Nrusinghanath Temple, Odisha

Location

Place

Paikmal, Bargarh, Odisha

Paikmal · Odisha · India

Stala Purana

The soul of this place

Nestled against waterfalls and hills, Nrusinghanath is Odisha’s luminous Narasimha seat — where nature and divinity feel inseparable. Lord Shri Ram came to this spot to kill mushika Daitya. He took the form of a cat (Marjara) and a body of a lion (Kesari) to kill this rat demon. Marjara Kesari means Transcendental Lion-Cat. A tribal devotee Jamuna Kandhuni and her husband Hari were in the forest and found the Narasimha Shaligrama under a mound of soil. When they were cutting for the root of a specific plant to eat, they saw blood coming out of the shaligrama. Then a voice guided them to worship the Shaligrama. They devotedly worhsipped Narasimha and Lord Narasimha himself appeared in Jamuna’s dream. Later King Baijal Dev – King of Patna-garh had also got a similar dream and constructed the current temple in 1413AD march 17th on a saturday. this Shaligrama was stolen. When the temple authorities came to know they substituted the main diety with another shaligrama. Later the robbers could not move the shaligrama from Sambalpur railway station. They were suprised that the shaligrama became so heavy that they could not hold it and left it in the railway station and ran away. The lord was brought bhack and to this day 2 narasimhas are worshipped, the original and the one place when he went to sambalpur! Gandhamardhana mountain in this spot fell off the huge mountain that Hanuman Here is also the plaxe of Gandhamardhana mountain , Lord Hanuman was carrying this mountain to save lakshmana in Srilanka and got eventually placed here. This moutnain peice may also have the most coveted herb, Sanjeevini. Hence this place hosts a lot of ayurvedic research organisations.