Manikarnika in Varanasi is a ghat where dead bodies are cremated. Throughout the day and night, one can see three or four funeral pyre flames burning bright, Death is celebrated in a sense it is seen as libration and salvation from the cycle of birth and death. It is believed that cremation in Manikarnika ghat is so pious that it ensures salvation. Everyday scenes alongside the banks of the Ganges River in Varanasi, India, prove death can sometimes be nothing to bat an eyelid at. Here, death isn't something to be hidden. Rather, it's a part of the fabric of everyday life. The 'doms' (the cremators of the dead) play a very important role in the cremation of the bodies at the Manikarnika Ghat, on the bank of the Ganga in Varanasi. The rituals at the cremation ghats are considered to be complete only when one of the members of the 'dom' family, which resides on the ghats, light the pyres from what the Hindu mythology refers to as 'eternal' flame. Hindus believe that the dead man would not be able to attain 'salvation' unless the 'dom raja' lights the pyre first. The history of the 'doms' in Varanasi was believed to be as old as the Hindu epic 'Ramayana'.