01Krishna’s sister
The Bhagavata Purana tells that on the night Krishna was born in Kamsa’s prison, Vasudeva carried him to Gokul and brought back Yashoda’s newborn daughter. When Kamsa seized the child to dash her on a stone she slipped from his hands, rose into the sky as the Devi, Yogmaya, and told him that his slayer was born elsewhere. Mehrauli stands on Lal Kot, the citadel of the Tomaras and Chauhans, and the town’s tradition counts this shrine among the temples of that old city; the inscription on the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque beside it records that the mosque was built from the materials of 27 temples.
02Fans for the Devi
The present plain white temple with its small spire was rebuilt in the early 19th century by Lala Sethmal, in the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar II; the Devi is a small black stone set in a marble well, without a carved face. In 1812, the account goes, Akbar II’s queen vowed offerings at Mehrauli if her exiled son Mirza Jahangir came home; when he returned, flower-sellers carried a great pankha, a fan of flowers, to Yogmaya and to the dargah of Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki. That became the Phool Walon ki Sair, still held each autumn with fans borne to both shrines.
The life of this place
- 1812The Phool Walon ki Sair begins, with a flower fan carried to Yogmaya.
- early 19th centuryLala Sethmal rebuilds the temple.
In Mehrauli village, about 300 m north-west of the Qutb Minar; the nearest Metro is Qutab Minar on the Yellow Line.
