01Tulsidas and the old man
Priyadas’s commentary on the Bhaktamal tells the katha. A spirit Tulsidas had helped told him that Hanuman came every day to his Ramayana katha, disguised as an old leper who was first to arrive and last to leave. Tulsidas followed the old man into the forest beyond Assi and fell at his feet; Hanuman gave darshan and promised that Tulsidas would see Shri Rama. At that spot Tulsidas installed Hanuman, facing Rama, as the reliever of troubles. The Hanuman Chalisa and the Sankat Mochan Hanumanashtak, both credited to Tulsidas, are recited here all day.
027 March 2006
On the Tuesday evening of 7 March 2006, during aarti, a bomb exploded in the temple courtyard, one of a series of blasts in Varanasi that day which killed more than twenty people. The mahant, Pandit Veer Bhadra Mishra, had the courtyard washed and the aarti performed the same night, and the Sankat Mochan Sangeet Samaroh, held every year around Hanuman Jayanti since the 1920s, went ahead in April with the great musicians of India playing through the night. Tuesdays and Saturdays still bring the longest queues, and the laddu prasad of the temple is famous across Banaras.
The life of this place
- 7 March 2006A bomb explodes in the courtyard during evening aarti; worship resumes the same night.
The temple is on Sankat Mochan Road near BHU and Durga Kund; phones and bags must be deposited at the gate.
