The Pune Diaries - Chaturshringi Temple

 Of the many temples in Pune this is the most visible for anyone travelling by the Senapati Bapat Road towards the University. Situated atop a hill with steps leading up to it, the temple has always remained on my mind but I never went there. So when we were tossing up between Sinhagad and any other place Pooja suggested we check this temple out since there is a nice 200 step climb from where we can look at the city. So off we went ta 730 in the morning.

Chatturshringi Temple on top with the white gopuram

The drive from Karve Road to Law College Road, past Symbiosis on Senapati Bapat Road has always remained a beautiful one. So many educational institutions - SNDT College, FTII, NFDC, Film Archives, Law College, Bhandarkar Institute of Oriental Research and further up Symbiosis - its a lovely stretch. Towards the other end of the road we came upon the temple area and found that there was plenty of parking space available. 

Impressive arch

Interesting yantras or whatever

Up front is an imposing gateway consisting of some arches, and some yantras designed on it. The steps start leading up and we came upon another temple - very picturesque and nice.  I think it is a Ganesh temple.

First temple

Ganesh temple from the arch

The temple is dedicated to Goddess Chatturshringi, an incarnation of Durga. Story goes that a businessman Durlabsheth Pitambardas Mahajan dreamt of Goddess Saptashrungi who said that if you cannot come to me I will come to you and showed him clearly where to dig on the hill. He dug and found a natural statue, a svayambhu, and constructed a temple there. The deity is also known as Goddess Ambareshwari who they say is the presiding deity of Pune. Every Navratri there is a festival held here.

City view from the top

Gopuram of the main temple

Way down

As with all temples there are pooja items being sold. The walk up is about 200 steps they say - I did not count. What was distressing is the amount of concrete structures that are coming up all along. Clearly there is a lot of money coming into the temple Trust and it is being spent but it somehow does not look very nice and it is now. Maybe when it finishes it may look better.

Deep sthambh

Way out

Up at the top we prayed to the deity. We looked at the city from up there. One mandir to the right seems to be a Hanuman mandir. One gentleman took a fancy to us and told us that he had been coming here from his childhood (he must be 65-70) now and told us some tales from those days.

Nice. We went to Bangalore Tiffins from there and headed home after.