Benaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together.
The most ancient city “Kashi” or the modern day’s Banaras or Varanasi. Undoubtedly this city has been a centre of knowledge practices for times immemorial but the heart of the city is the shrine temple of Shiva also known as the Golden Temple which makes Varanasi what it is today and continues to attract people from far and distant lands helping the city to sustain and flourish.
From the ancient times itself Kashi Vishwanath Temple has been a place for meditation and spirituality. The area surrounding the temple didn’t have people dwelling in them. With the passage of time many kings and wealthy devotees got many temples constructed near the main lingam temple and in order to carry out proper worshipping with rituals of the deities in these temples, priests were offered nearby areas for their residence. Sadly, the number of these residents grew a multiple fold times making it the densely and over-populated area which it is today.
The conditions have deteriorated to such an extent that people have covered the temples under the bricks and mortars for the ease of their residence and have used the temple as a household unit.
Pertaining to these reasons and many others the restoration of the temple compound was considered and Vishwanath Temple Trust was established for the purpose which would be restructuring the Temple compound as per the mentions in the Hindu holy books with a vision to offer the most spiritual driven and serene experience for the devotees and restore the very essence of the city for which the people keep coming here- to seek the blessings of the Lord of the Lords and get salvation!
Today is also another auspicious day for Varanasi as today the construction work of this historic initiative would commence. As a content producer of “Kashi Manthan” we got a chance to document and meet the CEO of Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust, Shri Vishal Singh and discuss about the progress of the Project and ongoing developments.
Here is the detailed discussion about the truths, facts and myths of the Project.
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