This Durga made of Gold needed Human Sacrifice once

She lives in the dense forest of Chilkigarh, a location at the border of West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha. Her temple is believed to be established around five hundred years ago, near the Dulung rivulet. Some say that it was first built in the year 1348 AD, and later reconstructed.

Old Kanakdurga Temple in Chilkigarh. Source: Wikimedia commons

The area was then ruled by Dhalbhum kings who originally came from Madhyapradesh. King Jagatdeo, who took the name Jagannathdeb Dhabaldeb influenced by Puri Jagannath, married the Junglemahal king Gopinath’s daughter Subarnamani. And this Gopinath once saw Devi Mahamaya in a dream. The Goddess ordered him to build her idol and built a temple. Next morning, the king had two visitors, One Brahmin Ramchandra Sarangi and a sculptor Jogendranath Kamilya who had the same dream the same night. Obviously the king had to obey the order of the Goddess now while the sculptor created her idol and the Brahmin took charge of the rituals. The Idol is two feet high and made of gold, hence she is Kanakdurga. They say that the first idol was made of stone which later changed into gold miraculously. The sacrificial site in the temple tells about practice of animal sacrifice since ages here. There is also a belief that while setting up the idol of the temple, numerous human sacrifices took place while the ritual could complete only after the flow of blood reached the flow of Dulung river. Anyway, the temple we see today is surrounded by a forest full of medicinal plants and rare species of animals and birds. The numerous shrines of Shiva found around the temple are believed to be emerged overnight, by some miraculous power of the Goddess.

In fact there are dozens of stories describing the power of the Goddess. Once King Kamalkanta planned to shift the temple somewhere else. But the Goddess appeared in his dream wearing a blue saree and forbade her to do it. The temple remained in the same place and the royal women stopped wearing blue saree showing respect to the Goddess.

Another story tells that once there began a draught in this area. The starving people prayed to the Goddess. Suddenly a big cloud covered the sky. An unprecedented rainfall filled all water bodies and made all the fields green again, but no human or animal was harmed. Entire Chilkigarh became her worshipper.

There is another example of her protecting her people. The temple priests were initially scared of going back to village crossing the dense forest every night after Puja. But the Goddess assured them of protection appearing in their dream. And no priest has been ever attacked by an animal or rogue human while passing through the forest till date.

There is a story about the inner chamber of the temple. They say that a large stone lying in the courtyard of the temple is actually the key of the actual doorway to the inner chamber which only a Sarangi Brahmin can open and enter.

The Goddess is worshipped performing Panchopachar puja following tantric tradition. Only the Brahmin with surname Sarangi is eligible to be a priest. We see a remarkable mix of tribal and sanskritised rituals in this temple. 

During the time of king Mangobinda, kite festival was part of Durgapuja festival. Local artists made large kites for the king- and participation of people from entire region made the festival lively.

There is no question of immersion of a golden Goddess. She is not even accompanied with her children here. Don’t we know that Durga worshipped in Madhyapradesh region has a stronger connection with forest and Tantras than with family life? That way, even though Jhargram (West Medinipur) lies in West Bengal, the medieval Chilkigarh Kanakdurga has less to do with later Bengali tradition.  

New Kanakdurga Temple in Chilkigarh. Source: Wikimedia commons