Japanese Temple (Nichigai Horinji), Sarnath

Tucked into the leafy temple lanes of Sarnath, a short walk from the Deer Park where the Buddha preached his first sermon, the Japanese Temple is one of the quietest and most exquisitely kept shrines on the international-monastery circuit.

• Formally named the Nichigai Suzan Horinji Temple — but almost universally called simply the Japanese Temple — it was raised in 1989 by the Nichigai Suzan Buddhist community of Japan and is looked after by the Dharmachakra Indo-Japan Buddhist Cultural Society.
• It sits within the ring of temples that Buddhist nations — Japan, Thailand, Tibet, China, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Korea among them — have built around Sarnath's sacred Deer Park, each in the architectural idiom of its homeland.
• The temple is designed as a compact double-storey pagoda, its sloping tiled roofs and restrained timber lines deliberately recalling the celebrated temples of Kyoto.
• Inside, the presiding Buddha image and much of the interior furnishing are carved from fragrant sandalwood, so that a faint, calming scent hangs in the prayer hall — an unusual and memorable detail.
• Morning prayers are chanted from about 5:30 to 6:30 AM and evening prayers from 6:00 to 7:00 PM, and visitors are gently asked to keep silence, remove their shoes and let the meditative stillness of the place settle over them.
• Entry is free and the grounds are immaculate and unhurried.
• Its significance is as much diplomatic as devotional: the temple embodies the deep Indo-Japanese Buddhist friendship and the reverence in which Sarnath — ancient Mrigadava, or Deer Park — is held across the Buddhist world as the birthplace of the Dhammacakkappavattana, the Turning of the Wheel of Dharma.
• Paired with the towering Dhamek Stupa and the fresco-lined Mulagandha Kuti Vihara nearby, it rounds out a gentle, contemplative half-day of Buddhist heritage away from the intensity of Varanasi's riverfront.
• Vegetarian travellers will feel entirely at home.
• Sarnath is a Buddhist pilgrim town where satvik, meat-free eating is the norm, and the lanes around the temple offer simple pure-vegetarian kitchens — the garden-set a satvik pilgrim thali house for thalis and paneer, and unfussy roadside veg canteens for chole, baati-chokha and hot chai.
• For a fuller feast, the legendary pure-vegetarian chaat houses of Varanasi's old city — Kashi Chat Bhandar among them — are a short drive away.
• Nothing here involves meat, fish, egg or alcohol, making the whole Sarnath outing effortless for vegetarians and Jain travellers alike.