Greenery, fruit and frost, then a swing: Dashashwamedh's Brihaspati temple dresses up for Sawan's last Thursday

Sawan's last Thursday belongs to Brihaspati, and at Dashashwamedh the Guru Brihaspati Dev temple marks it the way Kashi marks most things — with a shringar you have to stand and look at for a while. The temple's mahant, Ajay Giri, says the day's decoration moves through four distinct forms. There is a hariyali shringar of fresh greenery, a jal vihar, a fruit shringar, and a him shringar worked to look like frost. The idol is dressed in its Ardhanarishvara form and set on a swing for the day, in keeping with the jhula tradition that runs through Sawan in temples across the city. Through the evening, invited singers perform bhajans in the temple courtyard, and the management is expecting a heavy turnout of devotees who come as much for the decoration as for the darshan itself. Thursday worship of Brihaspati — Jupiter, the guru of the gods — is a year-round habit in plenty of Banarasi households, usually kept quietly at home with a yellow thread and a bowl of chana dal. What makes this particular Thursday worth a trip is that the small Dashashwamedh shrine saves its most elaborate treatment of the year for it. If your evening is already taking you towards Dashashwamedh Ghat, it is a short detour and an easy one to fold into a Sawan walk through the old city.

Compiled by HelloBanaras from public sources: KTV News Varanasi