Sirsi Marikamba Temple is a

Hindu temple A Hindu temple, also known as Mandir, Devasthanam, Pura, or Kovil, is a sacred place where Hindus worship and show their devotion to Hindu deities, deities through worship, sacrifice, and prayers. It is considered the house of the god to who ...

dedicated to Marikamba Devi (

Durga Devi Durga (, ) is a major Hinduism, Hindu Devi, goddess, worshipped as a principal aspect of the mother goddess Mahadevi. She is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction, and wars. Durga's legend centres around combating ev ...

), located in

Sirsi, Karnataka Sirsi is a city in Karnataka state of India. Sirsi is a tourist destination with evergreen forest and waterfalls and is also a commercial centre. The main businesses around the city are mostly subsistence and agriculture-based. Areca nut or bet ...

, It is also known as Marigudi. It was built in 1688. Sirsi Shri Marikamba Devi is the "elder sister" of all Marikamba Devi's in Karnataka.

Features

The temple's façade, a 19th-century addition, is painted blue. After one enters through the façade, there is courtyard in the middle, which has

cloister A cloister (from Latin , "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open Arcade (architecture), arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle (architecture), quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cat ...

s surrounding it. The cloisters are filled with images of deities from the

Hindu epic Mahākāvya (lit. great kāvya, court epic), also known as ''sargabandha'', is a genre of Indian epic poetry in Classical Sanskrit. The genre is characterised by ornate and elaborate descriptions of phenomena such as scenery, love, and battles. Ty ...

s. The changes made inside the temple have hidden any evidence of older structures. The

sanctum sanctorum The Latin phrase ''sanctum sanctorum'' is a translation of the Hebrew term ''קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים'' (Qṓḏeš HaQŏḏāšîm), literally meaning Holy of Holies, in Latin texts, this generally refers to the holiest place of t ...

has the central image of a fierce form of the goddess

Durga Durga (, ) is a major Hindu goddess, worshipped as a principal aspect of the mother goddess Mahadevi. She is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction, and wars. Durga's legend centres around combating evils and demonic ...

, multi-armed (eight shoulders), riding a tiger and killing a demon. It is believed that the image was retrieved from a pond on the road to

Hangal Hangal, formerly known as 'Viratanagara', is a historic town in Karnataka. It is away from Hubli through National Highway 766E (India), NH 766E. Location Hangal lies about south of the city of Hubli-Dharwad, about west of the Tungabhadra ri ...

. The temple has very special paintings of murals in Kaavi art, an art form which was popular in the coastal

Konkan The Konkan is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, bound by the river Daman Ganga at Damaon in the north, to Anjediva Island next to Karwar town in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau to the eas ...

region of Karnataka. In this art form, now extinct, the top plastered layer of the mural was first dyed with a red pigment, which when removed revealed a lower white layer of plaster over which the murals were created.

Worship

The main priest at the temple belongs to the

Vishvakarma Vishvakarma or Vishvakarman (, ) is a craftsman deity and the divine architect of the devas in contemporary Hinduism. In the early texts, the craftsman deity was known as Tvastar and the word "Vishvakarma" was originally used as an epithet fo ...

(Vishvabrahmin) community. When

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2October 186930January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalism, anti-colonial nationalist, and political ethics, political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful Indian ...

visited Sirsi in 1934 he refused to visit the temple, as animal sacrifice was a prevalent ancient practice at the temple; the sacrifice was in the form of offering of he-buffalo as a sacrifice to appease the goddess. A he-buffalo was specially bred for offering as a sacrifice to the deity during the biennial

Rathayatra Ratha Yatra (), or chariot festival, is any public procession in a chariot. They are held annually during festivals in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. The term also refers to the popular annual Ratha Yatra of Puri that involves a public processi ...

(chariot festival). Following Gandhi's protest, there was a successful movement in the town to abolish animal sacrifice spearheaded by Keshwain, chief trustee of the temple, in association with Vitthal Rao Hodike, a teacher and dedicated

Gandhian The followers of Mahatma Gandhi,one of the prominent figure of the Indian independence movement, are called Gandhians. Gandhi's legacy includes a wide range of ideas ranging from his dream of ideal India (or ''Rama Rajya)'', economics, environ ...

of the town.

Gallery

References

{{Reflist

External links

www.marikamba.com
Hindu temples in Uttara Kannada district Religious buildings and structures completed in 1688 Durga temples Devi temples in Karnataka Tourism in Karnataka 1688 establishments in Asia

Features

Worship

Gallery

See also

References

External links