Eklingji Temple

Eklingji is unusual among major Shiva temples in that its worshippers include a royal dynasty in a very literal, institutional sense: Shiva, worshipped here as Eklingji in the form of a four-faced black stone image, has long been regarded as the kuladevata (patron deity) and true sovereign of Mewar, with its Maharanas traditionally describing themselves merely as the deity’s diwan, or regent, ruling on the god’s behalf. Tradition, recorded in the 15th-century Ekalinga Mahatmya, attributes the temple’s founding to Bappa Rawal in the 8th century, who by this account was initiated into Shaivite practice by the sage Harit Rashi and instructed to build the temple at nearby Nagda before going on to found the Mewar kingdom — though that account was compiled long after the fact and is treated here as devotional history rather than a contemporaneous record. The uncertainty runs deeper than just late sourcing: historians are not agreed on Bappa Rawal’s historical identity at all, with some treating the name as an epithet applied to one of several specific Guhila rulers (candidates include Kalabhoja, Shiladitya, and Khumana) rather than as a single settled figure, so both the founder’s precise identity and the founding date remain open questions in the wider scholarship, not just in the sources checked for this entry.

What is better documented is the temple’s medieval history: an earlier structure and idol were destroyed during Delhi Sultanate-era invasions, and the temple seen today owes its present form largely to Mewar’s rulers themselves — substantially rebuilt under Rana Kumbha in the 15th century, with the last major renovation completed under Rana Raimal. Over the centuries the site’s priestly affiliation also shifted, passing from the ascetic Pashupata sect to the Nath order before coming under Ramanandi influence by the 16th century. The temple complex at Kailashpuri today comprises around a hundred subsidiary shrines clustered around the main sanctum, and remains an active site of both daily worship and state ritual for the former Mewar royal family.