The city of banaras, like Jerusalem and
Mecca, is one of the world's most celebrated pilgrimage sites, and has been acknowledged as a center of learning for over 2000 years.
As a physical place, Banaras lies on the banks of the river Ganges. As a psychical place, the city derives its sacredness from the intimate association with Lord Shiva(one of the main deities of the Hindu trinity). It is believed
that Shiva lives in Banaras through his invisible form to liberate humankind from ignorance.

Banaras has over 2000 temples, big and small, dedicated to Lord Shiva and to other deities. The skyline along the riverbank is market by high spires of temples. According to a myth, Lord Shiva performed severe austerities to sanctify Banaras, and considers Banaras his earthly home.

In the imagination of the people of Banaras, Shiva is visualised as an ash-smeared yogi who is meditating in the cremation grounds and eternally bestowing grace and liberation on his devotees.

The interface between the city and the
river are the long flights of stone steps
called Ghats. There are over a hundred
ghats in the city, and the ghats hum with ritual and festive activity all year round.

From dawn to dusk, thousands of worshippers come down to the river to perform ablutions, and through ritual and prayer, invoke the healing powers of the Ganges. The rituals invoke all the sense perceptions -sight,
sound, touch, smell and taste - and invoke
all the elements. People propitiate the Ganges river, the river of healing, by floating lamps and offerings.

Some of the most important rituals to the dying ad the dead. The ghats provide the places of cremation. The burning embers of the cremation pyers alongside the riverbank provide people with a powerful symbol of the integral relation between life and death. Death in the Indian imagination is considered as a crossing over from one state into another;
and the fear of death is considered to be
an irrational fear. Once the body disintegrates, the ashes are immersed into the Ganges. The final immersion into the womb of the Ganges symbolises a new creation out of the waters of life.

For 2000 years, Banaras flourished as a living center for learning. The Buddha, Adi Sankara, (founder of the philosophy of Non-dualism), and Mahavira(founer of Jainism), pondered life's fundamental questions.

Atop the ghats, in the pavilions, gurus continue to transmit to students the living experience of self-realization. Besides the religious significance, Banaras is the home
of classical music, dance and textile traditions. Banaras artists have developed distinctive genres of artistic expression. The sounds of the drummers and dancer's bells provide an aural backdrop to Banaras.

The ghats present an incredible "multimedia" theater of activity. Together, the river Ganges, the temple spire-lined the skyline,
the pavilions of learning, pilgrims performing rituals, and the fires of the cremation provide a multimedia, living stage in which the pilgrim experiences transformation. These elements make the ghats an excellent domain for multimedia applications in learning.

The pilgrim is he center of the transformation, and the ghats ad its activities provide the " periphery". Banaras's ghats and its activities provide the spatial periphery; the myths and metaphysics of Shiva provide the psychical periphery.

Together, the spatial and the psychical settings allow the pilgrim to "cross-over"
into the space of transformation.