Vaishnava · Devbhumi Dwarka, Gujarat
Dwarkadhish Temple
Dwarkadhish (Krishna) in the five-storey Jagat Mandir
GeneralPitru and ancestors
The temple in short
- Deity
- Dwarkadhish (Krishna) in the five-storey Jagat Mandir
- Where
- Devbhumi Dwarka, Gujarat · 22.24N 68.97E
- Usual hours
- 5 am – 1 pm, 4 pm – 9 pm — hours change with festivals and the season; check before travelling. Were these right when you went?
- Grahas
- Guru
- Visited for
- One of the Char Dham and one of the seven mokshapuris, at the western edge of the country. Janmashtami is its great day; the Gomti ghat is used for tarpanam.
The sthala purana
Tradition, as it is told at the temple
Dwarka is held to be the city Krishna built and ruled from after leaving Mathura, and the sthala purana has it that the sea took it back after he left the world.
Meera Bai is said to have come here at the end of her life and to have gone into the image and not come out.
What is recorded
Documented history
Dwarka is one of the four Char Dham and one of the seven mokshapuris. The Jagat Mandir standing today is mainly fifteenth- and sixteenth-century work on a much older base.
Marine survey off this coast has recovered structures under the water, and the question of how they relate to the city of the Mahabharata is argued over by archaeologists. What has been found is documented; what it means is not settled.
What there is to see
Description
The temple rises five storeys on a forest of carved pillars, with a tall spire over the sanctum and a flag above that.
The flag is changed five times a day, each time by a family that has paid for it, and watching the climb is part of a visit.
Two gates are used: Swarga Dwar on the way in and Moksha Dwar on the way out. The Gomti ghat below the temple leads down to the meeting of the creek and the sea, and Bet Dwarka is a boat ride from Okha up the coast.
The temple year
The days it is fullest
Janmashtami is the great festival and fills the town. Holi and Kartik Purnima are the other full days.
Tarpanam at the Gomti ghat is done through the year, and amavasya brings families for it.
Getting there, and what else it is called
- Also called
- Jagat Mandir, Dwarkadhish Temple, Dwarawati
- Period
- Present structure largely of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, over a much older base
- Reaching it
- Dwarka is at the western tip of Gujarat, about 130 km from Jamnagar and 230 km from Rajkot. It has its own railway station on the Ahmedabad–Okha line.
Where it is
Others within reach
Nearest first, by straight-line distance
Add what you know
Been to this temple? The things that change — whether the hours on this page were right, whether the sannidhi was open, how long the queue was on a Saturday — are exactly what no printed source keeps current, and what the next person travelling here needs.
- Were the hours right when you went?
- Is anything on this page wrong or out of date?
- A photograph of the gopuram, the tank, or the notice board
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Parihaaram is traditional practice, offered for devotion and peace of mind; it is not a guaranteed cure of any condition. Temple hours change with festivals and the season, so check before travelling.