01Hatakeshwara kshetra
The sixth book of the Skanda Purana, the Nagara Khanda, is given almost wholly to this country: the Hatakeshwara kshetra, its tirthas, and the town of Chamatkarapura, which the Nagar Brahmins hold to be Vadnagar, the old city of their own name. Hataka is gold, and Hatakeshwara is the Lord of gold. For the Nagars, wherever they have gone, to Junagadh or Kashi or the far side of the world, Hatkeshwar is the kuldevata, and Hatkeshwar temples stand wherever Nagar families settled. The linga in the sanctum is held to be swayambhu, self-manifest, not set up by any hand.
02Walls full of carving
The temple faces east inside a high wall. A tall shikhara rises over the sanctum, and a large hall leads in to it. The outer walls are carved from plinth to cornice: the nine grahas, the guardians of the directions, the chief devas, scenes from the life of Shri Krishna, the Pandavas, episodes of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, musicians and apsaras, elephants and flowering creepers. The date of the present building is not settled; the Gujarat tourism department says 17th century, other accounts say 15th, and the kshetra itself is far older. In the same compound stand an old Kashi Vishweshwar shrine, a Swaminarayan temple and two Jain temples.
The temple is on the edge of Vadnagar town, near the Kirti Toran and the Sharmishtha lake; Vadnagar has its own station. Mahashivratri and Shravan Mondays draw the Nagar families.
