हिंदीOn this day
Standing

Baleshwar Temple, Champawat

The royal Shiva temple of the Chand kings in Champawat, their capital before Almora. Its stone is carved over every surface, and the group is protected by the ASI.

Built: Chand dynasty, at their first capital Champawat; reconstructed in the early 15th centuryWhere: Uttarakhand (Champawat district)Deity: Bhagwan Shiva as Baleshwar29.34° N, 80.09° E
  1. c. 1420–1427
  2. 1560s
Photo: ArmouredCyborg · CC BY-SA 4.0

01Capital of the Chands

The Chand rajas ruled Kumaon for centuries, first from Champawat and from the 1560s from Almora. Baleshwar was their family temple at Champawat. The main shrine is to Shiva as Baleshwar, and two more stand in the same compound, to Ratneshwar and to Champavati Durga, the Devi from whom the town takes its name. A copper-plate grant kept at the temple records the completion of work under Raja Hari Chand in the 1420s. Close by is an old naula, the stone-lined spring well of the Kumaoni hills.

02Stone like lace

The temple is famous among Kumaonis for its carving. Ceilings are cut into nested lotuses, walls carry deities and dancers, and every course of stone has a band of ornament. Parts of the shikhara have fallen, but what stands is fine work. Mahashivaratri brings a large mela to the compound. Champawat is also the place where, the local tradition says, Bhagwan Vishnu took the Kurma avatar on the nearby Kanadev hill.

The life of this place

  1. c. 1420–1427Reconstruction begun under Uday Chand is completed under Hari Chand, as a copper plate at the temple records.
  2. 1560sThe Chands move their capital to Almora; Baleshwar remains a royal temple.
Visiting

The temple is in Champawat town, a short walk from the bus stand; Lohaghat and the Advaita Ashrama at Mayavati are nearby.

Nearby

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Vedic Rishis and the Itihasa

Purnagiri Temple, Tanakpur

Above the gorge where the Kali river, called the Sharda here, leaves the mountains for the plains, Kumaon and the Terai remember the place where the navel of Sati fell. Its Chaitra fair brings lakhs of pilgrims for three months.

Haat Kalika Temple, GangolihatStanding
Vedic Rishis and the Itihasa

Haat Kalika Temple, Gangolihat

In a deodar forest at Gangolihat, Kumaon worships Mahakali whom the Kumaon Regiment of the Indian Army calls its own. Soldiers going to war and coming back have climbed to her for generations.

Patal Bhuvaneshwar Cave TempleStanding
Vedic Rishis and the Itihasa

Patal Bhuvaneshwar Cave Temple

You go down into the earth on chains, through a passage barely wide enough for a body, and come out into a hall where the rock has grown into the forms of Sheshnag, Ganesha’s head and the four doors of the yugas. The Skanda Purana says that whoever worships here worships at all the tirthas at once.

Jageshwar TemplesStanding
The Age of Great Kingdoms

Jageshwar Temples

More than a hundred stone temples of Shiva crowded in a deodar valley in Kumaon. Some Kumaoni traditions count Jageshwar as the Nageshwar Jyotirlinga of Darukavana.