| Temples & Legends of Bengal |
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| Temples & Legends Of India |
THE TEMPLES IN HOOGHLY |
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| The front wall
of the verandah, and also, to some extent, of the sanctum, is covered with brick panels
finely carved in the best style of Bengali art, with figures of gods and goddesses and
scenes from theepics and Puranas,chiefly Vaishnavite.The temple is said to have been built
by Harishchandra Rai of Sheoraphuli,probably towards the end of the 18th century. It
contains painted wooden images of Ram- chandra, Lakshman (to the right) and Sita (to the
left), the images being the largest of all those at Guptipara. Just opposite this shrine,
on the other side of thequadrangle, stands thefourth temple ofKrishnachandra, with small
images of Krishna and Radha. * It is said to have been built by Dandi Madhusudan inthe
time of Nawab Ali Vardi Khan. The story is that the Dandi, who was in charge of the math, fell into arrears with his revenue, upon which the Nawab summoned Sri Brindabanji toMurshidabad. The Dandi fearing desecration and losing all hope of getting the god back, set up a new image of Krishna and Radha, and built this new temple for it."The chief Vaishnava festivals, viz., Ras, Dol, Rath and Ulta-rath, are observed by large crowds atGuptipara. Guptipara is also noted for introducing a community Puja where the rich and the poor combine, pool their resources and celebrate a puja.This sort of puja is known in Bengal as Barwari puja. 'The Friend of India', a monthly magazine of Srirampur in
its issue for May 1820 mentions: "a new species of pooja which has been introduced
into Bengal within the last thirty years, called Barowaree…About thirty years ago, at
Gooptipara, near Santipoora a town celebrated in Bengal for its numerous Colleges, a
number of Brahmins formed an association for the * Bengali Temples, M.M. Chakravarti, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1909, pp. 141-146, and figs., 3 and 9. |
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| About Temples In Hooghly | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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