Assi Ghat aarti time: Subah-e-Banaras at dawn and the evening aarti

Subah-e-Banaras, the dawn aarti at Assi Ghat, runs from 04:50 to 07:00 in summer and from 05:40 to 07:45 in winter. Those are the organisers' own times, off their website, which we checked in October 2026. Assi has an evening aarti too, but nobody puts a clock time on it, so we'll explain below how we plan around that.

Assi Ghat aarti times at a glance

Summer slot or winter slot?

Here's the awkward bit. The organisers print a summer slot and a winter slot, but not the date the clock flips from one to the other. Their home page only says the start shifts with the season and with dawn. If your trip lands in the weeks when the weather is turning, check with them the day before. Their phone numbers are on subahebanaras.net.

You'll also find rounder times on other travel sites. They don't match what the organisers publish, so we've gone with the organisers.

Month by month: the clock time follows sunrise and sunset

Both aartis move with the sun. Here's Varanasi's sunrise and sunset on the 15th of each month in 2026, and the dawn slot we'd plan for. The organisers don't publish the switch date, so that last column is our reading of the sunrise, not their word.

Don't treat these as exact for your date, they creep a little each day before and after the 15th. March and October are the tricky ones. We honestly can't tell you which slot they'll be running, so drop the organisers or us a message the day before. Sunrise and sunset figures are from sunrise-sunset.org for Assi Ghat, read in October 2026.

What happens at dawn

Subah-e-Banaras began on 24 November 2014. The district magistrate of the time set it up with the Regional Cultural Centre, and these days a committee runs it. It happens every single day, before sunrise, and takes about 2 hours. The stage is at New Asi Ghat, a short walk along the river from the main Assi steps.

It's less one ritual than a little sequence. Vedic hymns come first, then the aarti offered to the rising sun, then a yagya, which is a fire offering, a morning raga, and yoga at the end. Plenty of people stay for the aarti and wander off for chai after. You won't be the only one.

Seats can be booked on their site. When we looked, the booking page asked ₹200 for a standard seat and ₹300 for a premium one. What it doesn't tell you is whether standing on the ghat steps costs anything, so if you plan to just turn up, ask at the ghat rather than going on our word.

Assi or Dashashwamedh?

Varanasi's official tourism portal says Assi's evening aarti is like the one at Dashashwamedh, only calmer and less crowded. Our drivers would agree. Dashashwamedh is the big show with the crowd to match, and at Assi you can usually see without standing on tiptoe.

Nobody publishes the Assi evening time, so we treat it like Dashashwamedh's, which UP Tourism ties to sunset. Be on the steps before the sun goes down and you won't miss the start.

If you've only got one early morning in the city, give it to Assi, because that's where Subah-e-Banaras is. Then keep an evening free for Dashashwamedh. Our blog has a separate Ganga aarti guide on when to arrive there and where to sit.

Where to stand, or watch from a boat

Assi is the first of the old ghats of Banaras, at the southern end of the old city, sitting where the little Asi stream meets the Ganga. Tulsidas lived in a cave here, wrote the Ramcharitmanas here and died here, so pilgrims were coming long before anyone thought of a dawn programme.

On the steps, turn up a bit before the start and grab a spot facing the platform. In winter bring a shawl. The stone is properly cold at that hour and you'll be sitting on it.

From a boat it's quieter, and you get the river and the sky in one frame, which is really the whole point at sunrise. The catch is distance. The hymns reach you faintly and you won't see faces.

Getting to Assi before dawn

Before dawn the roads are almost empty, and our drivers allow 20 minutes from most Cantt hotels to the river. The airport is a proper drive, so if you're flying in, land the day before and sleep near the ghats. Cars don't go down to the water. Your driver stops up top and you walk the last stretch, so wear shoes that grip on damp stone.

A morning that fits: boat, then yoga at Assi

Our Sunrise Boat & Yoga Morning costs ₹1,999 per person. We pick you up at 05:15 and you're on a shared rowing boat at Dashashwamedh by 05:45. From 06:00 you go downstream past Manikarnika as the light comes up, then back upstream to Assi. At 07:15 you step ashore at Assi for an hour of yoga with an instructor, and you're back at the hotel around 08:30. The boat is 90 minutes long. Bottled water and the hotel pickup and drop are included, breakfast isn't.

To be straight with you, this morning isn't built around Subah-e-Banaras. In summer the programme has finished by 07:00, before we land. In winter it runs to 07:45, so you'll reach Assi while it's still going, near the end. If the aarti is what you really came for, message us on WhatsApp and we'll time the pickup so you're on the steps before it starts.

Book the sunrise morning on WhatsApp at 7233999686. Ask for the Sunrise Boat & Yoga Morning and tell us whether to time the pickup to Subah-e-Banaras.

The mistake we see most? Booking a 07:30 boat because it sounds kinder on the alarm clock. By then the sun's up and the best part of the morning has gone. Go early, or honestly, have a lie-in instead.