Eklingji
Encyclopedia
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
temple complex in Udaipur District
Udaipur district
Udaipur District is one of the 33 districts of Rajasthan state in western India. The historic city of Udaipur is the administrative headquarters of the district....
of Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...
in western India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Eklingji is believed to be the Ruling deity of Mewar
Mewar
Mewar is a region of south-central Rajasthan state in western India. It includes the present-day districts of Pratapgarh, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Udaipur, Dungarpur, Banswara and some of the part of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The region was for centuries a Rajput kingdom that later...
Princely State and the Ruler Maharana rules as his Dewan.
Begun in 971, the temple complex was built by the Guhila (later called Sesodia) dynasty of Mewar
Mewar
Mewar is a region of south-central Rajasthan state in western India. It includes the present-day districts of Pratapgarh, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Udaipur, Dungarpur, Banswara and some of the part of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The region was for centuries a Rajput kingdom that later...
, in honor of their presiding deity Eklingji, a form of Lord Shiva
Shiva
Shiva is a major Hindu deity, and is the destroyer god or transformer among the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of the primary aspects of the divine. God Shiva is a yogi who has notice of everything that happens in the world and is the main aspect of life. Yet one with great power lives a life of a...
. The beautifully sculpted temple complex includes 108
108 (number)
108 is the natural number following 107 and preceding 109.- In mathematics :One hundred [and] eight is an abundant number and a semiperfect number...
temples within its high walls. The main temple, which dates to the 15th century, was rebuilt from the ruins of an earlier destroyed temple. The walled complex is made of marble
Marble
Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...
and granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
and has an enormous double-storied, elaborately pillared hall or "mandap" under a vast pyramidal roof, with a four-faced image of Lord Shiva in black marble. Another temple in the complex is the Lakulish Temple; built in 971, it is the only temple of the Lakulish
Lakulish
Lakulisha was a prominent Shaivite revivalist, reformist and preceptor of the doctrine of the Pashupatas, one of the oldest sects of Shaivism...
sect in the whole of India.
Located 22 km north of Udaipur
Udaipur, Rajasthan
Udaipur , also known as the City of Lakes, is a city, a Municipal Council and the administrative headquarters of the Udaipur district in the state of Rajasthan in western India. It is located southwest of the state capital, Jaipur, west of Kota, and northeast from Ahmedabad...
, Eklingji is conveniently reached by bus and car. Tourists can access to this place from RSTC buses that runs from Udaipur to Eklingji and other major destinations of Rajasthan. It hardly takes an hour (60 Minutes) to reach Eklingji from Udaipur
Udaipur
Udaipur , also known as the City of Lakes, is a city, a Municipal Council and the administrative headquarters of the Udaipur district in the state of Rajasthan in western India. It is located southwest of the state capital, Jaipur, west of Kota, and northeast from Ahmedabad...
. The Eklingji temple is surrounded by long walls of hard rock. This fascinating temple was built in 734 A.D. It consists of 108 temples chiseled out of sandstone and marble. The temple complex is devoted to the royal family of Mewar. The Maharana of Udaipur
Udaipur
Udaipur , also known as the City of Lakes, is a city, a Municipal Council and the administrative headquarters of the Udaipur district in the state of Rajasthan in western India. It is located southwest of the state capital, Jaipur, west of Kota, and northeast from Ahmedabad...
pays a private visit to the temple on Monday evening.
Eklingji is a revered place of devotion for Hindu tourists in India. Most of the faithful pilgrims visit the temple on Monday to seek the special blessings of Lord Shiva. On other days of the week the temple is relatively crowd free.
There are other ancient temples near Eklingji, such another Shiva Temple that was built in the time of Maharana Raimal
Rana Raimal
Rana Raimal was a ruler of Mewar. Maharana Raimal was the son of Maharana Kumbha. He came to power by defeating his patricide predecessor, Udaysingh I in battles at Jawar, Darimpur and Pangarh. Early in Raimal's reign, Ghiyas Shah of Malwa attacked Chittor unsuccessfully. Soon after, Ghiyas Shah's...
between 1473 and 1509.
About 1 km from Eklingji, Nagda town is famous for its Sas-bahu and Adbudji temples. The Sas-Bahu Temple is widely known for its exquisite stone carvings, which are related to incidents in the great Indian epic the Ramayana
Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
.