Sirsi Marikamba Temple is a

Hindu temple A Hindu temple, or ''mandir'' or ''koil'' in Indian languages, is a house, seat and body of divinity for Hindus. It is a structure designed to bring human beings and gods together through worship, sacrifice, and devotion.; Quote: "The Hin ...

dedicated to Marikamba Devi a form of the goddess

Durga Durga ( sa, दुर्गा, ) 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 c ...

, located in

Sirsi, Karnataka Sirsi is a city in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka state in India. It was also known as Kalyana Pattana during the Sonda Dynasty. It is a tourist destination with evergreen forest and waterfalls and is also a commercial centre. The ma ...

, It is also known as Marigudi, It was built in 1688, Sirsi Shri Marikamba Devi is "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 ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a ...

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 scenery, love, battles and so on — in short, eve ...

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, which generally refers in Latin texts to the holiest place of th ...

has the central image of a fierce form of the goddess Durga, 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 Hanagal. The temple has very special paintings of murals in Kaavi art, an art form which was popular in the coastal

Konkan The Konkan ( kok, कोंकण) or Kokan () is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, running from Damaon in the north to Karwar in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau in the east. The hinterland ...

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 It is said that the first Marikamba Devi idol was crafted in kortagere.

Worship

The main priest at the temple belongs to the carpenter, or

Vishvakarma Vishvakarma or Vishvakarman ( sa, विश्वकर्मा, Viśvakarmā, all maker) 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 ...

, caste.

Kanakadasa Kanaka Dasa (1509–1609) was a Haridasa saint and philosopher, popularly called Daasashreshta Kanakadasa (ದಾಸಶ್ರೇಷ್ಠ ಕನಕದಾಸ). He was a renowned composer of Carnatic music, poet, reformer and musician. He is kn ...

, a famous saint poet of the Bhakti movement, had visited the temple and advised the people to stop animal sacrifice of the he-buffalo. When

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

visited Sirsi in 1934, during his campaign to abolish

untouchability Untouchability is a form of social institution that legitimises and enforces practices that are discriminatory, humiliating, exclusionary and exploitative against people belonging to certain social groups. Although comparable forms of discrimin ...

Dalits Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming ...

, 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 annual

Rathayatra Ratha Yatra (), or Chariot festival, is any public procession in a chariot. The term particularly refers to the annual Ratha Yatra in Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and other East Indian states, particularly the Odia festival that involve a ...

. Following the protest by Gandhi, there was a social movement in the town not only to abolish animal sacrifice but also to allow Dalits entry into the temple. This movement was spearheaded by Keshwain, chief trustee of the temple, in association with Vitthal Rao Hodike, a teacher and dedicated

Gandhian The followers of Mahatma Gandhi, the greatest 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, environmentalism, ...

of the town. Both objectives of the movement were fulfilled.

Jaatre

The Sirsi Marikamba jaatre (chariot procession) of the deity is held every alternate year in the month of March and taken through the town. It is attended by a very large number of devotees. It is also most famous and biggest fair (jaatre) of the South India. Devotees from all around the state participate in this enormous event indulging themselves in the procession. Amusements for children, circuses, variety of shops, dramas and plays and many such things are set up for the people. It depicts the story of the goddess killing mahishasura.

Gallery

File:Marikamba_TempleinSirsi.jpg File:Marikambatemple.jpg

References

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External links