The Faculty of Arts is one of the principal academic faculties of Banaras Hindu University (BHU), located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is among the oldest and largest faculties of the university, offering teaching and research in the humanities, languages, and allied disciplines.
| Type | Academic faculty (school) of a central university |
|---|---|
| Parent institution | Banaras Hindu University |
| Location | BHU main campus, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Field | Humanities, languages, and arts |
Banaras Hindu University was founded in 1916 through the efforts of Madan Mohan Malaviya, with support from figures including Annie Besant and the Maharaja of Darbhanga. Established by the Banaras Hindu University Act, 1915, it was conceived as a residential teaching university combining traditional Indian learning with modern higher education. The Faculty of Arts emerged as one of its foundational faculties, reflecting Malaviya's emphasis on the study of Indian languages, philosophy, and culture alongside Western humanistic disciplines.
The Faculty of Arts comprises a number of departments covering languages, social sciences, and humanities. Departments commonly grouped under the faculty include:
The faculty offers undergraduate (BA), postgraduate (MA), MPhil, and PhD programmes, along with diploma and certificate courses in selected languages.
As part of one of India's largest residential universities, the Faculty of Arts has played a notable role in the modern study of Indian languages, classical literature, philosophy, and Indology. Its departments of Sanskrit, Hindi, and Philosophy have long been associated with scholarship on Indian intellectual traditions, while its language departments have contributed to teaching and research across South Asian, Middle Eastern, and European languages.
The faculty is housed on the BHU main campus in south Varanasi, an extensive planned campus laid out in the early twentieth century. The campus also hosts allied institutions such as the Bharat Kala Bhavan museum, which supports research in art history and archaeology.