SS Rajamouli is building a world again — and this time he’s inventing a language to go with it. The Baahubali and RRR director’s next epic, Varanasi, has been in the headlines for its ambition, but the newest detail is pure Rajamouli world-building: an entirely new fictional language, created from scratch for the film. Here’s everything worth knowing about the most talked-about Indian film in the pipeline.
Point 1 — The biggest cast of Rajamouli’s career.
Mahesh Babu, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Prithviraj Sukumaran headline Varanasi — Rajamouli’s first time working with Mahesh and Priyanka, two of the biggest stars in Indian cinema, alongside the ever-versatile Prithviraj. If scale is measured in star power, this is the director’s most ambitious casting yet.
Point 2 — It’s a time-travel adventure across continents and eras.
Varanasi is designed as a time-travel epic in which the characters journey through multiple moments in history and across the globe — reports mention sequences set as far afield as ancient Rome, all rooted in the sacred city of Varanasi that gives the film its title.
Point 3 — The film gets its own invented language.
Variety India exclusively reported that a linguistic expert has been contracted to create an entirely new language for one of the film’s time-travel sequences, in which the characters enter a cave whose walls are painted with writings in an ancient script — and must learn to decode them to unlock hidden mysteries.
Point 4 — It’s not his first invented tongue — but it’s a bigger swing than Kiliki.
For Baahubali: The Beginning (2015), Rajamouli worked with lyricist and writer Madhan Karky to create Kiliki, the language of the Kalakeya warriors — and Karky is said to be back on board for Varanasi. Kiliki was mostly spoken and barely glimpsed in writing; this time the language appears to carry a far larger narrative role, with its own script, grammar and syntax that the characters must actually crack.
Point 5 — It’s targeting April 7, 2027.
The film is scheduled for a worldwide theatrical release on April 7, 2027. Mahesh Babu has already wrapped his portion of the shoot, with the remaining schedules expected to finish by the end of 2026 — meaning the countdown to Rajamouli’s next spectacle is officially on.
