Binay Singh
Varanasi: The joy of the ardent devotees of Lord Shiva was seemingly overflowing on Thursday when they joined the ‘Tilak’ ceremony of their beloved deity on the occasion of Basant Panchami.
Amid the melody to Shehnai and Damaru the tilkaharuas (people from the side of bride’s parents) went to the place of erstwhile Mahant of Kashi Vishwanath Temple Kulpati Tiwari to perform the rituals of Tilak ceremony. The tradition is on for over three centuries, though this time the address was changed due to demolition of Tiwari’s ancestral house adjacent to the temple for the development of Kashi Vishwanath Dham (Corridor). The Tilak ceremony was performed at the temporary residence of Tiwari in Tedhineem locality.
The tradition of Baba’s Tilak ceremony, as Tiwari claimed, was started by his ancestors 356 years ago. With the Basant Panchami celebration the rituals of Baba’s (Lord Shiva’s) marriage ceremony begin every year. After Tilkotsava, the marriage ceremony is held on the occasion of Shivaratri, and then comes the Rangbhari Ekadashi (Phalgun Shukla Ekadashi), the ‘Gauna’ of Lord Shiva. All these traditions are carried out by Tiwari family.
Kashi Vishwanath Temple, which enshrines one of the 12 (dwadash) Jyotirlingas, has been mentioned in the Puranas including the Kashi Khanda (section) of Skand Purana. It was destroyed and re-constructed a number of times in history. The last structure was demolished by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. The original Vishwanath temple was destroyed by the army of Qutb-ud-din Aibak in 1194, when he defeated the king of Kannauj as a commander of Mohammad Ghori. The temple was rebuilt by a Gujarati merchant during the reign of Delhi’s Sultan Iltutmish (1211–1266). It was demolished again during the rule of either Hussain Shah Sharqi (1447–1458) or Sikandar Lodhi (1489–1517). Raja Todar Mal further re-built the temple with Emperor Akbar’s funding at its original site in 1585. In 1669, Emperor Aurangzeb’s army destroyed the temple and built the Gyanvapi Mosque in its place. Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore constructed the present temple in 1780. In 1835, Maharaja Ranjit Singh donated 1 tonne of gold for plating the temple’s dome.
