Hindu temples in Varanasi

Varanasi is an ancient city in India famous for housing many Hindu temples.

• Om! Glory be to Ganapati. In Ayodhya lived formerly Sadhesadhu, the speaker of truth, beloved of good men, whose delight consisted in the welfare of all beings. His son was the famous Sadhunidhi, whose son Padmasadhu, of steadfast virtue, on the north side of the entrance to the Visvesvara temple at Kasi built a solid and lofty temple of god Padmesvara, on Wednesday, the twelfth day of the waning moon of the month of Jyaishtha, in the year of Plava: Samvat 1353, on which day this eulogy was written.
  • The Padmesvara inscription of 1353 CE recording the construction of the Padmesvara (Vishnu) temple on the north-side entrance of the Visveshvara temple at Kashi by Padma Sadhu. (Fuhrer 1889: 51). quoted in Jain, M. (2019). Flight of deities and rebirth of temples: Espisodes from Indian history. 90ff

• At that time (1570-71) there was an idol temple, which owing to passage of time had become deserted and become the place of trade of the market people. I purged that place of them and started erecting a madrasa for scholars. It was completed around those few days that Raja (Todarmal) came from a bath (in the river). In that temple there was a pillar 12 gaz (32 feet) high; and there was a date in the Hindu characters inscribed on it stating that it had been set up seven hundred years ago. When Bayizid took it down, he had it cut into two parts, and the two parts again into four portions each. Six parts of the stone were used in the pillars and slabs of the mosque of the madrasa; and two parts were taken by Khwaja (Dost) Muhammad, Bakhshi of the Khan Khanan (Munim Khan) who put them on the doorway of the mosque at Jaunpur.
  • (Describing demolition of temple and use of stones of Varanasi temples in mosque at Jaunpur). Bayizid Bayat, Tazkira-Humayun O Akber. in (Prasad 1990: 150). Pushpa Prasad - Sanskrit Inscriptions of Delhi Sultanate_ 1191-1526-Oxford University Press (1991) also quoted in Jain, M. (2019). Flight of deities and rebirth of temples: Espisodes from Indian history. 90ff

• Kedara was one of the early temples of Kashi mentioned in the Puranic mahatmyas. According to devotees, Kedara was the respected elder of Visveshvara and the oldest Shiva linga in Kashi. It was also locally claimed that Kedara survived the great destruction of Aurangzeb in the seventeenth century. That made the present Kedara temple older than the present Visvanatha temple. Legend has it that when Aurangzeb‘s troops approached the temple they were counselled by a Muslim holy man to retreat. The advice was unheeded, and the troops stormed into the temple. The commander slashed the image of Nandi, kneeling before the doorway to the sanctum. Blood was said to have flowed from its neck, and the assailants backed away in awe and fear. Kedaresvara is presently a large structure on the banks of the Ganges at Kedarghat.
  • Jain, M. (2019). Flight of deities and rebirth of temples: Espisodes from Indian history. 102.

• Numerous other shrines, too many to enumerate, were displaced, reduced in size, or simply erased. The Banaras that was reconstructed in the eighteenth century was markedly different from the Banaras destroyed. Sacred geography had changed beyond recognition. (...) So complete was the destruction of Banaras that not a single pre-eighteenth century temple survived.
  • Jain, M. (2019). Flight of deities and rebirth of temples: Espisodes from Indian history. p 105-124

• The Lal Darwaza Masjid, for instance, was built partly ‘out of the stone material obtained through the spoilation of the majestic temple of Padmesvara built near the Visvanatha temple of Benares in 1296’.
  • H.R. Nevill, Benares: A Gazetteer, Volume XXVI (Allahabad: Government Press, 1909), p. 34. Vikram Sampath - Waiting for Shiva_ Unearthing the Truth of Kashi's Gyan Vapi-BluOne Ink (2024)

• On the 17th Zi-l-ka’da, 1079 [18 April 1669] it reached the ear of His Majesty, the protector of the faith, that in the provinces of Thatta, Multan and Benares, but especially in the latter [i.e. Benares], foolish Brahmins were in the habit of expounding frivolous books in their schools, and that students and learners, Musulmans as well as Hindus, went there, even from long distances, led by a desire to become acquainted with the wicked sciences they taught. The ‘Director of the Faith’ consequently issued orders to all the governors of provinces to destroy with a willing hand the schools and temples of the infidels; and they were strictly enjoined to put an entire stop to the teaching and practicing of idolatrous forms of worship.
  • Saqi Mustaid Khan , Masir-i-Alamgiri, in H.M. Elliot and John Dowson, History of India as Told By its Own Historians, Vol. VII (London: Trübner & Co., 1877), p. 184. Vikram Sampath - Waiting for Shiva_ Unearthing the Truth of Kashi's Gyan Vapi-BluOne Ink (2024)

• ‘On the 15th Rabi-ul-akhir [2 September 1669], it was reported to his religious Majesty, leaders of the unitarians, that in obedience to order, the Government officers had destroyed the temple of Bishnath [Vishwanath] at Benares.’
  • Saqi Mustaid Khan , Masir-i-Alamgiri, in H.M. Elliot and John Dowson, History of India as Told By its Own Historians, Vol. VII (London: Trübner & Co., 1877), p. 184. Vikram Sampath - Waiting for Shiva_ Unearthing the Truth of Kashi's Gyan Vapi-BluOne Ink (2024)

• When we endeavour to ascertain what the Mohammedans have left to the Hindus of their ancient buildings in Benares, we are startled at the result of our investigations. Although the city is bestrewn with temples in every direction, in some places very thickly, yet it would be difficult, I believe, to find twenty temples, in all Benares, of the age of Aurungzeb, or from 1658 to 1707. The same unequal proportion of old temples, as compared with new, is visible throughout the whole of Northern India. moreover, the diminutive size of nearly all the temples that exist is another powerful testimony to the stringency of the Mohammedan rule. It seems clear, that, for the most part, the emperors forbade the Hindus to build spacious temples, and suffered them to erect only small structures of the size of cages for their idols, and these of no pretensions to beauty. The consequence is, that the Hindus of the present day, blindly following the example of their predecessors of two centuries ago, commonly build their religious edifices of the same dwarfish size as formerly; but, instead of plain, ugly buildings, they are often of elegant construction. Some of them, indeed, are so delicately carved externally, are so crowded with bass reliefs and minute sculpturing, are so lavishly ornamented that the eye of the beholder becomes satiated and wearied. In regard to size, there is a marked difference between the temples of Northern and Southern India; the latter being frequently of gigantic dimensions.
  • Matthew Atmore Sherring, The Sacred City of the Hindus: An Account of Benares in Ancient and Modern Times (London: Trübner & Co., 1868), pp. 31–32. Vikram Sampath - Waiting for Shiva_ Unearthing the Truth of Kashi's Gyan Vapi-BluOne Ink (2024)

• It is worthy of notice, as illustrating the nature of Mohammedan rule in India, that nearly all the buildings in Benares, of acknowledged antiquity, have been appro¬ priated by the Musulmans; being used as mosques, mausoleums, dargahs, and so forth j and also that a large portion of the separate pillars, architraves, and various other ancient remains, whieh, as before remarked, are so plentifully found in one part of the city, now contribute to the support or adornment of their edifices.
  • Matthew Atmore Sherring, quoted in Jain, M. (2024). Vishwanath rises and rises : the story of eternal Kashi.

• There is a mosque known as Har Tirath mosque, near the famous Har Tirath temple, which also appears to have been constructed of the materials of some old buildings. That was a temple of the Hindus known as Krittivaseshwara. The historical documents showed that this temple was constructed in an irregular manner in 1077 Hijri (1666 ce) after demolishing a temple, as per the orders of Aurangzeb.
  • Vikram Sampath - Waiting for Shiva_ Unearthing the Truth of Kashi's Gyan Vapi-BluOne Ink (2024)

• After initially denying that there was even a temple at the site, contesting that it was not even Aurangzeb who got this temple demolished, and even denying the legitimacy of the Masir-i-Alamgiri, the plaintiff side tried other tactics to deflect the issue. In the process, they ended up exposing the demolition of so many temples by Aurangzeb that it contradicted their original claims, and also those of Faruki in his hagiographical account that Aurangzeb was a very tolerant and inclusive ruler. For instance, the plaintiffs argued that there was another temple on the banks of the Ganga called Madhodaska Dharahara, which too was demolished by Aurangzeb in his time and a mosque with high minarets constructed over it. The Muslim side argued that it is possible that it was this temple that might have been the one spoken about in Masir-i-Alamgiri.
  • Vikram Sampath - Waiting for Shiva_ Unearthing the Truth of Kashi's Gyan Vapi-BluOne Ink (2024)

• The next contention was that at some distance from this compound, there was another temple known as Adi Vishweshwara, which too seemed to have been demolished and near it stood the mosque of Razia Bibi. Since the word ‘Adi’ meant original, it was incorrect to say that the old temple of Vishwanath was in this Gyan Vapi compound and that if there was any, then it must have been the one near that Razia mosque.
  • Vikram Sampath - Waiting for Shiva_ Unearthing the Truth of Kashi's Gyan Vapi-BluOne Ink (2024)