Bambleshwari Temple Dongargarh Jai Maa Bamleshwari Devi Temple Images History Information

Bambleshwari Temple is at Dongargarh in Rajnandgaon district, Chhattisgarh, India. It is on a hilltop of 1600 feet. This temple is referred as Badi Bambleshwari. Another temple at ground level, the Chhotti Bambleshwari is situated about 1/2 km from the main temple complex. These temples are revered by lakhs of people of Chhattisgarh who flock around the shrine during the Navratris of Kavar (during Dashera) and Chaitra (during Ram Navami). There is tradition of lighting Jyoti Kalash during Navaratris here

About 2200 years ago, Dongargarh was a fairly renounced territory named Kamavati ruled by Maharaja Kamsen also called Kamakhya Nagri. When his Queen gave birth to a son they named him Madansen. Since Raja Veersen considered it a blessing of Lord Shiv & Parvati, he constructed the temple of Shri Bamleshwari Mandir at Dongargarh. Now Raja Madansen had a son named Kamsen because of whom the area became famous and came to be known as Kamakhaya Nagari.

A big battle took place between Raja Kamsen and Raja Vikramaditya, reason being the love between Maadhavnal & Kaamkandla, which led to the complete destruction of KAMAVATI. Legend has it that after the death of Maadhavnal & Kaamkandala, Raja Vikramaditya felt guilty as he thought that he was responsible for Kaamkandala committing suicide. He underwent deep anguish and started constant worship, resulting in Maa Bagulamukhi Devi appearing before him.

Raja Vikramaditya requested the goddess to make both Maadhavnal and Kaamkandala alive again and also asked Maa Bagulamukhi Devi to stay at the temple. Since then it is believed that Maa Bagulamukhi Devi is present here. As time passed by the name got transformed from Maa Bagulamukhi to Maa Bamlai to Shri Bamleshwari Mandir as it is known today.

Location

Dongargarh is 107 kilometers from Raipur, via Bhilai, Durg and Rajnandgaon. Dongargarh does not exactly fall on the massive Mumbai highway, a diversion some 25 km before, from the Calcutta-Mumbai National Highway (NH #6) leads the vehicle through lush green vegetation and mild forests on a narrow winding single road.
Dongargarh is 40 km from district headquarters Rajnandgaon and is well connected with buses from Rajnandgaon. Dongargarh is also well connected with trains. It is on the Mumbai - Howrah main line at a distance of 170 km from Nagpur and 100 km from Raipur . The nearest airport is at Raipur Airport.

The rope-way in the hill on which the temple is located, is another attraction to the tourists in the city. It is very popular to the tourists as it is the only rope-way that has been set up in Chhattisgarh state.