Hindus offer prayers at temples and various temples across India have fascinating legends associated with them.
India is a country of myth, legends, and mysteries. Hinduism is the main religion of the country and it’s believed that Hinduism is the oldest religion in the history of the world. Hindus offer prayers at temples and various temples have fascinating legends associated with them. Continuing from the first part of the story, we have made a list of a few more temples with fascinating legends associated with them.
This temple is situated near the Indo-Pak border and during the 1965 Indo-Pak war, the Pakistani army tried to destroy this temple but miraculously nothing happened to the temple, not even a scratch. The temple is regarded as a miracle temple, and a large number of devotees visit it, including army men also.
The three deities of this temple are Lord Jagannath, Balram, and Subhadra. The construction of the temple was started by King Chodagangadeva and completed by his grandson Anangabhimadeva in the late twelfth century. Unlike other idols in Hindu temples, the idols of deities here are made of wood and not from stones or metals.
The fascinating thing about this temple is that every 12 years, the old idols are changed with new idols made of wood. It’s believed that the main priest gets a dream about from which woods of the tree the idols of the deities shall be crafted. Then the tree is searched and from the woods, new idols are curated. There is an unknown element known as Bramhatatv that is present in the idol of Lord Jagannath and nobody knows what exactly it is. The electricity of Puri city is switched off during the idol-changing process. Only some priests are allowed to go and replace the idols but they are also blindfolded.
The government has already banned aeroplanes from flying over the temple but it is said that even birds don’t fly above the temple and the reason is a mystery to all.
The Kamakhya Devi Temple in Assam is devoted to the Goddess Sati and it’s also known as the ‘Temple of the Menstruating Goddess’. The fascinating thing about this temple is that it does not have an idol in the main sanctum to worship, though, it has the yoni or vagina of Devi Sati, the wife of Lord Shiva, covered with a red silk sari.
Every year during the month of June-July, the goddess menstruates, and the temple is closed down for three days. It is also when the three days long Tantric fertility festival or Ambubachi Mela is celebrated, and tantriks and yogis from across the country come here to be part of the ritual.
On the fourth day when the temple reopens for devotees, they offer prayers to the Goddess. It is believed that the underground spring that flows in the sanctum of the temple turns red on these three days. Devotees are given a piece of the red cloth used to cover the stone yoni during the days of menstruation as ‘prasad’.
