Marghat Wale Baba Hanuman Mandir

Tucked into the old riverside quarter of Yamuna Bazar, between Kashmere Gate and the Yamuna floodplain, the Marghat Wale Baba Hanuman Mandir is one of Delhi's most atmospheric and least self-conscious shrines.

• Its unusual name comes from the marghat — the cremation grounds that historically lined this stretch of riverbank near Nigambodh Ghat — and devotees know its presiding deity affectionately as Marghat Wale Baba, the Baba of the burning ghats.
• What sets the temple apart from the city's grander Hanuman houses is its sunken sanctum: the swayambhu (self-manifested) idol is set roughly seven to eight feet below the surrounding ground, so pilgrims descend toward the deity rather than looking up at it, a spatial reversal that lends the darshan a quiet, cave-like intimacy.
• Local tradition threads the shrine into the Ramayana.
• As the story goes, when Hanuman flew across the north Indian plains carrying the whole Sanjeevani-bearing mountain to save the wounded Lakshmana, he paused at the Yamuna here — and the spot where his presence rested is marked by this self-formed murti.
• The temple is remembered as having been re-established by the ascetic Sant Shri Markata Babaji, and generations of caretakers have kept it alive through the centuries near the walls of old Shahjahanabad.
• Alongside the main Hanuman sanctum, smaller shrines to Kali and Shani sit within the compound, giving the complex the layered, organically grown feel of a genuine neighbourhood tirtha rather than a manicured tourist stop.
• The temple runs on a devotional rather than a sightseeing rhythm.
• Mornings bring an unhurried aarti and the scent of sindoor and marigold; Tuesdays and Saturdays — the days sacred to Hanuman and Shani — draw dense, joyful crowds, with queues of red-thread-tying devotees spilling toward the lane.
• Come on an ordinary weekday morning and you may have the sunken sanctum almost to yourself.
• Vegetarian travellers are on entirely safe ground here: the prasad is pure-vegetarian (boondi, laddoo, and chola) and, as at any Hindu temple, no meat, egg, or alcohol enters the premises.
• For a proper meal, the pure-veg institutions of Chandni Chowk are a short auto-ride south — kachori, chaat, and thalis that are among Old Delhi's finest.