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139-755: The Assi River has its source in the southern suburbs of Varanasi near the campus of Banaras Hindu University and meanders about five kilometers northeast. Originally, it emptied into the Ganges at Assi Ghat , the southernmost of the Ghats of Varanasi . In 1981/1982, the course of the Assi was artificially changed, and the mouth was relocated around 500 meters to the south. The Assi River originates in Kandwa of Varanasi and flows through Chitaipur, Karaundi, Karmajitpur, Newada, Sarai Nandan, Naria, Saket Nagar Nagwa before joining

278-557: A Sub-Divisional Magistrate . The DM is Kaushal Raj Sharma. Varanasi district comes under the Varanasi Police Zone and Varanasi Police Range, Varanasi Zone is headed by an Additional Director General ranked IPS officer, and the Varanasi Range is headed Inspector General ranked IPS officer. The ADG, Varanasi Zone is Biswajit Mahapatra, and IG, Varanasi Range is Vijay Singh Meena. The district police up to

417-419: A drum-shaped abacus . The side of the abacus is adorned with wheels in relief , and interspersing them, four animals, a lion, an elephant, a bull, and a galloping horse follow each other from right to left. A bell-shaped lotus forms the lowest member of the capital, and the whole 2.1 metres (7 ft) tall, carved out of a single block of sandstone and highly polished, was secured to its monolithic column by

556-548: A humid subtropical climate ( Köppen climate classification Cwa ) with large variations between summer and winter temperatures. The dry summer starts in April and lasts until June, followed by the monsoon season from July to October. The temperature ranges between 22 and 46 °C (72 and 115 °F) in the summers. Winters in Varanasi see very large diurnal variations, with warm days and downright cold nights. Cold waves from

695-742: A metal dowel . Erected after Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism , it commemorated the site of Gautama Buddha 's first sermon some two centuries before. The capital eventually fell to the ground and was buried. It was excavated by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) in the very early years of the 20th century. The excavation was undertaken by F. O. Oertel in the ASI winter season of 1904–1905. The column, which had broken before it became buried, remains in its original location in Sarnath, protected but on view for visitors. The Lion Capital

834-403: A Kashi princess Valandhara and their union resulted in the birth of Sarvaga, who later ruled Kashi. Dhritarasthra's eldest son Duryodhana also married a Kashi princess Bhanumati, who later bore him a son Lakshmana Kumara and a daughter Lakṣmaṇā. The Cakkavatti Sīhanāda Sutta text of Buddhism puts forth an idea stating that Varanasi will one day become the fabled kingdom of Ketumati in

973-501: A central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world . The city has a syncretic tradition of Islamic artisanship that underpins its religious tourism. Located in the middle-Ganges valley in the southeastern part of the state of Uttar Pradesh , Varanasi lies on the left bank of the river. It is 692 kilometres (430 mi) to the southeast of India's capital New Delhi and 320 kilometres (200 mi) to

1112-526: A centre of activity for intellectuals and theologians during the Middle Ages, which further contributed to its reputation as a cultural centre of religion and education. Several major figures of the Bhakti movement were born in Varanasi, including Kabir who was born here in 1389, and Ravidas , a 15th-century socio-religious reformer, mystic, poet, traveller, and spiritual figure, who was born and lived in

1251-617: A commemoration of the Buddha's first sermon there in the fifth century BCE. In the 8th century, Adi Shankara established the worship of Shiva as an official sect of Varanasi. Tulsidas wrote his Awadhi language epic, the Ramcharitmanas , a Bhakti movement reworking of the Sanskrit Ramayana , in Varanasi. Several other major figures of the Bhakti movement were born in Varanasi, including Kabir and Ravidas . In

1390-421: A contemporary 3rd century BCE myth. A water spout arose from the heart of this lake. After surfacing and splitting into four streams it emanated from the mouths of the same four animals sitting on the lake's shore and flowed onto the four corners of the earth, like the message of the Buddha or of Ashoka himself. The pillar, thus, has been likened both to the water spout rising to meet the lake-like abacus and also

1529-472: A father to his daughter and The Discovery of India . The major contemporary philosopher of the religions of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan , also advised Nehru in the choice. The state emblem of the Dominion of India was accepted by the cabinet on 29 December 1947, with the resolution of a national motto set aside for a future date. Nehru also explicitly displaced the spinning wheel, the charkha , at

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1668-577: A feral population thereafter and eventually became wild. This is suggested to have resulted from the contact of the South Asian dynasties with the Achaemenid and Seleucid empires when hunting lions became a sign of royal prowess. The Achaemenids had inherited the pastime from western Asia. There is evidence from Syria of lion hunts and lion menageries with caged lions in the early fourth-millennium BCE. When emperor Ashoka converted to Buddhism in

1807-407: A fine abrasive or even patiently with wood. According to art historian Gail Maxwell, the sandstone received its shine through the application of heat which gives a lasting glass-like finish to the stone. The pillar which bore the capital aloft "remains broken in several pieces at the site and is now protected by a glass enclosure that separates the pillar from visitors." Before it fell, it is thought

1946-533: A lion, an elephant, a bull, and a horse; the first three are shown at walking pace but the horse is at full gallop. The capital which was carved from a single block of marble is broken across the necking just above the bell. The capital has a polished finish. Although most sandstone is difficult to polish without dislodging the grains on the surface, according to a 2020 study by Frederick Asher, very fine-grained sandstone found, e.g. in Chunar , can be polished with

2085-550: A long history of being employed as a symbol of the Achaemenian royalty. As the monarch of a vast realm, but also a Buddhist, he sought new symbols to project his power. Thus whereas the Ashokan lions seemed remarkably similar to the conventionalized Persian, the idea of using a pair of addorsed lions to project both spiritual and temporal power was new. Christopher Ernest Tadgell considers it unlikely that Ashoka's capital

2224-571: A period when Islam was forcibly imposed on the native Hindu population. For British colonial historians, this depiction of Islamic despots served to illustrate the beneficence of British rule. Some postcolonial nationalist historians have used the presumed historical oppression of Hindus by Muslims to argue for a more Hindu, rather than secular, India. Buddhism has only a small place within these larger narratives of despotism, destruction, and desecration." According to historian Richard Eaton, instead of arbitrary attacks on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples,

2363-789: A pillar as a symbol for axis mundi , the axis around which the earth revolves. Irwin acknowledged the existence of numerous precedents of pillars with animal effigies in the ancient world, from the djed -pillars of Pre-dynastic Egypt , to the Sphinx of the Naxians , but argued that Greek examples were in essence classical load-bearing pillars with an animal on top, whereas the Indian pillars of Ashoka were more slender, and closer to monumental stone-versions of dhvajas , portable wooden standards known in India from undetermined antiquity. To J. C. Harle,

2502-455: A place. More than two centuries before Xuanzang's visit, at the very beginning of the fifth century another Chinese visitor, Faxian , had recorded a short description of Sarnath. Faxian had also mentioned some towers, one at the site where the Buddha met the five disciples and another "60 paces north" where he gave the first sermon, the account being more about relating the traditional stories than giving particulars of geography. Neither account

2641-536: A state of flux. The lion capital is rich in symbolism, both Buddhist and secular. In July 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru , the interim prime minister of India, proposed in the Constituent Assembly of India that the wheel on the abacus be the model for the wheel in the centre of the Dominion of India's new national flag, and the capital itself without the lotus the model for the state emblem . The proposal

2780-529: A storehouse at Sarnath for the artefacts found earlier and paved the road to Sarnath. He then convinced Sir John Marshall , the director-general of the ASI , to be allowed to excavate Sarnath in the winter of 1904–05. John Marshall resolved to put in place plans for a museum to keep the excavated artefacts close to the site. Oertel began his excavations in the vicinity of the Jagat Singh stupa , which lies to

2919-514: Is 2.1 metres (7 ft) tall in total. Its lowest portion is an inverted lotus petal bell which is 61 centimetres (2 ft) high, carved in the Persepolitan style, and decorated with 16 petals. The bell has been interpreted to be a stylized lotus, a common motif. Above the bell is a circular abacus , or a drum-shaped slab, of diameter 86 centimetres (34 in) and height 34 centimetres ( 13 + 1 ⁄ 2  in). Set addorsed , on

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3058-733: Is Mridula Jaiswal, and the municipal commissioner is Nitin Bansal. Water supply and sewage system is operated by the Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam. Varanasi is represented in the Lok Sabha by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi who won the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and subsequently in 2019 by a huge margin. Hospitals in the city include the Sir Sunderlal Hospital , a teaching hospital in

3197-501: Is a fitting one in this context as Ypres ("leper" in Flemish) is also known as a 'city of peace'." Various reconstructions of the Sarnath pillar and its capital have been proposed. The topmost wheel can rest on the backs of the four lions, or it can be positioned higher (the exact length of the shaft supporting the wheel being unknown). The full pillar is generally reconstructed straightforwardly from its archaeological remains, with

3336-620: Is headed by SP rank. The development of infrastructure in the city is overseen by the Varanasi Development Authority (VDA), which comes under the Housing Department of Uttar Pradesh government . The divisional commissioner of Varanasi acts as the ex-officio chairman of the VDA, whereas the vice-chairman, a government-appointed Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer , looks after the daily matters of

3475-585: Is more likely that the Varuna River alone, which was also known in older literature under the name Varanasi, gave the city its name. In 2017, a diversion was created by constructing a sewage-pumping system, resulting in a shift of the Assi River's confluence with the main river approximately one kilometer upstream. The river is mentioned in the Puranas . According to mythological beliefs, Mahadev Kund

3614-486: Is no cult allegiance here in the symbolism of the Mahachakra [‘great wheel’] and its accessories like the four lions . . . here one is face to face with an acclamation to the single unmanifested and undifferentiated divine phenomenon.'" The significance and meaning of the lotus bell, the lowest member of the capital, has also been discussed in the literature. Agrawala explained in 1964: "The first decorative element of

3753-536: Is now being run by the Tata Memorial Centre after intervention by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who represents Varanasi. Sushruta , an ancient Indian physician known as the primary author of the treatise Sushruta Samhita , the Sanskrit text of surgery, lived in Varanasi and practised medicine and surgery sometime during the 5th century BCE. Since 1922, Ayurveda has been a subject of training in

3892-475: Is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together. Benares became a princely state in 1911, with Ramnagar as its capital, but with no jurisdiction over the city proper. The religious head, Kashi Naresh, has had his headquarters at the Ramnagar Fort since the 18th century, also a repository of the history of the kings of Varanasi, which

4031-468: Is regarded as one of seven holy cities ( Sapta Puri ) which can provide Moksha ; Ayodhya , Mathura , Haridwar , Kashi, Kanchipuram , Avanti , and Dvārakā are the seven cities known as the givers of liberation. The princesses Ambika and Ambalika of Kashi were wed to the Hastinapur ruler Vichitravirya , and they later gave birth to Pandu and Dhritarashtra . Bhima , a son of Pandu, married

4170-518: Is situated to the east of Varanasi, across the Ganges. The Kashi Naresh is deeply revered by the local people and the chief cultural patron; some devout inhabitants consider him to be the incarnation of Shiva. Annie Besant founded the Central Hindu College , which later became a foundation for the creation of Banaras Hindu University in 1916. Besant founded the college because she wanted "to bring men of all religions together under

4309-405: Is sometimes epitomised in the history of one of its principal cities. The city of Benaras represents India religiously and intellectually, just as Paris represents the political Sentiments of France. There are few cities in the world of greater antiquity, and none that have so uninterruptedly maintained their ancient celebrity and distinction. Author Mark Twain wrote in 1897 of Varanasi, Benares

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4448-528: Is stated to have been the birthplace of the previous Buddha, known as Kassapa Buddha . In the sacred geography of India Varanasi is known as the "microcosm of India". In addition to its 3,300 Hindu religious places, Varanasi has 12 churches, three Jain mandirs, nine Buddhist shrines, three Gurdwaras (Sikh shrines), and 1,388 Muslim holy places. Languages in Varanasi Municipal Corporation and Cantonment Board area, 2011 Census At

4587-878: The Mahabharata and in ancient India, the city is referred to as Kāśī from the Sanskrit verbal root kaś- "to shine", making Varanasi known as "City of Light", the " luminous city as an eminent seat of learning ". The name was also used by pilgrims dating from Buddha's days. Kashi is still widely popular. Hindu religious texts use many epithets in Sanskrit to refer to Varanasi, such as Kāśikā ( transl.  "the shining one" ), Avimukta ( transl.  "never forsaken by Shiva" ), Ānaṃdakānana ( transl.  "the forest of bliss" ), Rudravāsa ( transl.  "the place where Rudra resides" ), and Mahāśmaśāna ( transl.  "the great cremation ground" ). According to Hindu mythology , Varanasi

4726-443: The 2011 census , the Varanasi urban agglomeration had a population of 1,435,113, with 761,060 men and 674,053 women. The Varanasi municipal corporation and CB had a combined population of 1,212,610 of which 642,882 were males and 569,728 in 2011. The population in the age group of 0 to 6 years was 137,111. The population of the Varanasi urban agglomeration in 2001 was 1,371,749 with a ratio of 879 females every 1,000 males. However,

4865-587: The Banaras Hindu University , Heritage Hospital, Marwari Hospital, Pitambari Hospital, Mata Anand Mai Hospital, Rajkiya Hospital, Ram Krishna Mission Hospital, Shiv Prasad Gupta Hospital, Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital (managed by the state government), and Varanasi Hospital and Medical Research Centre. The urban parts of the Varanasi district had an infant mortality rate of 70 per 1,000 live births in 2010–2011. The Railway Cancer Hospital

5004-572: The Durga Temple . The city has long been an educational and musical centre : many prominent Indian philosophers, poets, writers, and musicians live or have lived in the city, and it was the place where the Benares gharana form of Hindustani classical music was developed. In the 20th-century, the Hindi-Urdu writer Premchand and the shehnai player Bismillah Khan were associated with

5143-717: The Himalayan region cause temperatures to dip across the city in the winter from December to February and temperatures below 5 °C (41 °F) are not uncommon. The average annual rainfall is 1,110 mm (44 in). Fog is common in the winters, while hot dry winds, called loo , blow in the summers. In recent years, the water level of the Ganges has decreased significantly; upstream dams, unregulated water extraction, and dwindling glacial sources due to global warming may be to blame. Varanasi has been ranked 9th best “National Clean Air City” (under Category 1 >10L Population cities) in India. According to provisional data from

5282-621: The Kachwaha Rajput rulers of Amber (Mughal vassals themselves) most notably under Raja Man Singh rebuilt various temples and ghats in the city. The Raja of Jaipur established the Annapurna Mandir, and the 200-metre (660 ft) Akbari Bridge was also completed during this period. The earliest tourists began arriving in the city during the 16th century. In 1665, the French traveller Jean-Baptiste Tavernier described

5421-822: The Oudh camp, using his troops, forced the Nawab to withdraw his main force. The region eventually ceded by the Nawab of Oudh to the Benares State , a subordinate of the East India Company , in 1775, who recognised Benares as a family dominion. In 1791 under the rule of the British, resident Jonathan Duncan founded a Sanskrit College in Varanasi . In 1867, the establishment of the Varanasi Municipal Board led to significant improvements in

5560-667: The Parliament of India since 2014 . Modi inaugurated the Shri Kashi Vishwanath Corridor project, which aimed to enhance the city's spiritual vibrancy by connecting many ghats to the temple of Kashi Vishwanath, in December 2021. Varanasi is located at an elevation of 80.71 metres (264.8 ft) in the centre of the Ganges valley of North India , in the Eastern part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, along

5699-638: The axis mundi , the world's axis. The four lions have also been thought to be the cardinal directions as if roaring the Buddha's message to the remotest parts. A later Buddhist text, the Maha-Sihanada Sutta ( Great Discourse on the Lions' Roar ), pointedly links the wheel and lion with its refrain, "[the Buddha] roars his lion’s roar in the assemblies, and sets rolling the Wheel of Dharma [wheel of

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5838-612: The 16th century, Rajput nobles in the service of the courts and armies of the Mughal emperor Akbar , sponsored the building or further enhancement of the major Shiva temple in the city; they also built other temples, all displaying an empire-wide architectural style. In 1740, the Banaras State , a zamindari estate was established in the city. Under the Treaty of Faizabad, the East India Company acquired Benares in 1775. The city

5977-614: The 8th century, when Adi Shankara established the worship of Shiva as an official sect of Varanasi. Chandradeva , founder of the Gahadavala dynasty made Banaras a second capital in 1090. In 1194 CE, the Ghurid conqueror Muizzuddin Muhammad Ghuri defeated the forces of Jayachandra in a battle near Jamuna and afterwards ravaged the city of Varnasi in the course of which many temples were destroyed. Varanasi remained

6116-469: The Asiatic lion primarily to be a West Asiatic animal, and elephants and bulls to be the more characteristic beasts of India. "There is, then, the evidence here," he concludes, "for detailing influenced by Greek art, often through Persian models, in the architecture of the third to second centuries BCE. Sir John Marshall, after drawing attention to such foreign motifs at Sanchi as the ‘Assyrian tree of life,

6255-592: The Asokan pillar-capital. This argument is too weak to convince anybody but the already converted." According to Irwin, "V. S. Agrawala followed Coomaraswamy in refusing to accept the 'Asokan bell' as anything but Indian, but he presented his case as an article of faith, making no attempt to prove it. He saw the bell as an inverted lotus flower 'overflowing' the form of a symbolic vase-of-plenty ( purna-ghata )." Writing in 1911—following two decades of investigations—the historian Vincent Smith concluded that all

6394-524: The Assi River to its original state. The National Green Tribunal (NGT) established a committee to devise a restoration plan for the Assi River. The committee's mid-2021 report proposed conducting a survey to assess encroachments in the catchment area and mapping pollution sources to address the issue of sewage-related pollution. In 2023, Denmark committed to providing ₹1,000 crores to the Government of Uttar Pradesh at UP's Global Investors Summit for

6533-656: The Banaras Hindu University, and in 1927 a separate Ayurvedic College was established. There are many ayurvedic centres in Varanasi providing treatments such as Panchakarma as well as other treatments. Lion capital of Ashoka The Lion Capital of Ashoka is the capital , or head, of a column erected by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in Sarnath , India, c.  250 BCE . Its crowning features are four life-sized lions set back to back on

6672-553: The Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1931–1935, the stone shaft was not found but, "its thickness can be estimated from the mortice hole, 20 centimetres (8 in) in diameter, drilled into the stone between the lions' heads." Further, according to Sahni, "Of the wheel itself, four small fragments were found. The ends of thirteen spokes remain on these pieces. Their total number

6811-460: The Ganges. Although little more than a small trickle, the Assi River is of some importance because of its association with the Hindu holy city of Varanasi. According to traditional belief, the Assi River, along with the Ganges and the Varuna River to the north, marks the boundaries of Varanasi as a sacred space. The name Varanasi is therefore derived from the river names Varuna and Assi. However, it

6950-620: The Lion Capital can by no means be interpreted as Indo-Persepolitan Bell. It is in every respect the Purna-ghata motif of ancient Indian art and religion, overflowing with luxuriant lotus petals." Writing in 1975, the Indologist John Irwin asked, "Did the carvers of 'Aśokan' pillars derive the idea of their bell from Persepolis, or not?" Irwin added, "So far, only one scholar, the late A. K. Coomaraswamy, has argued in

7089-775: The Mauryan period of artwork that contrasted remarkably with local styles, and stating the likelihood of traditions of producing "naturalistic forms" being preserved in Iranian stonemasons for the critical decades between the fall of Persepolis and the appearance of Mauryan columns, emphasises the entrepreneurial spirit of Ashoka who, "did not shrink from doing what only the most illustrious rulers outside India had done before him: he had pillars produced of unbelievable dimensions, cut in one piece and transported to predefined places—pillars crowned with lions and bulls of an unprecedented naturalistic beauty." Frederick Asher, summarizing, credits

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7228-597: The National Flag of India shall be a horizontal tricolour of deep saffron (kesari), white and dark green in equal proportion. In the centre of the white band, there shall be a Wheel in navy blue to represent the Charkha. The design of the Wheel shall be that of the Wheel (Chakra) which appears on the abacus of the Sarnath Lion Capital of Asoka. The diameter of the Wheel shall approximate to the width of

7367-441: The Sarnath lions and their kin owe all to the arts of others rather than native observation." Sounding a similar theme as Asher, he concludes that it was "all a matter of assimilation and sometimes reinterpretation, rather than a crude choice between indigenous or foreign. But the visual experience of many Ashokan and later city dwellers in India was considerably conditioned by foreign arts, translated to an Indian environment, just as

7506-502: The Sarnath lions did show a conventionalized style associated with Achaemenid or Sargonid empires, but the floral motifs on the Mauryan abaci show the influence of western Asian traditions older than any in the Hellenistic world. He also echoed Irwin's idea that as there are no examples elsewhere of "single, free-standing" pillars, they must be the product of a South Asian tradition, perhaps in non-durable materials such as wood for

7645-724: The South Asian periphery but as the result of Ashoka's entrepreneurial engagement with the larger world. The culture in India was more receptive to innovation and there was a sense of a common culture, caused partly by the expansion of Buddhism to the borders with Iran, and the appearance of markers proclaiming a message. When the Ashokan empire fell, the breakdown was drastic. New styles of art emerged, but their artistic inspirations and appeal were more local. Author and editor Richard Stoneman arguing more generally about sculpture in early historic South Asia suggests that in figural and decorative sculpture, style and content need to be considered separately. "Techniques of carving," he states, "are not

7784-399: The West Asiatic winged beasts, and grapes, went on to remark that ‘nothing in these carvings is really mimetic, nothing certainly which degrades their art to the rank of a servile school’." In the days leading to India's independence, the Sarnath capital played an important role in the creation of both the state emblem and the national flag of the Dominion of India . They were modelled on

7923-431: The abacus are four lions. In this context, it means that only the frontal figures are visible joined at the shoulders, each with its back to another so as to form a pair and two pairs are perpendicular. The lions are each 1.1 metres ( 3 + 3 ⁄ 4  ft) tall and have been described as "life-sized." Oertel describes the lions to be "standing back-to-back" in his original report of 1908. Other authors have used

8062-423: The addorsed capitals of the Achaemenid Empire. But all other aspects are Indian. "The four lions," according to her, "very likely signify "the sovereignty of both Ashoka, since the pillar was erected near the capital of his kingdom and of the truths taught by the Buddha, whose clan, the Shakyas, used the lion as their emblem." Scholars have debated the meanings of the wheels, the large one that had once surmounted

8201-428: The advent of the Roman empire. Others who made noteworthy contributions were the linguist and Buddhism scholar Jean Przyluski , art historian Benjamin Rowland , and cultural historian and Sanskritist Vasudeva S. Agrawala , but rather than the archaeology or history, they concentrated on the symbolism which they thought was given concrete form by features of pre-Buddhist metaphysics. In 1973, John Irwin challenged

8340-435: The archaic Greek had been by the Syrian, the Roman by the Greek, and the Persian by the arts of their whole empire." To Alexander Cunningham in Sanchi in 1851, the addorsed lions in the gateways and especially their claws bore the signs of Greek influence. "Many of the details," continues Stonemen, "such as the manes, do remind one strongly of Greek styles of carving." Citing art historian Sheila Huntington, Stoneman describes

8479-406: The architectural beauty of the Vindu Madhava temple on the side of the Ganges. The road infrastructure was also improved during this period. It was extended from Kolkata to Peshawar by Emperor Sher Shah Suri ; later during the British Raj it came to be known as the famous Grand Trunk Road . In 1656, Emperor Aurangzeb ordered the destruction of many temples and the building of mosques, causing

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8618-400: The area under Varanasi Nagar Nigam has a population of 1,100,748 with a ratio of 883 females for every 1,000 males. The literacy rate in the urban agglomeration is 77% while that in the municipal corporation area is 78%. Approximately 138,000 people in the municipal area live in slums. Religion in Varanasi City (2011). Hinduism is predominantly followed in Varanasi with Islam being

8757-452: The art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy argued in 1935 that Buddhist symbolism was not the only one established in the Vedic period which had preceded Buddhism and during which worship did not have a visual representation. The dharmachakra chiefly stood in Coomaraswamy's words for "the Revolution of the year, as Father Time, the flowing tide of all begotten things, dependent on the Sun.” According to Guha, "Coomaraswamy’s interpretations aided

8896-416: The assertions of foreign influence by advancing three hypotheses: (a) Not all pillars were made for Ashoka; some had been adapted for his use; (b) whereas the four lions did seem to have Persian influence, the spiritedness of bull and the elephant betray an intimate familiarity with animals whose habitat did not extend to Iran; and (c) Ashoka had channelled a preexisting industry and culture devoted to treating

9035-484: The authority. The vice-chairman of the Varanasi Development Authority is Pulkit Khare. The Varanasi Municipal Corporation oversees civic activities in the city; the head of the corporation is the mayor, and the executive and administration of the corporation is the responsibility of the municipal commissioner, who is appointed by the government of Uttar Pradesh and is either an IAS officer or Provincial Civil Service (PCS) officer of high seniority. The mayor of Varanasi

9174-419: The basis of pictorial content and ideological infrastructure; and both seem to be right." A transmission of Hellentistic architectural and decorative features from the Seleucid cities of Central Asia, or the Greco-Bactrian city of Ai-Khanoum were posited by Boardman, who stated, "The Sarnath lions take the same forms a little farther, but again the realistic carving of the flews, the crinkled folds beside

9313-410: The calendar in order to revise existing astronomical tables. Tourism in the city began to flourish in the 18th century. As the Mughal suzerainty weakened, the Benares zamindari estate became Banaras State, thus Balwant Singh of the Narayan dynasty regained control of the territories and declared himself Maharaja of Benares in 1740. The strong clan organisation on which they rested, brought success to

9452-544: The capital and the four appearing in relief along the rim of the abacus. Some have likened the wheels, especially the lost larger one, to the Buddhist wheel of the moral law, the dharmachakra , which the Buddha began to turn in Sarnath and whose motion through time and space has spread his message universally. Others have thought them to have been nonsectarian symbols, promoting an ethical notion of rulership, or chakravartin (literally wheel turner) which Ashoka might have been aspiring to present himself, to align himself with

9591-405: The capital to a male figure from Parkham , Marshall wrote, "While the Sārnāth capital is thus an exotic, alien to Indian ideas in expression and in execution, the statue of Pārkham falls naturally into line with other products of indigenous art and affords a valuable starting point for the study of its evolution." The realism of the lions, the straining tendons of their paws, and the "flesh around

9730-414: The capital was secured to the intact pillar by a metal dowel . The lions supported a larger wheel, also polished, symbolizing the dharmachakra , the Buddhist wheel of the "social order and the sacred law," which is lost except for fragments. It was held in place by a shaft. According to the detailed Catalogue of the Museum of Archaeology at Sarnath , 1914, written by Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni

9869-508: The central government and oversees the elections held in the city. The DM is also responsible for maintaining law and order in the city, hence the SSP of Varanasi also reports to the DM of Varanasi. The DM is assisted by a Chief Development Officer (CDO), four Additional District Magistrates (ADM) (Finance/Revenue, City, Protocol, Executive), one chief revenue officer (CRO), one City Magistrate (CM), and four Additional City Magistrates (ACM). The district has three tehsils , each headed by

10008-541: The centre of the flag of the Indian National Congress , the main instrument of Indian nationalism. He also attempted to give the dharmachakra the meaning of peace and internationalism which in his view had prevailed in Ashoka's empire at the time of the erection of the pillars. The imaginative treatment of the lion changed in other ways after emperor Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism and the raising of

10147-507: The city and employed in the tannery industry. Numerous eminent scholars and preachers visited the city from across India and South Asia. Guru Nanak visited Varanasi for Maha Shivaratri in 1507. Kashi (Varanasi) played a large role in the founding of Sikhism . In 1567 or thereabouts, the Mughal emperor Jallaludin Muhammad Akbar sacked the city of Varanasi on his march from Allahabad (modern-day Prayagraj ). However, later

10286-474: The city around 635 CE, attested that the city was a centre of religious and artistic activities, and that it extended for about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) along the western bank of the Ganges. When Xuanzang visited Varanasi in the 7th century, he named it "Polonise" ( Chinese : 婆羅痆斯 ; pinyin : Póluó niè sī ; lit. 'Brahma') and wrote that the city had some 30 temples with about 30 monks. The city's religious importance continued to grow in

10425-485: The city include Adampura, Anandbagh, Bachchhaon, Bangali Tola, Bhelpura, Bulanala, Chaitganj, Chaukaghat, Chowk, Dhupchandi, Dumraon, Gandhinagar, Gautam Nagar, Giri Nagar, Gopal Vihar, Guru Nanak Nagar, Jaitpura, Kail Garh, Khanna, Kotwali, Lanka Manduadih, Luxa, Maheshpur, Mahmoorganj, Maulvibagh, Nagwar, Naipokhari, Shivala, Siddhagiribagh, and Sigra. Located in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of North India,

10564-482: The city of Varanasi in this state, the hanging head of Brahma dropped from Shiva's hand and disappeared in the ground. Varanasi is therefore considered an extremely holy site. The Pandavas , the protagonists of the Hindu epic Mahabharata , are said to have visited the city in search of Shiva to atone for their sins of fratricide and brahmahatya that they had committed during the Kurukshetra War . It

10703-611: The city to experience a temporary setback. However, after Aurangzeb's death, most of India was ruled by a confederacy of pro- Hindu kings . Much of modern Varanasi was built during this time, especially during the 18th century by the Maratha and Bhumihar Brahmin rulers. The kings governing Varanasi continued to wield power and importance through much of the British Raj period, including the Maharaja of Benares, or simply called by

10842-404: The city's infrastructure and basic amenities of health services, drinking water supply and sanitation. Rev. M. A. Sherring in his book The Sacred City of Hindus: An account of Benaras in ancient and modern times published in 1868 refers to a census conducted by James Prinsep and put the total number of temples in the city to be around 1000 during 1830s. He writes, The history of a country

10981-605: The city. India's oldest Sanskrit college, the Benares Sanskrit College , was founded by Jonathan Duncan , the resident of the East India Company in 1791. Later, education in Benares was greatly influenced by the rise of Indian nationalism in the late 19th-century. Annie Besant founded the Central Hindu College in 1898. In 1916, she and Madan Mohan Malviya founded the Banaras Hindu University , India's first modern residential university. Kashi Vidyapith

11120-552: The cleanup of the Ganga River and its tributaries. However, the allocation of resources and timeline for the Assi River remained uncertain. Varanasi Varanasi ( ISO : Vārāṇasī , Hindi: [ʋaːˈraːɳəsi] ; also Benares , Banaras ( Banārasa [bəˈnaːrəs] ) or Kashi ( Kāśī [ˈka:ʃi] ) ) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has

11259-590: The common practice of planning a conquest involved the swift and strictly defined desecration of those temples that were supported and frequented by royalty. The strategy was not new to India but had been prevalent there considerably before the arrival of the Ghaznavids and the Ghurids . Temples had been the inevitable arenas for the struggle for kingly power. The Turkish invaders followed the settled patterns. Among Hindus and Jains, many temples have survived until

11398-450: The date of 24 March 2021 was headed by a Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), who is an IPS officer, and is assisted by six Superintendents of Police (SP)/ Additional Superintendents of Police (Addl. SP) (City, Rural Area, Crime, Traffic, Protocol and Protocol), who are either IPS officers or PPS officers. Each of the several police circles is headed by a Circle Officer (CO) in the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police. The last SSP

11537-596: The division, is in charge of infrastructure development in his division, and is also responsible for maintaining law and order in the division. The District Magistrate of Varanasi reports to the Divisional Commissioner . The Commissioner is Deepak Agarwal. Varanasi district administration is headed by the District Magistrate of Varanasi, who is an IAS officer . The DM is in charge of property records and revenue collection for

11676-501: The fall of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BCE, have led some to conjecture an eastward migration of Iranian stonemasons among whom the tradition of naturalistic carving had been preserved during the intervening decades. Others have countered that a tradition of erecting columns in wood and copper had a history in India and the transition to stone was but a small step in an empire and period in which ideas and technologies were in

11815-463: The first millennium CE, they remained prominent in the religious life of central and northeastern regions well into the early centuries of the second millennium. This occurred despite Hindu and Jain religious establishments increasingly attracting the support of both the ordinary, non-clerical, public and royalty. "In the historiography of India," according to archaeologist Lars Fogelin, "the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries are often depicted as

11954-510: The four quarters." In the Aṅguttara Nikāya , the Buddha compared himself to the Indian lotus , a flower that rises clean and pure from muddy pond water, as he rose above an impure world to achieve awakening. According to art historian Gail Maxwell, The lions are fashioned so as to affect the viewer by the use of shape, colour, and texture, not necessarily to represent reality, suggestive of

12093-547: The ideal of brotherhood in order to promote Indian cultural values and to remove ill-will among different sections of the Indian population." Varanasi was ceded to the Union of India in 1947, becoming part of Uttar Pradesh after Indian independence. Vibhuti Narayan Singh incorporated his territories into the United Provinces in 1949. Narendra Modi , prime minister of India since 2014, has represented Varanasi in

12232-610: The jaws" have led others to ask about the provenance of some of the art commonly ascribed to the Maurya period. Expanding on the theme further Vincent Smith wrote in 1930 that the shine of the Mauryan pillars, the lotus bell bases of their capitals and the stylized lions, suggested Iranian carvers had migrated to the Mauryan empire after Alexander the Great 's sacking of Persepolis in 330 BCE. He and others after him have detected Persian-Hellenistic influences in Mauryan art . The subject

12371-456: The land is very fertile because low-level floods in the Ganges continually replenish the soil. Varanasi is situated between the Ganges confluences with two rivers: the Varuna and the Assi stream. The distance between the two confluences is around 2 miles (4 km), and serves as a sacred journeying route for Hindus, which culminates with a visit to a Sakshi Vinayak Temple. Varanasi experiences

12510-486: The largest minority. Nearly 70% of the population follows Hinduism. The city also agglomerate different religions such as Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism. The city is also a centre for Buddhist pilgrimage. At Sarnath , just northeast of Varanasi, the Buddha gave his first teaching ( Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta ) after attaining enlightenment . According to the Buddhavaṃsa , a hagiographical Buddhist text, Varanasi

12649-576: The left crescent-shaped bank of the Ganges, averaging between 15 metres (50 ft) and 21 metres (70 ft) above the river. The city is the headquarters of Varanasi district . By road, Varanasi is located 797 kilometres (495 mi) south-east of New Delhi , 320 kilometres (200 mi) south-east of Lucknow , 121 kilometres (75 mi) east of Prayagraj , and 63 kilometres (39 mi) south of Jaunpur . The "Varanasi Urban Agglomeration" – an agglomeration of seven urban sub-units – covers an area of 112 km (43 sq mi). Neighbourhoods of

12788-400: The lesser known Hindu princes. There were as many as 100,000 men backing the power of the Benares rajas in what later became the districts of Benares , Gorakhpur and Azamgarh . This proved a decisive advantage when the dynasty faced a rival and the nominal suzerain, the Nawab of Oudh , in the 1750s and the 1760s. An exhausting guerrilla war , waged by the Benares ruler against

12927-590: The lion capital. Not just a symbol of imperial strength or the Buddha's power, the lion became also a symbol of peace. Ashoka's lion capital has been used in memorials on battlefields. In the Ypres landscape, according to historian Karen Shelby, "the Indian Forces Memorial is the most striking. Through what would be unusual imagery for western eyes, the sculpture asserts an Indian presence. Eschewing traditional western figurative forms of commemoration,

13066-524: The lions and the dharmachakra of the capital, and their adoption constituted an attempt to give India a symbolism of ethical sovereignty. On 22 July 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru , the interim prime minister of India , and later the prime minister of the Republic of India proposed formally in the Constituent Assembly of India , which was tasked with creating the Constitution of India : Resolved that

13205-513: The mouth, is not a feature of Persian or eastern work at all, but a reflection of the realistic rendering of this feature by Hellenistic Greek artists, who could effectively reduce the force of the compact eastern forms by such treatment. It remains odd that Panthera leo persica , whose distinctive belly hair (unlike the African lion) was carefully depicted by Mesopotamian artists, whence by Greek and then Persian, should lack this feature here; indeed

13344-592: The museum since. Daya Ram Sahni , Assistant Superintendent of the ASI, and later its Director-General, supervised the organisation and labelling of the museum's collection and in 1914 completed the Catalogue of the Museum of Archaeology at Sarnath ". Oertel's detailed report, "Excavations at Särnäth", had appeared in 1908 in the Archæological Survey of India , Annual Report, 1904–5. The capital

13483-438: The negative. He alone tried to prove that Indian artists had arrived independently at their form of bell. The logic of his argument, however, was weak." According to Irwin, Coomaraswamy had picked some "untypical" details of reliefs of a century later in which the lotus had been stylized to argue that "the petals, stamen and pericarp of the lotus flower as stylized ... must have inspired the rope-moulding and abacus respectively of

13622-442: The non-elite laity consisted of little more than serving as landlords." According to Eaton, "Detached from a Buddhist laity, these establishments had by this time become dependent on the patronage of local royal authorities, with whom they were identified." Echoing the same theme, art historian Frederick Asher says, " Muhammad of Ghor , who did conquer Benares in 1193–94 ... might have plundered Sarnath, more likely for whatever wealth

13761-431: The other two had come off before being buried and upon excavation required affixing. Of these damaged, one lion was missing the lower jaw at the time of the initial excavation and the other the upper, both not found since. On the side of the abacus and below each lion is carved a wheel of 24 spokes in high relief. Between the wheels, also shown in high relief are four animals following each other from right to left. They are

13900-491: The people of Benares as Kashi Naresh . The Kingdom of Benares was given official status by the Mughals in 1737, and the kingdom started in this way and continued as a dynasty-governed area until Indian independence in 1947, during the reign of Vibhuti Narayan Singh . In the 18th century, Muhammad Shah ordered the construction of an observatory on the Ganges, attached to Man Mandir Ghat, designed to discover imperfections in

14039-457: The pillar and copper for the crown. Irwin's first hypothesis has been challenged by Frederick Asher who says, "That the pillars attributed to Aśoka are really from his time is a virtual certainty despite arguments that they date earlier (Irwin 973). The author of the pillars’ inscriptions, Piyadasi, is known to be Aśoka from the Maski inscription in present-day Karnataka. Moreover, the symbolism of

14178-466: The pillars and their capitals, appropriate for these royal edicts, suggests that the pillars were made to carry the inscriptions." Osmund Bopearachchi has mentioned Irwin and V. S. Agrawala among those who have held that the early stone carving was the work of Indians alone. He has suggested that the inspiration for them and the technique of polishing them came from Persia, noting further the absence of any archaeological evidence for Agrawala's claim that

14317-406: The pillars that were considered Ashokan had been erected by the orders of emperor Ashoka during the twenty-five-year period from 257 BCE to 232 BCE. Setting the stage for future debate he suggested that their execution was "essentially foreign." Following up in 1922, John Marshall was the first scholar to suggest that the Sarnath capital was the work of foreign artisans working in India. Comparing

14456-574: The placing of the 'Sarnath wheel,' found broken and not physically connected with the lions on the pillar during Oertel’s excavations, on the Indian national flag." Guha adds, "The historian and superintendent of the Museums Branch of the Archaeological Survey of India (1946–51), V. S. Agrawala, who was in charge of making the plaster cast in 1946, followed him in extending its meaning as the chakra dhvaja or 'the wheel flag.' Without invoking any new evidence Agrawala laboured to explain that 'there

14595-507: The present day. Whereas royal temples were raided and brought down, the ones attended by ordinary people were often left undisturbed. "The same could have occurred with Buddhist institutions focused on the laity, had they existed." according to Fogelin, "However, by the thirteenth century CE, Buddhist monasteries in the Gangetic Plain and northeastern India were prominently supported by local and regional kings, and their relations with

14734-468: The prestige and universality of the Buddha. According to cultural historian Vasudeva Sharan Agrawala , the dharmachakra represented the body of the Buddha and the lions the throne. In his view, the Sarnath capital is equally Vedic and Buddhist in the significance of its various parts. According to the Indologist John Irwin, the wheels on the rim of the abacus do not represent the Buddhist wheels of

14873-501: The right bank of the Varuna river and a pillar nearby erected by Ashoka that was, "glistening and smooth as ice." He mentioned a monastery in "Mrigdeva", or Deer Park 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) away. Here there was another pillar erected by Ashoka about 21 metres (70 ft) high and shining "as bright as jade." In the view of historian Frederick Asher, Xuanzang's account sometimes employed monuments as symbolic devices to fix miracles in

15012-417: The rim of the abacus have been associated with events in the life of Prince Siddhartha: the elephant with his mother Queen Maya's dream about his birth; the horse with Kanthaka , the mount of his departure from the palace in the dead of night, and the bull with his first meditation under the rose apple tree ( jambu , syzygium aqueum ). The abacus and its animals have been related to Lake Anavatapta of

15151-466: The sacred law but chariot wheels of the period which typically had 24 spokes. According to the anthropologist Lars Fogelin, as the only capital to exhibit wheel motifs, the lion capital at Sarnath is thought to symbolize the wheel of the moral law in "a specifically Buddhist sense of the term." Overall, the symbolism of the Sarnath column and capital is thought to be more Buddhist than secular. According to cultural historian and museologist Sudeshna Guha,

15290-473: The same as the choice of subject matter, and choices of decorative detail lie somewhere between. Copying is not the only model: interaction and creative re-use may be more rewarding concepts." He describes the differing interpretations by art historians John Boardman and Margaret Cool Root of the extent of Greek influence on the art of Persepolis . Whereas Boardman sees "similarities, and probably influence, in technique and style," Root discounts influence "on

15429-466: The same expression in describing the lions' attitude , including in a 2014 study and a 2017 review, or have quoted Oertel using it, in a 2020 study. The archaeologist Kazim Abdullaev , who analysed the pose of the Sarnath lions in a 2014 study, concluded they were seated on account of their backs sloping more steeply upwards than those of standing lions. They have been described as seated in some other studies. Two lions were undamaged. The heads of

15568-544: The site of his first sermon and the birthplace of the Buddhist order. Sarnath was pillaged again in 1894 when a large number of bricks were carried away for use as ballast in a nearby railway line. When F. O. Oertel , an engineer in the Public Works Department, who had surveyed Hindu and Buddhist sites in Burma and Central India in the 1890s was appointed superintending engineer at Varanasi, he constructed

15707-492: The southeast of the state capital, Lucknow . It lies 121 kilometres (75 mi) downstream of Prayagraj , where the confluence with the Yamuna river is another major Hindu pilgrimage site . Varanasi is one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities . Kashi, its ancient name, was associated with a kingdom of the same name of 2,500 years ago. The Lion capital of Ashoka at nearby Sarnath has been interpreted to be

15846-513: The southwest of the Dhamek . He proceeded to the Main Shrine, north of the stupa. It was to the west of this shrine that he found the buried stump and fragments of the Ashokan pillar at Sarnath, and soon its lion capital. The Museum of Archaeology at Sarnath , now Archaeological Museum Sarnath , the first site museum of the ASI, was completed in 1910. The lion capital has been displayed in

15985-471: The spot at which the Buddha had preached his first sermon. For his investigations, Cunningham preferred to glean information from foreign sources. A French translation by Stanislas Julien of the travels of the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (then known as Hiuan-tsang) in India from 629 CE to 645 CE had appeared in 1857–1858. In his account, Xuanzang mentioned a tall stupa to the northeast of Varanasi off

16124-443: The statue is a replication of one of the Asokan lion capitals. ... The connections between the symbols of the lion capital and the postwar peaceful rhetoric are striking. Asoka’s acceptance of Buddhism was the result of witnessing the devastation after the successful Battle of Kalinga (261 B.C.E.). Affected by the bloodshed, he was filled with remorse and resolved to pursue a non-violent and peaceful approach to life. The latter symbolism

16263-850: The steep river bank to the water, where pilgrims perform rituals. Of particular note are the Dashashwamedh Ghat , the Panchganga Ghat, the Manikarnika Ghat , and the Harishchandra Ghat, the last two being where Hindus cremate their dead. The Hindu genealogy registers at Varanasi are kept here. Among the notable temples in Varanasi are the Kashi Vishwanath Temple of Shiva , the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple , and

16402-635: The technique went back to the Vedic Age and was inherited by the Mauryans. Upinder Singh has observed that the cultural standing of the Asiatic lion ( Panthera leo Persica , also Persian lion ) as a symbol of projecting political power had significantly increased in India after the rise of the Mahajanapadas in the second half of the first millennium BCE. By Ashoka's time, the Asiatic lion had

16541-520: The time of Maitreya . Excavations in 2014 led to the discovery of artefacts dating back to 800 BCE. Further excavations at Aktha and Ramnagar , two sites in the vicinity of the city, unearthed artefacts dating back to 1800 BCE, supporting the view that the area was inhabited by this time. During the time of Gautama Buddha , Varanasi was part of the Kingdom of Kashi . The celebrated Chinese traveller Xuanzang , also known as Hiuen Tsiang, who visited

16680-532: The time of the 2011 Census of India , 83.87% of the population of Varansi Municipal Corporation and Cantonment Board spoke Hindi , 9.03% Urdu , 4.81% Bhojpuri , and 0.92% Bengali as their first language. Varanasi division which consists of four districts, and is headed by the Divisional Commissioner of Varanasi, who is an IAS officer of high seniority, the Commissioner is the head of local government institutions (including Municipal Corporations) in

16819-467: The true eternal law]." In other interpretations, the four small animals shown on the side of the abacus have been thought to represent the cardinal directions: the lion (north), elephant (west), bull (south), and horse (east), and the smaller wheels for the solstices and the equinoxes . According to Raymond Allchin , " The abacus depicts four Dharmacakras facing the four quarters, interspersed by four noble beasts, who in early Buddhist texts represent

16958-492: The upper and lower lids. Although the stones were lost, one pin had remained embedded in the upper left lid of one of the lions at the time of the discovery. The first of the existing visual portrayals of lions in South Asia are the Maurya columns such as the Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath. Some scholars believe that lions were introduced into India from western Asia as a quarry for royal hunts, implying that they became

17097-470: The wake of large-scale killing and destruction by his army in Kalinga , or what is today Odisha in eastern India, he gave a new direction to the imaginative treatment of the lion: from being a symbolic object of royal domination, the lion became an emblem of royal prowess. According to architectural historian Pushkar Sohoni , "In early Buddhist architecture, the lion, along with the horse, the elephant, and

17236-587: The west of the Dhamekh. Colin Mackenzie visited in 1815 and found some sculpture which he donated to the Asiatic Society of Bengal . In 1861 Alexander Cunningham attempted to dig down into the Dhamekh from its top to uncover relics. He soon abandoned the effort, but not before noting that votive models of the stupa were scattered in the vicinity, lending credence to the view that the Dhamekh marked

17375-475: The white band. The ratio of the width to the length of the flag shall ordinarily be 2:3. Although several members in the assembly had proposed other meanings for India's national symbols, Nehru's meaning came to prevail. On 11 December 1947, the Constituent Assembly adopted the resolution. Nehru was well-acquainted with the history of Ashoka, having written about it in his books Letters from

17514-510: The world system that had briefly emerged during Ashoka's rule. In his view, South Asia had a hitherto unprecedented level of engagement with the Mediterranean world during the Mauryan period. It is no coincidence that it is during that period stone sculpture appeared in South Asia, at least in the form associated with Ashokan columns. But this should not be seen in colonialist terms as an export from an Achaemenian or Hellenistic centre to

17653-485: The zebu, were considered auspicious. All these animals appeared as a standard quartet on many Mauryan pillars." The lion capital and its Ashokan pillar have complex meanings. The lions—the four sitting addorsed on the abacus and the one badly damaged appearing in relief on its rim—have been associated with the Buddha, one of whose names was Shakyasimha , the lion of the Shakya clan. The three other animals on

17792-504: Was Amit Pathak. On 25 March 2021 the Government of Uttar Pradesh passed an order to divide the Varanasi police into Varanasi City Police and Rural Police. Since then City Police is headed by the Commissioner of Police (CP) , who is an IPS officer of ADGP rank, and is assisted by two additional commissioners of police (Addl. CP) who is of DIG rank, and two deputy commissioners of police (DCP) who are of SP rank. And Rural Police

17931-667: Was accepted in December 1947. Sarnath had a history of visits and some exploration in the 18th and 19th centuries. William Hodges , the painter visited in 1780 and made a record of the Dhamek Stupa , the most conspicuous monument at the site. In 1794, Jonathan Duncan , the Commissioner of Benares noted diggings for bricks carried out by Jagat Singh, the Dewan of the Raja of Benares. These had taken place 150 metres (490 ft) to

18070-534: Was built at the spot where the goddess Durga threw her sword after slaying the demons named Sumbha and Nisumbha , and the Assi River originated from the water that emerged from it. The Assi River is affected by pollution as it receives wastewater from over two dozen nalas (sewers) located in Varanasi. In 2012, local residents of Varanasi established the Assi Nadi Mukti Abhiyan, a social organisation dedicated to removing encroachments and restoring

18209-415: Was carved "without the experience imported by Persian immigrants," but suggests that regardless of Ashoka's purpose of using Buddhism as a unifying force, his success depended on the prevailing worship of the pole (stambha) as the axis mundi in the native pre-Buddhist shrines. Harry Falk , while categorically stating a Mauryan debt to "the stonework inherited from Achaemenid Iran," of the appearance during

18348-413: Was established in 1921, a response to Mahatma Gandhi 's non-cooperation movement . Traditional etymology links "Varanasi" to the names of two Ganges tributaries forming the city's borders: Varuna , still flowing in northern Varanasi, and Assi, today a small stream in the southern part of the city, near Assi Ghat. The old city is located on the north shores of the Ganges, bounded by Varuna and Assi. In

18487-478: Was founded by Shiva , one of three principal deities along with Brahma and Vishnu . During a conflict between Brahma and Shiva, one of Brahma's five heads was torn off by Shiva. As was the custom, the victor carried the slain adversary's head in his hand and let it hang down from his hand as an act of ignominy, and a sign of his own bravery. A bridle was also put into the mouth. Shiva thus dishonoured Brahma's head, and kept it with him at all times. When he came to

18626-408: Was imagined to be stored there ... than for the sake of iconoclastic destruction." Sarnath did not have unbroken history. Very few Buddhists remained in India after the 12th century. Buddhists from Tibet, Burma, and Southeast Asia did make pilgrimages to South Asia from the 13th to the 17th centuries, but their most common destination was Bodhgaya , the site of the Buddha's enlightenment, not Sarnath

18765-739: Was in much better condition, though not undamaged. It was cracked across the neck just above the lotus, and two of its lions had sustained damage to their heads. It is displayed not far from the excavation site in the Sarnath Museum , the oldest site museum of the ASI. The lion capital is among the first group of significant stone sculptures to have appeared in South Asia after the end of the Indus Valley Civilisation 1,600 years earlier. Their sudden appearance, as well as similarities to Persepolitan columns of Iran before

18904-723: Was later annexed under the Benares Division of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces in 1805, the North-Western Provinces in 1836, United Provinces in 1902, and after India's independence of Uttar Pradesh in 1950. Silk weaving , carpets, crafts and tourism employ a significant number of the local population, as do the Banaras Locomotive Works and Bharat Heavy Electricals . The city is known worldwide for its many ghats , steps leading down

19043-490: Was presumably thirty-two." The original diameter of the surmounting wheel was conjectured to have been 0.84 metres ( 2 + 3 ⁄ 4  ft). The wheel fragments are on display in the Sarnath Museum. According to the museum's Catalogue , the lions did not have eyeballs; instead, precious stones were initially placed in the eye sockets. The stones were held in place by iron pins passing through fine holes in

19182-581: Was taken up by Mortimer Wheeler who added that until the advent of the Mauryas Indian art had not strayed beyond the confines of folk art, and on that basis speculated that two or three generations after the downfall of the Achaemenid empire Hellenistic craftsmen working in Persepolis had been hired by emperor Ashoka. Wheeler did suggest that free-standing pillars had not appeared in Europe before

19321-511: Was written on-site, but from memory upon returning to China. Giving more literal credence to the accounts of Faxian and Xuanzang, the museum curator Sushma Jansari suggests that they could imply the existence of a greater number of Ashokan pillars during early historic South Asia and its immediate aftermath than had remained at the time of the 18th- and 19th-century British investigations. Although Buddhism and Buddhist monasticism had suffered setbacks in northwestern and southwestern India in

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