Naag Kund (Karkotak Nageshwar)

Tucked into the tangled lanes of Jaitpura, one of the oldest inhabited pockets of Kashi, Naag Kund — better known locally as Nag Kuan, Nag Kupa or Karkotak Nageshwar — is one of Varanasi's most secretive sacred sites.

• It is not a temple you can simply walk into.
• A square stepwell sinks some 45 feet into the ground, with steep stone staircases descending on all four sides to dark water, and somewhere in that water rests the Karkotak Nageshwar Mahadev linga.
• For 364 days of the year the well is sealed and the linga lies hidden below the surface.
• Only when the well is drained and cleaned for Nag Panchami does the deity briefly return to view, which is why devotees speak of a Shivling that 'opens only once a year.' The well's real fame, though, is scholarly as much as spiritual.
• Tradition holds that the sage Patanjali sat in penance here and composed the Mahabhashya, his great commentary on Panini's Ashtadhyayi (the ancient name for the site is Karkotaka Vapi), and the place is remembered in the Kashi Khanda of the Skanda Purana.
• The stone stepwell you see today owes its present form to a royal renovation in the nineteenth century (an inscription near the well records repairs around 1825, with the antiquarian James Prinsep later associated with the site).
• Below the visible well, an iron sheet is said to cover a still older shaft — the original spring the sages would have known.
• On Nag Panchami (the fifth day of the bright fortnight of Shravan — 17 August in 2026), the sleepy mohalla transforms.
• A grand mela spills through the lanes; the neighbouring akharas are scrubbed and their walls painted with images of serpents; and in the afternoon Banaras's famed pehalwans gather for kushti bouts and dangals that draw huge crowds.
• Pilgrims take darshan of Nageshwar to be freed of Kaal Sarp Dosh, and a dip is believed to guard against snakebite.
• Come on any other day and you will find a quiet, atmospheric relic — but the well itself will be closed.
• For vegetarian travellers this corner of the old city is a delight, because Jaitpura and neighbouring Chowk are overwhelmingly satvik.
• A short walk down to Thatheri Bazaar brings you to the legendary Ram Bhandar, a pure-vegetarian institution that has fried its crisp kachori with aloo-tamatar sabzi and saffron jalebi in desi ghee — and without onion or garlic — for over a century and a half.
• Godowlia and Dashashwamedh, a little further on, add Kashi Chat Bhandar and Deena Chaat Bhandar to the trail, all strictly meat-free and alcohol-free, so you can pair a morning at Nag Kuan with some of Varanasi's finest pure-veg street food.