| |
ISBN 81-8290-003-4 In wealth, population, dignity and sancity Benares was amoung the foremost city of Asia according to Mavaulay. As the oldest city and only living city in existence where the ancient and the modern meet together, it stretches its memories to the ages of pre-historic antiquity and has managed to outlive, as none other had done, the inevitable ravages of time and every other destructive agency. Speaking of its antiquity Mr. Sherring in his "Sacred City of Hindus", observes. "Twenty-five centuries at least, it was famous. " When Babylon was struggling with Nineveh for supremacy", when Tyre was planting her colonies, when Athens was growing in strength, before Rome had become known, or "Greece had contested with Persia, or Cyrus had added lusture to the Persian monarchy, or Nebuchadnezzar had captured Jerusalem and the inhabitants of Judaea had been carried away into captivity, she has already risen to greatness, if not glory." To the world abroad Benares has been known as the place of greatest religious sancity in all India- that land, pre-eminently, where thte religious elements supervense and transfuses itself into the most ordinary vocations of daily life. The author has put its fugitive recollection into writing and feels conscious that a sketch like this may be of interest to those who proceed to that ancient place with an open mind and who have no definite notion as to what in reliaty to expect to find there. This book was first published in 1912 at now brought iin a new format with some excellent, and mind blowing photographs of what once Benares was and is today, the city `immortal`.
|
| |
|