This is an ancient place associated with Hanuman’s name. Here is a huge temple known as Sankatmochan. It is believed that Tulsidas had himself established this temple.

Sankat Mochan temple is one of the sacred temples of Varanasi. It is located in the southern part of Varanasi, near the Banaras Hindu University. It is dedicated to the Hindu God, Hanuman. The word "Sankat Mochan" means one who helps in removing sufferings i. e. Lord Hanuman. Tulsidas, the author of the famous Hindu epic Ramacharitamanasa, founded the Sankat Mochan temple. According to Hindu mythology, one who visits the Sankat Mochan temple regularly, his wishes get fulfilled.

Every Tuesday and Saturday, thousands of devotees queue up in front of the Sankat Mochan temple to offer prayers to Lord Hanuman. According to Vedic Astrology, Hanuman protects human beings from the anger of planet Saturn and those who have ill placed Saturn in their horoscope visit the Sankat Mochan temple to get remedy. People put "Sindoor" on the statue and offer "laddoos" to Lord Hanuman. The "Sindoor", from the statue of Lord Hanuman is put on the foreheads of devotees.

History

t is considered that the temple was built from the time when Goswami Tulsidas had a vision of the Hanuman. The temple was established by the great saint Goswami Tulsidas (the author of the Ramacharitamanas). The Ramcharitamanas is the Hindi edition of the Hindu epic Ramayana which was initially written by the Valmiki. Sankat Mochan Foundation was started by the Veer Bhadra Mishra (the high priest of the temple) in 1982. Veer Bhadra Mishra was working for cleaning and protecting the holy River Gange. This project was financed by the U. S. and the Swedish governments. Veer Bhadra Mishra was the previous chief of the Department of Civil Engineering in the IIT, BHU, Varanasi.

7th March 2006 leave a very bad impression on the devotees of the Lord Hanuman. At that day, one of the three explosions took place there and hit the temple. We lost so much on that explosion. That event was happened while the aarti was going on and affected the several worshippers and wedding participators. The most important thing to know is that, the temple was full of devotees on the next day of the explosion. The permanent police security is there after the terrorist event of 2007.

How to Reach

You can reach to the temple by hiring a car or by taking auto rickshaw. Sankat Mochan Temple is located about 11 km from the railway station of Varanasi and same distance from roadways bus stand and 3 km from the BHU. You can easily reach the temple from any where in Varanasi as there is very good facility of Auto rickshaw at every location just ask driver the way to reach he will guide your clearly.

From railway station / roadways bus stand You can take auto rickshaw for Sankat Mochan directly from Banaras railway station or roadways bus stand, it will charge Rs 15 and will take 45 minutes to reach.