Dev Deepawali

Once a year, on the full-moon night of Kartik Purnima, Varanasi stages the single most photographed spectacle on the Ganga: Dev Deepawali, the "Diwali of the Gods." As dusk settles, volunteers, priests, students and families move down the stone steps of all eighty-four ghats and set alight an ocean of earthen diyas — well over a million of them, and in recent years more than twenty lakh — so that the entire three-kilometre riverfront arc from Ravidas Ghat in the south to Rajghat in the north becomes a single unbroken ribbon of flame.

• The lamps are laid in swirling rangoli patterns, floated on the water, and stacked in tiers up the ghat walls, their reflection doubling the glow in the dark river below.
• It is a festival of light in the most literal sense, and for one evening the ancient city seems to hold a mirror up to the sky.
• The tradition in its modern form is young but rooted in deep belief.
• The organised lamp-lighting began at Panchganga Ghat in 1985 and spread to Dashashwamedh Ghat by the early 1990s, from where it grew into the city-wide festival seen today.
• Its meaning is layered: devotees hold that the gods themselves descend to bathe in the Ganga on this night, and the festival also marks Tripurari Purnima, when Lord Shiva vanquished the demon Tripurasura.
• Falling fifteen days after Diwali, the evening opens with the Kartik Snan holy dip at sunrise, and closes with lamp-offering (deepdaan) and a grand, synchronised Ganga Aarti at Dashashwamedh Ghat, where rows of priests swing towering brass lamps in unison to the beat of drums and conch shells. The experience rewards planning.
• The lamps begin catching light between about 5:15 and 5:50 PM, the ceremonial Ganga Aarti runs roughly 6:00 to 6:50 PM, and at nearby Chet Singh Ghat a projection-and-laser show narrating the story of the Ganga plays in evening slots.
• The finest vantage is from the water — a shared or private rowboat drifts mid-river to reveal all the ghats blazing at once — while land viewers should claim a spot at Dashashwamedh by around 4:00 PM, as the crowds swell into the lakhs.
• Warm clothing, comfortable shoes for the steps, and patience with the throngs all help.
• For vegetarian travellers, Dev Deepawali is effortless and joyful.
• The old-city lanes fanning out from the ghats are overwhelmingly satvik and pure-vegetarian, so no meat, fish or egg intrudes on the celebration, and no alcohol is part of the observance.
• Godowlia and Dashashwamedh Road, a short walk uphill from the riverfront, are lined with legendary pure-veg institutions: sample the tangy tomato chaat and basket chaat at Kashi Chat Bhandar, the melt-in-the-mouth kachori-sabzi and jalebi at Ram Bhandar, and a thick clay-cup lassi at the Ksheer Sagar.
• On the festival night these kitchens run late to feed the crowds, and a paper plate of hot chaat eaten on the steps as a million flames flicker below is one of Banaras's most memorable simple pleasures.