Bhasma aarti at 4 am — advance booking onlyThe free darshan queue is free, always12,000 meals served without charge every single dayWheelchairs and a separate elderly queue at Gate 4Prasad posted anywhere in India in four daysBhasma aarti at 4 am — advance booking onlyThe free darshan queue is free, always12,000 meals served without charge every single dayWheelchairs and a separate elderly queue at Gate 4Prasad posted anywhere in India in four days
The bhasma aarti begins at four. It has, every day, for 383 years.
Most temple websites are a phone number and a blurred photograph. This one tells you what is happening inside right now — which aarti, how long the queue is, when the next one starts — and lets you book a seva in your own name and gotra without standing at a counter.
This page reads the actual time in Ujjain and tells you what is going on inside the garbhagriha at this moment, how long each queue is running, and how many minutes until the next aarti begins.
Right now at the temple · --:-- IST
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Checking
Next aarti in
The whole day, 3 am to 10 pm
12 am6 am12 pm6 pm12 am
Annadaan
Nobody who comes here leaves hungry.
The bhojanshala runs from 11 in the morning to 9 at night, every day, with no queue for donors and no queue for anyone else either. Dal, roti, sabzi, rice and a sweet on festival days. Fifty rupees covers one plate completely.
0meals served since 1 April 2025
The kitchen is run by fourteen paid cooks and about sixty volunteers on any given day. Grain comes from donors in Ujjain and Dewas districts; vegetables are bought fresh each morning from Chimanganj mandi. Accounts for the bhojanshala are audited separately from the temple trust and published every year.
11 am to 9 pm, dailyNo charge, no queue for donorsSeparate audit
Your name, your gotra, read out on the day you choose.
Pick the seva, pick the date from a calendar that already knows which days are festivals and which Mondays will be crowded, and the pandit ji gets your sankalp details before you arrive. No counter, no queue, no middleman asking for a hundred rupees.
Choose a seva
Choose a date — next 30 days
Festival or special darshanMonday — heaviest crowd
Sankalp details
Your bookingUpdates as you choose
1 seva₹251
Confirm on WhatsAppNothing on this page is stored. On the real site the confirmation, the reference and a QR code for Gate 4 come by SMS and WhatsApp within a minute of payment.
Signature three: the year ahead
Twelve months, and the four you should not miss.
Ujjain's calendar is not the same as anyone else's. Shravan Somvar sawari, Nag Panchami and Mahashivratri fill this town; Rang Panchami empties it into the streets. Plan around them or plan for them, but do not arrive on Mahashivratri expecting a short queue.
The temple, and how to visit it
Three hundred and eighty-three years of the same four o'clock.
A short honest history
The present structure was raised in 1642 by the Scindia family's local commander on foundations that are considerably older — parts of the plinth carry eleventh-century masonry, and nobody has satisfactorily dated the lower chamber. The temple was sacked twice, rebuilt in 1734, and the corridor you walk through today was widened in 1968 and again in 2022.
We say this plainly because temple websites tend to claim an unbroken antiquity that no archaeologist would sign. What is genuinely unbroken is the ritual: the bhasma aarti has been performed here every single morning since 1642, through two sackings, a plague, the Emergency and a pandemic.
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Elderly and differently-abled
Free wheelchairs and an attendant at Gate 4, a lift to the corridor level, and a separate queue that does not merge with the main line. No booking needed — show up at Gate 4 and ask.
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Dress code
Anyone may enter in any clean clothing. For abhishek and rudrabhishek inside the sanctum, men wear a dhoti and women a saree or salwar kameez — the trust lends both at Gate 1 for a refundable ₹100.
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Photography
Not permitted inside the garbhagriha or during any aarti, and the rule is enforced. The corridor, the courtyard and the tank are open to photograph. Phones are deposited free at Gate 1 and Gate 4.
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Cloakroom and shoes
Free, at both gates, open an hour before the temple and an hour after. Do not leave valuables; there is a locker facility at Gate 1 for ₹20.
Prasad, posted anywhere in India
Besan laddu prepared in the temple kitchen, sealed the same day, dispatched by Speed Post. Four to six days across India, ₹250 including the courier, and a card with the date it was offered. We do not sell prasad at the gate through agents — if someone outside offers you a "temple packet", it is not from us.
Online, sixty days in advance, from this site or the trust's counter at Gate 1. Seventeen hundred permissions are issued for each morning and they are gone within minutes on festival dates. You need a government photo ID matching the permission, and you must be inside Gate 4 by 2:45 am. Nobody at the gate can sell you an entry; if someone offers, they are lying.
Yes. The general queue costs nothing and always will. The ₹250 shighra darshan queue exists because it funds the bhojanshala and the free queue's infrastructure — it buys you time, not a better darshan. On an ordinary weekday the free queue takes about fifty minutes, which is often faster than people expect.
Tuesday to Thursday, between 1 pm and 3 pm, outside Shravan and outside festival weeks. Mondays are heaviest because of Somvar, and the whole of Shravan is busy from four in the morning. If you have a choice, come in the second half of a non-festival week.
That is most of what we do. Give their name, gotra and nakshatra in the form above; the sankalp is taken in their name whether or not they are present, and we send a photograph of the seva and the prasad by post. About four in ten of our archana bookings are for someone in another city.
Trust parking is at the Harsiddhi Marg lot, about seven minutes' walk, ₹40 for a car and ₹20 for a two-wheeler for the whole day. Do not park on the approach road during Shravan; the traffic police tow, and recovering a vehicle takes half a day.
Yes, for annadaan and general trust donations. Seva bookings are a payment for a service and are not deductible — the receipt says so plainly. Our 80G registration and audited accounts are available at the trust office and are sent on request by email.
Jai Shri Mahakal
Come at four in the morning at least once.
Book the seva now, sponsor a day of annadaan, or just message the office and ask which day of the week will be quiet enough for your parents.
