Kamakhya Temple

The temple of Kamakhya has a very interesting story of its origin. It is one of the 108 Shakti peetha. The story of the Shakti peeths goes like this; once Sati fought with her husband Shiva to attend her father’s great yagna. At the grand yagna, Sati’s father Daksha insulted her husband. Sati was angered and in her shame, she jumped into the fire and killed herself. When Shiva came to know that his beloved wife had committed suicide, he went insane with rage. He placed Sati’s dead body on his shoulders and did the tandav or dance of destruction.

To calm him down, Vishnu cut the dead body with his chakra. The 108 places where Sati’s body parts fell are called Shakti Peetha. Kamakhya temple is special because Sati’s womb and vagina fell here.

Legend has it that following the destruction of Daksha’s sacrifice and the Rudra Tandava of Shiva, parts of Sati’s body fell at several places throughout India, and these places are revered as Shakti peethas. The reproductive organ of Sati, (the Yoni) is said to have fallen here.

Legend also has it that the supreme creative power of Brahma was challenged by Shakti, the mother Goddess, and that Brahma could thereafter create, only with the blessings of the Yoni, as the sole creative principle. After much penance, Brahma brought down a luminous body of light from space and placed it within the Yoni circle, which was created by the Goddess and placed at Kamarupa.

The temple has a beehive like shikhara. Some of the sculptured panels seen here are of interest. There are images of Ganesha, Chamundeswari, dancing fitures etc. There is no image of Shakti here. Within a corner of a cave in the temple, there is a sculptored image of the Yoni of the Goddess, which is the object of reverence. A natural spring keeps the stone moist.

The temple consists of four chambers: garbhagriha and three mandapas locally called calanta, pancaratna and natamandira. The garbhagriha has a pancharatha plan and rests on plinth moldings that are similar to the Surya Temple at Tezpur, above which are dados from a later period of the Khajuraho or the Central Indian type, consisting of sunken panels alternating with pilasters. The sikhara is in the shape of a bee-hive, which is a characteristic of temples in Lower Assam. The inner sanctum, the garbhagriha, is a cave below ground level and consists of no image but a rock fissure.

The garbhaghrihas of the other temples in the Kamakhya complex follow the same structure—a yoni-shaped stone, filled with water and below ground level.

The current structure has been built during the Ahom times,with remnants of the earlier Koch temple carefully preserved. Temple was destroyed during the middle of second millennium and revised temple structure was constructed in 1565 by Chilarai of the Koch dynasty in the style of medieval temples.

The temple consists of three major chambers. The western chamber is large and rectangular and is not used by the general pilgrims for worship. The middle chamber is a square, with a small idol of the Goddess, a later addition. The walls of this chamber contain sculpted images of Naranarayana, related inscriptions and other gods. The middle chamber leads to the sanctum sanctorum of the temple in the form of a cave, which consists of no image but a natural underground spring that flows through a yoni-shaped cleft in the bedrock.