India Guide
Madhya Pradesh
The Mahakaleshwar and the Harsiddhi mandirs
Ujjain's chief landmark, the Mahakaleshwar Mandir, crowns a rise above the river. Its gigantic saffron-painted sanctuary tower, a nineteenth-century replacement built by the Scindias for the one destroyed by Iltutmish in 1234, soars high above a complex of marble courtyards, water tanks and fountains, advertising the presence below of a powerful shivalingam. Housed in a claustrophobic subterranean chamber, the deity is one of India's twelve jyotrilingam – "lingam of light" – whose essential energy, or shakti, is "born of itself", rather than from the rituals performed around it, and is considered particularly potent, especially by Tantric followers, due to its unusual south-facing position.
From the Mahakaleshwar Mandir, head west down the hill past the Rudra Sagar tank to the auspicious Harsiddhi Mandir, which Hindu mythology identifies as the spot where Parvati's elbow fell to earth while Shiva was carrying her burning body from the sati pyre. Its main shrine, erected by the Marathas in the eighteenth century, houses (from left to right) images of Mahalakshmi (the goddess of wealth), Annapurna (goddess of food and sustenance), and Saraswati (the goddess of wisdom).