Hindu templeIndia · IN
Pracheen Hanuman Mandir, Connaught Place
Tucked on Baba Kharak Singh Marg, a few minutes' walk from the grand white colonnades of Connaught Place, the Pracheen (Ancient) Hanuman Mandir is one of central Delhi's most visited Hindu shrines — a sprawling, gilded temple of marble steps, silver-sheathed doors and garlanded statues that hums with worshippers from before daybreak until late at night. Local tradition counts it among the five prachin temples of Delhi, the others being Kalkaji, Yogmaya, the Bhairon near the Purana Qila and the Nili Chatri Mahadev at Nigambodh Ghat, all said to have been raised by the Pandavas at the close of the Mahabharata. The visible temple belongs to a later, richer story. It was rebuilt in the early 18th century by Maharaja Jai Singh II of Amber around the time he raised the nearby Jantar Mantar, on a site credited to his predecessor Man Singh I under the Mughal emperor Akbar, and renovated grandly in the 1980s. Its spire once carried a rare Islamic crescent-moon finial instead of the usual Hindu kalasa — a detail long held up as proof of Mughal-era religious tolerance — and inside, the south-facing Swayambhu idol of Bala Hanuman, the child-form of the monkey god, keeps watch over a hall painted with scenes from the Ramayana. Tuesday and Saturday crowds, Hanuman Jayanti processions, the morning aarti echoing off giant bells and the kachori-and-chaach stalls that ring the complex all make this as much a piece of living Delhi as a monument.