Banaras - Diana Eck

According to the Kashi Khanda, this [Omkareshwar Temple] is the place where Lord Brahma, in ancient times, performed rigorous austerities.  After a thousand years, a great shaft of light, illuminating the four directions, shot up in front of him, splitting through the seven levels of the netherworlds and cracking the earth wide open.  With that brilliant light was hear the five-fold sound of the mystical mantra, Om.  Brahma praised the linga and the Om, and Shiva appeared in personal form from the linga and granted Brahma a boon: he made him the Grandfather and Creator of the world...


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