A temple rebuilt: the story of the building

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Namaste. Welcome back to our series on Kashi Vishwanath. So far we have heard the name Avimukta, sat by the river at Dashashwamedh, and met the household of Kashi, Annapurna, Kaal Bhairav and Dhundhiraj Ganesh. Today we look at the building itself.

This is a story about stone and gold and many hands. It is also a story that has sometimes been told with anger. We will tell it calmly, the way an elder in Kashi might tell it to a grandchild, keeping to what is known and leaving the rest with care.

Let us start with the city, which is much older than any temple in it.

Kashi appears in very old texts, and in history it was the name of one of the great kingdoms of ancient India. Over the centuries many traditions have found a home here and nearby. Just outside the city is Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first teaching, and which Buddhists across the world hold sacred. Jain tradition, in its own telling, remembers Varanasi as the birthplace of Parshvanath, one of its tirthankaras. Each of these belongs to its own tradition, and we mention them only to say that Kashi has always been a city of many seekers.

For Shaivas, the followers of Shiva, the heart of Kashi has always been Vishwanath. Pilgrims came, as we heard in our first episode, for more centuries than anyone can count with certainty. And over those centuries, the temple building did not stay the same.

The simplest way to say it is this. The temple of Vishwanath has been destroyed and rebuilt more than once. Buildings came up, and in the upheavals of history they were brought down, and then people gathered and built again. Historians write about each of these periods in detail, and they do not always agree. We will not go through every event, and we will not name anyone as a villain. What we want to hold on to is what happened each time afterwards. The worship did not stop, and the people came back to build.

One rebuilding that is often remembered took place in the late sixteenth century. Accounts say that Raja Todar Mal, a well-known minister of that time, helped raise a temple here, working with a respected scholar of Kashi named Narayan Bhatt. That temple too did not last. For a long period after it, the worship of Vishwanath went on in simpler ways, in smaller spaces, carried by priests and families who kept the daily rites going without a grand building around them.

Think about that for a moment. For many years, pilgrims still came to Kashi. They still bathed at Dashashwamedh and Manikarnika. They still greeted Dhundhiraj and Annapurna and Kaal Bhairav. And they still offered water to Vishwanath, even when the building around him was small and plain. The city that is never let go kept its lord, with or without a shikhara over him.

Then, in the eighteenth century, came a queen from central India.

Ahilyabai Holkar ruled from Maheshwar, on the banks of the Narmada. She had lost her husband young, and later her father in law and her son, and she took up the work of ruling herself. She is remembered as a careful and just ruler. She is also remembered for her gifts to pilgrimage places across India. Temples, ghats, wells, rest houses for travellers. Her name is found at sacred places in many regions.

Ahilyabai was herself a devotee of Shiva. It is often said that she thought of her kingdom as held in trust for Shiva, and that her orders were issued in the name of Shankara. Whatever the exact form of that custom, the spirit of it comes through in the way she is remembered. People remember her as a devotee who treated the wealth of the state as something held for others, to be used for pilgrims, travellers and the poor. Her portrait hangs in many homes in Malwa to this day, and in Kashi too you will find her remembered with warmth. Families who stay in rest houses or bathe at ghats she built still say her name.

In Kashi, she built the temple of Vishwanath that stands today. It was completed in 1780. It is a modest building by the standards of great temples, built in stone, with a shikhara rising above the sanctum. It sits close among the lanes, just as the old temples of Kashi always have.

About fifty years after Ahilyabai's temple was finished, another ruler, from the far north west, made his own offering. Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab gave gold to cover the shikhara and the dome. That is the gold you see shining above the lanes today, and it is why so many people in Banaras call Vishwanath the golden temple.

The temple trust's own published history records both these gifts, Ahilyabai's building and Ranjit Singh's gold. We find it quietly moving that the temple as we know it was raised by a queen from Malwa and gilded by a king from Punjab. Over the years many other people have given too, rulers and merchants and ordinary families, some whose names are recorded and many whose names no one remembers. The building is a gift from many parts of India to one small city.

Now we come closer to our own time.

In 1983, under a law of the state of Uttar Pradesh, the management of the temple was given to a trust. The Shri Kashi Vishwanath Temple Trust now looks after the temple's daily worship and its arrangements for pilgrims. It is also the trust that publishes the temple's history and the schedule of aartis we will talk about in our next episode.

For a very long time, the temple could only be reached through narrow lanes, packed with houses on every side. Anyone who visited before the recent changes will remember squeezing through, holding their offering above their head. The river was close by, just a short walk down, but you could not see it from the temple.

In 2021, a large new complex around the temple was opened, called the Kashi Vishwanath Dham. It links the temple directly to the Ganga ghats with a wide path and open courtyards, with buildings for pilgrims and space for people to gather. Many old houses around the temple were acquired to make room for it. During the work, a number of small old shrines were found inside those houses, some of them built into walls and rooms over the years. Many of these were kept and brought into view.

People in Kashi have different feelings about the corridor, as people anywhere would about a big change in an old neighbourhood. Some are glad of the space, and of the chance for elders and families to reach the temple more easily. Some miss the old lanes and the houses that stood there. We will not choose between these feelings. Both come from love for the same city.

What is clear is that the temple has been renewed again, in the way of its own time. The sanctum at its heart, Ahilyabai's stone temple with Ranjit Singh's gold, still stands where it stood. The worship goes on as before, from the lamp before dawn to the lamp at night.

So let us gather what we heard today.

Kashi is far older than any building in it, and it has long been home to many seekers. The temple of Vishwanath has been destroyed and rebuilt more than once. One rebuilding in the late sixteenth century is remembered with the names of Raja Todar Mal and the scholar Narayan Bhatt. Through a long period after that, worship went on in simpler ways. In 1780, Ahilyabai Holkar built the temple that stands today, and about fifty years later Maharaja Ranjit Singh gave the gold that covers it. Since 1983 a trust has managed the temple, and in 2021 the Kashi Vishwanath Dham opened the temple towards the river.

One thing to take with you. Through every change in this story, what carried the temple forward was people who kept coming back to rebuild, and priests who kept the lamp lit. If there is something in your own life that has broken, a habit, a friendship, a routine of prayer, think of one small step you could take this week to begin rebuilding it. It does not have to be grand. A single lamp is enough to start.

In the next and final episode of this series, we spend a full day inside the temple, from the Mangala aarti before dawn to the Shayan aarti at night, and talk about how to have darshan with care and respect.

Keep going

• Listen: A temple rebuilt: the story of the building
• Previous: The household of Kashi: Annapurna, Kaal Bhairav and Dhundhiraj Ganesh
• Next: A day in the temple: from Mangala aarti to Shayan aarti
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• All episodes of Kashi Vishwanath: the city of light