Waterscapes in transition: past and present reshape of sacred water places in Banaras

This chapter explores the urban waterscape of Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh, India) and crucial moments of its transition. In particular, it focuses on the city’s ‘minor’ water places, which have up to now received only fleeting attention in studies about the urban landscape and cultural practices linked to the city’s space. Together with the river Gaṅgā and its tributaries, Varuṇā and Assī, minor water bodies constitute the urban waterscape and clearly testify to the multiple fragmentation of water, its knowledges and practices. These places include wells, ponds, rivulets, canals and urban lakes, which are looked after, worshipped, exploited, narrated, contested, or even forgotten by multiple local actors with various expectations and conceptions of water and its spaces. As argued in this chapter, they constitute privileged locations in which to explore the interaction of diverse epistemologies of water, as well as questioning dynamics of development of the city’s landscape.