Shani Shingnapur

01The stone that came on the flood

The village tells it this way. After heavy rain the Panasnala stream brought down a large black slab. When the shepherds touched it with a stick, it bled. That night Shani Dev came to the village headman in a dream, said the stone was himself, and asked to be set up in the open: the whole sky was his roof, and he would need no temple. So he stands on a platform in the middle of the village, unroofed, oiled every day. Saturday, Shani’s day, and Shani Amavasya, when the new moon falls on a Saturday, draw the biggest crowds.

02A village without doors

Houses, shops and even a bank branch in Shingnapur have kept to the custom of no locked doors, or doors left open, in the faith that whoever steals here will be punished by Shani himself. Devotees bathe, put on wet saffron clothes and pour mustard oil over the stone. For long, by village custom, only men climbed the platform. In April 2016, after a Bombay High Court ruling on equal access, the temple trust opened the platform to all devotees.

The life of this place