01Dhruvananda’s vow
The temple’s tradition tells of Dhruvananda Brahmachari, a sadhu who went to Puri to offer bhoga to Jagannath with his own hands and was refused. He fasted on the shore until the Lord told him in a dream to go to Mahesh on the Bhagirathi, where a log of daru would float to him. He found it, and the three deities were carved from it. Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came here on his travels and, moved by the worship, named Mahesh Nava Nilachal. The present temple, a tall brick building on the bank, was built in 1755 by Nayanchand Mallick, a Kolkata merchant.
02The rath of Mahesh
On the Rath Yatra day the deities are drawn about a kilometre to the mashir bari, the aunt’s house, at Ballavpur, on a towering chariot of iron built in the late 19th century. A fair of a month grows up along the route. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay set the opening of his novel Radharani at the Mahesh rath fair, where a poor girl is lost in the crowd.
The life of this place
- 1396The Rath Yatra of Mahesh begins, by the temple’s reckoning.
- 1755Nayanchand Mallick builds the present temple.
- 1875Bankim Chandra’s Radharani, set at the Mahesh rath fair, is published.
In Mahesh, on the Grand Trunk Road between Serampore and Rishra; Serampore station is 3 km away.
