Varanasi, the divine witness of the History of our civilization:

Subhas Mitra :  15  Dec 2023

Varanasi for a Santana is what Vatican and Makkah for Abrahamic. It is a religious-philosophical Hindu Capital of knowledge called KASHI, at the confluence of Rivers: “Varuna” and “Asi”, the tributaries to Ganga, in the presence of Shiva (as VISHWANATH) and Parvati (as ANNAPURNA). It is a seat of a Jyotirlinga. 

In the Rigveda, Varanasi is referred to as Kāśī (काशी: Kashi-“City of Light”). Scientists gave its age 1800 BCE on Ramnagar finding and 800 BCE on Akhta finding.  Also known as  Avimukta (अविमुक्त: Ānandakānana (आनंदकानन: and Rudravāsa (रुद्रवास🙂

For a Hindu it is:

“काश्यां हि काशते काशी सर्वप्रकाशिका।

 सा काशी विदिता येन तेन प्राप्ता ही काशिका।।“

Translate: Varanasi is lightened by the brightness of the knowledge of self-realization. Whoever attains that knowledge becomes part of Kashi.

Also:

विद्यां श्रियं विपुलसौख्यमनन्तकीर्तिं

सम्प्राप्य देहविलये लभते च मोक्षम् ॥९॥

कास्याम  मरणम मुक्ती /‘Kasyam maranam mukti’.

Meaning:  Hindus traditionally believe that dying a good death is as important as living a good life. Death in Kashi is an attainment of Moksha (liberation).

Poor me. I had to visit neither to achieve spiritual knowledge nor Moksha but to have DARSHAN and blessings, and to seek evidence of the THREE historical epochs or narrative processes that Kashi witnessed in the near past.

1. Does Atheism mean anti-Hindu and pro-Abrahamic?
2. Does secularism of Indian politics mean the Islamization of India?
3. If Sr.2 is false, why do Congress and Allies oppose every act of Hindu revival?

1.   Dose Atheism mean anti-Hindu and Pro-Abrahamic?

Last week of March 2021, I had DARSHAN of Baba Viswanath in the morning and then set out

In Search of the Real Enemy of Hinduism :

The Colonial Atheism:   

Atheism was a project of British intellectuals to dilute Hinduism and infuse their Biblical and colonial agenda in Hindus through education and the caste system.  

It began as the Hindu Renaissance in Calcutta with the formation of a Hindu school (by Christian Evangelists) and a Sanskrit College (by Thomas Babington Macaulay). Its principal was Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar.  

1. Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar(1820 – 1891)

• The British era PUNDIT said about the principal deities of Kashi, I do not have faith in Visvesvara ( Shiva) or Annapurna (Parvati).

• Vastly erudite in Sanskrit but lost regard for the religious uses and practices of his forefathers.

 His mother ABANDONED the family’s traditional Jagaddhatri Puja.

 He believed in Humanism and Rational order.

 Sri Sen attributes this to the British Empire’s difficulty with intellectual upbringing, which made all his milestones elusive (in “India Beyond Narratives,” I defined them as inculturation).

• There is a Pavaratty Sanskrit college, Trissur, Kerala, Founded and run by Christians.

Dravid Atheism is a “Destroy Hinduism” mission.

Colonial scholar Brian Houghton Hodgson was promoting the term “Tamulian” as a racial construct, describing the so-called aborigines of India as primitive and uncivilised compared to the “foreign Aryans.”

 (Tamil were more civilized than contemporary Europe in 500 BC –details in my book INDIA BEYOND NARRATIVES or read more about howthe Church constructs the history of their own for expansion in Charles C Mann’s book …America before Columbus 1491, Vintage, USA)

It was a scholar-evangelist from the Anglican Church, Bishop Robert Caldwell (1814-91), who pioneered what now flourishes as the “Dravidian” identity. In his Comparative Grammar of the Dravidian Race, he argued that the South Indian mind was structurally different from the Sanskrit mind. His successor, another prolific missionary scholar, Bishop G.U. Pope, started to glorify the Tamil classics era, insisting that its underpinnings were Christianity, not Hinduism. (Ref: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-evangelists-are-inven_b_841606       and also “Snake in the Ganga” by Rajiv Malhotra and   Vijaya Viswanathan )

Why does Atheism mean anti-Hindu and Pro-Abrahamic? 

Grand Atheist the EV Ramasway :

Who was EVR?

Erode Venkata Ramasamy was a born Naikar (warrior) caste on 17 September 1879 – died as a ‘schedule caste’ on 24 December 1973. He attended school for five years, after which he joined his father’s trade at the age of 12 at “E.V. Ramasamy Naicker Mandi” at Erode. He used to listen to Tamil Vaishnavite gurus who gave discourses in his house, enjoying his father’s hospitality.

The caste drama:

One particular incident in Kasi had a profound impact on E.V. Ramasamy’s ideology and future work, writes the biographer.  At the worship site, there were free meals offered to guests. To E.V. Ramasamy’s shock, he was refused meals at choultries (कारवां सराय), which exclusively fed Brahmins. (Only Brahmin means meant for temple Sevayet (priest and workers). (Ref:https://pmu.edu/centres/pdf/Biographical_Sketch.pdf   ) 

Why should someone go there?

A  Jawan(soldier) in the security forces do not go to an officer’s mess for food. Does anyone who eats at Lungur in Gurudwara insist on having a meal with GRANTHIS ( or Gurudwara staff)?

Not everybody in 1904 was Narayan Murthy or Steve Jobs to dine with employees.

During 2023 Cyclone Michaung in Chennai, ‘Bharat Sava Ashram’ ascetics are seen distributing foods in waist-deep water. If EVR insists that he should eat it with those Sadhus, will that be possible?  Where does the caste come from? 

  I spoke to Temple management and Priests in Banaras, and they told me that food is not given by asking for caste in Kashi at any time in history.

FREE food is served to anyone who sits for it of one’s own (no one invites or chases out). Why should I believe a rich merchant will starve for want of free food?

As of now, there is no gatekeeper of any functioning Temples ( except security) who asks for anyone’s caste.  Even the SAMSHAN (Hindu crematorium -Manikarnika ghat), where the funeral pyre never cools off ever since it is in function, never asks for caste.

 Another point to note is why he was not discriminated against at Madurai, Rameswaram or  Thirupathi. Why Kashi? The caste system of Madras was not different from Central Province.

Does anybody ask about caste in KHUMBH Mela?

However, I then referred to online AI and JSTOR search. Here are my finds:

1. Before 1936 caste schedule was passed by the British. There had never been caste in administration, but socially it was very much present, but  I could not find any  “Catholic-Protestant” war of France or “Shia-Sunni”  war/clash in Hindu society, even during Muslim rule i.e. before the EIC (Church) came to India.

2. In 1616 AD Christian missionaries started anti-Brahman and anti-Sanskrit propaganda in and around Kashi of South, Madurai. EVR was the death nail. He told: –

 “There is no god, there is no god, and there is no god at all. He who invented God is a fool. He who propagates god is a scoundrel. He who worships god is a barbarian.”

M.K. Gandhi took the Bible and the Koran to the Hindu Temple, but never the Gita to a Church or Mosque. Similarly, EVR abused and disgraced Hinduism and Hindu deities but never uttered a word about Abrahamic beliefs.

Note:

 Centuries ago, Hindus developed a peculiar food habit in which one ate meat and the other Vegetables. This habit might have invited social differences in “eating places” (not caste or colour of skin), but I do not know if any Temple or Lungur serves non-veg except Ramakrishna Mission.

The scavenging caste was a Muslim-era development believed to have started from the ‘Harem’.

3. Federica Barba writes that Megasthenes came to India in 302 B.C and visited  Mathura, Ahicchatra, Sankisa, Kanauj, Kausambi, Ayodhya, Sravasti, Kusinagara, Varanasi, Vaishali, Pataliputra, Bodhgaya, Rajagrha, Nalanda, Champa and Tamralipti.  Mentioned SEVEN castes but nowhere found /mentioned discrimination in public life.

4. Vincent A. Smith writes that Xuan Zang (Hiuen Tsang) visited India in 635 CE during Harshavardhan, mentioning no caste clash.

5. Chandradeva, founder of the Gahadavala dynasty, made Banaras the second capital in 1090 after the fall of the Pala Empire. The Chero dynasty ruled Varanasi till Mughal rule in 1737. No caste discrimination was mentioned.

6. Varanasi has 12 churches and 1,388 Muslim holy places.  In 1810 First Church came up. Church of North India made a Church right in front of our MOKSHDWAR (Viswanath Temple). The site hurts me.

Now let us see how Sanatan Dharma evolved in Varanasi from 528 BCE:

1. Prince Gautam (not a Brahman) attains Buddha /enlightenment here –his caste never came on the way in 528 AD

2. During the 8th century, Adi Shankaracharya established the worship of Shiva as an official sect in Varanasi. He imposed no caste restriction.

3. Varanasi / Kashi is the birthplace of Suparshvanath, Chandraprabhu,  Shreyanshnath and Parshvanath, the  7th, 8th, 11th, and 23rd Tirthankaras — respectively. Who asked their caste? EVR?

4. Kabir Das (1398-1448 AD) was a born local MUSLIM, became a mystic poet and saint, whose writings influenced Hinduism’s Bhakti movement and his verses are found in Sikhism’s scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib.

Hindus do not bother about his birth, but I do not know about Muslims.

5. Swami Ramananda, founder of Bairagi Shampradaya, was a local who lived in the 14th century

6. Sant Ravidas or Raidass (1450 CE – 1520) was a born CHAMAR (leatherworker, low caste). He was not only a Bhakti Guru, but his work also got a place in the Gurugrath Saheb of Sikh. Anantadas Parcai, his biographer, finds no caste barrier.

7. Goswami Tulsidas (1532–1623) wrote Ramayana and named Ram Charit Manas, here in Varanasi. 

8. Guru Nanak visited Varanasi for Mahashivaratri in 1507 AD.

Formation of ‘Justice Party’ बहाना / game plane:

He joined the Indian National Congress in 1919, but resigned in 1925 when he felt that the party was only serving the “interests of Brahmins”.

•            During 1904, when “caste drama” was enacted in the Kashi Congress, the president was Henry John Stedman Cotton.

•      When he joined the cong. Pres. Was :   Syed Hasan Imam and

•     In 1927 – Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari.

The fact is Congress was formed by a British Christian, and the first president was an Indian converted Christian.

From 1929 to 1932, EVR made a tour of British Malaya, Europe, and the Soviet Union, which influenced him. Who do we like to believe accompanied a primary school dropout man?  What if I say it might have been Church scholars who knew how to mould or prepare a brain for their use?

Constantine declined conversion to Christianity the whole of his life and made the Pope form many edicts of Catholicism, but at his deathbed, he too was converted (WIKI+ Britannica).   Who are these Dravidians in front of the Church/ Evangelists?

The present Dravid King’s mother is a devout Hindu, and her son is a Christian, but they want to dismantle Hinduism, describing it as Dengue, Malaria, and HIV.

Impression:

Those who made the Congress party and the Muslim league only made this EVR for the creation of the Justice Party (DMK).

We Hindus are at the receiving end because we never learn ‘Evangelists’ reality nor do we have foresight like ‘them’.

2. Does secularism of Indian politics mean Islamization of India?

Was the Saudi King’s reception in Varanasi an act of diplomacy or something else?

Why this doubt? 

Arab has been an ancient partner of Bharat. In the modern world, Saudi Arabia is an important business partner, and India is duty-bound to maintain friendly ties and strong diplomatic relations.

Saudi king, besides being the Head of the State, is also Sunny Khalifa and we have Sunni majority Muslim citizens. India, being a SECULAR country bound to respect their religious sentiment. Delhi, Agra, Hyderabad, and Kolkata (Raja Bazar, Metiabruz, and Park Circus) could have given ample opportunity to our Sunny people to have their DARSHAN/glimpse.

In 1955 Congress invited the Saudi King to Varanasi and paraded him on an Elephant. An elephant in India is like a Camel in Arabia. Besides being a war vehicle, elephants have a special place in Hindu religion and rituals, not to forget GANAPATI / Ganesh. However, I appreciate Congress for giving King a rare ride.

Can someone make me understand why all the Temples and statues on his way were covered with curtains?

Jinnah told Congress a Hindu party, but we know it was not, though its members were/are mostly Hindus.  It can be understood that India was an 8-year-old ex-British colony, a two-year-old democracy. Inferiority in leadership could not be ruled out, but why “Kalma Tayyab” flags erected on the top of all Temples and tall buildings? No one felt that it was a collateral attack on Hinduism or Hindu sentiment.

كلمة طيبة or kalimat tayiba (Original text, Meaning- Saying a good word is part of Islamic faith). Hindus of Congress did it or Gyasuddin  Gazi or Mubarak  Ali effects (  Reminiscences of the Nehru Age by M.O. Mathai)  on Congress got it done to TEST the probability of perusing Gazwa-a-Hind under the garb of secularism, liberalism and atheism at the Makkah of Hinduism. 

Searching Google we can find a lot of writing trying to deny any such acts but an Urdu poet of Varanasi, wrote the following lines in regretting such an exhibition:

अदना सा गुलाम उनका , गुजरा था बनारस से ,

मुँह अपना छुपाते थे , कांशीके सनम  खाने. – Urdu poet Nazir Banarasi

Ref:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbuWKjJurDw

https://en.rattibha.com/thread/1700470841665016024

The real Islamization of non-Muslim India started after the partition of India.

Congress claimed they persuaded the British to leave India, and communists said ‘ye azadi jhuta hai’( false freedom), but they both came together to rebuild Hindu India, orphaned(?) by the absence of the British, in their way. Communists joined electoral democracy to weaken it from within.

How systematically the constitution has been designed to discriminate and deprive 80% of citizens, i.e. Hindus of Hindustan, to make Muslims and Christians as Congress vote bank or to Islamize India, I am not sure.

1.           1949 – Article 30 in The Constitution of India enacted a law providing educational institutions established and administered by a minority (mostly Muslims and Christians). Hindus cannot. Did Hindus go to Kalapani  for

this type of free India?

2.           1951 – (Process started from 1810in Kolkata and 1840 in Madras) The Hindu Temples under Govt. control.

4.           1953 – Legislated the “History Council” to construct politically suitable history.

5. In 1954, Hajj subsidies started going against the Koran. No Imam objected. (It has ended)

6.           THE WAKF ACT, 1954 ACT NO. 29 OF 1954 http://www.commonlii.org/in/legis/cen/num_act/wa195458/. It reads as if a separate Govt. for Muslims within the Republic.   

8.           1955 – Citizenship Act. A country divided based on religion, but the citizenship did not mention religion. Hindu – Sikhs became displaced persons (not even refugees) and Muslims who went to Pakistan and again started returning from 1948 were called evacuees. 22000 Muslims returned from their dream land in 1948 and continued till 19 July 1949 when the permit system was introduced and that sealed the escape of Hindu-Sikhs of West Pakistan. East Pakistan was not included.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI3–Fb4KGQ   

9.           1960 – FIIT  (Film and Television Institute of India) was formed and two successive heads were from Aligarh Muslim University MU & Jamia Millia, who had nothing to do with arts, theatre, drama or any creativity. They brought the Islamization of our films and TV content and its language. Thereafter, leftists took over.

Were all these dictated by Arabs or did Congress do it to obtain the Saudi King’s certificate?

The King said on completion of the 17-day state visit:

“I can ensure my Muslim Brothers that Indian Muslims are in safe hands”.

(Were Indian Muslims dependent on Saudi Arabia?)

Question remains:

Was he brought for the Muslim vote or the Islamization of India?

The 2023 Telangana election manifesto promised to make hospitals exclusively for Muslims to be run by Muslims with secular Govt funds that collect money from Hindu Temples.  Free electricity is promised only for the Mosque and the Church. Is this secularism?

3.           If secularism is not Islamization, why do Congress & allies oppose every act of Hindu revival?

They alleged:

Modi is breaking all Hindu temples. Congress made videos and circulated them in SM, and I decided to form my own opinion. 

 I arrived in Varanasi to see it with my own eyes with the following ammo/info.

Mark Twain wrote in 1897 of Varanasi,

“Benares is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together.”

Hindus of 800 to 1800 BCE selected the “city of light “site, and in the 8th century, the “Viswanath Temple” at an earthquake-free zone. {Scientists called it “seismic zone3”, owing to the presence of thick “alluvium” that could resist earthquakes}. We know a Tremor of 6.8 R.S. earthquake in Afghanistan in April 2016 was felt in Delhi, Hardwar, but not in Varanasi.

The same Hindus forgot what their forefather told them about the Vedic era’s Ashur, Rakshasa, Danab, Daitya and Dashyu will return under a different nomenclature. Yes, our forefathers warned us sufficiently but we neglected them and became modern and later scholars in Persian and English, deserting our forefathers’ medium of communication, the Sanskrit / Classical Tamil.

We thought MODERNISATION was not a process of “evolution” but a “tactic” of climbing by imitating others and getting disconnected from roots.

The Kingdom of Benares was given official status by the Mughals in 1737, the kingdom started in this way and continued as a dynasty-governed area until Indian independence in 1947 but the Muslim ruler of Awadh accepted E.I. Company Rule in India in 1775.

Ungrej o ki Kartut:  British Act:

On August 15, 1781, Warren Hastings arrived in Varanasi to warn Maharaja Banaras Chet Singh. He was challenged and it is recorded that Hastings had to run away from the battlefield in a semi-nude condition.

Muslim attack:

Muhammad Ghori purchased Qutb-ud-din Aibak as a sex slave @1000 gold coins wrote Jafar Zatalli in his GANDUNAMA. Aibak purchased Shams-ud-Din Itutmish for sex and gave his daughter in marriage. This Gandu attacked the Temple in 1194, did the first “secularism” (Reported by Raja Harish Chandra.) 1506 AD Sikander Lodhi  ( Restored by Raja Man Singh & Raja Todermal)

and Aurangzeb in 1669 ( restored by Ahallah Bai Hilkar and Maharaja Ranjit Singh covered  SHIKHARA (top of temple) with 22 Mnd(1 mnd = 42Kg appx)  of gold ).  

This time our Sages not only jumped into the battlefield with TRISHUL (Tridents) but also made Aurangzeb flee.

I do not know if any such thing ever happened in Rome, Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia or Persia. Only Indian history books say Hindus are cowards.

Nita Kumar wrote THE ‘TRUTH’ ABOUT MUSLIMS IN BANARAS: An Exploration in School Curricula and Popular Lore.  I guess fringe living, mostly artisans, etc., became Muslim, maybe to escape JIJIYA, but they refused to join mainstream Islam for a long period. The 1871 census report says that Sikhs & Hindus converted under duress and refused to call them MUSLIM and claimed to be SWADHARMI. They were still marked as Muslims.

From Shah Banu’s (1986) case onward, there have been radicalizations of local Muslims and also resistance by Hindus.

Is Modi  breaking all Hindu temples:

There is nothing to write as we are all aware of MSM’s anti-Modi circus. You might have seen the Video Congress published and how The WIRE instigated Muslims and some Hindus whose houses fall in the “TAKE OVER” zone.

Security people were not allowing me to photograph, but when I gave my identity to a senior, he kept my mobile and asked a junior to show me some area. This is the area where Muslims were forced to settle near the Temple.

1. Some Muslim houses were built by taking small temples inside their home.

2. Some Temples were being used as shops.

3. A high Temple has been encroached upon in new house construction, making the ground floor part as kitchen-dining and the 2nd floor as a store room.

4. Some are still standing isolated, unused, but they are not damaged or disarranged like a Pakistan-made Hindu temple as a toilet for tourists in MULTAN (the video was available on YouTube)

5. I saw a temple that was being used as the kitchen (Hindu or Muslim household, I do not know).

Here is what it looked: