Azad had started his revolutionary journey on the famous stone steps of Banaras’ river bank, the Manikarnika Ghat, amidst the raging flames and the smoke emanating from the funeral pyres. Banaras’ Manikarnika Ghat had a deep association with death, transcendence and time. In Hindu mythology, it was on the Manikarnika Ghat that Lord Vishnu sat at the beginning of time to create the universe and it was here that all corpses were to burn until the end of the time. It was believed that dying in Banaras ensured permanent residence in the heavens, symbolising freedom from the cycle of birth and rebirth, that is, the attainment of moksha. Consequently, people in droves would come to Banaras to live out their last years or were brought on their death-beds (or as corpses) to be cremated in Banaras or their ashes were brought for immersion in the Ganges. The unending performance of funerary rites of cremation was a sacrifice and an act of creation that continually regenerated the cosmos. The name Manikarnika meant a jewelled earring that supposedly fell from the ear of Shiva, the Ascetic and the Destroyer, in the face of Vishnu's penance. This symbolised Shiva's loss of potency and the ascendance of Shaivism. Banaras was thus home to several Shiva followers, known as the aghoris, with whom, as we shall see, the revolutionaries identified on some days. The aghoris’ initiation into ascetic life required them to perform their own funerary rites and it was believed that in doing so they folded back the irreversibility of death into the ideal of regeneration.

Azad, standing at the Manikarnika Ghat, in a manner similar to the aghoris, consigned his mortal existence (visarjan) into the fires of India's liberation. His death in Allahabad's Alfred Park was simply a physical annihilation that reinforced his status as ‘Azad’. By the time someone known to Azad arrived to identify his dead body, the police had already consigned it to flames. Later the police contacted Sirajuddin, a motor mechanic from Jhansi under whom Azad had worked, and asked him to come to Allahabad to identify Azad from the photo of his dead body. The real identity of Azad, who was a bahurupiya, the man who wore several guises, remained unknown to most even in death.