Varanasi is the oldest living city
situated on the banks of the Ganga River. It is one of the oldest cities in the
world, dating to about 1200 BCE of continual inhabitance. It is also one of the only cities
on the Ganges where the river flows south to north. It is cradled
around the tributary rivers of the Varuna and the Asi traveling into mother
Ganga.
A city of many names over many
millenia, Kashi is the abode of Lord Shiva and a great center of learning,
music, religions, and textiles. It is the place where Lord Buddha acquired spiritual enlightenment, where Sant Tulsi Das wrote the Ramcharit Manas, where Adiguru
Shankaracharya received the knowledge of Brahma, where maharishi (maha=great, rishi=seer) physicians
studying under Charaka wrote the primary textbook of Ayurvedic Medicine, where
alchemy was perfected by Nagarjuna and colleagues, and where Sushruta, the true
father of surgery, developed and practiced various surgical procedures. Benaras
is also famous for the world’s best silk sarees, carpets and a pageantry of
culture and arts.
Banaras Hindu University, known in Hindi as
Kashi Hindu Mahavidyalaya, is the largest campus University of India and of
Asia. Founded in 1916 by the great visionary Pt. MadanMohan Malviya, it imparts
teaching in almost all branches of Science, Technology and Humanity through 3 institutes,
14 faculties and 140 departments. Currently, it has 1300 teachers and 18,000
students. BHU is the
Cambridge/Oxford/Harvard/Stanford of India, but it is the only world-class
University that has a devoted Faculty studying the oldest knowledge that
mankind has produced on medicine.
After arriving on a flight with the
little drama of a brake failure, we land safely and step into the shiny new airport of
Varanasi (VNS). Some political candidate must have built this before his elections. I make my way quickly to the hotel, drop my bags and run to the
campus, intent to register in the month of July for classes that begin on
August 1. I am greeted first by Mr. LB Patel at the
International Centre and then by Dr. Jha and taken to an impromptu MD-Ayurveda
graduation ceremony, where I am asked in Hindi to make my first speech. The year has begun.