Early modern · Hindu · India

Kalighat Kali Temple

কালীঘাট মন্দির

Kolkata, West Bengal · 22.5204°, 88.3420°

Kali (Kalika)Colonial-era BengalBengal aat-chalaShakti Peetha

Sacred since

1500 CE

Attested tirtha on the old Adi Ganga; one origin proposed for Calcutta's name

Standing structure

present temple 1809; site far older

patron: Sabarna Roy Choudhury family

History & significance

Kolkata's tutelary shrine and one of the most intense of the 51 Shakti Peethas — where the toes of Sati's right foot fell. The touchstone image with three huge eyes and golden tongue is served amid a crush of devotion unbroken for centuries; the city's very name may derive from Kalighat.

Sthala katha — the legend

When Vishnu's chakra cut the corpse of Sati that a grief-mad Shiva carried, her body sanctified the land wherever it fell — at Kalighat her toes; a beam of light over the Adi Ganga led a devotee to the stone, found in the shape of a human toe.

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