Common description
Varanasi (translated from Sanskrit letters "Between two rivers"), also Benares or Banaras - the main city of the region of the same name in northwestern India (Uttar Pradesh) - a city that has the same meaning for Hindus as the Vatican for Catholics, the most sacred city of Hinduism and the center of Brahminical scholarship.
Varanasi lies for about 8 km, with an amphitheater on the left bank of the Ganges, which in this place forms a small bay and has a width that varies with the seasons from 550 to 850 m at a depth of 25 to 30 m. The city, if you look at it from the banks of the Ganges, is a very original and picturesque view. It consists of a maze of dark, damp, dirty, winding and narrow streets, which are not everywhere can pass an elephant. Crews are not in use here. Houses, the number of which in 1872 reached 35,741, mostly three-story, but often also found and five- and six-story. Since each upper floor is slightly forward over the lower, the upper floors are facing each other, the houses almost converge. Many of them are equipped with balconies, balustrades and round or, rather, pyramidal domes. The variety of colors, which are painted most of them, with the image on the front of flowers, animals, people and gods gives them a very original look. Benares is the center of worship of Shiva, or Manadeva, and there are more than 1,000 temples dedicated to this deity in the city. But most of them are architecturally nothing great; the oldest, most significant and most revered and visited among them is the temple of Vishrayesa, ie the Lord of the world. In all these temples the main object of worship are standing lings made of stone. Dedicated Shiva bulls run freely on all the city streets, while in many temples of Durga there are jumping monkeys at almost every step, which are raised and nurtured there. Of the temples belonging to the Jain sect, the Man-Mandil Temple is especially remarkable for its architecture, or the Mandil-Singh House, which in 1680 was turned into an observatory and provided with remarkable surviving astronomical instruments, as did the Jane Mandil. , or the temple of Jain, however, are already coming to ruin. Among the three hundred mosques in Bashkortostan, one of the most majestic is the Aureng Zeba Mosque, built near the banks of the Ganges, on the site of a ruined Hindu temple, with three domes and two minarets.
Varanasi lies for about 8 km, with an amphitheater on the left bank of the Ganges, which in this place forms a small bay and has a width that varies with the seasons from 550 to 850 m at a depth of 25 to 30 m. The city, if you look at it from the banks of the Ganges, is a very original and picturesque view. It consists of a maze of dark, damp, dirty, winding and narrow streets, which are not everywhere can pass an elephant. Crews are not in use here. Houses, the number of which in 1872 reached 35,741, mostly three-story, but often also found and five- and six-story. Since each upper floor is slightly forward over the lower, the upper floors are facing each other, the houses almost converge. Many of them are equipped with balconies, balustrades and round or, rather, pyramidal domes. The variety of colors, which are painted most of them, with the image on the front of flowers, animals, people and gods gives them a very original look. Benares is the center of worship of Shiva, or Manadeva, and there are more than 1,000 temples dedicated to this deity in the city. But most of them are architecturally nothing great; the oldest, most significant and most revered and visited among them is the temple of Vishrayesa, ie the Lord of the world. In all these temples the main object of worship are standing lings made of stone. Dedicated Shiva bulls run freely on all the city streets, while in many temples of Durga there are jumping monkeys at almost every step, which are raised and nurtured there. Of the temples belonging to the Jain sect, the Man-Mandil Temple is especially remarkable for its architecture, or the Mandil-Singh House, which in 1680 was turned into an observatory and provided with remarkable surviving astronomical instruments, as did the Jane Mandil. , or the temple of Jain, however, are already coming to ruin. Among the three hundred mosques in Bashkortostan, one of the most majestic is the Aureng Zeba Mosque, built near the banks of the Ganges, on the site of a ruined Hindu temple, with three domes and two minarets.
Varanasi on map
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