Help

Find your way

Pinch to zoom and drag to move. Each portrait is a temple: tap it for its card, then tap the card for the temple’s page.

• Expand hides the cards and gives the map the whole screen.
• The middle one shows all of India again.
• Darshan opens a temple at random.

Pull the cards up for Today: the day’s Darshan temple, the next festival, your star, Near me, Through time, On the way and the circuits.

Download a state’s full map

All of India to district level is already in the app. For a state’s taluks, villages, every highway and railway, forests and the hills up close, download its detail: zoom in on the state and tap Download on the card that appears, or go to Settings › Offline maps.

On mobile data the app asks first, and can wait for Wi-Fi instead while it is open. To free the space, remove a state in Settings › Offline maps.

Find a temple

Search knows other names and spellings, such as Kashi, Varanasi and Benares. Filter by state, circuit, deity, style, dynasty, era or festival, or type a question such as “Shiva temples in Tamil Nadu built by Cholas” and tap the chips it suggests.

• Near me: the temples around you.
• On the way: the temples between two places.
• Open now: leaves out the shrines closed for the season.

A temple’s page

• Story: its legend, with the sources it comes from.
• History: from Wikipedia.
• Visit: its coming festivals and, where they are known, the darshan hours, the dress code and how to get there.

Listen reads the story or the history aloud. Directions opens Google Maps. Save keeps the temple for festival reminders and for planning a yatra. The buttons at the top compare it with another temple and share its name and link.

Story Mode tours

Show a circuit on the map, from Yatra › Circuits or from Search, then tap Begin the tour. The map travels from temple to temple and the voice reads each stop; pause or skip at any time.

If Listen is silent

Listen uses your phone’s own text-to-speech voice. If the phone has none, add one in Android’s settings, under text-to-speech output.

Light a diya

On a temple’s page, tap Light a diya. Choose “I’m here now” to check in with GPS (a verified visit glows brighter), or give the day of an earlier visit.

Your diyas light up My sky in Yatra, which you can share as a picture. Once you have visits in a year, Yatra also shows that year in review.

The journal

Each visit has a page for notes, the people who came with you, and photos from your gallery or camera. Find it in Yatra › Journal, or under Your visits on the temple’s page.

Plan a yatra

Show a circuit on the map and tap Plan, or save two or more temples and tap Plan a yatra in Yatra. The planner puts the stops in order, adds the distances and a rough count of days, and links each leg to Google Maps.

Drag ≡ to change the order. Prepare gives a checklist for the trip, with dress codes, altitude and registration where they are needed.

Festivals

The Calendar shows each day’s tithi and nakshatra and the festivals kept at the temples. The dates are estimates from the panchang; temples announce their own.

Reminders

Save a temple, then turn on Festival reminders in Settings. A notice comes seven days before a festival at a saved temple, and again on the day, at about 7 in the morning.

Your birth star

Birth stars, in the Calendar and in Yatra, shows the 27 nakshatras, each with its temple and its coming days. Tap This is my star to keep yours; no birth details are asked.

The Today’s Darshan widget

Touch and hold your home screen, choose Widgets, and add Today’s Darshan from Sanathana Yatra. It shows a temple each day and opens it when tapped. Open the app once with the widget in place, so it can save the week’s photos.

Keep a copy, or move to a new phone

Settings › My data › Export my yatra saves your visits, journal, photos and saved temples in one zip file, sent where you choose. On the new phone, Import a backup adds them. Android’s own backup is off for this app, so exporting is the way to keep a copy.

Theme, text size and motion

Settings › Appearance: the theme (follow the phone, light or dark), Larger text and Reduce motion.

Something looks wrong?

If a temple’s place, date or story looks wrong, or the app misbehaves, write to praveen.dev.mys@gmail.com with the temple’s name and what you saw.