Enlisting Sanskrit on the Side of Progress

Abstract

Benares has long been characterised as a paramount city within the religious landscape of Hinduism. It is perhaps best known as a place of pilgrimage for Hindus, as well as a centre of Sanskrit-based learning. Benares is mentioned as a tῑrtha in the Mahābhārata, and figures prominently in several Purāṇas, where its sacred geography and connection to Śiva, as the source of all sacred knowledge, is described.¹ In early European travelogues, the city’s religious and learned character was often presented as its most important aspect. François Bernier described Benares as the ‘Athens of the Gentry of the Indies where the Brachmans and the Religious … come together’, and where religious education resembled ‘the way of the School of the Antients’.² It has been argued in Chapter 2 that during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the strengthening of characterisations of Benares as a sacred Hindu city, and as central to an understanding of Indian civilisation, was intimately connected with both the authorisation of early orientalist scholarship, and the establishment of cultural and political legitimacy for the Company’s government. In essence, Benares’ reputation for cultural authenticity could be turned to the substantiation of cultural-religious production of varying sorts.