Gauri Kund

Tucked into the upper steps of Kedar Ghat, just above the Ganga in the Bengali Tola quarter, Gauri Kund is a modest square stone tank that carries an outsized weight of sacred meaning.

• Where the great river ghats of Varanasi announce themselves with sweeping stairways and crowds, this kund is easy to walk past — a quiet reservoir set against the eastern wall of which is carved an image of Gauri, the benign form of Parvati, consort of Shiva.
• Pilgrims pause here to touch the water before climbing to the Gauri Kedareshwar temple that presides over the ghat, for in the orthodox theology of Kashi, Shiva is rarely worshipped without Shakti near at hand.
• The tank is fed largely by monsoon rain and seepage, so it brims after the rains and lies shallow or dry through the hot months — a rhythm that has defined it for centuries.
• The kund's stature comes from scripture.
• The Kashi Khand of the Skanda Purana names Gauri Kund alongside the Hans and Manasarovar tirthas in connection with Kedareshwar; the other two are said to have dried and vanished, but Gauri Kund endures.
• Devout tradition calls it the 'Adi Manikarnika' — the original or 'first' Manikarnika — and on that reckoning glorifies it as the greatest of the city's bathing tirthas, a claim reinforced by its nearness to the Kedar Khand, the southern sacred precinct whose master deity is Kedareshwar.
• It is also remembered as Haranpapa Tirtha, the 'sin-dispelling' pool, and pilgrims consider a ritual bath or sip here, followed by the puja and abhishek of Kedareshwar, to be an especially auspicious act of merit.
• As a place to visit, Gauri Kund rewards the unhurried.
• It is not a manicured monument but a living devotional corner, best experienced at dawn when priests and residents descend the Kedar Ghat steps, bells sound from the striped red-and-white temple above, and the light off the Ganga is soft and golden.
• Give it fifteen or twenty minutes as part of a slow southern-ghats walk that takes in Kedar Ghat, its warren of shrines, and neighbouring Chauki and Vijayanagaram ghats.
• Dress modestly, remove footwear near the shrines, and ask before photographing anyone at prayer.
• For the vegetarian traveller, this pocket of Varanasi is a genuine pleasure.
• The lanes rising from Kedar Ghat into Sonarpura and Bengali Tola are dense with pure-vegetarian kitchens that need no compromise: Ksheer Sagar in Sonarpura for immaculate sweets, kachori-sabzi and thalis, and, a short walk or rickshaw away, the legendary chaat counters of the old city.
• A word of caution shared with every Kashi visitor — Varanasi's famous thandai and 'special lassi' shops sometimes serve bhang (a cannabis preparation); always ask explicitly for a plain, bhang-free lassi or thandai.
• Stick to the pure-veg sweet houses and chaat stalls named below and you will eat superbly and safely.