Kamakhya Templeਕਾਮਾਖਿਆ ਮੰਦਰ

The Kamakhya Temple on Nilachal Hill above Guwahati is one of Hinduism's most unusual and most powerful shrines. There is no idol in its sanctum. Instead, in a small dark chamber below ground level, a natural rock fissure shaped like a yoni is kept constantly moist by an underground spring, and this is what devotees worship as the goddess Kamakhya herself. Counted among the oldest four of the 51 Shakti Pithas, the temple is the great centre of the Kulachara Tantra Marga and of goddess worship in eastern India.

A goddess with no idol

The heart of Kamakhya is the garbhagriha, reached by narrow, steep stone steps. The chamber is small and dark, and inside it a sheet of stone slopes down from both sides and meets in a yoni-like depression about ten inches deep. The hollow stays filled with water from a perennial underground spring. It is this vulva-shaped depression, not any carved image, that is worshipped as the goddess Kamakhya herself, and tradition regards it as the most important pitha, the abode, of the Devi. The Kalika Purana, an ancient Sanskrit text, describes Kamakhya as the yielder of all desires, the young bride of Shiva, and the giver of salvation. Historians note that the worship here began as the autochthonous cult of a local goddess, and the aniconic worship of the yoni set in natural stone continues to this day.

Where the goddess's yoni fell

According to the Kalika Purana, Kamakhya marks the spot where Sati, the devoted wife of Shiva, used to retire in secret for union with him, and where her yoni fell after Shiva's tandava, the dance of destruction, with the corpse of Sati. A later text, the Yogini Tantra, sets that origin aside and associates Kamakhya with the goddess Kali, emphasising the creative symbolism of the yoni. These are matters of religious tradition, and devotees hold them as sacred truth. On the historical side, scholars suggest the site was once an ancient sacrificial ground of the region's tribal peoples. The first epigraphic notice of the goddess Kamakhya appears in the 9th-century Tezpur plates of Vanamalavarmadeva of the Mleccha dynasty of Kamarupa, the first royal house to patronise the shrine. The Palas, the Koch kings and the Ahoms followed, and the temple became identified with the power of the Kamarupa kingdom itself.

The Nilachal style: a dome unlike any other

The present temple has been built and rebuilt many times, in the 8th to 9th, 11th to 12th and 13th to 14th centuries and later, and its current form dates from the 16th century. The result is a hybrid indigenous style called the Nilachal type: a temple with a hemispherical dome on a cruciform base. Art historians note that the original structure was clearly of the Nagara type, possibly in the Malava manner. What makes Kamakhya unmistakable is its shikhara: a polygonal beehive-like dome of brick, circled by a cluster of minaret-inspired angashikharas of the Bengal charchala type, made by craftsmen more familiar with the Islamic architecture of Bengal. The temple has four chambers: the garbhagriha, the calanta, the pancharatna and the natamandira, the last with an apsidal end and a ridged Ahom-style roof bearing inscriptions of the Ahom kings Rajeswar Singha (1759) and Gaurinath Singha (1782). The entrance is generally through the northern door, of the Ahom dochala type.

Rebuilt by the Koch kings in 1565

Tradition once blamed the temple's ruin on Kalapahar, a general of Sulaiman Karrani, but since the reconstruction date of 1565 precedes his campaigns, and he is not known to have come so far east, historians now believe the temple was destroyed during Hussein Shah's invasion of the Kamata kingdom in 1498. The ruins are said to have been found by Vishwasingha, founder of the Koch dynasty, who revived worship at the site; it was his son Nara Narayan, who ruled from 1540 to 1587, who completed the reconstruction in 1565 under the supervision of his general Chilarai. After two failed attempts to restore the stone shikhara, a Koch artisan named Meghamukdam turned to brick masonry and created the dome seen today. The Ahom kings built over the Koch structure in turn: by the end of 1658 the Ahoms under Jayadhvaj Singha had taken Kamrup, and after the Battle of Itakhuli in 1681 they held the temple without interruption. One piece of living legend: members of the Koch Bihar royal family do not visit the temple, averting their gaze when passing, on account of a legendary curse of the goddess. In July 2015 the Supreme Court of India transferred the temple's administration from the Kamakhya Debutter Board to the Bordeuri Samaj.

Why is the temple closed for three days every June?

Every June the temple hosts the Ambubachi Mela, its great annual festival, which celebrates the menstruation of the goddess. For three days the sanctum stays closed while the goddess is held to be menstruating; when it reopens, thousands of tantra devotees who have gathered from across eastern India press forward for darshan. The mela is one of the largest religious congregations in the region and draws spiritual seekers from far beyond Assam. Two other annual celebrations keep the calendar full: the Manasha Puja and the five-day Durga Puja during Navaratri in autumn.

Tantra, sacrifice and both paths of worship

Kamakhya is basic to Tantric worship, and the goddess is honoured here according to both the vamachara, the left-hand path, and the dakshinachara, the right-hand path. Offerings are usually flowers, though they may include animal sacrifices; the tradition of sacrifice continues today, with devotees coming every morning with animals and birds to offer to the goddess, though female animals are generally exempt, a rule relaxed during mass sacrifices. The main temple is ringed by a complex of individual shrines dedicated to the ten Mahavidyas of Shaktism: Kali, Tara, Tripura Sundari, Bhuvaneshwari, Bhairavi, Chhinnamasta, Dhumavati, Bagalamukhi, Matangi and Kamalatmika. Tripurasundari, Matangi and Kamala reside inside the main temple while the other seven have their own shrines, and such a complete gathering of the Mahavidyas in one complex is rare.

Visiting Kamakhya today

The temple stands on Nilachal Hill in Guwahati, with panoramic views over the city and the Brahmaputra. It opens from 5:30 in the morning to 10 at night, with general darshan from 8 AM, and the best months to visit are October to March. Guwahati airport is about 20 kilometres away and Kamakhya railway station about 7. Nearby, the Umananda Temple sits on Peacock Island in the Brahmaputra. A major change is under way: in February 2024 Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the Maa Kamakhya Divyalok Pariyojana, also called the Maa Kamakhya Access Corridor, a redevelopment funded under the central government's PM-DevINE scheme at a cost of about 498 crore rupees. Modelled on the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, it plans to expand the open space around the temple from roughly 3,000 to 100,000 square feet and to handle 8,000 to 10,000 visitors during peak events such as the Ambubachi Mela. It remains one of the great mandirs of India.