ABSTRACT

This chapter explores how natural, built, and intangible dimensions of heritage are brought together through organic, historic, and ongoing processes in the making of an iconic urban cultural landscape in Varanasi in India and how its tangible and intangible heritage attributes could be defined for an effective way to their conservation. At Varanasi, where the holy River Ganga reverses its flow, the 84 ghats (steps and landings) in a 6.8 km stretch are a cultural landscape defined by situated events of nature and culture. Ghats represent how the land-water interface at the urban settlements on the Ganga’s banks is fashioned out of the need to access the rising and falling water levels in the monsoon and dry seasons. The vernacular landscape of ghats represents an amalgam of material and intangible heritage that requires rethinking of the current heritage policy that is exclusively focused on monumental architecture. The chapter first discusses the distinctive aspects of material and intangible heritage associated with this vernacular urban landscape. Then, a new conservation approach, based upon the dynamic landscape structured by natural and cultural events and crafted by traditional practices, is proposed for improving the legibility of the spatial and temporal structure of public life on the ghats.