Viswanatha Temple

We rested well the first night. Woke up early in the morning. We had to wait for the bathroom to be vacant. Hot water was supplied by the bucket for each person. after the three of us were ready, the guide took us in an auto rickshaw to the temple. We had to walk a bit after we got off that vehicle. Varanasi felt really like a small village. As we were walking along a wall, to my surprise, I saw a huge Mosque. What is this structure doing in the Hindu Temple compound, I thought!! It was the Gyanvapi Mosque built by the Mughal king Aurangzeb at the site of the holiest Hindu Temple in Varanasi, the original Viswanatha Temple. He was so ruthless, I learned that he destroyed all the Hindu Temples and changed the name of the city also to Mohammadabad. This Mosque was a huge structure. We walked around it to enter the current Temple, which I think was built during his time only.

Anyway, we went inside the Temple. It was small in size, very crowded. Lot of security was there since just a few months prior to our visit, there was a bomb threat. We were not allowed to stand near the lingam for too long. Previously devotees were allowed to pour water or milk to do the abhishekam to the lingam. By the way, this is one of the twelve Jyothirlingams. We just tried to touch the lingam to get the divine vibrations. The smell of rotten coconut, milk, stagnant water etc. really turned me off. I tried my best to focus on God.

There were many small temples around and we got blessings from each priest. I enjoyed that very much when they gave a slight pat on the back with a wand and tied a red thread around our right wrist. In return, we deposited some donation in each of these places. Purely voluntary of course!