Varanasi | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

(2001 est. pop. 1.1 million). Varanasi (also Banaras, Benares, or Kasi) is for Hindus the most sacred city in India. Located at a bend of the River Ganges, it lies on the left bank, near the eastern border of Uttar Pradesh State, and nearly 700 kilometers east-southeast of Delhi. Although the devout commonly equate its extreme sanctity with extreme antiquity, dubbing it "the oldest city on earth," archaeology shows that it had its origins during the Iron Age, in the eighth century BCE.

The biggest attraction in the city, for pilgrims and tourists alike, is the celebrated ghats, broad steps that lead down to the river and that feature a constant commerce in ritual bathing, religious teaching, cremation of the dead, or—for very poor families—launching of corpses into the river current. Of all the ghats, the Manikarnika Ghat is considered the most sacred and is consequently the one most pictured. It is one of five celebrated places of pilgrimage within the city. Buildings of note within Varanasi include hundreds of temples and shrines, preeminently the Durga Temple(miscalled by Europeans the Monkey Temple) and Benares Hindu University. The city has a wide range of handicrafts and is especially noted for its brasswork, silks, shawls, and embroidery. Because of the thousands of pilgrims and so many old people who come here in the expectation of dying, the city does a brisk business in cheap hotels and hospices.

Just outside the city (7 kilometers) is the site of Sarnath, where Buddha preached his first sermon in about 530 BCE. Its Deer Park is still maintained as an important archaeological site.

Eck, Diana. (1982) Banaras: City of Light. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Michell, George, and Philip Davies. (1989) "Varanasi." In The Penguin Guide to the Monuments of India. New York: Viking Press, vol. 1, 195–98; vol. 2, 260–64.

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