Dakshineswar Kali Temple, Hindu temple in Dakshineswar, Kolkata, India
The temple sits by the riverbank in a district north of Kolkata and follows a nine-spire design with multiple towers. The main building rises above the grounds with a white facade and dark red accents, surrounded by smaller shrines and colonnades.
A wealthy widow commissioned the construction in the mid-19th century after she was told in a dream to build a site for worship. The construction took eight years and the grounds later became a place where a well-known spiritual teacher lived and received followers.
The temple is known as Dakshineswar Kalibari, and its presiding deity is Bhavatarini, a form of Kali, installed on 31 May 1855. Sarada Devi, Ramakrishna's wife, lived for years in a small ground-floor room on the south side of the Nahabat, the music tower northeast of the Shiva temples; that room is now a shrine to her.
Access is possible in the morning and late afternoon when ceremonies take place and visitors can view the shrines. Those who arrive early find the grounds quieter and can walk through the courtyards more easily.
The twelve Shiva shrines stand in a single row facing east between the main temple and the bathing ghat on the Hooghly, built in the aat-chala Bengal form. The Nahabat, a music tower northeast of the last Shiva shrine, holds on its ground floor the small south-side room where Sarada Devi lived, now a shrine to her.
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