01Mother of Bikaner
Karni Mata was born in a Charan family in the 14th century by the reckoning of her devotees and lived, they say, some 150 years, settling at Deshnoke. Rao Bika, son of Rao Jodha, came to her before he carved out his own kingdom in the desert; the Bikaner tradition says she blessed him and laid the foundation of his fort, and the city was founded in 1488. Every Rathore ruler of Bikaner after him came to Deshnoke as to his mother. Maharaja Ganga Singh gave the temple its marble front and its carved silver doors.
02The kabas
The katha told at the temple: when a boy of Karni Mata’s family drowned in the Kapil Sarovar at Kolayat, she asked Yama to return him. Yama would not, and she declared that her family would no longer go to Yama at all; they would be born as kabas in her temple and return as Charans. So the rats are not pests here. They run over the marble floor, drink milk from wide pans, and pilgrims walk carefully, shuffling their feet so as not to hurt one. Food a kaba has tasted is taken as prasad. To glimpse one of the few white kabas is counted as darshan of the Mata herself.
The life of this place
- 1488Rao Bika founds Bikaner with Karni Mata’s blessing, in the Bikaner tradition.
- c. 1538After Karni Mata’s mahaprayan, her shrine at Deshnoke becomes a temple.
Deshnoke is 30 km south of Bikaner and has its own railway station. Shoes stay outside, so wear socks; the two Navratris bring the largest fairs.
