Dakshineswar Kali Temple and the Panchavati Grove

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  WHAT IT IS: The Dakshineswar Kali Temple on the eastern bank of the Hooghly in Kolkata, where Maa Bhavatarini, a form of Kali, is worshipped. The complex has a nine-spired main temple, twelve Shiva temples along the river, and a Radha Krishna temple.
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  WHY VISIT OR CHANT: Devotees come to seek the Mother's grace, to calm fear, and to sit in the places where Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Sri Sarada Devi lived and prayed.
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  WHEN TO VISIT: October to March is best. Major occasions include Kali Puja, the Snana Yatra anniversary of the consecration, Durga Puja, and Navaratri.
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  WHERE: Dakshineswar, Kolkata, West Bengal, on the east bank of the Hooghly, the Ganga in Bengal.
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  HOW:
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  Begin with a bath or a sprinkling of Ganga water at the riverfront, then take darshan of the twelve Shiva shrines and the Radha Krishna temple.
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  Offer red hibiscus flowers, sweets, and bilva leaves before Maa Bhavatarini, and circumambulate with quiet devotion.
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  Walk north to the Panchavati grove, then visit Sri Ramakrishna's room and the Nahabat, the music tower where Sarada Devi lived.

The temple was founded by Rani Rashmoni, a devotee of Kali and well known for her charity. In 1847 she prepared to make a pilgrimage to Kashi in twenty-four boats. According to traditional accounts, on the night before departure the Divine Mother appeared to her in a vision and asked her to install an image on the bank of the Ganga and to arrange for its worship, promising to manifest there.

The Rani bought a plot of about twenty acres at Dakshineswar from an Englishman, then popularly known as Saheban Bagicha, meaning the Englishman's garden. Part of the ground is shaped like a tortoise, which Tantric tradition considers fitting for the worship of Shakti. The temple took eight years to build. The image of Kali was installed on Snana Yatra day, 31 May 1855, with Ramkumar Chattopadhyay as head priest. The temple was first called Sri Sri Jagadishwari Mahakali, and the deity is widely known as Bhavatarini, She who ferries beings across the ocean of worldly existence.

Ramkumar's younger brother Gadadhar, later known as Sri Ramakrishna, came to assist him along with their nephew Hriday. After Ramkumar's death in 1856, Ramakrishna became head priest. For him the stone image was the living Mother, and his intense devotion made Dakshineswar a place of pilgrimage for seekers of every path.

Dakshineswar is the central place in the life of Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Sarada Devi. Over many years Sri Ramakrishna practiced a range of spiritual disciplines in and around the Panchavati, guided by several teachers:

1. 1.Bhairavi Brahmani guided him through the traditional Tantric practices, which are counted as sixty-four.
2. 2.Jatadhari, a wandering Vaishnava monk, initiated him into devotion to the child Rama, Ramlala.
3. 3.Totapuri, a teacher of Advaita Vedanta, initiated him into sannyasa and taught him non-dual meditation. Sri Ramakrishna reached the state of nirvikalpa samadhi, complete absorption beyond all distinction of self and other, in three days.
4. 4.Sri Sarada Devi lived in the Nahabat, and her quiet life of prayer and service is honored by devotees as that of the Holy Mother.
5. 5.Narendranath Dutta, later Swami Vivekananda, came to Dakshineswar as a young man and became Sri Ramakrishna's foremost disciple.

Pilgrims recall a traditional meditation verse on Kali when they stand before Maa Bhavatarini.

Standing upon Shiva, greatly formidable, with terrible fangs and a smiling face, four-armed, bearing the sword and the severed head, and showing the gestures of boon and fearlessness, auspicious, She is the Mother who frees her children from fear.