Jogadya Mata Temple
Kshirgram (Khirogram), Mongalkote CD block, Katwa subdivision, Purba Bardhaman district, West Bengal, India
Also known as: Yogadya
- Deities
- Jogadya (Devi Parvati, Ugra Chandi form)
- Traditions
- shakta
- Worship status
- active
- Coordinates
- 23.5142, 88.0272
- Darshan hours
- Varies by season; consult local temple caretakers for the current daily schedule before visiting.
- Best time to visit
- The annual Vaisakha Sankranti fair (April/May) is the temple's major festival period; October to March offers cooler general travel weather.
- How to reach
- Kshirgram is about 23 km from Katwa on the Katwa-Bardhaman road, and roughly 3 miles from Kaichor railway station on the Bardhaman-Katwa line.
- Festivals
- Vaisakha Sankranti fair (mid-April)
Location
Open in Google MapsJogadya Mata Temple, in the village of Kshirgram (also spelled Khirogram) in Purba Bardhaman district, is one of Bengal’s 51 Shakti Peethas, marking the spot where tradition holds a fragment of the big toe of Sati’s right leg fell to earth. The goddess is worshipped here as Jogadya (Yogadya) in her fierce ugra-chandi aspect, with a secondary shrine on the grounds dedicated to Shiva in his local form as Kshireswar.
An unusual detail recorded in local tradition is that the site was for a time worshipped without any physical idol at all, until a ruler remembered as King Haridutta reportedly received a vision instructing him to commission a stone image of the goddess in her ten-armed Singhabahini form. When that image was later damaged, it was replaced by an artisan named Nabin Bhaskar of nearby Dainhat, with funding from the Maharaja of Bardhaman — a detail that at least places the replacement within the era of the Bardhaman Raj, though no precise date for either the original vision or the later replacement could be confirmed in the sources checked. Today the temple’s largest gathering is its annual fair held around Vaisakha Sankranti in mid-April, when the wider Kshirgram community and regional pilgrims converge on the site.
Sources
- historical record: Cross-checked against Wikipedia's Kshirgram article: confirms the village (also spelled Khirogram) is in Mongalkote CD block, Purba Bardhaman district; confirms the goddess Yogadya/Jogadya is worshipped here in an 'ugra-chandi' (fierce) form, with a secondary shrine to Kshireswar Shiva; recounts that the temple reportedly had no idol for a time despite ongoing worship, until a King Haridutta received a vision prompting him to commission a stone image of the ten-armed Singhabahini goddess, and that when this idol was later damaged it was replaced by artisan Nabin Bhaskar of Dainhat, funded by the Maharaja of Bardhaman. No date is given for King Haridutta or for Nabin Bhaskar's replacement work.
- oral tradition: The belief that a piece of the big toe of Sati's right leg fell at Kshirgram, consecrating it as a Shakti Peetha, is Puranic/devotional tradition rather than independently datable history.
For review
- No verifiable dates were found for King Haridutta or for Nabin Bhaskar's replacement of the damaged idol; both accounts rest on local tradition as reported in the source checked rather than on independently dated records.