Synopsis:
Few places in the world carry the heavy burden of history as effortlessly as Kashi, or Varanasi, has. The holy city epitomizes the very heart and soul of our civilization. Kashi is the embodiment of the resilience we have displayed over the centuries in the face of wave after wave of brutal invasion.
Waiting for Shiva: Unearthing the Truth of Kashi’s Gyan Vapi recreates the history, antiquity, and sanctity of Kashi as the supreme abode of Bhagwan Shiva in the form of Vishweshwara, or Vishwanath. Shiva Himself assured His devotees of salvation if they leave their mortal coils in the city. The book explores the history of this self-manifested swayambhu jyotirlinga Shiva shrine. For centuries, this site has served as both a refuge for the devotee and a target of the bloodiest waves of trademark Islamic barbarity. However, whenever an attempt was made at wiping out the temple, it somehow managed to rise and flourish. Every iconoclastic storm gave way to an episode of tenacity and stubborn resolve. Shrines fell and shrines rose, but the Hindus of Kashi never gave up – not even once.
Waiting for Shiva documents these cataclysmic events in the temple’s history. The Mughal despot Aurangzeb dealt the final death blow in 1669, when he razed the temple. To add insult to injury, he erected a few domes on the partially destroyed western wall to call it a mosque. His savage troops desecrated the temple complex and dumped the ruins there. This was a grim reminder of the humiliation that Hindus had to face as a consequence of their holiest shrine being obliterated. The area that is now called the Gyan Vapi Mosque, along with the surrounding land adjacent to the new Vishwanath temple, which came up toward the end of the eighteenth century, has always been the subject of intense debate. Bloody riots have overrun Varanasi over this issue time and again.
During the colonial era, both parties knocked on the doors of the British courts to settle the occupancy issue. Even in the post-Independence era, the desire to ‘liberate’ the complex has been seething in the Hindu imagination. A new suit filed in 2021 before the Varanasi Civil Court reopened a long-festering historical wound. Despite several appeals going right up to the Supreme Court to dismiss the plaint, an Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is in order. This survey would lay bare its findings by the end of 2023.
Vikram Sampath’s latest work takes readers back to the origins of this bitter dispute. The book brings to light the dramatic twists and turns in the checkered past of this holy shrine. It pieces together numerous documents and accounts, including Vedic and Puranic texts, Sanskrit literary sources, Agama shastras, Jataka tales, Persian accounts, foreigners’ travelogues, archival records, and copious legal documents. With facts and cogent arguments, Waiting for Shiva revives this stormy history right up to the present times. The long-suppressed secrets that lay hidden in Gyan Vapi have finally found a voice through this book.
Genre: Indian History
Price: ₹699 ₹454
Format: Hardcover
Published: February 2024
Number of Pages: 328
Language: English
Author: Vikram Sampath
Publisher: BluOne Ink
ISBN-13: 978-8196737597