| Temples & Legends of Bengal |
 |
| Temples & Legends Of India |
THE TEMPLES IN MIDNAPORE |
|
| Dantan, an
important village in Midanpore district, which has a number of temples that will be
referred to, is intimately associated with king Sasanka. Sasanka was a great believer in
Saivism and his coins had the impress of Mahadeva riding on a bull. The influx of Saivism
in Midnapore district can certainly be traced to the days of Sasanka and Gupta age. The ruling deity of the Rajas of Jhargram in Midnapore district is Savitri Devi. This is a Sakta deity and in the temple of Savitri Devi in Jhargram there have been finds of Chaturmukha lingam and a twelve-armed Lokeshwar Vishnu under a canopy of a snake hood. At Chilkigarh, another village where the Jamboni princely family had their head quarters, we find two deities worshipped with great eclat and human sacrifices were normally offered till the British administra- tion had firmly put it down. One of them is the deity of Kanka Durga in a temple on the bank of the hilly river Dalung located in the midst of a deep forest. The environs are awe-inspiring and the fearsome image is verily the presiding deity of a ferocious jungle king. Rankini Devi that is worshipped at Chilkigarh has her counter-part in the Rankini Devi image at Ghatshila in Singhbhum district. A Deputy Commissioner of Singhbhum tactfully suppressed human sacrifice at Ghatshila.6 At Chilkigarh Rankini Devi had no visible image and a lot of small earthen elephants and horses are they’re representing her anointed with vermilion. This is clearly an impact of tribalism. 6. Singhbhum Old Records--Digest edited by P.C. Roy Choudhury and published by the Gazetteer Revision Section, Government of Bihar. |
|
| About Midnapore | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
