Kashi Sumeru Peeth (Sumeru Math)

Tucked into the narrow lanes of Dumraon Colony in the Bhadaini quarter of southern Varanasi, Kashi Sumeru Peeth — better known to scholars as Sumeru Math or Paduka Math — is one of the city's least-touristed but most venerable monastic institutions.

• It belongs to the Urdhvamnaya (the symbolic "northern" or upward-facing transmission) of the Advaita tradition, follows the Sama Veda, and is presided over by Dandi Sanyasi Shankaracharyas who hold the title Kashi Sumeru Peethadhishwar.
• The current head is Jagadguru Shankaracharya Swami Narendranand Saraswati.
• The math takes its second name, Paduka, from the legend that Adi Shankaracharya, on leaving Kashi, gifted his divine wooden footwear (padukas) to his disciples as a sacred keepsake; those padukas are still worshipped here, alongside the presiding deities Niranjaneshwar Mahadev and Bhadra Kali.
• Tradition holds that Adi Shankaracharya established several mathas during his stay in Kashi, and the Guruvamsa Kavya of the Sringeri lineage records Sumeru among them, giving the seat a claimed pedigree reaching back more than a thousand years.
• Through the colonial period the math was sustained by the royal house of Benares: chronicles recount that during Lord Cornwallis's era a Raja of Benares took refuge here, later became a disciple, and endowed the math with an annual maintenance grant, a patronage that continued for generations.
• For much of the last century the seat was held by learned Bengali Dandi sanyasins, and it retains a scholarly, text-centred character — this is a place of Vedanta study and monastic discipline rather than a grand pilgrimage temple. Set your expectations accordingly.
• Sumeru Math is modest, intimate and genuinely functional: a working ashram with a shrine, resident sadhus, and an atmosphere of study and prayer rather than sightseeing spectacle.
• There is no ticketing, no queue and no commercial bustle; a respectful visitor may quietly view the shrine, offer pranam and, if the Shankaracharya is in residence and available, seek darshan.
• Dress modestly, remove footwear before entering the shrine, ask before photographing anyone, and keep your voice low.
• Because it sits close to Assi and Tulsi ghats, it pairs naturally with a slow morning of ghat-walking in the calmer southern reaches of the city.
• For vegetarian travellers, this pocket of Varanasi is reassuring.
• As a Dandi Sanyasi Advaita seat, the math itself follows a strictly sattvic, vegetarian and alcohol-free monastic diet, and the surrounding Bhadaini–Sonarpura–Assi belt is dense with pure-vegetarian eateries.
• Ksheer Sagar in nearby Sonarpura is a beloved pure-veg sweets-and-snacks stop for rabri, chhena and thalis, while the Godowlia cluster a short auto ride away offers Keshari Restaurant's veg thalis and the legendary chaats of Kashi Chat Bhandar.
• One local caution worth remembering: several lassi and thandai shops around the ghats sell bhang (cannabis) thandai, so always specify a plain lassi or plain thandai without bhang if you order a cold drink.