See India Banaras Poster | Vintage India Travel Poster | Vintage Varanasi Travel Poster

This fabulous poster invites the viewer to “See India” and instantly delivers us onto the steps of the Scindia Ghat at Banaras. From our vantage point higher up on the steps, we watch Indian men and women on the River Ganges water’s edge. Women in their colourful saris are washing their clothes, meditating, bathing in the river and carrying water in terracotta vases. Two men are standing waist-deep in the river washing. Two more sit on a lower step, offering prayers, protected from the sun by a large umbrella and watched over by a young girl.

The Ganges is a sacred river to Hindus. Along its entire length Hindus bathe in its waters, paying homage to ancestors and gods by cupping the water in their hands, raising it and letting it fall back into the river. They also offer flowers and rose petals and float diyas, shallow candles in clay dishes. The city of Varanasi has eighty-eight ghats or riverfront steps leading to the banks of the sacred Ganges River. Most of the ghats are used for washing, bathing and Hindu Festivals, while two, Manikarnika and Harishchandra, are used exclusively as cremation sites.

The riverside scene on the poster beyond the Scindia Ghat is filled with the spires of more than a dozen temples. The Shikhara towers rising from this ancient and sacred city’s temples appear across the skyline. The closest of which is the 74 feet high, leaning, partially submerged Shiva temple known as Ratneshwar Mahadev Mandir or Leaning temple of Varanasi located at the Manikarnika Ghat. Above the ghat, several of Banara’s most influential shrines are situated within the tight maze of alleys of Siddha Kshetra (Field of Fulfillment).

Shri Ratneshwar Mahadev Temple at Banaras, India

The Leaning temple of Varanasi is one of the most photographed temples in the holy city of Varanasi. The date of the construction of the temple is widely disputed. According to legend, priests claim it was built by an unnamed servant of Raja Man Singh for his mother Ratna Bai about 500 years ago. The temple is also known as Kashi Karvat. Kashi is the ancient name for Varanasi/Banaras and karat meaning ‘leaning’.

The Indian revenue records claim it was constructed between 1825 to 1830, around the time many of the temples in the area were renovated and rejuvenated. Another story claims the Matri-rin Mahadev temple as it was also known was constructed by the Amethi royal family from 1820 to 1830. Other sources claim that it was built by Queen Baija Bai of Gwalior in the 19th century. and another that it was built by a female servant of Ahilya Bai of Indore, named Ratna Bai. Ahilya Bai cursed it to lean because her servant had named it after herself. I guess we’ll never know the real story!