Kashi Vishwanath Temple

Kashi Vishwanath in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh — Shiva as Vishvanatha, Lord of All — is the seventh jyotirlinga and the heart of Kashi, the city said to stand on his trident beyond the reach of time. Its history is the Somnath story told on the Ganga: destroyed repeatedly under the Sultanate, razed by Aurangzeb in 1669; the present temple was raised in 1780 by Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore — the same quiet rebuilder who raised Somnath's adjacent shrine — and its shikhara was sheathed in gold by Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1835. Between the empires, the queen; upon the spire, the lion of Punjab.

This page awaits its full Indopedia treatment — history from inscriptions and chronicles, period images with provenance, and the chain of builders and rebuilders, in the manner of Somnath Temple — The Shrine Eternal. To take up this temple, see Indopedia:Contribute.