Nityananda Prabhu Janmasthan Mandir (Ekachakra Dham)

Birchandrapur, a village about 20 km from Rampurhat in Birbhum district, is traditionally identified as Ekachakra, the birthplace of Nityananda Prabhu (born c. 1474 CE) — the foremost associate of the 16th-century Bengali saint Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and one of the central figures of Gaudiya Vaishnava theology, in which he is revered as an incarnation of Balarama. Nityananda was born here to the Brahmin Pandit Hadai and his wife Padmavati, and tradition places his childhood, including participation in local dramatic reenactments with other village children, in this same village.

The traditional birth spot is marked today by the Janmasthan Mandir (also called the Garbhavasa Mandir), a small temple beside Nitai Kund built by Prasannakumara Karapharma, whose altar places Nityananda Prabhu at the center flanked by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Advaita Acharya; ancient banyan trees on the grounds are said to date to Nityananda’s own lifetime. Nearby, the Hadai Pandita Bhavan marks the site of his father’s residence, and a short distance away stands the Bankima Raya Mandira, an older temple built around a deity that tradition holds Nityananda himself discovered in the local Yamuna (Jahnu Kunda), and into which he is believed to have merged at the time of his disappearance; the temple also houses a samadhi of his son Virachandra Goswami and a deity of his wife, Jahnava Mata, installed beside the main image. Together these sites make Ekachakra/Birchandrapur an active pilgrimage destination within the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition, distinct from a separate, unrelated Mahabharata-era legend sometimes also attached to the same village.