THE TWO OLDER KALI TEMPLES OF BALURGHAT


- PINAKI ROY (November 2012)


Other than the prestigious and popular Bolla Kali Mandir, located at a distance of 20 kilometres from Balurghat Town, to other Goddess Kali-temples are famous, as far as the cultural history of Balurghat is concerned. One is the ‘Bura Kali Mandir’, located inside Balurghat Market, while the other is the ‘Chakbhabani Barowari Kali Bari’.

Goddess Bura Kali – the idol being a small stone-made one with a golden face attached to it – is being worshipped at Balurghat since early-17th century A.D. The area where the temple – presently an imposing three-storied-structure managed by ‘Bura Kali Bari Debottar Estate’ – is located, used to be covered with dense forests, with the Atreyee flowing nearby. As the river changed its course and headed west, a stone-idol reportedly appeared from underneath the ground, and since then, came to be regularly worshipped. Though previously the goddess was worshipped in a makeshift temple, two philanthropist-believers, Gopal Chandra Chakroborty and Harinath Bhattacharyya, arranged for the construction of a permanent temple structure. Each year thousands of believers, some coming from the districts of Uttar Dinajpur and Malda, throng the temple-premises on the first day of Kali Pooja, and a number of goats are sacrificed. There is a belief that at midnight the stone-idol becomes animated, and the goddess briefly moves around the market-area, with her ornaments making light sounds. The leader of the late-18th-century A.D. Sannyasi Rebellion, Bhabani Pathak (d. 1787), and Rani Rashmoni (1793-1861), the founder of the Dakshineshwar Temple in Kolkata, used to visit Balurghat in their respective ‘bajra’-s or decorated barges during the pooja-period. It may be recalled that the Balurghat-locality ‘Chakbhabani’ received its name from Pathak; the word ‘chak’ suggesting ‘river bank’ in older forms of the Bengali language. The goddess is fondly called ‘Bura’ in remembrance of the fact that she is one of the older deities of the entire region around Balurghat. She is worshipped on the temple-premises, which alos houses a large idol of Lord Shiva, throughout the year.

Bhabani, who was killed in 1787 during an encounter with the English imperialist-lieutenant Brenan in Rangpur, also reportedly frequented what is presently known as the ‘Chakbhabani Barowari Kali Bali’. Actually, the Sannyasi activist is credited with starting the worshipping of the goddess in this temple. As was the situation for ‘Bura Kali Mandir’, the earlier Chakbhabani temple was in a dilapidated make-shift house during the late-19th century A.D., but was later renovated and erected permanently beside the present-day ‘Balurghat Police Station’. The goddess is worshipped piously all throughout the year and each day rice-offerings are distributed to the believers and devotees from the temple-premises. In 2012, Mr. Aroop Kumar Sarkar is officiating as the secretary of the management-committees for ‘Chakbhabani Barowari Kali Bari’.