KASHI THE CITY ILLUSTRIOUS, OR BENARES
Author: EDWIN. GREAVES
Publisher:
Published: 2019
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781033489215
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Kashi the City Illustrious, Or Benares
Kashi
Banaras
Author: Diana L. Eck
Publisher: Knopf
Published: 2013-06-05
Total Pages: 382
ISBN-13: 0307832953
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The sacred city of Banāras on the River Ganges is one of the oldest living cities in the world—as old as Jerusalem, Athens, and Peking. It is the place where Shiva, the Lord of All, is said to have made his permanent home since the dawn of creation. There are few cities in India as traditionally Hindu and as symbolic of the whole of Hindu culture as Banāras. In this eloquent, finely observed study, Diana Eck shows how the city over the centuries has become a lens through which the Hindu vision of the world is precisely focused. She reveals the spiritual and historical resonance of this holy place where great sages such as the Buddha and Shankara were taught, where ashrams, palaces, and universities were built, where God has been imagined and imagined in a thousand ways. She describes the rites of its temples, the busy life of its riverfront, and the exuberance of its festivals. She tells how people travel from all over India to Banāras for the privilege of dying a good death here, for they believe that on the banks of the River Ganges where “the atmosphere of devotion is improbable in its strength,” it is possible to be released from the earthly round forever. In her account of the sacred history, geography, and art of the city, its elaborate and thriving rituals, its myths and literature, and its importance to pilgrims and seekers, Diana Eck uses her wealth of scholarship to make the Hindu tradition come powerfully alive so that we come to understand the meaning of this sacred city to the millions of believers who have been coming here for over 2,500 years.
Banaras Reconstructed
Author: Madhuri Desai
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Published: 2017-06-27
Total Pages: 313
ISBN-13: 0295741619
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Between the late sixteenth and early twentieth centuries, Banaras, the iconic Hindu center in northern India that is often described as the oldest living city in the world, was reconstructed materially as well as imaginatively, and embellished with temples, monasteries, mansions, and ghats (riverfront fortress-palaces). Banaras’s refurbished sacred landscape became the subject of pilgrimage maps and its spectacular riverfront was depicted in panoramas and described in travelogues. In Banaras Reconstructed, Madhuri Desai examines the confluences, as well as the tensions, that have shaped this complex and remarkable city. In so doing, she raises issues central to historical as well as contemporary Indian identity and delves into larger questions about religious urban environments in South Asia.
The Holy City (Benares)
Banaras: Urban Forms and Cultural Histories
Author: Michael S. Dodson
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2021-01-31
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 1000365646
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The book presents a rich and surprising account of the recent history of the north Indian city of Banaras. Supplementing traditional accounts, which have focused upon the city’s religious imaginary, this volume brings together essays written by acknowledged experts in north Indian culture and history to examine the construction of diverse urban identities in, and after, the British colonial period. Drawing on fields such as archaeology, literature, history, and architecture, these accounts of Banaras understand the narratives which inscribe the city as having been forged substantially in the experiences of British rule. But while British rule transformed the city in many respects, the essays also emphasize the importance of Indian agency in these processes. The book also examines the essential ambiguity of modernization schemes in the city as well as the contingency of elements of religious narrative. The introduction, moreover, attempts to resituate Banaras into a wider tradition of urban studies in South Asia. The book will be of interest to not only scholars and students of north Indian culture and urban history, but also anyone looking to gain a deeper appreciation of this remarkable, and complex, city.
Kaleidoscope City
Author: Piers Moore Ede
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2015-04-21
Total Pages: 225
ISBN-13: 162040558X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Situated on the left bank of the Ganges, in the state of Uttar Pradash, Varanasi is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world. For Hindus there is nowhere more sacred; for Buddhists, it is revered as a place where the Buddha preached his first sermon; for Jains it is the birthplace of their two patriarchs. Over the last four thousand years, perhaps no city in the world has stood witness to such a flux of history, from the development of Aryan culture along the Ganges, to invasions that would leave the city in Muslim hands for three centuries, to an independent Brahmin kingdom, British colonial rule, and ultimately independence. But what is the city like today? Home to 2.5 million people, it is visited by twice that number every year. Polluted, overpopulated, religiously divided, but utterly sublime, Varanasi is a living expression of Indian life like no other. Each day 60,000 people bathe in the Ganges. Elderly people come to die here. Widows pushed out by their families arrive to find livelihood. In the city center, the silk trade remains the most important industry, along with textiles and the processing of betel leaf. Behind this facade lurk more sinister industries. Varanasi is a major player in the international drug scene. There's a thriving flesh trade, and a corrupt police force that turns a blind eye. As with Suketu Mehta's Maximimum City Piers Moore Ede tells the city's story by allowing inhabitants to relate their own tales. Whether portraying a Dom Raja whose role it is to cremate bodies by the Ganghes or a khoa maker, who carefully converts cow's milk into the ricotta like substance that forms the base of most sweets, Ede explores the city's most important themes through its people, creating a vibrant portrait of modern, multicultural India.
The Sacred Waters ‘of’ Varanasi
Author: Mahesh Gogate
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2023-06-16
Total Pages: 182
ISBN-13: 1000905330
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book on urban water bodies, catchment areas and drainage pattern is set against the backdrop of the unprecedented heavy rainfall that severely deluged metropolitan cities and other parts of India in recent years. The recurring natural catastrophes in water-stressed cities of India and alarming rate of diminishing water bodies, wetlads and catchment areas needs a re-visit to an entire urban water-cycle. This book, thus, discusses how the processes and implementation of colonial urban development policies and projects have radically transformed the water bodies and their catchment areas – traditional water holding systems of Varanasi city. In this imperative colonial process, through the case study of Varanasi, the book mainly engages with the reasons behind the elimination of the temple tanks and ponds after the annexation of Varanasi by the British from 1775 till 1947. The book investigates the colonial notion of ‘dry city’, and how this notion crafted the process of separating land and water bodies, which arguably resulted in the reclamation and draining of water bodies, and also gave rise to water pollution. Additionally, the book analyzes the elimination of water bodies and loss of catchment areas through the ongoing processes of restoring the ancient city’s natural and cultural heritage. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)
Visualizing Space in Banaras
Author: Martin Gaenszle
Publisher: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag
Published: 2006
Total Pages: 364
ISBN-13: 9783447051873
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The city of Banaras is widely known as a unique, impressive and particularly ancient historical place. But for many it is above all a universal, cosmic, and in a sense timeless sacred space. Both of these seemingly contrasting depictions contribute to how the city is experienced by its inhabitants or visitors, and there is a great variety of sometimes competing views: Kasi the Luminous, the ancient Crossing, the city of Death, the place of Hindu-Muslim encounter and syncretism, the cosmopolitan centre of learning, etc. The present volume deals with the multiple ways this urban site is visualized, imagined, and culturally represented by different actors and groups. The forms of visualizations are manifold and include buildings, paintings, drawings, panoramas, photographs, traditional and modern maps, as well as verbal and mental images. The major focus will thus be on visual media, which are of special significance for the representation of space. But this cannot be divorced from other forms of expressions which are part of the local life-world ("Lebenswelt"). The contributions look at local as well as exogenous constructions of the rich topography of Kasi and show that these imaginations and constructions are not static but always embedded in social and cultural practices of representation, often contested and never complete.
