Page:The Imperial Gazetteer of India - Volume 2 (2nd edition).pdf/273

 BENARES unhealthiness, though

its

position

passage of the river makes

it

CITY.

263

on an eminence commanding the

the natural key of Benares and the

surrounding country. History

— From the

.

earliest

period of Aryan colonization in India, a

appears to have existed at the junction of the Barna with the

city

The name

Ganges. tion

of Varanasi, converted into Banaras by transposi-

of the liquid consonants, frequently occurs in early Sanskrit

Gautama Buddha, on the eve of upon Benares as the first station for preaching the doctrine of nirvana, and took up his residence at Sarxath. Even before that time, Benares had apparently acquired a reputation as the most sacred city of the Hindu creed ; it then became, for 800 years, the head-quarters of Buddhism and about the 4th century after Christ it once more reverted to the ancient faith, whose literature.

In the sixth century

promulgating his new

B.c.,

religion, fixed



metropolis it remains to the present day. Hwen Thsang, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim of the 7th century, found the kingdom of Benares divided between the two creeds. He mentions the existence of 30 Buddhist monasteries and 100 Hindu temples. Sankar Acharjya, the great opponent of

Buddhism and champion

Benares in the 7th century. in

Upper

India, the Sivaite

changing

of the Sivaite sect, lived in

After the annihilation of the rival faith

Hindus

rebuilt a considerable portion

of

from the northern bank of the Barna to its present position on the angle enclosed between the southern shore and the Ganges. the

city,

its site

Benares has shown a tendency to

shift

its

position

in

different

most ancient times. The oldest town occupied the site of Sarndth, where colossal Buddhist remains still lie thickly scattered over the ground. At a later period, the centre of the city stood apparently north of the Barna. Mausoleums, mosques, dargahs, and Hindu temples, now in ruins, stud the vacant space to the north of the present city ; thus showing that up till the Muhammadan period Benares lay close to the south bank of the Barna ; while the modern frontage faces the Ganges alone, leaving an empty suburb to the north-east. Most of the existing buildings date no further back than the reign of Akbar. Muhammad Ghori took Benares in 1194 A.D., and the various Musalman dynasties continued to hold it for 600 years. Nearly all the edifices in the city which can lay claim to any antiquity have been appropriated to Muhammadan purposes. The Musalmdns converted all the larger temples into mosques or tombs, and destroyed or mutilated the remainder, using their walls as quarries for building material. Ala-ud-din boasted that he had razed to the ground 1000 shrines in Benares alone. The existing Hindu buildings are generally small, and often destitute of architectural merit or ornamental detail, owing apparently to the stringency of the Muhammadan rule. directions from the