Gita Bhawan

Gita Bhawan is one of the largest and best-loved of the ashram-guesthouses that line the eastern, roadless bank of the Ganga at Swarg Ashram in Rishikesh, just upstream of the Ram Jhula suspension bridge.

• Developed through the middle decades of the twentieth century by the Geeta Bhawan (Swargashram) Trust, it grew from a simple pilgrim shelter into a sprawling devotional campus organised around the propagation of the Bhagavad Gita.
• Today the complex is best known for three things a visitor can enjoy in a single unhurried hour: its painted halls, its bookshop, and its riverside calm.
• Admission is free, and the atmosphere — bells, the murmur of satsang, and the constant sound of the Ganga a few steps away — makes it one of the gentlest introductions to Rishikesh's spiritual character.
• The defining feature is the artwork.
• Verandahs, stairwells and the walls of the Lakshmi Narayan temple within the compound are covered with brightly coloured murals and inscribed shlokas (verses) drawn from the Gita, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana.
• The most photographed panel is the Gita Sandesh scene of Krishna counselling Arjuna from the chariot on the field of Kurukshetra, rendered in the blues, golds and reds typical of North Indian devotional painting.
• Reading the illustrated stories as you climb from level to level is effectively a walk through the Hindu epics, which is why the Bhawan is popular with families and first-time pilgrims.
• The Gita Bhawan bookshop is an institution in its own right — a well-stocked counter of inexpensive scripture, commentaries and illustrated children's titles published by the Gorakhpur-based Gita Press, alongside a cloth store and a long-running Ayurvedic dispensary whose herbal preparations, traditionally compounded with Himalayan herbs and Ganga water, are distributed free and also sold at modest prices.
• The Trust runs the campus in the spirit of atithi devo bhava (the guest is divine), offering simple rooms to genuine pilgrims and a plain, sattvic community kitchen.
• For vegetarian and teetotal travellers, Swarg Ashram could not be easier: Rishikesh is a holy city where meat, eggs and alcohol are prohibited by law, and the whole east bank is a pilgrim zone of pure-vegetarian bhojanalayas, chai stalls and prasad counters.
• Gita Bhawan pairs naturally with a slow morning at Parmarth Niketan, the Triveni Ghat aarti, or a walk across Ram Jhula, and it is best appreciated calmly and respectfully as a living place of worship rather than a ticketed sight.