Place · goddess temple · India
Mookāmbikā, Kollūr
Also known as Mookambika, Mookāmbikā
The Devi temple at Kolluru in Udupi district, Karnataka, in the Mookambika forest at the foot of Kodachadri hill. The goddess Mookambika is said to have slain the demon Mookasura who could not be killed by male gods, and is unusual in combining Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga in one shrine. The jyotirlinga worshipped here is bisected by a gold line — half male Shiva, half female Shakti — making it the only hermaphrodite linga of significance in the subcontinent. The temple's foundation is attributed to Adi Shankara; sixteen centuries of Chera-Chalukya patronage overlaid his establishment.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Tradition
- Regional goddess and Parashurama traditions
- Confidence
- Mixed / layered — The physical place or feature is identifiable; its sacred origin or association belongs to a textual or living tradition.
- Location
- 13.863, 74.813
Worth knowing
The town and temple get their names from the demon Kaumasura. To stop him from asking for a dangerous boon, Goddess Parvati made him mute (Mooka in Kannada). When he still terrorized the region, she slew him and was named Mookambika.
Connections (2)
- Pitha network withLakshmī, Kolhāpūr
Scholars relate Mookāmbikā of Kollūr to Mahālakshmī of Kolhāpūr, two goddesses of the western coast read as forms of one Shrī. Both belong to the Parashurāma landscape of seven mukti-sthalas strung along the Konkan and Tulu shore, a coast held in tradition to be land the sage reclaimed from the sea.
- Pitha network withVindhyāchala / Vindhyavāsinī
Scholars compare the triple-goddess arrangements at Vindhyāchala and Kollūr. At Vindhyāchala the pilgrim walks a trikona between Vindhyavāsinī, Ashtabhujā and Kālī; at Mookāmbikā a single lingam is read as holding Mahākālī, Mahālakshmī and Mahāsarasvatī at once. The same threefold theology, once as a walk between shrines and once as one stone.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Kollur Mookambika Temple”. D.C. Sircar, The Śākta Pīṭhas (1948, rev. 1973), and the pīṭha lists of the Devī Bhāgavata and the Pīṭhanirṇaya.
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