Bharat Kala Bhavan

Bharat Kala Bhavan is a museum of art and archaeology on the Banaras Hindu University campus in Varanasi and one of the oldest museums in India. It was founded in 1920 with Rabindranath Tagore as its first honorary chairman, and grew largely through the lifelong collecting of Rai Krishnadasa, a Hindi writer later awarded the Padma Vibhushan. Mahatma Gandhi visited and called the collection extremely good.

Eleven galleries cover archaeology, painting, textiles, decorative arts and Banaras itself, with Hindu and Buddhist sculpture and costumes among the exhibits; the Alice Boner Gallery was added in 1989 for her birth centenary. The coins span many periods and include Samudragupta's lyrist and Ashvamedha issues, Chandragupta II's chhatra and horseman types, Kumaragupta's Karttikeya coins and a zodiac portrait coin of Jahangir. A figure of Krishna lifting Govardhan stands in the main hall, and the lighting runs on solar power.