Sakshi Gopal Temple, Satyabadi

01The witness who walked

The Chaitanya Charitamrita, Madhya Lila 5, tells the katha. Two brahmins of Vidyanagara in the south went on pilgrimage to Vrindavan, an elder rich one and a poor young one who served him with devotion. In gratitude the elder promised the younger his daughter in marriage, before the image of Gopal. At home, his family made him go back on his word. The young brahmin returned to Vrindavan and begged Gopal to come and bear witness; Gopal agreed to walk behind him, on condition that he never look back. Near Vidyanagara, when the sound of the anklets stopped in the sand, he looked, and Gopal stood still there, and the promise was kept. Later, the Gajapati Purushottama Deva of Odisha, after his war with the southern king, brought the image to Cuttack, and from there it came to Satyabadi.

02On the way to Puri

Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, walking to Puri in 1510, stopped to have darshan of Gopal at Cuttack, and Nityananda told the katha to the party on the road. The temple stands at Sakhigopal, about 20 km before Puri on the Bhubaneswar road, in the Kalinga style with a tall rekha deul. The Odia custom is that a pilgrimage to Jagannath is completed by a visit here, so that Gopal may stand witness to it.

The life of this place