ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 มี.ค. 2024
- Research, Script and Narration by Namit Arora;
Producer: The Wire;
Director: Natasha Badhwar;
Camera: Ajmal Jami;
Video Editor: Anam Sheikh.
Made possible by a grant from The Raza Foundation and contributions to The Wire by viewers like you. Join The Wire’s TH-cam membership program and help fund many such initiatives.
The story of India is one of profound and continuous change. It has been shaped by the dynamic of migration, conflict, mixing, coexistence, and cooperation. In this ten-part web series, Namit Arora tells the story of Indians and our civilization by exploring some of our greatest historical sites, most of which were lost to memory and were dug out by archaeologists. He will also focus on ancient and medieval foreign travellers whose idiosyncratic accounts conceal surprising insights about us Indians. All along, Arora surveys India’s long and exciting churn of cultural ideas, beliefs, and values-some that still shape us today, and others that have been lost forever. The series mostly mirrors-and often extends-the contents of his book, Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization. Bibliography appears below.
EPISODE 10: THE FAITHS OF VARANASI
Varanasi, or Banaras, is among the world's oldest living cities. Its archaeological finds go back to the 9th century BCE. Emerging in history as Kashi, Varanasi became an early centre of learning. The Buddha preached his first sermon here, which effectively launched Buddhism. The city has an impressive history of religious pluralism and still hosts Brahminical Hinduism, various major and minor faiths and sects of old India, shrines to sundry matas and folk gods, and many flavours of Islam: Shia, Sunni, Sufi, Ahmadiyya. Located on the left bank of the Ganga, it’s the city of Shiva, of seekers and pilgrims, Pirs and Aghoris, death and instant moksha. Muslims form 30% of its people and most of its weaving industry; their Hindu ancestors made Varanasi famous for textiles even in ancient times.
Foreigners like Xuanzang, Alberuni and Bernier left accounts of Varanasi. How do scholars today view religious conversions and temple desecrations in the city under Muslim rulers? In these centuries, popular religion-including Bhakti and Sufism-thrived in Varanasi with locals like Tulsidas, Kabir and Ravidas. It was Tulsidas's Ramcharitmanas, composed in the 1570s during Akbar’s rule, that turbo-charged Rama’s career as a god in north India. The city then also became a major centre of Indo-Persian culture, co-created by Hindus and Muslims at both elite and commoner levels. Arora will close with a few words on its present.
PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY / FURTHER READING
Asher, Catherine B., Cynthia Talbot; India before Europe; CUP, 2006
Asher, Frederick M; Sarnath: A Critical History of the Place Where Buddhism Began; 2020
Bernier, Francois; Travels in the Mogul Empire: AD 1656-68; Translated by Archibald Constable; 2nd Ed. by Vincent. A Smith.
Chaudhuri, Devdan; 'How did Lord Rama become a Hindu god?' dailyo.com, 18 Apr 2018
Doniger, Wendy; The Hindus: An Alternative History; Penguin, 2009
Doron, Assa; Life on the Ganga: Boatmen and the Ritual Economy of Banaras; CUP India, 2013
Eaton, Richard M.; India in the Persianate Age 1000-1765; Allen Lane, 2019
Eaton, Richard M.; Temple Descecration and Indo-Muslim States; Journal of Islamic Studies 11:3 (2000) pp. 283-319 © Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies 2000
Eck, Diana L; Banaras: City of Light; Knopf Doubleday, 1982
Freitag, Sandria B. (Editor); Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and Environment; 1800-1980, UC Press, 1989
Jha, Mithilesh Kumar; Language, Politics and Public Sphere in North India; OUP India, 2017
Kabir (Translated by Linda Hess & Shukdeo Singh); The Bijak of Kabir; OUP, 2002
Mehta, Bhanu Shanker; Unseen Banaras; Pilgrims Pub, 2013
Mehrotra, Arvind Krishna; Songs of Kabir; NRYB, 2011
Pathak, Ajai K et al; 'The Genetic Ancestry of Modern Indus Valley Populations from Northwest India'; AJHG Journal, Vol 103, Issue 6, P918-929, Dec 06, 2018
Parry, Jonathan P.; Death in Banaras; CUP, 1994
Sen, Sudipta; Ganga: The Many Pasts of a River; Gurgaon, Viking, 2019
Sherring, MA; Benares: The Sacred City of the Hindus (1868); Pilgrims Pub, 2016
Singh, Rana P.B.; Cultural Landscapes and the Lifeworld; Indica, 2004
Sinha, Arun; 'Will Buddhists seek to reclaim monuments destroyed to build Hindu temples?'; National Herald, 9 July 2022
Thapar, Romila; Noorani, AG; Menon, Sadanand, On Nationalism, Aleph, 2016
Ticku, Rohit; Shrivastava, Anand; Iyer, Sriya; 'Holy Wars? Temple Desecrations in Medieval India'; SSRN Electronic Journal, Jan 2017.
Join The Wire's TH-cam Membership and get exclusive content, member-only emojis, live interaction with The Wire's founders, editors and reporters and much more. Memberships to The Wire Crew start at Rs 89/month. / @thewirenews
Please continue this series. As an engineer I never ever found history so fascinating.
The best wit in whole series: after depicted of Shiva..." Shiva is a half-naked yogi who hangs out in cremation groud, covers his body with ash from the funneral pyres and is said to smoke ganja and hashish, qute end, and you said.." That's the kind of God every one should have!" the the best wit I ever had in my entire life. The metaphoric wit stand high and tall...Thank you almost fell in love India, nearly jump in the plane, and live there and travel from Harappan till Varanasi.
Thank you
I grew up in remote areas of Sind Pakistan ,we live with our hindu brothers ans sisters for centuries.
We celebrate same cultural wedding rituals with nikkah.although establishment make alot of effort to make poor muslim kids to become extremist but because of our thousands of years of muscle memory of living together it’s impossible to delete our beautiful culture.when Babri masjid destroyd not a single temple was harmed in Sindh pakistan.we still have women who wears bangles in whole arms as it was in Mohin jo daro time.
Please traslate into many languages so this region have more peace and prosperity.
Thanks 🙏
thank you for contributing to peaceful coexistence, a demonstration for us all!
Thank you Wire for this fantastic series.Very well made and narrated! Must be made in hindi as well as other Indian languages. Fascinating to know that without fighting wars the brahminical/priestly class could maintain power structures over many centuries by way of appropriation and creation of falsehoods. We can see the same tactics continue to this day. For example, BJP-RSS pays homage to reformists like Savitribhai phule today but their ideology and patriarchal attitude is still the same as that of the Hindu fundamentalists who opposed phule's efforts in education of girls.
Pls continue this series by doing an exclusive section on how the caste system developed.
Mr. Namit Arora, I can't thank you enough as a Bangladeshi from the bottom of my heart, for this series. Calling it a masterpiece would be an understatement. I wish each and eveyone of the sub-continenter would see this, it would certainly be a better place for everyone! Please keep up your good work.
I liked every single minute of the entire series. There’s nothing to dislike. Only a bigot uneducated person would dislike it. In the era of social media everyone has forgotten how the society was. They can find out if they read a book. Not by modern historians. There lots of books available written around 1800 to know how caste worked. How temples were the inclusive member only club for Savarna upper caste. People have stopped reading books nowadays. Everything so called social media, podcast and likes of Abhijit Chabra peddles today are not history.
Abhijit chabra or chawda?
😂you are too much conditioned 😂😂
@@user-lp9vz6lu3t Nah I am just an average girl who read books and been reading since childhood and not just manga stories ✌️
No matter what, don't stop reading widely. You are on the right track.
@@AnirimaGhoshI condemn caste system and acknowledge the old atrocities which continue till today, but I feel bad that you generalize my community and hate all of us, even though I considered other caste as my brothers😓, I don't know who to blame, but even if I knew, I still don't know what can I do to make you realise not all people are same
Thank you again for all your efforts in researching and putting this series together. It’s great for expats such as me who didn’t focus on history in our youth and now have a longing to better understand our cultural roots.
I have really enjoyed his no-holds-barred approach to telling straight facts about history that we need to grapple with. I also like Arora ji's direct, straightforward style - and speaking slowly enough to take it all in. Kudos to his team - the visuals are also fantastic, including the tables and even the Bajrang Dal sign in this video... One thing I want to add, however. It is also a fact that there are no Hindu temples in Varanasi that pre-date Muhammad Ghorid's arrival. There may be shivlings, yes, and other ornaments, but ancient temples there are none, like there are in the south. This too is an important fact... And Kashi Viswanath has been destroyed 4 times - and each time, it was re-built, including once by Raja Man Singh and Raja Todar Mal in Akbar's time. See - Varanasi is like the phoenix that rises out of the ashes - what is destroyed is just re-built. Even Bindu Madhav has a very appealing temple today. Thank you again, Mr. Arora for your honest approach to history.
"myths can edify and inspire, but they can also reinforce conformity, obedience, and an oppressive social order" (12:20). . . "we are the stories we tell ourselves" (36:20)
Myths do edify, inspire and also educate it is when you are prejudiced that you only see one side of the myth and also when we also say that we are the stories we tell overselves so also we become our myths too and so can we become inspiring , educated and wise and as profound as our myth or like our so called epics. We too can become EPIC
This series of history telling is a timely appearance when poor and non enlightened Indians are dragged to "Socrates Cave" by present day illiterate political demagogues. Thanks to Mr. Arora for this sophisticated endeavor, a balanced presentation.
Thank you Sir, have never heard such a fantastic and factual history of the Indians explained and expounded so beautiful and wonderfully. All indians should watch and rewatch all 10 episodes repeatedly to know their true identity. Great achievement Sir a big thank you.
I wake up on Saturdays just to watch this series as soon as the new episode is released.
I was a student of history
All episodes were fantastic. Thanks Namitji. Like to watch more series like this.
Excellent. Very informative. Plz extend this series to at least 100 episodes of 1 hr each. Indias history is so rich even 100 episodes will fall short.
Really great series. I like how the lessons are stacked from the basics/beginnings and how they were interpreted then and now. I plan to re-run the entire series to get a better understanding of the history of the sub-continent. Totally agree with Mr Arora that we should not re-write our past , otherwise we learn nothing from them and mess up our future. Kudos to touching on some ideas that may be sensitive, but that's how history should be learnt. Thank you.
This is perhaps the most well researched perspective of the Indian history. This has not changed my perspective as I hold the same views presented in this series, particularly about the Hindu religion. Great work Namit.
❤A noble act of ushering knowledge in this era of darkness and ignorance. 👏👏👏
Sir its an humble request to you 🙏 - please continue this series & take us to the insight of modern history. This series has done wonders for us (as a student of history). You have provided us with secular, more factual & raw perspective to look at our past digitally that we have hardly come accross! And it is difficult to look at such dimension through mere reading of a textbook!
The series definitely deserves to be seen by ordinary hindi (also other local language) speaking audience.
As a non-Indian from a small European country (Luxembourg) who visited India first in 1988 and lived there for month and returned 22 time since then- because I fell in love with India and its peoples - I am so happy to have seen all the episodes and watched them all in a row.
I also remember the Indians telling me: "There are so many ways to God as there are people on this earth!" This tolerance I feel has disappeared since BJP took power and with the rise of Hindu-Nationalism.
So the rational and scientific attitude of Namit Arora shows me that there is hope and that historic analysing and pondered views are much closer to the truth than ideologic distortion of the past biased by the desire for power.
Dear Indians - remember Adolf Hitler's Germany. Did his nationalist Ideas lead to any GOOD? Yes I know many Hindus like him because he used your Swastika ... but eventually only to pervert it with his actions! Does swastika not mean 'conducive to well-being'?
Millions of dead people all over Europe. And one of my uncles and one of my ants were killed because they fought the NAZIS.
Dear Indians do not follow that path!
It wasn't swastik it was hooked cross , Hitler did it because of influence of church
Please release this playlist in every language.
I badly want my parents to watch this series.
I would love to donate for that project
Thank You sir for explaining the Original of INDIANS in the series and fascinating pictures and storytelling is amazing.
Fantastic series. One of the interesting things was how development flourishes when diversity is embraced and gender biases are low but it is impeded whn conventional thinking is imposed.
What a amazing work Sir ... gave a new meaning to me as an Indian ... you work is priceless ... I stated with Indus and ended up bing watching all the 10 episodes ... Jai Hind ❤️
An excellent capsule of Indian history spanning thousands of years summarised objectively based on historical evidences and deep insights.
Butchered presentation of history aimed at glorifying mughals and funded by Raza foundation
Eloquently spoken, very appropriately worded sentences, your narrations are truly a breath of fresh air in emotionally charged sentimental world. Your summary of the series stating the importance of the need to understand our past to improve our present and the future, is fantastic.
I wish to visit this glorious land of our forefathers one day in my life which is difficult at present for being a Pakistani born but you can always hope, oh and pray too :)
Very well done sir Namit Arora.
If there is one thing that disappoints is that you have wound up the series with this episode! Please consider expanding your lecture series! Fantastic stuff!
Exactly
Yes please..
The series you have produced are highly appreciated. They are based on present day research methodology of histography. We need to learn a lot from empirical methods of the west. Mythology and cooked up Indian history will take India to its abysmal state of affairs. India can never become Viswaguru with the kind of manufactured history in the labs of saffron labs. Meticulous research methodology of the west without bias is the only way to make India great. Knowledge based on sense perception of the foreigners who visited India during the past 2000 years, DNA based evidence available to us from the scientific sources tested in the western labs is the only way out for getting closer to reality about the past.
Kudos to your efforts to painstaking efforts to produce the accurate information about the past.
May I suggest you to produce series which will inform the world how Shankara Charya, Madhava Charya and Ramanuja Charya successfully driven out Bhudhism from the country of its origin and how the religion had to take shelter in China, Srilanka, and other foreign countries. It will be highly interesting study.
Dear Namit,
What a pleasure to have seen your series Indians!!
Absolutely mesmerising and highly educational. I wish to put in a suggestion though.. please give a Hindi commentary also as most of the north indian people would be more comfortable in understanding and comprehending in Hindi and those are the ones who must view your series to clear their heads of so many misunderstandings that they are carrying.
Your work is amazing and i look forward to more such work.
Regards
I am reading books about India history. This series gives a wide view about Indo-subcontinent with open mind.
I do enjoy it.
Nice if add colonized India part of history into this series.
Thank you for this truly impressive and absolutely necessary series. I stumbled across episode 2 in my recommended list today, and after watching five minutes of it, I stopped and watched the whole series in one sitting. I can't wait to read the book. I'm not familiar with this channel, but this series' presence is a very positive recommendation indeed.
Great series...this series threw me very good light on history from ancient to modern days..how India had gone the transformation by various rulers and different beliefs .
A well-researched and professionally-presented series. It is sad that the series has ended. I have, however, bought your book "Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization", which I am sure will give me the experience of walking through the exhilarating history of India.
Please continue this series.. its important that indians know the evidences based history of their country
It's amazing to know the truth. It is emotional that somebody still trying to hold Indian pluralist history
I watched almost all of your talk series. I like your approach to India's history.
I'm really learnt Indian's history through these episodes. I am grateful to you sir for your contribution to enlighten the society 🙏
Watched the entire series and absolutely loved it. Splendid work, kind sir. Thank you for making it. Please do come up with more series in the future, looking forward to it.
Fascinating account of our history and development of our religious beliefs. Wish there is a Hindi version for the common people who are blinded by faith.
Enjoyed the series! I am going to watch it one more time and have the kids watch it too.
History at school is so boring - dates, wars, names but barely any learnings. This will give children a sense of how history can be interpreted differently and also that one should learn from the past and not try to go to the past or worse fix the past!
Thank you Namit. Enjoyed your book and the series immensely. They are full of insights and well-informed commentaries. I'm particularly impressed by your uncompromising stance on objectivity and in developing an evidence-based narrative. You painted on a vast canvas and yet captured subtle and nuanced details that helped to enrich the story told. Well done.
Thanks for bringing this series and its logical angle to see and interpret our history. We need such studies in these troubled times.
Thank you Namit for this wonderful series. Now to read yr book! And Natasha Badhwar: how about a Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, punjabi, gujarati, Konkani…. Version for a pan India audience?
And Kannada.
I badly need my parents to watch this series
Simply fascinating, mind boggling, scholarly and scientific, together.
Thank you Wire Media for bring such true history to us. ❤
I loved this series. I dont find much to disagree with but definitely a lot to ponder over and go deeper into. I think I will have to watch some episodes again because the amount of information that has been summarized in these 5 hours is simply amazing. Thank you Namit Ji for doing this, Wire for sponsoring and Raza Foundation for supporting this.
I liked every minute of this series. Never find history so alive before.
"We are the stories, we tell ourselves."
Very insightful series.. watched all 10 episodes. Looking forward for more.
Thank you and well appreciated
Excellent contents of Indian history spanning thousands of years summarized objectively based on historical evidences and deep understanding.
I really enjoyed this thought provoking and informative series. Thank you
I would like to thank you for your rational thinking and great script and narration. The witty and informative style is very good. You also helped me to understand the question: whose history are we talking about. Is it that of the kings and rulers or the people and their context?
Namit Arora was great and surely have ball’s made of titanium
Amazing. Just an amazing series! Thank you so much Namit Ji.
Some more topics -
Rise and fall of other Indian empires like:
Maratha (in Maharashtra and the north especially at the advent of East India Company), Rajputana, MP, Gujarat, North East, Southern empires and societies while Mughals ruled in the north.
A different programme on deterioration of communal fabric of India and two nation theory.
Amazing, devastated its over. Honsestly some of the content i've seen on Indian history. Please re release these in Multiple languages, It deserves to be heard by everyone
The most brilliant and thoroughly researched series on TH-cam. Please continue it.
Loved the entire series. We need more of these.
Please continue the series.i loved the information.your voice is soo soothing ❤
I have liked your valuable presentation Sir
Music at the beginning and at the end will echo in me for a long time.
Thanks for your marvelous thoughts and narration in the presentation.
Wonderful narration correct perspective of history I fully agree with you
Thanks Namit. This indeed was a well researched, objective and extremely interesting series on Indian history. I wish all Indians could watch this series not only to know our culturally rich past but to develop a rational thinking mindset, much needed in recent times. It surprising and also perplexing that how come we were more open minded when we were not exposed to the modern science and logic.
Please continue this series. It's needed very much specially today.
Enjoy listening to hear stories and history of India. Thank you for creating this series.
I have never seen any series as excitedly as I watched this one. A masterpiece. Thank you to the whole team for producing this excellent series.
Awesome work. History was never that interesting to me. But this series on history was fascinating. I binge watched it.😅
Sir, I eagerly wait for your well researched, nicely presented & enriching videos. Please continue to make such videos.
Thank you...sir❤
Brilliant, thanks for this series. Learned a lot. To express gratitude, made a tiny payment of rs 100 as thanks to Namit Arora.
Thank you so much for the series! I hope you will come up with more such videos about the history and diversity of our country!
Thanks for bringing History to light, making it accessible to everyone and making us little more aware of our past and knowledgeable humans,
The most grateful thank to you in beyond words. I have studied from which Episode 1 till 10. As a whole; they led me entire brief understanding of India; learnt and inspired to development of further insightful mind and vision from Harappan civilizstion plus mild but sharp wit, " Never go to Bollywood to learn about the Harappans.." that one line of your voice taught me many directions of historians duty and prosfect must land on where and how; Yamnaya people droven into my vision of hope, and so forth. The most greatest things I have learnt from you; the last epilogue made me nearly sobbing. Especially, Episode 10 is quite sensitive topic but nesessary and inevitable to avoid to close the brief history of Indias, I was shocked how you arranged the step by step, classifying with in ample of evidences...in personally, your chosen words, tone of voice, wit in time, naturally down to earth gesturing and the volume of voice of which and how much everyone must beawear to jut down or speak up, and how it causes conflics. Your generous voice warned me many area of thoughts, and more homework to do for will be the good scholar to review the past our time. I am so lucky to foud your book and these all episodes and truely thank you with a great respect and love from YooA Kang p.s What is bad????? Is...any? What I know of...
I hope this video is seen by many Indians looking puzzled at present conflicts facing the society.
This was an awesome playlist about Indian history.
I think I learned so much and became a better citizen.
So many misconceptions and doubts I had about Muslim rule are addressed with evidence.
Thanks a lot for the entire team.
Thanks!
An excellent brief summary of India until British rule. Thank god, no stop by the party in power.
Excellent. I watched all episodes it's a wonderful journey like राज्यसभा सीरियल sanvidhan.
Contents made it worth listening and
Illustrations made it worth watching
Brilliant and thought provoking series. Completely changed my ideology towards Indian history. Please continue to make more such series.
Thank you sir
Thanks for such a balanced & unbiased presentation of Indian History.
The series offers a unique perspective on our history that is often missing from our textbooks.
The presentation is factual and objective, reflecting the Engineering background of the author.
The series was so captivating that I finished it in two days. The voice of ordinary people is well represented.
He has dealt with many "charged and sensitive topics" of the day in this series and it is likely to provoke a lot of controversy among the current political actors.
Did he ever quote sources to establish speculations? Do you think destroying a temple held as one of the holiest shrines to build a mosque a proof of a pluralist India ? Or to impose Zazya tax on pilgrims to visit temple pluralism ? Or imposing Shariah law through Fatwa e Alamgiri on subjects - majority non Muslims - an act of secularism?
This entire series is a concoction of facts, speculations, deliberate omissions and selective presentation of evidence to support prejudiced and politically biased conclusions.
No wonder a propagandist channel like the Wire disseminated it.
Dear sir,
Excellent effort at your part.
Amjad Ijaz Mirza from Jhelum, Pakistan
Namo Buddhay ! Jay Shivray ! Jay Bhim ! The Saddhamma is only Buddha Dhamma & is the only old Dhamma in the world.
🙏🙏🙏
Sir, after many many years I have been waiting for a show every Sat morning so eagerly. I was always looking for something in brief but which can join the dots from past 5K years. It was long overdue and perhaps having such and overview of the question - who we are? in educational institutes may have curved many of the myths and fantasies that goes around in todays digital world. I will miss the show and perhaps look forward to something similar from a more localized points. Thanks again and wish you the best.
Yet another episode that rival
the last one on facts and empirical analysis on the events of the past to that of the present situation. Raw History as it was...let it come
Great, insightful &well researched, this even includes clips from "Bharat ek khoj" 😃 Thank you Amit ji & all the power to you for future of doing good things!
Thank you Sir, I am impressed that you have spoken about thetopics ,which are so sensitive today...so categorically and pragmatically...I have enjoyed your series..and have shared it ..
Will miss listening to more..used to wait impatiently for the next episode! Thank you so much ..hope you will make some more series.All the best..and a heart felt Thank you..have also bought the book !
Sincerely,neelam
Erudite & well explained. Thank you Namit Arora & The Wire for this gem 🎉
what a great series. thank you to all who helped to bring this together. I would love to see more deep dives like this, tackling other parts of history in the south asian subcontinent!
You explained everything in and out very nice, hope everyone will be secular and more devote to all mighty God without any fight.
What a wonderful series ❤
Thanks a lot for making history interesting. We won't let these fools misread our history.
This masterpiece should reach reach to the masses.
Please reconsider to recreate this wonderful series in hindi version.
This historian lays out the facts. Those who are prepared to hear them have much to learn from him.
absolutely loved each and every moment of this series, Mr. Arora. it has ignited a spark in me to read and learn more and more about our past. thankyou so much, may you continue enlightening us with your immense knowledge and experience.
It's beautiful, inspiring and of course has motivated me to go deep in the creative journey of making something significant. Thank you so much.
Congratulations on such a fascinating and wonderful series! Will rewatch this time and again.
Reasonable, enlightened, nuanced series - please continue!
Excellent series Sir! Thank you for sharing these scientific updates and the new perspectives arising from these evolving studies. Looking forward to more such content. Goodluck!
Every people have their own ups & downs, and that's the beauty of learning from history.
Great series! Good learning!!Thank you!!!
13:25 Mentioned jhana marga and bhakti marga but missed bhakti marga.