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Spiritual & Pilgrimage
Saptashrungi Temple, Maharashtra
Chamundeshwari Temple, Karnataka
Mecca Masjid (Hyderabad), Telangana
Vaishno Devi (Katra), Jammu & Kashmir
Old Goa (Basilica of Bom Jesus), Goa
Danteshwari Temple, Chhattisgarh
Hemis Monastery, Leh & Ladakh
Kamakhya Temple, Assam
Ajmer Sharif Dargah, Rajasthan
Dwarka, Gujarat
Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh
Bajreshwari Mata Temple (Kangra), Himachal Pradesh

Spiritual & Pilgrimage

Spiritual & Pilgrimage
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Temples, ghats and the timeless soul of Bharat.

187places28statesOctober–March

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Individual sights and experiences, rather than whole places to stay.

Mahakaleshwar Temple

Ujjain (Mahakaleshwar)

Mahakaleshwar Temple

The Jyotirlinga of Shiva famed for the daily pre-dawn Bhasma Aarti.

Kailash Temple (Cave 16)

Ellora Caves

Kailash Temple (Cave 16)

Cut downwards out of one piece of hillside in the eighth century until a complete two-storey temple stood clear of the rock — nothing was added, only stone taken away. Ellora closes on Tuesdays. Walk up the side path for the view down into it.

Akshardham Temple Complex

Gandhinagar

Akshardham Temple Complex

A BAPS Swaminarayan temple complex of twenty-three acres, conceived by Yogiji Maharaj and built under Pramukh Swami Maharaj over thirteen years. The mandir at its centre uses six thousand tonnes of pink sandstone brought from Rajasthan. Akshardham is the abode of Swaminarayan, where followers hold the soul goes after liberation, which is what the complex is named for. On 24 September 2002 two Lashkar-e-Taiba gunmen attacked it and killed thirty-three worshippers; security has been heavy ever since, and phones, bags and cameras do not go past the gate.

Neminath Jain Temples

Girnar Hills

Neminath Jain Temples

A walled cluster of marble Jain temples around the 3,500-step mark, built between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. Neminath's temple at the centre is the main one, and the courtyards are the first flat ground on the climb, so most people rest here.

Guru Dattatreya Paduka Temple

Girnar Hills

Guru Dattatreya Paduka Temple

At the very top of Girnar's stair, which everyone counts as 9,999 steps. Dattatreya's footprints are the object of worship, on a rock platform barely wider than the shrine. The ropeway stops well below — the last stretch has to be walked.

St. Thomas Hilltop Shrine

Malayattoor

St. Thomas Hilltop Shrine

The Vatican-recognised hilltop church reached by a forest climb.

Mansa Devi Temple

Haridwar

Mansa Devi Temple

On Bilwa Parvat above the town, three kilometres up by ropeway or on foot. Pilgrims tie a thread here and come back to untie it if the wish is granted.

Chandi Devi Temple

Haridwar

Chandi Devi Temple

On Neel Parvat across the river, four kilometres out, by ropeway or a three-kilometre climb. One of the Siddha Peethas, and it pairs with Mansa Devi on the opposite hill.

Daksha Mahadev Temple

Haridwar

Daksha Mahadev Temple

At Kankhal, five kilometres south, and the site the whole Sati story turns on — this is where her father held the sacrifice she died at. Quieter than Har Ki Pauri and more interesting for it.

Srikalahasti Temple

Srikalahasti

Srikalahasti Temple

An ancient Shiva temple of the wind element, famed for its windless flickering lamp.

Dwarkadhish Temple (Jagat Mandir)

Dwarka

Dwarkadhish Temple (Jagat Mandir)

The Jagat Mandir — a Krishna temple where he is worshipped as Dwarkadhish, lord of Dwarka, and one of the four Char Dham sites of the Hindu pilgrimage circuit. Five storeys carried on seventy-two pillars, with a spire visible across the town and a flag that is changed by hand several times a day. Archaeology puts the earliest temple on this spot at around 200 BCE; what stands now is largely a fifteenth- and sixteenth-century rebuilding. There are two gates, one to enter by and one to leave by, and a queue at both right through the morning.

Dwarkadhish Temple

Dwarka

Dwarkadhish Temple

The five-storey temple of Krishna as king, with its famous flag changed five times a day.

Lakshman Temple

Hemkund Sahib

Lakshman Temple

A small temple beside the lake at Hemkund, marking where Lakshman is said to have meditated. At 4,600 metres, so do not linger.

Vishnupad Temple Front

Mangala Gauri Temple

Vishnupad Temple Front

A riverside temple three kilometres out, built over a stone footprint held to be Vishnu's. Pilgrims come here for ancestral rites; non-Hindus are not admitted to the inner sanctum.

Bhimashankar Temple

Bhimashankar

Bhimashankar Temple

The hill Jyotirlinga temple of Shiva in the Sahyadri forests.

Baidyanath Temple

Deoghar (Baidyanath Dham)

Baidyanath Temple

The Jyotirlinga of Shiva at the centre of the Shravan kanwar pilgrimage.

Ganpatipule Ganesh Temple

Ganpatipule Beach

Ganpatipule Ganesh Temple

A swayambhu Ganesh temple right beside the beach.

Girnar Jain Temple Group

Girnar (Jain Temples)

Girnar Jain Temple Group

A cluster of Jain temples partway up Girnar, the ancient hill above Junagadh, and one of the great Svetambara pilgrimages — a Mahatirth. Tradition holds that Neminath, the twenty-second Tirthankara, attained omniscience here and later nirvana at the highest peak, along with five hundred and thirty-three other enlightened sages; the Kalpa Sutra and the Uttaradhyayana Sutra both describe it. The temples sit several thousand steps above the base. The climb is the point and it is a real one — start before dawn, or take the ropeway up and walk down.

Explore spiritual & pilgrimage

Filter by state, or keep scrolling — 28 states for pilgrimage & reflection.

Maharashtra

Kunkeshwar Beach

Located in Devgad taluka of Sindhudurg district, Kunkeshwar Beach sits along a peaceful stretch of the southern Konkan coast, about 480 km from Mumbai. The beach is dominated by the Kunkeshwar Temple—a grand 11th-century stone Shiva temple built right on the golden sand shore, often dubbed the 'Kashi of South Konkan'.

Maharashtra

Harihareshwar Beach

Positioned in the southern corner of Raigad district, Harihareshwar lies about 200 km south of Mumbai. The beach is surrounded by four sacred hills—Harihareshwar, Harshinagiri, Bramhagiri, and Kalagiri—where the Savitri River flows into the sea. Often called 'Dakshin Kashi', the beach features dramatic geological rock structures carved out by ocean tides over centuries. A natural rock-cut cliff path allows visitors to perform a scenic coastal walk behind the ancient Lord Shiva temple.

Gujarat

Beyt Dwarka Beach

Situated on Beyt Dwarka island, accessible via boat or the Sudarshan Setu bridge. It features shallow coral reefs, white sand, and marine life.

Gujarat

Madhavpur Beach

A postcard-worthy coast lined with coconut trees and clear blue waters. The drive along NH-8E running parallel to this beach is considered one of Gujarat's most scenic roads.

Tamil Nadu

Rameshwaram (Ramanathaswamy Temple)

Rameshwaram sits at the very tip of a slender island connected to the Tamil Nadu mainland by the Pamban Bridge, looking out across the Palk Strait toward Sri Lanka. At its heart is the Ramanathaswamy Temple, famous for the longest corridor of any temple in India — a nearly 1,200-metre passage of sculpted pillars that seems to stretch to the horizon. As one of the twelve Jyotirlingas and one of the four Char Dham, it draws pilgrims from every corner of the country, many of whom arrive after Varanasi, believing a visit to Rameshwaram completes the pilgrimage circuit.

Maharashtra

Pandharpur

Pandharpur on the Chandrabhaga (Bhima) river is the spiritual heart of Maharashtra — home of Vitthal, the brick-standing form of Krishna, and his consort Rakhumai. For 800 years the Varkari saints, from Dnyaneshwar to Tukaram, have sung their way here; every Ashadhi Ekadashi, palkhis bearing the saints' padukas converge on foot from across the state in the wari, a river of dindis a million strong chanting 'Vitthal Vitthal' to the doors of the dark, smiling god.

Madhya Pradesh

Omkareshwar

Omkareshwar is one of the twelve jyotirlingas, set on an island in the Narmada shaped — pilgrims will show you — like the sacred syllable Om. The Omkareshwar temple's tiered shikhara rises above the ghats on Mandhata island, reached by boat or the arched footbridges, and a parikrama path circles the island past shrines, sadhus and river views. On the far bank stands Mamleshwar, its partner jyotirlinga shrine, completing the darshan.

Madhya Pradesh

Amarkantak

Amarkantak is where the Narmada is born — a hilltop sanctuary in the Maikal range where India's holiest westward river rises from a small white-tiled kund ringed by temples. The Sone river springs from the same plateau to flow east, making this a rare watershed of sacred geography. Around the Narmada Udgam cluster the ancient Kalachuri-era temples, Kapil Dhara falls where the infant river first leaps, and forests rich with medicinal herbs.

Karnataka

Sringeri Sharada Peetham

Sringeri, folded into the Western Ghats on the Tunga river, is the first and foremost of the four peethams founded by Adi Shankaracharya in the 8th century — chosen, says tradition, when he saw a cobra shading a frog in labour from the sun. The Vidyashankara temple's zodiac-pillared hall and the golden Sharadamba shrine anchor a living centre of Vedic learning, while thousands of fish swarm the ghats where pilgrims feed them as the goddess's own.

Karnataka

Dharmasthala

Dharmasthala is Karnataka's temple of harmony: a Shiva shrine (Manjunatha) whose priests are Vaishnava Brahmins and whose hereditary guardians, the Heggade family, are Jain — dispensing dharma, justice and food to all comers for over 800 years. Its annadana feeds tens of thousands daily in one of India's great free kitchens, while the 12-metre Bahubali monolith and a vintage-car museum stand nearby on the Netravati's banks.

Tamil Nadu

Palani Murugan Temple

Palani's Dhandayuthapani Swamy — Murugan as the renunciate boy with staff and loincloth — watches from his hill shrine over one of Tamil Nadu's greatest pilgrimages. This is where the child god, losing the contest for the fruit of wisdom, stormed off declaring 'You yourself are the fruit' (Pazham Nee), and where the idol, by tradition, was shaped by siddha Bogar from nine poisonous minerals. Pilgrims climb the 690 steps, ride the winch trains, or carry kavadis in their lakhs at Thaipusam.

Tamil Nadu

Tiruvannamalai (Arunachaleswarar)

At Tiruvannamalai, Shiva is the mountain itself — Arunachala, the hill of fire, with the vast Arunachaleswarar temple at its foot spreading over ten hectares beneath four colossal gopurams. Pilgrims walk the 14-km girivalam barefoot around the hill every full moon, and on Karthigai Deepam a giant cauldron of ghee is lit on the summit, visible for miles. The ashram of Ramana Maharshi, the sage of self-enquiry who never left the mountain, draws seekers from every continent.

Punjab

Fatehgarh Sahib

Gurdwara Fatehgarh Sahib rises in white marble over the site of Sikhism's most heart-rending sacrifice — where in 1704 the two youngest sons of Guru Gobind Singh, aged just seven and nine, were bricked alive by the Sirhind governor for refusing to abandon their faith. The underground Bhora Sahib preserves the wall's site; nearby stand Mata Gujri's tower prison and the shrine of Todar Mal, who bought the cremation ground with gold coins laid edge to edge.

West Bengal

Dakshineswar Kali Temple

Dakshineswar, on the Hooghly north of Kolkata, is the great navaratna (nine-spired) temple of Bhavatarini Kali built by Rani Rashmoni in 1855 — and the temple where Sri Ramakrishna served as priest, had his God-intoxicated visions, and drew the world to Kali's feet. His room in the courtyard's corner is preserved as he left it; twelve Shiva temples line the riverfront, and ferries cross to Belur Math on the far bank.

West Bengal

Belur Math

Belur Math, headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission on the Hooghly's west bank, was consecrated by Swami Vivekananda in 1899. Its main temple is a deliberate symphony of faiths — a facade that reads as temple, church and mosque depending on where you stand — enshrining Sri Ramakrishna's relics. The riverside campus of lawns and shrines to Holy Mother Sarada Devi and Vivekananda breathes an orderly, universal calm unlike anywhere else in Kolkata.

Karnataka

Udupi Sri Krishna Matha

Udupi's Krishna Matha, founded by the Dvaita philosopher Madhvacharya in the 13th century, is one of South India's busiest temple towns. Krishna is famously seen not face-on but through the silver-plated Kanakana Kindi — the window through which the low-caste devotee Kanakadasa was granted darshan when the image, by legend, turned to face him. Eight surrounding mathas rotate charge in the biennial Paryaya pageant, and the temple's kitchens seeded the world's beloved Udupi cuisine.

Telangana

Yadadri (Yadagirigutta)

Yadadri's hilltop cave shrine of Lakshmi Narasimha — the fierce man-lion form of Vishnu — has been transformed into Telangana's grandest temple: the hill re-clad entirely in carved black granite by hundreds of sthapathis in a decade-long rebuild, its vimana gilded with quintals of gold. Inside, the self-manifested Narasimha images sit in a low rock cleft where devotees have prayed for centuries, many coming for the deity's famed healing grace.

Jharkhand

Rajrappa (Chhinnamastika Temple)

At Rajrappa the Damodar and Bhairavi rivers meet below a red-washed shrine of Chhinnamastika — the self-decapitated Tantric goddess who feeds her attendants from her own severed head, an image of fearless self-sacrifice. One of India's most important Tantric peeths, the temple hums with drummers, sacrifices and river-bathing pilgrims, while the waterfall confluence below gives the place a wild, elemental setting.

Jammu & Kashmir

Kheer Bhawani (Tulmulla)

In a spring-fed pool at Tulmulla, shaded by great chinars, sits the marble shrine of Ragnya Devi — Kheer Bhawani, named for the rice-pudding offered to her. She is the beloved guardian goddess of the Kashmiri Pandits, and her spring is famous for changing colour, read for generations as an omen for the Valley. The annual mela on Jyeshtha Ashtami brings Pandit families home from across India in Kashmir's most poignant homecoming.

Kerala

Chottanikkara Temple

Chottanikkara Bhagavathy, on Kochi's green edge, is one of Kerala's most powerful goddess temples — the Devi worshipped as Saraswati at dawn, Lakshmi at noon and Durga at dusk. The temple is famed across the South for healing afflictions of the mind; at the lower Kizhukkavu shrine, the guardian Bhadrakali's ancient paala tree bristles with nails driven in as spirits are exorcised at the wrenching Guruthi Pooja each night.

Delhi

Akshardham (Delhi)

Swaminarayan Akshardham on the Yamuna's east bank is modern India's grandest act of temple-building — a pink sandstone and white marble mandir raised in just five years by volunteers and artisans working from ancient shilpa texts. 234 carved pillars, 20,000 sculpted figures, a colonnade of 148 stone elephants and the gilded murti of Bhagwan Swaminarayan lead out to exhibitions, a boat ride through Indian civilisation, and the evening musical fountain.

Goa

Shantadurga Temple

Shantadurga, at the foot of the Ponda hills, is the most visited of Goa's Hindu temples — dedicated to the goddess who mediated peace between Shiva and Vishnu, worshipped here in her calm (shanta) form. The temple's Indo-Portuguese architecture is unique to Goa: a pyramidal roof, a white six-storey deepastambha (lamp tower), Roman-arched windows and chandeliered halls, all in deep maroon and cream, rebuilt in the 1730s under Maratha patronage after the original shrine fled the Inquisition.

Goa

Mangeshi Temple

Shri Manguesh at Priol is the largest and most famous temple in Goa, home of Mangesh — a form of Shiva worshipped by generations of Goud Saraswat Brahmins, including the family of Lata Mangeshkar, who took their name from the deity. Its white seven-storey lamp tower is a Goan icon, rising from a compound of tiled courtyards, a temple tank and agrashalas, the whole ensemble in that unmistakable Goan temple style born of exile from the coastal talukas.

Telangana

Bhadrachalam

Bhadrachalam, on the Godavari, is the 'Ayodhya of the South' — the seat of Sita Ramachandraswamy, whose temple was raised in the 17th century by the tahsildar-saint Kancherla Gopanna, remembered as Bhakta Ramadasu for the kirtans he wrote in prison for the temple's sake. The Sri Rama Navami kalyanam (celestial wedding) performed here draws lakhs, with the state itself presenting pearls for the ritual, a tradition running unbroken from the Qutb Shahi kings.

Arunachal Pradesh

Parshuram Kund

Parshuram Kund, on the Lohit river where it leaves the hills, is Arunachal's holiest Hindu site — the pool where, by legend, sage Parshuram washed away the sin of matricide and the axe fell from his hand. Every Makar Sankranti (mid-January), tens of thousands of pilgrims from Assam and beyond descend to the boulder-strewn river for a freezing holy dip, turning the remote gorge into a great mela. The rest of the year it is a quiet, mountain-ringed bend of jade water.

Chhattisgarh

Bhoramdeo Temple

Bhoramdeo, wrapped in the forested Maikal hills, is called the 'Khajuraho of Chhattisgarh' — an 11th-century Shiva temple of the Nagvanshi kings whose walls carry tier upon tier of sculpted musicians, dancers, deities and frankly amorous couples. The sanctum's dark stone Shiva sits behind a hall of carved pillars, and two earlier brick temples and a sculpture-filled lawn complete the complex beside a lotus pond.

Chhattisgarh

Dongargarh (Bamleshwari Temple)

At Dongargarh the goddess Bamleshwari watches from a 1,600-step hilltop — the Badi (elder) Bamleshwari — while her sister shrine, Chhoti Bamleshwari, stands in the town below. The temple is Chhattisgarh's busiest pilgrimage, its twin Navratri fairs drawing lakhs of devotees who climb through the night as the hill glows with lamps. A ropeway now glides over the boulders for those who skip the stairs.

Haryana

Kurukshetra (Brahma Sarovar)

Kurukshetra is the battlefield of the Mahabharata and the ground where the Bhagavad Gita was spoken. Its heart is the vast Brahma Sarovar, one of India's largest sacred tanks, ringed by ghats and shrines where lakhs bathe during solar eclipses. Nearby lie Jyotisar, the banyan under which Krishna is said to have counselled Arjuna, the Sannihit Sarovar, and the modern Sri Krishna and panorama museums that retell the epic.

Leh & Ladakh

Thiksey Monastery

Thiksey Gompa cascades down a hillock above the Indus like a miniature Potala Palace — twelve storeys of whitewashed cells, red-ochre temples and golden finials. The seat of the Gelug (Yellow Hat) order in central Ladakh, it houses a 15-metre Maitreya (Future Buddha) seated in a two-storey hall, along with murals, thangkas and a library of Kangyur volumes. The morning prayers, announced by conch and drum from the rooftop, are among Ladakh's most moving experiences.

Leh & Ladakh

Diskit Monastery

Diskit is the oldest and largest monastery of the Nubra valley, founded in the 14th century and stacked on a rocky spur above the Shyok river. Its prayer halls hold fierce guardian deities and centuries-old murals, but the landmark is newer: the 32-metre Jampa (Maitreya) Buddha on the hill facing Pakistan, consecrated by the Dalai Lama in 2010, gazing out over the cold-desert dunes of Hunder.