Kapilash Temple (Chandrasekhar Temple)

Kapilash Temple crowns a hill of the same name in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district, reached today either by a winding motorable road or by climbing roughly 1,352 stone steps – a demanding approach that has not stopped it from becoming one of inland Odisha’s most visited Shiva pilgrimage sites. A temple inscription dates its founding to 1246 CE under King Narasinghadeva I of the Eastern Ganga dynasty, the same royal line credited with the Konark Sun Temple (documented elsewhere in this directory), and the complex retains a roughly 60-foot stone tower alongside a wooden Jagamohana assembly hall and two named sacred tanks, Payamrita Kunda and Marichi Kunda, flanking the hilltop shrine.

Local devotional tradition ties the hill to the sage Kapila’s ashram and calls it a “second Kailash,” a framing that – like similar claims elsewhere in this directory – reflects pilgrimage lore rather than documented history; more concretely attested is the tradition that the noted Bhagavata Purana commentator Shridhar Swami once resided here. The temple remains active today, drawing its largest crowds for Maha Shivaratri, though a 2015 theft of ancient stone idols from the premises is a reminder of the ongoing challenge of protecting a remote hilltop shrine of this antiquity.