Varanasi travel guide

Top 10 sights in Varanasi

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

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   1© Das740724 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Kashi Vishwanath Temple

   The most important of the twelve jyotirlingas, and the reason many Hindus come to Varanasi at all. The present temple was built by Ahilyabai Holkar in 1780 after repeated demolitions; Ranjit Singh plated the spire with something like eight hundred kilograms of gold in 1835.

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   2© Preeti Prajapati · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Dhamek Stupa

   A brick stupa of forty-three metres at Sarnath, marking the deer park where the Buddha gave his first sermon after his enlightenment. The present structure is fifth-century, built over a Mauryan core of the third century BC.

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   Gyanvapi Mosque

   Built by Aurangzeb in 1669 on the site of the Vishweshwar temple he had demolished, with parts of the temple wall visibly reused in its own. The well between mosque and temple gives it its name. The site has been under litigation for decades and is heavily guarded.

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   4© Christopher Walker · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Chaukhandi Stupa

   A brick mound at Sarnath marking where the Buddha is said to have met his first five disciples. An octagonal tower was added on top in 1588 to record a visit by the Mughal emperor Humayun, which makes it an odd hybrid.

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5. 

   5© Paramanu Sarkar · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Ramnagar Fort

   A fort at Ramnagar on the east bank of the Ganges opposite Tulsi Ghat. Maharaja Balwant Singh, the Kashi Naresh, built it in sandstone in 1750.

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   6© Nandanupadhyay · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Sarnath Museum

   The oldest site museum of the Archaeological Survey of India, opened in 1910 to hold what came out of Sarnath. Its greatest object is the lion capital of Ashoka, adopted in 1950 as the emblem of the Republic of India.

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7. 

   7© Ashutosh Kumar Tripathi · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Alamgir Mosque

   A mosque standing prominently above the Panchganga Ghat in Varanasi, also called the Aurangzeb mosque. From the ghat a broad flight of steps runs down to the Ganges.

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8. 

   8© Kuber Patel, Rosehub · CC BY-SA 4.0

   New Vishwanath Temple

   Inside the Banaras Hindu University campus, built by the Birla family between 1931 and 1966 as a copy of the Kashi Vishwanath temple — but open to every caste, which the original then was not. Its tower is the tallest of any temple in the city.

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9. 

   9© Vinayaraj · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple

   A temple to Hanuman in his form as the reliever of troubles, said to have been founded by the poet Tulsidas on the spot where he had a vision. Monkeys move freely through it; a bomb was set off here in 2006 and the temple reopened at once.

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10. 

    10© AKS.9955 · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Durga Mandir, Varanasi

    A temple in Varanasi dedicated to the goddess Durga, also called the Durga Kund temple. Rani Bhabani of Natore built it in the eighteenth century.

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1. 

   1© Sujay25 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Ratneshwar Mahadev temple

   A small temple at Manikarnika ghat leaning about nine degrees out of true, which is why photographers stop for it. For much of the monsoon the Ganges rises over it to the top of the tower, and it reappears only when the water drops in autumn.

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   2© Rabin Tuladhar · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Kaal Bhairav Mandir, Varanasi

   One of the oldest Shiva temples in Varanasi, dedicated to the fierce guardian of the city — pilgrims call him its chief of police, and are given a black thread at the door for protection.

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   Hindu temples in Varanasi

   Varanasi counts something on the order of two thousand temples, most of them small and packed into the lanes between the ghats. Many are private shrines opened to the street, which is why the city can feel like one continuous temple rather than a set of monuments.

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   Annapurna Devi Mandir

   An eighteenth-century temple beside Kashi Vishwanath to Annapurna, the goddess who feeds. A free kitchen runs from it, in keeping with that. The gold image is uncovered for public view on only one day of the year, Annakut, the day after Diwali.

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5. 

   5© Naveen K Gautam · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Swarved Mahamandir

   A seven-storey meditation centre in Varanasi opened in 2023, built to seat twenty thousand people at once. Over three thousand verses of the Swarved are carved into its Makrana marble walls.

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   6© Hiroki Ogawa · CC BY 3.0

   Bharat Mata Mandir

   A temple inside the Mahatma Gandhi Kashi Vidyapith in Varanasi. Instead of an image it holds a map of India cut in marble, and it is dedicated to Mother India.

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   7© Saisumanth Javvaji · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Shri Tilbhandeshwar Mahadev Mandir

   One of the oldest and best-known temples in Varanasi, dedicated to Shiva and thought to have been built in the eighteenth century.

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   8© Nikhil399792 · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Tulsi Manas Mandir

   A marble temple of 1964 on the spot where Tulsidas is said to have written the Ramcharitmanas, his Hindi retelling of the Ramayana. Verses from the poem are inscribed across the walls.

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   9© juggadery · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Sankata Devi Mandir

   One of the best-known temples in Varanasi, dedicated to Sankata Devi, the goddess who governs danger. The ruler of Baroda built it in the eighteenth century.

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10. 

    10© Matt Stabile · CC BY 2.0

    Nepali Mandir

    One of the oldest and best-known temples in Varanasi, formally the Sri Samrajeshwar Pashupatinath Mahadev temple. Kings of Nepal built it in the nineteenth century in terracotta, stone and wood, modelled on the Pashupatinath temple in Kathmandu.

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