01Malaviya’s wish
Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya founded the Banaras Hindu University in 1916 and wanted a temple of Vishwanath at its heart, so that study and worship would stand together. He did not live to see it; he died in 1946. The Birla family, led by Jugal Kishore Birla, took up the work, and the temple was completed in 1966. From the start it was open to all Hindus regardless of caste, at a time when that was still argued over in many temples. The shikhara of white marble rises to about 77 metres.
02Gita on the walls
The temple has the linga on the ground floor and shrines of Lakshmi-Narayana and other deities above. The walls carry the full text of the Bhagavad Gita and passages from other scriptures, carved in marble. Students come between classes, and the campus calls it simply VT. The university keeps it, and visitors to the old city’s Vishwanath often come here too, since it is calm where the gali is crowded.
The life of this place
- 1916Malaviya founds the Banaras Hindu University.
- 1966The temple is completed by the Birla family.
The temple is in the middle of the BHU campus, about 1.5 km from the main Lanka gate.
