ABSTRACT
The temples and bathing places of Varanasi, the holy city of the Hindus, have been documented textually and cartographically for over 1000 years. Created mainly for the use of pilgrims, these sources—textual “glorifications” (māhātmyams) and “picture maps” highlighting the temples and shrines of the great gods of official Hindu polytheism—have represented Varanasi as a city transcending the bounds of time and space. Entirely ignored in these documents are references to the local deities that Varanasi residents, not all of them Hindu, venerate in their daily lives. Many of these are neem trees (Azadirachta indica), identified as goddesses, which have defined the city’s urban fabric since the time when Varanasi was known as the “Forest of Bliss.” Ancient Indian sources, mainly Buddhist, demonstrate that tree worship, current in Varanasi some 2000 years ago, was also foundational to the iconography of Kṛṣṇa and Śiva, two of the high gods of official Hindu theism. This chapter explores the relationship between the local and translocal (i.e., universal, all-Indian lifeworlds of South Asian religion), arguing that the Varanasi of local vernacular practice precedes and undergirds the Varanasi of translocal official Hinduism.
