Rajiv Lochan Temple, Rajim

At Rajim, in Gariaband district, the Mahanadi river — Chhattisgarh’s principal river, also known here by its older name Chitrotpala — meets two tributaries, the Pairi and the Sondur, at a Triveni Sangam that has earned the town the epithet “Prayag of Chhattisgarh,” after the great confluence at Prayag (Allahabad) where the Ganga, Yamuna, and mythical Saraswati are traditionally said to meet. Overlooking this confluence stands the Rajiv Lochan Vishnu Mandir, one of the region’s more securely dated ancient temples: a 7th-century CE inscription records its construction under King Vilasatunga, a ruler generally placed within a branch of the Nala dynasty that held sway over parts of the eastern Deccan and central India in that period. The temple is built in what sources describe as Panchayana Shaili architecture, its structure carried on twelve richly carved pillars bearing images of various deities from Hindu mythology. Nearby stand subsidiary shrines to two further avatars of Vishnu, Vamana and Narasimha, and the town is also home to a black-stone image of a meditating Buddha seated beneath a Bodhi tree, a further popular attraction reflecting Rajim’s layered religious history.

Rajim’s river-confluence setting has made it, alongside Chhattisgarh’s other major sacred waters documented in this directory — including the Mahanadi’s own source region and Ratanpur’s temple tank — one of the state’s most important pilgrimage destinations, and its stature is formalized each year in the Rajim Kumbh Mela, also called the Punni Mela, a roughly two-week festival held from mid-February into March that draws pilgrims, sadhus, and religious organizations from across India, timed alongside the more recently instituted Rajim Lochan Mahotsav cultural festival. Together, the confluence, the dated temple, and the annual mela make Rajim one of the clearest examples in Chhattisgarh of a river-sangam pilgrimage site with both deep historical roots and a thriving contemporary festival calendar.