Sawariya Seth Temple
— the dark-faced Krishna the merchants call partner.
Not only on a wall.
“A white marble shrine on the highway between Chittorgarh and Udaipur, in the small village of Mandphia. The temple is given to Krishna in his dark-complexioned Sanwariya form, and the courtyard fills on Amavasya new-moon days with traders who consider the deity a silent business partner. The marble holds the late Rajasthan light long after the road has cooled.
Sawariya Seth 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 Shri Sanwariyaji temple stands in the village of Mandphia in Bhadesar tehsil, Chittorgarh district, in the Mewar region of Rajasthan. It sits on the highway between Chittorgarh and Udaipur, roughly 40 kilometres south of Chittorgarh and 65 kilometres northeast of Udaipur. The shrine is dedicated to Krishna in his Sanwariya — dark-complexioned — form, and is administered by a temple board that publishes accounts of the hundi offerings each fortnight. The site draws devotees from across Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
The temple opens before dawn and closes after the evening aarti, with darshan timings posted at the gates and on the temple board's website. Amavasya, the new-moon day, is the busiest fortnight of the lunar calendar, drawing tens of thousands of pilgrims from the surrounding districts. Many are traders and small business owners; Sanwariya Seth, literally 'the merchant Sanwariya', is regarded as a silent business partner in the Marwari and Mewari business communities. Footwear, leather and photography are restricted inside the inner sanctum.
The current shrine is a white marble complex built over the older village temple, with carved pillars, a high shikhara and a courtyard wide enough for the fortnightly crowds. The black stone idol of Sanwariyaji is one of three said to have been unearthed in the area in 1840 by Bholaram Gurjar, a local cowherd; the other two were enshrined at Bhadsoda and Chapar. Marble for later additions came from quarries near Makrana, the same source used for the Taj Mahal.