01Sudama’s town
The Bhagavata Purana tells of the poor brahmin Sudama who walked to Dwarka with a handful of beaten rice for his old friend, and came home to find his hut turned into a palace. Porbandar holds that his home was here, and the Sudama temple in the heart of the town, with its small maze of paths in the courtyard, is given to him alone. The Jethwa Rajputs moved their capital to Porbandar in the late eighteenth century and ruled it as a princely state until 1948; the dewans of the state for three generations were Gandhis.
02Kirti Mandir
Karamchand Gandhi, dewan of Porbandar, lived in a three-storeyed ancestral house in the old town, and there, on 2 October 1869, his wife Putlibai gave birth to Mohandas. A swastika marks the spot on the floor of the small room. The boy lived here until about seven, when the family moved to Rajkot. Beside the house the Kirti Mandir memorial was built between 1947 and 1950, its height said to be 79 feet for the 79 years of Gandhiji’s life; the photographs and letters inside cover his and Kasturba’s lives. Kasturba’s parental house stands a few lanes away.
The life of this place
- 1785The Jethwa rulers move their capital from Chhaya to Porbandar.
- 2 October 1869Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi is born in the family house.
- 1947–1950The Kirti Mandir memorial is built beside the birthplace.
Kirti Mandir and the Sudama temple are both in the old town and can be seen in a morning.
