Dakshineswar Kali Temple
— — where the river still keeps the morning's prayers.
Not only on a wall.
“The temple's nine spires rise above the ghats where pilgrims gather before the river warms. Inside the garbhagriha, the black-stone Bhavatarini stands on a silver lotus over the reclining Shiva, Kali in her gentle, world-protecting form. The bells begin at first light. The Hooghly carries the sound a long way downstream toward Kolkata, past the boatmen already at their oars.
Dakshineswar Kali Temple, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Dakshineswar Kali Temple sits on the east bank of the Hooghly River in Dakshineswar, about 12 km north of central Kolkata in West Bengal. Built in 1855 by the philanthropist Rani Rashmoni, a Mahishya zamindar of Kolkata, the temple is dedicated to the goddess Bhavatarini, a form of Kali. The main shrine follows the Bengal navaratna style, with nine spires over a two-storey sanctum, and is flanked by twelve identical aat-chala shrines to Shiva along the riverfront, with a separate Radha-Krishna temple on the courtyard's southern edge.
The temple is most associated with Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who served as its priest for some thirty years from 1855 until his death in 1886. His small riverside room beside the bathing ghat survives and is open to visitors. The largest annual gathering arrives during Kali Puja in late October or November, when the inner shrine stays open through the night. Snan Yatra in June and Phalaharini Kali Puja in spring also draw very large crowds from across Bengal, and the Belur Math ferries run later than usual.
The temple opens around 6 a.m. and closes briefly in the afternoon before reopening for the evening arati. Cameras and mobile phones are not permitted inside the inner shrine, and shoes are left at the gate. The complex is reached most easily by the Vivekananda Setu road bridge or the suburban Eastern Railway line to Dakshineswar station, both about a kilometre from the gate. Belur Math, the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission founded by Swami Vivekananda in 1898, sits directly across the river and is connected by a regular ferry.