History
The Kingdom of Kashi was founded by Khsetravridha, the son of Ayus, of the Somavansa dynasty of Pratishthana. It lost independence in 1194 and was eventually ceded by the Nawab of Oudh to the British Raj in 1775, who recognized Benares as a family dominion. Benares became a state in 1911. It was given the privilege of 13-gun salute.
The governor of Benares gave most of the area currently known as Varanasi to Mansa Ram, a Gautam Bhumihar Brahmin zamindar of Utaria. Balwant Singh, the ruler of Utaria in 1737, received the territories of Jaunpur, Varanasi and Chunar in 1740 from the Mughal Emperor Muhammad Shah of Delhi. The Kingdom of Benaras started in this way under the Mughal dynasty. Other places under the kingship of Kashi Naresh were Chandauli, Gyanpur, Chakia, Latifshah, Mirzapur, Nandeshwar, Mint House and Vindhyachal.
With the decline of the Mughal Empire, the military or Bhumihar Brahmin strengthened their sway in the area south of Avadh and in the fertile rice growing areas of Benares, Gorakhpur, Deoria, Ghazipur, Ballia and Bihar and on the fringes of Bengal. The strong clan organisation on which they rested, brought success to the lesser Hindu princes. There were as many as 100,000 Bhumihar Brahmin clansmen backing the power of the Benares rajas in what later became the districts of Benares, Gorakhpur and Azamgarh. This proved a decisive advantage when the dynasty faced a rival and the nominal suzerain, the Nawab of Awadh, in the 1750s and the 1760s. An exhausting guerrilla war, waged by the Benares ruler against the Avadh camp, using his Brahmin clan troops, forced the Nawab to withdraw his main force.
According to Orthodox Brahmin traditions, no one has seen Kashi Naresh eat food, and none of the kings have travelled abroad, in keeping with strict Brahmin rules. Kashi Naresh has played host to a list of dignitaries which includes Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Indira Gandhi, Queen Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama, President Kocheril Raman Narayanan and his Burmese wife.
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