Varanasi

 

Varanasi, also known as Benares, Banaras, or Kashi, a town, southeast of Uttar Pradesh state, in northern India. It is located on the left bank of the Ganges River (Ganga) and is one of the seven holy cities of Hinduism. Pop. (2001) city, 1,091,918; urban agglom., 1,203,961; (2011) city, 1,198,491; urban agglom., 1,432,280.

 

Varanasi is one of the oldest human settlements in the world. Its earliest history is that of the first Aryan settlement in the valley between the Ganges. By the second millennium BCE, Varanasi was the center of Aryan religion and philosophy and was a center of commerce and industry famous for its silk and silk fabrics, perfumes, ivory, and carpentry. Varanasi was the capital of the Kashi empire at the time of the Buddha (6th century BCE), who gave his first sermon near Sarnath. The city remained a center of religious, educational, and artistic activity, as evidenced by China's revered Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang, who visited about 635 CE and claimed that the city expanded about three miles [5 km] west of the Ganges coast.

 

Varanasi then withdrew during the three centuries of Muslim occupation, beginning in 1194. Many Hindu temples in the city were destroyed during the Islamic regime, and educated scholars fled to other parts of the country. The 16th-century Mughal emperor Akbar brought relief to the city's religious and cultural activities. There was another regression during the reign of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb in the late 17th century, but in time the Maratha sponsors a new revival. Varanasi became an independent state in the 18th century, and under subsequent British rule it became a center of commerce and religion.