Varanasi

This stop will link the veneration of the goddess with the free meal that continues to feed visitors.

Here, finds from the excavations will become a collection, and one capital will become a national symbol.

The opening sets the walk’s central pattern: here, a ghat serves both as a sacred place and a city square.

This stop brings the route back to the meeting after which five former companions became the Buddha’s first disciples.

The red walls will link the riverfront façade with an attempted escape and the final loss of power.

Two neighboring names explain how the owners of the palace and its river entrance changed.

Here it will become clear how a recent initiative turned an old ritual into a citywide ceremony.

The finale will tell the jataka through which Buddhist tradition explains the name of the ancient Deer Grove.

The search for a reliquary will lead to discoveries that reveal the rebuilding of the stupa itself.

The low foundation makes it possible to trace the fate of the dismantled stupa and the reliquary found inside it.

Here you will learn how imperial power tried to prevent a schism in the monastic community.

The intersection will mark the threshold between the city roads and the pedestrian temple quarter.

The pavilion will show how a personal donation became part of the daily pilgrimage route.

The square will introduce the history of temple musicianship, from which the concert profession grew.

The temple will show how a queen’s final request took Nepali form on the bank of the Ganges.

This stop takes the story from the water up to the roof, where astronomy was built in stone.

Here, a community legend explains why the right to the first fire became hereditary.

The finale will examine how a family dispute over a fee secured a separate stretch of the riverbank for a community.

This active temple will explain how regular Buddhist practice returned to the ancient monuments of Sarnath.

The finale will show how a name heard by chance, according to legend, became an initiation.

Here, the monument’s familiar name turns out to be an archaeological hypothesis rather than a discovered inscription.

This stop will show how a revered text almost disappeared from public life after a theft.

One ritual mistake explains the unusual proximity of two images in one shrine.

Here it will become clear how the constant flow to the temple changed a residential lane.