Khirachora Gopinatha Temple

Remuna’s Khirachora Gopinatha Temple is one of the most celebrated pilgrimage sites in the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, famed for the story of Madhavendra Puri — a 15th/16th-century Vaishnava saint revered as the founding figure of the devotional lineage that later produced Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Passing through Remuna on his way to Puri, Madhavendra Puri learned that the temple’s Gopinatha deity was offered sweetened condensed milk (kshira) each evening, and privately longed to taste it; recognizing the wish as an offense against the deity, he withdrew without asking. That night, Gopinatha reportedly appeared to the temple’s priest in a dream, directing him to a pot of the milk hidden away and instructing that it be secretly given to Madhavendra Puri, with the words “For you Sri Gopinatha has stolen kshira; there is no other fortunate man like you.” The episode gave the deity its enduring epithet, Kshira Chora — “the condensed-milk thief” — and remains one of the most retold stories in Gaudiya Vaishnava devotional literature, including in the Chaitanya Charitamrita’s account of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s own travels through the region.

The temple’s black-stone image of Gopinatha, carved in bas-relief, is traditionally said to have been brought from Chitrakuta in the 13th century by the Eastern Ganga king Langula Narasingha Deva, with the temple itself completed around 1300 CE; the king is also credited with commissioning the temple’s two large tanks, Brajapokhari and Kutapokhari. Two further deities, Govinda and Madana Mohana, were installed beside Gopinatha in the 20th century, brought from Vrindavana around 1938 by the devotee Chaitanya Dasa Babaji. The temple remains an active site of worship today, with Krishna Janmashtami as its principal annual festival.