Kashi appears in the archaeological and literary records
from the 13th century BCE onwards1 but, for Hindus, this city is as
old as time. The earthly home of Śiva on the banks of Ganga has been a place of
pilgrimage and veneration for Indians since the time of the Mahābhāratā.
During the 12th century, under the suzerainty of the very powerful Gāhadavāla
dynasty (1089-1193 CE), Kashi witnessed a golden age.2 It flourished as the
greatest city of Hindu Civilization. The devout Hindu Gāhadavāla kings endowed
the temples and the scholars of the city with almost unlimited patronage. One
can read the Kāśikhaṇḍa of the Skandapurāṇa, for descriptions of
the glory and the majesty of the city during that golden period.
However, as an epicentre of Hindu ascetic and religious
life, Banaras could not but exert a 'fatal attraction'3 to Islamic invaders
looking for glory and booty. The Turks had by then established themselves in
the Punjab region during the reign of Mahmūd Ghaznī and this led to repeated
raids into India, including a plundering of Banaras in 1033 CE. The Gāhadavāla kings,
keenly aware of the danger on their western front, levied the Turuṣkadanda tax
from their citizens to establish and maintain a large standing army in case of
warfare against the Muslims.4
It was the first time such a tax had been raised in India.
The most famous Gāhadavāla king, Govindacandra, saw himself as an incarnation
of Vishnu called upon by Śiva to protect Varanasi against the 'wicked' Turks.5 The Gāhadavālas were all self-consciously Hindu kings (either Vaiṣṇava or
Śaiva) and styled themselves as the protectors of all the pilgrimage
destinations or tīrthas under their domain, especially Kashi and
Ayodhya.6
As the prosperous 12th century came to a close, the
Gāhadavāla kings expended resources on containing the newly emergent Chāhamānas
dynasty in the west and the increasingly powerful Sena kingdom of Bengal in the
east. So busy fighting one another, these three devout Hindu kingdoms remained
oblivious of the impending catastrophe approaching from the western frontier. Even
more distressing is the fact that both the Gāhadavāla king Jayachandra and the
Sena king Lakṣmaṇasena were devout Vaiṣṇava who sponsored vast dharmaśāstra
projects and styled themselves as protectors of sanātana dharma. Yet,
rather than presenting a united front against a deadly foreign invader, they were
skirmishing against each other.
The Destruction of Banaras and the Viśvanātha Temple
The dark cloud of pending Islamic invasion hovering on the
horizon of Varanasi turned inescapably ominous as the powerful Chāhamānas dynasty
of Delhi fell to the advancing Turks in 1192 CE. In hindsight, the refusal of Gāhadavāla
king Jayachandra (also called Jaichand) to help Prithvīrāja Chauhān in the Second
Battle of Tarain must count as the biggest blunder in Hinduism's history. Within
one year of the conquest of Delhi, Jayachandra was beheaded and his army
decisively routed. A contemporary Muslim chronicler describes the event that
unfolded in Banaras in the aftermath of the war,
(the army) proceeded towards
Benares, which is the centre of the country of Hind, and here they destroyed
nearly one thousand temples, and raised mosques on their foundations; and the
knowledge of the law became promulgated, and the foundations of religion were
established.7
Banaras lay in ruins. It took 1,400 camels to haul away the
plunder.8 None of its large temples survived the iconoclastic fury of the invaders.
A few decades later, to add insult to injury, a mosque was constructed on the
site of the famous Viśvanātha Temple, probably using material from the temple ruins.
The mosque still stands there today. However, though ransacked, Banaras
continued to attract Hindu pilgrims and, during periods of peace, many temples
were reconstructed. Viśvanātha temple was rebuilt again some time before 1353
CE, very close to its original spot.9
But this was not to last long. The temples of Banaras were
again razed to the ground under the reigns of Firuz Shāh Tughluq of Delhi,
Mahmud Shāh Sharqī of Jaunpur, and Sikandar Lodī of Delhi. The materials of the newly-destroyed Viśvanātha
temple were again hauled away to build mosques at the newly founded capital of the Sharqī Dynasty.10
After this turbulent period, peace returned to North India
under the reign of Akbar. With the patronage of Raja Todar Mal and the effort
of Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa, one of the great medieval scholars of Banaras from the
illustrious Bhaṭṭa family, a magnificent Viśvanātha temple was again built in
1585 CE. This was at least the third time that the destroyed Viśvanātha temple had
been reconstructed, each time at a different place in Varanasi. Unfortunately, it
was not to be the last.
Ghats of BanarasLess than a hundred years later, in 1669 CE, Aurangzeb
ordered the destruction of Viśvanātha temple. The temple's upper structure was
dismantled and a mosque constructed over it. The ornate outer walls of the
temple are still visible today at the Jnāna Vāpī mosque. Once again, the
materials of Viśvanātha temple had been used to build a mosque. Banaras was
then renamed "Muhammadabad" by Aurangzeb.11 All the greatest temples of
Varanasi, including Krittivāsa, Kāla Bhairava, and Bindu Mādhava met a similar
fate at the hands of Aurangzeb. Diana Eck describes the fate of these temples,
There is no major religious
sanctuary in all Banāras that pre-dates the time of Aurangzeb in the
seventeenth century….The city of the Purānic māhātmyas was no more. Its
greatest temples— Krittivāsa, Omkāra, Mahādeva, Madhyameshvara, Vishveshvara,
Bindu Mādhava, and Kāla Bhairava—were in ruins. Some never recovered, like the
Shiva temple of Krittivāsa, the site of which is today occupied by a run-down
mosque. Others went into hiding, like the guardian deity Kāla Bhairava, who was
housed in humble quarters for hundreds of years and did not appear in a fitting
temple until the eighteenth century. Likewise, the Vishnu image of Bindu
Mādhava, whose site was usurped by a huge mosque, was moved to a nearby house.12
The ‘Final’ Reconstruction
With the collapse of Mughal rule and the ascendency of
Marathas, the reconstruction and resacralization of the Hindu pilgrimage sites
had begun. In 1777 CE, more than a hundred years after the destruction of the
temple, an adjacent temple site was chosen and a new Viśvanātha temple was reconstructed
by the Maratha queen Rani Ahalyabai Holker. The temple was deliberately kept
small and inconspicuous to avoid future destruction. In 1839, Maharaja Ranjit
Singh, the ruler of Punjab, sponsored the gold plating of the temple spire,
giving it the architectural prominence that it has today.13
Even when the Viśvanātha temple did not exist, people had continued
to perform their pujas and other rituals as if the temple still stood there
housing the Linga of Śiva. Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa writing in the sixteenth-century,
states,
And if, owing to the power of
foreign rulers, there is no linga at all in that place, even so, the Dharma of
the place itself should be observed, with rites of circumambulation,
salutation, etc., and in this way the daily pilgrimage [nityayātrā] shall be
performed.14
These words provide an insight into the Hindu mind. Despite
seeing Banaras in ruins on multiple occasions, there is no hint of any self-pity
or grievance but sheer psychological resilience and resolve to follow dharma
against all odds. Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa gives a call to people to perform all rituals
at the same place and in the same manner even during the absence of any physical
symbols of dharma. The physical symbols of dharma will revive
again when the time is right, provided the people have śraddhā in their
hearts.
Two hundred and fifty years later, as the area around the Viśvanātha
temple is redeveloped and restored under the present administration, it is just
another moment in the great unfolding of dharma in this eternal city of
Lord Śiva.
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