Sankat Mochan Sangeet Samaroh: where legends play all night, for free, for Hanuman

The Samaroh runs for six nights, timed around Hanuman Jayanti (Chaitra Purnima) in April. The festival begins a few days after Hanuman Jayanti and runs late into each night, often till dawn.

For six nights each April, the courtyard of the Sankat Mochan temple becomes the most prestigious stage in Indian classical music. Nearly sixty artists, vocalists, instrumentalists and dancers across Hindustani classical, Carnatic and the classical dance forms, perform one after another from evening deep into the night, before an audience seated on the courtyard floor a few feet from the performers. It ranks with the Dover Lane Music Conference in Kolkata and the Saptak festival in Ahmedabad as one of India's great classical gatherings, but it stands apart for one reason: it happens inside a working temple, as worship.

From the ground: for my guests who love music, I tell them plainly: you may sit on a stone floor at two in the morning, a little cold, a little tired, and watch an artist who fills concert halls worldwide play as if their life depended on it, for no fee, for Hanuman. There is nothing else like it, and you do not forget it.

The festival is a haazari, a devotional offering to Lord Hanuman, who is revered by musicians as a master of the arts and the remover of obstacles. Artists who command lakhs for a single concert consider it an honour and a blessing to perform here without payment, as an act of devotion. It began in 1923 as a small gathering of musician friends around the pakhawaj player Pandit Amar Nath Mishra, was built into a national festival by Mahant Veerbhadra Mishra of the temple, and has drawn the greatest names of Indian music, Pandit Jasraj, Hariprasad Chaurasia, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Birju Maharaj, Kelucharan Mahapatra and many more. That the stage faces the sanctum of Hanuman, and the music is aimed at the deity as much as the audience, is the whole point.

The stage is built on the veranda facing Lord Hanuman's idol, so the performance is literally offered to the deity, and the audience fills the courtyard behind, close to the artists. Screens now relay the performances to the rest of the temple and outside, so the thousands who come can all share it. The temple's own beauty, the marigold, the lamps, the scent of the garden Hanuman temple, doubles during these nights. It is music, devotion and the small hours of the morning woven into one experience.

The festival is timed to Hanuman Jayanti, the birthday of Lord Hanuman on Chaitra Purnima. Sankat Mochan, founded by the saint-poet Tulsidas at the spot where he is said to have had a vision of Hanuman, is the epicentre of the celebration in Varanasi: special aartis, the deity decorated and coated in fresh sindoor, laddoo prasad, and devotees drawing tilak from the vermilion. The Samaroh is the cultural offering that flows from this devotion. Together, the birthday and the music make April at Sankat Mochan one of the richest weeks of the Kashi year.

The line-up changes yearly and is announced close to the dates, but it consistently gathers front-rank names across Hindustani vocal and instrumental music, Carnatic music, and classical dance (Kathak, Odissi, Bharatanatyam), alongside tabla and other percussion. For a music lover, the appeal is both the calibre and the unpredictability: you go for the setting and the spirit as much as any single name.

• The temple courtyard: the heart of it, seated on the floor near the stage; come early for a close place.
• The screen areas within and outside the temple: for comfort and space on the busiest nights.
• The temple by day: for a calm Hanuman darshan and the garden before the night's music.

Everything here is free: no ticket, no pass, no VIP area, and no artist is paid. That honesty is the festival's soul, and it means no one can legitimately sell you "Sangeet Samaroh entry" or a "VIP seat," because none exists. Anyone offering paid access is selling nothing real. What we honestly arrange is the rest: getting you to the temple and seated in good time, a comfortable base for nights that run till dawn, a guide who can tell you what you are hearing and why it matters, and the daytime Hanuman darshan around it. The music is a gift; the logistics are what we handle.

Fly into Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport (VNS), about 28 km from the Sankat Mochan temple; trains serve Varanasi Junction, Banaras and Kashi stations. The temple is in the Bhelupura area, south of the old city, more reachable by road than the ghat temples. Our guests move by private Innova Crysta, staged for the late-night return. Full detail in the How to Reach Varanasi guide.

Our package guests stay at the Taj Ganges or Hilton Varanasi with breakfast, which matters when the music runs till dawn and you want a comfortable, close base to rest. April nights are mild. More in the Stay & Hotels guide.

A cultural itinerary timed to the Samaroh, with the music nights, the Hanuman Jayanti darshan and the classic Kashi sights by day, builds on one flat rate: ₹12,500 per day for two guests, Taj or Hilton base, Innova throughout, confirmed in writing before any advance. It slots into the 4 Days Ayodhya Varanasi Tour Package, ₹50,000 per couple (₹25,000 per person), with the Samaroh evenings added. Browse all packages.