Dakshineswar Kali Temple

Dakshineswar Kali Temple tickets and tours: which one to book

Entry to Dakshineswar Kali Temple is free and there is no ticket to buy; no tour for the temple alone is sold online. You leave your shoes at the footwear counter and your phone and camera at the deposit counter near the gate, then join the queue for darshan of the goddess in the main temple. Stalls outside sell flowers, sweets and other offerings if you want to present them. The temple stands on the east bank of the Hooghly in the north of Kolkata, about 15 km from the city centre. The Dakshineswar metro station at the end of the Blue Line is connected to the temple by a covered skywalk, which is the easiest way to arrive;

suburban trains, buses and app cabs also serve it. A popular way to combine sights is to cross the river by the regular ferry from the temple ghat to Belur Math, the headquarters of the Ramakrishna Mission, a ride of about twenty minutes. Half-day and full-day guided tours of Kolkata by car often follow the same route, adding Kumartuli, the potters' quarter where images of the gods are made, or the Kalighat temple in the south. They usually include driver and guide; the temples themselves are free. A guide helps make sense of Ramakrishna's story. The page lists any GetYourGuide tours whose route passes the temple.

Visiting Dakshineswar Kali Temple: what to see and how to behave

Dakshineswar was built by Rani Rashmoni, a wealthy and devout widow of a Calcutta landowning family. According to tradition, the goddess Kali appeared to her in a dream on the eve of a pilgrimage to Varanasi and asked to be worshipped instead in a temple beside the Ganges. Rashmoni bought land on the riverbank, and after eight years of building the image was installed in 1855. The temple's fame rests above all on Ramakrishna, the nineteenth-century mystic who came here as a young priest, lived in the compound for some thirty years and whose teachings inspired Swami Vivekananda and the Ramakrishna Mission. The main temple is a navaratna, a Bengali form with nine spires rising in two tiers above a high plinth, and it stands in a broad paved courtyard.

Inside, the goddess is worshipped as Bhavatarini, standing on the body of Shiva, in a sanctum where a silver lotus supports both figures. Along the river side of the courtyard is a row of twelve small identical Shiva temples, and nearby stand a temple to Radha and Krishna and a bathing ghat on the river. Look for Ramakrishna's room in the north-west corner of the courtyard, with its verandah facing the river, kept much as he left it; the Nahabat, the music tower where his wife Sarada Devi lived in a tiny room; and the Panchavati, the grove of trees where he meditated. Non-Hindus are welcome in the compound. Photography is not allowed inside, the queue for the sanctum can be long, and you should move on quickly once you reach the image. Keep quiet near the meditation spots.

Dakshineswar Kali Temple: opening hours, ceremonies and the best time to go

The temple opens early in the morning, closes for a few hours around midday and reopens in the afternoon until about 9 pm; check the official site for the current schedule, which changes slightly with the season. The best time is soon after opening on a weekday, when the queue is short and the morning rituals are under way, or the early evening, when the aarti is performed and the river turns gold. Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays are especially busy, as are public holidays. The comfortable months in Kolkata are November to February.

From March to June it is very hot, and the monsoon brings heavy rain between June and September. The greatest festival is Kali Puja, on the new-moon night of late October or November, when the temple is lit up and crowds are immense. The anniversary of Ramakrishna's birth in February or March and the temple's founding day on Snana Yatra, in May or June, also draw large numbers. Allow one to two hours. Combine it with Belur Math by ferry and, on the way back, Kumartuli or the flower market by Howrah Bridge.