After my adventures at the Chunar Fort I decided to venture towards the famous Sri Durga Mandir in Chunar not very far away from the fort area itself. It is the temple of Goddess Durga who is seen sitting on a tiger at all times. On route to the Durga temple, we passed through small town and village roads, this area is also famous for its clay murti’s of gods and Hindu goddesses.
Sri Durga Dham Chunar
These mud and clay idols are much in demand during the festival months of Deepawali, Dussehra and Navratri. The clay oils of Laxmi and Ganesh are used during Pooja’s in almost every home, as people celebrate Diwali. The street’s where full of shops on either side selling these lavishly painted clay idols of Hindu sides and goddesses. I managed to chat up with a few shop keepers who demanded money for taking pictures of their idols and shops. But I managed to get my pics free of cost.
We were soon at the Durga Temple and before we entered, we bought some raw coconut, garlands and flowers along with a red chunni, which where our offerings to the goddess. One has to go down a considerable flight if steps and then climb up a bit to get to the entrance gate of the Durga temple, but the walk is worth it. One has to enter through a small gap in the wall, the inner sacrum of the temple is fully painted with saffron colours. One can see the large statue of the Tiger own the left and there are brass bells dangling from the ceiling of the temple.
To get to the main Durga idol one has to bend very low and enter through a very narrow gap at the bottom of one of the temple walls. Not everyone manages to get through and many people have been known to return as they were too fat to get through the narrow entrance. But images I slithered through the gap like a serpent and came out in the other side just in front of the feet of Durga the mother goddess.
The temple floor is made from marbles and there are tridents kept all over the Durga temple. There is also a place where another poojari sits, that’s the Nariyal Bali Sthal, that is the place where one can crack the coconut that are meant to be offered to the goddess as a sacrifice. It is like an offering to Durga.
On the steps of the temple priest offer flowers and blessings to the devotee by putting a red tick on their forehead. The temple is small but looked very ancient. It was indeed a place where one could seek the blessings of the divine goddess Durga Maa.
