History & Legend
Rising from the ghats of the Ganga at Varanasi, the Kashi Vishwanath Temple is considered the holiest of all Shiva shrines and one of the twelve Jyotirlingas — the self-manifested pillars of divine light.
The most profound belief of Kashi holds that those who die here receive Moksha because Lord Shiva himself whispers the Taraka Mantra into their ears at the moment of death. The present golden-spired structure was built in 1780 by Maharani Ahilyabai Holkar after the original temple was demolished by Aurangzeb in 1669 CE. The three-domed shikhara is covered with 800 kg of gold donated by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1835.
Every day, five Aratis sanctify the Jyotirlinga — from the predawn Mangala Aarti to the midnight Shayan Aarti. The temple complex underwent a massive ₹800-crore redevelopment project, inaugurated in 2021, that restored the grand temple corridor. To visit Kashi Vishwanath is to stand at the very axis of the universe — where Shiva's grace flows as freely as the Ganga herself.