Ambabai
अंबाबाई
Kuldevi, family goddess
Worshipped as Mahalakshmi, a form of the Goddess in the Shakta tradition; the Kolhapur shrine is counted among the Shakti Peethas and is also honoured by Vaishnavas as the seat of Lakshmi
At a glance
- Main shrine
- Mahalakshmi (Ambabai) Temple, Kolhapur, Kolhapur district, Maharashtra
- Worshipped in
- Maharashtra
- Kept by
- Kunbi, Deshastha Brahmin
About
Ambabai is the name by which the Mahalakshmi of Kolhapur is known in southern and western Maharashtra. Her temple, in the old city of Kolhapur (Karvir), is the largest in the city and draws pilgrims from across the Deccan. The Kolhapur Gazetteer of 1886 names Ambabai among the family deities of the Kunbis and the Deshastha Brahmins of the state. The name Ambabai is also used for Tulja Bhavani in some places; this page is about the Kolhapur goddess, and the two are separate shrines and separate family traditions.
Legend and Origin
The Kolhapur Mahatmya, composed around 1730 according to Live History India, tells that the goddess came to Karvir to protect its people from the demon Kolasura, and that the city is called Kolhapur after his dying wish. The 1886 Gazetteer repeats the legend of Kola the asura but thinks the name more likely comes from a Kannada word for the lotus. A later, Vaishnava story, that Lakshmi left Vaikuntha in anger after the sage Bhrigu kicked Vishnu and settled at Kolhapur, is described by Live History India as recent and absent from the religious texts. The temple's age is unsettled. The Gazetteer records inscriptions dated Shaka 1140 (A.D. 1218) and Shaka 1158 (A.D. 1286) and finds the carved work resembles twelfth-century Jain temples of the Bombay Karnatak; Wikipedia and Live History India give the Chalukya king Karnadeva and 634 CE without naming an inscription. The Gazetteer also records the Jain claim that this was a Jain temple of Padmavati, and says the architecture supports it; Wikipedia, citing Paul Dundas, gives a different Jain dedication, to Chandraprabha. The Gazetteer thinks Kolhapur was a Jain settlement before the Shilahara period (1050-1210), and notes that it was once called Padmalaya, apparently from this temple.
How the Deity Is Shown
The Gazetteer (1886) places the image of Ambabai under the large dome on the east side, with images of Mahakali and Mahasarasvati under smaller domes to the north and south, and a dark passage round her image lit by lamps day and night. Later descriptions give a standing, four-armed image in black stone about three feet tall, crowned, with a stone lion behind and a Shivalinga and a five-headed serpent on the crown; Wikipedia lists the objects in her hands as a matulinga fruit, a mace, a shield and a drinking bowl. The Gazetteer notes that the image of Ganpati usually carved over a Brahmanic temple door is absent here, and that the wall and domes carry seated figures that look Jain.
How Families Keep the Worship
Families go to Kolhapur for darshan, vows and the family rites. In the Gazetteer of 1886 the Kunbis of Kolhapur State name Ambabai among their family goddesses, and hold a feast for the family deity (Jotiba, Khandoba or Ambabai) on the day before the marriage day. The same Gazetteer gives Ambabai of Kolhapur among the family gods of the Deshastha Brahmins of the state, alongside Banashankari of Badami, Jotiba and Khandoba of Jejuri; Deshastha pujaris, joshis and japes there say their families came about 700 years ago to conduct her worship. The Gazetteer counts forty-two pujaris serving the temple. Every Friday night her image is carried round the temple in a palanquin, a custom the Gazetteer records and later visitors report still being kept. Families of the same community keep different deities by branch and village, so a family should ask its own elders whether Ambabai is its kuldevi.
Shrines
Mahalakshmi (Ambabai) Temple
Kolhapur, Kolhapur district, Maharashtra
In the middle of the old city, about a hundred yards north-west of the State palace (Gazetteer, 1886). Black stone, in the Hemadpanti style. The Kolhapur Gazetteer calls it the largest and most important of the city's temples.
Tembhlai (Tembla) Temple
Kolhapur, Kolhapur district, Maharashtra
A small hill temple about three miles east of the city, to the goddess regarded as Ambabai's younger sister. Ambabai visits her once a year.
Festivals
Navratri and Lalita Panchami
Ashvin, first nine days of the bright fortnight; the visit to Tembhlai on the fifth day (bright fifth of Ashvin)
A palanquin procession each evening and an elaborate dressing of the image each day (Inditales). On the fifth day the image is carried in a litter to Tembhlai, with the Kolhapur ruler in attendance; an unmarried girl cuts a pumpkin (kohala) in memory of the demon Kolasura. The Gazetteer of 1886 puts the crowd at 15,000 to 20,000.
Rathotsav (car procession)
Full moon of Chaitra (March-April)
A brass image of the goddess is taken through the town in a triumphal car (Gazetteer, 1886). Visitor accounts describe the same procession as a chariot festival in April.
Kiranotsav
Two sets of three days a year by the solar calendar: 31 January to 2 February, and 9 to 11 November
The setting sun's rays are said to fall in turn on the feet, the middle and the whole of the image over the three days (Inditales; Live History India gives the first days as 31 January and 9 November). This follows the sun, not the lunar calendar.
Ashvin full moon lamps
Full moon of Ashvin (September-October)
The dome and roof of the temple are covered with lamps (Gazetteer, 1886).
Stories and Legends
The demon Kolasura
According to the Kolhapur Mahatmya, Kolasura troubled the people of Karvir until Mahalakshmi came to kill him. As he died he asked that the city be named after him, and the story is given as the reason for the name Kolhapur. Each year at Tembhlai a pumpkin (kohala) is cut up by an unmarried girl in memory of his death, as the 1886 Gazetteer records.
Ambabai and her younger sister Tembhlai
The Karvir Purana, as the 1886 Gazetteer reports it, says that Tembhlai, the younger sister of Mahalakshmi, quarrelled with her, left Kolhapur and sat on a hill three miles east of the city with her back turned. Ambabai is said to pay her sister one visit a year, on the bright fifth of Ashvin, and her image is carried to the hill in procession. A parallel account in Inditales says a local ruler's daughter helped the goddess against Kolasura.
The hidden image
Major Graham, quoted in the Gazetteer of 1886, wrote that during Muslim persecutions in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the image was hidden in a private house and was set up again in the temple in 1722 by Sambhaji of Kolhapur (reigned 1712 to 1760), who sent Sidhoji Hindurao Ghorpade from Panhala to do it. The Kolhapur temple's own website gives the re-installation as Vijayadashami, 26 September 1715, and Live History India credits a Sambhaji son of Shivaji; the accounts do not agree on the year or the king.