Joy Kali Temple

About

The Temple of Joy Kali stands on a street that takes its name from the shrine itself, at 24 Joy Kali Mandir Street between Thathari Bazar and the Wari neighbourhood of old Dhaka. The Temple is dedicated to Maa Kali, the fierce and compassionate Mother revered across Bengal as the protector of her devotees.

Within the boundary wall stand two principal shrines. The main Temple, marked by a shikhara, enshrines the murti of Maa Kali Devi. Beside it rises a smaller Temple with a domed roof, dedicated to Shiva, whose plaster dome is visible from the surrounding lanes and is what most local residents point to when they speak of Joy Kali Mandir. A small place for tulsi is set beside the entrance, and a bell hangs before the Devi for worshippers to ring on entering and leaving.

The walls of the sanctum are tiled with figures of Hindu gods and goddesses, the floors finished in mosaic. A stainless steel Om welcomes the devotee at the gate. The arrangement of garbhagriha, antarala, and mandapa within the complex follows the broad north Indian pattern, with two sanctums for the two enshrined deities.

Joy Kali Mandir remains an active place of worship for the Hindu community of Dhaka, drawing devotees of every age. Offerings gathered for festivals are turned into sweets distributed afterwards as prasad, sharing in the grace of the Devi.

History

Banglapedia, the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh, records that Dewan Tulsinarayan Ghosh and Naranarayan Ghosh founded the Joykali Temple in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century under the guidance of the saint Bancharam, who became its first priest; local oral tradition instead places the founding some four hundred years ago, in Bengali year 1001, a dating the available sources have not reconciled. At its height the Temple compound held twenty one murtis, among them Maa Kali, Lord Shiva, Lakshminarayan and Bandurga, alongside a guest house and subsidiary shrines. The priesthood descended through a single Brahmin lineage until the death of Khitish Chandra Chakraborty in 1977; without an heir to succeed him the Temple fell into disrepair, was damaged further amid the unrest of the 1990s, and was afterward rebuilt by Maa Kali's devotees on a smaller footprint than it once held, work in which Bangladesh's Department of Archaeology has also since taken a hand.

Significance

Two sanctums stand within one boundary wall: the main shrine, crowned by a five spired Pancharatna tower named for five jewels, Ruby, Diamond, Coral, Sapphire and Pearl, holds the murti of Maa Kali, while beside it an octagonal tower some twenty one metres high, its terracotta roof showing a European influence unusual in Old Dhaka, shelters a lingam of Lord Shiva beneath a plastered dome that local residents point to when they speak of the Temple at all. Devotees still ring the bell before Her image on entering and leaving, and offerings gathered through the year are turned into prasad and shared among worshippers of every age, a living continuity in a quarter of Dhaka where much else from the same centuries has not survived.

Architecture

North Indian Temple plan (garbhagriha, antarala and mandapa) in two linked sanctums; a five spired Pancharatna tower over the Kali shrine and an octagonal terracotta crowned tower over the Shiva shrine