Most people in the West, when recalling their trip to Varanasi mostly rattle about sacred Ganges and hordes of people and animals bathing in it, dead bodies burning, pilgrims, sadhus and cow shit.
What often escapes their narrative is that Varanasi has long been a center of wisdom and learning.
For the most ancient name of the city is Kashi, the name nearly three thousand years old. As Diana Eck in her book rightfully observes, the most common etymology of the word is from the Sanskrit roor kash, "to shine, to look brilliant".
And when we speak about wisdom India-wise, we inevitably travel into the mystic land. The worldplay in Sanskrit continually underlines the relation of the City of Light to the light of enlightenment. For example, the city is called "City of Light which illumines liberation". Varanasi is also called jnana-svapura, the "embodyment of liberating insight". So the Kashi is pure light and wisdom, which enables us to see into the true nature of things. In Kashi, as the Kashi Rahasya, a 14th to 17th century old text says, one sees one's own soul.
Right next to the mystic wisdom stands the second, more easily comprehended meaning of light in the West - the light of study. As early as 1,000 BC Varanasi attracted worshippers, religious seekers and yogis, who found the city to be an ideal place for their hermitages. And in this period Varanasi became known as a center of learning.
The most famous seeker was, of course, Siddhartha Gautama, who became to be called the Buddha, the Awakened One. In a park in Sarnath he preached to his companions the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Noble Path, turning the wheel of Dharma.
The legend says that while travelling to Sarnath, Buddha had to cross the Ganges and having no money with which to pay the ferryman, he crossed the Ganges through the air. When King Bimbisāra heard of this, he abolished the toll for ascetics.
Diana Eck cites an Indian historian, who wrote that "Varanasi at this time was so celebrated that it was only suitable for the Buddha to reach a new way and turn the wheel of the law here". And for 1,500 years Sarnath continued to be an active monastic center of Buddhism.
As the ashrams back at that time were Indian universities, Varanasi outlive all other cities in India as such a center and became synonymous with classical learning. The ritual journeys to Kashi to study the Vedas has become an integral part of initiatory and wedding rites in distant parts of India. In some Hindu weddings the groom should declare that he would renounce the world and go to Benares to study the Vedas. Thus he initiates the bargaining for the bride and the brides' family makes him abandon the thought. And in some parts of India the initiation ceremony for young men includes a mock journey to Varanasi - seven steps in its direction symbolize ancient journey to the source of all wisdom.
Today Varanasi houses the famous BHU - Benares Hindu University, the largest residential university in Asia, with over 12,000 students living on its huge campus, dominating over South part of the city. According to Wikipedia, it ranks as the second best university in the field of research in India after Delhi University and it is also ranked as the best overall university of India on all parameters.
And another university that I should mentioning speaking of learning in Varanasi is Sampurnanand Sanskrit University. The University website says that "Benares has been most appropriate for the University", and that's true, it's not a simple coincidence, that Varanasi is the place for worldwide acknowledged Sanskrit University. I personally know some Russian guys, who study there, so "worldwide" is not just a figure of speech.
There are also a lot of students clearly visible on streets of Varanasi. Mostly school children, students are dressed like everyone else, but school kids wear different uniforms, each style appropriate to one's school.
I absolutely agree with the point Diana Eck made in her book - the ancient traditions of seeking of wisdom are still visible in the streets of Varanasi.
That's the important thing I would like the travellers to percieve in Varanasi.
