A RETURN TO THE CITY:

AN INVESTIGATIVE PILGRIMAGE TO BANARAS

by

MAHESH B. SENAGALA

B.Arch., J.N.Technological University, Hyderabad, India

A Master's Thesis

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE

Department of Architecture, College of Architecture and Design

Kansas State University

Manhattan, KS 66502

1994

Approved by

Majc>r16rofessor
 C t
LD24,,68
_TLI ABSTRACT
A gc1-1
199'1
S(-1(. The manifest form of any given city is a function of human efforts to find meaning in life, and to satiate the other
C.3
innate impulses. It is the understanding of those impulses that determines the meaning of human existence and the form

of a city. Rational thought with legitimate beginnings would always lead one away from the neurotic clinging to the city

as a source of existential security. The thesis proposes that the city of Banaras survives on and supports the irrational and

ignorant pursuits of its denizens.

The work has been structured into three major parts:

The first part of the thesis is predominantly a description of Banaras. It contains photographs, graphic and textual sketches,

dialogues and diagrams which help in constructing the context of the city of Banaras in the reader's mind.

The second part is the central argument of the thesis. It contains an exposition of the nature of man which establishes the

premises, and forms the basis for the thesis. This section makes extensive references to the psychoanalytic, transpersonal

psychological, and existential philosophical works of Sigmund Freud, J.Krishnamurti, Erich Fromm, Ken Wilber, Jean-Paul

Sartre, Albert Camus, Da Free John, and others.

The third part identifies and dispels various illusions clouding the existence, life and growth of Banaras in particular, and

the city (as a domain of human pursuits) in general. It also reveals the role of history, irrationality and ignorance in the

rise and sustenance of the Banaras in particular and cities in general.

 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv

INTRODUCTION 1

THE PILGRIMAGE ITINERARY 6

THE CHARACTERS 9

AT MANIKARNIKA GHAT 12

JOURNEYS IN THE ONION or THE CITY OF CIRCUITS

ON THE WAY TO BHIMCHANDI 15

BETWEEN THE CRESCENT AND THE LABYRINTH

ARRIVAL AT BHIMCHANDI 20

THE GESTURES OF FIVE PRIMARY ELEMENTS AND THE NAMES OF A CITY

ARRIVAL AT RAMESWAR 28

THE BASIS OF REASON OR WHAT EXACTLY DO WE NEED?

ON THE WAY TO SIVPURI 57

FORM FOLLOWS FICTION

ARRIVAL AT SIVPURI 71

CITY and THE FALSE RELIGIONS OF HISTORY, MYTH AND MONUMENT

ON THE WAY BACK 92

THEREFORE . . . A RETURN TO THE CITY?

AT MANIKARNIKA GHAT 96

THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE

ii
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 98

iii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To wish to alleviate the burden of gratitude - that dwells in the depths of my heart - by pouring a few cliches on

this page is only to be either over ambitious or inane. All that I hope here, therefore, is to relieve myself of a little if not

all the responsibility.

The many contemplative evenings spent over cups of honey -filled tea and joy -filled debates with my advisor,

Professor Gary Coates, have already found a secure place in my memories. He has been more than an advisor to me, and

I cannot possibly thank him enough for guiding me to bring this work from a meagerly assembled draft of stray ideas to

a state of more refined argument.

I owe great respect and gratitude to Professor Vladimir Krstic for the many invigorating and positively critical

debates that have polished my argument rigorously during the course of development of my thesis.

I thank Professor Donald Watts for kindly and promptly sharing his thoughts on various issues covering a wide

ground of knowledge.

I would like to thank Anujay Vootla and Venu Gopal Pulipaka for their constructive criticism which has

tremendously helped me shape the argument in a proper way. I also thank Nagarjuna Chimata for his constant support.

Finally, to say that my friends and parents have extended their love and encouragement is only to understate their active

contribution to the very core of my thesis. I am indebted to them (I mean it!).

iv
 INTRODUCTION
THE PLOT:

Lord Siva, the destroyer of ignorance and the giver of Bliss, and Sage Narada, the
eternal traveler and scholar-musician, are on a canonical pilgrimage around the
city of Banaras. As they traverse the ten -mile circumambulation path which is
marked by five canonical halts, the Divine pilgrims, through their dialogues,
examine the conception of limited -man and the triumph of irrationality which
formed the sub -structure of the physical city of Banaras. In their conversations are
raised such issues as the existential and psychological elements of Banaras and
their relationship to its physical structure, growth and proliferation of forms.

AN OUTLINE OF THE INVESTIGATIVE PILGRIMAGE:

At the outset, a disclaimer is in order: I should hasten to mention

clearly what this work is not. Enough accolades have been accorded on
Banaras by countless individuals. Enough documentation has been laboriously
undertaken by many organizations and researchers. I do not wish to repeat
either of those ventures: this work of mine is neither a documentation of the
city or ghats of Banaras, nor a passive description of the form -making
principles, patterns and structures of the city.

1
 Away from all that, this work is an exercise in reason and a critical
investigation of the city of Banaras. My concern is with "what should be
studied in Banaras, why it should be studied, and how that study informs and
affects our lives."
I shall now request the reader to take a look at the map of possible
levels, stances and issues that could be taken up for the study of cities. On this
map, I locate the focus, premises and the scope of my present work of
investigation:

2
 Realms of Thought/Action Assumptions/Attitudes Questions Disciplines Examples
1. Physical making of the city - We need the city - By what means can we build cities, - Engineering
- Physical construction - We need the society maintain them and sustain them? - Science
- Technology - We need Technology - What are the available principles? - Planning
- Geography and other - We need to live together - What are the available technologies? - Administration
sciences - Principles are absolutes - Architecrure
- Methods - Follow others - Urban Design
- Execution - Let us assume that.. .

- Skills / Techniques

FRUIT

2. Form and space making principles - We need the city - What are the structures for living - Architecture -Aldo Rossi
- Spatial and formal - We need the society together? - Urban Design -Ed. Bacon
manipulation techniques - We need the structures to - What is order? - Urban Planning -Corbusier
- Geometrical systems give shape to society - How to express? -Leon Krier
- Movement systems - We need to live together - How to "translate" the metaphysical -Louis Kahn
- Transforming abstract to - Structures are absolutes into the physical? -Rob ;Crier
concrete - Let us assume that... - What kind of city? -F.L. Wright
- Methods - What is the basis of form and space -R. Venturi
- Skills / Intellect
5--
an...
3. "Structures" of civilization - We need the structures - How do we relate - Sociology
- Institutions - We need to live together - to each other? - Economics -Marx /Engels
- Economic and political - We need to give structure to - to the world? - Politics -K. Popper
systems the - How do we transact? - Anthropology -j.j. Rousseau
systems society - How do we sort out? - Linguistics -Hannah Arendt
- Linguistic structures - What absolutes are available - What is human nature? - Philosophy -Daniel Bell
- Culture - Let us assume that.. . - What is individual and what is -Derrida
- Methods collective? -R. Sennett
- Intellect - What is the basis of a "structure?" -M. Foucault
-E. Schumacher

4. Essences, Raison d' etre -We are/lam - Are we? Am I? - Psychology -S. Freud
- Reason - I exist - Why are we? - Philosophy -C.G. lung
- Reflection - I need to figure out - Who are we? - Metaphysics -K Wilber
- Realization - I need to find out why we - What do I/We need? - 'Theology -Da Free John
- Psyche / Consciousness are - How do I relate to Thou? -Krishnamurti
- Investigation - What to assume - What is living together? -E. Fromm
- Contemplation - What not to assume - Why cities? +P. Sartre
- Intellect / Meta -intellect - Why to assume - Why do we live together? -M. Buber
- Why not to assume - What should I/We do? -Rollo May
- What is the basis of reason itself? -Vivekananda
-A. Camus
-F. Kafka
-R.D. Laing
ROOTS -Louis Kahn
Although concerned individuals are free to study the city at any level starting at any level/stance, I do hold

that unless the "roots" are strong and clear, the tree of investigation will not stand in the face of even a breeze of
reason, let alone a deluge of arbitrariness and ignorance. As it can be seen in

the map, the present work of investigation is concerned with the relationship

between the "roots" or "essences," the "structures" of the city and the

"principles" of the physical making of the city. However, the emphasis here is

on developing a theory that can act as a basis for a proper and elemental

understanding the city.

Such an approach required me to take up an extensive and expansive

study of material spanning psychology, philosophy and urban theory. To my

disappointment, I discovered that, despite their usefulness and

indispensability, almost all the theories of man that I have encountered are

plagued by false and terrible presumptions of the most fundamental kind. That

was when I began questioning the legitimacy of a theory's beginnings. Most of

the theories in psychology and philosophy began arbitrarily although being

immaculate within the bounds of their presumptions. I recognize, however,

that almost all the theories are valid at different levels of diagnosis and cure

for various problems of existence (which includes the relationship of man to

the city and the meaning of his existence in that context). However, almost no

4
single theory of man at the level of self and psychology could account for the

manifestation of the conception and structure of self at the level of city -

making. The questions being asked here are: What is going on in Banaras?

Why is Banaras the way it is? Why do the people of Banaras live and relate to

each other the way they do? Are they different from other peoples and is

Banaras different from other cities? What does it all mean, finally, to me and

the reader? Does all this have any larger significance to man in general?

The basic intention of this thesis is to find the most fundamental and

elemental basis for criticizing, understanding, and analyzing the phenomenon

called city. Banaras is just a good case to study.

5
THE PILGRIMAGE ITINERARY

Departure from the Manikamika ghat - origination of the pilgrimage

DESCRIPTIVE PHASE

1. Arrival at Kandava - the first halt on the pilgrimage: "CITY OF CIRCUITS"

On the way to Bhimchandi . . .: "BETWEEN THE CRESCENT AND THE LABYRINTH"

2. Arrival at Bhimchandi - the second canonical halt: "THE NAMES OF A CITY"

THE ARGUMENT

3. Arrival at Ramesvar - the third halt: "THE BASIS OF REASON"

On the way to Sivpuri along the river Varana .: "FORM FOLLOWS FICTION"

4. Arrival at Sivpuri - the fourth halt: "THE FALSE RELIGION OF HISTORY, MYTH AND MONUMENT"

On the way to Kapiladhara . . .: "THEREFORE A RETURN TO THE CITY"

A return to Banaras: Back at Manikamika ghat - the end of the pilgrimage

 Ramesvar

Kapiladhara

Manikarnika Ghat

Bhimchandi
THE DESCRIPTIVE PHASE

8
 THE CHARACTERS

LORD SIVA: A popular God among Indians, he is one of the three presiding

deities of the universe, the other two being Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu.

Lord Brahma creates the world, Lord Vishnu sustains it and Lord Siva

destroys the degenerated and decadent world enabling Brahma to begin the

creation cycle once again.

Lord Siva is known to be a highly generous God who gives away

boons very easily. He is extolled with numerous other names'. Mount Kailasa

in the Himalayas is his eternal abode, and Banaras is the place from which He

presides over the matters of the universe. He is also associated with the

cremation grounds, and that is one reason to call Banaras a Mahasmasan (great

cremation ground).

Lord Siva is armed with a Trident and a lethal "third eye." Nandi, the

sacred bull is his conveyance. Goddess Parvathi and Goddess Ganges are his

two wives.

1.His other names include: Maheshwara, Eswara, Mahadeva, Kasinatha,

Jagadeswara, Samkara, Kailasanatha, Hara.
9
 In our story Lord Siva rids himself of all his usual duties and takes on

a humble but potent guise of a forty -year old Sadhu (renunciate) on a

pilgrimage around the city of Banaras.

SAGE NARADA: He is Lord Brahma and Goddess Saraswathi's son. A

renowned scholar, musician and an eternal traveller of three worlds, Sage

Narada is the most beloved and respected of all the sages even in the Nether

Worlds. He is known to feast on the conflicts between the Gods and the

Demons, and hence he acquired the name "Kalaha Bhojana"2.

He heads Gandharvas, the divine musicians. As a scholar he has

authored "Narada Dharmasutra," a treatise on law. He has also written

"Narada Pancharatria," a ritualistic work of the followers of Vishnu. Sage

Narada is an ardent devotee of Lord Vishnu.

In our present story, he is a young renunciate of twenty-five years old

devoutly travelling with his Guru, who is none other than Lord Siva.

2. Literally "the one feeding on conflicts."

10
11
 AT MANIKARNIKA GHAT

JOURNEYS IN THE ONION or THE CITY OF CIRCUITS

Disguised as pilgrims, Lord Siva and Sage Narada set off on the circumambulation of Kashi.

The Panch Kroshi circuit is, as its name indicates, five kroshas or about sixty miles long. There are in

all 108 temples on the circuit all of which lie on the right side of the pilgrimage path.

After leaving Manikarnika ghat early in the morning, Siva and Narada reached, by the same evening,

their first canonical halt on the circuit: Kandava.

Kandava is a complex of little temples dedicated to Lord Kardamesvara3. It contains a grove

of banyan trees, a family of parrots, a herd of benevolent monkeys and a sacred pond. Tired after a

day's travel in the warm tropical sun, both the pilgrims rested for a while and after the evening

ablutions, they sat down on the steps of the large tank. As the Sun started setting in the west, Siva

began describing the uniqueness of Kashi as the Sage listened.

SIVA: Narada, 0 great son of the Creator, Kashi is the city of circuits. In this

city, devoted pilgrims carrying food, faith and age-old stories, go circling the city

following the sixteen codified sacred circuits. The city is like an onion: circuit

within a circuit, one finally reaches the center where the great Linga lies. The

One of Siva's many "forms."

12
form of the city is made, remade and reasserted as people trace the footsteps of

their elders. What defines Kashi, Narada, unlike the cities of hell, are neither the

fort walls nor the boundaries, but the circuits of circumambulation. These circuits

of circumambulation around the city and its countless temples, form not a map

but a mandala in the minds of devoted pilgrims as they traverse the routes

chanting and reciting the myths and stories about the places they come across. In

this way the pilgrims in fact meditate the city and see the correspondence

between the city of the mind and the city of the outer world. Ultimately, it is the

city of the mind, Narada, that the people carry with them and possess - not the

material city.

These circuits are in turn connected to the circuits at a larger level. Kashi is a part

of an intricate network of sacred fields in India. Atnarnath in the north, Kamakhya

Devi in the east, Kanchi in the south and Dvaraka in the west form the four points

of this grand pilgrimage for which Kashi is the center. As they trek the circuits,

people see what they have heard about their whole lives and then they relate and

recreate their own city by means of their own stories. Banaras is not just what

13
you see, Narada: there are many Banarases beneath, around and within the

physical setting, enveloping it like the air and the mist. The one dynamically

alters, corresponds to and embraces the other. It is in the correlation between all

these cities that the unity, integrity and vitality of this city lies.

Narada, there is a distinction between the "map reading image" of the city and the

"myth reading image of the city." The mandala of Kashi is a kinesthetic and

mytho-poetic image of the city that one forms by experiencing it through

traversing it ritually in space. You may find your way by means of a map, but

with a mandala, you become the mandala. A mandala is no map, Narada, but a

constellation of myths, illusions, stories, imagery, smells; in the chanting of stories

the city is constantly conserved, imagined, created and revised.

Somewhere in the process of traversing the city, Narada, one transforms one's

own self into the city and the city is projected as an image of one's self. We shall

consider the relationship between the idea of the self and the mandala of the city

at a later stage; but, now let us be content with this description of Banaras and

let us move on to our next halt. I shall describe to you the most vivid and

vivacious part of Kashi, the ghats, as we move along our path.

14
 ON THE WAY TO BHIMCHANDI . . .

BETWEEN THE CRESCENT AND THE LABYRINTH

SIVA: Between the crescent and the labyrinth, Narada, exists a city of many

levels. Stretched along the curve of the river Ganges from the north to the south

of the city, like a tensed bow, the city of steps is full of power and vitality.

Between the ever flowing waters of the Ganges and the ever growing labyrinth

of Kashi, lies the "ghat city," the city of steps.

When you are in Kashi, when you are wading through the vein -like streets of

Banaras as a stranger, Narada, you hardly know that there flows a great river

which grazes lazily over the vast plains on one side of the city. Only the presence

of a broken ore used to clear the drains, or a dead fish lying on one of the mud

roads hints at the presence of their unseen habitat. As you walk toward the rising

sun and climb the gentle slope of the hillock, you reach a point of perceptual

inversion: in a moment you are faced with a spatial, spiritual and topographic

reversal. Narada, at the end of the street lies a revelation, a splendor in water

colors, a moment of grace in the sweeping curve of the river and the liberating

15
emptiness of the other bank - all in one unsuspected moment.

That moment of revelation is when you arrive at the city of steps. Kashi

doesn't rise from the river bank indifferently or steeply; instead it seeks a

mediating element where the clamor of the city can be reconciled with the silence

of the river. You may call the mediator a ghat city - a city in itself, but it is

nourished and fed by both the eternal flows of life on either side of it. However,

the river, the ghats and the city do not read as three independent elements: one

cannot exist without the other. Only the existence of all the three qualifies the

presence of each of the others.

Like the fingers that comb one's hair, the ghats extend in a jagged manner

into the city and like an assuring shoulder they support the river and provide a

harbor for the boats.

0 dear sage, at the ghats, the momentum and the energy of the city of

Banaras is thwarted such that it forces the city edge into a rugged, fat, haphazard,

incoherent, circumstantial mass of walls, facades, spires, towers, palaces and

platforms. The intersection of the city of steps and the labyrinthine Kashi is

violent indeed. But the conjunction of the ghats with the river is gentle, changing

16
with the tide, slippery and quiet. The Ganges flows slowly, patiently and

delicately like an Indian woman, absorbing all the agonies, burdens, adoration

and impurities with great untouched melancholy and unfathomed depth.

The ghat city originates at the confluence of the Asi river and the Ganges

at the southern end of Kashi and extends till the merging of Varana river with the

mother. If you are a pilgrim, you may take a walk from the Asi ghat along the

uneven terrain of the river edge. What you come across may be the most

profound experience of the city: both its architecture and its life. Along the length

of the ghat city unfolds the breadth of Banarasi life:

A wrecked boat can be seen capsized in the silt of the muddy clay bank.

A half -naked mendicant stands waist -deep in the water, alone with a herd of

imperturbable cows, water buffalos, a series of dilapidated umbrellas, Peepal

leaves, Marigolds, Roses, Lotuses adore the ghats. Fat Brahmins conduct funeral

oblations for bereft families. A forest of lamp -holding bamboos, a leaning temple

capsized in the soft clay, a vendor of sweets, a bangle man, a rusty balustrade

and a worn off rope that once held the mightiest of the boats and an abandoned

tower house compete for the same place at the river's edge and the viewer's

17
mind.

You may also, Narada, if you are patiently and curiously walking along

the ghats, meet the vandalized stone plinths of the lofty palaces, a scale

measuring the height of the Ganges, a blood -clad Hanuman, a bicycle, a group

of mischievous kids flying kites, stray dogs, Yakshas and Gandharvas4. Burning

corpses with swirling smoke blacken the empty edifices. Still hot ashes of a

funeral pyre and a meditating yogi with a trident and saffron flag, a sandstone

colonnade, a chimney, chatting fishermen with tangled nets, a dead snake, brass

vessels resting on the octagonal stone platforms, graceful young girls and the

floating bodies of dead infants coexist simultaneously on the craggy steps of the

ghats.

Against this variegated landscape are played the reverberations of the

temple bells, the buzz of the chanting and recitations, the squeak of greasy

wrestlers. The strident calls of noisy crows, an astrologer's recitations, the

indifferent rustle of the dry leaves rolling on the abraded stone walks, the

growling of old monkeys and the chirping of the parrots add to the richness of

4. Gandharvas are the heavenly musicians in Hindu mythology.

18
phenomena that enthrall the participator.

Multiple perspectives, the maddening diversity of people, Gods and harsh

Sun, dust and vapors over the distant horizon become an onslaught of metaphors

of grotesque demons and stray gods.

There the people, in an effort to experience the fullness and completeness

of the world, create certain beautiful illusions portrayed in an all enthralling

fiction: Parvathi's ear rings, Divodasa's ten -horse sacrifice, a broken bow and a

bride won, Vasthu - the lethargic demon, Indra with a diamond edged lethal

weapon, Me with a crescent and two wives. The invisible population far

surpasses the visible and dominates the visible. Ghats: the city between the

Ganges and Kashi5. Ghats: the magnificent amphitheaters of life drama - a literal

life drama where fiction and illusions are enacted with faith.

For a detailed description of various myths and legends concerning Banaras,

5.
please see Diana Eck's Banaras: the City of Light.
19
 ARRIVAL AT BIIIMCHANDI

THE GESTURES OF FIVE PRIMARY ELEMENTS

AND THE NAMES OF A CITY

Traveling further west from Kandava, Lord Siva and Narada, accompanied by a group of

twenty-four pilgrims from all over the country, after a walk of two days and nights, reach the second

halt of their circuit - Bhimchandi.

The modest temple, built of sandstone and granite, looks heavy but soothing in the purple

morning glow of a warm Indian July day. Stray clouds in rainbow colors still adorn the sky. The

temple has a mandapa6 of a hundred sandstone pillars which majestically bear the carefully carved

ceiling depicting the myths of India and of Kashi. Sitting on the temple porch, looking into the early

morning mist and dew that dampens the plants and rocks, Lord Siva resumes his narrations about

Kashi as the ever attentive Narada listens to him with devotion and interest. The silent sculptures of

manifold deities and a few inquisitive pilgrims join Narada in listening to the magical words of the

Lord.

SIVA: It is no exaggeration at all to say that Kashi occupies a crucial and unique

Mandapa is a hall of pillars that usually forms the front end of a temple.
6.
However, mandapas may as well be independent elements in a settlement.
20
location in the whole universe. As I proceed with my renderings of the city, you

may, 0 wise Narada, compare those renderings with all those cities which you

might have visited in the three worlds.

Kashi lies at the rare concurrence of the magnificent gestures of the Pancha

Bhutas, the five fundamental elements: earth, water, air, fire and sky. The land

gently rises in three hills toward the sky which people interpret as my powerful

Trident. My wife Ganges flows opposite to the usual direction she takes: she

flows toward the north pointing to my abode in the Himalayas to the far north

of Kashi. And, she follows a crescent course as she flows through the city
Toro6RAPH ICA L MYTH :5IVAS TRIDENT

signifying the moon that I wear on my head. The whole city grows on the west

bank of the river and faces the rising Sun at which time the ghats become nothing

less than the amphitheaters from which to witness the brilliance of the sunrise.

Where else in the three worlds can one find such a configuration of five elements

and such a unique topography?

The city is bounded by two rivers: Varana to the north and Asi to the

south. These two rivers guard the city from any calamities and plagues.

Monsoons often bring ecstacy to the Ganges, at which time she embraces the

21
whole city and the city then resembles the Linga itself. All the inhabitants and

pilgrims who dwell in the city when it is in such a miraculous state are believed

to be liberated from all their agony.

NARADA: Yes, 0 Lord of the worlds, it is true that no other city either on the

earth, or in the heavens, or in the nether world (Patala) stands with such divine

power and auspicious topography. As it is told by those who dwell there, the city

of Kashi is a personification of You Yourself.

SIVA: In addition, Narada, the people who truly dwell in Kashi are immersed in

unshakable faith and observe the rituals of veneration and remembrance with

great devotion. No wonder that Kashi is said to be the delight and more than

that, a source of liberation for Gods and humans alike. Kashi is thus the home for

all the divinities of the universe and the blessed humans who live in faith and

virtue. With its Golden spires, nectar filled stepped tanks, theatrical ghats,

fluttering flags over the golden pinnacles of temples, evergreen trees harboring

constellations of birds and the divine presence of Ganges herself, Banaras

22
challenges even the Heavens in all respects. It is only in the age of Kali that chaos,

in the name of freedom, started creeping into the city from the outskirts,

transforming the city of Gold into the city of stone.

NARADA: 0 mighty Lord, my curiosity demands of me to pose another question

to you. Unlike the conventional names and numbers of the cities of hell, Banaras

seems to possess mysterious and intriguing names. What do these names signify

and how do they correspond to the city?

SIVA: That is a timely question, 0 great Sage. A name is not a mere label that we
impart to a thing for our convenience. And a name is never a part of a thing until

we label the thing with one. A name evolves out of a web of circumstances,

relationships, hopes, characteristics and a host of other dimensions of experience

which form our world. We weave a thing into the mental world by relating a

thing to that world in an effort to comprehend its meaning and order. So, Narada,

naming a thing is nothing but forming a reality of your own within you while the

true reality of that thing is untouched by perception.

23
 Kashi is also known as Varanasi, Banaras, Avimukta, Ananda vana, Rudravasa

and Mahasmasana.

The name Kashi was given to the city owing to the brilliance of its spirit

and its constitution; Kashi literally means the city of light - light which you may

call wisdom or enlightenment - liberating every soul that dwells within it.

The name Varanasi is derived from the names of the two rivers bounding

the city: Varana to the north, Asi to the south, between them is the holy land of

Varanasi. Varana means the averter and Asi, the sword. These two rivers were

created by me to guard against the entrance of evil.

The third and the most popular name, Banaras, is the deformation of

Varanasi itself.

Avimukta means the 'never forsaken'. Even in the time of pralaya, the great

destruction, I do not let loose of the city of Avimukta. I will hold the city above

the flood of fire and water and dwell in that city.

Anandavana is the 'forest of bliss'. With the forest of trees, Lingas and

temples everywhere, the city is filled with the sources of bliss.

Rudravasa is the place where I in my aggressive pose safeguard the city.

24
I am everywhere in Kashi. Everything that touches Rudravasa becomes

Rudravasa.

Mahasmasana means the great cremation ground. Unlike the other

cremation grounds, Kashi is the most sacred cremation ground. It has been said

that death and cremation in Kashi ensures liberation from the earthly cycles of life

and birth.

NARADA: 0 great destroyer of evil, can you now tell me how the curious names
of various parts of Kashi have come to be?

SIVA: No place in Kashi is separated from the mandala of the city, Narada.

Naming a thing is also recognizing its role and position in the universe. By

recognizing a thing's role, we tie it into a meaningful whole. So, the names tell

us also our perceptions and attitudes.

Dasasvamedha ghat is said to be the location of the ten horse sacrifice

mythical ruler of Kashi - Raja Divodasa. Manikarnika is where my beloved wife

Parvathi supposedly lost her ear ring. Manasarovar refers to what is considered the

25
most sacred pond in the world that lies in the Himalayas. Maidagin is really the

name of the river Mandakini in the Himalayas. Narada, Kashi is rich with stories,

myths and romance. In the names of the city people seek an identity and a

metaphorical correspondence with the metaphysical Reality.

26
THE ARGUMENT

27
 ARRIVAL AT RAMESWAR

THE BASIS OF REASON OR WHAT EXACTLY DO WE NEED?

Traveling northward from Bhimchandi, the Sage and the Lord, along with twenty-four other

pilgrims of all ages, walk for two days through the woods and barren lands, ponds and cloudy skies,

to reach Rameswar, the third canonical halt on the Panch Kroshi circuit. Rameswar lies on the banks

of the river Varana.

The freshness of the air the night after some rain, the still dark star -strewn sky of pre -dawn

morning, the pleasant smells of the month of Sravana (the smells of Jasmines, of water Lilies and

Marigolds) and the awakening calls of a distant rooster piercing the darkness of silence mark the next

day of the divine pilgrimage.

By the time Narada had prepared himself for yet another enlightening day, the Lord of the

Lords was deeply engrossed in Samadhi (the state of being one with the world) with half-closed eyes

and radiant body. The gentle footsteps of Narada over the water-filled stone walk-way outside the

temple porch awaken the Great Lord. In that state of rare tranquility the eternal traveler and the Lord

of Kashi resume their conversation.

SIVA: Narada, so far I have described the city of Banaras in a textual and pictorial

mode. Now that you possess those images, let us tacitly work with them and try

to see if we can weld them into a whole in which we can see the meaning of the

28
city and of life.

Before we take our conversation to any depth let me discuss some

essential issues about why we should form a theory at all. What do you think a

theory is for, wise Narada? Let us delve into it a little so that we are clear about

what we would like to explore.

NARADA: 0 Lord, every theory is an attempt at explaining why and how the

world exists the way it does (which includes how we are related to all this mess)

and what we are supposed to do (meaning of life, destiny, etc.)'. Every theory

ventures to account for the behavior of various things. Theories of science are the

efforts to understand, conquer and control the so-called material world. Theories

of philosophy, psychology and sociology are primarily the ways to account for

human existence and behavior; it is primarily these theories which form the basis

for the theories of the city. The role of a theory is to locate the most fundamental

Narada: 0 Lord, even a myth is a theory; every myth, in a fictional mode,

7.

ventures to explain away how things have come to be and why they are the way
they are. However, not every theory is a myth. Myth is a category of theory;
scientific deliberations are also categories of theory, and so are the propositions
of architecture and urban design.

29
rationale behind any given phenomenon; in other words, a theory allows us to

locate the essence of a phenomenon. A theorist would ask "what is the most

fundamental truth to which it boils down?"

Aldo Rossi, in his book The Architecture of the City bases his theory on the

conclusions of such theorists as Jean Tricart, Milizia, Quatremere de Quincy, and

Marcel Poete. Edmund Bacon draws his basis from the works of psychologist Eric

Erickson and artist Paul Klee. Leon Krier tacitly avouches Marxist theories; and

Le Corbusier is said to be sympathetic to Nietzschian, and communist approaches.

Unfortunately, the legitimacy and validity of all the aforementioned urban

theories depend greatly on the validity and strength of their "basis". In the process

of choosing and accepting these bases, the urban theories compound the mistakes,

presumptions and prejudices of their bases. Let us therefore, 0 Narada, be

admonished about what to accept as our basis and what not.

SIVA: Narada, we are engaged in this discussion out of our interest in cities and

their meaning. We are struggling to understand what is going on in Banaras, why

30
it is happening so and what it ultimately means to us. Let me then ask you where

we should begin our argument. where shall we begin our string of reason and

how shall we determine the legitimacy of that beginning?

NARADA: 0 Lord of the universe, cities are built by the people for the people;

people such as you, me and them. To meet certain demands of the body and the

mind, we build the cities. Of course we do various other things than building

cities, but the city becomes the primary physical context within which those other

things take place; the city is the primary domain of human pursuits. The city

seems to be defined, formed and nourished by our pursuits.

But why do we pursue various things? Why can't we just be? Why should

we learn and study? Why should we go to war? Why should we live together?

Why should we create? Why should we, 0 Lord, seek omnipotence and

immortality in whatever we do? Why should we love or hate? Why do we make

music and sculpt stones into lively forms? Why do we write and what does Truth

do to us? What is behind all these acts, structures and pursuits?

I suppose, we should begin with a solid and clear understanding of what

31
those drives are and what we really need as humans in order to satiate or pacify

those drive(s). Various individuals have, in the past ventured to explain those

primary drives which form the human psyche and shape human destiny.' We

should build the foundation first in order to raise the edifice, I surmise, 0 Lord.

SIVA: I agree, o wise Narada. We should be clear about what exactly we need -

both physiologically and psychologically. We should decide what pacifies the fire

within us. But first we should rid ourselves of certain prejudices. Let us not take

for granted that, in the first place, we need cities. Let us not begin by saying that

democracy is good or that capitalism is bad. We cannot begin our discussion with

the idea that political or economic structures determine the social structure or

something of that sort. Not only is that abstract, but it is not the most

fundamental question with which we should begin. Certainly all the structures

that we form are used to manage and manipulate various things in order to

8. SIVA: Narada, we have before us the contributions of such thinkers as

Freud, Marx, Fromm, Jung, Sartre, Krishnamurti, Wilber, Da Free John and
numerous others who gave us their understanding of what man is, and for what
he ought to strive. As we proceed with our argument we shall touch upon their
ideas.
32
satiate some fundamental drives that we possess. Certainly rocks and birds do not

talk about economic and social structures; only humans do. We develop various

things with the hope that they will quench our existential thirst. Let us begin

there; let us begin with our existence which qualifies and necessitates all that we

build and do. Let us not begin with assumptions, but with existence itself'.

That we exist, and that our impulses exist is not an assumption or an

abstraction. That I exist is no theory or idea; I exist and I am. Although it may

sound paradoxical, 0 Narada, the truth is that my existence is the most concrete
and unambiguous fact that I experience actively from moment to moment.

Existence is the most fundamental phenomenon which necessitates our thoughts,

and deeds. Reason and passion are both contained within our existence'. So, let

us begin there, at the root of reason and at the root of that which necessitates our

SIVA: Narada, In his essay "The Emergence of Existential Psychology," (p.

9.

39) Rollo May concurs with our approach: "The only way we can understand and
deal with human beings is to clarify the -'nature of being human'- which is
ontology. 'Any theory not founded on the nature of being human is a lie and
betrayal of man.'"

NARADA: Yes, 0 Lord, I agree. Sartre's famous dictum "existence precedes

19.

essence" is worth mentioning in this context.

33
vanities, evils, institutions, structures and cities.

Narada, I exist. I am the first thing that I sense; I am the first thing that

I know is real. I am the basis of reality or the center of reality. I am. I am, and

that is an undeniable, primordial, intrinsic, and elemental Truth. I am, as the

being that exists and seeks, the root of all reason, thought and comprehension. Let

us begin there.

Who and what judges the Truth of Reality? Or let us put it this way: who

needs reality, 0 Narada? Only that which is Real can comprehend reality. So, who

comprehends the Truth of Reality, and why do they need to do so? Let us begin

with that which is real. Let us begin with that which seeks to establish reality. Let

us begin with that which is the center of all.

SIVA: 0 Narada, based on our observations, here is what I propose to be the

beginning and basis of our argument. Here is what I propose would account for

almost all of human deeds and existence. Let us discuss this.

Man believes himself to be incomplete, ignorant and unhappy by birth. He

34
is fragmentary and seeks completeness constantly. Man is by birth, at least

psychologically, imperfect. He seeks what he thinks he lacks.'

I propose that the unconditional and immortal existence, complete and

perfect knowledge, and boundless and eternal ecstacy are the goals of all human

beings regardless of their race and origin - whether they are aware of those goals

or not. I also propose for us to consider whether any form of human seeking falls

outside these three fundamental existential categories. This precisely means that

all of human seeking is accountable and explainable by these three fundamental

drives.

Human beings build cities and megalopolises, wage wars, love, hate, land

on the moon and live in order to attain something that is essentially not

physiological. Man's bodily needs seem to be pretty limited and rather easy to

meet.' But the psychological component of human existence is what becomes

SIVA: Narada, Da Free John identifies that "our greatest need is to discover
11.

Truth." (p 77, Transmission of Doubt)

12. SIVA: Narada, Erich Fromm tells us in The Sane Society, that "even the

most complete satisfaction of all his instinctive needs does not solve his human
problem; his most intensive passions and needs are not those rooted in the body,
but those rooted in the very peculiarity of his existence."

35
problematic.

Existence is where thought and reason originate. Existence is inevitably

given to us. We exist and there is no apparent choice in that. Existence is the most

fundamental condition of being.

NARADA: Quite true, 0 Sarveswar. We cannot cease to exist. We defy death and

non-existence and that is an existential tendency of life. Our existence is the most

precious thing to us. Given a chance, we would love to exist forever. Immortality

is the first, and essential ideal of life; man's constant desire is to live forever, and

be one with the universe.13

SIVA: Yes, Narada, all questions begin there - at existence - and also end there -

at existence. I suppose the question "why do we exist?" has no answer. We live

13
Narada: 0 Lord, Freud recognizes this fact, but due to his own prejudices
and presumptions, brushes it away as a religious trick. In Civilization and its
Discontents, he writes (p.21): The 'oneness with the universe' which constitutes
its [oceanic feeling's] ideational content sounds like a first attempt at a religious
consolation, as though it were another way of disclaiming the danger which the
ego recognizes as threatening."
36
and we need to live; that's where everything begins. The point is best realized

when one is held at a gun -point, or when one's imminent death is predicted by

the doctors. Only then, perhaps, can one correctly understand the existential

anguish and mystery of the human condition."

We don't just exist, Narada, but we exist in a certain way. We need to

exist in a state of boundless pleasure and also in a state of complete knowledge -

omniscience. The second dimension of being is "knowledge." We exist and we

know, Narada. Knowing is almost synonymous with existence. In fact, there is not

a single moment we do not "know." There is this constant flow of knowledge

pouring into us without any choice. To exist is to know as well(that we exist).

However, there is a third dimension to our existence: that is "pleasure."

Call it happiness or bliss, pleasure is the other dimension of existence. Happiness

as a state of being is yet another unquestionable existential reality, Narada. We

H. SIVA: 0 dear Sage, Camus muses in his Myth of Sisyphus that the
questions of whether reality has seven dimensions or when the world began make
no sense unless we resolve the worth and meaning of existence. He considers
suicide as the first problem of the philosophers. To paraphrase him, there is but
one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life
is worth living or not amounts to answering some of the fundamental questions
of philosophy. (p. 1, The Myth of Sisyphus)

37
strive all the time to be happy. We need to notice that happiness is the ideal state

of existence that we constantly strive to attain. Whether it is in humor, sex or in

numerous other things that we pursue, we seek boundless joy all the time.

NARADA: I understand that existence, knowledge and joy are the three

inseparable components of the same being and that they are the three

fundamental categories of consciousness. But, I fail to see how these three drives

together can account for the existence and growth of the cities as well.

1 Me GPM..
NNl1 To

--. I
SIVA: Well Narada, we are unhappy and thus seek pleasure; we are ignorant and N00,7 re
I .4,70 10
ON1. IMO, ..
7 LOCO To...
thus seek knowledge; we are afraid of death and thus seek security in things that 4461.11* wrnour...

directly or indirectly extend and immortalize our existence. The city is the

realm of these pursuits and all forms of seeking.

Let us take a critical look here, Narada. If we observe closely the

3 NARADA: 0 Lord, Da Free John asserts the primacy of these needs. To

paraphrase him, the ego, whether individual or collective, is eventually reduced
to sorrow and despair by the inability of life to generate happiness and
immortality.
38
happenings in a city, it soon dawns on us that the city is most often a place for

rather unwise pursuits, or ignorant pursuits. We see people in an interminable

and incessant motion just like the excited particles in an electric field. The pace

at which they "seek" seems to increase constantly.

People seek pleasure in things which do not afford them consistent

pleasure, let alone eternal bliss. People seek knowledge in a mode of knowing

that prevents them from achieving a totality of knowledge. People seek existence

in things that are ephemeral and false. Running after mirages is the only analogy

that comes to my mind. What I am talking is not morality 0 Narada; this is

rationality. Our cities are made out of places and events which house these

unwise cravings. When people's pursuits are blocked or questioned, they feel

threatened and often react violently.

Let us take a closer look at the first component of being - existence. We

may notice, Narada, that people seek identity and existence in a variety of things,

in the process of firmly and eternally establishing their existence (without any

success though): people seek identity in their name, physical property, their

achievements; in their relatives, children, knowledge; in history, mythology, and

39
beliefs (usually of religion). These attempts may be deciphered from such

commonplace statements as:

"What do you think I am? Mind that you are talking to a specialist!"

(seeking existence, identity and legitimacy in knowledge, the questioning of which

may threaten the apparent integrity of the individual.)

"I am the President of the largest country in the world."

"I want the world at my feet; I want to conquer the world."

(identity from association with larger things: I am so large and secure. The great

dictators of the world exemplify this point")

Ja " 5 TR
"I am you, my love, you are the meaning of my life. For you I exist and 0
1:1

A
my life is yours." (The lovers feel one with each other. We may notice the

tendency of the being to become one with the world; in this case the lover feels

one with the dearest one.)

"I am well known all over the world; I am the most famous person in the

" SIVA: Narada, Erich Fromm in Escape from Freedom and The Art of
Loving demonstrates convincingly the existential desire of man to become one
with the world. In other words, by becoming one with the universe, and other
people, one's existence is established for eternity in the most expansive way.

40
entire history of the world!" (I exist in an infinite number of minds which renders

me immortal.)"

"These estates, cars and bungalows are mine." (To them is linked my

existence and from them I derive the meaning of my life)

It is also a necessity of man to become one with the universe. He needs

to exist in a state of Oneness and total Unity. Fascism, autocracy, sadism,

masochism, love, herd instinct, conformity, dominance, fame, possession of things,

etc., are all the results of an unsatiated drive to be (exist) as one with the

world". To know that one exists is to know one's identity. Unless one

establishes what he or she la, one remains as a non -entity without identity. Every

being strives to seek identity in things that are "great," "large" and "permanent."

This tendency is reflected in owning, possessing, joining large groups, huge

17.NARADA: Lord Siva, I am reminded of what Krishnamurti once told me:

"Why do people want to be famous? First of all it is profitable to be famous; and
it gives you a sense of immortality."
18.
SNA: Jan, in Albert Camus' play "The Misunderstanding" quips that "no
one can be happy in exile or estrangement. One can't remain a stranger all one's
life. It is quite true that a man needs happiness, but he also needs to find his true
place in the world."
41
corporations, megastructures and religious cults. The architectural and urban

consequences of this drive are well before our eyes."

Well, Narada, we may go on finding examples. But the point I want to

make here is that these are the pursuits that contribute to the existence of the

cities - the cities' physical existence. Cities are psychic entities. People seek to

affirm their existence by means of their possessions and through their

relationships to other people. It is not difficult to see that people are seeking and

clinging to illusory things and ephemeral things to which they feel they can

belong. Monuments, a thirst to know one's past or a society's past, a desire to

make history, are all unsuccessful attempts to prolong one's mortal and temporal

19. SIVA: Narada, Erich Fromm in Escape From Freedom (p 180) observes that

"It always the inability [of oneself] to stand the aloneness of one's individual
is
self that leads to the drive to enter into a symbiotic relationship with someone
else. It is evident from this why masochistic and sadistic trends are always
blended with each other. Although on the surface they seem like contradictions,
they are essentially rooted in the same basic need."
42
existence'''. However, what we may notice behind those unsuccessful attempts

is the drive to be immortal. They are unsuccessful, if not unwise, attempts to

satiate the impulse to live forever, to be immortal and to lead an eternal existence.

Cities are the concretization of these unsuccessful attempts. Banaras too is no

exception, Narada. In their myths, legends and rites, the people of Banaras seek

eternal existence. In their offerings to their ancestors they indirectly seek security

for their life after death. Cities are rather the unsuccessful attempts to overcome

the limitations experienced by man.

Let me here make it clear, 0 Brahma's son, what I mean by Immortality.

I am using it in a very direct and literal sense, and not in any metaphorical or

analogical sense. To be immortal is to be forever and for eternity without death.

20. SIVA: Narada, you may cite certain instances of human behavior that
apparently seem to contradict our claim. A patriot and a mad lover are two such
examples. But, if we take a closer look, we may notice that a patriot "feels" one
with his country, and therefore thinks that he is a part of it. A lover "feels" one
with his beloved and thinks he is a part of his beloved. Both of them seek eternal
existence in something "else". Although the patriot dies he hopes to become
immortal through that act. The same is true with the lover who hopes to continue
living in the form of his beloved. And so Camus' Kaliayev (p. 246, Caligula and
other plays) muses: "To die for an ideal - that's the only way of proving oneself
worthy of it. It is our only justification [of our existence]."

43
When I say that Immortality is the goal of existence, I do mean, literally, that

living forever is the fundamental drive of existence.

So, Narada, it is in the existential security that people seek (or are told to

seek) that the cities gain their form and meaning. Cities exist as long as people

seek security in and through material things. Monuments galore and history and

mythologies thrive as long as people live the illusion that they can find security

in them. For the Greeks death was a shadowy continuation of life. Egyptians

thought that the soul would return to the body after a while. At Banaras,

Narada, the city as a whole, is the "Mahashmasan" or the great cremation ground.

Death in the city of Banaras is believed to grant one of the highest boons of life:

immortality and Bliss. In other words, if one were to believe the founding myths

of Banaras, even a dog that dies in the city will be privileged to enter the eternal

world of liberation. Aren't they good stories, Narada?

The "drive to know" is the second dimension of being. Without a choice

knowledge ruthlessly gushes into us through our senses and mind. But never

44
does that seem to fill us completely.' There are always things that we do not

know. It is quite likely that even after a million years of human existence, we may

reel in a state of incomplete knowledge: there are infinite things, events and

infinite ways to perceive them. The drive to know everything will never be

satiated with our present modes of "knowing." But, we are condemned to know.

We have no choice but to continue knowing and seeking meaning in things

around us and in ourselves. And yet we are condemned not to know anything

in its entirety.22

Lets take a closer look at this drive and the dynamic it expresses, Narada.

What does it mean to know?

". SIVA: Erich Fromm in The Art of Loving observes that "The longing to
know ourselves and to know our fellow man has been expressed in the Delphic
motto 'Know thyself.' It is the mainspring of all psychology. But inasmuch as the
desire to know all of man, his innermost secret, the desire can never be fulfilled
in knowledge of ordinary kind, in knowledge only by thought. Even if we knew
a thousand times more of ourselves, we would never reach the bottom."

u. NARADA: Yes, 0 Lord. Fromm tells us in The Art of Loving(p 29) that
"The further we reach into the depths of our being, or someone else's being, the
more knowledge eludes us. Yet, we cannot help desiring to penetrate into the
innermost secret of man's soul, into the innermost nucleus which is 'he. -
45
NARADA: To know is to become, 0 Lord. We know a thing by becoming that

thing. We know a thing by creating that thing within ourselves and simulating

its properties, or imparting to it some properties. For example, in order to drive

a car we should know exactly how it behaves, turns, stops, jumps and so on. In

order to play an instrument the player should become that instrument so

intimately that he knows how it will respond to various conditions; what intensity

of plucking the string is needed to produce a certain result. The musician is not

separate from his instrument. The musician and his instrument are one. By the

same token, 0 Lord, we become our physical selves by experiencing ourselves.

To know is to become. Thus Knowledge culminates (aims to, at least) in a state

of existence. With knowledge we endeavor to resolve the problem of our

existence. Only in complete knowledge is there a perfect existence. Thus - we may

decipher - Truth, which is the ultimate knowledge, is the ideal state of being.'

NARADA: Fromm also observes (ibid p 29.) that "knowledge has one more
and a fundamental relation to the problem of love. The basic need to fuse with
another person so as to transcend the confinement of one's separateness in closely
related to another specifically human drive, that is to 'know the secret of man.'"
46
SIVA: Yes, indeed, 0 Saraswati's son, Truth and Immortality are, one and the

same. But, the paradox here is that Truth is never to be comprehended by the

human existence-caged -within -the -senses -and-thoughts. Immortality is never to

be attained through any amount of perfection of our bodily existence. And that

is a baffling and disheartening realization. From Nietzsche to Sartre and from

Dostoyevsky to Kafka, philosophers and writers in the Western tradition have

arrived at the same conclusion which inevitably led them to a sense of tragic

anguish. But we will extend our reason and investigative faculties a little further

and see where the clues will lead us, and if they can take us beyond the dis-

heartening human prospect.

Let us now discuss the third dimension of being: "joy." Joy is the nectar

of life. In acts ranging from jocular humor to the orgasmic ecstacy of sex we seek

pleasure, happiness, joy and ecstacy'. We may notice, Narada, for example, that

SIVA: Narada, Sigmund Freud, in his Civilization and its Discontents

24.

underscores his "pleasure principle" (p. 25): "We will therefore turn to the less
ambitious question of what men themselves show by their behavior to be the
purpose and intention of their lives. What do they demand of life and wish to
achieve in it? . They strive after happiness. They want to become happy and
. .

to remain so. As we see, what decides the purpose of life is simply the
. .

programme of the pleasure principle."

47
people desperately and frantically demand pleasure in endless repetitions of

sexual acts, bars, movie houses, parties, the reading of books and other rituals

where they demand nothing less than boundless joy25. But these things never

seem to pacify their drives perpetually.

At no time are the three dimensions of existence separate from each other.

Together they form the human being.

Narada. Let me summarize what we have discussed so far. Man is a being

with an impulse to be immortal, blissful, true and real, eternal, one -with -the -

world, free, perfect and omniscient. Every human pursuit - whether one realizes

it or not - falls under at least one of the three elemental existential propensities

that we have established.' Man seeks immortal and meaningful existence,

25.
SIVA: 0 Narada,
Da Free John in his book The Dreaded Gomboo (p. 267)
comments that "the essence of all seeking is the pursuit of Happiness in
relationship. The search is based on the notion that without relational
circumstances we cannot be Happy."

26.NARADA: 0 Lord, I am overwhelmed by my memories. Over the years I

have spoken to a number of people who seem to concur with our observations.
Krishnamurti once said that "Surely, the true work of man is to discover
truth, God; it is to love and not to be caught in his own self -enclosing activities."
Jean -Paul Sartre declared that man is a desire to be God (but can never
become one).

48
unshakable identity rooted in eternal freedom, total knowledge of things in the

universe and omniscience, and finally seeks ecstacy that is boundless and free.

The drive to exist seeks culmination in unconditional immortality. The drive

to know seeks meaning in Truth; Bliss is the sole goal of the drive to joy. That is all,

Narada. That is what you need. That is what you have ever - knowingly or

otherwise - wanted?

In eastern and western philosophy, both academic and spiritual, three

distinct paths may be observed: one begins with existence and seeks the identity

and meaning of the self (the existentialism of Jean -Paul Sartre, Martin Buber, Carl

Jaspers, Nietzsche, Albert Camus, Edmund Husserl etc..). The other begins with

And the Vedas say "aham brahmasmi (I am the one)." They also say
"Anando brahma (Bliss is the one)." Vedas finally proclaim the one as
"sachidananda" which means sat - the Truth or Awareness, chit - the intelligence,
and ananda - the Bliss.
Meister Eckhart declared that by nature every creature seeks to become
like God.
Fritz Kunkel said that "Being one with the universe, one with God - that
is what we wish for most whether we know it or not." (See Ken Wilber's Atman
Project)

27. SIVA: Narada, Da Free John ecstatically declares: "We do not need sex. We
do not need society. We do not need nature. We do not need universe. All this
is a modification, distressful perturbation of the Well of Being."

49
the problem of knowledge and seeks the Truth of the Reality (David Hume,

Immanuel Kant, Hegel, Ayer, Bertrand Russell, and others), and the third one

begins with joy and seeks Ecstacy (Bhagawan Rajneesh, Agehananda Bharati,

Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and others).

However, Narada, even a little common sense can help us show that all

of human seeking outlined just now cannot possibly be fulfilled. Humans are

endowed with impulses that aim at nothing less than infinity; they are also

provided with bodies and minds that are limited, feeble, vulnerable, alienated and

ephemeral. With the equipment which human beings are provided it is foolish to

even contemplate a fulfillment of the three fundamental drives that we have

recognized. What a paradox and what an irreconcilable set of opposites! Narada,

the existence of the three fundamental drives has been proved substantially. The

limitations and vulnerability of the body -mind is well evident to all of us. The

question then is, how can life be meaningful if we are condemned to live these

irreconcilable paradoxes? Is it a cruel joke of nature or is there something else to

50
it?' Do you remember the fate of Mr. Joseph K. of Kafka? Do you remember the

tragedy of Nietzsche? Do you recall the arguments of existentialists and their

"anguish?" Should human beings continually and endlessly confront the enigma

and agony engendered by the apparent irreconcilability of the opposing realities

of life? What is going on with the human beings? Are there any clues and what

are the possibilities?

NARADA: 0 Lord, I suppose we are now entering a speculative phase in our

argument. In order for our argument to be complete we should, with our well

established basis, consider all the clues and speculate on the possibilities that lie

beyond our immediate perception and thought.

I can see two conclusions, 0 Lord: the first one is where the Western

existential stream stopped: that there is no ultimate meaning to life, and that the

human being is cursed to live a life of agony and anguish unable to reconcile the

existential given. In this case, reason and existence become absolutely meaningless

". SIVA: Narada, Camus' Caligula in Caligula and other plays (p. 8) muses:
"Men die; and they are not happy."

51
and unworthy of living, leading to the conclusion that life is utterly and cruelly

ridiculous. Thought, pleasure, life - all of them become meaningless. Our

pilgrimage, our dialogues and our discourses, all of them should be senseless.

This precisely means suicide is the only legitimate way of handling such an

anguish.

So, in order for life to be meaningful at all, the only possibility is that,

perhaps, human beings are Immortal in a different dimension of consciousness,

and are by nature Blissful. I cannot see any other possible speculations. For the

human existence to be meaningful, we have to embrace the second possibility. I

know that this is a wild speculation. But this is the only possibility that answers

the seemingly irreconcilable contradictions of existence. Let us, 0 Lord, then

consider if our second speculation has any element of truth to it.

SIVA: Very well, NJarada. Let us consider briefly the second speculation. Let me

recall how we began our argument.

I exist. I am the first thing that I sense; I am the first thing that I know is

real. I am the basis of reality or the center of reality. I am. I am and that is an

52
undeniable, primordial, intrinsic, and elemental Truth. I, as the being that exists,

seeks, am the root of all reason, thought and comprehension.

Unless I am Real, how can I ever sense Reality and authenticate Reality?

I must be the Truth. I must be the One. To know Truth is to become Truth; to

know Reality is to become Reality. But if there is a Truth separate and apart from

myself, how can that be Truth? If there is any Reality separate from my-Self, then

how can that reality be Real? Truth must include my -Self; I must be in union with

Reality. Hence, as you said a while ago, 0 Narada, reason tells us that I should

be Reality, Truth and I must be Eternal. There can be no reality separate from my

Being. There cannot be a Truth that stands apart from my -Self.

Therefore, 0 Sarada's son, in order for the life to be meaningful, there

must be a different dimension to human consciousness which includes and yet

radically transcends the ephemeral bodily existence. There is no other possibility.

Let us now consider the evidence in favor of our argument, 0 Narada.

NARADA: Swami Vivekananda gives us a tremendous insight in this direction,

0 Lord. Let me recall what he once said: "The Vedantist gives no other attributes

53
to God except these three, that He is Infinite Existence, Infinite Knowledge, and

Infinite Bliss, and he regards these three as one."'

Ken Wilber concludes that "that can be said with absolute assurance. And

that is why human desire is insatiable, why all joys yearn for infinity - all a

person wants is Atman [the supreme being]; all he finds are symbolic substitutes

for it."'
Adept Da Free John declares: ". . . you are already perfectly coincident

with God, perfectly Full, perfectly Realized, perfectly established in the Truth of

Transcendental Existence." Elsewhere he says: "such realization is enlightenment,

Perfect Equanimity (or 'Samadhi'), Transcendental Freedom, and Infinite

Happiness."

We find in the Svetasvatara Upanishad (p. 86) that "when in inner union

he is beyond the world of the body, then the third world, the world of the Spirit,

is found, where the power of the All is, and man has all: for he is one with the

One."

29. NARADA: See Swami Vivekananda (1979) p. 53.

3° Ken Wilber, The Atman Project.

54
 Chandoghya Upanishad says (p. 118): "This invisible and subtle existence

is the Spirit of the whole universe. That is Reality. That is Truth. THOU ART

THAT."

0 Lord, I am now totally convinced that the human life is a Divine

mission. I am also convinced that human being is a drive to be Immortal, one

with the world, all-knowing, Real, True and unconditionally Blissful. The fact that

the mortal, bodily existence can never ever get closer to those goals; and the fact

that there exists an irreconcilable contradiction between what he presently is and

what he yearns to be, we may have to conclude that the human existence is

utterly meaningless or that there is a transcendental dimension to the whole affair

of life. I have also reached the conviction that there are only three legitimate goals

to human life - attaining which is the only meaningful action: all we need are

Permanence, Omniscience and Bliss; all we ever wanted are to be eternally one

with the world, to know all and to be free of all sorrow forever.

LORD SIVA: Yes, 0 Narada, and from the point of view of the design of the

cities, we have to realize that these fundamental and primordial needs and goals

55
cannot be found in things and limited human relationships. Things and

relationships are transient and limited, and the wise ones never cling to them. An

architecture that gives form to those ignorant and imperfect pursuits of the

humans will only perpetuate the chaos, meaninglessness, and the idiocy of the

prejudiced, mediocre human existence that clings to the cities. And with that

thesis, we shall consider and debate a few fundamental issues that lie at the root

of the city of Banaras.

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56
 ON THE WAY TO SIVPURI .

FORM FOLLOWS FICTION

As the pilgrims walked along the path, a mysterious voice from the sky proclaimed:

"THOSE WHO RELINQUISH THEIR BODILY EXISTENCE IN BANARAS,

SHALL BE LIBERATED FROM DEATH, IGNORANCE AND SORROW.

THEY SHALL BE IMMORTAL, BLISSFUL AND LIVE THE TRUTH."

The other pilgrims heard the voice and with revived spirits resumed their walk, chanting of

the Lord and the city. But the divine pilgrims, disguised as mendicants looked at each other and

smiled at the mysterious phenomenon and the naive and irrational faith of the other pilgrims.

Siva: 0 dear Sage, starting with our newly earned understanding of human

nature, and beginning with the fact that Truth, Immortality, Reality, Bliss and

Meaning cannot be found in things, we shall dissect the roots of the city of

Banaras. With our thesis that existence, knowledge and Bliss are the three

fundamental needs and drives of human life, we shall examine the structure

beneath the physical city of Banaras.

57
 Narada, the city of Banaras is predicated on numerous STORIES. Those

stories, which are called myths and legends by the scholars, those sacred works

of fiction sacredly held high by the high -priests of popular religion, dictate,

determine and drive the masses of unthinking people. As we are going to see, it

is the tyranny of fiction that, at the level of the self and also the city, determines

the form of the city and its growth.

Our interest is, however, 0 Narada, to get beneath the sheath of fiction in

order to unearth the essential and fundamental needs of human beings which are

grossly misinterpreted, timidly repressed, and wilfully misrepresented by all the

people of the city - from high -priests to the millions.

Narada, cities are really places where masses of humans are immersed in

illusions of all kinds. Cities are, without any exception, places of illusions and

places of fictions fuelled by irrationality, oppression and mediocrity. But, first, let

me make it clear what I mean by irrationality: irrationality is

1. An absence of any intention and effort to employ reason,

2. An urge to accept authority as a replacement of reason and

3. An eagerness to hold on rigidly to certain prejudices, beliefs and ideologies,

58
and building strings of reason (no matter how focused or immaculate) from

illegitimate premises and mere assumptions.

Millions of people, the entranced followers of Hitler, were annihilated

along with their belief in Aryan supremacy. They lived and died within a story

propagated by the great dictator. The Serbian war and the Russian collapse -

aren't those the result of the most irrational beliefs, impulses and sentiments?

Don't you see that the behavior of all these people reveals their ignorance of what

they really need as humans? Do you see, Narada, who has been actively

inhabiting, raising and ravaging the cities? Take an example from a nearby land:

At Ayodhya an ancient and huge Mosque was reduced to dust just for the belief -

an irrational and unfounded belief - that Lord Rama was born in that very place

where the Mosque stood. A whole nation was divided and pushed into anarchy

over an utterly "evidenceless cause." What existential security were they after, 0
Narada? And what an illusion it is to think that destroying something and

erecting something else is going to perpetuate their existence! How unwise and

neurotic were those people who did not know what they needed! Banaras is

strewn with such irrational beliefs and blindly enacted rituals born out of mighty

59
myths.

A boatman believed that Kashi existed since that world came into being;

an archeologist asserted that Kashi was founded by humans in 2000 B.C. One is

subscribing to an illusion - sacred fiction; and the other is proclaiming his belief

in the profane and unromantic accuracy of "facts." One is conditioned by the

mythical consciousness and the other is possessed by a modern historical view.

Although their intention was to establish the truth of reality, neither of them was

even close to it. We shall consider this issue at a later time. In whatever humans

do, they have to face the fundamental existential issues: sorrow, death and

ignorance. Unless these impulses, agonies and issues are understood and

answered, how can the life in the city be understood?

At Kashi everything has a story, a legend or a myth. Like the morning

mist,Kashi is enveloped by fiction - powerful fiction'. I can tell you at a later

". SIVA: 0 Narada,Richard Chase in his essay "Myth as Literature" (In the
book Myth and Method edited by J. Miller) re -cognizes, to paraphrase him, that
the older writers seem to us to have neglected a simple and fundamental truth:
the word "myth" means story: a myth is a tale, a narrative, or a poem; myth is
literature and must be considered as an aesthetic creation of the human
conception. A myth need be no more philosophical than any other kind of
literature.

60
stage what those stories are, but now I shall be content to suggest that "story

telling" is one recurrent way of structuring and sustaining Banaras and other

cities, and it seems to me that it is the only successful way. What we really learn

at Kashi is about the tools for controlling cities and civilizations. In Kashi, the

sacred fiction is devoutly recited in the temples and other places set apart for that

purpose. In Kashi, myths govern everything with their canonical code of morality

and sheer power. There are as such no physical guidelines that can be seen as

separate from the general mythical conception of the city. Even the mundane

details of the day-to-day life are governed by mythical code.In the Berlin of Hitler

we saw one extreme of mass control and a set of illusions; at Kashi we see the

other extreme way of ordering the lives of people using powerful fiction with a

sense of sacrality imparted to it'. Narada, it is a lie, either pernicious or benign,

that sustains a city; not Truth. Truth would only lead one away from the unwise

12.SIVA: Freud talking about religion in general says (Civilization and its
Discontents, p.32): "A special importance attaches to the case in which this
attempt to procure a certainty of happiness and a protection against suffering
through a delusional remolding of reality is made by a considerable number of
people in common. The religions of mankind must be classified among the mass -
delusions of this kind. No one, needless to say, who shares the delusion ever
recognizes it as such." (Underscore mine)
61
pursuits of the city. It is fiction that sustains the city and its pursuits. Fiction is

the form giver of the city. Form undoubtedly follows fiction.

It is an immaculate fiction indeed that is at work in Kashi. There is the

larger context of Gods, heavens, nether worlds, demons, yakshas, gandharvas,

sages, ascetics and epics of the mythical India; and there is the fiction of the city

of Kashi that fits into the larger work of sacred literature. Kashi was created at

the beginning of the universe and I am the presiding deity of the city. Rivers

guard the city, while the trident protects the countless temples and homes. The

people brought up in the mythical tradition see the world as a work of Sacred

fiction, wherein everything has a story woven constantly into the larger whole.

Kashi is a utopia believed and lived.

Narada, myths are, no doubt, constructions of mind; and they are illusions

so to say. Myths are devices to lead people into some unquestionable beliefs. With

their archetypal power and sacrality, they are employed to enthrall the

62
unquestioning masses and provide them with some "answers."' But, realize, 0

wise Narada, that no temporal process ever satisfies the three existential drives.

The means such as the mythologies, histories and monuments only divert one

from the quest for Truth and Immortality. However, let me make it clear that the

cities are sustained by means of some form of those illusions'

If you want to control, Narada, if you want to rule the people (morality

comes next), tell them stories as at Kashi - not reasons. HOW you put a thing can

make all the difference. If you want examples, then look around, look into

yourself, look at Kashi, look at all those thousands thronging the ghats and

reciting stories and look at the tragedies of Berlin and Ayodhya. What a tragedy

it is that man doesn't realize what he really needs and what he ought to pursue.

". SNA: Narada, the "answers" are naive and self-imposing. You may argue
that those "answers" are beautiful stories and metaphors, but, unfortunately, the
people in question are not children; they are grownup adults capable of
employing rational thought without fear or fatigue.

34.SIVA: Narada, Master Da Free John in his book The Dreaded Gomboo (p.
200) admonishes us about these illusions: "Conventional religion is just another
consumer product for neurotics who cannot release and let go of things, and who,
being in a self-toxified state physically, psychically and altogether, need to console
themselves with illusions. . . [Those illusion arej just a support for a being that
cannot be free, that cannot release itself."
63
Instead of (non)seeking Bliss, Eternity and Unity, they drown themselves in

myths, rituals and illusions of all kinds.

The secret of Kashi's integrity is neither in its magnificent spires nor in its

vivacious ghats; the secret of Kashi is neither in its topography nor in its

traditional structures alone. The real secret of Kashi is wide open: it is the way

everything is interwoven into a huge system of fiction. It is the power of irrational

belief and faith in the myths that is the essence of Kashi.

PEOPLE COME HERE TO DIE. And behold, Narada, they are only too

happy to die!! Narada, death is the happiest thing that can ever happen to you

in Kashi. It is SAID that even a dog can be blessed with liberation if it dies within
to4..
the Panch Kroshi. Even if you have led a miserable life, death in Kashi is SAID to

liberate you of all the agony: Moksha, eternal bliss, is the reward for dying in this

city. The invisible signs on thousands of temples, ghats and houses in Banaras

tacitly declare the eternal bargain: "Exchange your old physical bodies for new

and shiny astral ones at no cost!" Go to Manikarnika ghat and you can see scores

of people young and old, of all castes and both sexes, apparently unafraid of

death! It can't get any more irrational, Narada, nor more pragmatic. Not a single

64
soul questions the reality of eternity, Gods, demons, heavens and other stories of

Kashi's collective beliefs. Dozens of ghats with hundreds of temples are, therefore,

built in order to perform the rituals of sending the immortalized soul to higher

worlds! But if you introduce rationality into the city then the city as we know it

melts away into Truth. If you ask the people to think and reason out their lives

and existence, then, Narada, the structures fall down and cities cease to be

anything that we know today. Banaras would cease to be what it is.

People in Kashi learn story telling right from the time their mothers sing

lullabies under the moonlit sky; the time they play in the streets, shrines and the

steps of the ghats and contemplate the emptiness of the other bank. When they

grow up, they see the whole world as a beautiful work of fiction: a work where

everything is well composed and is under the control of the author; the author

is at the center and there are a million authors inhabiting Kashi, visiting it,

imagining it. It is all imagination and illusion; and it is powerful and enthralling.

In the rugged undulation of the masculine land forms they see the trident

of Siva or Mount Meru. In the feminine curves of the sweeping crescent - the

Ganges -they see a mother. In the sky replete with lazy clouds is a theater where,

65
perhaps, a demon drinks Sura in the shadow of a mountain. The emptiness of that

bank is an unfolded blankness posed against the lurking tightness of the stony

complexity of this bank. An inclined sail, a crane, an inverted red ocean hanging

from the heavens, an onslaught of hoards of Rakshasas (demons), the swords and

clubs, tongues and horses. Place making, myth making: place makes myth, myth

makes place. But none of these illusions and fabrications lead you to what you

ought to realize in your life: Truth, Happiness and Immortality.

What distinguishes Banaras from other cities is that at Kashi the three

existential impulses are duly recognized and addressed. However, the city offers

to its citizens only symbolic and metaphorical substitutes in the place of real and

true answers. Faith is the key, fiction and rituals are the basis, temples, ghats and

ashrams are the result of those pursuits. It is the same three fundamental

impulses at play wherever humans are. From Los Angeles to Ladakh, and from

Boston to Banaras, it is the same three yearnings at play; but the things and ways

in which those are sought gives those cities different forms. If we dig deep

enough, we could see the truth of our observation.

66
NARADA: 0 Mahadev, your argument so far has given rise to more questions

in my mind than answers. It is presenting new paradoxes and frightening

propositions. It appears to me that you see cities as places where unquestioning

masses are controlled, ordered and even oppressed (by themselves) through

irrational means and methods. It also seems to me that you see cities as places of

illusion - beautiful or ugly; where people with unresolved intellect and conscience

lead a life based on arbitrary assumptions, intellectual slavery, imprudent

compromise and hopeless mediocrity. 0 great Lord of the world, am I right to say

that cities are mere transitory passages for attaining freedom, wisdom and

happiness which lie beyond the passage itself? Is not the city like a boat or a

bridge which we must leave once we cross the river? Kindly relieve me of these

uncertainties and my growing mood of skepticism and doubt.

SIVA: 0 wise Narada, your realizations are correct. For cities to exist and

continue sustaining their populations, yes, they have to perpetuate a system of

unquestionable beliefs. Reason has to be either excluded totally or has to be kept

67
subservient to the dominant beliefs (a fake rationality). Myths, fiction and

rituals' should be recognized as the major modes of perpetuating some illusions

addressing the fundamental drives of life. Cities are never places of boundless

pleasure: they are places of vicissitudes, instinctual sacrifices, repressions, aberrant

pursuits, ignorance and conflict. Cities give shape to people's individual and

collective illusions, passions and irrationalities.

Narada, cities are also constructions of people's ideals. Despite the

permanence of the physical city, it cannot withstand the power of the changing

ideas and ideals. See how the diffusion of fiction in the minds of the ones

". Siva: Hitler, as Erich Fromm describes in many of his books, mastered these
techniques, and materialized them in his public speeches where with his symbols,
stories and dramatic gestures he cast a spell on millions of people.But, we all
know where the Hitler episode culminated in the end: it ended in the same place
where once Alexander and Genghis Khan did: in a meaningless death.
". NARADA: 0 Lord, Krishnamurti once stated clearly that society cannot be
changed unless man changes. Man, you and others, have created these societies
for generations upon generations: we have all created these societies out of our
pettiness, narrowness, out of our limitations, out of our greed, envy, brutality,
violence, competition and so on. Unless each of us changes radically, society
. . .

will never change. (p 104, Krishnamurti to Himself)

68
educated in alphanumerical cities is resulting in the breakdown and meltdown

of the outskirts of Kashi? Look at this endless list of destroyed cities and places

in the former Yugoslavia. Masses are capable of both raising and ravaging whole

cities. What really matters is what the masses are led to believe about the world,

the universe and themselves. What the people think their individual and

collective self is is what is expressed in their deeds and cities. Man makes himself,

and man makes his cities in the image of his individual and collective self. At

Ayodhya, the place ten miles from here, where the Hindu -Muslim clash of faiths

resulted in reducing to dust a whole big old Mosque which is a thousand years

old. It was not the physical Mosque that was decimated, Narada, but a different

faith, set of beliefs and fiction that was symbolically destroyed. It was all

metaphorical. People saying, "let us imagine that this stone is a God and that

stone is a demon, or this tree is something else and that man is someone else."

People are lost in the imaginary world of symbols, structures and mythologies.

Narada, a real quest for reason, infinite happiness and freedom would

only take you away from the city and not into it. It will take you away from the

city, its aberrant pursuits, mediocrity and illusions. It will leave you in a world

69
of no fiction and bare reality. Reason takes a different course and discourse. If

you really want to look into the BASIS of things, the logic of things and the

ultimate reasons for things, then you better stayed out of the city. Boundless

happiness is an impossibility in the city where everything is bonded to everything

else. Freedom in a city is a fictitious notion; and so are individuality, unity,

harmony, immortality and progress.

There really are only two possibilities for the people: one is to leave the

mundane and ignorant pursuits of the cities in search of reason, Truth and

Happiness; and the other is to subscribe to the human irrationality and be content

with a fictitiously meaningful life - which is in fact hell. Whether or not we know

the way of Truth, we know certainly that the city-making pursuits do not lead

to our existential goals.

70
 ARRIVAL AT SIVPURI

CITY and THE FALSE RELIGIONS OF HISTORY, MYTH AND

MONUMENT

Setting off for Sivpuri early in the morning, Siva and Narada reached the next pilgrimage
a little
halt by the evening. On the banks of the river Varana was Sivpuri with its wayside inn and

temple.

The weather slowly turned dark and cloudy and the sky wore a saree of lightning and
Narada,
thunder. Drop by drop, the rain started and grew into a heavy downpour. Siva, followed by

walked into the rain and into the river. The rain was the Ganges - the primordial female- and
there

stood in the rain Siva - the primordial man. The incense of the damp earth, the flow of the fresh
atmosphere
waters of the river and the rain of the monsoon, the ecstacy of the whole landscape: the
pilgrims began their
was right for a great revelation. Under the clouds and in the rain the divine

conversation.

NARADA: 0 Jagadeswar, a close look at Banaras reveals the fact that the people
here seek existential security through myths, history, monuments and rituals. I see

illusions in the mythical conceptions of the city and delusions in the historical and

materialistic conceptions of the city - both of which are presently shattering the

city into ugly and meaningless fragments.

71
 We hear a boatman saying with great faith that Kashi was created by the

Gods at the beginning of the universe and that you - the mighty Lord of the city -

have promised never to forsake Kashi. On the other side we hear an educated

archeologist with a handful of numbers claiming that Kashi is no older than a

five -thousand years and that most of it was constructed since the 1700s.

We hear the same boatman devoutly expressing his desire never to leave

Kashi because in Kashi lies the path to eternal bliss and liberation. The same

archeologist, who owns a car and a luxurious house on the periphery of Kashi

savors his televisions and the other commodities which comprise the

alphanumerical cities; he is planning now to make more material earnings in

order to quench his existential thirst and to find the meaning of life in them.

SIVA: Narada, You always drag me into the essence of things. I am delighted.

The anomalies and conflicts you noticed are deeper than what is apparent: they

can be traced to the self and conceptions of each individual who dwells in the

city. Conflicting notions of power, myth and history are at play invisibly behind

this visible anarchy. And, as we have learned, the three fundamental drives are

72
at the root of this drama.

In the light of our understanding of basic human impulses, I will offer you

three perspectives on the problem which are necessary for a better comprehension

of the problem of Banaras.

Humans are not born equal: they are born with different intellectual and

physical capabilities; they are also born into different contexts and circumstances;

they are born with different fates. Nor are the humans brought up toward

equality. As a result there will always be people with more power and people

with less power'. But, unfortunately, all humans possess the same life impulses:

impulses to be happy and to exist. And all of them are born into communities

where people compete with each other to fulfil their basic impulses. So, there will

be people who command others to do what they want and people who are

commanded and subjected to the coercion of the more powerful ones. Narada,

37.SIVA: Narada, what is power useful for? Unlike what Alfred Adler and
Nietzsche once thought, Power is not an end in itself. Power is used to achieve
certain materialistic goals in life. The drive to power is not a fundamental drive;
it could be further "traced down" to the three existential impulses that we have
arrived at earlier. In the everyday world, power is used toward unwise pursuits
which hardly solve man's existential problems.
73
the success of a city depends on how well it can resolve or enforce these

inequalities which inevitably exist amid the uniformity of impulses. The success

of a city depends, thus, not on its technology or sciences but on the systems of

human relationships and the methods used to reconcile the contradictions.

However, let us not forget that once we assume irrationally that we need cities

by hook or by crook, our basis itself will be wrong. Such a path only echoes

man's ignorance of his essential needs.

Now let me introduce the second perspective on the problem. This is a

problem of "perspectives." Humans are, by virtue of their spatio-temporal

existence and their biological existence with five senses, afforded only

perspectives on reality. From Des Cartes to David Hume, from Charvaka to

Samkaracharya, the uncertainty of the reality of the so called outside world has

been debated thoroughly. Though neither science nor philosophy could establish

the true nature of the universe, they nevertheless affirm that the reality of the

world is not what we perceive and think it to be. For human beings, the world

is qualitative: it contains colors, smells, sounds, and other properties which the

objects themselves do not possess. Unless the Reality of the world is affirmed,

74
how can we ever build any system or argument upon something skeptical,

uncertain, doubtful, illusory and UNREAL? The major problem with various

theories of political science, economics, and urban design are that they start off

with the ASSUMPTION that the world as we perceive it is real. But, it needs no

deep thought to conclude that things are not what they appear to be, and that

Reality is not in the appearances.

For example look at that temple over there. Considering the visual aspect

of experience, you can see at any given point of time and space, only one

perspective of it: you can never "know" that temple as a totality of visual

phenomenon'. The totality of the universe is forever hidden from humans. The
true Reality is impenetrable by sensory perception steeped in spatio-temporal

existence and imagination. As we have already asserted, Reality is Self. I have to

be the Reality if I ever even hope to perceive Reality. There is certainly an

element of Truth in my existence.

That may appear simple, Narada, but whole civilizations are structured

38.Narada: 0 Parameswar, I am reminded here of Da Free John's beautiful

illustration of the same point in his book Transmission of Doubt. He puts it in a
simple question :"How does this room appear when seen from all points of view?"

75
around conventions of perception regarding the passage of time and the

occurrence of events in space. Whole civilizations are structured around different

"perspectives." You may also see that people, cities and civilizations are deluded

into the belief that any given perspective on reality is the same as Reality itself!

Different conceptions of time and perceptions of material reality govern different

civilizations. One conception led to Kashi and the others led to the

Alphanumerical cities.

I shall now introduce the third perspective which had already been

discussed at the previous halt: that of fiction and how masses succumb to such

stories out of ignorance. People have all these limitations and illusions and with

them they structure their cities.

We have the problem of inequality, the problem of differing perspectives,

the problem of succumbing to irrationality and fiction.

Let me begin by elaborating on the second problem - that of perspectives.

The problem of perspectives was at play when the boatman and the archeologist

expressed their naive assertions about the origins of Kashi. It is a conflict between

the mythical and historical perspectives with both claiming to be the true

76
descriptions of reality. What we need to ask here is, what is being satisfied by

finding out the origins of the city, society and people. By knowing the remote

past we hope to embrace intellectually the whole expanse of time. Though the

individual lives for hardly seventy years, he identifies himself with his ancestors

and thus falls into the illusion that he himself has such a long past. The drive to

exist eternally is not difficult to grasp in these cases.' In architectural terms,

people seek eternal and permanent existence in the monuments of the city. Scores

of great philosophers have fallen into the same fallacy of mistaken identities.'

". Roderick Seidenberg in the book Post-historic Man bases his entire
argument on the fallacy that the societal history is equal to individual history.
This urge to equate can be traced down to the fundamental drive to live as long
as possible. He treats the entire society of individuals as one unit with one past
and one destiny.
4°.SIVA: Hegel, Marx, De Chardin, Gebser, Rollo May, Rifkin to name a few,
have repeatedly subscribed to the same fallacy as Seidenberg: they assumed that
collective destiny overrides the individual destiny. Hence, they came up with
such grandiose misconceptions as treating history as one inexorable force and the
human being as a helpless atom swept away in that stream. Some of them have
even proposed theories of ages: that human intelligence grows with time and that
we are now in a rational world where collective salvation is possible. What that
precisely means is that somewhere in the near future all the human beings are
going to be blessed miraculously with eternal bliss, immortal existence and
ultimate wisdom! Narada, what an imaginative fantasy it is. If you take a closer
look at it, all those theories subscribe to the historical conception of time which
77
 Before we get into the argument any further, Narada, let me clarify what

I mean by history. I am going to use "history" in the sense that it is a mode of

viewing and a way of describing the time (past). Myth is also an account of the

past and a mode of imagining, perceiving and depicting the past. Neither of them

are absolutes, but they are the two dominant perspectives at play in Kashi and

elsewhere around the world.

That Kashi exists from the beginning of creation of the universe is a myth.

That Kashi was founded by stray Aryans in B.C. 2000 is an historical assertion.

That Adam and Eve are the human primordials is a myth; and that humans

evolved from Apes is an historical assertion. The historical perspective asserts that

there are times that can't be returned to, that they happened at "that" time. The

mythical vision works with the metaphor of a circle with man at the center - he

we are going to discuss in depth.I can only pity the ignorance that impeded them
from realizing that every individual is endowed with the same existential
impulses, and that each one of us has to struggle to (or cease the struggle to)
individually know the mystery of existence, realize the path to bliss and the secret
of immortality. I cannot experience your bliss or be immortal along with you.
There is no such thing as collective bliss.
78
can "metaphorically"' choose to reach any point without progressing or

regressing from any other. The historical view conceives of time as a straight line

with the past at one end and the future at the other; the present is only a

diaphanous frame of reference through which the future is transformed

relentlessly into the irretrievable past called history. But, all these cases are merely

convenient conceptions of time in order to meet certain psychological necessities

which we have already discussed.

Let me ask a direct question here, 0 Narada. Where is history? Or let me

put it this way, where does history exist?

NARADA: 0 Lord, history is the past -the memory- structured into a narrative.

SIVA: Then where is that past?

NARADA: It is not 0 Lord. We see the past in things that are present before us.
SIVA: OK. Let us look at that ruined temple over there. Now tell me where is its

41.SIVA: Narada, in neither cases is it possible to "really" go into the past. Just
because a myth or a fiction takes us on a trip to the past metaphorically, we
should not stick to them and seek eternity through them. We must find out if
there "really" is a past and if so how to experience that past directly. Only the
"real" experience should be our legitimate goal.
79
past?

NARADA: Its past is contained in its presence.

SIVA: No, I am asking you to show me the past which you associate with that

temple. Where is that past?

NARADA: There is no past to that temple, 0 Lord. It is by lending our

imagination that we construct something called the past within our minds. If not

for our imaginations and mental constructions, there is no past. Without our

imagination, there is no past in reality. There is nothing called history that is "out

there" separate from ourselves and our imaginations. History is a fiction socially

accepted upon but, it is nevertheless a constructed image. Mythologies are fictions

too.

SIVA: Yes. That is what it is. That is what it is. There is time, there is history and

there is nostalgia. Then there are false identities which say "I was like that in the

past, I am different now because. . ."

In a mythical world such as Kashi, time is not numbered or measured -

it is named. A year is named according to the stellar configurations, a month is

80
named according to the season or lunar positions. But neither of them are

absolute measures. The reality of time is not being questioned here: only a

different way of conceiving, imagining, metaphorizing and perceiving it. But, you

see Narada, the historical mind which works with numbers falls into an illusion

of linear progression: 1780, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1990, 2000, . . . This numbering is

aptly followed by the illusion that bigger numbers indicate better times, which is

the modern myth of progress or evolution. Obviously you cannot repeat the

numbers as they are endless and inexhaustible. So, you travel in one direction. To

this metaphor is dedicated the historical perspective. The people conditioned by

this perspective are called historical beings with "historical consciousness." If

history is the illusion of linear progression, mythology is the illusion of eternal

repetition. However, let us be cautious here, Narada. I am not making any effort

to positively justify mythologies or ruthlessly condemn history. No. On the

contrary, both the ways of conceiving the past are illusions. And both the paths

reveal the already asserted drive to exist forever, to live the whole expanse of

time in one present moment.

Let us take an example here. Look at that half-sunk, leaning temple on the

81
banks of the river. I shall present both mytho-poetic and historical accounts.

The boatman in whose boat I once travelled, said that the temple was sunk

due to a curse by a Sage who used to meditate in the location the temple now

stands. He said that the rich businessman who adamantly went on with the

construction of the temple was aptly punished by the curse of the Sage who was

said to be none other than myself in disguise. The boatman also said that he

worships the deity of that temple irrespective of the level the river.

The archeologist's account is different. He said that the temple was built

by a businessman in 1842 A.D. and was erected on an unstable soil without

proper structural considerations. He also went on to deduce, from the style of the

sculptures and motifs, the chronological period to which it belonged.

You see Narada, mythical mind constructs a story around the incidents

and gives it a flavor, and on a relative basis, succeeds in approaching

completeness: such a story teaches, amuses and perpetuates a system of "belief"

(and not "intelligence"). It also ties that particular story to a larger work of fiction

- that of the myth of Kashi and me. And the historical mind stops at some dry

facts that don't relate to anything and dissolve the existence of the temple into an

82
archeological database catering to the scholarly needs of the so-called specialists.

The beauty of the temple, the ruined ruggedness of the tilted spire and the sheer

persistence of the structure are evident as a case of curse -struck splendor. By this

account the ruined temple communicates to the onlookers that human artifice is

not permanent and that destiny takes its toll. The Gods will have their say. In

such an interpretation you see no numbers, no deliberations. Regardless of the

stories, the reality of that temple remains the same; the boatman and the

archaeologists go on with their interpretations of the temple's image, and build

their inner worlds. The temple is what they imagine it to be. But what is the

reality of the temple? How does the temple appear when seen from all possible

points of view and all times simultaneously? What is Reality?

"History" is built on the false premise that memory, and therefore

knowledge, has to be preserved at all costs: forgetting is seen with scorn. In

contrast, myth and fiction are built around planned forgetfulness - the ability to

forget the unnecessary, prune the particular and weave the remaining into an

archetypal story. Historical mind attempts to reach its objective by including all

the events and bringing them into one infinitely massive narrative; mythical mind

83
excludes the specifics, and extracts an archetypal and general story so as to live

the eternal present. You can see a historian fanatically storing and preserving

every needless detail and number: that Mr. President sneezed in Japan, or the

Queen went shopping at 3.45 pm on the 21st of July 1989. All present-day

institutions are structured around this fanaticism of memorizing the unnecessary.

In the psychological jargon the "pursuit of history" is a neurotic adherence to

memory (collective or individual) in which one's identity and existential security

are sought.

The historical conception of existence impedes and diverts one from the

essential questions of existence.' Historical mind accumulates and derives its

identity from that mass of data (whether it is the unstructured data of "history"

or the fictional data of well structured mythology) and tries to find meaning in

the past imaginatively reconstructed in the mind. The historical mind says: "I

42.SIVA: Narada, Paul Valery observes that "History is the most dangerous
product evolved from the chemistry of the intellect. Its properties are well known.
It causes dreams, it intoxicates whole peoples, gives them false memories,
quickens their reflexes, keeps their old wounds open, torments them in their
repose, leads them into delusions either of grandeur or persecution, and makes
nations bitter, arrogant, insufferable, and vain. . History will justify anything.
.

84
belong to all of this, and that expansive feeling gives me a sense of eternal and

almost immortal existence." The mythical mind composes and builds images

meaningfully, but the identity -seeking drive is the same. Unfortunately in both

cases the drive to become large, eternal and to belong to something big is only

partially satiated. While the historical mind seeks eternity through the inclusion

of events, mythical mind seeks eternity in the eternal present - by exclusion of

specific events. But neither point of view succeeds in embracing eternity; the wise

mind discards both and starts questioning the notion of time and the search for

immortality altogether.

Narada, the pseudo-rationalists - called historians - and others subscribing

to those particular illusions, substantiate their pursuit with the argument that they

are looking for some truth, reality, ultimate causality and so on. I have already

exposed how aberrant it is to mistake perspectives of reality for reality itself.

There have been people trying to demonstrate that Romans and Greeks had better

cities and that then it was like "that"! Not realizing that historical arguments and

historical times are also constructions of mind, they propagate poor fiction and

fragmentary fiction. Historical memory (as opposed to mythical memory) keeps

85
the wounds open and keeps the old hatreds alive. A chaotic Bosnia, a fragmented

Russia, a burning India and the ailing countries of eastern Europe are examples

of the madness created by a people's adherence to excessive and meaningless

memory.

Historical memory - the knowledge which constantly reminds you how

distant you are from your "roots" - breeds nostalgia. It breeds a desire for a return

to the imaginary good times of that imagined past. Nostalgia can wreck even the

mega -structures of the seemingly stable societies: the giant of Communism is now

shattered into pieces by some parochial and nostalgic sentiments of people who

longed for a return to their "ethnic roots." Cities were restructured and

monuments, reconfigured. Mythical memory deals with the ideal past in a

different manner; a manner in which nostalgia is intentionally avoided.

To eliminate nostalgia, the mythical mind of Kashi propagates rituals of

re-creation and rejuvenation of time, by reenacting and repeating archetypal times

and models'. Mythical consciousness also tries to satisfy the impulse for a

Siva: Narada, see for an elaborate description of such rituals, myths and
methods Mircae Eliade's Cosmos and History.
86
return to the past or possessing the past. To become nostalgic is no crime: it is

human. You have to deal with that inner call in the best way possible. So, either

you should have time -machines in every house, or mythologies and rituals

promising a continual resurrection of the past. Better yet, one might realize that

holding on to either limited perspective is foolish and relinquish such pursuits.

Nostalgia is a symptom of the unsatiated impulse to live happily forever.

Let me further give you more examples of how various rituals in Kashi

deface the past intentionally. The temples are constantly repainted, renovated and

prevented from showing any signs of aging. The streets and houses are ritually

rejuvenated for every festival. In the cities of hell, which are typical of the modern

age, there are no adequate methods of countering the feeling of the relentless

erosion of time; there the past is never to be recovered - not even

metaphorically."

"SIVA: Narada, it has been said that the language of myth is metaphor.
Through rituals and other means, primordial times and primordial people are
invoked in the present at will. Architecture is a metaphorical and analogical
device. But, the spread of the "historical perspective" signified the death of
architecture, and the monopoly of the textual document. Text, photographs and
the electronic media are the major modes by which history is "preserved." There
is a fundamental difference between text, other media and architecture in that
87
 Well, I don't need to go any further to expose the roots of the conflict that

you have noticed in Kashi: the clash between the spiritual ideal and the lure of

material gains; the clash between mythologies and history. At Kashi you are

witnessing the battle between the Gods of creation and the apes of Darwin.

In what is is everything, Narada. It is in what is that a historical man looks

for the hints of the past and hopes for the future (though he doesn't realize this

point). History is the way you categorize, imagine and treat things that exist in

the present itself. History does not exist in reality and there is no such thing as N101)1
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a "past" that we could experience as a reality. Reality is in the present. What you

language is a literal articulation of an idea whereas architecture is a tacit,

figurative and symbolic construction of our understanding of reality in the formal
and spatial domain. While language is a pragmatic device, architecture is a
metaphorical apparatus: architecture speaks in metaphors. In alphanumerical
cities, even the metaphorical devices are replaced by alphanumerical devices. A
whole world is devoured by the micro -chips and CD-ROMs.

88
take as historical realities are constructions of the mind that are not "out there".45
46

There is no absolute force called history. Whatever you learn is based on

what is. In what is is reality. There is no Rome and Piranesi other than the ones

in your mind, no Le Corbusier other than the one your mind constructs, no

history other than your imaginative re-creation of the past. Good imagination

results in good fiction: such as Shakespeare's drama or Veda Vyasa's Maha

Bharata. Bad imagination and false perception result in history books and in the

alphanumerical cities.

If the wisdom of what is were to dawn on people, they would stop

as
NARADA: That is quite true, sir. Ken Wilber made a similar comment in
his No Boundary: "For although I do not directly see the past, nor feel it, nor
touch it, can remember it. The mystic agrees that when I think of the past, all
. . .

I really know is a certain memory - but, he adds, that memory is itself a present
experience."

SIVA: Narada, the difference between history and literature is the way you
'16.

prepare your mind to look at them: A book called "Russian History 1740-1920" is
viewed differently than if it were to bear the title "The wrath of the Czar - a
novel." Of course, you then realize what a poor fiction it is. Narada, let me
remind you that both the titles are a way of interpreting reality, but, shouldn't be
mistaken to reality itself.

89
running around and rushing into the future via eight-lane highways and

hundred -story buildings. Once ambition dies and wisdom and proper thought

dawn, once the spuriousness of historical thinking is comprehended, the cities

stop spreading out, growing high and exploding violently. Narada, unless the

change occurs at the level of self, even the strongest walls and strictest laws are

not going to thwart the diffusion of cancerous human cravings. No physical

ordering principles are going to come to your rescue. But, Narada, the trouble

here is, that the one who truly realizes what is, would be rendered incapable of

ambition and of life in the mainstream.

A system of faith and fiction leads to Kashi.' A fanatical adherence to

numbers, events and ambitions results in the nurturing of the Alphanumerical

cities. An obsession with numbers, economics, graphs, statistics and calculations

would lead to the Alphanumerical cities. But, a true course of reason and quest

'. SIVA: Narada, Krishnamurti once observed, to paraphrase him, that the
theories of better cities or ideal cities are unwise pursuits in themselves which
would never take one closer to the Truth and bliss. Revolution within society is
like the mutiny of prisoners who want better food and clothes within the prison.
But, the revolt born of rationality is like an individual breaking away from the
society, and that he calls creative revolution.
90
 for perpetual happiness would only take you away from all that.
Cities, in
themselves, are places of meaningless pursuits.'

".SIVA: By meaning I mean the way humans reason out the relationships
between various things and their existence. By meaninglessness I mean that the
failure of the pursuits of humans in a city to relate to the fundamental and
ultimate questions of existence, Narada. By the time the people are disillusioned
by the reality of existence death devours them and leaves a legacy of a
meaningless past behind them.

91
 ON THE WAY BACK

THEREFORE . . . A RETURN TO THE CITY?

Having left the last canonical halt on the pilgrimage, the pilgrims head back to Manikarruka

ghat - a return to the city.

SIVA: We have traversed a long path, 0 Narada. We have explored, debated and
discovered many things. Here we are on the way back, returning to the bounds

of the city again. It is time for recapitulation and rumination.

NARADA: At the end of the pilgrimage, 0 Lord, I feel that I now have a clearer
perception. I am now equipped with a tool, a sword and a torch with which I can

wade through the muddle of unreason and irrationality.

The world is not the same again for me. I landed in a Banaras which was

romantic, surreal, secure and much different. I am now returning to a city whose

essence is as clear as a cloudless sky.

When we look at Banaras, we certainly intend to learn. What we learn

depends on what we think we should learn. What we think we should learn

92
depends on what we think we need. In the end, what we think we need is what

governs our perceptions, methods and goals. Therefore, the logical conclusion is

that unless we are absolutely clear about what we need, we cannot study

anything. Hence the goal of our dialogues has been to attain absolute clarity and

rationality of thought.

Humans live according to what they perceive they need. Their perceptions

of their needs may change whether or not their needs do. In our exposition of

human nature and needs, we had identified certain irreducible and fundamental

impulses of human beings. All of human pursuits can be traced down to those

existential essences. Beginning with the premise that the city is the primary

domain of human pursuits, we had arrived at the conclusion that the way city is

perceived and made depends on what the people think they ought to pursue in

their lives. The form of the city, therefore, is a direct function of a people's

perception of themselves and their needs.

It is clear from our understanding of human nature that human needs are

the same no matter where people live. Immortal and ceaseless existence, Truth

and Bliss are all that human beings have ever needed, and will ever need. And,

93
as we have seen, these infinities can never ever be achieved by clinging to things,

concepts and perceptions.

That a dip in the Ganges would purge them of all sins; that death within

the bounds of Banaras would free them of all sorrow; that worshipping a God

would bring them boons, would then appear differently if the people realize what

they are really and existentially driven to do.

We began the pilgrimage, 0 Lord, with wondering how different Banaras

is; we are ending this journey with the realization that beneath the superficialities,

Banaras is, in essence, no different from the other human habitats. Although the

ways in which the existential goals are pursued may differ from city to city, the

goals themselves remain the same.

SIVA: Yes, 0 Sage. It is important to resolve the existential predicament first if

any meaningful discourse has to begin.

Self is the fountainhead of life, and self is the subject as well as the object

of life. Existence, knowledge and joy are the fundamental drives of life. This

realization has to dawn on the people for any meaningful action to take place.

94
However, these three categories are not a mere checklist of things; recognizing the

essential nature of these drives is only the beginning of a journey toward Truth,

Eternity and Bliss. Narada, seeking infinities in transient and ephemeral things is

unwise and ridiculous. Only a rigorous and passionate rationality with legitimate

beginnings can ensure a meaningful existence.

Banaras, despite addressing the existential issues more directly than any

other city, fails to move beyond the sphere of metaphors, fiction and symbols

imposed by the religion. In this regard it is no different than any other city. It is

irrationality that rules the city of Banaras.

In the end, 0 Narada, we are returning to the city, but like a drop of water
on the lotus leaf, we shall remain freely in the city without clinging to its forms,

pursuits and beliefs. Whether we return to the city or not makes little difference

to us.

95
 AT MANIKARNIKA GHAT

THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE

AUTHOR: 0 patient reader, here ends the dialogue and here ends the fiction. The

divinities return to their cities while I am caught in the existential dilemma of

whether to be or not to be a part of the city -making pursuits. However, the drama

at Banaras continues despite my realizations and deliberations. Let me then

describe the grandeur of the return of the divinities:

When the discourse ends, dawn is almost there. The moment our pilgrims

step onto the grand steps of the oldest theater of the world - Manikarnika ghat -

the world is filled with splendor. A thousand conch shells sound -off in rapture.

The clouds of mysterious colors become a procession of a myriad elephants with

all the thirty -million Gods riding those herds of Indra. Ganges is ecstatically rising

step by step to touch the footsteps of her Lord. The mist clears off and the blanket

of eternity is unveiled on the "other bank." Ten -thousand devotees chant the Siva -

mantra: "Om Namahsivaaya".

Lord Agni flares in brilliant reds as he transforms the ephemeral into the

96
eternal. The blue-black smoke from the burning pyres swirls into the sky and
,1116,0111

soars heavenward. In the backdrop are seated imperturbably one hundred

mendicants in yogic postures. A serene tranquility envelops the grand drama.

A great fiction is enacted with supreme faith and fidelity. The city for

dying, the city of liberation, metaphorically echoing the presence of the other

world, continues its spree of spiritual success.

The worn-off pieces of the dilapidated palm -leaf umbrella flutters in the

morning breeze, as the slender bamboos hold high the lamps for the ancestors in

the heavens.

Narada and Siva discard their disguise. The great Sage bows and salutes

to the Lord and the Lord solemnly blesses the eternal traveler. Playing his

Mahanti (string instrument), chanting the "Narayana mantra" and ruminating on

the fresh memories of his pilgrimage, Sage Narada rises into the clouds and

departs on yet another journey. And the Lord of Kashi, invisibly walks into the

veins of the labyrinth of the "Never Forsaken City" - thronged by the animals,

humans and Gods.

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