हिंदीOn this day
Standing

Varahi Deula, Chaurasi

A small khakhara temple in the Prachi valley that holds one of the finest images of Varahi in India: the boar-faced Mother, seated at ease, holding a fish and a skull-cup.

Built: c. 9th–10th century CEWhere: Odisha (Puri district)Deity: Maa Varahi20.06° N, 86.12° E
  1. c. 9th–10th century
Photo: Bikash Ojha · CC BY-SA 4.0

01The Mother with a fish

Varahi is the Shakti of Varaha, one of the Saptamatrikas, and in Tantric worship a Devi in her own right. At Chaurasi she sits with a large belly, one leg folded, her buffalo below, a fish in her right hand and a kapala in her left. Her face is a boar’s, yet the carving gives it calm. The fish ties her to the Prachi villages, where fish is part of the Devi’s offering in the Shakta way. Puja is done before dawn, and the temple is closed by mid-morning.

02Khakhara in the countryside

Like the Vaital Deula of Bhubaneswar, the temple has the barrel-vaulted khakhara roof kept for Devi shrines, but here it stands among paddy fields and coconut groves. The outer walls carry scenes from the Ramayana and Krishna’s childhood, worn but readable. The temple is protected by the Archaeological Survey of India.

The life of this place

  1. c. 9th–10th centuryThe Varahi temple is built in the Prachi valley.
Visiting

About 14 km from Kakatpur and 30 km from Konark; go early, as the sanctum closes after the morning puja.

Nearby

Maa Mangala Temple, KakatpurStanding
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Maa Mangala Temple, Kakatpur

The Devi temple on the Prachi river whose blessing begins every Navakalebara of Jagannath: here the Daitapati servitors pray until Maa Mangala shows them in a dream where the sacred neem trees stand.

Konark Sun TempleRuined
Cholas and the Southern Seas

Konark Sun Temple

Surya’s chariot in stone, with twenty-four carved wheels and seven horses, raised by Narasimhadeva I around 1250 at Konark, the Arka Kshetra. The great tower has fallen; the jagamohana still stands, filled with sand since 1903 to keep it standing.

Ramachandi Temple, KonarkStanding
Shungas, Satavahanas, Kharavela and the Sangam Kingdoms

Ramachandi Temple, Konark

Where the Kushabhadra river meets the sea near Konark, Odisha worships Ramachandi, held to be the presiding Devi of the Arka Kshetra of the Sun.

Maa Sarala Temple, JhankadStanding
Sultanates, Vijayanagara and the kingdoms that stood

Maa Sarala Temple, Jhankad

The Devi of Jhankad gave the farmer’s son Siddheswar Parida the gift of poetry, and he became Sarala Das, who wrote the Mahabharata in Odia. Odisha worships her as the mother of its literature.