Founding story of Käshi or Varanasi
According to a myth, Parvati parents, Himalaya and Mena, begin to badger Shiva to find a proper home for his bride. Mena is especially vexed, believing that Parvati deserves a home somehow more permanent and comfortable than the tent of flayed elephant hide pitched on the mountainside. So it is that Shiva comes to dwell in Varanasi, having scanned the entire earth for a lovely place to bring his bride. Shiva names the city Avimukta, the ‘Never-Forsaken,’ because he vows never to leave it and to uphold this city on the tip of his trident even when the rest of the universe is submerged in the waters of the pralaya at the end of time.
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