Construction and Reconstruction of Sacred Space in Vārānasī

Abstract

It is widely believed that Vārānasī (Benares) ranks among the oldest holy cities on earth. Archaeological and textual sources, however, begin only to testify to the construction of sacred space in the first millennium AD. A significant discrepancy is found between the archaeological data (mainly seals) and early textual sources belonging to the 5th to 8th centuries. While seals provide us with the names of temples that apparently were frequented by the ordinary pilgrim, the oldest Māhātmya text that has recently become available, three chapters of the ‘original’ Skandapurāna, depicts Vārānasī as a place of ascetics and yogis. The spheres of devotion and world-renouncing are further complicated in the 11th and 12th centuries, when Vārānasī is made the political capital of the Gāhadavāla dynasty. Inscriptions reveal yet another dimension of sacred space, that of state ritual. After the destruction of the town by the Muslim conquerors, a process of reconstruction sets in during the 13th and 14th centuries, resulting eventually in the sacred Vārānasī as we know it today.

Archaeologies of Buddhist propagation in ancient India: ‘ritual’ and ‘practical’ models of religious change

“…The creation of a pan-Indian Buddhist geography is not paralleled by developments within the Brahmanical world until at least 700 years after the first known Buddhist stūpas. For example, the rise of pan-Indian sacred centres of Hinduism, such as Ayodhya, Mathura or Varanasi, did not occur until at least the mid-first millennium AD, with further consolidation in the eleventh century AD, as a form of resistance to increasing Muslim oppression (Bakker 1996;Bakker and Isaacson 2004: intro.). Looking at Walter's Buddhist 'World Map' through an economic prism, the 'presencing' of the body of Buddhism through the construction of stūpas and the absorption of landmass into a local and pan-Indian geography would also have helped the saṅgha to gain custodianship over land and natural resources; again something which does not find parallels in the Brahmanical tradition until at least the Gupta period with the rise of the Hindu temple cult discussed earlier (Shaw Under Review).…”

Blending into the Religious Landscape: The Yoginīs in Benares

“…According to a number of historians, the thriving region with its large potential audience might have been the reason why the historical Buddha chose Sārnāth (near Benares) as the place for his first public lectures. 7 For most of the late Vedic period, indigenous 7) See, for instance, Bakker 1996, Bakker &Isaacson 2004:19-82, and forms of worship seem to have prevailed over the ritual practices of the brahmanical traditions in Benares. Both Buddhist and Jain texts point to the popularity of yakṣ a and nāga worship in the city.…”

The Form and Formlessness of Śiva: TheLingain Indian Art, Mythology, and Pilgrimage1

“…Other scholars, such as Hans Bakker and Phyllis Granoff, take a different approach to investigating the diverse traditions now encompassed within Śaivism. They seek to reconstruct the origins and development of specific traditions, by taking seriously the differences between our ancient evidence, on the one hand, and our medieval and modern evidence, on the other (e.g., Bakker 1996, pp. 321–34; Granoff 2003, pp.…”