Sankata Ghat

Sankata Devi is a form of the great Mother Goddess, an aspect of Durga and Parvati whose name is itself a promise. Sankata means danger, calamity or crisis, and the goddess of this name is worshipped precisely as the one who removes sankat — the deity a frightened devotee calls upon when illness strikes, when a journey is undertaken, when a child is in trouble, when the family faces an evil that no human power can turn aside. In the mythology of Kashi, she is a warrior-mother, gentle with her children and terrible to the dangers that threaten them, and the small temple above the ghat has served this purpose for generations without interruption.

Her worship is above all the worship of protection. Devotees approach her with simple, urgent prayers rather than elaborate ceremony: a coconut broken at the threshold, a garland of marigolds, a lamp of ghee, a vow to fast on her day if the prayer is answered. Tuesday and Friday are considered especially auspicious, and during the nine nights of Navratri the temple hums with the names of the goddess from dawn to dusk. Mothers in particular keep her fasts, for the oldest bargain of this shrine is between a mother and a mother-goddess: protect my child, and I will honour you all my life.

Local tradition weaves the goddess into the life of the river. It is said that Sankata Devi chose this spot because she could watch over the bathers at the water line and the families in the lanes behind, and boatmen who pass at night still dip their oars and murmur her name before setting out in the dark. In a city of countless deities, each with its own work, Sankata Devi is the specialist of trouble — the goddess you remember when everything else has failed, the fierce and tender mother who stands between her children and the dangers of the world.

The deepest life of Sankata Ghat belongs to women. From first light, when the lanes are still grey, the mothers of the old city begin to arrive at the temple — some carrying brass thalis with coconuts and kumkum, some leading small children, some walking slowly with the help of a daughter, having made this climb for sixty years and more. Their prayers are rarely for themselves. They ask the goddess for the health of a son, the safety of a husband on a long journey, a daughter-in-law who will be kind, a grandchild soon. The goddess of this ghat is understood above all as a mother, and it is mothers who know best what to ask of her.

The vows and fasts observed here are part of a living domestic religion that has no written liturgy but a very exact memory. A woman who prays for a sick child may vow to break her fast only when the child recovers; a family facing calamity may promise the goddess a silver bell or a new sari for her image; brides are brought here within days of their wedding to be blessed; newborns are carried up the steps in their first month. The temple is thus a ledger of family history, each vow recorded not on paper but in the memory of the households, passed from grandmother to granddaughter like a treasury of answered prayers.

This is the devotion that the word sankat makes real: the ordinary dangers of an ordinary life — fever, flood, debt, a wayward son, a difficult birth — laid at the feet of a goddess who understands them because she is a mother herself. Watching the women of the ghat, one sees what pilgrimage means at its simplest: fear carried up the steps, and hope carried down again. For the visitor, the sight is both humbling and instructive, for it reveals the true religion of Kashi — not the spectacular ceremonies of the great ghats, but the daily, patient, unrecorded faith of women, which has protected this city for longer than any monument has stood.

By mid-morning the great ceremonies are over and Sankata Ghat settles into its ordinary business. The steps become a working place: boatmen squat beside their moored craft, painting hulls or splicing rope; a washerman spreads wet clothes over the railings of the landing; boys dive from a broken slab with shrieks of pleasure; women from the lane above come down to rinse brass vessels and gossip at the water line. The goddess is never forgotten — a bell rings from the temple every few minutes — but the ghat lives now in the key of daily life, easy and unhurried.

The boatmen of Sankata are its most permanent citizens. Many families have rowed the Ganga from this ghat for generations, and the long wooden boats tied at the steps are old friends, each with a name and a history. In the slack hours they doze in the shade of the hulls, mending nets, telling the news of the river — the depth of the current, the position of the sandbars, the price of fish at the market. When a pilgrim arrives asking for a crossing, the boat is pushed off within minutes, and the boatman settles into the rhythm of the oars, calling the strokes in the old dialect of the river.

The ghat is also a theatre of small kindnesses that a visitor might miss. A boatman lends his shoulder to a trembling old woman stepping from the water; a priest at the small shrine shares his prasad with the children; a tea seller from the lane above brings his kettle down to the bathers at noon. This is the social life of the riverfront, built on generations of acquaintance — everyone knows whose boat is whose, whose family is sick, whose daughter is to be married. For the traveller, sitting on the steps of Sankata for an hour is a lesson in the true texture of Banaras: not a museum of temples, but a city of people, living their days beside a goddess who protects them.

Behind Sankata Ghat the city rises in the famous maze of the old quarter — lanes so narrow that a handcart fills them, houses of three and four storeys leaning toward each other until only a ribbon of sky remains overhead. The approach from the land side is a descent through time: past a sweet shop where jalebis fry in giant pans, past a cycle-repair workshop, past doorways painted with the footprints of the goddess, until suddenly the lane opens and the whole river appears, silver and enormous, at the bottom of the steps. Every resident of these lanes is a neighbour of the goddess, and the proximity shows in small ways — marigold petals crushed into the drains, the smell of camphor from open doors, the chant of the temple aarti audible in the evening like a second pulse of the quarter.

The lanes hold the ghat's true economy. Here are the florists who sell garlands to the devotees, the brass sellers whose shops gleam with lotas and thalis, the puja suppliers stocking coconuts and kumkum and sacred thread. Old men sit on carved wooden platforms playing cards and discussing the news; children play cricket with a tennis ball in the rare open courtyard; cows wander with the unhurried authority of the street. At festival times the lane becomes a fair, with stalls of toys, sugar elephants and painted masks, and the narrowest passages are impassable with the crowds of families on their way to the temple.

This neighbourhood is one of the oldest layers of Kashi, and walking through it is like reading the city's history in brick and wood. Some of the houses bear carved doorways of the seventeenth century; others were rebuilt after the floods and fires that have periodically tested the quarter; a few, opened to the sky, reveal courtyards with tulsi plants and old wells. The residents keep the memory of the ghat's past — they can tell you which shrine stood where, which family endowed the temple, how the steps looked before the river rose. For the traveller, the lanes behind Sankata are the perfect counterpoint to the water: the same devotion, lived out in the ordinary rooms and rooftops of a quarter that has guarded the goddess for centuries.

The year of Sankata Ghat turns on the festivals of the goddess, and none is greater than Navratri — the nine nights of the Mother — celebrated twice a year, in the spring month of Chaitra and in the autumn month of Ashwin. During these weeks the temple becomes the centre of the quarter: the image is dressed in new clothes each evening, the lamps are lit in tiers, and the aarti is performed with a splendour far beyond the daily rite. Devotees come from other quarters of the city, and the narrow lane outside the temple is a river of marigold and incense from dusk until late night. For nine nights the goddess of this ghat receives the full honours of her name — the remover of danger, crowned and worshipped as the Mother of the universe.

The older festival of the quarter is Chaitra Navratri, which coincides with the Hindu new year, when the temple marks the victory of the goddess over the demons of chaos and the beginning of the growing season. Families bring the first fruits and grains of the year to the shrine; girls are worshipped as living forms of the goddess in the rite of Kanya Puja, their feet washed and their foreheads marked with vermilion; and the ghat below is crowded with bathers who believe that bathing at the ghat of Sankata during Navratri carries double merit. The women who fast through the nine days are the heart of the festival, their white and red saris filling the courtyard like a field of flowers.

Other festivals find their own shape here. On Ganga Dussehra, when the descent of the Ganga to earth is remembered, the steps are lined with lamps and pilgrims bathe at the exact hour the river is believed to have arrived; on Diwali the temple glows with hundreds of flames and the quarter descends to the water with diyas; on Makar Sankranti the bathers of Sankata join the great holy dip, and kites fill the sky above the river. Throughout the year, on the Sankatahara Chaturthi that bears the goddess's name, special pujas are held for the removal of dangers. For the visitor, arriving on any of these nights is to see the ghat at its fullest — the goddess honoured, the quarter united, and the ancient promise of protection renewed before the river.

Sankata Ghat lies on the northern riverfront of Varanasi, roughly midway between the great Dashashwamedh Ghat and the quieter reaches of the river. The easiest approach is on foot along the ghat road: from Dashashwamedh, walk north for about twenty minutes, passing Manikarnika and Scindia on the way, and Sankata appears as a modest flight of steps shortly before Ganga Mahal. Alternatively, take a cycle-rickshaw or auto from the old city to the lane behind the ghat, and descend the last few hundred metres through the neighbourhood. For those who prefer the river, a boat from Dashashwamedh or Assi is the most atmospheric route, and every boatman knows the ghat of the goddess.

The best time to visit is early morning, between dawn and eight, when the bathers are at their devotions and the light on the water is at its most beautiful; the evening aarti at the temple, around dusk, is the other great moment. Winters are the pleasant season, from November to February, when the days are mild and clear; summers are fierce, and the monsoon months bring rain and rising water that can cover the lowest steps, so check the river level before venturing down. The temple is open from early morning until late evening, with a break after the noon offering, and the ghat itself is accessible at all hours. Allow at least half a day to combine the ghat with its neighbours, and carry water, a hat and modest clothing.

Around Sankata the visitor will find everything needed for the day. The lanes behind the ghat have small tea stalls, sweet shops and simple eateries; drinking water is available near the temple; and toilet facilities, where present, are basic, so it is wise to plan accordingly. For a fuller visit, combine Sankata with Scindia Ghat and its famous leaning temple to the south, and Ganga Mahal to the north — all within a twenty-minute walk or a short boat ride. Local guides at the ghat offer walks that cover the history and the worship of the quarter, and boatmen will row you past the whole chain of ghats for a negotiated fare. Come with time and patience, leave your hurry at the top of the steps, and the goddess of the ghat will reward you with the peace that has drawn mothers to her door for centuries.