Indians | Ep 10: The Faiths of Varanasi | A Brief History of a Civilization
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- Опубліковано 16 вер 2024
- Research, Script and Narration by Namit Arora;
Producer: The Wire;
Director: Natasha Badhwar;
Camera: Ajmal Jami;
Video Editor: Anam Sheikh.
Made possible by a grant from The Raza Foundation and contributions to The Wire by viewers like you. Join The Wire’s UA-cam membership program and help fund many such initiatives.
The story of India is one of profound and continuous change. It has been shaped by the dynamic of migration, conflict, mixing, coexistence, and cooperation. In this ten-part web series, Namit Arora tells the story of Indians and our civilization by exploring some of our greatest historical sites, most of which were lost to memory and were dug out by archaeologists. He will also focus on ancient and medieval foreign travellers whose idiosyncratic accounts conceal surprising insights about us Indians. All along, Arora surveys India’s long and exciting churn of cultural ideas, beliefs, and values-some that still shape us today, and others that have been lost forever. The series mostly mirrors-and often extends-the contents of his book, Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization. Bibliography appears below.
EPISODE 10: THE FAITHS OF VARANASI
Varanasi, or Banaras, is among the world's oldest living cities. Its archaeological finds go back to the 9th century BCE. Emerging in history as Kashi, Varanasi became an early centre of learning. The Buddha preached his first sermon here, which effectively launched Buddhism. The city has an impressive history of religious pluralism and still hosts Brahminical Hinduism, various major and minor faiths and sects of old India, shrines to sundry matas and folk gods, and many flavours of Islam: Shia, Sunni, Sufi, Ahmadiyya. Located on the left bank of the Ganga, it’s the city of Shiva, of seekers and pilgrims, Pirs and Aghoris, death and instant moksha. Muslims form 30% of its people and most of its weaving industry; their Hindu ancestors made Varanasi famous for textiles even in ancient times.
Foreigners like Xuanzang, Alberuni and Bernier left accounts of Varanasi. How do scholars today view religious conversions and temple desecrations in the city under Muslim rulers? In these centuries, popular religion-including Bhakti and Sufism-thrived in Varanasi with locals like Tulsidas, Kabir and Ravidas. It was Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas, composed in the 1570s during Akbar’s rule, that turbo-charged Rama’s career as a god in north India. The city then also became a major centre of Indo-Persian culture, co-created by Hindus and Muslims at both elite and commoner levels. Arora will close with a few words on its present.
PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY / FURTHER READING
Asher, Catherine B., Cynthia Talbot; India before Europe; CUP, 2006
Asher, Frederick M; Sarnath: A Critical History of the Place Where Buddhism Began; 2020
Bernier, Francois; Travels in the Mogul Empire: AD 1656-68; Translated by Archibald Constable; 2nd Ed. by Vincent. A Smith.
Chaudhuri, Devdan; 'How did Lord Rama become a Hindu god?' dailyo.com, 18 Apr 2018
Doniger, Wendy; The Hindus: An Alternative History; Penguin, 2009
Doron, Assa; Life on the Ganga: Boatmen and the Ritual Economy of Banaras; CUP India, 2013
Eaton, Richard M.; India in the Persianate Age 1000-1765; Allen Lane, 2019
Eaton, Richard M.; Temple Descecration and Indo-Muslim States; Journal of Islamic Studies 11:3 (2000) pp. 283-319 © Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies 2000
Eck, Diana L; Banaras: City of Light; Knopf Doubleday, 1982
Freitag, Sandria B. (Editor); Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and Environment; 1800-1980, UC Press, 1989
Jha, Mithilesh Kumar; Language, Politics and Public Sphere in North India; OUP India, 2017
Kabir (Translated by Linda Hess & Shukdeo Singh); The Bijak of Kabir; OUP, 2002
Mehta, Bhanu Shanker; Unseen Banaras; Pilgrims Pub, 2013
Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna; Songs of Kabir; NRYB, 2011
Pathak, Ajai K et al; 'The Genetic Ancestry of Modern Indus Valley Populations from Northwest India'; AJHG Journal, Vol 103, Issue 6, P918-929, Dec 06, 2018
Parry, Jonathan P.; Death in Banaras; CUP, 1994
Sen, Sudipta; Ganga: The Many Pasts of a River; Gurgaon, Viking, 2019
Sherring, MA; Benares: The Sacred City of the Hindus (1868); Pilgrims Pub, 2016
Singh, Rana P.B.; Cultural Landscapes and the Lifeworld; Indica, 2004
Sinha, Arun; 'Will Buddhists seek to reclaim monuments destroyed to build Hindu temples?'; National Herald, 9 July 2022
Thapar, Romila; Noorani, AG; Menon, Sadanand, On Nationalism, Aleph, 2016
Ticku, Rohit; Shrivastava, Anand; Iyer, Sriya; 'Holy Wars? Temple Desecrations in Medieval India'; SSRN Electronic Journal, Jan 2017.
Join The Wire's UA-cam Membership and get exclusive content, member-only emojis, live interaction with The Wire's founders, editors and reporters and much more. Memberships to The Wire Crew start at Rs 89/month. / @thewirenews
Please continue this series. As an engineer I never ever found history so fascinating.
Thank you so much
Mr. Namit Arora, I can't thank you enough as a Bangladeshi from the bottom of my heart, for this series. Calling it a masterpiece would be an understatement. I wish each and eveyone of the sub-continenter would see this, it would certainly be a better place for everyone! Please keep up your good work.
This series has a lot of information about how society evolved but misses the Northeast and Deep South. I hope there is a follow-up for this series.
Thank you
I grew up in remote areas of Sind Pakistan ,we live with our hindu brothers ans sisters for centuries.
We celebrate same cultural wedding rituals with nikkah.although establishment make alot of effort to make poor muslim kids to become extremist but because of our thousands of years of muscle memory of living together it’s impossible to delete our beautiful culture.when Babri masjid destroyd not a single temple was harmed in Sindh pakistan.we still have women who wears bangles in whole arms as it was in Mohin jo daro time.
Please traslate into many languages so this region have more peace and prosperity.
Thanks 🙏
thank you for contributing to peaceful coexistence, a demonstration for us all!
@@devidaughter7782:ask him does hindus over there have reservation or benefits in government, why there is less hindu representation in higher government positions and media
@@rajeshVengadesan you can only spew hatred, stop comparing India with Pakistan. A super power should compete with developed countries.
Lovely.
The series definitely deserves to be seen by ordinary hindi (also other local language) speaking audience.
Excellent. Very informative. Plz extend this series to at least 100 episodes of 1 hr each. Indias history is so rich even 100 episodes will fall short.
I wake up on Saturdays just to watch this series as soon as the new episode is released.
This is perhaps the most well researched perspective of the Indian history. This has not changed my perspective as I hold the same views presented in this series, particularly about the Hindu religion. Great work Namit.
I liked every single minute of the entire series. There’s nothing to dislike. Only a bigot uneducated person would dislike it. In the era of social media everyone has forgotten how the society was. They can find out if they read a book. Not by modern historians. There lots of books available written around 1800 to know how caste worked. How temples were the inclusive member only club for Savarna upper caste. People have stopped reading books nowadays. Everything so called social media, podcast and likes of Abhijit Chabra peddles today are not history.
Abhijit chabra or chawda?
😂you are too much conditioned 😂😂
@@user-lp9vz6lu3t Nah I am just an average girl who read books and been reading since childhood and not just manga stories ✌️
No matter what, don't stop reading widely. You are on the right track.
@Yourbrother05 Thank You Very Much for acknowledging the Truth. Commendable. If someone says that all people of a community are same, they are wrong. In fact, some of the greatest reformers have been from the Savarna Communities. Some people of egalitarian thought do generalise Savarna people. That is wrong and I apologise on their behalf.
Thank you Sir, have never heard such a fantastic and factual history of the Indians explained and expounded so beautiful and wonderfully. All indians should watch and rewatch all 10 episodes repeatedly to know their true identity. Great achievement Sir a big thank you.
Thank you Sir ! Namit Arora ! A brilliant look into our history without getting influenced by any religious dogmas. I would sincerely suggest to the UGC to provide arrangements in all our Universities and Colleges to show "INDIANS' ( all 10 episodes) to our youth . It will help them to understand the real India and not what our present day religio-political leaders say .
I was a student of history
All episodes were fantastic. Thanks Namitji. Like to watch more series like this.
"myths can edify and inspire, but they can also reinforce conformity, obedience, and an oppressive social order" (12:20). . . "we are the stories we tell ourselves" (36:20)
Myths do edify, inspire and also educate it is when you are prejudiced that you only see one side of the myth and also when we also say that we are the stories we tell overselves so also we become our myths too and so can we become inspiring , educated and wise and as profound as our myth or like our so called epics. We too can become EPIC
The best wit in whole series: after depicted of Shiva..." Shiva is a half-naked yogi who hangs out in cremation groud, covers his body with ash from the funneral pyres and is said to smoke ganja and hashish, qute end, and you said.." That's the kind of God every one should have!" the the best wit I ever had in my entire life. The metaphoric wit stand high and tall...Thank you almost fell in love India, nearly jump in the plane, and live there and travel from Harappan till Varanasi.
I loved this series. I dont find much to disagree with but definitely a lot to ponder over and go deeper into. I think I will have to watch some episodes again because the amount of information that has been summarized in these 5 hours is simply amazing. Thank you Namit Ji for doing this, Wire for sponsoring and Raza Foundation for supporting this.
Enjoyed the series! I am going to watch it one more time and have the kids watch it too.
History at school is so boring - dates, wars, names but barely any learnings. This will give children a sense of how history can be interpreted differently and also that one should learn from the past and not try to go to the past or worse fix the past!
I watched almost all of your talk series. I like your approach to India's history.
Really great series. I like how the lessons are stacked from the basics/beginnings and how they were interpreted then and now. I plan to re-run the entire series to get a better understanding of the history of the sub-continent. Totally agree with Mr Arora that we should not re-write our past , otherwise we learn nothing from them and mess up our future. Kudos to touching on some ideas that may be sensitive, but that's how history should be learnt. Thank you.
I have really enjoyed his no-holds-barred approach to telling straight facts about history that we need to grapple with. I also like Arora ji's direct, straightforward style - and speaking slowly enough to take it all in. Kudos to his team - the visuals are also fantastic, including the tables and even the Bajrang Dal sign in this video... One thing I want to add, however. It is also a fact that there are no Hindu temples in Varanasi that pre-date Muhammad Ghorid's arrival. There may be shivlings, yes, and other ornaments, but ancient temples there are none, like there are in the south. This too is an important fact... And Kashi Viswanath has been destroyed 4 times - and each time, it was re-built, including once by Raja Man Singh and Raja Todar Mal in Akbar's time. See - Varanasi is like the phoenix that rises out of the ashes - what is destroyed is just re-built. Even Bindu Madhav has a very appealing temple today. Thank you again, Mr. Arora for your honest approach to history.
What a amazing work Sir ... gave a new meaning to me as an Indian ... you work is priceless ... I stated with Indus and ended up bing watching all the 10 episodes ... Jai Hind ❤️
Thank you again for all your efforts in researching and putting this series together. It’s great for expats such as me who didn’t focus on history in our youth and now have a longing to better understand our cultural roots.
❤A noble act of ushering knowledge in this era of darkness and ignorance. 👏👏👏
Thank You sir for explaining the Original of INDIANS in the series and fascinating pictures and storytelling is amazing.
Thank you for this truly impressive and absolutely necessary series. I stumbled across episode 2 in my recommended list today, and after watching five minutes of it, I stopped and watched the whole series in one sitting. I can't wait to read the book. I'm not familiar with this channel, but this series' presence is a very positive recommendation indeed.
As a non-Indian from a small European country (Luxembourg) who visited India first in 1988 and lived there for month and returned 22 time since then- because I fell in love with India and its peoples - I am so happy to have seen all the episodes and watched them all in a row.
I also remember the Indians telling me: "There are so many ways to God as there are people on this earth!" This tolerance I feel has disappeared since BJP took power and with the rise of Hindu-Nationalism.
So the rational and scientific attitude of Namit Arora shows me that there is hope and that historic analysing and pondered views are much closer to the truth than ideologic distortion of the past biased by the desire for power.
Dear Indians - remember Adolf Hitler's Germany. Did his nationalist Ideas lead to any GOOD? Yes I know many Hindus like him because he used your Swastika ... but eventually only to pervert it with his actions! Does swastika not mean 'conducive to well-being'?
Millions of dead people all over Europe. And one of my uncles and one of my ants were killed because they fought the NAZIS.
Dear Indians do not follow that path!
It wasn't swastik it was hooked cross , Hitler did it because of influence of church
Super.... I appreciate your insight. You are right, it is a section of people who are the root cause of all these problems. Hopefully India will wake up soon.
Thank you Namit. Enjoyed your book and the series immensely. They are full of insights and well-informed commentaries. I'm particularly impressed by your uncompromising stance on objectivity and in developing an evidence-based narrative. You painted on a vast canvas and yet captured subtle and nuanced details that helped to enrich the story told. Well done.
Please release this playlist in every language.
I badly want my parents to watch this series.
I would love to donate for that project
Dear Namit,
What a pleasure to have seen your series Indians!!
Absolutely mesmerising and highly educational. I wish to put in a suggestion though.. please give a Hindi commentary also as most of the north indian people would be more comfortable in understanding and comprehending in Hindi and those are the ones who must view your series to clear their heads of so many misunderstandings that they are carrying.
Your work is amazing and i look forward to more such work.
Regards
Sir its an humble request to you 🙏 - please continue this series & take us to the insight of modern history. This series has done wonders for us (as a student of history). You have provided us with secular, more factual & raw perspective to look at our past digitally that we have hardly come accross! And it is difficult to look at such dimension through mere reading of a textbook!
Eloquently spoken, very appropriately worded sentences, your narrations are truly a breath of fresh air in emotionally charged sentimental world. Your summary of the series stating the importance of the need to understand our past to improve our present and the future, is fantastic.
I wish to visit this glorious land of our forefathers one day in my life which is difficult at present for being a Pakistani born but you can always hope, oh and pray too :)
Very well done sir Namit Arora.
The most brilliant and thoroughly researched series on UA-cam. Please continue it.
Great series...this series threw me very good light on history from ancient to modern days..how India had gone the transformation by various rulers and different beliefs .
An excellent capsule of Indian history spanning thousands of years summarised objectively based on historical evidences and deep insights.
Butchered presentation of history aimed at glorifying mughals and funded by Raza foundation
A well-researched and professionally-presented series. It is sad that the series has ended. I have, however, bought your book "Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization", which I am sure will give me the experience of walking through the exhilarating history of India.
Amazing, devastated its over. Honsestly some of the content i've seen on Indian history. Please re release these in Multiple languages, It deserves to be heard by everyone
Watched the entire series and absolutely loved it. Splendid work, kind sir. Thank you for making it. Please do come up with more series in the future, looking forward to it.
Namit ji, Thank you for putting together this series and the book. I have been looking for an abridged, readable book and series on Indian history and your work has proven to be exactly that.
Simply fascinating, mind boggling, scholarly and scientific, together.
Loved the entire series. We need more of these.
Excellent contents of Indian history spanning thousands of years summarized objectively based on historical evidences and deep understanding.
If there is one thing that disappoints is that you have wound up the series with this episode! Please consider expanding your lecture series! Fantastic stuff!
Exactly
Yes please..
I think providing the reference is thoughtful of you and will help many who want to read further. Much appreciated. Thank you.
You made history so interesting. It used to be scary subject to me in school. There is nothing in this series not to like. So well narrated and made it easy to understand. Please keep making such series and let us know. Thank you.
Thanks for bringing this series and its logical angle to see and interpret our history. We need such studies in these troubled times.
Thank you so much for the series! I hope you will come up with more such videos about the history and diversity of our country!
Fantastic series. One of the interesting things was how development flourishes when diversity is embraced and gender biases are low but it is impeded whn conventional thinking is imposed.
The series you have produced are highly appreciated. They are based on present day research methodology of histography. We need to learn a lot from empirical methods of the west. Mythology and cooked up Indian history will take India to its abysmal state of affairs. India can never become Viswaguru with the kind of manufactured history in the labs of saffron labs. Meticulous research methodology of the west without bias is the only way to make India great. Knowledge based on sense perception of the foreigners who visited India during the past 2000 years, DNA based evidence available to us from the scientific sources tested in the western labs is the only way out for getting closer to reality about the past.
Kudos to your efforts to painstaking efforts to produce the accurate information about the past.
May I suggest you to produce series which will inform the world how Shankara Charya, Madhava Charya and Ramanuja Charya successfully driven out Bhudhism from the country of its origin and how the religion had to take shelter in China, Srilanka, and other foreign countries. It will be highly interesting study.
Dear Namit These Indian history series of yours are absolutely riveting.Congrats and best wishes.Please continue the good work.I can't get enough of it!
Enjoy listening to hear stories and history of India. Thank you for creating this series.
It's amazing to know the truth. It is emotional that somebody still trying to hold Indian pluralist history
I'm really learnt Indian's history through these episodes. I am grateful to you sir for your contribution to enlighten the society 🙏
Thank you Wire Media for bring such true history to us. ❤
Thank you Wire for this fantastic series.Very well made and narrated! Must be made in hindi as well as other Indian languages. Fascinating to know that without fighting wars the brahminical/priestly class could maintain power structures over many centuries by way of appropriation and creation of falsehoods. We can see the same tactics continue to this day. For example, BJP-RSS pays homage to reformists like Savitribhai phule today but their ideology and patriarchal attitude is still the same as that of the Hindu fundamentalists who opposed phule's efforts in education of girls.
Pls continue this series by doing an exclusive section on how the caste system developed.
How ? Bjp were more progressive than your samajwadi or other Islamic parties in india.they brought many industries to north india
Too good. Thanks The Wire and Namit.
Beware of BJP and RSS. You’ve been warned.
Enjoyed every second of this information packed series. So much of research has gone into this making. I could not help but admire the courage of Mr. Namit Arora for bring out these insights. This can change the way we look at ourselves. It is also clear how one particular set of people have twisted everything to their benefit. We can shed a lot of our prejudices and move forward as a nation. Hat off to you Sir !!! The only negative is, it has come to an end...
Watched all the series and enjoyed every bit of it. Thank you so very much for bringing this before us
Very insightful series.. watched all 10 episodes. Looking forward for more.
Wonderful narration correct perspective of history I fully agree with you
Please continue the series.i loved the information.your voice is soo soothing ❤
Please continue this series. It's needed very much specially today.
Fascinating account of our history and development of our religious beliefs. Wish there is a Hindi version for the common people who are blinded by faith.
No doubts,it's a wonderful piece of insight about our history .Which makes you wonder how history has been misinterpreted by the political clan in our country.A must watch for all Indians in today's politically motivated misleading era.
Great work @ Mr Namit Arora.
Amazing narration of past history with evidence, there is nothing to dislike about it. We all have to accept it and move on.
A very illuminating series, indeed. Informed by a literate mind which gazes back with a clarity based on the latest facts and reflecting a universal Indian of the 21st century. Samir Datta😮
Namit Arora was great and surely have ball’s made of titanium
This series of history telling is a timely appearance when poor and non enlightened Indians are dragged to "Socrates Cave" by present day illiterate political demagogues. Thanks to Mr. Arora for this sophisticated endeavor, a balanced presentation.
Thank you and well appreciated
Amazing. Just an amazing series! Thank you so much Namit Ji.
It's really presented in an unbiased manner and I really appreciate Mr. Arora for the same
Best History Classes , This series needs to be in Indian Subcontinent textbooks.
Thank you Namit for this wonderful series. Now to read yr book! And Natasha Badhwar: how about a Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, punjabi, gujarati, Konkani…. Version for a pan India audience?
And Kannada.
I badly need my parents to watch this series
I have liked your valuable presentation Sir
Music at the beginning and at the end will echo in me for a long time.
Thanks for your marvelous thoughts and narration in the presentation.
I liked every minute of this series. Never find history so alive before.
"We are the stories, we tell ourselves."
I have never seen any series as excitedly as I watched this one. A masterpiece. Thank you to the whole team for producing this excellent series.
It's beautiful, inspiring and of course has motivated me to go deep in the creative journey of making something significant. Thank you so much.
I would like to thank you for your rational thinking and great script and narration. The witty and informative style is very good. You also helped me to understand the question: whose history are we talking about. Is it that of the kings and rulers or the people and their context?
Thank you for the 10 episodes, very interestingly presented. I did not have any understanding about India, accidentally I got these episodes and Learned so much.
Very interesting!
I am reading books about India history. This series gives a wide view about Indo-subcontinent with open mind.
I do enjoy it.
Nice if add colonized India part of history into this series.
Thanks Namit. This indeed was a well researched, objective and extremely interesting series on Indian history. I wish all Indians could watch this series not only to know our culturally rich past but to develop a rational thinking mindset, much needed in recent times. It surprising and also perplexing that how come we were more open minded when we were not exposed to the modern science and logic.
what a great series. thank you to all who helped to bring this together. I would love to see more deep dives like this, tackling other parts of history in the south asian subcontinent!
Sir, I eagerly wait for your well researched, nicely presented & enriching videos. Please continue to make such videos.
Brilliant and thought provoking series. Completely changed my ideology towards Indian history. Please continue to make more such series.
Congratulations on such a fascinating and wonderful series! Will rewatch this time and again.
Reasonable, enlightened, nuanced series - please continue!
I liked Mr Aroras attempt to dispell chauvanistic inerrpretaions of indians
I really enjoyed this thought provoking and informative series. Thank you
Thanks for bringing History to light, making it accessible to everyone and making us little more aware of our past and knowledgeable humans,
Great, insightful &well researched, this even includes clips from "Bharat ek khoj" 😃 Thank you Amit ji & all the power to you for future of doing good things!
Good Morning Mr Arora, watched the entire series so certainly liked it and it was well presented.
Trust a lot a research has gone into the book.
Sorry to express my disappointment that it stopped in the 1700s. I thought it should have continued till date but then you and the producers know best.
I would like to how the last 400 years unfolded especially the era of the Marathas who were probably the most dominant in terms of expanse
Thank you...sir❤
Mr. Arora, I have watched all the episodes with great interest and enjoyment. Just like you, I feel sorrow of the weakening secular character of this great country.
Erudite & well explained. Thank you Namit Arora & The Wire for this gem 🎉
Please do not stop at your stop at your efforts yet, as subcontinental sized &varied India had regional empires such as Cheras, Pandyas, Shatavahanas, Cholas, Palas, Senas, Ahoms, & even more which left their stamp on what we geographically refer refer to as Indian culture today. Every major river valley has its own place of pilgrimage around a site hallowed by prominent religious beliefs. Not easy, but we fascinated of you cannot allow the jump to modern India you intend to do, before you whet our appetite on the lines suggested here. Wish you all success in your future endeavor, Professor Arora!
Thank you Sir, I am impressed that you have spoken about thetopics ,which are so sensitive today...so categorically and pragmatically...I have enjoyed your series..and have shared it ..
Will miss listening to more..used to wait impatiently for the next episode! Thank you so much ..hope you will make some more series.All the best..and a heart felt Thank you..have also bought the book !
Sincerely,neelam
Excellent series Sir! Thank you for sharing these scientific updates and the new perspectives arising from these evolving studies. Looking forward to more such content. Goodluck!
Brilliant, thanks for this series. Learned a lot. To express gratitude, made a tiny payment of rs 100 as thanks to Namit Arora.
This was an awesome playlist about Indian history.
I think I learned so much and became a better citizen.
So many misconceptions and doubts I had about Muslim rule are addressed with evidence.
Thanks a lot for the entire team.
Thanks for creating this informative series!
Excellent. I watched all episodes it's a wonderful journey like राज्यसभा सीरियल sanvidhan.
Contents made it worth listening and
Illustrations made it worth watching
What a wonderful series ❤
Thanks a lot for making history interesting. We won't let these fools misread our history.
This masterpiece should reach reach to the masses.
Please reconsider to recreate this wonderful series in hindi version.