Khardaha (খড়দহ Khaṛdaha) is a temple town in the North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal. It is a pilgrimage site of the Vaishnava denomination of Hinduism.
Get in
[edit]By train
[edit]- 1 Khardaha Eastern .
By ferry
[edit]- 2 Khardaha Ferry Ghat.
Get around
[edit]
Map of Khardaha
See and do
[edit]- 1 26 Shiva Temples. A riverside at-chala temple complex built between late 18th century and early 19th century by zamindars Ramhari Biswas and Ramkrishna Biswas. The temple walls are embellished with an ornate design of creeper, flower, niches and plaster.
- 2 Gopinath Temple.
- 3 Kunjabati. Nityananda Mahaprabhu chose this building for kirtan at the order of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. There's an idol of Nityananda on the eastern side, along with the graves of his wives Basudha and Jahnabi at the courtyard.
- 4 Mahaprabhu Temple. A nine-pinnacled (navaratna) temple housing the idols of Jagannath, Chaitanya and Nityananda, three Mahaprabhus of Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
- 5 Raskhola Rasmancha. A holy place associated with Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. It is decorated with colorful light, kadamba flower made of sola and birds during the Ras festival.
- 6 Shyamsundar Jiu Temple. A temple established by Birbhadra Goswami, son of Nityananda Mahaprabhu. Birbhadra was born in 1457 at Kunjabati. At the time, Buddhism and Tantra were popular religions in Bengal. As the legend goes, he once gathered the Vaishnavites from different parts of Bengal to have a worship session at Kunjabati, and he came to know about a type of basalt stone (কষ্ঠী পাথর kaṣṭhī pāthar) on which Krishna was said to stand on during the Rajsuya Yajna of Yudhishthira. He wanted the stone from Gour to carve out three idols. So, he went to Gour with his disciples, and the sultan agreed to give the stone for idolatry. After that, Birbhadra saw a dream where Krishna instructed him to flow the stone through the waves of the Ganges. So, he flowed it in the Hooghly River, a distributary of the Ganges, and it was picked up from the present-day Shyamer Ghat. One of the three idols carved from the stone was christened as "Shyamsundar Jiu", and was installed at Khardaha.