Tulja Bhavani Temple
— — the goddess that armed a kingdom.
Not only on a wall.
“A black-stone Hindu temple to Tulja Bhavani, set on the Balaghat plateau of southern Maharashtra. The sanctum holds a swayambhu image of the goddess, one of the 51 Shakti Peethas, and the family deity of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. Pilgrims come in thousands during Sharadiya Navaratri, when the doors stay open through the night and the lamps do not go out.
Tulja Bhavani 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 temple stands in Tuljapur in Maharashtra's Osmanabad (Dharashiv) district, on the Balaghat plateau about 45 km from Solapur and 290 km southeast of Pune. The structure is built in the Hemadpanthi style associated with the Yadava dynasty, with dating commonly placed in the twelfth century. Tulja Bhavani is counted among the 51 Shakti Peethas of the subcontinent and is the kuldevata of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, founder of the Maratha Empire, who is said to have received the sword Bhavani from her at this shrine.
The temple is built of black basalt in the Hemadpanthi tradition — interlocking dressed stone laid without mortar, a technique credited to the thirteenth-century Yadava minister Hemadpant. The sanctum's silver-clad doorway opens onto a mandapa carried by carved pillars. A flight of stone steps descends from the town square down to the temple gate. Two natural springs within the complex, Gomukh Tirth and Kalakund, run continuously and are considered sacred. The temple lies within a fortified enclosure that took successive repairs through the Maratha period.
The temple's largest gathering is Sharadiya Navaratri, the nine nights of the goddess in the lunar month of Ashwin (September–October), when Tuljapur fills with palkhi processions and the sanctum stays open through the night. A second Navaratri falls in spring (Chaitra). The image is ritually rested for three short periods each year — known as the Manchak — when temple doors close at appointed hours. Outside the festivals, daily aarti happens at fixed times morning and evening, with the abhishek before dawn.