Standing on India ‘s holiest river Ganges’ western side, Varanasi is the world’s oldest living city, and India’s cultural capital. It is in the heart of this city that the Kashi Vishwanath Temple stands in its fullest glory, in which the Shiva, Vishweshwara or Vishwanath Jyotirlinga is enshrined. Here the vast millions of India are gravitating to seek blessing and spiritual peace through the darshan of this Jyotirlinga that gives liberation from the bondages of maya and the world’s inexorable embrace. A simple glimpse of the Jyotirlinga is an experience of soul purification that transforms life and places it on the road of wisdom and bhakti. In Indian spiritual history Vishweshwara Jyotirlinga has a very peculiar and unique meaning. Tradition has it that, through a single visit to Kashi Vishwanath Temple, the benefits received by the darshan of another jyotirlinga spread in various parts of India accrue to devotee.
All the great saints-Adi Shankaracharya, Ramkrishna Paramhansa, Swami Vivekanand, Goswami Tulsidas, Maharshi Dayanand Saraswati, Gurunanak and many other spiritual personalities-have visited the Temple. The Kashi Vishwanath Temple not only draws pilgrims from India but also from abroad and thus symbolizes the desire of man to live in peace and harmony with one another. Being a supreme repository of this spiritual reality, Vishwanath thus strengthens the ties of universal brotherhood and fellow feelings at both the national and global levels.
