Mark Twain once wrote that Varanasi is "older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend." Also known as Kashi — "the city of light" — it is widely considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth, with roots reaching back more than 3,000 years to the Vedic period. Hindu tradition holds that Lord Shiva himself founded the city as his eternal abode, and that anyone who dies within its boundaries attains moksha, liberation from the cycle of rebirth.
The city's identity is inseparable from its nearly 90 ghats along the Ganga, each with its own centuries of ritual behind it, and from the golden-spired Kashi Vishwanath Temple — one of the twelve Jyotirlingas, the most sacred abodes of Shiva anywhere in India. Beyond religion, Kashi has long been a center of learning, music, and craft: it's here that the Buddha delivered his first sermon nearby at Sarnath, and where Varanasi's famous silk weavers have practiced their art for generations.
Vedikly sources several of its most treasured spiritual items directly from artisans and formulators working in Kashi's old city — items energised in the shadow of Kashi Vishwanath itself, in a tradition of craft that has barely changed in centuries.
