Khatu Shyam Temple

About

The Khatu Shyam Temple rises in the town of Khatoo, in the Sikar district of Rajasthan, and stands among the most deeply venerated sacred places of the region. Devotees gather here in the millions every year, and the crowds swell greatest during the Phalgun Mela, the great festival that falls in the Hindu month of Phalguna, spanning February to March. Built of white Makrana marble, the present structure carries the character of traditional Rajasthani architecture.

The deity honoured here is Khatu Shyam, understood by the faithful to be Barbarika, grandson of the Pandava Bhima and son of Ghatotkacha in the epic Mahabharata. Tradition holds that Barbarika, a warrior of extraordinary power, carried three divine arrows that could decide the Kurukshetra war by themselves. Lord Krishna, coming to him in the guise of a Brahmin to preserve the fairness of the battle, tested his resolve and asked of him the ultimate act of charity: the offering of his own head. Moved by such selfless devotion, Krishna granted Barbarika the boon that in the Kali Yuga, the last of the four yugas of Hindu cosmology, he would be worshipped under the name Shyam, a name of Krishna himself. Devotees believe the temple enshrines the head of Barbarika, and it is this presence that makes the ground sacred.

Each year during the Phalguna Mela, vast numbers of pilgrims undertake the Nishaan Yatra, walking roughly 17 km on foot from Reengus to the temple. They carry the nishan, a triangular flag of saffron, orange, or red that stands for their devotion, chanting prayers, singing bhajans, and dancing along the way, before offering the flag at the temple in hope of blessings.

History

Legend places the temple's founding in 1027 CE, when Roop Singh Chauhan, a ruler of the area, was guided in a dream to dig up a buried idol of Barbarika, held to be the warrior's head, at the spot now called Shyam Kund, a holy pond beside the temple. With the idol's installation, the site's life as a place of veneration began. In 1675, Durga Das Mathur composed the Shyam Pacchisi, a 17th century poem of 25 couplets in Braj Bhasha; in these verses, however, Shyam is identified not with Barbarika but with Krishna, and Khatu is described as his capital. The temple's place in regional history deepened through the medieval era, notably in the Battle of Khatu Shyamji in 1779, when chiefs of the locality stood against Mughal forces in defence of the region.

Significance

Khatu Shyam is honoured as one whom Lord Krishna himself blessed to receive worship in the Kali Yuga, and the temple, believed to hold the head of Barbarika, draws millions of devotees to Rajasthan each year. Its festival life carries centuries of memory: the white flag of Surajgarh, a town on the Haryana to Rajasthan border, has been raised atop the temple during the Phalguna Mela for more than 300 years. Adorned with a blue horse and crafted in Surajgarh's ancient temple, the flag is carried 152 km on a padyatra, a foot pilgrimage, to Khatu. Believed to hold Baba Shyam's divine presence, it is hoisted on Phalguna Shukla Paksha, and its story is bound to resistance against Mughal and British attempts to interfere with the temple's practices.