01The Devi of peace
Goan families tell the katha of Shantadurga at every festival. Shiva and Vishnu fell into a quarrel so fierce that the worlds shook, and Brahma prayed to the Devi. She came as Durga, took Vishnu in her right hand and Shiva in her left, and made peace between them, and from then she was Shantadurga, Durga who brings peace. Her murti shows her standing between two serpents, the forms of the two Bhagwans. She is the kuladevata of many Goud Saraswat and other Goan families.
02From Keloshi to Kavlem
Her old temple stood at Quelossim, Keloshi, in Salcete. When the Portuguese sacked it in the 1560s the families carried her murti to Kavlem, in Antruz Mahal, beyond Portuguese reach, and worshipped her in a mud shrine. In the 1730s Naroram Mantri, a minister at the court of Chhatrapati Shahu of Satara, gave the money for a stone temple, which was completed in 1738, and the Peshwa Bajirao I granted the village of Kavlem to the Devi. The old site at Keloshi, called Deulbhata, is still held by the temple committee.
The life of this place
- c. 1564The Portuguese sack the temple at Quelossim; the murti is taken to Kavlem.
- 1738The present temple is completed with Naroram Mantri’s endowment; Bajirao I grants Kavlem to the Devi.
About 30 km from Panaji near Ponda. The temple runs dharmashalas for pilgrims; the Jatra in Magha is the main festival.
