BANARAS: A PARALLEL SPACE OF THE COSMIC UNIVERSE AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO ARCHITECTURE

From its prominent position on the river Ganges , Banaras has borne testimony to a flourishing civilization and the many socio-political turmoil associated with a thriving territory from the ancient kingdoms of Aryans with its mention in Ramayana to the combats of medieval rulers of Mauryan and Gupta dynasty and the never ceasing instability during the dominance of Muslim and British regime.[1] The historical unrest has vanished and the city with its inhabitants of “grin-and-bear-it” attitude endured every phase of this turmoil and adapted to it and commemorated every such change in their stories and culture. Every paradigm shift gave Banaras its own unique Art and Culture which it (Banaras) has assimilated and made it its very own signature be it Food, Fabric, Jewellery, Lifestyle, Mode of communication, Weapons, Architecture, Mythology, Tales, Culture, Cult , Art and much more The citys divine image , its elaborate traditional rituals , its prodigious display of the hand-in-hand existence of art and the mundane activities of life. All give it a peculiar feel, though the city has tried to keep pace with time, it has modernized or commercialised but what has stayed with time is what satiates the quench of a mystic or an explorer of Art and Culture . This write up here is an attempt to bring to words the connection between what the oldest civilizations or cults have left to enrich the Art & culture or other-way-round , how by exploring the existing we are able to get a glimpse into the glorious past that has passed and enriched India .This manuscript is a study and construal of Varanasi from the perspective of one who is close enough to the hindu tradition to see its religious significance and also close enough to art , design and academics to know the understanding that Arts and Varanasi might pose. The journey towards the finalization of this script started with mapping the city and searching for the temples mentioned in various texts and my work is based on two primary sources : the city itself with its multitude of temples , its seasons of pilgrimage , the Akharas , voluminous literature on Banaras and its pandas and lay interpreters.