Mandirs in Indian Punjabਭਾਰਤੀ ਪੰਜਾਬ ਦੇ ਮੰਦਰ

The mandirs of Indian Punjab are fewer in number than the great temple cities of the south, but two of them hold a pattern found almost nowhere else in India: a goddess temple standing in the middle of a sacred lake. In Amritsar, the Durgiana Temple rises from its sarovar in the architectural pattern of the Golden Temple. In Jalandhar, Devi Talab Mandir stands in its ancient tank, counted among the 51 Shakti Peeths and home to a classical music festival older than most Indian institutions. This guide brings Jugti's Indian Punjab mandirs together, city by city, and will grow as more of the state's shrines are covered.

What are the famous mandirs in Indian Punjab?

The famous mandirs of Indian Punjab, among those covered by Jugti so far, are the Durgiana Temple in Amritsar and Devi Talab Mandir in Jalandhar. Both are dedicated to forms of the goddess, both stand in sacred water, and both anchor the Hindu pilgrimage life of their cities, Amritsar in Majha and Jalandhar in the Doaba. Together they show how Punjab's temple tradition adapted the sarovar, the sacred pool at the heart of the region's Sikh shrines, into its own mandir architecture.

Durgiana Temple: Amritsar's temple in a lake

The Durgiana Temple is Amritsar's principal Hindu temple, dedicated to Durga with shrines of Lakshmi and Vishnu, standing in a sarovar about 160 by 130 metres near the Hathi Gate. Rebuilt in 1921 by Guru Harsai Mal Kapoor in the pattern of the Harmandir Sahib, it is also called the Lakshmi Narayan Temple and, for its large silver doors, the Silver Temple. Its festivals include Navratri and the Langur Mela at its Bara Hanuman shrine, when children are brought dressed as langurs to offer prayers.

Devi Talab Mandir: Jalandhar's Shakti Peeth

The Devi Talab Mandir is Jalandhar's great goddess temple, dedicated to Durga and worshipped as Tripurmalini, and counted among the 51 Shakti Peeths. Believed to be more than 200 years old, it stands in an ancient sacred tank under a gold covered shikhara, with an old Kali temple and models of the Amarnath and Vaishno Devi caves in its complex. Each year from 27 to 30 December it hosts the Harballabh Sangeet Sammelan, first held in 1875 and later declared a National Festival, which makes this Punjab shrine a place of pilgrimage for classical musicians as well as devotees.

Two cities, two sacred tanks

Read together, the two temples explain each other. Amritsar and Jalandhar are Punjab's two great goddess cities of the plains, and in both the temple keeps the region's oldest sacred form, water at the centre and the shrine within it. A pilgrim can visit both in one journey across the state, from Majha to the Doaba, and see how the same idea took two different shapes: a marble temple modelled on a Sikh shrine in Amritsar, and a gold topped Shakti Peeth with a music samadhi on its bank in Jalandhar. Both entries sit inside Jugti's wider mandirs in India collection, alongside the Jyotirlingas and the Char Dham.

All Mandirs in Indian Punjab

• Durgiana Temple - Amritsar's Durga temple in its own sarovar, rebuilt in 1921 in the pattern of the Golden Temple
• Devi Talab Mandir - Jalandhar's Shakti Peeth of Tripurmalini in its sacred tank, home of the Harballabh Sangeet Sammelan since 1875