हिंदीOn this day
Standing

Tulsi Manas Mandir, Varanasi

A white marble temple near Durga Kund on the spot associated with Goswami Tulsidas’s work on the Ramcharitmanas. The whole text of the Manas is carved on its walls.

Built: 1964, the Thakur Das Sureka family of HowrahWhere: Uttar Pradesh (Varanasi)Deity: Shri Rama, Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman25.29° N, 83.00° E
  1. Ram Navami, Samvat 1631 (1574)
  2. 1964
Photo: juggadery · CC BY-SA 2.0

01The Manas in marble

Tulsidas began the Ramcharitmanas in Ayodhya on Ram Navami of Samvat 1631, as he says himself in the Bal Kand, and lived his later years in Kashi, where he completed it. This temple, built by the Sureka family of Howrah and opened in 1964, stands where Banaras remembers him writing. The entire Manas, doha by doha, is inscribed in marble on the inner walls of two floors, with painted scenes from the Ramayana. Rama, Sita, Lakshmana and Hanuman are in the sanctum, with a separate shrine of Tulsidas.

02Jhulan in Shravan

The temple’s great time is Shravan, when the Jhulan festival sets the deities on swings and the upper floor fills with moving tableaux of the Ramayana and of Krishna leela. A Ramayana library and a hall for Manas recitation are part of the complex. With Durga Kund and Sankat Mochan a few minutes away, the three make the usual morning round of south Banaras.

The life of this place

  1. Ram Navami, Samvat 1631 (1574)Tulsidas begins the Ramcharitmanas in Ayodhya.
  2. 1964The Sureka family completes the temple.
Visiting

The temple is next to Durga Kund in south Varanasi; it closes at midday.

Nearby

Durga Temple (Durga Kund), VaranasiStanding
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

Durga Temple (Durga Kund), Varanasi

The red ochre temple of Durga beside its square tank in south Banaras, built by Rani Bhabani of Natore in Bengal. The Devi Bhagavata links the shrine with the Devi who fought for King Subahu of Kashi and Prince Sudarshan.

Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple, VaranasiStanding
The Mughal era and the resistance

Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple, Varanasi

The Hanuman temple of Tulsidas on the Assi stream, where, by the Kashi tradition, he had darshan of Hanuman. A bomb exploded here on 7 March 2006; the temple held aarti that evening and its music festival a few weeks later.

Banaras Hindu UniversityStanding
Renaissance and the struggle for Swaraj

Banaras Hindu University

The university Madan Mohan Malaviya raised in Kashi on Vasant Panchami 1916, to teach the Shastras and modern science side by side. Its campus temple of Shri Vishwanath has one of the tallest shikharas in India.

The Ghats of KashiStanding
Maratha ascendancy and the Sikh empire

The Ghats of Kashi

Some eighty-four stone ghats run for nearly seven kilometres along the crescent of the Ganga from Assi to Raj Ghat. At Manikarnika the cremation fires never go out.