Mata Anandamayee Ghat

Anandamayi Ma was born Nirmala Sundari on April 30, 1896, in the village of Kheora in East Bengal, in what is now Bangladesh. Her father was a devout Vaishnava singer, and from earliest childhood the girl showed a strange and beautiful disposition — she would slip into states of ecstatic devotion without warning, singing hymns she had never been taught and seeming to live in a world of unseen divine companionship. Those around her came to call her Ananda-mayi, she who is permeated with bliss, and the name stayed with her for life. Married at thirteen to Ramani Mohan Chakraborty, she transformed her household into a place of worship, and her husband himself became her first and most devoted follower, later taking the name Bholanath.

By the 1930s her fame had spread across India. From her home in Dhaka she moved through the subcontinent on endless journeys, and wherever she went, ashrams sprang up to receive her — at Kankhal near Haridwar, at Vrindavan, at Dehradun, at Almora, at Kolkata and at Varanasi itself. She never claimed a guru, saying that her state of realization had come spontaneously from God, and she never gave formal initiations in the usual sense, yet thousands of seekers — scholars, sadhus, governors, maharajas and ordinary villagers alike — sat at her feet. Her teaching was simple and ancient: love God, practise sadhana, serve all beings as forms of the divine, and trust that the bliss which filled her was the birthright of every soul that comes into the world.

She left her body on August 27, 1982, at Dehradun, in the state of samadhi, in the presence of her devotees. Her samadhi shrine at Kankhal still draws pilgrims from every corner of India, and her ashrams continue the daily round of kirtan, prayer and service that she established. For the city of Varanasi, her memory is especially alive: she came here often, and her devotees tell of her love for the Ganga and for the eternal city. It is altogether fitting that one of the riverfront's newest ghats should bear her name, for in her life the ancient promise of Kashi — that joy is the soul's true nature — was made visible in a single human being.

The first thing a visitor notices at Mata Anandamayee Ghat is the quiet. Even at hours when Assi Ghat, a few minutes to the south, is thronged with crowds and music, this landing preserves a stillness that feels almost monastic. The wide paved steps give the place an open, ordered character, and the unhurried movements of the few people around — a woman pouring water from a brass pot, an old man reading under a tree, a sadhu sitting motionless at the water's edge — seem part of a single slow composition. The sounds are elemental: water lapping at the stone, wind in the trees, the bells of distant temples, the low murmur of prayer. For many visitors this is the closest Varanasi offers to a meditation hall open to the sky.

The ghat's atmosphere owes much to the saint herself. Anandamayi Ma was famous for the atmosphere of peace that surrounded her; her devotees said that simply sitting near her stilled the mind, and that her presence taught without words. Something of that spirit clings to the ghat that bears her name. Devotees come here not for spectacle but for silence — to sit on the steps with eyes closed, to chant softly, to read her sayings, to pray. The upper level of the ghat has become an informal meditation spot, where morning finds clusters of people in quiet practice while the river goes about its eternal business below them. The calm is deep enough that even birds seem bolder here, perching close to the seated figures.

This calm is a gift that modern Varanasi does not offer everywhere. The northern ghats blaze with processions and cameras; Assi, just south, hums with cafés and music through the day. But here, between the two, the riverfront keeps the mood of an ashram. Morning is the finest hour: the sun rising over the eastern sandbanks, the water turning gold, the first bathers stepping in with folded hands. Travellers who want to feel the contemplative heart of Banaras — the city that has produced saints for three thousand years — will find it on these clean, quiet steps, where a twentieth-century saint's memory has become a place of peace for all who come.

The Ganga at Mata Anandamayee Ghat is at its most generous. Here, on the southern riverfront, the great river runs broad and open, its current smoother and its water noticeably clearer than in the crowded north, where centuries of ritual and effluent have darkened the flow. In the dry season, wide sandy banks stretch out to the east, and the river's real channel lies far beyond, glinting under the sun. On monsoon mornings the water climbs high up the steps, and the ghat becomes a waterfront in the truest sense, the river at your feet in a single, immense sheet. Whatever the season, the river here feels alive — moving, breathing, changing colour with every hour of light.

The view from the steps is a lesson in the geography of Kashi. To the south, the shore bends gently toward Assi Ghat, where the Assi stream joins the Ganga, and beyond it the temples of the Sankat Mochan quarter rise above the treetops. To the north, the ghats step up in a long sequence — Janaki, Jain, Panchkota, then the great ceremonial landings of the central city — their towers and palaces drawn in silhouette against the morning haze. Sunrise is the great hour: the east glows pink and gold over the sandbanks, the water turns to flame, and the first boats glide out across the shining surface while herons stand motionless at the edge of the shallows.

The river is also the ghat's link to the saint. Anandamayi Ma's devotees remember how she loved to sit by the Ganga, and the river she saw from Varanasi is the river still flowing here — the same water, the same eastern light, the same sandbanks. A boat ride from this ghat at dawn is one of the finest ways to experience it: drifting south past Janaki and Tulsi toward Assi, or north along the quiet ghats, the city recedes, the water widens, and the morning belongs wholly to the river. For those who stay on the steps, the river offers its own meditation — the endless play of light and current that has been Kashi's first teacher since time beyond memory.

Behind Mata Anandamayee Ghat the land rises into one of the most pleasant residential quarters of southern Varanasi. Narrow lanes wind between old two-storey houses painted in faded pinks and greens, past tiny shrines where marigolds are renewed each morning, and under archways that open onto sudden courtyards with wells and tulsi plants. It is a walker's neighbourhood: scooters squeeze past, women carry water pots and vegetable baskets, shopkeepers sit at their counters playing with grandchildren. Compared with the dense, teeming alleys of the central city, these lanes feel open and calm — a fitting backdrop for a ghat dedicated to a saint of peace, and a reminder that the riverfront's life begins in the homes behind it.

The area is also the heartland of Anandamayi Ma's presence in Varanasi. The saint's ashram in the city, where she stayed during her visits and where her memory is preserved through daily worship and weekly kirtans, lies within easy walking distance of the ghat. Her devotees in the city gather there for the anniversaries of her birth and mahasamadhi, for Guru Purnima, and for the simple daily round of ashram life — prayers at dawn, reading of her teachings, service to visitors. For pilgrims, the two places belong together: the ashram where the saint's presence is guarded indoors, and the ghat where her name is joined to the river, each completing the other in a single landscape of devotion.

The neighbourhood gives the ghat its living context. The people who bathe here in the morning and sit here in the evening are the same people who live in these lanes — shopkeepers, teachers, boatmen, grandmothers, students of the nearby colleges. The small economy of the ghat — the flower sellers, the tea stalls, the boat crew — belongs to them. Walking from the ghat up through the lanes, a visitor sees how the saint's memory has woven itself into an ordinary Banaras neighbourhood: her photograph in a doorway, her name on a shop sign, her sayings quoted by an old man on a bench. Modern devotion, in this corner of Kashi, is simply part of the daily air.

The great festival of Mata Anandamayee Ghat is the Janmotsav, the celebration of the saint's birth, observed each year in late April or early May, close to the date of her birth on April 30, 1896. On these days the ghat and the ashram together come alive with celebration. Devotees from Delhi, Kolkata, Gujarat and every part of India gather for a week of kirtan and bhajan, recitations of her sayings, discourses by senior monks, and a continuous stream of pilgrims arriving to offer flowers and sweets at her image. In the evening, the ghat is decorated with lamps and marigolds, and the songs of the saint's tradition float across the water long into the night.

The day of her mahasamadhi, August 27, is observed with equal reverence, though in a quieter key — a day of remembrance, meditation and shared memories of the saint, when devotees recall the moment of her passing and the teaching she left behind. Guru Purnima, the midsummer festival of teachers, also draws special gatherings to the ashram and the ghat, for Anandamayi Ma is honoured as the guru of thousands. On all these occasions, the ghat shows a livelier face than usual: more boats, more flowers, more colour — yet the character of the celebration remains what the saint herself would have wanted: devotion expressed in song, service and the simple sharing of prasad.

Beyond the saint's own festivals, the ghat takes its quiet part in the great calendar of Kashi. On Dev Deepawali, the festival of lights in November, the entire riverfront glows with a million lamps, and from these steps the view south toward Assi and north along the ghats is as fine as anywhere on the river. Ganga Dussehra, the festival of the river's descent, brings processions and bathing crowds; the mornings of Kartik, the holiest month, see lamps floated on the water at dawn. In every season the ghat hosts the small, unannounced celebrations of its neighbourhood — a thread ceremony, a child's first rice, a wedding blessing — each one drawing the community together on the saint's quiet steps.

Mata Anandamayee Ghat lies on the southern riverfront of Varanasi, within the stretch between Janaki and Jain ghats, barely a ten-minute walk north of Assi Ghat. From the city centre at Godaulia, the easiest route is an e-rickshaw or auto to the lanes near Assi, then a short stroll north along the riverfront; from Assi itself, simply follow the shore. Most visitors reach it as part of the southern ghats walk, which makes the journey its own pleasure. The ghat's own lane rises from the steps into the residential quarter behind, and the surrounding neighbourhood is easy to navigate on foot — narrow but calm, and welcoming to travellers.

The best time to come is early morning, before seven, when the bathers are at their devotions, the light is golden and the ghat is at its most peaceful; a sunrise boat ride from the ghat adds the river's full magic to the hour. The winter months from October to March are the most pleasant season, with clear skies and mild days, while the summer heat of April and May is best endured in the early hours alone. In the monsoon, from July to September, the river rises and may cover the lower steps — the ghat remains safe, but bathing is best left to the locals, and the upper level offers the finest view of a river in full flood.

Facilities around the ghat are modest but sufficient: tea stalls and small shops in the lane behind, boatmen at the water's edge, and easy connections by foot to everything the southern city offers. A sensible half-day plan combines the ghat with its neighbours: bathe or watch the morning at Anandamayee, walk south through Janaki and Tulsi to Assi for breakfast and a boat, then return inland for the temples of the Sankat Mochan quarter — Hanuman, Durga Kund and New Vishwanath. However the hours are arranged, this quiet corner of the riverfront is best taken slowly, the way the saint herself would have taken it — with time to sit, to watch the water, and to let Kashi speak.