Danteshwari Temple

Danteshwari is worshipped at Dantewada as the kuladevi, or family deity, of the former royal house of Bastar, whose rulers traced their line back to the Kakatiya dynasty of Warangal. Tradition dates the temple to around the 14th century, in the period associated with the Bastar dynasty’s establishment, though this is a genealogical and devotional tradition rather than a claim resting on an inscription. Like several other Shakti shrines across India, it is counted among the 52 Shakta pithas, sites said to mark where a part of the goddess Sati’s body fell to earth after Vishnu cut apart her corpse to end Shiva’s grief-stricken wandering — here, popularly, a tooth (danta), which is said to give the goddess and the town of Dantewada their names.

The black-stone image of Danteshwari sits within a temple complex of four linked halls — the sanctum (Garbh Griha), and three successive mandapas — entered past a Garuda pillar and enclosed by a large courtyard wall. Beyond its role as a place of daily and Navaratri worship, the temple is the ceremonial centre of the Bastar Dussehra, a roughly 75-day festival cycle very different from the north Indian, Ramayana-centred Dussehra: it honours Danteshwari herself, draws large numbers of tribal devotees from across the Bastar region, and culminates in elaborate processions and the lighting of ceremonial jyoti kalash during Navaratri.