Kashi · The Eternal City

The Sacred Ghats of Varanasi

Eighty-odd stone stairways descend to the Ganges along a single holy crescent - each ghat a world of ritual, legend and light.

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The Riverfront

A Stairway of Prayer Along the Ganges

In Varanasi, the river is not a view but a way of life - and the ghats are where the city meets the water.

Stretching in a gentle arc on the western bank of the Ganges, the ghats of Kashi have been the stage of Indian spiritual life for millennia. Pilgrims bathe at first light, priests perform the evening aarti, and lives both begin and end at the water's edge.

Each ghat below carries its own story - a palace, an observatory, a poet, a sacred flame. Explore the collection, and let us compose a private cruise that drifts past them all.

The Collection

Twelve Ghats to Discover

From the thunder of the grand aarti to half-sunken temples and palace façades - the most storied stairways of the holy city.

Dashashwamedh Ghat

Dashashwamedh Ghat

The Grand Aarti

Believed to be the ghat where Lord Brahma performed the Dasa-Ashwamedha sacrifice, this is the beating heart of Kashi's riverfront. By day it hums with pilgrims, priests and flower-sellers; by dusk it becomes a stage for the most elaborate Ganga Aarti in all of India.

Assi Ghat

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Assi Ghat

Where the Dawn Begins

At the quieter southern tip of the riverfront, Assi Ghat is where students, sadhus and travellers gather for Subah-e-Banaras - a daily dawn celebration of Vedic chanting, classical ragas and collective yoga on the steps.

Subah-e-Banaras

Manikarnika Ghat

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Manikarnika Ghat

The Eternal Flame

Manikarnika is the foremost mahasmasana - the great cremation ground - where the funeral fires are said never to have gone out. The name recalls the legend of Shiva's earring (manikarnika) falling into a sacred well dug by Vishnu beside the river.

Man Mandir Ghat

Man Mandir Ghat

The Stargazer's Steps

Built by the Rajput king Man Singh of Amber around 1600, the honey-stone palace here is one of the oldest surviving structures on the riverfront, its windows and balconies carved in fine Rajasthani style.

Darbhanga Ghat

Darbhanga Ghat

Palace on the Ganges

Commissioned by Bengal and Bihar nobility in the early 1900s, the palace at Darbhanga Ghat has been lovingly restored into one of India's most atmospheric heritage hotels, complete with a century-old hand-operated lift.

Panchganga Ghat

Panchganga Ghat

Confluence of Five

Panchganga takes its name from the mythical meeting of five rivers - Ganga, Yamuna, Saraswati, Kirana and Dhutpapa. The towering minarets of the Alamgir Mosque, raised by Aurangzeb over an earlier temple, lend the ghat a striking skyline.

Sacred Confluence

Kedar Ghat

Kedar Ghat

The Southern Sentinel

Linked in devotion to Kedarnath in the high Himalayas, this southern ghat is crowned by the red-spired Kedareshwar temple and is a particular favourite of Bengali and South Indian pilgrims.

Scindia Ghat

Scindia Ghat

The Submerged Shrine

When the Scindia royal family rebuilt this ghat in the 19th century, the sheer weight of the marble caused a riverside Shiva temple to subside, leaving it partly submerged and gently tilted - an image now emblematic of the Varanasi waterfront.

Harishchandra Ghat

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Harishchandra Ghat

The Ancient Pyre

Harishchandra is the older of the city's two great cremation ghats, named for the mythic king who, to honour a vow of truth, laboured here as a keeper of the funeral grounds.

Tulsi Ghat

Tulsi Ghat

The Poet's Steps

Originally Lolark Ghat, this southern ghat was renamed for the 16th-century poet-saint Goswami Tulsidas, who lived here while composing the Ramcharitmanas - the beloved Awadhi retelling of the Ramayana.

Lalita Ghat

Lalita Ghat

The Nepali Temple

Built by the King of Nepal in the 19th century, the Samrajeshwar Pashupateshwar temple at Lalita Ghat is a rare survival of terracotta and intricately carved wood in the Kathmandu style, dedicated to a form of Shiva.

Chet Singh Ghat

Chet Singh Ghat

The Fortress Ghat

The sandstone fortress walls rising over this southern ghat belonged to Raja Chet Singh, the 18th-century ruler of Banaras. In 1781 it was the scene of a dramatic confrontation with the British under Warren Hastings.

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