THE TEMPLES YOU NEVER VISITED BEFORE

THE TEMPLES YOU NEVER VISITED BEFORE

Today I will take you on a tour of India. Despite being born and brought up here, there is a posibility that you havent visited the places I’m going to talk about. So I thought, I should take you on this interesting journey with me. Let us first go to Tangra, a small china town in Kolkata. When we go to Tangra, we cannot leave the place without visiting the Chinese Kali Temple here. Surprised? Yes, there is a temple dedicated to the goddess, in a village where most inhabitants are Chinese. This is not the surprising part. What’s surprising is the food offered prasad to the goddess. When you put your hand out for the prasad, you will see noodles, chop suey, rice-and-vegetables dishes in your hand.

Our next destination is the Trishund Ganapati Temple in Pune. You can probably guess by the word Trishund that it means three trunks. The temple is located in the Somvar Peth and was built around 1754 – 1770 AD. What makes this temple special is the fact that it is the only temple in Pune, built in stone masonry. We will now head to the Ravana temple in Ravangram. Yes, its true! There is a Ravan temple in India. Despite the fact that Ravan was depicted as a demon who kidnapped Sita mata at the time of Ramayana, we have a temple dedicated to him.

Did you ever hear of a temple dedicated to cattle? If you haven't then let me take you to Kali Sigh temple in Muzaffarnagar, a district of Uttar Pradesh. This is the place were people worship animal and women offer kheer made of milk from these animals. Let us now go to Manali and take darshan of Hidimba devi. Hidimba the wife of Bheema [one of the Pandavas] became Hidimba devi after doing penance in this place. A wooden temple was built for her in 1553 AD. Our journey ends here but soon we will travel another path that leads to god.

- Kruti Beesam