PilgrimTrips - India Pilgrimage

Temples and other Places of Interest

The River- Front, Benares

If Calcutta has been called the City of Palaces and Lucknow the City of Gardens, Benaras may well be styled the City of Temples. Through centuries of her history she has received attention from the entire Hindu world, one province in India anxious to vie with another in offering its own contribution to beautify the place. Bengal and Maharastra, Punjab and Madras, even distant Nepal and Assam have joined hands in the rearing of temples in the sacred city. Besides the well known ones where public worship is offered on a large scale, there are a large number of private shrines. In fact, it is the ambition of every Hindu gifted with great wealth to build a shrine of some kind or other within the holy limits and endow it, as best as he may, with facilities for perpetual service and worship. Reference has been made, when describing service and worship. Reference has been made, when describing the river front, to some of the temples which line the river. A few of the more prominent of the remaining ones in the city will be mentioned here and this chapter will also included a brief description of some of the other objects of interest.

The shrine of Vishweshwar and its neightbourhood represent the most important of the places of worship for the Hindus. Benares, from time immemorial, has been the city of Vishwanath and the traditions of long centuries have gone to enhance its sanctity. There is always a dense crowd of worshi[ppers at the temple and on special occasions it is difficult to find even jostling accommodation inside its courtyard. We owe the Present stricture to Maharani Ahalyabai of Indore. There is some fine carving in the temple and the roof is gold- plated by the generosity of Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Punjab. Near by is the Gyan Bapi or the well of knowledge, a draught of whose sacred waters is believed by the orthodox Hindu to produce the highest spiritual illumination. The temple of Annapurna or the Indian Ceres ever ready to pour her wealth of plenty to the devout worshipper is also there.

In strange incongruity with these Hindu structures, there is big mosque in the adjoining courtyard just behind the Carmichael public Library situated on the high road leading to Chowk. History and even the present appearance of the mosque can however explain the strange proximity. Aurangazeb whose wrath decended with special violence on the unfortunate city of Benares, the centre and crown of Hinduism. Destroyed the original temple of Vishwanath situated on this spot and built the mosque, retaining even the original walls and only surmounting the structure with the Saracenic domes and minarets associated with Islam. A glance at the walls will show that they belonged to a Hindu temple at one time. They indicate a structure of considerable beauty and magnitude.

The number of temples in Benares is legion and reference can be made only to a handful of them here. In far south, on the way to the Benares Hindu University, there is a temple to Durga whose worship is quite popular in Benares and in northern India, if not so universal as in Bengal. There is a fine tank with well- dressed banks on its side and there is also the tomb of Swami Bhaskaranand in the neighbourhood. To the north of the city, beyond Vishwanath, there are a number of shrines like Kala- Bhairav, Bindu- Madhav and so on. In the west, temples crowd round the regions of Lakshmi Kund and Surya Kund. There is not a road in Benaras diving along which the visitor may, not come across a gold- tipped turret surmounting a temple with exquisite carved facings in stone Every big mansion situated on its own grounds is sure to have a temple within the compound from which the bronze bells will peal forth morning and evening inviting attention of the service and worship carried on inside.

Benares is such a rambling city, that it is rather difficult to take the visitor along well- defined routes to do the sights. But there is one great highway parallel to the river traversing the entire length of the city along which he may wander with profit surveying the crowded scenes on either side. From the Assi which is only a nala during the greater part of the year, it proceeds through the most crowded parts of the city to Rajghat in the extreme north, at one time probably the fortified gateway leading to the place. The populousness increases towards the centre as the visitor comes from either side, and he who has wandered along this road has seen the teeming population of Benares. One of the few spacious crossings in the city is near Dashashwamodh from which spot, for another nearly two miles towards the north, increases the bustle of the city’s life.

As in many other cities in northern India the spacious opening in Chauk, in front of the police station which looks like a little castle, is the centre of the city’s commercial life, especially in the evenings Lanes radiate from the neighbourhood with shops which have stored in them all the wealth of Benares in its famous silk fabrics, some of them of exquisite texture, ornamented with fascinating designs of gold thread. In spite of all the advance of the industrial world, in silk weaving and in gold embroidery in recent decades, Benaras manufactures in the line hold their own even to- day in the markets of India and abroad. Near by is also the brass bazaar honoured by association with the name of Harischandra, in whose labyrinthine mazes, the visitors can pick up some of the best brass work of India, quaint in design and full of the most patient and detailed ornamentaion.

Another crossing, and we come to a parting of ways, the one to the right leading to Rajghat and the Kashi station in the north and the opposite one preceeding towards the Benares Cantonment through Kabir Chaura, a suburb associated with the memory of the well- known Indian saint of the name. On the former road are the Nagari Pracharini Sabha, reference to whose useful activites has been made elsewhere, the Kotwali and the grain markets of the city. There is also the Town- Hall built in commemoration of the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh to Benares in 1870, and opened by his late Majesty King Edward VII on the occasion of the visit to India as Prince of Wales in 1876. The hall is the usual place of meetings for the city. Beyond is the Kashi Railway station which marks, more or less, the northern end of the city’s bounds.

Taking the road in the contrary direction, we pass through the historic suburb of Kabir Chaura associated with that wonderful mystic prophet of the fifteenth century whose fervent outpourings of spiritual ecstasy continue to exercise a profound influence on the masses of India even to- day. It has been said by Miss Underhill in her introduction to Rabindranth Tagore’s One Hundred Poems of Kabir: "Kabir belongs to that small group of supreme mystics- amongst whom St. Augustine, Ruysbroeck and the Sufi poet Jalauddin Rumi are perhaps the chief, who have achieved that which we might call the synthetic vision achieved that which we might call the synthetic vision of God." It was from this neighbourhood that he sent forth those popular songs in Hindi full of benignant charity and the sweetness of true religion which have become a prized inheritance of the people. In spite of living at a centre where the rites and ceremonies of religion are often apt to obscure the essence of faith, Kabir kept his vision of the eternal verities of life undimmed and communicated his spirit to all those around him in an atmosphere of what Matthew Arnold has called ‘bounding emotion." A small Kabir Dass ka Mandir in an unpretentious little lane commemorates the saint’s association with this suburb while there is another memorial to him on the Grand Trunk Road to Allahabad outside the city, it is known as Kabir Dass ka Baithuk and tradition has it that Kabir Das as a babe was found here.

Another spot of considerable historical importance in this part of the city is an ole garden- house now transformed into the headquarters of the Radhaswamis of the place. It is Madhav Das Garden situated on the main road where Warren Hastings camped on the occasion of his visit to Benares. During the few days he stayed in Benares, his fortunes were undergoing serious fluctuations. On one occasion, the citizens of Benares and the forces of the Raja made common cause and inflicted severe injuries on Warren Hastings’ soldiers and there is a story current that the illustrious Governor- General had to keep himself in hiding for a while in a well inside the compound. Some of the British army killed in engagements here on the occasion are interred in the cemetery in Chaitganj adjoining the police station.

A vast pilgrim centre like Benaras, with a permanent population of nearly two hundred thousand, and a further floating population always coming and going out of the city, is badly in need of hospital accommodation. Two well- equipped hospitals, the King Edward and the Ishwari Memorial, the latter for women, situated along the same road supply the need. King Edward Hospital, formerly known as the Prince of Wales Hospital commemorates the visit of King Edward as Prince of Wales, but the history of the medical foundation goes to an earlier period. The nucleus of the institution was formed so early as in the times of Jonathan Duncan who was political resident of the place in the time of Maharajah Udit Narayan of Benares and was responsible for many beneficent activities. Beginnig with a grant of land by the Maharajah in 1787, the foundation has enjoyed benefactions of various kinds from time to time. The Ishwari Memorial Hospital which is now presided over by a distinguished Hindu lady doctor trained abroad, was ereated in 1890, by His Highness the present Maharajah of Benares in memory of his predecessor Maharajah Ishwari Prasad Narain Singh. The hospital is under the management of the Dufferin Fund and fulfils a great want in the city. Besides the hospital for troops in the Cantonment three are only two other hospital, the Bhelupura hospital built by the generosity of the late Maharaja Sir Viziaram Gajapathi, K.C.S.I., and the Lakshmi Narayan Hospital at Dasaswamedh, built by a Marwari merchant as a memorial to his son. The Benares Hindu University has just completed a hospital at the southern end which, it is hoped, will develop in course of time into a fine institution for medical relief as also for medical education.

We reach Benaras Cantonment passing the headquarters of the Bharat Dharma Mahamandal, a well- known religious organization of Orthodox Hindus which enjoys the patronage of many of the ruling princes of India and has some useful work of religious propagation to its credit. The Queen’s College and the Victoria Park are also in the same neighbourhood. The Cantonment, located on the high ground of Sigra, is of the usual regulation type with barracks and parade- grounds and does not call for any special remarks. All the public offices and official residences are on this side and enjoy fine situations, though handicapped by want of sufficient proximity to the major part of the city.

There are, however, two buildings worthy of more than passing notice, both of them now in the possession of H.H. the Maharajah of Benares. One is the Mint House which has ceased to be a mint for a long time, but is associated with memories of James Prinsep, the well known numismatist. James prinsep, to whom we owe great reforms in connection with the coinage as well as the measures and weights of India was Assay Master at this Mint from 1820 to 1860 before he was promoted to his higher sphere of duties in connection with His Majesty’s Mint at Calcutta. The building also played a useful part at the time of the great Indian Mutiny by affording shelter to the European residents of the city and the cantonment who were expecting every hour an extension of the outbreak to this populous centre from Cawnpore and Lucknow. In recent years, it has also been a successful war hospital of considerable activity.

Near by in the Nandesar House of His Highness the Maharaja of Benares, which serves as a guest- house for exalted visitors to the city who always enjoy the lavish hospitality of His Highness. It is at the same time a house of historic memories connected as it is with a famous episode of Anglo- Indian history which occurred at the time of the rebellion of Wazir Ali, the ex- king of Oudh who was deposed in 1798 and kept in Benares for some time as a political pensioner. In view of the intrigues which he was fomenting in Benares, it was decided by Lord Mornington who arrived as the governor- general of India in May 1798, on the recommendation of the "Judge and First Magistrate" of Benares, Samuel Davis, to remove him to Calcutta. Wazir Ali who was maturing his designs for revolt did not wish to lose time. He revolted on the 14th January 1798- one of his first attacks being on Nandesar House which at that time was the offical residence of the "Judge and First Magistrate." Mrs. and Mr. Davis and had just returned from a morning ride when Wazir Ali surrounded the house with two hundred followers and began attempting to get at the upper floor where they had taken refuge. Standing near a trap- door at the head of the staircase, Mr. Davis how ever defended himself heroically against the crowd with a long spear which he snatched from the hands of one of his servants. He killed some of the rebels who in spite of attempts lasting for nearly an hour could not after all dislodge him from his position of vantage and had to withdraw. A detailed account of this exhibition of heroism on the part of Mr. Davis may be read in the first chapter of col. Laurie’s Sketches of Some Distinguished Anglo- Indians under the somewhat grandiloquent title of the "Domestic Theremopylae of Benares." Before completing this list of places of interest in Benares, reference should be made to the Ramnagar fort and palace the residence of His Highness the aharaja of Benaras, though they are on the other side of the river and are outside the limits of the city. It may be mentioned that Ramnagar was not the original seat of the Rajas of Benares, Raja Balwant Singh having founded it so recently as in 1750 forsaking Gangapur. The massive walls of the fort and the palace rise almost from the water’s edge allowing only one entrance and flight of steps through which access can be gained by special permission. There is a reception hall and an armoury inside the fort and there are numerous treasures inside the palace like exquisite carved ivory- work, paintings and illuminated manuscripts which last include a wonderful copy of the Ramayam of Tulsi Das. There are three temples near fort- walls, one to the great sage Veda Vyas and two others to Mahadev and Ganga respectively, while there is also a more imposing one about a mile from the palace known as the Sumeru temple adjoining a fine tank. Near about is also the Ram Bag, one of the garden- houses of His Highness the Maharaja of Benares used for receptions and entertainments which are a prominent feature of the social activities of His Highness.

It is necessary to pay a tribute of praise here to the present enlightened and generous ruler of the Benares State. His Highness the Maharaja Sir prabhu Narain Singh, G.C.S.I. to whom Benares owes many a benefaction and whose helping hand his always been the inspiration of every good cause in the ancient city. Installed on the gadi in the year 1890, His Highness has laboured hard for the advancement of the State for the last more than three decades and has succeeded in introducing many a beneficent reform tending to the happiness and advancement of his subjects. A Sanskrit scholar and a devout follower of the ancient Hindu faith, His Highness has endeared himself to the entire Hindu world. The city of Benares is outside his territories, but he is still looked upon with reverence by the people as the Kashi Naresh, the representative of an illustrious line of kings who have been the guardians of this ecclesiastical capital of Hindu India. His Highness has been one of the most generous patrons of the Benares Hindu University and it is no exaggeration to say that it grows under his fostering shelter and care.

"Architecture is petrified music", said Goethe. Even when it does not rise to the heights of artistic excellence justifying this appreciation, it would not be wrong to call it at least "petrified history." This would exactly be the impression of any visitor passing along the river- front in the city of Benares viewing the ancient pile of buildings stretching along a beautiful bend of the river for a distance of about four miles, from the outskirts of the Benares Hindu University in the south, to the Dufferin Bridge across the river in the north, or from the confluence of the little stream Assi to that of the Varna, the well- known and time- honoured geographical limits of the city. Built on a natural rocky amphitheatre facing the east, the city unfolds a magnificent view at early dawn, towers and minarets glittering in the morning air and the flights of steps leading to the water crowded with the busy hum of devotees intent on their religious ceremonies. It stands in unabated splendour when bathed in the golden glow of sunset, its myriad temple- bells hearkening people to prayer and all the life of the city promenading on the river. It is a great delight again to view it in the stillness of the night, wearing an age long aspect of mystery and recalling a thousand memories of the history of India, ancient and modern. It is then that one is inclined to burst out as Matthew Arnold did about Oxford:

"Beautiful city, so venerable, so lovely, so unravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our country, so serene!... And yet steeped in sentiment as she lies spreading her gardens to the moonlight and whispering from her towers the enchantment of the Middle Age, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us near to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection- to beauty in a word which is only truth seen from another side?"

As the visitor proceeds to survey this wonderful panorama of Indian life and civilization, more India probably than scenes witnessed anywhere else in the country, he has ample opportunities for studying the city in all its aspects, as it concentrates itself on the river and its very heart is there. He who has passed along the river- front with observing eyes has indeed seen the city in all its grandeur and its other sights pale into comparative insignificance.

Starting on our journey then towards the north we have to the right, on the other side of the river, the Ramnagar fort and palace, the present residence of the ruling house of Benares. The left bank has been beautified by a pile of residential buildings belonging to one of the wealthy citizen of Benares, a great patron of learning who has gathered below his roof a valuable collection of books. We enter the bounds of the city proper, when we pass the month of the little Assi whose waterless condition during the major part of the year does not apparently prevent popular reference to its ‘confluence’ with the Ganges, the Sangam being considered one of the most sacred spots in Benares. It is one of the five great thirthas of the city, the other four being the Dasaswamedh, the Mankarnika, the panchganga and the Varmasamgam. The stream itself owes its name to the circumstance that the Goddess Durga is said to have dropped her assi, or sword there- it cut into the earth and a steam burst forth above the ground rushing towards the Gangas.

Passing the residence belonging to the ruling houses of Benares and Rewah situated immediately after, we come to one of the most historic spots in Benares, the Tulsi Ghar where the great Hindi poet Tulsi Das sat and wrote his Ramayan in the little corner room surmounting the steps. From this lowly and unpretentions structure, the poet poured forth his verses of the Ram Charit Manas, in a fervour of religious ecstasy and succeeded in producing an epic which has found an abiding place not only in the hearts of millions of readers of Hindustan but also in the literature of the world. The poet passed away here in the year 1623, but Benares has yet t erect any monument worthy of the greatest poet Hindi has yet produced, though the tercentenary of the poet’s death was celebrated recently in a fitting manner and the Nagari pracharini Sabha of Benares has brought out a commemorative edition of the poet’s work worthy of the occasion.

In strange incongruity with these reminiscences of poetry and literature, we come now to the pumping station of the Benares. Water Works constructed about thirty years ago and forming an important landmark in the history of the civic amenities of the place. Much of the bad reputation of the ancient city for its want of sanitation really dates from a period anterior to the construction of these water- works, when there was not a conserved supply of pure water available for drinking purposes. It is no exaggeration to say that the water works have been responsible, in no small measure, for a cleaner health- bill and a pilgrimage to the sacred city to- day has lost some of the terror of risk of infectious diseases which it had even a generation back. From here the water is pumped to the spacious filter beds in Kamacha, near the grounds of the Central Hindu Collegiate School of the Benares Hindu University and supplied from a central reservoir to various parts of the city. There is a pumping station of smaller dimensions to the north, near the Railway bridge catering to some of the suburbs on the other side.

True to the best traditions of Hinduism in matters of religious foloration, Benares has always extended a hospitable home to all the numerous developments of though and religion which have sprung up from to time in this country and testimony is borne to the fact by the group of Jain buildings further down the river. Some of them were built by Rajah Bajraj employed at one time under the Kings of Oudh and one of the ghats is called after him. Here are Jain shrines with devotees and students from various parts of the country anxious to delve into the secrets of the great Jain masters through years of silent study and meditaion. Out of respect to the sentiments of the Jain community living in this part of the city whose creed is so averse to the taking of any kind of animal life, fishing and shooting are prohibited in the neigh bourhood.

Readers of Burke and Macaulay must be familiar with the unfortunate episodes connected with the treatment of Raja Chait Singh of Benares by Warren Hastings. The Shivala Ghat, a few yards down the river, so- called after the temple of Siva on the bank, is associated with these sad memories. The fortified palace surmounting the steps was the Benares residence of the unhappy ruler who fell a prey to palace in trigues and the aggressiveness of the proconsul of the East India Company dominating a helpless country torn by disorder and civil strife, from Fort William in Bengal. When Warren Hastings encamped in the city and ordered the arrest of Raja Chait Singh, he fled from a postern gate facing the river to the other side, to try his fortunes in a further fight with the superior forces of the British to which he succumbed in the end. Facing these dark granite walls, memory goes back to an eventful day in 1781, when the fortunes of the ancient city hung in the balance and fighting went on in the streets and the evicted Hindu ruler sought to improve his fortunes by organizing a new line of defence and attack from the base of Ramanagar on the other bank of the river. The Shivala palace into the hands of the British in 1781 with the flight of the Raja and was destined to play a further part in the troubled history of the country in the nineteenth century. When Jehandar Shah, one of the sons of Mahomed Shah among the last of the Mogul emperors, proved trouble some and rebellious to his father and to the authorities concerned, he was confined in this fort and his descendants of the ancient Mogul line still occuopy part of the buildings as political pensioners of the British Government, shorn of all their ancient glory as rulers of imperial Delhi.

The next ghat of importance is the Dandi Ghat associated with the presence of a large number of Dandi Sanyasins, but more interesting as marking the spot where the great Vaishnavite teacher, Vallabhacharya, who came form the south to proclaim his gospel of the religion of love lived for some time and breathed his last. The tradition is that he descended from this flight of steps and disappeared, only to rise immediately in the form of a column of fire going up to heaven.

The worship of Hanuman is as popular in Benares as in any other part of India and the next ghat is called after the deity, from a temple dedicated to his honour just over the flight of broad steps. Even a casual visitor will be struck with the circumstance that though Benares is an essentially Hindu city, it is cosmopolitan enough to the extent of gathering into its bosom Hindus from all the provinces of India. They have been drawn here, attracted by its sanctity and have sometimes stayed away without returning to their homes, getting domiciled here from generation to generation. There are parts of the city, therefore, associated with people of various provinces, this one and the neighbourhood being the resort of those from the south. The Bengali community which seems to flourish wonderfully in northern India, has made its home in the city another furlong down the river in the suburb named after it as the Bengali Tola. The Maharashtras are found in a large number beyond Dasaswamedh in the neighbourhood of Durga ghat, while localities like the Nepali Tola and the Punjabi Tola testify to the perennial contribution which the various other quarters of India make to the life of the Hindu community in Benares. Standing on the steps of the Hanuman Ghat in Benares, a visitor from the south can, for instance, be easily beguiled into the atmosphere of some sacred bathing place on the banks of the Kaveri, or even the Tambraparni near the Cape.

Which Hindu has not heard of Raja Harishchandra, the great martyr to truth, whose story of suffering and sacrifice thrills the hearts of India to- day in spite of all the new creeds and philosophies which have come into the maelstrom of her life and all the feverish excitement of modern civilisation which has invaded her ancient repose? Raja Harishchandra Ghat stands next Near its crematorium, ever hungry to consume life, stood the great emperor Harishchandra who had given up his kingdom and sold his wife and only child into slavery and allowed himself to be bought and employed here for the sake of keeping his plighted word. He was the watchman of the funeral pyres which continue to blaze here to- day over beings of another time. On a fateful night in his chequered life, he faced the inexpressible anguish of demanding the usual fee for cremation from his helpless queen who was a slave and came hither to do the last rites to her dead child. Sceptics may question the veracity of the story, at least with reference to some of its supernatural incidents, but even they cannot afford to pass this sacred spot untouched in their hearts. Harishchandra is one of the noblest symbols, in the world’s literature, of unflinching adherence to principles in the face of all sorrow and suffering, reminding one of such figures as Prometheus or Job:
To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy power which seems omnipotent,
To love, and bear: to hope till hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This like thy glory Titan is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This above Life, Joy, Empire and Victory.

It is a far cry from Vizianagaram in southern India, to Benares in the north, but every aristocratic Hindu family in India is proud of having a Benares residence, and the tall building looking almost like a sky- scraper over the next ghat belongs to this Raja from the south. Of much greater importance is the adjoining Kedarnath temple, one of the most ancient shrines of Benares, though the present building dates only from a few centuries back. The shrine has the honour of being mentioned in the Kashi Khanda and associated with memories of the sage Vasishta and of Kedarnath situated high up in the Himalayan glaciers. The Kedar Ghat and the temple are among the most popular resorts in this part of the city.

Passing over some of the unimportant ghats, sometimes not even recongnisable by steps, we come to the Amrit Rao Ghat surmounted by a structure which is one of the many feeding houses for Brahmins in the city. Someswar Ghat so called because of a temple to the deity of the name; Mansarovar Ghat named after the sacred tank situated in the neigh bourhood and Narad Ghat with a temple to the memory of the great Rishi well- known in Hindu mythology are among the ghats we pass, before we come to this place. Lower down the river, we reach a building with a long wall extending along the water’s edge which has changed hands a number of times since its building, but which formed at one time the residence of Nana Sahib of Cawnpore, well- known in connection with the great Indian Mutiny.

There is now the Rana Mahal Ghat belonging to the ancient royal house of Udaipur in Rajputana and next to it is a noble structure marked with a façade of massive Greek pillars which is now the property of the Maharajadhiraj of Darbhanga. The Greek pillars are probably not in consonance with the style of architecture popular along the river front, but constitute with the terrace surmounting them to make the building one of the attractions of this part of the city. It is some of these big mansions along the water’s course which have often made travelers feel that the river front in Benares has got a strange resemblance to Venice, provided one could forget such specially Oriental associations as temple- towers and the crowds of pilgrims engaged in their ablutions in the sacred waters. The glory of these houses is along the flights of steps leading to the river, the entrances on the city- side being comparatively insignificant and some of them seem to rear their heads in conscious majesty, though situated amidst the utilitarian surroundings of a newer age. Sometimes their princely owners have unfortunately not been able to keep them up in their original splendour, intent on attractions of another kind and gradually losing their interest in the life of this great centre of their ancestral faith. But the Maharajadhiraj of Durbhanga is a noble exception and is a constant visitor at his Benares residence and has recently rebuilt at enormous expense the ghat lining this pile of buildings. The architect and the engineer will probably feel particularly interested in the numerous problems arising in connection with the building of such structures, complicated by the rising of the flood, to great heights, during the annual monsoon. A close examination of the flood line on several massive walls will reveal the difficulties of the situation and explain the paucity of architectural ornament along the lower belts of the range of buildings. Passing Ahalya Bai Ghat which Benares owes to the generosity of the noble queen of Indore with many other buildings in the city, we come to one of the most well- known spots in Benares, the Dasaswamedh Ghat. The Dasaswamedh Ghat is always throbbing with the busy hum of life and is most expressive of the characteristic activities of the city. It may be presumed our journey has already become full of the impressions of the kaleidoscopic pageant along the river and we may pause here for a moment before we continue to explore the second half of the city. The stretch of the river from the Dasaswamedh Ghat to Raj Ghat in the extreme north, will therefore be reserved for description in another chapter.

Referring to Benares in the course of his famous essay on Warren Hastings, Lord Macaulay described it as "a city which in wealth, population, dignity and sanctity, was among the foremost on Asia." He wrote, "It was commonly believed" "that half a million of human beings was crowded into that labyrinth of lofty alleys rich with shrines, and minarets add balconies and carved oriels. The traveler could scarcely make his way through the press of holy mendicants. The broad and stately flight of steps which descended from these swarming haunts to the bathing places along the Gangas were worn every day by the footsteps of an innumerable multitude of worship pers. The schools and temples drew crowds of pious Hindus from every province where the Brahminical faith was known. Hundreds of devotees came thither every month to die: for, it was believed, that a peculiarly happy fate awaited the man who should pass from the sacred city into the sacred river. Nor was superstition the only motive which allured strangers to that great metropolis. Commerce had 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 halls of St. James’ and the petit Trianon; and in the bazaars, the muslins of Bengal and the sabers of Oudh were mingles with the jewels of Golconda and the shawls of Cashmere."

Some of this ancient glory has departed. The routes of Indian commerce have shifted their courses because of the introduction of the railway. The centre of political gravity has changed in other directions. Other noble cities have sprung up elsewhere in India and have thrown the elder ones into the shade, at least with regard to the achievements of modern civilization. Some allowance will also have to be made for Macaulay’s well- known weakness for rhetorical exaggeration. But the locality in Benares which still retains some of all this early grandeur is the Dasaswamedh ghat reached by a broad road form the city and pouring a continous crowd of pilgrims and seekers after pleasure towards the river crowded with bustling life.

Here are crowds of devotees listening to a sacred recitation from the scriptures; young men and women who have come in the evening by way of recreation to the river bank which is really also a fashionable promenade for the city; grave- looking elders spending the evening of their lives in peaceful retirement; men of business, artists, hawkers, listless spectators everybody seems to be there in the evening inviting interested observation. Many a well- known painter of the West has represented the panoroma of life on this ghat, with all its wonderful grouping of colour, as seen under the brilliant effects of a tropical sun. It is not unusual to see even the artist here sometimes in a boat working away at his sketch, raising his eyes to the ghat from time to time, intent on catching the impressions which will add vividness to the painting as yet dimly forming in his mind and awaiting elaborate treatment on canvas.

As has been mentioned already, Dasaswamedh is one of the five thirthas of the place, its special sanctity being due, according to Hindu mythology, t the circumstance that Brahma performed ten ashwamedha or horse- sacrifices at the spot. The tradition is that the gods wanted to dislodge king Divodas who had acquired temporal and spiritual ascendancy over the city and Brahma came with the purpose of straining his hospitality and demanded materials and resources enough for performing not a single but ten horse- sacrifices. They were all furnished in the most scrupulously correct and comprehensive manner. Brahma performed the ten sacrifices and went back somewhat crest- fallen that he could not catch the king tripping even in any little detail of his religious duties. Siva is said to have accomplished the task in a more relentless spirit and the gods held their triumphant sway once more over the sacred city. It has been conjectured that this tradition arose out of the displacement of Buddhism in historical times by the Brahminical faith, but we are afraid the theory rests on a very slender foundation.

The ghat is studded with temples and presents a particularly gala appearance on occasions of great festivals. At the time of Durga Puja, or on the occasion of Kartik Purnima or Diwali, the flights of steps are covered over with seething humanity and present remarkably attractive sights. Thousands of pilgrims congregate there when eclipses occur that they may have a bath of purification in the sacred waters of the Gangas. It is also the centre of great gaiety once a year on the occasion of the water carnival known as the Budha Mangal, when decorated and illuminated boats cluster near its steps and people revel on them with music and dance.

If the visitor is lucky, he will see here little lamps floating on the river on some occasions, put forth as offerings to Mother Ganges. Sometimes there is a whole fleet of them going down the current, adding considerably to the beauty of the ghat. Readers of English poetry will remember the very pretty turn Elizabeth Barrett Browning has given to this custom in her "Romance of the Ganges": The maidens lean them over,
The waters, side by side,
And shun each other’ deepening eyes,
And gaze adown the tide;
For each within a little boat
A little lamp hath put,
And heaped for freight some lily’s weight
Or scarlet rose half- shut.
The river floweth on.

Of sheel of cocoa carven,
Each little boat is made;
Each carries a lamp and carries a flower,
And carries a hope unsaid;
And when the boat hath carried the lamp unquenched till out of sight.
The maiden is sure that love will endure.
But love will fail with light.
The river floweth on.

An impressive pile of buildings with a balcony of richly decorated carvings greets us next and that is the Man Mandir Ghat, the structure itself being more than three centuries old, having been erected by Raja Man Singh of Amber in Rajputana in the year 1600. The mansion is now the property of the royal house of Jaipur, though it is unfortunately not kept in proper repair and deserves more considerate treatment at the hands of its owners. But the special interest of the ghat and its buildings is in the old Hindu observatory at the top, built by Raja Jai Singh of Amber, with four others built else where in India, at Delhi, Ujjain, Muttra and Jaipur itself. It will be remembered that he was the most distinguished astronomer of his period in India and was employed by the Moghul emperor Mohamed shah to revise the Hindu calendar.

Raja Jai Singh, more popularly known as Sevai Jai Singh of Amber, was one or the most fascinating characters in Rajput history. "As a statesman, legislator and man of science," writes Col. Tod in his Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan "the character of Jai Singh is worthy of an ample delineation." Besides distinguishing himself in the arts of warface in the service of the Moghul Government of the day, he achieved great reputation as a person of versatile accomplishments. And it is significant of his catholicity of intellectual interests that, as mentioned by Col. Tod, he caused Euclid and Don Juan and Napier on the Construction and Use of Logarithms to be translated into Sanskrit. But astronomy was his special hobby and besides the construction of the observatories mentioned already, he prepared a very valuable collection of astronomical already, he prepared a very valuable collection of astronomical tables to facilitate calculations of eclipses and the like. It is interesting to note that to Raja Jai Singh, the study of astronomy was only a revelation of God’s glory, as he declares in the preface to the book which he called, the Zeig Mohamed Shahi after the name of the Moghul monarch to whom it was dedicated:

"Praise be to God such that the minutely deserving genius of the most profound geometers, in uttering the smallest particle of it may open the mouth in confession of inability; and such adoration, that the study and accuracy of the astronomers, who measure the heavens may acknowledge their astonishment, and utter insuffucuency. Let us devote ourselves at the altar of the King of Kings, hallowed behis name; in the outlook of the register of whose power, the lofty orbs of heaven are only a few leaves; and the stars and that heavenly courser, the Sun, small pieces of money in the treasury of the empire of the Most High!"

There are four or five other ghats before we come to the famous Manikarnika ghat which is the most sacred in benares. Tripura Bhairavighat called after a temple to the goddess of that name; Mir Ghat built by one of the sub- governors of the Vazirs of Oudh still patronized by Mohamedans; a Nepalese temple to Siva built in the style of architecture associated with Buddhist temples all over the East, and one or two other minor ones bring us to Mankarnika at which it is the ambition of every spiritually- minded Hindu to bathe before his eyes close in the sleep of death, that his sins may be purified and that the gates of salvation may be open to him in the other world. The name of the ghat is explained on many grounds, all generally identifying the place as the spot where ear- ornament, the Manikarnika of Vishnu, or one of the other Hindu Trinity fell I to the river. The great temple to Vishwanath is in the neighbourhood.

To the south of the ghat, just before approaching the regular steps of the Manikarnika, but almost forming part of it is the famous burning ghat of the city called after Vishnu himself in his manifestaion of the Jalsai, the sleeper on the ocean. The funeral pyres burn here almost at all hours of night and day, receiving their constant toll of death from the two hundred thousand inhabitants of the city. It must be remembered that Benares has always a fairly large number of retired old people from all parts of the country, come there only to have the privilege of death in the sacred city. The death- rate of the Municipality is naturally increased by their presence and is apt to convey an exaggerated impression of its unhealthiness. In the gloom of the night, the lurid tongues of fire form a prominent landmark on the river- front, imparting an air of grim and tragic solemnity and adding a new terror to the scene especially when seen from a distance. Depressing thoughts of man’s mortality are apt to touch passers- by, even excursionists on boats intent only on pleasure and sight- seeing.

Technically, the ghats on the river- front are sixty- four, but a number of them are mere names and not distinguished sometimes even by the facilities for landing, so essential to constitute a ghat. We now pass to the Dattatreya ghat called after the saint of the name and then the Scindia ghat, alas, not completed in spite of various efforts, the whole structure having subsided into the river. Sankata Devi! Has a ghat and temple to herself and the State of Gwalior also claims the next with one of the most magnificent structure facing the river The Bhonsles of Nagpur are responsible for the next and before we come to the Panch Ganga ghat, one of the five sacred spots in the river, we pass Ganesh Ghat (built by the Peshwas of Poona) and the narrow flight of steps with the quaint name of Chor Ghat apparently intended to emphasise the facilities the place provided to the thief.

The Panch Ganga Ghat, is so- called, as four other rivers, now invisble, are said to mix with the Ganges at this spot and is distinguished by thickly crowded buildings which made this part of the river- bank look extremely populous, In some ways the heart of the religious life of the city may be said to be along the stretch of the bank from the Manikarnika to this spot. The adjoining Beni Madhav Ghat, Durga Ghat and Brahma Ghat may also pe associated with this- all of them form a great attraction to the orthodox Brahmin who loves to live in the neightbourhood, foregoing many of the amenities of city life obtainable elsewhere.

The most distinguishing monument of this locality is however the great mosque of Aurangazebe, whose two tall minarets are visible to the traveller at a long distance even before approaching the confines of the city. In fact, the mosque is inseparably associated in most peoples’ minds with all the popular pictures of the river- front of Benares. As the studiously plain minarets of the mosque lift their all heads to the sky, one is irresistibly reminded of the austere personality of the Moghal emperor who in the zeal for his own faith became a terrible iconoclast and the sworn enemy of other religious. In the year 1669, Aurangazebe visited the city, destroyed its hundreds of temples, including that of Vishwanath and decreed that the city should henceforward be known as Mahomedabad in memory of the prophet of Islam. The force of tradition and history was however more potent then the authority of even such a powerful emperor as Aurangazebe and the city continued to be know by its ancient names of Kashi and Varanasi, or Benares. The more enterprising of visitors may attempt the tast of climbing up the minarets to survey the motley crowd of humanity which has formed its habitation in the densely built houses around.

We are afraid that the remaining ghats of the river, till we reach the Dufferin bridge, are not at all attractive in appearance, and then, only two of them are of any importance. Raj Mandir Ghat, Lal Ghat, Gai Ghat, Naryan Ghat, Trilochan Ghat and Naya Ghat lead us to Prahlad Ghat which is associated with the name of the great boy- devotee of Hindu mythology who faced the terrors of his father’s demon- wrath rather than give us his faith in the true God. Raj Ghat is the end of the city and if devoid of any religious significance it always presents a busy appearance, because all vehicular traffic from the other side of the river passes into the city through this spot, bringing goods of various kinds to its busy markets. There is a bridge of boats facilitating the traffic through the year, except in the season of high flood when the current is too raging to admit of such attention, though vehicles can also pass along the Railway bridge on occasions. Before the introduction of railways, this was in effect the gate of the city for pilgrims coming from most parts of Hindusthan, crossing the river, and the Grand Trunk Road led into it and is only since the building of the Railway bridge that it has been diverted to the upper route. The means of trade and commerce keep changing through the periods of history because of the improving facilities for the purpose afforded by science, or the shuffling of the currents of political life, but as one stands at Rajghat and surveys the string of heavy- wheeled oxencarts labouring slowly over the steep ascent into the city even to- day, in spite of the railway train thundering on the bridge close by, one is impressed by the truth of the western writer’s statement that India still continues to be an "energetic expression of the past."

Before taking leave of the river, we ought to pause for a while looking at the Dufferin bridge consisting of sixteen spans and being 3,507 feet in length, constructed at a cost of nearly five crores of rupees and opended for traffic by His Excellency the Earl of Dufferin in October, 1887. Coming from the great Railway junction at Moghalsarai, the visitor from Calcutta or Bombay, or from Central or Southern India, dashes across the bridge into the city to day, the whole panorama of Benares spread before his view in the form of a noble crescent rousing the imagination and gladdening the heart with a thousand memories of romance and history. One wonders with that patient labour people made their way into the holy city in days before the bridge, or before even the railways.

It is a mistake to imagine that there is nothing of interest beyond the bridge along the river- front. There are decayed ruins of an old fort just beyond the Kashi station, adjoining the western end of the bridge. A second pumping station forms part of the water- works of the city; there is the Varnasangam forming the orthodox northern limit to Varanasi and beyond, there are temples dotted all over. One of the most interesting excursions in Benares is to get beyond the railway bridge and wander about the banks thickly studded with temples, in all sorts of picturesque corners.