A review of the book 'Waiting for Shiva: Unearthing the Truth of Kashi’s Gyan Vapi' written by Dr. Vikram Sampath.
Vikram Sampath’s latest offering retraces the long history of this bitterly disputed site and the dramatic twists and turns in the chequered past of this hoary shrine. Piecing together numerous documents and accounts—Vedic and Puranic texts, Sanskrit literary sources, Agama shastras, Jataka tales, Persian accounts, travelogues of foreigners, archival records and copious legal documents detailing the contestation from the British era to modern Indian courts—the book recreates, for the first time with facts and cogent arguments, this stormy history right up to the present times. The long suppressed secrets that lay hidden in Gyan Vapi finally finds a voice through this book.
Order links of the book 'Waiting for Shiva: Unearthing the Truth of Kashi’s Gyan Vapi' below:
Amazon India:
Hardcover
Flipkart:
Hardcover
BookGanga:
Hardcover
And please don't forget to checkout Historylogy.com for latest book reviews and tidbits from the pages of history.
Please feel free to our social media ID's for latest updates. Links below:
https://www.facebook.com/historylogy/
https://twitter.com/historylogy
https://www.instagram.com/historylogy/
Affiliate Earnings Disclaimer:
This site contains affiliate links to products. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.
Coming up: A review of the book 'Waiting for Shiva: Unearthing the Truth of Kashi’s Gyan Vapi' written by Dr. Vikram Sampath.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
Before I proceed, a full disclosure: This book was bought with my own money and not been provided to me by the author or publisher.
Little bit about the author:
Dr. Vikram Sampath is a historian based in Bangalore. He is the author of eight acclaimed books, including Splendours of Royal Mysore: The Untold Story of the Wodeyars, Voice of the Veena: S. Balachander, Women of the Records, and Indian Classical Music and the Gramophone, 1900─1930. His two-volume biography of V. D. Savarkar, Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1881─1924 and Savarkar: A Contested Legacy, 1924─1966, and his latest book, Bravehearts of Bharat: Vignettes from Indian History, have gone on to become national bestsellers.
In 2021, Vikram was elected a fellow of the prestigious Royal Historical Society. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi’s first Yuva Puraskar in English literature and the ARSC International Award for excellence in historical research in New York for his book My Name Is Gauhar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician. The book has been adapted for a play, Gauhar, by Lillette Dubey. He was among four writers and artists selected as writers-in-residence at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in 2015.
Vikram has a doctorate in history and music from the University of Queensland, Australia, and was a senior research fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi (2017─19). He was also a fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and Eisenhower Fellowships 2020 and a visiting fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2010. Currently, he is an adjunct senior fellow at Monash University, Australia. He has an engineering and mathematics degree from BITS Pilani and an MBA in finance from the S. P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai. Vikram is a trained Carnatic vocalist. He established the Foundation for Indian Historical and Cultural Research to promote original, primary source-based research on Indian history. The Archive of Indian Music, India’s first digital sound archive for vintage recording, was also founded by him. He is the founder-director of the Bangalore Literature Festival and curates ZEE Group’s cultural fest Arth.
Let me read what is written on inside flap of the cover of the book:
QUOTE
Few places in the world carry the heavy burden of history as effortlessly as Kashi, or Varanasi, has. The holy city embodies the very soul of our civilization and personifies the resilience that we have displayed over centuries in the face of numerous adversities and fatal attacks.
Waiting for Shiva: Unearthing the Truth of Kashi’s Gyan Vapi recreates the history, antiquity and sanctity of Kashi as the 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 delves into the history of this self-manifested swayambhu jyotirlinga shrine of Vishweshwara, which for centuries has been both a refuge for the devout and a target of the bloodiest waves of iconoclasm. However, each time an attempt was made to obliterate the temple by demolishing it, it managed to rise and prosper. Every iconoclastic storm was followed by an episode of persistence, 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 final death blow was dealt in 1669 by the Mughal despot Aurangzeb, who demolished the temple and erected few domes on the partially destroyed western wall to call it a mosque. The temple complex was desecrated and left strewn with ruins as a grim reminder of the humiliation and insult that Hindus had to face as a consequence of their holiest shrine being torn down to smithereens. The area that is now called the Gyan Vapi mosque and the surrounding land that lies adjacent to the new temple of Vishwanath, which came up towards the end of the 18th Century, has always been one of intense contestation. Bloody riots overran Varanasi over this issue multiple times in the past. During the colonial era, the doors of the British courts were knocked at to settle the occupancy issue, and they adjudicated the matter several times. Post-Independence, too, 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 right up to the Supreme Court to dismiss the plaint, a survey by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was ordered, which would lay bare the truth in January 2024.
Vikram Sampath’s latest offering retraces the long history of this bitterly disputed site and the dramatic twists and turns in the chequered past of this hoary shrine. Piecing together numerous documents and accounts—Vedic and Puranic texts, Sanskrit literary sources, Agama shastras, Jataka tales, Persian accounts, travelogues of foreigners, archival records and copious legal documents detailing the contestation from the British era to modern Indian courts—the book recreates, for the first time with facts and cogent arguments, this stormy history right up to the present times. The long suppressed secrets that lay hidden in Gyan Vapi finally finds a voice through this book.
UNQUOTE
Some of the things in the book I found interesting:
1st ─ The author states on page 2:
QUOTE
A Hindu’s expression of their faith, especially after Independence, had to be muted, toned down, almost invisible, and one that did not get into the crosshairs or eyesight of the dominant minorities.
UNQUOTE
I totally agree with this. In no other country are the (so-called) Minorities pampered as much as they are in India.
2nd ─ Throughout the book, there are quotes by Matthew Atmore Sherring, a British Protestant missionary and Indologist, who spent several years here in India in the mid-nineteenth century. There is one on page 73 where Sherring poignantly and prophetically concludes,
QUOTE
If there is one circumstance respecting the Mohammedan period which Hindus remember better than another, it is the insulting pride of the Musulmans, the outrages which they perpetrated upon their religious convictions, and the extensive spoilation of their temples and shrines. It is right that Europeans should clearly understand, that this spirit of Mohammedanism is unchangeable, and that, if by any mischance, India should again come into the possession of men of this creed, all the churches and colleges and all of the Mission institutions, would not be worth a week’s purchase.
UNQUOTE
3rd ─ The esoteric meaning of the Shiv Linga is very well explained. How the worship of the linga also symbolises the dual nature of masculinity and femininity.
4th ─ To prevent mishaps from occurring in the future, especially since the Vishwanath temple and the Kapalamochan were so close to the Gyan Vapi mosque, Magistrate Watson suggested that the Muslims be restricted to the mosque and the terrace, while the Hindus be given exclusive access to the sacred walk around the mosque and the Gyan Vapi well. At the Kapalamochan, he recommended the Muslims be kept out of the place. Detailing his arguments, Mr. Watson wrote:
QUOTE
The reputed sanctity of the spot in the eyes of the Hindus would not be lost by its exclusive appropriation to Musalman devotion, while everlasting rancour of the Hindu would be kept alive by a sense of profanation to which their holy place was exposed, and a regret at being denied access to it. With the Musalmans, on the contrary, no particular sanctity [is] attached to the spot. An Eedgah in any other situation would be equally an object of resort, and it is only held by Musalmans in peculiar estimation here as it marks the former ascendancy of one religion over the other. When all collision of the two sects is obviated at the Bisheshwar mosque and Kapalamochan by the seclusion of the Musalmans at the one and their exclusion from the other, I anticipate no ground of dispute from the Musalmans retaining entire possession of the minaret mosque called by the Hindus, Beynee Madhoo [Beni Madhav] and of that at Sheikh Katun Allees (or the Hind Kurrut Baseyur [Krittivaseshawar]). The Hindus have long since appropriated another temple to the idol to which the former place was originally dedicated, and the foundation at the latter which the Hindus esteem sacred is an object of devotion to them only one day in the year.
UNQUOTE
5th ─ As per Hindu law, the property once vested in the deity shall continue to be the deity’s property and its destruction cannot change the nature of the property itself. Once a temple, always a temple.
The book has seven major chapters covering the history of the city of Kashi and ending with the legal fight revolving around the Kashi Vishwanath Temple and is just under 225 pages of actual reading.
It has an Appendix which is of almost 100 pages. It has selected excerpts from the report of the Archaeological Survey of India and they have been presented as-is. It has site plans of disputed structure and exclusive photographs of the same. Followed by 20 pages of Notes and 6 pages of Bibliography. The book also has 16 colour pages showing the ruins of the western wall of the Gyan Vapi mosque, Kashi Vishwanath mandir, the Ganga ghats, and other nearby religious places of worship.
It’s pretty obvious that the book was hurriedly put together with a very tight deadline but it still manages to explain the Gyan Vapi issue with all aspects covered very well. I highly recommend this book and give it a rating of 4.75/5.
The printed price of the book is Rs. 699/- but is available for around Rs. 450/- on Amazon India and for Rs. 550/- on Flipkart. At the time of recording this podcast episode, the book is not available on Amazon USA. Also, the book is currently available only in Hardcover format and not on Kindle or Audible. I have given the respective buy links in the show notes. Please check them out for the latest prices.
Last but not the least, thank you for spending your valuable time listening to this book review. Really grateful. Please don't forget to subscribe to the Historylogy podcast on your favourite podcasting app and also feel free to leave a review. Also, please check historylogy.com for all previous episodes. Thanks and looking forward to hearing from you. Take care and bye!