Kashi
Holy Kashi to Vibrant Varanasi
Kashi/Banaras/Varanasi is a world of its own, a veritable mini India, unique in almost all respects. Its contradictions can be seen in its blend of spirituality and darkness, sanctity and filth, purity and deceipt, culture and grossness.
Luminous Kashi to Vibrant Varanasi presents, as no other book has done before, all these aspects of this paradoxical and fascinating city, and gives an amazing quantity of information on the city, its history, culture and people; its temples and tirthas, mathas and institutions; its scholars, some of them the best in the country; its festivals and lilas; its literature, music, painting and culture; its silk trade and crafts; and its typical inhabitants: sadhus, pandits, pandas, babus, rais, thugs and gundas. More than all, the book finds out, with the help of mythology and metaphysics, the essence of Kashi-its luminosity and its vibrancy! It finally says: walk not in the dark alleys, plunge not in the shallows, but more into the luminosity, and dive deep into the oceans of knowledge. The Kashi you find depends on how far you walk, how deep you dive!
A Pilgrimage to Kashi (Colour comic book)
A Pilgrimage to Kashi (Colour comic book) (HB)
Banaras : Cosmic Space of Life, Light and Twilight
Banaras City of Light
Benares The Sacred City
Havell's book is almost a flawless tour guide of the present day Varanasi which has changed very little and still retains its charisma for those who search for ancient India. The book is an attempt to give a lucid outline of Hindu ideas and religious practices. It presents the innovative and aesthetic aspects of Indian religions, which can be observed at few places so well as in the sacred city and its neighbourhood.
Ambivalent Encounters
Jenny Huberman provides an ethnographic study of encounters between western tourists and the children who work as unlicensed peddlers and guides along the riverfront city of Banaras, India. She examines how and why these children elicit such powerful reactions from western tourists and locals in their community as well as how the children themselves experience their work and render it meaningful.
Living, dying and transformation in Banaras : The crossing project
Sakta Contribution to Varanasi
This book incorporates a good number of paperrs on multiple aspects of Sakta traditions practised in Varanasi continuing from hoary past to-date. Beside philosophical, religious and cultural leanings the contents expose the iconographic, ritualistic and artistic rendering of the Divine Mother. Kasi or Varanasi has been a stronghold of religious and spiritual fervour, and several religious sects have contributed to its present texture. Saktism has also been a forceful current in the cultural stream of this holy city. This is evidenced by several Devi temples, Sakti-pithas, yantras, fairs and festivals associated with the worship of Mother-Goddess.