Kamakhya Temple
— — the older devotion, kept in stone.
Not only on a wall.
“A Shakti Peetha on Nilachal Hill above Guwahati, on the south bank of the Brahmaputra. One of the oldest and most important tantric sites in India, dedicated to the goddess Kamakhya. The shikhara is beehive-shaped, low and dark, with red cloth tied at the doorways and hibiscus carried up the hill. In June the Ambubachi Mela draws tens of thousands of pilgrims for darshan.
Kamakhya 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.
Kamakhya Temple stands on Nilachal Hill, about 244 metres above the south bank of the Brahmaputra in Guwahati, Assam. It is one of the 51 Shakti Peethas of Hindu tradition and the most important tantric temple in eastern India. The current structure dates principally to the 17th century, rebuilt under the Koch king Naranarayana after the earlier temple was destroyed in the 16th century; the sanctum, however, preserves a much older shrine. Kamakhya is counted among the four ancient Shakti Peethas considered the most sacred, alongside Kalighat, Tarapith, and Dakshineswar.
The shikhara is a distinctive beehive shape — the Nilachal style — squat, hemispherical, and pleated with vertical ridges, unlike the soaring north-Indian or south-Indian temple towers. Inside the sanctum there is no statue: the deity is a natural stone fissure kept moist by an underground spring, draped in red cloth and silver. The complex includes shrines to the ten Mahavidyas, the tantric goddesses. Red is the temple's signature colour — in the cloth at the doorways, the tikka on every forehead, and the hibiscus offered through the day.
The temple's calendar is built around the Ambubachi Mela, held each year in late June, when the goddess is said to undergo her annual menstruation. For three days the sanctum is closed; on the fourth it reopens and tens of thousands of pilgrims come up the hill for darshan. Durga Puja in autumn and Manasha Puja in summer also draw large crowds. The rest of the year the temple is quieter, and the climb up Nilachal is best made before the heat of the day or in the cool of the late afternoon.