As the capital of the Kāśis, mentioned in early Indian literature, from the Ṛgveda
27
to the Mahābhārata, in Buddhist and Jaina sources, it must have played a dominant role in the Gangetic plains. There are still wide gaps in the archeological evidence for the history of Vāraṇāsī – we cannot match archeological finds and artefacts with the glowing descriptions of the great city of Banares as found in ancient Buddhist documents, which hail it “the chief city of all of India.”
From early on the kingdom of Kāśī lived in rivalry with the neighboring kingdom of Kośala – the latter eventually prevailed and Benares became part of Kośala. Kośala in turn was challenged by the more powerful neighboring kingdom of Magadha, which eventually absorbed both Kāśī and Kośala. While the primary goal of these conquerors was presumably the wealth and the strategic importance of the place, Kāśī retained and even strengthened its reputation as a place of traditional learning and became a center not only for Vedic and Upaniṣadic studies, but also for Buddhism and Jainism. Later on it was a matter of prestige for every sect and school to have a presence in Kāśī.
Buddha is reported to have spent several rainy seasons in Vāraṇāsī. Nearby Sarnāth, the place at which the Buddha had set the wheel of the dharma in motion, adorned by a
stūpa
in Aśoka’s time, remained for fifteen hundred years an important Buddhist center – till it was destroyed by the Muslim general Qutb-ud-din-Aibak. The Jains maintain that two of their twenty-four Tīrthāṅkaras were born in Banaras and they consider it one of their holy places as well. A Jain temple stands even now in Banaras. Vāraṇāsī was famous in ancient India for its āśramas, its temples and its places of learning. The famous grammarian Patañjali (second century C.E.) taught there and Śaṅkara (eighth century C.E.), the great reformer of Hindu monasticism, began his work here. Also Rāmānuja (eleventh century C.E.), the foremost Śrīvaiṣṇava
ācārya
, did not fail to visit Vāraṇāsī and established a center there, despite the fact that by then Vārāṇasī had become Śiva’s own holy place. Also followers of Madhva, of Gorakhnātha, and of Basava settled in Banaras.
During the rule of the Guptas (fourth to sixth centuries C.E.), who initiated a Hindu renaissance, Śaivism became the predominent religion in Vārāṇasī, but the other religions continued to flourish. Under the successors of the Guptas, Vārāṇasī became a stronghold of brahminical Hinduism. However, it was still a place for Buddhist pilgrims to visit, as the testimony of Hiuen Tsiang proves, who described what he saw in the early seventh century: “There are about thirty
sanghārādmas
and 3000 priests. They study the Little Vehicle according to the Sammatīya school. There are a hundred or so Deva temples with about 10,000 sectaries. They honor principally Maheśvara. Some cut their hair off, others tie their hair in a knot, and go naked without clothes; they cover their bodies with ashes, and by the practice of all sorts of austerities they seek to escape from birth and death.” Hiuen Tsiang also describes a brass-statue of Śiva, about 30 meters high: “Its appearance is grave and majestic, and appears as though really living.”
28
An eighth-century pilgrim by name of Pantha established a Goddess temple, furnishing it with a terrifying image of Caṇḍī.
Vārāṇasī’s “Golden Period” lasted for about a century and was abruptly terminated by a Muslim invasion. Under the Gāhadavālas, who came to power in 1094, Banaras became the capital of a prosperous kingdom, whose rulers saw themselves as protectors of the Hindu sacred places. King Govindacandra made large donations to the temples in the city and generously supported Hindu learning. He appointed Lakṣmīdhāra, a learned brahmin, as his chief minister. Lakṣmīdhāra was the author of the famous
Kṛtya-kalpa-tāru
, a kind of encyclopedia of medieval Hinduism in fourteen volumes. He also compiled all available information on over three hundred and fifty temples of Kāśī. At the time of writing this work, the Muslim armies, coming from the north-west, had already conquered large parts of northern India. After the King of Banaras, Rayacandra (a Muslim historian calls him “the chief of idolatry and perdition”
29
) had been killed, the Muslim general Qutb-ud-din Aibak sacked and looted Banaras in 1194. He destroyed nearly a thousand temples and built mosques on top of many. Muslim historians report that 1,400 camel loads of gold and silver were carried away as loot from Banaras.
Undaunted, however, the Hindus began rebuilding and a century later Banaras shone again with the golden pinnacles of its temples. In the early decades of the fourteenth century they were again destroyed – only to be rebuilt again. In 1376 Firoz Shah ordered the destruction of Hindu temples and the building of large mosques in their places. In 1496 Sikander Lodi had all the remaining Hindu temples in Banaras destroyed and renamed the city Mohammadābad. A century later, however, under the more enlightened rule of Akbar, two large new temples were built: the Viśveśvara (Śiva) and the Bindu Mādhava (Viṣṇu) mandirs.
With Aurangzeb’s accession to the throne the short phase of toleration ended. In 1659 he ordered the demolition of the temple of Krittivaseśvara and the construction of a large mosque on its site. In 1669 he also had the new Viśveśvara and Biṇḍu Mādhava temples destroyed and mosques built in their place. Astonishingly enough Hindu life and learning continued even under these adverse conditions. Not only did the pandits continue to teach their disciples, one of the greatest Hindu poets, Tulasīdāsa, the author of the famous
Rām-carit-mānas
lived and worked there during this time too.
Hindu life and learning was given a boost through the immigration of six Mahārāṣṭrian brahmins with their families. One of them, Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa, organized the reconstruction of the Viśvanātha temple and also composed a work – the famous
Tri-sthāli-setu
in praise of Banaras, Gāya, and Prayāga. Also during this time, new Hindu religious orders such as the Rāmānandis and the Gorakhpanthis established themselves in Banaras.
With the death of Aurangzeb in 1707 the power of the Muslim rulers in Delhi declined and in 1738 Vāraṇasī came under the rule of Mahārāja Balwant Singh, a Hindu. The city and the temples were rebuilt, largely with the assistance and support of Rājput and Mahrātta nobility. In the second half of the eighteenth century the British gained increasing influence. In fact, Banaras was the first major city outside Bengal which came under the control of the British East India Company. The Company built some major roads through the center of Banaras and it also gave support to Christian missions. Several missionary societies started schools and built churches and hospitals from 1816 onwards. Great expectations were connected with a conversion of this center of Hinduism to Christianity. These hopes were not fulfilled and Banaras regained more and more its position as the leading centre of Hinduism.
In 1791 the Banaras Sanskrit College was founded, which became an important training center for Hindu pandits. In 1906 the groundstone was laid for Benares Hindu University, whose first Vice Chancellor, Paṇḍit Madan Mohan Malavīya, also became the founder of the first nationalist Hindu Party, the Hindū Mahāsabhā. While Benares Hindu University today is perhaps better known for the excellence of its Faculty of Engineering than for its Hindu theologians, it has developed into a center for Hindu studies in many different branches. It is also the home for a Department for Astrology/Astronomy (
Jyotiṣi
) and produces a widely used
Pañcāṅg
, the astrological/astronomical almanack required by Hindus for the calculation of auspicious/inauspicious times.
Today Banaras is again the destination of millions of pilgrims every year, the home of many Hindu academic and cultural institutions, and the location of important publishers of traditional Hindu literature as well as modern studies. Every major traditional Hindu order has its Banaras branch, and most contemporary religious celebrities such as Ānandamayī Mā and Sathya Sāī Bābā have centers there as well. Banaras has attracted numerous famous ascetics and yogis, such as Tailaiiga Swami and Chote Paramahamsa, reputed to have lived respectively, 270 and 300 years.
30
Great scholars from other parts of India, such as Mahāmahopadhyāya Paṇḍit Gopināth Kavirāj, settled in Vāraṇāsī, adding to the fame of the city as a place of higher Hindu learning.
Foreigners too, have felt the peculiar attraction of Banaras even in the twentieth century, in spite of the progress of modernization and industrialization around the city. E. B. Havell, who revived Indian painting and founded an Indian school of art was charmed by Vāraṇāsī, which he found “one of the most extraordinary cities of the East.”
31
Count Hermann Keyserling devoted a large part of his Indian Travel Diary to Banaras. In it he wrote: “Benares is holy. Europe, grown superficial, hardly understands such truths any more.”And: “I feel nearer here than I have ever done so to the heart of the world; here I feel every day as if soon, perhaps even today, I would receive the grace of supreme revelation.” And later, returning from the banks of the Ganges: “The atmosphere of devotion which hangs above the river is improbable in its strength: stronger than in any church that I have ever visited. Every would-be Christian priest would do well to sacrifice a year of his theological studies in order to spend this time on the Ganges: here he would discover what piety means. For in Europe all that exists is its remote reflection.”
32
The history and the present condition of life in Mathurā and Banaras provide a glimpse into the history of Hinduism as a whole, and reflect Hinduism as it is lived in many places in today’s India. Apart from the excitement that the activities of millions of pilgrims generate who visit the many holy spots in these places, there is an ongoing flurry of celebrations and festivities organized by the many different sects and schools of Hinduism that are resident there. The year has not enough days to accommodate the large number of feast days in the Hindu calendar. There has been no diminishing of the fervor with which Hindus engage in worship, no lessening of the hopes and expectations connected with temple visits. Hinduism may be the most ancient of the religions on earth – it is also ever young and full of exuberant life.
NOTES
1.
A
Sthala Purāna
contains the largely legendary history of a temple replete with tales of miraculous events connected with it.
2.
Most of the
Māhātmyas
are found in Purāṇas. Often they were printed separately in places to which they refer. There are also digests, like Mitra Miśra’s eighteenth-century
Vtramttrodaya
, which has a section called
irthaprakāśa
– a collection of such Māhātmyas from various sources.
3.
While both the places chosen for this presentation are in Northern India, one could equally easily describe holy cities from South India such as Madurai or Kāñcīpuram, Tirupati, or Śrīraṅgam. My choice was largely influenced by the greater accessibility of sources in languages known to me and by my personal familiarity with the places.
4.
Thus S. R. Rao, the excavator of Dvārakā, Kṛṣṇa’s legendary capital city, mentioned in the
Mahābhārata
. See S. R. Rao,
The Lost City of Dvārakā
, Delhi, 1999.
5.
“The oldest finds in Mathurā Museum are paleoliths dating from about fifty thousand B.C, and the earliest fragments of pottery are Painted Grey Ware dating from about 800 B.C.” A. W Entwistle,
Braj. Centre of Krishna Pilgrimage
. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1987, p. 110.
6.
The association of Kṛṣṇa-worship with Mathurā does have definite historical confirmation. The ancient Greek writers about India, who had visited the country as ambassadors, report about the worship of “Heracles” in Mathurā; one of them set up a stele in his honor.
7.
Arrian (second century C.E.), in his
Indike
summarized the reports of Megasthenes (fourth century B.C.E.) who was Greek ambassador to the court of the Mauryas. He refers to Mathurā as “Methura,” the capital city of the Surasenoi, who were worshipers of Herakles. Translation of the
Indike
by J. W McCrindle (London: Truebner, 1877).
8.
The oldest sculptures found in Mathurā (and elsewhere) dating from the third century B.C.E. are so-called Yakṣas and Yakṣīs, tutelary local gods and goddesses of groves and trees, as well as Nāgas, personified snakes, whose worship seems to antedate that of the major Hindu deities and who seem to have been partly merged with them at a later date.
9.
That Vedic religion continued to be present in Mathurā as well is attested to by a sacrificial pillar, which was found on the banks of the Yamunā opposite the Swāmi Ghāt, commemorating a Vedic ritual celebrated in 102 C.E. Entwistle,
Braj
, p. 116.
10.
The full text (in translation) is quoted in E Growse,
Mathurā
, p. 109f.
11.
Elliot and Dowson,
The History of India as Told by its Own Historians
, vol. II, p. 460f.
12.
E. Sachau,
Alberuni’s India
. Delhi: S. Chand, 1964 (reprint) II, 147f.
13.
Entwistle,
Braj
, p. 123.
14.
Tavernier calls it the “Rām-Rām”, but in all likelihood it was a Kṛṣṇa figure accompanied by Rādhā and Bālārama. Rāmā is always presented in white colour, whereas Kṛṣṇa is “black” by definition. Tavernier may have been misguided by the habit of the people of Mathurā to use “Rām-Rām” as greeting.