Sanskrit University
Gothic Architecture in the heart of Banaras
For Banaras’ past one goes to Diana L Eck’s Banaras: City of Light
This is what she writes on the place
In education, the British years brought a change from the ancient pandit-student pattern of learning which had predominated in Kashi for 2,500 years. In 1791, the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, who had presumably recovered from the indignities of his flight from Banaras, approved the proposal of Jonathan Duncan for a Sanskrit College in Banaras, where Sanskrit texts would be collected and pandits employed. In 1853, the present buildings for this college were erected in a Gothic style strikingly out of place in Banaras. The Sanskrit College, preserving the most traditional Hindi learning, was oddly called Queen’s College.
In 1853 a very fine Gothic structure, said to be the most imposing building erected by the British in India, was opened under the name of the Queen's College, for the accommodation of students in both Western and Eastern learning. Here both English and Sanscrit are studied, and under the first Principal, the late Dr. Ballantyne, vigorous, and I hope to some degree successful, effort was put forth to infuse Western literature, philosophy, and science into the pundit mind.
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Video on the recently undertaking restoration
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Image
from more than a century ago
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~ Gothic architecture reminds me of Chesterton ~ the buildings described in his short stories featuring Father Brown ~ Chesterton of the ‘Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese’ fame ~
~ The
campus is also home to a Jantar Mantar ~ more on this some other time ~
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