Delhi's 9 best temples, mosques and shrines to visit, ranked
Golden dome and reflecting pool of a Delhi gurudwara at dusk
Nine living places of worship ranked for what a respectful visitor actually experiences, with opening hours, dress rules and the nine that are free — which is most of them.
How to rank a working place of worship
These are not monuments; people pray in all of them, several around the clock. So the ranking rewards places that welcome outsiders without asking them to perform belief, that are architecturally or atmospherically extraordinary, and where a visitor can work out what to do without a guide. It penalises sites where tourists are actively managed through a queue, however impressive the building. Nearly everything here is free, which changes the calculation — you can visit five in a day for the cost of the autos between them.
The universal rules: shoes come off at every one of these, usually at a free counter or a stall charging ₹10-₹30. Cover your head at gurudwaras, dargahs and mosques — cloths are provided at gurudwaras and sold for ₹50-₹100 outside dargahs. Shoulders and knees covered everywhere; robes are lent at Jama Masjid. Leather belts and bags are barred at Jain temples. Photography is fine in most, banned inside the Lotus Temple and at Akshardham, and always wrong when pointed at people praying. Fridays are busiest at mosques, Tuesdays at Hanuman temples.
1. Gurudwara Bangla Sahib — the one to visit first
First, and it would be first in most cities. On Ashoka Road, five minutes from Patel Chowk metro, open twenty-four hours, free, with a gilded dome above a large sarovar tank and shabad kirtan playing continuously from the main hall. You wash your feet at the entrance, cover your head with a cloth handed to you, and walk in. Nobody asks your religion, nobody sells you anything, and you can sit on the carpet at the back for as long as you want. Evening, when the dome lights reflect in the water, is the hour to come.
The langar is the other half. The community kitchen serves free meals to tens of thousands of people a day, prepared and washed up by volunteers, and visitors are welcome both to eat and to help — an hour rolling rotis in the kitchen is the most instructive thing you can do in Delhi. Leave a donation if you wish; nobody solicits one. Combine it with Connaught Place, ten minutes' walk east. Gurudwara Sis Ganj Sahib in Chandni Chowk, on the site of Guru Tegh Bahadur's execution in 1675, offers the same welcome in a much tighter space.
2. Jama Masjid — the great Mughal congregational mosque
Second. Completed in 1656 as Shah Jahan's imperial mosque, with a courtyard that holds twenty-five thousand people and a red sandstone and marble facade that dominates the old city. Entry to the courtyard is free; a camera fee of around ₹100 applies, robes are lent for a deposit if your clothes are judged too brief, and shoe minding costs ₹10-₹20. Climbing the southern minaret is a separate small fee and roughly 120 tight steps for the best rooftop view in Shahjahanabad.
Time it carefully: the mosque closes to visitors during the five daily prayers and is at its busiest on Fridays and through Ramzan, when the evening in the surrounding lanes becomes one of the great food events of the Indian year. Enter by Gate 1 on the northern side or Gate 3 to the east above Meena Bazaar. Jama Masjid metro on the Violet Line is a two-minute walk. Sit on the courtyard marble for twenty minutes rather than circling and leaving — the light on the sandstone in late afternoon is the point.
3 and 4. Nizamuddin Dargah, and the old-city mosques
Third: the dargah of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, reached through a warren of lanes off Mathura Road, where a fourteenth-century saint's tomb sits at the centre of a still-living quarter of shrines, graves and kitchens. Free, open long hours, and best on a Thursday evening when qawwals sing in the courtyard after maghrib. Rose petals cost ₹50-₹100 at the lane stalls. Women can enter the courtyard but not the inner chamber of the main shrine. Amir Khusrau's tomb, Jahanara's open grave and Chausath Khamba are all inside the enclosure.
Fourth: the old city's other mosques, which almost nobody visits. Fatehpuri Masjid at the western end of Chandni Chowk, built in 1650 by one of Shah Jahan's wives, is a calm red-sandstone courtyard fifty metres from the chaos of Khari Baoli. The Sunehri Masjid opposite Sis Ganj and Moth ki Masjid in south Delhi are quieter still. All are free, all expect covered heads and modest dress, and all reward ten minutes of sitting. Avoid prayer times, particularly Friday midday, unless you are there to pray.
5 and 6. The Lotus Temple, and Akshardham
Fifth: the Bahá'í House of Worship at Kalkaji, the lotus-shaped building of twenty-seven marble petals completed in 1986 and among the most visited buildings on earth. It is free, closed on Mondays, and set in landscaped gardens with pools. Inside, silence is enforced absolutely — no speaking, no photography, no ritual of any kind, just a hall where anyone may sit. Queues run thirty to sixty minutes at weekends and school-holiday afternoons; arrive at opening or after 4pm. Kalkaji Mandir metro is a ten-minute walk.
Sixth: Akshardham on the eastern bank of the Yamuna, a vast carved sandstone and marble complex opened in 2005, closed Mondays. The temple itself is free; the exhibitions, boat ride and evening water show carry separate charges in the low hundreds of rupees. The rule that catches everyone: phones, cameras and bags are not permitted inside and must go into a free cloakroom, which adds thirty to forty minutes to your visit either side. Allow three hours minimum. It is a spectacle rather than an old place, and it is not for anyone allergic to crowds.
7 and 8. The Jain temple with a bird hospital, and the big Hindu shrines
Seventh: Digambar Jain Lal Mandir, facing the Red Fort across Chandni Chowk, Delhi's oldest Jain temple, with a charitable bird hospital in the same compound treating thousands of injured birds a year. Free, shoes off, and leather items — belts, wallets, bag straps — must be left outside. The hospital's public ward is open to visitors and is one of the genuinely unusual sights in the city. Ten minutes here breaks up the Chandni Chowk walk perfectly.
Eighth: the big popular Hindu temples. Kalkaji Mandir near Nehru Place is ancient, chaotic and thick with devotees, particularly during Navratri. Chhatarpur Temple on the Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road is enormous, marble-clad and largely modern, and turns into an overnight festival twice a year. Hanuman Mandir at Connaught Place is small but has been a functioning shrine for centuries and draws huge Tuesday queues, with mehendi artists working the pavement outside from ₹200. ISKCON at East of Kailash does a loud, engaging evening aarti. All are free; all are busiest on their festival days.
9. The colonial churches and the synagogue
Ninth: the Christian and Jewish thread, which surprises people. St James' Church at Kashmere Gate, consecrated in 1836 and built by James Skinner, is the oldest church in the city, a domed Greek-cross building with graves of 1857 casualties in the yard. The Cathedral Church of the Redemption on Church Road, finished in 1935 as part of Lutyens' capital, is a serene brick-and-stone space five minutes from Rashtrapati Bhavan and almost always empty on a weekday morning.
The Judah Hyam Synagogue on Humayun Road serves Delhi's tiny Jewish community and welcomes respectful visitors by prior arrangement; it is small, plain and moving precisely because of the scale. None of these charges entry. Together they take an hour and they complete the picture — a city where six religions have built continuously for eight centuries within twenty kilometres. Sunday services are the wrong time for a casual visit; midweek mornings are ideal.
Building a day out of these, and what to skip
The efficient routes: an old-city morning takes in Lal Mandir, Sis Ganj, Fatehpuri Masjid and Jama Masjid on foot within 1.5km, ending with lunch in the lanes. A central afternoon covers Bangla Sahib, Hanuman Mandir and the Cathedral within a 3km triangle. A southern half-day pairs the Lotus Temple and Kalkaji Mandir, both at Kalkaji Mandir metro, with Akshardham across the river as a separate excursion because of the cloakroom time. Do not try to combine Akshardham with anything else.
Skip any guide who attaches himself at the gate of a free shrine and offers a tour for a negotiated fee; the sites are self-explanatory and the pressure is unpleasant. Skip the priests inside popular temples who tie a thread on your wrist and then ask for ₹500 — a firm no is enough and nobody will be offended. Skip visiting during a major festival if crowds worry you: Navratri at Chhatarpur, Janmashtami at ISKCON and Friday prayers at Jama Masjid are extraordinary but not gentle introductions. And never photograph anyone praying without asking.
Before you book
What people ask before booking Connaught Place.
Shoulders and knees covered at all of them, and a scarf or cap for gurudwaras, dargahs and mosques — gurudwaras hand out head cloths free, dargah lanes sell them for ₹50-₹100. Shoes come off everywhere, with minding stalls charging ₹10-₹30. Leave leather belts and bags outside Jain temples.
Almost none. Bangla Sahib, Jama Masjid's courtyard, Nizamuddin Dargah, the Lotus Temple, Lal Mandir, Kalkaji, Chhatarpur, the churches and Akshardham's main temple are all free. You pay small sums for shoe minding, a camera fee of around ₹100 at Jama Masjid, the minaret climb, and Akshardham's separate exhibitions and water show.
Mondays close both the Lotus Temple and Akshardham. Fridays bring peak congregations to mosques, particularly Jama Masjid at midday. Tuesdays fill Hanuman temples, and Navratri fills Kalkaji and Chhatarpur to overflowing twice a year. Weekend afternoons produce the longest Lotus Temple queues, often forty-five minutes or more.
Yes, every site listed welcomes visitors of any faith, with two limits: women may not enter the inner chamber of the main shrine at Nizamuddin Dargah, and all mosques close to visitors during the five daily prayers. Behave as a guest, stay quiet, and nobody will question your presence.
