Dasaswamedh ghat is considered one of the five great thirthas of Varanasi; its special sanctity was due to the fact that according to Hindu mythology Lord Brahma performed ten ashwamedha or horse-sacrifices at the spot. In the present age the Dasaswamedh ghat is among the most bustling places of the city.

The tradition says that the gods wanted to dislodge king Divodas who had acquired temporal and spiritual ascendancy over the city and Lord Brahma had come with the purpose of straining his hospitality and demanded materials and resources enough for performing not a single but ten horse-sacrifices. They were all furnished in the most scrupulously correct and comprehensive manner. Brahma performed the ten sacrifices and went back somewhat crest-fallen that he could not catch the king tripping even in any little detail of his religious duties. Lord Shiva is said to have accomplished the task in a more relentless spirit and the gods held their triumphant sway once more over the sacred city. It has been conjectured that this tradition arose out of the displacement of Buddhism in historical times by the Brahminical faith, but we are afraid the theory rests on a very slender foundation.

The ghat is studded with temples and presents a particularly gala appearance on occasions of great festivals. At the time of Durga Puja, or on the occasion of Kartik Purnima or Diwali, the flights of steps are covered over with seething humanity and present remarkably attractive sights. Thousands of pilgrims congregate there when eclipses occur that they may have a bath of purification in the sacred waters of the Ganges. It is also the centre of great gaiety once a year on the occasion of the water carnival known as the Budha Mangal, when decorated and illuminated boats cluster near its steps and people revel on them with music and dance.

Sometimes little lamps are seen floating on the river on some occasions, put forth as offerings to Mother Ganges and at times there is a whole fleet of them going down the current, adding considerably to the beauty of the ghat. Dasaswamedh Ghat has a pouring crowd of pilgrims throughout the year. Several people flock the ghat in order to redeem their souls from all sins. In the ghat may be seen a saint who has renounced all that is valuable and dear to him in life, sitting in an unperturbed calmness as he surveys the wonderful procession of life passing before him.

There are crowds of devotees listening to a sacred recitation from the scriptures; young men and women who have come in the evening by way of recreation to the river bank which is really also a fashionable promenade for the city; grave-looking elders spending the evening of their lives in peaceful retirement; men of business, artists, hawkers, listless spectators- everybody seems to be there in the evening inviting interested observation. Many a well-known painter of the West has represented the panorama of life on this ghat, with all its wonderful grouping of colour, as seen under the brilliant effects of a tropical sun. It is not unusual to see even the artist here sometimes in a boat working away at his sketch, raising his eyes to the ghat from time to time, intent on catching the impressions which will add vividness to the painting as yet dimly forming in his mind and awaiting elaborate treatment on canvas.