Kanaka Durga Temple

Kanaka Durga presides from Indrakeeladri, a hill on the banks of the Krishna river in the heart of Vijayawada, making this one of the few major Shakti temples set directly within a large modern city rather than on a remote hill or forest site. Devotees hold that the hill takes its name from the sage Indrakila, whose penance so pleased the Goddess that she agreed to dwell permanently on his head; she is worshipped here in her fierce aspect, having vanquished the buffalo-demon Mahishasura, and the temple complex also houses a Shiva shrine to Malleswara Swamy alongside her, giving the devasthanam its full formal name.

Unlike some of Andhra Pradesh’s other great temples, no single dynasty or royal founder is credited with establishing the shrine on Indrakeeladri, and its earliest confirmed appearance in the historical record is comparatively late: an inscription dated 1229 CE, discovered in Veligandla village in present-day Prakasam district, records a donation to “Bejawada Malleswaradeva at Indrakiladri” — Bejawada being an old name for Vijayawada. That the inscription names the Shiva form Malleswaradeva rather than Durga herself suggests the hill was already a joint site of worship by the 13th century. Today the temple is best known for its Dasara/Navaratri festivities, when the Goddess is worshipped in ten different forms over nine nights, and for large seasonal observances such as the Ashadha-month Sakambhari festival and Friday Varalakshmi Vratam gatherings during Shravana.