Varanasi

Read its story

• A city facing its riverWhy Varanasi's ghats are on that bank, and what the river is carrying now.4 chapters · about 9 min · 3 sources

Where it is

Varanasi stands on the Ganges in Uttar Pradesh, on the outer, higher bank of a bend where the river briefly turns north. The opposite bank is low sand that floods each monsoon and is largely empty. That asymmetry is not a planning decision: a river erodes its outer bank and deposits on the inner one, so one side is high and stable and the other is not. The city's stone steps down to the water — the ghats — run for several kilometres along that high bank.

The land and water around it

• The Gangesriver

  The river the city faces, whose level varies by many metres between the dry season and the monsoon. The ghats are stepped precisely so that access works at any level.

• The bendriver

  A stretch where the river runs north rather than south-east. In a tradition where the source lies in the Himalaya to the north, a reach that appears to flow back toward its source is read as significant.

Its history, in short

Varanasi is among the longest continuously inhabited cities anywhere, with settlement from at least the first millennium BCE. It has been a centre of Hindu practice and pilgrimage for most of that time, and also of Buddhist tradition — Sarnath, where the Buddha is held to have given his first teaching, is a few kilometres away. It has been ruled by Hindu and Muslim states in turn, and much of the visible built fabric on the riverfront is comparatively recent, built or rebuilt from the eighteenth century by rulers and merchants from across India. It is a weaving city as well as a religious one, and its silk industry is largely Muslim-run — a fact frequently absent from accounts that present the city as singularly Hindu.

Timeline

Dates are shown on a timeline rather than as changing shapes on the map. The globe draws modern boundaries only, and tinting a modern outline to stand for a historical one would state something we cannot source.

Places that carry meaning

• The ghatsLargely 18th century onward, on much older use

  Stone steps running several kilometres along the high bank, giving access to water at any level. Bathing, laundry, boats, pilgrimage and cremation all happen on them, sometimes within a few hundred metres of each other.

• Sarnath3rd century BCE onward

  The site associated with the Buddha's first teaching, with Ashokan remains, stupas and a monastic complex. Its presence makes Varanasi a place of two major traditions rather than one.

Learn the language here

1. 1Understand which languages are spoken hereVaranasi is multilingual. Start with which languages are used, by whom, and for what — the phrase list only covers one of them.Written by Globe Quest
2. 2Read why the language is what it isThe quest for this place covers how its languages got here and who speaks them.Written by Globe Quest

Check yourself

• Why is one bank densely built and the other nearly empty?

  The built bank is the high outer bank of a bend; the other is low, flood-prone sand

  Rivers erode the outer bank of a bend and deposit on the inner one. Varanasi is on the high side.

• What practical problem do the ghats solve?

  They give access to water whose level varies by metres between seasons

  Stepped access works at any water level, which is the point.

Worth arguing about

• A river that is sacred, a water supply and a drain at once. When those uses conflict, whose claim should win?
• Accounts of Varanasi often present it as singularly Hindu. What does that leave out, and who does the omission serve?

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