Reimagining the Heritage of Banaras: Nerdy Digital Solutions

Raman Nair R, Jayapradeep M Kaimal

Abstract


The city of Kashi known to the modern world as Banaras, embeds the sacred geography of India into a microcosm, superimposing the features on physical spaces. Banaras is one of the most ancient heritage cities, which has already lost most of its unique qualities due to unplanned and unscientific development and conservation activities. The heritage city needs immediate attention for preserving its cultural and spiritual uniqueness. The paper gives an idea of unique artifacts and heritage icons of Banaras and discusses the digital options for preserving them by applying ICT, AI and machine learning which can help to preserve the knowledge, text, images, artifacts, environment, spiritual uniqueness and soul-searching culture that pertains to Banaras; for posterity. A unique, comprehensive and immediate preservation activity shall act as one of the most sacred offerings to the presiding deity of Banaras, Vishwanath, the ultimate consciousness who rules the universe.


Keywords


Heritage, Conservation, Digitization, Archiving, Varanasi, Banaras, Kashi, Hinduism

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Informatics Studies:  ISSN: 2583-8994 (Online), 2320-530X (Print)