(Benares), a city in northern India; located on the Ganges River in Uttar Pradesh State. Population, 602,000 (1968). Transportation junction on the major route from Calcutta to Delhi. It is also a center for the production of elegant handmade goods such as brocades and jewelry. Factory and plant industry is being created, including a diesel-locomotive plant and cotton-textile, glass, and chemical enterprises. Varanasi is an important cultural center, with the Hindu University and the largest library of Hindi books.
Varanasi is one of the oldest cities in India and is a major center for the Hindu and Buddhist religions (it is the site of pilgrimages to the holy Ganges River). The city was apparently founded in approximately the seventh century B.C. It has also been called Kasi (in antiquity) and Benares (from about the tenth to the 12th centuries A.D.). In the 16th century the city became a major center for the propagation of Hindu culture and learning. In the 16th and 17th centuries it was famous for its production of brocade. In 1775, Varanasi, the center of the principality of the same name, was seized by English colonizers. In 1950 it was made part of Uttar Pradesh State in independent India.
In the Old City, with its narrow and winding streets, there are about 1,500 temples (including the Golden Temple of Siva, which dates from about 1750) and the Aurangzeb mosque (dating from the turn of the 18th century). Along the shores of the Ganges are the palaces of the maharajas of the 16th to 19th centuries (including Man Mandir, c. 1600) and stone steps with places for religious ablutions and Hindu cremations. Part of the city consists of buildings in European styles that were constructed at the beginning of the 20th century.
G. V. SDASIUK