Home / Temples / Tamra Varaha Mandir
Vishnu TempleOn a sloping lane in Neelkanth Mohalla, Tamra Varaha presents Vishnu's boar incarnation — 'tamra' meaning copper, likely describing the image's distinctive colouring or metal — adding one more individually named stop to Kashi's scattered set of Varaha and Narasimha shrines.
Neelkanth Mohalla takes its name from Neelkanth ('blue-throated'), an epithet of Shiva recalling the story of him swallowing poison to save creation — meaning this Vishnu shrine, like several others on this list, sits within a neighbourhood whose very name honours Shiva, underscoring again how thoroughly Kashi's Shaiva and Vaishnava worship overlap geographically.
The sloping lane leading to the shrine is typical of the old city's uneven, centuries-old street layout, built up gradually over generations rather than planned on a grid — part of what makes navigating by address alone difficult without local help.
As with several of the smaller Varaha and Narasimha shrines across Kashi, Tamra Varaha is more often visited by pilgrims specifically working through the traditional list of the city's Vishnu forms than by casual sightseers, who tend to concentrate on the handful of larger, better-known temples.
Neelkanth Mohalla, on a sloping lane
Varaha (boar) avatar of Vishnu, in its 'Tamra' (copper) aspect
A quiet old-city shrine, mainly visited by dedicated pilgrims
'Tamra' means copper, likely describing the distinctive colouring or material of this particular Varaha image, distinguishing it from Kashi's other Varaha shrines, such as Yagya Varaha.
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