaiva procession moving through Jain and Buddhist ground in a single morning is the sort of thing Banaras does without making a speech about it. The numbers around it were deliberate. Five hundred and one families took part, including families who had come from America and Ireland for it, and 501 earthen shivlings were made for a collective abhishek. A hundred and fifty-one ascetics walked with the palanquin, and volunteers from the Brahma Kumaris joined the line along the way. For anyone in the city this week, the Sarnath stretch is worth a visit even after the procession has passed — the deer park and the vihar are quiet on ordinary afternoons, and the walk from Kashi to Sarnath is a short one.

Compiled by HelloBanaras from public sources: Amar Ujala — Varanasi