Sarnath, near Varanasi, is where the Buddha is supposed to have preached his first sermon and is therefore a site of Buddhist pilgrimage. Here Vietnamese nuns pray as they circle the Dhamekh Stupa, the principal Buddhist monument.
Gazette columnist Carl Strock recently journeyed to the holy city of Varanasi, India. No place in the world is so beautiful, so foul and so otherworldly, he reports, and offers these photographs.