Place · desert lake tirtha · India
Kolayat
Also known as Kolayat, Kapil Muni, Kolayatji, Kapilsar
A temple town around a walled tank in the open desert west of Bikaner, held to be where the sage Kapila, to whom the Samkhya is attributed, performed his austerities. A stone-ghat lake in the Thar is unlikely enough that the place was a caravan halt as well as a tirtha.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Mixed / layered — The place is documented; its associated historical or cultural record and its named tradition are distinct layers.
- Location
- 27.840, 72.960
Worth knowing
The Kartik Purnima fair brings one of the largest camel markets in Rajasthan, and the lamps floated on the tank that night are the local image of the place. That the Samkhya's traditional founder is located in the desert rather than in a Gangetic school town is a good instance of how far philosophical geography can be pushed.
Connections (1)
- AnalogueGirnār
Kolayat in the Thar is where tradition seats Kapila, to whom the Samkhya is attributed, and Girnar carries the Dattatreya and Jain summits. Both are cases of a philosophical or ascetic lineage being given an address far from any school town — a walled tank in the desert and a volcanic massif in Saurashtra — which is how Indian intellectual geography usually works.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Kolayat”. Rajasthan District Gazetteer, Bikaner; the Samkhya tradition's attributions to Kapila.
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