Chamundeshwari Temple

The shrine to Chamundeshwari atop Chamundi Hills, overlooking Mysuru, traces its earliest structure to around the 12th century, attributed to the Hoysala dynasty that then ruled much of the region. The temple was substantially built up later, with its tower largely dating to the 17th century under the Vijayanagara Empire’s continuing influence, and the long approach to the hilltop was formalized in 1659 with a flight of roughly a thousand stone steps. A little further up that climb, at the 700th step, stands a large monolithic Nandi (Shiva’s bull), installed in 1664 on the orders of Maharaja Dodda Devaraja Wodeyar — a reminder that this Shakta site sits within a landscape shared with Shaiva worship.

Chamundeshwari is worshipped here as a fierce form of the Goddess, her sanctum image shown with eight arms. Local tradition holds that it was on this very hill that the Goddess, in her form as Durga, slew the buffalo-demon Mahishasura — the legend from which the city of Mysuru is said to take its name, “Mahishooru” (place of Mahisha) having gradually become “Mysore.” The site is also counted among the eighteen Shakti Pithas of pan-Indian Shakta tradition, associated with the story of Sati, which places it within a much older and wider network of goddess-worship sites.

As the presiding deity of the hill for which the city is named, Chamundeshwari sits at the heart of Mysuru’s best-known festival, the ten-day Dasara (Navaratri) celebrations, when the goddess is honored in nine different forms and the city below stages its famous royal procession. The temple remains one of the most visited pilgrimage sites in southern Karnataka.