Packed into a narrow, barred cage, keeping your place in a crush of expectant temple-goers, you’ll inevitably wonder the wisdom of choosing to enter Guwahati’s famous Kamakhya Mandir. It’s certainly not an option for the claustrophobic. But then the gate guardian unlocks your queue of visitors, and you'll join the surge into darkness, towards flickering sanctuary lamps. Being among devotees paying their respects in the hushed and garlanded inner sanctum is a privilege not easily forgotten.
Pilgrimage Site of Tantric Worship
Revered as the most holy shrine of shakti (tantric worship centered on Maa Kamakhya, also known as Kameswari or the Goddess of Desire), this Hindu temple is visited by millions each year. Around 200,000 pilgrims per day stream into the temple grounds during June alone despite temperatures soaring above 45°C.
It's possible to visit the outer temple complex for free but it's only by entering the entombed shrines inside the temple's narrow inner confines that the strength of devotion over centuries can be fully felt.
The temple is 8km west of Guwahati, in the Nilachal Hills. The ground itself (elevated above a landscape of plains) is significant in Hindu legend as the site where the yoni (vagina) of Sati landed when her distraught husband Shiva scattered the pieces of her dead body.
Annual Festival
Shakti devotees believe that Maa Kamakhya menstruates annually (in June) and that the waters of the Brahmaputra run red at that time accordingly. The temple is closed for the first three days of the four-day Ambubachi Festival but celebrations attract thousands of pilgrims on the fourth day.
