New Vishwanath Temple (Birla Mandir), BHU

Set amid the tree-lined avenues of Banaras Hindu University, the New Vishwanath Temple — better known as the Birla Mandir — is one of the most graceful modern temples in India.

• Rising in gleaming white marble to roughly 77 metres (about 250 feet), its shikhara is often described as one of the tallest temple towers in the world, taller than the Qutub Minar.
• It was conceived by the university's visionary founder, Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, who wished to recreate the spirit of the ancient Kashi Vishwanath shrine inside a place of learning; the industrialist and philanthropist Birla family funded and built it, laying the foundation in 1931 and completing the work in 1966.
• The result is a temple where scholarship and devotion meet — a quiet, luminous space that feels worlds away from the fervent lanes of the riverside old city.
• Though principally dedicated to Lord Shiva, whose lingam sits in the ground-floor sanctum, the temple houses nine shrines under one roof, including Durga, Lakshmi-Narayan, Nataraja, Parvati, Ganesha, Panchmukhi Mahadev, Hanuman and Saraswati.
• Its most distinctive feature is the text of the Bhagavad Gita, along with verses from other sacred Hindu scriptures, engraved in full across the polished marble walls — an invitation to read, pause and reflect.
• In keeping with Malaviya's egalitarian ideals, the temple is open to everyone regardless of caste, creed or nationality, a principle that still feels quietly radical in a city of many gated sanctums.
• The atmosphere here is the temple's real gift: cool marble underfoot, birdsong from the surrounding gardens, and an unhurried calm that rewards a slow, contemplative visit.
• Come at dawn or dusk for the aarti, when lamplight glows against the white stone, or in the gentler hours of late afternoon to simply sit in the courtyard.
• Because it lies deep inside the leafy BHU campus, a walk or cycle-rickshaw ride to the temple doubles as a tour of one of Asia's most beautiful university grounds.
• For vegetarian travellers the setting could not be easier: Varanasi is one of India's great satvik, pure-vegetarian cities, and the Lanka–Assi neighbourhood at BHU's northern gate is thick with pure-veg cafes and chaat counters.
• You can pair the temple visit with a wood-fired margherita at a pure-veg pizzeria near Assi Ghat, a wholesome litti-chokha thali, or a plate of Banarasi chaat — all entirely free of meat, fish, egg and alcohol, in keeping with the temple's own austere, contemplative mood.