Varanasi

• 1. City Older Than Legend

  ›

  Varanasi, known for centuries as Benares and Kashi, struck the writer Mark Twain as a place older than time itself. In 1897 he wrote: "Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together." The city stands on the left bank of the Ganges, in the southeastern part of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. For Hindus it holds a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning. Visitors arrive to bathe, to pray, and to bring their dead. Yet the same riverbank has also been home to weavers, musicians, poets, and professors. This documentary asks why so many people believe that this stretch of river can offer liberation. It asks how the city kept its identity through raids, sackings, and rebuilding. And it asks what daily life looks like in a place that is both a shrine and a crowded modern town.

  121349

• 2. Names And Myths

  ›

  Two small streams give Varanasi its traditional name. The Varuna still flows through the north of the city, while the Assi, now a modest stream, runs near Assi Ghat in the south. Tradition links the name Varanasi to these two waterways.

  The older name, Kashi, comes from a Sanskrit root, kaś, meaning to shine. That makes Varanasi the City of Light, a luminous seat of learning. The Mahabharata uses the name, and pilgrims used it from the days of the Buddha. Hindu texts add many more titles, among them Kāśikā, Avimukta, Ānaṃdakānana, Rudravāsa, and Mahāśmaśāna.

  Shiva, who by Hindu tradition founded the city, once quarrelled with Brahma, another of the three principal deities. Shiva tore off one of Brahma's five heads. Custom said a victor carried his slain rival's head hanging from his hand, as a sign of his own bravery and the loser's disgrace. A bridle was also put into the mouth. Shiva kept the dishonoured head with him at all times. When he arrived in Varanasi in that state, the head dropped from his hand and vanished into the ground. That is why the site is considered extremely holy.

  The Pandavas, heroes of the Mahabharata, are said to have come here searching for Shiva. They hoped to atone for sins from the Kurukshetra War, including fratricide. Varanasi is one of seven holy cities, the Sapta Puri, known as givers of liberation. The others are Ayodhya, Mathura, Haridwar, Kanchipuram, Avanti, and Dvaraka.

  The epic also treats Kashi as a kingdom with princesses of its own. Ambika and Ambalika married the Hastinapur ruler Vichitravirya and became the mothers of Pandu and Dhritarashtra. Bhima, a son of Pandu, married the Kashi princess Valandhara, and their son Sarvaga later ruled Kashi.

  A Buddhist text, the Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta, even imagines the city's future. In the time of Maitreya, it says, Varanasi will become the fabled kingdom of Ketumati.

  29303233

• 3. Steps To The River

  ›

  At least 84 ghats line the river at Varanasi. A ghat is a flight of steps leading down the steep bank to the water, and pilgrims use them to perform rituals. Most are for bathing and for puja ceremonies. A few are used only for cremation.

  The Dashashwamedh Ghat is the main one and probably the oldest, close to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. Belief holds that Brahma created it to welcome Shiva and sacrificed ten horses in a ritual held there. Temples above and beside it honour Sulatankesvara, Brahmesvara, Varahesvara, Abhaya Vinayaka, Ganga, and Bandi Devi. Every evening a group of priests performs the Agni Pooja, a worship of fire. It is dedicated to Shiva, Ganga, Surya, Agni, and the entire universe. Special aartis are held on Tuesdays and on religious festivals.

  The Manikarnika Ghat is the Mahasmasana, the primary place where Hindus in the city cremate their dead. Raised platforms beside it serve for death anniversary rituals. One myth says an earring of Shiva or of his wife Sati fell here. Gupta period inscriptions from the fourth century mention the ghat. The permanent riverside embankment seen today dates to 1302 and has been renovated at least three times. The Harishchandra and Panchganga ghats also serve as cremation sites. The Hindu genealogy registers are kept in Varanasi as well.

  Many ghats were built under the patronage of the Marathas, including the Scindias, Holkars, Bhonsles, and Peshwas. Shrines, temples, and palaces rise "tier on the tier above the water's edge." Several ghats are now privately owned. The Jain Ghat, also called Bachraj Ghat, has three Jain temples and is believed to be the birthplace of Suparshvanatha and Parshvanatha. A morning boat ride along the stretch is a popular tourist attraction.

  The steps serve the living, too. Many Indian girls practise gymnastics outdoors at the ghats in the morning. Their akhadas follow a daily ritual of morning exercise, a dip in the Ganges, and a visit to Lord Hanuman.

  3033371615

• 4. Shrines Of Many Faiths

  ›

  Varanasi has an estimated 23,000 temples, and three draw the most worshippers. They are the Kashi Vishwanath Temple of Shiva, the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple, and the Durga Temple.

  The Kashi Vishwanath Temple stands on the Ganges and is one of the 12 Jyotirlinga Shiva temples. It has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The adjacent Gyanvapi Mosque occupies the original site. The present Golden Temple was built in 1780 by Queen Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore. In 1839 Ranjit Singh, the ruler of Punjab, donated the gold that covers its two pinnacles. Rituals, prayers, and aartis are held daily between 02:30 and 23:00.

  The Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple sits by the Asi River. Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, an educationist and independence figure, built the present temple in the early 1900s. Legend says it marks the spot where the medieval saint Tulsidas had a vision of Hanuman. On the 7th of March 2006, one of three explosions in a terrorist attack hit the temple while a wedding was in progress. The blast caused 23 deaths and injured 30 people. A permanent police post now stands inside.

  The Durga Temple is known for the monkeys living in the large trees nearby. Devotees visit the Durga Kund in large numbers during Navratri. At Nag Panchami the pond becomes a stage, as Vishnu reclining on the serpent Shesha is recreated there.

  The city counts 15 mosques of significant historical value. Many were built from the components of Hindu shrines destroyed by later rulers. The Gyanvapi Mosque was built by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in 1664 after a Hindu temple was destroyed. Its name means "the well of knowledge," after a well in its precincts. Remains of the earlier temple show in the foundation, the columns, and the rear. Part of its facade is modelled on the entrance of the Taj Mahal.

  The Alamgir Mosque rises above the Panchganga Ghat. Aurangzeb built it in 1669 over the ruins of the Bindu Madhav Temple, a Vishnu shrine raised by the Maratha chieftain Beni Madhavrao Scindia. The lower walls are made entirely from remains of that temple. The result blends Islamic and Hindu architecture. One minaret crashed and killed a few people, and officials brought the other down over stability concerns. Non-Muslims may not enter, and a police cordon guards the site.

  Other faiths hold ground here too. At Sarnath, about 10 kilometres to the northeast, the Buddha first taught the Dharma in a deer park. There the Sangha came into existence through the enlightenment of Kondanna. The Buddha named Varanasi itself as one of four places his devout followers should visit.

  Guru Nanak came for Maha Shivaratri in 1507, and the city played a large role in the founding of Sikhism. The Parshvanath Jain temple holds a black idol 75 centimetres high and belongs to the Digambar sect. The birthplace of Ravidas is the religious headquarters of the Ravidassia religion. Its foundation stone was laid on the 14th of June 1965, and the temple was completed in 1994.

  Counting beyond Hindu sites, Varanasi has 12 churches, three Jain mandirs, nine Buddhist shrines, three gurdwaras, and 1,388 Muslim holy places. In the sacred geography of India it is called the "microcosm of India."

  3043344037

• 5. Raids And Rebuilding

  ›

  Digs in 2014 turned up artefacts dating back to 800 BCE. Further excavations at Aktha and Ramnagar, two sites near the city, reached artefacts from 1800 BCE. Both finds support the view that people lived here very early.

  In the time of Gautama Buddha, Varanasi belonged to the Kingdom of Kashi. The Chinese traveller Xuanzang visited around 635 CE and recorded the city as "Polonise." He found a centre of religious and artistic life that stretched about 5 kilometres along the western bank of the Ganges. He counted some 30 temples and about 30 monks. In the 8th century, Adi Shankara established the worship of Shiva as an official sect of the city.

  The first Islamic incursion came in 1033 CE. Ahmad Nialtagin, a subordinate of Mahmud Ghazni, raided the markets and took gold, silver, jewels, and perfumes. Fear of local resistance sent his force away by mid-day, so temple damage stayed limited.

  The next year, 1034-35 CE, Malik Afzal Alavi led part of an army toward the city. Local forces, possibly under the Kalachuri ruler Gangeyadeva, defeated it in a fierce battle near the site of the Masjid-e-Ganj-e-Shahidan. His followers were still allowed to settle in the northern forests. They founded Alavipura, now Alai Pura, a settlement of Muslim weavers with shrines honouring the invaders.

  Chandradeva, founder of the Gahadavala dynasty, made Banaras a second capital in 1090. In 1194 the Ghurid conqueror Muizzuddin Muhammad Ghuri beat the forces of Jayachandra near Jamuna. He then ravaged Varanasi and destroyed many temples.

  Around 1567 the Mughal emperor Akbar sacked the city on his march from Allahabad, now Prayagraj. Afterward the Kachwaha Rajput rulers of Amber, themselves Mughal vassals, rebuilt temples and ghats, most notably under Raja Man Singh. The Raja of Jaipur established the Annapurna Mandir, and the 200-metre Akbari Bridge was completed in the same period. In 1656 Aurangzeb ordered many temples destroyed and mosques built, and the city suffered a temporary setback.

  After Aurangzeb's death, a confederacy of pro-Hindu kings ruled most of India. Much of modern Varanasi was built then, especially in the 18th century under Maratha and Bhumihar rulers. The Mughals gave the Kingdom of Benares official status in 1737. In 1740 Balwant Singh of the Narayan dynasty declared himself Maharaja of Benares.

  His dynasty rested on strong clan organisation, with as many as 100,000 men backing the Benares rajas. That strength mattered in the 1750s and 1760s against the Nawab of Oudh, the nominal overlord. A long guerrilla war exhausted the Nawab and forced him to withdraw his main force. In 1775 the East India Company acquired Benares under the Treaty of Faizabad.

  The city then moved through a string of British administrative units: the Ceded and Conquered Provinces in 1805, the North-Western Provinces in 1836, and the United Provinces in 1902. In 1867 the Varanasi Municipal Board began improving health services, drinking water, and sanitation. A census by James Prinsep counted around 1000 temples in the 1830s, and the Rev. M. A. Sherring recorded the figure in his 1868 book on the city.

  3539414648

• 6. Voices And Learning

  ›

  Kabir was born in Varanasi in 1389, and Ravidas followed in the 15th century. Ravidas was a reformer, mystic, and poet who worked in the tannery trade. Both belonged to the Bhakti movement, a devotional current that flourished here. Tulsidas wrote his Ramcharitmanas in Varanasi, reworking the Sanskrit Ramayana in the Awadhi language.

  The city kept producing writers. Premchand, the Hindi-Urdu author, was associated with it, as were Bharatendu Harishchandra, Devaki Nandan Khatri, and Jaishankar Prasad. A weekly journal, Kashivartaprakashika, first appeared on the 1st of June 1851. Aj, a Hindi-language nationalist newspaper, began in 1920 and became a bulwark of the Indian National Congress.

  Music here is traced to what the source calls the Pauranic days, with Shiva credited as the inventor of music and dance. In the 16th century, under the ruler Govind Chandra, royal patronage lifted the Dhrupad style of singing. It led to related forms such as Dhamar, Hori, and Chaturang. Today the Dhrupad maestro Pandit Ritwik Sanyal of Varanasi works to revive that art.

  The Benares gharana of Hindustani classical music developed in the city. Bismillah Khan, the shehnai player, is tied to it. So is Ravi Shankar, the sitar player who received the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian award. The classical singer Girija Devi was widely respected for her thumris. The playback singer Hemant Kumar, known as "Voice Of God," was born in Benaras. Varanasi has joined the UNESCO Cities of Music in the Creative Cities Network.

  Two festivals keep that tradition public. Since 1923, the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple has held a five-day classical music and dance festival, the Sankat Mochan Sangeet Samaroh. The Dhrupad Mela, a five-day festival devoted to dhrupad, takes place at Tulsi Ghat in February-March.

  Scholarship has an equally long record. Sushruta, the primary author of the Sanskrit surgical treatise Sushruta Samhita, lived and practised here around the 5th century BCE. The Jantar Mantar observatory dates to 1737 and stands above the ghats. Its unique equatorial sundial still works, and one person can use it to take and record measurements.

  India's oldest Sanskrit college, the Benares Sanskrit College, was founded in 1791 by Jonathan Duncan, the East India Company's resident. Rising nationalism then shaped the city's schools. Annie Besant founded the Central Hindu College in 1898 because she wanted "to bring men of all religions together under the ideal of brotherhood in order to promote Indian cultural values and to remove ill-will among different sections of the Indian population."

  In 1916 she and Madan Mohan Malviya founded Banaras Hindu University, India's first modern residential university. It now has over 20,000 students and is one of the largest residential universities in Asia. Kashi Vidyapith followed in 1921, a response to Mahatma Gandhi's non-cooperation movement. Ayurveda has been taught at the university since 1922. A separate Ayurvedic College followed in 1927.

  The wider school system is uneven. The source calls the overall state of education in Varanasi "not good." Private schools outperform government ones, where many teachers fail to come to class and some rooms lack blackboards or enough desks.

  2297965638

• 7. Silk And Strain

  ›

  Silk weaving is the dominant industry in Varanasi. Nearly half a million Muslims work as weavers, dyers, sari finishers, and salespeople. Weaving is usually done inside the household, and most weavers are Momin Ansari Muslims. The city is known across India for very fine silk and for Banarasi saris, brocades with gold and silver thread, often worn at weddings and special occasions.

  The trade faces pressure from power looms, computer-generated designs, and silk imported from China. The source also notes that silk production often uses bonded child labour, though perhaps no more than elsewhere in India. A Trade Facilitation Centre now supports the handloom and handicraft sector with buyers at home and abroad.

  A 2006 City Development Plan found that about 29% of the population was employed. Of those, roughly 40% worked in manufacturing, and 51% of manufacturing workers were in spinning and weaving. The Banaras Locomotive Works is a major employer, and Bharat Heavy Electricals runs a heavy equipment maintenance plant. Other trades include Mirzapur carpets, brassware, wooden and clay toys, and musical instruments. Local farms grow betel leaves, langra mangoes, and khoa.

  Tourism is the second most important industry. Domestic visitors mostly come for religious reasons, while foreign visitors come for the ghats and for Sarnath. Most foreign tourists arrive from Sri Lanka and Japan, and the peak season runs from October to March. Arrivals climbed from 5,251,413 in 2013 to 6,797,775 in 2019. The city has only about 12,000 beds, so the source calls its tourist infrastructure not well developed.

  The crowds press hard on the river. Varanasi produces about 350,000,000 litres of sewage and 425 tonnes of solid waste a day. People who use untreated local water face a higher risk of water-borne stomach diseases. Studies of wastewater from the sewage treatment plants found metal contamination. Reuse of that water for irrigation carries the metals into crops such as palak, a leafy vegetable. The Ganges itself has dropped in level in recent years, with upstream dams, unregulated extraction, and shrinking glacial sources named as possible causes.

  The city is also being rebuilt for movement. A Vande Bharat Express launched in February 2019 on the Delhi-Varanasi route and cut travel time by 15 per cent compared with the Shatabdi Express. In 2018 a new inland port opened on the Ganges, and in 2019 Maersk moved 16 containers from Varanasi to Kolkata. The Kashi ropeway, under construction since 2023, is planned at 3.75 kilometres. It would cut a 45-minute journey to around 15 minutes.

  Narendra Modi, prime minister since 2014, has represented Varanasi in Parliament since 2014. In December 2021 he inaugurated the Shri Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, a project meant to connect many ghats to the temple of Kashi Vishwanath.

  910058527

• 8. Kings And Festivals

  ›

  Ramnagar Fort faces the city from the eastern bank of the Ganges, opposite Tulsi Ghat. Kashi Naresh Balwant Singh built it in the 18th century from cream-coloured chunar sandstone. Carved balconies, open courtyards, and scenic pavilions mark its Mughal style. Its museum holds American vintage cars, bejewelled sedan chairs, a weaponry hall, and a rare astrological clock. Illustrated manuscripts in the Mughal miniature style are kept in the Saraswati Bhawan. Today the fort is in disrepair, and filmmakers often use it as an outdoor location.

  The religious head of the city, the Kashi Naresh, has based himself at the fort since the 18th century. Benares became a princely state in 1911 with Ramnagar as its capital, though the state had no jurisdiction over the city proper. Locals revere the Kashi Naresh as the chief cultural patron, and some devout inhabitants consider him an incarnation of Shiva. The dynasty ruled until Indian independence, during the reign of Vibhuti Narayan Singh. He folded his territories into the United Provinces in 1949, and the city became part of Uttar Pradesh in 1950.

  The patron's role shows most clearly in the Ramlila of Ramnagar. This dramatic enactment of the legend of Rama, as told in the Ramacharitamanasa, is performed every evening for 31 days. On the final day Rama vanquishes the demon king Ravana. Kashi Naresh Udit Narayan Singh started the tradition around 1830. The Kashi Naresh also attends Bharat Milap in his regal attire. That festival celebrates the reunion of Rama and his younger brother Bharata after Rama's 14 years of exile.

  Other festivals use the river as a stage. At Nag Nathaiya, a branch of a large Kadamba tree is planted on the bank. A boy playing Krishna jumps from it onto an effigy of the serpent Kaliya. He then stands over it in a dancing pose, playing the flute, while the audience watches from the shore or from boats.

  Chhath Puja falls on the sixth day of the lunar month of Kartika, in October-November, and its rituals run over four days. Devotees bathe, fast, stand in water, and offer prayers to the setting and rising sun. The festival honours the sun god Surya and his sister Chhathi Maiya.

  The Ganga Mahotsav is a five-day music festival organised by the Uttar Pradesh Tourism Department in November-December. It ends a day before Kartik Purnima, when thousands of pilgrims gather at the Ganges. They release lighted lamps from the ghats to float on the water.

  4345474952