Mapping Sacredness: A Spatial Humanities Perspective to Varanasi’s Topography in Dina L. Eck’s Banaras: City of Light

Abstract

The proposed topic applies a spatial humanities perspective to investigate the topography of the pilgrimage city of Varanasi. The emergence of the ‘spatial turn’ in the 1970s introduced a fundamental change in retracing geographical sites through literary representations. Besides, geospatial tools and techniques visually map spatial patterns and discover the complex relationship between space, place, and human culture. In this regard, this inquiry examines the sacredness of the city of Varanasi and its literary and cartographic representation. Varanasi (also known as Kashi, Banaras and Benares) sustains an unparalleled religious significance because of its unique geographical location. This enigmatic environmental condition enables the proliferation of sacredness and religiosity, coalesced with culture and heritage. The interface of the environment and the distinguished geographical setting fosters a conducive ecosystem for the flourishing of many religions, namely Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Jainism. To map and visualise the ubiquitously existing religious and cultural terrain, the paper analyses the use of geographical tools, such as online mapping, personal navigation devices and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to detect the pervasiveness of the religious domain in the city. In this attempt, the inquiry takes extensive references from Diana L. Eck’s (1993) autobiographical travelogue to demonstrate the city’s myriad layers of ritual, customs, performance and religious ceremonies. The paper also highlights the synchronicity of these geographical tools and the literary text to get a salient spatial description of the perpetuated and entwined religious and cultural ambience in the specific environment.