3 Holy Cities in India You Should Visit

Varanasi on the banks of the holy River Ganges, Haridwar on the foothills of the Indian Himalayas and the temple town of Kanchipuram in South India are some of India’s holiest cities.

Kanchipuram: Details from a Temple

The Holiest of the Holy: Varanasi

The holiest of holy cities in India, and possibly one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the country, Varanasi (Benares) is the best and the worst of India all in one place. Hindus come here to bathe in the sacred waters of the River Ganges and to wash away their sins, hoping for to reach an end to the cycle of rebirths.

Varanasi is filled with pilgrims, tourists and the sick and the dying: the city is, for Hindus, an auspicious place to die. Bodies are burnt on the ghats by the river and ashes are released into the water. Varanasi also has several important temples, many universities and a busy cultural life.

Sitting on the steps leading to the Ganga, it is easy to ignore the dirt, the pollution, the madness of the traffic jams, the guidebook warnings that the old part of the city is not safe to walk around at night, and the rickshaw drivers who take you to hotel Ganga Inn (a filthy fleapit in a back alley) instead of the guidebook-recommended Ganga Cottage (the hotel you asked to go to) because the first hotel pays them a commission for dumping unsuspecting guests on their doorstep.

How to get there: Varanasi has good train and bus connections to destinations around India, and many domestic airlines fly to Varanasi. Book train tickets early in advance, trains get pretty full.

(Ps. I made up the hotel names for this blog post but it did happen to me. The names are similar to the names of the guesthouses I was looking for, and taken to, but these made-up names don’t reflect any standards in any real hotels or guesthouses with similar names.)

The Holy City of Haridwar

The sacred city of Haridwar is where the Ganges emerges from the Himalayas and enters the North Indian plains. A key location in Hindu tradition and mythology, Haridwar attracts large crowds of pilgrims.

There are several temples and ashrams in the city, and even though nearby Rishikesh is popular with Westerners for its yoga centres and ashrams, it is Haridwar that is one of the seven sacred cities for India’s Hindus (the seven holy Hindu cities are: Varanasi, Haridwar, Kanchipuram, Ayodhya, Ujjain, Mathura and Darka).

Haridwar hosted the 2010 Kumbha Mela festival and saw millions of pilgrims dipping into the holy Ganges. Several people also died in a stampede during the mela.

How to get there: Haridwar has bus and/or train connections to Delhi, Varanasi, Rishikesh, Mumbai, Amritsar and the nearby Dehradun.

Holy Cities in South India: Kanchipuram

Another of the seven holiest cities in Hinduism and famous for its temples dedicated to Shiva and to Vishnu, Kanchipuram is a major pilgrimage centre in South India and worth visiting for the stunning temples.

Apparently thousands of temples used to exist here but today there are just a few left. The oldest of the temples is the 7^th century Kailasanath temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva, whereas the Sri Ekambareshwar Temple, also a Shiva temple, is the largest. It is claimed that Shiva and Parvati were married here under a mango tree you can still see inside the temple.

In some of the temples in Kanchipuram, non-Hindus are not allowed into the innermost part where worship takes place and the main deity resides, but the temple complexes are large and there is a lot to see. The holiness of the experience is only slightly disturbed by persistent rickshaw drivers wanting to take you on a tour around the city’s famous silk factories and silk stores. A rickshaw tour can actually be a good way to get around the city and see all the main temples, but be prepared to stop in a silk store for a little sales talk.

How to get there: Kanchipuram is easy to get to from Chennai, from Pondicherry and from Mamallapuram on India’s East Coast.

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