Purana Pul

Sarnath is situated some four miles north of Varanasi, not far from the high road to Ghazipur. A more direct route, of which traces are still extant, seems formerly to have connected the city with Sarnath . Starting from the centre of Varanasi near the Pachganga-ghat, where Aurangzeb’s mosque forms’ a conspicuous landmark, this road led due north past Lat Bhairon and crossed the Varuna river at Purana Pul by a bridge, Some remains of which can still be seen a little distance above the viaduct of the mertre-gauge railway to Ghazipur. At the end of the eighteenth century a ruined Mughal bridge of three spans occupied the site. As the nearer abutment had been damaged by floods Mr. Jonathan Duncan, the then Resident of Varanasi had the bridge dismantled and used the stone for a new bridge over the same river near the present Bank of Bengal. Some further materials for Duncan’s bridge, as we shall see later on, were obtained from the ruthless spoliation of the ancient Sarnath building.