The Microcosm of India and Exemplar of Balance
Personal Prologue
EVEN A FIRST-TIME VISITOR TO VARANASI WILL SEE THIS ANCIENT CITY’S multifaceted history—the structure of a wealthy commercial and manufacturing center (that Hindus call artha), the trappings of lifetimes spent enjoying leisure (kama), the accumulated traditions of many religions (dharma), and the devotion to the ultimate goal of individual enlightenment (moksha). And a frequent visitor will recognize even greater complexity of global influences.
“There are many European-style cafés in Varanasi now,” I was told as I got ready to visit favorite haunts on my last visit to this ancient city in India. Varanasi, also known as Banaras, is a city of narrow lanes with wandering cows and cow dung, tall houses with overhanging balconies, steep riverside steps called ghats, and prehistoric occupations—weaver, stone carver, boatman—and an aura of ancient history over everything. Modern cafés? A purist might think that nothing could be more incongruous.
But I was familiar with the city. I added the new cafés to my list of old haunts. Varanasi is one of the oldest living cities in the world—older than other civilizing and religious centers such as Mecca, Athens, Jerusalem, and Beijing. As ancient as the city is, however, it has longevity because it is ever changing. The new cafés today are only one symptom of the city’s dynamism. I chose to study Varanasi because it was the best example of an ancient Indian, pre-colonial city I could find, and I fell in love with my subject as it revealed itself as the ultimate statement of the traditional Hindu values of a balanced life. I want to share this philosophy with readers, of balance among the economic, or artha; the pleasurable, or kama; the righteous, or dharma; and pursuit of the ultimate truth, or moksha, by weaving that balance into the continuous history of Varanasi as a vibrant urban center.
I headed to Flavours Café, located strategically at Lanka crossing, a stone’s throw from the university. Right below it are traditional restaurants that serve filling Indian dishes at half the price of the modern café above. But you come to Flavours for the café-style seating, the leisure of hanging around, the choice of teas and coffees, and the power of experimenting with date nut muffins and banana bread. The café’s menu has no recognizable Indian dishes, but foreign items have been adapted to suit the Indian palate, such as “panir roll” and “chicken tikka masala sandwich.” Flavours is teaching Varanasi residents how to regard a café, and these residents are curious and interested. They are becoming global citizens by the day by learning Western-style café culture.
This is not the first time Varanasi has transformed itself. Although we do not have the social history that tells us what people drank on the streets in the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, we do know it was neither tea nor coffee. Tea shops, for instance, are ubiquitous in Banaras today, even something as simple as a roadside bench with a counter and improvised stove, serving clay cups of tea popularized in the West as “chai.” Tea is so quintessentially Indian that it makes the city traditional, one may think. Yet tea, though familiar in northeast India, was introduced into Varanasi less than a hundred years ago, and tea companies had to work very hard to popularize it because it was culturally unfamiliar and inferior to established drinks like milk. Yet tea shops did gradually catch on, and tea became a popular drink in Varanasi, though many decades passed before people began making it at home, showing us that radical change and innovation is a way of life in Varanasi. Varanasi is not a city of contradictions; rather, it is a city of flexibility and movement.
Seen through the lens of the four aims of life—artha (prosperity), kama (pleasure), dharma (duty), and moksha (salvation)—this chapter will focus on Varanasi in the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries. We will see that Varanasi has been and remains today not simply a holy city that draws thousands of pilgrims daily to its shores but rather a center of commerce and a beacon of intellectual and artistic achievement. We will see that the biggest message of the city has been one of tolerance, balance, and holism.
VARANASI AND THE WORLD:
A Vital City of Learning and Religion
Prior to even the Buddhist period beginning in the sixth century BCE Varanasi has been a vital hub for commerce, learning, and religion. It is one of the key South Asian cities whose reputation contributed to the image of India as a culturally and economically rich civilization, one that the Europeans “discovered” in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, thereby setting the wheels of global trade and colonization in motion.
Beyond its status as a commercial center and the capital of a rich and prosperous kingdom, however, Varanasi emerged as early as 800 BCE as an important center first for the earliest South Asian religions. These consist of early folk cults, followed by the religion we know from the books called the Vedas, sometimes known as “Vedism.” Furthermore, it is an important center for other religions that originated in South Asia, such as Buddhism and Jainism (ca. sixth century BCE), Hinduism (ca. third century CE), and Sikhism (ca. sixteenth century CE). Islam, originating in West Asia, also played a major role beginning with the Delhi Sultanate in the thirteenth century. Although economic and political stability and patronage are necessary prerequisites for culture and religion to flower, these alone do not explain Varanasi’s predominance as a cultural and religious center. South Asia has had many important pilgrimage centers, so Varanasi’s emergence as the predominant one merits enquiry.
In the seventh century CE the Chinese traveler Hiuen Tsang visited Varanasi and wrote about its enduring importance as a Buddhist center, with scores of monasteries and thousands of monks. Furthermore, Varanasi had long attracted Hindu philosophers and teachers to its ashrams, or retreats of learning, including the grammarian Patanjali in the second century BCE, the philosopher Shankara in the eighth and ninth centuries CE, and the theologian Ramanuja in the eleventh century CE (to mention only the most notable). Even to this day all the principal Hindu sects have their monastic centers in Varanasi.
What’s more, by the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries CE, the term Banarasi—related to the other name of Varanasi, Banaras—came to denote high quality, whether that be a school of literature, philosophy, or art, or even a type of cloth or a kind of sweet. For example, Banarasi silk fabric, made by Muslim weavers beginning during this time, is to this day considered a highly desirable commodity in Hindu weddings all over the world because it is intricately woven with unmatched skill and is also considered to be benign and auspicious. Furthermore, of all pilgrimage centers, Varanasi was the only one that Hindus came to believe would guarantee release from the heaviest burden of all, the cycles of life and their suffering, merely by being present in the city at the time of death.
Artha: The Political Economy of Varanasi
Artha is the action that results in profit, either of money or power, and Hindus understand such action to be a part of the correctly lived life. Varanasi was called the “Forest of Artha,” where Hindus believed every person could make their fortune and attain their desired power. As such, Varanasi’s history is a small part of the history of northern India, and, therefore, to narrate the former in part narrates the latter. The history begins with the Indus Valley Civilization, the first excavated civilization in South Asia. Located in northwest India, it existed from around 3000 BCE to about 1500 BCE. Scholars believe that there were many settlements as old or older along the Ganges as well, perhaps even in the Varanasi region, but no excavations have yet taken place.
After the Indus Valley civilization ended, groups of nomad herdsmen who called themselves Aryans entered India from the northwest. As they expanded into the Gangetic Valley between 1200 and 700 BCE, the Aryans encountered settled cultures and, in time, adopted their practices. Varanasi, then known as Kashi, was one of these places. As the Aryans developed civilization, partly from the earlier civilized cultures there, Varanasi became a center of Vedic learning, the Sanskrit language, of the study of mathematics, astronomy, logic, grammar, and literature. During this time it also maintained its pre-Vedic worship of the sun as well as tree and water cults.
Buddhist sources that refer back to Varanasi around 800 BCE refer to it as an important manufacturing and commercial center, mentioning its merchant guilds, the use of money, and trade along the river. The city used the Ganges as a waterway to trade goods from as far away as China, and this became the backbone of the city’s artha, or economy, by encouraging craftsmen to create goods and merchants to sell them.
In the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, artisan groups were probably clustered in certain parts of the city, as today, reflecting the urban preference for spatial specialization. Metalworkers lived in the heart of the city, Kashipura and Thatheri Bazar. They were Hindus who manufactured ritual and worship items and images. The weavers of Madanpura lived in the second circle, and were well-integrated Muslims manufacturing precious silk. The weavers of the northern neighborhoods of Jaitpura and Adampura, in the third tier of the city, were later converts to Islam and were poorer. Woodworkers lived outside the city proper, in Khojwa and Kashmiriganj. They were Hindu, low caste like the metalworkers, but far less unified as a group.
Not only did Varanasi’s political economy benefit from its location at the confluence of the Ganges, the holiest river in Hindu mythology, and its two minor tributaries, the Varuna and the Assi (its very name combines the names of these two rivers), but Varanasi also benefitted from its strategic location on a ridge that rendered it immune to floods but still provided it needed water. Its access to the river and natural ponds as well as its salubrious climate made the city a desirable place to live. In the earliest times wealthy merchants flocked to Varanasi, and later, pilgrims and scholars also followed to be a part of the city’s hermitages and schools. Even the Buddha is said to have been a citizen of Varanasi in some of his past lives.
In fact, Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, did come to Varanasi in the sixth century BCE, delivering his first sermon after his enlightenment to five disciples in nearby Sarnath, and after this his influence expanded quickly during the time of the Mauryan Empire, around 322 to 183 BCE. Buddhism became the dominant religion in South Asia for over a millennium, and the religion was carried to China, Sri Lanka, and East and Southeast Asia. By the seventh century CE Buddhism had become the largest religion in the world.
These powerful Mauryans came to unify India into one vast empire, and as a result, the Ganges Valley became the home of Indian civilization. Ashoka, the most important of the Mauryan emperors, built outside Varanasi a polished, stand-alone sandstone pillar with a four-headed lion capital that today is the official national emblem of India.
The opportunity to sell to foreign traders created a market for faraway consumers eager for Varanasi’s fine luxury goods. Early references to Varanasi’s woven goods, brass, copper and silver crafts, and jewelry are abundant, but actual histories of these early industries have not yet been written. In the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries the most popular items for trade included finely woven silk and gold brocade, as fabric as well as turbans, scarves, and other finished goods; metal products such as swords, trays, and utensils; and statues of Hindu deities and ritual objects. Furthermore, records from Indian and foreign travelers during this period attest to the city’s magnificence. In the 1330s, for instance, Jinprabh Suri, a Jain monk, called it “a city studded with many-colored jewels, surrounded by the north-flowing Ganga River, in which lived remarkable people.” Ralph Fitch, an Englishman who visited Varanasi in the 1580s, testified that its textile trade made it the biggest center of commerce in north India and that visitors came to the city from both near and far. Finally, in the late eighteenth century Thomas Macaulay described Varanasi as though it remained the city it had been hundreds of years earlier:
Commerce has as many pilgrims as religion. All along the shores of the venerable stream lay great fleets of vessels laden with rich merchandise. From the looms of Benares went forth the most delicate silks that adorned the balls of St James’s and of Versailles; and in the bazaars, the muslins of Bengal and the sabres of Oude were mingled with the jewels of Golconda and the shawls of Cashmere. (Eck 1983, 311)
The best description of Varanasi’s prosperity, however, is found in the literary work Kashi Khand, written down first perhaps in the fourteenth century but composed much earlier in the oral tradition. In it Himalaya, the Hindu deity that personifies the mountains of that name, traveled to Varanasi to visit his daughter Parvati, the wife of Shiva. Although Himalaya’s own home contained the richest of jewels, when he saw the city, he was awestruck:
Its very earth was completely studded with a multitude of different kinds of jewels, and the brilliance of the rubies of its many palaces filled the sky. . . . The city illumined the four directions with the many golden pinnacles that topped its mansions. It surpassed even the paradise of the gods with its profusion of flying banners. Marvelous was the pleasure palace of the eight perfections, with its forests which bore all fruits, surpassing even the wishing-trees of heaven. (Eck 1983, 312)
The available records demonstrate that for about two millennia the city thrived with artha, or material success. As such, when Varanasi came under the control of the Delhi Sultans at the beginning of the thirteenth century, the city’s life was hardly disrupted: commerce drove the city more than empire.
The Delhi Sultans were Muslims. Previously, in the seventh and eighth centuries, Muslim-Arab traders had come to the Indian subcontinent peacefully. In the tenth century, however, Muslim kingdoms were established after rulers such as Mahmud of Ghazni in Afghanistan conducted violent raids into India. The first Muslim army, directed by the governor Qutb-uddin Aibak, reached Varanasi in the 1190s CE. Varanasi, previously governed by pre-Vedic, Vedic, Buddhist, and Hindu rulers, came under Muslim control and remained that way for the next five and a half centuries, along with much of the rest of India.
Because India was so large that mass conversion to Islam would have been impossible, the Delhi Sultans, many of whom were Turks, would need to consolidate their power and establish legitimacy for their rule. Instead, however, the Delhi Sultans and their local governors adopted a variety of policies to maintain power. They destroyed the symbols of previous rulers’ legacy, particularly the temples and shrines to Hindu gods and goddesses. In their place, they constructed mosques, usually from the very materials of the temples or on the sites of destroyed temples and built by the same artisans who had built the temples. They built these mosques in order to proclaim themselves the all-powerful and righteous rulers who had taken over from the deposed kings. The architectural styles blended those of Hinduism and Islam, of India, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iran, thereby creating a new Indo-Islamic synthesis. Even today, for some, remnants of temple carvings in some mosques are a painful reminder of the temples’ destruction from the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries. Varanasi in particular has scores of such reminders; for instance, the oldest mosque of the city, Arhai Kangura (“two and a half domes”), built around the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth, has Hindu temple foundations.
In addition, the Delhi Sultans permitted decentralized rule as another method of governance. As a result, during the three centuries of Sultanate rule the capital, Delhi, fluctuated between tighter and looser control of Varanasi, depending on the local governor’s inclinations. Many governors, such as Syed Jamaluddin during the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, seem to have been popular; neighborhoods in the city bear their names, such as Jamaluddinpura (“the quarter of Jamaluddin”).
There were five important Sultanate dynasties. The first, the Slave Dynasty (1194–1290) established the new rule and asserted its imperial right by destroying temples and erecting mosques in Varanasi. But as temples were destroyed, others were also built anew, typically by patrons from distant Indian provinces. The next dynasty, the Khalji (1290–1320) had a Sultan, Ala-uddin, who was equally determined to destroy Hindu temples in Varanasi, but once again, construction of new temples continued. The Tughlak Dynasty’s (1320–1414) Mohammad and Firoze Shah were both stern taskmasters who would not exempt Hindu Brahmans from the jiziya, a tax on non-Muslim infidels, or kafirs. Then, in 1394, Varanasi came under the control of the neighboring kingdom, Jaunpur, a town some fifty miles away. Its rulers broke from the Tughlaks in Delhi and ruled directly over Varanasi. In the style of previous dynasties, they destroyed the temple of Varanasi’s reigning god, Shiva, also known as Vishwanath (“Lord of the World”). Although rebuilt soon after, for some Hindus today the temple and its adjoining mosque with Hindu pillars stands as the most dramatic evidence of Muslim aggression in the past. Then, when Varanasi returned to Delhi control during the Lodi Dynasty, its chief ruler Sikandar Lodi (1489–1517) likewise proved to be, as Muslim chroniclers describe him, a gazi, or warrior for the faith.
All this destruction of Hindu temples must be understood as part of royal politics. It affected professional priests, the Brahmans, most of all, though craftsmen and manufacturers continued their work undisturbed, with some shift in patrons at the top. The characteristic description of Varanasi during this period demonstrates that everyday life continued peacefully: “Banaras [Varanasi] had the quality of being able to retain its old character, and the thousands of oppressive acts of the Sultanate period were powerless to destroy the city . . . the Brahmans lost their spiritual authority and almost all Hindu temples were razed to the ground. But Banaras showed its trait of returning again and again to its previous state” (Motichandra 2003, 155).
Finally, in 1529 Babur, the first of the Mughal emperors, came from Samarkand to defeat the last Sultan of Delhi, staking a claim on Varanasi as well as other parts of North India. Babar was himself the descendant of Chingiz Khan (also known as Genghis Khan), a pagan Mongol, and Timur Lane (known in the West as Tamerlane), a Muslim Turk, and thus embodied the melting pot found in so much of Varanasi’s history. In his autobiographical writings Babur confessed to having difficulty keeping all the prescriptions of Islam, but he did have artistic sympathies; scholars see his reign as having ushered in a flourishing of the arts, especially those influenced by Persian literary and architectural traditions.
Each of the next five important Mughal emperors, reigning from 1526 to 1707, had their own methods of rule that led to further amalgamation of cultures. For instance, Emperor Akbar’s reign from 1556 to 1605 saw the patronage of Hindu learning and temple building. His minister, Todar Mall, along with Todar Mall’s son Govardhan paid particular attention to Varanasi, helping to rebuild the important temple of Vishwanath. Because Akbar experimented with a new religion, Din-i-ilahi, both Hindus and Muslims in Varanasi experienced less authoritarian control. We have records of some conversions to the new religion as well as a liberalization of religious practice. Din-i-ilahi did not become a popular religion and is now considered simply a testimony to Akbar’s eclecticism. Conversely, Shah Jahan (1627–1658) and Aurangzeb (1658–1707) focused on patronizing Islamic learning and mosque building at the expense of Hinduism and other religions. Furthermore, we know a little about ordinary people’s experiences during this period from Ain-e-Akbari, the chronicle of Akbar’s reign. For example, their production of goods and crafts in Varanasi continued to expand. In 1665 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a French traveler to India, described Varanasi as a city of many caravansaries and as having the tallest buildings and narrowest lanes he had ever seen. He also explained how weavers sold silk and cotton fabric in a Varanasi market directly after having it stamped by the Mughal Crown’s insignia. Tavernier attested to the significance of Varanasi as a trade center, with roads and routes radiating in all directions.
In the Hindu imagination there is no strict separation between the religious-spiritual and the worldly-material. Kama is pleasure, and it is as important to experience and pursue as is worldly success (artha) or spiritual duty (dharma, discussed below). In Varanasi people have always understood how to work and play hard, how to live and die well. This is not limited to Hindus; ordinary Muslims also do not fear living well. Hindus’ and Muslims’ religious fairs—such as the homecoming of the goddess Durga, the awakening of the god Jagannath, the breaking of the Ramadan fast at Id, and the birthday of the Prophet Mohammad—are not only sacred but also fun occasions, with food and rides, poetry and performance, and lights, tents, and entertainment stalls. Images of Hindu gods are regularly honored with music and dance alongside solemn worship, and the musicians are sometimes Muslim. Poetry competitions and public singing mark the birthday of the Prophet and the martyrdom of his son-in-law, and the composers are sometimes Hindu. Hindus and Muslims can sometimes share in each other’s festivals and, at other times, perform them in similar ways because they enjoy the same pleasures: poetry, music, night lights, feasts, and parades.
There are portrayals of life from the sixth century BCE in Classical literature and paintings. A ninth-century CE narrative, Kuttanimtam by Damodar Gupta, gives a detailed picture of the elite social life of Varanasi. In it an upper-class male is dressed in silk, with a light shawl and polished leather shoes. His body and hair are perfumed in oils, and his forehead sports a bright yellow mark. His ears, neck, and arms are tastefully decked out in beautifully crafted jewels. He carries a walking stick and has a sword in his belt. He twirls his moustache, walks with a swagger, and is full of passion for all of life’s pleasures. At a moment’s notice he is ready to take a barge ride down the river, visit a Shiva temple, attend a theater performance, or pay a call to a courtesan’s boudoir. His body language, especially the style of reclining in sheer enjoyment when watching a performance, is an iconic representation of leisure and hedonism of the time.
Pleasure for men, however, could be work for women. Courtesans were renowned in India for their skills in acting, dancing, singing, and lovemaking, and the lore of the powerful courtesan inhabits Indian pleasure narratives from the third century BCE in Buddhist narratives continuing even to Bollywood films of today. Whenever an Indian courtesan was depicted as having especially excellent skills and appearance, she was from Varanasi.
As with much of Varanasi’s culture, the arts have evolved as an amalgamation of many traditions. Almost all the music, dance, painting, sculpture, and poetry that comprise the canon of classical arts in India today originate from the synthesis that the patronage of the Islamic courts in the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries produced. Artistic styles from Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan were brought to India, where it was applied and adapted, leading to a kind of “cultural renaissance.” Although Varanasi boasts fewer examples in architecture than it does in music, dance, and religion, it nonetheless shares in the larger syncretic Indo-Islamic culture of Northern India. During this time Urdu (Urdu meaning “camp” in Turkish) arose as a common people’s language, a result of the intermingling of the speakers of Sanskrit and Prakrits (local Indian languages) with those of Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. Urdu has been spoken in Varanasi since the language first developed.
Vedic chants, the oldest forms of music that exist in India, are sung in styles that many claim derives from the authentic styles from three millennia ago through a process of oral teaching. During the Sultanate and Mughal periods the Dhrupad style of singing emerged, based on Vedic chanting and incorporating new Islamic influences. Tansen (ca. 1506–1586), a court musician of the Emperor Akbar, was one of the most influential musicians in the North Indian classical canon and an exponent of dhrupad singing. As the legend goes, his father lived in Varanasi. Hindus consider the solemn sonority of dhrupad to be spiritual, and many of its best practitioners have been—and are today—Muslim musicians who sang to Allah, thereby making it an excellent example of the Hindu-Muslim synthesis that characterized the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries. (See Map 10.2.) Its accompanying instrument, a drum called the pakhawaj, is heard relatively rarely today but has nonetheless influenced the Banaras style played on the more popular drum, the tabla. Following dhrupad, vocal music forms called thumri and khayal emerged as similar instances of Indo-Islamic synthesis. They are today regarded as some of the most popular and evolved vocal genres of North Indian classical music, and one of the most important musical gharana, or school for these genres, is Varanasi.
Two important pursuits of kama that exist today in Varanasi are also further instances of cultural synthesis as a result of the Sultanate and Mughal periods. Varanasi takes pride in its wrestling and bodybuilding, and it has had akharas, or schools and clubs, of wrestlers that are written and sung about. The styles of wrestling and bodybuilding are themselves partially derived from the styles brought to India from Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan.
Similarly, the Muslim ascetic sufi saints, discussed in the next section, are worshipped in shrines around the city. There are similar shrines to scores of Hindu saints and heroes. Together, these individualized Hindu and Muslim shrines, which are not part of their respective classical religions, offer locations for their followers to interact socially, hold weekly fairs, and attend popular music performances. The boundary between religion and pleasure, therefore, has not existed for ordinary people in Varanasi, both Hindus and Muslims, and the everyday life of the city exemplifies this lack of division.
Dharma: The Pursuit of Righteous Conduct
Dharma means obligation or duty, and it has many nuances, including the pursuit of understanding through debate and discussion, practicing spirituality and religion, and living a life aligned with other human beings and nature. Dharma is a complex idea, and in this section we will simplify it and look at its religious aspects: ritual, popular gods, abstract worship, devotion, and religious synthesis.
We have already seen that when the Aryans spread into the Gangetic Valley, Varanasi became a center of Vedic learning and Sanskrit studies. As such, the city became an important Vedic ritual center to which pilgrims came specifically in search of the correct shrines to visit as well as specialists to conduct their rituals. Varanasi even gained a certain notoriety for its emphasis on sacred sites, bathing in the river, mantras, and rituals. When Buddhism challenged the dominance of the Vedic religion, however, Varanasi was at the hub of the change. Centuries later Buddhism came to be transcended or included within the emerging Hinduism. Hinduism’s expansion, from the third to the tenth centuries, resulted from inclusion rather than proselytization. Rather than trying to fight reformers or eradicate indigenous beliefs, instead the new mainstream religion incorporated both the new and old traditions. Hinduism’s mythology and ritualism came to include the local practices of ancient places like Varanasi, new and old gods, and a new pacifist worship.
Map 10.2. Varanasi: City of the Good Life
Hindu and Muslim temples and shrines are distributed all over the city. Together with ponds and reservoirs, religious fairs, and gymnasiums, these were all places where ordinary Hindus and Muslims spent leisure time. This partial mapping of leisure activities today gives us an idea of how kama often mingles with dharma, and of the synthetic nature of popular culture in Varanasi, mixing other traditions with the dominant Hindu culture.
River worship may have been one old practice that was taken over. Myths describe the goddess Ganges as dangerous but tamed by Shiva, as he caught her in the matted locks of his hair and domesticated her into a nurturing mother who loved and protected her children. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, then, the Ganges became a central site of pilgrimage, and Varanasi was confirmed as the holiest city in this Hindu tradition. Visiting pilgrims traveled to Varanasi to cleanse themselves with a ritual bath in the Ganges, and at her banks the dead and dying were guaranteed moksha, or release from the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Visitors carried away the water from the sacred river at Varanasi to keep at their homes, wherever those may be.
Scholars conjecture that over several centuries in the late Vedic period (roughly 500 BCE to 500 CE), as Vishnu, Shiva, and Devi emerged as the major gods of Hinduism, other local gods and heroes were progressively adopted as family members and subsidiary deities. In fact, the term Hindu is a modern term used to categorize a diverse group of sects, such as Shaiva (the worshippers of Shiva) and Vaishnava (the devotees of Vishnu). In Banaras the terms Hindu and Hinduism were not used until well into the twentieth century.
Shiva emerged as the patron lord of Varanasi. He is also called the “Lord of Creatures” or “Lord of the Universe,” thus encompassing all the creatures and deities that had previously been worshipped locally. By the Gupta period (320–550 CE), Shiva worship had developed as an offering—of flowers, water, and hymns—and circumambulation of Siva’s image, a linga, or phallus symbol. This form of Shiva is found all over Varanasi, and his devotees began to donate lingas to temples and install them out in the open and under trees. The male citizens of Varanasi have adopted Shiva’s spirit of eccentricity as well as his multiple roles as Lord of Dance, Lord of Destruction, the Supreme Yogi, the Lord of Meditation, and many others as role models. These men have an explicit ideology of mauj and masti, best translated as craziness and living in the moment, that they claim is the practice of their lord Shiva. They claim that, like him, they can reconcile opposites—dance and destruction, meditation and eroticism.
Even as Shiva became the most popular deity, the avatars, or incarnations, of Vishnu, chiefly Rama and Krishna, and the goddess Devi also emerged as important figures in Varanasi. The mythology and forms of worship of Rama and Krishna have been steady from the Gupta period onward. In fact, their stories inspire much of what may be classified as kama, or pleasure, when discussing the life of the city. Paintings, sculptures, and performances made the gods come alive for people, and in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries bhaktas, or “poet-saints,” rendered these gods’ stories into popular poetry, thereby further popularizing them.
Meanwhile, Islam had also come to Varanasi. With the beginning of the Delhi Sultanate in the thirteenth century followed by each ruler’s different approach to religious and cultural tolerance, two results emerged. First, during times of Islamic rulers’ religious intolerance, Hindu sectarian worship went underground but nevertheless continued, as beloved images were hidden away. Second, during times of tolerance Hindu sectarian practices flourished, and temple and shrine building resumed. The most outstanding figure among tolerant political leaders was the Emperor Akbar (1556–1605), who took pride in an intellectual engagement with different religions in his realm, discriminating against none. In Varanasi, as elsewhere in North and Central India, there was a burgeoning of Hindu art and literature.
An important indirect development of Islamic political rule was the popularization of bhakti, or a personal road to salvation that influences the egalitarian teachings of Islam. The teachers of this new approach, called bhaktas, were so-called poet-saints who came from all over India. Quite a few were either born in Varanasi or went there to write. Tulsi Das, who lived sometime during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was the author of the Ramcharitmanas, which retold in the local language the story of the ideal King Rama, adding many beloved discourses and tales to the classic myth. In writing this, Tulsi Das built a bridge between the Brahmin-dominated Hinduism that existed and a popular devotional religion that made everyone equal in their love of Rama. Similarly, he furthered the eclecticism of the city by bridging the worship of Shiva, who figures in Tulsi’s life of Rama, and the supreme god who, for Tulsi, was Rama. Today there are annual street pageants in September and October that enact the story of Rama, and Tulsi Das himself purportedly started this tradition.
Other important poet-saints were Ravidas, a cobbler by profession, and Kabir, a weaver. We do not know their exact dates, but they both lived in Varanasi sometime in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. All of their poetry was composed orally, and later others wrote their work down, as schools of followers developed who called themselves Ravidasis or Kabirpanthis. Different from the Rama devotee Tulsi Das, Ravidas and Kabir preached nirguna bhakti, or devotion to an abstract god who is beyond all description and has no form or characteristics. Similar to Tulsi Das, however, they were against established high religion and were radical enough to declare that all people are born and destined to be equal. Kabir was most probably a Muslim, though he attacked established Islam and its sacred places and rituals as much as he attacked Hinduism.
Devi, or the goddess, was also worshipped in many different forms, each of which encompassed one or more local goddesses. In various myths Devi is either married to an established god, such as Parvati to Shiva, or is an independent force that can slay a demon and lead an army to victory over foes, such as Durga. Locally produced artifacts as well as the music and performance associated with the goddess—just as that for Shiva, Rama, and Krishna—have been found from the fifth century onward.
Religion changed in Varanasi in other ways as well. During the period of Muslim coercive rule, the state may have forced followers of other religions to convert to Islam. Muslims in Varanasi today are divided into a minority who claim lineage from immigrants from West Asia and a majority who trace themselves back to their ancestors’ conversion from Hinduism to Islam. However, the majority of conversions to Islam were not by force but instead were the result of charismatic sufi saint-leaders called pir. To be a sufi is to subscribe to one of four schools of Sufi philosophy, with a common practice of asceticism and love. The sufi saints were teachers, social activists, counselors, and mentors. Studies of their activities in other parts of India give us a clue as to what they must have done for ordinary people in the city: they were the doctors and psychiatrists, the guides in troubled times, and the everyday practical guides in domestic peacekeeping and social interaction. What we know for certain is that all classes of people came to revere these Muslim pirs. Upon their deaths, shrines were erected on their tombs, and their funerals were marked by rituals of prayers, cleaning and decorating the grave, offering incense and flowers, reading the Qu’ran, or keeping of vows, or supplicating the dead saint through vows and devotion for whatever one wishes. Such shrines have proliferated in Varanasi since Islam came to the city, providing another powerful testimony to the power of Hindu-Muslim synthesis for everyday people.
Varanasi had always been a Hindu city because of the enduring importance of pilgrimage, and during the Sultanate-Mughal period it also became a dynamic center of Muslim celebrations and popular culture. Parades marked the martyrdom of Shahs Hasan and Hussain as well as the birthday of the Prophet; fairs were held at the end of the holy month of Ramadan; and feasts were the order of the day at Id-ul Zuha, the festival of the sacrifice of animals. Scores of other, more everyday practices began to distinguish Varanasi as an Islamic city alongside a Hindu one. During their reigns, the more dogmatic rulers, such as Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, sought to reform some of these practices because, the rulers claimed, they demonstrated Hinduism’s influence. During others’ reigns, such as Akbar, the practices were left alone, respected as the choices made by ordinary people. Thus, by and large Varanasi has a remarkable history of interfaith tolerance not because people did not have strong convictions but rather because they imagined and lived out innovative new paths and syntheses.
Moksha: The Pursuit of Final Truth
The three values of artha, kama, and dharma are superseded by the fourth value, that of moksha. Moksha means, literally, release. It implies the pursuit and ultimate understanding of truth. Moksha is only for those who have lived their lives to the fullest and experienced artha, kama, and dharma. It completes the four ends of life. To pursue moksha is to become an ascetic; to be henceforth uninterested in wealth, pleasure, or popular worship; and to live solely for self-discovery. Because it is the final and supreme aim of life, Hindus revere asceticism as its highest ideal because they give up everything and have no more care for society.
Emphasis on the importance of supreme knowledge of the self emerged in the late Vedic period and is called the Vedanta, or the “end of the Vedas.” It is laid out in the teachings of the Upanishads, texts that date from around 500 BCE to 500 CE. The Upanishads consist of lessons, the essence of which is to lead the student to realize that true knowledge lies in looking past the superficial disputes and desires of the mundane world to the deeper realities beyond.
Study of the Upanishads took place in ashrams, where gurus (teachers) and students lived and studied together. In their ashrams the gurus taught students for no charge, as patrons or benefactors covered all expenses. Every Hindu text of the period mentions Varanasi’s ashrams, where ascetics migrated to teach, study, or meditate, and patrons earned merit and status by funding the life of study and devotion. During Islamic dynastic rule ashram teaching was partly supplanted by the more popular devotional teaching, which taught that every single individual could aspire to oneness with the Supreme simply through love and devotion. But the more extreme practice of asceticism survived well through the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries because the practice was essentially an individualistic one and did not rely on patronage except that which could be provided from ordinary households in the course of an ascetic’s wanderings.
Throughout Varanasi’s history these ascetics, who pursue this fourth, final aim of life by renouncing everything worldly, would have been seen regularly, and they are still present today. They wore saffron and sometimes distinguished themselves in their appearance according to the school of ascetics to which they belonged. They let their hair grow, wore beads or even snakes, carried sticks or tridents, wore wooden clogs, and were free of all attachment to house, family, possessions, or occupation. They spent their time in discourse and meditation. Just as the population of Varanasi included people from all over India, the ascetics likewise came from every part of India. By virtue of their very identity, they must have played a major role in disseminating the values of Hinduism and keeping it alive through the centuries of Islamic rule.
Finally, moksha in Varanasi presents a paradox. Because the city gives liberation, or moksha, to one and all, Varanasi, beyond everything else, is famous for being the site where death means immediate release. Its famous cremation places and rituals of death, along with the liberation that accompanies them, have been known and celebrated since before 1200 CE.
GLOBAL ENCOUNTERS AND CONNECTIONS:
A Synthesis of Cultures
Varanasi has been and continues to be a global city. Its history is told by the texts of the Aryans, who originally came from central Eurasia; of Buddhists who came from elsewhere; of Jain monks; and of travelers, such as the Chinese traveler Hiuen Tsiang in the seventh century. The writing on the city is prolific and creates a consistent picture. The texts include the Puranas, Hindu histories of fifth to fifteenth centuries CE, with their evocation of a “Forest of Bliss.” Hiuen Tsiang also described this utopia of temples by pool sides, monasteries and schools in groves, elite houses and gardens, and public streams, parks, and markets for all.
Although almost no architectural remains survive from before the Mughals in the sixteenth century, we know from sculptures and texts that Varanasi was already a commercial center for a few centuries before it became one of Vedic worship and then of Hinduism beginning in the fifth century CE. As an intellectual-philosophical center, then, Varanasi has been a destination for leaders of other religions as well as reformers and critics, including the Buddha in the fifth century BCE, the South Indian philosopher Shankara in the ninth century CE, Nanak and Mirabai in the fifteenth century CE, and Christian missionaries and orientalists in the centuries following. When François Bernier, a French scholar and doctor, visited Varanasi in the middle of the seventeenth century, his descriptions of Varanasi were typical:
The town contains no colleges or regular classes, as in our universities, but resembles rather the schools of the ancestors, the masters being dispersed over different parts of the town in private houses, and principally in the gardens of the suburbs, which the rich merchants permit them to occupy. Some of these masters have four disciples, others six or seven, and the most eminent may have twelve or fifteen. (Eck 1983, 84)
Trade and manufacture always lay at the heart of this internationalism. The silks woven in Varanasi were already exported everywhere in the known world—Europe and East and West Asia—beginning in the Buddhist period in the fifth century BCE. The actual products—first silk yarn, then wraps, turbans, suit pieces, and, most recently, saris—changed over the centuries, as weavers took notice of market demand. But “Banarasi silk” was a powerful brand throughout the world and remains so even today. Ritual and religious items such as containers for holy Ganges water, vermilion dye for married women to indicate their status, and images of gods and goddesses also provided manufacturing and export opportunity. The images of deities were made from copper, bronze, silver, wood, clay, and stone, and they were sold both locally and globally. When the thousands of pilgrims who visited Varanasi returned home, they brought these products back with them along with powerful confirmations of rituals and sacraments. They even brought back Ganges water, of which a few drops would be used in any important ritual and put in the mouth of a dying person.
Our history above traces how this global identity is reciprocal: just as Varanasi’s products and intellectual influences have traveled all over the world, what is called Banarasi for short—that is, “of Varanasi”—is a synthesis of the many practices of people from all corners of India and beyond.
The two excerpts below give a firsthand account of the plural values of artha, kama, dharma, and moksha. The first is an excerpt that tells of the gods’ visit to Varanasi. It is taken from the Kashi Khand, a part of the Skanda Purana, one of the sacred Puranas, whose authorship is imputed to Vyasa, author of Mahabharata. The dates of the text are not exactly known; it was composed orally around 300 BCE and first written down much later. This excerpt is one of many that testifies to the glories of the city of Varanasi, or, as it is called below, Kashi.
What is important about Varanasi, called Kashi in this excerpt Kashikhanda from the Mahrshi Vyasa, is that it does not derive its importance from a particular god or event or practice but instead truly seems to have been “already there.” Shiva, one of the three gods of the Hindu pantheon, for instance, is the Lord of Kashi and resides in the city. But the city predated him. Indeed, because of its beauty and luminosity, he chose the city as his new home when he married Parvati, daughter of the Himalayas. Varanasi radiated with the presence of innumerable gardens, retreats, temples, and palaces.
•If a city is to be celebrated as a religious center, as Varanasi is, how does a description, like the one below, serve this purpose?
•Why do you think people would actually believe this exaggerated description? Were there other facets to Varanasi’s existence that might have already made people like it?
•How do the four goals of artha, kama, dharma, and moksha describe the life of the city?
[Brahma said to the gods] Where the Lord Shiva himself resides, that place that guarantees release to all as no other place does, it is there that the austere sage Agastya is immersed in a profound penance. Go there and put your cause to him. He will see your work through.
Brahma vanished. The gods were pleased and said to each other, “We are blessed! In this way we will get to have darshan [sight] of Kashi, the Lord of Kashi, and Parvati. . . . Because only those steps are blessed, that lead to Kashi. Today we listened to Brahma, and as the blessed result of that, we are en route to Kashi.” In this way, the beautiful, well-speaking, well-intentioned gods, conversing among themselves on the matter, reached Kashi.
All around Shiva’s ashram even the animals forgot their characteristic animosity and seemed full of peace. . . .
The gods on seeing the animals, began to criticize the heavens that were so full of troubles. In comparison to the gods, they said, the animals, birds, and deer who live in Kashi are very well off. They are not born again, whereas the gods have to suffer the pains of rebirth.
“Even though we live in the heavens, we cannot compare with the fallen of Kashi. In fact, there is no danger of suffering in Kashi, but in heaven there can be many troubles.
Living in Kashi, even while keeping a fast for a full month, is better than living elsewhere, sitting under a fine umbrella, eating a grand feast.
The happiness from living in Kashi cannot be matched by living anywhere in the whole world. Now, if people were aware of this, would they not all wish to live in Kashi? But it is after thousands of lifetimes of creating merit that one gets to live in Kashi.
Dharma, artha, kama and moksha—these four ends of life can be found in Kashi in a complete way, such that they cannot be found anywhere else. . . . In Kashi, dharma stands on all four feet, artha is present in various ways, and kama is the sole refuge of innumerable people. Indeed, what is that excellent thing that is not present in Kashi?
After all, where the Lord Shiva is himself present to give dharma, artha, kama and moksha, why should one be surprised that the three worlds are nowhere equal to Kashi?”
Source: Kashikhanda (Part one) of Mahrshi Vyasa, foreword by Ashok Kumar Kalia, edited by Acarya Sri karunapai Tripathi (Varanasi, India: Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, 2008), 69–94. Translated by Nita Kumar.
The second document consists of poems by Kabir and Tulsi. Kabir (ca. 1440–1518) was a weaver who lived in Varanasi and is regarded as a sant, or saint. Through his verses and aphorisms he challenged the ritualism of both Hinduism and Islam, the dominance of pundits, or Hindu priests, and qazis, Muslim preachers, and the divisions into high and low. His followers grouped themselves into what is sometimes described as a new religion, Kabirpanth, or “the way of Kabir.” He is important in the history of Varanasi, India, and the world, because he was a popular poet and teacher whose message of egalitarianism recurs time and again. As a Muslim, he is also a representative of the many-faceted Hindu-Muslim synthesis that characterizes popular religion and everyday life in India.
Tulsi Das (ca. 1532–1623) is as unknown as Kabir as a historical person but is even more popular for his writings. He too lived in Varanasi and suffered adverse circumstances in his childhood, though he rose to fame quickly as a poet and a bhakta, or mystic. He composed many poems and is most famous for his epic about Rama, based on the Sanskrit original but composed in local Hindi and embellished with many original poetic touches. Tulsi Das is extremely important because his Ramcharitmanas, or story of Rama, is one of the most popular books in the world, read by millions of Hindus wherever. It is excerpted for music, dance, and performance, is taught and recited, and is memorized for its beauty and simplicity. Because he provided a new direction for Hindu worship, that of loving devotion to Rama, he can also be credited with historically having helped the religion to withstand Islamic onslaught that might have reduced its importance. Finally, his imaginative rendering of worship made it all the stronger.
•Do Kabir and Tulsi have an identical perspective on god, as shown in poems two and three? What is the difference? How may it be reconciled within Hinduism?
•There was obviously a sharp class difference in the city between the poor and the privileged. Does it surprise you that two such important religious leaders came from the poorest classes?
•Kabir’s is the only mention of women, apart from just a couple in the whole discussion of Varanasi. Can you recollect what these other two mentions are? What do you think of the fact that real women (apart from Kabir’s mention of them) are absent but are present as Parvati, wife of Shiva; Devi, the goddess; and courtesans? (These are the other two mentions—of goddesses and courtesans.)
FROM KABIR GRANTHAVALI, VERSE 178
Hey Qazi,
what’s that book you’re preaching from?
And reading, reading—how many days?
Still you haven’t mastered one word.
Drunk with power, you want to grab me;
then comes the circumcision.
Brother, what can I say?—
If God had wanted to make me a Muslim,
Why didn’t he make the incision?
You cut away the foreskin, and then you have a Muslim;
so what about your women?
What are they?
Women, so they say, are only half-formed men:
I guess they must stay Hindus to the end.
Hindus, Muslims—where did they come from?
Who got them started down this road?
Search inside, search your heart and look:
Who made heaven come to be?
Fool,
Throw away that book, and sing of Ram.
What you’re doing has nothing to do with him.
Kabir has caught hold of Ram for his refrain,
And the Qazi?
He spends his life in vain.
FROM KABIR GRANTHAVALI, VERSE 46
Tell me, Ram: what will happen to me?
I haven’t shown much wit: I’ve abandoned Benares
Like a fish who leaves the water and finds himself outside,
I’m stripped of any merit earned in former lives.
I squandered a life spent in Siva’s city:
moved to Magahar when my time was ripe—
Penance in Kashi year after year
And here I am in Magahar to die.
Kashi, Magahar: they seem the same.
Which can rectify a life of little faith?
In Kashi, they say, you can cry to Siva when you die.
And Kabir? Dead already.
He’s enjoying life with Ram.
FROM TULSI DAS’ KAVITAVALI, VERSE 7.73
I was born in a beggar family
And, hearing the sounds of celebration,
My mother and father felt anguish, felt pain.
From childhood on, poor thing that I was,
I went weeping, begging from door to door.
To me the four great goals of life were four little grains of food.
And that is the Tulsi who has become
The good servant of that worthy Lord:
When Fate, the great astrologer, hears, how cheated it feels.
Your name, O Ram:
Is it wise or mad?
It makes a weighty mountain from a tiny scrap of straw.
Source: Paras Nath Tivari, Kabir Granthavali, and Ramcandra Sukla et al., eds., Tulsi-Granthavali, both quoted in Songs of the Saints of India, edited by John Stratton Hawley and Mark Juergensmayer (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Chandra, Moti. Kashi ka Itihas (The History of Kashi, in Hindi). Varanasi, India: Vishwavidyalaya Publishers, 2003; 1st pub. 1962.
Eck, Diana. Banaras: City of Light. New York: Penguin Books, 1983.
Freitag, Sandria, ed. Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and Environment, 1800–1980. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
Hawley, John Stratton, and Mark Juergensmeyer. Songs of the Saints of India. New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Hertel, Bradley, and Cynthia Humes, eds. Living Banaras: Hindu Religion in Cultural Context. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993.
Kumar, Nita, The Artisans of Banaras. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988.
———. “Work and Leisure in the Formation of Identity: Muslim Weavers in a Hindu City.” In Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and Environment, 1800–1980. Edited by Sandra Freitag. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
———. Lessons from Schools: The History of Education in Banaras. New Delhi, India: Sage Publications, 2000.
Parry, Jonathan. Death in Banaras. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Singh, R. L. Banaras: A Study in Urban Geography. Banaras, India: Nand Kishore & Bros, 1955.
The Holy City of Varanasi, Ganga and Ghats, http://varanasi.nic.in/ghat/ghat.htm.
The Story of India: Varanasi, PBS, http://www.pbs.org/thestoryofindia/gallery/photos/9.html.
Varanasi City, http://www.varanasicity.com/history-of-varanasi.html.
A Sampling of the Music of Banaras (cassettes)
Bismillah Khan. Shehnai: Puriya Dhanashree and Bhairavi. RPG Enterprises STCS 850089.
Channulal Mishra. Thumri, dadra. Music Today B01004.
Channulal Mishra. Tulsidas Ramcharitmanas. Music Today D02101A and D02101B.
Rajan and Sajan Mishra. Lalit, Puriya. Music Today A92030.
Rajan and Sajan Mishra. Tirth: Kashi. Music Today D96001.
NIRMAN. Children Playing Gods (a documentary about NGO work in Banaras using Tulsi’s story of Rama), www.nirman.info.
