• Ghat
  
• Itihas
  
• 
  

• Sanskriti
  
• Kashi
  
• Samaj
  

• Vidya
  
• Nagar
  
• Shilpa
  

An exploratory multiple project on ‘Heritage City’ – Varanasi: A study of ‘flows’ from past studies to contemporary augmentative studies and outreaching based on eco-heritage tourism based on the river, and the flow of community participation and their creative economy over time.

DEPTH PROJECT: Geo-exploratory

To earmark an ancient continuity of sacred traditions as evident from studies on Varanasi:

- Investigation from perspectives of geophysical survey, hydrogeology and engineering geology combining to geoarchaeology further based on

a) Delineation of spatial and temporal extents of subsurface ancient manmade and natural structures by non-invasive and invasive geo-scientific techniques.
b) Qualitative and quantitative assessments of historical geo-catastrophic events and their effects on this Eastern Vindyachal belt.
c) Geological, hydrogeological and hydrochemical influences on the evolutionary history of Vindyachal belt.
d) Evaluation of the coastal region in response to paleo-hydrological and paleo-climatological systems.
e) Assessment of weathering induced deterioration status of construction materials of ancient manmade structures primarily through a non-destructive onsite physico-mechanical test program along with feasible micro-structural and chemical analyses. f) Evaluation of relationships between degree of natural deterioration of ancient manmade structures and their age.
g) Limiting deterioration of ancient monuments.

Principal Investigator (s)
Abhijit Mukherjee

Co-PIs
Probal Sengupta, Arindam Basu, Joy Sen


BREADTH PROJECT: Urban and Regional Planning

To take up a re-explorative project in ‘Heritage City’ of Varanasi for studying the patterns of:

• An exploration of the ancient geo-morphology and riparian system of Varanasi
• An assessment of the Cosmological models and sacred myths associated with the green and ecological habitat of various town planning orders and urban design systems of Varanasi – and a subsequent assessment of Water management systems of Varanasi and Public health engineering system and ‘people-centric’ social infrastructures
• A study of the order of community planning and social management systems – evolved in the recent past to the present time
• Archaeological services: Conservation, adaption, re-use and re-modeling of various ‘sacred’ ecosystems of Varanasi
• Augmentation of civic services and utilities systems in current framework
• Boosting creative economy of traditional knowledge systems in Varanasi and re-position them in the contemporary framework of application (based on an understanding measuring systems of low literate designers in the urban fabric or mosaic of Varanasi) – to charter out handle measurements related to proportions, sizes and balance that they are using in the absence of explicit understanding of mathematics and geometry and access to precision tools? – To extract out a living pedagogy of industrialization from these units (weaving, crafts, metalwork, ivory, woodwork, etc) for further augmentation.

Principal Investigator (s)
Partha P. Chakraborti, V. N. Giri, Joy Sen

Co-PIs
Bhargab Maitra, Pallab Dasgupta, Priyadarshi Patnaik, Haimanti Banerjee, Abhijit Mukherjee