01Worship at the water
Kankal is the Bengali word for the bony frame of the body, and the Peetha Nirnaya Tantra’s line for Kanchi, as the place is named there, gives the bone of the waist. The village says the waist struck the ground with such force that it left a hollow, the hollow filled with water, and the relic lies beneath it still. So the kund beside the temple is the seat. The main shrine keeps a picture of Maa Kankaleshwari, not a murti. The Stotram calls the Devi Devagarbha and her Bhairava Ruru. Some lists give the bones in general; Shakti Peetha lists differ in such details.
02Among the fields
The temple stands among paddy fields, under old banyan trees, a short drive from Santiniketan. Within the same complex is the Kanchishwar shrine of Mahadev. Birbhum is the country of the Shakti Peethas: Bakreshwar, Nalhati, Nandipur at Sainthia and Phullara at Labpur are all within a day’s round from here, and Tarapith, the great cremation-ground seat of Ma Tara, is not much further. Santiniketan’s Paush Mela falls in winter, and Kankalitala is close enough to join to that visit.
About 9 km from Bolpur on the Bolpur–Labpur road. Bolpur Shantiniketan station is on the Howrah–Bardhaman–Rampurhat line.
