TARAPITH : The Abode of Maa Tara

By Partha Pratim Majumder

Tarapith - Temple Complex

Tarapith , Birbhum, West Bengal : Brief Story

This is one of the few places of India  , meant more as a pilgrimage than a simple tour, marked to  categorize as “Been there – Done that” .

No, here you are for a divine connect while meeting “Maa Janani” at her home for a spiritual realization.

This is the place , where decades and centuries have been witnessing with deep reverence - the aroma of spiritualism of  a “Siddhapitha” , that conjures up the historical names alike – Maharishi Vashistha to Sadhak Vamaksepa in their search of divinity.

Location : About 265 miles from Kolkata, Tarapith is situated on the northern bank of the flowing Dwarka river, in Birbhum, in West Bengal. A seat of tantra studies, this is yet another holy shrine devoted to the worship of the female principle of creation, or Shakti. Tarapith is where Vasistha, the son of Brahma, the creator among the Hindu trinity is believed to have first attained his spiritual salvation.

Mother's feet 

Background : As the legend goes, Vasistha, after repeated failure in his attempts to acquire salvation, went away to China, mastered it there, and brought it back to Tarapith. A very similar form of this quasi Buddhist asceticism is still practiced here, which involves austerities and meditation, leading to a final communion with God. The temple that was built by Vasistha got buried under the earth with the passage of time.

Foundation :Tarapith as it stands today, was built by Joybroto, a merchant, who received directions from Tara Maa in his sleep to unearth the 'brahmashila', or the sacred stone, to set it up as a shrine in a proper place. Tara Maa of Tarapith, another form of Kali, has two hands, is garlanded with snakes, is adorned in sacred threads, and has Shiva lying in her left lap sucking her breast.

The Pilgrims’ Paradise:

Any traveller as a pilgrim would look for  the expectation from his/her tour as under :

·         Prime focus on divine aspirations to have a tete’-a-tete’ connect with Goddess Tara at the temple   for prayer and rituals as per the notch ability

·         Tour of the locality including green paddy fields around to the sites of tantric culture

·         Rest of mind and body for few hours of meditation  

Historical anecdotes :

·         Tarapith is a small temple town near Rampurhat in Birbhum district ,  West Bengal, known for its Tantric temple and its adjoining cremation grounds where Tantric rites are performed.

·         The Tantric Hindu temple is dedicated to goddess Tara, a fearsome Tantric aspect of the Hindu Divine Mother the chief temples of the Goddess-oriented Shakta sect of Hinduism.

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         Tarapith derives its name from its association as the most important centre of Tara worship and her cult.

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      Tarapith is also famous for Bamakhepa known as the 'mad saint', who worshipped in the temple and resided in the cremation grounds as a mendicant and practised and perfected Yoga and the Tantric art under the tutelage of another famous saint known as the Kailashpathi Baba.

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    Bama Khepa dedicated his entire life to the worship of mother Tara. His ashram is also located close to the temple.

Tarapith temple : Legend and importance

¦  The Tara temple in Tarapith steeped in the narrated myths is a medium sized temple in the rural precincts of Bengal. Its fame as a pilgrimage centre with the deity of Tara enshrined in it is due to "the temple’s founding myths, its type of worship (which includes blood offerings), the hymns sung there, the powers of the nearby tank, and the inhabitants and rituals of the adjacent cremation ground".

¦  The temple base is thick with thick walls, built of red brick. The superstructure has covered passages with many arches raising to the pinnacle with a spire (shikara). The image of the deity is enshrined under the eaves in the sanctum. There are two Tara images in the sanctum. The stone image of Tara depicted as a mother suckling Shiva – the "primordial image" (seen in the inset of the fierce form of the image of Tara) is camouflaged by a three feet metal image, that the devotee normally seen.

Main Temple

¦  It represents Tara in her fiery form with four arms, wearing a garland of skulls and a protruding tongue. Crowned with a silver crown and with flowing hair, the outer image wrapped in a sari and decked in marigold garlands with a silver umbrella over its head. The forehead of the metal image is adorned with red kumkum (vermilion). Priests take a speck of this kumkum and apply it on the foreheads of the devotees as a mark of Tara's blessings. The devotees offer coconuts, bananas and silk saris, and unusually bottles of whisky.The primordial image of Tara has been described as a "dramatic Hindu image of Tara’s gentler aspect".

¦  The priests of the temple offer puja (worship) with great reverence to bring out her motherly aspect to the devotees, blending the North Indian fierce depiction of the Sati myth of the goddess with the peaceful motherly visionary form of Tara seen by Buddha and his disciple Vasishtha of the Tantric tradition – the Buddhist Tara form. At Tarapith, though the softer motherly aspect of the fierce goddess is emphasized. Chanting hymns or poems in her praise is also a part of the devotional appeal made to the goddess.

¦  The devotees take a holy bath at the sacred tank adjacent to the temple before entering the temple premises to offer worship and even after the worship. The waters of the tank are said to have healing powers and even restore life to the dead.

¦  Blood sacrifice of goats is the daily norm in the temple. Devotees who offer such goat sacrifices seek blessings from the deity. They bathe the goats in the holy tank near the temple before the sacrifice. They also purify themselves by taking bath in the holy tank before offering worship to the deity. The goat is then tethered to a stake, the designated post in a sand pit, and the neck of the goat butchered with a single stroke by a special sword. A small quantity of the blood of the goat is then collected in a vessel and offered to the deity in the temple. The devotees also smear their forehead with a bit of blood from the pit, as a mark of reverence to the deity.

Sadhak Bamakhepa 

The saga of Tarapith and Sadhak Bamakhepa :

v  Bamakhepa, more than any other teacher, could best be characterized as a "mad saint". Throughout his life , he was continually found violating the normal rules of society and religious practice. v  He was born in 1837, in the village of Atla near Tarapura (or Tarapith) in Birbhum, West Bengal, India. He was named Bamacara by his father, a religious man named Sarvananda Chatterji. He was the second son and had a sister who was later widowed. Because of his sister's religious zeal, she was called ksepsi, or madwoman v  As a child, Bama (or Vama in Hindi pronunciation) was subject to tantrums: when the Kali (goddess) image would not answer his prayers, he would roll on the ground screaming and crying. Thus, even as a child he was considered mad Bama, or Bama Khepa. v  He had little interest in studies, and the family was too poor to afford schooling for him. His father was a professional singer, and Bama would often sing songs with him. Bama's father was an ecstatic, falling into states of bhava (strong religious emotion) while he sang. While singing, he would sometimes forget who and where he was. Even when not performing, he spent so much time in bhava that his wife would beg him to pay some attention to his physical circumstances so they would not starve. v  Bama described his father as a yogi. When Bama would role on the ground shouting "Jaya Tara" (victory to the goddess Tara) his mother became upset, but his father only smiled. His father also took Bama for his first visit to the burning ground (a place sacred to the goddess Tara) at Tarapith.        The surrounding of Tarapith             v  Bama took initiation from his family guru and had his sacred thread ceremony when he was sixteen years of age. His father died soon afterwards and his mother asked him to get work, to keep the family from poverty. However, he was absent-minded, and indifferent towards work and found it difficult to keep a job. He spent much of his time at Tarapith, the great burning ground and shrine of the goddess Tara. He spent days and nights there singing before the goddess' image. v  In 1864, Brajabasi Kailaspati came to Tarapith as a monk (sannyasi) wearing sacred tulsi beads, and the red cloth of a renunciant. He violated traditional purity rules by eating with dogs and jackals. People thought him to be a powerful monk who practiced black magic (pisaca siddha). When Bama began to follow him and do as he did, the villagers began to refer to him as one without caste (he lost his Brahman priest status in their eyes and became an "outcaste"). v  Kailasapati was rumored to have brought a dead tulsi tree to life, walked on the flood-waters of the Dvaraka river, lived under water and flown in the sky. He was also said to have instructed ghosts and demons. Bama often saw ghosts and spirits assembled who would jump into trees and disappear into the dark when he was with his companion. Kailaspati explained that they had done meditation in this graveyard during their time on earth, but had died afraid and would come to him seeking advice. v  Bama's actions became upsetting to the villagers. He saw a boy on the road who claimed to be the Narayana deity of one of the nearby houses. The boy asked Bama to take him with him and give him a drink. Bama dipped the stone idol given him by the boy into the river. v  Then he went back to the village collecting all the roadside statues of deities and took them with him installing all of them on a sand altar at the river's edge. The villagers were furious that their statues had disappeared, including a deity that had been inside a house. Bama hid in a hut, and blamed it on Narayana (the boy-deity he had met). Kailaspati returned the statues to the villagers who watched their statues more carefully after that. At Tarapith  v  In a dream, Bama saw the goddess Tara who told him to set fire to the rice paddy near the village. He set the fire and saw himself as Hanuman setting fire to Lanka (from the Ramayana). The fire spread through the village, and the villagers spent much time trying to put it out. In the midst of the flames he saw the goddess Tara, and he danced in ecstasy before her. He told the villagers he would atone for the fire by jumping into it which he did shouting "Jaya Tara" (victory to Tara). They could not find his burnt body, but he was seen later running into Kailaspati's hut. They wondered if he was a ghost, or somehow alive, or had learned magic and used it to protect himself from the flames. Bama later said he felt Tara's hands lift him out of the fire and throw him into the forest. v  Bama's mother tried to have him locked up, as she thought him mad, but he escaped to Kailaspati. She feared Kailaspati and only watched from a distance. Bama called her "small mother" and the goddess Tara "big mother". v  Bama took initiation from Kailaspati and saw a great light condensed into the form of the Tara mantra, which was his personal mantra. He saw a demoness with long teeth and fiery eyes, and later the environment was transformed- the bushes turned into mythical divine figures, and he heard the voice of Tara, who told him she lived forever in the "salmoni" tree, and that she would be its fiery light. The tree shot forth flames and he saw a blue light which took on Tara's form. v  Wearing a Tiger's skin, she stood on a corpse with four arms, matted hair, three eyes, and a protruding tongue. She wore snake ornaments, and an erect snake on her head. She embraced him and vanished at dawn. Some accounts say that this experience was preceded by a vision of Kailaspati walking on water in the form of Bhairava. Bama also learned about religion from Vedagya Moksyananda, who taught him religious texts - the Vedas, Puranas, and Tantras.        Tarapith : At Present         v  Bama was subject to mood swings, alternating emotional love and exhilaration, with anger and hatred. He would curse the Goddess Tara and her ancestors, throw bones and skulls, and frighten away visitors. He would call Tara stri meaning earthy women or prostitute, and said that she was a demoness who had harmed him and that he would have his revenge by calling down a thunderbolt upon her. He would rage and then sink into a trance. v  Bama became a priest at Tara's temple at Tarapith, and his stay there was marked with confrontation. He roamed around the cremation grounds happily, making friends with the dogs, naming them, and sharing his food with them (very unacceptable actions for a Hindu). He would eat food to be offered to the goddess before the worship ceremony was finished thus making it impure and unsanctified. The caretakers of the temple were angry at this and beat him severely. He insisted that the goddess Tara asked him to take food in this way. After this, the temple owner, the Rani of Natore, had a dream : v  She dreamt that the stone image of Mother Tara was leaving the temple at Tarapith and going to Kailasa. Tara Ma looked very sad, and tears were flowing down her face, and she wore no mark on her forehead. She was bewildered and emaciated. Her back was bleeding and full of cuts, and vultures and jackals followed behind her, lapping the blood from her wounds. v  In fear, the Rani asked, "O Ma, why do you show me these terrible things, and why are you leaving us?" v  The goddess answered, "My child, I have been in this sacred place (mahapitha) for ages. Now your priests have beaten my dear mad son, and as a mother, I have taken these blows upon myself. See how my back is bleeding, I am in great pain ... For four days I have been starving, because they have not allowed my mad son to eat my ritual food. So for four days I have refused to take their offerings of food ... My child, how can a mother take food before feeding her child? You must arrange for food to be offered to my son, before it is offered to me, at the temple. If not, I will leave there permanently.        Ma Tara Residency  v  Bama got his priest job back, and people began to visit him, to come as devotees, or simply to see him. He performed worship after this, and a crowd gathered to see it. Bama did not follow the traditional rituals; he sat before the image and said laughingly, "So girl, you are having great fun, you will enjoy a great feast today. But you are just a piece of stone without life, how can you eat food?" He then ate all the food that was to be offered to the goddess and asked an assistant to sacrifice a goat - again without the traditional rites. He did not say any Sanskrit mantras, only a few in Bengali. He threw some leftover food to the image saying "there Ma, take that." v  He took a handful of flowers marked with sandal paste and stood before the goddess. He cursed her and threw the flowers at the statue. He wet the flowers with his tears. Although the flowers were thrown with an attitude of abuse instead of reverence using mantras, they arranged themselves into a neat and beautiful garland around the goddess' neck, and the observers were amazed at the mantraless form of worship of the madman. He then went into trance which continued all day, and he emerged from it on the following day. He was not a priest who followed schedules- often the time for worship would have passed and no one could find Bama anywhere. He would later be seen in trance under a Hibiscus tree, on in the jungle, having arguments with the goddess. v  Nilamadhava, a villager, wished to know if Bama was a saint, so he hired the prostitute Sundari to seduce Bama. On seeing her, Bama said, "Ma, you have come." He then began to suck her breast so vigorously that blood came out. In pain, Sundari began to shout, "Save me!" His devotees were shocked to see a prostitute there and told her to leave. He was harsh to disciples who did not appear sufficiently dedicated: One person came and asked for initiation, saying that he wanted to renounce the world. Bama told him to bathe in the river. When he returned, Bama gave him a kick and told him angrily to leave and never come back. Bama's disciples protested, and he told them that this man was still thinking of his business in Calcutta while taking his ritual bath. Tantra Sadhana & Advt. for Local Liquor : He also had unique curing techniques; these stories, too, were told by several Shakta informants: v  Westerners may find it difficult to understand Indian devotional traditions where devotion creates both powerful positive and negative emotions. However from the Indian standpoint, true surrender to the god means total involvement and dependence on him or her for everything. The acceptance of negative emotions in devotion along with the positive ones leads to a kind of obsession where the concentration on the god becomes almost yogic. This same intense concentration is cultivated by the yogic practitioner but without the strong emotional component that is normally part of the path of devotion.        Tarapith : a bird's eye view        v  The erratic behavior can be interpreted in two ways from a tantric standpoint. The second or "hero" stage of Tantra where one has passed beyond normal human desires strives to break free of the moral conventions of society by ritually performing the five forbidden actions. Such ritual action is normally highly controlled and disciplined involving concentrated use of mantra and visualization. However, the mad saint dispenses with the "ritual" performance, and chaotically violates society's norms in order to break free of the conventional nature of normal human awareness to encounter the divine reality. Such strange behavior also has the added advantage of scaring away unwanted attention from the curious which leaves much time for spiritual practice. Bamakhepa embodies the unorthodox (sometimes referred to as left-handed) path of Tantra in Bengal. It is a chaotic path that combines the extremes of passion, and the union of the opposites of hatred and devotion, sacred and sacrilegious, and life and death.

TARAPITH @ Present :  Few Observations

1. Riot of hotels and lodges around the shrine :   After 10km on the main road from Rampurhat Railway Station to Saithia amidst the green rural belt, this great shrine is found to be gheraoed by innumerable hotels and lodges for commercial gain, whereas civic amenities, hygiene and road conditions are too poor as far as its plan is concerned.

It seems that there is no municipal body to look after the social issues of the divine place.

2. Lack of infrastructure : A serviceable arterial road in the presence of more than 300 hotels, lodges and other establishments is so pathetic and poor that “misfit” is the right word to reckon with

3. Lack of tourist attraction & tourist guide : While the fact remains that the huge inbound tourist traffic has been a continuous reality over the years and decades, the district authority has no plan to make it a tourist destination with variety of options including trained guides  for the sake of retention of the tourists. It’s a big failure in reshaping it in the fitness of the things.

Sad road condition 

Ready Reckoner :

¦  When to go : Any day round the year. Normally , the tourist crowd swells on weekend, and Tuesday

¦  How to get there :   Several trains from Howrah and Sealdah Rly stn. Including daily Maa Tara Express (Departure from Sealdah at 07.25hrs.  / Arrival at Rampurhat Stn. at 12.25 hrs. and (Departure from Rampurhat Stn. at 14.05pm / Arrival at Sealdah at 19.00hrs)

¦  Where to stay ?

There are hundreds of hotels and lodges around. A list of  a few :-

SL NO.	NAME OF THE HOTEL	CONTACT NO.	WEBSITE / Email
1	Hotel Maa Tara Residency	9564304497/03461-253432
2	Hotel Sathi	9033848112	sathi.traders1980@gmail.com
3.	Raktajaba Lodge of Benfish	Gautam Roy (Ph. 0346-1253556)	http://www.benfish.info/raktajaba.php
4.	Hotel Swagatam Intl.	·      03461253446 ·      9735336120 ·      9674319687	https://swagatamhoteltarapith.com/tarapith

¦  Whom to take help for all rituals at the temple ?

Shri Dinabandhu Mukherjee, Teacher  (B.A-English) / Tori (Taramaa), Maa Chandi Anusandhani / (M) 89262-08575 – The Priest , who is able to take care of his client at the compound of the temple and beyond

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